Uso!
30 June 2004, 18:12
Some days you just laugh ‘til you cry…
Click on the image for 1.6 mbs of lovin’.
(thanking Shalome for brightening Kinki’s morning)
Permanent Link | Comments [5]You call that trivia?
27 June 2004, 18:52
When I lived in Japan, one of my favourite things to do, on mind-numbing ANA telephone-testing days (don’t ask, just trust me it was boring), was to spar with Mark over “Trivbot”, a neat web-based IRC application which spurted out general knowledge questions that you had to answer the quickest to get a point for your team. Mark usually creamed me, because, ahem, he was a quicker typist.
Now we’re all back in Australia, it’s time to admit what I knew in my heart to be true. Mark is far far better at trivia than me. Ask him who was the Secretary of the New Zealand Green Party in 1994 or how many pages was the 1999 hardback edition of the “The Ayn Rand Reader” and he’ll know it. Actually, I’m not sure about that last question. That would be a bit sick.
Our bud “Jeremy” bought Trivial Pursuit’s 20th Birthday Edition and last night 7 of us sparred over a game board and a bottle of port. Mark was a gun. He was pure genius. Even the Third Reich of Jer and I, with our outstanding knowledge of medical acronyms couldn’t put him back in his box.
It seems my memory of the last 20 minut… errrr, years has fizzled in a frenzy of dead brain-cells. Mark is never coming to a TP extravaganza night ever again. Unless he’s on my team.
Photo Friday "Clouds"
26 June 2004, 17:35
...and now for something completely cliched…
You knew I had it in me.
Made in Japan?
23 June 2004, 18:44
Last week, Mark, my buddy from Japan, sent me an e-mail. The poor lad is quite new to Melbourne and was whining about a disturbing lack of chuhai purveyors in the city. The only locale, he tells me, is a Japanese grocer south of the Yarra, and everyone knows that if you live north of the river it takes a bomb up your arse to venture south.
So it got me thinking, mainly about drinking chuhai and the sweet mother-love of Kirin Black, but also about where you could go in Melbourne to get yourself some old-fashioned Japanese home-stylin’. If you’re homesick for the Far-East, maybe these links will help…
Japanese grocers
Yes, a disturbing lack of them north of the river…
Fujimart, South Yarra
Omuro, Church Street, Brighton
Suzuran, 1025 Burke Road, Hawthorn
Tokyo Deli, 419 Glenhuntly Road, Elsternwick
Tokyo Mart, Elsternwick [Licensed Japanese Grocer]
Restaurants
Akari 177, 177 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy [Sushi]
Chocolate Buddha, Federation Square, City [Ramen, Donburi and Sake]
Eat Drink Bento, City [Bento, Soba noodles, Tempura]
Ginza Teppanyaki, Chinatown, City [Teppanyaki]
Hanabishi, City
Kenzan, City
Kokos, Crown Complex, Southgate [expensive, but they have a sake sommelier!]
Kuni’s, City
Kyoto Japanese Restaurant, St. Kilda
Momotaro Ramen, Richmond
Tomoshibi, Middle Park [Sushi, Sashimi, Sukiyaki]
Torimatsu, City
Izakayas/Japan-influenced Bars
Iku Yakitori, Brunswick
Izakaya Chuji, City
Robot, City
Ume Nomiya, Fitzroy
Ryokan
Japanese Mountain Retreat, Dandenong Ranges
Shizuka Ryokan and Day Spa Retreat, Hepburn Springs
Homewares/Kimono
Genki, Cathedral Arcade, City
Made in Japan, South Melbourne, Southgate, City, Chadstone
Oriental Artifacts, Toorak
Books and Comics
Anime Zone, Box Hill
Japan Book Plaza, South Yarra [Books, CDs, Anime, Comics]
Lupin and Jigen, City [DVD rental, Cafe, Manga library]
Karaoke
How hard is it to find private karaoke rooms in Melbourne? JEE-zuz.
Club Enka, City
Bathhouses/Massage
Geisha Melbourne, City [Japanese hair (!) and massage]
Ofuroya, Collingwood [Japanese bathhouse]
Events
Asian Film showings, various
Melbourne International Film Festival (includes Chakushinari, a film I desperately wanted to see in Tokyo), 5 venues, July
Miyazaki Film Fest, Cinema Nova, Carlton, August 12
These links are by no means definitive, so for the love of Ayu-chan, leave a comment if you have a recommendation!
Permanent Link | Comments [4]The Great Danes'
22 June 2004, 17:54
My gorgeous superstar girlfriend, let’s call her “Danes”, got hitched on Sunday to her equally superstar Mr. Fixit hunk of a man, “Chris”.
The wedding was beautiful, her dress the most divine excuse for a dress I’ve ever seen. Romantic ceremony, a few (hundred) tears (rumours abounded that Kleenex had sponsored the event) and plenty of champers all round. I even forgave her for not travelling a thousand miles to my wedding. Sniff. Yeah, over it.
So…anyone else getting married soon? We’d be pitching for an invite. Weddings are the bomb. Particularly when you see a dear friend so happy and in love with a perfect man. Even if that man could win a round with your own husband of “Who can tell the dodgiest joke”. Oh, fun times ahead.
Permanent Link | Comments [3]Photo Friday "Fashion"
19 June 2004, 19:48
You can take the Girl out of Tokyo, but you can’t take Tokyo out of the Girl…
Permanent Link | Comments [2]Sorry I ignored you, but I was in a bit of a Rush...
17 June 2004, 05:32
Where else but Melbourne could you wander down the street, see Geoffrey Rush in faded jeans and crumpled shirt (and why the Hell has no-one taken him aside and chided him about his mullet?) and no-one notices?
I am no star-struck junkie, but as I looked around me I thought, ?People! It?s Geoffrey Rush. The man deserves a bit of adulation!? But I merely gave him my own half-smile (didn’t want it to appear like I was lookin’ or nothing) and Rushed to my train.
Ah Melbourne. Perfect one day. New York the next.
Permanent Link | Comments [4]Photo Friday "Journey"
13 June 2004, 18:11
Riding a rickshaw, Beijing
A break from the rain...
12 June 2004, 05:28
More Melbourne UrbanScapes (erm… actually not many just yet!)
Tables turned...
10 June 2004, 17:57
For the first time in our relationship, McG is a kept man, currently perfecting the art of home-husbandry.
He is on the prowl for a job, hell, he’s so much more employable than me, but has had even fewer bites and is kind of enjoying the eruption of his inner Mr Handyman, fixing everything that needs fixing in the apartment, and trust me, there’s plenty….
...we’ve already had signs of the diabolical trinity – kitchen mice, cockroaches and ants.
...we bought a massive 3-piece lounge suite, roughly the size of Burkina Faso which needed prompt returning when we discovered my feet couldn’t touch the floor when I sat upright (but it was sooooo comfy as a slump chair, bemoans the lady with the deformed spine).
...there’s no drain for the washing machine. Apparently the former tenants used to hang the pipe in the shower recess, which would be fine except the shower leaks and we had a near catastrophe when the whole bathroom went Noah on the ant army camped on the floor.
...we’ve got Jehovies living in the apartment out back. I guess they’re more prepped to fix us than the other way around, though.
But all the S P A C E. It’s fabulous. The apartment is really convenient, near a tram, train station and bus. We can hang up our croses. We can have showers without having to dry off in the genkan. We can turn off the heating and the place will still be warm. People tell me the mice are not as robust in Australia. And we have ratsak, not that pissy poison that our Japanese mouse ate for breakfast with a nice cup of Irish Breakfast tea…
Permanent Link | Comments [4]Bite, damn Fish, bite I say!
8 June 2004, 18:21
I hate job interviews.
I particularly hate the “behavioural questioning” line that recruiters cream their jeans over, the idea being that a candidate’s future performance can be judged on how they’ve acted in the past.
I had my first interview on Monday and, unfortunately, my past work-life is so much of a blur (2 months of Japan + China + North Queensland will do that to you) that questions like “Name a time when you have missed a deadline, what happened and how did you learn from it?” induced a cocker-spaniel-meets pit-bull look of helplessness.
Now, of course I’ve missed deadlines and made plenty of mistakes but could I come up with one specific time? I said I didn’t tend to miss deadlines (simply because I couldn’t think of just one) and they were usually beyond my control, so instead of coming across as a mature healthy mistake-maker, I sounded like an arrogant, ne’er do wrong princess. Errrr, hang on a minute…
The questions came in intimidating rapid fire with no attempt to make the whole process comfortable and I left the interview shaking my head thinking “What the?”. I felt like I’d survived the Spanish Inquisition but my thumbs were still hurting.
And as if the interview wasn’t bizarre enough, I got a second interview.
Permanent Link | Comments [4]
