Seeing as I finished the last post with a manhole cover, I thought I should start this one with another. "A good manhole cover deserves another" or something like that... stick it on my headstone if you like! This one is from Tsukuba Science City, about an hour north of Tokyo. That is it's offical name - there's a big replica rocket in town, real ones a little way off somewhere, a whopping big university and a high energy particle accelerator. It's also now home to my friends Tom, Jen and baby Ruby, who I stayed with for about 5 days. Jen had a party and I talked to a nuclear physicist. He tried to explain the "Strong Force" to me, which sounds about as techinically impressive as Australia's proposed VFT... Very Fast Train. Maybe they've been taking their cues from the Chinese restaurant back home: Excellent Seafood Restaurant.

Everything in Tuskuba is more scientific. The headwear is eons ahead of the rest of Japan, and therefore light years ahead of the rest of the world. Tom is sporting the latest model. Yellow is the new red, or didn't you know? 30 is also the new 20 (a great justification for a decade of irresponsible living in one neat sentence - I can't even use it anymore, now that I'm... 32!). Oh and I've read that as far as hair is concerned here, black is the new black. Stocks of black hair dye will run perilously low as all the suave boys and garus switch their coloured hair back to black. Black hair on Japanese people? It just doesn't seem natural. Where was I?...

The babies in Tsukuba are also more advanced, due to years of experimentation. Here's a batch being carted off to the laboratory.

Fish fly in Tsukuba too.

More fish. They aren't just hanging around because they look great, although they do... they are to mark Children's Day, kodomo no hi. Traditionally it was Boy's Day and the carp kites (koinobori) were put out as symbols of the parents' wish for vitality and strength in their sons as they made their way through life, just as the carp struggling upstream must have power.

One kite is put out for each member of the family: Mum, Dad and each child - I'm pretty sure girls are included in this now. Pretty big family... maybe Catholics? ...or maybe this is a commercial display of some sort.

Yet more fish.

No, not fish. Tom, Rubles and their place. Is this Japan? A large house, front and backyard, English speaking neighbours and a party next door the first night I spent there! It's also a very flat area with wide tree-lined avenues and beautiful parks. Definitely another Japan from the one I'm living in. I wonder how many there are. Japans, I mean.

Biking around with the O'Leary family. Tom fixed up a funny little unit to ride on to allow for me to ride his normal bike. He looked pretty funny on it. Unfortunately this is the only pic I got of Jen this time around! That wasn't very smart. Oh vell...

An altogether different mode of transport! The shinkansen I was in is reflected here in one of the buildings surrounding Nagoya station - maybe about 2/3rds of the way home. Dad got this same shot when we were coming back from Tokyo together. Anyway...

That's all for now... just trying to get this blog more current with piccies! We're still in May, so there's more to come... til then, byee.