The Flood

September 27^th 2006

Today our apartment building flooded.  The roof was like a wading pool and the water rain down into the building, found its way between cracks and walls and made it’s way to the front of the building – to our roof.  The ceiling, light fittings and walls were running with water.

It started as a drip in our apartment and luckily I was home to notice it.  Suddenly the walls started weeping, like some Japanese horror movie.  From here the roof started to gush water and it was on for young and old.  I spent the day running about moving the bed, books, CDs, clothes and whatnot, grabbing anything I could to catch the water and then emptying buckets, bowls and vases as they became full.  The whole building was effected, but it was our apartment that was worse hit – joy!  The ceilings in both bedrooms and the kitchen were leaking, the walls were crumbling and the wallpaper peeling away. 

The best part of all of this is although we couldn’t sleep in the bedroom for a few days the landlord (read: fucking moll who must die) refused to give us any support or rent reduction.  She then hired friends to fix the problems.  They slapped on some paint, covered the sagging roof with a new bit of wood (you’d think you’d remove wet saggy wood, not just shove a new bit over it) and left the tatami floors, crumbling walls and water stained woodwork untouched.  They also stole a watch valued at 3,000,000yen from our next-door neighbour and had to bring it back and apologise later that night.  Fucking landlord hasn’t dared show her face since the flood.  Clearly she’s trying to foster her tenants artistic flow in the hope that our soggy, abject distain for her laisser-faire handling of the situation will lead to the Japanese version of RENT bubbling up from her very own building.  She’s a piece of work and clearly needs to be run down.  I worry that if I ever do she her Benz in the building parking area again I will be forced to badge it!  Absolute slag!

Anyhoo, the roof is covered and the wet smell has abated so at least we can move furniture back around, put the bed back and sleep in the bedrooms again.  Thank god we were home and able to save most of our stuff.  The moll should be thanking us too, as we were the ones who realized the building was flooding, notified her staff and the real estate agent to get it fixed (the problem was some pipe/drain on the roof) before too much damage happened.  The clean-up has been a nightmare.

I do believe I am ready to move.

Confessions Tour 2006

August 20^th - Madonna’s Tokyo Dome performance.

We got our tickets early in the game through the pre-sale competition. Having the tickets so far in advance meant I was excited months ago and seemingly quite nonplussed by Madge’s pending performance… well, until the show started.  It was a great concert and I had a fun night.  Esther looked great, sang well, entertained and had the entire Dome up dancing.

This is my 4th Madonna concert and my second time to see her perform live this year.  Earlier this year I wrote one of those “Tell Us Why… In 25 words of less” things and won 2 tickets to her “secret live” at Ageha here in Tokyo.  I was within arms reach at that concert and so being so far away at the Tokyo Dome show couldn’t detract from my enjoyment.  I was on the main arena floor, so I shouldn’t be complaining… but you always want to be closer, don’t you?

There are so many places I want to see in Portugal too.  I have no idea how many places we’ll make it to (as we’re playing it by ear), but we will be in Lisbon before Christmas and will fly out of Porto on Dec 30^th or 31^st.  I just got a great book on Portuguese food from Mary-Liz, for my birthday!  So lucky… can’t wait to try all the food and wine Portugal has to offer.

The last stop on our whirlwind winter escape is Paris.  I have been wanting to get back to Paris for years.  I can’t wait to see it all… it’s been so long.  We leave Paris on January 4^th, so we’ll have a few days to hang out, walk the streets, eat, drink and be merry!

First Day back

It’s true what they say, you know…. School Does Suck!!

Places recommended to me:

When I heard that Bec, Brett and Lila were coming to Japan to visit I started asking around about places we could take them.  I would have dearly loved to have had more time with them and to have been able to go to Okinawa, Hokkaido or Akita with them, but we didn’t have heaps of time and August is also THE most expensive time to travel in Japan.  Anyway, here is a list of some of the places I was told would be good to take people in Japan (I have excluded places I’ve already been, but if you want to see them, check out my VirtualTourist pages):

l       Shima Onsen

l       Misato-kan in Gunma

l       Kusatsu

l       Arima (near Kobe)

l       Dougo Onsen (in Shikoku)

l       Kanuma (in Tochigi) for camping

l       Karuizawa

l       Ooarai beach

l       Mt. Akagi (in Gunma)

Hopefully I can get to some of these places before I leave Japan.  For those of you interested in my Top 5 places in Japan (of the places I’ve been) then here they are:   

                        Kyoto, Hokkaido, Takayama, Nagasaki, Hiroshima

The other week I blogged something somewhere (here, here or here) about going to eat pizza at the Neapolitan Pizzeria, 1830, in Nogizaka, my friend Eri read the entry and seemed interested in trying the pizza, so last night we went together.

I arrived in Nogizaka early, so headed to Dance for a glass of wine.  Had a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc (Kim Crawford), which was nice and very different from what I expected.  After my wine I met Eri and we searched for a bank… both not knowing Roppongi at all we ended up going in circles until I asked for directions.  That done, we headed back towards Nogizaka and 1830.

This is my second visit to 1830 and I may be wrong, but I think the pizza is the highlight and pretty much all I will be going for.  Last time I had a green salad which was wet and flavourless (but I forgave them as it was my first time and it may just have been a bad lettuce day) and then last night I ordered the Caesar salad, which although better than my wet green salad, was still lifeless and lacking in oomph!  We also had some pickles (they were good) and a pork and white bean dressed in mustard dish that was rather disappointing.  Haven’t tried the pasta, so can’t comment on that, but am less that impressed with their salads.  That being said, I am v. impressed with their wood-oven pizzas.  Last night we had their Blanca Mediterrane (swordfish, fresh tomato, salad greens, parmesan cheese) 2100 yen, which was light and delicious – a perfect summer pizza.  And then, after Take joined us, we ordered their Rosso 1830 (bacon, petit tomato, arugula, special cheese cream) 1830 yen, which we all loved and gobbled down.  Their bases are perfect and the quality of the ingredients used for toppings is excellent.

After dinner we moseyed on down to Dance again and had a glass of wine and shared a cheese plate (Take and Eri had a Best’s Late Harvest Muscat and I had a glass of Charles Melton’s Rose of Virginia [just because I never had] and then a glass of Penfolds 401 Cab Sav).  I was in the mood to then order a bottle, but the other two had ice-cream on their mind.  If you’re in Roppongi and craving ice-cream after a good wood-oven pizza, then I suggest you high-tail it to Babbi.  Babbi is a gelato shop located away from just about everything, but well worth the effort.  

It was a really nice evening and so good to catch-up with Eri.  Even looks like we might all be heading to Australia in December together for a bit of a holiday!  Have to remind Eri how good Australia is before we lose her to Germany, Italy (okay, I can actually deal with that) or Malta!!

Been offline

Have been offline of late… have had quite a few things I wanted to write about, but haven’t had time (or the urge, to be honest) to sit down and blog them out.  Have decided to get them all out today.  You can click on the link to the one’s that interest you:

Thai Dinner: Tried and True – Pho Thai.

Akiba: My most recent sojourn into Electric City.

Weekend Walk: Strolling through Shitamachi.

Travel Ranting: Me complaining about my travel plans (or lack there of).

Wine Protection: Our new purchase – the wine cellar.

Music: My MTV Japan Video Awards day.