Being at my new job, its certainly pushing old skills that I hadnt used for a long time while English Teaching. It was hard enough getting back on the coding horse, but the schedule were working to is extremely tight. We are to ship our working Beta for after the New Years holiday.

I'ts19th today giving us potentially 10 "working days" or "20 days", I'm currently doing the "render" feature which is only about 40% finished but has loads of bugs and still needs a lot of attention. The trouble is, I'm booked to go on holiday back to Scotland on the 23rd December, leaving the team in the lurch for the high pressure period. Makes me feel really guilty but its already paid for and I haven't been back to UK for nearly 2 Years. It's a tough one aright.




As a result we've all been asked to do overtime, everyday 10 till 10 or more, potentially 12 hour plus shifts. As I live quite a distance out of Tokyo, my last train is at 10 so I have to leave about 9:30, again this heaps on the guilt as the rest of the team are working well into the night !

Just the other day a team member asked me "What's overtime in Japanese ?" (I'm the dictionary as I have pretty good vocab.)

Hmm says here "zangyou", I replied.

I have a funny feeling this is a word I'm going to hear a lot of.

Having not programmed in PHP for a good while but still knowing the basics, I was looking for a book that wasnt going to teach me from the ground up or wasnt going to dive into advanced abstract theory.

I confess I'm a O'Reilly fan basically for the geek factor and kudos you get from having a set of them on your desk, but hey.... Psssst wanna know a secret ? Most of them aren't actually that good!

There I said it, I feel a bit bad about it, but its true. Sometimes having an O'Reilly Java book on your desk looks good, but the book itself and your abilities might suck. People still go "ah-ha your an O'Reilly guy eh ?"  thinking you have things like "ability", "talent" or "genius".

That aside, This is a good book. I've found it perfect for jumping back into the world of programming with real life problems, examples and solutions.

Now to collect the set !

or "How I made it out of the Eikaiwa Ghetto !"

Well its now no secret; I have finally returned to the bosom of IT and gained what I would consider proper employment in Japan. The company is in Shibuya, which is quite a distance from where I live in Chiba (the burbs hick town of Tokyo). Commuting is going to take about 2hours a day each way, so thats 4hrs travelling everyday. Core time is 10 till 7, hour for lunch, half Japanese and Foreign staff (about 50/50 mix).
Its quite an interestign mix as the development team are all foreigners; American, Australian, English,French & Scottish. Very multicultural ! Sounds like there could almost be a punchline or a joke some where in there.The staff are really friendly and easy going and its great being able to speak and practice Japanese with my co-workers.

The work is mainly PHP and its quite tricky learning the ropes again. 1 year and 6 months of teaching English can crush those core skills ! Its been 3 weeks now and seems like I'm settling in.

At the moment look like I will be here for a good while after many months of surfing for job vacancies, many of which seemed inapplicable I was invited for interview and passed after 2 weeks notice. I'm finally FREE from eikaiwa !

or so I thought, until I tried to hand my notice in.....flame on

I'm an incredibly fussy eater.Add to this fact I'm Scottish and you may understand the changes I have had to make since living in Japan.
A funny quip I once heard was

Man - "Oh Fried Breakfast ! Lots of Cholesterol !"
Foreign Woman - "What's that ?"
Man -"Its what Scottish people eat."

Although my diet has chnaged alot, sometimes I do year some "Scottish cooking" i.e. Cholesterol. Pies and pasties are extremely rare in Japan so I resorted to making my own with some frozen pastry sheets and my "secret recipe" minced beef.Turned out very nicely, served with chips and lashings of vinegar I was transported back to the land of deep fried pizzas, albiet momentarily. I had a fellow English & Australian friend have a sample as they too missed pasties n pies. Well recieved they joked I should go into business.

I cant see the Japanese taking to the Scotch Pie with much enthusiasm though.

This weekend took a cheap bus tour to Kamakura, although its September its still fairly hot, in fact it was very hot when we finally did arrive. Very muggy and humid air, what you would usually expect at the beginning of a Japanese summer.

The tour included 3 main attractions;

First visit was kamakuras famous bronze Buddha statue.

I think everyone in Japan or everyone who has been to Japan has a photo of themselves in front of this statue. it was quite impressive but compared to the gigantic statue I had seen in Ushiku it seemed small in comparison.The place was really busy as well, so much so you could hardly walk around.

Next a tour round a national park and shrine, this was a more relaxed affair and we chose not to follow the guide with her "follow me" flag and squeaky monologue. Some lovely ponds and shrines.

Lastly we were free to wander up and down the "promenade" as it were, as Kamakura is next to the sea.

Was quite surprised at the number of English speakers in Kamakura, apparently it had been a port of call for christian missionaries way, way back and many foreigners had settled throughout the region through time. One Old fella stopped me for a chat and was quite naturally freindly; unlike the "HARO WHEAR YUU FROM!?" odd types you can experience from time to time.

(I guess these folks are being friendly too, though like other members of my family, we seem to be magnets for the mentally retarded and get trapped in conversations with slightly "touched" people who take an over-liking to us)

Overall Kamakura was quite touristy, but very pleasant. There was a shop selling "authentic" samurai swords as souvenirs, though ridiculously overpriced; if I paid that much money for a "real" sword I would at least want to use it to lop off a few heads and not have it sitting as an ornament. =)

Was visiting a friend in Ibariki area to go for dinner this weekend and as they lived in Ushiku its near the (world?) famous statue of Buddha, slap bang in the middle of the countryside.

Standing at 120 metres high its monolithic, especially given that the surrounding area is so flat and lacking in any form of hills or mountains; you can see the statue from miles around.

Not just impressed with the size I was quite amazed to find you can actually go inside the statue! It has a visitors area and elevators that can take you to viewing points up the statue; the feet, the chest and the head.

In the centre of the statue is a huge circular room where you can pay a rather large price (about １００万円) to have your ashes interred. Well actually I'm not 100% sure if it's your actual ashes, though you could pay for a "place" or "plot" there in the central chamber with walls adorned with thousands of tiny gold little Buddha's and a name plate beneath one.

More info here : http://www.ushikukankou.com/ushikudaibutsu.htm

I've been in Japan a fair while now,(almost 10 months) but unfortunately I haven't travelled nor had the opportunity to travel. I work most weekends, my days off are Wednesday and Sunday which makes "going away for the weekend" impossible.

Thankfully this next week and a half is "golden week" it's a series of public holidays which all companies take giving.... <waitforit>.... A WHOLE WEEK OFF WORK !

A great surprise today after shopping in Akihabara, Project Zero 2 has been finally released !

Know as Fatal Frame in the US, the first instalment had a brother and sister creeping through a very authentic haunted Japanese mansion with mysterious links to an ancient occult tradition.

Like the first episode the "weapon" is the trusty camera to capture the souls of the dead. This time the story centres around twins lost in a vanished village,the game play is very similar to the first though some of the camera angle glitches of the first game seem to have been fixed.

The true strength of the game lies in its audio, atmosphere and genuine "jump" tumbler moments which are frequent and well paced. Who'd have thought we could have games as scary as regular spooky cinema.The story is gripping and a real mystery that keeps you going, the only disappointment is there is a lot of backtracking across previously visited locations; even though the play area is lareg and extensive you can get the "yeah I'm running passed this part again to get back to X from Y". This aside for survival horror fans or gamers looking for a genuinely spooky experience I recommend it !

★★★★☆　(4/5)