Picture Problems

Hey everyone, I`m sorry this is going to be yet another boring old blog full of words rather than pictures. I`m having trouble finding a cafe where they`re happy for me to upload a whole lot of images from my dubious-looking cd. Understandable, but no less frustrating. So to fill you in: I had a wonderful birthday, Nagasaki was great, and now I have to look forward to a visit from the lovely Lauren and Jeff, and a couple of their crazy friends from Portland next week. Then it`s off to Okinawa for four days of fun in the sun.

This week will be mundane as ever in the leadup, working overtime to try and earn some extra cash for all these holidays. There`s so many more places I still want to see here, but time is running out and I think I`ll have to be satisfied with one more outing before I head home, maybe Shikoku, the last of the main islands we have to see. The weather here is perfect right now, warm, but not to humid (I`m kind of happy to be skipping out before the worst of the summer hits), but the air is full of pollen and my eyes and nose betray my susceptibility. Yes it`s snot monster time!

Anyway, besides the glorious weather, Fukuoka has a lot to offer that was unknown in Himeji, why this morning I saw a very stylish transvestite walking with more sexy appeal in her tottering heels thn most women can manage. It never fails to impress me, this notion of the visualist (read Peter Carey`s Wrong About Japan, a short but insightful book about his travels in Tokyo with his anime-obssessed son). Transformations of the physical and fashionable kind are executed to perfection, in all manner of appearance and conduct. Fashion is so important to so many people here, and while it is at once a shallow indulgence, it`s also a celebration of the ultimate in aesthetic appreciation. In a place like Tokyo or Osaka, it has to be seen to be believed. Having said that, I still fail to see how it could possibly be deemed visually and fashionably acceptable to sport the mullet, especially in the extra hairspray Bon Jovi circa 1980s Blaze of Glory style favoured by so many 20-something wannabe Yakuza-esque males. It`s a mystery how a nation so focussed on the latest, newest look, could have halted male hairstyles in such a warped era, seemingly irrevocably.

Enough of my ranting, enjoy your day(s), I know I will!
Mezzle