I'm not dead yet. #tokyostreets

We have moved to Saitama. Our broadband line still hasn't been installed, but things are good, life wise. I'm still in two minds about work, we'll see how that pans out. Till things settle down and I can post more, here's some Tokyo street shots.

The Great East Japan Tour

I've been busier than a former AKB girl turned hooker over the last few weeks, and the places I've been generally didn't have connectivity or I didn't have the time to use the connectivity to blog. I apologise. 

I left for Shibukawa, Gunma on the 9th, and rode the 50cc 6 hours on the backroads to get there. I stayed with Yoshitatsu that night and the next morning we pulled out at 2am to go to Nikko Circuit for the DRiFTWiRED1 drift event. 

When I got back The Cat told me that her grandfather wasn't doing well and the next morning I got the call that he passed away. I met up with her and her sisters in Takasaki, Gunma we went back to Nagano for the funeral and proceedings.

After the funeral, I hopped the shinkansen back to Gunma and participated in the Shibulawa Dashi Matsuri. Which is and was one of the highlights of my life when it comes around every 2 years. It was good to be home. 

After 2 days of festival and a day to replace the Chain on my bike, I rode back to kawasaki and barely had a day to recover some semblance of sanity before hopping a Shnkansen for 5 hours to Akita in the far north.

I interviewed the heads of the Yamamo Soy Sauce company and a maker of Inaniwa Udon (one of the best known types of udon in Japan)

Back on the shinkansen to Kawasaki where I had a night in my own bed before heading west to Nagahama, in Shiga Prefecture, on the shores of Like Biwa, Japan's largest lake. 

The work was to interview the management team at Top Seiko, one of the world's most precise ceramic and tungsten machining companies. 

I then tool a look around the Kurokabe area, near Nagahama Station, where one of Japan'a oldest downtown shopping areas has been preserved and still serves the same purpose. Lack of money prevented me form taking too much time there. 

I hopped back on the shink and finally headed back home where I am now putting together a craptonne of articles, images and videos  over the next 2 weeks before getting on more trains and heading to more exotic destinations.

not my actual route or transport method but accurate sense of scale

It's not me Tokyo, It's you.

Those of you who've been following my 7 Days 7 Minutes vids and a few of my posts here will likely know that Ive been having some serious bowl problems. after 2 endoscopies and numerous blood tests, The diagnosis is finally in..

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ME!!!!!

Doc reckons that I have other things in my life that are worrying me and that stress is causing my problems, and worrying about the problems causes no stress. and so it repeats. He also reckons I need to see a shrink.

All of this got really bad when I moved to the big city so Whatever has gone awry in my life has happened here and It needs to be addressed before I can start chilling out and then hopefully my body will stop giving me grief. Knowing nothing is wrong with me doesn't help the fact that the stomach is churning as I type this, And that Ive been nauseous since last night.

Wikipedia says that this is actually a thing. Physical symptoms of indigestion without anything actually being wrong. It's not fun but I'm not going to worry about it anymore lest it gets worse.

unrelated pics are unrelated... but awesome.

Happiness is Steel.

Pics entirely unrelated.

With the bike I FINALLY managed to find the local city gym. It's not the best stocked but in the 8 months Ive been sitting around Ive lost so much strength it's unreal. I'm not going to even tell you the numbers I'm working with. They're embarrassing. 

I'm training again. Between that and having transportation Ive actually been happy, excited and motivated for the first time since relocating to the land of fakes and money. The work sitruation is looking up as well. There seems to be promise of more of those epic interview trips like the Yuasa Shoyu one. The freebies i've been giving away will likely stop being free soon. And I'm teaching again 2 days a week at a Public Tokyo Highschool. 

While it's still not quite a regular enough income for me to guarantee a certain monthly commitment to the bills, if nothing else I can help the Cat more often in paying them. 

And when I am tired of the plastic empty shells that populate the steel and concrete monoliths I can work that stress out with Iron!

Downtown Kawasaki (A Lazy Saturday)

'Twas a nice lazy Saturday. Spent most of it indoors because of the yellow sand and and terrible pollution being blown over from China (my lungs really hate this time of the year, and this year it feels worse than before) but it was nice to kick back and chill. did some ironing, watched some movies, and spent some good time with The Cat.

I've got another 7 days 7 minutes in the pipe coming soon. I also started ALTing again last week. 2 days a week at a high school in Kamata (Tokyo). Also got 2 nifty cameras from Casio to review for AkihabaraNews.com. So there will be plenty of stuff coming soon enough.

However today it was a home lazy day.

Have these pictures of Downtown Kawasaki to make up for my laziness (took these last week, I think):

Words with a view.

So… not so much of a job interview as much as a chat but I should be meeting the boss next week… Damn I liked what I saw though. I think that job would be a perfect fit for a multi talented creative like me. I hope the man in charge sees things the same way when I meet him. I will tell you all more when there is something to tell…

One thing of note though was the view from their office.

It is a creative company and thus the space they have needs to inspire creativity. With a view like this… I don’t think they would have any problems inspiring anything. It was hard enough not to be distracted by the view while talking to the man who asked me to come in.

 

I want this job.

Turbo Lag… of NOTE!

This is an update.

So about a month ago, Yoshi did me another favour on the car front… My Turbo Gasket had gone and I had no power. basically it spooled to level but it gave no boost. So I ordered a new gasket and in his free time he put it in for me.

After removing the turbo, which was a bit of a hassle because of Nissan’s low mounted manifold, The gasket was found and removed… Yoshi also welded up the useless coolant lines and removed some random crap that was un nececary… safety devices and factory boost controllers and such.

Upon closer inspection, the turbine seemed to be a bit sticky which was a little worrisome but there is not much one can do about it till you put it in and see if its actually dead or if it was just the gasket.

We also plugged in the Blitz Blow off Valve that I got from him last year. If not why not.

Plugged everything back together, tightened all the bolts and…

FOKOL… the turbo bearings had seized (gasses didn’t go anywhere, they need to escape so they blew the gasket and found freedom) So basically till I can find me another Turbo (affordable) my Silvia Ks, Drives like a Silva Qs. which sucks a bit.

 

Anyone have an SR20DET Turbo that they wanna pass to me for 30 odd thousand yen, hit me up.

 

Oh yeah my rear left Axle member needs replacing too… a casualty of my trip to the Neri Touge.

 

 

TLDR: I need a new turbo and axle member =___=;

Ok so a quick fill in..

I need to keep this thing going.. I know. so to fill in the long blank....

Ive had 2 months worth of crashes really. car crashes, hardware crashes, brain crashes, and now the global economy is crashing. yeah go figure :p

Basically I spun out on Haruna and messed up my left side suspension.. the care is back up and running but has a few dents and scratches....I need to get here aligned after the repairs and have the power steering looked at.. Its creaking a bit.

My pc power brick gave up the gost and in te process took out my boot drive.. I then did a Kevin and dropped the partition table on my 1tb HD. thats fixed now so i have a PC again but all the data (and photos of stuff frome here) are gone. Gotta start Over.

In a way its refreshing but then i think of all that lost data (esp the music) that i'll never get back and i feel sad.

Winter is coming here. its been rather chilly the past few nights... and the weather currently is what we in Joburg would call an average winter's day. the nights are warmer though... for now. I'm currently waiting for my warm clothes to arrrive from home. Should be another week or 2.

so yeah this is a fresh beginning on the blog front. Or rather an attempt at it. I really wonder how bored some bloggers must be with their lives to spend all their time typing crap on the intrnets... i mean really guys.. fap more yap less :)

Ok enough hating.

Recently ive started running (yeah.. me.. running.. enjoy the laugh) its fun and apparently is good for me so i'll keep it up for a bit :3 Now i need to get to studying Japanese seriously. Enough playing around.

I'll try updating this more.. I promise.