You looking at me?

You looking at me?
Originally uploaded by The Wallasey Clicker.

I am so into my Dad's pictures right now. You should go and check them out. Lovely look at Blighty.

Then...

I read this on SushiZume and suddenly the world seemed Ok again. I am amazed. Matt and Jus you will LOVE this.

Other People's Blogs

I have been busy. Proper busy. Cry have a tantrum kind of busy.

I just caught up on other people's Blogs after having done a very long day's work and having had a very long cold beer.

I read about a beautiful baby and her lovely Mum and looked at pictures of her pregnant and of her growing little girl.

I read about a girl who had a beer glass smashed over her head by a drunk in a karaoke place. Utterly bizarre.

I read about a girl who's niece turned 2. I was amazed I had been reading her Blog for so long as I remember the pictures of her as a newborn.

I read about a girl who's childhood friend's mum passed away.

I read about a mother whose toddler got an infection from holding her business in. And the video that she posted in response to people who have been sending her mean posts.

I smiled I cried. I gasped with horror. I smiled and threw my eyes back and remembered when I started to read Blogs. I cried. I cried and then cried laughing. Then got confused.

Off to make tea. So I am.

Just for the hell of it

Today I did an entire lesson with a Belfast accent.

So I did.

Sunday Afternoon

A lovely Sunday afternoon spent checking out apartments and going to a park. Eating nabe
and hanging out with dudes.




Then we headed to Tower Records to try on glasses and take hilarious snapshots of us wearing them. Hilarious.



When I look at these pictures, I realise that it is destiny that we met. Like the world was not complete without our combined cool.

Work-life Balance

Blah blah blah blah blah blah read an article blah blah blah blah blah fill in spreadsheet blah blah blah blah blah download software blah blah blah blah blah blah blah attend a seminar blah blah blah blah blah GET A LIFE.

He's here

Baby Sugi
Originally uploaded by sigsy.

Yet unamed and absolutely gorgeous Baby Sugi. Congratulations to April, Toshi and Sasuke. He is amazing.
January 20th
9.06am
3.4 kg
Waterbirth

I like Blogs

Just been doing a bit of tipsy Blog hopping and realised how many super things and people there are out there.

Such fun watching people's lives unfold. I should read back on my own as mine unfolds in new and exciting ways.

There are so many amazing and honest people of integrity out there. So very interesting and real. In an environment ever-changing, I like it.

This year is going to be exciting. My marriage no longer brand new, the next adventure's to be embarked upon. My world in a constant state of flux. People coming and going. Tomorrow a new person to appear in my world. Others will soon exit.

Long for Europe. Long for a change. Long to get up and go. With a short attention span and a persisitent stream of ideas, having lived in the same flat for over 2 years in the same city and keeping the same job, the foot does itch. The foot does itch. I believe there's a powder for it.

She's in Labor!

He's on his way - off to the birth house!

You know when...

You know when you are training in one of the world's largest corporations and are in a lesson with one of the cream of Japan's IT people in one of the world's smallest rooms and you take a deep inhalation and realise there is a large presence in one of your nostrils. Then somewhere between lifting your hand to safely usher the presence out of the nostril and exhaling, what can only be described as a large green rock is jettisoned out of nose and conspicuously lands on the paper upon which you are writing. If you tap your fingernail on the computer now...you will recreate the sound it made as it landed.

We both ignored it like a big green elephant in the room until I could inconspicuously brush it away with my arm. That was after a few minutes, because there hadn't been a window of opportunity prior to that where I wouldn't have had to aknowledge the incident, bringing us both into an uncomfortable embarrasing zone.

However I am now aware that from now on, in his eyes, I will no longer be 'Sarah the trainer', I will be 'Sarah - the woman who had a giant booger fly out of the beak and onto the desk and left it there for ages. '

Pure Class.

Camel toe Hot Yoga

Sue - forgive me...

At the Hot Yoga Studio today I observed a few things:

1 The toilet seat lifts and start birdlike tweeting on entrance to the cubicle

2 I can still be a stupid foreigner. I got half way to the studio door with the toilet slippers on.

3 I have the appearance of Pilsbury dough. While I am not a fatty, I am very rounded. Round shoulders, round tummy and not a bit of toning. Like dough.

4 My head is exactly the same width as my neck. This gives me the appearance of a sausage or thumbtanic .

5 I get really really red when I am doing yoga in a room at 49 degrees. Really really red.

6 My Nike leggings do not have an 'Anti cameltoe feature'. I am thinking that I may earn my millions designing 'nocameltoesportswear'. Maybe with a reinforced gusset, giving the crotch a smooth attractive appearance.

7 I like it - I like the yoga. I am in shocking shape but it will mean I have a really restful night's sleep tonight. Provided there are no more earthquakes tonight. I hope not indeed as the Husband is not here tonight. He's away on business.

Where is April's baby? Stubborn little fella. I was round there drinking wine with her last night and laughing because the midwife is so keen for the baby to come out that she said to her 'Please sex everyday' and told her to drink and eat what she liked. So we ordered pizza and drank wine. So let's enjoying our sexing and drinking life with joyful heart and merry foodstuff surely.

5 Things you may not know about me...

I was tagged by the Goddess

1. I collect Vogue magazine. I am not a fashionable or even well groomed. But I have 5 full years of British Vogue and eagerly await the new issue every month.

2. I have had the name 'Sigsy' since I was about ten. It is very popular in Merseyside to give nickname or abbreviations to people. Sigsy came from Sarah. Don't ask me, ask Valerie, one of the famous Butterly twins. It has followed me round the world. Many people in the UK don't know my real name.

3. In December 2000 I had a head on collision in my car on the way home from my friend's wedding. After I was cut out of the car, strapped to an A board and was in the hospital, unable to move until they X rayed me to check there was no permanent damage, I had moment of clarity. When I got home (was discharged the same night) I started checking the newspaper. This is what prompted me to leave the UK. A job in Japan happened to be the place I applied for first and got. Of course, if I am asked, which I am often, I tell people that it is the culture and unique things of Japan that attracted me to come here.

4. I have a big brown birthmark on my left knee. It looks like a slug, coffee stain, turd, tea stain among many other hilarious descriptions.

5. Since moving to Japan in 2001 I have lost 3 friends. This is kind of a sad one, but I felt really strongly that I wanted this to be in here.
One lovely friend from University was in the Cantor Fitzgerald meeting in the World Trade Centre when the planes hit. His remains were found a year later.
Another wonderful pal, also from university and coincidentally from the same town as the guy who died in the WTC moved to Thailand just before I came to Japan. In November 2003, he was found dead on his bathroom floor in Thailand by his girlfriend. A mystery.
Not long after I moved to Japan, another friend, who I worked at a restaurant with, opened a bar in Cambodia called 'The Ginger Monkey'. It was a great success and very popular with the expats. Last February he was stabbed to death in the flat attached to the bar while saving his girlfriend from a teenage junky.
Kind of sad, but these things changed things subtely and fundamentally and have coloured the outlook on life.

On the upside here are a few pics from recent events:

Octopus angels

Octopus angels
Originally uploaded by sigsy.

I love this picture. Santa, while I love my vibrating hairbrush (and I do) If you could see your way to the camera next year, this stands as testament to a moment when silky hair, while desirable, is not enough and a good camera would have made all the difference.

Culture SHOCK!

The first day at school provided my first reminder that I am not in my home country. I gave the kids a task. We were practising use of Mr and Ms. So the kids had to ask questions. Two questions to male members of the class and two to female members of the class. When it came to the boys asking the firls and the girls asking the boys there was stalemate. Not one of them could bring themselves to talk to members of the opposite sex. They shifted nervously. Avoided eye contact. They are 16 year olds. It was weird. And it freaked me out.

Next I went to do a lesson with a business client. As I was going in he was coming out and wished me happy new year. He called through and one of his reports came out and got me a cup of tea. Then took me to the room. Then someone brought in some dried fruit. Then the manager of HR came in and, I kid you not, started doing some magic. Magic tricks. It was pretty good actually. Card tricks. Illusions. Then she left the room and apologised, saying she didn't know when he would be back. Then she left the room and left me in there with a book. Then she came back in. And said she wasn't sure if he would be back in time for the lesson. By this point I had deciphered I should leave. So I said 'Should I leave?' and she said 'mmm maybe'. So I left. At no point did anyone say 'Sorry we have to cancel'. It was weird. And it made me giggle.

Then today Kei showed me his tickets for his soon-to-come trip to Boston. In order to save paper they are now issuing e-tickets. With a 5-page explanation of how to use the e-ticket.
In his words 'tragic'.

Kotohira Onsen

So after we went to Kurashiki we went on to Kotosankaku ryokan in Kotohira onsen town on the island of Shikoku. We had dinner, played bingo, won sake and bathed in the wonderful baths there. There are few things I like more than taking onsen baths. I love it. I love saunas especially. I find the whole process so relaxing little by little. I bathe for about an hour and twenty minutes generally, starting with a long, thorough shower, hair wash and rinse. Then hitting the biggest pool before taking a cool shower then trying out the various different baths available. Here there was an Andes salt bath, a big bath with the local water, a sauna, a strong mineral bath, an herbal bath, jet massage baths, 2 outdoor baths (rotenburo) oneof which was made of cedar wood and at first glance looked like it was full of fallen leaves, yet as I got closer realised it was roses floating on it. So lovely. The other outdoor bath was made of stone. There's nothing like taking a bath and looking at the stars.

Horoscope

Today I was reading my horoscope on Google. I'm not really into it but it was amazing and it fit my situation so perfectly that I read it out to K and wrote it down. I'm a Virgo. The horoscope was Gemini I later realised. Absolute nonsense.

I have a student who sometimes books my time who is into Chinese horoscopes and I find it fascinating and asked the student to explain it all to me and apparently there are some folk who are really compatible and some who aren't compatible at all. So one lesson I gave the student my birthdate and time and all my particulars and I haven't seen the student since. I may have shot myself in the foot right there. I imagine the student sitting at home looking at the reading and the music from the Omen and the Old Spice advert coming on as they spin around dramatically and pull a face like the one Shelley Duval pulls when she finds all the 'all work no play makes Jack a dull boy' scripts in the typewriter in the Shining, and my reading bursts into flames in the car on the way to work and all hell quite literally breaks loose, no hang on that is the Omen. 2.

Wild West

We headed out West for New Year. On 29th we took a late Shinkansen down to Himeji and were, as always, met by Kei's parents at Himeji station then driven home for a few days of being looked after, waited on and watching my husband behave like a little emperor.

On 30th we decided to hit Shikoku, a place I have never visited before and sniff out an onsen hotel to stay at and enjoy a night of stress free bathing, feasting and being together. K planned our route, which would take us through Okayama, to a place called Kurashiki then across the bridge to Takamatsu area then on to the onsen town selected. I can note that, having a car is fantastic, however we paid around 15,000 yen total for road and bridge tolls and that is no small fee. I don't essentially disagree with paying for the privelege of driving a car round on good roads and well constructed bridges, however it does make a day trip bloody expensive.

Kurashiki is a city much like any other Japanese city. However there is an area called the 'Bikan area' where there are Edo Era houses and building preserved really well and it is beautiful. There are numerous shops, restaurants and cafes selling traditional fare and a wonderful sake shop from which we purchased sake. I can thoroughly recommend this place, it really is like taking a step back in time. Give yourself a couple of hours to really explore everything, have something to eat in one of the shops, buy omiyage, check out the art gallery and just browse around. It's lovely. The Englishman in Osaka would appear to have dropped in there too as I saw this shop there as we were whizzing around trying to find a parking spot. We got there just as the sun was setting and I was so glad to have found a place so well preserved. If you are in the area, I would really recommend this place for a stop on the way to somewhere for a couple of hours or even a half day. Maybe take in lunch and the hours around it or dinner and watch the place change from the day to night scene. It really has retained the quiet hustle and bustle of an 'era gone by' community. Then we shot off to our next destination - Kotohira in Shikoku...

What A Fabulous Idea

Whilst surfing my regular Blog reads I came upon this post on Kokochi, one of my favorite Blogs. What an amazing experience and what a brave and inspired couple! I am just loving this idea. There are also pictures here.

We're back in Town

That's all for now, but I can tell you that this year, for the first year, I and my husband fell asleep before midnight on New Years Eve. This heralds the dawn of a new era. An era where once a year I may not count down the new year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR