What's in your head?

Ever been to a musuem alone? It's fantastic. I often have lone-aphobic tendancies about these things, but with some serious time killing to do whilst the dear other half was slaving away in the office (on a Sunday afternoon...), I decided to take the plunge.

So, up to the 52nd floor of Roppongi Hills Tower and I immediately get caught up in a group of foreign tourists. Not good. So I battle my way to the counter and announce, 'hitori dake' (only one), with unecessary pride! The exhibition was Contemporary East Asian Art, and as my knowledge of Asian art is basic and I generally don't like Contemporary Art, I figured I may be in for a bit of a bumpy ride...

However, I was greeted by 360* of Tokyo. Pretty. On the next floor I was greeted by a mass of plastic beer glasses on the floor (not impossible to accidently step on, I might add!). Intrigued I looked up, to see a 'flock' of colourful things hanging from the ceiling. 'Ahh', she realises, 'the beer glasses are a cloud, or maybe a lake, and the hanging things are birds (or fish)!' Then I noticed the things hanging nearest the cloud/lake were the kanji character 'tori', which means bird, and the ones near the ceiling were actually birds, and the ones graduating between the two were the kanji character evolving into birds! Wide eyed, I continued...

Ninety minutes later I emerged from the museum, feeling so relaxed and chilled and bordering on euphoric - for a while I thought somebody must've spiked my Starbucks macha frappucino! It's seems the weird and wonderful minds of Asia's contemporary artists are a wonderful place to be lost for an hour and a half!

So, next time your passing an exhibition with time on your hands, get yourself in their and get yourself lost!

Study, study, study!

We all start something new with the best of intentions, right? Well, I started 3 new things with the best of intentions all at the same time, and knowing my tendancy to favour doing nothing over doing something, I guess I was a little over-ambitious. New hobby nummber one, was to take up some serious Japanese study. Hobby number two was to pick up the running from twice a week to thrice a week. Hobby number three was to update this blog weekly.

The good news is that hobbies number one and two are coming along swimmingly! I'm actually paying money for lessons now, which is quite the motivation! So my little head is often stuck in my little 'Minna no nihongo' (Japanese for Everyone) text, trying to decipher kanji and strange Japanese-isms (literal translation is your enemy!!). And I even managed to run my way to shin-splints (not a good thing, but shows an increase in efforts!). The bad news is that there are not enough hours in the day for hobby number three. Well, that's just not true. Truth is that me and time management have never really been friends! But I'm trying...

So, only actually had one Japanese lesson so far, but my opportunities to speak Japanese have increased as I've had a few phone calls with the school (telephone Japanese - awful!), and I've recently started to do language exchange with a Japanese friend. So hopefully the confidence will grow! Last week's lesson was 'Hajimemashite' etc. etc. ('Nice to meet you' etc. etc.) and 'kono hon', 'sono hon', and 'ano hon' ('this book', 'that book', and 'that book over there'), which is nothing new but I still managed to mess up! This week is 'kaimono' ('shopping' - yey!), and 'jikan' ('time' - hate numbers!). Luckily my teacher has a sense of humour and seems to find my giggling endearing!

Wish me luck...