The Final Installment

A quite typical week at work saw it end on a high and a new Irish person arriving to join the firm. I had to go out to Kansai airport at the crack of dawn on Friday morning to meet and greet a new Irish girl, from Belfast, who is starting on the paralegal team of the Firm. A very friendly and outgoing person, typical of the Belfast people I know, will make a good addition to the foreign staffers. Although, she wasnt' feeling all to well on Friday night, she came out for a couple of drinks with us after work. I had to go back to work at 3pm on Friday, which was very weird. Trying to get into the frame of mind to work was difficult but a short day was had, 5 hours all told but I got something done so that was good.

Saturday morning, early rise, and off to the barber. I haven't got my haircut since before Christmas so it was well overdue. Also, not having a drop of alcohol for over a month now makes it a hell of lot easier getting up on a Saturday morning after a few pints on a Friday night. It feels good, maybe I will keep it up for a while yet!! Anyway, I went to the same barber again and asked for "shorto"...and that is exactly what I got. Lesson number one when getting a haircut in Japan and not being able to communcate exactly what you want: NEVER CLOSE YOUR EYES!! I closed my eyes, heard the clippers going, felt him put it to my head, knew something was wrong...a No.1 cut!! It's far too cold for a cut like that at the moment. He saw the fear in my eyes and asked "Ok?"...what could I do, ok I said, smiling that winning smile which calms the othe person into a reassured frame of mind. It will grow back. COME BACK KEN HARTE!!!

Then, round 3 with Ton. I was looking forward to this all week. I got in, Ton explained the colour scheme and away to work he went. It was definitely the most painful experience I've had with tattoos. Whatever type of needles he used, or maybe it wsa the complexity of the colouring, it was 4.5 hours of pain, pain, pain. All good though and I am delighted with the final result. The man is a genius. It's sore as today and bled a lot more than the previous two visits. I just hope the colour holds nicely. I have to go back in one months time so that Ton can have a look of it and take proper photos. Ben was very impressed as were the girls and other tattooists there. That made me proud. It's cool...don't you think?



After stumbling out of Chopstick, high on the body's own painkillers, I wandered around Shinsaibashi looking for a Turkish restaurant as one of the lads had organized a surprise birthday dinner for LM. I got to the restaurant and informed them that some people would be late, ie LM, CVB and SL. As 11 guests seated themselves down, we waited 90 minutes for the birthday girl to arrive. Dinner was good, a bit steep price wise considering how much I ate. Ordering many dishes and taking samples just isn't a way to eat a proper dinner, expecially when one has to fork out 35yoyos for it. I was bloody starving after it! The belly dancer strutting her stuff made up for it...slightly. Anyway, back to BR and LM's place for a bit of a gathering and then off we went home on the last trains.

All in all a good day, grocery and washing completed in the morning, rounding off the day with a "bath" when I got home from the party. When I say bath, I mean trying to fit one's body into a bucket, the bath is so small. I bathed the beast of a tattoo for about 30 minutes, continued my after care treatment, got into bed and read Fisky's book for a bit. Nice easy nighttime reading :)

Now, it's Sunday morning, it's a beautiful day, blue skies, a chill in the air and there's birds to be watched. Off meeting Neil now. Biwa-ko was cancelled at the last minute so it's off looking around Osaka instead. I am looking forward to it...

Carmo's Diet: this week, I have mostly been eating curry katsudon

Carmo's Birds: Goshawk from the window at work this week, which was nice

Carmo's Birds for Byrdy: this chick on the train last week, if only you could have seen her...