wow its christmas day. it doesn’t really feel like it here… sitting in the hostel charging stuff up before heading out for the day. anyways i haven’t posted anything since i arrived because its been pretty hectic, so i feel like i should do a bit of catch-up! highlights only.

so i arrived on the 17th and spent a few days in himeji. i caught up on my anti-piracy policy by buying the CDs and DVDs from the past year that i felt like paying for (although i still have a few more i need to get) – i’ll post some pictures when i get back to where the cds are sitting. apart from meeting up with jetha, it was a very random coincidence that a guy from UWA was over staying with the host family that lives ~3minutes away. long story short, we spent the day in kobe at a place called “kachouen” (花鳥園) or “bird & flower park”.

they had a wide variety of different birds and a huuuge collection of crazy looking owls, as well as about 3 or 4 different styles of gardens. it was a really nice place and i wish i had my camera when i went (these photos were stolen from my host mum’s camera).

after catching an overnight bus from himeji to shinjuku on the 20th, i arrived with jetha in tokyo at around 6:30am, and checked into the hostel we are staying in. quite a nice place, but the elevator is the SLOWEST ELEVATOR I HAVE EVER USED. you have to queue a request on it about 4 minutes before you actually want to leave, otherwise you end up standing there for what feels like eternity. it is nice and clean here though, and we have met quite a few nice people.

while wandering around shinjuku last saturday, i stumbled on AI performing live for the 2008 olympics! was quite nice to see some live performing – after being denied tickets to the music station super live . unfortunately, the people in charge jumped in front of my camera before i was able to take a picture. i thought i was pretty well hidden too!

Tokyo Fantasia 2007 was the largest local christmas light show. there were tens of thousands of LEDs lighting up the dark tokyo skies in hibiya park… and two cats wondering how the hell they got on top of the billboard?! they were in a state of total confusion…

it was a really nice show and the picture above alone doesn’t do it justice, so make sure to check out the album when i get things sorted out!

and thats that for now. there’s a lot more stuff which i could talk about but for now.. owarinisimashou.

merry christmas to all.

what ever happened to the days of getting a nice wad of paper detailing your flight plan around the world?  i felt a bit cut receiving a single 6-character code which was my ticket.  i guess i should be used to this, as it wasn’t the first time around, but it was the first i ordered completely over the internet… which meant i didn’t even get the combination on a piece of paper!

so yup, i’ve booked my flight to japan for dec-jan.  it is during the peak season so i was  almost thinking about delaying it a few months to save money on the flight… but i really feel like going sooner rather than later, and avoiding the christmas heat (and enjoying a white christmas) should be worth it!

there has been a lack of updates here, yes.  time to blog when i’m writing code every spare minute of the day?  i don’t think so.  its a pretty monotonous life at the moment, and my sleep pattern is absolutely fubared, but the end results are worth it… and hopefully i can get things to a stable point sometime soon and take a bit of time off.

rararararaaaaaaaaah

Public beta of a new Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents PC simulator now running! Includes a full featured beatmap creator for user-created custom levels.

read more | digg story

..check out osu! – now available for public download. i really don’t feel like writing on here at the moment – time is precious!