Balloon Shapes by cops!

Exciting developments in the life of Monkey Bridge (ex-Nova boss and now convicted criminal)...apparently while waiting for his appeal to start he's been staying in a hotel in Tokyo.
Well some members of the Yamaguchi Yakuza clan (based in Kobe/Osaka - actually the boss lives just up the road from me apparently) found out where he was and held him hostage yesterday for 3 hours! Not sure why they let him go, but they were arrested immediately after.

There were always rumours amongst the staff and teachers at Nova that he was "connected" (some of the Nova investment money was mob money), but they were just rumours....hmm...maybe some-one wants their money back and it's not just students and teachers!

I had my yearly medical checkup last month and suffice to say the results came back and weren't too good. I'm fat according to the Japanese medical profession.
"METABO" it said in big letters (it's what they call Metabolic Syndrome).
(Although the criteria they use to define Metabo is a lot stricter than in England and the US, there I'd be alright...(well, I like to believe that anyway).

A girl at work had just done a 3day "Fasting" diet she called it, but basically you only drink vegetable juice for 3 days, with no food. Guaranteed to lose weight.

So I thought I'd give that a go...
First day was fine, hungry obviously, but no big problems. I was drinking the vegetable juice from the supermarket and it was all very pleasant.
Day two, Aki offered to make one of the "official" diet juice recipes (lots of cabbage, spinach, half a banana and soy milk).

Unfortunately we don't have a juicer...only a mixer...so after some straining through a sieve we got...

Is that juice? Or soup?

Truth be told, despite the unusual (rough) texture, it actually didn't taste that bad (I put some ice cubes in it to water it down a bit).

The third day I went back to the vegetable juice from a bottle, but after having a two day headache and absolutely no strength anymore, I crumbled and gave up on the third (and last day)!
Tucked in to some good old tomato soup and toast that evening!

I managed to lose nearly 3 kilo though!
Now in the process of putting it all back on

I was walking through Umeda in Osaka yesterday after work when I spotted this shop and had to take a photo of it...

Now it's very easy to make fun of some of the bad English that you see and hear everyday in Japan (especially on T-shirts and signs) (see Engrish.com for some fantastic examples) and, well, sometimes I do.

But lets face it, anyone who's heard my bad Japanese or seen the blank expressions on waitresses faces when I try to order something and they can't understand my accent, knows I have no right to make fun...

But what really baffles me is why nobody checks the English in a dictionary or something?
I mean, you decide to build a shop, think of a name, pay someone probably a lot of money to put a big sign on your shop window...wouldn't it make sense to just check an English dictionary before? Just to be sure?
Just type it into google at least and see what comes out?

There was an advert in a beauty magazine I saw last month for some new makeup, and in big letters above the pretty girls face was "Palty!!"

Just a quick one this time, but wanted to post some happy news...
Monkey Bridge (my old boss at Nova - the head honcho embezzler) has finally been sentenced to 3 and a half years in Jail! yay!
I thought he'd get away with it, but the Japanese justice system didn't let me down!

His defence are obviously appealing (not to me they're not!) but fingers crossed it's turned down.

Lots of happy ex-nova teachers at the moment!

A few weeks ago we went to see a friend of ours "perform" in his multimedia-electronica art performance duo "S.C.F." (Click the link for their Myspace page if you want to have a listen - it's not for everyones tastes, but I likes it - honestly Andy!).

The nights show was called "Exorcisms" and there were about 6 performances mainly dancers, all portraying in some way (some obvious, some not so) this theme.

What was this multimedia-electronica experience like I hear you ask...
Well:

SCF who basically stayed at the back of the hall twiddling nobs and pressing buttons to make a wall of noise while a dancer dressed in a paper dress..."danced"...on stage with a video montage playing on the wall behind her.

The dancing was pretty unconvential but very watchable and the "music" reached a hypnotising level which made the whole experience fascinating (a little bit like watching a train wreck, but I mean that in a good way).

If you get a chance to be in Kyoto and this kind of thing is your bag (Radiohead and Japanese Noise fans might dig it) then I recommend checking them out. They have a blog here (SCF Blog) which has some videos of their performances.