I have a much larger (and definitely more indepth) post to write when I get back to the UK, however just wanted to tell everyone that I am no longer affiliated with the 9rules network as of yesterday. To make things clear, I chose to leave, however I wish the guys and gals over there nothing but success in the future with everything that they do. I had fun while I was there and now it’s time to start looking into the future of the ‘kode.

So I’m sitting here in Naoto’s house and writing this after experiencing my first week (more or less) in　Japan. Seriously Ｉ cannot imagine myself staying away from this country. So many things to absorb in such a little time that i could honestly keep writing for a long time. Of course if i did that then i would be at the bloody computer all day and not actually out there exploring things and soaking in everything. Therefore i will try to actually write down as much stuff as Ｉ possibly can that has made an impression on me and then hopefully elaborate on everything (and include as many pictures as i can) when i get back. Ｔhese posts i guess will act as placeholders until i get back.

1. Ｔhe greatest thing for me is being shown around by Ｎaoto as there are soo many things that you could not possibly know or understand until you actually lived here or someone told you. The little red triangles that are place on the windows so that the firefighters can see which ones can be used in the event of a fire. I honestly thought it was some weird architectural statement. 　
2. Obviously the biggest thing that is easy to notice is just how clean the streets, tube and all public areas actually are. It is completely unreal. No gum stains on the floor, the paint on the roads is as bright as the day they were painted. Not a spec of garbage anywhere, anytime, anyplace.
3. We went to the Ghibli museum. Unfortunately you’re not allowed to take any photos in the Museum but I have some photos from the roof (which you are allowed to take photos) which is pretty cool. The highlight here for me was the circular strobe light running animation which was beyond incredible. Several rooms where filled with items that where inspired from the movie.
4. We went to Kamakura with all the temples (the place has got over 64 temples), however easily the best temple we saw was a hidden one that was far away from everything in the city and that was one of the most serene places on earth.
5. My first Japanese style breakfast was a complete experience. For those that don’t actually know what this entails, it has miso soup, rise, grilled fish, nato, seaweed and various pickles.
6. Walked up Mount Fuji. I am completely sun burnt and tired, but by god the views was completely and utterly incredible. It has to be seen to be believed. In fact I’ll be sure to share when I get back because it was definitely worth the trip. We didn’t make it to the top of the mountain, but we got close and it was a mission going down as much as it was going up.
7. Tomorrow we are off to Kyoto and Western Japan which is going to be an experience of epic proportions as it also includes my first trip on the Shinkansen (aka the bullet train).

You know what I find the absolute weirdest thing in the world? I’ve got this Canon LiDe scanner right, got it something like 5 years ago and has served me pretty well in all those years. It’s not the best scanner in the world, but to be honest, based on the fact that most of my stuff is put on the web rather than in print, it’s not exactly the end of the world. The weird thing is that my scanner works right out of the box in Ubuntu. Don’t need to download any drivers, don’t need to mess around with anything, and it works quickly and perfectly. Obviously it’s not all roses right, my Ipod shuffle obviously doesn’t want to play nice with Ubuntu, even though the latest version of Banshee is the music player that I’ve been waiting for all my life. So many great little features have been added to the latest couple of versions since I played last with it. Yeah like that’s any good to me as my fekkin sound card that doesn’t work for toffee and keeps giving me trouble all the time.

So I get back on Windows (because it’s got Photoshop) and fekkin Apache has decided to stop bloody working through XAMPP, so I can’t honestly get any work done for Habari as doing it on a live server takes forever.

I did download the latest and greatest Oxygen icons onto Ubuntu and I’ve got to say they are definitely some of the nicest things I’ve seen in a good long while…shame I couldn’t get the latest version of the Crystal icons to fekkin install (lovely redesign by Everaldo btw), as those look great as well.

Obviously I’ve upset someone in computerland and they’re trying to punish me in every painfully frustrating way. Seriously it’s times like this that I think the magic bullet is getting myself a Mac. But then again everyone says that when all manner of software decides not to work right?