Fun fact: Japanese to English translation is difficult. Especially if the translator is the same person as the author.

I wrote a speech in Japanese and now my lecturer wants me to translate it as well since she is attending a pedagogy (ie how to teach people) conference and wants to present my speech.

I did not write the original speech with English in mind, so the original script contained a lot of Japanese idiosyncrasies that made translation difficult. That's why most multilingual books have the author and translator as different people, even if the author knows the language it will be translated into. It's pretty well known that Haruki Murakami's English is good, but he did not translate his own books from Japanese to English.

Worst part of all this is trying to explain to my mother all that I have said above in Chinese.

I caught a jumping spider this afternoon and dropped it into an insect container that already has a daddy-long-legs spider.

After returning home in the evening, I found a dead jumping spider and a fat daddy-long-legs spider.

Nature is metal.

So I was reading @lucia_hunter 's Twitter feed about his trip to Uchiura, and my first thought was "Thanks for taking one for the team".

The thing about Uchiura is that like pretty much every rural area ever, is that public transport is almost non-existent. He also noted that the ryokan that served as the basis for Chika's home doesn't have that good service standards, with obvious maintenance issues. Shops only open for like 3 hours everyday and the bus only arrives every half hour. It is the definition of a sleepy town.

With 10+km distances between places of interest, it's not fun to cycle there either, especially when you consider rental bicycles in Japan have no gear shift capability. A huge oversight in a country that mountainous when rental bicycles here in flat Singapore have gear shifts. I have cycled from Shijo in Kyoto to Kiyomizudera to Ginkakuji and then back to Shijo, which is probably a total of around 15km. Nope. Not doing it again.

My personal recommendation would be to use Atami as a staging point to go to Uchiura. It's a 40-minute drive and as a former resort town, the infrastructure there is equipped for tourism and the resorts and hotels there have a certain standard of service. Even if the place hasn't progressed from the 80s.

Ok technically it's still a resort town, but it's pretty much dying. That's why they had to make a deal with the devil and tie up with a dating sim to try to resuscitate its visitor numbers (didn't work).

But still if you want to go to Uchiura, take the train to Atami, rent a car there, drive to Uchiura and then stay over at Atami if you feel like you need more than a day to explore Uchiura.

But what do I know, I don't even have a licence 🙃

I should probably get a licence.

Now all those missed picture opportunities that @lucia_hunter mentioned also made me think of the reason why I have a DSLR.

See a fleeting photo op moment and you have a DSLR slung around you? Raise it, kick off the lens cap, disengage the safety (flip the on switch) and fire away (I set my camera to Low Frame Rate Continuous). Bad shot? Don't worry: you have 5 more pictures of the same thing. Drop the lens cap? Clean it and you are fine. Lose your lens cap because you dropped it? It's Japan: they sell replacements.

I tried that with my cellphone, that's a missed moment. Nearly 5 seconds to get a camera phone ready, 3 of them spent cursing at phone lag. I only need like 2 seconds to get a DSLR ready.

The takeaway is this: Uchiura does not have the public infrastructure to handle tourism at all. I've seen it first hand too in Malaysia. My parents' hometown became some kind of hipster hotspot and with some promotion from the Malaysian tourism board and a direct air link from Singapore there, a shitton of visitors have descended on that town and now there are major traffic issues there. At least Uchiura has public transport of some sort. Ipoh doesn't.

Of course I prefer sitting in a train than having to actively drive a car, but in the countryside, there aren't many choices.

So during my archery tournament somewhere in April, the organisers were giving out this magazine called Augustman. Mostly because the magazine is one of the event sponsors.

I opened this magazine, and while reading it I was thinking "Look at all the luxury watches and luxury everything else I will never buy".

Question
What's the point of sponsoring this event when most of the participants are students and likely wouldn't have the money to buy the shit they advertise in the magazine?

Point
Archery isn't a cheap sport: I spent a total of $1200 on my archery set so far:

• Riser (second hand): $550
• Sight (second hand): $150 (another $30 for a fibre-optic enhanced sight pin)
• Stabiliser rods ("new"): $280
• String (new): $30
• Arrows (new): $160

Most of this equipment was paid with money I earned from holiday jobs.

Items still on loan from the club:

• V-bar
• Limbs (not going to buy them until I hit 70m range: that's the limb weight I will then get)

People who can take up archery have the dosh to buy their equipment, and likely might also have the money to buy the luxury items advertised in the magazine. 

Counter-point

Most of the students blew all their money on archery equipment. 

Counter-counter-point

There are some seriously rich kids who can afford the luxury items after buying archery equipment. 

Counter-counter-counter-point

These guys probably blew what's left on archery equipment upgrades. 

This card:

Love Live! School Idol Festival Card #1023

What this character is holding is her birthstone (March 15), specifically an aquamarine.

How much does it cost?

(Kinokuniya Main Store, Singapore)

Pretty expensive actually. Especially considering this stone is probably 1 cm tall.

The stone Umi is holding definitely looks larger than 1 cm.

Still not as bad as this really tiny diamond that I also saw being sold.

I guess that's why that crane game I saw in Japan where you can grab real gemstones is fiendishly difficult. Quite a huge price tag for such a tiny diamond. Gotta get back your money's worth somehow.

I tried getting a ruby but ended up getting a clear topaz instead.

Come think of it, last time I got a gemstone from a crane machine it was a clear topaz as well. At least that one was set in a silver-plated necklace.

A perfect gift for a girlfriend.

If I had one.

I tried handing it off to my sister but she doesn't want it.

So now it's doing nothing but collecting dust.

No I'm not going to give it away.

From: 大和 (NSFW)
He uses this picture as his profile pic

I like this artist's work, but navigating his* album is a bloody minefield. 

Like 80% of his* artwork is porn. 

Maybe that's why his* anatomical geometry is on point. 

*He declares himself as male in his profile. 

So I watched in a Cantonese drama about a chef who wants to make quail egg to make noodles so that he can kill a corrupt official who already had a stroke.

Come think of it, I wonder how quail egg noodle would taste.

Don't worry: I'm in great health.

Well I didn't know Hong Kong drinks are getting popular in Japan.

It's not actually entirely coffee: it's a mixture of coffee and tea in condensed milk. It's called Yuan Yang in Mandarin or Yun Yeung in Cantonese. (鸳鸯/鴛鴦 in hanzi)

I guess the Japanese really like their light novels.

I tried using the Japanese IME to type from the suggested Japanese pronunciation of the drink えんおうちゃ and it pretty much asked me "Seriously?"

I could write the name in kanji but I was like "fuck that" since it's the same as the Traditional Chinese name.

Turns out the term is recognised and already exists, but it's very obscure since it is a HK drink anyway.

I guess it's similar to how Chrome doesn't think the word "halation" exists unless you specifically teach it the word.