I had lunch with An. She has moved from London to
Jena. Her flat is in 5th floor but there is no lift in the
apartment. How could she moved her furniture?
I am delighted to find the live performance video of Kraftwerk on BBC
iPlayer (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nplrw). In
the last song, Trans Europe Express, they used the pictures of real
TEE operated by DB. This is very inspiring. I wish there were a nice
song about Shinkansen, too.
Today's photo at St Pancras.
Though I had lost interest in trains since I graduated junior high
school, trains in Europe look curious to me so sometimes I take
photos when travelling somewhere. There were people aiming cameras at Javelin this morning. I suppose all of them were Japanese, of course including me.
So far I have travelled to Canterbury four times, but the arrival
times of trains from Norwich were delayed three times, and then I
missed the connection in London. Umm, this commuting is getting uneasy
to me. On the other hand, Southeastern trains seem very punctual.
I found we could buy wide variety of Asian food in Canterbury. I made
hot-pot today.
There is no train service from Canterbury West on this Sunday. I was
lucky as I had asked my boss to postpone our meeting from tomorrow to
Tuesday; no need to travel today.
I am travelling from Norwich to Canterbury. I can see a red hot-air
balloon floating in the clear sky before sunset.
There was a programme about Scottish films on BBC this week. I was
particularly interested in the behind story of The Wicker Man,
which I think the best horror film. It was 7 years ago when I watched
it for the first time. One night I just accidentally started watching
it on TV. At that time, the word 'wicker man' was new to me so I had
no idea what was going to happen. Thus it was a complete shock when
the wicker man finally appeared towards the end of the film. I
couldn't believe what my eyes were seeing. In the story, Sergeant Howie
(the main role) shouts "Oh, Jesus Christ!". I felt exactly the
same. His fear looks so genuine.
The actor talked about it in that programme. When he had a day off,
the film staffs asked him whether he wanted to see the wicker man
standing. 'No', he said. He decided not to see it until the moment
they film the last scene because he wanted to confront the wicker man
as audience do.
I have been busy with marking the dissertations of master students,
yet I had to spend a time solving a problem of how
to change the paper size with pdflatex, while making a fair copy
of Dn's paper. LaTeX is an indispensable software for
me, yet I think it's only for people who can afford to spend a
time. I wouldn't use if I were working in a company.
The pictures below are the sign of a pub called Bishops Finger in
Canterbury. The bishop is closing his eyes and pointing sky, like the
lyrics of this
Japanese song.
There are many signs of pubs in this
page.
Luckily I had a chance to ride on Javelin,
probably the world's fastest commuter train. The service from Ramsgate just started one week ago.
This train is so so
famous in Japan as well since Hitachi was the manufacturer. I enjoyed the trip
very much. It started from a small station of Canterbury West and went
through countryside. Looking at dairy farms, I thought that the
scenery from the train of Hokkaido Shinkansen would be like this if it was
constructed. After taking HS1, we arrived at futuristic St
Pancras. This contrast was really cool.
We visited the history museum of Canterbury. The most interesting part
to me was the original form of the city, which was built by Romans. I
found one of the streets in that era was still there nowadays. Norwich
had also existed in Roman period, but there was a gap between the year
Romans abandoned and the beginning of resettlement. In addition, the
place Romans used to live is not exactly where Norwich city is now, so
the history is not continuous.
Other thing I strongly remember was poo made in medieval time. We could
even smell it, though I didn't. I think it's good as kids must be
attracted and never be bored.
The attached video is one of sketch shows made by Prettythings, which
Amanda of the Ditty Bops is taking part in. These soldiers in the
music video are very twisted.
We made a big purchase today as Fd is starting a new
life here. One of the first things we were determined to buy was Henry! When I walked back home
from a department store, carrying this box, a kid called me "Henry!"
