Michael Lambe

Michael Lambe...

2008-09-19T09:58:00.000-07:00

...isn't here.

You can find his new journal at: www.mikeylambe.com

He also has a blog on Kyoto's cafes, bars and restaurants at www.deepkyoto.com

And a Japanese language study blog at www.saikidou.blogspot.com

Enjoy!

My Blog Empire

2008-09-05T16:44:00.000-07:00

Mikey Lambe's ever expanding Blog Empire now consists of

Michael Lambe - his journal at www.mikeylambe.com

Deep Kyoto - a guide to cafes, bars and restaurants at www.deepkyoto.com

Japanese Reboot - a Japanese vocabulary builder at www.saikidou.blogspot.com

Recently posted on www.mikeylambe.com are photos from South Africa, an appearance in Club Fame and other assorted goodies.

On Deep Kyoto he reviews fashionable tea emporium Iyemon Cafe.

And in the first post on Japanese Reboot - he tells us what it's all about:

This blog is a personal study journal in which I will review whatever items of Japanese language I pick up each day. My intention is to reboot my enthusiasm for my Japanese studies, beginning with just a little study each day of whatever serendipity sends me here in Japan. My goal is to sit the Japanese Proficiency Test Level 1 in December 2009. I passed Level 2 a good 4 years ago and haven't seriously or consistently studied since. It's time to remedy that. LINK

And his current favorite video is:

You can download the Say Hey (I Love You) MP3 here. The song is from the new ALL REBEL ROCKERS CD released on September 9th 2008.

Mikey Lambe has moved...

2008-08-13T14:37:00.000-07:00

....to www.mikeylambe.com

Recently, on www.mikeylambe.com he has been taking lots of pictures at an aquarium:

I went to Osaka Kaiyukan last weekend. They have nice collection of wonderful beasties and weirdy creatures from another world. It’s all set up to be both entertaining and educational and so a good place to take the kids (if you have any) and get them interested in the natural world. Or you could take a date and repeatedly exclaim “kawaii!” and “kimoi!” together... LINK
BubbleShare: Share photos - Play some Online Games.

And he has been watching movies, going to fireworks displays and translating Buddhist meditations...

Now, once again the Japanese festival of the dead, Obon, is upon us and it's time for another message from Hozouji ...During Obon, the traditional belief is that the departed spirits of our loved ones return to visit their homes. Families get together during this time to honor their departed relatives and visit their family grave. In Kyoto, they light fires on the hills around the city on the 16th, to guide the spirits back to deads-ville... LINK

And on www.deepkyoto.com he has been eating some very tasty sandwiches:

さるぅ屋 is a cafe/bar/diner in a lovely old renovated machiya on Imadegawa. The food menu concentrates on burgers (between ￥850-￥1000), sandwiches (￥800-￥850) and curries (￥800) and is generally pretty meaty. As I don’t do the meat thing, I settled for an advocado and cottage cheese sandwich, expecting something bland and was surprised by its sweet deliciosity. And the bread! That was something else... LINK

And his current favorite video is:

Why are you here?

2008-08-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

Mikey Lambe has moved to www.mikeylambe.com where today he is talking about Buddhism and Manure.

...The poet is talking about sadness and suffering and how they help us to grow and to find ourselves. The implication being, without any suffering we wouldn't be able to prove ourselves or find out what we are really capable of. We would never really grow up into real adult human beings. For that reason, all that pain and suffering and shit, it's all 肥料 he says. Now the kanji 肥 (hi) means to enrich, fatten, to make fertile and the kanji 料 (ryou) simply means stuff. What they mean together is manure! Here's my translation... LINK

Also today on Deep Kyoto he is introducing the Kyoto cafe/bar & knick-knack shop Smoke Room.

Why the name? Here’s the story as I understand it: the master here was formerly an antiques dealer, ordering a lot of goods from Europe, and one such item was the lovely frosted glass door now in the entrance. This originally belonged to an old 19th century smoking room in England, and thus Smoke Room. Originally Smoke Room was a zakka and antiques shop and there are still a variety of zakka type knick-knacks available here, but now Smoke Room is also a very pleasant cafe/bar. And the bar is well stocked... LINK

And his current fave on youtube is:

Last Post...

2007-10-19T02:37:00.000-07:00

It's all over folks. This, my 295th post, is also my final post on blogger. As of today my blogging allegiance has been transferred (along with all my archives) over to the new Wordpress account at:

www.mikeylambe.com

Yes, that's www.mikeylambe.com

So git yer arses over there!

OK Girls - Now You Are Famous...

2007-10-16T04:20:00.000-07:00

There's no particular reason for this picture really. Just my students wanted their picture taken and then after I took it and said "Do you want to be on my blog?" - they said yes to that too. As you can see these are friendly students. My favorite kind.

Here's another video of 番屋 doing what they do.

番屋 2

2007-10-15T07:23:00.000-07:00

Continuing on from yesterday's video here is a very nice shamisen solo from "Banya"'s performance at Gojo Guesthouse Cafe on Saturday night. I like to see how happy this guy is when he plays. More to follow!

番屋

2007-10-14T07:16:00.000-07:00

Here's a video for you of last night's performance at Gojo Guesthouse Cafe by "Banya". This isn't the smoothest performance of the evening but definitely the cutest, as the singer keeps forgetting the words and everyone has to sing along to help her out. I'll post more - later.

Today...

2007-10-10T07:30:00.000-07:00

Today was a pleasant and sleepy day. The sky was a deep and sleepy cloudless blue. My students were sleepy but friendly. I got one test (sleepily) written and out of the way, and only have one left to go. And my Peanuts DVD ("It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!") is arriving tomorrow morning; a rare treat for the first years after the tests are over. I couldn't think of a better way to teach them about Halloween traditions than that fine Halloween tradition - watching Peanuts! Well, hopefully it will keep them awake anyway...

Friend and artist Yui Katoh has a blog up. It's been up for a little while now but I completely forgot to blog it. I have been remiss and now I make amends. Go to her blog, take a look at her pictures and then encourage her (with comments) to post some more because they are MARVELOUS: Yui Katoh.

Rik Abel has started podcasting and swears he will make a regular habit of it. Do we believe him? Who can tell? Here's what he has to say:

Although I love techno music I have never tried my hand at creating my own mixes, and realistically, I probably never will. Luckily, I have lots of talented DJ type friends who can do that kind of thing for me. So this is the first in a fairly regular series of podcasts where I will be piggybacking on the talent of these friends in order to bask in their reflected glory, and hopefully expose them to a wider audience. Because they really are very good, all of them. As I’m sure you will agree once you check out their mixes...

Read more, and more importantly, listen, here: Rik Abel.

There is a list of up-and-coming events in Kyoto that may be of interest to someone up here: Up-and-coming.

And then there is this, which if you haven't seen it is... well, it's got bunnies in it. What more can you possibly need to know? Bravia Bunnies.

I'm sleepy. Goodnight!

Kisui

2007-10-09T08:20:00.000-07:00

Nakano-kun and I went to his friend Setsuko's bar on Kawabata last Saturday and it struck me as very much a Deep Kyoto kind of place what with, all the hand-crafted Kyoto-style ceramics and all so I just had to blog it. Also she's kind of cute. Here's a pic of her and her brother, that I swiped off of a magazine cover (her brother runs a restaurant upstairs).

It's better than my pictures. My pictures look like this:

Oh dear. For more on that take a look here: Kisui.

Hot and Healthy (just like me)

2007-10-08T02:24:00.000-07:00

There's a fresh posting up on you know what which is not so much a review this time as just a guide to stores in Kyoto supplying organic food and other eco-friendly products: Natural Food!

Kotake-san is currently serving piping hot pots of tasty tasty nabe at Little Bamboo right now. And no-one is ordering it! I guess the weather hasn't been cold enough for rich autumnal broth just yet... because you know... THE WEATHER IS MAD. But I had a pot of vegetable nabe in a rich and creamy tomato sauce last night and it was swee-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet! I could barely walk afterwards I was so full but still - recommended!

And here's another "Crazy Clef" video from Saturday afternoon.

The End of the Day

2007-10-06T01:44:00.000-07:00

That's where I work, that is. Today was the final and busiest day of the school festival, and once again I was pretty impressed by the students performances. Particularly the choral performances by 1:2, 1:8 stood out for me and 1:9's rendition of songs from the Sound of Music was awesome (almost had a little teary moment there). I also went to see 1:11's exhibit on cloning and genetics and it made my poor little brain hurt. I was astounded by how much research they put into it though.

On the way home I encountered a Kyoto University accapella group: Crazy Clef. And I took a video, of which I'll share with you.

School Festival

2007-10-05T02:38:00.000-07:00

It's the school festival today at the Big Pink People Factory and despite it being my day off, I went along anyway, because I'd promised some students I'd go and see their show. I must admit I was really impressed by all the time and effort they had put into their various shows, performances and mini-exhibitions. If only, I thought, they put they put this much effort and commitment into learning English. Then my life would be so much easier... but, such things are not to be. (*sigh*) Regardless, it was a very pleasant day, although I did get a bit of a headache trying to read all the kanji in the mini-exhibits... I'll be going back tomorrow, to see the rest of my students or as many as I can see. Unfortunately, I won't be able to schedule every class in so I'm sure someone is going to feel aggrieved...

Fresh posts up on world-famous (to be) Deep Kyoto today. The first is on Earth Kitchen Company, a friendly little organic lunch-box shop on Marutamachi. And the second is on the rent-a-cycle/cycle-tour company Kyoto Cycling Tour Project. I got Taga-san to give me a short interview for that last post and the poor chap was sweating it a bit having to speak English on camera. The words "traffic congestion" especially were a bit of a hurdle. But the end result was he did very well indeed. Here's a wee blooper.

Free Burma

2007-10-04T03:03:00.000-07:00

I received this message from avaaz.org yesterday:

Dear friends,

Our emergency petition to stop the crackdown on peaceful protesters in Burma is exploding, with nearly 500,000 signers from every nation of the world. But the situation in Burma remains desperate, with reports of hundreds of monks being massacred and tortured. Burma's rulers have also killed and expelled international journalists, cutting off global media coverage of their cruelty.

China is still the key - the country with the most power to halt the Burmese generals' reign of terror. We're delivering our message this week with a massive ad campaign in major newspapers, beginning Thursday with a full page ad in the Financial Times worldwide, and in the South China Morning Post. The strength of the ad comes from the number of petition signers listed – can we reach our goal of 1 million signatures this week? The link to sign the petition and view the ad is below, forward this email to all your friends and family!

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_burma/u.php

China continues to provide key economic and military support to Burma's dictatorship, but it has been openly critical of the crackdown. Now we need the government to match words with actions. Our ad paints a powerful moment of choice for China in its relationship with the world – will it be a responsible and respected member of the global community, or will it be associated with tyranny and oppression?

People power, on the streets of Burma, and around the world, can triumph over tyranny. Our strength is in our numbers, spread the word!

With hope and determination,

Ricken, Paul, Ben, Graziela, Pascal, Galit and the whole Avaaz team.

For the best local reporting on the situation in Burma, try these links:

http://www.irrawaddy.org

http://www.mizzima.com

So if you haven't signed the petition yet, sign it now. Here's that link again: http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_burma/u.php

And tell your friends!

Some More Links For Ya

2007-10-02T05:57:00.000-07:00

My friend, Arch-Hippy Eric Mandala, sent me this mail today:

After decades of military dictatorship, the people of Burma are rising – and they need our help. ...I just signed a petition calling on Burma's powerful ally China and the UN security council to step in and pressure Burma's rulers to stop the killing. The petition has exploded to over 200,000 signatures in a few days and is being advertised in newspapers around the world, delivered to the UN secretary general, and broadcast to the Burmese people by radio. We're trying to get to 1 million signatures this week, please sign below and tell everyone!

And now I've signed it and so should you. Here's the link: Stand With Burma.

Julian Piggot sent me a link to this fascinating documentary on Robert McNamara, former US Secretary of Defence, and President of the World Bank. Watch this and learn about the decision making process behind the firebombing of Japanese civilians during WW2, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War. McNamara is an excellent speaker, a highly intelligent man and at some point he seems to have been involved in inventing the seat belt... He also clearly has a lot of blood on his hands. And I think he feels it too (though he won't admit it). Here's the link: The Fog of War. (Prego Jules)

And I found this game on BoingBoing and it's fun but pretty hard to do well. I played it as cynically as I could but just kept on bankrupting the company. I guess I'll never be a businessman. Play it online here: McDonald's Video Game.

Causes

2007-10-01T05:31:00.001-07:00

Here is something that is worthwhile signing if you are British. Here's brief preamble from the site to put you in the picture: "People in Britain use an average of 300 plastic bags every year. Each bag lasts up to 400 years, spending the vast majority of that time in a landfill site or strewn across the British countryside. People are becoming increasingly aware that we need to reduce our use of plastic bags. In Ireland, a tax of 15cents per bag resulted in a 90% drop in plastic bag usage, and raised 3.5 million Euros which was spent on environmental projects..." Makes sense, yes? Click the link to sign the petition for a tax on plastic bags in Britain: Plastic Bag Petition.

Now here's something else on this site: Free Burma. Apparently... "International bloggers are preparing an action to support the peaceful revolution in Burma. We want to set a sign for freedom and show our sympathy for these people who are fighting their cruel regime without weapons. These Bloggers are planning to refrain from posting to their blogs on October 4 and just put up one Banner then, underlined with the words „Free Burma!“."

Ok, so sympathy aside (of which I have heaps) what I want to know is, is this worthwhile? I mean, who really cares what bloggers think (apart from their mates)? Does the military junta in Myanmar care what bloggers think? Really? If I put banner up and don't blog for a day, will it really make a difference? At all? Or will I just be showing off my little bourgeois heart on my little liberal sleeve? Somebody give me a better idea of why I should do this. Please.

Cats

2007-09-30T05:54:00.001-07:00

It is said that no blog is complete until it has pictures of cats. Here's a picture of "Toro" sniffing "Chibi"'s ass.

Yay! Cats are great aren't they? More pictures up here: 彌光庵 I think that means "Increasing Light Hermitage" but I couldn't swear to that...

Obanzai! Cthulhu!

2007-09-29T04:06:00.001-07:00

Another fresh posting today on almost-but-not-quite-vegetarian Obanzai all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant. And here's a link to something quite hilarious. I so want one of those. Now I'm going to eat pizza and watch a DVD. Supernatural in case you are wondering (the DVD not the pizza).

Deep Kyoto Madness

2007-09-28T03:41:00.000-07:00

I'm being terribly productive these days, dashing about the city looking for places to put on the sister-blog. Today I visted the temple/art gallery Hounen-In and then a cafe in the woods of Mount Yoshida named MO・AN. And if you click on those last two links you can read all about that. I've no time to say more about that here. I'm off out for a jog. I've recently become a jogging-fool, and am going for short runs every night come rain or shine. Strange...

Mid-life crisis?!

Funaoka "Yama"

2007-09-27T06:56:00.000-07:00

I went to Takeisao Shrine on Funaoka Yama today. It's called a "yama" which means "mountain" but it's really just a small hill. Actually, all the small hills around Kyoto are called "yama". Perhaps Kyoto people just can't bring themselves to admit how small their hills are. I think Oda Nobunaga (one of Japan's founding fathers) is buried on this particular mock-mountain. Anyway, the shrine is built in his honour and they have festival for him there too on October 19th. The shrine looks like this:

From the top of the hill, you can see out over the city but the views weren't so good today as it was cloudy. Here's the smaller Daimonji Yama (another hill) little brother to the bigger more famous Daimonji to the east of the city:

And after strolling round there, and listening to the little green tweety birds I went to Funaoka Onsen and had a super-relaxing time. And you can read all about that here: Funaoka Onsen

The Thick of It

2007-09-26T07:08:00.000-07:00

Up on Deep Kyoto today, a fresh posting on the famous folky peacenik cafe Honyarado.

My old friend Simon Blackwell wrote to tell me that there's a book of scripts out for The Thick of It, the political sitcom he co-writes, and thus he is listed as an author on Amazon for the first time - ever. And about time too! Simon tells me it's "an ideal Christmas gift for any relatives who love swearing". Now I was trying to find a nice funny clip on youtube with no swearing on it and I found quite a lot of funny ones but they all had lots of swearing. So no embedding I'm afraid. You'll just have to click here for a very funny (very sweary) clip. Or watch some episodes up here. Or order your book of scripts for Rude Aunty May over here.

Enough links for ya?

Betty's Pictures

2007-09-22T02:14:00.000-07:00

Mista Masuda was dj-ing at Weller's last night so I went along and pulled out my camera (as I do) and as I did so Betty was like "Let me play with that" so I did and she did and I'm not sure if she took all of these or if someone else was playing with it too but you know they didn't turn out half bad.

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Here's a short film about Dugong. They so cute!

And here's a site where you can take action to save the poor old sea-weed chompers.
TAKE ACTION

Devotion

2007-09-21T02:40:00.000-07:00

Here's the latest meditation from Hozouji:

It might be a little difficult to recognize because of the stylized calligraphy, but the “精進” here is the same shoujin we see in 精進料理; traditional Zen vegetarian cooking. Let’s take another look in kanji and romaji.

日々精進（努力）______ Hibi shoujin (doryoku)
未来と________________Mirai to
自分は________________Jibun ha
直せる________________Naoseru

精進 means “devotion”, devotion of one’s body and mind to living a pure life, and just to help us out, the writer has added 努力 or “endeavor” to clarify the meaning. In Buddhism this devotion is a process of self-discovery, of finding one’s true self and this seems to tie in with the 直せる at the end of the meditation. The idea is that you can “fix” yourself, or straighten yourself up. The key-word however, is right at the beginning: 日々－ “everyday”. If you want to break your bad habits and get some good ones, if you want to become a more fully-rounded person, there is no quick fix, you have to work at it and work at it every day. Now how to put that concisely? Here goes…

Day by day devote yourself to your endeavors
And one day
Your self
Can be made whole

As always anyone is free to make suggestions if they have a better take on this. I quite like mine though. :)

Here's some Talvin Singh:

2007-09-20T05:17:00.000-07:00

I had supper at Little Bamboo this evening and Kotake-san was asking me why I hadn't been blogging lately. What to say? I have been slacking off. And I have a huge back-log of stuff to write up and post up on Deep Kyoto too. Not to worry, I'm more or less free till Tuesday (Monday being a national holiday) so hopefully I can catch up.

Last night I went to NEGA・POSI to see my friend Okuda Satoko performing with a rather eccentric chap with a curiously shaved head named "Kasou no Takeo". They did a mixture of comedy skits and music and it was all very entertaining (and funny!) but I think they should have weighted it a bit more towards the music. I think that way, because the music was very very good indeed. Kasou no Takeo seems to be able to play every musical instrument imaginable. And when they sang together I was well.. (ahem!)- moved. Well, I've put a review up on Deep Kyoto of NEGA・POSI for you. And you can see a video clip there of Satoko singing her song "Ongaku" accompanied by the aforementioned eccentric on piano - (a bit of a rarity to see her singing hands-free as she usually plays the keyboards herself). Here's another clip to wet your appetite:

And you can also see a bit of the comedy up here - it's in Japanese but not so difficult to follow. The theme was 数える or "counting". Which doesn't sound very exciting - but it all depends on what you are counting, eh?

Something remarkable...

2007-09-16T01:58:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen this already, this is worth a look:

Animals at Play