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The weather is perfect today. 

I have to work this evening, so never like going out far in case I am delayed and can’t get to work on time.  When the skies are blue I always feel obliged to be outside and enjoying the sunshine.

When the skies are grey and it rains all day, just like today, I have the perfect excuse to sit inside, do a little housework, and read the paper until it is time to go to work.  Perfect.

The rainy season is due to start here soon.  I think it rains for most of the month of June.  Hopefully we can think up some good rainy-day activities, or the month may be a long one.

I have been spending some time getting to know photopaint a bit better, as apparently it isn’t cheating to tweak ones photos just a little.  I uploaded a couple of shots to RedBubble and got TWO positive comments from other photgraphers.  Both far, far more talented than me.  What a lovely suprise! 

Definately have to quit my job and practice my photography now….

I wrote last week about not how lovely life is without hard work and responsibility. I couldn’t understand any need for investments and real jobs.

This week, I have discovered one reason. *Here*. Pretty, pretty camera that does lots of clever things.

I spend lots of my time outdoors with my camera in hand, photographing our days as they pass. More and more, I am finding our lovely little ixus just doesn’t seem to be able to see things the same way I do.

I know I am no highly skilled photographer, but I do happen to have the time to learn and I think I am slowly improving. I spend most of my time when I am indoors browsing Flickr, RedBubble and Daily Dose of Imagery, enviously admiring others’ skills. I want to be able to do this, and this, and this too.

So, basically, now that I have no real job and lots of free time, I have developed a hobby. Now that I have lots of free time, and no real job, I can’t afford to develop this hobby. EEegh. It doesn’t seem at all fair.

I think the only possible solution is for Patrick to either get himself a Canon sponsorship, or to go out and get a job!

I worked in Shimo-kitazawa today, its a really interesting little area, well known (apparently) for its restaurants and cafes.We will go back at some point for a non work related coffee and cake (or Ke-ki as we now know it). Sometimes is it good to be shoved out of my little comfort zone.

We had dinner with Michael at Kuchaina to celebrate his move to the Nice Side of Town and his Real Job which starts tomorrow. He might just remember us now, when he becomes one of them wealthy lot.

We were horribly boring and ordered exactly the same meal as last time. Although, every dish is just too good to remove from our order list, so we will have to just start eating more if we want to try anything else.

The best dish there is the mysterious-small-sweet-roast-potato-dish. I took a photo, but unfortunately not until after we had finished it, so it doesn’t convey quite how nice it was. …or maybe it does really..

The potatoes are tiny, but orange on the inside and sweet. They are also perfectly round… I have never come across any round or tiny sweet potatoes before. I am trying to convince Patrick to get a job there so we can learn the secrets of their kitchen. They also make a salad of lettuce, seaweed, silken tofu, kaiware sprouts and miso-and-something dressing. Yum. So healthy and still really tasty.

After dinner, we walked up to Shinjuku southern terrace in search of some Ke-ki. We found yet another place that closes early and so herded us out the door before we were ready, but before they managed to do so, they served us our best Ke-ki yet. I think the coffee also beat our $5 Omotesando latte, but it may take a little more research to make that final descision.

The restaurant felt like Melbourne, it was Italian style, had outdoor seating, and most importantly - big Ke-ki. The cake was life size, fresh, and as rich as Ke-ki should be. MMmm. We also had an unimpeded view of Takashimaya Times Square and the DoCoMo clock tower from where we were.

I took another bunch of awful photographs, I don’t know what is going wrong. I think I might have accidently selected the “shit photo” option in the menu somewhere… must find it and set it back.

I walked to work this afternoon because it was such a nice day.  I have decided that my favourite sound in the entire world is the sound of the breeze rustling through trees.

It was very, very hard not to just sit myself down under a tree in the park and stay there for the afternoon.

Yoyogi park is always full of people engaging in all sorts of interesting activities.  There are the usual few people napping in the sun, but most people are hitting about a shuttlecock, tossing a ball or practicing some sort of dance routine.  There is also always at least two or three people sitting in the flowerbeds taking macro photographs of the flowers.

I don’t remember ever seeing so much activity going on in Melbourne parks, it makes it a really fun place to be.  Patrick and I need to go and buy ourselves some baseball gloves so we can throw our baseball around in Yoyogi park.

Life is too good here.  Only one of us need work, and only on a rather small schedule at that.  If we were more organised, I am sure we could arrange for both of us to work just a tiny bit and still be able to live here comfortably.  We are admittedly very bad at sticking to any sort of budget, so we do tend to spend more than we have, but that would happen no matter how much we were earning…  We will get better at budgeting eventually.

It makes me begin to wonder if life ever needs to really be any different.  Do we need to focus on work and property and investments for our future, or should we be satisfied to do as we please and arrange our work to suit?

There are plenty of people who would never have the option to do anything other than work too hard and live from paycheck to paycheck, who will never own a home or have any investment or financial security.  If these people don’t have the option of developing any sort of finacial security, why is it that we should base our own life around doing so?

There seem to be far too many interesting things to see and do and study in the world to spend so much time working, and then being tired from work.   

I guess the main incentive for the properties and investments and financial security is for supporting children… I don’t quite know how we will ever fit them into our nice lifestyle.

Maybe it is just a phase I am going through…

Patrick won his second competition this afternoon, I think he might be getting a little tired of all this easy winning.  His next competition should be next week some time, possibly he could run backwards just to spice it up a little.

On the way to school this morning it was horribly muggy and uncomfortable.  I was already much too warm and flustered by the time I reached the station.

Unfortunately I discovered later it only reached 21 degrees today.  It definately didn’t feel like 21 degrees.  I am going to die when summer really comes.

I did manage to avoid another Childrens class today which was a rather close call.  I made a little bit of a fuss in doing so though, and it brought attention to the fact that I never teach any kids.   I think I might have to start doing some kids teaching to keep the all-powerful ones happy.  Scary, scary thought.

There is one small kinder age child that never speaks, just cries on occasion, so I may try that class first.

We have convinced Michael to move into our building next month, so we gave him a tour of Yoyogi after work this evening.  We looked forward all week to taking him to our previously favourite barbecue restaurant for dinner, but we were refused a table upon their sighting our not so Japanese looking faces.  A little disappointing.

Luckily we were warmly accepted into our favourite Chinese restaurant around the corner so we happily stuffed our faces there for a total bill of under $40. 

We were supposed to go and watch a baseball game this evening, but completely forgot until it was too late.  Bugger.  Time goes too quickly here to get anything organised sufficiently.

I have discovered another excellent thing about my schedule.  If someone works from Monday to Friday, they work all the way from the beginning of the week (Monday) to the end of the week (Friday).  On my schedule, however, I work only from the end of the week (Friday) to the beginning of the week (Tuesday).

Sounds much less!  Lucky me.