Didn't realise how long it had been...

Anyone still here? :D

Just to let you know...

I'm not dead!

Yay!

Bwahaha!

:D

Blast from the past!

Heeheehee! Sorting through some old drafted emails today, I discovered this from last year!

It was supposed to have been posted sometime mid June, but somehow slipped through the net!

Aaaaaaaaaaaah! Takes me back to Japan! LOL!

Anyway, on with the post...


Ta Da!!!

Back to plain old blogging on Aliental now that I've more or less finished my Japan blog http://aliental-in-japan.blogspot.com and my photos over at http://www.flickr.com/photos/aliental - Still got a bit of tidying up to do on both of them (Going to add some pictures on Aliental in Japan if I can do it without screwing up the layout and still have titles and descriptions to add for most of the photos on Flickr)

Feel free to have a look and point out any glaringly obvious mistakes I've made. There's bound to be a few...hehehe! :D

By the way, has anyone else had any problems with their blogs recently? It seems to take a few days after posting before they show up on the site when it used to be instantaneous and the text telling you how many comments for a post there are no longer reflects the correct number.

Anyway back to what this post was originally going to be about before I started ranting...

While I was in Japan I was intrigued to know who the people were that appeared on the ¥1000, ¥5000 and ¥10,000 notes (Series E for those who really know their Yen)

I asked Phil:

Me: "Hey Phil, who are the people on the ¥1000, ¥5000 and ¥10,000 notes?"

Phil: "(O_o)???"

I even asked Akimi at Brian Brew:

Me: "Hey Akimi, who are the people on the ¥1000, ¥5000 and ¥10,000 notes? Is the one with the strange hair Brian?"

Akimi: "(O_o)???"

Yes I know that Akimi look s exactly like Phil, but you try and do any better using only the characters that you find on a standard keyboard. If you're that bothered print the page up and draw longer hair and a hat on the second face.

After extensive research (Ok. I came across it by accident in a guide to Sapporo that I'd picked up in the tourist information hut in Odori Park which also had a very useful bit about Hokkaido only dialect!) I find out who these elusive people are and introduce them to you below:


¥1000 - Hideyo Noguchi: A prominent bacteriologist who discovered the agent of syphilis disease in 1911.

¥5000 - Higuchi Ichiyō: Is the pen name of author Higuchi Natsu (also known as Higuchi Natsuko)

¥10,000 - Fukuzawa Yukichi: An author, writer, teacher, translator, entrepreneur and political theorist.

...So there you have it. It wasn't Brian of Brian Brew fame after all.

Anyone interested in Yen in general can find out some amazing facts (like the existence of a ¥2,000 note (Released as Commemorative series D) and that the ¥500 coin is made up of 72% copper 20% zinc and 8% nickel) on the Wikipedia page below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yen

P.S. If anyone has a ¥2,000 note that they wouldn't mind parting with (in exchange for cash of course!) I'd love one for my collection!

:D

Aliental!

The header for Aliental.com!

:D

Happy New Year! :D

Tadaima!

Yes, I'm back! WoooHoo!

Hopefully this year I'll get around to updating this on a more regular basis. Don't hold your breath though...

Anyhoo, what have I been up to? You may ask (you might not care, who knows?)

Well...

1. Bought some space on a server and with the help of Phil, I am currently in the process of constructing a website which will be used primarily for my artwork (which was all going to go on here many moons ago! Hahaha!)

Only a holding page at the moment, but you can go and bookmark it now! Heeheehee!

http://www.aliental.com

2. Not sure if I mentioned it here before (frankly I can't be bothered to go and look) but I also have a page on MySpace. If you're a member of that then feel free to drop by and add me!

http://www.myspace.com/aliental

3. Er...That's about all worth mentioning actually....If you can think of anything else I could put then let me know.

Plans for 2007

1. Probably be returning to Japan at some point. At a rough guess I'd say around May time again. Would love to go back to Sapporo and maybe Osaka. Or maybe Kyoto. Or Tokyo again...Aaarrrggghhh! I can't decide. Maybe I should just move there.

2. Try and finally get around to doing some of the things that I'd like to do. Not just artwork, but clothing, music, sculpture, soft toys and other 'stuff'

3. Spend some quality time learning Japanese!!! (I'm such a slacker!)

4. Revamp the look and feel of this and my Aliental in Japan blog (http://aliental-in-japan.blogspot.com) Mainly to try and get some kind of uniform look and feel to everything that I do online, but also (in the case of the Aliental in Japan blog) to correct some terrible spelling and some blindingly obvious mistakes that I discovered while checking through a version that I printed up! (>_<)

5. Learn to knit (ok, you can stop laughing...)

I'm sure there was something else on the list but I can't remember. I also can't find the list.

Bugger.

:D

Not Dead!

Hey!

Just a quick post to let everyone know that I'm not dead! (phew!)

Just been a bit busy lately, but hopefully I'll be back posting stuff soon!

Hope everyone is well!

:D

Congratulations!

Congratulations to Princess Kiko and Prince Akishino on the birth of their new baby son!

:D