First port of call Ooshima island - 6AM. We spent the night sleeping on an open and windy deck in our sleeping bags.I slept surprisingly well.
〓Tracey〓

What is this?
〓Tracey〓

Too windy so our boat is cancelled. We are on the on the next boat at 10PM tonight. This is Rachel minding the luggage at the ferry terminal.
〓Tracey〓

Do I have to post a “this is not cat litter” sign in Kanji too?

I seem to have packed everything I own and attempting to carry it on my back! Dad had to help me put it on at home. Now just have to make the boat.
〓Tracey〓

I bet none of you did notice that smooth server migration (unless, that is, you were one of the poor fool who tried using either unknowngenius.com or wp-plugins.net during the past 5 hours). Everything should be back to normal now, please contact me if you notice anything broken…

Why’d I change?

While not exceedingly bad (compared to the worse I had), my former host, HostForWeb, really had sub-par uptime (2 or 3 failures a month on average), rather sluggish performances and downright asinine handling of the last DDoS attack on my server (upon seeing one single IP pulling my index page 50 times a second, they simply disabled my account in the middle of a week-end: that is just retarded)…

Renewing my contract for a year with HFW being out of the question, I went with Site 5 instead: they came heartily recommended and their rates for the amount of disk space (one of my biggest priority) is damn near incredible (I’m getting three times what I was getting on HFW, for the same price, and wasn’t getting such a crappy deal either). We’ll see if the rest is on par (so far, so good).

1.45AM just when I am trying to get home there are no taxis for
miles. Waited for 30 mins! Serves me right for going out the night
before a nationial holiday. /rant
〓Tracey〓

The lovely Belinda!
〓Tracey〓

The sharpest among you, dear readers, may have noticed a surge in guest moblogging in recent days.

Indeed, Tracey has joined the powerful ranks of our secret organization, with the established mission to bring a dearly missing element of femininity to these testosterone-drenched pages.

In sticking with the stakhanovist ideals that power this blog, and because no reward shall go undeserved, we promised her a formal introduction as soon as she’d reach the magical threshold of ten posts. Immediately prompting her to deliver, no hold barred, shocking accounts of:

• what she sees from her office window
• what she sees from her office chair…

As you can see, the girl means business…

As long as she leaves gardening up to me, we should be able to find our marks…

OK, she didn’t solely post photos of stacks of paper and urban street parking: she also posted a mug shot of her charming personal sex-slave assistant.

But well before the fascinating insights into the merciless world of a Tokyo power-exec, or even her interesting tidbits on colourful local customs, there is one major reason you should keep an eye open for her contributions: the off-chance of drunken posting featuring nudity and/or behaviours outlawed in at least 15 US states (and punishable by death in 4 of them).

Giving Tracey a cameraphone and moblogging access is a bit like these tv spots for lavish shower products, featuring people lasciviously soaping themselves while the camera always manage to keep the naughty bits tastefully off-frame: there’s that improbable chance the cameraman might one-day trip and show a nipple… a towel fall off unexpectedly… who knows…

Except here, the chances are much higher and the cameraman more likely to be drunk.

But please let that not distract you in any way from the quality of her more traditional contributions to these pages…

N.B: She also has her own dedicated page, where she might one day tell you more about herself. It’s here. At the moment, it only contains the official press kit excerpts, but will no doubt soon be updated with more personable tidbits.

YUMMY!!
〓Tracey〓

Kasumigaseki is the “Government district” where half of all Japanese ministries are located within blocks of each other (had to help Nordine get some papers sorted out at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs).
The whole place would make Oscar Niemeyer proud… and anybody else seriously depressed, even on a sunny day like today.
Haven’t seen a single casual atire in miles and half my ass is showing through my torn out jeans.

People busy working all day.
〓Tracey〓

I know it is a disaster area. Can somebody volunteer to help me file?
〓Tracey〓

My wonderful assistant Mika!
〓Tracey〓