Today I noticed something a little strange near my work – a life-sized statue of a cow.

‘A statue of a cow’

‘A closeup of the cow statue’

I saw another one close by, so I decided to have a closer look…

‘Another statue of a cow’

‘Milk Tank’

It sounds like such a cliche, but it’s amazing how seriously some Japanese take cooking the perfect bowl of rice. A top-of-the-line rice cooker like the one shown below can be ￥118,000 – currently about AUD$1300!!!

‘A top-of-the-line rice cooker - AUD$1300’

‘Roppongi Hills at night’

‘Roppongi Hills at night’

Photos were taken December 2007.

Living in Tokyo has made me realise how many nice parks there are in Melbourne. There are definitely fewer in Tokyo, so we are quite lucky to live very close to one of the biggest – 新宿御苑 (Shinjuku Gyoen). The park has a few different styles, and is very popular on the weekends, especially during spring (cherry blossom season) and autumn (when the leaves change colour).

Here are some pictures taken in December 2007, when the leaves were changing colours. The rest of the photos are in this album.

‘Shinjuku Gyoen during Autumn’

‘Shinjuku Gyoen during Autumn’

My hard drive on my macbook failed a few weeks ago. I’ve resurrected the original hard drive (not the failed one) till I get around to buying a new one. Luckily I had backed up my photos the night before, so I didn’t lose anything really important. Yay for rsync!

I’m seriously considering getting a Time Capsule, since I need a wireless router anyway, and automatic wireless backups would be awesome.