hmm.. is this going to work?!

I feel I cant be out done by Torran and his photos, so am giving this a go! Although I cant be arsed for my hamster run computer to upload a photo, so Ill forget that!
Now here goes...! (This is Rose by the way!) (if you hadnt guessed by the exclamation mark overuse!)

nihon ni tsukimashita!

Hello,

I'm writing this from my very posh room on the 37th floor of the Keio Plaza hotel in Tokyo. I'm here for 2 days of 'orientation' (read drinking), then I head off to Miyagi, where my actual job is.

Don't worry, I'm not going to hijack the girton blog for all my Jap-ramblings. I'll set up a proper blog for it soon. Just wanted to let you know I arrived safe and sound. That's what the title means, btw.

Chris.

hello everyone,
this is a gratuitous post, i have no real news, i just like this blogging lark. the photos were cool, spo i put one of my flat up. it's quite big but i share it with one pete and two alices. anyway, i'm in london where it's painfully hot, which is great for everything except public transport. i'm applying for the soirt of interesting jobs that no one ever actually give you: film and tv research, travel writing, politcal journalism. BUT GUESS WHAT? no one's actually giving them to me!

so i may become a teacher and go abroad or something. vague plans to go to mexico with lou and tom and, of course, anyone else who's up for it. i need to make some money and get out of the country for a while anyway. should this ever actually occur i will let everyone know in case they want to come too.

HA! HA! HA! I've discovered the blogging secret!

After much pondering I realised it couldn't be too hard to upload some images and write somthing!

The pictures are of Howse peak in the Canadian Rockies and of Mike (my boss) on the summit. We climbed up the spur facing the camera over two days. It was pretty cool, we slept halfway up on a tiny ledge (we had to be tied in to the mountain so we didn't fall to our deaths). The climbing was quite scary as the rock often had the consistancy of stacked tiles; if you pulled the wrong one out there was a serious danger of it all falling down and killing you.

So at 3pm on day 2 we got to the summit. We made the 19th ascent since 1976 according to the summit register. The only names in there seemed to be famous climbers. We realised why this was on our descent; it took six hours and involved descent 3000ft on the wrong side of the mountain to tree line, then going up a brutally steep slope for two hours more to our desired col. From here we glissaded (like skiing but with no skis!) 3000ft to the forest. Since no one goes here we hiked for 2hrs through trailless bush to reach the highway. Unfortunately wire crossing the river had been taken out so we just waded through it (up to our waists). Oh, and we were so tired we kept our boots on so arrived on the highway sopping wet at 9:30pm. Thankfully some one decided it was a good idea to pick up two soaking wet climbers and take them to their car. Not much later we were sipping ice cold beer and eating ice cream.

Since then I've taken the advanced course from the centre up the highest mountain in the area Mount Cline. This was a good four days of instruction as they all know what they're doing and it was a cool climb!

Torran

och aye the noo

Too predictable? well I had to leave 'hoots mon' to pheobe. Thought I'd post a few thoughts from north of the border where, I have to say, it isn't 30 degrees plus and the sea mist is still rolling in. At least our grass isn't fried to a crisp. I am beginning to see where the scottish bitterness comes from.

I'm set up in a cosy little fishermans cottage on the edge of edinburgh, and if you head out along the harbour wall you can see the forth bridge, and over the way is the kingdom of fife which beams us digital telly we can pick up with an underwire.

Here is a pic of our street, you can't see our cottage (cos this photo is off the web, I'm too lazy to take my own!)



You are all invited whenever!