Stories that are Bad News for Nova seem to be spilling out of the newspapers. First it was busted drug dealers, then Nova ripping students off, and now, it's a murdered teacher. So not only do we snort coke and steal from students, we fraternize with students which results in death.
Linsey Hawker was found dead on her balcony in a bath tub full of sand. I don't know why there was a bathtub on the balcony. The murdered would have had to have gone to a diy shop to get the sand, since soil type things are not exactly lying around the city. I had to go to a shop and buy a handfull of soil for a small plant - there are simply no openings into the ground, that's why people develop hay fever so easily here. I digress.
The police went to her "aqaintance's" apartment, Tatsuya Ichihashi, and he ran away barefoot from the fine young men of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Make what you will from that.
Luckily this story is a bit famous now so the police have to do something about it. Spare a thought for the poor man who's brother had his head stoved in and the police coroner put it down to "dehydration" and closed the case. No, the police are probably the least efficient part of Japanese society. Read that guy's story here.
Her father has made an appeal to the Japanese authorities, probably aware of how they handle cases like this. Read it here.
For what's it's worth (not much) I think that a student got obsessed with his pretty blond teacher. Her bag and things were found at his apartment, so maybe he persuaded her to go out for a drink. Either way he got into her apartment, probably confessed his undying love, she rejected him and he killed her. Some of our more attractive teachers have seen some pretty strange behaviour: the best, and scariest, one by far was the girl who turned around to see a man cycling, holding an umbrella above his head, and masturbating all at the same time. That's called The Multitasker.
Spring is here and summer felt like it was round the corner a few weeks ago, but now it's a little bit chilly. The blossoms may have been a bit retarded by the recent cold spell. Contrary to British news reports the blossoms are not fully out all over Japan. Here in Tokyo it's about 10%, if that.
The cold spell is good for the old snowboarding. I've been four or five times this winter. The last time a load of us went to Gala Yuzawa (spelling?) by taking the train from Ueno for about an hour. The powder was three feet deep and at one point swallowed me and my board for twenty minutes before I could extricate my self. I've heard that a guy lost his life that way last year somewhere in Japan: he thought it would be fun to go horsing into the cloudy powder off piste and never came back. Some say he rides the powder to this day... I think he fell into the deep snow and froze to death, and he probably thought his predicament was highly amusing until he realized he wasn't ever coming out, and that he hadn't told his friends the combination to their ski locker.
In other news: I finally handed in my resignation! I've got a month until I work out my notice, and then I'm free. More on this later.
