So I made it to 50

My birthday was an absolute blast.

The Damned were playing in Osaka. Their 35th anniversary tour, what better way for an ageing punk to celebrate? So we set off for an evening of reliving my youth, and I wasn't disappointed. The band were awesome, the audience entertaining, and the music better than I remembered.

It was massively entertaining, afterwards we decided to hunt for 'Club Rock Rock', a club Captain Sensible had announced that he would be frequenting after the show. It took some finding, but find it we did, and sure enough a couple of hours later in came the man himself.

You know, for one of the English Cultural Icons of my generation he was a 'damned' easy man to chat too, and very obliging with photo calls.

The party continued well into the night.

Where we made some new friends.

...and stayed way too late, only just catching the last train home, or in Bob's case - almost home. For some unknown reason he got off the train a stop early, failed to get back on in time, and got stuck a few miles from home. In the end he ended up hitching a ride from some strangers.

The next day Nara was kind enough to lay on a firework display and huge pyrotechnic display as they lit up the hill behind the temples. All for me!

And we're off again

This time to the land of the Eternal Blue Sky

We'll be leaving the Land of the Rising Sun in June and will start in Mongolia in August. It's cold there apparently. Ulan Batur holds the record as the coldest capital city in the world. Average temperature is 0c and currently it's a high of -17c and a low of -35c.

That said I am reliably informed that within 3km of our apartment complex the trails offer some of the best mountainbiking and trail running anywhere in the world. I just hope that is true. It's going to need a lot of new thermal running gear though to get me through the winter.