The other day I stepped off a plane from Bangkok, which is listed in my mental guidebook as "hot and sticky, take lots of deodorant", and was instantly turned by even higher temperatures - there is evidently a freak heatwave going on here, possibly a side-effect of too many indiscriminately slaughtered dolphins - into a towering column of fetid sweat. Not helped by the fact that Japan has gotten all eco-friendly recently (except where aquatic mammals are concerned) and has lost the fine art of turning the air-conditioning all the way down to "Siberian".

Naturally I soon needed to replenish lost bodily fluids which had just been forcibily egressed into that frightening zone between skin and clothing, but as I was going directly to the office I didn't want to appear too relaxed and chilled-out from a few well-deserved days away lest it cause civil unrest. So what better way to take on board liquid without causing a positive change of mental state than with "Calpis Soda - Refresh Zero"?

(German, or Swiss German, which is apparently a closely related language, though they would probably say something more like "rätle mal wo isch bin",  for "guess where I am").

Hint: not in Tokyo :)

It appears that Tesco has changed its mind and the  store opening down the road will, possibly in a misguided attempt to upstage 7-Eleven, be open 8 - 12 (aka midnight).

After more than two years in Japan it is starting to feel just like the old country. Even the local supermarkets are becoming strangely familar, such as this one ...

... currently in the process of opening just down the road from Penguin Heights - though the signage is still a bit exotic ...

Let's hoping let's hope they manage to get the interior signage spelt correctly.

One thing is for sure: in Tokyo parking space is not only at a premium horizontally, but also vertically. This Mercedes owner no doubt takes very good care of his or her tyre pressure:

Seen in Shibuya.

... at least that's my theory. You see, Mrs. Penguin, bless her romantic soul, booked me in for a Japanese-style comprehensive checkup (健康診断, kenko shindan) on February 14th. Not having experienced one before, I had high hopes it would involve an attractive Japanese nurse prodding me gently in various places before giving me a clean bill of health and possibly a giggly, whispered confession that it is true what they say about foreigners.

However, this turns out not to be the case (the bit about the nurse I mean). It is apparently some kind of three hour ordeal, highlight of which is drinking a large amount of barium (what!?), presumably so the doctors can see what you look like with a large amount of barium inside you.

Also, there were some preparations to do beforehand. Samples. I won't go into details, as some of them are quite disgusting, but three day's worth of phlegm (痰, tan) globules were required. Now, to be honest, phlegm is not something I have ever been asked to provide before, in fact I only had a vague idea what it was (something smokers cough up?) but apparently it lurks in my lungs. So, according to the detailed instructions which came with the whole package all I have to do is very carefully expel some into the test tube provided. So I spent a good ten minutes wheezing and coughing and straining and produced a wonderful sore throat. And pained larynx and strained bronchial tract.

Next evening the same, at which point I made an executive decision to sod that for a game of soldiers as I can't give them what I don't appear to have. Though maybe it's a misunderstanding and tan one of those things unique to Japanese people (possibly related to the inability to blow their noses).

Now, the next evening, the one before the checkup, was extra special because you are not allowed to eat or drink anything (even water) after 9pm. Dutifully I followed these instructions, though as I felt a teensy bit of a sore throat coming on I had to sneak in a few cough sweets to help me get a good night's sleep.

And woke up in the morning (Sunday) at around 5am, dehydrated with a fever terrible cough searing through my bronchial tract and barely in a condition to go to the bathroom, let alone leave the house. Which I have done just twice since Saturday (both times a couple of hundred metres to the nearest convenience store), and as an added bonus have barely been able to speak as any attempt sets off a spectacular coughing fit.

I may even have coughed up the odd microgram of tan. General Pyrrhus would have been proud.

Looks like we had our annual dusting of snow last night. It lasted longer than last year's pathetic flurry, though it had pretty much all gone by the afternoon.

Recently my mailbag has been overflowing with plaintive mails along the lines of "Dear Penguin, when will you start blogging again?". Well actually it isn't, though as one of my email accounts is mylastname@majoremailprovider.com I've been getting an increasing amount of emails addressed to other people who happen to share my surname, including an intriguing invitation to join the University of Iowa GraDykes Facebook group.

I digress. Work has been keeping me busy, and when I'm not busy I try to spend as little time in front of the internet as possible, as that is what occupies most of my day. And, tragically, this blog is not entirely anonymous, which means unlike more prolific work bloggers such as Foreign Salaryman or Green-Eyed Geisha I am not really at liberty to blog from the rich vein of juicy stories from the fascinating world of business life in case someone gets wind of the fact that I am lampooning them on a public website. (I may or may not have a totally other, completely anonymous blog for that purpose).

However I think I can share with you, dear reader, this slightly long-winded anecdote which might be mildly amusing if you are familiar with Japanese business etiquette, and if not please bear with me while I try to explain it as I go along. (If you are easily distracted, now might be a good time to go and follow someone on Twitter or whatever it is the young people like to do nowadays).