Date: Fri Apr 26, 2002
Subject: Kyoto & my mobile email address

Hi there folks,

First I'd like to say thankyou to everyone who's written and said "Good luck" in the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately I've had heaps of trouble finding an internet cafe and now after 2 weeks I've found 58 messages in my inbox! So this is a big thanks to everyone.

I will try to return again later this week and actually write something about my experiences so far, but briefly...

Work is going well - suit, 40 hour work week and 1 hour commute and all. It's pretty fun, 90% of the students are really nice and I can expect a big pay packet each month to help me on my way to India.

Kyoto is beautiful. I feel so lucky that I was sent here, rather than Tokyo or Osaka or some other big mega-city or small country town. The city is surrounded by forested mountains, there are temples all over, and the people are really nice. There's also a pretty good Indian music scene that I'm gradually working my way into. So far I've played a couple of times with Christophe Rossi, a French sitar player of 8 years' experience who is also a Munna House regular in Varanasi. We plan to play every week.

As I said, it's not so easy for me to access this email address very often. I hope to check it once a week, with a 1 hour time limit at this free place I've found. BUT if you keen and friendly correspondents would like to keep in regular contact I have a mobile email address on my phone! It's [deleted as no longer relevant]. The main consideration is that you MUST send PLAIN TEXT ONLY, ie NO HTML or any fonts. Otherwise all I'll be able to read will be the subject line. This problem apparently happens quite often with hotmail, etc, so you'll have to work it out if you want me to reply. Also I'm quite busy except for my time on the trains each morning and evening, and anything I write will be tapped into a mobile phone, so don't expect long replies!

Other news is that the ESL website is STILL DOWN - bloody CheapHostOnline bastards - but they claim to be setting it right so hopefully soon it'll be back up again.

That's all for now,
Love to all,
Shen
Aum Mani Padme Hum