Another thing you can make in the toaster

I've been getting a bit creative in the run up to Christmas. It seems probable that Jo, Thom and I will be cooking Christmas dinner for the masses with two gas rings, a toaster oven and a fish grill, and faced with these daunting odds, I thought I'd better do my homework before it got to 8pm on Christmas day with me desperately trying to squeeze a turkey into our 30cm by 15cm toaster.
We were talking about Christmas desserts at work today, soiling student files with dribble as we dreamed about Christmas cake and sticky toffee pudding. I came home and looked up a recipe online. Sticky toffee pudding - uuuhhhh. Guessed the weight of the ingredients, made a few of them up completely, threw the whole lot into a takeaway tray wrapped in tinfoil (Granny would be horrified) and stood well back. It's bloody gorgeous.

Things I've learnt this week

1 - You can travel 5000 miles away from the UK and still be tortured by Slade and George Michael every time you step into a shop in November and December.

2 - Japanese christmas cards, when you get them home and read the messages, are more like Valentine's cards.

3 - Christmas dinner will be cooked this year by people who admit they can't cook. Duck and cover, everyone.

4 - If you start reading a Scottish book (The Pure Land, by Alan Spence, about Thomas Glover) written in vernacular Scots, you will revert to an impenetrable Scottish accent unintelligable to anyone other than your own countrymen. Gonnae no dae that, ken?

5 - I really need to study more. I went to a meeting at my new school, Shioji, where I talked at in Japanese and every word I thought I knew flew out of my head. So I said, "?" and it was really impressive. I need to study more.

Mrugh. And brr.

It's suddenly got baltic. I came home to find Auzzie flatmate sitting in front of the two-bar heater wearing a jumper, bodywarmer and gloves. "How can it be this cold?" she asked mournfully. I didn't have the heart to tell her it would only get colder.
Went to an ace bar on Saturday night with Damien. It's only 10 minutes away from my house but I'd never been there before. I'm definitely going back.
My birthday was on Sunday. Weird, I am now 25. Gah. Cue existential crisis, or something like that. It seems to be the done thing.
Monday was my birthday drinks out at good old ten dollar bar in Fushimi. Lots of people came out, then lots of us headed to karaoke afterwards. Crimes against music were committed for several hours. I do apologise. Someone even tormented us with the music from Aladdin. The horror, the horror. We left at 5 a.m. Work on Tuesday was not a pretty sight.
On Wednesday me, Jo, Darius and Yumiko watched some kickass jazz at Hadows. Even better, Darius knows the guy who owns the restaurant, and he sent us free wine, scallops, dessert and coffee. On top of this, I got a bottle of wine because it was my birthday (or close enough). I feel like I have to go back there and order expensive things off the menu to make it up to the owner.
Thursday night, a goodbye drink for Loretta who's going back to Canada soon. I forgot how much I dislike the Elephant's Nest. 500 yen for a Coke? Pah.
Tonight - dinner with Kate. I should've said no and had a night off, but when have I ever been able to do that? We're going to somewhere called Elvis, in Tommacho.
Tomorrow- collapse in a little heap. Please.

Travelling at breakneck speed: part 7

Saturday, October 28th.
After the izakaya in Shinjuku, we head out to the all-night onsen by the river. It's a genius idea - for a very reasonable price you can bathe, get a massage, snooze in the huge shared 'relaxation rooms', drink beer, get a facial, etc etc. So that's exactly what we do. We choose our yukata (bathrobe/kimono) and stroll around the mock-up Edo period shops and restaurants. It's a bit trippy. The baths are relaxing, if a bit communal. Thankfully men and women bathe separately. Different temperatures, different types of water. I'm sure one of them is sulphur. Hot baths, cool baths, jacuzzi. Outside there is a shared foot bath, more like an obstacle course for your feet. Odd shaped pebbles pound your feet as you walk around the bath. Drunk young salarymen squeal and nearly fall in the water.
After ramen we retire to a 'relaxation room', pull out a mat and grab a couple of hours' sleep. Up again at some inhuman hour, five or six, I have blotted the horror of the exact time from my mind. We take the train through the city to Tsukiji fish market. The city is peaceful and quiet, and I can nearly see the value of getting up so early. Nearly. We pass people carrying rectangular wicker baskets full of fish as we get closer. The market is crowded, full of people, and I feel like I'm about to be squashed at any second by one of the tiny flatbed scooter type things used to zip boxes of fish around the market. Huge tuna get sliced up in front of us. Lobsters look mournful. One spirited fish escapes from a fishmonger's grasp and makes a bid for freedom before being wrestled onto a chopping board. It is decapitated with one dull thud. After the sight of all this gleaming fresh sashimi, we head for McDonalds.
The Dali exhibition in Ueno is great. I love Dali. I have a lot of respect for any artist who has technical skill and isn't afraid to use it. I also like that he doesn't take himself too seriously, and bothers to gives his paintings titles. "Untitled," a grey splodge on a blue canvas, would set my teeth on edge. Instead Dali gives me an exquisitely detailed picture of two cellos ferociously attacking a bedside table. It is called, "Two Cellos Ferociously Attacking a Bedside Table." Does exactly what it says on the tin.
Off to Senso-ji, a big temple with a nice arcade of touristy shops to browse for inflatable swords and cross-eyed waving cats.
Then there's just enough time to cruise down the river on a boat, and the motion sends me to sleep. We hang out in a park for an hour to get some sleep under a tree. One of the funniest things I've ever seen: a baby, not older than six months, sitting on grass for the first time. Look of incomprehension on her face, replaced with shock and curiosity as she puts her palm on the grass and pulls it away quickly, freaked out by the texture. She puts her hand out again and again, not quite knowing what to make of the prickly feeling. Eventually she laughs.
Ginza, the final stop, just enough time for coffee and a cake before we part ways and I get on the Shinkansen back to Nagoya. It was so nice to see Dad and Ishbel again. I'm also a little glad to get my life back and reset my alarm to 9 a.m.

Travelling at breakneck speed: part 6

Friday, October 26th.
Off to Hakone. The exact route is lost in the mists of time. I am adept at sneaking onto trains behind Dad and Ishbel. They have JR passes. I, as a resident (not a tourist) do not. But two JR passes flashed at the gate by two parental-looking types followed by a scruffy younger type seem to satisfy the guards that I too am a tourist, and I too have a JR pass. I will probably burn in hell. Ho hum, twas ever thus. Perhaps merely a light plague of boils for defrauding the Japanese public transport system. Tell you this though: I reckon I've saved at least £300 in the past week.
Main line train, local train, funicular, cable car. I've been on more obscure stretches of the Japanese transportation network in the past week than I would ever have suspected possible. In the cable car we are theoretically passing over a vast valley, lined with trees just starting to show their autumn colours. We should be able to see Fuji-San. It is so misty we can't see the cable ten feet in front of us. Darnit. The cable car stops, the door opens, we all make faces. It stinks of sulphur. This is a volcanic region; well, pretty much all of Japan is volcanic (or on a fault line, or about to drop into the ocean - makes you wonder why early settlers bothered, they could've just stayed in China and admired the fireworks from a distance) but this a particularly unstable part. Hot gasses steam from the ground. Pools bubble. It makes me think of the Bog of Eternal Stench in the film Labyrinth. We buy hard-boiled eggs cooked in the sulphur pools. The shells are black. They're pretty tasty.
We optimistically wait for Fuji-San to emerge from the mist, but it isn't happening. It's baltic. I buy hot chocolate and wait for Dad to accept that he isn't going to see Mount Fuji. We go back down the cable car, funicular and local train, hop on the Shinkansen, and head for Tokyo. I have a pocket full of tickets. I've been buying the shortest ticket possible to get onto the train and coming out of the station sneaking behind Dad and Ishbel. My caution has paid off - as we come into Tokyo the more vigilant Tokyo train guards look at the JR passes. I turn off to find a fare adjust machine and pay for the full ticket from Hakone to Tokyo. A pretty short trip.
We head for the Government metropolitan building for a good view of Tokyo at night. Cities always look good from this angle, at night, from above, and Tokyo doesn't fail the test. After that we wander around for a while and end up in an izakaya in Shinjuku a stone's throw away from an Irish pub I remember from my visit last year. I make a mental note of its location (Dubliners, turn left, the alley opposite Wendy's) to come back here at new year. It's tiny, and we are practically nose-to-nose with the chefs behind the counter. This makes it difficult to avoid eating the mysterious root and raw quail egg salad we are presented with. The bacon and asparagus skewers more than make up for it.

Travelling at breakneck speed: part 5

Thursday October 26th.
Up and out to the Kiso valley. The air is cool and sharp in the mountains, the light different. It's quiet and peaceful. We walk along an old post road, 8km from Magome to Tsumago. The old towns are quiet (apart from the swarms of high-school kids on outings - in fact, in the past week I've seen so many kids on school trips I wonder if there are any doing any work at all) and retain their old-town atmosphere. We eat lunch near a waterfall, take lots of pictures, and admire the variety of insects that leap out of the meadows to greet us. I've never held a stick-insect outside of Mr. Scott's primary 6 class. We pestered it for a bit (for that is the lot of stick-insects, to be pestered by teachers and kids), then put it back in the grass.

Travelling at breakneck speed: part 4

Wednesday, October 25th.
Well rested, I go to meet Dad and Ishbel at Ozone station. They've been trying to get me on my phone for the past hour but my phone is not co-operating. Change of plan, we're going to Kyoto. Back to Nagoya station, and it's packed. More than usual, in fact, there are hundreds of teenagers sitting on the ground like a spotty carpet. This is weird. I ask someone what the problem is. "Accident," he shrugs. That either means a train crash or a suicide. At the tourist information the lady behind the counter elaborates. "Someone, ehh, dive. No, wrong word. I don't know." A suicide, then. The Shinkansen has ground to a halt but the local trains are still running so we take the slow train to Kyoto instead. On the way we see five Shinkansen trains stopped on the tracks. The whole network is in chaos. It's nearly twelve, the boards at the station were still showing trains for eight thirty.
We get to Kyoto, eat some Takoyaki (yum yum, octopus balls) and head out to Sanjusangen-Do, a temple with 1001 statues of Kannon the goddess of mercy and Japanese cameras. The temple holds an archery contest every year where archers have to shoot the length of the building - take it from me, it's a long building. "I did that," a middle aged man says, nodding at the archery display. "Very difficult. Big kickback."
From there to Fushimi-Inari Taisha. It has four kilometres of tori gates up the hill, and we get there just as the sun is lowering and it makes the tori glow. You remember at the end the film Memoirs of a Geisha Sayuri runs along a path lined with red gates? That's here.
Back to Nagoya for a night off - aah. Relax.

Pay day

Wednesday, November 15th.
Payday - I can finally get a haircut. It's the same as before, only without 5 months' worth of split ends.
Tower Records throws up a couple of gems. At the first listening post, first random CD choice, 20 seconds into the first song, I decide I need the Fraterellis in my life.
I also buy Joanna Newsom, mostly on other peoples' recommendations. Bjork with a harp. I like her songs, but don't like the ultra-high squeak that sometimes begins the start of a line: only bats and dolphins can hear you, love, and my earwax has melted.
Tonight is Nomihodai night at Redrock. Yo ho ho and a quart of gin.
Monday is my birthday night out in Fushimi. I live in terror of no-one turning up. (Probably) irrational, but there you go.

Other thoughts

November 14th.
It's a year since I first came to Japan on holiday. Autumn is my favourite season in Japan, not just because Japan is beautiful and cool. This is when I first came here, this is what if felt like and looked like when I first arrived. When it first got chilly it felt like November 2nd, 2005, arriving in Tokyo from Bangkok and thinking, "brr, it's cold, but I like it. I could live here."
November 15th 2005 I flew back home. I think I'll head home again at the end of March 2007. I like it here but I'm starting to miss home. I never thought I'd say that.

Travelling at breakneck speed: part 3

Tuesday 24th October.
Back on the bus, down the funicular, down the switchback, down the local trainline, all the way out to Osaka then out to Himeji. Through the train window I watch bits of Osaka flash between the towerblocks. I've been here twice and liked it a lot, it's a good city to hang out in. I think it would be a good place to live.
Himeji castle is every bit as impressive as the photos look. It's enormous. On the way in I see a souvenir shop and say, "a cheap crap shop! Let's look at the cheap crap!" and a passing Japanese guy smiles to himself.
I kind of wish they would put stuff in Japanese castles, they're awful bare on the inside.
After we tour the castle, we head back to Nagoya. Bed calls.

Travelling at breakneck speed: part 2

Monday October 23rd.
Ghastly early morning people Dad and Ishbel make me get up at sparrowfart, and we yawn onto trains and wind our way to Koya-San. I suddenly understand why everyone in Japan lives on the flat land around the coast; the hills are covered with shadowy bamboo jungle. It's enough to make anyone put down his machete and say, "we're moving to the coast. I don't care if we have to live in a shoebox."
The sun waves through the windows all morning, but as we get closer to Koya-San the sky clouds over and it feels chilly. From the train onto a local switchback, then onto a funicular, then finally a bus to twist the last few kilometers into the town. It's a huge relief to be able to walk about and get some space. The streets are filled with temples and shrines. This has a major centre of Japanese Buddhism for over a thousand years.
We check into our lodgings at Shojoshin-in, a working temple complete with monks and early morning prayers and vegetarian food. The rooms overlook a small garden wedged between the back wall of the temple and the cliff-edge of the hill behind it. Carp swim in the pond. The maple leaves are starting to turn. It's so peaceful it makes me nervous.
We walk around town and check out a few temples. I had been suffering from temple fatigue but it's always nice to go to one with someone who's never seen one before. Incense; huge buddha statues; the statues of the bodisatvas carrying flaming swords and scourges with which to convert the unbelieving (and you thought this was a peaceful religion); gold gold gold and shiny black lacquer; money clinking in offering boxes. Toto, we're not in the Church of Scotland any more.
Dinner is a traditional style Japanese meal in a huge tatami room, served on short-legged lacquered tables. A huge amount of food presented in dainty dishes. Mostly delicious apart from the weird spongey-thing in soup that inexplicably reminds me and Dad of Granny Mary's cake.
A creepy walk through a huge, misty graveyard in the dark spooks me silly, and it takes a long soak in the bath (big, wooden and shared, of course. This is Japan.) to get the chill out of me.
I am not suited to getting up early. We watch the monks perform a ceremony for ancestors at 6.30 and I try not to yawn. It is interesting to watch, but just too early. Breakfast comes in an absurd amount of dishes again. I feel for the poor soul who has to do the washing up.

Travelling at breakneck speed: part 1

Sunday October 22nd.
Raced from work at breakneck speed only to race back again five minutes later to pick up my mobile. Equipped with all my accessories, I scampered to the station. I love the Shinkansen - Kyoto is 45 minutes away. From there straight out to Kurama for a local fire festival, conveniently located in the back of beyond up a hill outside Kyoto. The train out there wasn't too busy but as soon as we pulled into the station we could see huge queues of people waiting at the station and being shoehorned onto the trains going back to Kyoto. On the main street people chanted, banged drums and jingled jingling things to scare away evil spirits. If I'd been an evil spirit (or a health and safety officer - same thing, I suppose) I'd have been more alarmed by the 8ft flaming torches spitting sparks and smoke. The men carrying the torches were wearing traditional Japanese grass sandals and loincloths. Brave souls.

Gomen, ne

Almost a month since I last posted, sorry about that. I get distracted by emails and the news. It's Thursday afternoon and I'm loafing on my bed with the windows open. There's a nice breeze and it's sunny outside. It's a year today since I first visited Japan, touching down in Tokyo and immediately thinking 'bloody hell, it's baltic.' I remember thinking it was all so cold, clean and quiet compared to the insanity of Bangkok.

Hobbity photos

Not really Hobbiton, just the Japanese equivalent Hide Folk Village.

Nagoya, Takayama and home again

Sorry it's been a while, but I am rather lazy you know. I am currently planning what to do with Dad and Ishbel when they get here, so I have to finish off my Tales with Mum sharpish.
After Kyoto, we headed back to Nagoya so I could go to work (fun fun), and Mum caught up on some much deserved relaxation time. Jo very kindly showed her around the dizzy sights of Nagoya for a day while I was working. On wednesday we headed up to Takayama for a day. We had to get up at sparrowfart to get there but it was worth it. The train ride up there winds through lush green mountains and quiet valleys, the scenery is beautiful. We hired bikes and rode around the city, and tried some of the local Hida beef for lunch. Melts in your mouth. We rode up to Hide (Hee-day) village - not a good idea up a huge hill in the blazing sun - but the old houses (taken from around Japan and huddled together in one easily tourist-accessible spot) gave an interesting sense of what rural Japan looked like before the 20th century. After the village we free-wheeled back into town and caught the train home, knackered. Mum's sunburn came out, and so did an incredible crop of hives brought on by mosquito bites. Ouch.
And those darned mosquito bites and hives kind of put a damper on the rest of Mum's holiday for her, as she didn't want to stray from the air conditioner.
It was great to see her, but it would have been nicer if she hadn't ended the holiday covered in lumps. Japan is a dangerous country.
Though it seems to have forgiven me somewhat lately. Since it's turned cooler, my skin has calmed down dramatically. This makes me very happy.

Here be dragons

The next day we got up early and tried to head to Kiyomizu-Dera, which I'd heard was beautiful. This was Sunday, and everyone in Japan had decided to come to Kyoto and walk slowly in front of us. We took the 206 bus in the wrong direction and went to Nishi Hongan-Ji instead. This was an ace temple, half of it was peaceful and soothing and half of it was bustling with people attending services.
After that we tried again to get to Kiyomizu-Dera. This time we had more luck with the buses and made it out there. We stopped for lunch at a cafe on the hill (best pastrami sandwich in Japan) then slowly meandered up the hill. I had been frothing at the mouth at our leisurely pace and getting lost, I don't have a lot of holidays here and I want to see things when I've gone to the bother of leaving Nagoya to see things. All this vanished when I got to the entrance of the temple in perfect time to watch a bizarre ceremony involving dragons. I have no idea what it means (or even what Chinese dragons have to do with Buddhism) but it was spooky, exciting and reminded me that watching dramatic ceremonies like this (eerily dressed priests, green and gold dragons, conch horns wailing) would have creeped the bejeezus out of ordinary people in the past.

Kyoto pictures

Bridge at Kamigamo-jinja.




Raked gravel at Kamigamo-jinja. Someone has too much free time on his hands.



Kawaii pose at Kinkaku-ji.

Kyoto

After Hiroshima we headed down to Kyoto. I was hoping to get there early and see some of the sights, but it wasn't to be. We loafed around too much, lingered over lunch in the Kyoto towers high above the station, and then got lost looking for our ryokan so it was 4 pm before we were ready to do anything. All the sights in Japan shut up at 5, so it felt like a bit of a wasted day. The Kyoto museum didn't shut until 7, so we went there and made up our own captions for the non-English labelled exhibits.
The next day we got up early(ish) and went to Kinkaku-ji, the golden pavillion. I like Kyoto as a city, but I hate the way it's so spread out. It takes forever to get to the places where you want to go, and travelling by bus is stressful. I always seem to miss my stop or get lost in this city. Kinkaku-ji was pretty, and I liked the way the scenery and gardens reflected Ginkaku-ji, the silver pavillion I visited when I came here in November. After that we went to Daitoku-ji (not much to see, unfortunately) and then headed to the botanical gardens (Mum choosing what to do, for a change) which bored the pants off me.
We stopped for a quick pint downtown then wandered around Gion, the old geisha district.

Miyajima Photos

This is a statue at Daisho-in, a temple up the hill on Miyajima.


More pictures of Daisho-in.
Outside restaurants and shops, you often see statues of big-bellied animals wearing big hats and holding sake bottles. They're supposed to be lucky but mostly look demented. I asked Takako what sort of animals they were supposed to be, and she said raccoon dogs. I'd never heard of raccoon dogs and assumed this was a mistranslation, but these are the real thing.

Miyajima photos

Caution, hungry deer

After a night tossing and turning on the thinnest futon in Japan, we got up and went to Miyajima, an island just south of Hiroshima. Itsukushima-Jinja (shrine) is famous for its 'floating' tori (gate). You can see why in the photos. The maps of the area proudly announce it is one of the three most beautiful views in Japan, which makes me wonder what the rest of the top three is (or the top ten, even) and who gets to decide. I like the idea of a group of Japanese scientists with clipboards standing on the end of the pier giving the view marks out of ten.
Just outside the station roam gangs of ravenous deer who pose photogenically for two minutes before trying to eat anything to hand. Cloth and paper also counts as edible. Green shirts, as my mum found out, are extremely tasty, and so are maps. One followed us halfway along the seafront, determined to get some of our icecream.
The island is gorgeous, peaceful, beautiful. I could have spent days there. Japan specialises in ugly cities, but the countryside is amazing.

Hiroshima pictures

This is the cenotaph. Looking through the arch, there is a casket containing all the names of the people known to have died in the bomb; the atomic flame (which will only be extinguished when the last atomic weapon on Earth is dismantled); and in the distance, the atomic bomb dome.



This is the atomic bomb dome, formerly a council building. It (mostly) survived the blast by being underneath the hypocentre. Everything else was reduced to rubble.

No more Hiroshima

My mum is out visiting　me just now, and it has been great to see her. Her flight was luckily delayed an hour so this gave me time to race from work and meet her at the airport. She was driving me crazy approximately twenty minutes later on the train asking every two minutes, "are we nearly there yet?"

On Wednesday we got the shinkansen to Hiroshima (a surprisingly nice city) and looked around the peace museum. This was horrifying, depressing, and made us wonder why on earth we go to museums such as these. Bizzarely I find myself becoming numb to places like this having been to the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, the war museum in Ho Chi Minh City, and the River Kwai memorial museum in Kanchanaburi. It`s strange that we feel the need to bear witness to war horrors while on vacation.
I felt sad and sickened by the fragments of clothes, skin and fingernails that families had clung to as mementoes of loved ones who died in the blast or the firestorms that destroyed Hiroshima. The copies of letters between members of the American war cabinet chosing which cities should be targets bewildered me. The process of war, the logistical details of exterminating as much human life as possible in the most economical way possible, always bewilders me.
Seeing the peace museum in Hiroshima and comparing the experience to other war museums I`ve seen in other countries is an odd feeling. There is no right side or wrong side, everyone is as brutal as everyone else, and ordinary people suffer the same everywhere.

Like an idiot child

I met up with Takako and her friend Azusa today for some high speed chat (Takako) and Japanese practice (Azusa). Japanese people tend to be kind and encouraging when it comes to foreigners' attempts at mangling/learning their language, but sometimes you have to put your progress (or lack thereof) into perspective. Japanese schoolchildren learn 10 kanji a day from their first day of elementary school. I know about 50 kanji. This puts me at the same reading level as a 6 year old after one week of elementary school.
I suspected I wasn't studying enough.

For what I promised myself was going to be a quiet week, I managed to get around quite a lot. My friends Kate and Toni abandoned Nova and so had to move out of their Nova flat pretty quick, they left the back end of nowhere and came to live just around the corner from me. They unpacked their futons and set about trashing the place and pissing off the neighbours with the best party I've been to in Nagoya. In fact, they pissed off the neighbours so much the police turned up. I met heaps of people there and wandered home at half past two in the pouring rain after a late-night icecream run. Sweet potato icecream is pretty tasty.
Not wanting to be outdone, Shannon moved out of his flat down the road from me and joined the hoardes in the gaijin ghetto, Freebell, and set about trashing the place and pissing off the neighbours with another great party. I wasn't in the mood for that one so much - it felt like there were too many people and I couldn't be bothered with them all. A lot of the same people were at both parties, including Sian, who invited me to hers for drinks on Sunday. That night was a nice change, just a small group of people I knew well and it was easier to chat and have a laugh together.
Finally, I have just survived Mitchell's party last night. Mitchell is one of the guys who works at my new school, Jusco Atsuta. Mitchell seems to know every skater in Nagoya. Lots of Japanese people at that party optimistically asked if I could skate, or speak Japanese, but I had to confess I could do neither. Some Japanese girls asked me if I had a boyfriend, and when I said no they started trying to set me up. With Iain. It was pretty funny.
Now I have a night in the flat by myself, and it is goooood.

Surprise me

Lisa rocks. Not only is she coming out to see me at Christmas, she also sent me this ace Camera Obscura t-shirt. Lisa, we love you.

Supersize me

I found some great restaurants this week - or rather, my Japanese friends found these great restaurants and took me there in a bid to wean me off my diet of Doutor sandwiches and Ministop salads. Last Thursday I went to the Orchid Garden with my flatmate Donna, Takako, and 3 of her friends - Yoko, Noriko and Keiko. In the daytime the orchid house is open to the public, and in the evening the patio-style restaurant comes alive. It's set in a beautiful garden complete with a lawn and a pond, and is the largest enclosed outdoor space I've seen in Japan so far. The atmosphere was relaxed and the food was inexpensive and tasty. I would give it 7 out of 10 and recommend it to my friends.
The nicest thing about the evening was hanging out with cool locals. I got on well with Noriko, who spent last year studying in Germany. She was very patient with my high school German (which is an awful lot better than my Japanese, even though I haven't used it much since school) and didn't seem to mind me speaking in pidgin German/Japanese/English to her.
On Sunday night I finally went for dinner with Yoko. I met this Yoko at Dan's leaving party about 3 months ago, and she took me to an organic buffet restaurant in Yaba Cho. All you can eat for 1800 yen. Mmm. And for 1800 yen, I can eat a lot.
I felt very virtous eating all my organic healthy food, then went home and watched Supersize Me. Part of me was disgusted and horrified, and part of me really wanted a cheeseburger.

Bliss!

Oh this is good. I snapped and bought wildly expensive olives slathered with so much garlic my flatmates left the building. This leaves me alone with my gin and olives and listening to Radio 4 comedy over the internet in a state of middle-class bliss.

Shake shake

I was dozing in the livingroom watching Futurama when BANG like something hit the side of the house, only I live on the seventh floor. I'm surprised it took so long to feel an earthquake. It was only a little one, thankfully.

Takako pics

Here`s the lighthouse and Takako.

The problem with saturdays

In some ways I like my work routine. Friday is a half day, Saturday and Sunday go by quickly because we're so busy, Monday is quite relaxing because I have the place to myself, and then there's just Tuesday to deal with before it's my weekend. Saturday and Sunday are hard-going because they start at 10, and the rest of the week I don't start work before 1. Unfortunately, Nagoya goes out on Friday and Saturday night, and though it's fun going out on other nights of the week, The occasional big Saturday is ace.
　　This Saturday I'm promising myself a quiet night in. Two weeks ago was a house party I swore I would leave at 1 am, but anyone who knows me knows that my uttering the fateful words "I'll be home early" means something will mess up my goody-goody plans. Quarter to one and someone produces a guitar and a decent guitarist and the next thing I know its 2 am and my good intentions are wrecked.
Same again last weekend. I went out salsa dancing and again promised I would be leave at 1. I love dancing and the place was just getting going at 1, I couldn't leave then... and the barman was being very generous with his measures. I watched him pour one and realised I was getting triples. And probably more tipsy than was a good idea on a Saturday night. I reluctantly went home at 2.30, but only because I thought I was going to be hungover. Turns out I was right.
I'm now on day 8 of socialising but the appeal is starting to wear thin. I think I may be a hermit this week.

Takako

I nearly bumped heads with this Japanese girl as we both tried to read the notices on the board at the International Centre. We were both reading the notices for language exchange partners. I already have a language exchange partner, Yukie, but I generally only see her for about 45 minutes a week which isn't going to improve my Japanese very quickly.
"Are you looking for a language exchange partner?" I asked, feeling like I was stating the obvious. And this is how I met Takako. We arranged to meet in her home town, Tokai, the next day.
On Thursday I took the train and my hangover to Tokai and met Takako at the station. It was blisteringly hot. I had no bright ideas of what to do, and it suited me to go where she wanted to go since I'd never been there. We took the back roads along the coast and wound through small towns down the penninsula while we chatted about ourselves. Takako can talk for Japan. She is only in the country for a few weeks before she goes back to Australia to study again and doesn't want her English to slip while she's in Japan. In the hour-long ride to the restaurant she had in mind, I learned about her family, dog, friends, job plans and everything else she could think of to talk about while I mostly said little and thought longingly of coffee.
The restaurant she'd chosen was near Noma, a popular beach. The restaurant looked over a lighthouse and for a second it made me think of a similar view in Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia. Cool thoughts of Canadian winter on a scorching Japanese summer day. Lunch was huge, one of these great lunch specials that Japan does so well that includes soup, salad, fish, desert and coffee for the price of two beers in Outback. The lighthouse has a high fence around it and has become something of a shrine for couples. You write your names on a padlock and chain the padlock to the fence, and this will supposedly keep you together forever.

After lunch we wandered along the beach and sweated profusely, then headed back to Tokai. Takako took me up to the big Buddha on top of the hill. It has a scary face. On the plus side, it's in the middle of a gorgeous park with - get this - grass! Japan doesn't seem to believe in lawns very much. I wanted to roll down the hill. I plan to come back some afternoon with a book and laze on it.
A mad, action-packed day that took me to places I would never have gone to otherwise. Remember, kids - always talk to strangers.

Utsumi

Me and Jo hit the beach a couple of Thursdays ago and managed not to get sunburnt at all. Getting out of the city was such a relief. I spent the afternoon floating in the sea and admiring the perfect sky.

Finally, those sumo photos

Sorry for the lengthy delay, I went out lots and couldn`t face dragging myself all the way down here to argue with the Japanese computer about how to put up these photos. Guilt won. These are from July 19th.

Before a session, the fighters all parade around the ring (not the right word, I know, I`ll come back with the right word) wearing pretty aprons. It`s all very macho.


And then they square up and stomp and slap their thighs for a few mintutes to psyche each other out.


Eventually they get down the wrestling.



This guy came out top overall, so at the end of the day he does a special ceremony.

deja vu

Sorry I havent posted for ages. Ive been busy and lazy. After not going to karaoke for months, I have managed to go three times in the past two weeks. First time was with Donna, Pip and a couple of Donna`s friends. Donna can belt them out proper lounge-singer style. The past two mondays have been birthdays, and were almost identical nights - same people, same bar, same karaoke place afterwards and mostly the same songs sung equally badly. There were a couple extra Americans at the second one who chose some truly awful songs (Stairway to Heaven is not suitable for karaoke, especially if you`re flat). All good clean wholesome fun.
Yesterday I went to the beach at Utsumi with Jo and felt very nostalgic for Thai beaches. Its summer holiday season here in Japan so the beach was packed. Next week we have no kids classes, but we`re going to be crazy busy at work.
Got to dash, off to watch the summer festival at Inuyama.
More posts to follow when I can be bothered to string together a coherent, interesting narrative.

Nomihodai

Today is gorgeous, it`s hot and sunny but with a nice breeze. I bought some CD`s today and made the perfect banana smoothie. I love the simple pleasures in life. It`s been nice to chill out this afternoon by myself since I`ve had a hectic weekend. Tuesday after work I went to Mango for a post-work beer with Pip, Donna, Ben and Shannon (the two guys who live down the road from us). After the Mango man closed the bar (he likes to go to bed early) I didn`t want to go to bed so we all went back to our flat and made pasta then sat around drinking tequila and playing poker until 1.30. Shannon had work at 10. Good effort, that man.
So because of the beer and the tequila, I didn`t go to my Japanese class. Naughty. Instead I met Yukie for lunch (who I haven`t seen for ages) and produced some dreadful Japanese. I can`t do Japanese with a hangover. Later in the afternoon I cycled into town and met Jo. We went to the cinema and were pleased to find that it`s only 1000 yen for women on a Wednesday. An odd discount, but who am I to argue. Pirates of the Carribean is a weird film. It seems that instead of coming up with a plot they went "here, have some implausible special effects and quite bizzare fight sequences and lots of shots of Johnny Depp looking sexy and rakish. Did we mention the Johnny Depp thing?"
We headed to Sakae and Red Rock for their infamous Nomihodai night - 1700 yen for all you can drink. Naturally the place was packed. It was great; cheap booze and I felt like I knew everyone in the bar. Finally it feels like I`ve got something like a community here. I got introduced to lots of other people too, and after talking for two minutes we`d find some other connection through other people we knew. After they chucked us out there we got kebabs then weaved home unsteadily on our bikes. Great night.

Last Orders

Gah, I want to go home and make curry. I`m so tired, curry is the only thing that will help. I fell asleep in a class for a couple of seconds today because the student was taking so long to give me an answer.
Last night was the last night of Kei`s bar in Inuyama, and Lisa`s birthday. We started off a huge group in the Hakkenden around the corner eating grotesque amounts of gyoza to soak up all the alcohol we were about to consume. Kei`s was busy, and we made a fair go of helping him get rid of his alcohol. Such a bummer he decided to have his closing night on a Saturday when every teacher has to work early the next morning. I finally drank some of the snake whisky (3, I think) and found it very pleasant despite containing a pickled poisonous snake. It was very mellow and tasted like maple syrup. We played bingo and I won a bottle of gin. Hurrah.
I`m sad to see that place close, I had a lot of fun times there. I`ll miss it.

Only slightly weird

Hey y`all. It`s pouring with rain here and has been for the past 3 days. Yuk.
On Monday I went with a big bunch of people to watch fireworks at Nagoya Port. They were cool, but it was raining.
I went out for a drink with Iain on Tuesday night and it was fun and only slightly weird. I was glad to see him, I`d missed hanging out and talking rubbish. It was a relief to find we could be in each other`s company with only a few Tourette`s-like evil comments from me. I`ve been assured this is a normal response and will pass soon.
Tonight I`m going out to Club ID with a big bunch of girls. We will mostly be dancing badly and letching at fit Brazillians.

Busy

I don`t know what to write about how I feel right now, but I will tell you what I`ve been doing. Last night I went to Dan`s final leaving party (he did manage to string out leaving a fair bit - he finished work a couple of weeks ago). I liked getting to chat to my students outside class and getting to use a bit of Japanese - but I noticed I`m slipping because I hadn`t practiced much for a couple of weeks. I met Dan`s language exchange partner Tomomi and her friend Yoko and swapped numbers with them. Yoko plays the guitar and is into the Nagoya music scene - I made her promise to take me out sometime. After that we went to karaoke and committed criminal acts against music. I went home at 1.30 and taught 7 kid`s classes today so I`m bloody knackered. Tonight is Claudio`s leaving party which isn`t even starting until 10, so obviously he has plans to make us all miss work tomorrow.
That`s all for now.

So, what now?

Today was a bit weird, naturally. I slept in late because I`d been so exhausted from the day before. After much coffee and pondering, me and Donna went to Bic Camera to see if we could get internet for our flat. I`d been told we couldn`t get anything better than dial-up (and I`d rather use internet cafes than go back to that), but Donna is more persistent than me and found out we could sign up for wireless. We got to Bic Camera, found a helpful sales assistant, and went about setting up an account. In Japanese. It was pretty tricky, I have to say. Donna had her Lonely Planet phrasebook (about as useful as an extremely uselss thing) and looked up things for me to say, and the sales assistant had a translator in his computer which gave helpful phrases like, "Please admit to the businessman when he is commence operational," which we decided loosely meant, "please be at home when the delivery guy comes." Now I understand where all those meaningless t-shirt slogans come from. So with the two dictionaries, my bad questions (taske no eigo no denwa bango imas ka? something along the lines of, do you have a english help phone number? with hideous grammatical errors) we managed to get sorted. Normal service should begin next week.
After that we went to Don Quixote, the weirdest shop in the world, which is right behind my house and I never knew was there. I bought The Girl with the Pearl Earring, The Maltese Falcon and To Kill a Mockingbird on DVD for 950 yen, or about 4.50 in real money. Then we spent a fascinating hour upstairs amongst the furniture, home appliances, games, toys, clothes, makeup, fancydress costumes, rice-crispie coated crabs, and sex toys. The crabs and the sex toys weren`t together, I hasten to add. Some photos from the shop will go up tomorrow if I can figure out how to get them off my phone. Night night.

An e-hangover

Thank you to everyone for being so supportive. I especially liked the 3 bottles of wine and the bottle of whisky you sent along with all that chocolate. Just as well it was virtual alcohol or I`d be in a bit of a state now. Thanks for all the hugs and kindness. I`m very lucky to have such great friends.

MySpace

And here are some photos of where I live. It occurred to me I ought to show you. I`d been meaning to put these up for a while.