Monday 26th March

1:Nicky's street.

2: Nicky's flat.

3: Shanghai skyline.

4: opposite sides of the same street - old and new.

Shanghai smells like: builder's rubble.
Tastes like: tasty spicy savoury pancakes; over-priced tea.
Looks like: a builder's site.
Sounds like: spitting.
Feels like: wary of Russian embassy officials; grateful for nice people who let me sleep on their couch.

I woke up early, fed the cats, and headed off to the Russian embassy to get my visa. There was some waiting around, then some feeling nervous in front of embassy people as they go through everything written on my application form and ask me questions, then utter disbelief at the cost of a visa.
"Can I get same day processing?"
"Miss, it's a little expensive." There's a sign on the wall, 120 dollars. I can live with that.
"That's ok."
"240 dollars, please."
"What?"
"That price is for Chinese people. For British people same day processing is 240 dollars."
That's a lot of money. Suddenly regular 5 day processing and coming back to Shanghai to pick up my passport seems like a much better idea.
Feeling naked without my passport, I go for a walk. The buildings in Shanghai are a brilliant mix - old Chinese buildings, French mansions, British banks, American-style hotels. People look at me curiously. For all that Shanghai is supposed to be an international city, everyone seems to be Chinese. Including the 3 Beijing students who want to practice their English and then take me to a tea-tasting session. I don't have anywhere I have to be, so I go drink tea. It turns out to be extremely tasty, and surprisingly expensive. The students open their wallets without hesitation. This is the new Chinese middle class, it seems.
After tea, I walk around some more and find myself in the People's Square. The people's hobbies seem to be spitting, kite flying, and shouting hello to foreigners (though not necessarily in that order). I feel like I've been under the spotlight too much, so I go back to Nicky's apartment. I play with her cats and wait for her to come home so we can go for dinner.
I met Nicky though a site called Couchsurfing.com, where travellers can arrange to stay on couches all over th world. A bit like house swapping, only without the house or the swap. I stay in her house, and in return I buy her dinner. Much more convenient than a hostel. Nicky is an architect, originally from Beijing. She studied in America and her English is excellent. Her house is in the French quarter, and extremely pretty. It's interesting to be in a real person's house instead of staying in a hostel.

Sunday 25th March

Weather: foggy.
Progress: Slow.
Hours delayed: 7.

Woke up and everything outside the window was white. Couldn't even see the water. Dropped anchor at 7 am and sat there in the mouth of the Yangtze river for 7 hours. When the fog finally lifted we saw other ships nearby, equally still. When we finally got moving, it took some time to sort out the traffic jam and get moving. We finally got off the ship in Shanghai at 8. I walked into town with a few other people. I tried to phone Nicky, my accomodation, but Chinese phones seem to be a practical joke. I made it to my digs at 10 pm, totally exhausted. The cats kept me up for a while, but eventually settled down at the end of my bed.

Saturday 24th March

I slept in a tatami room with 8 other people, and slept quite soundly. I wasn't sure about how futons would work if the sea was rough, but we were all fine. We were fine for another couple of hours, and then the sea gradually got rougher. And rougher. The waves didn't look that bad outside, but lots of people were puking. There was nowhere to escape. Chinese women were puking in our cabin. A Japanese man was puking in the lounge. Children were puking downstairs. The deck was too rough. I felt ok if I lay down, so I did that. I didn't puke. Finally the waves calmed down, but we'd spent so much time sleeping in the day we were all wide awake at night. We played various international versions of card games, supervised by a curious audience. The next day I saw a Chinese family playing the version of Scabby Queen we played. I felt quite proud of that.

Friday 23rd March

So this me leaving Japan: sweating, heart pounding, and twitching slightly. Let's recap. I left Nagoya at 7.30 and took the Shinkansen to Osaka. From there I dashed to the Chinese consulate to collect my passport and lovely shiny Chinese visa. After that I zoom to the ferry terminal. I am there in perfect time. It is 10.30, the ferry leaves at 12, I am cucumber cool. And also, I soon realise, in completely the wrong place. The international ferry terminal is somewhere totally different. I have a horrible vision of missing this ferry and either having to fly to Shanghai, or camp in Osaka until the next ferry on Wednesday because it would just be too embarrassing to go back to Nagoya. I get back on the train, go back several stations, manhandle a station attendant, walk/jog for 10 minutes through a non-descript industrial estate, and arrive, wheezing slightly, at 11.30, a full hour later than I was supposed to be here. The attendant looks at my passport and points to the ship. It seems I have plenty of time after all and need not collapse in a small heap just yet.
I don't know what to think as I stand on the deck and watch Japan slide away. I've made some good friends here, had a lot of fun, and done lots of cool things. I can't imagine how the next part will go, and the excitement of the trip briefly overrides the recognition that I have left Japan.
On the boat, I don't know what to do with myself. No phone, no internet, no pressing things I have to do. I wander around the boat, play cards, read books. It's very strange.

Wednesdy 21st March

1: Matt.
2: Me, Nozomi, Kumiko, Kentaro.
3: Eddie the karaoke god serenades us all.
4: Crafty cig.





Leaving party and karaoke - super super fun getting drunk and being silly. Drunkeness in no small part helped by the nasty pint of guinness with shot of bailey's sunk in the bottom Matt made me drink. I dont much care for guinness. A few people called off due to flu and snot, but I got a couple of nice phone calls from people who couldn't make it.
Weird to leave Japan... more thoughts on this later.

9 days to go

Number crunching:
9 - days left in Japan.
1 - shiny new passport with passport photo that doesn't make me look like a 40 year-old lesbian.
2 - free pages left on my old passport, which is why it had to be renewed early.
4 - visas to get for a month-long trip.
2 - days left at work.
1 - speech to be delivered on Friday morning in English and Japanese. Argh argh argh.
0 - boyfriends. I like to travel light.
3 - parties to go to over 4 days.
48 - hours from Osaka to Shanghai on a ferry. The slow boat to China, if you will.

Hokkaido Photos

Exciting new things

I have lots of pretty photos from the Hokkaido snow and ice festival that I can't show you here because Blogger is evil. It has decided to punish me by putting all of my menus into Japanese. I don't know how to change them back because, hey! I don't speak Japanese. Well done, Blogger. I don't know why it doesn't want to upload my photos, so no photos for you I'm afraid.
So imagine, if you will, 10 metre high snow sculptures of arctic scenes, famous buildings, and a giant cow. Ice sculptures lining the streets, snowflakes glinting in the dark... you get the idea. The ice bar was impressive. The owner made a metal frame, covered it with packed snow and then dripped water through the ceiling to fill the roof and walls with icicles. Embed fairy lights into the floor, add a bar and a pair of speakers, and presto! Money spinner. Wins 'coolest bar in Japan 2007' hands down.

New Year photos

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I'd rather be in Tokyo

1: I said, "look twee" and they both pulled the same pose. I thought it was pretty funny.
2: The gate at Meiji-jingu.
3: Lanterns outside Meiji-jingu.
4: Fuji-san from the window of the train.

Nara photos part 2

1: If you can fit through the hole in the pillar, the people standing around will cheer loudly and give you some butter to grease yourself with if you get stuck
2: Nara is very pretty
3: Standard Japanese 'outside something pretty' photo pose

Nara photos

1: Kick-ass statue (Thunder god, possibly?)
2: Tennoji, biggest wooden structure in the world
3: Sign warning vistors not to mess with the deer
4: Deer eats small child

Christmas photos

1: Karaoke on Boxing day
2: Pulling stupid faces in the Hub on Boxing day
3; Girls in white coats (Christmas day)

Back to school

Changes for 2007:
1. New flat.
2. New job.
3. New boyfriend. Actually he's not that new, but I realised I've not given him a proper introduction. His name's Damien, he's Australian, 28, and fairly well behaved most of the time. Except when he talks during films and I want to poke him with a sharp stick (the correct punishment for talking during films). On the other hand, he volunteered to help me move house and did most of the heavy lifting without a word of complaint, so he may in fact be worth his weight in gold.

I moved into my new flat last sunday and started my new job on tuesday. The flat is great, I'm living with Nozomi and Kumiko, they're nice chilled out Japanese girls, both 28. I've got the internet here, there's lots of food in the kitchen (Kumiko's friend's dad's a baker, so we've got tonnes of free bread and eggs) and a good selection of DVDs. I am now addicted to Lost.

The new job's pretty cool too, I'm the assistant English teacher in a junior high school. There's about 400 kids aged 12 to 15. They are scarily well behaved. The school seems to be in a good area. We start at 8.50 and finish at 3.30, then they pretty much all do an hour of sports or music after school before going to their cram school classes. There's about 40 kids in each class (except in 1st year, where they're in 2 groups of 20 for English; and the handicapped class where there are about 20 kids with various learning disabilities all together). In the classes I do games and try to get the kids speaking English (instead of just reading and writing, which is all they have to do to pass the exam).

The other English teachers are an interesting mix. Takeuchi sensei is the head of the English department and looks very scared of everything. Her shoulders are permanently hunched up around her ears and she looks terrified when the students talk to her in the corridor. Watanabe sensei teaches first years, and she seems pretty sound. Shibata sensei teaches the second years, is the youngest of the English teachers, and speaks enough English to have a fluent conversation. She's cottoned on that the ALT (me) has lots of free time, and she's doing her best to fill it. At the moment I think that's a good thing. There's a male teacher who's name escapes me, but he's a nice guy and the students seem to like him.
It's weird sitting with all the other teachers and trying to a, look busy; b, understand what's going on around me; and c, understand the way the Japanese workplace works. I'm the only foreigner there, it's interesting trying to figure it all out. No-one ever says "I want you to do this." it's all just dropped hints. "Oh, there is a lot of marking to do." "Would you like some help?" "yes, please." I have to try to remember to do that myself, it seems to be gauche to just come out with what you want.

School dinners are pretty groovy. For 250 yen (about £1.20) I get a bowl of noodles or soup, rice, salad, some fish or meat, and maybe a little bit of fruit. And a little glass bottle of milk, which sent me on the biggest nostalgia trip back to primary 3. There's no choice, so when faced with udon with liver (liver- yuk) and a little fried fish (the one full of bones and with eggs in its stomach - double yuk) you just have to grin and bear it. Mmm. Crunchy.

Happy new year!

Happy new year and all that. Here are the things I liked best about my new year.
Drinking tea in the kitchen with Lisa like we were at uni again;
Petting deer at Nara and showing Lisa old-style Japan;
The Aberdeen university reunion;
Boxing day karaoke;
Singing "row, row, row your boat" boating on Ueno pond and inventing contrived James Bond action sequences involving pedalboats and killer ducks;
Drinking games in Tokyo pubs;
My favourite people in this country in the same room as 2006 became 2007. I think that's auspicious.
I hope you had fun too.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas was strange and fractured. In the morning I worked, and my "Merry Christmas!" greetings were mostly met with politely blank looks from my students, which did make me want to poke them in the eye with a sharpened Christmas tree. Because that is the true meaning of Christmas, of course.
After work I did some last minute Christmas shopping (3pm on Christmas day truly stretching the definition of last minute). Spent a couple of hours in the flat by myself and felt utterly unseasonal until I put on Radio 1 and listened to all the crap Christmaaaaas! songs and it felt right. Went to Freebell with Jo and began the Christmas Eating. I had a long train ride ahead of me so I stuffed myself with crackers and cheese. I left the party at Thom and Rob's flat to go pick up Lisa from the airport. So good to see her again! Back to the flat for more food (turkey, etc) and lying on the floor groaning.

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.