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.

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.