A Month In Japan

So what's this thing?

2010-03-25T15:50:00.000-07:00

A quick explanation about what this blog is and how it came about, if I may?

I never intended to write a blog whilst I was in Japan. In fact, the idea came about whilst I was waiting for my plane in Heathrow airport. I had my laptop and I was thinking of a way of sending some pictures/thoughts to my friends, family and school. Facebook and emails didn't seem to cut it so I quickly Googled the word 'blog' and ended up here.

After never having blogged before I typed the first post and sent a link to my two Japanese teachers and the five in my a-level class. Before I knew it I was getting hundreds of page views a day and a regular stream of emails from friends and teachers alike all saying how much they enjoyed reading my thoughts. This motivated me to spent around half an hour to an hour before bed each night downloading my pictures/videos every day and write about them. I was usually doing it whilst enjoying a beer with the host family father, or a snack with the brother or sister. For this reason you'll forgive me if the spelling isn't sound or the semantics isn't tight. It's a collection of thoughts and photos meant originally for my close friends. The fact that others seem to have enjoyed them is a bonus :-)

Perhaps you've come here from the Japanese Web Contest for Schools and are wondering why I never updated the last few pages. Laziness? Corrupt data? Stopped caring?

Nope, none of these. I wrote up the last few days when I returned (after a long sleep, naturally) but it just didn't seem the same. I couldn't bring myself to publish them as they weren't written over there. The last few days were a complete whirlwind and I did actually try and blog them but a computer crash meant that they were all lost. When I re-wrote them back in Britain it just didn't seem right.

So for that reason I'm going to keep this blog as a personal record of my experience of my time in Japan. The inaccuracies, mistakes and technical problems will remain as each one reminds me something that happened whilst out there - and I kind of like that :-P So, enjoy it for what it is - not what it isn't please :-)

Tomorrow is the last day

2009-04-23T02:40:00.000-07:00

Firstly, sorry for the no posts for like four days. If I could have done them, I would. I promise that in the next week or so every day will be documented. I've been busy having the time of my life (and Flickr doesn't like me).

I've just got back from meeting somebody who I first met a couple of days ago by chance and yesterday at Karaoke. She's half American and half Japanese so it's been awesome having somebody who I can properly English (and bizarrely, Japanese now and again by accident)... she's awesome. Shame I couldn't have met her earlier on... In fact, everybody I've met here in Japan has been incredible, it sounds so cliche but I would never have thought that in just one month I could have met so many people who I know are going to be my friends for life.

I feel such a connection with this country now and I genuinely don't want to leave. I've promised so many people that I'll be coming back and I will not break that promise, Japan is going to be part of my life somehow - definitely.

Well, I'm a bit teary now, which is a shame as we're heading out to a restaurant now, then I have to pack, then I have to write my speech, then I have to finish off some French papers (my head teacher has been going through them with me. If you're going to cheat and have somebody to help you - the head is a pretty good way to go I think!)

I'll try and get onto the internet tomorrow to do tomorrow's post. I took loads of pictures at Nara today where I visited the Sharp factory (they invented the clicky pencil don't you know?).

I don't want to leave this place.

明日ね

Day 21: Three hours of blogging wasted

2009-04-19T06:39:00.001-07:00

Safari, YouTube and Flickr are rubbish.

Day 20: Biiiig bridge.

2009-04-18T04:21:00.000-07:00

To make amends, I headed with the dad in his massive Jeep to 明石海峡大橋 (akashi-kaikyou-oohashi) which connects Kobe to Awadishima.

Now, I used the second seven crossing twice a day for four years so it takes a pretty impressive bridge to impress me. It did.

I then went to a really interesting visitors center all about the 1995 earthquake. They built it around one of the major fault lines. Quite how sensitive this is to the traumatised survivors who inevitably live around it is I don't know...

Now, I do have loads of pictures of both of these and a lot to say but Flickr doesn't seem to be on my side at the moment so I'll leave it until I'm sure they'll work properly. Anyway, I have some French to do. Ah, Tom, j'ai eu plaisir à te parler plus tôt en français. De nouveau demain ?

We're leaving very early for Kyoto tomorrow to beat the traffic so I'd best leave it here and get on with something productive...

Day 19: 大阪 (again)

2009-04-17T22:09:00.000-07:00

The day began with yet another dash to the school bus to take me to school. Once I had got over the fact that none of my friends (Japanese or English) cared or indeed noticed my absence the day before, we headed on the bus (we would have done anyway - we weren't just waiting for me to get over myself... Bus trips with lots of people younger than you can potentially be horribly frustrating, noisy and boring. I combated this by telling completely non-plausible lies to the year 9's and waited for them to spread. For example, did you know that some Japanese busses have stilts that appear from the bottom of the bus to enable them to lift over traffic. They're banned in Britain because of our low bridges.

The above pictures are of Osaka temple and the surrounding area. It's an awesome building but I was a bit underwhelmed as I kept comparing it to Himeji temple where I went a few weeks ago. There is a reason why Himeji temple is a World Heritage Site and Osaka isn't I think... The Osaka one was swarming with tourists who lapped up the lifts on the inside and television screens and 'hands on' exhibits. And we only had about an hour there... If you're thinking of going to Japan and want to see an awesome temple. I'd go for Himeji.

What is cool is that those massive stones (and they are huge) came from Ashiya, where the school is and they were moved at sea - pulled in-between two boats apparently.

After eating our obentos we got back on the bus and headed to the 大阪海遊館 (Osaka aquarium). I've uploaded some pictures of the inside but they're pretty boring. I felt a bit sorry for the fish as literally 50m from where I took the picture below was the sea. Rubbing it in or what?

It's an impressive building and the largest aquarium in Japan with the largest water reservoir in the world...
This is the only animal picture I've uploaded. For more, try Google... It does frustrate me that thousands of people head around these places barging into eachother to get exactly the same photo. In future, just one should be taken and emailed to everybody who wants it. Nobody looks at them anyway...
I don't know what the Japanese above reads and I don't really want to.
I didn't use a flame of flashlight to take this picture but I did use my flash... do you think it's ok?
For any readers without depth perception: That is a real sized person... they're not massive fish. (Although gives you an idea about how big the tank is...)

After we got back I sent a few emails at school and I took Sam's bus home for the first time as for the first time of the trip, we were going 'out'. Exciting.

So exciting we took pictures that looked like we were standing in the water. Hilarious.
We did a little shopping before meeting up with Sean, an English teacher at the school we're at. I didn't know that science could be so graphic until I read the above magazine...
Sean showed us around the place and we saw this. Careful cleaning and good finishing. What more could you want?

Oh, life lesson: If you choose to name your shop 'Permanent Age'...

Don't erect this sign.
Before we headed to an Irish pub to have fish and chips (which in the end we didn't as they looked rubbish) we saw a little propaganda truck... looked kind of cute...

To cut a long story short regarding our little outing - the father of the family got the pick up time wrong by two and a half hours and came to pick me up at 8:00. We bumped into him at 8:30 and he wasn't happy - even though I'd agreed 10:00 with him. He was adamant he was right all car journey home (awkward) until he made a few calls. He took me to a restaurant for tea whilst Sam was still out with Sean and his friend. I took that as an apology :)

This is what we had. You buy a plate of uncooked food and (and here's the novel part for Japan...) you cook it! Yourself! A BBQ indoors. Brilliant.

When we returned after this I showed him the plan we had agreed which I had written in Japanese for him. It actually said 10:30. Although, I have still been apologising profusely to him - it's the Japanese way...

Night.

Day 18: Postcards sent!

2009-04-16T06:57:00.000-07:00

Not really much more to say other than I've done pretty much nothing today other than pop out to the post office to post my postcards, only to find out that I had brought stamps that were 10 Yen more than they needed to be. Gutted.

Tomorrow's post will be exciting, I promise :)

おやすみ

Day 17: You can't do a blog in bed

2009-04-15T21:20:00.000-07:00

I am actually writing this today yet it was tomorrow's post. It's day 18 now...

Basically, in school I had a bit of a headache and asked for some tablets and took them - not really thinking much more about it.

When I took the bus home I was developing another headache so I asked a nice looking Japanese stranger where the nearest pharmacy was. I must have used good Japanese as her reply was supremely fast. Luckily, she used hand directions. Win!

Once I got to the pharmacy I realised that the words that I was about to use could have resulted in my death should I say the wrong thing... I planned what I wanted to ask (which is the best medicine to take if I have a headache) and then wanted to make sure that what I was about to buy was a popular brand. I came out with some ibuprofen. I then headed over to the McDonalds to buy a milkshake to take the tablets. In actual fact I'm sure I didn't need to take the trip to the pharmacy, the family could have probably provided me with something but I got such a massive kick about being in a foreign country, on my own and doing something completely independently and using no English whatsoever. I was so happy with my little adventure I treated myself to a new pen.

Once I got back home at about 4:30 I started to get pretty ill. I then went to bed at 5:30 with a nasty temperature, a splitting headache and... urm - work out the rest.

I continually woke up during the night but I didn't get out of bed until 1:00 today - It's 1:30 now (that's blog dedication). It has meant that I have missed the excursion to Kyoto which I was pretty disappointed about until the family said that they'd take me at the weekend anyway so, all's good.

I'm still feeling pretty rotten now but I've had some food, taken a shower and will go for a quick walk to get some fresh air I think...

See you later on for the Day 18 post!

Day 16: They've arrived

2009-04-14T06:15:00.000-07:00

Usual school day today other than the fact that we opted out of the Ancient Japanese class (if they don't understand it then what chance do we have?). In my half an hour lunch break I ate curry and played the piano for the first time in a long time (not the curry thing - I'm eating that all the time to the detriment of my waist-line). This girl also plays the piano so we went together. Sam thinks that she's better than me at the piano as she plays completely by ear. In fairness, she is pretty good (although only plays western songs it seems!). The photo directly below is me doing some particularly taxing work. Look at my face, can't you tell? (Please not the Hello Kitty pencil case that I will be taking back to school in a couple of weeks)

Whilst the rest of the school were doing their big clean up (it's the pupils' task) Sam and I headed to the airport to meet the rest of the Wycliffe students. For the Japanese every time is prime time for a photo opportunity. The airport wait being no exception...

Here's the first of the tired bunch...

Here's a (very red, sorry about that...) Mr Johnson putting the cases on the bus
Pretty boring photos aren't they? Sorry about that... urm... let me see what I can find... ah yes. This is Japan.

Day 15: I rock at basketball in Japan

2009-04-13T05:38:00.000-07:00

Right, this will be the dullest post of them all but I really want to do a post a day...

Had school today where I attended mainly English classes. I did some history.

After, Sam and I joined the gym class which was basketball. I scored half of our teams 12 baskets and set up the rest... If I have a sport it's now basketball, in Japan, with people much shorter than me.

Finished the day off with some work (started my French papers) and a webacam chat with Tom.

I haven't got any pictures so here's one I found on the internet to keep you amused. It's NOTHING to do with Japan but I think it's hilarious. Have a nice day :)

Day 14: 蛸 (Octopus)

2009-04-12T04:58:00.000-07:00

Well, this is how the day started for a few hours. Get in.
Oh, please drop me an email if the photos don't work for this post as well. I've tried everything - they should work! The one above is where we headed at about 11:00 AM - it's the park right by the house. It was excellent weather - sunny but very breezy which meant that the Cherry Blossom leaves were blowing off the trees - really pretty (but pretty unfortunate for those that are heading here in a couple of days!). Here is were we set the BBQ up. Sam and Masae arrived a little later on after getting lost on the way (Sam is staying about a 40 minute drive away from me)
We had yakitori, tebasaki, momoyaki, sausage, yakinikuya and other bits and pieces. Delicious.
After the BBQ we headed to a shopping center and I tried all of my bank cards at all of the cash points I could find. Nothing... bit annoying as I'm running out of Yen because everything is so damn expensive here! We headed to the food hall where Sam and I bumped into a Canadian man who felt it his duty to speak to us in English for five minutes. After that we decided against going for a McDonalds and the family bought some Takoyaki for us all to share. It's below and looks delicious doesn't it? So delicious I grabbed one and tucked straight in... delicious sauce, lovelu chewey dough. But what's this in the middle... nice but - this is a bit crunchy I thought... Sam then buts in, 'oh Tako, that's octopus'. I finish eating and head straight to the shop where they were bought from.
I wasn't impressed.

This is for Mum - these bags are about £170 here! This was in a really small section of a shop selling designer bags... you'd better head to Japan.
School tomorrow so おやすみなさい!

Day 13: 大阪

2009-04-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

(I really hope the pictures are working now - it's a problem with Flickr that I'm looking into... Yesterday's pictures can be found at http://bit.ly/JapanDay12 or clicking here)

The above picture was taken a minute or two away from where I'm living. The whole area is surrounded by awesome mountains and the skyline at night is really beautiful - I'll try and take a picture if I can.

Today Minami and I went by train (very fast, relatively cheap) to Osaka to meet Sam and Minami and also later Hikari (the girl that stayed at my house last year). I'm not sure what to write really other than it is absolutely massive and there are literally thousands of shops. I can't really explain quite how many shops this place has but I'll give it a go.
The photo above shows a side street of one incredibly long street that took us over an hour and a half to get two thirds of the way down. Every shop has about three levels (the Hello Kitty shop being no exeption) and there are often shops within shops. Every street has another sidestreet that can take you completely by surprise and, it's not uncommon to find yourself in a shopping center comparble in size to The Mall Cribs Causeway by accident only to find one of equal size a few hundred meters away.
The is an underground train and foot network that consists largely of shops. To get from one platform to another you pass about 15 shops. These aren't newsagent type shops - they're large chain mobile phone shops, American and British chain shops, McDonalds, full five course expensive resturants. It's simply incredible - you couldn't visit them all in less than a week of full on shopping (we had a couple of hours...)
We then took a ride in a big ferris wheel that stands above one of the many shopping centers (have I told you there are loads of shops?) which stupidly I didn't take a picture of. However, here's a picture that I took from inside it.

After, I quickly met up with Hikari (below), who is the girl that stayed at my house. She took me to an electronics shop (she knows me quite well) that was nearby. A hundred pictures couldn't do this shop justice. It was 10 floors high. Each floor was so big that you couldn't see any of the opposite wall - they were football sized floors. Each floor dedicated to a particular aspect of home technology. There was a section the size of a large Dixons dedicated to say, digital photo frames. The place was just incredible. Unfortunately, due to the very very weak pound I didn't buy anything but I was tempted by the 72" HD television and rice cooker that has a converstaion with you. Incredible.
P.S. For some reason all of the English fail pictures I took today (there were loads) don't seem to have uploaded onto my computer. So - here's a picture of a shop (about 25 members of staff in there) which is nothing but pictures of young Japanese men (presumably famous for some reason) that girls go into, write the numbers of the photos they want on a piece of paper and will happily spend over £50 at a time on stickers, posters and pictures. Interesting eigh?
P.P.S - Found the photos now - here we go! Meaning in the comments section please!

Day 12: Big Car

2009-04-10T05:24:00.001-07:00

UPDATE: If the pictures aren't working - see the whole days' pictures here.

Sam and I met at school today and did some Japanese past papers whilst the rest of the school took the beginning of the year exams in a classroom that clearly hasn't been designed for Westeners. I hit my head on that door no less than six times Sam is only too pleased to remind me. My expression says it all.

After having lunch at the school (they have metal plates!) which was a pleasant, if not a little bizarre experience due to the many Japanese people who will come up to us with a massive smile on their face and just say, 'Hello, how are you'. Or, 'Hello, pleased to meet you'. Once you reply they run out of 'stock phrases' and the conversation comes to a swift end... Awkward.

The day finished with me heading up a mountain in the Father's massive Jeep. He took me to a safe, flat(ish) spot and let me have a go (my test is the Thursday I come back to England!) and it was awesome fun. I really really enjoyed myself - the weather was perfect, the scenery was beautiful and I was driving a beast of a car.

This is a little lake that we drove past on the way.

This is me doing the oh so Japanese 'peace' sign.

And this is one of the many spectacular views I was treated to.

Video time:

P.S. Let's hope the fun studying isn't English...

Day 11: れい (bow)

2009-04-09T07:08:00.000-07:00

Firstly, the cherry blossom is really blooming now the sun is coming out and it's awesome. Sorry to keep going on about it but it really is beautiful.
Today I ran for the school bus (speaking Japanese all day makes me need more sleep and thus makes me oversleep is my hypothesis) and started an AS past paper on the bus. Japanese past papers become a lot easier when there are five Japanese school girls all eager to chip in with suggestions for the answers. Shame they can't be brought into the exam room really. I arrived at school and headed to my homeroom and showed the students card tricks and convinced them (relatively unsuccessfully) that English people can actually posses actual magic skills.

Then we went to the hall for the school opening ceremony. It's a terribly formal event that was rehearsed for over an hour beforehand. The chairs were all in regimented lines and there were exactly enough chairs for the students and staff. No more, no less. Then, music was played and a swarm (literally) of first year students entered from the back of the room and took a chair in the center of the hall. About an hour of speeches by old but evidently important people and relentless bowing ensued. When asked to stand up, every student shot up like a bullet and stood perfectly still until asked to bow (れい), they in perfect unison bowed. This happened about 20 times in the course of the ceremony.
After school, I took the bus home and did a bit of work (more history!), had a quick nap, downloaded some English television (I miss The Apprentice) and then headed off to a restaurant with Sam and Masae.
We ate a lot.

P.S. Sorry, no English fail today as didn't go anywhere different but here's a toilet with lots of buttons :)

Day 10: I did make speech today did.

2009-04-08T06:47:00.000-07:00

I woke up at 6:00 this morning after getting to sleep at about 2:30 as I was finishing off my speech. Took the bus alone but had no trouble speaking to people - the Japanese love a 外人 to speak to. They found the fact that I could speak Japanese hysterical. After arriving at the school, we were taken to this room:and told that the stage that I stood on to take the above picture would be where we would later do our speech in front of the whole school. Brilliant. The people you can see filing are doing so as it was the first day of school ceremony. 500 people stood for over an hour looking at the stage while all of the teachers processed, bowed and walked off again, followed by long, drawn out speeches. Sam and I couldn't do it. Our backs were seriously hurting after over an hour of rigid standing.

We were then taken to our homeroom and chatted to our homeroom class (below) and then did the most bizzare thing. We moved lockers from room to room. Identical lockers which were completely empty were simply exchanged from room to room around the school. It took over an hour and we have no idea why they were doing it. The lockers were exactly the same. Bizzare.
Here is Sam doing that.
Here is me sitting at a small desk looking foreign.
Ah, serious point to make here. Look below, these people are the school bus drivers. They are by no means as chirpy as Alan at Wycliffe but they wear their uniform with such pride. This is true for so much of Japan. There are people employed to stand at car park exit barriers and take peoples ticket for them and put it into the machine for them. Their uniform is pristine and they constantly smile and take the job seriously. Same as McDonalds and practically anywhere else. If there is a long queue (I love the spelling of that word) in a shop, shop assistants will do all they can to open new tills and hurry people through. After being here for some time it makes you a little bit angry that England can't be the same.

This is after we did our speach. The girl is somebody I met on the bus, the boy (I think) is her boyfriend (which is pretty rare to have it seems, even at 17 years old) and that's Sam, looking very, very tall.
After school I had a nap (needed it), did a bit of work, had tea (wasn't very nice so had a Japanese pot noodle latter [they're better than English ones]) then went for a walk to the nearby park. Check out the cherry blossom. It really is awesome.

P.S. Meaning anybody?

Oh, nearly forgot. Speeches. We speak slowly, we know but it's soooo scary. Plus, tough crowd.

Day 9: Ikea

2009-04-07T08:30:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this after properly belly laughing with the mum and dad whilst writing my big speech for tomorrow. It won't sound funny here but as they were going through it with me we kept changing the grammar so it read appallingly. For the alternative speech, we settled with:

みなさん、オリーでしたと思いましたでしたか．Followed by a 'cheeky wink' to the head teacher. (Everybody, did you think that it was Ollie?) In Japanese, if you add か to the end of a sentence it makes it a question. So, today has been spent saying every sentence in the past tense and adding か. It doesn't seem funny now but it really really is if you do it often enough. Ok, time for the blog:

The day started with a (lovely as always) breakfast of english muffin with some kind of processed meat product. The Japanese love things to be processed, perfectly shaped and then vacuum sealed. Check out this bread:

It's called sandwich bread. The crusts have been cut off. Oh dear Japan...

After, we went to a Japanese restaurant for lunch (the family are really keen for me to like sushi) and actually, although most of the menu looks like it has just come out of the sea and has fallen onto the plate by accident, some of the sushi dishes are actually alright. I would urge those that are coming to Japan soon to give sushi at least five tries before you dismiss it, I did and I'm starting to appreciate it now. Although, I agree that most of the menu looks like the booby prize on I'm a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here. Check out the video - It's like The Generation Game, but you wouldn't want the prizes:

Then, we went to Ikea before heading to Minami's university (loads of pictures from Kobe port but need to get to bed - will post all tomorrow after first day of school). Anyway, Ikea is exactly the same. Photo evidence:

Other than the vending machine English fail above. The evidence is pretty conclusive. The only differences are that the people that work there actually give a damn, the Swedish names have Katakana above them so people know how they're read (that's what we need) and the little cafe at the end has a machine where you buy a little ticket in exchange for you food. I had a hotdog that was 50 yen (35p) and a drink from a machine that was 100 yen. The machines are usually between 20 and 30 yen more. Ikea win.

And for the P.S. this time - this is how Hello Kitty obsessed they are. It is exactly what you think it is.

Tomorrow's post will include what I did tonight as well... I'm so tired and really need to get some sleep before I wake at 6:00 in order to catch a bus (alone) to school. Night.

Day 8: 勉強ジュース

2009-04-06T05:16:00.000-07:00

I mainly did work today in my lovely new Japanese workbooks (Henry and Wolsey notes done!) but I did have a break for lunch (the most amazing chicken curry I have ever eaten) and a quick trip to the video rental shop where I bought a couple of CDs for nearly 5,000 Yen (that's a lot) after getting some recommendations from the non-english speaking shop assistant (took a while).

I also rented a few Japanese films that I'll watch over the next week. Can't really say much about them until I've watched them.

Sorry it's a bit of a boring post - tomorrow will be good as I'm going to Ikea Japan. Why, you ask? Because I want to. I'm sure it'll be exactly the same layout, branding and design as the one in Bristol with Japanese signs and Japanese people shopping there but until I go I just can't be sure.

Oh, I discovered a 500ml aluminium Pepsi Zero (yes, it exists in Japan) today. I bought it and it's now called 勉強ジュース (study drink) as the family call beer パパジュース (daddy juice) for reasons only known to them. Fizzy drinks are relatively unpopular in Japan. Not all of the (hundreds and hundreds of) vending machines stock cola or lemonade and the ones that do only have it as one option amongst about 30 other drinks (mainly hot and cold tea, coffee and milk drinks).

Over and out.

P.S. It seems Sam now has internet so expect more of what's below to follow!

Day 7: Karaoke

2009-04-05T05:26:00.000-07:00

I went to a Karaoke bar for the first time today. There is a lot I want to write about it but I really must do some work before I go to bed so I'll keep it brief.

For lunch I went to another Sakura festival - two minute walk from the house. I ate all sorts of weird things there as well. Yakitori wins. I also played the ball game again. I'm getting much better!

You basically have a small circular bat that has paper that dissolves in water. You have to pick up balls from a little paddling pool and you keep a proportion of them. I'm so close to brushing off my clumbsy westener reputation... I got three balls and Minami got one. WIN!

I also drank some Japanese tea in a pretty formal way for only 50 Yen which I was quite happy about. (Note the cherry blossom in the picture below)

Anyway, the Karaoke was the highlight of the day. It's basically a very very big purpose built building with about 20 karaoke rooms. They are by no means uniform, the equipment, furniture, design and size of each one is individual but the price is pretty much the same £15ish for a few hours for all but two of the rooms (they are the VIP ones). Unlike Britain, it doesn't seem to be an entertaining, tongue in cheek activity. I saw people there alone. We just sat with Minami and one of her friends and sang songs whilst sat on a sofa. Dull lighting and no real laughter (until I tried a Japanese song!). Looking through the glass of the other rooms it seemed pretty much the same.

I think I know why the Japanese don't have a very good English accent. It's because of the カタカナ読み方 (the Japanese script used above English words for pronunciation. All English songs have Katakana above but it's just wrong. ザ (za) is used for the as in the banana and ジ (zi) is used for the as in the apple. It was really quite funny to hear Minami's friend sing the songs as she was reading just the Katakana and she sounded so so foreign. It's true for Kazuki (the 13 year old) and Minami's text books. They all have this dodgy katakana in. So, there we go, the explanation for why the Japanese sound Japanese when they speak English. Problem. Solved. :)

Finally: Best toilet sign ever -
P.S. Now the pictures should all be clicky.
P.P.S. Thank you for all the nice things you've been saying about the blog... Think of it as a digital postcard replacement :)

Day 6: Borat

2009-04-04T04:58:00.000-07:00

<- This is more than just a doppy dorris mistake. It's hilarious. This is more important than this in my opinion yet the latter is the most read on BBC online news. I don't want to die because of silly rocket squabbling.

I did my speech today and met Shaun, the Bristolian English teacher. Hearing and seeing a local person other than Sam was welcome (sorry Sam!). The speech went pretty poorly - speaking in a foreign language in front of natives is really intimidating. I have to do another one at the school opening ceremony as well. Today was in front of about 30 parents... the next one will be hundreds!I was taught prepositions at the dinner table today. そば、まえ etc so I've used a preposition in every sentence I've said from now on. The family find it hysterical. Advice to those that are coming over here in a bit: learn them, they're really useful if you don't know the noun that you need! I went to an American steak house today, although it wasn't. I won't bore you but the potatoes weren't like home and the steak wasn't like TGI's. It was all a bit of a wash out food wise because of the Japanese tasting sauces they put all over everything but I had a really nice time as Minami's grandmother came along and she spoke no English at all so everything had to be in perfect Japanese... very interesting for me.

After, we went to a festival. I think it's because of the sakura (it was called さくらまつり) which is now blossoming. All the schools in the area played on a big stage that was erected on the canal bank - including Minami's old band so we went along. It rained a lot but it still went ahead and they were actually pretty good. It was here that I ate やきとり(yakitori) for the first time. I had six of them. Just incredible. After eating this, we then went to this big room where all the school bands tuned up and stored their stuff and I was the talk of the town! All 50 or so of them wanted to exchange a 'Hello' with me and it was the most bizzare experience.

They all commented on how tall I was (literally double the height of some people my age) and I reassured them that I am tall even for England! I got chatting to a girl who conspired to be older than me who is such a fan of Disney (she calls herself a Disney princess) that she wants to study English at university next year so she can work in DisneyLand when she's older. That's her dream. I don't know who's right, the British who shun such childish ambitious or the Japanese for encouraging it. She's clearly extremely happy. Masae (Sam's partner) has a bedroom full of teddybears and she's at university. Every 16-18 year old girl seems to like Care Bears and have Hello Kitty everything. It's sort of cute but I keep having to remind myself that the rest of the world grows out of this at the age of about 14...

Whilst at the festival I felt a bit like Borat in my school uniform. What do you think?

I was also bought hot chocolate milk in a can. Hot. Chocolate. Milk. In a can. From a vending machine! Brilliant. Well done Japan.

I also did some food shopping in a supermarket. There is so so much I could say as everything is so so different but I'm going to limit myself to one thing. The apples are HUGE. Even the biggest hand couldn't fit around them. Photo evidence below.

P.S. Spot the English fails.

Day 5: The Japanese are good at castles (and McDonalds)

2009-04-03T04:59:00.001-07:00

Videos from my trip to McDonalds yesterday (now uploaded!)

The mother took me to lunch today in McDonalds so I could see what the differences were. The place was just so typical of the Japanese attitude. Every person who worked there looked like they had a sense of belonging and devotion and they were all working extremely hard - I've never seen burgers be made so quickly! Their uniforms were immaculate and the attention to detail was such that they had McDonalds socks. The resturant was spotlessly clean and they had a separate bin for left over drinks and ice. Why didn't we think of that? Also, there are spare table pieces so if there are too many to fit around one table - you can just slot in an extra piece of table between two existing tables. They'd be pinched in England.

I had a burger which was chicken with cheese in the middle of the chicken. It was alright but pretty small (every burger was smaller than Britain). The fries were the same but much more salty. I then had a Japanese tea and Oreo McFlurry. I thought if there was a way to make myself appreciate the taste of green tea then ice cream was the way to go (and at least I'd have the oreos to distract me). It wasn't too bad actually but I don't think I'll be having it again.

I went to Himeji castle today where I saw my first 桜 (cherry blossom) today. It really is awesomely pretty. Apparently it's still not quite peak season but there was a lot around the castle. Considering it was built in 1533 it is a spectacular size. Every little part of the castle has so much attention to detail like covers for nail heads. To protect it they ask that you take your shoes off and wear slippers. They were infinitely too small for me so I asked for some bigger ones - the man gave me the biggest he had and they were still too small. Considering the floor was made from uneven wood it wasn't the most elegant of journeys and certainly didn't help remove my clumsy Westerner reputation.

We then went to the market which is near the castle (catering to the tourists mainly) and I played a game whereby you have to pick up bouncy balls that are floating in water with a paper paddle. If the paddle gets too wet then the paper disintegrates. I got 9. Clumsy Westerner.

I also tried all sorts of exciting food and snacks and did a bit of souvenir shopping. I'm eating so much over here - I thought being in sushi country would make me lose weight. I don't think that's going to be the case...

Ought to go to sleep - it's 11:00 at night and I have to do my speech tomorrow...

Day 4: Bag

2009-04-01T19:01:00.000-07:00

I have never been more grateful to a delivery driver in my life. 見て.

Now my laptop is charging; I'm deodorised and I have slippers that actually fit my feet. I swear that the family think I'm the clumsiest loser Westerner around. I woke up this morning to find that the bookcase that housed all of the PS3, PS2 and Wii games (they're Japanese, what do you expect?) had moved upstairs, away from behind where I sit at the dinner table. Embarrassing. Although, pretty much every time I got up I did knock something off. I blame the small guest

slippers though.

Breakfast this morning was interesting as I had it alone with the mother watching me. The Dad had gone to work, the girl who I'm staying with went to some university open day and the brother... urm, he went somewhere too. So, I was presented with a dish that had some chopped up banana and some kind of coleslaw stuff. I left it untouched - I think the mum got the idea. The I was presented with a bowl that looked like very runny custard but smelt like baby food after it has come out of the microwave. I think it was some kind of sweetcorn soup and I don't know if I like it or not. I was so occupied with its colour and consistency I forgot to think about the taste. Then, I had pan au chocolat - Japanese style. Basically a bar of chocolate with a little bit of pastry wrapped around it. Again, I said this was a フランス物 (French product) and the mum was having none of that - they were all wrapped up in an American style box.

Exciting news re last night. After heading to bed at half past midnight because the mother and girl were in my room whilst the girl was on the phone to her friend organisng something and coming to some kind of arrangement... about... something for no less than 50 minutes. She spoke astonishingly quickly and kept changing her mind. Then they asked me questions and I just went along with the flow - I'll find out if that was the right thing to do later I'm sure. Anyway - I dreamt in Japanese! I've never dreamt in French before so I really surprised myself - so much so that I couldn't actually get to sleep again until about 5:30 in the morning.

The dream wasn't long and all I can remember of it was a song was playing that I have heard in both England in school and on the radio that day and two people were having some kind of argument/discussion about how to conjugate adjectives in Japanese. Bizzare. But - it was in Japanese and I was so excited by this, I woke up and then couldn't get back to sleep!

It's nearly half past eleven in the morning and I'm currently writing a speech to read in front of the entire school in a couple of days. It's now I have some sympathy for the foreigners at my school who do this sort of thing. I know that every single word I say will be scrutinised and picked apart by the Japanese. Oh well, chapter one of my Japanese text book is all about a 自己紹介。自己紹介をしたければなりない！

Heading off to Kobe today - will take lost of pictures. (Update: Done - will upload tomorrow)

Update: Very late at night but really want to keep this up. Kobe was amazing. I first went to a restaurant with the family which

was... interesting. The menu looked thoroughly unappetising but I made a rule to myself that I would only look up the food in my

dictionary after I have taken a bite.

I've eaten some weird stuff...

After, I met Sam with まさえ (his partner) and we went shopping. Well, shopping isn't really the word. We worshiped commercialism for about six hours. The place where we went isn't just one shopping center, it's about three or four all interconnected by bridges around the town. And, the subways aren't just footpaths... OH NO - they're shopping centers as well. The amount of French about is unbelievable. I'll post some pictures on this post eventually. The thing is, みなみ (my partner) has now started to cotton on to the whole French thing so I'm constantly doing French -> Japanese translations... not easy! The shops are just incredible. I went to the 百円や (70p shop) and spent about £35 on Japanese nik-nacks (spelling?!) which I enjoyed very much. Then went around some other shops.

Basically, if you've never been to Japan, the shops(supermarkets and technology shops excluded) can be summarised into two main categories (not mutually exclusive). Paris boutique wannabies and the Disney Store but more childish. It's awesome though.

We then went to an all you could eat restaurant. However Sam and I didn't know that it was all you could eat until about half way through as the waiter made a point of only speaking to the natives as quietly as he possibly could. However, once we had worked it out - we accepted the challenge. We think that we won.

After we went to an amusement arcade. The Japanese take this extremely seriously. In England it is a casual seaside past time yet in Japan, people sit alone pouring money into a virtual 'hit the frog on the lillypad' game with the most intense look on their face. We went up three floors to the photo booth floor. An entire floor with about twenty massive photo booths - laden with raunchy images of Japanese women trying to look western by not wearing very much and making their faces look white. It seems that girls (and boys)go after school as a matter of course and pay about £3 to take their photo against a green screen (all fully automated) and then proceed to another booth where they 'customise' the photos with all sorts of tat. The photos are then printed as stickers and emailed. These stickers are so so popular it's unreal. When I get the pictures forwarded to me I'll post them. Below is the booth. Bizzare.

Went to a Japanese McDonalds to try the drinks. Watch the video as I discover that it's exactly the same. However, if you choose to buy a drink from one of the many (actually, many, many, many - one on literally every street corner) vending machines - you can get a Pepsi Max in an aluminum screw top bottle!

The evening was spent giving crushed presents to the family (which they loved - although Green and Blacks chocolate is too sweet according to them (they're wrong)). Then I explained English card games to them. In Japanese. Such vocabulary is definitely lacking from my A-Level course so... it took a while.

<- Screw top bottle can. Wow.

Day 3: Time to report on the toilet

2009-04-01T05:51:00.000-07:00

The rumours are true. The Japanese have the most bizarre bathroom system going on. Once I'd taken my house slippers off (incredibly small as I'm wearing the guest ones as mine are in my suitcase GRRR) and put the toilet slippers on I was faced with a question. I needed a number one. The seat had towel type thing wrapped around it. Did I a) Sit down and have my bottom warmed (I kid you not) whilst I did a number one or, b) do some target practice. I chose the latter. SUCCESS! The shower this morning was somewhat more troublesome. Firstly trying to decipher how to turn the thing on was difficult enough - then choosing an option such that I wouldn't get scolded was next on the agenda. Then the slow realisation that I was completely naked, sitting on a tiny little school in the middle of a sizable bathroom with a solitary shower head, and would be for the foreseeable future was a little bizarre.

It's been two days before I could take a picture because I think they're getting a little fed up of me taking

a picture of everything that is vaguely different to England (there's a lot) and I think they think that it would be a bit bizzare if their guest took

his camera into the toilet. I did it though and the evidence is below. Please note three things:

1) That is not a tap on the top to wash your hands (as I did). That is infact the water inlet to the water storage basin for the toilet that passes through a perfumed filter.

2) Yes, the seat is lined with carpet.

3) That is a power socket. The toilet is plugged into the wall and there are buttons. I've been informed that this is relatively bottom of the range toilet with not so many buttons. One would be enough for me - flush, but there's two. One marked 大 and one marked 小 (big and small respectively) - how does one quantify the size of their business? Madness.

I went shopping today to buy a nice Japanese pencil (which I did) and came out with a load of gifts for Millie. She would love this place - every other shop is ridden with pink tat with cute cartoons on. It's either that, American or... French. The Japanese use French words for shops, products and restaurants all the time and they don't even know it. Point it out to them and they are convinced it's American. The quality of the French isn't always great which makes me laugh. Particularly in slogans they'll miss out the final 'e' of some words. Talking about final letters... I was teaching the 13 year old brother of the family (really nice lad) about English plurals so he doesn't embarrass himself by going to a zoo to look for geeses and sheeps. Explaining 'is' and 'are' in Japanese was a test! Especially considering the Japanese don't have such plurals themselves.

But, the shopping center was just incredible. Three floors (each one had some sort of American fast food offering) of every kind of shop imaginable. Western brands with a Japanese twist... I can't get over how awfully polite t

he shop assistants are. I haven't come across one that hasn't welcomed me and thanked me with some kind of pre-written honorific speech and continued to talk me through the whole transaction bit by bit. They make a point of reading out how much money they are given to everyone and instantly tell them the amount of change they'll get - just to be polite it seems. In Britain you're lucky if you get eye contact...

After the trip out I had a discussion with the father of the family about the economic climate and the difference in exchange rates between the Dollar, Yen and Pound and how that is affecting commerce. I kid you not! To be honest, can of coke from a 'cheap shop' costing 140 Yen is ridiculous. Then followed by me showing them videos from http://www.failblog.org (which they loved - although they laugh at anything, when it was revealed that my suitcase was missing but I had my hand luggage with my school books and laptop I said, 'テキスト本を着た方がいいですね’ (I'd better wear my textbooks). They were literally in hysterics at this broken Japanese utterance) and then I watched some Japanese TV. Yet another rumour that I discovered wasn't just a rumour. They are NUTS. See the (relatively tame, so I'm told) example below and I'll rest my case. (sorry about the quality - I filmed it whilst we were eating tea (above).

Fingers crossed for a visit from my bag tomorrow. I've been saying '大きいの鞄の中で．．．’ (It's in my big bag) far too often. The father of the family had a long chat with the people from the airport in Japanese and I picked up enough to know that they genuinely haven't a clue but it might come on a plane tomorrow. I do wonder how they can fly a massive pressurised tin can around the world at 38,000 feet and fail to know the whereabouts of the bags that are on it. How to they know where to take the bags to, does the work experience guess by having a quick look at the contents? "Ah, shorts in there - somewhere warm I think... This bag is going to BARBADOS!" What are the barcodes for? Decoration?

Anyway... other than the bizarre salty snacks that they are trying to feed me - things are good in Japan.

P.S. I resisted buying this pad, although I sort of regret it...

Day 2: I love unsecured wireless networks

2009-03-31T08:10:00.000-07:00

I am in debt to the nice Japanese man who lives near where I am for the next month for providing me with broadband internet access. He doesn't know how grateful I am because he doesn't know that he's doing me the favour. Nevertheless, I'm grateful.

It's about midnight as I'm writing this as I've just returned from a car trip to a mountain. It took about 40 minutes by car but it was worth it. I didn't really know why I was getting into their car (which by the way is incredible - it has cameras around it which connect to the sat-nav screen), but I got in anyway and the father drove up this very long and windy path. We got to some resturant which was closed... walked around the back and saw this:

The pictures just don't do the view justice. The lower image is Osaka bay at about 11:00 at night. The one above is Kyoto at the same time. Standing at the top of 六甲山 (rokou-sann). (九百三十一 meters) 931m above sea level.

Sleep time now.

Day 1: Bagless but well fed

2009-03-31T05:16:00.000-07:00

Well. After a proper sprint from the arrivals section of Dubai airport to the departures - we made it on the flight with just moments before they were going to close. Unfortunately, our bags didn`t. (Ignore the appostrophe - it`s good enough that I`m even typing on this strange thing.

The food on the aeroplane was actually pretty good. Added to the fact that I dozed off whilst watching `Beadle`s About'. Ah, found the proper button - the trip wasn't too bad. In fact, I think I could get used to a life of falling asleep whilst watching classic comedy only to be woken up and fed. Not bad at all.

So, after an irritating hour or so in arrivals trying to explain to the very helpful (although lacking in English) Emirates ladies, I was met by my family who promptly took me to a superstore to buy pants and socks. Embarassing. I was thrown in at the deep end with regards to Japanese shopping etiquette. Who would have thought that you put the money in a little tray before handing it over to the shop assistant? And, it dispenses the change for them! Wow.

Due to lack of Wi-Fi this post is lacking in both pictures and videos. And due to a lack of energy, quality. If I can somehow connect my Mac up (which I have because it was in my handluggage along with my books) I'll post all of the pictures from the last 48 hours that are worth seeing.

Things are looking good though. I've just spent this evening eating Japanese (obviously) beef curry and rice whilst watching a gameshow that began with people scrambling for falling money and culminated with people (possibly the same ones) having to build a train track whilst a toy train came racing around. It was a race against people and track and a toy train. The toy train won. Love it.

UPDATE: Video time :)

Day 0: The Joys of Heathrow Airport

2009-03-30T04:46:00.000-07:00

Getting to Heathrow wasn't too much of a problem. The only major queues came when I had to take off my new shoes. Over 10 minutes was spent shuffling them off my reluctant feet and longer putting them back on again. Embarrassing. AND my hair is fluffy because of the rubbish cut I got in the Mall. Bad times. That's us in the lounge. Sam's content. I'm not... read on to find out why.

Given that we had an hour to wait - we popped to Yo! Sushi. Bad idea. If this visit has set the tone for the rest of the trip's culinary expectations then I'm bitterly disappointed. Sam was trying to convince me that わさび (wasabi) is delicious. Frankly I have no idea why the Japanese subject themselves to such tastes. Seriously bitter. And the fact that Yo! Sushi (that exclamation mark is getting annoying) insists on charging £1 just for tap water to wash the vile taste down really takes the biscuit. (I could do with a biscuit...)

Waiting here surrounded by people really isn't pleasant. And to think I've got to sit in a fart chamber with a small proportion of them isn't an exciting prospect at all. But.... WE'RE GOING TO JAPAN! (end of use of upper case).

Update: 01:46 - We're in the departure lounge and have been offered a free copy of the Telegraph and the Economist. I was about to buy these in WHSmiths where we were charged £1.60 for a bottle of water. Shocking. I write this whilst Sam is ripping his new (VAT free he's asked me to write) CD. We both look like a pair of proper nerds with our laptops out like this.

I head a siren noise but Sam assures me that it's a good siren, not a bad siren. Here's hoping.

I still feel a little queasy from the the raw salmon I ate in Yo! Sushi. We've discovered the paradox: My problem with it is that it's raw, Sam assures me that it wouldn't be sushi if it wasn't...

Boarding in 10 minutes! VERY exciting. And it's a double decker Airbus. I've rarely been on regular double decker busses. And this is an AIR one!

Sam here, seems pretty normal for me. Ollie's making a fuss about nothing... I'm looking forward to getting to Japan and seeing the school! We're boarding soon.