Goodbyes

I’m feeling a bit down at the moment. A bit lonely. It’s that time of year again when the departing ALTs are, well, departing. Apartments are being packed and rumours are being spread, rumours about the newcomers. Apparently the new ALT in my town is called Ryan, an American chap with a Spanish heritage. He sounds interesting already!

The majority of the Yatsushiro ALTs, old and new(ish) alike are leaving, meaning we’ll be getting 7 or 8 new people in the city. I am reliably informed that out of these 7 or 8, 6 or 7 (ie all except one) are women. Not quite sure what to make of this at the moment, I don’t want to start prejudging people again. Most are American though and this is something I can comment on; I really wish there was more of a balance. In the vast majority of cases, Americans are as nice as any other people but I’d really like a bit of variety.

In my first year there was an Irish ALT, 2 Australians, 4 Canadians, 1 South African, 3 Americans and 3 of us Brits. This past year there were 2 Brits (me included), 3 Canadians, 1 South African, 1 Indian and 6 Americans (5 by the end of the year). I much preferred the mix during the first year, not that I disliked anyone this year. Well, not really. However, the few times I did go to Yats the concentration of not just Yanks but Californians (of the 6 I think 4 were from California somewhere) made me feel in the minority. An Englishman in New York if you will, although Yatsushiro is about as far from New York as that Welsh tramp wandering around Leeds.

There are a few people staying over from last year but only one other remains from when I first arrived. Of the others staying, two are cool and one is…a bit of a challenge but I shall persevere. If there’s one thing I mucked up this year it was the delicate Balance between girlfriend and friends, meaning that Hannah got too much of me and my friends were neglected. Not that I think they minded too much. Still, this year is another chance to even that out.

It’s a bit nerve-wracking though, especially getting a new ALT in my town. I sort of fell out of contact with Ellison this year, something I do regret, but hopefully this new chap will be as nice as the last guy. We shall see. Apparently he doesn’t speak any Japanese so that’s something we’ll have in common. He’s going to love that.

Tokyo

I started writing a longwinded and rather boring summation of our trip to Tokyo before getting a reasonable way into it and realising it was both boring and rather longwinded. So, I decided to start again.

Tokyo in two words. Fucking Huge. Tokyo in another two words. But Good. It was like taking 5 microtrips to different cities all of which were fucking mental. Massive shopping centres? Yup. Huge TV built into the side of a building? Check. Déjà vu despite having never been there before (thanks to Lost In Translation)? Certainly. Tokyo is like a Monet floating in a swimming pool; you know it’s going to be expensive but you can’t help but jump in. The ward we were staying in, Asakusa, was perhaps comparable to Kumamoto city in size and scale. Perhaps. Perhaps Asakusa is bigger, we didn’t see all that much of it. However, 20 minutes train ride away is the frankly ridiculous Shibuya, whose massive skyscraping shopping centres go on forever. Probably not literally forever, but as near as makes no difference. It’s also home to the crossing made famous in the aforementioned film. It’s the one with the dinosaur on the building. The moving one. You know. Needless to say I walked across that crossing as many times as I could in the short time we were there, hoping for some cooky Bill Murray type to appear. He did not.

Shinjuku was where I’d stayed when I first arrived in Japan. It was home for 3 days. I was convinced it was the “hotel district” and that was it. As with so many things, I was completely wrong. It was fucking mental. There’s a chain over here called Don Quixote but it may as well be called “everything in the whole sodding world under one roof that has various stuffed toys hanging from it.” The Shinjuku branch was 6 floors of chaos; bloody minded, consumerist chaos. I loved it. To add some spice to the mix someone thought it’d be funny to have all of these 6 floors, containing such diverse goods as Doritos, flick knives and Rolex watches, rely on one checkout situated right at the very back of the first/ground floor. As I say, absolute chaos.

Akihabara is the otaku centre of the world, otaku here meaning geek. Although it’s been heavily romanticised in the western world don’t be fooled; your average otaku is a social freak that should be avoided at all costs. Hundreds of stores containing cartoon porn, people dressed as cartoons and cartoons you can control with a joystick are crammed into Akihabara’s main street. Next to those healthy signs of the coming apocalypse are dozens of electric stores selling everything from computers to wall fans to lengthy appendages that I was assured were not backscratchers.

Ometesando is the new Shibuya apparently; the fashion capital of Japan’s youth. It reminded me of Camden town. I’ve only ever been to Camden once and most of it was spent cowering in fear behind poor Hannah. Why are you looking at me Old Asian Lady? Why are you offering me overpriced Chinese food? Why are you offering it so loudly? This place was much nicer. Lovely backstreets filled with archetypal Japanese Goths, hobbling around on boots so stacked they were almost as tall as a normal person. Shops selling handmade socks for the price of a small French chateaux. Toy stores stocked to the brim with oddities and perversions, all aimed at the under-5 market. It was great.

Roppongi is Tokyo’s red light district. Restaurants and bars give way to brothels and “lingerie bars” on a street culminating in the largest phallus ever created; Tokyo Tower. We didn’t spend much time here, disturbed as we were by a 333 metre high metal…part. The shopping centre was nice though and it did contain the Konami headquarters. Worth a photo, that.

So yes, fun was had. We had a few nice meals and tried to forget about our medieval torture chamber of a hostel. The weather was good to us and the people, although completely oblivious to our presence, didn’t try to harm us. I had already planned a return visit before realising that a twenty foot high anime maid splashed across a banner offering to “serve” me had not registered as strange, and that I really should go home for a bit.

Face

Facebook is great. No really, it’s great. Better than it’s aborted cousin Myspace, better than the transparent Bebo, better than the sterile laboratories of Friends Reunited. Facebook is great. Everyone is on it. People I’ve not seen or heard of in 10 years have repeatedly thrown friend requests in my face. People I never thought would use the internet as anything other than a research tool have signed up and populated their profile with pictures of wild abandon.

This ramble is basically to lend some explanation as to why I haven’t written here for coming on 3 months. Basically I’ve been on Facebook. See what I’ve done here? You already know why I’ve been on Facebook because I started the entry with reasons why it’s great! It’s like I know what you’re thinking!!

Also, not much has happened in the last 3 months. It’s a fact that I didn’t want to face. Nothing has happened. Nothing. Well, I’ve seen Hannah a lot and been to a few dos but that’s it. I’m not going to talk about school here as all I seem to do is complain and no one really cares anyway. Well, Mum doesn’t and I’m pretty sure she’s the only one reading this. How do I know she doesn’t?

She told me.

Moving on; yes, I’ve seen a lot of Hannah. I mean, I’ve seen her almost every weekend. See, I do know what you were thinking you cheeky boys. Trying to actually remember what we did during these times is difficult. We ate a lot. We may have talked a lot too. I know we went to the shops.

Other than doing things that I can’t remember I’ve been invited to a shocking total of 2 social engagements. More specifically, I’ve been to a total of 2 shocking social engagements. I may have been invited to more and then forgotten about the invites. These social engagements both took place in equally shocking locales; the beach and Kumamoto City.

Beach outings consist mainly of going to a beach and sitting on it. We were only partly successful in this endeavour, spending most of our time slightly adjacent to the beach so as not to get sand everywhere. I believe the term “Underpant Sahara” is appropriate for what we were trying to avoid. Most failed in this task. Among the numerous fun activities partaken were See Who Can Jump the Highest (me), See Who Can Wear A Borrowed Hat (me), See Who Can Wear The Most Yellow (me) and Let’s Trying Not To Catch Salmonella (me, joint first with Geoff). Also dodgeball.

The second outing did indeed take place in Kumamoto City. It was someone’s birthday I think, whatever. There were loads of people there I didn’t know and this scared poor Hannah and I senseless. Obviously I see people everyday that I don’t know on an intimate level but they are Japanese people and I content myself in the knowledge that they all want to know me. These people were different. They were cruel and unforgiving. Within one minute of meeting with their leader he had already asked for my name and age. I strained an answer from my puckered mouth and tried to hide my shame. His breeding was obviously atrocious.

After an exceedingly expensive meal that consisted of raw salmon and a pizza base lathered in egg yolk, an impromptu meeting was held in the middle of the street in order to decide where to go next. Hannah, obviously bored by everyone except me, was looking fractious so I suggested a nearby bar that made up for it’s lack of clean toilets by pricing its drinks in line with the economic environment of the 1930s. Of course, everyone agreed immediately. Some people may have gone somewhere else but all the important people stayed. By important I obviously mean important in the context we were in, not genuine decision makers or anything.

So yeah, it was OK after that. Hannah was obviously bored through and through but I persuaded her that the final club might be OK. After entering and discovering their wine was limited to “Red” or “White” our spirits fell somewhat. Then some stuff happened and we went home.

We’re off Tokyo next week though. That’ll be nice.

Evidence

I really did go to Kyoto. Here's the proof.

Kyoto Station. Bloody massive.

Shinkansen. Not ours of course, ours was much better

A temple. I think this was the entrance to the Inari shrine.

This was the real meat of Inari, the thousands of tori gates. Marvo

More later.

Trip

Kyoto then. I’d been once before but was so tired after the completely pointless Kobe recontracting conference that I’d just attended that I didn’t really get to see much of it. This time however Hannah and me had 4 days to explore. As Hannah had also been before and had in fact managed to make it out of her hostel without keeling over we had a pretty good idea of where to go and what to do.

Obviously there was a lot of temple hopping, Kyoto having something of a temple surplus. There was the famous Golden Pavilion (a wee bit tacky if you ask me) and the less well-known and inaccurately named Silver Pavilion (much nicer and probably my favourite). There was the precariously balanced Kiyomizu shrine replete with the rudest people in all of Japan. Inari shrine also resides with the city, along with its thousands and thousands of corporate sponsored Tori gates.

Just outside the city proper is Nara, which was apparently the first capital of Japan. Most of Nara seemed to consist of a park full of deer and tourists that also contained the world’s largest wooden building which itself houses the world’s largest upright Buddha. That’s a lot of the world’s largest stuff. The building was big, the Buddha was fucking huge. For a Buddha.

Then there was the city itself. Kyoto is a long, long (looooooooooooooooong) way from Kumamoto and I’m not just talking about miles and kilometres. If Kumamoto is to be considered the Slough or Wigan of Japan then Kyoto is surely its Manchester or Leeds. I’d say York but that quiet, historic town has nothing on Kyoto’s vibrant people and outstanding nightlife. It’s an amazing place. For what was possibly the first time in almost a year, I felt like I was somewhere that was fun, somewhere that mattered. It felt familiar. I was constantly reminded of my time in Leeds, up to now possibly the most content I’ve ever been (well, the first two years anyway). We weren’t being stared at or commented on (well, actually we were but nowhere near as much as in Kumamoto). I didn’t feel like an alien. People didn’t feel the need to comment on my clothes as I walked down the street, nor stop and giggle at the sight of someone who wasn’t from Japan. It was like having a weight lifted from my shoulders.

I realised that all my opinions of Japan, of its people, its rules, the way things are run, are not in fact indicative of Japan as a whole. In fact, my views and opinions are probably completely erroneous. Kyoto proved to me that Japan is more than the farmers and convenience store workers of Kagami, more than the salarymen of Kumamoto city, more than the teenagers on the tram taking sly pictures of the gaijin with their phones. Although we still got a few comments and the odd glance, the whole experience made Kumamoto look like a racist Nazi state in my mind. Needless to say I dreaded going home.

But home I am, if you can call it that. My recent exploratory venture into interior design has made my apartment feel a bit more homely, especially thanks to Hannah’s birthday present, but the town of Kagami itself is, I think, about as far away from being a homely place as anywhere I’ve ever been. I’ve taken to calling it a ‘place’ rather than a ‘town’ because, well…that’s what it is. It’s a place for farmers to live when they come home from the fields. The only reason there are two high schools here is because it’s situated exactly between Yatsushiro and Kumamoto and even then no one wants their kids to go to school here.

Still, I had a great time in Kyoto. It was exactly what I needed at exactly the right time. Next stop, Tokyo.

Snap

Yesterday was a national holiday so I got the day off. Yay! I was a bit bored so I set out with my camera to get some shots of Kagami, my hometown. Of course, I waited until the light started to fade so I could really capture that “I can’t see what’s happening in that photo” look. To remedy this, I cracked out a little program I downloaded and had a fiddle with some of the shots. So here it is, presenting:

“The Kagami Urban Kollection.”
Hardcore: To the Max!

Class

My first Japanese lesson was last night. It went well. It was enjoyable even, something I thought impossible after years of state-funded education had convinced me that anything resembling the act of learning was both dull and pointless. The lesson itself consisted of trying to ascertain what level of Japanese I actually possessed, a more difficult task than you may imagine. I’ve been living in this country for almost 2 years now so I’ve obviously picked up a reasonable amount of vocab in that time. During the long, long summer holiday of 06 I also attempted a few weeks of self study which enlightened me as to some of the grammatical elements of Japanese. However, I didn’t really know how much I’d retained or indeed how much I’d even learnt.

I would class myself as a beginner but I surprised myself with how many words I actually knew, thinking as I did that 0 probably would have been an accurate count. I knew more than 0. This is good. I found myself getting a bit flustered when I was asked questions orally, questions I knew I knew the answer to. Still, I felt I came away with something which is always nice.

Lessons are almost over for this semester. Hikawa have already finished and yatsuno will go the same way next week. This means that, although I still have to go to school during the next few weeks, I won’t have any lessons. This is both good, and bad. Good because I get paid to do nothing. Nothing is expected of me and I am happy to fulfil those expectations. However, not having anything to do and doing nothing are quite different. Doing nothing is a sure-fire way to make every day drag on until it seems like a month. Doing nothing also the best way to get headache, staring at empty computer screens waiting for the bell to ring. It’s frustrating. Luckily this period will be broken up by Hannah and I’s trip to Kyoto from the 28^th so at least I get a proper break this time round.

Spring

The spring break is rapidly approaching. Two (or three in the case of one of my schools) weeks of no lessons even less responsibility. Good shit.

Me and Hannah are heading to Kyoto for a bit in just over a fortnight which cannot come soon enough. Although school life has been pleasantly free of the annoying incidents I once associated with it, I can’t say it won’t be a relief to get out of Kagami. Oh yes.

Also, I’ve decided to get Japanese lessons. This after a mere 1 year and 8 months in the country. I did have the occasional stab at self-study but, with local ALTs having great Japanese and most of my Japanese teachers having great English, the motivation wasn’t really there. However, looking at Hannah whose level is quiet unbelievable after only 8 months of lessons has inspired me. I haven’t deluded myself into thinking I can progress and rapidly as her, this is her third language after all, but it has convinced me that it isn’t too late to start.

Shanghai

The last stop on our tour and the most highly recommended of the cities, we were both looking forward to Shanghai. It was good. We both enjoyed it. Unfortunately the rain, which had mercifully let us be so far, decided to pay a visit. The first day we arrived in Shanghai was nice, not too cold and very clear. Thankfully we chose to go to the Bund to have a look at the budding Shangai riverside. This is the iconic set of highrises and the odd looking Oriental Pearl Tower that have come to symbolise the city. It was a lovely view and, save me getting a load of candy apple shite all over my coat, it was nice. As I say, it’s a good job we got to see that view the first day as for the rest of our stay the whole area was covered in low hanging clouds and fog, rendering the buildings across the water almost invisible. Oh well.

There were still some interesting sights though, The Oriental pearl tower was resplendant in its garishness, especially when placed next to the Jin Mao tower, the 4th tallest building in the world and possibly the most entrancing building I've ever seen. Seriously, it looked like something a comic book super-villain would reside in. It was magnificent.

Unfortunately, we found that most of the infamous street markets of Shanghai, full of dirt cheap brand-name clothing and some of the city’s main attractions, had been closed down, no doubt due to international pressure. No cheap Gucci for you. The Friendship store, a shop opened by the British to supply expats during the Empire, which was still operating according to the Lonely Planet, had also been demolished to make way for a hotel. Because you know, there aren’t enough of those in Shanghai.

We ate out a lot mainly because the food was so good and so cheap. Thanks to the ever-present Lonely Planet in Hannah’s bag, we were able to search out the finest the city had to offer. This included a lovely health food place that we went to twice and a vegetarian place whose tofu dishes were textured and flavoured meat imitations. It was actually unbelievable to me that some of the dishes weren’t meat; the breaded chicken tofu was, in almost every way, exactly the same as actual breaded chicken (minus the fat and gristle).

Also, I got a haircut.

Other adventures led to us encountering the famed People's Park English Corner, a gathering of which we were blissfully unaware. Basically all the English speakers in Shanghai (or so it seemed) decended on the area known as People Park every Sunday to practice English. Into this we stumbled. Having been warned to run screaming from anyone approaching us and speaking English it was probably best that the first thing they said to us was "Don't be afraid." It was rather surreal.

Soon we were talking about every topic under the sun. Of particular note was the question of Japanese people. One man, pictured below with me and Hannah, had been coming to the corner for 60 odd years and told us the fascinating story of how he and his English teacher were seperated during the Japanese occupation of China and reunited several years later. The general opinion was that the Japanese were stuck up and unfriendly and generally disliked. Hmm.

Shanghai is probably the only place I’d go back to. Beijing was good but now that the sites have been seen, it offers little incentive to return. Xi’an probably ended up being our favourite city but is so far away that we’d need a reason to go back. Shanghai is an hour and a half’s flight away from Fukuoka and a great place.

The Oriental Pearl. Wouldn't look out of place in Blackpool. Speaking of which...

Look what I found. At the top of one of China's landmark buildings, Blackpool reigns supreme!





Oriental Pearl on the left, Jin Mao in the middle (it's much further back the the rest of the buildings)

Jin Mao Tower. Just...look at it!


It was pretty tall too.

Xi'an

Xi’an, the even more ancient capitol of China was our second stop. After a relatively easy flight we arrived at the airport and were picked up by a happy little chap the hostel had sent. Driving through the ramshackle “towns” we began to become less and less convinced that coming to Xi’an had been a good idea. The mist had settled and the places we were passing through were supremely depressing (think the endless concrete high-rises of the Eastern Bloc). But then, low and behold, the famous Bell Tower emerged and we had arrived at what would arguably be the most enjoyable city we would visited.

Xi’an is interesting because it lies in the centre of China on the border between the Buddhist section and the Muslim section. Because of this, there is an extremely active Muslim Quarter just down the road from where we were staying and after we’d got settled (lovely room, absolutely perfect position) we went for a visit. For the first time in one and a half years I had a donner kebab. It wasn’t even intentional, I simply liked the smell of what some woman was cooking on the street and asked for one. It cost me 1 RMB (about 6p) and it was lovely. Unfortunately I couldn’t find this lady again, nor did anyone else seem to be making them. Sad face.

The rest of the street was equally as interesting, although poor Hannah didn’t find much to eat as most of it was lamb. The fried figs were nice though and the candied fruit sold in the candied fruit market was unbelievable. It was like being in Charlie’s Chocolate Factory if Wonka had preferred a nice bit of pineapple to a Mars Bar. There was also, strangely enough, a shop dedicated entirely to video game collectables. Poor Hannah indeed.

On the second day we set out to find what we had actually come to see; the Terracotta Warriors. This, one of the modern wonders of the world, had been highly recommended from all quarters and was probably the sight I was looking forward to the most. To get to it we took a local bus (12 RMB, just less than a quid, for the hour ride) and were dumped on the edge of a vast car park. We started to walk. It had been snowing that morning and raining the evening before so the ground was awash with slush. Little did I know that my shoes had holes to rival those in a Columbine student’s chest. By the time we’d walked through the hideously abandoned “Tourist Village” I couldn’t feel my feet. It was freezing. It was actually well below freezing if you’re counting (about minus 4 or so) and this did not put me in a good mood. Still, I shook myself out of it and convinced myself the sight of 6000 terracotta warriors in perfect battle formation would cheer me up.

So we finally, finally got to the excavation pits. They were covered over with aircraft hangar-like structures and surrounded by various dull looking concrete exhibition buildings. With the thick mist and layer of snow it really did look abandoned and rather depressing. Anyway, we’d been advised by someone in the Beijing hostel to work backwards, go from pit 3 to 2 to 1 as they increase in size and quality in that order. So, we skipped the first two and headed to Pit 3. It was OK, a rather small area containing 68 soldiers, or so we were told. Nice. Next was pit 2 and the sheer size of the building housing it meant that it couldn’t possibly be disappointing. Indeed, as I neared the perimeter wall enclosing he pit I averted my eyes for a moment, preparing them for the amazing scene below me…

It was indeed big. Huge infact. Massive one might say. One might also describe it as “soldier-less.” Not a single intact warrior stood in the massive hole before me. It was profoundly disappointing. I had expected row on row of pristine terracotta warriors ready for war but all I got was some ancient timber and shattered pottery barely distinguishable from the earth it lay in. Over to the side there were several soldiers on display in glass boxes but these were merely a distraction.

So, with a sinking heart, we made for Pit 1; the big one, the one in which over 6000 soldiers were supposedly discovered. Again, like Pit 3 it was nice…but that was it. There were soldiers here, maybe a few hundred, but nowhere near the figures so often banded about. A sign reliably informed us that most of the soldiers had been destroyed during the Japanese occupation of China or moved into an onsite exhibition centre, which was of course, closed. Considering the conditions we’d seen and the time we’d taken to get there, it was a bit of a disappointment.

Still, the city itself sticks in my mind as the most enjoyable of the places we visited. Vibrant, colourful and a million miles from the quiet Japanese settlement I call home, it was like being back in Leeds. An Oriental Leeds.

(This is the soldier-less Pit 2 by the by. See?)

Beijing

"Is it me or does this place smell of ass?”

Ah, Beijing, ancient capitol of an ancient race with tourists coming from all corners of The Almighty’s globe to wonder at her Forbidden City, Mao’s Tianamen Square and the Great Wall of China. City of history, city of the Olympics, city of smells. This last quality led to the rather amusing quote above, as spoken by a random American at the Summer Palace. Even though Hannah and me were in the middle of a small fracas, we couldn’t help but laugh (or at least Hannah couldn’t, I misheard it and though someone was taking the piss out of my hat. You’ll see why in the pictures). The smell of human excrement wafted amongst the shanty-town hutongs and mixed with the smells of barbequing lamb and baking bread. It really was quite a smell.

Beyond the smell were the sights. As our hostel was but an aborted female baby’s throw from Tiananmen, we started there. It’s a square. It is big. Not much else to say really apart from the fact that it was swarming with hawkers trying to sell all sorts of tat (Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book, Chairman Mao watches, Chairman Mao scarves, Chairman Mao’s Little Book of Loving etc etc). Some even went so far as to impart art student personas upon themselves and try and force us to go to “Art Exhibitions” where, according to Lonely Planet we weren’t so tired as to follow them, they try to sell you hugely overpriced “art”. These people did not leave us alone for the majority of the trip, so much so that I made several friends; Buy Now, Real Cheap and Fuck You.

The highlights in Beijing were the Great Wall and the Summer Palace. The Forbidden City was nice, but there are only so many temples and halls one can take. The Summer Palace is exactly what it sounds like; a retreat for fat Emperors hoping the summer air would aid erection. As we went in winter, the huge manmade lake in the centre of it all was completely frozen over with lots of mad Chinese skating around on it like so many lobotomised ice skating people.

The Great Wall, or at least the section we visited, was an hour’s drive from the city. Rather than taking one of the extortionate tours (280 RMB=nearly £20) we got there by ourselves using the extreme cunning we had developed from avoiding Beijing’s infestations of art students. In the end, it cost us 7 RMB each way (about 50p). Once there, we were suitably impressed. Several times while walking along the 15km long section I would stare out at the scenery, imagining a Mongol hoard screaming through the bracken in a bloodlust. In fact, the only Mongolians present were the ones avidly trying to sell me pashminas. After trekking more than the 15km (the entrance was in the middle of the section, forcing us to retrace our steps if we wanted to see the other end) we were absolutely knackered, the cold had numbed and blistered my lips and we wanted to go home.

This was probably my one real experience with bartering. I had seen a lot of Chinese people wearing rather spiffy greatcoats and decided I wanted in on the action. Sure enough, several of the tourist stalls were selling them. The first person I enquired with gave us a price of 150 RMB (£10) but worked herself down to 80 as we walked off. The second offered us an initial price of 580 RMB (well over £40) and I must say I stood a little gobsmacked. She insisted that the other vendor must have said $80. Bollocks. Anyway, there was no way I was going to pay that must for a coat worth less than my dodgy hat so we made to leave. The lady in the store wasn’t having it. After several minutes bartering, and several actual attempts to leave by myself, we got her down to 130 RMB, just less than a tenner. So I said OK and felt rather proud of my bartering skills. Of course, I should have been watching her more closely as she put it into a bag. When we got home we realised she’d swapped the perfectly serviceable coat I’d tried on with one who’s buttons were so mismatched as to make it basically unwearable. The cow.