Japan: A Retrospective

Fair warning to all who read: this might not be as funny as the rest, but it's stuff that I want to say. Also, it's quite long. I suggest that about half way through you go for a cup of tea, or something...

So, today (Monday, 20th August 2012) is my last day in Japan as an exchange student at Hosei University. Though in truth I finished my tenure at Hosei almost a month ago, I suppose I'm still technically a Hosei student.
At the time of writing this exact sentence I have nine and a half hours before my flight, though when many of you read this, I could well already be on it. I still have vivid memories of my flight to Japan, I was talking to a lot of people, and got to practice my Japanese before even setting a toe on Japanese soil!
I remember so vividly arriving in the room that was to be my home for the next 11 months: it was bland and empty, and very isolated. I was to exhausted for anything but bed, so I unpacked a few things, got myself into bed and just slept.
When in actuality, this was about fifty weeks ago, it still just feels like I've been here less than a fifth of that... At times at least.
At other times, I feel like I've lived here for much, much longer: Japan has been such a welcoming country, as well as Hosei University and the dormitory where I live, that it feels like I belong here in a way that I don't get in England - I think this is a feeling that will be entirely reversed upon returning home, though Keighley isn't the most welcoming of places at the best of times!

So, what should I say about this amazing year (yes, I'm rounding up)?
Should I talk about how much my Japanese has improved, given that this was the aim of the year abroad?
Perhaps I'll talk about the places I've been and the things I've done, given that I have been as busy as possible this year?
Maybe I could talk about all the amazing people I've met, both from Japan and from elsewhere in the world?
Or how about how I taught English as a part time job and have a new appreciation for people trying to learn English as a foreign language?
Perhaps about some of the amazing classes I took at Hosei, sparking new interests or rekindling old ones?

For me, Japan has been such a varied experience, that to talk about it all in one blog post feels not only an impossible task, but also it feels like a disservice to all of the people I've met, the things I've done and this country as a whole. So I won't talk about everything, as there's so much more than just the above few things that have made this year incredible.

The whole purpose of my trip to Japan was to improve my Japanese and gain insight into the culture of Japan. I can safely say that I have done this. Perhaps, not as much as I would have liked: I certainly expected to have a broader vocabulary than I do, but my ability to converse has gone way up. Not to mention, I have discovered whole new realms of study-methods that will in future help me to improve my Japanese even further! 日本語よ、かかってこいぞ！

I have done many weird and wonderful things in Japan, some of them fun, some not so fun. As you'll have read (I hope) in my earlier blog posts, I went to Kobe in June and saw more penis in one day than most non-urologists do in a life-time. I went to the Studio Ghibli museum, which was a fantastic afternoon out. I got so drunk in Roppongi that I blacked out and woke up behind a hotel sign with no idea how I got there and no idea where my friends were. I shouted at a police man in English when he couldn't help us find Kristy's stolen bag. And most recently, I was involved (like my good friend Thibault) in a bicycle chase across Kasai:

The police in Japan are fierce about you waiting for the
green light O_o

Ahh the people I've met! This is where having Facebook has become something of a) a liability and b) a cause for embarrassment. My first few weeks in Japan, I was meeting so many new people and then finding my Facebook page overloaded with friend requests, that I just started accepting them whether or not I actually knew the people. This has led to more than one sticky moment in a corridor at Hosei where someone has said "Hi Bill! I saw about your recent antics involving a large quantity of alcohol, empty beer cans and a rudimentary throne on Facebook!" (I may be paraphrasing ever so slightly) (Also: see below for further details). The point is, despite this person apparently knowing everything there is to know about my life (my fault I suppose, I shouldn't put anywhere near the amount of stuff on Facebook that I actually do!), I have next to no idea who this person actually is... Maybe I got drunk with them once, maybe I met them in a lesson, or just got chatting to them whilst wandering around campus. It can be quite embarrassing (not to mention difficult) to feign a perfect knowledge of who somebody is, and this compounded with having to do it in a foreign language makes it downright difficult.
   Other than the veritable cornucopia of Japanese people I've met and befriended, there have been the rest of the exchange students in Japan. I have met people from France, China, America, Russia, Italy, Australia and all sorts! It has been amazing getting to know all of these people and making such strong relationships in such a short space of time.
Honourable mentions go to:
Ron Hurrle: for some of the silliest times spent here, all on a six-pack of beers.
Thibault Bachoffner (I hope I'm spelling that right darling!): for some amazingly chilled times on the roof.
George Cashman: for the co-invention of bottle-ball and the motivation to play at all hours of the night.
Ren Zhihao: for some of the most hilarious and dead-pan one-liners I've ever heard.
Rachel Holt: for the nickname poo-face and general silliness.
Kristy Jones: for the inability to get anywhere on time, or ride the trains without making a mistake.
Kate Tepper: for introducing me to the Peace Rock, which despite closing down, was an awesome hang-out spot.

Ron and I decided to build a castle out of all of our
empty beer cans from the year... Castle was difficult, but I flew!

There are so many more, and I don't want to make this drag on longer than it has to, I still have a couple more topics to get through! People that I didn't mention, please know this: Japanese or otherwise, you are no less important to me, have affected my life no less, and will be just as missed as everyone else whom I did mention.

There are so many more people that aren't in this photo that I've come to know
and love, but this shot has the most in one.

At this point, you've been reading for some time: so go stretch your legs or something. Have a brew. Walk the dog. I'll still be here when you get back, so go on.









Ok, and we're back.

A part-time job, it turns out, is pretty much essential for living in Tokyo (if not all of Japan). Tokyo being the most expensive city on earth requires a fair amount of dollar to do something like go for a meal, or have a night out. There is no concept of "student night" at any drinking establishment (though I have previously alluded to the wondrous nomihoudai in my previous posts), and so a full night out, encompassing the same activities as one would do in England would probably cost somewhere in the region of £100.
Digression aside, I got a job teaching English. The premise was: I meet the student in a coffee shop, they buy me a drink and then I teach them English, after which I get paid ¥2000. This was both a really good job, and a really bad job. Good because an hour's work of using my native language for the equivalent of £20 is a damned good deal! Furthermore, I got the chance to think about English from the Japanese point of view and try to approach it with Japanese in mind: a good challenge!
However, it was bad too: the fact that I worked just one hour was sometimes hugely inconvenient, especially when I had nothing but work at 7pm in one day, and had to trek all the way out to Iidabashi. Moreover, I did have some terribly non-committed students, who cancelled more lessons than they attended... This was often very bad, as I was relying on the money I would be receiving and had to juggle my budget accordingly more times than is absolutely necessary.
Finally, it is difficult to teach a foreign language with a) no prior experience of teaching anything (foreign language or otherwise) and b) no linguistic knowledge whatsoever. Trying to explain complex (or sometimes remarkably simple) concepts such as why we say "in Tokyo" but "at University", or "a town which..." vs. "a town where...", "who" and "whom", "sung" and "sang", and "the" vs. "a". There were so many more, but this is just a sample. Try teaching these things to someone who is not fluent in the language you're explaining in (or try explaining in a language you're not fluent in), in as simple a way as possible. Go on. Have a think. It's bloody difficult.

Finally I'll briefly talk about Hosei. Looking through my pictures, I'm actually stunned to see that I don't have all that many of the campus! It must have become rather mundane to me, though of course it is nothing of the sort.

The Boissonade Tower - Hosei's iconic 26 story building

I took a few really great classes at Hosei: a translation class, taking Japanese haiku and tanka and putting them into modern English (not as easy at it sounds); a Shakespeare class, reading Macbeth and rekindling a love for English literature (I expected the class to be in Japanese, but it was still fun!); a linguistics class, talking about the application of linguistic knowledge in the real world (a fascinating topic, which led Ron and I to attempt creating our own language, vosmir).
All of these classes (as well as my actual Japanese classes) taught me a lot, and gave me a whole new set of knowledge, and many more doors to open in the palace of interest. I shall be doing a lot of reading in the next few years! Linguistics is one of the most fascinating things I've ever had the fortune to study!




When I first came to Japan, I was a totally different person. Not least because then, the amount of facial hair I could grow was laughable (which it still is now, just less so). I was much less socially inclined, happier to spend time on my own and I found it very difficult to talk to people I had never met before.
Now though, I am (by comparison) a social animal: being on my own has very little to no attraction for me, and I'm glad of the change: the past couple of days in which I've been the only exchange student left at the dormitory have been very quiet and I would have loved to be able to go up to the roof with everyone all together one last time. Again by comparison, I can talk to people I don't know much more easily, both in English and in Japanese - something that I am very happy of in myself.
I don't know how Japan has changed me like this, perhaps it has something to do with growing older whilst I was here, or the utterly different way of life. Maybe it's something they put in the food. Either way: Japan has made me a happier, more confident, and in my opinion, better person than I was before.
Oh, Japan did make me a lightweight (even more so), therefore my first weeks back at Leeds will be an exercise in tolerance-building!


So then. All that is left for me to say is goodbye to Japan. Which is something I really do not want to do. If I could bring all the people and things I love to Japan instead, I would do it in a heartbeat. But alas, I return home in eight and a half hours (wow! It's taken me an hour to write all of this!). My final meal in Japan shall be ramen, and I drank my last beer last night.
Goodbye is such a final word, and it most certainly will not be goodbye, Japan. I will be back. Maybe not to Tokyo, and maybe not all that soon, but I will be back. You have not seen the last of me. As all of my friends have said before me: "It's not goodbye, it's see you later."

Things I will and won't miss about Japan

So, the time is fast approaching: I have just four weeks left in this incredible country and I'm starting to think about what it'll be like to be home.

Many things will likely come up on this list under both categories, because there is some aspect I will love, and some that I will hate.

Things I Will Miss

University Life in Japan

It is a surprising thing that, for all its reputation of being as grueling as a 48-hour slog on a treadmill at full pace, University in Japan has been quite easy. We hear stories from many of our friends at how difficult it was to get into University (and high school, for that matter), often with days starting at 6am and ending at 11pm, all in preparation for the entrance exams.

Now, whether it's because I'm a foreign student or because it's just the way Japanese Universities are, I don't know - but the classes (I should say lecture, but I really can't bring myself to) and the tests (because they're definitely not exams) are so much easier than even A-levels, it's difficult to comprehend. Hindsight being 20-20, maybe I should have joined fewer GIS/ESOP classes (the ones that are in English) and more actual 学部 classes (full university courses).

Public transport in Tokyo

While I can't speak for the buses, the trains in Tokyo run like clockwork (one line is completely automated, even!). I think the most I've ever waited for a train was 30 minutes, and that was because it was 5am, and we wanted to get on the first train. For me, at any rate, the trains here have only ever been one or two minutes late. But the thing I really love about this, is that there is no grand apology for the train being late, announced over the tannoy in the station. Everyone just quietly gets on with waiting. If the wait is significant (not really sure what would constitute significant, but lets say about ten minutes) then there is an apology. This sounds so much better than Northern Rail apologising for every train being late even when it's just one minute. It actually sounds like the metro company feels bad about the delay (not least because it's a real person who gives the apology).

Oh yeah, and it's just cheap! One side of Tokyo to the other (basically from where I live to Yokohama) is roughly 1000yen. That's £8. Try crossing London for less than that. Hell, it's something like £5 just to get to Leeds from Keighley!

Izakayas

Japan doesn't have pubs. 居酒屋 literally means inhabit-alcohol-room. One's order is made like at a restaurant, and the alcohol is brought to you. Often, an all-you-can-drink is offered, for something astoundingly cheap - think about £15-20 for 2 hours of as much alcohol as you can stomach. The atmosphere in an izakaya depends wildly on the place in question, but by and large they are places of merriment and rowdiness (drinking songs and games are usually performed/played with much gusto). Google translate tells me that 居酒屋 translates as "tavern" - this sounds about right.

Japanese food

This is something that I've come to enjoy less and less as the prospect of real, British food is fast advancing (oh Yorkshire puddings and gravy: how I miss thee!), but there are still certain dishes that I crave on a regular basis: good, high quality ramen is chuffin' delicious! Sushi is also damned good, and the more said about gyuudon (frilly beef to my little sister) the better. Some, or all, of these things I think I'll have to learn to make when I go home, to better inflict upon those poor souls that haven't come so far east.

Weather

Whilst mild and rainy suits me down to the ground, and 30+ degree heats are not all that fun, I will still miss how Japan's weather basically returns to sunshine and heat after a day or two of rain, and all puddles and memory of the rain is basically gone (except for the odd, discarded umbrella). And yes, I do wilt in such dreadful heat, and haven't managed to tan very much (something that I'll be changing next week!), but I just love how I can wake up most days to clear blue skies, the sun shining through my window and not have to bother putting anything but shorts on.

Convenience Stores （コンビニ）

With a Seven-Eleven on most street corners, or a Lawson, Family Mart or Sunkus, you are never without emergency provisions at hand. If you get a bit peckish, pop into a combini and grab yourself a rice-ball for 100yen! Or if you're in need of something less foody, why not buy an umbrella? Or perhaps you want to catch up on the latest exploits of your favourite anime character? Buy the latest volume. Do you need stationary? Or make-up? Maybe a screwdriver or two? Perhaps you want to buy tickets to a concert or a plane ticket. There is basically no need to go anywhere else if you have a convenience store in close proximity to you. Truly these stores are convenient!

Heated Toilet Seats
This is something that (thanks to a 30+ degree summer, and it's not even August yet) I've not really experienced lately, but was eternally grateful for in the cold months of January and February... At first I was apprehensive about such an invention, as nobody likes using a toilet with someone else's... warmth on the seat. However, the more I experienced it, the more I came to appreciate it: The toilets at my dormitory are not heated, and the toilet room itself is not so great at keeping in the heat. As a result, every time I wanted to go to the loo, I was faced with pressing my cheeks to a sub-zero toilet seat and get finished as fast as possible. Therefore, I made sure to use the toilet in a convenience store with as much regularity as I could muster. Come winter, I'll no doubt be missing these!

Frisbee in the park
This semester, we've gone to play Frisbee (takes a capital 'f'... Who knew?!) in the park nearby to my dormitory a hell of a lot. It started out as playing during the day on a weekend, or public holiday... But it very soon escalated to going out every night and throwing the disc around. We've even invented our own sport out of it. Now, this isn't something that I can only experience in Japan, and it may be that it's the people that I do this with most often that I'll miss the most (I'm looking at you Thibault Bachoffner, George Cashman and Ron Hurrle), but when I go home... It doesn't bare thinking about.
Hi, my name is Bill, and I'm an addict... It's been 23 hours since I last threw a Frisbee.

Things I Won't Miss

This is likely to end up as something of a rant about most of my bad experiences, and don't let it give you a false impression of Japan, or of my feelings about Japan: everywhere has its good and bad points, and Tokyo is no exception.

Crowds

Tokyo, being the capital of Japan has an enormous population (which varies massively depending on how you measure). Never is this more apparent when you go to a festival, or ride a train at 8.30 in the morning, or about 10 in the evening. Japanese people in general being pretty courteous are nothing of the sort in a crowd. On the train coming back from a late night of work, I had successfully negotiated a seat from the get-go (no small feat, let me tell you!). As the train got closer to Kasai, where I live, it got more and more fuller - nothing strange, as Kasai seems to be where most people that ride the Tozai line live. As the train pulled into and stopped at Kasai, no sooner had I risen from my seat (we're talking inches here) than some woman was pushing me out of the way to get to the seat itself. Grr doesn't cover it. At the best of times, I don't like crowds, but Japanese trains are downright horrible at the wrong times.

Food

Japanese food, whilst delicious, is invariably expensive and far too small. To order a pizza at a restaurant in Japan is to pay about £10 for something smaller than a normal dinner plate. A plate of chips can set you back £5, and a curry that would barely fill a child (and at nearly maximum heat did not even make my tongue tingle) was nearly £15. And if I never eat another fish with bones in it again, it'll be too soon. Japan: kindly get your shit together.

Dormitory Life

As a 19 year old (20 soon, woo!) a midnight curfew is pretty annoying... For some of the older folks here, I bet it's downright offensive. But this one's not so much annoying as a minor inconvenience: it's absurdly easy to climb the fence and get in through one of the perpetually open fire-doors (don't get me started!). In fact, I'll probably miss the exhilarating rush of climbing the fence in the dead of night more than I won't miss it! But what really annoys me about living in a dorm is the other people, specifically the Japanese people. Most of them seem to be either in the tail-end of high school or the first few years of University. As such, a good deal of them are moody as hell and pretty antisocial. And a helpful hint: playing the trombone/trumpet/French horn or whatever it is at midnight is not cool Goddammit!! And another thing: is it so f***ing difficult to clean up the sink that we all use every day after you've shaved in it. I don't want to go to a sink to brush my teeth or whatever and find that it's covered in hair that you couldn't be arsed rinsing away.

Convenience store shouting

When I enter a shop, it's always nice to be greeted. But dragging out いらっしゃいませ to a five second soliloquy is just ridiculous. It's unnecessary and annoying. Don't do it. Also, some of the convenience store staff seem to think it's acceptable to shout in a voice that you can hear at the back of the shop exactly how much money you've passed them and precisely how much change you've received. This again is infuriating and pointless, but also potentially dangerous. Don't do it.

Bikes in Japan
Now this could well just be Kasai (where I live), and there is a reasonable amount of evidence to support that claim. But in any case: there should be a law against people having no mufflers on their motorbikes/scooters etc. I have lost count of the times I've been awoken at 4 in the smegging morning by some utter tool driving past my window on a motorbike. It's just not cool. And one just went past my room as I was writing this. Even if they don't go past at absurd hours of the morning, it's still annoying if you're watching a film, having a conversation or trying to read when a bike that must be breaking some kind of legal sound limit thunders past your room and makes your ears vibrate.

Mosquitoes
Enough said. Japan is crawling with insects, but I've not this year had to deal with too many, except for the damned mosquitoes. The lower half of both of my calves are riddled with bites, to the point where I woke up whilst scratching them. Luckily, at the time of biting, I was completely topless but seem to have escaped any biting of my torso. But still: I. Hate. Mosquitoes!!!
Also, I'm pretty sure that spell check is just messing with me here: I don't think I've ever used an 'e' to pluralise mosquito...

That's probably broadly it... I might update the list as more things come to mind later on, and I'll probably do another version of this after I've been at home for a few weeks. じゃね！

Snoring, Alcohol, and Naked Japanese Men

The long-awaited (yeah-right!) Kobe (ii) post!

Once again, I took the night bus to go to Kobe, this time I wasn't alone! It was meant to be a 4 person trip, but Mr Ron Hurrle and Yuui Sasaki had to drop out. So 'twas just myself and Kristy Jones.

Having booked our tickets separately, we couldn't sit together, so I asked the gentleman sitting next to me if he wouldn't mind swapping seats with her. He was happy to do so, before realising that the person to whom he would then be sitting was a girl. He seemed adamant not to swap seats, leading me to conclude he was shy. As it turns out, the bus company operates a policy wherein male and female passengers who don't know each other are not allowed to sit together... Quite why this is is totally beyond me. Maybe they assume all males have an innate sense of ちかん in them that would be uncontrollable whilst asleep?

In any case, we just knuckled under and tried to sleep. Note the use of the word try. There was a man sitting in front of me wearing a face-mask (a lovely gesture, as he clearly didn't want to infect us with what he was clearly suffering from). The face-mask does not do much to dull the snores. It literally sounded like somebody was juggling chainsaws badly in a nail factory. A lady in front of him eventually took it upon herself to wake him at the next stop and tell him that he was making what is normally a pretty mediocre journey downright unbearable (I could be paraphrasing there, I'm not certain...). Happily, her efforts were a success! I was all for giving her a standing ovation, but I don't imagine it would have sat too well with the other passengers... Though come to think of it, they probably weren't sleeping either.

Furthermore, there is a particular scent that Japanese salarymen in their mid-fifties or so develop and can't seem to wash off. I first came across this *ahem* delightful odour in my part-time job in an English conversation café, and was reminded of this when the fellow next to me finally dropped off and breathed in my direction all the way to Kyoto. Given that the man was too large for his own seat and had taken up approximately one third of my seat, my options for evading the stench emanating from the mouth of that snoring (oh yes, he was snoring too) behemoth were somewhat limited. Finally I had to suck it up, detach my staunch British personality and give him a few harsh jabs in the side so he was breathing into the window instead.

We arrived in Sannomiya more or less perfectly unhappy with such a journey.

The Friday evening was good fun though: alcohol and a good film (everyone should see The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, because it's totally rad!) plus Doctor Who afterwards... Massive kudos to Elen for more or less translating the episode to the non-English speaker of the group: I particularly enjoyed the description of Rose Tyler as 前の彼女!

Saturday was the day set aside for Spa World: plenty of onsen, with the odd sauna and a swimming pool to boot! We met a couple of Kester's friends and hit the Spa!

Becoming a doctor notwithstanding, I would be very happy to never see anybody else's penis in my life. Male genitalia aside - it was a very relaxing day! Lots of red-hot baths (some of these were not so fun with my minor sunburn) and a sauna or two. Possibly the highlight of the day was sitting in a bar, stark naked and drinking a beer. It felt ever so decadent. Definitely a place to go again, if I can get the cash together to get down to Kansai again! The outdoor bath was a treat and my first sauna experience was epic fun!

The swimming pool in the establishment was more of a large track for rubber rings, but quite good all the same... However, the main event of that area was the Death Loop! This was a slide that one pays ¥300 to get into. The occupant stands in a torpedo-tube like pod at the top of the slide, and after a brief-countdown the floor disappears and the suicidal idio- *coughsplutterahem!* I mean, the fun loving Spa-goer rockets down the slide at a fair old rate of knots! A direct quote of what I said as the floor disappeared from underneath me was "SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIARRARARARGGHHHGHGGHGHHHHH!"

The evening of the same day was spent in a drinking-establishment before returning back to Akashi to embrace our student heritage and play ring of fire until the early hours.

Homework for today reader (I know it's really just my mother who's given me 1215 page views... Thanks Mum! ♥) - do we think it's a viable business venture to try to set up a Japanese style Spa Resort in the UK, bearing in mind that nakedness in a Japanese onsen is more or less mandatory?

Coming soon: The Speech Contest

Catch up... Part 1

So, after a good long while of having done no blogging, I should probably get a new one out there... As we're currently about halfway through the semester at Hosei, things are getting nice and busy, not least because I'm taking 11 subjects, rather than the minimum of 9 I took last time.
I have also been dealing with a bout of major laziness, which I'm happy to say is cured!

So first off is the Leeds Exam - the bane of all of our lives. Doubtless, had I followed Leeds' recommended revision plan, I'd have been a deal less stressed by the time the exam came around. However, opting for the slightly easier method of not bothering proved to be much more entertaining in the months leading up to the exam. This, naturally, led to a break-down of sorts. People that know me will know that I tend not to sweat exams as much as I did this one.
Perhaps it was the stress of knowing that this exam is basically the thing that decides whether or not we pass the year abroad... Or maybe it was knowing that I'd really not worked hard enough, and that others had been doing the preparation since September (Yes, Kobe-Gakuin, I'm looking at you).
However, the world did not end, and after a relaxing Skype session with the family the night before the exam, I pulled through and even went so far as to feel pretty awesome by the end of it! In the intervening weeks, I celebrated the finishedness by getting rather tipsy at a Hobgoblin watering-hole in Akasaka: cigars and all!
As it turns out, I got 63%, which (somehow) works out as a merit! So provided I manage to get a merit or better on my essay on Japanese culture, I'll have done rather well :D
Nevertheless, I intend to keep learning the kanji from KIC, so by the time I get back to Leeds in September, I'll be majorly on top of them!

What next... FUGU! I ate fugu and lived :D For those of you that don't know (ie. haven't seen the Simpsons) fugu is Japanese blowfish (the name literally means "river pig" haha!) and when incorrectly prepared can be lethal! It's quite the delicacy in Japan, though having eaten it, I can say that it's not the most flavoursome of dishes, and why someone would want to risk death over such things is beyond me... Nevertheless, the setup of the meal was fantastic! Lots of food, vegetables (urgh!), rice and noodles. All around a very cool bowl of boiling water (pun? or just really bad English?) in the middle of the table led to a rather splendid meal, thank you very much :) And the rest of the evening wasn't too bad either - arcade silliness in one's finest suit is always good! Time-crisis 4 was especially fun, though I don't think it'll ever beat the grand fun of the taiko game :D


Perhaps the laziness is not quite defeated... I'll be going now and continuing to catch you up shortly!

台風!! (Except apparently it wasn't one)

This is the second typhoon I've survived in Japan, but the first one that I willingly went walking in.

The first time, my typhoon-virginity one might say, I made it back to my dormitory in time to sit out the storm in comfort and dryness.
This time, I openly set out into the growing tempest, oblivious to the tribulations that would later befall me.

I was supposed to be meeting Morimoto Sensei from Leeds University for some thing or other, I'm not really sure. When I arrived at Hosei, mildly damp and prepared to "dazzle" my teacher with my Japanese, I was told that the meeting had been rearranged to 2pm that day, and that I'd been sent an email... I received no such message, checking both my phone and gmail (upon arrival back here).

So, having been spurned away from campus and told that a storm was a-brewing, I made my way back dorm-wards. However, having earlier been unable to meet a Miss Kristy Jones from the airport due to my meeting, I decided to take a detour to Ueno, where I (foolishly, it now seems) gambled that she'd take the train to.

Let me tell you: I've never seen organisation and crowd management like it. If we had weather conditions like this in England... London's subway would be on its knees! Normally, travelling at just before 4pm in Tokyo isn't too bad - most people are still at work, at school or whatever, so the trains aren't too packed. In this weather though, people are sent home from work early in case they are stuck there. Usually at 4pm.

Most figures for Tokyo's population don't take into account the massive influx of people who work in Tokyo but live quite far away. In fact, 43% of Tokyo's workers don't even live in Tokyo prefecture. The general estimate is that the population is around 8.5 million, but this can go as high as 12.9 million if people who work in Tokyo are counted too.
For the first time today, I truly got a sense of just how many people live here.

To put this into context: lets say you have a tube of any length you like. This tube is specifically designed to be ultra-efficient and let the maximum number of marbles (for example) through without things getting backed up. This essentially means that between 7.40 and 8.20 in the morning, you get a steady stream of marbles running through this tube, perhaps not comfortably, but they can always move through the tube and very rarely have to wait at one end.
Now picture all the marbles that go through between those times trying to get back again, only instead of staggering themselves nicely, they all want through at the same time.

Kayabacho station (the only way to get to the Tozai line from the Hibiya) was much like our hypothetical arroyo at 4pm today. It was like being in a water park, with massive queues and staff holding people behind rope barriers. The staff were blocking people from going downstairs until the disembarking passenger flow had thinned sufficiently to allow the horde of white-shirts down onto the platform. Queues for the ticket machine longer than my d-   *ahem* they were long. Ticket barriers being literally fought over.
The best thing I saw (and was involved in) was boarding the train to Ueno. The packed train completely emptied itself of passengers, so there was the usual mad scramble for seats. As I was trying to get on the train, another five people were doing the same (three had pushed in to try and get on ahead of us). These doors can barely manage three abreast, but six was ridiculous. Ever the Brit (WE KNOW HOW TO QUEUE!) I stepped back and allowed them to scuffle it out for the best positions on a train that was fast looking like it was a tube of smarties. With people for chocolate. And smarties that are shaped so that they tessellate with each other perfectly and easily.

Skipping forward now to having not met Kristy and making my way home, I get to Kayabacho and find that the trains aren't running. I wait on the platform like I'm at the post office lining up for stamps: eagerly awaiting each time the line will move forward... Ok, that simile doesn't really hold up, as the line wasn't moving... ANYWAY! After more trains that I cared to count passed with no lights and no passengers, one finally arrives that is already choc-full of damp Japanese men and women. This train, is only going to Toyocho, three stops shy of where I need to be: Kasai.

So, getting to the last stop on the train's ill-fated journey I leave the train to wait for the next one, and see even more people (who'd have thought it possible?) than there were at Kayabacho.
It turns out there was a shuttle bus running to all the stops that weren't going to be hit by the trains, so I went to check that out, but the queue was ridiculous so I thought, as a true Northerner should "Screw it, it's only rain."
Famous last words. When I finally arrived almost 90 minutes later (the wind doesn't half slow you down when you're having to lean into it one minute, lean against it the next), I was beaten. My shoes had lasted until the last 200 metres, and they finally took on water. My hoody was so wet that it weighed twice as much. My jeans were beginning to chafe, and were actually leaking it turned out.
I must have looked ridiculous, because when I returned to the dorm, the dorm mother greeted me with a gale of laughter (ha, see what I did there?) and asked if I was ok.


Crikey, this was going to be a short post. Extreme weather means extreme blogging.


... Or something.

A very short one

So the homesickness finally hit a few weeks ago - manifesting itself in sleepless nights as well as minor loss of appetite (as if I can stand to lose any more weight!).

As a result, there's likely to be no more posts on the family visit (sorry you lot!) - just because it wasn't helping matters. If I sort myself out in the future (undoubtedly I shall, when lessons begin again), I might do a quick summary of the week my family came to Tokyo.

As it stands, I've not been really busy enough to warrant a blog post, but I might try to do a few more in the future, even if they're just short... Regularity is key, I'm certain!
If I have any insights, I might do a few pseudo-educational posts, and some other stuff too - try to mix it up. I'm very consciously aware of my list of "to come" posts that have not materialised... I'll build up to it, I promise!

I think I'll change the "ten reasons..." blog to a five reasons either way deal. I'd like to kid myself that I have a large enough readership to spark debate over it, but it doesn't seem likely ^_^ Any thoughts on ways to increase it?

Erm, that's all for now!

Ideas for posts:
The food for one week (will do this when meals are given to us again)
Five reasons why Japan>UK and five why UK>Japan
Taking the newbies to Hosei
Star Wars 3D

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The O'Dwyer Invasion, Part the First: 到着、上野、浅草、動物園、渋谷、代々木、原宿・・・And about 300 coffees.

久しぶり、インターネット！
So, it's been almost a month since my last post, and I've been busy!

I've decided to split this blog into multiple parts, since there's plenty to discuss and I don't want to miss anything out. My thoughts are likely to occur at random points, but I'll try to keep them consecutive with regards to the blogs. So there could be some backtracking involved, which would likely lead to heavy use of Shift+9 and Shift+0.

On the 10th February 2012, the O'Dwyer family made the (as they put it) once-in-a-lifetime trip to Tokyo, Japan. I disagree with this statement, as I intend to come back to Japan a great deal in future! However, it is the furthest that my Mother, Father and younger sister have travelled - and I certainly hope I didn't disappoint!

I started, as I do most things, by being late. They were due to arrive at just before 10.00, and thanks to being a minute late for the train, I had to wait an hour for the next one. So by the time I arrived, they had been at the airport for about an hour and a half. But they were remarkably happy to see me, and I they! There's something fantastically overwhelming about walking across an airport towards one's father - in fact I was unable to keep a straight face!
   We made the journey to our hotel, and I got to show off my Japanese several times (not actually complex stuff, but it's always impressive!) - asking for tickets to Ueno and directions to the hotel. After depositing the baggage, and making our first foray into Japanese cuisine at Yoshinoya (牛丼), we found a Starbucks and got the first of what was to be many coffees.

The next day, the plan was to do something not particularly strenuous, so we hit Asakusa (as many signs say "a mere 4 stop train journey") and enjoyed the shops and the Sensoji temple, with a brief education in some of the simpler points of Japanese culture... Mainly the difference between shrines and temples, and how to wash one's hands before praying.
   We had a good look around Ueno park and zoo as well - I saw my first panda! And my first polar bear... The polar bear was much more awesome than the panda - I think we named him Reginald.
   It is a testament to how pale Elsie is that less than 24 hours into being in Japan, she drew stares, and at one point a man blatantly filmed her just walking up the stairs of the temple. Further to that, little Japanese children at the zoo seemed to think that the family of four 外人 were another attraction, and we also drew many stares.
   It's odd that I've only noticed this phenomenon just now, though I'm certain it doesn't occur at other times. Naturally, the little kids are slightly more amazed to see us, but I imagine when I was their age, seeing somebody with a different colour skin, or differently shaped eyes was astounding!
   That night we dined on ramen (after having several more coffees during the day to keep certain people's blood sugar up *ahemDadcoughcoughElsiecough*) and it was another success! I was beginning to think that Dad wasn't going to have the difficulty with Japanese food that we had all anticipated... Famous last words!

   On Sunday, we made the trip to Shibuya, Yoyogi and Harajuku that I made during my first month here - courtesy of Yoma Shimada. We only got lost a couple of times, and whilst we did stumble onto some weird stuff in a Shibuya underground shop, Yoyogi park and Harajuku (I decided to get the most unusual stuff out of the way first), we had a good time!
   A combini lunch in Shibuya was most delicious, and gave us sufficient energy to find Yoyogi park. There appeared to be some kind of market thing going on at the entrance, which we wandered around for a while before hitting the park itself.
   Having never been to Yoyogi park on a Sunday, it was a new experience for me as well as the family. A drum circle, small dance troupes training, and a dog that was either 2-legged or whose shorts had fallen down so far that he was basically just pulling himself forward with his front legs all pale in comparison to the two most bizarre sights of the day:
   The first was some kind of expressive dance/art sort of thing. A young fellow (maybe late teens) was setting up an easel, and had an apparently home-made DJ rack strapped around him. He began the show by dancing a little to some odd music, and then broke it down and cracked out some smooth beats whilst he began to work. Spray paint flew, the craft-knife sung as it sliced across the paper, all whilst he was constantly changing the sampled track and dancing. It was a sight to behold - not least because of his outfit (photo to come).
   We stayed to the end, and left quickly. As we found the exit, and made for Meiji-Jingu, there were more dance troupes - this time not training, but apparently performing... Not well. They weren't even coordinated! Men (and women) in Elvis-style hairdos, and either head-to-toe leathers or denims were dancing 60s and 70s style, most poorly it has to be said. What's so weird about that, you say? The fact that there were three groups of them within a space of about 15 metres, all dancing to different music (right down to genre). The cacophony of noise was unbelievable, and made the experience all the more surreal. I may go back regularly and try to persuade them to have a dance off, or something. It was all very "Grease."
   Harajuku was Harajuku. Just. Plain. Strange.
   We got to the end of the main street where all the odd things can be seen, and came back on ourselves - finally missing the turning to head back towards Shibuya and the train station, so coming back again. The number of cosplayers, and abnormally dressed folk was amazing! One might say it was all a bit peshwari.
   Dinner that night... Wasn't quite so successful as previous nights. At least, not for お父さん. His udon was drenched in miso soup, and he (like me) is not overly fond of it. However, he was a trooper, and lived until the next day...


To be continued...

Just another 外人 in Akashi

So, the long awaited (and what promises to be a rather lengthy) Kobe blog! Though I know what it is you're all really waiting for is the 10 reasons why Japan is better than England (stick with me guys, I'm getting there!)

Day 1
Shinjuku station is enormous, and unbelievably difficult to navigate at the best of times. But thanks to an alarmingly unhelpful 駅員and an inability on my own account to print a map to the bus terminal, it was down right appalling. Having said that, I was able to find the place thanks to ringing Kester様 and getting the name of the building.
   The check-in room was freezing, but I survived... Only to be fuming when I discovered that the departure lounge was lovely and heated. Tits!

Unlike my first ever flight to Japan (back in Year 11... Wow!) the leg room on the coach was not pleasing. Coupled with a rather large bag with all my stuff, less than an hour in I was already numb in the leg...
   After sporadic sleep, I got to the first of the drop points (Kyoto I think - brought back memories!) and a considerable number of passengers got off... Including all six in the surrounding seats, but not the fellow next to me... Perhaps some innate inability of Japanese to break the rules, he remained in his seat all the way to Osaka where he finally realised that a double seat would allow more space to spread out.

Arriving in Sannomiya felt very Lord of the Rings-y, when I called Kester to find out where he was waiting and he said "looks towards the sun." After a manly embrace, we got on the train to Akashi and saw the wonderful Akashi bridge and the mountains... Pretty epic views!
   The drinking began early (after receiving free booze as well as the crate from the sake shop) and we got the beers in and started out with an extraordinary amount of FIFA, 20 minute halves, no less :D

Day 2
Rising early and hungover, we played one round of FIFA before heading out for some tasty, tasty ramen! It was most amusing to see that Kester was so hungover, he forgot how to speak Japanese (in the process making me feel a little better about myself).
   The plan for the day was to hit an Irish bar in Akashi - so to pass the time until then, we watched Jurassic Park 2 and made plenty of japes (Don't go into the long grass! You don't have any pokeballs! etc.)

Hitting Akashi with the Kobe-krowd, we got lost on the way to the pub that Kester swore he knew the way to. Not to worry - some random little Japanese old man asked us if we were lost, and offered directions! When he said he didn't know the place we were headed for, he wandered off... Only to literally chase us down the street to tell us that he'd asked directions and knew where the place was. I love Kansai folks!

Day 3
Went to collect Kielちゃん from Sannomiya, and hit up Akashi park on the way back... After being three very camera-happy 外人, we all turned out to be far too pussy to ask to take any photos of the cosplayers in the castle's park.
   The afternoon passed in a bromantic blur and we hit the all you can eat (and drink) meat grilling feast :D After lots of meat and beer (ordering 8 in the last 15 minutes is always a good move) we headed back to Kester's for some Anchorman fun (during which I passed out in the kitchen for a little while).
   Admittedly, three boxer-clad men sharing a semi-double bed is a little homoerotic, but it's all pure bromance (y)

Day 4
The day of the marathon... A short trip to the ramen shop for another bowl of delicious ramen to cure Kielちゃん of his hangover and a beer run. And so it begins. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q_zYLIM5_o

The rest is a blur of tiredness, alcohol and hangover, but rest assured... It was a hell of a weekend!

Japanese Exams and Some Not-so-subtle Ranting

So, I'm in the midst of exam season and I'm taking a well-earned (honest) break from revising to display my shock about Japanese exams...

England is the country that invented the exam (thank you Oxford University, we're all so grateful...) so I think we've got the way to do them down by now.
I was under the impression that going to a large room in the school, such as the gym or assembly hall and sitting at your own individual table, everyone facing the same way so you can't communicate or make eye contact or whatever was commonplace throughout the world. It would seem sensible - minimise the ability to cheat by having people sitting at least 3 feet away from each other, so you can easily tell that they're trying to look at someone else's work.

I was both surprised, and a little disconcerted to see that exams in Japan are just sat in the classroom we normally have our lessons in, sitting next to each other as we normally would. Not only this, but we were actually able to communicate across the classroom to give answers (but believe me, trying to get somebody to realise that you're mouthing 四国 is possibly the most challenging thing I've done yet in Japan... Yes I'm looking at you Dean Spooner and Kristy Jones.), and really quite easily sneak illicit dictionaries and so forth into our tests. In my listening exam, I found myself sharing an electronic dictionary with Artem sitting next to me (this transpired to be worse than useless, as I can't read the Russian definitions, and found myself worrying that I'd forgotten what English looked like.)
I found myself so stunned by this, and a little cheated that my "hard work" could potentially be plagiarised, that I made every effort to keep my answers covered (communicating across a room in mouthed gestures doesn't count, obviously!).

This method of exam taking takes me back to the year 10 kanji tests we'd have every week in Mr Verfuerth's lessons (oh Mr V. you brilliant, crazy German, how I miss you!) where we'd write the answers on a piece of paper which would be taped (or sometimes written directly on) the back of someone's shirt. About halfway through, this person would remove their blazer, and the answers would trickle back through the classroom and we'd all come out with full marks... What pros we were!
At first, I assumed that this was just the way our own Japanese lessons were going to be tested. But then other, non-Japanese classes started having exams in the same method. So I changed my theory to it being a Japanese sense of trust (not entirely unlikely, I thought, since the crime rate in Japan is so incredibly low) and left it there.


However, in asking around, I found that this is the system in America as well - exams are just conducted in the normal classroom without much in the way of anti-cheating measures. Thankfully, it seems that Australians know what they're doing and do exams properly, segregating each student and so forth. Talking to Americans about this, the general view is that if you're resourceful to get away with cheating, then more power to you and you shouldn't be punished. Is it just me, or are all British exam-takers feeling a little hard done by and mistrusted at the moment?
But then, surely this just means that our degrees are worth more? If we come out with a First Class Honours (that's honours, America) when we wrote our dissertations alone, and sat our exams in total silence and solitude, surely that is much more indicative of our ability than that of someone who gets the equivalent grade in America by using his neighbours' answers as well.


Homework: discuss.




By the by, this was typed on my little Android smartbook, which appears to have no spell checker... Apologies for any appalling mistakes in spelling!


Coming soon:

• Ten reasons why Japan is better than England (Yes, I am working on it, but I'm running out of reasons, and I'm also trying to write it in Japanese too)
• Kobe (parts 1 & 2 - provided I can afford to go to Kobe a second time)
• A week of Japanese meals (mostly photographic, you lucky buggers!)
• The O'Dwyer invasion
• Sumo
• My week in food

Japanese New Year

Forgoing this year the standard New Year boozey party - a culture was embraced!

Getting to Yasukuni shrine (near Hosei's Ichigaya campus) at about 22.30, it looked quite dead and as though it would be a quiet affair...
Passing through the first torii gate, the food stalls began to appear, kebabs, yakitori, whole fish, squid... All sorts of food - hot and cold, traditional and not so much. Personally, I had a kebab (not quite up to Mango's standards, nor even the Roppongi kebab shop's - but still おいしかった) and a bit of garlic-y yakitori.



We made our way through the stalls of sweets and such and found our path blocked by a rather sizeable gate.


Of course, as a Brit, I know how to queue, and so - like good little 外人 queued to get into the shrine proper.







When the gate opened we made our way through and towards the area where you throw your five yen into a giant tarp and make your New Year's wish.







The reason for the five yen is that "good fortune" and "five yen" both have the same Japanese pronunciation: ごえん "goen"

So I threw in my coin with a hole in the middle (I love Japanese money) and made my wish... No I'm not telling you, shush.


After that we made our way around the stalls in the inner-shrine and warmed ourselves on some of the boy-scout-guarded fires. There were a couple of large walls of "ema" - wooden plates that one writes a wish upon, from a lot of Japan's larger shrines, covered in some very impressive dragon artwork, for the year of the dragon, don't you know.

Here's Yasukuni's one - it was a little large!!

Incidentally, if anybody could shed some light as to why the dragons all seemed to be holding some sort of orb, I'd be most grateful!







To further keep out the cold, we wandered around some more, and got food as well as a nip of some exceptionally delicious sake:

As it was rather chilly out (めっちゃ冷たい one might say!), so the sake was nicely chilled - and went down most welcomely :)











Finally, we all took our (utterly incomprehensible) fortunes. These we took home with us for translation purposes... Hopefully they're not unlucky!!

That was お正月 in Japan... Not the boozey affair the England has, nor did we sing Auld Lang Syne, but it was still damned good fun!


Signing off.

Coming soon:
10 reasons why Japan is better than England
Exam time
Some sort of food-related post (at Eddy O'Dwyer's request)
Kobe, parts 1 & 2
My fortune: A translation