Christmas tomfoolery Chez Morgan and Kernich

On Christmas Eve Eve, Thom and Sally had a small gathering of alcoholics at their house for the much vaunted Power Hour - i.e. a shot of beer every minute for an hour, beginning and ending with a shot tequila. Music maestro Kari Panaccione even created a special CD for this momentous event, with one minute slices of 60 karaoke classics to keep us going.

Actually, as it turned out, it was pretty easy as we only used 20ml shots. But still, it was pretty satisfying to have done it. Maybe it lulled us into a false sense of security about our alchohol consumption abilities though, because then we all proceeded to get completely wasted

My memory of the night is a little dim, but I remember having an awesome time playing on the Wii, Thom biting me and then passing out, and Anna being "poorly" in the bathroom for the last hour or so of the night. I also vaguely remember us doing a "speak nothing but Japanese for 3 minutes" challenge to help the native Japanese speakers who were there - this consisted of us awkwardly saying "um.....do you want to drink this? No, I don't want to drink that. I want to eat those" in broken Japanese until the timer finally went off.

Christmas decorations in Nagoya...

Some of the Christmas lights at the Takashimaya building

Masumi's leaving do..

My last day of work before the Christmas holidays was also the last day of work EVER for one of the staff at that school, Masumi who is in charge of all the kids stuff (and has been a massive help to me since I've been working there, as well as being very friendly and all that). So after work there was a little party to bid her farewell.

There is some serious efficiency when it comes to these parties - we all set off to the supermarket and everyone quickly dashed round getting all the ingredients we needed for food. And we're not talking party snacks here - we're talking proper dishes, mainly nabe which is like a casserole and some oden which is....also like casserole, but with some different stuff. As I couldn't read any of the packets or readily identify any of the food, I was in charge of looking after one of my students who came along with his Mum. He's only 2, so we had a great time wandering round the supermarket, occasionally stopping to poke stuff and stare at the delicious sweeties on theconfectionary aisle. Then whenever he sat down he would pat the seat next to him and say "Chris....sit" - very sweet. I watched him like a hawk the whole time , but unfortunately I let my guard down for one second when we were getting the groceries out of the car in the rain, and he fell into a gutter about 40cms deep and got soaked up to his waist. Whoops! He was fine though.

Merry Clistmas*

Christmas is fast approaching the land of the rising sun, and Nagoya is definitely entering into the spirit of it. Well kind of - because Japan isn't a Christian country, the religious aspect of Christmas is totally absent in from all the assembled regalia in shops and such. So all the pretty lights are stars and Santa Claus (never Father Christmas) is flippin' everywhere, but there's no angels, or any mention of mangers and whatnot. Now, I'm not a religious man, but it does feel a little sterile to not have just a little tiny baby Jesus somewhere in decorations - in fact, I walked past what I thought was a nativity scene the other day; as I got closer, it turned out to be Santa Claus dancing round a Christmas tree. But then that's all Christmas is in Japan so it's not a bad thing - even though it does partially represent the commercialised hinterland always alluded to by tabloid rags like the Daily Mail back in England. Everything's very pretty, and feeling very festive - come on some snow!

Along with the pretty decorations, Christmas also brings with it a more sinister component - Muzak. In England, virtually every shop - Clinton's Cards probably being the worst offender - has some whiny facsimile of a Christmas carol playing in the background over the festive season. By and large though, they're fairly inoffensive. Contrast that with Japan, where recently I have been subjected to some ear-bumming travesties or music. Today in the supermarket, there was some kind of dance remix of Jingle Bells which included several "orchestra HITS!" which you used to get on old Yamaha keyboards. After that, there was Oh Come All Yea Faithful, but as a full on rock guitar solo, at high speed. It seems that in most shops, if it's not rock guitar, it's a wrong guitar.

By far the strangest was in the library though - I ran in just before closing time and the "ending theme" was playing which is actually Auld Lang Syne. Most places in Japan play this to let people know they're closing, although usually they don't realise it's a new year's song in England. Anyway, either this was some alternative arrangement or someone had put the CD in a microwave, because it contained the strangest ululations I've ever heard - it was like the sound effects you might hear before you black out. If possible, I'm going to try and record it sometime, because something like that should really be shared with the world.

*Yes, yes, cheap I know.

The Crying Game....

This week, I've taught a couple of model lessons for some new students. This can be a fraught process, because usually the younger the kids are, the longer it takes for them to get used to the tall, shouty foreign who's trying to bedazzle them with flashcards and tuneless songs. On Tuesday, it was three year olds and with five in the class, I knew there'd be at least ONE cryer. Generally, it seems the best tactic when this happens is to not pay too much attention to it and play some awesome games so they get bored with their sobbing and come and join in. (Only if they're crying for no reason of course. If they've trapped their head in a table, it's probably a good idea to step in). In the past, the Mum's have employed some of their Japanese ninja heritage (probably) by coming in the class with their sobbing kin, and they g-r-a-d-u-a-l-l-y moving closer to the door, and eventually slipping out all stealthy.

The pattern when meeting these new kids is generally the same - their first reaction is to just silently gape. You can see the inner cogs working: "shall I cry, or shall I try wander over and see if I get eaten?". On Tuesday, four decided on on the latter, but one plumped resolutely for the former. She clung to her Mum like a newborn koala, and although she briefly joined in with a craft activity (making snakes - rock!), she sooned return to her default mode of wailing and getting snotty. I don't know if she was scared or nervous or what, but its pretty heart rending to have a little mite sobbing through your whole lesson. The others were fantastic though so that's some consolation!

Today I had two even younger kids - both about 2, and they seemed absolutely TINY. Not just in size, but in presence - both of them seemed really frail and delicate. Again, there was a brief moment of teetering on the edge of crying or laughing, but thankfully they wandered over and we played catch with a ball. Now, I'm all for kids enjoying themselve, but I have never heard such loud squeals of joy when I threw the ball to them - it was earpiercing! I actually winced a couple of times, but it was nice to see them happy. The lesson was actually pretty crazy because the kids rooms are so full of stimuli the students just wander around trying stuff out rather than pay attention. But I was sweating by the end, and the mums were exhausted, and that's what counts.

Soba and pretty leaves....

On my days off last week, I went to Anna's parents's house in Takenami - way way in the Japanese countryside. To put it into context - so far every single Japanese person I've told about my trip didn't have a clue where it was. Anna had been raving about relaxing under her kotatsu which - if you've never heard of one - is a low square table with a blanket attached to it that reaches the floor, and a heater underneath. So you can snuggle under the blanket all nice and snug while the wintery weather rages outside. Or - if you're a gangly foreinger like me - you can sort of get your shins under, and then give up and sit on the sofa with a blanket.

Anyway, whilst in Takenami we decided to have a go at making soba noodles at a nearby restaurant which does a little class in it. There's only three ingredients - none of which I could identify and all of which look like flour - plus some water. The process was marginally complicated by the instructor speaking only in Japanese, including when she came round to correct me (despite being told I don't speak it). Actually, this happens alot - the traditional view of the English man abroad is shouting "WHERE-IS-THE-TOILET?!?!" at uncomprehending Turkish waiter, and I think the corresponding view over here is for the Japanese man to patiently explain in fluent Japanese what he wants, rephrasing it over and over without any kind of gestures, simplification or a single word of English. Still, we managed to sort the whole process out, and then eat the soba noodles that we made afterwards. They were pretty tasty, although I didn't realise you actually ate them cold. Rolling with the punches when it comes to food is one of the first skills you develop in Japan though, so I wasn't too fussed.



In the evening, we went to view a koryo or leaf colour changing site (or こりょ now I've managed to work out how to type in Japanese on this computer :) ). Autumn and Winter have kind of mixed together this year here, but all the leaves are now turning an amazing shade of red. I have to admit I was initially skeptical about this - after all, we have Autumn in England too right? It's when all the trains stop running (ooh, political satire). But actually it looked really impressive - there's a particular type of leaf called momiji （もみじ　he he he ) which looks very cool when they've changed colour. Although it was night time, the place had been set up with all spotlights and stuff, and the place was packed with people, most of whom were equipped with a vast array of photographic equipment. I had to make do with a couple of shots from my little camera.

You can always get cuter....

I think that no matter how long you spend in Japan, you never get fully inured to the cuteness that purveys the country so intensely. I've been here for 7 months, and teach the little tinkers everyday including at the moment when they're all wearing little Halloween costumes. But still today, I was bowled over with cuteness. Going through the subway barried were about 30 little kids, probably about 5 years old, all wearing matching school uniforms and in pairs, holding hands. As they went past the guys on the barrier collecting tickets, they said in unison "arigato gozaimashita!" in incredibly perky little voices. Then, just when it seemed the cuteness was reaching a peak, two of them gave little salutes to the barrier guys as they said thank you! KAWAIIII!!!

Nara, giant Buddhas, and violent deers...

I've been very slack with my updates recently so apologies if you've been awaiting the next thrilling instalment of the nonsense I've been up to. The most interesting thing of late is my friend Catherine visiting - while she was here, we visited Nara together, which is a fairly rural part of Japan with a famous Daibutsu, or giant Buddha (but only the second largest in Japan - Kamakura has the largest, giant Buddha fact fans).

Many many photos of Nara can be found here

Part 1: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?
aid=63550&l=2f8a5&id=697195509

Part 2: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?
aid=63552&l=bfc51&id=697195509

- the Daibutus itself is inside a gigantic temple, and it's pretty impressive but because everything in the temple is huge too, all the photographs I took make it look a bit titchy. Annoying.

The most memorable part of the trip was probably the deer though. Nara has about 1000 sacred deer wandering about, and they have absolutely no fear of anyone. They wander into traffic, and come right up to people to try and get food. Actually you can buy deer food at vendors, and they've obviously learnt that because they hang around near them. I bought some and a nearby buck immediately came up to me and started affectionately rubbing his head on leg to get some. It took a little time to get the wrapper off, and during this time the rubbing got more insisted, and started to become butting. Then when I tried to feed another deer instead, he butted me HARD in the leg. And then again! The little bastard! I was halfway between being a little scared and monumentally pissed off - they actually remove their antlers so it's not quite as bad as it could be, but those stumps are pretty solid. I was pretty glad when I'd got rid of the last of my deer biscuits I can tell you.

Anyway, I'll try and be more regular with my updates from now on - it's Halloween lessons coming up so they'll be costumes galore including mine which I bought the other day......

Expect the unexpected...

After 7 months in Japan, you start to fall into a routine with your kids lessons - you know pretty much what you're kids will like and understand, and what will have them looking perplexed and on the verge of rebellion. But there's still a few surprises that can grab you.

For example today, my classroom is on the 1st floor of the school in Tajimi, and the kids went up ahead of me while I got some stuff together. When I joined them, I noticed the - what's the polite term? - more errant child in the class had gone in the classroom, shut the door, and was holding it closed with his feeble child strength. Kazumi - helpful and friendly staff member - was playing along with him and pretending that she couldn't get in, but she doesn't know the kid quite as well as I do, and before I could say "actually, he might lock the door in a second"....well, guess what happened?

Entreaties to open the door were met with a grin and a shake of the head, so in the end I had to lean through the window next to the door (which luckily was ajar) and unlock the door.
Crisis averted! If that window hadn't been open, I don't know what would have happened - possibly I'd have had to shoulder barge down the door?! Which would have been more fun than singing the ABC Song, but probably wouldn't look to good on my reference.

Not content with one spanner in my well oiled English teaching machine, once the lesson started I noticed a spider climbing up the wall. Not a biggy, but a pretty ugly looking brute which I wasn't keen to get near. Once the kids noticed it they were entranced, and I was deeply deeply concerned that they might get frightened by it which would mean I'd have to touch it with my actual hands to get ride of it. But, after freaking me out for a bit, it buggered of into a crack in the wall. Phew.

I'd also like to mention that I'm feeling a bit smug today because this same class had a craft activity today where the kids were meant to cut out some shapes from coloured paper and glue them together to make a picture of a house. Now, these kids are lovely little mites, but they can't cut out FOR SHIT. Previous lessons involving the use of scissors have seen a flurry of confetti blanket the floor as they shear off bits of the paper, seemingly at random. So today before the lesson I cut out all the bits beforehand, meaning they only had to glue them onto a piece of A4. One of them still managed to cover the opposite side of the paper with prittstick and almost adhere it to the table, but overall they made some nice little houses which I was very pleased with. Hurrah.

Things I learnt this week....

1. Jiggering your leg up and down in a distracted way is considered rather rude in Japan
Especially if you're eating, apparently. To put it in the words of the lady who told me "it means you have NO MANNERS!!"

2. If you have bags trailing behind you when you go through a subway barrier, it thinks someone's trying to sneak through without paying the fare, and the barrier slams shut
unintentionally tried and tested twice. TWICE.

3. Burma is also called Myanmar
Is this an international thing? Or just in Japan? I've never had cause to pay much attention it before.

4. There are some bloody massive spiders in Japan
Honestly, they could take your head off with one swing of their mighty spider-legs. Probably.

Mount Fuji....

There are two sayings in Japan about climbing Mount Fuji. One says, "you're a fool if you don't climb Fuji, but you're a fool if you climb it more than once". The other says "Fuji is for looking, not for climbing". Combine this with the numerous Japanese people that looked at me as if I was mad when I told then I was going to climb up Japan's biggest mound of dirt, and the numerous articles written by previous climbers who said what a miserable, miserable experience it was and frankly I was feeling a little jittery about making the run. But climbing season was coming to and end, my friends from England were here and raring to go, so basically it was unavoidable.

Mount Fuji has 10 climbing stations, with 1 at the bottom and 10 at the top. Usually you start from station 5 halfway up, and climb from there. Me, Jackie, Jen, and Sinead arrived there at around 4pm on Thursday after a fun cab ride with a very jolly guy who could speak no English. I think he was giving me lots of interesting information and tips about the climb, but really for most of the time I was just nodding my head and say "so so so so". We began out ascent full of cheer and laughter, and it wasn't long before we got to the 6th station, where we had a quick drink, then we carried on up. At this point we started to notice that no one else seemed to be going UP, just down. Then a few of the people descending started asking us what we planned do to when we got near the top. We said that we were going to stay in one of the huts up there, and then head off to the top to catch sunrise. First problem: all the huts were shut! When the first person told us, we shrugged them off, but then a couple more people said the same thing, and finally a very concerned looking guy bounded up the mountain to tell us that everything was DEFINITELY shut. So, slightly deflated we went back down to the 6th station, and decided to try and sleep till midnight and set off then.

Sleeping proved very difficult, mainly because it was about 8pm, but also because we all kept giggling. I haven't been to a sleepover for a while, but it made me want to have one again - if we'd had a video player and a copy of Mannequin it would have been my childhood all over again.

So at midnight, we set off AGAIN. Trudging up the mountain was fairly tiring, but not too debilitating, and the night view as we looked back at Fujinomiya was pretty breathtaking (although it defied any attempts to photograph it - damn scenery). Altitude sickness if one of things that stops most people from getting to the top, so we took our time and went fairly slowly. Weatherwise, we were pretty lucky - although it was cold, it wasn't unbearable and climbing kept us nice and warm.

Things started to get a little more tricky when we got to around the 7th or 8th station. Although we were all tired, Jackie seemed to be getting noticeably more fatigued than the rest of us, and when I offered her a Snickers bar to reengergise her and she seemed to tired to put it in her mouth, alarm bells started to ring. We tried to press on up to the summit, but it became obvious after a while that she's got a nasty case of altitude sickness and that she wasn't going to make it to the top. So in the end she and I stayed at 9th station while Jen and Sinead pressed on to meet the sunrise at 5:30am. I went on afterwards to check out the summit too - it's not too exciting once the sun's risen to be honest! There was fog everywhere, so you couldn't see much, and it was pretty windy and chilly. But we were all chuffed that we'd made it, and the view as we looked down, although cloudy, was pretty cool.

Then we started out descent which was MUCH more tiring and painful than I expected. My knees were groaning as we neared the bottom, and Jen and I also had to deal with a soul-sapping error: we though we were coming to the 6th station (and were thus almost home), but then realised it was actually the 7th (and that home was another hour away). But by this time we felt like veterans, and pressed on, showing true British pluck :)

Once we got back to the 5th station, we hauled ourselves into the cab (the same driver - he seemed very amused by the whole thing) and headed for home, absolutely exhausted. It may make me a fool, but I'd certainly like to climb it again, although not in the next couple of years. Since getting back, I've suddenly been inundated with useful information about the climb (where was this BEFORE we went?!): which routes are best to go up and down etc. Furthermore, I think going slap bang in the middle of climbing season when all the huts are open so you can rest for a few hours would be a good idea - going up and down without stopping (a 10 hour hike basically) was knackering. But I'm glad I did it, and can happily tick it off my list of things to do in Japan. Next........pufferfish sashimi!

(Pretty pictures of the whole endeavour can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=54966&l=e726f&id=697195509 )

Funky Japanese arcade...

In the news recently there were reports than an arm wrestling game in some Japanese arcades had broken three people's arms (that's three separate people -not one person with three arms). So when Thom said he'd found a similar machine in a nearby arcade, OF COURSE we had to go and try it out.

Here's the machine, looking innocent:

And here's me, choosing my opponent. On the screen you can see the selection of racial and sexual stereotypes than comprise the potential foes you can battle. My favourite was the black guy with the enormous red lips - I think it might be where Herge got his ideas for Tin-Tin.


Despite bracing myself to hear a snap in my humerus, the machine was actually pretty weak - me and Thom both completed it with little strain. So what I suspect actually happened was a Japanese salaryman fell over whilst peeping into a girls' purikura photo both, but needed a better excuse to give his wife when he rang her from casualty.

Sally (Thom's girlfriend) also had a go on this train simulator:
It's difficult to gauge her success - on the one hand, her punctuality was second to none; however, this was mainly because she didn't stop at any stations and just powered through while the little simulated Japanese commuters shook their tiny fists. Still better than Virgin Trains though (satire).

Thom also had a go on this boxing game where as well as smacking the hell out of your opponents, you also sometimes had to dodge. Sadly, the menacing looking thing at head height didn't shoot out and smack you if you didn't, your character onscreen just got a punching.

Birthday!!

On September the 5th, I celebrated my 28th Birthday - cue everyone under 28 saying "wow, you're really old now" and everyone over 28 saying "ah, but you're not 30 yet at least". On my actually Birthday, I was working so I celebrated properly the following night with some food and karaoke (of course).

The local karaoke place charges a single fee if you go after 11, however long you stay up until 6am, so that's the one we normally go for. This only includes one drink though, and as ordering drinks via telephone can be a little hit and miss in these places, not to mention s-l-o-w, we always take in our own from the local convenience store. I think technically you're not meant to do this, but they don't seem to enforce this rule to rigidly. In fact, at one point late in the night one of the staff came in to check how many people were left and there were cans and bottle all over the place. I was going to try and surreptitiously cover some of them up, but with the amount of drinking debris on show this would just have patronised the guy's intelligence - it looked like a recycling plant. He didn't say anything about it anyway (or if he did, it was in Japanese an thus I could safely plead ignorance).

Gradually the numbers thinned out until the just a hardcore four of us were left at 5am - we stopped in the end because our tracheas were starting to close up and making our renditions even more torturous than normal. I finally got to bed at 6:30, after some food at a nearby 24 hour place. Not bad for an old guy :)

Some photos of the night can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=53219&l=ed5d5&id=697195509

Also, thanks very much to everyone who wished me happy Birthday, it was very much appreciated! It always feels a bit funny to be away from home for special occasions, and nothings more special than my bloody Birthday so little messages from people back home always give me a warm and fuzzy :)

Japanese lessons the hard way...

The Japanese language - being completely different to our European, Latin based languages and thus not resembling English in the slightest - is fraught with surprises and pitfalls to screw over the unwary foreigner. For example, if you at the suffix -so to the end of an adjective in Japanese, it means "it appears" or "it looks" whatever. Oishii = delicious; oishii-so = it looks delicious. Muzukashii = difficult; muzukashi-so = it looks difficult etc. Now, due to its ubiquity, "kawaii" is one of the first words you learn in Japanese. It basically translates as"cute" and if you go one day without hearing it said about something.....well, I don't know, because that's never happened to me.

Based on these two premises, you can construct the phrase "kawaii-so" = it looks cute. Seems obvious right? And indeed I've said that many times over the last few months since I've been getting to grips with Japanese, including to students when they got new clothes or dyed their hair. And now - AND NOW - I find out that kawaiso is in fact a word completely in itself and means pitiful. SO I'VE BEEN TELLING PEOPLE THEIR NEW HAIRCUTS LOOK PITIFUL!! And no-one though to point this out to me?! Gah!!

Domatsuri

The festival season is coming to an end at the moment, but there was a cracking one in the city centre the other night which I wandered around. During it, a big dance competition takes place - big dance troupes of about 40 or 50 engage in these amazing routines with drums and singing, all while wearing outlandish costumes in 30C+ heat. Impressive stuff. Here's a couple of videos of the dancing - the seats were all full up so the only way to get a decent gander was to keep scooting up and down the walkways. Hence the slightly Blair Witch-esque footage.

(NB - there's sound so watch out if you're at work!)

Free food and tears....

Today was a proud day indeed - not only did I manage to have a little conversation in Japanese with the guy in the Lawson near the school I was working in, but we bonded so well that he gave me some free food!! Result!
When I walked in he walked past me and exclaimed "wow, big!" which made me laugh. Then at the counter he asked me how old I was and how long I'd been in Japan. I told him and asked if he spoke English; he said "no, only Japanese" but in English - I decided not to try and explain the logical inconsistency in that. Then he asked me how old I thought the lady working there was - I said I didn't know and that it was dangerous to say; this was the clincher which made him chuckle and give me a free tasty snack. And very tasty it was too. The secret ingredient was free-ness.

I had my favourite and smartest class today - 8 kids all about 6 or 7 who are really well behaved and proper clever. One of them had been on holiday the previous week and when that happens you have to send them a little postcard saying what they missed and a little message. She came in this week with a postcard for me saying thank you - aah, so cute!


Anyway, one of the kids had been getting a little too energetic in previous lesson - he's probably the smartest kid in the class and not badly behaved; just needed to chill a bit so I asked the staff to tell him if he didn't calm down, I'd send him out. Of course, they can't really take one kid aside and say that, so she just spoke to all the kids very nicely reminding them of the rules while I smiled in a friendly way to reassure them they hadn't done anything wrong.
After she left they were all a bit quite like they'd been told off, so I felt a little guilty. This was compounded when I asked them for their homework books and one of them had forgotten hers - she started crying! Aiee!! Normally she's the life and soul, but I guess maybe she thought she'd been naughty - her and her two friends usually sneak up on me before the lesson and shout silly things at me - usually "monkey", but sometimes it's "monster" and today "ghost" was inexplicably added into the mix. It's tricky to know in these situations whether to grab a staff member and let the little 'un have a time out, or just throw them back into it - I decided to start a game and soon enough she was laughing away and having fun - relief!

Today is also the one week in four that we have to teach teenagers - maintaining discipline in these classes is an interesting experience as I always feel like I'm slightly skirting the precipice of keeping them under control and that a moment's hesitation will make them realise "actually, this lanky guy can't understand anything we say - let's call him a dickhead and talk amongst ourselves". So far though, I've kept disorder to a minimum through a combination of a) running them ragged with some games; b) shouting; c) ridiculing the ones that get cocky. Oh, and occasionally resorting to mild physical violence by bonking them on the head with my teacher's manual. So far so good - but maybe next time the revolution will begin....

Japanese weather....

The summer in Japan is unbelievably hot - and apparently this year it's especially so. All the veteran staff warn you that it's going to be bad, but I don't think anything can prepare you for just how sweltering it is. In Tajimi, the city nearby which I work in on Wednesday (lucky me!), the temperature got up to 40C while I was away. This is a record, one of the hottest summers ever. There are two main problems with Japanese summers. 1) They're incredibly humid; the feeling of oppression as you dash from one air conditioned building to the next is quite formidable and often it's only when you sit down and the negligible breeze made by your walking disappears that you realise how thick the air around you is. 2) Even though we're dashing about teaching kids, we still have to wear some semblance of a suit, which means trousers and a shirt are mandatory (but not a tie, at least not for kids' classes). So traipsing to the station with your trousers sticking to your legs is another fun part of the season - yay!

I'm not sure if there's any physiological basis for this, but it does seem that Japanese people don't sweat quite as much as us gaijin. Usually when it gets hot they have a little towel, like a flannel which they use to delicately dab the beads of sweat forming on their foreheads. Meanwhile, I'm literally dripping with perspiration like I've just passed a house brick or something - every once in a while you'll see some chubby Japanese guy (a rarity in itself outside of the sumo ring) with a damp patch on his chest, but by and large they seem to cope with the temperature pretty well. The hot weather does however provide an easy topic of conversation when in the local convenience store; the Japanese, like us Brits love to talk about the weather. Just using single words though - usually either "samuii" (cold) or "atsuii" (hot). I also looked up humid: "mushiatsuii" - check it out, one quick peek in the dictionary and I increased my vocabulary by a third!

Toyota Fireworks party...

There's tons of summer festivals going on in Japan at the moment, and that means tons of fireworks going off. On Sunday, Toyota City had one of the biggest ones, with 15000 fireworks going off over two hours! I headed down there with Mari, one of the school directors - the train down was absolutely rammed with people, most of whom were wearing yukatas or jimbeis and looking very cool (not literally though - apparently it gets pretty toasty in them). It's not surprisingly, but Japanese people really pull of these traditional clothes well - the women look stunning in their yukatas, and the guys look pretty snazzy too.

Here's Mari in hers:

I wanted to get a few photos of random people in their yukatas too, but I only managed to get one in the end as everyone was watching the fireworks!

Aah, cute (and younger than I realised from the back - they probably thought I was a dirty gaijin perv. Which of course I'm not)

The streets were packed as you can see:



But there fireworks were amazing! Whereas in England we just say "oooh" and "aaah" to fireworks, the Japanese let out this constant exclamations of "pretty!" or "cool!" or "big!" (when it's a huge flash type one). Each time they do, it's like the first time they've seen fireworks; they sound completely surprised by each one even though the show was going on for two hours. If the firework goes off once, then has lots of smaller explosions after, the exclamations stack up: "Cool! Ah, coolcool coolcoolcoolcoolcoolcool!!!!". It's all very charming.





The firework show was also a notable cultural contrast to the UK in how people behaved there - despite it being really crowded, everyone was very considerate and didn't stand in other people's way or sit down in stupid places so you couldn't walk. Getting to the trains afterwards was also very organised and easy - the police had it all sorted and controlled the massive flow of people into the station, then onto the platforms and into the trains so we got home very quickly. I think it's going to be a shock for me to get back on the Tube in London....!

All you can drink...

On Saturday two of the schools here joined forces to throw a big all-you-can-drink party at a nearby Izakaya. For two hours, you could knock back as much booze as you liked for a measly 3000 yen. And let me tell you, the Japanese do NOT mess about at these things - beer was flying left right and centre and the air was filled with Japanese drinking songs and chat.

Needless to say, everyone got completely plastered. There was also a kid of one of the students there called Yukito who was hilarious - he was a little shy to start with but he gamely tried to speak a little English and by the end of the night he was the centre of attention, pretending to throw fireballs at people ala DragonBall and playing Rock Scissors Paper (and winning - damn his mad janken skills). I managed to have a conversation with him in Japanese which makes sense seeing as we both have the interests and vocabulary of a seven year old (actually, I think I'm doing him down there): what his favourite Pokemon was, did he want to see Transformers etc. Here's a couple of photos:

What was also really cute is that however much Anna (school staff, in the purple t-shirt) tried to get Yukito to say rude things about us in Japanese (e.g. "Chris and Thom are old men"), he wouldn't do it! He kept shouting "no they aren't!!" - yay.

And a couple more of other people:

There's an inexplicable disparity between the Japanese social scene and it's municipal transport system, so whereas most of the izakayas are open till at least 3am , the trains stop running at 12. So after the mass exodus of people dashing for the last tube, a few of us decided to go to a nearby karaoke. I don't remember this too well, but I do remember that you were allowed to take your own booze in - normally we have to sneak it in people's bags.



I should also mentioned that after this on Sunday I had a NASTY hangover which even lovely Starbucks couldn't shift. Bleugh.