A Quiet Autumn Holiday

As I said in my previous post, I'm currently on my two-week Autumn holiday between the first and second term at ICU. I also said I was hoping to do lots of travelling around Tokyo and see some places I haven't been before.  Unfortunately, with my increasingly precarious financial situation (I'm already into my overdraft...) that's not really been possible at all. I'm going to have to live very frugally for the rest of the calendar year. The wages from my new job will come in during the second half of December, and I'm also waiting on the results of the JASSO scholarship which I recently applied for (80,000 yen a month, £670, which would be nice!), as well as applying for grant from Student Finance England. Even if I don't get the scholarship or qualify for the grant, with my wages from the babysitting job and the next instalment of my maintenance, I should be alright...things are just going to be a bit tight for a while!

So unfortunately my travel plans for this couple of weeks have had to be put on hold until the new year or Springtime. I've not really done anything noteworthy instead, besides rediscovering Age of Empires and The Sims! At least the virtual me has a good job and a nice income! 

A lot of friends I've made in ICU and in my guesthouse are only here for the Autumn term, and a lot of them have already left to go back to their various countries, which is pretty sad. Last night I had a final drink in Kichijoji with my American friend T.J.  In fact, as I write this, he'll be somewhere over the Pacific en route to North Carolina. A lot of other friends are leaving in the next couple of weeks; I just hope I have enough money for a last drink with all of them!

James

My first ever glimpse of Mt. Fuji

Exams & End of Term 1

Blimey, that went quickly!  It's strange to think I'm already a third of the way through my time in Japan (sort of)!  

Although the exam period doesn't officially end until tomorrow, my last exam was yesterday, meaning that I've now got two weeks of holiday before going back to start the Winter term on December the 1st.  I've now finished J3, too.  The course consisted of a fair bit of grammar that we covered in the second half of last year at Leeds, but there was some new stuff too, and going over the old stuff has really helped me; I wasn't comfortable using a lot of the grammar structures we learned towards the end of the first year at Leeds in any situation outside of a written context (where I had time to think about how to structure sentences) but now I'm happy using even the harder forms when speaking.  My Japanese has improved a lot already, but I think that's mainly from living here, to be honest.  Next term I'll start J4, which apparently is a huge step-up from J3...bring it on!

So I had my end-of-term exams over the past week, and they went well!  There were a couple of hiccups, though.  My main Japanese exam was scheduled for 8:50 on Thursday morning, so I set my alarm for 7:45.  For whatever reason, my alarm just didn't go off, and I was woken at 8:48 by my friend T.J. phoning to ask which room the exam was in.  Oh dear.  I fell out of bed into some clothes, brushed my teeth (forgive me for not giving them the recommended 2 minutes of attention on this occasion), and cycled into uni in the fastest time I've ever managed.  I got into the room at just after 9:05, at the end of the first section.  Unfortunately, the first section was Listening, so I couldn't exactly go back and quickly catch up on what I'd missed.  At ten past nine the Listening sections were taken off us and we were given the next part, and from then onwards the exam went really well!  I've done well in all my other tests and things over the term, so the consequences shouldn't be too bad.  

The grades and marks we get at ICU aren't transferred over to Leeds, so technically we just need to pass everything, and then Leeds set us assessed things at the end of the year.  This helped in the case of my English as an International Language module.  Let's just say I passed that (with not-so flying colours) so there are no worries there and it can be left at that!!

Being the lucky fellow that I am, I have just come down with horrible flu the day after my last exam.  So I've been staying in bed, drinking lots, and watching lots of Qi and Have I Got News For You online (no change from when I was well then, really).  Hopefully I can get well soon, because I'd like to see lots of Tokyo whilst I'm on holiday!  I'll do a blog post about each interesting place I go to, like what I did with my Akihabara post.  I'm planning to go to Koenji (again, to have a proper look this time), Ikebukuro, Ueno, Harajuku, Yoyogi, Shimbashi and Shimokitazawa.  If anyone knows of anywhere else in Tokyo worth going then please let me know!

James

Photo of the Day

I can't fit all of this onto a caption, so I'll explain it here.  T.J. and I went for a drink in the Hub British Pub in Kichijoji a few days ago, and they usually play good music, but absolutely nothing special was coming out of the speakers that night.  After a few gin and tonics I went to the bar and asked if they had any Libertines, hoping for maybe a song or two.  Two minutes later, the music went off, and all of the many TV screens around the pub, usually used for showing sport, came on.  We were then treated to the entire hour and a half-long Libs' set from Reading Festival in 2010!  And all I was expecting was Don't Look Back Into The Sun or something!  So I grabbed a little photo on my mobile as a memento.

My 20th Birthday in Japan

Yesterday was my 20th birthday! It's quite an important age in Japan; basically the equivalent of the UK's 18.  It was strange to come over in August and revert back to legally being a child, but now I've caught up again!  20's also the legal drinking age in Japan, but as a foreigner I never get asked for ID so not a lot will change there...

To celebrate, a group of friends and I went out to Kichijoji.  We started off at the Hub British Pub to catch the end of Happy Hour there, which is 5-7.  We ended up arriving at about 6:45, so ordered about 6 drinks to each of us whilst they were still cheap!  The Japan vs Tajikstan match was on the TVs, and the pub was full of lairy supporters, which did give it a good atmosphere!  Although I don't see how the Japanese can be so into football when their national team is so RUBBISH.  Anyway, we stayed there until about 8, when our drinks ran out.

By 8 o'clock we were all getting pretty hungry, so we went to an izakaya for some grub and more drinks.  We had a whole room to ourselves, with a big, long table for us all to sit round.  The table was traditionally low to the floor, and we sat on tatami mats.  The horrifying realisation that I would have to sit cross legged and lose all feeling in the lower half of my body hit me just before I noticed that there was space underneath the table to put your legs, just like a normal chair - phew!

The food and drinks kept coming throughout.  Without realising it, I ate whale and horse.  Hmm.  The whale (in sashimi form) was extremely fishy; not too sure if I liked it.  The horse was also in sashimi form; raw, with soy sauce to dip in.  Unfortunately all I could taste was the bed of sliced onions it was sat on, but I guess the texture was nice!  Just like a (very) rare steak!  There was plenty of other gorgeous food; I think I may have eaten my own body weight in gyoza. Mmmmm yummy.

The original plan for after the izakaya was to go on to a bar somewhere and have some more drinks, but we ended up staying for hours, and getting very drunk, and also people started having to get off home, so we called it a night!  Naturally, we had the usual encounter with drunk Japanese people on the way to the station, including two who liked to tell me I was very cool.

People were kind enough to pay for me, so it was certainly the cheapest night out in Tokyo I've had yet!  I should have birthdays more often!  Thank you everyone :) The TUFS lot also got me a couple of presents!  Certainly wasn't expecting that!  They got me some chocolate called Horn (no jokes, please, Kieran's already made them all), and a book!  I gave them to Max to put in his bag as I didn't have one with me, but he then disappeared into the night after popping to buy some fags in between Hub and the izakaya and wasn't to be seen again.  I guess I'll get them back off him on Monday at ICU then!

I've also been getting some birthday post at home!  So far I've got cards from my grandparents and parents, and a fair few other people have stuff en-route to me, and some relatives have put money in my account, too :) with the card, my parents sent me these amaaazing slouchy pants that Mum and Ayu picked out for me :) I love them so much - I really wanted some nice slouchies and these are just the sort of things I was after!  They're warm and soft and mmmm :)

Sally was also sweet enough to leave me a little birthday surprise!  I opened my bedroom door on Friday morning to go brush my teeth, and there was little bag waiting outside with a beer and a handmade card inside!  That was a nice start to my birthday morning :)  I put the card along side the other ones I've received so far, and had the beer before meeting everyone in Kichijoji that evening!

I love the 3D meerkat card from Mum & Dad hehe

Thus concludes my birthday!  It was a very fun day :) although, I did have exams in the morning...I'll make a proper exam post when I've finished them all next week, though.  It's a very strange feeling not to be a teenager any more! I really don't feel like a twenty-something :s

James

A Little Job Update

I've finally sorted out my shifts in my new job as a Babysitter!  I'll be picking a kid up from a British school in the centre of Tokyo, before taking him home to look after him for a few hours before his parents come home, during which time I'll help him with homework, play some games and chat to him.  This'll be every Monday and Thursday, about 6 hours per week in total, which will bring me a nice little income of about £240 a month!  Not bad hehe :)

I really need to get setting a bank account up!

James

P.S. No photo of the day today, I have to get snapping some more with my camera...sorry about that!

秋葉原 : Akihabara

Yesterday my friend Max and I headed to Akihabara, a district of Tokyo I'd heard a lot about.  It's the 'geek capital' of Tokyo, and the headquarters of the otaku subculture.  It's somewhere anyone interested (/obsessed) with anime, video games, cosplay or electronics should definitely check out.  Even if none of those things particularly interest you, as is the case for me, it's still worth a look.

The first, and perhaps most obvious thing I'll say about Akihabara is that it's very, very, very Japanese; I mean it's very Japanese.  All of the stereotypes people have about Japan and Tokyo can be found here.  We spent a good amount of time just walking around the area, taking everything in.  There's lots of neon, lots of J-Pop playing everywhere, lots of manga shops, lots of games shops, and even more electronics shops, selling both vintage 80s stuff, and many, many futuristic gadgets which I couldn't even work out the function of...what they say about Japanese gadgetry being years ahead really is true. On the topic of vintage stuff, there were several shops that bought up lots of old games consoles when they came out in the late 80s and early 90s, and are now selling them new.  If things get really desperate and boring in my room, I could always go down to Akihabara and buy a brand new Nintendo Super Famicon with Mariokart for £25...

Also extremely prevalent in Akihabara are Maid Cafés.  The waitresses in these wear cosplay outfits, generally as French maids but often also as anime or manga characters.  They greet their customers with "welcome home, master", and generally act as cute servants, decorating the food and drink, and even playing video games with the clientele.  Some cafés even go as far as having the maids spoon-feed the customers.  And then there are the ノーパン喫茶 (no-pan kissa); 'no-panties cafés', with their mirrored floors.  I don't think I need to go any further into explaining them. 

Out in force on the streets of Akihabara are the maids, offering passers-by the flyers of their cafés, in their horrible, screechy, fake voices. Honestly, I can't even begin to describe the 'cute' voices they put on, they penetrate your brain they're so....Japanese? I don't know how you'd describe them.  One maid started talking to me when I was outside a café.  We had an awkward conversation in English, and then a similarly awkward one in Japanese when she realised that wasn't working, and then after discovering she was Chinese, an even more awkward one in Mandarin.  After that I decided it was probably best to carry on exploring.

Max and I decided that it would be a waste to spend some time in Akihabara without having a couple of goes at a video arcade, and then we came across Club Sega.

There were five floors of crammed arcades, with loads of different games on offer, from shooters, to Tekken-style fighting games, to racing games, which we opted for.

Max overtook me right at the end after a really even race, and won. Boo.

Oh, and otaku Japanese are very into their PVC schoolgirl and nurse costumes.  How would I look in one?  I probably shouldn't go into the other things available for purchase at this shop.  I didn't even realise some of the things in this six floor *cough* shop existed.  Those geeks sure are adventurous. 

Thus concludes my trip to Akihabara. If you want to be freaked out by how weird some groups of Japanese society are, then definitely go have a wander around it!

After leaving Akihabara, Max took me for some grub and a few drinks in Koenji.  It was full of really nice little bars and vintage clothes shops, so I'll probably make a blog post about it later, after I've had a proper explore.  I did have some truely mind-blowing sashimi, though; it was delicious.

One week until my 20th birthday! :D

James

Photo of the Day

On a photo album. Sounds exciting to me!