Christmas & New Year Back in the UK (Part 1)

Goodness, it's been a while since I've posted here. I had started to write a blog post whilst in the UK, but I was so busy and, to be honest, having far too good a time to really do it properly. Below is what I wrote!

Wow, I'm writing this blog post on my sofa in my front room, there's a log fire burning in front of me, and Come Dine With Me is on the telly! This certainly feels a lot different to how I spent my evenings in Tokyo...

I haven't blogged since the day before I set off to come back home nine days ago, so I'll resume where I stopped last time!

I got up at 5am on Wednesday the 21st, before packing the last couple of things into my suitcase and popping to the Konbini to get a sandwich for breakfast. I left my guesthouse at 5:45 to take the train to Kichijoji, arriving there just after 6, and then getting on my Odakyu bus to take me to Narita airport at half past.

Um, so yeah, shall I continue where I left off? I got to the airport in just over an hour, and went through check-in and security far quicker than I had anticipated, so it turned out I had almost three hours to kill at Narita. It didn't go too slowly though; I just read some more of 1Q84 (Haruki Murakami's latest book) and listened to music on my iPod. At 11:45 we took off and started the twelve-hour flight back to London Heathrow. Unlike the time at the airport, however, this certainly didn't go quickly. I am really, really bad at sleeping on planes; there's not enough leg room at all and I can't curl up in any way. So instead I thought I'd just watch lots of films and hope the time went quickly, but it turned out that JAL has a pretty poor selection...I did watch Mrs Doubtfire though, which I hadn't watched for years! So aside from that I listened to plenty of music, enjoyed the unlimited supply of free lager and eventually got sozzled enough to doze for a couple of hours. 

After what seemed about a week and a half, we landed in London. I was relieved to get off that plane, but I still had plenty of travelling to do. I had to go to a different terminal to get my connecting flight up to Manchester, and for some reason had to go through security twice to get there. Eventually I got through to the waiting lounge, and had to wait three hours to get my next flight. I passed the time by chatting to Ayu and Mum on the phone, and I did a lot of people watching. One thing that really surprised me was how relatively fat British people are compared to the Japanese! I mean I always knew that we have a bit of a national weight problem, but it doesn't startle you until you've lived in a country where a 32 inch waist for men is L size.

Finally, I was able to get on the bmi flight up to Manchester. The plane itself was tiny! The cabin had 18 rows of three seats; one on the left, then the aisle, then two on the right. I was at the very back on the left of the aisle. Now this flight was quick, only about 45 minutes. We landed in a fair bit of turbulence, and then I went to pick up my bags. But the journey still wasn't over! After getting my bag I had to transfer over to the Manchester Airport railway station, and then wait another half an hour to get the Transpennine Express to Leeds. After an hour and a half on that train, I had to leave Leeds Station and get a taxi back to Otley. But then, finally, I was back home!!

I think that's quite enough for now, I hope you can see how exhausting the whole journey was, it's tired me out just writing about it. I'll write about my actual holiday soon :)

James

私の東京にある部屋

Have a look round my room :)

In other news, I've just finished packing up everything ready to come back to the UK! Tomorrow at 5am I'll get up, before going to Narita and flying home...so my next blog post will be from England!! It doesn't feel real that tomorrow evening I'll be back in my house..! Looking forward :)

James

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

Two Months In & Life in Tokyo

I've been here around two months now, so I think I can just about talk about what it's like to actually live in Tokyo on a day to day basis, rather than just as a tourist.

Firstly, Tokyo is an amazing, amazing city, and it should definitely be a priority to come and visit (please come visit me!).  Living here is pretty different to how I, and most other people, expected it to be.  From talking to people back home, I've realised that loads of people expect my daily routine to include things like chilling with robots, using space-aged toilets with built-in sound effects and seat warmers (okay, those are quite widespread, but anyway...), hanging around the neon-lit urban landscape munching on sushi for most of the day, and being stopped by rival teenagers for Pokémon battles on the way home from university.

Whilst some of those sorts of things are perfectly possible to do here, they're certainly not part of a normal day!  My local area, for example, is not the big, shiny metropolis that everyone imagines Japan to be.  The city centre areas like Shinjuku, Shibuya and Ikebukuro do fit that mould, but one thing in particular did strike me about Tokyo as a city.  Almost everywhere you go outside of the big centres, Tokyo has an incredibly town-y feel to it.  It's very low-rise, and seems just like a medium-sized town wherever you are.  The only difference is that this 'town' keeps going and going and going and going...it's almost like years ago there were hundreds of towns dotted around the area, which have grown and grown over time to the extent that they have expanded into each other, with no green areas in between them any more; it's a very strange feeling and quite difficult to explain, so I hope you understand what I'm trying to describe.

A typical Tokyo street

The video below was taken from my balcony during the typhoon season (until the battery ran out...), and shows that I don't live in the top of a huge apartment block only accessible by spaceship. 

That said, the major centres (and there are very many of them indeed) are exactly the frantic, neon-soaked, endless sky scraper skylines we are projected in the UK and elsewhere.  I have been to a number of leading world cities, like New York, London and Shanghai, and I can honestly say that Tokyo rivals them all (don't worry London, you're still my favourite, babes).  Below are a few pictures and videos of the cool central bits.  Despite what it looks like, I wasn't following the girl who walked past me in the last video.

So, in conclusion I guess you could say, Tokyo is a brilliant city, but not exactly what you'd expect...certainly worth a visit though!

Onto more mundane matters, my daily routine goes something like this: wake up at about half 8, have some breakfast, go to university (10:10-12:40 every day, plus 1:15-3:00 on Wednesdays and Fridays), come home, have a bit of food, watch an episode of something or other on the internet, do some work for university, have dinner, do a bit more work, go for a bike ride or jog, have a shower, sit on Youtube or Facebook for a while, then go to sleep.  Exciting, huh?  I guess day to day life is pretty much the same no matter which country you're in.  

Oh, except that Tokyo is very expensive indeed.  Over the past decade or so, it's consistently been ranked in the top 5 most expensive cities in the world, with about half of that time spent occupying the top place.  That'll strike you if you ever come; the sheer price of the most mundane things.  Thankfully, 100 yen shops provide an escape from that.  I'm lucky enough to have a Lawson 100 yen shop about 1 minute away from me on the bike, by the train station, which has a supermarket bit downstairs, and most of the products are the same price (it's actually 105 yen a piece with tax, about 85p).  I do most of my food shopping there, so at least that can be done cheaply.  The following are the sorts of typical things I'll buy whilst there, all for 105 yen; 2 chicken breasts, a pack of green peppers, 10 eggs, pack of 3 noodles, some pak choi, sugar snap pea, a bottle of soy sauce, pepper shaker, and so on...so it's not too bad!  Beer is a bit more expensive, about 200-300 yen for a 500ml can (£1.65-£2.45), but hour long all you can drink bars for under a thousand yen, or two hours for under 1,500 balances that difference out, I suppose.

Transport is one thing that is expensive here, at least on the trains, and clothing, books, and digital media are really pricey too. But I suppose that the overall message is that cheaper ways to live in Tokyo can be found once you get used to everything.

Now, I've rambled for far too long; well done if you made it this far!

James 

Photo of the Day

I wouldn't expect the best atmosphere in 'Cafe de Bore'

The British Pub in Kichijoji & More 飲み放題

I shall first of all point out that I am NOT the type of person who moves to a foreign country simply to spend all my time mingling with English people in British pubs!!  I'd discovered the existance of this British pub in nearby Kichijoji from Miles, a Leeds student who studied at ICU a couple of years ago, and decided that I wouldn't mind having a look in, and see how they interpret our culture!

So yes, the other night, Melissa and I went for a drink there.  Many other people were invited but couldn't make it in the end, tsch.  As we walked in, Trash by Suede came on the stereo, and I liked it already.  Babyshambles and Pulp also featured on the stereo during our visit, in amongst some less tasteful and appropriate music.  Blink 182 are not welcome in such an establishment.

 

 

Remember what I said about my indoor photography abilities?

The interior wasn't too bad!  Obviously it was a little exaggerated and stereotyped, but the general atmosphere was there.  The furniture was varnished oak like back home, and it was nicely dingy.  They even had the Stoke-Liverpool match ont' telleh.

We went during happy hour, but unfortunately there was no lager on the happy hour menu, just a choice of cocktails.  It was very strange to see everyone in the British pub sat sipping bright pink and green cocktails.  Still, I'm not going to complain about the choice of drinks when it was £2 for a double Gin & Tonic.

There was a food menu with lots of traditional and contemporary British and European dishes, but I'd decided before I'd even stepped through the door that I'd be going for good old Fish and Chips.  Being not only from Britain, but specifically from Yorkshire, their ability to do a good plate of Fish and Chips was the deal breaker as to whether I'd be returning or not; the true test of their ability to replicate a crucial bit of Blighty.  Luckily, they certainly delivered!  Whilst not precisely what I'm used to, it was pretty damn close, and much more authentic than what I'd heard from people's anecdotes. 

 

Mmm the fish.  I'm not sure whether it was cod, or haddock, or whatever, but it really hit the spot.  The chips were delicious, too.  I liked the fact it was served in faux-newspaper, too; so authentic that we don't even do that in the UK any more.  Well I never got ink poisoning from when my Fish and Chips used to get wrapped up in The Yorkshire Post.

So a very good experience, all in all!  I'd give it a good solid 7/10!  Plus points for the decor, Fish and Chips, some good music, cheap drinks (the food wasn't too expensive, either) and the football being on.  Minus points for the lack of beer on the happy hour menu, and some pretty crap songs in between the brilliant ones.

Melissa had to go quite soon after we ate, so I headed back to Koganei, where I then met Ayaka, and we went for a 飲み放題 (nomihoudai, if you don't know what that means then tut tut you haven't been reading my blog posts) at a nearby 居酒屋, or izakaya, a traditional Japanese pub.  

I'll write a proper blog post about 居酒屋 at some point.  They're a great, authentically Japanese experience (and a good opportunity for western goldfish to abuse the all-you-can-drink offer).  You have to take your shoes off at the door and everything!

On a side-note, as we walked to the izakaya, we passed a rather interesting looking bar, with an equally interesting slogan (/health advice label?!).

I wonder how long a sign like that would last in the UK...

James

A Night Out in Shibuya

Before I start writing about this, I apologise in advance for the appalling quality of some of the outdoor shots.  My night time photography skills leave a lot to be desired.  

So yes, last night I went out into Shibuya with Melissa, an American girl from my Japanese course, who I also live at Big Rose 21 with, and her friend Alonna.  Shibuya is one of the big nightlife centres of Tokyo, and has what I believe to be the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world; there are plenty of photos and videos of the huge volume of people crossing every minute, so just type "Shibuya Crossing" into Youtube and you'll get an idea of it!

After getting the train from Higashi-Koganei to Shinjuku Station, and changing there, we took a different train one more stop to Shibuya Station.  Once outside, we had a bit of an explore whilst we looked for a place to have some food.  Even just walking around Shibuya is an amazing experience, what with all the neon and the sights and the sounds.  If you picture Tokyo in your head and imagine the big neon signs and bustling streets, that's exactly what Shibuya's like.

On the way to find some food we came across a concentration of 'Love Hotels'.  If you've never heard of them before or you somehow hadn't worked out their function from the euphemistic name, there's a fairly, ahem, comprehensive article on them on Wikipedia.  

 There were tens of them on this one little street, from the predictably named "Hotel Silk" to the more worryingly named "Blood".  The place we chose to eat at was actually at the bottom of this street (although in no way connected to its neighbours!), at a little place where we could sit and have a drink as well as get some food.  On the specials board there was an offer on a sashimi platter for three people which, considering there were three of us, we decided to get!  I'm glad we did; it was delicious.

Sashimi consists of slices of raw fish on some crunchy refreshing salad, with wasabi and soy sauce.  This was the first proper sashimi I've had since coming to Japan, and it was the best I've ever eaten.  The fish was really thick and meaty, and the wasabi was the best I've ever had, too.  It wasn't too badly priced either, nor were the drinks; I had two big glasses of Asahi.  The whole experience was a very nice, civilised way to start the evening!  The only thing I was a bit miffed about was that we only found after receiving the bill that there was a 300 yen entrance fee per person.  I think that's a bit rich, as you're paying them for the food and drinks anyway, which they must make a profit on.  I can understand an entrance fee for clubs and places like that, where you pay for the music and the work of the DJs and all that, but paying to enter a place where you again pay for food and drink?  I think that's a bit cheeky.  

But anyway, afterwards we went in search of a bar.  Whilst walking down a side street we were startled to see a very excited little Japanese man come running at us from inside a bar shouting "hai, hai, hai, douzo, douzo, irasshaimase, irasshaimase" (yes, yes, yes, come in, come in, welcome, welcome).  After having a look at the menu we thought it seemed pretty reasonable, so decided to stay there!  Then we saw on the menu an option for 飲み放題, nomihoudai, or all you can drink.  Ahh, the Japanese nomihoudai.  They are much more prolific here than in the UK and pretty much the only viable option for a student going out into Tokyo.  We paid about £10 for an hour's 飲み放題, in most small bars it's about £5-6 a pint, so this was definitely worth it.  When Japanese people select the nomihoudai they seem to just get a couple of drinks over the course of the whole hour, which seems a little bit pointless.  Of course, hulking great Westerners like myself certainly get their money's worth!  I had four pints of Suntory beer and a G&T in the hour, which worked out at £2 a drink.  In the centre of Tokyo, the most expensive city in the world!  

It was in this bar that we met a group of drunk, funny Japanese people.  None of them really spoke any English, so it was a great chance to practice our Japanese!

 

My Japanese seems to dramatically improve after a few drinks, or perhaps everything that comes out of my mouth then is just rubbish.  Whichever the case, we exchanged email addresses and agreed to meet up in Kichijoji next Friday night.  I was originally meant to go to Kichijoji with ICU people on Friday night, but everyone ended up being busy, so we're due to go tomorrow night instead!

I'm certainly enjoying my nights out in Tokyo :)

James

First Day in Tokyo

Sorry for the lateness in getting any posts done on here!  I've been pretty busy!  But I have managed to find some time now!  This post is only really about the flight and first day of Japan, but I'll blog about the other couple of days that I've spent here so far soon too!

So we were up at about half past four in the morning on Saturday the 27th of August, and set off an hour later to go to Manchester Airport with Mum, Dad and Ayu.  We got there at about 6 o'clock, and went to one of the Etihad check-in desks, where we met Ash.  After having a major rearrangement of my hand luggage, as it was both too big and too heavy to take on (as if they weigh hand luggage now!) I went to check my main luggage, to find it was 2kg too heavy.  £54 overweight fees later we were ready to go through the security checks and onto the plane.  As my parents and Ayu couldn't go any further, in front of the security gate was the scene of the teary goodbye I had been dreading.  Unsurprisingly, it was as bad as I'd expected it to be.  

Yes, I'm smiling there, but you have to for the camera!

I was pretty much crying whilst going through security right after saying the final goodbye, and other people in there were giving me a sort of "what's wrong with him? He's going on holiday!" look.  If only they knew!

After security we had about 15 minutes to wait before going to our gate and then getting on the plane.  Ohh, the plane. Oh dear.  Whilst the service and interactive screens we all got were good, the seats were terrible!  I've never had so little legroom on a long haul flight.  I couldn't have my legs straight, so I had cramp in my legs and achey pains in my knees because they'd been bent for so long by the time I disembarked the plane.  It was seven hours to Abu Dhabi, before we had a two hour stop over, and then the final ten hour flight on to Tokyo.  It was long, cramped, and horrible, but eventually we were there.

We arrived at about 1 o'clock in the afternoon at Tokyo Narita Aiport, actually in neighbouring Chiba (oops, I initially wrote 'in neighbouring China' by accident there, that would have been a long transfer), and booked a seat on a bus from the Airport to Kichijoji, in Western Tokyo.  It was my first chance to authentically use Japanese, and it went well!  I was pleased that we could actually understand each other!

The trip was about an hour and a half, during which time Ash and I shared an iPod and admired the Tokyo scenery.  It initially struck me as being very similar to Shanghai, as the highways around the centre are very similar, as are some of the tall buildings, and blocks of flats, but once you get into the centre the two are quite different.  

Arriving in Kichijoji, we easily found the train station, before buying a Suica Card (like an Oyster card it allows you to top it up with credit in order to travel the trains around Tokyo and Japan) and taking the Chuo Rapid Line three stops to Higashi-Koganei, the closest station to my guesthouse.  

Once in Higashi-Koganei, I used a nearby payphone to phone the guesthouse company, who came and picked us up, and took us to the Big Rose 21 guesthouse.  I signed the forms needed, paid my first month's rent and deposit, and then went up to the room to relax.  My accommodation is brilliant, and I'll have a proper post about it when I've finished setting up here.

That evening we were too tired to really do anything, so we had a look at some Japanese TV, went to buy a bento box for dinner and a couple of beers, before going to bed!  Ash has been staying with me for a few days (he's leaving tomorrow to travel around the Kansai region of Kyoto and Osaka, before heading down to his university in Fukuoka), and the guesthouse people were good enough to set up a futon on my floor for him to sleep on!

Oh, and I bought a little plant for my room as well.  His name is Albert Henry, and he is lovely.

I'll try post soon about my first few days in Japan!  Please stay tuned, my blog should actually be interesting from now on!!

Hope England's coping without me.

James

I'm in Japan!

Woo!  So here I am, sitting in my new room at Big Rose 21 with Ash, watching some very strange Japanese TV with an Asahi and a hot bento box.

In the next day or two I'll post a proper post about my trip so far...plenty to talk about!  But just for now, I'm here, and very very happy indeed :)

Stay tuned!

James