End of Term Two & Studio Ghibli Museum

Okay, I'm not going to write about the rest of my Christmas break as the memory has been somewhat bittered by subsequent events...I'll just say that it was really lovely, and seeing everyone was amazing.

Righty, I've just finished my second term at ICU! This one seems to have gone much quicker than the first...and it was a lot harder too! Last week I had my exams and I had to turn in a long paper for my other module, but now I have no class until April! I do have to study lots of Kanji for Leeds though, ugh...

I have no concrete plans for the Spring break as of now, but I'd like to go out of Tokyo. I'm thinking of going up north to Nikko, a really nice-looking mountainous city with lots of shrines and temples, and a stunning national park. It's also the home of the famous Three Wise Monkeys! A couple of friends have been there already, and said it was really good. It'd be nice to see some of traditional Japan!  Other than that I'd like to go southwest to the Kansai region, to Osaka and Kyoto. Naturally I'll keep up with anything I get up to on here! It's been a while since I've blogged isn't it...in fact I haven't really kept it properly since September...hopefully that'll change from now on!

Something I've wanted to blog about for a while was my trip to the Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka at the end of January. I'm not a fan of anime, but I do like the Ghibli films, such as Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Spirited Away and My Neighbour Totoro. 

I went there with my friend Amii, and I really do recommend it. To get there you take a train to Mitaka Station, and from there you can either get a short bus trip or walk along the side of the canal for about 10 or 15 minutes. You need to get tickets in advance, which can be bought from the Lawson chain of konbinis for 1,000 yen (£7.80).

You couldn't take photos inside (something that was very strictly enforced), so I guess you'll all just have to visit it to have a look! It's really, really nice. Very hard to describe though...nice and old fashioned, with a big iron spiral staircase, 1930s style lift, and about half of it was a mockup of a studio, with all the different paints and pencils and so forth set out. I'm not doing a very good job of describing it, am I? If only they'd let us take photos! There were little scenes from the different films dotted around, such as the food stall from Spirited Away where Chihiro's parents gorge themselves on food and turn into pigs, and a life-sized Catbus from My Neighbour Totoro! There was also a smaller Catbus for kids to play on, which I wanted to jump on as well but alas, it turns out I'm about ten years too old :(

After having a look around inside we went up to the roof garden, which was small but very, very peaceful and nice (apart from the large group of Chinese tourists getting in the way of almost EVERY photo I tried to take). 

Up on the roof was one of the robots from Laputa! It's my favourite Ghibli film, and the robot was just about my favourite character, so it was an unmissable photo opportunity!

After the roof garden we went down to the inhouse cinema to watch an unreleased mini Studio Ghibli film, about some Sumo mice...which was very entertaining and charming. It was also nice to see how my Japanese ability is just about at the level of a six year old, heh.

Following that we went down into the courtyard area, and I got just a little carried away on the water pump.

As we were leaving the museum we had to stop off at the big Totoro for a photo! He's pretty much the mascot of Studio Ghibli. It's a shame he was behind glass, I imagine squeezing him would make anyone happy.

And thus concludes my trip to the Mitaka Studio Ghibli Museum. I had a really, really fun time and heartily recommend it to anyone. Be careful of the gift shop though, it's insanely expensive, but lots of the things they sell are beautiful. A fun day out, all in all, especially with the subsequent walk through Inokashira Park to Kichijoji for gin and fish & chips.

Goodness, I never thought I'd speak so enthusiastically about anything anime related!

James

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

A Busy Day of Pre-Flight Preparation

What a busy day it's been!

After having morning classes, I took the train to Tachikawa Station, before hopping on a bus to the Immigration Bureau to get my re-entry permit. I was going to write a step-by-step guide to acquiring the re-entry permit for anyone else who needs to go for one, but I really can't top Miles Davies' blog post which helped me no end when I was planning my trip. One thing I will add is that the Sunkus konbini right by the 多摩車検場前 bus stop sells the special stamp you need in order to get re-entry permit. Oh, and Miles said he had a two hour wait before being dealt with, but my wait was only about five minutes! I didn't even have time to complete my form before I was called up to the desk!

I was with Ashley, an Australian girl in my class (well, she was in my class last term), who went to get her work permit from the same bureau, but she only found out when she got there that she needed to have her passport with her in order to get it! Oops....

After sorting out my re-entry permit stuff, I got the bus back to Tachikawa Station, from which I went straight to Kichijoji Station and bought my ticket for the Limousine Bus, which will take me to Narita Airport from Kichijoji at 6:30am on Wednesday!

I got back home at about 5pm, and then had lots of work to do for uni! As I'm missing the last two days of classes, I'm getting all my deadlines sorted and ready to hand in tomorrow. After doing my work, I put some of the clothes I'm taking back in the wash, and started packing my main suitcase. It's now 3/4 full of other clothes I washed yesterday, and Christmas presents for everyone! 

Two more sleeps! Looking so so SO forward to coming home :)

James

JASSO Scholarship!

Whooop so I found out today that I have been awarded the JASSO Scholarship between January and March next year! It's such a relief, what with the ridiculous price of everything around here!

I'll receive 80,000 yen each month, automatically deposited into my Japanese bank account (Mitsubishi UFJ), so over the three months I'll be given around £2,000! I'm going to have to work hard and get good grades this year though, as it's a scholarship, not simply a grant! But of course, I was going to work hard and get good grades anyway ;)

Now that I have the money to do so, I'm hoping to travel outside of Tokyo during the Easter break in March and April. I'd love to go down to Osaka and Kyoto; that sort of region. It would be lovely to see some of the Leeds people during the year! And Kyoto in particular looks amazing; it oozes with traditional culture.

Happy days!

James

I'm Going Home for Christmas!

Finally, after wrangling with various booking companies and airlines, I've managed to book some tickets back to the UK! It's such a relief! Quite possibly the best Christmas present from my parents ever...

I'm going to fly with JAL (Japan Airlines), leaving from Tokyo Narita Airport at 11:45am on Wednesday 21st December (2 weeks from the day I'm writing this, eeee :D), arriving at London Heathrow at 3:25pm, before switching to a BMI flight to Manchester, leaving at 6:40pm, and arriving at 7:45pm! I'm then going to get the Transpennine Express train to Leeds, so I should arrive there between 9:30 and 10pm. From there I'll get picked up by my parents and Ayu and go back to Otley :)

I can't properly express just how excited I am to be going home! As much as I'm enjoying Japan, I still feel like I need a couple of weeks back in Blighty as a little respite from this crazy, crazy country! It'll be so amazing to see everybody again, too. I don't have loads of plans crammed into every day, I just want a nice, quiet Christmas with the people who mean the most to me :)

I'm flying back to Japan on Sunday the 8th of January, leaving Manchester at 4pm, and eventually arriving in Tokyo at 4pm the next day (it's not a 24 hour flight; time difference...).

うれしい〜!

James

Back at ICU

So today was my first day of the Winter term! And goodness was it cold...about a week ago or so the temperature suddenly plummeted from pleasantly mild (for late November, at least) to bloody freezing! It was about 6 degrees and windy, but for some reason it felt so much colder than I remember that sort of weather feeling back in the UK...maybe it's because I'd got used to the humid subtropical climate here since Summer.  Whatever the reason for it seeming so cold, I still can't feel my fingers after the bike ride back from university.

I had my first J4 class this morning, and the level has stepped up from J3 considerably. We went over the first kanji (Chinese characters) to learn, and there are so many! I will be spending a lot more time at my desk this term I imagine. After 35 minutes of lunchtime, I had my first Japan: History, Art and Literature lecture. The professor said that the name was misleading, and we'd be studying more the modernity and relevance of Japan from an anthropological viewpoint, and using history, art and literature to see how those aspects were founded, which to be honest interests me more than I had expected the course to do so, based on it's title.

So that was my first day, and now it's the weekend! I've not really been blogging as much recently, but I'm going to make an effort to do it more from now on, starting with a proper post about Kichijoji, as well as a proper one about ICU, too. These are the two places where I spend pretty much all of my time when I'm not in my room, yet I've only mentioned them in passing so far in this blog, so I thought it was about time to write some dedicated posts. The Autumnal colours on campus at ICU are beautiful at the moment, so I'll take my camera in on Monday. I'll be doing the Kichijoji one very soon as I am in fact going there tonight! Stay tuned :)

James

Photo of the Day

People have been asking me what I cook in Japan so there you go; my standard meal