Fed up of this cold weather, I decided to do something practical about it, so, hands up who likes my new fleece? (Gowry need not respond, I know what your answer is :p)

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They were on sale at Uniqlo down to £5, so it seemed stupid to carry on freezing for the sake of £5 I had intended to buy some shirts (which was of course the whole reason I was there in the first place) - but at £15 a pop, I don’t think so! - I’ll just have to keep washing the one I have every night until I can pick some up in England.

Another cool thing I spotted along the way (after quickly ducking into 7/11) was this…

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Yes! That’s right, a can of ready made corn cream soup Admittedly, this one wasn’t so good (nor very warm) - but then it was the cheap one, so I only have myself to blame.

A small issue with noise this morning, which in turn led me to oversleep - but i think i can bring it up in a jokey way when people get home, and i need to make the point about Sun, Tue and Thu nights (as in no noise after midnight - my bed time).

Another thing I was thinking about, was this whole studying thing. I guess you could say learning Japanese is my hobby (after all no one is forcing me to do it) - in which case, why does it feel like a chore to do it? Something isn’t quite right…

I’ve come to the conclusion I’m never going to get great at it whilst in Tokyo, there just isn’t enough chance to put it into practise, though being at the school will build up the grammer foundation - so when I move down with Nagisa, I should be able to accelerate my learning a lot more…

In which case, I need to make sure I have all the fundamentals done before that time - blimey, that’s asking a lot — hahaha (not!)

I’m drawing up a new study plan now as well, I’m going to make sure I dedicate 2 hours a day to learning, even if there is nothing else to do (ie I have covered everything, I’m going to do something).

This new year IS going to mean something
Of course, in true me style, this doesn’t start until tomorrow but then I had already planned to get some other stuff finished before then (which is still outstanding).

I’m also thinking I will buy a light for this room, with the days getting dark so early, sitting in dim light is kinda had on my eyes, and making me fall asleep! I am still loving this big window though, it would better if my field of vision wasn’t narrowed so much by the tower block, but it’s better than staring at a brick wall (aka Seiko’s room).

Work starts again tomorrow, oh joy - and thus begins the start of my shift swap time. A 7 day week :eek:, though not starting until Sunday. Friday I also begin (and end) early, so at least we can go out on the Friday night.

Today as mentioned, was a very special day - as the Emperor was to make a public appearence with his family at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.

To make it however involved getting up hanously early (8:30!!! :eek:) which I almost made, well, 8:40 to be precise - but for me that was still a great achievement.

It was then a quick hop in the shower (where I almost fell asleep) before braving back into the cold with to meet Shimpei outside his house for 9:30 (originally 9, but no one could get organised in time).

The nearest station was (put in later), which meant we couldn’t catch the train from Wakabayashi, but had to make the walk to Umegaoka - which in the early morning cold really wasn’t the nicest journey - then to top it all off, McDonalds was closed, so I couldn’t even get a Sausage and Egg McMuffin (so had to make do with a burrito from the 7/11 instead)…

Hmm, I’ve just realised, it was lucky the September 11 attacks weren’t in July …..

Anyway, we had to switch trains part way through the journey, though apparently Seiko wasn’t going to join us, as just went off on the original train …. erm, quite…. leaving just Shimpei, Shiho and me to go meet the royalty.

The imperial park is a really beautiful place (I wrote about it last year, so I’m not going to go over old ground :p), but we didn’t have time to take it all in, as the queues were starting to form, so first stop the security checks…

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Once through that, we followed the snake like path up to the actual palace itself, though not before passing this sign…. I’ll leave it up to you to determine why it was of interest …..
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The journey up was actually quite nice as we got to see a lot of traditional Japanese structures, it was also quite special as normally you can’t go up here - so just for the new year…

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Before finally finding our spot in view of the balcony…

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And then at 11 o clock sharp, what we had all been waiting for…

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And now the shocking bit. Never having been to anything like this before (nor in England I don’t think) - I wasn’t sure what would happen, but it was crazy - as soon as they appeared a massive cheer went up, followed by mass flag waving and the cries of “Banzai! Banzai!” - it was like being at a boxing match , awesome!
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Not wanting to feel left out, I duely joined in. Though, part of me felt a bit strange, wondering if I was being disrespecful to Grandad in anyway…? Strange how the world works, and how things years past can still have effects to this day..

Alas, all too soon it was over (I had great fun) and as no one would queue up to see them again, we decided to go find some food instead. My suggestion of Pasta was immediately dismissed (swines!) - so instead we headed to Harajuku to a “famous” Ramen shop.

Ok, so it was quite nice, but really, £5 for a large pot noodle….. hmmm…..

Being in Harajuku of course meant we got the opportunity to go back to Kiddyland, the greatest shop in the world There was quite a lot inside tempting me, but i stayed strong and kept my credit card firmly in my wallet We however, manage to get the following cool photo inside
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Finally (and with me almost asleep by now) we caught the train back, where I tried my best not to fall asleep on my bed. Unfortunately it was only 3pm, but i was just too tired to do anything, so just mucked around on here for a few (read MANY) hours.

Tomorrow the plan is to finish off a little bit of coding on my site to get a new business venture going, then spend the rest of it working on my Japanese book, with the aim of having everything converted over the next few days or so (my old book is written completely in romanji, i need to convert it to kana - no mean feet as I’m sure i spelt a lot of the ramanji wrong, so will need to keep looking it up in the dictionary.)

And finally, rather than leave off with a block of text, here, have a photo of downtown Tokyo
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Well hello again people - and I do once again apologise for my poor English skills last night, that post is making me cringe, but, due to time constraints (I’m not lazy honest) - I have decided to leave it….

So today is the first day of 2006 and it’s time to have a look at everything and see where we need to go from here…

Firstly, I should say a massive thank you to Mum + Dad for continuing to look after me, even after I have flown far, far away. I’m sure customs are wondering quite why so many toiletries are sent over, but the truth is, THE ONEs HERE SUCK!
English hair-gel definately rocks over anything you can get here, despite the fact everyone here seems obsessed with their looks. And shaving gel, don’t get me started.

It seems funny, that now I am used to the place, there is less of a lonely feeling when I’ve nothing to do, it’s more of a “oh well, there is nothing to do”, rather than “I wish I was at home”.

If nothing else, my time her has certainly made me a lot more independant, though I’m not so sure I like this. It’s now at the point where I actually prefer to be on my own, becoming a bit like a hermit as it were - just me and my computer.

So on second thoughts, maybe this is a bad thing!!!
Of course this will proably all crumble when I get back and realise what I am missing out on, but - I must stay strong!!!
As far as new years resolutions go, the main one is to study a lot more, and try to be more confident in speaking out. I have made an oath that I will not come back to England until I can speak enough Japanese to make spending £2k on lessons worth it. Of course, this amount is subjective, but basically - I want to know enough so I can come back and converse with Japanese people at an intermediate level. The rest I can pick up as I go along.

The other side of my mind says things like - “I want to come back to see Gowry” - so maybe this could be my inspiration to study harder!

I’m also thinking it’s pretty cool, that Japan is likely to become my “holiday place” . You know how everyone has somewhere they always go, well, Japan can be mine Yearly visits, something to look forward to - so I won’t be leaving my friends forever, just for extended periods. Plane tickets can drop as low as £240 - so it won’t even be a massive strain on the old bank balance.

So there you go, enough of the deep stuff - on with today.

I might have explained before, but if not, i will now. New years is very important to the Japanese, as it’s a time to reflect on the year past and make plans for the new year.

It is therefore usual to go to a Shrine or Temple on the first (or at least round it) and to pray to the gods. So, this is what we did today (a little later than planned ;)) - first stop was a local Shrinto Temple.

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Where we got in line, then went up to the main “praying place” to say our dues… it went something like this.

Bow Twice
Throw money in the well
Ring the bell
Clap twice
Pray for something
Bow again

I’m a bit sceiptical that the gods actually get the money, but it was only 5p, so not too much of a loss lol…

After this, it was time to go to the main temple in Tokyo, Meijing Temple (I think that’s its name) - which was slightly more impressive. You also couldn’t get to the front and pray individually like in the first place, so you just had to get as near as you could and would be able to throw the coin over everyone’s heads!!!

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The coin throwing place, though hard to see is the area in the background where the people all stop, but some people were throwing the money from so far away!!

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It was actually a really nice experience and I’m glad we did it. It made a change to the normal stuff that has been going on and quite a sight
Shimpei was then telling me about the Shinto religion, and it actually sounded quite good. I will have to check all this out, but basically, there are no rules, no books to follow and nothing to teach. The religion is basically the belief that there is a god in everything and that we should just try and get on with each other. Also, unlike Christianity and such like, heaven and hell don’t exist, so the belief is - if you are bad, at the end there is nothing anyway….

The thought of there maybe being a god in something, but not having any of the religious mumbo jumbo that goes with it was quite appealing. At the temple, it was nice to think someone was up there listening to what I have to say…. usually it’s just the voices in my head
Tonight is early to bed, both for the reasons that I am quite sleepy after all the walking around, but also, we are going to see the emporer say “Hi” to everyone from the balcony of his palace tomorrow at 11am. So we have to leave our house at 9am - bed in 20 mins or so after a call to Gowry and I “should” be ok for it
After, I think they were talking about Karaoke, which again, should be quite good fun…..

Ingredients for a fantastic new year:

1) Go to a far away country full of happy people.
2) Go to the busiest part of that country.
3) Add a few thousand Japanese people.
4) Take a huge nightclub and fill it with these people
5) Play all your favourite tunes

Mix it all together, get there 50 minutes before midnight, wait patiently in the queue until you get to the front….

….. and then find out your friend has forgotten her ID so you can’t get it
So I’m at home - and my new year was spent standing dejectedly in the street whilst everyone else was drunk and happy …..

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On the optimistic side, I hope this is a “things can only get better” moment, rather than a “the rest of the year will be the same” ….. ho hum …. seems like I get quite a lot of bad luck here - my good old flukeyness skills are not working so well…

Anyway, enough of tonite - that’s just too depressing…..

So! Last night, a friday, so usually spent at home - however this time as I didn’t have work, it meant I wasn’t tired come the evening, so wanted to go out.

I was to meet Seiko at 12 in Roppongi (oh joy), so duly arrived the obligatory 20 minutes late We weren’t going to the strip this time though, but to a club quite some walk away (where Seiko already was) - so off I set, stopping at the local AM/PM on the way to buy a little “pocket sized” bottle of Jacobs Creek (£3)

Joining us tonite was Ayako, Seiko’s friend (the one who had been trying to sell her a fat reducing machine for the last god nows how long) - we met outside the club - MUSE (the same one we went with Arnaud) - which wasn’t ideal, but the wine had seemed to hit quite quickly, so I wasn’t *that* bothered.

2000 for me to get in (only guys pay - ahah, so this is why Seiko chose Muse! ;)) - though this does include 2 drinks, so it kinda evens itself out.

Inside it was a lot less busy than last time and really nicely decorated, so I was actually pretty happy we went here…..

Being the sensible chap I am, I decided it wouldn’t be such a good idea to get a drink straight away due to the recent bottle of wine, though for some reason this logic didn’t seem to stick for very long, as soon I had ordered a Smirnoff ice….

We then found some chairs and sat around talking for quite some time, during which I seem to remember a glass of white wine and a tequila being added to my drinks list….

From this point onwards, I am not sure what happened, though the photos seem to indicate we were all in a pretty similiar state, I do remember meeting a German guy called Alex though….

Say hello!!!

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Another thing that is quite interesting is the following photo. It was supposed to be of Seiko, but if you look in the background …. …. i assure you the whole place wasn’t like that !!!
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Of course, the night wouldn’t be complete without one special thing….. of course by about 5am, Seiko had fallen asleep again and we couldn’t wake her, so were ejected from the club….
Bring on some more memory loss, and then roll on this morning….

….. mmmmm …. all nice and warm …. i barely manage to open my eyes, i feel awful - so i stretch out….

Something’s not right, for one my bed seems to have grown in size and two I’ve just banged my arm on someone else..?!? Confused, I focus and realise I am in bed with Ayako in a strange room - slight panic sets in - have I gone back to her house?!?

A quick check and I am wearing all my clothes still, phew, but the mystery is still not solved - however the power of sleep is all too much for me, and back i go….

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A few hours later, I’m woken up by my dear friends And the situation is explained to me, at the club we met one of Seikos friends:

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Who after we left the club, invited us back to his - which we accepted, so Taxi’d it back to his apartment in Roppongi, before falling asleep in the spare room.

Bizarre, I can’t remember any of it lol…. Helen, you must be so proud of me
So lucky Friday happened I suppose, otherwise this weekend would have been a complete disaster. Nevermind, we can try again next week - it would have just been really nice to be in a packed club for the countdown… (Stop dwelling, STOP DWELLING :))

Apologies for the disjointedness of this post and the incredibly bad English, but I feel dreadful, but just wanted to get it all down before my memory goes again… lol