Well back I am here in the wonderful city that is Tokyo. Do you detect some sarcasm in my voice? No, I don’t think so - though being back in London has made me think how much a better place it is
First I should write the obligatory - OH HOW I MISS EVERYONE - which I really do mean. It was so nice to catch up with everyone again, be able to sit in a bar and make jokes without having to explain them in precise detail, sit at home on a SOFA!! (like OMG!!! ;)) and spend time with Mum + Dad.

I was thinking in the shower earlier, it doesn’t matter what people say - you can have a great a place as you could ever imagine, but without your good friends there, it will never be perfect. On the flip side, you can take an awful place, but as long as your good friends are there - you will always be happy.

I was reflecting on the last few years and uni. I didn’t really go in, so didn’t get the chance to meet the hundreds of people that is usual for a uni adventure, but i was very lucky in the fact that the few people i did meet are really great people… i guess i was lucky - and that was my point - how can a place where you have to study be any good? but add in a few great people and suddenly everything is ok
Ah the memories, going to uni (well almost, over the road) and just sitting in Ruks room (after climbing in through the window when she is changing of course) - guys, I would like to send out a bit “w000000t!” to (in alphabetical! :p) alex, greg, judge, nat & ruks plus of course the amazing Mr Fish (Lawrence) who joined in with the uni antics as best he could (when he could get there on time that is!) - without you lot, uni would have just been “something to pass the time”, but you lot made it a happy experience… to friendship forever, hurrah!
So, the mushy stuff done, what’s been happening to me.

Well, I’ve been back almost 2 weeks now so what great things have I done.

First biggest news I guess is that I have left Japanese school! Why you may ask?! Well, I was fed up of not ever having any money / not being able to go out with the work people due to school the next day - and really wanted to do something about it.

My new motto is: Stop existing and START LIVING!

So this is what I have done, in the last week, my daily funds have jumped from £7 a day to a more reasonable £15 - and I have been out about 3 or 4 times with the work crew. I know, it sounds trivial, but I hadn’t been able to do it before - so this was quite a big thing.

Don’t worry though, I don’t intend to give up on Jap, Seiko has agreed to teach me (well it was actually her idea) plus I have been hot on the websites looking for language exchange students. At the moment, finding someone who is a low level English student is quite difficult (most are high level) as I need someone low so that there is no danger of flicking into English….. My aim is to have found maybe 2 or 3 by the end of the Month, I’ve got a load of replies already - just need to get around to mailing them back!

What else, hmmm… last weekend was quite amusing actually. Due to the time off I took, I have been having to work each Sunday (so this one too) - which meant I have just Friday nights to go out. Last Friday then I was to meet Seiko in Roppongi after she had had a meal with some friends, to go drinking. I got all ready, and from about 11pm started the labourious journey to Roppongi. When within one station of it (after 3 trains worth of changing) - I get an email “I feel really sick, can we go home!” - hehe - so basically, I walked out the station, and into a cab which took us back home!!! hahaha…. Not really wanting to waste the whole night though, I decided to go and meet up with Shimpei in Shimokitazawa, so told the driver to wait until we got Seiko in the house, before jumping back in to meet up with Shimpei at a very nice izakaya (the joys of having some money!!!) - the izakaya itself was actually pretty cool, with a load of shelves all around the bar with various nicknacks on them, including a large collection of puzzle games (the type where metal shapes are joined together and you have to split them up) - we ate and drank, then proudly left at about 3am with all the puzzles unlocked and strewn over the bar…! hurrah!

Ah I know, I haven’t mentioned the room change. Well this has been completed now, so I now am in Seiko’s old room. I should take some more photos when I get the chance. So it’s all happy sailing now…. actually, not really - but i think i’m just going to have to live with it… hehe… i can imagine the grief i would get if i said something now!

Firstly, there is no day light in the room, so even now, its really sunny outside, yet I am sitting here with the light on!! Problem is then that I never wake up! I wake, see it’s still dark so go back to sleep… I can’t see the time on my clock (it’s not flouresent) - and don’t want to put the light on, just in case it is really early, and i then won’t be able to sleep again…. hehe… so thats problem one.

Problem two relates back to noise again (though it isn’t as bad as before) - because I am now on the inner side of the apartment, it means all the corridoors are just outside my room. And, I don’t know how they managed to soundproof this place so badly, but it means if someone puts a key in their lock and turns it, the whole noise travels down the corridoor and wakes me up?!!? Insane sounding I know, but true…. same thing with people talking and going to work etc…. but like I said, no way I can complain now after all the fuss I made before!

So on Thursday I went with some of the work guys to one of their leaving dos. It was at a bar just around the corner from work called “dot” - actually a pretty nice place, a proper shoes off affair (with little slippers in the toilet) but best of all, “nomihodai” (all you can drink) for 980yen (about £5) for 2 and a half hours!! As you can imagine, this was being seriously abused by the gaijin in there (ordering like 5 beers at a time) - at which I was actually quite embarresed. You can picture the scene, a traditional Japanese bar, filled with loud and annoying foreigners…. I HATE GAIJIN!! haha…

Anyway, I tried to sit away from the loudest of them in the hopes people would think I wasn’t with them, but I don’t think it worked (it was pretty obvious, we had taken over the whole of the upstairs!!!) - this finished at about 12′o’clock or so and it was time to wander home.

Friday night was (once again) my only weekend night out (due to the working on Sunday situation) so this was an important occasion. This time, I decided I *actually wanted* to go to Roppongi (shock horror!) so arranged to meet up with Seiko at about midnight at “Hub”. I got there before her (she was enroute in a Taxi) so got some drinks in. About 20 minutes later, Seiko arrived, and my earlier show of kindness looked like it was going to be unrequired as already she was completely battered She had also brought along a friend with her, a 51 year old chap called Nobu, who works for a web company and had very little English. (which was good….)

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We stayed in Hub for about an hour or 2 (with me and Nobu propping Seiko up) - talking about various computer like topics and various other things until it came to the subject of music. Nobu is a great fan of older rock music and was talking about old bands he liked - I then started to tell him about dad and his love for music too. This conversation got quite involved, until Nobu suggested we go to his friends rock bar down the road which had loads of memorobelia and things he wanted to show me.

So we carried Seiko up the stairs and into a taxi ….

Arriving at the bar (called Heaven) - I was greeted with a fantastic site.. a really cool looking place, decorated with posters and news clippings all over the wall and guitars and amps strewn about the place. A really, really nice place - I think you would have loved it dad, it was just your scene Inside there were only about 6 people (all who were friends) so the atmosphere was also very good “funiki ga yokata desu-yo!” - so we went over to a little table, and the orders were taken….

I wanted a Matador (tequila, pineapple juice and a dash of lemon) - but there was not tequila or pineapple juice. Not to worry though, as the barmaid went off to the 7/11 to get it for me!!! Talk about service. Then, the hunger started, but alas the chef was ill… no worries, again, the barmaid went off to the 7/11 to return with a selection of food (as she wasn’t sure what i liked!!!) - so i had sandwiches, pasta and some crisps
Anyway, back to the rock - so over the wall was all this rock memorobilia, a load which i recognised from dad showing me (though i can’t now remember what it was) - so again i started to tell all of them about dad, and his adventures and the such like. They were all very impressed, and I have to say, listening to myself saying all the stuff dad did, I was pretty proud of him too It would seem that if you look past the pineapple head, there’s a pretty cool bloke there NICE ONE DAD!!!
I think we were talking for about 2 hours, by which time Seiko had fallen asleep, so it was time again to go back to the Taxi and get back home …. z00m z00m!

Saturday was the day I had set aside to get Dad’s cds, so at about 5pm (hehe) I got out the house and went off to Shinjuku - not before stopping off at the temple to wish for some good luck for the day I really like this whole Shinto religion thing, it’s nice to be able to go somewhere, ring a bell and say your bit to “someone”. No, I haven’t gone full on religious freak, but just saying hello to whoever or whatever made everything in the first place….. it’s a really nice place, especially in the evening as it looks really traditional with lanterns hanging about lighting the place up. I’ve been trying to go each day as it’s en-route to work, so on the way home I try and stop by.

So anyway, on to Shinjuku, where I first needed to go to the bank. Now for those of you who don’t know, Shinjuku station is absolutely massive and has so many exits. Unfortunately, I had forgotten which one led to Starbucks (which has the only ATM in Shinjuku I can use) - so it took me about 30 minutes to actually get some money out!!! Grrr…. Then it was a quick stop off at the electronics centre (go Sofmap!) to buy a new memory card for my iPAQ.

I’ve been fed up of listening to the same tracks day after day on my 128MB card, that I wanted to go for something somewhat bigger. After pondering for a good 20 minutes, I finally plumped for a 4GB compact flash card (I would have prefered SD but they didn’t have any) - which I got for about £80…. a good deal, yes, at the time, though I could have possibly grabbed it on ebay for a big cheaper…. ahh well, at least now I’ve got hours and hours of tunes for the 30 minute walk to work haha….

So that done, it was off to find the CD shop. I had a map, so it wasn’t too tricky, however after going in, the cd couldn’t be found. Therefore began a comedy sketch between me and the shop assistant on trying to obtain where a copy might be…. after logging on the net, and a translation site, he was able to inform me that the cd wasn’t made anymore, and they had no second hand copies in stock. I therefore asked if he could reserve one for me, at which he told me (after about 5 minutes of looking it up) that I needed to go to the “prog rock” branch over the road ….

…. so over the road I went ….

Simplest thing to do when I got in was just ask for the cd again, so I did, and was then handed a copy!?! Slightly confused I asked if they had anymore, at which point I was given another…. ?!!? EH?!? Thanking the girl, I then headed back to the original shop to show the guy. “Ah!” he goes, I am so sorry, I thought you wanted the “Import” … erm, no, but thanks anyway
Due to the ungodly hour I had to wake on Sunday (8:30!?!? does that time even really exist) - I aimed to hit the sack at around midnight. This got extended slightly as I rang Gowry first, but did manage to get to bed at around 1:30. All was good, I was nicely snuggled and fell asleep within 20 minutes or so. Then….

Bzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzzzzzz - my phone started ringing, I tried to ignore it, but it rang and rang for absolutely ages…. before finally, it stopped…. so I started to drift off again, before, bzzzzzzzz, bbzzzzzzzzzz, yup, it started again.. this time i couldn’t ignore it, so got up and switched it off. However, the damage was done, I was now wide awake, and would stay so until about 5:30 which is the last time I remember on the clock before sleep.

This of course meant Sunday was one of the hardest days EVER, with me even starting to feel dizzy in some classes and just wanting to get onto the floor and just SLEEP!! hehe…. I got home at about 6pm or so and then got a text from Seiko saying she would cook tonite, so I bashed back saying cool and that we should watch a movie together, which was met with a “cool”.

The movie we chose to watch was “Howl’s Moving Castle”, an anime movie about a wizard called Howl who has a castle that it totally mechanical and can walk! HERE!. It was a really cool film and even better, in Japanese with English subtitles. This meant I was able to both listen to Japanese, but have the translation below if I wasn’t sure of the word (I must admit, most of the time was spent reading the subtitles, but hey!) - next we are going to watch Totoro, which features the same dialog format… this is part of my new school of Seiko
Monday I had an earlier shift again, so was going to finish at 7:30 - therefore I arranged to meet Seiko and Shiho after work to take them to “dot” (the izakaya of the other day). When we got there, there were no tables, only bar stools, which neither of us wanted, so after a little negotiation, we were moved into the “lovers room”! - basically a private room with a sofa, heaters and loads of hearts everywhere We were also opposite where the staff stood, so everytime we wanted a drink, all we needed do was poke our heads outside the curtain and ask!!!

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Well, 2 and a half hours later (and a blinding 12 drinks later! I was going to make the most of it this time) - we decided it was time to head somewhere else, so we gave Shimpei a call and told him to meet us at a nearby bar, after which we would go to Karaoke.

The bar we chose was “Heaven’s Door”, a pretty cool second floor joint, which sold about average priced drinks.

It was here, where suddenly everything started to go wrong …..

No one can be truely sure what caused it, though we suspect it may have been the now 14 drinks she had consumed, but when Seiko didn’t return from the toilet for 20 minutes, we were slightly bemused…. The wall was really thin though, so we could shout to her through it and she said she was ok….. not wanting to push the issue, we let her be, though by now a gentleman by the name of Henry wanted to use the facilities….

Remembering previous nights out usually ended in Seiko falling asleep, it seemed the best thing to do would be to just drag her out…. but alas, the door was locked, and then had a seperate slide lock on the inside (so we couldn’t open from the outside) - by now we weren’t sure what was going on, but Seiko kept banging on the door…… and shouting something….

Suddenly (and without warning) the door comes crashing open and Seiko goes flying across the room!!! Running back to pick her up, she seemed a bit confused and couldn’t understand why she couldn’t get out ….. we pointed the inside lock out to her ….. “AHHHH” she says, “I didn’t notice that!?!??” - a true “Helen” moment GO SEIKO!

It was pretty obvious now, Karaoke was no longer on the cards, so we decided to take the 30 minute walk home… no mean feat when you are taking a completely totalled girl with you, who is ademant she can walk on her own!! (no chance!!) We got about 10 minutes down the road, before it was obvious we weren’t going to get anywhere fast like this, so doing the only thing that seemed sensible at the time, I took it upon myself to start carrying her home!
Not that she was heavy, but I doubt I would have been to carry her very far, so when a taxi popped into view, the decision was (very quickly) taken to get in it :). I don’t know what the driver could have thought, he pulls over the brow of a hill and suddenly there is this gaijin carrying a (good as) passed out j chick with her mates all waving frantically…. SUGOI!!
A fun night had by all Which of course Seiko couldn’t remember in the morning…. haha….

So the plans for this weekend? Well it’s Seiko’s birthday on Thursday next, so this weekend is her party weekend. The plan is to first head to the newly opened ice bar in Roppongi (HERE) - basically, the whole place is made of ice! You have to wear a special cape and gloves in there, and can stay a maximum of 45 minutes!!! Should be pretty cool, I will be sure to get many photos!

There are a few extra things going on, but not really fit for here, but apart from that, the outlook is ok….

So apologies again for the late late updates, but now I am all settled again, regular posting should be resumed. One thing I will say though, I’m now at the point where I will stop posting just for the sake of it… if all I did one day was go to work, then home, don’t expect an update.

However, the amount of things I am trying to do now, this should (hopefully) not be a regularity
Onwards and upwards …. HURRAH!

No I’m not talking about life, but the end of my birthday But more about that later, I have a week or so to catch up on.

It seems no one believed me (dad :p) when i said i have been working very hard, but it’s true! Everyday I have been spending hours at a time working on my Japanese book and trying to get everything copied across. It sounds like quite a simple task, but the thing is, I originally wrote it all in English characters, but of course, now need to convert it all across…. (well, i guess i don’t HAVE to, but it would be silly not to…)

So all week this has been going on, hence the lack of updated.

One important thing this week though was my visa related tasks. I had almost forgotten that when you leave Japan, if you don’t have a re-entry permit, you cant get back in! Not wanting to leave anything until the last minute - Tuesday morning, i went with Shimpei to the local immigration office. I say local, but it was actually 40 minutes away, but we went in the car, so it wasn’t all bad
The system to actually get the permit was so strange, first, you go in on the ground floor and get the forms, then you have to go to the 7/11 to pay for the permit (£30 for a multiple, a single is £15 - but figured i might as well be sure and get it all) - before finally heading up to the top floor to take a ticket and await your turn.

Once you actually get seen, it’s only a 2 minute job - and as they seemed to be zipping through all the applicants, we actually finished the whole thing in about 20 minutes! Awesome!
Following our success, Shimpei then suggested we try out a new burger joint he had found “Baker Bounce” - so off we set. Now, as you know I have always been quite sceptical of the food here, so wasn’t expecting much - however i’m delighted to say i was very pleasently suprised Quite a large burger with added bacon, cheese, avocado and mushrooms - yes thank you very much, hurrah!

The rest of the week was uneventful, though, woops, I’ve forgotten about Sunday night…. doh! Last time I wrote, i was just talking of going out right? Well we went to a restaurant in Shimo to eat proper traditional Japanese food… I even had some raw fish, which was actually quite nice (shock horror!) - i had intended to take a load of photos, but not so many actually materialised (read 2!)

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So, on to the weekend - as per usual, I wasn’t going to be able to make going anywhere on the Friday night, so stayed at home working Later on, Seiko came home, so she was helping me out - before at about midnight or so, Shimpei came over, so we ended up watching TV (though I did still carry on writing!). Finally, I caught Helen on Skype, so spend the next few hours or so talking to myself (she didn’t have a mic, so was typing responses, lol)…

But enough of that, as you may notice, my story seems a little impatient, well, for good reason! I want to get onto Saturday….!

So Saturday is the same old, same old, wake up freezing, put on my little blanket thing and get on the computer. However, this is where it changed….. a few minutes after I woke up, Seiko pops in the front room telling me to look outside, ok, sure….

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Wowza! Proper snow! This hasn’t happened for ages, the last time i can remember was when I lived at Kingston, so thats at least 2 years ago!!! So I was very excited and got ready as fast as I could, to get outside and get some photos taken …. first stop, the roof!

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Before heading outside to the park, which suddenly didn’t need grass to look good …

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I do apologise for any camera blur, but it was freezing, so very difficult to hold the camera still There’s loads in the gallery, including this Tom inspired arty attempt
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This snow was deep too (especially on the roof) and really soft and powdery, a good start to the weekend ….
Seiko then had to go off to “prepare for tonite” - so I wandered back home to work a bit on this site (you will notice now there may be some video clips online, though they might take a while to load up…..)

Finally, at 6:30 it was time to go and meet Seiko and Shiho @ Shibuya, where I was then ushered into a Taxi and whisked away to Ebis to a very swanky looking restaurant called Kitsune…. there we met up with Yumi, Chie and Akie.

Before the meal however, it was time to open the mystery box, which contained inside it one of the most delicious cakes I have ever eaten! Just full of cream and strawberries….. oh my, i want it back NOW
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So the food arrived and the alcohol flowed and a great time was had by all - it was great to be spending such a good time out with everyone Even better was the fact that everything had been planned for me, all i had to do was turn up I don’t think I’ve ever had a birthday like this, usually I have to do all the organising - Seiko’s birthday is in March, so I will need to work with Shiho to think of something special to do for her….

Just before the main course arrived (a mixture of meats and pasta) it was “present time” hehe…. in true to birthday tradition, I opened the cards first - which of course were all in Japanese. Cue 10 minutes of me trying to translate all of them (which i couldn’t quite do - but got the main jist) before opening my bags…. hehe …. i know a lot of you reading this are going to be thinking WTF?!? But, I am happy with them, so ner ner
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The Miffy stuff is from Seiko, Shiho and Shimpei, the flower from Chie and the Moomin Mug from Akie.

I also want to show you this, along with all my individual cards, they also wrote one big one for me - it’s things like this i think are cool about Japan, some of the stuff is just so cute Even more amusing is Yumi’s choice of words, I promise you Gowry, there is nothing going on… haha…

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So after we were all done, it was time to find somewhere else to go - everyone wanted to know what I wanted, but i was at a loss and was just happy going where everyone else did. It was therefore decided that first we should head to the local arcade to get some photos taken in one of the phot me machines…..

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(There were more, but they got dished out to the others :))

Before finally heading for a karaoke room, which for 3000yen was infinite drinks for about 5 hours!
To start with, everyone was pretty fresh faced with some amazing moves in action…

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….but after a few hours, things were going a little downhill
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Come 5am, the trains started and it was time to leave - though once home, the party continued (much to our neighbours delight I’m sure ;)) until about 8am when we finally all crawled into bed (not with each other, obviously :D)

So did I have a good time? I think that should be obvious I had a great time, and many many thanks to Seiko and Shiho for organising it all, I know they felt guilty for new year, but this completely made up for everything - it just puts on the pressure for theirs now …. hmmmm….

Happy Birthday Me !!!

Hello all! Extremely busy at the moment with my Japanese, so expect an update around Saturday at the earliest
I can’t believe I am actually studying…. w00t!

I figured this deserved a seperate post as it’s kinda special, but to save confusion, the photo’s were taken a mixture of last night (hence Seiko being in one) - and the rest taken just now when I went to get her some ice cream from the store and wanted to go back and get some day time shots.

Ok, so, let’s start with the simple, walking down the road and, what’s this?

A tiny little shack thing tagged onto the end of the block.

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We get a bit nearer and see it has a little opening…

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Strange, but what it be? The sign doesn’t help too much, I can translate - “Burusera …… ko-na-” - so something corner (well state the obvious)

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A closer look and we discover it’s a vending machine corner, ah no problem, so Seiko goes inside to get a cup of coffee….

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BUT WAIT! That’s not coffee for sale? Infact, that’s not drinkable at all…. can anyone guess…? (to stop me getting told off by mum, you need to click the links to see what’s inside……)

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Well I never, fancy that ….. only in Japan

Sitting home waiting for Seiko to return, so figured I might as well get on with writing a bit more - though at present - I am talking with Helen on MSN, so progress might be a little slow, in fact, I may not finish by tonite - so you may well find two different accounts here ….

Anyway, I’m starting to ramble, let’s onward and avarst ye young see dog…
Today as I wrote yesterday, I had to give 3 kids lessons, 2 of them kinder classes (which I was quite looking forward to) - though getting up early was horrible. I don’t know if anyone else gets this, but if i don’t have enough sleep i feel all grotty and like my hair is all itchy - which then causes my head to break out in mini one day spots…. arrgh….

So anyway, first lesson was kinders which i was looking quite forward to, but maybe also a little nervous as it would be a full class. It started off well enough, we were going through the colouring books and getting on with the flash cards - but I soon saw why teachers don’t like the kinders - they seem to get bored quite easily and start just climbing up the walls?!? haha… you then don’t know how firm you should be with them to get them to stop - like properly shout, or just go with the passive approach.

I dont like telling off kids, so i stuck to the “try and just coax them over” technique, which while worked, certainly isn’t the fastest method - though we did get through the whole class without too much of an issue and it certainly is easier than doing an adult lesson.

So do I recommend it… hmm, as long as they are well behaved it can be good fun, though if not, you might come into issues. The second class seemed to have a few more trouble makers in it, but still, it went ok…
Second class was a man to man kids lesson, but I hadn’t been given the correct material to take home, so was kinda a bit lost in this one - I managed to follow the plan as I went along, but didn’t manage to cover all the curriculum as it was in really small and i missed it - however he did very well and got it all done
Lunchtime didn’t come soon enough, and it was off to the AM:PM to get a microwave meal of spaghetti and sausage. When paying, I did my usual “arigatou”, but this time the woman asked me “…..nihongo….” (i didn’t get the rest), however it was pretty safe to assume she asked did i speak japanese…

I told her a “little, tiny” - at which point she then started asking me some (basic) questions - where was i from, how long had i been in Japan, where did I study etc…. ok, so again, it wasn’t much - but it was still a lot more than i could have done if i knew nothing. She also got the other assistant to join in, who is quite cute ;), which was nice … haha …

So back to school for the final half (at least the day is split exactly into 2, 4 lessons, lunch, 4 lessons) which was 2 voice classes and 2 groups of 4… usually i run away from such a schedule, but today, i seemed to have some extra power in me, and gave I think some very good lessons
Something needs to be done about Usuke though, yet again he sent Yumi into a flood of tears …. I don’t know what to do … but really, this cannot go in. I know she doesn’t want to say anything, but if she is going to leave the company anyway, she might as well go out guns blazing !

And heareth lies the cut - Seiko came home, so went out ….

Being quite tired, we figured we would just go and find some food and then hit an izakaya or something, so off we went. Seiko reckoned there was a good restaurant up the road, so we set off …. on getting to the top of the hill, we realised there wasn’t so decided to walk down the Setagaya-dori…. 15 minutes later we had reached Sangenjaya (where we had decided we definately didn’t want to be) - it was now 12 midnight and i was starving, so Seiko suggested we walk to the next station along (Ikejiriohashi)…..

20 minutes later (:eek:) we finally got there to be greeted by ….. NOTHING ….. haha … not wanting to walk around any further, we just went into a local ramen place, which to it’s credit was actually really nice, however, there is a perfectly nice ramen shop at the end of our street - go figure ….

Seiko seems to have caught quite a bad cold, and unfortunately it started to come out quite badly last night. I must admit it was quite funny, as her voice went really high pitched as she coughed each time she tried to talk, but I mustn’t be too mean - Upshot is, we caught a taxi home… but you know, we did nothing, but I won’t call it a waste of a weekend as it was really nice to spend quality time with her.

We have agreed that once I come back, we are going to make a real effort with each other, there should be a sofa by then, so we can watch movies together and stuff…. w00t!

So anyway, back home now and gonna toddle off to bed in a moment…. Night!