Darlo's World

Like the constipated man who has taken a dozen fast-acting laxatives, I have finally moved again.

For those doubters of my ability to get a house closer than my previous one (which, traffic pending, would have me on campus within 20 seconds) I say … well, can’t really be bothered to think of a clever and witty reply but I have done just that. My new house is right on campus, mere seconds from the Student Union Building, and my room itself is pretty damn awesome. I’ll be honest, I’m in the basement so I’m not sure how it’ll do come winter (especially if there’s heavy snowfall), so I’ll update you on that when the time comes. It’s a 10 bed house (somewhat’s larger than … anything I’ve had before, bar the dorm in Japan), but the housemates I’ve met so far seem pretty cool.

A very quick update on the bear from the last entry. It didn’t sell.

Last weekend I had the privilege of having two of my Japanese friends come down to Telford. As well as having a couple of trips to the pub (including a not so bland time at the Cross Keys thanks to a couple of awesome dancers), we had a look around just a few (time wasn’t really with us) of the things Telford has to offer.

We started off with a trip to the Blists Hill Museum, a living museum set in Victorian Ironbridge. Surprisingly I actually learned quite a bit, despite having gone there numerous times as a kid; like the origins of the terms ‘Come a Cropper’ and ‘Mind Your Ps and Qs’. Oh you crazy printer. SilverTiger has many pictures and explanations of what goes on at Blists Hill, so feel free to pop over and have a gander. By the way, their bread is unrivalled – Up yours Kingmill!

Before heading over to the Shopping Center, we also have a look at some of the other museums (having bought the passport ticket we thought we’d get our moneys worth), and of course the world famous Ironbridge itself. I’d not been to Enginuity before due to it being relatively new. Something told me it seemed to be more aimed at kids, possibly the 300 little buggers running around, but it was quite an enjoyable museum with some very frustrating quizzes.

　At the Telford Town Center, we marvelled at the Telford Time Machine (don’t get excited sci-fi fans, it’s just a big clock with a frog on it) as well as looking around the Maxell Cherry Gardens; unfortunately the sakura (Japanese cherry blossoms) were not blossoming, ney mind.

On the Sunday we headed to Birmingham to enjoy something sweet at Cadbury World. Again somewhere I’d been numerous times as a child, but this is a place that always changes. Somethings were missing, like the spicy drink you get at the start, but some new features have been added, like a room explaining the chocolate process in a manner similar to the Room of Living Dolls, though less terrifying. But somethings stay the same and you are given chocolate at various stages and arrive at a cheap chocolate shop at the end (misshapes, yes!).

We then headed over to Selfridges and the Bull Ring shopping center. Unfortunately I had completely forgot about Sunday trading hours, and we were left with just a few minutes to nose around before shutters started coming down. We then went for a wander around the city before making our way back to the car, and eventually Leeds.

Before I head off and continue unpacking (go get a pizza and then come back and contemplate unpacking) there is one thing that has bothered me during my time back in Telford.

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I’ve been living in Telford all of my life (when not buggering off here and there) and in that time I’ve always lived in Leegomery. Apply was always a small area just past the hospital where Maxell was, however now it seems like the area I grew up in is being rubbed out like an unwanted smarmy comment on an eBay seller feedback. Signage for Leegomery has gone down and been replaced by (very dull, if really must pick fault) Apley signage. Driving around I was unable to find any ‘Entering Leegomery’ signs.

But why has this happened? Officially I don’t know, as I haven’t been in the area due to Uni I’ve not seen any notices in the news etc. After chatting with a couple of friends (who also didn’t recall being told about it), we’ve come to one pretty unpleasant theory. The houses nearer to the hospital are without a doubt nicer than those further towards Hadley, and ‘problems’ normally are less associated with the hospital area. It was our theory that the nicer area is trying to seperate from the riff-raff in an “I’m better than thou” fashion. Of course this is just a theory, but still. I wonder if it’s this easy to get a divorce.

Wow. Friday night was fun. Too much fun. So lets start off with some music eh. Hit play from the youtube link, and carry on reading.

Today’s music comes from L’Arc En Ciel and is called Daybreak’s Bell. It’s a tune I’ve found quite fun to relax to, drive to, do homework to, clean to … honestly, I find it very open. Most listeners might know it as the theme tune from Gundam 00 (don’t worry not all the music I’ll be putting on here will be from anime themes, or always in Japanese).

So starting off at the Torikizoku (the everything 280 yen (£2.01) place), actually no, starting off at a convenience store, two of us bought a can of beer (each) to get the night kicking. In Japan it’s not uncommon for people to drink on the streets, but it still felt quite odd to be, especially as my alcohol wasn’t concealed by a brown paper bag.

Heading out in the direction of Osaka’s Hep 5 building, where we were to meet another buddy, I soon realised I should have worn more as a vicious wind blasted a shot of cold air right down my back. I can’t wait for the days of being able to just wear a t-shirt (and bottoms ¬_¬) again.

After joining our third amigo we then made our way to Torikizoku. Being a Friday night we’d expected for there to be a bit of a wait to get in, though to be honest this didn’t worry us. The central area of Umeda alone has plenty of branches, so if one had a hellova queue, we could have just headed to another. It’s not quite as bad as the number of Starbucks in a city center (in Birmingham’s Bull Ring you can see one easily from sitting within another), but there are a fair few. After endulging in many an over-sized glass of beer and assorted bits of a chicken (my favourite part being the heart), and an alcohol fueled conversation (of which I can remember very little of) we were soon on our way to Sam and Dave, a bar and nightclub in the area.

The rest of the night was filled with dancing to a good variety of music (this is the only place I’ve been to that had Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” followed by 50 Cent’s “In Da Club”), drinking (mainly beer and Malibu & Milk … yum!), and a lot of conversations (shouting to be make sure people could hear me and being shouted at for the reverse reason of course). Sam and Dave is a very international club. The bar staff were from all areas of the world with a mixed knowledge of Japanese, some customers (ourselves included) were also from abroad, and the Japanese customers who go there seem to use this as a good time for English practice as well as me for the other way around. For a while I was talking to one woman in Japanese while she replied to what I was saying in English. It made for a very interesting conversation.

We left at about 4 in the morning on some very wobbly legs and headed into a nearby Matsuya to complete the night. I couldn’t find Curry Rice on the vending machine, so picking a random button I ended up with a random meat-rice dish, of which I found I could only eat half. Matsuya also proved to be a good time to practice speaking as my trio conversed with two girls who had also been at Sam and Dave that night.

Coming back to the dorm, taking care not to wake anyone up, I turned off all alarms on my phone and put my head down to sleep.

I’ll always remember that the strangest hangover I’ve heard about happened to Dave Gorman when he did his Googlewhack Adventure, where his Texan hangover was in his arm (which turned out to be a very badly done tattoo). For me, waking up totally fine at about 4pm, with the exception of being a bit thirsty a hangover was no where in sight. Sitting at my desk, my stomach slowly started to dance on it’s own accord. It was as if a village of Hula Dancers were putting in the extra overtime. Since I had no orange juice and had skipped breakfast, I made my way (very tenderly) to the 99 yen shop to pick up supplies.

To spare you the details, shortly after arriving home and having some OJ, I found myself very thankful to the fact that I had something in my belly. The strangest part about this hangover, is that it wasn’t really much of a hangover. In fact, it was just like I’d caught a bit of the flu that has infected the majority of the dorm. Truth be told I wasn’t feeling too great before Friday night … hmm … yeah, that’s what I’ll put it down to. Trying to rest, I didn’t wake up (get out of bed) until 11 o’clock this morning.

So welcome to March, and for those readers in Wales happy Dydd Gŵyl Dewi (St David’s Day). I’ll be boning up on some kanji today for this week’s midterms, as well as making a start on tidying.

Also thanks to the family back home for the socks, jeans and chocolate I got through!