To be honest when I crawled out of bed with a stiff neck at about 6:30 this morning with a stiff neck, I thought I was in for one of those days, but around 15 minutes later I found I suddenly a nice bout of energy. Breakfast wasn’t fantastic, fried egg with ham slices and salad, but the egg had a hard yolk (just the way i like it) and best of all, NO MAYO!

Setting off we soon encountered something we hadn’t in a good few months. The weather was nice. It was sunny, with a very gentle breeze and a temperature that was neither a sweltering heat wave, nor it a Japanese version of the North Pole. It was just … nice. This good weather lasting pretty much until I got back in through the door tonight.

Nothing particularly special at uni today. I had my usual tutoring session, being a Tuesday, so this accounted to my one time to really practice Japanese out of class I usually get a day. The conversation was good, it was funny and entertaining, and I managed to use some of the new grammar points we’d covered on class.

I left campus much earlier than usual today, mainly due to the fact that there were even less Japanese students about than usual. However, the Spring Break will end soon and speaking practice will resume. Leaving early meant that I got to enjoy sitting down on the trains back to Osaka instead of standing.

This day, and this feeling, could only have been made better if we had curry rice for dinner.

And so we did (pork curry rice!!! EPIC!). My simply perfect day (ish) has been complete. And so to leave you with a video clip. Here’s the opening sequence to Baccano. Even though it’s just the intro, it’s still pretty intense, so I hope you enjoy it.

To quote professor West’s lecture notes (to give you a very brief intro):

The Shunie-houyou 修に会法要 or Second Month Memorial Rite is an act of repentance keka 悔過 before the temple’s deity – Juuichimen Kannon 十一面観音. The priests, acting on the people’s behalf, carry out rituals of repentance for their sinse.

It takes place in Nara at the Nigatsudou which is a sub-temple of Todaiji. The Nigatsudou was established in the early 8th century by a priest named Jitchuu. There are many legends associated with the Nigatsudou and the Omizutori ritual and three of them are directly connected with Jitchuu.

The first great thing about this trip was that it was taken into account that people would find it inconvenient to travel all the way to Kobe, just to head back in the direction they came from. From the meeting time, I could easily have had breakfast and met up at Okamoto (on some previous trips I’ve had to skip the meal to make the meeting time, regardless of the fact we had to wait for late pillocks), but since we were going through Umeda station, I met the group there after having a nice extra bit of sleep and a casual walk.

This trip was joined by a few guests, which considering the small class size, didn’t make too much of a crowd. Joining us were another Konan exchange student, a fellow Leeds student who’d made a trip of her own down from Tokyo, and three students (British, Singaporean and Japanese) from Kwansei Gakuin University. Heading from here to the 御堂筋線 (midousuji sen, Midousuji line), we soon found ourselves on our train journey to the former capital of Japan.

The views alone from the trains were outstanding, and seeing a wide range of great 景色 (keshiki, scenery) from city-scapes and wide countryside to old building foundations, gave me a welcome change to my usual view from my usually poor view from my dorm window.

On arriving at Nara we all split up for an hour to grab some lunch. I say split up, but what I mean is everyone headed into the huge shopping centre adjacent to the station and I buggered off in the opposite direction. The side streets I initially walked down were full of a variety of shops, houses and happy faces, and since the weather was on our side (though a tad breezy) the walk felt even more enjoyable.

Walking past a local NHK TV station, I soon found myself at some parkland near the “Governer’s Official Residence” so took some nice photos (of the parkland, not the residence). How did I know it was that? The sign on the front in English kind of gave it away. I found the exterior walls to the ground to be quite interesting. They were white and had a ‘dark substance’ growing from the damp water residue falling from above, but from a distance these marks resembled a forest in Winter. To be honest when I first saw it on my approach, I was unsure if this was an actual painted mural on the walls, and it was not until I was close up I saw it for what it was. Perhaps that’s why it wasn’t cleaned off.

Walking back towards our meeting point I came across some wild animals that were roaming free in the park, with people going up to pet them and feed them specially sold biscuits. Very cute and friendly these hornless 鹿 (shika, deer) were, that parents were allowing young babies to approach them, though most often the babies and young children ran away terrified. Not wanting to be late to meet the group, I only stopped to take a few pictures before being on my way again.

Here’s a video clip from Lucky Star of Tsukasa Hiiragi getting the 鹿 treatment!

Arriving at the meeting point twenty minutes earlier than the scheduled time, I headed into the shopping centre and picked up some batteries and snacks from a 100 yen shop for later on. I also popped into McDonalds for lunch, had a nice walk around and still made it back five minutes before anyone else.

Walking back in the same direction as the cute little furry animals, we stopped off for a few moments of petting and feeding (the deer, not us), along with more photographs. To say that these deer are everywhere would be like saying that I can speak English. As we walked along the road during the day to get to where we needed to, you could almost put a guarantee on having at least one deer somewhere within your view. And yet at the same time I found it impossible to get sick of them. They seemed to bring a nice feeling inside, the kind you can only feel after really having your fill at your favourite restaurant in an all you can eat style and someone you don’t like footing the bill. It’s really something to see a deer bow towards you (I often found myself bowing back without realising). The deer here are reveered as sacred messengers from the Gods, and this is shown in their obviously unique personalities if by nothing else. I’m tempted to make a return visit to Nara just so I can have a day relaxing and watching the 鹿. Oh and because I know someone’s going to ask, probably Simon, yes I did see one having a poo.

Before arriving at Nigatsudou we made a couple of stops. First was the 奈良国立博物館 (Nara kokuritsu hakubutsukan – Nara National Museum) to look at the exhibit about Todaiji, Nigatsudou and the Omizutori. After the late people had caught up, we then moved on for a visit to the Todaiji itself, an amazing temple that again I could have spent ours at just admiring it. Also visiting Todaiji was a very large group of school girls,the manner of which again seemed very familiar to that particular Lucky Star episode. Ironically one of the stereotypes of a group of school girls here is the ability to sound shocked in unison. Well this was something that I used to consider pure cock and bull, until it was confirmed by my own ears “heeeee”. Watch this clip to see the kind of thing I mean, it happens at about 7 seconds.

As we approached Nigatsudou it became clear that it was going to be a busy festival as more and more people started to appear. We were getting there two hours before the festivals scheduled start time of 7pm in order to get a good spot, which we were very successful at. After which some of the group had gone off for some food, but as more people came it became harder and harder to keep ‘their spots’. It seemed as if a text I sent to them got through and after much carefully executed ‘shoving’, the group managed to make it back, though were soon scolded by one man for being too loud (to be fair, I think they could easilly have been heard from the back of the group of thousands of attendees).

As the festivities began and the lights went off, everyone was asked by one official not to use flash photography, to which the poor guy was ironically blinded by flashes. Throughout the night flashes were seen to go off, whether accidentally or not is something I don’t know, though my cameras flash setting did pop on once or twice before my battery supply diminished.

The festival itself involved the carrying of huge fire-lit torches up a staircase on one side of the temple (by one priest) and holding it at a great distance from a platform over the viewing crowd, of which we were almost at the front. The torch is then either shook or spun so that ash and embers fall towards the crowd. It is considered very lucky to have this ash fall on you, meaning my fire-scented backpack is now incredibly fortunate. This is repeated another 9 times, by which time I was thankful that I was wearing a hat.

Leaving the temple was where the real adventure began. Finishing at 7.30 (only half an hour after it started) we slowly and carefully made our way down the steep hill we were standing on, a hill that’s awkwardness could be compared (though not very well) to the Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake location. After reaching the bottom and checking to make sure if everyone was there, we checked the time. There was a train coming at about 8 o’clock, it was 7:35.

The race was on.

Everyone knew the drill; keep up or get left behind. Marching on like a team on a mission (finally, a group walking at ‘my speed’) we overtook groups, families, 鹿, small children, taxis, anyone that was an obstacle. We were also going a different way back so it was crucial to keep up with our proffessor, though the calls that could be heard in the distance shouting “sensei!” soon caught up. For a stretch we joined the road, the path being clogged with walkers, and even made an adrenaline swimming road-crossing which some students described as a “24 moment”. As we got nearer the station, another burst of adrenaline shot through some of our veins as we turned our ultra-powerwalk into a run, arriving at the station 5 minutes or so before the train was due to leave.

Ironically, I didn’t want to get this train but was too caught up in the moment to think about it. I knew we’d be getting back too late for dinner at the dorm, so my plan was to munch at McDonalds. Some people had to get on this train to meet families for dinner and so on (insert saracstic smily here), so a few of us, professor included, stuck around to make sure the straglers caught up.

On the way back I remembered something about the train pass that we were travelling on; it wasn’t my normal pass. It was a one-day travel pass that allowed travel between Kobe and Nara, meaning I could get off and on and change routes if I wanted. In other words, I could use this for some pointless free travel, well, for that day anyway. As we pulled into Nippombashi I said adios to the group and went off to see what stores were still open in Den Den Town (hoping to pick up the next couple of books from Yotsuba& cheaply).

I’m not sure if I was shocked, surprised or dissapointed to see that most shops were closed (this being at about 10pm), but when you think of a place nicknamed the Akihabara of Osaka, you generally have certain expectations. This being the case there were some shops (besides your usual 24 hour convenience stores) that were still open and appeared to go on through the night, though none had what I wanted. Walking past the maids and hosts I made my way back to the station.

I remembered a new bookshop (not really new, but one we’d only been in once about a week ago) in Umeda and since I had my little ticket for (almost) unlimited travel, headed north. I wasn’t really shocked that it would be closed, but I was shocked by the number of ‘pretty boys’ I’d passed on the way to get there. Obviously some of these guys were working for host bars, trying to get people in, but others were there for their hobby; nampa.

Nampa, to put it very simply, is where a guy hangs out on the street and tries to meet a girl with the intention of ending up in a love hotel. Apparently people have dedicated themselves to it with the same degree that someone would take up a sport, though it’s quite funny to think of girl-hunting as the new football.

I’d heard a few things about it from friends who’d been on the receiving of a few ‘invitations’ so thought I’d obverse for a few minutes outside the Hep 5 building, apparently a Nampa hotspot. Groups of well (and not so well) manicured men stand in line to the side of the path facing in. When one of them spots a potential (pardon my wording) ‘catch’ from a distance they make their way towards them. With all the power and lines they can muster, they have but a few moments to try and convince the girl to spend some time with them. Actually this reminded me a lot of the charity collectors (and so on) who dot themselves down high streets in the UK (I wonder if they’d collect more money if the night involved a trip to a love hotel). Of the few attempts I observed before heading off, not only was no one successful, but it appeared that one girl insulted the manhood-size of one nampa practioner – BURN!

With this I headed home back to good old 天神橋筋六丁目 (tenjimbashi suji roku choume, where I live). Before going to bed I checked my email. Since it had been my birthday recently (when exactly I seldom tell anyone) PKR, an online poker company I sometimes play free games on, invited me for a free-roll tournament involving 112 people. A few hours later I finished in 9th place and was awarded a $10 prize for my efforts.

Truly a wonderful day.

Oh, and I found 1 yen on the floor!

This has been by far one of (if not the) longest journal entries I’ve done, and if you’ve got this far thanks for staying awake. Please leave a comment to let me know you’re still alive! I’ll congratulate you with a little tune – Congratulations by Cliff Richard (gotta love the Austin Powers outfit).

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At roughly that time an earthquake occured in the Fukui Prefecture, and we felt it here in Osaka. Some people at Uni (living in Kobe) also felt the quake. Not a big one mind you, in fact with a lot of people sleeping through it and what appeared to be no mention of it on the news, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this never happened. But it did, my first earthquake in Japan and it barely made me budge. Not like the one in Leeds last year. So far I’m two-for-two then.

As part of my Education & Culture class, yesterday we went to a Japanese high school to both ask and be asked questions by students, and also to observe a homeroom period. The only times I’ve seen a Japanese school prior to this were from media resources, and of course they were fictional. Films such as Battle Royale and anime such as Myself, Yourself and Azumanga Daioh, had given me some insight and prior knowledge of what they might be like, but given this comparison you could also claim that you can tell what London’s like just from watching Eastenders.

The school building itself was ironically very reminiscent to those titles mentioned and I found myself liking the building and atmosphere more and more as time went by. It was rustic, there were cracks in the white, (well … dingy grey) walls, and due to a lack of a central heating system it was frickin’ cold, but they were some of the aspects I found quite indearing. Though truth be told I was thankful when we ended up in the AV room and found that it was warm.

Throughout the time there I spoke to four groups of 3-4 students in different environments. The first group took myself and another Konan student for a short tour of the site. Due to us having only ten minutes or so, I can honestly say that it was shorter than a stereotypical Japanese mini-skirt. However in that brief look around we did get to see areas such as the lunch room, sports ground (no grass of course, just gravel … goodluck there football goalies) and some of the class rooms also.

Everyone then re-assembled for a short period of general chatter. As well as finding out the opinions of the high-schoolers about their schools, I also learned a few things about my fellow Konan student.

The next stage of the visit was to break into other groups where we’d be interviewed individually by groups of three students about our experiences in Japan. During my interview sessions with the two groups I came to realise how little I’ve actually accomplished since landing in Japan, especially in comparison to things I’d wanted to. However, this is also countered by doing things that non of the other 留学生 (ryuugakusei, exchange students) have done, like the Okamoto to Juso walk for instance.

The final conversation was in a room with refreshments (woohoo! Fanta and biscuits!) where we chatted with three more students, only this time I was joined by another two Konan students. Again this conversation was quite open so we talked about whatever things popped into our heads. Unfortunately my dead goldfish in a sieve type memory means I can’t remember a lot of the conversation, but I do remember that we discussed that they liked, and were rather proud of, their uniforms, the fact that they’d all been to Taiwan … oh wait, that was the first group … and that there are some teachers they don’t like.

When compared to the UK, Japanese schools are very different, and since the visit I had the liberty of reading a little bit more about them. Unfortunately the only things I read were how they differed from North American schools, but from what I can tell one of the main differences is the number of years of compulsory education. In the UK, starting with infant school (or primary school if your infant & primary school years are combined) you have 11 years of compulsory education, with the option to leave (and hopefully get a job) when you’re 16, unless you were born later in the academic year. However, in Japan you don’t have to start school until you’re six years old, with the option of leaving at the age when British students begin their final year, giving just 9 years of compulsory learning.

Wanting to save myself a tidy 180 yen (£1.33) I chose to walk from the school to Okamoto train station, and put that money to my food on Sunday. The walk took longer than expected by about half an hour or so, but oddly enough I arrived home at the same time as if I’d have stopped in Konan’s Ajisai room until it’s closure at around six.

I’ll end this by saying that I didn’t sleep much last night. I was compelled to watch the end of Higurashi No Naki Koro Ni (Kai) (about 10 episodes I think), which kept me out of bed until about one. By which time I was in such a state of awesomely smily happy joy that even though I went to bed I kept running through various aspects of the story in my mind. Seriously folks, if you must watch any series for the sheer experience, this is the one. Won’t spoil any of it by saying what happens, so maybe I’ll write a review one day.

Oh and in other news I finally found my student ID … in my bag.

Why was I up so early? Well after re-watching the Sexy Vampire animation by James ‘Gosha’ Franzen, I felt inspired to crack on with the next page of the Lotaku webcomic. Didn’t get it finished mind you, but felt I made a decent enough dent in it.

Regardless of not having to go, I still went to Kobe this afternoon, to the same train station I get off for University. According to a couple of friends, a second hand book, game and CD shop is closing down soon and had put a lot of things on sale. Now this particular shop already had a huge 105 section (despite being second hand this is still a gigantic saving on what you’d pay for one manga in the UK), and it can be very difficult to find a specific title that you’re after. I ended up just buying 2 books but was tempted by some of the games and DVDs (DVDs in Japan by the way are incredibily expensive, and we thought anime was expensive in the UK!).

After a quick stop at McDonalds to grab a couple of hamburgers, I was soon on the train back home. It’s been well documented (I’m presuming, being too lazy to check of course), that the world is in fact small. Well anyway, on the train from Juso I was approached by a polite woman asking about my coat (in English). Like most day’s I was wearing my old PGL Staff fleece top; it’s nice, warm and has many 便利 (benri, convenient) pockets. It turns out that she herself had done some work at PGL at the Boreatton Park site. Where’s that you might be thinking? Well it’s only in my home county of Shropshire of course, herself coming from Birmingham. She’d moved to Osaka in January after working in Hiroshima, a place where we’re all due to take a class trip.

There were a few other mini-coincidences that we compared but here’s the clincher. When she moved to Osaka in January, she became a resident of Kamishinjyou! Just a month after I say goodbye, another midlander moves in (not into the mens dorm of course). It makes me wonder, does Kamishinjyou have a curse where it much always have a resident from central England?

So to play us out, let’s have that Sexy Vampire if you please…

Trains themselves can get really busy, particularly during rush hour (which by the way are longer than an hour) periods. Unfortunately for me, my usual travel time for coming from and going to University falls in these slots, so not only does the chance of getting a seat rest somewhere between zero and a rock, but often it’s a bit of a tight squeeze, occaisionally requiring station staff to push people into the trains. The rule of thumb seems to be something along the lines of “if a fly can get in there, then there’s room for more”. The YouTube video below shows how bad it can be.

Now although trains in Japan, well the Hankyu line anyway, are regular and you don’t normally have to wait longer than fifteen minutes for another to come by, many people are always determined to run and catch the current train if possible, possibly because they’ll end up being late for something or other. I’d seen people run and just make it to the train literally as the doors were closing and dive in Indiana Jones style, making it by the skin of their teeth. Others, not so lucky arrive just to see the doors shutting. Though I’d never seen anyone get wedged between the closing doors … until tonight … no it wasn’t me.

After Uni I boarded my train at 岡本駅 (Okamoto station), taking a standing position opposite the door due to the lack of available seats. As the doors began to close I saw a high school student in the distance sprinting up the stairs like his life depended on it. I thought to myself how annoyed he must have felt, having run all that way to have missed the train by a hair (something that happens to me on a regular basis at 淡路駅 (Awaji station)). I then noticed his pace change. He didn’t get slower but instead ran even faster in the direction of the door. Taking a dive that would make a world-class goalie look like a little girl playing hopscotch, I could only watch as I expected his face to soon be decorating the train window.

Squeezing through the narrowest of gaps, his body somehow emerged inside the train and promptly hit the floor, his leg stuck in the door. After squeezing his leg on the train I helped him up where, clearly embarrased (and relieved) he slowly hobbled down the train moving onto a different train cart muttering “痛い、痛い (ouch, ouch)”. I have no idea why he was that desperate to get that train, rather than wait ten minutes for the next, perhaps he had an important date, or his mom had cooked curry rice for dinner.

I reached a set of shingou (traffic lights) and had to wait. I then realised that I could cross the road (a crossroad) another way, due to the priorities that were given. I took that way and instead of crossing again to get to my originally desired location, proceded to walk down the road.

My area, Kita-Umeda, is without a doubt very big. I could have chosen better words to describe it there, but no I’ll stick with simple (he says reaching into the fridge for a cold can of Clear Asahi beer). The way that I went home had me walk past an array of temples, small shops, random things thrown away (including a large Stitch cushion … had it not been raining I’d have probably taken it with me) and was a genuinely pleasant walk.

Today one of the Konan teachers held a Christmas party at his home so we walked there. It took a while to get there from a combination of slow-ass walkers and the fact that we didn’t really know where we were going, but his house was awesome. Lots of food was eaten ranging from pasta to pizza (it wasn’t all Italian), many songs were sung with the accompanying music from the piano, and many different (and I mean that in all shapes and forms) conversations were had.

When it was time to go I walked with a friend to Hankyu’s Mikage station, and decided to walk to Okamoto (saving 150 yen). After about 30 seconds I started to feel a bit energetic so decided to push myself. I started running. It was a cold day and I’d been into uni that day, so I was wearing many layers and was carrying a back pack, and here I was running through the dark. I’m somewhat surprised I didn’t have the police stop me to be honest.

I reached Okamoto station 13 minutes later dripping with sweat just in time for the train to arrive. If Wikipedia’s measurements are to be believed, Okamoto is 2.2km away from Mikage, thus I was running at an average speed of 10.2 kmph (6.34mph). Which brings me to why I’m now going to bed. Tomorrow’s the Emperor’s Birthday (a national holiday) so I won’t be getting food from the dorm again, but at least I’ll be getting a nice lie-in.

So let’s start with Halloween. As I said in my last entry I did indeed walk again from Uni to Sannomiya. This time I was aided by the fact that I didn’t have to take a detour to avoid being associated with an obvious over-the-top western tourist and managed to complete the walk in an hour and a half, meeting up with everyone at a reggae bar in Sannomiya called Second Chance. This time it was a bit of a night walk … well, not quite night when I left, but it was when I got there. Before this there were many photo’s taken in the Ajisai room and many different costumes. I went down my usual cheap-ass route and wore a purple hat (which was part of my usual clothing) and borrowed a pair of white framed lensless glasses. Tonight Matthew I’m going to be … Spike Lee! Admitadly it was mainly the Americans who got it, but I didn’t really care much.

Oh, I and I did leave that Gaikotsu on balcony!

Coming back to the reggae bar for the time being, when I got there it was a happy hour so drinks were cheaper than usual. That being said, I think I have a strong feeling that Second Chance water down their drinks. I say this not because they tasted weak (in fact they were rich and full of flavour, but because I had quite a few without feeling any effect. Maybe I missed the sign that said ‘Alcohol Free’ at the door.

On the food side it was quite hit and miss. I ordered two plates; Garlic Fries and Fried Chicken. The garlic fries came with 3 dipping sauces (ketchup, mustard and a garlic sauce) and were legendary. The were called fries, but they were much more like a British chip: big, bold and potatoey. The sauces were also fantastic! Normally I hate mustard, but this kind had a strange appeal to it and I was able to easilly use all the sauces rather than just the traditional ketchup. However, the chicken was less than fantastic. I seemed to be very ordinary and lacked a lot of flavour. Did I mention it was also sitting in a big ass puddle of MAYONNAISE!!!

MESSAGE TO JAPAN – NO MORE MAYONNAISE PLEASE! T_T

After the reggae bar the large group split up a bit and I joined a group heading to a karaoke bar. As well as my usual repetoir I sang back up for a few of the others as we partook of an all you can drink offer. I don’t know if it was a Sannomiya alcohol selling code for that night, but once again the drinks were very weak (yet still full of flavour). After singing our hearts out and individually downing somewhere between half and a dozen drinks, our time was up and we were on our merry way. From the looks of some of the people we passed, some were merrier than others!

Upon getting back to the train station, we coincidentally met up with most of the others who we split apart from at the reggae bar. Because me, ‘the monkey’, the ‘army man’ and the Frenchman (no outfit, he’s genuine!) live in the same dorm, we took the same route going home together. The stares we got on the train were much more than we normally got (which by the way are now almost non-existant) and were also combined with some laughing. Still, it was always all in good fun. Kudos to the monkey for acting as dignified as much as a man in a monkey suit (literal pun) could act.

We had to get off the train a stop early, as it wasn’t stopping at our station. We could have waited for the next train, but instead we just walked from Awaji station to home. Many more stares were had and a few bike crashes narrowly avoided as the odd-squad went walking along. At the dorm I felt hungry so me and monkey went on to raid McDonalds for a burger. I could go on about the funny looks and stares we got, but I think that message is kind of embeded in the rest of the halloween entry. However at McDonalds something pretty amazing did happen. I only ordered one burger (that wasn’t the amazing thing), and was actually asked if I wanted a bag or if it was fine as it was (cue the "wow"). Seriously, everytime I’ve gone and just had one thing (and had it for take-out) I’ve ended up with more bags than produce. This was amazing.

On the way back I also felt like opening a new line to my Osakan food checklist by finally trying Takoyaki. Takoyaki is a fried octopus ball, and although I’m no stranger to octopus or food that comes in ball form, these were completely different to anything I’d ever tried. It was an interesting combination of creaminess and meatiness in one with a small air-pocket in the middle. It was nice, but don’t get me wrong I probably won’t be having Takoyaki too often.

Skip forward a day to the 1st of November. An old fortune says that if the first words you say on the first day of a month are ‘White Rabbits’ then you’ll have good luck throughout the month. Unfortunately I confused myself with a late night munching on takoyaki, so my first words came out as ‘Black Bunnies’. I hope that doesn’t arouse any old supersticions.

On this day I lost some money on a bet I placed before coming to Japan. I made a bet with my brother that my two nephews would pass their driving tests before he does (seperate bets, one for each nephew). My brother’s older than me and my nephews are 5 and 2. Congrats on passing your test dude.

Thanks to a friend from Konan, I was introduced to a show called Green Porno. It’s an …. I’m struggling to think of how to describe it. It’s a show that shows different mating rituals of various bugs and insects, but it’s told in a very kid-show style. By kid-show, I mean the kind you watch when you can’t even talk. There’re 8 short videos on the website, and also some extras including a making of.

With a friend from Uni, I went to Nishinomiya Kitoguchi. Clearly not feeling stared at enough, we both sat in a very public area with white-boards and just practiced kanji over and over again and again. It was actually quite fun, and when we could overhear people talking about us or reading the kanji that we were writing it was more inspiration to keep on going. I was quite tempted to put my hat on the floor to see if I could make a few yen, but I was pretty sure Japan had laws against busking, at least without filling in mountainous paperwork beforehand. I’m thinking of making this a regular thing, because not only was it interesting, I actually did remember most of the kanji I practiced.

2nd November was a Sunday. This would normally be a day where SDS (Sunday Dorm Syndrome) kicks in. However, today was different! Today I (and a dude from Uni) would have a host familly … for an evening. Konan had kindly arranged for dorm students the opportunity to have dinner with a familly, giving us the chance to be able to speak with Japanese people we didn’t know in a new environment. This basically bridged the gap between dorm and homestay students. The family that we went to were quite far up into the mountains of Kobe, and yet the train ride seemed to be surprisingly short. As a gift I gave them some British tea bags (Tetleys) and a cottage figure I’d picked up in London.

Dinner was wonderful. I can’t remember the name of the main dish, but it’s very similar to Shabu Shabu. A large pot of boiling water in the middle of the table is accompanied by a range of vegetables (some of which were home grown) with thin slices of beef, all arrange around the table. These were then piece by piece put in the water and we all helped ourselves. This was followed by American Upside-Down cake and some After Eights! There were also some Scandinavian sweets that we tried (the familly too tried them for the first time) and they were … different. We also tried (I’d never eaten so much in Japan before) some persimmons, a fruit which appeared to cross the boundary between orange, tomato and mango. In other words it was bloody good, all of it was bloody good.

Throughout the night we talked and listened and enjoyed each others company. I learned some new things about both Japan and America and in turn passed on some of my knowledge of England and Wales. It was a great 4 hours and I really appreciate everything that the host family had done in order to make it special. This is what it was like to have a host family.

9 o’clock came and it was time to say goodbye. We were driven back to the train station, but stopped on the way to see an awesome view of Osaka from the up a mountain at night, all lit up. I was going to take a picture, but unfortunately I knew my camera was too naff (not to mention I left it in the car). We arrived at the station and said our last thanks and goodbyes.

I went home with a smile.

I woke up on Monday 3rd November with a frown … no more than that, I was grumpy … no wait, I was just plain naffed off. To say that my smile from the previous night was upside down would be like saying Mount Fuji is just a pile of muck in the ground. It was a national holiday, Culture Day, and that meant I was starting my day hungry. Having not brushed my teeth the night before (out of shere laziness on my part) I could still taste the delicious repas from that night’s meal. I left for Uni in a slump, with my only sense of pleasure coming from the fact that most people would have the day off. That may sound odd, me being glad other people got the day off, but it meant that I could be assured of a seat on the trains rather than have to stand ‘sardine in a can’ style.

I stayed up late the previous night, despite still being shattered from my walk to Sannomiya, but I don’t even remember what for. I think it was just one of those nights of reflection (where I COULD have been writing a blog entry), but anyway I’m getting off topic. It meant that on the train I could get some sleep and try to forget about the rumbling in my stomache.

Arriving at University I headed straight for the shop. I could only feel I that I could partake a Ghana bar (a chocolate bar), so paid for it and headed to class. I offered pieces to my other dorm-hungered friends, who modestly turned them down. As usual one class member makes comments that he thinks are clever (if he’s clever then a baby learning 1+1=2 must be a genius), but I couldn’t feel the need for any of his crap today. After all, today was a reason that dorm students could take it out on others, even if they had it coming all along. So this being the case for every clever thing he said I quickly shot it down with a large dose of sarcasm and directness. He soon got the hint I think.

Monday’s are the day I tutor English, so after a quick lunch I headed up to the room. Being a holiday I didn’t really expect anyone to show up. But regardless I prepared the room, writing information on the whiteboard, including the British word of the day (to pop – I’m just popping to the shop). To my surprise … wait, that’s not the right word, to my expectation nobody came. Given that I was there for two hours, I used the time to practice kanji for this week’s quizes. I did have a couple of visitors come by the room; another transfer student and a Japanese teacher, but they didn’t stay long. Eventually, my two hours were up and I headed to the Ajisai room.

Feeling a need for a rest I covered my eyes with a giraffe scarf (also apparently known as a snood) and lay across some chairs at the side of the room. Even though I was awake with my eyes open looking through the tiny gaps in the fabric, my stillness must have given off the impression that I was sleeping as I overheard several people commenting on it. It’s amazing what you can here when you really listen. I won’t write them down here because I think that would be a little harsh to people who like talking about people behind their backs, then show a different facade when the person in question walks into the room.

One thing that did get on my nerves was when someone started moaning about their host family. They were giving it this and that about how they’re only eating Japanese styled food and how they can’t hang out with friends for every minute of the sodding day because the family wants to do things with them, like go to places and such. God, what a ponsey smarmy git! First of all consider yourself lucky to actually get food everyday (had it not been for my own home visit it would have been two days without a proper cooked meal), but you actually have a family willing to take your ungreatful ass to places you’ve never been to and are willing to help you learn Japanese. I won’t even go into the fact that you’re also paying less than the dorm guys … whoops, too late. Me being in my meditative like state at the time didn’t move or shout him down, but I was mentally picturing destroying him in an effort to calm myself down.

After a while I got up and just sat down, briefly including myself in the convestion that was going on around me. As it approached 5 o’clock I realised I’d already done the homework that was due the next day and had already memorised the kanji for the quiz. With nothing to really head home for and no desire to stick around, I proposed a question to the students sitting in my vicinity.

"How long do you think it’d take to walk to Juso from here? I wonder if I can get there before 9 o’clock."

After explaining my reasons why I’d be willing to do such a walk (those mentioned just above) I was on my way, leaving the parting words

"If I’m not in tomorrow, someone phone me to make sure I’ve not passed out in a ditch."

I started walking towards Okamoto station as I still considered just getting the train home. As I approached the station I had my pass ready to go through the turnstiles, but instead I turned left and just kept on walking. I put my pass back in my wallet, crossed the train tracks at a cross point and walked down an alleyway in the direction of Osaka.

At this time of day it was still quite bright out, so walking down the back alleys of Kobe wasn’t too bad. Not to mention there were plenty of people around. My plan was to stick close to the Hankyu trainline as I knew this would be a surefire way to keep on route. I decided to see how I felt at the next station and decide then whether to continue or not. This was the beginning of what some would call a long night, and leave a physical effect on me that would last … well, I still hurt.

When I hit Shukugawa station I soon realised that I wasn’t going to make it all the way to Juso by 9. I was feeling much better than when I left uni. I was more relaxed, I had fresh air in me, and I was having fun. Not wanting to call it a day I kept my assessment of ‘play it by ear’ and would decide at each station if to carry on or not.

To save giving an account of every step, I’ll just put it to you that I had three dead ends (right up to peoples houses), went into two awesome shops (one electronics that had things much cheaper than other stores, and a second hand book store with quite possibly the biggest 105 yen manga section I’ve seen so far), had to take a 40 minute detour to walk up and down the bank of a river (Japan doesn’t seem to let you cross rivers easily unless you’re on a train or in a car), passed the Hi-Chew factory, and discovered that a black guy wearing all black walking in the dark with no road lights must be a very spooky thing to see for many Japanese people.

According to Google Maps, the journey should have been 22.3km (13.9 miles) and should have taken about 36 minutes … by car. I of course am forbidden from operating a motor vehicle while here on my year abroad, and heaven forbid I actually follow google’s set out route. I had no map, no real idea of where to head, and no Sun (to navigate by … no compass either). At the same time I had no worries. At several times along the way I imagined headlines about worse case scenarios, but soon dismissed them as depressing. Oh, and as for the 36 minutes malarky, well … I didn’t make it to Juso by 9 o’clock.

Uni to Juso by car (googlemap)
Uni to Juso by train (almost my route) (googlemap)

Just as the clocks chimed for midnight I could be seen hobbling just down the road from Juso station. My feet hurt, my legs and back hurt, my eyes hurt, but man was my pride strong. I thought I’d really impress myself and jogged for the last few hundred metres, killing off my kneecaps in the process and nearly crashing into many drunken businessmen. I must have looked a right sight. I hobbled through the turnstiles and made my way to the platform … to see my trains doors close.

I said a few words that no one should ever hear.

My next train was in twenty minutes so I figured it would be a good idea to get a drink. After hobbling up and down my platform, and a second platform, I eventually came to the vending machines. I bought a lemon flavoured drink and noticed the Ice-Cream machine right next door. I figured that I deserved a treat, so bought a chocolate chip ice cream. When i bent down to take it from the bottom of the machine I noticed something odd. Well, two things really. Firstly was that I had no pain and seemed to have got my energy back. The second thing was that there were two ice creams in the pick up spot. I thought my luck was on the up.

It didn’t last long. After taking two steps away from the machine fatigue and pain set in heavier than before, leaving me trying to hobble back to my platform. You know it’s bad when you’re overtaken by a man with a zimmer-frame, but to be fair if he’s agile enough to be up partying past midnight then all respect to him. I found a seat on my platform and started munching on my chocolate chip ice cream. The second ice cream appeared to be a green tea variety. About halfway through the first ice cream, enjoying every morcel and getting energy and strength back, something caught my attention in the air. To this day I still don’t know what it was, but that lapse of concentration caused my delicious nectar of the gods to go tumbling to the floor.

( TT__TT )

I put it in the bin with a slight tear in my eye; partly because I had to stand up. I then moved onto the second ice cream, saving the drink for after. Now for those of you who this scenario may happen to (getting doubles on an ice cream vending machine), you’re better off leaving the freebie right where it is. For you see, ice cream does a little thing when it reaches a certain temperature for so long and it’s called melting. When you try to pull open an ice cream that’s been melting for a while, you tend to have a little accident. For me, it looked as if someone had thrown some 1990′s kid show gunge my way, as my ice cream (or should I just call it cream) splurted out of the packet. I picked up what I could and made another trip to the bin.

When my train came I’d been sitting down for a while and felt relaxed. Unfortunately for me, so did my knees. They did not want to be bothered when the train came and boy did they let me know. I compared the pain to when I first bent my left knee after getting a full leg cast reduced to a half leg one after snapping my shin bone in half. Yes … it hurt like hell. No … there were no seats on the train.

I got home just before 1 o’clock, roughly eight hours after first leaving the Ajisai room. I was in bed … not in a ditch.

I spent the vast majority of the next day either in vast amounts of achey pain, or sleeping in various places. I did well on the kanji quiz, 100% baby (10/10).

Yesterday, Wednesday the 5th of November, when actually when I started writing this journal! It was also a very special day in the calendar … Bonfire Night of course! Unfortunately because of the North American presidential election our British holiday seemed to be backshelved. Never mind Guy Fawkes, I still remember you … and how you failed. ^_^

In Japanese class we were presented with our new textbooks, having finished (again) Minna No Nihongo. Now we’re using ‘An Integrated Approach To Intermediate Japanese’. To be honest at first glance it looks like it takes the style of MNN’s various books, and combines it into one hefty hunk of a book. Even though I’m looking forward to the new grammar points, vocab and so on, I’ll definately miss Biji-san and co from MNN. Still, I’ll be looking back over those books when I start forgetting the simple stuff again.

After Japanese I took a trip with a friend to Nishinomiya Kitaguchi. I wanted to head back to that electronics shop (the one from the walk) as they had a Denshi Jisho (electronic dictionary) that was reduced from over 31,000yen to 19,900yen. I was going to get one of these anyway while I was here, so seeing this one was a bargain. To be honest, this month I was either going to end up getting one of these, or a bike. But to be honest, I don’t think I’ll be in the mood for much self-powered travelling for a while. My friend bought a significantly cheaper one (about 3,300 yen), which comes without all the gimicks and fancy things mine did, but it also didn’t come with a touch pad which helps when it comes to finding kanji that you don’t know the reading for.

My Denshi Jisho

Making my way back from Okamoto station to Uni, I soon came across an American woman looking very out of breath running with a buggy. As she ran past me our eyes met and she came to a screeching halt (minus the screeching).

"Are you American?" she shouts to me. I thought maybe she was in some kind of trouble and needed an English speaker.

"I’m British." I reply,

"Oh I guess you’ll do. Obama just won and I had to run and tell someone about it and give them a hug!" She shouts as she dives my way and hugs me. Regular readers to my blog will already know my dislike of the stereotypical American (and for the record not all the Americans on my course here fit that bill), so I just stood there with a look to say "yeah … and?". Don’t get me wrong, I understand the significance of the election, but since I’ve been here at times it’s felt like I’ve been in an extention of America rather than Japan. No offence intended to anyone, but America isn’t on my list of places to go in my life. But still, I’d like to thank this lady for giving me something to laugh over with my non-stereotypical American friends.

Because of the fact that I knew I would have my PE class today, I decided to take a bath last night instead of a shower to see if the hot water would help my muscles relax a bit as they were still quite achey. I woke up this morning with a lot less ache, but it was still there. I still haven’t had a full 7-8 hour sleep since before the walk to Sannomiya, so I’m really pushing it. I think I’ll catch up at the weekend.

Walking to Kamishinjyou station I was tired. Waiting for the train I was tired. Standing on the train getting squashed like poo under a shoe I was tired. Walking from Okamoto station to Uni I was tired. During class this morning I was tired. Taking a short nap during the 10 minute break helped a lot, but by the end of the class I was tired.

As I approached the changing room for PE I knew I’d be in for an interesting session and I wasn’t dissapointed. Though I was a lot weaker than normal on the treadmill and bike where I normally do quite an intensive cario-vascular warm up (ooh … big words), I managed to increase some settings on the weights machines. I did tell some people about my 7 hour stroll and the story was met with both shock and disbelief. Perhaps they thought I just used the wrong wording (I’m the only foreigner in the class), but it also gave me a bit of excuse for my naff performance on the treadmill.

After getting my mark back from my Linguistics exam (and slipping in and out of consciousness during the actual lesson … sorry sensei) which wasn’t good but still a pass, I headed home. I noticed my left knee starting to throb and felt like it was swelling a bit. Stopping off at Juso on the way back (I took the train before you ask), I bought some postcards and a knee support. If anyone wants me to send them a postcard then please ask me ^_^. I’ll wear the support tomorrow and see how I get on.

Well, I don’t think I’ve missed anything out, but we all know what my memory is like. If you’ve made it this far, then congratulations and thank you. As a reward, here’s an animation about 10 sticks!

I also want to give a shout out to a friend of mine who’s come over and is studying in Nagoya for a few months. Michael ‘Kriffix’ Kacar is a manga artist from the London, UK, who was a runner up in one of TokyoPop’s Rising Stars of Manga Contests. Welcome to Japan dude, I hope you enjoy your time here!

Recently the weather here in Osaka and Kobe has dropped, and even though it’s pretty much what Summer would feel like in the UK, it still feels pretty darn nippy. My aircon’s now become my heater and I’m now wearing long sleeved tops all the time instead of noth … um … t-shirts. I also heard from Telford that they’ve had a nice bit of snow lately. Typical eh.

So last Saturday (after writing up the journal) I noticed a package had come for me. Unfortunately the office wasn’t open so I couldn’t pick it up. After completely forgetting about it and going to head out for the night, I remembered about it just as I was about to step through the door. After being handed what can only be described as a Christmas Turkey in a binbag, I dropped it in my room and headed out.

After another fun night out at Gush, Okamoto, where we discussed different areas of the UK, the pound to yen exchange rate (which has been killing me as I have some money to bring over from home), and differences between English and American (language), it was time to call it a day and two of us made our way back to Osaka. That night we needed to make a change at Awaji station; we normally get a train from Juso to Kamishinjyou, but not tonight.

At Awaji we decided to try an experiment. We’d been curious for quite some time which of the two stations (Awaji and Kamishinjyou) were nearer to home. We’d always used Kamishinjyou, but judging from the layout of the track and the little time between the two stations, we couldn’t decide. So that night after getting off our train at Awaji, we decided to take a crack at walking it.

Having never done this walk before we decided to follow the track until a familliar point showed itself; a technique that aided areas of my walk from Okamoto to Sannomiya. Thankfully that wasn’t too long, and we soon arrived back at the dorm. Problem was that we never actually timed how quick the walk was. To be honest, we’ve not timed it from Kamishinjyou either. We got home more confused than we were before, and even today we’re still not sure which is faster. We plan one day to get a train back but one of us get off at Awaji and see who gets home first. We have roughly the same pace, so it shouldn’t be a race between the two of us.

So my package was from home (UK), Momma-Darlo was kind enough to send me a huge selection of sweets (photo to come), an advent calendar (little early, I know), a castle ornament (don’t ask), some books I asked for and a nice new coat. I’ve not yet worn the coat, but it looks warm and with the weather taking a turn you’ll soon see me strutting the streets of Kamishinjyou sporting a lovely number.

Waking up Sunday’s are always a feeling of ‘eh’. Yeah I don’t have to get up for University or breakfast, but living as I do every week I catch SDS (Sunday Dorm Syndrome). SDS basically takes control of your ability to speak on Sundays when, for whatever reason, you don’t leave the house. Normally in a dorm (well this one anyway) you only really communicate with the other students if there’s a valid reason (like you’re passing a message on, or want to tell them their goldfish is on fire) or if it’s a meal time (no food given to us on Sundays remember). Besides that, you might flash a "hi" or "ohayou" to anyone you pass on your trips to the bog, but that’s it. Unless you get a phone call, you generally spend the entire day saying less than 20 words.

Compare this to the homestay. Same scenario, you don’t fancy leaving the house. You’ll still get to chat with your familly at dinner, and no doubt a familly member will pop by your room to see how you’re doing, or check you’ve not killed yourself with your awesomely complicated Japanese remote control. The point is if you’re in a dorm and are trying to save money by not going out, and let’s face it everytime you go out you do spend some money, you’re not going to improve your Japanese that day. Stick to learning kanji and forget about those vocal chords would be my advice, accept your SDS and sod showering that day … no one will be around to notice.

Or maybe I’m just ranting on that one because the longer I’m here I notice the differences between dorm and what I’m being told about homestay-wise. Top that with the fact that dorm guys are actually paying more and it’s a bit of a shot to the pills.

Moving on.

On Wednesday I had an exam for my business module (Mergers and Acquisitions). I didn’t get much studying done for it as we’ve started the keigo (respectful) chapters of Minna No Nihongo and it’s new and a bit complicated. However I don’t think I did … that bad. I was a bit worried that I seemed to finish quite early (we had two hours and I was done after about half an hour) so I kept on rechecking over my answers until I saw someone else hand in their paper. We get the marks back in just over a week.

I re-watched over the Miss Dynamite animations/interactive comic a few nights ago in order to relax a little. Sirkowski’s currently making episode 24, for which an animatic is available to be seen, aswell as offering an incentive for Americans to vote for Obama. His site may be a little risque for younger internet users, but I still find it funny.

Remember in the last package from home how I mentioned getting my hair clippers? Well unfortunately for me they don’t work here. Why? Because not only did I forget that it wasn’t enough to merely change the plug pins (with an adapter), but I had also forgotten that electrical equipment in the UK generally needs more power than what a Japanese plug socket can dish out. This is something we discovered tonight when I went to cut my friends hair (with permission of course) and all I could get was a slight vibrating sensation. Either I was being electrocuted or the clippers were working at a speed not fast enough to cut through a fly’s wings, but either way it left me with no means of cutting my hair, my friends hair, shaving the box-dog down the road or someone’s teddy bear and sending it back fluff by fluff.

Well tomorrow’s halloween (one of the reasons my aforementioned friend wanted his hair cutting), and even though it’s not a big thing in my area of the UK (you try telling the shops that) some of the Americans here are making a bit of a song and dance about it. I wonder if they’ll think of us as weird when we try to blow things up on the 5th of November. So there’s a bit of a shindig involved where people are coming into Uni in costume followed by a night out in Sannomiya (Kobe). While it would be nice to have the ability to go out and spend money on something you’re only going to wear for one day without looking like a complete pillock, I have chosen to go down my own route costume wise and will merely be wearing a hat.

Not just a hat, normal clothes too of course. I’ll also put that Skeleton (Gaikotsu) that I won at the Kishiwada Danjiri Matsuri on my balcony; it’s about time I cleared the skeletons from the closet. I have noticed a huge lack of public decoration compared to England so I’m interested to see how the Japanese do halloween, and also how they find the American’s actions for the night >_<.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to go to Sannomiya with them or not yet, but I have decided that if I do go, then I’ll be walking there from Okamoto once again! That way I’ll save 180 yen and feel like I’ve really deserved that first drink.

For now though, I’ll leave you with a youtube video of how I probably sound to a native Japanese speaker (I sound like the guy in white).

I was going to write this entry last night in celebration of the end of mid-terms, but instead I thought about doing something logical and actually going out to celebrate the end of mid-terms. This in turn makes it possible for me to write an entry celebrating that I managed to get both of the last trains back (I have to make a connection), thus avoiding a walk that would have been my longest so far in Japan. Ok, let me just take a sec to look at my last entry to see in what area of limbo I left you guys floating.

…

Oh right, my body-clock screwation (not a real word). Well as I already said we’ve had mid-terms this week and although they didn’t feel as difficult as the exams we had in Leeds, to me an exam is an exam and they’re something I never do well in, especially when I leave the exam room and think that I’ve done well. This can be seen from my actual results from Leeds … shame on me.

It started out on Wednesday with the oral tests. Me and oral have always had a very odd relationship … for those of you shouting inuendo at your screens please take a step back and realise I’m clearly talking about speaking … perverts. Anyway, when I speak in Japanese it can normally go perfectly fine until someone says the words “your Japanese is good” and whatnot, something I have mentioned before. But also if I find that I don’t know a word or a term then I’ll take a brave stab at making one up. One example was when I wanted to refer to a Car Boot Sale, something Japan doesn’t have. This made me come up with the term Car Rear Market Day. And when I couldn’t remember the word for wallet I simply said money bag.

So anyway the exam went quite well, there was some Q&A based around some of our speeches which wasn’t too tricky, though trying to explain why your favourite food is apple sauce and that you’d happilly suck it down right from the jar was a bit hard. Following this we were presented with a choice of about 5 simple items and asked to talk about them. Of the items given I can only remember there being a pen, pair of chopsticks and electronic dictionary, but I chose the pen. Here’s an approximate account of what I spoke about for a ballpoint pen.

“This pen is a special pen. This pen is a very important pen. I recieved this pen from a friend. This friend was called Pete. One time when me and Pete went to Germany, we had to fight against some robbers. After that, because we won we went to the shop. I bought him a cat and he bought me this pen. Because of that, this is a very important pen.”

To which my teacher asked me what happened to my friend (the name Pete was never mentioned again).

“Hmm … that’s a little bit difficult. There was an accident. Unfortunate isn’t it. My friend went to Italy to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa because he wanted to try looking at it. But when he was there the tower fell over and he passed away. This year they built the tower again, but when I look at this pen I always remember my friend.”

My instant feedback, which I’m always really grateful for, was that even though I tried to be creative and use plenty of grammar points, I did use most of them wrong. Buggar! The next morning we had our marks for that test (seconds before starting the Kanji test) and I scored an 8.6 (86%) and some very helpful feedback.

Thursday … Kanji Test. It wasn’t until the last week of being at Leeds I discovered a system to learn kanji … well, learn it in such a way that I could do “ok” on the weekly Leeds tests. Unfortunately that system doesn’t really work over here. However, after I bought myself a small whiteboard I was able to learn kanji so much easier. It was unfortunate that it didn’t help me on Thursday as I blew spoiled chunks onto my kanji exam (not literally thank god). This was confirmed during the break between the kanji test and the reading test when the teacher marking through them wanted to double check that I was actually from Leeds (Leeds is known for it’s emphasis on kanji) … *SHAMED*.

I don’t remember a lot about Thursday’s reading test, except for the fact that a lot of the kanji from the previous test showed up teasing me with it’s furigana reminding me that I actually DID know some of the things I blatantly got wrong. BAH!

So to finish the midterms yesterday we started with a listening test, pretty simple just listen to a tape and write down or circle an answer … I probably failed that one, and then we moved onto the big grammar test.

The thought of 9 pages of a language exam comically freaked out some of the students, but Leeds exams, especially that last one, were much longer. This one comprised of testing all the different elements we’ve covered including particles, structure, translation, some minor composition, but I have no idea how I did. Normally I come out of an exam thinking either “I’ve failed that” (to which I normally have) or “Wow I passed that one easilly” (to which I normally haven’t) but when I left the exam room I didn’t have any direct thought about how I’d done. Whistle and wait as my parents used to (and probably still do) say.

So tests being over some of us went into Okamoto (in Kobe) and had a little fun. In one bar we went into, Gush, there were two dogs on the balcony, so we had a chat and a play with them. Lots of time passed, conversations were had and then it was time to head back. By fluke and coincidence we (the two remaining folk) got back to Okamoto Station in time for the last train to Juso. Throughout the night I had been joking about walking home if I missed the last train, but frankly from Kobe I didn’t really fancy it much. On the train I was preparing myself for a walk from Juso to home (a 15 minute train ride) by napping and getting up intime to see the stations passing by. Upon arrival at Juso however I was thrilled to see that there was one last train heading my way, hoorah!

Head on pillow, I’m home!

Just a thought on how little things can change people’s attitudes before signing off and doing some washing. I few days ago I was walking around Kita-Umeda trying to find a specific building. Not only did it have no heavilly definable features, I had no clue what it looked like, only a crudely set map. Well after wandering around like a hamster in a maze and going right past the bloody place twice I finally found it and then walked back to Umeda. Needless to see I was pretty miffed with myself (thats a bad thing). On my way there was an old woman watering plants outside her shop with a hose. The distance between her, the shop, the plants and the road meant that I was going to get wet, I honestly didn’t expect her to lower the hose. When I got closer we made eye-contact, with my eyes giving off the message “It’s ok, I’m prepared for your wetness”.

She shocked me though, lowering the hose and turning it off so I could pass dry. With this I bowed to her and said “arigatou gozaimasu” to which she gave me the biggest smile I’d seen since I got here and she replied “domo” in a very pleasant yet shocked voice. I don’t think she was expecting me to be able to communicate at all, let alone to thank her. Anyway my point of this little story is that seeing her smile put a smile back on my face. It’s the little things that can really make your day, I’ll try to remember than when I do another load of washing this afternoon.