Darlo's World

大きな地図で見る

And so we began the final full day of travel, and the journey to the end of the world (well, Endland anyway) and conclude my main goal for this trip; completing the trip from John O Groats to Lands’ End. There was just one problem, it was the Saturday before the last week in August and people were getting their last minute holidays in. So when I say “one problem” what I actually mean to say is “every sodding caravan in Britain”.

Arriving in Cornwall I reminded myself of one of the worst jokes told in Japanese, but due to it’s awfulness it was actually a tad funny. (This video is automatically set to start at 2:35, and you’ll know when the joke is over)

But at long last, we had arrived.

After such a long trip, Sebastian rests just before crossing the line.

By the way, that sign is in Cornish

However you want to say it, you've made it baby!

I’d been to Lands’ End once before, back when I was working in Somerset, but this time around we couldn’t see all the crazy (and somewhat meaningless) attractions that were there. It does feel somewhat opposite to John O Groats which I guess is to be expected seeing as they’re (quite literally) at different ends of Great Britain.

Want a photo with the sign? It'll cost you.

They didn't have guns, they weren't that dangerous.

Suddenly Sebastian became interested in diving.

The guest book at the Lands' End Hotel, what we came all this way for.

Not easy to write a signature when the pen is longer than your height.

In the cafe we tried the very English tradition of Cream Teas (something I’d never actually done before), then we headed back to the car.

Sebastian does a luggage check

Watch out! They'll sue you!

Sebastian is joined by a Hikikomori for the mile count. 204,612 miles.

Off topic for a moment, remember that 5000 report I did on hikikomori last Summer? Well, last month the Oxford English Dictionary decided to actually add the word hikikomori! I’m glad this happened after I did my report, otherwise I’d have had to cut out my chunk on different ‘possible’ English definitions.

Hikikomori
Pronunciation:/hɪˌkɪkə(ʊ)ˈmɔːri/
noun (plural same)
[mass noun] (in Japan) the abnormal avoidance of social contact, typically by adolescent males
[count noun] a person who avoids social contact

Origin: Japanese, literally ‘staying indoors, (social) withdrawal’
Oxford Dictionaries

We left the most southern-westernly place of mainland Britain with a desire to see the beach. The weather being the pretty much the same as it had been when we went to Prestatyn, we knew that walking on the beach would result in a lot of sand entering the car. However, by this time we had a couple of spare towels, so could use them to knock off any sand. A lot of beaches on the south coast are said to be pebble beaches, so with this in mind we headed to somewhere I knew had a sandy one, a place I used to work, Bude.

'Life's a Beach' in Bude

Sebastian is King of the Castle

From Bude we started making our way on the final leg of our journey, and pointed the car (not literally) East, towards London Heathrow. It was a long trip, but we had planned for this and would be sleeping in the car part-way due to the early afternoon flight.

We had dinner at a fairly nice restaurant just outside of Barnstaple. With it being my friends last English meal, we opted for a traditional British dish. We actually would have liked a Sunday Dinner, but with it being Saturday we had to go for a beef carvery. We also had a fish and chips meal, and shared the two between us.

We stopped at Bridgwater service station on the M5 for a break. My friend wanted to make use of the showers (something I knew many service stations had). However even though showers were available in the men’s loo, there weren’t any in the ladies’. To be honest I can’t say I’ve checked every ladies’ toilet in every motorway service station I’ve been in to see whether or not they had a shower, but this was very annoying for my friend. She had to use the mens’, but quickly shot into the disabled toilets.

Shower time? Not if you're a lady I'm afraid.

We carried on toward Heathrow and parked up on Baydon Road, just off junction 14 of the M4 for the last night of the trip.

Since arriving in Japan I’d noticed my head being significantly more itchy. I’d also been having a lot more dandruff than I’m used to tackling with Head and Shoulders (or the Asda equivalent thereof), and to be honest I’d just put it down to me having a strange head. When I had it cut, my head (and the short sharp bristles that could be considered hair) was again itchy, but that was nothing new to me. I good shower and a shampooing was all I usually needed, even though I’m literally just shampooing scalp. But no the itch continued, so me being me just thought “oh sod it” and got over it … as I began to brush the dandruff from my shoulder.

Fast forward to yesterday when I overhear a conversation happening right next to me. Some of the girls were discussing Japanese shampoo and American shampoo and it turns out that Japanese shampoo (and conditioner which I never use) makes your hair quite dry. Ureka! Problem diagnosed. Only problem now is that I don’t really want to import what I’d consider to be more a comfort product, so again I’m still sticking to my “sod it” plan. Ironically I remember hearing about a similar situation on 苺マーシマロ (Strawberry Marshmallow, go back a few posts for a video)
where one character had imported products because Japanese ones were too strong for her. I won’t post a clip of that scene, mainly because it takes place in a bath and I don’t want people to get in trouble for watching that kind of scene at work, school or whatever, but I’m sure you can find it on YouTube.

So what does shampoo have to do with the market? Well, not much really, well, for me anyway. I just wanted a way to link the two. Anyway, as I’ve mentioned over and over the pound is really taking a beating price wise and at five o’clock last night (according to one BBC chart) it was less than 120 to the pound.

What does this mean though? How can I spell it out in a simple understandable way? Ok …

• Imagine winning £1,000 on the lottery.
• Now, instead of that being a prize it’s just a loan, so you have to pay it back.
• However, instead of it being £1,000, it’s actually just £600
• Now to top it all off, when it comes to paying it back you still have to pay £1,000 (plus interest of course)

I found a chart that clearly shows the fall on the pound starting just before I arrived in September. For copyright reasons I won’t post it (don’t want to piss off the BBC), but you can see it by clicking here.