Everyday for the last month, I’ve woken up and been reminded about how fortunate I am, and also how proud some people are of me.

Well folks, I’m back in Japan and (now that I have internet once more) will be updating you on all my little adventures as I talk to you from Takibe, a village in the town of Houhoku-chou, a mountainous town that in 2005 became a part of Shimonoseki-shi, the largest city in Yamaguchi Prefecture, the largest Prefecture on the main island of Japan, Honshu.

After a few days in Tokyo I headed West to start my new life, and since it’s been a good few weeks since that i won’t go into every single detail right now. But what I can say is that I have been to three festivals, danced in one of them, seen two awesome fireworks displays, rented a car, got a Japanese driving license, stayed in a cabin style capsule hotel, bought a stuffed toy to be my housemate, took a stroll in an inactive volcano crater, and engaged in an intense war on insects dwelling in my home (kind of an ‘I was here first’ vs ‘I’m paying the rent now’ battle).

My little house in the country

So lets start out with my house. It’s a great place and my little towns awesome too. It’s the complete opposite of the cities I’ve become used to, be they Leeds or Osaka (Telford? hmm … ), so everyday instead of traffic and other noise I here the sound of nature. Yeah, sometimes that nature can be pretty loud, particularly the cicadas!

On the topic of bugs, every few days or so I go to the local store for a top-up of strong roach spray. I’m determined to get these little buggers out of here (or at least make them pay some rent).

Bug bomb, I choose you!

One problem though is that insects & bugs are seasonal, so even if I wipe out all the roaches now, I know I’m doomed to have some other creature come winter. I’m also tackling the emerging threat of spiders. By the way, if you’re ever looking for an arguement for evolution, Japanese spiders jump (literally) out of the way when you go to whomp them!

Only way to be sure they're gone is to check every (tom) nook.

Living in the countryside a car is an absolute must. Doing my job I will be going to 13 different schools spread far and wide, so without a car my worklife would be almost impossible.

The car I'm renting.

On a recent overnight trip to nearby Fukuoka, home of baseball team the Softbank Hawks …

I saw these little guys sitting on the back of the bus.

I wanted to try sleeping in a capsule hotel. Unfortunately the one I found was a bit too expensive. However I stumbled across a ‘cabin’ hotel which has a similar concept. I’d describe it as sleeping in hostel dorms but with a lot more privacy (and pretty comfortable too!).

The cabin hotel. Yes I had lots of leg room.

Soon Yamaguchi will host a sports tournament and have one of the cutest mascots I’ve seen for quite some time. I couldn’t help but buy a stuffed toy of him. He’s become quite a reliable housemate.

'Choruru', named after a phrase in the local dialect, with a head representing the Chinese characters for Yamaguchi.

It took a little longer than I’d wanted to visit a shrine or temple since arriving, but I finally got around to it on a recent trip up to Hagi after getting my Japanese driving license (I’ll write a seperate blog entry for that later on).

The Shoin Shrine.

The first festival I went to was a fireworks battle between Shimonoseki city and Kitakyushu across the Kanmon Straights.

An awesome display of fireworks, even saw a couple of Pikachu fireworks.

My second festival was also in Shimonoseki City, the Bakan Festival (Bakan being the old name for Shimonoseki). I had to try and learn a dance for this festival, and since I lived too far from the practice classes, had to kinda go with the flow. I don’t think I did too bad … I hope, rather.

Let's Dance!

And finally last night was my local town’s (Houhoku-chou) festival. A lot of cool stage events, and lanterns to enjoy.

Lanterns made from plastic bottles.

And of course a fantastic fireworks display.

This was taken near the start, but the fireworks at the end were really stunning.

Well folks, that’s about it for a very quick round up. As I say now I’ve got actual internet I’ll keep you updated a lot more often. I invite you to check out my Twitter feed as I often update my smaller comings and goings on there. So, until next time!

Well after four long years, university has finally come to an end. I’m not going to lie and say it’s all been peaches and cream (though I probably could since I don’t like cream … peaches … hmm … they’re ok I guess), but I know there have been a variety of challenges I’ve had to overcome. I know for a fact that my final exam was a nightmare, so I’m hoping to have got by on my (equally bad) essay for that module.

For now all I can do is try to relax a little bit.

This cat gets it.

The placement information for JET still hasn’t been issued yet, however with the events that have taken place in Japan I can still hang by and wait patiently (still hoping for somewhere not that far North however. Remote island? Fine, just make it warm).

I’ve also gone back to Lotaku lately, updating another page and planning the next few. I’m happy I can finally get the time to do some more of my small projects without having to worry about kanji and vocab tests as well as vast amounts of unmemorisable readings. Guhh … I’m not going to miss academia.

So it’s January and that of course means it’s time for the end of Semester One Exams. Oh, and happy new year. So far I’ve had three exams (Japanese Writing, Japanese Politics and International Relations, and Japanese Literature), with one remaining on Thursday (Japanese Listening). I won’t beat around the bush, they’ve been pretty hard, with the most difficult still to come.

The most interesting one so far has been the literature exam in which we had to translate two Japanese texts into English. The first was a delightful story called ‘Kitchen’ by Banana Yoshimoto (translated version by Megan Backus available on Amazon UK & Amazon US).

The second translation was less friendly. It was a story that has yet to actually be translated (officially) into English by Osaka-born Yasutaka Tsutsui called Yumenokizaka Bunkiten (Dreamtree Hill Junction). To say it was difficult to understand what was going on would be a huge understatement, let’s just say it was like trying understanding why people people who love the muppets choose to wear their skin in the form of Ugg Boots.

In awesome news I’ve been invited to an interview for a job in Japan. The interview’s in London just after the exam period and I’m really looking forward to it (best go and get myself a suit eh).”

… is the kind of blog I’d wanted to write, unfortunately …

My bedroom window

Yesterday morning at the crack of dawn, I encountered the scariest moment of my life (so far).

At roughly 6 o’clock in the morning, while I was sleeping (having finally drifted off to sleep at about 2 in the morning), someone smashed through my bedroom window trying to get access to the property. The noise was horrific. In a ‘just-been-woken-up-by-broken-glass-flying-into-the-room’-like way I shouted and yelled “who’s there!?”, stumbling out of bed trying to whack the light on as quickly as I could. I was certain I saw a hand in the gaping whole, that was probably reaching for the handle, pull away.

At this point I was shaking all over, probably in part because it was a sodding cold morning and now cold air was getting into my bedroom.

Trying to keep some sort of composure, I called the police, and left all important messages about it on facebook and twitter (may have actually been the other way round, now that I think about it).

Throughout the day various police officers and community support officers came around, all of which were great and supportive, but more than anything else honest. I don’t like false hope or false reassurance about things, so I actually felt more relieved when they said that they probably wouldn’t be able to catch who it was. There were no direct suspects, CCTV had seen nothing (except for me stumbling about to check the damage from outside, discovering they’d also broken into the landlady’s shed), and due to the weather and the fact they had used bricks (which are unfingerprintable) fingerprints couldn’t be obtained.

We came to the conclusion that they didn’t think my bedroom was a bedroom, either a kitchen or lounge, and went with the intention of taking kitchen/loungy stuff. So when they burst through my window and I started up, they ran off.

I didn’t go to work, it took all day to get everything sorted out and I was still not quite all there when I went to bed that night. Up until recently my letting agent have been an absolute shambles, but started to turn their game around when I sent a letter to the landlady recommending that she change agency. I guess they way in which they handle this situation will be one of the major deciding factors to it (and whether or not I actively go out and unrecommend them or just respond to peoples questions about them).

Thankfully, I’m now feeling much better and nothing was taken (except a day’s work and the time I was going to have in bed … actually planned on having a lie in, bugger). I do want to say thanks to everyone who helped out, either by helping pick up glass, board up the window, talk with me over a cup of tea while watching Ghostbusters and eating Jammie Dodgers, or even people who just said “are you ok”. Thanks everyone.

My room didn't come with air conditioning when I signed for it. And wouldn't you sodding believe it, I'd only just washed those plates, pots and pans!

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.

I won’t lie, nor will I sugar coat it. Day 7 of my road trip really didn’t involve much of anything other than a bit of relaxing (in bed) and a trip to Asda. Seeing as I had the car with me I bought a load of canned goods (all own-brand as usual), with only very minor fear about overweighing the car.
Sorry if you feel a bit dissapointed, but this cat is even more so.

Chugger (noun): Charity + Mugger
Paid “charity” street worker (read: student) who has been trained to believe that they are carrying out a worthy task, improving peoples’ lives by conning Joe Public out of their money for this week’s Good Cause. Usually an agency worker where the agency takes a hefty cut of the hourly rate that the charity in question has paid for, whilst at the same time increasing profits by selling on details of those foolish enough to actually stop and sign up to said Good Cause. (Urban Dictionary)

So while your walking down town and trying to mind your own business and keep your money safe, what methods do you use to try and steer clear of these young ambitious (and seemingly well paid) chuggers? A couple of friends and I have assembled a top 10 list of our favourite tried and tested methods that have got us out of awkward conversations and helped a real charity-case; ourselves. I do want to point out that I’m not against charities and do give what I can when I can (which I’ll admit isn’t very often), but I’m not a fan of “all these people are suffering and only you can help them” type sales pitches. I don’t want that kind of responsibility, I’m not frickin’ Batman.

Honourable Mention: Rugby – When eye contact is made, picture yourself on a rugby pitch with the tri line just behind them. Run, dodge and weave your way right past them, not stopping until you’ve planted your non-existent ball (usually your shopping) in the scoring zone (usually the lap of an elderly man sitting on a bench).

Chuggers may use subtle psychology to try and part you from your money.

9. Be Literate – As well as killing time on a long commute, having a book, newspaper, or magazine to hand can help bypass a chugger or two. Open a page and put your nose right in to give you an excuse not to notice the massive smiley person after your money. However, try to keep an eye on where you’re going, particularly if you’re heading towards a main road, otherwise a chugger will be the last of your worries.

8. The Direct Approach – Chuggers are trained to be very friendly and positive in their approach, so this is a regular fire versus fire technique. Instead of allowing a chugger to spot and approach you, you head in their direction with the biggest creepy grin your can concoct. You can make this more effective by turning your head slightly sidewise but maintaining eye contact. The goal is to get nearer to the chugger so they get creeped out and move to someone behind you. However, cock-this up and you’ve virtually given your bank details right to them.

7. The Very Direct Approach – The English language has been blessed with a rich lexicon, as such there are plenty of words that you wouldn’t want your 8 year old to shout in front of a church of elderly people. This technique is commonly used by anyone who has had a bad day, normally work-related, but isn’t recommended for people with small children (protect their little sodding ears and all that). It works simply as this, when approached by a chugger, trying to capture your attention by talking about how great things are, you simple keep on walking but give them two “words of encouragement” that rhyme with Cook Off.

6. Be Embarrassing – Most effective when you’re visiting somewhere that people are unlikely to see you again, so not one for your home towns. Once eye contact with a chugger is made you have but a few seconds to try and make yourself as unappealing as possible and make the chugger go straight for the unfortunate person behind you. Some suggestions are faking tourettes, rip off your t-shirt and shove it down your bottoms, or get into dance mode and try to moonwalk past the chugger.

5. The Floor – I’ll tell you what, I never noticed how fascinate the floor is. Go ahead, have a look. If you think it’s pretty good now, it’s really thrilling when you’re out there on Chugger Street. Pulling off the ‘Stare At The Floor’ does require a bit of a steely determination, and a dynamite concentration. Try focussing on the feet of the person in front of you, unless of course it’s a chugger. Like the reading a book tip, watch where you’re heading.

To be fair, this Chugger started his spiel with "I'm not after your money today".

3. Eigo ga dekinai (I don’t speak English) – A treat for anyone who has an interest in the world. For this one to work you have to be able to mutter a line or two in a foreign language, something most of us can do thanks to learning it at school (if we can remember that far back) or European holidays. Beware that most chuggers are or have been University students, and it’s very possible that they studied that language that you are about to try and blag your fluency in. This is more likely to be the case with European languages. Thankfully I have yet to meet a chugger who can speak Japanese.

2. iGnore – The beauty of the portable music player has meant that you have a visible reason for blatantly ignoring people. Spot a chugger down the street and whack your headphones in. You don’t even need to be listening to anything, as long as your headphones are visible you can just breeze past them. You can make this more effective by singing along (quietly) to what you’re listening to (or pretending to listen to). Of course listening to loud music means you’re (supposedly) more likely to get robbed, so still keep your wits about you.

Smart move my friend, keep your hands on your money ... literally.

So there we have it, our top ten tips on how to avoid getting chugged. Unfortunately if the dialogue begins you’re on your own there, but here are three quick methods of trying to break it. First of all, if they ask you any ‘Qualifier Question’ (ie are you in a specific age group) just say “No”. If it’s followed up with other questions just repeat No until they get bored of you. If they have a memorised script then let them say the entire thing, then just stand there for a moment, make a few “thinking noises” then casually walk off. If all else fails, start crying. You can almost guarantee they’ll let you go.

And just because a friend of mine asked me how the Japanese ignore people, here’s a rather stereotypical scenario (set to start at 5:33).

DrainsAid - It's like an alarm clock made of faeces

“Oh … shit!”

DrainsAid (yes they remove the space between the two words because … um … no I couldn’t find a reason either) had two trucks and were up the road doing … something. But this ‘something’ meant that not only was I going to miss the bowl of Shreddies that I was looking forward to (after I went and got milk the night before specially for it), but I also had to get the hell out of my room, lest I wish to vomit into my laundry hamper and further stink up the place.

I opened my bedroom door and was punched in the face with a brick-like fist of something I can only describe as a mummy’s arse, and the worst part was that my mouth was open. After wretching somewhats nastilly and giving all my inner strength to keeping the contents of my stomach down (I had eaten a mars bar during the night), I threw myself back into my less odour-filled bedroom and quickly shut the door. I threw on some clothes, any clothes, it didn’t matter which. I jotted down DrainAids phone number on a post it and shoved it in my pocket, took a photo of one of the trucks from my window, grabbed a can of air-freshener from the cupboard, stuck my head under my blanket and took a deep breath, and ran through the house spraying every cubic centimeter of air I could. After feeling faint, I crawled back to my room and stuck my head back under the blanket. Taking another deep breath I headed downstairs, where the smell had yet to have much of an impact (our toilets are on the middle floor, my floor), and was then out the door.

I wanted to call DrainsAid to find out why we hadn’t been given any notice that our house would be given the delightful aroma of swine-sphincter, but couldn’t stomach the idea of making a phone call on the middle floor. As they have a freephone number I headed to the phone box around the corner. Unfortunately there was someone already in there when I arived; a dying bee. Having already been subject to a wasp attack back when I was a lad, I didn’t fancy sharing any space with a pissed-off stinging thing-a-mi-bob. I popped to the next phone box along, only to find his equally dying and pissed off twin brother.

I took a walk down the road to my next nearest phone box. No bees in this one, just a lovely pile of sick. It didn’t smell though, and as long as I watched my footing I didn’t step in it; I really didn’t fancy looking for yet another phone box.

I got through to a guy at DrainsAid at about 2:10pm. I gave him details of what was happening and asked him why we weren’t told about it in advance. He said that he couldn’t find it on his system, but would give me a call back when he finds out. Poor guy sounded so downtrodden, perhaps they’re sorting the drains out outside their offices too, I thought.

I headed down to the Unipol (my landlords) office to see if they’d been told anything about works in the area, but again they’d heard nothing. They said that they too would get in touch with DrainSaid and see if they could find something out. Good ol’ Unipol. They asked me to get back in touch with them if the house still stank at about 4 o’clock, so in the meantime I headed to the Union for a bit of a nose.

While in the bookshop, nosing at the old crap that people don’t want section (aka 2nd hand books, three of which I ended up buying today), my phone rang. Unfortunately it stopped ringing before it had chance to actually make any noise. I had my phone in my hand so felt it vibrate, but it stopped just as I looked at the screen. I couldn’t even call them back, the buggers withheld the number. I knew it wasn’t Unipol (they don’t withhold their number and they actually wait for you to answer the phone), so I had a hunch it was DrainalAids.

HG Air Neutraliser for all Bad Smells - £4.57 at Amazon

DrainAid explained to Unipol that they had drainage work scheduled in the area either on Monday or tomorrow (I won’t lie, I don’t remember which), so it couldn’t possibly have been them. Oh DrainsAid, don’t be so silly. You know in this day and age everyone hates liars (and also carry phones with cameras). I explained to the guy at Unipol that I had taken a picture of one of the vans, to which he said he’d call them up again and then give me a call. After leaving the office I had a good look at the picture to see if I could see the license plate as well. My first camera phone wasn’t as good as this.

I had a call not too much later. Apparently DoughnutAid had indeed been working up the road on an Emergency call out due to some of the flats accross the road getting flooded. Now to me that’s a good enough reason for not giving us notice. There’s no need to claim that they weren’t there and there’s definately no need for the half-arsed attempt of “calling you back”. The only result from this is that DrainsAid now look like an unprofessional organisation who don’t even know where their own staff are.

Silly buggers.

I went to the pub and caught the end of the South Africa Vs Mexico match (it is World Cup time after all), before heading home to air out the house a bit more.

As usual with my complaints I invite DrainsAid to comment on here and will send them an email to let them know about the entry. It’s getting a bit late so I’ll probably do the Japanese version to this in the morning.

My exams are finally over here at Uni, and that means I have a bit of time before I need to start panicking about resitting them. Hoorah pesimism. So what do I plan to do now that I have a bit more free time? I’m going to go back and work on some of long over-due projects that’s what.

The Lotaku webcomic is in drastic need of an update, and since I have a half complete page already I really should crack on with that. The last uploaded page was a dramatic shot of Simons mom being wheeled into the hospital.

On a similar topic, my should also crack on with my contribution to the Leeds Uni Anime Soc Manga Project. My section is going to be a part side-story of one of the Lotaku characters, but I won’t say much more on it just yet … mainly because I’ve not bloody decided.

I also want to do another animation this year for LSTV. At the mo, I’m thinking of doing one to this song, Funny Man by Rodney Carrington. So I guess if I start that during the summer I can get it in early. I’m also planning on doing a few more TV shows for LSTV this year; possibly remaking some stunning Japanese TV moments.

Finally, one thing I MUST do is upload the rest of my photos from Japan. Yes folks I know I’ve been really slack on it, but I’ve already posted a chunk on now. Go ahead, check them out. It’s already been scheduled to do another set tomorrow, so I’m planning (again) to get a new set up every day. I can’t believe it’s already been a year since I came back to the UK.

Oh yeah, need a house for next year too.

Fly Julien!

To be honest I really don’t know what to write about. I could talk about how it’s the Easter holidays at Uni so we have a month off, however we’ve still got lots of work to do during this break period. I could talk about how I went home to Shropshire for a week to get harrassed and abused by over affectionate kittens night after night. I could talk about some of the things I’ve recently came into possession of, such as a novel about it becoming illegal to be fat in the UK. But the fact is I don’t think I will. ^_^

But there are two things I will talk about. First of all if any of you out there are planning on sending things to Japan (or vice-versa) by surface mail (aka the slowest and cheapest option), then do remember that it will take a very long time. Around christmas I sent some chocolates over to Japan and have been told this week that they have just arrived. So keep those patience hats on people!

Secondly, as I said before today was April Fool’s Day and as such a time when people play practical jokes on one another, or, as is the case in Japan, tell each other lies. Early this morning I decided too to have a bit of fun with one of my friends who hadn’t realised what day it was who I was chatting to online. I was originally going to copy & paste the conversation here, but unfortunately have just realised I forgot to save the bloody thing.

So here’s the jist of it.

Me: “Oh by the way, I have some news but it’s quite secret for now so keep it under your hat”
Friend: “Go on?”
Me: “I got engaged.”
Friend: “What??? How, when?”
Me: “There’s a girl here on an exchange year, similar to what I did in Japan, and we’ve been going out for a while. The other day we had a random discussions about weddings and how they were done in her home town of Laiton. Then the next day I proposed.”
Friend: “Wow that’s awesome!”
Me: “Well like I said keep it a secret for now, there’s a lot of paper work and red tape involved with foreigners getting married in Laiton. Actually, if you go on facebook you can see her profile. Her name’s Eipuriru Fuuruzu, pronounced “April Fools” ^_^”
Friend: “You bastard!”

Yeah, ain’t I a stinker!