Thank the gods ive got my music library back.

Geese louise, its time to get a cuppa and get some of this typhoon in my head down in black and white. (thanks by the way to yous peoples who tell me you like to read, it makes me remeber that i can write, its like free therapy).

Needless to say, ive been busy and cant ever seem to find myself in a position to write when i ramble around the city wandering what in the hell is going on inside the person ive recently come to become friends with(thats me) mainly because shes not being the worlds biggest cu-rumpett anymore. (what sentimental twod) and coming up with some brilliant answers, but they fade as soon i turn a corner you see. stick to the sightseeing shall we?

Tokyo turned into a bastard as soon as siberian winds started smacking us around the face. What happens with the weather here is that once a week on average, the winds come down from russia and turn the place into a living hell hole. No amounts of clothing will protect you and youre left with the psychological trauma of planning on how to survive the next one whilst living through the sunniest warmest winter day you could imagine the day after. It makes completely no sense, this will supposidly get worse as winter goes on. At least it doesnt rain all the time, when it does however, theres a healthy 24 hours of it. And now for the sports news...

I know no sports news, that was a pun. Actually, Alex (la femme american) has been trying to get onto the Aikido team since the beginning of term and after months of talks with the wise masters they are now in the process of forging a contract to which they may terminate her from is she does not learn enough after a 3 month trial period. She has balls, thats all i can say. Id probably have stuck a finger or two up at them by now. Thats my culture shock shining through there.

About a week before it happened, i realised inside of me that Ben was coming to say. That entire week i spent panicing about my lack of ability to really get the best out of my knowledge of the place in which i live. I have, unintentionally, been getting far too excited about the western things that i find here, mainly because i see them as a novelty that i wasnt expecting. Although the doughnuts are something to write home about, ive not yet felt justifiably homesick to warrant a loyalty cards at Mr. Doughnuts and the Haagen-dazs ice-cream parlour. (i may or may not have these things). Still, he was impressed with my terribly broken and sometimes completely made up japanese (i joke) and i think we covered a good chunk of his desires for the short trip. It was fantastic, with moments of terribly hard, to see him. For reasons i attribute to living a dream, i still wasnt jolted into missing home like i thought i would.

Narita airport is further away from Tokyo city than i thought, but i had plenty of time to practice sleeping on the train like a Japanese person:

The hotel we stayed in was on the bad side of my home town, i say bad, i mean Yakusa run and swarming with minions that made me feel like an extra in Old Boy every time i left the building. Even so, ive never felt unsafe in this country, with the exception of trying to use the kitchen out of hours at the dorm. While staying there we explored around some and i found two more department stores hidden in the second largest station in Japan. Thats right, entire department stores.

Saturday we went to Mount Takao with our tutor and the uni gang, it took about 6 hours all rounf to scale it and potter around the four or five temples and countless shrines dotted down the side of it. It was stunning, and the leaves were just starting to turn. Japan is famous for the colour shows in autumn, and it was pretty crouded with Japanese taking pictures with their hugantic cameras. Highlights have to include the dog carried up the hill in a dress to have its anual photo taken with the red leaves, man in silver jump suite and the stunning views of the city on one side and mount Fuji on the other- oh, and the feeling of fulfilling another dream - sharing it all with Ben. FINALLY THE MAN CAME ON HOLIDAY WITH ME. The wood work on the shrines is stunning, and its everywhere, visually it was gobsmacking, physically it was awesome.

Family Photo

Imagine how good HIS pictures must be

We did Harajuku properly on sunday, but the girls obviously dont like to come out in the winter. Never the mind! we had kids day at the shrine to ogle over anyway, i say we, it was mainly me who was steeling photos of the hundreds of small children dressed in traditional attire to be blessed at Meji-Jingu, squeefest. Later we ate at the only Pizza express in Japan, this was purely for novelty value and in honour of all our friends who truly appreciate our history with it. It was quite expensive and all the waiting staff spoke english. It was weird.

When i got show ben the giant Eva statue in the pachinco parlour in Ikebukuro it finally struck him that he was in Japan. We spent the evening trying to cope with it.

The rest of the week was awesome fun, i even managed to get the important classes in. We had one last jaunt to the countryside before he left. Kamakura is stuck between epic forest and the coast, its like hiking up boxhill, trailing your way through beautiful temples and secluded cave shrines and finding yourself on the other side on the beach of west-wittering. Absolutely beautiful place, but nowhere to eat on a budget, Nikuman and hot-can of cocoa it was. We got off the train in Kita-Kamakura, the north height of the town, and went to a large temple there, it cost to get in but the place was huge, pathways and beautiful buildings, ponds, gateways, sacred gardens and Japans larget bell. We had the pleasure of hearing chanting coming from a closed of complex inside and the entrance to a school of zen inside the temple read "please step lightly enter with peaceful tranquility ". We walked from there up and down a twisted hill to a cave shrine in which people washed their money to triple it in worth. Its worth mentioning to some of you guys that the tristar is tattooed everywhere in these places, it is infact, a real buddhist symbol, representing the three attributed of your life you need to perfect to achieve zen: Your relationship with the gods, your relationship with your environment, and your relationship with other people. Exhausted from that we went out and partied all night until it was time to oversleep and nearly miss Bens flight home.

And now im just about recovered from a little void that stopped me from living like i did before he came, but wouldnt let me see him and pretend like i was infact at home. Its about time to push the boundries i had created around my life here and launch full tilt into sucking in as much as i can, not like theres any use in dwelling on the negative is there? Its only gratuitous time wasting. Next weekend, were going on a long weekend trip to a traditional Japanese inn and experiencing the thrills of an Onsen: japanese spring baths, naked. Joy of joys.

Dont forget kids, if you dont want to hear any of this disjointed ramblings, there are videos on Youtube and pictures on Facebook to enjoy. Anyway, goodnight, im going to get some rest and curl up and feed my new obsession with americas next top model. Dont judge, im going through a lot right now. :)

End of October and a world of fun.

To say i've had a hectic couple of weeks would be boring and uninformative, so forget that. What i actually did is far more interesting. I partied like i expect they meant in the song 1999. Shibuya: east Tokyo, one of 23 wards, home to the famous scramble crossing where the traffic stops from all directions and people invade. The Starbucks that over looks it is interestingly the busiest in the world, not surprising considering its got a population of over 200,000. Also home to Hachiko, a dog that waited at shibuya station every day for its master to come home, for 12 years after his death. Moving.

We however went there for nothing but a good old rave. And we succeeded, with unprecedented vigour. Its two weeks later and my knee is still killing me from the epic workout it got. This part of town is amazing, its what i would expect everyones image of Tokyo to be if they had never seen the place, and when im drunk, it seems im brilliant at making records of things, theres no shortage of footage. Charlie, Jon, Snezh, Alex and I used the photo of google maps that i took to find the place and when we went in, realised that it was a brillaint find. Club Atom lets women in for 1000yen, which pays for two 500yen drinks, guys have no free drinks, but at £3.50 a drink, its not really a problem. Three floors of RnB, Pop and Trance (brilliant!) make for 7 hours until the first train pretty tiring. We did our best to out dance everyone. I must say i thought i would have some reservations about being a white girl in japan on a podium in the centre of a crouded dance hall, but these are the things you learn about yourself when you travel, and evidently, i have no fear. And everyone was so nice to us, especially when Charlie was dancing up there in her mini dress, theyre all so accommodating to foreigners. After we had a casualty of kamikaze's (a drink i dont think needs explaining) and saw the others off home, Charlie and i rocked out until about 5am when they shut and tried to get breakfast. I have never in my life enjoyed being trashed at 5am in public so much. We made friends with a few hundred Japanese, French and Nigerians (Walter was a bouncer we stole from the club, but he just took our stash of ubrellas we also stole and went home. Maybe, not so sure) Breakfast was paid for by a lovely man who wont leave Charlie alone now, and we made it back to the dorm in time to crash out before the kindergarten below us opened its doors.

The week following I joined the gym. I KNOW. Me, in the gym. As fun as it was, i cant go again until my leg sorts itself out or im going to do myself some permenant damage. Shame. I also settled myself into catching up on the ol'feminist movement in Japan, turns out they didnt need to turn to killing themselves in protest over here, the government got there first, which is interesting. The pressure to maintain the family system over here also didnt really boost its popularity. Its difficult to not spend a small part of each day reflecting the value of my life while im here. Its clear that my outlook regarding everything is changing bit by bit. Ive become more content. Probably because im living one of my dreams. Probably because ive got a chance to patch up all the holes that contributed to making me feel shitty unnecessarily all the time. Probably because Ive met people who come with no bullshit that approach friendship as a responsibility and will look out for each other to the deprecation of their own health. I could go on forever, but the point i was trying to make, is that there is a rut you get stuck in when you see the same thing everyday, and all it really takes to make you feel a million times better is to be kicked out of it, to leave your smelly comfort zone and do something you dont ahve the guts to. Ive surprised myself with what i can do, because the nerves that stop me at home dont have the opportunity to rise, when i know ive only got one year to experience everything i can. I love how getting involved makes you feel, who would have guessed university is more that writing essays and getting drunk? The angry attitude is something ive also been trying to banish, and i think i may be getting somewhere. ANYWAY, im getting emotional, i doubt thats what you want to hear about.

The post piss up gang, i nearly got ran over trying to get this one.

Moi with the birthday boy, Tomoya

On Jimmy's birthday, it was also Tomoya's birtday, and so we went for a quiet drink in Ikebukuro and got trolleyed mid week at an Isakaya. Nomihodai (all you can drink) tends to have this affect. Great fun. Wednesday was also the final day was also the final day of the Burgerking promo for the lauch of windows7: they were selling, in Japan only, a 7 patty burger for 777yen (about £5) and of course, we had to get some. I have to note here i played no part in this and was merely there to capture this.

The Bleurgh Burger, only 2200 calories.

Friday was Roy's birthday, ive just realised i havnt bothered to ask him how old he is now, but anyway, as it was Halloween, we combined the two and smashed fancy dress in the face. When we went shopping for costumes, we found a shop called Pandora, there are many shops like this in Tokyo, which sell food, cosmetics, DIY necessities, and costumes, but if youre larger than a Japanese person, youre going to struggle getting around corners.

Does not cater for fat people.

In terms of Halloween costumes, EPIC effort was put in on all fronts, ive never seen a better dressed bunch of people in my life, when we got to Shibuya there were many photo opportunities, and i felt a little like a Hrajuku girl for a few minutes, after everyone filled their memory cards, we went to club Atom once again, and once again, we did ourselves justice. Roy and Yasuo turned out to be most amazing escorts on a night out and rescued me in the swiftest manner when i got dragged away by my waist by a lecherous italian, before i realised what was happening i was safe infront of Yasuo and Roy was having words, i felt like a celebrity. They are both wonderful men, im lucky to find as friends.

Yuki and Roy at uni.

Yasuo pre photo shoot for uni brochure.

Today, it was the beginning of a three day festival at our uni. Tomorrow, were going to join the campus mates and some others and help make Wonton soup for the festival Isakaya style attraction, which may be more of a challenge than i thought, as in the practice session, we watched nothing but contributed greatly to the eating. Its going to be fun. And, as if that wasnt enough for me to dwell on, BENS COMING TO JAPAN ON FRIDAY! I cant actually wait, there are more than a million things i want to show him.

Im missing you people an awful lot, i see things all the time i want to send home to each of you. The fam are also on my list of people im desperate to see, the bro's are growing up without me, i miss you millions more than i can describe. Many loves and care. Heres some awesome shots from Halloween. xxxxx

Some amazingly dressed Japanese girls. The boys and the girls.

Found a man dressed as a golden sperm.

With the corpse bride, brilliant! The fallen angel fell asleep.

Asakusa, Ueno and Kawagoe. Lets start how we mean to go on.

I'm sitting at home after skipping school for the day, because the level of drunk I got on Friday is still effecting my stomach. I've just received Jonathan's CD parcel (thank you a lot, you're a bastard for the picture) so I'm listening to it and eating Bento and Sushi I got from the supermarket for about £3. It's probably the nicest piece of fish ive ever tasted in my life.

The weekend was a three day blast of culture and adventure, which was nice, as I started getting mopey about staring at the same series of walls week in week out when we had no funds to be able to explore. I dont know if its noticeable to any of the others, but I feel ive started to chill out and settle myself in more, its hard to remember sometimes that i am not a 15 year old life student anymore but a goddamn adult, all that said, its bloody exciting all these new shiney people and things, no mind can cope with this much information and gain no side effects.

Friday i took it upon myself to solve the problem of not knowing where the hell we were by looking at a map and reading the travel guide. I found Asakusa, an old entertainment district which houses Geisha's, the largest Budhist temple in Tokyo, strip clubs, artisans and media exploration. (impressed arent you?) I had certain goals and they were all reached. From the approach to the temple there are streets filled with traditional crafts, tourist shops and toys, you can get authentic anything for a price down here, and the main street leading for about half a mile straight up to the temple at the end is beautiful, all of this is integrated fully into the town, theres no boundaries like your usual place of historic value.

We paid to see our fortunes, you shake a mettle can and get a stick with a number, once you've put it back you find your draw with the corresponding number and take the top sheet from the stack of fortunes. No one is aware of the freedom to pick your own, and everyone obediently finds their draw. If you get bad forture, you tie the sheet to a rack and leave it for the gods to change, if you have good fortune, you trot off happy, i got the best fortune, and i keep it in my wallet. Not that I believe in its abilities, but my luck at getting anything id like is shoddy, even if it is only what i want a piece of paper to say. Ironically it was in draw 13 that i found it.

Inside the temple is housed the smallest gold statue of Buddha, caught in two fishermens nets, its amazing to think something that small created the layout for an entire section of Tokyo. Both men have shrines devoted to them, and the gardens surrounding it lay worship to a large number of important gods that protect everything concerning the well-being of the main temple and its contents. I had the pleasure of finding out that my knee is a calling point for old men to hoist their way up the stairs to worship their gods. Any time man, any time.

Walking further into the town, i abused the guide book and led us to an indoor batting cage i had read about, it was as awesome as it sounds, and we all attempted to dodge the super fast leather hurling towards us- i mean, hit the balls.

Lunch was fast food Tempura, brilliant, i now love mushrooms, then we wandered the streets unitl it was time to crash out, its not even an epically long JR journey youll all be pleased to know. All in all, i outdid myself and didnt get anyone lost at all, organising yourself pays off. I went back to Ekoda with Jon to play a few games with a beer before sleeping the day off, but we met some Americans we had found in a bar that lived here for over a year, and as far as i can remember, it all got very very messy. I dont think im going to indulge on details.

Saturday we decided to go see what the fuss was about at Ueno park, Tokyo's national park. Its a HUGE place, with about 5 museums, a zoo, tonnes of temples and shrines and in the middle. Street performers wander around scaring you, or making you laugh, its like a permanent serene carnival, that if you want to, you can choose to avoid and just walk under the trees. There were some amazing stilted performers playing out some crazy messed up pied piper down the streets, and a brilliant band that looked like something out of a Burton movie.

The park was also home to the statue and memory of The last Samurai: Saigo Takamori (yes, the guy the movie was named afer, he is the man that in the movie was shot at the end, not the short arse Cruise) Please research his story, he was a legendary man. His honour was lost when he rebelled against the Meiji leadership he helped gain power when they became corrupt. When he was restored to honour, the statue was made, but his military uniform was replaced with the yukata because of this fact, the dog makes him cuter :P.

I enjoyed a pizza and infinate coffee, followed by a blue banana. Yup, blue banana. Still in recovery from friday night i could only take a few more bizarre forms of entertainment before i hot footed it onto a train home and felt grim for the rest of the evening. No matter, we had a busy day the next day, so rest was necessary.

Sunday Charlie and i woke up at stupid o'clock to meet Yuki in Ikebukoro so as we could watch Roy compete in an inter-collegic Judo tournament. It started at 9am and took about an hour to get there. We had no idea how long these things lasted, but when had a break at lunch, we had a pretty good idea. It was probably the most fun ive ever had watching a sport, not only because my Asain fetish was over indulged, but because Japanese sports are about the honour game they like to play. When we spoke to the captain of the Musashi team at lunch, he thanked us for watching him, and apologised for not winning. Roy did the same, and i loved it, although by this point, i feel i know Roy enough to be British and tell him it didnt matter and i didnt care if he won or not, it was watching it that i liked. i dont know how he took it, but it was a fantastic day. Obviously they loved being the team with three white girls cheering them on. Below is Roy and some crazy fan.

After we got our man fix, we went to meet the others at a place called Kawagoe, (Festivalville) and saw a rare winter festival, Yuri who organised the trip said no one really knows what its for anymore, but its a brilliant atmosphere. We walked down crouded streets for a couple of hours, festival food in japan beats the west any day, theres fruit in blocks of ice which is actually sugar they chip off and give you, home made sweet buns in various shapes, Okanomyaki (pancakes FULL of food fried) squid on sticks, squid in balls, roast corn, ice cups you can pour your own syrup on (highlight of my day), potatoes swirled around sticks. Its all fascinating. When we walked a long distance, we turned the corner into the old part of town, with Edo period buildings, it was beautiful, it was like being in ancient Japan, if you could use your imagination.

the floats were pulled down the streets by families and others, and they were towering tall mini theatres covered in candles. We watched them for another couple of hours, they would stop and the top part of the floats would be span around and they would perform to watch other, or near businesses they were affiliated to.

It was an amazing experience, this country never ceases to impress me. We could never have something this impressive at home. What struck me very hard at the time was that to maintain an interest and commitment to traditions that everyone understands, you have to do something as drastic as the east did and isolate yourself from the reset of the world for hundreds of years. Its not everyone's cup of tea, but its worked for these guys, and its something to be proud of. There's no arrogance here, nationalism perhaps, but they've got a lot to be proud of.

For the most part, homework consists of Japanse work sheets which we do almost immediately after class, and a whole library of reading which doesnt seem to be on the list of to do things for anyone. Studying takes up time we need to experience the culture in, if you know what i mean, and so, at the weekends, its all about learning. Conveniently a lot of classes are cancelled this week and next, so maybe i can catch up with writing home to everyone. It is coming dont worry!

This weekend after spending most of saturday getting unnecessarily worked up, off we went to Akihabara: Electric Town (the signs for the underground exits do indeed say electric town) to purchase two brilliant cameras for Snezh and I. Happy birthday Ben, i got you the camera i always wanted.


For lunch we got this thing which i can only describe as a giant fried ball full of veg and fish, covered in sauce and cheese, and yes, as always, we were expected to eat it with chopsticks.

Akihabara is the capital for electronic outlets, Anime and of course, Hentai. Trown, youre going to have a field trip when you get here. Its very hectic and specialises in Maid Cafe's, where men like to go and hire some maids to treat them like children and have tea parties and play jenga and other such fun games. The maids hand out fliers on the streets, sadly I didnt have the camera at that point. Its also riddled with arcades. Win.


Sunday we were invited to a Japanese BBQ organised by the campus mates, there were about 30 of us i reckon, foreign and Japanese, and everyone got a chance to cook. It was on the coast,
pretty close to Disneyland Tokyo, you could see the castle in the distance,
it was pretty cool.

It was held in a park with a bbq patch, as well as giant sight seeing wheel and beach. There was a phenomenal amount of meat at the BBQ, and delicious noodle, it was a great day, after mass amounts of food we walked across a giant bridge to the duney beach and played volleyball, watched the weird little dogs being walked and the adorable children playing with the sand, it felt like we were on holiday, i cannot wait until spring break to go exploring the rest of the country. (More pictures are gonna find their way to facebook eventually.) After finding our way home with about 2 kilos of left over meat, we had a massive dinner and crashed out, Charlie and i managed to live to our heritage and burn ourselves in the sun. It was brilliant, i need to get out of the city more. We rode the wheel when everyone else had made their way home as the sun was going down and got a brilliant view of the edge of the city, even as far out as we were, it was still impressively build up.

Bens told me hes going to come out at the beginning of November, i cant wait. Most things i see i remind myself to take him when he comes, its awesome ive got the opportunity twice. Everyone has to see this country once in their lives, its so alien, you'll never see anything like it.

Closing in on a month now.

Ive been meaning to set up this blog since i arrived, actually, i was trying to get my livejournal working again, but it was a giant waste of time, thank you internet. Its all taken so long because of all the exciting things ive had to do, like filling out paper work for a bank account all in japanese, and waiting in a phone shop for 5 and a half hours for a phone contract. i have to say, its not the side of japan i was expecting to get to grips with first of all. What with university starting a week after we arrived, the time for adventuring is on temporary hold. Let us begin.

The university is on the north east side of Tokyo city, our district is Nerima, but the town-ish part we live in is called Ekoda, and its now known as Home to me and Charlie. Uni is a relatively small one, that i would describe as a place more similar to Collyer's than a uni. The time, effort and money designated to sports and clubs probably matches that of the curriculum, but the whole place is very well equip for everything. Our academic programme consists of Japanese three days a week, politics, business and history. Studying things from a local perspective is AWESOME, its precisely why i came here and its not failed to impress me, i cant believe how ignorant western democracies are when it comes to Asia, its like everyone has just left them to their own devices, and each country one by one is overtaking the west economically, i'm strongly considering swapping teams.

The university atmosphere is welcoming, and everyone seems to be a lot more focused on their intentions: university here is for studying, you hang out when you have spare time, unlike at home where you're tripping over bars to get to lectures. There are a lot of students that we have got to know that love showing us how things work and helping us out, we met them through the Campus Mates club, who get together for that exact reason, and they're affiliated with the English Jam club, who's intentions are to get together and learn English.

Our dormitory is a ten minute walk on the other side of town an is called Rikko Kaikan, its international halls, there are a lot of Malaysian's, Koreans and a few Japanese. Were separated into girl and boy buildings, but we all share a kitchen. Its pretty shoddy, and you have to pay for everything as you go, including showers, but the people ive met here are brilliant, the rooms are clean, small, but clean, and considering were not allowed anyone in them really, all you need is the sleeping space and a comfortable atmosphere, which i could make out of a rotting hut if given the right tools. Immediately next door is a primary school for under 8 year-olds, you'll have to wait for the pictures, because words cant describe how cute a Japanese child is in wellies and a school uniform. They have singing lessons when i get up on a Wednesday, TOOOOOOO CUTE. They were all extremely entertained when i walked onto the roof outside my window today to look at the storm, i might have to steal one.

There are 24hr supermarkets near, and Y100 shops (where everything is 70p) which usually have all types of food and home necessities. Internet is super fast, lunch can cost between Y200 and Y500, (£1.40-3.50) for something Jack could get full on, Ive got myself a Japanese oyster card, and have found the cheapest bar in town. Brilliant.

My birthday here was fantastic, a large group of us went to Ikebukuro and had a Nomihodai (you pay a set rate of about £20 and drink and eat as much as you can for 2 hours) and after we were all sufficiently stuffed or drunk, made our way to an epic 5 hour session of Karaoke, Japanese style. Other than the birthday, we've been out a few times, if you dont get Nomihodai, drinking can be pretty expensive, ive not seen a drink for less that £5 really. Ive been to various temples and shrine, Yasakuni Shrine being the most affective i think, but i plan on revisiting everything ive seen so far with the camera, when i buy it.

Brian, head of the kokusai centre (international centre) organises monthly free trips around places of interest. Were going hiking in a couple of weeks.

South Korea in december with a couple of people, ive been reading up on the north, and am starting to contemplate whether i have the guts to bribe my way in. We shall see. Right this very minute, were sitting in the crotch of the biggest typhoon to hit Japan is silly years, all the trains have been cancelled, so has uni, wish i had my camera. Here's a satellite image anyway.

For now, loves to all, ill keep better track of the updates. x