Monsters in Japan

Would you like an excuse as to why i dont write often? its the same reason i dont write to the people im supposed to in the real world, and why i cant read all the books im supposed to, and why i dont devote enough time to japanese. i cant exactly tell you what that reason is, but it probably has something to do with my complete and utter lack of time keeping, combined with a tendency to contemplate my fragile emotional status constantly. If something bothers me, i devote all my time and energy into making myself feel better about it (which may commonly come in the shape of me watching a lot of feel good tv to in fact avoid thinking about it), and i also have no concept of the potential value of a 24 hour period. I should probably stop being so self involved, but then who else am i living for exactly? I dont care, its probably easier to just tell you all the exciting things ive been doing and get on with doing some more of them. This is one year out of my life im allowed to sacrifice all things sensible to make way for those ridiculous moments i can tell people when in need of a good story right?

So march is HANAMI: roughly translated as flower watching. The cherry blossoms come out at this time of year and it is shamefully beautiful everywhere, there is absolutely nothing that can bring down your mood at this time of year, except maybe 5/7days of rain a week. Must remember to fall in love with a country closer to the equator in future. There are hundreds of varieties of SAKURA, pink, white, red and crimson are simple ways of pointing them out, and every public green space is covered with them, especially so that for the two to three week period that they blossom, anyone anywhere can sit and enjoy their lunch and some alcohol and admire the wonders of nature. Its possibly the best seasonal celebration of any country i know. it is your duty as someone with a conscience to get drunk in a park and admire flowers at least once during hanami.Brilliant, well done this country.

view outside my window

We had a few parties obviously, to make sure everyone was satisfied that their devotion to nature was noted. At one point i remember noting that all that needed to be added to make it the perfect music festival was a stage and some lights, and lo and behold, as the sun set, someone started churning out hard dance music from the edge of the park and a tent with fairy lights was erected around him. rave ensued, brilliant end to 14 hours of steady drinking. The second party though considerably more timid, was with the nearest and dearest bunch of people i have here, and it was jolly good fun. Jenny was around at this time, and i hope she enjoyed the fish skin and paint stripper + OJ cocktails as much as i did.

The week of Jenny was fantastic fun, except for the horrible amount of rain and our talent at going to museums on the one day a week they were shut (which is different for every museum we found out), i really enjoyed catching up with you. We searched the city for its commemorative stamps like we were in a computer game, and i tried my hardest not to overwhelm her with I KNOW THATS EXACTLY WHAT I THOUGHT WHEN I ARRIVED TOO comments. Similar story to most of the world at the time, she got stranded here for a few days longer than she wanted to be, and we used the time wisely by getting horendously drunk for Yuki's birthday. I got him a copy of the velvet underground album.

Before this brilliant night out in Shibuya, Yasuo and i had got tickets to go see a concert of 4 or 5 bands, including two that he had introduced me to and i had concequently become a big fan of. Let me just say that a gig in Japan (obviously now i think about it) is absolutely nothing like a gig in the UK. For starters, most people go dressed like theyre about to go to the Gym. No logical point in wearing anything that you like, because your body's going to be pressed up against up agains 100 people the whole night and youre going to come out covered in sweat. Following this logic, they all wear towels around their necks too, wouldnt want to look like everyone around you feels now would you. i soldiered on, right at the front, the only white, tall, bare armed, red headed girl in the entire venue. Needless to say i got the attention of the bassist whenever i needed to. Rize and Pay Money To My Pain were both really good, although i spent most of the time staring at the lead gangster in Rize jigging his baby girl around in the wings in support of all the other bands, and im so so glad i had the opportunity to go. I got a commemorative baseball  cap and everything, so now i can look as gansgtar as Jessie McFadden. That saturday, i woke up at 10am, rocked out at a gig from 4-10 and then went clubbing from 10-4am. I have the power.

Also in the months of march/ april, was the Tokyo Internationa Anime Fair. Thats where all the major, minor, ancient and brand new anime artists and distribution companies come together to plug all their new stuff. There was literally everything you ever wanted out of the japanese cartoon industry under one roof, i mean everything, except hentai. London Expo had nothing on this shit. I picked up a lot of free merchandise and got some cracking photos of beautiful women dressed as characters. Alex and I walked around in our cosplay costumes too, and as in accordance to tradition in Japan, only vendors and people who work there dress up, we got a lot of attention for photographers, i have never been called cute so many times in one day.

24KG PS3, for real.

I dont know if i mentioned it at all but it was also Graduation at univeristy for some of my friends, many foreign students were away, so it was a great opportunity to pretend like i was a real student. Yasuo, Mayuko, Natsue, Ricky and a few hundred others graduated in traditional daigakusei kimono's and the whole university was there to say goodbye to members of their societies. Its important to meniton here that almost everyone is a part of one society or another, and they all celebrate each one of their team leaving. Theres no huge party at the end because everyones having team parties, its like families saying goodbye to their eldest. I stole Yasuo from his party in the evening and went out for one of the most fun and drunk evenings of Karaoke with two fantastic people: Lucas and his english tutee Kumi. March was fantastic.

Last weekend was the first field trip after coming back to uni. Brian (our tutor) took us to Tsukiji fish market, the big famous one everyone always raves about when they visit. I thank god we went there with someone who know what they were doing because i would have been comepltely terrified walking up and down the hundreds of lanes of fish and other such sea dwelling organisms on my own. It was something like Sweeny Todd with fish i swear. We went for sushi for breakfast, because we were there at the crack of dawn. Also, on the way, walking down the unsuspectingly normal looking street before we got to the gates, i saw, in a crate outside a sushi restaurant, inside of which was a large tail fin of what looked like could have been a small shark. Turned out it belonged to the 7ft long tuna that was sitting atop a barrel cart in the alleyway next to the sushi restaurant. This thing was bigger that two fat extremely tall humans hugging and it was entirely whole. Monster, i will will never forget you.

We spent the rest of that day walking all over the south end of the city in search for beautiful tower block scenery and peaceful Japanese gardens. It was a lovely day and the weather was fantastic. I got my flower photography on, and went home a happy bunny. Thinking the weekend couldnt get any better, the joys of last sunday were a complete surprise, and gave me one of those "oh my days, im living in TOKYO" moments. I went out to Ageo and got driven around a beautiful piece of countryside, spent the day in even better weather, in even better parks and eating home made tempura, it was really really good fun, and a kind of therapy i didnt realise i needed until i got on the train home, alone, and realised it was the last thing i wanted to be just then.

Luckily that was just in time for Saskia's birthday karaoke extraudinair, photo's and videos of which tell a much more vivid story than i ever could will most likely wind up on the internet soon.

This week, more than any other in the whole glorious time ive been here, i missed my family a lot, it was a fantastic feeling to be able to speak to my mum and my nan yesterday, i really really miss you guys. I dont want to jinx it, but ive got 3 months left and the time is going so quickly. Iim hoping im not beginning to get that nearly-there feeling that used to make me have mini heart attacks.

This weekend is the beginning of golden week: that's a 5 day period where almost everyone in the city has a day off, and everyone has the same intention... KYOTO! So thats where were heading too. Wish us luck. Tell me, because im gonna have to start catching up with everyone at some point, whats been going on back at home?

For Aeravi:

I was once told by my English teacher that she was to go to a funeral for a woman she knew when she was younger, and her family requested that everyone bring a jar, filled with something that they considered important or relevant to their relationship with her. She told us to use this information as inspiration, and show her the results when she came back. True story.

Now whenever i think of empty jars, I can see a huge cottage in the British countryside, its summer, and warm, but the weather isn't terribly good, and its probably closing on 5pm, the house's garden stretches down a mild slope, there are giant pot plants, and tools dangling from vines and wooden structures around the edge, and toy trucks and a rickety metal framed swing and see-saw combo, and wooden bench which probably needs to be bonfire fuel, but seeing as its only the kids who use it, it will be left there until winter rains claim it. At the bottom of the garden is a two barred wooden fence, which frames the lower part of the rolling fields which run down the huge hill side to the surrounding valley. To the left of the fields below the fence are more fields, belonging to the neighbours, and to the right, the forest lives. Huge evergreen trees which deepen into black velvet shadows. The place would be scary for a child, had it not been coupled with the beauty of the surrounding valley, and if you had lived there your whole life, you had nothing to fear of the close relationship you developed with its outer edges, searching for whatever secrets it is that forests keep.

Whenever i see empty jars, I see a small girl in a flower patterned summer dress and a tatty cardigan that she is only allowed to wear when there is no change of the family going out in the day. Its garden clothes. She wears red wellies and had her hair tied back in a knot, but not very successfully. She is coming out of the giant wooden door at the centre of the back of the house, and struggling to shut it because her arms are too short for her body to get out of the way when she pulls on the handle, completely ignores the need to tell people where she is going. She's carrying a large empty glass jar, with the lid in the pocket of her dress, and she is heading straight for the fence at the bottom of the garden. It takes a small amount of concentration for her to hoist herself over the sty, but she's thinking of other things, and absent mindedly jumps down and hops into the forest, going about her daily business, like she is not that interested in it, but knows its got to be done.

Whenever I see empty jars, I see a huge forest and this girl far too small to fit into the picture proportionally strolling along, looking up at the wildlife, touching her favourite trees, lest the gremlins come out of the holes that only a human touch can close (lucky for the forest that she is there then really), picking small flower shrubs that are growing in the sunny patches and dropping them moments later because she forgot what it was she was fiddling with. All the time, keeping pace and knowing exactly where she was going, carrying the large jar all the while. At one point, there is a yellow forest flower, which is probably attached to a giant weed, she scoops up some compost from the ground absent mindedly with the jar without looking at what she is doing, while she concentrates on pulling the flower free without upsetting the rest of the plant. She pots the flower and carries on trotting through. After the picture is clear enough in my head, and i get the feeling she has been walking for long enough to be away from anywhere that would be of interest to any other person, she hops ahead to a ferny area which covers the floor of an arch of two or three trees, like a large doorway, through it she goes and places the jar at her feet.

When I see an empty jar, I see the jar with the yellow flower full of soil at the feet of the girl with the red wellies, and touching the far edge of the jar is another empty jar, and in front of that jar is another, and in front of that jar is a wall of jars, and stretching like a wonky round house outward, either side of the girl, and behind the wall of jars are more jars, and the jars tower above her into the sky, like jacks beanstalk. Less than a third of the jars have plants in them, some ferns, some flowers, growing and spilling out into the jars below them. Some of the jars are green, some are brown, some special ones are blue, and occasionally there is a pink tinted jar. As the tower goes up they begin to glisten in the shards of sunlight that hit them. I imagine if it went as high as the sky, that there would be clouds and birds circulating the top jars. The girl stands for a while marvelling at the height of the structure, smiles to herself, and turns and hops all the way back to the house, through the forest, over the fence, through the trucks and toys and shovels and plants, onto the step of the giant yellow wooden door, and back into the house.

She has such a responsibility, but she never fails to uphold it.

Ah the poetry of the open road...

Yesterday i decided i was going to buy a bicycle, because wherever i walk i notice myself ignoring whats going on arond me to rank all the bikes in coolness, and imagine what my perfect shopper would look like. I enlisted Jon to help me, but instead of going to buy a new one, he convinced me i should buy his off him, except his is over an hour away, and it was broken, apparently, but it did sound more perfect than the cheap one i could get from the supermarket in Numobukuro. So i decided i would do something useful and productive with my holiday, and fix up and collect a bike.

Thats what i did today, with the help of Verena, we went to Asaka, found the bike, got the tire pumped up (so much for being broken Jon) and i cycled it all the way back to Kotake-cho. It only took me an hour and a half, in the rain, and the dark, but i feel really good about myself, and i cant actually wait until the bad weather goes away so i can go and explore Tokyo by bike. Im going to start planning now. The cranes are going to have to step aside.

In talk of cranes, i have made 90 cranes. The are strung up in rainbow strings of 18, and they look awesome. I cant wait for Charlie to come back and wow her with my hyper-developed prowess in folding.

Tomorrow hopefully we shall finalise the plans for going to Korea, I actually cannot wait to go there. I received permission from a man we met out there approving us of having a drink with him and his friends, so it should be rukkus. Maybe i should begin the process of reminding him that he said we could stay with him soon, lest he be surprised. OR i could just leave it to the friendly charms of Charlie when we get there. ..

Right now, i have embarked on a new project which will again conveniently take me away from the studies which are really important. I am delving into the money laundering world of the superficial backwards movie industry and watching all the movies the poo-sniffers involved think are worth their weight in blood money and have nominated for best film. If im still not satisfied that i chose to get out of media when i did, i shall move onto the other films in other categories. Finishing with a delightfuly refreshing and reassuring Best Foreign Language film. Im still not sure why those films are never allowed to access the category of Best Film, but then im not George Clooney. I think im trying to rant, i better stop before no one understands the complex links i make in my head and forget to say out loud.

Nothing more, get on with your life, and get off the internet, the mice on bicycle generators are growing weary.

Bit by bit, the dreams are all coming to fruition.

Folding paper cranes makes me feel a way I've never known before i went to Hiroshima. The Story of Sadako comes into my head every time i fold paper, and this feeling which gets my heart racing takes up my thoughts until i finish. And the more i fold the more i think about it, and the more i think about it, the more i want to make a thousand cranes. It feels a little like defiance, and a little like regret. So i have made the obvious choice, and decided to make a thousand cranes before i leave Japan. I'm expecting a revelation to come at the end or something. Maybe a wish. Here's the beginning, ill keep you updated.

Its taken me so long to write anything down because I've been spending far too much time indulging myself with things that i love: reading; eating; learning guitar; learning Japanese; watching ghost in the shell; sleeping; origami etc. For three whole days i don't think i said a word to anyone, and it was fucking fantastic. Then it started dragging a bit, and i was getting more and more pissed of with Bella Swan's constant self obsessed whining, so i have been mixing up my time with the company of others. I found that Jon and Eugene's new part of town is actually a pretty cool part of town, and i may very well buy myself a new bike soon to go to see them easier. I found that Hoppi is a drink i need to fear rather than love. I hung out with Lucas and helped him make glass balls into earing's, and i went to his wife Aeravi's black light exhibition, where i met a Scottish dude, and a brilliant man called Kenji. I bought paints for my Gundam model, and i started building it. I learnt how to make flowers and frogs and people and boxes out of paper. I mentally prepared myself for my holiday plans over the next six months, including planning the flights, and i learnt how to play Ziggy Stardust on the Guitar. I have enjoyed the last two weeks immensely.

Now however, I'm getting that itching to go back to school, lest i completely forget what I'm doing with my life. I went to the university library today after finding out my scholarship was late, thinking i might as well abuse the facilities I'm being paid to use, and got out some Japanese fiction by Abe and Tanizaki. I thought if they were shit, at least i had tried, and i wouldn't feel guilty only reading Murakami. That's next anyway. Japanese isn't doing to badly either, i've been listening into conversations as much as i can, and ive realised my vocab isn't too bad, i just have a terrible time working out the context of the topic. Also, i've been committing a lot of time to Kanji, which turns out when you make it a challenge, is really fun to learn. I happily decided i had reached the 100 Kanji mark yesterday, and rewarded myself with chocolate from the vat that mum sent me. Sadly the vat is only a handful of Easter eggs now. That's nothing to be proud of.

So what happened over the last two months that has made me too busy to write about i hear you ask? I cant remember, although i took enough pictures that they pretty much tell the story without me having to divulge how i felt about the whole thing. Going on Holiday was going on holiday: great fun, lots of travelling and a lot of uphill cycling. I filled a little book with flyers and tickets and memories that i didn't really need to keep hold of and will never find a right place to store, lets see...

I began the holiday with a god awful cold, but Alex brought a long a small chemist, so i managed to dry up like a prune in no time, which helped me over come my cold with good old fashioned healthy eating and wrapping up warm, i am getting very good at looking after my health... (that bit was for nan, hi nan, miss you, xx) ...and so we took some bikes that our hippie layabout hostel owners allowed tenant's to use for free, and searched around the city for a couple of days, castles, aquariums etc, it was all lovely, but clearly the kind of place you need to visit when the sun is at its best and you have time to island hop. Anyway, i was happy to get back to the mainland.

Nagasaki is a brilliant part of Japan, its a valley covered in hills which are covered in tombs and graveyards, and winding in between the old and new buildings which fill up the bottom is a brilliant and well kept old fashioned tram line. The place is so small that you could walk most of it in a day, but the trams are an important part of the history, and its an experience to see the stops named after the memorial sights all around. The speciality food is Champon, which is like vegetable ramen, with tonnes and tonnes of vegetables, and it is of course, delicious. Aside from temples galore, there's a park with a huge statue of the first samurai to wear boots overlooking the bay, the city and the hills. We found this place by walking vertically for a ridiculous amount of time through a graveyard to what we thought would be a beautiful temple, turns out the temple was the construction site we passed near the bottom. We weren't disappointed, the view was pretty spectacular.

Anyway, this man defied the terms of the samurai, put on some boots and went into merchant business, establishing a new generation of elites wot like to trade. He was a very clever man apparently, and if his statue was anything to go by, a pretty attractive man as well. The war memorials, of which there were many, were also on a hill, along the other side of the city. There was a park, with many statues and a giant fountain. Water is an important part of the atomic bomb memorial process, as water was the only thing thousands of people thought about as they died, and you're not expected to forget that around here. The museum focused on education of atomic warfare, and how ghastly its existence is. The testimonials of survivors were in their hundreds on the walls, and on the TV screens. I try to find words that explain how effective they are, but it makes you quiet with incomprehension, all i can think of is a humiliated "I'm so very sorry".

We met some Americans who were living in Korea at our very lovely dorm, and then got the night bus to Hiroshima. Similar to Nagasaki in an bizarre way, it too is laced with tram tracks, but has a more city feel to it, spread over a larger, flatter area, the tram actually serves as an important mode of transportation. We arrived 3 hours before life began in the morning, so we found the living space, and i began learning how to make cranes. This was more appropriate than i could have wanted it to be, as Hiroshima is where Sadako's story took place, and where hundreds of thousand of paper cranes find themselves sent every year. When you get to the memorial park here, its more apparent that Hiroshima has dedicated itself to the campaign for peace through example. I cant explain in enough words, but everyone HAS to see this place once in their life. It a legend of history, and i don't worry that were never going to forget it. The park is lager than that of Nagasaki, and is crossed by many paths, in the centre of the city, you can see the tall buildings all around. The are is filled with trees, which i could grasp, because the said nothing would be able to grow in Hiroshima for 75 years after the destruction. It only took 6, which they also said was a miracle. In the park is the Sadako statue, and the eternal flame, which they wont put out until nuclear war is no longer a threat. At this point, when i saw huge buildings towering around, trees that aren't supposed to be alive, people cycling to work through what was a nuclear wreckage 60 years ago, and the giant symmetrical memorial river with the museum at the end, i felt like i had swallowed a wrench and it was causing an implosion of sadness. I don't think I'm going to forget that place as long as i live. What i imagined a town dedicated to the memorial of an atomic attack to feel like was nothing in comparison to reality, i understand the phrase "you really have to see it" perfectly.

Anyway, there was lots to do, and so we did it and then went home. Okanomuyaki is the speciality here, and we ate it until we felt sick, its possibly one of the most awesome meals in the world. I had a day of relaxation which i wasted getting absolutely blind drunk on red wine before mum turned up. That's another story anyway, so, with the great sentiment of southern Japan, Peace.

Oh Jesus, i thought i didnt have that much to catch up on, writing is just as exciting as the thought of doing homework at the moment. God only knows where the memories of the last two months have gone. Keep yourself occupied with the photos and fill in the information yourself wont you? As the brilliant Dylan Moran said as his opening line to What it is: "I dont know!".

So think of others next time you plan on causing a disturbance in public.

A lot can happen in two months it seems.

I hate myself for leaving it this long to explain whats happened since november - where on earth do i begin? ive been driving myself slightly crazy over it, its a process of digestion of events for myself to write in my blog, and now im in a position where everything is slightly foggy, and how i feel about it all is quite lost. Whats the interest in just describing what i did now?. I also realise youre all despirate to get your fix of my antics, they have been great i can tell you that :P.

lets start with late november ( i have to shuffle through the photo albums to remember, but luckily i love my camera enough that nothing slipped by) lots of official business i suppose here - we were invited to our japanese teachers house for dinner and got to enjoy the most western meal i think any of us had in a while, it was really nice to enjoy such an experience, you dont get that kind of thing with your teachers at home, and she was a great cook - there was even REAL red wine. Her apartment on the outside was exactly like all the apartments you see in Japanese horror movies, and i got the good kind of freaked out walking from the elevator to the front door.

Seki Sensei and the dog, im sorry i cant remember her name

It was Eugenes birthday on the same day so it was imperative that we went out and got him slaughtered, i dont think we succeeded, but we did have an awefully good time, found a hobgoblin there, selling actual hobgoblin ales, and a friend of Roys who works there - a japanese girl with a brilliant south london accent. That was the night Yuki got a bulls-eye playing darts for the first time in his life.

Yuki's unsane bulls-eye

On the 26th, our politics teacher, courtesy of our British tutors friendship with Japanese government, organised for us to have a meeting with the chairman of the house of representatives (of the government of Japan) he's has the same role as the chairman of the house of lords in the UK. Everyone made their efforts to get into a suit, Philip even bought himself a tie, although, due to not knowing how to tie one, skilfully took it out of the packet and put it around his neck without undoing it. Well done Philip. Japanese parliament is a beautiful building, which has 70's style light boards which tell you which members of parliament are in by lighting up the button next to their name, in some geeky way i found this quite impressive - im sure someone has had a lot of fun with that in the past. There is a staircase in the centre of the building which since the building has been built, has only ever had the emperor and cleaning staff step on it, this again i think is amusing to think about, we weren't allowed to take any pictures of the inside of parliament really, but i drew a crappy sketch of it - if only i could find it. At some point soon im going to try and get the pictures up on facebook, ive got exams and papers to have finished before the end of the month, so i expect ill be doing that soon, to avoid such work.

Takahiro Yokomichi's Office

Then we come to Shizuoka - Home to 3.7 million people, a prefecture which is about a 4 hour drive south of Tokyo, its where the first Shogun came from, and its famous for mandarins, yam soup (bleurgh your heart out) and sushi. We spent two days on a coach- i mean - exploring the place, it was brilliant fun, but in Japan they like to be so organised theres not a lot of time to explore, so i felt very much like a tourist. We did however get to experience some cultural classics that ive been wanting to know about for a long time. First there was the onsen. That was the naked bathing. More fun than i thought it would be, and after a couple of scary naked minutes, not as embarrassing, makes you wonder what the big deal about body issues is actually. While we were in Shizuoka we saw some lovely temples, ate a lot of food, saw a lot of hello kitty statues, and saw Fujisan from afar, it was beautiful, im looking forward to getting closer to it at some point.

Mandarine farm, we got to eat as many as we could in the time we had, negative acid overdose

We hung out in our yokata's after onsen, chilled to the max

And thats mount fuji in the background, just...

Between Shizuoka and Christmas break, usual banter ensues: there was the day we pretended we could spend any amount of money and go Christmas shopping, Charlie and i did it all in a 12 hour shopping day and rewarded ourselves with Spanish food with Max and Roy, Roy is a fountain of knowledge when he is drunk, boy i actually love you, many times. And no evening is complete without a little humerous banter...

The Gundam floor of an electronics store, thats right, the ENTIRE floor is toy robot kits - yes James and George, your christmas present did come from here.

Comically oversized cone charlie attempted to put on her head.

There was also the Meiji museum where we got to learn all about Meiji Japan and the restoration through a few giant paintings commissioned on the millennium - its awesome mainly because many of the painters painted the king to traditional values that mean you cant look directly at him, so he is constantly being blocked by something, like someone's taken a series of bad photos for the commission. We followed that up with a healthy dose of ridiculously titled ice cream.

Baskin Robbins most offensively tasteless icecream

Just before Christmas break, when i had successfully finished all my work early, Yasuo took me on a music finding adventure, and we ended up in Koeji (im assuming that's how its spelt, you never know really) It was the first part of Tokyo apart from Ekoda that felt like it was actually lived in, we rambled the streets for a while trying to find a hidden gem of a record store, and after trawling the same street hundreds of times with no win, we finally went back after 2pm and saw a small sign in the street saying it was open. This place was no bigger than a university accommodation living room, but you could get an alcoholic drink, or a coffee, and sit and listen to the music, there was a glorified soap box in the corner which is used as a stage sometimes. Its the home of a collection of alternative and underground folk music, and its a really relaxing environment to spend some time in, even if it does feel like you've just walked into someone's bedroom. We had a chirstmas get together at university and went on our ways to do whatever exciting things we needed to do over christmas. For me Charlie and Snezh, that was going to Thailand...