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?