First Week Recap - Tokyo and that

Im in Aogaki! Hooray.

Anyway let me recap. It's Friday today, so I'll go through from Sat. Quickly, hopefully.

SATURDAY -----------------------------------------------------

Left England. Plane was cool, sat next to a friend so was good fun and went quickly. Made a right tit of myself though, there was no cheese with my crackers for lunch and so I asked for some, the attendant (who was Japanese), was so polite and apologetic, seemed so upset about it that I felt really bad, after she'd left I made a (tasteless, obviously) joke to my friend about her having to commit ritual suicide... She didn't laugh, and I wondered why until I noticed the attendant right behind me. She sort of said 'cheese' and thrust it into my plate then ran off. I laughed until I cried. Mainly out of embarrassment than anything else. This is a theme I will return to.




SUNDAY -----------------------------------------------------
Touchdown. Narita is a cool airport and everything went smoothly. The humidity was crazy, never felt anything like it before. It's like walking into a sauna, you feel you're drinking the air rather than breathing it. Went to the hotel, which is by far the nicest I've stayed in, 5 star jobby with massive chandelier lit rooms, beautiful spaces, the whole lot. Shared a room with two cool guys from my prefecture which was good, would have been shit to share with people you didn't get on with. Had the day off, wandered round Shinjuku with some people at first looking for a place to eat, found this tiny place next to the station which completely made you forget you were in a busy city, it had a little water pool with water dripping in, dark wooden beams all over the place, dim lights, beautiful.




Later took the subway along to Harajuku, saw the girls with their crazy gothic lolita style, checked out some shops, then walked to Shibuya, checked out an arcade (being a nerd) and had a bite to eat (eating places are so cheap and good here). We started looking for a particular record shop for me, but first popped into a manga store my friend wanted to check out. It had stairs leading downstairs... and then more stairs, getting darker.... and then more stairs, darker and with a cctv camera.... it was about 5 flights down. Turned out to be a MASSIVE collection of porn manga, porn manga toys and dvds. It was crazy, about as big as a warehouse or something. I think its must have had some normal manga too, but everything we picked up was 'naughty maid story 7' or something. Couldn't take any pictures, there were signs up everywhere with scary looking 'dont take pics' signs, and underground like this you dont want to risk your chances of getting out. After this I then made The Pilgramage to...




JAZZY SPORT
Tiny little store on the 5th floor of a building which took ages to find as people kept giving us the wrong directions. Only have a small selection but its the business. Got the new Grooveman Spot album and a whole bunch of Jazzy Sport stickers and badges like the fanatic that I am.




Wandered back to Harajuku station, just stopping to ogle at some trainers and do what I imagine must be the usual tourist thing of going crazy over the soft drinks and the vending machines. Seriously though, bottles made of can material. Containing Grape Fanta. OMGWTFLOL. Oh yeah and there was a whole Sergeant Frog shop, but it was closed.

MONDAY -----------------------------------------------------

Had some seminar type stuff but managed to nip out beforehand for a couple games of guitar freaks and drum mania (or something, i forget the name.) Found them in a little arcade where no one else was and no other games were being played so you could acutally hear the music for once. Party. Nerdily checked the videogame store before heading back, bought completely the opposite thing from what I wanted as I couldn't understand the box.




After lunch, went down to Harajuku again cos I realised I'd missed the cool shopping area. Checked some nice little small boutique style places, picked up the best high dunks ever (the white and grey soft almost camo style ones), and took loads of pictures of trainers. Check out the wicked skull and crossbones hat and chinos. Mark picked up a drink called Nob King, which of course appealed to our subtle and sophisticated sense of humour. Found an amazing T-shirt shop, called Beams, where the tees are hung on a conveyor. There were loads of wicked ones, especially themed around Michael Jackson for some reason, but some guy ran over shouting 'Da-me, Da-me' and making a cross with his arms, so I had to stop taking pics.

Found the coolest customised Vans ever - if you took the played out check pattern, put it on the soles of the shoes, wrote L.A. Gear on the back and half on the front and drew some palm trees, would you have the coolest trainers ever? YES YOU WOULD. If they weren't £200 they would have been mine. Check the pic of the funky shop with the cows heads on the wall. Had dinner at a teppenyaki chain, sort of fried vegetables and seafood on rice, really nice, then was heading home when we noticed a live performance going on in some design store place. The guy wouldn't let me take photos so I had to take them of the screen outside. We went in, it's basically your average pop group singing, with a pretty female vocalist, dj who does nothing but clap his hands - but this group had a american looking MC, like someone out of 5ive or backstreet boys or something, with lyrics like 'Back up, back up, but not too faaast; cos I just might step on my caaash'.....................










WHY???

Went to a rock bar in the evening with other people from the prefecture. Was cool, met some nice people. Walked back with this girl Robyn and some friends, lost the friends near some arcade, then lost ourselves coming home. Found Shinjuku station, spent about 20 mins walking around it looking for the west exit, then somehow found ourselves exactly back where we started. Anyway, somehow found it back to the Keio and fell into bed listening to lounge.




A word about lounge. There was an oldschool bedside table in the hotel room, with a clock and speakers builit in, with various buttons like 'FM', 'Talk', and 'Music'. If you pushed music it piped amazingly catchy lounge music into your room, at any time for 24 hours. It was pretty smooth, and any time we were in the room, we were grooving to the smooth sounds of strings and rimshots, maybe with a little vibes here and there, or a pluck bass groove... nice.

TUESDAY -----------------------------------------------------

Had some more seminar type things. In between, rang my friend Mahoko from Nottingham, and she was like 'come to Yokohama!' Which sounded like fun so i did. Ran down the stairs at Shinjuku, yelped 'Yokohama?' at this guy on the train, then when he nodded forced my way on board through the closing doors. He seemed to enjoy this, and every 5 mins or so would give me the thumbs up sign. When he got off at Shibuya, he waved me goodbye, and prodded his girlfriend to do the same. Slightly bizarre but nice. So Yokohama is so near Tokyo, its really easy to get to. Took ages to find Mahoko, it's so crowded there, and I really need a mobile phone! Anyway went to have a coffee with her and her friend, was really nice to see someone from home. I went back to have dinner with her family and was really kind of 'grounding', I can't think of a better way to say it, but really relaxing and calming in the craziness of the visit to Tokyo. Stupidly (and as always) I took no pics of people, only things, so the view from her amazing apartment complex is all I have. Got back pretty late, took a final walk and had a quick drink round Shinjuku, then retired to listen to some lounge.




WEDNESDAY -----------------------------------------------------

Time to set off for Aogaki. Early start, and as i was getting ready listening to the lounge (naturally), check this: a lounge version of the Godfather theme came on. Beautiful stuff. Bit of rain as we got the bus down to Tokyo station. Got the Shinkansen (bullet train) down to Shin-Osaka, stopping for 2 mins at Kyoto, so techincally I've been to both of those cities now, then jumped on a bus to the teacher training centre where we'd meet our supervisors.




It was surreal, they were seated in a staffroom like room, and we lined up round the edge, and one by one he called out our names and they stood up and led us out, like, i dunno, being adopted or something. My supervisor and vice principal both came to pick me up and they both seem like great guys so that's good. Talked about football, music, you know, standard stuff. Went to the school, met the principal (who seems like another nice guy, I got a good place to work it seems) - oh, hilariously he told me via my supervisor translating that 'because you are a good looking guy, many girls will want to have a relationship with you. This is FORBIDDEN' and when I nodded without trying to laugh, he stressed it to me again that this was his 'number one worry' - and then met some of the other staff.

Driving back with my vice-principal, I see people in sort of colourful little parachute things against the backdrop of the mountains - which are stunning. Apparently this place is the number one spot for paragliding - check http://www.tak.ne.jp/, no idea what it says but they are here.

So anyway, to my house. It's big. And everything is here, a Sony flatscreen TV, a DVD burner, a fax, a couple of phones, all kitchen stuff, one of those toilets that has funky functions, its cool. For sleeping it's really old school, got to take a futon out of the cupboard and lay it on the tatami mats, but seems fine. Oh man, oh man, tatami chairs are the best thing ever. Difficult to explain (for me anyway), but so comfy. I fell asleep and slept the whole night though on one. Maybe I will take pictures if I have a lack of things to do.

Vice principal and supervisor took me out for dinnner at a traditional little restaurant near my house. Had okonomiyake, sort of an omelette-y pizza thing with dark tamarind-esque sauce on top, but that really doesnt do it justice, its awesome. The place was full of raucous workers going crazy at the screen cos here right now it's the high school baseball championships which are a big deal apparently. Well at least to us here in the sticks.

THURSDAY -----------------------------------------------------

First proper day at school. My supervisor comes to pick me up, and after claiming yesterday he only knows the 'masterpieces' of jazz (making me think just Kind of Blue, Giant Steps etc,) he's rocking some Bud Powell in the car, singing along with the solos and stuff! Jazz seems to be more popular even with not 'jazz fans' then back home. He says as we're driving 'really this is pop music. Bud Powell is so melodius' and I was practically crying tears of joy. It IS pop music dammit. Embarressed myself a bit with the principal, when he asked how the dinner was with vice principal and supervisor yesterday, I said oishiKUNAI rather than osihiKATTA - basically I told him it wasn't good, instead of saying it was delicious. Embarrassing. Everything else went okay I think that day. Bought a few bits and pieces for my house at the hardware store, and then an old guy who used to be a teacher at my school but now runs an IT company came to pick me up from school. (He's got a unusual business card with a wacky colour pic of him grinning really oddly) He drove an old and battered minivan type thing, and blasted mid nineties techno as we drove home, a bit surreal in the beautiful landscapes here! He hooked me up to the net and did a dance of joy when I gave him the old computer that was here before. Interesting guy.

The place I'm at is pretty rural - but in a different way from the UK. For example, we have shockingly green mountains surrounding us on all sides, but also 2 chain 24 hour convenience stores which you wouldn't get in a comparable place in the UK. The roads as well have ridiculous amounts of marks and lights and signs and stuff, more than central London back home. I haven't taken any pics yet, but I'll try to take some tomorrow.

In the evening, the vice principal, my supervisor and the head of the office all came round with me to meet important people in the town - well they just talked whilst I bowed and said 'please to meet you' in japanese. As my supervisor says often 'this is Japanese custom'.

FRIDAY -----------------------------------------------------

So I was left a bike, supposed to ride to school which I heard takes about 15 mins. Now in UK I'm pretty much late for everything, I can't really help it, but here I heard it's pretty bad. So leaving just enough time to cyle, I left the house, and tried to take the bike off it's stand. I kicked it and prodded it and kind of mauled it with my hands but i couldn't figure out how to get it off (as if to rub it in a little old lady rode past on an identical bike with the stand perfectly stowed away.) So I thought I'll ring my supervisor. I went inside, but my Sharp phone has like a hundred buttons and they are all covered with Kanji (chinese characters) which I can't read. So I sort of had to jog/run to school, which in 35 degree heat is NOT FUN. I arrived in a pool of sweat 2 mins before 8.15 (the time I had to be there) and all the office staff had a good laugh. (Later I would be shown there's a simple latch to the stand... how embarrassing.) Another day at school, not many people were there as they seem to take annual leave around this time. Got me a Japanese bank account at the 'central hyogo bank' which has the grand total of 1 yen in it at the moment, and a hanko - a stamp like thing with your name on it which you use in place of signature for some stuff. My name is 朗 in Japanese Kanji (got to have it on your comp to be able to see that I think) which means 'bright'. There's another one for Lau that means 'wolf' but maybe this one is better.

All that's taken absolutely ages to write and I'm tired. More to come.