Back home

I'm back in Australia for the first time in over a year. It certainly felt strange and it took me a couple of days to get used to everything again.

For example, looking out the window of the plane as we arrived at Sydney airport, I realised I was unconsciously looking for Mt Fuji. (Whenever I'm on a train and it's a clear day I look for Mt Fuji.) When I was near a train and the ground shook, I thought it was an earthquake. (Actually I felt a long earthquake while teaching on Saturday night. It went for a full minute.)

I walked off the plane, yawning, and a couple of techies in the overpass grinned at me and said "that bad, was it?" in the Aussie-est accent I'd heard all year. I felt weird in the airport too - suddenly I felt short, and I no longer felt slightly overweight. I thought Aussies seemed really tall and tanned and untidy - everyone was in such casual clothes, and people were randomly dumping suitcases on the floor, rifling through things, getting in each others' way. In Japan, everything and everyone is very orderly and neat and self-contained.

While waiting in line I exchanged a few words with the lady in front of me (we'd both been out the country for a while and we'd just heard the word 'g'day' from someone in the next line). I said only two sentences and she said 'you've got an American accent'. I think I've already mostly lost it again though.

I went to the bathroom and expected the toilet to flush itself (that's one thing I don't miss; auto-flushing toilets always irritate me). I went through Customs and one of the Customs guy was chatting cheerily to a customer; I overheard him say 'that's bloody sensational!' I overheard another Customs guy calling a customer 'mate'. I felt happy.

And when I went outside, I realised for the first time that Australia has a smell. A fresh, earthy smell; I'd never noticed it especially before. Even the air felt different from Japan.

I realised just how ocker and casual most Australians are. Even the clothes of people around me surprised me. Most Japanese people are so well-presented, I feel like most Aussies look like they're dressed for the beach. Even store keepers are more friendly and open. In Japan, store clerks are very courteous and polite, and there's this feeling that they are there to really serve the customer; the customer and clerk are not on an equal level.

But in Australia the status is the same, so people will more freely chat to store clerks, and staff will joke or say friendly things. I went into one store and the clerk was telling us how manic it was at Christmas and how they'd had some nasty customers that week; another store and they told us a particular product wasn't that great, another was exchanging banter with the customer she was serving. You'd never hear this level of casualness or realness from Japanese clerks. I had it it in my mind that Japan's customer service was much better than Adelaide's, and I guess it is faster and more efficient, but actually Adelaide's waiters and clerks are much friendlier than I remembered.

Aussie people, too, are really open and friendly. I notice it after Japan. Japanese people are lovely; I really like them immensely, but I do miss being able to speak English to people, and freely chat to or ask questions of anyone I see. And Japanese people do tend to be more reserved and contained; loads of people wearing business suits, walking in silence through train stations; people are very considerate but not usually gregarious like Aussies. Australians seem much more relaxed, human, themselves.

I also realised how much I miss Aussie food. Adelaide's food is really, really good. I realise again that I don't like Japanese food *that* much. Sure, I've grown used to it; I've found plenty of things I like, but often in Japan it's a case of 'hmm, this doesn't look *too* bad, I guess I can eat this'. It's not the same as going to any restaurant and having at least a dozen things on the menu that make you go 'oooh, I reaaaally want this!!'

In particular I miss Australian bread and rolls, I miss good Australian pasta, and Greek food, and pub/cafe meals (fish and chips, gourmet burgers, salt and pepper squid, etc).

I've been feeling lucky to be back but also kind of appraising things - do I want to return here, etc. The pace of life feels much slower and more relaxed here. The weather is amazing. I miss Australian weather too! And I felt so free, driving around. It's nice to feel like you can go anywhere, when you have a car; and the sky stretches across forever, and there's so much SPACE.

It's also been good seeing everyone again.

But I don't quite have the feeling of being home...

Sushi Heaven

Months ago I saw a Japanese comedy called 'Water Boys'. In one scene, the boys are working as cleaners at an aquarium. As they clean the glass of the tank, they fantasise about how all the different animals in the tank would make delicious sushi...

At the time I thought this was very funny. Then yesterday I went to Ikebukuro's aquarium with a Japanese friend. A lot of the tanks had Christmas decorations in them. We even saw Santa feeding the manta rays. This is one of the strangest things I have ever seen. And I live in Japan!



As I mentioned, I went with a Japanese friend, who kept commenting on the potential edibility of each display.
'Oh, looks delicious...'
'Not much meat on these ones...'
'Looks tough to eat...'

I thought this was pretty funny, until I overheard snippets of conversation from various Japanese people around us and realised that everyone around us was saying the same thing!!!

No Smorking

Every time I see the sign at Tully's Coffee that says 'No Smorking', it makes me smile.

I don't want to smork anyway.

Culture - bits and pieces

I've been here over a year now, and I still don't think I know Japan that well. It's because I don't speak the language; I'm not really immersed in the way people actually think and express themselves. I do learn a lot through hearsay and reading books and blogs. But there are lots of things that are visible to me, and most of them I now take for granted and don't really notice. Yet it certainly is different to Australia, so I thought I'd try to think of some examples.

If I repeat myself, sorry... sometimes I don't remember what I've written in the past.

***

Buying food

I was reading a book ("Welcome to Sawanoya") by an old Japanese guy who ran an inn where lots of foreigners stayed. He writes:
'One day, a neighbor who runs a sweets shop related the following story: "Sawa-san, your customers come to my shop asking to buy one piece of sembei [crackers] or one manju [a type of sweet]. That sounds rather strange to me, but I'm happy to sell treats by the piece to these people who've come all the way from abroad.' No Japanese would by such small quantities nowadays, as they naturally expect to buy an entire package.

I had never heard such a sentiment from a Japanese point of view before. To me it seems completely natural to go to a store and buy a single, very small snack. I have also bought a single rice cracker or whatever (rice crackers are bigger here). But I realise it is unusual. Today I went to 36 Sticks. They sell little thin cakes and desserts (36 different kinds). I bought a cheesecake stick. It was nice, and at 180yen, a nice cheap snack. While I was there, someone next to me was selecting several; another seemed to be ordered a whole cake, rather than a stick.

I remember my sister observing, when she was here, that when she bought an item in a bakery, everyone around her was ladening their trays with stuff. This is very true, actually. I often only buy one bakery item (bakeries here specialise less in loaves of bread, more in little snack items like croissants, curry bread, melon bread, little sandwiches, pizzas, etc etc). But I've very, very rarely seen a Japanese customer with only one item on their tray.

My sister also observed, when she went to the mini croissant shop, that while she bought a couple of mini croissants, all the people before her were getting at least 10 or 20, and most customers were getting several bags of croissants. This is also true. When I go there I usually get 100g (4 or 5 minis) and I still feel like I'm ordering a ridiculously tiny amount.

Sometimes I do feel funny about buying only one of an item, if only because packaging here often entails some effort, and I feel rather sad for the staff wrapping and putting my single bread roll in multiple bags. (I suppose I feel more sorry for them when they are individually wrapping each of fifteen bakery items in individual plastic bags, even if they are killing the environment.)

For example, if you buy any kind of fresh dessert, you will usually be asked 'how many hours until you return home?' Your answer will determine how many little ice packages they put in your box.

I do wonder, though, what people do with all that stuff. Sure, a lot of people are buying for families, a lot of people are buying gifts, and a lot of people buy for their offices or meetings, but surely some people must buy for themselves?! What do they DO with all these items?!

***

Anthrax scare

Okay, no anthrax scare. But that's what some foreigners think when they first see Japanese people wearing white surgical masks over their nose and mouth. Usually there's one of two reasons for it:

1. the person has an allergy and is trying to protect themselves against breathing in allergens;
   
2. the person has a cold and is trying to protect the populace from their own germs

As a result, you see a lot of masks in winter (cold season) and spring (hayfever season). Large numbers of people seem to suffer allergies. It's astonishing. For months people are mostly fine, then suddenly half your students are answering 'so-so' when you ask 'how are you', and looking red-eyed.

My own opinion is that a lot of the masks are quite unnecessary, and probably have a detrimental effect on your health as you spend all day breathing in your own germs. However, I have to say, I did cave in and wear my first face mask last week, while riding the trains.

I have had colds before and not worn them (as a teacher, it's not good to wear one anyone, though many people do wear them all day at work). But last week I had a cough, and a somewhat nasty one, and I didn't want to share it with all the passengers nearby. I have to concede, the masks can be socially responsible when you see how crowded the trains are.

***

People do bow a lot. Various store clerks bow to show politeness; people bow when they meet; people bow at the end of the day saying goodbye to each other; people bow to apologise, etc. At my job, the Japanese staff sometimes bow to students or potential students.

As a foreigner I don't bow and it doesn't feel natural to me - I've only done it three or four times. I have developed what I call the 'chicken jerk', where you kind of bob your head briefly like a chicken pecking... hahah... I'm not the only foreigner to pick up this habit. I do the nod a lot in a day - when I walk past someone who works in the same building as me, when I leave a store, when I meet someone or say goodbye to them, etc.

Store clerks do it in varying degrees; I was amused when my sister came and entered a particularly exclusive department store (I've been to a different branch of it so I can confirm), and was a bit bemused to find that wherever she walked, she was following a gauntlet of staff who would bow as she passed. It's kind of unsettling to have a whole line of people, bowing one after the other, as you walk down the corridor.

Though I see bowing a lot, I am often amused at the train station on Friday or Saturday nights, when hordes of businessmen who've been out drinking together, are saying goodbye. There's always a constant series of bows - one person bows, the other bows, the first person has to bow again, then the second... I don't know the unwritten rule for when you can politely break the cycle and actually leave. You'll see these little knots of people all standing in a circle and bowing to each other. It always makes me smile.

Bowing is such an intrinsic part of communication here that they even put it on signs. For example, if there's a sign saying 'construction work - sorry for the inconvenience', it will often be accompanied by a cartoon picture of a construction worker bowing apologetically. Or, if you go to a ticket machine at the train station, a picture of a woman will bow and say 'irrashaimase' (welcome - they say this in stores), before presenting you with your choices.

Teaching kids

[By the way, I've mentioned before that I never use people's real names on this blog, so that co-workers and students will be less likely to find it. But I haven't yet made up a name for myself. So I'll call myself... Anne. ^_^]

So, teaching kids... I've complained about it; my three kids' classes take more preparatory work than all my adult classes combined. My little kids (aged 2-3) can be challenging. I have four of them, and sometimes running the class is like herding cats. I'm not very good at getting all of them to pay attention to one thing at the same time. But there are some good things about teaching kids, and sometimes they are just cute.

The kids often mimic what I say and do. The other day, all my little kids started giving the thumbs-up (a bad habit of mine) and saying 'good!'

One mum said her daughter, 3-year-old Mina, would get excited the day before class and say 'tomorrow I'm going to Anne-sensei's class!!'

One little boy's mum said that since he started taking my class, whenever he sees a foreign person on the street, he calls out 'hello!!'

When I come up to the lobby where my little kids are waiting, they all run up to me and give me things (whatever toy they're holding, etc). The other day, Mina called 'Anne-sensei!!' when I appeared. It's the first time a little kid has called me by my name. ^_^

Sometimes I get excited about their minor breakthroughs. For example, I'm always saying colours to them when we're colouring in. But usually they don't seem to notice. Suddenly, last week, the boy started identifying crayon colours (in English) without prompting. I was so proud!

Most of the kids will spontaneously break into song at some point during the lesson. (Songs in English, that is.)

My older kids are sweet too. Last week my 9-year-old gave me a Christmas card. She wrote:
To Anne: I Love Anne from Ayu

Last week I was sick and my oldest kid's class was cancelled. I taught her today. I left the room a few moments before she did. Later, when I went back to clean up the room, I saw she'd secretly left a letter on the desk. It was addressed to 'Anne teacher' and it was a cute little note, in English and Japanese, saying she hoped I was feeling better and I should take care of myself. So sweet! I went around showing everyone because it was such a cute note.

It made me realise that teaching kids does have some rewards after all.

Updates

11am and it's 7 degrees outside... iya da... :(

I was sick for about two weeks but am feeling pretty well better now. I even took a day off work, which I've not done before.

Yesterday was my big Japanese Proficiency Test. I think I did quite well. I'm fairly sure I at least passed. But I'm a perfectionist and I want to get a Good Score...

I got my visa updated. (Pain... -_-). Today I have to go to the ward office. I get sick of all this... the annoying thing is they only gave me a 1-year visa, so if I *do* decide to stay longer, I'll have to go back to immigration *again*... Other people at this company have gotten 3-year visas, and we specifically requested one. But I heard it's pretty well random which one they give you... oh well...

This is a grand time of year, with lots of parties. A lot of companies have big 'bonenkai' (year-end parties). Our school's gonna have a big Christmas party. I'm hoping for a karaoke after-party, personally. Next week we're gonna have a couple of get-togethers because Jim, my old co-worker, is back in Japan for a couple of weeks! ^_^ On Saturday I'm going to a party with a co-worker, so that's three parties next week, hahaha. Unfortunately I missed our building's Christmas party - I was really looking forward to it too -_- - because I was sick.

I really love living in a big metropolis. You can finish work, and walk outside, and you've got loads of restaurants and bars to choose from. It makes socialising so easy. Or, any weekend you can go into Tokyo or somewhere, where it's all happening. Also, I think karaoke makes a really nice addition to socialising choices. After you've finished dinner, sometimes you don't want to spend the whole night in a bar or club.

Japanese food

It occurred to me that when I write about Japanese food in this blog, I tend to give a lot more press to the Japanese food I have not enjoyed. That is probably because it is more fun to report whatever latest monstrosity I have consumed, and sounds more impressive.

That said, there is a lot of food I like here too, both Japanese and international. I am not always eating horrible things. In my first three months or so, I was always trying new things, just to see what they were like. Now, if a variety of dishes are on the table, I don't feel any need to try them all. I established there are several things I Just Don't Like (offal, fatty meat, most sashimi, wasabi, pickles, and all Japanese sweets) so now I'm rarely in a situation where I need to eat them.


Basashi (raw horse)

Actually, Japanese people are great foodies, and I've actually become quite astonished to realise how many different types of Japanese food there are. In Australia I tended to think of Japan as having Japanese food - perhaps twenty or thirty main dishes that comprised their national cuisine. But no, there are dozens of styles of cuisine, and many, many thousands of specific dishes.

What's more, each area has its own specialties, regional varieties, favoured ingredients and special cooking styles, and each season has its preferred dishes or ingredients. Japan's also famous for presenting its food with care.

As an example, I went to Nagano a couple of weeks ago, and ate oyaki (a kind of fried little vegetable pancakey thing), a Nagano specialty. We also had rice with chestnuts, since that area of Nagano was famous for chestnuts. There are apples for sale everywhere as souvenirs, as Nagano is also famous for apples. Nagano is also famous for grapes, and there were lots of other various special foods I didn't recognise or understand.

We tried some vegetable that 'is very rare and grows in this area'. We had mushrooms because they were in season. We had apple wine. While we were eating, downstairs, hordes of people were buying Japanese 'omiyage' (souvenir) sweets specific to that town. On the train on the way back we got a very famous type of 'ekiben' (train lunch box) called 'kamameshi', these ekiben are unique to specific train stations - ours was rice topped with seasonal vegetables in a ceramic bowl.


Kamameshi ekiben

(These ekiben are a perfect example of how staggeringly large Japan's food culture seems to be. I mean, there are so many types, some of which are famous; there are even ekiben aficionados who will go around eating as many different ekiben as they can... Just check out this website. This is the Kanto area (around Tokyo) alone!! If you click on any of the starred links it will show you that place's ekiben.)

Specialised restaurants

If you are going to eat out in Japan, a lot of restaurants specialise in a particular cooking style. You can find restaurants that serve lots of different types of food, but they're less common.


Shabu-shabu (hot pot)

You might go to an okonomiyaki restaurant, for example, where you can make okonomiyaki (fried vegetable pancakes with various constituents), yakisoba (fried noodles with vegetables) or monjayaki (a lame, watery version of okonomiyaki) on the hot plate at your table.

Or you might go to a soba, udon or ramen restaurant. These different types of noodles (mostly like a big bowl of soup with noodles and various other bits and pieces) are popular as fast food too. There are a lot of small soba/udon/ramen places around train stations, where patrons stand to eat, and you'd be astonished how fast a salaryman can scarf down a huge bowl of noodles. No wonder some of the world champion eaters have come from Japan...


Soba

There are sushi and sashimi restaurants, tonkatsu (fried breaded pork cutlets, often other fried breaded meats too) restaurants, horumon (offal) restaurants, shabu-shabu or sukiyaki (hotpot) restaurants, Okinawan restaurants...


Okinawan food

Virtually every department store building has a 'restaurant floor', full of lots of these little restaurants.

There are also 'izakaya', which I've mentioned before. They're friendly, casual eating places with a small cover charge, people go there to drink and eat lots of shared dishes, various things including deep-fried chicken, sashimi, takoyaki (octopus balls), tempura, nabe, edamame (soy beans in their pod; a common finger food snack here), yakitori (grilled chicken), etc. These places are a good choice for large groups.

Renewal

Incidentally, just to keep you posted, I did renew for another three months. Which would mean I'm due to finish in August.
However, I realised my offer said that if I renew for "less than 3 months" I won't get a re-offer; but I am renewing for 3. This means I may well get another contract offer next year.
If they do offer me another, well, it will be nice to be able to keep my options open. Also, it would be nice to be able to make a decision *after* going back to Australia for a visit. My feelings (as to whether I want to leave or stay) tend to vary with the weeks. Right now I'm very happy with everything.
If they don't offer me another, well, at least I don't have to spend weeks agonising over a decision again. ^_^

Thanksgiving

Today (well, yesterday - it's now 1:20am) was Thanksgiving Day. American Thanksgiving, anyway. (And come to think of it, I suppose it's still Thanksgiving Day in America, due to the time difference.)

Anyway, it was my first time to celebrate Thanksgiving. A bunch of us - mostly teachers from various schools, and a few friends of friends - met at the Hard Rock Cafe in Roppongi. I'd never been to a Hard Rock cafe before. We had a turkey dinner with cranberry sauce (admittedly, the turkey and vegetables came served with rice. It seemed somehow a fitting blend of cultures...)

We were quite an international group. There were ten of us, including 2 Aussies, 1 Pom, 2 Canadians, 1 Japanese guy, and 4 Americans.

We went around the table and said what we were thankful for.

Actually, I am thankful for a lot of things. I'm thankful to be here, in Japan. I'm thankful for a job I mostly like. I'm thankful for really nice co-workers. I'm thankful I'm starting to make more friends. I'm thankful for my social life - it's actually been really good the last few months. I get to do lots of interesting things; it seems like every weekend I'm having a blast.

I'm thankful for my friends back home. I'm thankful for my family, who are great. I'm thankful I can go to Australia next month and see everyone (thanks Mum and Dad!). I'm thankful I can enjoy my life so much and there are so many nice people around me everywhere.

Weird sickness

I'm slightly sick but I've never experienced this before.

So, on Saturday I woke up feeling nauseous, threw up a few times before going to work. Worked a full day, felt nauseous for some of it. Had many moments of feeling extremely strange, kind of feverish. In one class I thought I was going to faint.
Felt totally normal Sunday and Monday.

Tuesday, I mostly felt normal but this evening started getting some weird symptoms again and again with the dizziness/nausea and strange feelings.

By strange feelings, I mean... well, you know when you have a fever, and you think in a strange way? For example, you get one particular thought or idea stuck in your head, and you can't get it out? Or you remember - or think you remember - some long-forgotten event or story you once read, and it seems incredibly important and profound, and yet you had no memory of it before you got the fever?

On Saturday the weird thing was deja vu. I had indeed taught all those lessons before, but I felt extremely acute deja vu. I actually felt as if I had already experienced everything on that day - I heard the exact same questions, I replied using exactly the same words, we went onto exactly the same tangents, students made exactly the same points. Even when I talked to a staff member about a student report, I felt as if we'd had an identical discussion - right down to the exact sentences we were using - a few weeks earlier.

Apart from sudden attacks of nausea and dizziness, which have never lasted more than a few minutes, I've felt fine apart from moments of slight headache or sore throat. Today I again had a couple of moments of panic where I felt so dizzy that I wondered if I was going to throw up or have to lie down on the street.

Any thoughts on this? I'd peg it down to some kind of weird virus and a touch of fever, but it seems very strange to me that I should feel totally fine on the weekend and then sick before and after it. Right now I feel pretty normal except for a very slight headache.

I had an awesome weekend, incidentally. I must post about it soon. ^_^

Fujisan ga mieru

The last day or two, it started to get really cold (again). Right now it's about 7 outside. It will get worse in winter, of course, but for November, it's cold enough!!

However, the cold weather has brought really clear, crisp skies. Two of my students today told me they could see Mt Fuji this morning.

I think I've mentioned this before - all around Tokyo and Kanagawa, where I live, on a sufficiently clear day, you can actually see Mt Fuji from any vantage point if it's high enough, or if there aren't many tall buildings around. For example, I can see Mt Fuji from the train to my Japanese teacher's house. However, I haven't seen it since last winter. I realised that the entire last 8 months have been mostly cloudy or hazy. Ironically, even when I *climbed* Mt Fuji, I couldn't see it until I was actually on it. Even driving away from it, five minutes away from it and it was so cloudy and foggy I couldn't see it! And it's a big mountain!!

So it's nice to have such clear blue skies again, even if everyone is rugged up in enough clothes to go to Antarctica...

***

Oh, I forgot to mention it here but my co-workers gave me a surprise birthday party last week! I was really touched. :) A couple of students also gave me gifts (most people didn't know it was my birthday though). I have some chocolates from Godiva here, lucky me. ^_^ My co-workers cooked for me, and we had oyakodon, ratatouille, and some other things, including shiitake mushrooms... I already enthused about shiitake mushrooms a couple of weeks ago, but these were stuffed with mince meat and negi. I liked them so much I tried making them myself last night. Really good!!

My coworkers - and other people around me - are so nice.

Seafood

My day started with an upset stomach. For some reason I just felt sick. I threw up three times before leaving for work, and wondered if I'd be able to make it through the day. I even brought a plastic bag into my classroom, just in case the worst should happen and I couldn't make it out in time. I couldn't eat breakfast and I only had a few mouthfuls of lunch.

My day ended with me eating a wide variety of weird and sometimes disgusting raw seafood.

Now, as I've blogged previously, I've eaten a few strange things in Japan, mostly of the horumon (offal) variety. Chicken heart, intestines, liver, tongue, heart, fish fins (eaten like potato chips), diaphragm, raw horse, sea urchin, and raw octopus in wasabi. (The latter two were by far the worst.)

Tonight I can add substantially to my list.

Pete and I went out to a sashimi* restaurant with one of my favourite students, and his friend. I went for the company, not the food; I still felt a bit seedy and thought I wouldn't be eating much.

*(Sashimi is raw fish. As opposed to sushi, which is raw fish on rice, often with wasabi.)

So what did I eat? I tried whale, for the first time. We had whale sashimi, and deep-fried whale pieces. They were both really good. The deep-fried whale tasted a bit like deep-fried chicken (same type of deep-frying as 'karaage') but the meat was softer. The whale sashimi was pink, it looked much like raw tuna. Dipped in soy sauce, topped with negi and daikon, it was tasty.

I had raw fugu, sliced very thin, white and transparent. Again, dipped in soy sauce. Fugu is pufferfish, and is famous for being that dish which is fatally poisonous if prepared incorrectly. Apparently, fugu is most poisonous in its liver. And naturally, it's the meat closest to the liver which is considered most delicious. So only specially licensed chefs who attained certificiation are allowed to prepare fugu.

Then came the shirako. What to say about shirako??
Just look at this picture.

That's shirako.

When it came out, I thought we were getting fish stomach lining. Our student's friend really recommended this and liked the taste of it. When it came out, it really did look like raw stomach lining. But it wasn't stomach. To quote wikipedia, shirako is "the male genitalia of fish when they contain sperm".

I've never seen Pete quail before any dish, ever, but even he had to psych himself into this. Each piece is quite a big mouthful. The student and his friend watched expectantly. "It's delicious, right?" Pete disagreed, lunging for his beer. He remarked that it tasted exactly like what it was...

I refused to try a whole piece but had a minute amount. Actually, it was small enough that I could mostly only taste the sauce, which tasted nice enough, but the shirako was cold and slimy. I would not be talked into trying more sperm-filled testicles. Incredibly, the student and his friend ordered another dish of it to eat for themselves...

Somewhat nicer was ankimo - the liver of angler fish. This is something of a luxury dish, like foie gras. Pete and I mused that it tasted vaguely of canned salmon or canned tuna. "But much more expensive," pointed out our student somewhat indignantly, at which we hastened to say it was MUCH better than those things. I guess, being from Australia, I don't have much history of eating raw seafood, so I don't have much reference point to explain these tastes. All these raw seafood dishes are very unique-tasting.

I also enjoyed the river shrimp. They're really small shrimp, fried and crispy, and you just eat them whole, heads and antennae and all.

For me, the worst challenge of the night were the raw oysters. These things were huge. 'Milk of the sea' is what Japanese people call them, because they're creamy. And sea-y. The others each slurped theirs down in one huge, disgusting mouthful, but I had to dispose of mine in three bites. I wasn't planning to have one at all and I had to psych myself, for about five minutes each, into each mouthful. They were creamy, and slimy, and tasted like sea water and something indefinable.

After the raw oysters was the marginally better - mostly because it was smaller - frozen raw squid. I mean, small pieces of marinated raw squid, frozen like ice treats. Only once you start eating them, the ice melts away a bit and you just have the chewy, red, raw squid in your mouth.

Japan is weird sometimes.

Hakone

Today I went to Yunessun in Hakone. Hakone's a popular day trip from Tokyo. It's in the mountains and has some nice scenery. At this time of year, it's wonderful because the autumn colours are perfect.

Anyway, in Hakone we went to Yunessun, which is a hot spring theme park. Unlike traditional hot springs, you wear a bathing suit. The indoor part of the park has a kind of ancient Mediterranean theme. They had a big, hot spring spa pool, various smaller spas and hot baths, including one full of roses, one with imported salt from the Dead Sea (you float in it really easily, but it stung my skin), a hot spring outdoor waterslide, a rose-scented spa and a traditional Roman bath.

They also had 'doctor fish', those same fish I got my feet eaten by in Oedo Onsen Monogatari. They weren't as intense as at Oedo though. Fewer fish, and more people. But, included in the entrance fee. ^_^

The outdoor part of the onsen was really cool. They had all these 'flavoured' hot springs. So you could go and bathe in coffee, red wine, green tea, sake, etc. The red wine spring was really pink! A few times each day they come and dump more coffee/wine/etc in the bath. We got splashed by coffee when they replaced that one. Fortunately, it wasn't especially crowded, and the autumn leaves surrounding us outdoors were really nice.

It was really quite cold - the maximum today was 13, and it was probably around 10 in the late afternoon - so we kind of moved from hot spring to hot spring very fast! There were also various hot spring waterfalls, and a charcoal

The park used the same 'wristband' system as Oedo. You get an electronic wristband when you enter, which can be scanned if you want to buy food etc within the park. That way you don't have to carry anything around with you.

It was good fun, and it was nice to see Hakone again, on better terms this time. The bus ride up to the park was really stunning.

Washing the dishes

Housewife 1: My husband bought me a dishwasher. I was having problems with my hands. I had skin problem, so he bought a dishwasher.
Housewife 2: My husband bought me gloves...

Outings and work

Next weekend is my birthday weekend and I wanted to do something interesting, but so far my plan is: get a haircut and get my visa status updated. The former task will be very enjoyable as I like my hairdresser a lot. The latter task fills me with a decided lack of enthusiasm. Three hours of waiting in that immigration office, followed by a merry trip to the ward office, is not appealing.

However, I'm bookending that weekend with two Fun Outings. Tomorrow I'm going to Hakone to a hot spring theme park. I'm really looking forward to this. It's getting nastily cold here, so it will be perfect for hot springs, and also a good chance to see the autumn leaves at their peak.

Then, in two weeks, I'm going on a day trip to Nagano, where the Winter Olympics were held. Tanoshimi! (I'm looking forward to it!)

I got my contract renewal offer. I'm going to think about it a bit more first to see if I change my mind (very possible) but so far am still inclined toward the 'renew for 3 months so I can enjoy next summer' idea.

Work has been quite busy lately. When I say 'quite', I mean 'very'. Three weeks ago I was super busy because we were organising a party for kids and one for adults. Two weeks ago I was super busy because I was planning heaps of 'special classes' of my own devising. (I rarely have to create my own classes.) Last week we offered a bunch of special classes. I taught classes on music, cooking, cultural differences, phone English, pronunciation, and Internet English.

It was good fun but a little stressful too. I think they went fairly well though. The last time I designed classes from scratch was for our 'fun day' in January. I could see a huge difference in quality. That's the difference between having two months' teaching experience, and having one year's teaching experience.

From this week, I'm back to 'normal', which is 30 classes a week! It's the fullest my schedule has ever been. I might have to start coming in a bit early because otherwise I rely on every second of my 'office hours' to prepare my kids' lessons, and that means I'm not very free to do other things like chat to students or help the office staff.

However, my lesson prep time for each class (except kids' lessons) is pretty low now, and I'm coming into the third time teaching some of the classes.

From this week I'll be teaching a short course of my own devising. It will require some extra work and so far only one student has signed up. So I really hope a few more will join. Fingers crossed!

From this week I'll also have a new challenge in the form of two new students for my little kids' class. Until now it's been two children, but this week two more are joining. I'll have four children aged 2-3 in the room with me, no parents. (This is theoretically the idea, but one girl won't stay in the room without her mum.)

I can't honestly say I am a natural at working with small children, and I'm not sure how it will work, having more children than hands (before, I could do things like open both children's books at once). My progress in learning how to teach little kids has mostly consisted of figuring out how to remove distractions. (For example, clearing all the 'fun' toys out of the lobby before they come, hiding stickers so they don't find them and go nuts, putting all my extra materials in a box so they are not playing with everything at once, etc.)

Still, I think it will work out okay. It will probably be a little shaky at first, but after that, it might even be better than now, because both the new students seemed to be a lot better at following instructions and participating in activities, so they could set a good tone for the class. ^_^

Aki (autumn)

Well, we're heading into late autumn, and the start of my second year in Japan.

At this time last year, I was doing my first week of teacher's training, and everything was too new for me to notice much of the seasonal things. I've mentioned several times that Japan tends to draw attention to the changing seasons. Since mid-autumn, most people have been decked out in ridiculously warm coats and thick puffy vests. Yesterday it was sunny and pleasant, and I was in a t-shirt, long pants and sneakers, and my Japanese friend asked me 'aren't you cold?!'

I must say though that it is becoming quite cold at night. The sun sets at 5pm (I know, I know -_-) and in the evenings it's been getting down to 10, or 12, or so. I've had my balcony door wide open for the last few hours because I bought some new cleaner from the supermarket, being completely unable to read what it was, and started spraying it liberally about in the bathroom before realising that it's quite strong chlorine bleach.

My apartment is small and poorly ventilated, so I've been huddled in here cold while trying to get the bleach fumes out.

The vending machines have started re-stocking hot drinks, and this weekend I started seeing my first 'winter' signs. I suppose in a week or two, the 'autumn leaf' posters in the stations will be replaced with snow scenes.

Japan has certain foods that are good in different seasons - nabe in winter, etc. So I asked some of my students what I should eat in autumn. Mushrooms are good now, they said. And indeed, these days, supermarkets have quite a large section of good mushrooms. There are a lot more varieties than at home.

My pet favourite is shiitake mushrooms. I'm eating them right now. I could wax lyrical about them. They even look delicious.

You know, I rarely cook in Japan. Recently, whenever I have decided to cook, it's usually because I've seen some shiitake mushrooms in the supermarket and thought 'man, I gotta eat me some of them'.

November also means new contract time... and I still haven't decided... right now I'm thinking I *might* just renew for another 3 months. Doing so would allow me to enjoy another summer in Japan, but would negate any chance of being able to renew again. I suppose if I came to the end of my contract and decided I really, really wanted to stay in Japan, I could try to find work elsewhere. On the other hand, my coworkers and students are a major reason for me to stay here.

However, I've still not made up my mind, there's a chance I could renew for longer, or not renew at all. I like living in Japan a lot, but I miss Australia a little. I almost wish I was going back for my trip now, so I could see how I feel after. Maybe going back to Australia for a week or two will give me enough 'fix' of Australia, and family, and friends, so I feel I can easily continue in Japan for a lot longer. Or, maybe going back to Australia for a week or two will make me realise I want to go back to Australia... I dunno.

My main three choices are:

not renew; then I'd be finishing at the end of May

renew for 3 months or so; then I'd be finishing in August

renew for another 6 months; then I'd be finishing in November next year, but with the option of continuing longer

At any rate, thanks everyone for your patience and support... I'm lucky to have good family and friends...

Basashi

Tonight I tried raw horse meat.
And no, it wasn't great.

Tempura soba - why?!

I don't understand what the point of tempura soba is.
You have a nice warming bowl of noodle soup, and some delicious, crispy, freshly-cooked tempura.
Then you ruin the tempura by serving it in the soup bowl, rendering it soggy and unappealing. Your soup is soon clogged up with large chunks of sodden batter.
No sir, I don't understand it.

Looking forward to the Big Opening!!

For the last few months, the lower floors of Kawasaki BE have been closed for renovation. (Kawasaki BE is the large department store directly connected to Kawasaki train station.)

This was pretty annoying because they had the closest ATM for my bank, and I also heard they had a shoe repair shop. (I've been waiting months for the store to come back, because I haven't had the gumption to go find another place that does repairs.) And they had a good food court for buying bento, a large pharmacy, a flower shop where we used to be able to buy gifts, and various other things I missed having ready access to.

The reopening was slated for November. It feels like forever - it's been around 6 months - but it's now imminent. And for the first time, this week we've been able to see over the scaffolding to see which stores might be in the new BE.

Surprise 1 - a Starbucks. Now, I *love* Starbucks, but this is bordering on the ridiculous. There are already four Starbucks within 5 minutes' walk from Kawasaki station. It must be one of the highest concentrations of Starbucks in Japan.

Surprise 2 - a KRISPY KREME. These are rare. I've only seen one in Japan, and it was very busy. In their Shinjuku store, Krispy Kreme was kind of famous for attracting ludicrously long queues of people. As far as I know, there are only seven Krispy Kreme stores in all of Japan

Now I am about to walk past one every day right here in Kawasaki! ^_^

Ureshii! (Happy!)

Anniversary desu yo

I have been in Japan for exactly one year...

すごいですね！(Amazing, isn't it!)

Nobody Sleeps Like The Japanese Do

I found this group on Facebook: Nobody Sleeps Like The Japanese Do.

Scroll down and take a look at some of these photos.

They are an entirely unremarkable sight in this country.

Health check

In this country I see or experience numerous weird things. Most of them are tiny, inane things I immediately forget about, but I really should write in brief about our compulsory health check.

Now, if you work for a Japanese company you have to get a health check once a year. In some companies, these checks are quite intimidating (I had a student who gave up eating ramen for two weeks before his health check, and ran 10km on the morning of the check, and still failed...), including physical components, running and so on. I heard of cases where people were declared overweight and put on probation, and had to prove themselves healthier by the next check.

Fortunately, ours was nowhere near as scary. The day before the check, we were given a small plastic vial and a sheet of paper that could be folded into a box. The idea was to pee into the box and then 'pipette' the liquid out of the box into the vial. My manager showed me how the paper could be folded into a box. I was dumbfounded. Apparently, elementary school children do this once every year. I asked her what the test was for. She didn't know.

...

The clincher was when we got to the health check itself. Our building has its own in-house doctor and check-up room for the benefit of staff. When I say 'check-up room' I mean just a random carpeted room, next to a meeting room, with a series of people sitting at desks.

First we presented our vials. With a certain lack of ceremony, the lady took them and emptied them, one by one, into a cup, over a strip of paper. We assumed it might have been some kind of pH test. What I couldn't get over was that about twenty people's combined pee was sitting in a styrofoam cup on the desk. We later saw her walking nonchalantly down the corridor, cup in hand, to go empty it out.

The next test was eyes. I had to look through a microscope and say whether various circles were pointing ue, shita, hidari or migi (forward, back, left or right). The problem is my spatial awareness is dreadful and I always confuse left and right even in English. So I kept saying 'migi' where I meant 'hidari'. I think the guy knew I was getting the words wrong. But who cares. I think I still did better than Pete.

Doctor: Which way is number 6 facing?
Pete (not understanding a word): I can see all of them. No problem!

There were a couple of other tests, including an optional blood test. I learned that one of my co-workers actually likes blood tests. I don't just mean tolerate. I mean like. Weird. Anyway, then it was down to the x-ray department.

I use the word 'department' very loosely indeed. We followed signs around the labyrinth of our building's 'staff only' area, finally ending up in the loading and unloading bay. There were trucks and forklifts loading and unloading merchandise. We passed loads of umbrellas hanging ready to be taken to a retail store, and large, dirty piles of crates.

'Atta! (there it is!)' exclaimed one of my co-workers. Sure enough, there was a van in the car park with a collection of slippers on the ground outside it.

So I had my x-ray in a beat-up old van. The doctor gave me various instructions which I couldn't understand a word of; he had to move me into position, with my chin up, resting on a plate, and my arms and shoulders pressed against the block. He said only one English word, nice and clearly, 'embrace'. Slightly bewildered, I raised my arms and 'hugged' the block. The doctor had a strange look on his face, but he didn't correct me, so my x-ray was taken.

Afterwards, I mentioned this to Pete, who had gone in first. He said 'oh yeah! I did exactly the same thing! Then he said it again and I realised he was telling me 'deep breath'!'

That doctor will definitely be questioning his pronunciation after two people tried to hug the x-ray machine after being told to take a deep breath.

If the x-ray tells me I have some kind of hideous deformity, I'll know it's because I didn't breathe in.

And for the record, I have a clean bill of health. ^_^

Flying high in the sky...

I went into Tokyo today and went to a new place, Takadanobaba (tell me that ain't a mouthful). This area is a neighbourhood of Shinjuku. As I also discovered, it is famous for being the place where Astro Boy was born. (In the story, apparently the character was created in a factory in Takadanobaba.)

As I got out the train I was distracted by the 'doors are closing' song, which sounded very familiar somehow. Every JR train station has a 'doors are closing' chime, which often varies from station to station.

Then, leaving the bookstore, I saw a big mural featuring Astro Boy - and other characters of Osamu Tezuka - which I didn't really pay attention to, since I was more occupied trying to find the nearest Starbucks. In retrospect, if I'd known why it was there, I would've paid more attention to it.

And yes, the 'doors are closing' song was the Astro Boy theme...

O-mikoshi after-party

You should read the post below this one first.

After the festival proper, we returned to the shrine. It was about 3:30 by now, a good six hours after arriving. And after a great deal of cleaning up, it was time for the after-party. This was to prove a very illuminating experience!!

The party was in the building on the shrine grounds, and loads of sushi and other foods were brought in and laid on tables. Everyone went in and sat down and got drinks, and so on. However, according to the etiquette of these things, nobody could start until everyone was there, everyone had a drink, and everyone had listened to eight or nine different speeches.

It was clear this was a significant community event, and there were lots of people giving speeches about how much money had been donated to the shrine, how everyone gave their best efforts, how each year was better than the year before, and how today we had guests even from overseas! In Australia, if people gave speeches they would usually wait until people had eaten, rather than while everyone is sitting, hungry, eyeing the food laid out in front of them.

But eventually we got the all-clear, and everyone commenced eating, drinking, and being merry. With, perhaps, an emphasis on the 'drinking' part. Pete and I were treated like honoured guests. Various important community figures came over to us and introduced themselves, or poured sake for us, or something. We met the local member of Parliament, as well as the custodian of the shrine. When they brought dishes of soup in, they made a beeline for me and gave me one first.

Pete and I only had a couple of drinks (it helps that I really dislike sake, and this was my third time drinking it that day; various people tried to pour us some, so I made sure to drink mine really slowly so I could legitimately decline, 'thanks, I already have some!').

Then the entertainment starts, and some older guys start playing traditional Japanese music. It's really, really great. The guys sitting at our table with us speak some English; I also get to practice lots of Japanese.

Suddenly, Pete and I are brought up to the front to give speeches. I am not especially nervous about giving a speech in front of 80 people. Mind you, I completely forget to introduce myself. I speak in Japanese. Everything I say is greeted with wild applause and cheering. I love Japanese people when they're drunk.

Pete gives his speech. He speaks in simple English. A fireman calls out, 'I LOVE YOU!!', immediately followed by 'I'M STRAIGHT!!' We both fall about laughing. I'm sure most of the audience have no idea why.

The traditional music resumes, and this time, some dancers wearing hilarious masks do some traditional Japanese dancing. Pete and I are invited to try. Even wearing a mask, I refuse to dance in front of 80 people, but Pete has no such qualms and cracks everyone up by doing disco and kung fu moves to the beat of taiko drums and Japanese bamboo flute...

After this, they haul up all the guys who carried the mikoshi for the first time (Pete is exempt). I don't fully understand this, but the guys have to introduce themselves, eat karaage (fried chicken), and then scull sake from the bottle. It starts to become surreal. The room is full of people in orange happi coats, cheering loudly. The guys on stage are sculling that sake at an alarming rate. We are concerned. They finish with a song and hastily devised dance routine.

The madness has not finished yet, however. Now a drinking game commences where someone goes to the front and has to scull from the bottle until it is taken away from them. Then they have to call someone else's name, and that person has to go up and do the same. Pete remarks that he has never seen adults drink like this; only college students. A lot of people are going red in the face. Half a bottle of sake is spilled.

I have heard that a lot of salarymen drink too much at parties with co-workers because of the social pressure to drink. Being able to drink a lot is a sign of manliness (I guess it's the same in most cultures...). After witnessing this party I can certainly understand that. If someone called your name at that party, with everyone cheering and calling out encouragement, it would be very hard to demur and say you don't drink. Pete says that every time he sees a drunk salaryman on the train now, he will imagine that he's been to a party like this one.

A guy starts to come to the front. I nudge Pete and tell him 'that's the local MP'. We both crack up because at the moment I say that, the guy is sashaying across the room, and proceeds to slug sake in front of dozens of drunken constituents...

Pete comments, truly, that he has 'never seen so much drinking with children present'. The children are in a kind of side room, and I don't see them at any point; I had assumed they had gone home, but after everything wraps up, they come out.

The evening finishes with more brief speeches, everyone standing and pretending to carry the mikoshi, and then doing a kind of conga line dance around the room, chanting 'seiya seiya'. Then the party is declared over, and with astonishing alacrity, the hitherto drunken carousers immediately start cleaning up the room, moving tables and running around with mops!

When we leave it's like we're leaving long-lost friends and we have to say goodbye several times to each person. You have never seen anything like the friendliness of Japanese people when they are in a group. Everyone tried to elicit promises from us to return next year, everyone asked us questions and welcomed us, everyone treated us with great kindness and really included us in the event. Despite the weirdness of the evening, there were so many really nice people in that neighbourhood. Even as we were leaving, people were pressing leftovers and drinks in our hands. I don't know if it's normal, or if we were treated special, but we didn't have to pay for anything the whole day.

So that was a very unique cultural experience for me, and one of my best days in Japan!

O-mikoshi

Last weekend Pete and I participated in a neighbourhood festival. Our co-worker Aya invited us. It's the neighbourhood she has lived in all her life, so she knows a lot of people there. It was nice feeling a real community feeling, with lots of neighbours greeting each other.

So we congregated at the neighbourhood shrine just after 9:30am, for the start of a long day! We met some of Aya's neighbours, who were understandably a little surprised to see two foreigners rock up at their local neighbourhood festival. Everyone was very friendly and greeted us kindly.

The focal point of a lot of festivals in Japan is carrying a 'mikoshi'. This is a team effort. A mikoshi is a portable shrine. It is quite large and apparently very, very heavy. The shrine is attached to several long beams of timber. Men (and sometimes women) carry the mikoshi all around the neighbourhood while chanting the rallying cry of 'wasshoi wasshoi' or 'seiya seiya'.

We all donned happi coats, and many people also wore hachimaki*, which are special headbands, tied to indicate seriousness of purpose. Like, 'yoooosh, we're gonna DO THIS THING!' The MC of the day gave an introductory speech, and we did this kind of clapping routine together, and everyone drank a small bowl of sake. Many of the women, including me, had bells tied around our ankles, to enhance the noise we made.

*(I had to look up that word and correct it. First, I wrote, 'many people also wore harumaki', which means 'many people also wore spring rolls', hahaha...)

If you look at Google images you can see some examples of mikoshi, and happi coats, hachimaki, etc.

Then, we all did a dance to start the festival. Many of the women had fans, and we did a kind of dance using the fans. I say 'we' did a dance but of course I am hopeless at dancing of all kinds and I privately resolved not to participate in (and thus ruin) the subsequent ones, hahaha...

Then, around 10:10, the mikoshi procession began. The idea was to carry the mikoshi all around the neighbourhood. The mikoshi is traditionally carried by men only, but these days women often take a turn. However, mostly, the women just took short turns, and the men bore the brunt of it. Pete was put at the back with the other taller guys. Apparently, carrying a mikoshi is rough on tall guys (as you can imagine, if several guys of different height are carrying something together, the taller guys have to stoop a bit, or bend their knees more).

Most of the women had a go at carrying it but I opted not to. This was not for lack of opportunities, at least a dozen different people invited me to take a turn, eager that I shouldn't miss out. But I'd decided ahead of time that I wouldn't carry it, since it is essentially a religious activity (although most Japanese people don't consider themselves religious; this is also a cultural activity), transporting the local god around the neighbourhood.

So instead of carrying the mikoshi I worked on cheering on those carrying it. And this also takes a lot of energy!

So, when people carry a mikoshi, they don't just simply carry it. They carry with a lot of energy and spirit. The carriers chant different things according to neighbourhood (our group went for 'seiya seiya'. It doesn't really have any meaning, it's just something people chant, for energy. You could imagine it means something like 'heave ho, heave ho'.) Also, they kind of walk with a dancing gait, bouncing the mikoshi up and down. This puts a lot of pressure on knees and shoulders.

The people walking with the mikoshi procession cheer on the people carrying it. So if you are cheering, you have to be LOUD, a lot louder than those carrying. We walked in front, behind, or alongside the mikoshi, waving fans, and occasionally taking turns with the BIG fan which could take a person out if you weren't careful with your aim! We could also go and fan the people's faces, since the sun was warm and they were sweating a LOT.

The processsion lasted perhaps an hour before we had a lunch break. We did have a 'made it down the first street' break where people drank alcohol (I've never drunk my second serve of alcohol at 10:30 am before...). Then a bit later, we met at a busy intersection in the neighbourhood, where three mikoshi converged and had a kind of 'mikoshi competition'. Here, we ate onigiri, met some of Aya's nice neighbours, and drank more alcohol (but small amounts of low strength, nobody was getting drunk). Pete and I got a chance to beat on this giant taiko drum in accordance with some guy's instructions ('okay, left! left again! now, left-right-left-right!).

After the lunch break, though, the procession resumed with a vengeance! We had quite a long route, with a lot of neighbourhood people turning out to watch as we went down the street, and passing lots of stores, a school, an old folk's home, etc. I think we went for over 90 minutes without a break. All the time, we had to maintain the same energy levels, and screamed and exhorted and fanned and gestured, while walking backwards in a kind of energetic way, the whole time.

However, our efforts were nothing compared to the guys carrying a hugely heavy mikoshi! Guys would switch out for short periods when the strain got too much, but most of them quickly returned to continue. Your performance and stoicism on the mikoshi is a sign of manly strength and vigour. At the end I saw some guys had blood on their shoulders. I later learned that many of these guys had done another mikoshi procession on the previous day!

Anyway eventually we reached our destination, and the mikoshi was loaded onto a truck to be driven back to the original shrine! Any time we stopped or started for a significant period of time, there'd be this routine of clapping, dancing, and drinking sake.

At the destination point there was the usual festival set-up, with lots of stalls selling various food. We had some. ^_^ At this spot was a women's mikoshi and a children's mikoshi. The guys had done well, and I learned the Japanese word 'kata' (shoulder), since at least ten different guys asked Pete if his shoulder hurt. There was a real sense of cameraderie after completing the physically demanding challenge together, especially among the guys.

すてき！

いいですね！！
これから日本語でかけます！iMacがすきです！
でも友建わぜんぶ日本語がわかりません。。。ざんえんですね。。。

さいきんいろいろでやくにたつことをおぼえました。。。たとえば、open と close の漢字。。。そして、一年あとで「横浜」およめます。。。

Okay, enough of my mangled Japanese. If you don't have Japanese characters enabled, you can't read it anyway... but I am rejoicing in the fact that after (almost) a year here, I can finally read the words 'open' and 'closed'. It's funny, the process of very very slowly becoming literate. For ages, everything is completely impenetrable; then gradually, you start to see bits and pieces you know. After I learned the kanji for seasons, I started seeing them everywhere. Summer special. Summer party. Summer campaign. And now I can know if a shop is open or closed! ^_^

I can also, after a year of living here, finally recognise the name of the city in which I live, 'Yokohama'...

Sumo

[I updated a couple of recent posts (one about Stace and one about the onsen) to add pictures.]



About three weeks ago Pete and I went to Ryogoku Kokugikan to see the sumo. One of my favourite students organised it for us and brought his friend along. It was the second Sunday of the 15-day tournament; right in the middle of the event.



So in we went. The sumo hall itself is extremely cool. The ring is in the center; surrounded by sumo officials and a number of other people sitting down* directly around the ring. These ringside seats in turn are surrounded by sumo box seats; these are boxes with four cushions, which people can buy tickets for and sit with their friends and eat, drink, etc. The tier above the box seats are the arena seats, which are the cheapest seats, like stadium seats.



*(Ringside is not a good place to sit. Sure, you can see very well, and that's important for referees. But look at how small that ring is. Now, recall that the idea of sumo is to push your opponent out of the ring. We saw sumo wrestlers plow into the officials at least two or three times. And being crushed by a sumo is no joke!)

Matches start from around midday, but all the earlier events are for lower-ranked sumo and therefore not of as much interest. We arrived a little while before the late afternoon matches, when all the highest-ranked sumo compete. The basic rules of sumo are not difficult to understand. A sumo loses if he steps outside the ring, or touches the ground with any part of his body apart from his feet.



Here you can see the o-sumo-san (sumo wrestlers) doing their entering ritual. The top ranking sumo, or yokozuna, get their own entering ritual. There are currently two yokozuna, both from Mongolia.

In Ryogoku Kokugikan you could buy bento (lunch boxes) 'themed' for sumo wrestlers. I bought an Asashoryu bento. Asashoryu is the longer-standing of the two yokozuna. He's a bit contentious though and has been in the press for having an aggressive attitude. Also, people say his form is starting to slip. A yokozuna cannot lose their top ranking once they've earned it - it's very difficult to attain this ranking in the first place, and there have been times when there has been no yokozuna at all - but yokozuna are expected to relinquish their position, or retire, once their abilities decline.

The matches themselves are very short, usually only a few seconds, and each is preceded by a ring entering ritual where the sumo throw salt into the ring etc. The yokozuna were the last to perform. Hakuho, the first, won his match effortlessly in about one second. Asashoryu, the second, lost. This was greeted by much excitement, and everyone in the box seats stood up and threw their cushions in towards the ring. I threw mine too, but I wasn't a very good shot, and hit some guy in the head.

After the sumo, we went to a nearby chanko nabe restaurant. Chanko nabe is the food that sumo wrestlers consume in large amounts in order to gain weight.


And you can see why. I would like to stress that we ordered a serving for three people. Three people. There is also an additional plate of minced meat, which you can't see in this photo.

Nabe is basically hotpot, so you put all the random meat, seafood and vegetables into boiling water, take them out, dip them in sauce and eat them. Chanko nabe itself is actually fairly healthy, but it has a lot of protein, and just look at that serving size!! The four of us couldn't finish ours.



Sumo wrestlers traditionally eat two meals of chanko nabe a day, and sleep right after eating, to increase weight gain.

Anyway, going to the sumo was terrific fun. ^_^

A friendly face

Stace is currently visiting me in Japan, which is very nice. ^_^ Yesterday I met her in Kawasaki (where she is staying) and we went into Tokyo to see Harajuku (famous for its interestingly-dressed people) and Yoyogi Park. It was awesome, we got to see the Rockabilly club. All these people in Grease-esque costumes, dancing to 50s music, and combing their Brylcreamed hair, hahaha...



Yoyogi Park rocks. You see so many interesting people doing a variety of things. So there are couples sitting talking, there are groups of people having raucous picnics, there are people practising random dance routines together, there are people practising juggling, there are strips of bands competing for who can be the coolest.

Today we went to Sankei-en garden, a traditional Japanese-style garden. It's very pretty, and was almost deserted because of the weather. (It was raining and unseasonably cold. In fact, the maximum temperature was 17 degrees. This time last week, it was 27.) We had tempura and soba for lunch, with free hot tea. I love tempura. ^_^ At the end of the meal I distinguished myself by walking straight into a glass door which I thought was open. Hahaha!



Then we headed to the harbour. The weather made it somewhat unpleasant but we looked around the main buildings and in the evening we met up with Ryu (my hairdresser) who is always enjoyable company, and went to an izakaya.


The Landmark Tower, which has no top, but continues forever into the clouds...

I was slightly amused because Stace said that after 9 months in Singapore, she'd never had to eat anything strange or disgusting. But within two days of coming to Japan she has eaten chicken's heart. (This was not intentional on my part!)

[Edit, two days later: Whoops. She has now also eaten beef diaphragm. This was also unintentional on my part. I thought I was ordering horse meat but I got my vocabulary confused. Hahaha! To be fair, we both liked it (it was in yakiniku, delicious Korean barbecue. :))]

I came home and on my way home I heard a meowing noise. There was a cat huddled under a bit of shelter, meowing hopelessly. I patted it and it tried to climb into my lap (difficult, as I wasn't sitting down). When I crossed the road, it ran after me. I gave it a piece of bread but I couldn't let it in my building, unfortunately. But I've heard a few lonely and saddened cats crying in the rain today. :)

It's nice to have a friend here in Japan. ^_^ She'll be here a couple more days yet.

Lost in Translation

I'm watching Lost in Translation, which I haven't seen since before I came to Japan. Before, at least there was some sense of 'wow, Japan looks so interesting' so I could kind of look past the non-story, and enjoy some parts of the movie. Now that Tokyo has become a familiar place, I'm having a lot of trouble concentrating on watching the film, which is why I'm on here blogging...

One cool thing is that I can now understand the film director when he gives that barrage to Bill Murray (you know, the 'more intensity!' scene). He is, in fact, not saying much worth translating ('the whisky is on the table, turn to the camera, do it slowly, with feeling, like you're greeting an old friend, make a toast, man we don't have much time, hurry it up', etc).

School of rock

In my last post I mentioned a new student, a rock music fan. I had my lesson with him today. He was wearing a different shirt, but also with a skull on it.

I can honestly say this is the only class where I've found myself writing on the board, sentences like:
'His singing style is similar to David Bowie.'
'My favorite KISS song is _____.'
'They played "I was made for loving you" on loop.'

It was certainly the only class where we've had rock music playing in the background the entire time.

I enjoyed it very much. ^_^

I love private lessons ^_^

Next week is a special week where some types of classes are not held. So we offer extra timeslots for private lessons. It seems like quite a few students like the chance to take a once-off private lesson, so the week usually fills up pretty well.

Anyway, a lot of my private lessons next week are just free conversation. That's the best kind. It's so easy. One guy wants me to talk about Australia, and places I've visited. For another girl, I'll pretend to be a customer, so my student, a waitress, can practice taking orders and describing specials in English.

Best of all is a brand-new student who I only met today. He's a big guy with a shaved head, and a huge flaming skull shirt, who enthusiastically told me about his interest in motorcycles, KISS, and heavy metal music. Apparently he has a collection of around 30 guitars.

He wants to take a private lesson to talk about music. He'd like me to bring a few of my favourite songs (I'm gonna burn a CD) and he'll do the same, so we can listen to each other's music in the lesson. I don't think anyone communicated to him that I really don't like rock music, so it should be interesting...

Still, I'll find my cooler pop-rock songs and bring 'em in, see if I can find a few good Aussie rock songs... looking forward to that. He was so nice, I'm really looking forward to the lesson. Even if we have different tastes in music, I *love* talking about music. I've gotten a few students on my iPod recently. ^_^

Teaching stuff

Been busy lately, with quite a full schedule. Haven't written much about what I actually teach.

Now that I've relaxed into teaching much more, I find that I've gotten better at answering questions, explaining grammar points, and presenting ideas in a simpler way. I find myself explaining new words or pointing out grammar structures a lot more in class.

Some things I explained this week:

When to use 'in' and 'has' in questions like 'Which hotel is the cheapest?', 'Which hotel has the best view?'

the meaning of the word 'proponent'

The difference between 'I appreciate your showing me...' and 'I appreciate you showing me...'

the northern and southern hemispheres

the difference between 'myself', 'by myself' and 'for myself" (this is much, much more difficult than you would imagine -_-)

the expression 'err on the side of caution'

the meaning of 'g'day'

how we change 'do you believe in' to 'did you believe in' when asking about childhood beliefs

the meaning of 'way' (as in 'way too hot')

how 'probably' is more certain than 'maybe' (in Japanese, there is one word which can mean either 'probably' or 'maybe')

the difference between 'danger' and 'peril' (a challenging one)

how we say 'I don't have enough money to travel', but 'I don't have much money for travel'

how to use 'is this yours?' vs 'are these yours?' and 'I can't find it/them anywhere'

Having always been a bit of a language geek, I must confess that I love this sort of thing. I never get tired of answering questions about English.

One of our students went scuba diving in Okinawa this week and brought us back a big box of mango cookies. I really love my job sometimes. ^_^

I am so glad one of my days off is Monday

I just found this photograph of a Tokyo swimming pool complex during peak season.

One can't help but think: why would anybody bother?!

Onsen story

Today I went to this place called Oedo Onsen Monogatari. It's a bit like an onsen (hot spring) 'theme park' in Odaiba, Tokyo.

Let me tell you, the major Japanese holiday pastime is going to hot springs. In Australia, when we have holidays, lots of people head to the beach; in Japan, it's hot springs. And there are so many hot springs in this country. I recall when I was in a car with a GPS, the GPS had an option to search for the nearest hot spring. Even in Tokyo there are quite a few.

Now that I've been to one myself, I can tell you, it's extremely relaxing. Just as good as a leisurely day at the beach. ^_^

Anyway, I'd never been to a proper hot spring before (I'd taken a hot spring bath, but nobody else was there at the time).

So, I went with two friends, one male, one female. (I should give them names here; I see them often. The guy is Andy, the girl Jess. I climbed Mt Fuji with Jess.)

The system goes like this:

Enter the building and leave your shoes in a locker; take the key with you.

Go in and pay for entrance. You're given a locker key on a wristband, and select your choice of yukata (Japanese light robe), men and women go on into separate changerooms. In the changeroom, you can unlock your locker.

Once you go in through the changeroom, everyone, men and women, are walking around barefoot in yukata. This immediately gives a very casual, relaxed feeling. This part of the park is an indoor venue designed to look like an old-style Edo (Tokyo) street. There are souvenir stores and lots of small restaurants.

Within the park, you can pay for everything by scanner. Any time you buy something, they scan your locker key, which you keep around your wrist, so you can walk around without having to carry anything. At the end you pay the total when you leave.



It's a pretty cool system. We had lunch (I *love* tendon - tempura on rice) and pottered around the outdoor foot spas in a garden; it was really peaceful, only the huge tall buildings in the background reminded you you were in Tokyo. There were these ponds you could walk through, the bottom of which were lined with rocks. The website claims these rocks 'stimulate the soles of the feet', but in fact they just hurt.

But we got some unusual foot therapy!! There was this pool full of small black fish. They love eating dead skin, so when you put your feet in, they all go for your feet. They don't have teeth, so they nibble at you with their lips. It's the strangest sensation - really, really tickly, almost hard to keep your feet in the water at first, but then it becomes relaxing, like a vibrating massage. We had to pay extra for this but it was really, really cool. Apparently this treatment is kind of famous here.



This is one of those great things about living in Japan; sometimes you end up doing the most random things. "What are you doing this weekend?" "I plan to let fish eat my feet."

After a while, Andy had to leave, so Jess and I went off into the women's-only section. The other sections were men/women, but the hot springs proper was sex-segregated. And as soon as you go in there, you see a lot of naked people. It's very rare for people to bathe in hot springs wearing swimsuits. At first you feel a bit self-conscious but then it's no big deal.

One interesting thing is that in Japan, tattoos are usually associated with the yakuza; therefore a convenient way to keep 'undesirable' types out of places is to ban tattoos. So a lot of hot springs and swimming pools have a 'no tattoo' rule. Jess had a tattoo so she had to keep hiding it with her towel.

When you get into the hot spring part, first there's a room full of lockers, where people take off their yukata and underwear and get a towel. When you come out, there are hairdryers and so on in this area too. You get given a big towel, which you leave at the lockers, and a handtowel, which you can wet with cold water and rest on your head, to keep yourself from overheating.

When you leave the room you go into the big hot spring area. Before you can go in the baths you have to wash yourself; there are lots of little stalls where you can sit on a stool, apply soap etc, and pour water over yourself to get clean before you get in the bath.

There were various baths of varying heats and mineral compositions, and it was oh-so-relaxing. It was a bit hot for us (it was, after all, a very hot and humid day today, actually; summer only just finished) so we did a lot of changing pools, and tried the saunas, but it was all good.

After, we felt really relaxed, and we had booked a sand treatment. Hahah... this is where you basically go into a room and they wrap you up and cover you up to your neck with hot sand. It gets very hot and you can't move, they make you drink water before you go in because you sweat a lot. Afterwards you come out pouring sand. I'm not sure what the benefit of this is, but it was an interesting experience. ^_^

So I'm glad, I finally got to experience an onsen, and hopefully more in the future. ^_^

Doing stuff

Nothing much of interest to say, but I'm still enjoying myself. Ever since Pete came I've been doing more stuff socially, we often grab a bite after work, and also, I'm more comfortable asking students to do things when it's with both of us than with just me, especially inviting guys.

This week we had yakiniku after work with the nicest couple. They're maybe about 30, the girl has been at our school for a while, the husband is more of a beginner student. But they're both so nice. The guy turned out to be a good Japanese teacher. Most people, if they address me in Japanese, don't seem to make much effort to speak slowly/clearly/simply, but just fire off a quick, mumbled sentence and then look at me expectantly. But I could understand most of what he said.

I haven't really talked much about food in this blog, except for the strange things I didn't like, but yakiniku is awesome. Actually, though, it's not Japanese food... it's Korean barbecue. You have a small grill on the table and you cook small pieces of meat, dip them in various sauces, it's really good.

Friday night we and three other teacher friends who work near-ish, went to this Indian restaurant. This is my favourite restaurant in Kawasaki. It's not too expensive, the curry is probably the best curry I've had anywhere, and the Indian people who work there are really friendly. One of our party is an Indian/American guy who's a language nut, and he chatted to the owner for a couple of minutes 'in bad Hindi', and to our surprise when we got to the counter he gave us a huge discount on our meals. I've referred quite a few people here now, hahaha.

Last night we and a bunch of students went to an izakaya. I've said this before but we have such, such nice students. There are so many great people. I feel really lucky to be living here. I could just talk to them for hours. In fact, I wanted to stay much longer, but I couldn't. Haha... it was the usual 'last train' dilemma.

We had 'ramen salad' (sounds strange but it was delicious), fried squid, hoke (a ?baked fish, you pull bits of it out with chopsticks), and sashimi (which I still don't like).

For the first time we went to a karaoke bar. This is different to a karaoke room - more expensive. It was like a small bar, really quite cool-looking, and we (a dozen of us) were the only guests, all sitting around the bar, a couple of staff on hand to serve us drinks at a moment's notice. I was one of the first to leave; somehow most of the others seemed to live really nearby and didn't need trains.

I've complained about the last trains a lot before, but they do annoy me, especially because the last train of the night is invariably full of people, so that you always think 'they could really justify running a few more'. I know they need a few hours off for maintenance, but I don't enjoy the dilemma of 'okay, at this point I need to decide - am I going to go home earlier than I want to, or am I going to stay out all night? And does anyone else want to stay out all night? Because I don't want to be left by myself'.

That's the downside of not having a car. But the bright side is you don't need to worry about drink-driving. I'm moderate in my drinking, but in Australia I would still have to be worrying about blood alcohol limits and so on.

On the bright side, though, I finally figured out that the second-nearest train station to me is a mere 20 minutes walk from my house. (It took longer before I inadvertently found the most direct route). A 20 minute walk on a warm autumn night is no hardship, even at 1am it feels perfectly safe. And this last train leaves a full hour and ten minutes after my 'real' last train. So instead of having to leave at 11:45, I can leave at 12:55. Still, there are times I'd love to stay out until 2 or 3...

I've practiced a lot of Japanese this week. At work I don't use it, except occasionally with co-workers, but outside work is a good opportunity for me. ^_^

My Japanese has improved enormously in the last three or four months. So it should; I've been studying really hard. Demo, mada mada desu... (But it's still not good enough yet...) I'm taking the JLPT 3-kyuu and I still have 21 chapters worth of grammar, at least 500 new vocabulary words, and around 150 kanji, to master in the next three months. Hahaha... good luck, me. After the test, I intend to reward myself by a) buying the Tokimeki Memorial 'Girl's Story' game, which is all in Japanese, and b) only doing review and practicing communication for a little while in my Japanese lessons.

How to accept an apology gracefully

One of my favourite classes is my advanced intermediate class on Saturdays.
Today's lesson on 'apologising':

N: I'm afraid I lost an important document. I can't apologise enough.
S: What?! You're fired!!
N: What?! Oh, no!... really? :(
S: Hahaha! Just kidding!
N: Oh, thank goodness. I'm really sorry about this.
S: Which file was it?
N: It was the document with all the sensitive customer information.
S: Oh. You're really fired!

S: I'm sorry, I lost my security key card.
N: Oh, really? Where did you lose it?
S: I think it's in a taxi. I was really drunk last night...

S (bowing): I'm sorry I stole your wallet.
N: What?! You... you stole my wallet?
S: You shouldn't have left it on the table.
N: But... I... If you give it back, I guess it's okay.
S (bowing again): I have a very old father... and a very old mother...

A: I have to apologise for kissing your girlfriend.
S: Oh. Which one? I have several girlfriends.
A: The one at this school.
S: Yes, I have several at this school, some at work...
A: Oh. It's Namie.
S: Oh, that's okay. She's not an important girlfriend anyway.
A: Oh, thank you. I'll make it up to you. You can kiss my girlfriend.

Lightning

All last night, this morning and throughout the day, there's been this endless lightning storm. It was phenomenal last night; I don't think I've ever heard such violent thunder.

A student said that today she was walking to the train station and lightning struck the ground in front of her!! Not two metres away! She said the ground was kind of burned... I mean, that is just scary!

***

By the way, I finally booked a flight to Australia to visit at the end of the year. I'll be coming back just before Christmas, leaving just after New Year. Tanoshimi! (I'm looking forward to it!)

Why you shouldn't climb Mt Fuji in the rain

Imagine the scenario: you're standing near the top of Japan's highest mountain, at an elevation of 3600m. The temperature is around 5 degrees, it's 4am, pitch-dark, and you're exposed on the mountain face. You've been out in the rain for the last eight hours, and you're soaked to the skin. You're wearing only a t-shirt and light 3/4 pants, with fluttering shreds of raincoat over the top, as the warmer clothing in your bag is soaked through. You're standing in a tremendous line of people that moves, on average, one step every four seconds.

***

So, this weekend I climbed Mt Fuji. It was an interesting experience. Not all bad, but not an experience I'm about to repeat in a hurry! Like many who climb Mt Fuji, we decided to climb during the night so as to reach the summit and watch the magnificent sunrise. We spent a total of 14 hours on the mountain; from 9pm to 11am - seven hours to climb up, three hours of rest (in bits and pieces), four hours to climb down. And during the entire 14 hours, it never stopped raining.

I went with three friends, and we met at 5th station of the Kawaguchiko trail. This is the hiking trail which most people take to climb Mt Fuji. The bus pulled up in front of the station at around 8pm. There weren't many people around, and it was very, very dark.

We bought hiking sticks to aid us in our climb, and set out. On our bus in, we'd met these three nice French people. They waited around for us to be ready, and we started the hike together. I couldn't believe how dark it was, and the rain was drizzling down. Without flashlights, we couldn't even see our hand in front of our face. I was wearing a rain coat, rain pants, and had wrapped plastic bags around my socks, in my shoes, to keep out the water.

From the 5th station, there are four stations on the way up to Mt Fuji. We reached the 6th one fairly effortlessly in half an hour; it's the closest to the bottom. We stopped there only a minute and continued on.

Now, physically, for me, the 6th to 7th station trek was the hardest. Part of it was that at this point, I was trying to keep up with everyone else, but I couldn't. And - obviously, being a mountain - the whole walk was uphill; steep slopes and vast numbers of steep stairs that you had to lift your whole body into, to ascend. My heart was pounding madly and even though I kept taking short breathers, after a few seconds of walking, I'd feel exhausted again.

I was walking with K, one of my friends, who claimed a similar lack of fitness (though I think she was better than me, and had to wait for me more often than vice versa). At this point I seriously doubted whether I could make it to the top of the mountain; being able to walk three seconds before getting exhausted, was not a good pace for ascending a mountain. I told her that my goal was just to get to the 7th station, and if I really couldn't do it, then I couldn't do it.

However, eventually lights appeared ahead, and we reached the 7th station earlier than I'd expected. We'd been climbing for about an hour and a half, so we stopped in at the cabin for food and drinks. It was pretty cool outside (probably around 12 degrees), and I've never had such a marvellous instant coffee with powdered milk before!

The Kawaguchiko trail has the main stations - 5 to 10 - but also various mountain huts. We'd climb up and look in hopefully, only to see that they weren't welcoming hungry climbers. We had looked in at two huts at the 7th station before finding a friendly guy who let us in to eat. We stayed there about 45 minutes; it was our longest rest during the ascent.

Having reached the 7th station earlier than expected, and cheered by the food - and running into our French friends again - I felt heartened to continue the hike. And the 7th to 8th stretch was my favourite part of the climb. This was because we spent about an hour negotiating rocks, climbing with handholds and careful footholds. Like clambering on the rocks at the beach as a child. I found this much easier going than constantly walking up slopes and steps.

Also, around this pass, there were quite a few other climbers, so at times, we had to climb in file. This meant I could go at a steady pace without feeling like I was going too slow for the group. I started to have fun, and singing to myself.

We reached the 8th station around 2am, I think. It was still very dark, and drizzling. It was getting cool and I was glad I'd had the foresight to bring rubber dishwashing gloves to wear; everyone else had bare hands, or gloves that were soaked through in moments. But it was interesting to look out over the mountain pass, into the mist, and see either nothing, or the dim lights of other climbers I had a headlight myself, which was very effective, until the clip broke around the 8th station. After that I had to manoeuvre the light with one hand, and hold my walking stick with the other.

The problem hereafter was that we just couldn't find a place to sit and have something to eat. There were mountain huts and stations, but they were either for people staying overnight as guests, or pre-booked tour groups, or something. Maybe I just didn't understand the system, but we'd go into a hut, with enthusiasm, ready to order from the menu posted outside, only to be told 'you can't come inside'. A lot of these hut managers were downright unfriendly. But then, imagine living on Mt Fuji for two or three months a year... it's not a cushy lifestyle.

Being unable to go inside and sit down also meant we were unable to pause to do anything like sit down and fix a broken headlamp, or put on warmer clothes. I wanted to do this, but had no place to sit down and do it. The fact is, from the 8th station (it's around 3020m high), it's getting cold. I think it was 11 degrees there. But by this point, despite all of our precautions, all of us were soaked. This meant our resting time was shorter. Since we couldn't go inside, our only option was to sit outside on the occasional benches, fully exposed to the elements. If you stop moving, you start freezing.

And although I was cold, I never wanted to stand still enough in the cold and rain, to put my jeans or jacket on. What's more, most of the items in my bag were soaked through; the backpack I'd thought would be rainproof, wasn't. And I had my doubts as to whether donning a sopping wet winter jacket would make me warmer. At any rate, I was so cold I couldn't manipulate my fingers well enough to put them on if I'd wanted to.

8th to 9th station had some pretty rough going, but it was cold enough to force me not to rest too long, so I made more progress than I had on earlier, similarly steep sections in the 6th-7th leg. The 9th station (if we even saw it; it wasn't obvious) offered no relief for us, so we had no choice but to proceed to the summit. I couldn't bear to stand still for more than a minute; it must've been about 8 degrees and I was still in the t-shirt and short pants I'd been wearing at the base of the mountain. The raincoat and pants were starting to fall apart.

I was just hoping with all my might that there would be a warm place to sit and eat at the summit. Even if I had to pay $50 to stay in one of those 'accommodation' huts, I'd do it for the sake of an hour inside somewhere.

My co-worker Pete climbed Mt Fuji a few weeks ago, and since then had been encouraging me (and everyone, really) to do it. He enthused about the sunrise, about the amazing night views ('the best part of resting is you can just sit down on the mountainside and see all the night lights for miles around') and the amazing view from the top. He warned me to bring warm clothes for the higher altitudes. Of course, all of his experiences were completely useless to us because of the continual, maddening rain. We couldn't see anything at any point.

This final part of the climb was so bad. I mean, it was heartbreaking. Like I described at the beginning of the post. It's horribly, horribly cold; everyone is wet and tired, but because sunrise wasn't far away, everyone wanted to reach the top at the same time. So there was a huge queue; thus everyone was waiting for ages on these mountain trails, climbing one step every four or five seconds, at a time when you desperately need momentum to keep you energised. And you'd look up, into the mist and drizzle, and you could see countless rows of fairy lights; but you knew those pretty lights represented more climb...

The thing is, this went on for around one and a half hours, I think. You'd make progress, and make progress, and look up - and see another six or seven zigzagging rows of lights ahead - and then you'd painstakingly cover more ground - and look up and there's just as many paths ahead as before. I was so cold. I could hear one of our party saying to K, 'I promise you, we will make it to the top'. If there had been any option other than to continue waiting in that line, I guess I would've taken it. But there was no choice but to keep climbing, in the hopes that eventually the outlook would change.

However, we made it!! We got to the top of Mt Fuji - 3776m! Just as we reached the summit, light began to creep over the mountainside. Until now, we had done all of our climbing in the pitch-dark. The light was hazy; the sky was full of foggy cloud, and even on the very summit, it was raining. At no point did we climb 'above the clouds', although this is often possible. Also, we couldn't see the slightest hint of a sunrise.

B and I made a beeline for the first building we saw. We could get a 'summit' stamp put on our walking stick, to show our achievement, and we did. Then we went to the next hut which had - oh, glory - food and hot drinks, and seats that people could sit on! This was the first time we'd seen this since station 7, more than six hours earlier. We met up with the French guys again - we'd touched bases at almost every station and mountain hut - and we stayed there for almost two hours, resting. We were so cold, all of us were shivering madly. They told me my lips were blue. We really enjoyed piping hot cocoa and bowls of ramen.

We saw the strangest effect, though, which I've never seen before. Steam was literally pouring off peoples' bodies. We were so cold, now we were in a moderately warm place (at least, out of the elements), and you could see steam rising off of peoples' shirts, or legs. I don't know quite what caused that, but it was pretty interesting. I finally put on my sopping wet coat and my somewhat dry jeans and spare socks. They did make me feel slightly warmer.

There actually wasn't much else to see at the summit (there certainly wasn't a view; only raincloud), so accordingly, we started our descent at around 7am. This period was notable because there was about twenty minutes when it wasn't actually raining; there was just a kind of cloudy fog surrounding us. This was the only time during the entire trip we could take any photos outside.

In some ways the descent was more demoralising than the climb. It's because you know the descent is estimated to take less time than the ascent, so you always feel as if it should be quicker than it is. Also, there are few huts or stations along the way; very few landmarks to watch out for, so you're always just climbing down, down, down, endlessly seeing the same landscapes. There wasn't a single place to rest or have a drink.

The other thing was, you know, Mt Fuji is a volcano. So the slopes are red or brown volcanic rock, much of which is quite loose and scrabbly. It was quite a painstaking effort going downhill for three hours on this kind of landscape. Progress was so slow; it was so easy to slip over (two of us did), and this kind of downhill scrambling is a killer on your ankles and knees.

Also, it continued to rain a lot, and all of us - already wet before - were now completely sopping. Although the temperature was gradually increasing with the daylight and with our decreasing altitude, it was still only around 10, and there was now some wind, so it was really, really cold and unpleasant.

As we descended the mountain, the rocks were gradually puncuated by bunches of yellow wildflowers; as we descended still more, we started seeing other plants and grasses; close to the 5th station, there were loads of trees, bushes, a regular forest. It was nice being able to actually see Mt Fuji, which we hadn't done on the way up (since we were so keen to get up to see the non-existent sunrise). Up close, it looked like a lot of small valleys and hills, actually.

Anyway, I was pretty proud of myself for reaching the top. It was hard afterwards, actually, carrying all my wet clothes and backpack home on the trains; everything weighed a tonne and I was pretty tired. Still, I don't think the physical exertion of the climb was nearly as bad as the cold and discomfort.

So anyway, now I can say I've climbed a mountain. And there's this saying that 'everyone should climb Mt Fuji once, but only a fool climbs it twice'. I thoroughly agree, though I would add that only a fool would climb Mt Fuji in the rain. -_-