Sometimes I don't eat lunch until late afternoon, and then hunger starts really suddenly. Usually this kind of hunger craves something western, because much as I love Japanese food, it's too refined to fulfil such a brutal flesh-eating desire. So I usually go to KFC. Where they serve Japanese-sized portions. Today, as usual I was given a Chicken Fillet Burger the size of a medium-sized grapefruit - but more importantly I was given a bag of fries containing a mere 10 fries. Yes, I counted. A mere ten full-size fries and 3 more runty ones that don't count. KFC may do fat fries, unlike McDonald's thin ones, but I'm sorry, being able to count the number of fries with the fingers you have on both hands represents one simple fact: there are not enough.
This is down from 15 full-size fries the last time. Is this for convenience? Fast food used to be about time: serving you the food fast; but maybe now it's about quantity: giving you so little that you are not burdened with the inconvenience of having to eat very much. You can part with your money and be out of there in no time.
In America I had to order the smallest size of any popcorn, coffee, anything because this would still provide me with something that would be regarded as large-size back in England. Here I have to do the opposite and order everything large to get a medium size by British standards. I went to the cinema with Tom a few weeks ago and made the mistake of buying a small-size popcorn (£2). There was so little popcorn in the box that until Tom picked it up he actually thought it was empty.
Friday, December 30, 2005
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Merry Christmas!!
Before coming to Japan, I thought I would be indifferent to not spending Christmas at home in England, but as the day got closer and closer I became unexpectedly sad about it. My Christmas Day could not have been less Christmassy, but I ended up having a really nice time! It was an absolutely stunningly beautiful day and I discovered to my joy that Japanese post even delivers on Sundays, so my parents' Christmas package arrived on the very day, which made me so happy! This contained much chocolate and the full DVD set for series three of "24".
This has turned out to be unexpectedly problematic - ie, my parents may as well have sent me a bag of heroin: it's that addictive. I'm sitting on the edge of my seat, biting deep into my nails, literally feeling like my heart is going to explode out of my chest, it's so gripping. I actually burst into tears at the end of one episode, just out of pent up suspense.
I saw friends in the afternoon and ate a very unChristmassy lunch. Then met up with another Japanese friend just back from Canada, who I haven't seen for a year and a half, so that was cool. He took me to this really weird basement pub. After walking the jam-packed streets of Ikebukuro (and I associate Xmas Day with totally deserted streets in the UK) we go into this "pub," all brown wood and authentic-looking except that there are ventilation shafts all over the ceiling. We're greeted by a dead-serious waiter wearing a Rudolph the Raindeer furry mask, except it's an ultracheap version, so it looks more like a felt balaclava with a couple of small floppy horns and a red nose lolling off his schnozz. Almost as proof that I've spent too much time in Japan already, none of this actually struck me as odd to begin with, but then I looked at him later and I realised I was being served by a member of a comic splinter-group of the IRA.
Unfortunately I didn't have a camera. I wanted to make it up by getting another photo of that strange triceratops salaryman thing that was standing at the ticket gates at my station, because it was all kitted-up like Santa in the week before Xmas, but that too was gone... I guess he must have delivered all his presents already and gone back to his hut full of elfosauruses up in Northern Hokkaido somewhere.
This has turned out to be unexpectedly problematic - ie, my parents may as well have sent me a bag of heroin: it's that addictive. I'm sitting on the edge of my seat, biting deep into my nails, literally feeling like my heart is going to explode out of my chest, it's so gripping. I actually burst into tears at the end of one episode, just out of pent up suspense.
I saw friends in the afternoon and ate a very unChristmassy lunch. Then met up with another Japanese friend just back from Canada, who I haven't seen for a year and a half, so that was cool. He took me to this really weird basement pub. After walking the jam-packed streets of Ikebukuro (and I associate Xmas Day with totally deserted streets in the UK) we go into this "pub," all brown wood and authentic-looking except that there are ventilation shafts all over the ceiling. We're greeted by a dead-serious waiter wearing a Rudolph the Raindeer furry mask, except it's an ultracheap version, so it looks more like a felt balaclava with a couple of small floppy horns and a red nose lolling off his schnozz. Almost as proof that I've spent too much time in Japan already, none of this actually struck me as odd to begin with, but then I looked at him later and I realised I was being served by a member of a comic splinter-group of the IRA.
Unfortunately I didn't have a camera. I wanted to make it up by getting another photo of that strange triceratops salaryman thing that was standing at the ticket gates at my station, because it was all kitted-up like Santa in the week before Xmas, but that too was gone... I guess he must have delivered all his presents already and gone back to his hut full of elfosauruses up in Northern Hokkaido somewhere.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Dust is a Must
The end-of-year thing here seems to be the big clean out. At the office and at home. I don't fancy cleaning out the office, so I may try and pull the foreigner card and pretend I don't realise I'm supposed to take part. Meanwhile my room could do with one. I don't know why but rooms in Japan accumulate dust so quickly - it piles up like tumbleweed in only a matter of days. Little dust bunnies, everywhere...
You'd think that like the dehumidifier they would have invented a machine that sucks the dust out of the air before it can build up on furniture - a dedustifier, shall we say. But then, this being Japan, even if they did have such machines, we'd probably be out of dust-season by Japanese standards and need a dustifier with a little swizzle nozzle to spout out dust in time for the big clean up.
You'd think that like the dehumidifier they would have invented a machine that sucks the dust out of the air before it can build up on furniture - a dedustifier, shall we say. But then, this being Japan, even if they did have such machines, we'd probably be out of dust-season by Japanese standards and need a dustifier with a little swizzle nozzle to spout out dust in time for the big clean up.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Shame
I feel kind of shitty for making a big deal about teaching English to an S&M dancer in my earlier post. I've given her a couple of lessons since, and she's such a generous, profoundly kind-hearted person, one of the most fascinating people I've met in a long time. But above all, in so many ways she defies stereotypical assumptions about what someone involved with S&M would be like, and I feel bad for sensationalising the very fact I was going to teach her. As the Japanese say, 反省します (I'm reflecting on my behaviour.)
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Old Tokyo
I met up with some friends of a friend today and we walked around a beautiful old area of Tokyo that still has a lot of wooden houses, going in and out of little shops selling handmade shoes, leather wallets and so on. We also went to some extremely tucked-away little galleries above cafes - it was such a chilled out day (literally: very cold, but beautiful blue skies and sunshine). We also went to this house/studio of a sculptor who died in the 1960s. It was so huge, two-storeys tall with a pond in the middle of the kind you'd find in a temple. It's so great that there are still places like this in Tokyo.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Reverse culture shocks
Sometimes things strike me as odd here and it takes me a moment to figure out why. Kogo and I went out to an area of Tokyo called Heiwadai, not that far out of the centre, but as soon as I left the station I could tell something was different - it felt like I had walked into another city. I could tell it had something vaguely to do with there being fewer high-rise buildings around. Then it clicked. There was more sky. So much blue. In most of Tokyo you have to look up to see the sky, because buildings take up your field of vision, but here suddenly it felt so open.
Another example was when I went to the bookshop the other day. As I was looking around, I suddenly felt something was different. And then I realised: the whole floor was completely quiet! There were people, but no announcements or promotions over any speakers. Bliss! This is so rare in a Japanese commercial environment. There is so much noise everywhere and you get so used to ignoring it and associating only your home, small backstreets, parks and art galleries with quietness that to find yourself in a quiet bookshop is a real surprise!
(I finished another book today - I'm so happy!)
Another example was when I went to the bookshop the other day. As I was looking around, I suddenly felt something was different. And then I realised: the whole floor was completely quiet! There were people, but no announcements or promotions over any speakers. Bliss! This is so rare in a Japanese commercial environment. There is so much noise everywhere and you get so used to ignoring it and associating only your home, small backstreets, parks and art galleries with quietness that to find yourself in a quiet bookshop is a real surprise!
(I finished another book today - I'm so happy!)
Friday, December 16, 2005
Yokohama
I had a really good day in Yokohama today. It's about 30 - 40 minutes away from central Tokyo and is technically Japan's second largest city, but physically it's just another part of Tokyo, sprawling down the bay.
I saw a beautiful exhibition by a Korean Mono-ha painter called Lee Ufan, who I wasn't that keen on up until now, but he is actually really good. I then went to the BankART gallery, which I'd not been to before and found copies of the catalogue to my friend Lieko's photo exhibition in Osaka this spring and which I couldn't see, obviously, because I was in Cambridge slaving over the many books I had to skim read in time for my exams. Finding these catalogues totally made my day.
I noticed more than ever before how much more of a low-rise city Yokohama is compared to Tokyo. It also has many more public spaces, squares and wider pavements, so it's quite comfortable to walk around and I can see why so many westerners end up living there. The whole of Japan is strange, in one way or another, but Yokohama's schtick is that it has that corporate utopia feel to it (at least, the bayside bit I was walking around today). Everything is decked out in fairy lights at the moment and a flowerbed on the pavement was even singing "Oh come all ye faithful" in a rich old baritone voice. Yes, it was. This is Japan.
Here are some photos of the strangeness of the urban environment of Yokohama and some of that strangeness rubbing off on me.
This is a really cool fountain outside the Yokohama Museum of Art.
Landmark Tower, Japan's tallest tower with the world's fastest lift which makes your ears pop. This photo is taken from the balcony of the BankART Gallery.
Green with envy.
Tickled pink!
This is an example of Japan at Christmas time: Neo-PostModern-Pseudo-Western-Kitsch-Something.
An unusually colourful entrace to the underground.
Down, down, down.
I saw a beautiful exhibition by a Korean Mono-ha painter called Lee Ufan, who I wasn't that keen on up until now, but he is actually really good. I then went to the BankART gallery, which I'd not been to before and found copies of the catalogue to my friend Lieko's photo exhibition in Osaka this spring and which I couldn't see, obviously, because I was in Cambridge slaving over the many books I had to skim read in time for my exams. Finding these catalogues totally made my day.
I noticed more than ever before how much more of a low-rise city Yokohama is compared to Tokyo. It also has many more public spaces, squares and wider pavements, so it's quite comfortable to walk around and I can see why so many westerners end up living there. The whole of Japan is strange, in one way or another, but Yokohama's schtick is that it has that corporate utopia feel to it (at least, the bayside bit I was walking around today). Everything is decked out in fairy lights at the moment and a flowerbed on the pavement was even singing "Oh come all ye faithful" in a rich old baritone voice. Yes, it was. This is Japan.
Here are some photos of the strangeness of the urban environment of Yokohama and some of that strangeness rubbing off on me.
This is a really cool fountain outside the Yokohama Museum of Art.
Landmark Tower, Japan's tallest tower with the world's fastest lift which makes your ears pop. This photo is taken from the balcony of the BankART Gallery.
Green with envy.
Tickled pink!
This is an example of Japan at Christmas time: Neo-PostModern-Pseudo-Western-Kitsch-Something.
An unusually colourful entrace to the underground.
Down, down, down.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Books! Lovely Books!
I'm proud to say that I have actually read a book over these last ten days. From cover to cover. The past four years of Cambridge have until now utterly killed my ability to read anything to its end, even short newspaper columns. It was the systematic process of being given a reading list of five or six books in preparation for an essay or a presentation and having to read them all by a fixed deadline, usually ten days away. Given all the other translation work etc that we had to do, this meant that I would either only read the recommended chapters, or in the case we actually had to read the whole book, I would skim read it for the most relevant bits. This, combined with that fact that I was either not that interested in many of the topics these books were about, or I was downright bored shitless by them. On getting home I'd immediately divide the total number of pages by the number of days I had to read them to break it down... and then not read them anyway. Not a healthy reading situation.
So in four years, I think I've only read about four novels of my own choice during the holidays and three of those were by Haruki Murakami, so not the most demanding stuff. I've repeatedly walked into bookshops and had to leave promptly because I'm overwhelmed with the feeling that there are so many books I want to read and no time (or basic ability) to read them. I always froze with fear whenever Saara offered me a book to read (which somehow you always have in your handbag, ready to offer whenever we meet up over any given cup of coffee. Though I have to say I was proud to have read the Jon Ronson book you lent me this summer - note, once the heavy hand of Cambridge had released me from its grip - that was the trick you see: if you'd kept them simple, with big type, like Babar or something, I would have read them all.)
So now I'm returning to the halcyon days of my teenage years when I read like crazy. This is made so much easier by the fairly long amounts of time I have to spend on the subway every day in Tokyo, just to cover the pretty large distances from A to B.
I've been reading Noam Chomsky's "Imperial Ambitions," which totally exposes the blinding hypocrisy of the way rich and powerful countries treat weak and poor ones.
Michael Klare's "Blood and Oil" is the one book you need to read if you want to understand why things have come to be the way they are now and how global politics will unfold over the next decade or so (the clue is in the title).
And, knowing that reading another book about how fucked up the world is might send me over the edge, I bought "Carlos Eire's "Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy" - a beautiful account of a Cuban exile's very intense, magical, at times frightening childhood in Havana at the time the revolution started.
I'm so happy to be reading for myself again!
So in four years, I think I've only read about four novels of my own choice during the holidays and three of those were by Haruki Murakami, so not the most demanding stuff. I've repeatedly walked into bookshops and had to leave promptly because I'm overwhelmed with the feeling that there are so many books I want to read and no time (or basic ability) to read them. I always froze with fear whenever Saara offered me a book to read (which somehow you always have in your handbag, ready to offer whenever we meet up over any given cup of coffee. Though I have to say I was proud to have read the Jon Ronson book you lent me this summer - note, once the heavy hand of Cambridge had released me from its grip - that was the trick you see: if you'd kept them simple, with big type, like Babar or something, I would have read them all.)
So now I'm returning to the halcyon days of my teenage years when I read like crazy. This is made so much easier by the fairly long amounts of time I have to spend on the subway every day in Tokyo, just to cover the pretty large distances from A to B.
I've been reading Noam Chomsky's "Imperial Ambitions," which totally exposes the blinding hypocrisy of the way rich and powerful countries treat weak and poor ones.
Michael Klare's "Blood and Oil" is the one book you need to read if you want to understand why things have come to be the way they are now and how global politics will unfold over the next decade or so (the clue is in the title).
And, knowing that reading another book about how fucked up the world is might send me over the edge, I bought "Carlos Eire's "Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy" - a beautiful account of a Cuban exile's very intense, magical, at times frightening childhood in Havana at the time the revolution started.
I'm so happy to be reading for myself again!
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Kinky!
So I'm teaching English to an S&M dancer.
We met when I went back to a bar in Golden Gai for lunch last week. She works as a barlady in a couple of bars around the area and we had a really good chat while I was having lunch. I met a couple of other really odd but harmless artist people while I was there. And she really wanted me to teach her English so that she could explain what kind of dance she does to foreigners. She said she'd pay me my usual hourly fee plus give me free drinks, so I agreed.
She has a very distinctive name, so I looked it up on google and found out what kind of dance she does and what kind of crowd she hangs out with. I have to say I was slightly concerned at first that I might find myself getting tangled up in something unpleasant, but then I was like "fuck it, she was really nice."
So I went to the bar she was working at tonight, which is called "Bikini Machine," pretty small and decked out in 70s colours and fur everywhere with loads of bikini-clad female shop-window dummies. And bikini-clad Barbie dolls on all the shelves. My beer was even served in a glass shaped like a woman's body wearing a bikini. We started chatting:
"So, what did you do today?"
"Uhh, first I went to school, then I danced. But it was really bad, I made mistakes."
"Oh? Like what?"
"Well, I fell over."
"So, the kind of dance you do, does it have fixed patterns which you have to get right?"
"Well, it's SM, so I wear bondage gear..."
"Essay?"
"SM"
"Uuh, like writing?"
"No. Bondage. Leather. SM."
"OH! S and M! I get it - yeah, Sadomasochism... yeah, for some reason we shorten it to S and M in English."
"Yeah, I have to wear really high heels, and sometimes I fall over."
And so on.
Then, after about half an hour a group of about thirty Japanese people comes piling in, celebrating something and the bar goes from being completely empty to rammed full. So I wait around kind of awkwardly for her to finish serving customers (apparently it never normally gets that busy). It was really odd, because usually I inevitably become the focus of at least one person's attention, if not several - but it was truly like I was invisible. You wonder all your life what it would be like to be a fly on the wall, and for about 20 minutes I was, like some anthropologist living with the natives. Then somehow that changed and I ended up behind the bar serving people for little while. And then I agreed with her that it would be better if I came back on a quieter day.
My walk back to the station was made considerably more enjoyable when I walked past another tiny 10 person bar with a lone salaryman in it doing a karaoke version of Numa Numa (I love this video).
We met when I went back to a bar in Golden Gai for lunch last week. She works as a barlady in a couple of bars around the area and we had a really good chat while I was having lunch. I met a couple of other really odd but harmless artist people while I was there. And she really wanted me to teach her English so that she could explain what kind of dance she does to foreigners. She said she'd pay me my usual hourly fee plus give me free drinks, so I agreed.
She has a very distinctive name, so I looked it up on google and found out what kind of dance she does and what kind of crowd she hangs out with. I have to say I was slightly concerned at first that I might find myself getting tangled up in something unpleasant, but then I was like "fuck it, she was really nice."
So I went to the bar she was working at tonight, which is called "Bikini Machine," pretty small and decked out in 70s colours and fur everywhere with loads of bikini-clad female shop-window dummies. And bikini-clad Barbie dolls on all the shelves. My beer was even served in a glass shaped like a woman's body wearing a bikini. We started chatting:
"So, what did you do today?"
"Uhh, first I went to school, then I danced. But it was really bad, I made mistakes."
"Oh? Like what?"
"Well, I fell over."
"So, the kind of dance you do, does it have fixed patterns which you have to get right?"
"Well, it's SM, so I wear bondage gear..."
"Essay?"
"SM"
"Uuh, like writing?"
"No. Bondage. Leather. SM."
"OH! S and M! I get it - yeah, Sadomasochism... yeah, for some reason we shorten it to S and M in English."
"Yeah, I have to wear really high heels, and sometimes I fall over."
And so on.
Then, after about half an hour a group of about thirty Japanese people comes piling in, celebrating something and the bar goes from being completely empty to rammed full. So I wait around kind of awkwardly for her to finish serving customers (apparently it never normally gets that busy). It was really odd, because usually I inevitably become the focus of at least one person's attention, if not several - but it was truly like I was invisible. You wonder all your life what it would be like to be a fly on the wall, and for about 20 minutes I was, like some anthropologist living with the natives. Then somehow that changed and I ended up behind the bar serving people for little while. And then I agreed with her that it would be better if I came back on a quieter day.
My walk back to the station was made considerably more enjoyable when I walked past another tiny 10 person bar with a lone salaryman in it doing a karaoke version of Numa Numa (I love this video).
Friday, December 09, 2005
Merry Christmas Indeed
This evening, on my way to give an English lesson, two middle-aged women both walking white labradors came across each other and the dogs took a particular fancy to each other. Straining on their leads to do a 69 sniff-sniff, I could barely contain myself as the two women tried to make the kind of polite conversation that dog owners are forced to do when their pet pooches want some poon. They were both being pulled around in circles, the leads tangling up, the dogs knocking over parked bicycles, which made a nearby man pick them up and the women practically bawling "I'm soo sorry for the terrible inconvenience. Thank you for your kind help."
I thought that was going to be the highlight of my evening, but then I came across this, next to the ticket gates at my subway station:
I thought that was going to be the highlight of my evening, but then I came across this, next to the ticket gates at my subway station:
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Boom boom boom, let's shake the room.
There was a big earthquake while I was at the gallery today and it did this to the office:
Well....
Actually....
Just kidding!
I cunningly cropped the photo so that you couldn't see the books which hadn't fallen off the other shelves. Basically, the brown shelves had been sagging for some time and one had even collapsed, and so the directors had already ordered in some new, stronger ones which were delivered today. Having been assigned the job of assembling the new shelves, I spent most of my afternoon strutting around the gallery with a powerdrill, asserting my straightness. Then I heard a crash and a scream from the office, and this is what I actually saw when I came in:
Someone must have given the brown shelves the last little push they needed before they gave up and the entire set of five shelves had come crashing down. You can even see two of the measly little pegs that were holding them up. The new shelves are properly screwed in - WHO'S the man?!
The new shelves also came with little hard-plastic straps which you screw onto the top of the cabinet and into the wall so that in the event of an (actual) earthquake, the books may fall off, but at least the cabinet won't topple over and kill you. The weird thing about all this was that not long after I arrived in the morning, before I even knew that the new shelves were being delivered, I was looking at the old cabinets thinking about suggesting to the directors that we buy some of those plastic straps because they were a towering death-trap. The irony also is that exactly the same collapse-due-to-overweight happened at the gallery while I was there last year and these crappy brown shelves were already replacements for a previous lot!
Well....
Actually....
Just kidding!
I cunningly cropped the photo so that you couldn't see the books which hadn't fallen off the other shelves. Basically, the brown shelves had been sagging for some time and one had even collapsed, and so the directors had already ordered in some new, stronger ones which were delivered today. Having been assigned the job of assembling the new shelves, I spent most of my afternoon strutting around the gallery with a powerdrill, asserting my straightness. Then I heard a crash and a scream from the office, and this is what I actually saw when I came in:
Someone must have given the brown shelves the last little push they needed before they gave up and the entire set of five shelves had come crashing down. You can even see two of the measly little pegs that were holding them up. The new shelves are properly screwed in - WHO'S the man?!
The new shelves also came with little hard-plastic straps which you screw onto the top of the cabinet and into the wall so that in the event of an (actual) earthquake, the books may fall off, but at least the cabinet won't topple over and kill you. The weird thing about all this was that not long after I arrived in the morning, before I even knew that the new shelves were being delivered, I was looking at the old cabinets thinking about suggesting to the directors that we buy some of those plastic straps because they were a towering death-trap. The irony also is that exactly the same collapse-due-to-overweight happened at the gallery while I was there last year and these crappy brown shelves were already replacements for a previous lot!
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Evolution Before Breakfast
It's got really effing cold here all of a sudden, and the problem is compounded by the total lack of central heating in Japan. Given that they heat the seats on the underground, you'd think they'd have found a way to have heating under the pavements... at least in the home - but no. Gas heaters only. The situation has got to the stage where I'm swapping my usual morning shower for an evening one, because I just can't face the cold in the morning anymore.
To illustrate this, I'm posting a picture of me emerging from my chrysalis.
This stage comes shortly after a short crawl from my futon to the gas heater, and is followed by a period of bleary-eyed staring at the computer, hoping for emails that you fuckers never send me. This culminates in me mustering the courage to shed my chrysalis and flap like a butterly, if only to grab hold of the nearest jumper to put on top of my pyjamas so I can actually leave my room.
To illustrate this, I'm posting a picture of me emerging from my chrysalis.
This stage comes shortly after a short crawl from my futon to the gas heater, and is followed by a period of bleary-eyed staring at the computer, hoping for emails that you fuckers never send me. This culminates in me mustering the courage to shed my chrysalis and flap like a butterly, if only to grab hold of the nearest jumper to put on top of my pyjamas so I can actually leave my room.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Nyaaaaaaaa
The Japanese have some really good sounds for animals, and some really crap ones.
Dogs go "wan wan"
Pigs go "boo boo" (like fuck they do)
And cats, they go "nyaa nyaa." I love this sound so much that I find any excuse to slip it into daily conversation.
Dogs go "wan wan"
Pigs go "boo boo" (like fuck they do)
And cats, they go "nyaa nyaa." I love this sound so much that I find any excuse to slip it into daily conversation.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
The Invisible Enemy in the Air
My flatmate is one the nicest guys I've ever known and I don't want to diss him, but I've realised recently that I am actually living with the stereotype of someone obessed with something. In his case, it's karate. This is a good thing, because it's got me doing karate again after a six-year break and it's fun going to the dojo with him and meeting new people, none of which I would be doing if it weren't for him. And his obsession is paying off, because even though he's a green belt (about half-way to black), he's way better than many of the people above him.
But somehow I can't get over the bizarre novelty of living with someone who gets up in the morning and watches videos of karate first thing, actually rewinding and replaying certain moments several times over. Obviously I don't mind cos I have my own idiosyncracies which he doesn't hold against me.
So yes, my main idiosyncracy at the moment (and it looks like it's going to last some time) is my ongoing battle with the moisture in the air. The first thing I noticed when I got here is that the atmosphere is like a wet sponge. The pages in almost all of my books and magazines are going wavy as if I'd left them in the bathroom - some of my writing paper is so moist that it fucks up the felt pens that I use to write with; I'm having to go out and buy ballpoints. I have to hang my clothes up to dry in the living room/kitchen because I refuse to add yet more moisture to the air in my room. So I decided to buy a dehumidifier. This was not easy because it's winter and the Japanese seem to find this season dry!! They're actually selling humidifiers in the shops, which are a sight to behold: dozens of little machines filled with water which have twizzling little nozzles that spout out steam from the top. So of course I got funny looks when I asked for a dehumidifer, but luckily, of the very few they had in stock they had one that looks more like a Bose speaker and matches my iPod aesthetic very nicely.
That was ten days ago, and I emptied it for the first time yesterday. It hadn't been on all the time and yet it had accumulated about two pints' worth of water - just from the air!!??
But somehow I can't get over the bizarre novelty of living with someone who gets up in the morning and watches videos of karate first thing, actually rewinding and replaying certain moments several times over. Obviously I don't mind cos I have my own idiosyncracies which he doesn't hold against me.
So yes, my main idiosyncracy at the moment (and it looks like it's going to last some time) is my ongoing battle with the moisture in the air. The first thing I noticed when I got here is that the atmosphere is like a wet sponge. The pages in almost all of my books and magazines are going wavy as if I'd left them in the bathroom - some of my writing paper is so moist that it fucks up the felt pens that I use to write with; I'm having to go out and buy ballpoints. I have to hang my clothes up to dry in the living room/kitchen because I refuse to add yet more moisture to the air in my room. So I decided to buy a dehumidifier. This was not easy because it's winter and the Japanese seem to find this season dry!! They're actually selling humidifiers in the shops, which are a sight to behold: dozens of little machines filled with water which have twizzling little nozzles that spout out steam from the top. So of course I got funny looks when I asked for a dehumidifer, but luckily, of the very few they had in stock they had one that looks more like a Bose speaker and matches my iPod aesthetic very nicely.
That was ten days ago, and I emptied it for the first time yesterday. It hadn't been on all the time and yet it had accumulated about two pints' worth of water - just from the air!!??
Friday, December 02, 2005
Russian Squirrel Pack 'Kills Dog'
The stuff of nightmares.
Sakhalin is only just north of Japan. I wonder what might happen here...
"Stuffed animals all over Japan put down after Hello Kitty gives child rabies?"
Sakhalin is only just north of Japan. I wonder what might happen here...
"Stuffed animals all over Japan put down after Hello Kitty gives child rabies?"
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Golden Gai
Tom and I have found the coolest bars in the whole of Tokyo. It's this small area of Shinjuku where there are three small, rickety streets of tiny bars, most of which can only hold about ten people max and would collapse in a second of a major earthquake. The area is called Golden Gai and you can read about it on the web. I think it was built after the war for lowlifes and prostitutes, but ended up being where all the philosophers and artists went and still do, apparently. I can't believe it's still here, and that it doesn't seem to have been overrun by celebrities or demolished for an office block . They all have their own weird little theme, which you can't really tell until you step in.
The bar Tom and I went into was covered in pirated CDs, mostly English, and posters to obscure 80s bands everywhere. All the punters were friends of the barman. According to what other people have written on the web, there are proportionately quite big cover charges and some total rip off bars, or ones that don't take foreigners, but I don't care. Emily and me are going there tonight! And I'm not going to any other bars anywhere else in Tokyo now.
The bar Tom and I went into was covered in pirated CDs, mostly English, and posters to obscure 80s bands everywhere. All the punters were friends of the barman. According to what other people have written on the web, there are proportionately quite big cover charges and some total rip off bars, or ones that don't take foreigners, but I don't care. Emily and me are going there tonight! And I'm not going to any other bars anywhere else in Tokyo now.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Ick.
Tom and Emily have both got conferences they have to go to in Tokyo, so they've been staying here this week.
Last year, Tom recommended me a deodorant called Uno, which you can buy in any Lawson convenience store here. Apparently it works better than any he's used before, so I was all keen to try it. So I found it, and sure enough it said "Super Hard Spray" on the can, so thinking this must be the shit, I bought it. And indeed, it was different: it felt like a kind of watered down glue and I had to hold my arms up until it dried for a minute before getting dressed. After the first couple of times I didn't smell at all, so I thought it must be doing the trick. But then at the end of one day I smelt really bad, so I was kind of pissed off that even this super deodorant wasn't doing the trick for me.
While Tom was staying here over the weekend, he pick up the can, noticing it's a different colour from the one he had. He takes a closer look at the back and sees that in fact, of the Uno range, I had managed to pick out the hairspray and not the deodorant.
Last year, Tom recommended me a deodorant called Uno, which you can buy in any Lawson convenience store here. Apparently it works better than any he's used before, so I was all keen to try it. So I found it, and sure enough it said "Super Hard Spray" on the can, so thinking this must be the shit, I bought it. And indeed, it was different: it felt like a kind of watered down glue and I had to hold my arms up until it dried for a minute before getting dressed. After the first couple of times I didn't smell at all, so I thought it must be doing the trick. But then at the end of one day I smelt really bad, so I was kind of pissed off that even this super deodorant wasn't doing the trick for me.
While Tom was staying here over the weekend, he pick up the can, noticing it's a different colour from the one he had. He takes a closer look at the back and sees that in fact, of the Uno range, I had managed to pick out the hairspray and not the deodorant.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Hello, I'm your pod-doctor for today, just levitate this way please.
The downside of last week was an ear infection. I went to an Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic in a hospital that Kogo recommended to me, which was a Sci-Fi meets playschool experience.
I had to undergo a couple of (I think largely pointless) tests on my hearing and ear pressure. The woman who gave me the ear pressure test gave me this thing that looked like a black plastic paraffin can with an oval bobble on top. I had to shove the bobble into my nostril while she stuck something else in my ear. At one point I really had to suppress my desire to laugh. Her instructions don't sound quite as ridiculous in English as they do in Japanese, but you get the gist if you imagine her talking to me as though I were a child.
"Now when I count to 3, try to gulp as best as you can... 1...2...3... GULP!"
"Good, well done! And again... give it your best!!"
After that, when I finally got to see the doctor, my name and the room number I had to go to was called out over a loudspeaker. I then walked into this corridor that was like something out of Star Trek and a door slides open to reveal a doctor sitting in a room that I like to think of as a kind of pod. He even had one of those shiny metallic discs strapped to his forehead. He was really very professional and good about everything though. I have a perforation in my left eardrum, which he suggests I should have a minor operation for. We'll see: I hear from other people that medicine can make it heal, and I'd like a second doctor's opinion. I'm not in any pain at all, which is a relief because I thought that burst eardrums were supposed to be the most painful things on earth. But the sense of unease that comes with it isn't great.
By the way, I reckon my eardrum was perforated when I came back to Tokyo on the bullet train. I was listening to my iPod and and suddenly the sound in my left ear started to drown out and pressure built up and my ear popped really painfully. Looking back, I know I don't listen to my iPod loud at all, so it can't have been that, and since bullet trains aren't pressurized like planes, I didn't think that was anything to do with it either. But since then both Tom and Emily have told me they have had problems with their ears whilst listening to their iPods on the train.
I'm not surprised that my eardrum ruptured in this case - I have slightly weaker eardrums than most people because of problems I had with my ears when I was a kid. But as for the dangers of listening to your iPod on the bullet train, remember you heard it here first!
I had to undergo a couple of (I think largely pointless) tests on my hearing and ear pressure. The woman who gave me the ear pressure test gave me this thing that looked like a black plastic paraffin can with an oval bobble on top. I had to shove the bobble into my nostril while she stuck something else in my ear. At one point I really had to suppress my desire to laugh. Her instructions don't sound quite as ridiculous in English as they do in Japanese, but you get the gist if you imagine her talking to me as though I were a child.
"Now when I count to 3, try to gulp as best as you can... 1...2...3... GULP!"
"Good, well done! And again... give it your best!!"
After that, when I finally got to see the doctor, my name and the room number I had to go to was called out over a loudspeaker. I then walked into this corridor that was like something out of Star Trek and a door slides open to reveal a doctor sitting in a room that I like to think of as a kind of pod. He even had one of those shiny metallic discs strapped to his forehead. He was really very professional and good about everything though. I have a perforation in my left eardrum, which he suggests I should have a minor operation for. We'll see: I hear from other people that medicine can make it heal, and I'd like a second doctor's opinion. I'm not in any pain at all, which is a relief because I thought that burst eardrums were supposed to be the most painful things on earth. But the sense of unease that comes with it isn't great.
By the way, I reckon my eardrum was perforated when I came back to Tokyo on the bullet train. I was listening to my iPod and and suddenly the sound in my left ear started to drown out and pressure built up and my ear popped really painfully. Looking back, I know I don't listen to my iPod loud at all, so it can't have been that, and since bullet trains aren't pressurized like planes, I didn't think that was anything to do with it either. But since then both Tom and Emily have told me they have had problems with their ears whilst listening to their iPods on the train.
I'm not surprised that my eardrum ruptured in this case - I have slightly weaker eardrums than most people because of problems I had with my ears when I was a kid. But as for the dangers of listening to your iPod on the bullet train, remember you heard it here first!
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Show me the Money!
Life suddenly got a bit busy this past week or so. I finally feel a bit better about the pay situation at the gallery because they are at least taking down the hours that I work on an official form, like the one everyone else has. I still don't actually know how much my hourly pay is, so that will be something to figure out when the first pay cheque comes in whenever.
I keep making really embarrassing mistakes with my Japanese in the office. By accidentally coming out with a similar-sounding word to the one I mean, instead of saying "I'm really happy to have started my adult life," I've managed to say "I'm really happy to have started my life as a man." And instead of "I'm not sure if I'm imagining this or not, but it there music playing?" I said "I'm not sure if I exist or not, but is there music playing?"
I've also started sitting in on lectures at university, which is has been really interesting. People seem alright, though it's early days. I'm sure I'll meet some cool people though.
I keep making really embarrassing mistakes with my Japanese in the office. By accidentally coming out with a similar-sounding word to the one I mean, instead of saying "I'm really happy to have started my adult life," I've managed to say "I'm really happy to have started my life as a man." And instead of "I'm not sure if I'm imagining this or not, but it there music playing?" I said "I'm not sure if I exist or not, but is there music playing?"
I've also started sitting in on lectures at university, which is has been really interesting. People seem alright, though it's early days. I'm sure I'll meet some cool people though.
Thursday, November 24, 2005
A Poem
One of my English students postponed his lesson today:
Dear Mr. R
Hello.
I am Inaba of a secretary of Mr. Imamura.
He got sick suddenly, and it was expected that I took a rest for a while.
I am really disappointed, but let me cancel a plan.
I say that he wants to meet you if he became well-conditioned.
Therefore, will you promise once again on a weekday after a twist on next month 12?
Yours sincerely,
Inaba
I wonder how many lessons it's going to take to fix his grammar.
Dear Mr. R
Hello.
I am Inaba of a secretary of Mr. Imamura.
He got sick suddenly, and it was expected that I took a rest for a while.
I am really disappointed, but let me cancel a plan.
I say that he wants to meet you if he became well-conditioned.
Therefore, will you promise once again on a weekday after a twist on next month 12?
Yours sincerely,
Inaba
I wonder how many lessons it's going to take to fix his grammar.
Saturday, November 19, 2005
Friday, November 18, 2005
The ground beneath my feet
I have to say, people here are a little unusually concerned because there have been a number of quite strong earthquakes in this region of Japan fairly close together over the last week or so. I was a bit disappointed because they all happened at about 6am and I was fast asleep and didn't notice at all, except being half-conscious of the one on Monday.
The two massive earthquakes off Indonesia since Boxing Day last year, plus the huge one in Kashmir, plus a big one in Niigata (NW Japan) a year ago have all contributed to the sense that Tokyo is next. People are worried that the earthquakes this week could be the medium-sized ones that preceded the Big One, which has been overdue for some ten, twenty years now. It's either going to be us or California... and either way we're on different ends of the same tectonic plate...
Apparently the Bible Code has the words Big Earthquake and Japan encoded near the year 2006 or something. You turn a blind eye to it all so as to get on with your life, but when you do think about it, it's not actually a very nice feeling at all.
In any case, if it does happen, I'll try and post a blog as soon as possible to let you know I'm okay.
The two massive earthquakes off Indonesia since Boxing Day last year, plus the huge one in Kashmir, plus a big one in Niigata (NW Japan) a year ago have all contributed to the sense that Tokyo is next. People are worried that the earthquakes this week could be the medium-sized ones that preceded the Big One, which has been overdue for some ten, twenty years now. It's either going to be us or California... and either way we're on different ends of the same tectonic plate...
Apparently the Bible Code has the words Big Earthquake and Japan encoded near the year 2006 or something. You turn a blind eye to it all so as to get on with your life, but when you do think about it, it's not actually a very nice feeling at all.
In any case, if it does happen, I'll try and post a blog as soon as possible to let you know I'm okay.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Sorry, but you're going to have to indulge me
So one of the other things I've been doing over the past few days is going weak at the knees with excitement over Madonna's new album Confessions on a Dance Floor, released in Japan tomorrow. The single Hung Up that's already out is fucking great, as is the video, which features dancers from the must-see documentary Rize, which I've also been raving about to people one-to-one. (See trailer here.)
And then there's this picture: Madonna the undisputed Queen of Pop, Glam and Future-Disco perfection.
And then there's this picture: Madonna the undisputed Queen of Pop, Glam and Future-Disco perfection.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Oh, Essay writing! That's where I'm a viking!
Not a lot going on at the mo. Being stereotypically Japanese in this respect, the gallery directors take forever to make a decision, so while I'm on the verge of getting a pretty good part-time job there, nothing will be concrete until this Thursday, I'm told. It was meant to be today that I got a decision, but clearly I have to bring in the infantry and go there in person to get something done.
So in the meantime, I've been going to art exhibitions, knowing that despite my uncontrollable spending urges, art works are simply too expensive to buy on impulse and so my budget this week is relatively unbruised. Some of these exhibitions have been excrutiatingly bad. The Yokohama Triennale has to be one of the worst shows I have ever seen: a colossal waste of time and money for all involved. Thank God it's only every three years. Perhaps they should make it the once-every-blue-mooniale and spare us the torment.
I also registered on a freelance English teacher's website so as to get some proper money (the gallery won't pay very much). And so I now find myself the mastermind of an international homework cheating racket. This woman contacted me because her daughter is at university in England and needs help with structuring her essays and arguments etc. She'll be back in Japan next month and I'll give her some lessons then, but in the meantime I'm being sent her essays by email, correcting the English (most of which is fucking perfect cos she's blatantly copied it out of a book already) adding a conclusion to tie it all together (which I copied off the internet) and getting paid!
Well, what?! It's an essay on Max Weber, what the fuck do I know?! ;-)
So in the meantime, I've been going to art exhibitions, knowing that despite my uncontrollable spending urges, art works are simply too expensive to buy on impulse and so my budget this week is relatively unbruised. Some of these exhibitions have been excrutiatingly bad. The Yokohama Triennale has to be one of the worst shows I have ever seen: a colossal waste of time and money for all involved. Thank God it's only every three years. Perhaps they should make it the once-every-blue-mooniale and spare us the torment.
I also registered on a freelance English teacher's website so as to get some proper money (the gallery won't pay very much). And so I now find myself the mastermind of an international homework cheating racket. This woman contacted me because her daughter is at university in England and needs help with structuring her essays and arguments etc. She'll be back in Japan next month and I'll give her some lessons then, but in the meantime I'm being sent her essays by email, correcting the English (most of which is fucking perfect cos she's blatantly copied it out of a book already) adding a conclusion to tie it all together (which I copied off the internet) and getting paid!
Well, what?! It's an essay on Max Weber, what the fuck do I know?! ;-)
Monday, November 07, 2005
High!
He's gone! I can't believe it! The bastard was still asleep three hours after he said he was going to go so I gave him a rude awakening by doing the washing up as noisily as possible. I told him I was going out for an hour and a half and he had better be gone when I was back. He was still there when I got back of course, but he left about twenty minutes later, apologised again and had actually cleaned up after himself! He even took the Vitamin C showerhead with him! I was so happy I danced a little jig on the spot where he's been slobbing out all day every day for the past two weeks. The flat is mine at last!
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Riding the waves of highs and lows through Kyoto and Osaka
High: The cheapness of the night bus to Kyoto.
Low: The total lack of sleep gained on board and arriving at Kyoto station at 5:40am feeling like there was a kaleidoscope inside my brain.
High: Walking around temple grounds in old Kyoto almost completely alone for an hour, with only the odd monk or gardener around. It was beautiful weather and Kyoto in a different season from the ones I've known. An absolutely pure, traditional Japan that I've rarely seen before.
High: Hanging out with Tom again and wandering out into the stunning valleys outside of Kyoto.
High: Hanging out with Emily in Osaka and her showing me round this crazy city which I hardly know and which feels like an even more higgledy-piggledy version of Tokyo. And the Mono-ha exhibition (which is actually the main reason I came) which was great.
Low: Leaving Emily's room at night to go to the communal bathroom down the hall, putting on my shoes barefoot and half-way down the corridor feeling something a bit funny scratch one of my toes on my right foot. "Oh, maybe it's a shoelace," I think, but deep in the recesses of my mind some primal alarm bell is ringing. I take off the shoe and smack it a couple of times, expecting a small stone. Instead a cockroach falls out.
Oh the wails of horror, disgust and despair that came out of my mouth before I jumped on it with my other foot.
High: Saying fuck it to the night bus, canceling my reservation a couple of days early and getting a 70% refund, then taking the bullet train back to Tokyo and seeing Mt Fuji from the train for the first time. The bullet train is divine and I will never go to Kyoto/Osaka again by any other means. And as the photo below shows, Mt Fuji is still able to appear enigmatic despite being a fuck-off huge volcano.
Low: The ho is still here in the flat when he should have left the day before I got back. Kogo's grandfather died the other day and Kogo had to go back to Kobe to be with his family. The ho is clearly taking advantage of this to be here - he had the look of a child who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar when I got back. It's a shame, because I was just beginning to warm to him before I left. I don't really have the Japanese to launch into the full-on verbal assault that I'd give him if he understood English, so there's a strange atmosphere of stalemate in the apartment. He's tried to be nice but I've just rebuffed it every time which is freaking him out. He assures me that he'll be gone tomorrow. We'll see.
High: Retail therapy. I have sports clothes to go running in. As of tomorrow I will run. Having not run for over six years, it will hurt, but I will run and I will keep running until I get fit enough to start Karate again. Kogo is majorly into Karate and his enthusiasm is exactly what I need to get off my butt and start it again.
High?: Tomorrow? The day the ho goes?
Low: The total lack of sleep gained on board and arriving at Kyoto station at 5:40am feeling like there was a kaleidoscope inside my brain.
High: Walking around temple grounds in old Kyoto almost completely alone for an hour, with only the odd monk or gardener around. It was beautiful weather and Kyoto in a different season from the ones I've known. An absolutely pure, traditional Japan that I've rarely seen before.
High: Hanging out with Tom again and wandering out into the stunning valleys outside of Kyoto.
High: Hanging out with Emily in Osaka and her showing me round this crazy city which I hardly know and which feels like an even more higgledy-piggledy version of Tokyo. And the Mono-ha exhibition (which is actually the main reason I came) which was great.
Low: Leaving Emily's room at night to go to the communal bathroom down the hall, putting on my shoes barefoot and half-way down the corridor feeling something a bit funny scratch one of my toes on my right foot. "Oh, maybe it's a shoelace," I think, but deep in the recesses of my mind some primal alarm bell is ringing. I take off the shoe and smack it a couple of times, expecting a small stone. Instead a cockroach falls out.
Oh the wails of horror, disgust and despair that came out of my mouth before I jumped on it with my other foot.
High: Saying fuck it to the night bus, canceling my reservation a couple of days early and getting a 70% refund, then taking the bullet train back to Tokyo and seeing Mt Fuji from the train for the first time. The bullet train is divine and I will never go to Kyoto/Osaka again by any other means. And as the photo below shows, Mt Fuji is still able to appear enigmatic despite being a fuck-off huge volcano.
Low: The ho is still here in the flat when he should have left the day before I got back. Kogo's grandfather died the other day and Kogo had to go back to Kobe to be with his family. The ho is clearly taking advantage of this to be here - he had the look of a child who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar when I got back. It's a shame, because I was just beginning to warm to him before I left. I don't really have the Japanese to launch into the full-on verbal assault that I'd give him if he understood English, so there's a strange atmosphere of stalemate in the apartment. He's tried to be nice but I've just rebuffed it every time which is freaking him out. He assures me that he'll be gone tomorrow. We'll see.
High: Retail therapy. I have sports clothes to go running in. As of tomorrow I will run. Having not run for over six years, it will hurt, but I will run and I will keep running until I get fit enough to start Karate again. Kogo is majorly into Karate and his enthusiasm is exactly what I need to get off my butt and start it again.
High?: Tomorrow? The day the ho goes?
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Mmmm.... furniture
The desk and swivel chair I ordered from Muji finally arrived today. I felt very manly assembling it by myself. I'm really happy with the way I've transformed my room but I kind of feel like a one of those Doozers from Fraggle Rock, constantly building, putting all this effort into something knowing that an earthquake might come and knock it all down. Then again, having said that, I have a big solid desk to hide under now!
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Give your pubic hair that just-got-out-of-bed look!
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
The Plot Thickens...
Well, well, well, I take it back - our homeless friend does have a job. I asked him, but he said it was a secret. So I asked Kogo later, and it turns out we have a whore living in our sitting room.
Oops sorry, I should say "male host" or something. So that would explain why he's asleep half the day and then goes out only for a couple of hours between 10 and 12 at night to "work" and yet can afford to live in central Tokyo. Ever since Kogo told me this I crack up every time he mentions the guy's name - I can't take this blond bimboy seriously knowing he's out shagging desperate young Japanese girls every night. There's so much potential for fun here:
"Oh, you look tired! Hard day at the office?"
And it turns out that the Vitamin C shower contraption belongs to him! One day he said "Kogo, do you mind if I change the showerhead?" and that's what appeared! And apparently he doesn't go out if his hair is looking wrong. What a LOSER!!
Oops sorry, I should say "male host" or something. So that would explain why he's asleep half the day and then goes out only for a couple of hours between 10 and 12 at night to "work" and yet can afford to live in central Tokyo. Ever since Kogo told me this I crack up every time he mentions the guy's name - I can't take this blond bimboy seriously knowing he's out shagging desperate young Japanese girls every night. There's so much potential for fun here:
"Oh, you look tired! Hard day at the office?"
And it turns out that the Vitamin C shower contraption belongs to him! One day he said "Kogo, do you mind if I change the showerhead?" and that's what appeared! And apparently he doesn't go out if his hair is looking wrong. What a LOSER!!
Monday, October 24, 2005
Showering in Orange Juice
My first 48 hours here has already thrown up the typical range of weird shit that you could only find in Japan.
I was having a shower this morning when I noticed that the handle on the shower head was a little unusual. It's transparent and and has something that looks like crystals in it. Then I saw it says "Vitamin C Shower" on the side. Okaayy...
Meanwhile, I have gone to great lengths to personalize my white cube of a room. I'm finally indulging my long-cherished dream of building furniture out of those slot-together compressed cardboard tubes you get from Muji. Maybe you can't get them in England, but they feel as hard as MDF and I've got myself a nice sideboard now.
I was having a shower this morning when I noticed that the handle on the shower head was a little unusual. It's transparent and and has something that looks like crystals in it. Then I saw it says "Vitamin C Shower" on the side. Okaayy...
Meanwhile, I have gone to great lengths to personalize my white cube of a room. I'm finally indulging my long-cherished dream of building furniture out of those slot-together compressed cardboard tubes you get from Muji. Maybe you can't get them in England, but they feel as hard as MDF and I've got myself a nice sideboard now.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Tokyo desu
Well, here I am. Check-in were amazing to me: despite their super-finely calibrated scales showing that I was in fact a whole 10kg over my limit, the woman was like "Well, your luggage is a little overweight, but I'll let it through anyway."
Any hopes of making it through the subway without sweating like a beast were shattered when I hauled my bags over a step and one of the wheels broke off. So the next half hour was spent dragging what felt like a dead mule behind me. Thankfully the trains from the airport to my flat were fairly direct, and there were lots of escalators, so it could have been worse.
My flat is pretty cool and my flatmate Kogo is SO NICE!! Not only does he actually talk to me but he's got a sense of humour too! Such a vast difference from that butter-monitoring, empty package-collecting freak amongst freaks that I had to live with last year. Still slightly traumatised from the Japanese co-living experience of that time, I tentatively asked Kogo about rubbish recycling rotas and he just looked at me and was like "whatever." I could have hugged him.
However, we have a homeless person living in our sitting room. It's the guy who was in my room before me (and still was when I arrived, which kind of pissed me off). He's staying here for another week or so until he can find a new place. But I wonder how quickly he's going to find a new place when all he does is sleep all afternoon and watch TV all evening. He's one of those 20 year old, hair-dyed-white, sullen Harajuku boys who needs a slap. Even though I don't really have one myself, I really feel the urge to shout "get a fucking job and get out - you don't live here anymore!" at him. Anyway, he should be gone soon.
Any hopes of making it through the subway without sweating like a beast were shattered when I hauled my bags over a step and one of the wheels broke off. So the next half hour was spent dragging what felt like a dead mule behind me. Thankfully the trains from the airport to my flat were fairly direct, and there were lots of escalators, so it could have been worse.
My flat is pretty cool and my flatmate Kogo is SO NICE!! Not only does he actually talk to me but he's got a sense of humour too! Such a vast difference from that butter-monitoring, empty package-collecting freak amongst freaks that I had to live with last year. Still slightly traumatised from the Japanese co-living experience of that time, I tentatively asked Kogo about rubbish recycling rotas and he just looked at me and was like "whatever." I could have hugged him.
However, we have a homeless person living in our sitting room. It's the guy who was in my room before me (and still was when I arrived, which kind of pissed me off). He's staying here for another week or so until he can find a new place. But I wonder how quickly he's going to find a new place when all he does is sleep all afternoon and watch TV all evening. He's one of those 20 year old, hair-dyed-white, sullen Harajuku boys who needs a slap. Even though I don't really have one myself, I really feel the urge to shout "get a fucking job and get out - you don't live here anymore!" at him. Anyway, he should be gone soon.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Bye-bye
So that's it: packed up, ready to go, 7kg overweight on baggage but hoping check-in won't notice. Currently looking at the five-bodied behemoth that is my luggage and genuinely concerned that I won't be able to haul it through the Tokyo subway without sweating like a Western barbarian. Can't remember if any of the stations I'll be using have lifts between the entrances and the platforms or not.
So farewell London, despite all my relentless bitching over the years, I really will miss you.
So farewell London, despite all my relentless bitching over the years, I really will miss you.
Banal British Chat
I read an article on the BBC news website about an American woman being granted a rare tourist visa to visit North Korea, which you can see here. I had up until the other day been very up for going to North Korea, to experience the bizarre anachronism of life there, but then I saw a documentary from Dispatches the other night which showed recent video footage smuggled out of the country by members of a fledgling resistance, and I've changed my mind entirely.
It's no secret that Pyongyang is a showcase capital where only the most loyal supporters of the regime are allowed to live so as to give the best possible impression to visitors there. But elsewhere in the country, ordinary people starve while UN food aid is sold off at a profit, people who voice dissent are either publicly executed so as to set an example or sent to "re-education camps" where an estimated 200,000 political prisoners are held in what are effectively gulags from which they never return. It is not uncommon to see dead bodies lying abandoned in the street.
The BBC article was asking for readers' opinions, so I wrote largely what I've written above, questioning the ethics of visiting a country like this and that to visit Pyongyang knowing such brutality is occurring elsewhere is to participate willingly in the regime's propaganda. They don't seem to have published my comment, but they emailed me asking for me to take part in a pilot radio show for the BBC World Service and discuss these issues.
So I said yes, thinking that this could be a really interesting discussion and since it's only a pilot and not being broadcasted, if I screw up, then never mind. I spent some time this afternoon trying to remember stuff about the Korean war that I studied at Cambridge and was all ready to pontificate at 7.15 this evening, when they said they'd ring me.
They call and put me through to the show, which has the American woman and some photographer on it, talking about their experiences of the country. They asked me whether I had thought of visiting the North, and I replied that yes, I had, but then I saw the documentary and it changed my mind.
I expected a follow-up question to ask me why, but none came. Instead they asked the American what she thought of something else that was completely unrelated to what I'd just said. And then the presenter says:
"So as you all seem to have an affection for North Korea, my final quick question to the three of you is 'what do you think needs to be done to resolve the Korean crisis?' We're wrapping up now, so Ashley, ten seconds."
Ten seconds to resolve the Korean crisis? If only.
"Well, I think we need more dialogue and diplomacy from both sides and that the Americans need to be more positive in their approach... blah blah blah." Boring.
And affection?! I wouldn't say I have affection for a country that's repressing and murdering its own people on a massive scale, has its agents abduct Japanese schoolchildren off beaches and threatens to turn Seoul and Tokyo into a "sea of fire" with its massive arsenal of conventional weapons and/or nuclear weapons.
What a stupid show. I hope the pilot show crashes and burns and the series never gets the green light.
It's no secret that Pyongyang is a showcase capital where only the most loyal supporters of the regime are allowed to live so as to give the best possible impression to visitors there. But elsewhere in the country, ordinary people starve while UN food aid is sold off at a profit, people who voice dissent are either publicly executed so as to set an example or sent to "re-education camps" where an estimated 200,000 political prisoners are held in what are effectively gulags from which they never return. It is not uncommon to see dead bodies lying abandoned in the street.
The BBC article was asking for readers' opinions, so I wrote largely what I've written above, questioning the ethics of visiting a country like this and that to visit Pyongyang knowing such brutality is occurring elsewhere is to participate willingly in the regime's propaganda. They don't seem to have published my comment, but they emailed me asking for me to take part in a pilot radio show for the BBC World Service and discuss these issues.
So I said yes, thinking that this could be a really interesting discussion and since it's only a pilot and not being broadcasted, if I screw up, then never mind. I spent some time this afternoon trying to remember stuff about the Korean war that I studied at Cambridge and was all ready to pontificate at 7.15 this evening, when they said they'd ring me.
They call and put me through to the show, which has the American woman and some photographer on it, talking about their experiences of the country. They asked me whether I had thought of visiting the North, and I replied that yes, I had, but then I saw the documentary and it changed my mind.
I expected a follow-up question to ask me why, but none came. Instead they asked the American what she thought of something else that was completely unrelated to what I'd just said. And then the presenter says:
"So as you all seem to have an affection for North Korea, my final quick question to the three of you is 'what do you think needs to be done to resolve the Korean crisis?' We're wrapping up now, so Ashley, ten seconds."
Ten seconds to resolve the Korean crisis? If only.
"Well, I think we need more dialogue and diplomacy from both sides and that the Americans need to be more positive in their approach... blah blah blah." Boring.
And affection?! I wouldn't say I have affection for a country that's repressing and murdering its own people on a massive scale, has its agents abduct Japanese schoolchildren off beaches and threatens to turn Seoul and Tokyo into a "sea of fire" with its massive arsenal of conventional weapons and/or nuclear weapons.
What a stupid show. I hope the pilot show crashes and burns and the series never gets the green light.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Bring it on!
After ten days or so of feeling up and down about going to Japan and being knackered out by the insane amounts of stuff I've had to do (not least my trans-european tap-finding mission), I'm suddenly feeling very upbeat about going! I started to pack properly tonight and I think it was the bonus of finding I will probably have no problem in cramming my tons of stuff to take into my 23kg baggage allowance that got the endorphins rushing. I'm going to celebrate with the last half of a tub of Ben and Jerry's.
It's been great to see everyone over the past ten days. Lots of love to you all!
It's been great to see everyone over the past ten days. Lots of love to you all!
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Learn, damn you, learn!
Why is it that my parents cannot fathom the fucking VCR? Three weeks away in the US built up a lot of anticipation over the episodes of "Lost" that I'd missed. Number of episodes successfully recorded: Zero. And now I'm back from Berlin, with yet another episode unrecorded because my Dad didn't know how to recognise a tape at the end of its spool.
For the eight or nine years of having a VCR, I've been the one to record everything, and had to deal with my parents phoning me up in Japan last year to ask how it works despite me having gone through the manual with them in painstaking detail before I left.
Since a few months ago we've had a newer, slightly more sophisticated one, and I used the excuse of being too busy with exams to learn how to use it so as to FORCE my father to figure it out for himself out of sheer necessity (ie. otherwise it would have been a toss up between coming to my graduation or staying at home to watch Live8). And don't even get me started on the reasons why they decided not to buy a DVD recorder.
In some ways I long for a day when technology will reach that Star-trek stage where you can just ask an appliance to do something and it understands. But then I know that my mother would be like, "VCR, can you record Richard and Judy for me?"
And then half and hour later, "VCR, you know Richard and Judy is on in five minutes, don't you?"
And then six minutes later, "You're sure you've started recording?"
And the VCR would be chewing up the tape in anger...
For the eight or nine years of having a VCR, I've been the one to record everything, and had to deal with my parents phoning me up in Japan last year to ask how it works despite me having gone through the manual with them in painstaking detail before I left.
Since a few months ago we've had a newer, slightly more sophisticated one, and I used the excuse of being too busy with exams to learn how to use it so as to FORCE my father to figure it out for himself out of sheer necessity (ie. otherwise it would have been a toss up between coming to my graduation or staying at home to watch Live8). And don't even get me started on the reasons why they decided not to buy a DVD recorder.
In some ways I long for a day when technology will reach that Star-trek stage where you can just ask an appliance to do something and it understands. But then I know that my mother would be like, "VCR, can you record Richard and Judy for me?"
And then half and hour later, "VCR, you know Richard and Judy is on in five minutes, don't you?"
And then six minutes later, "You're sure you've started recording?"
And the VCR would be chewing up the tape in anger...
Drip drip.
I return from Berlin empty handed. I couldn't find the kitchen tap that my parents had sent me for. That's not to say that I didn't try: I went right out into a bizarre ex-industrial suburb of dirt tracks that was like the forests of Norway except penned in by flyovers. Turns out the address of Herr TapShop or whatever he calls himself online is just a residential one and no-one was at home.
Still, it was a very nice free trip to Berlin, which has to be the quietest, calmest, almost eerily empty capital city I've ever been to.
Still, it was a very nice free trip to Berlin, which has to be the quietest, calmest, almost eerily empty capital city I've ever been to.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Better late than...
I've finally got around to finishing my albums of Cuba today, two years after I went.
This is one of my favourite pictures from that trip:
This is one of my favourite pictures from that trip:
Monday, October 10, 2005
My Punjabi Friends
I saw Sarah, Jonn and Alana for lunch today, who having all moved south to study at Cambridge have finally been sucked into London.
We in London pride ourselves on our tolerance and diversity and it's so great to see people from Liverpool, Wolverhampton and Edinburgh moving to Tooting Broadway where they can thrive in our multicultural society. We may not understand their complicated names and strange foreign-speak, but by God, if they swear their allegiance to Ken Livingstone we can call them Londoners too!
And by popular demand, a guest appearance from an orange cat:
We in London pride ourselves on our tolerance and diversity and it's so great to see people from Liverpool, Wolverhampton and Edinburgh moving to Tooting Broadway where they can thrive in our multicultural society. We may not understand their complicated names and strange foreign-speak, but by God, if they swear their allegiance to Ken Livingstone we can call them Londoners too!
And by popular demand, a guest appearance from an orange cat:
Sunday, October 09, 2005
My wrinkly ankles rankle me
When I was in Paris I went to an exhibition of up-and-coming young artists at the Fondation Cartier. I was reading a statement by a 24 year-old Japanese photographer whose work I quite liked and she mentioned that she noticed the ageing of her body now that it takes longer for the skin on her ankles to get rid of the impressions left when she takes her socks off.
It's true! I looked at my ankles forty minutes after I'd taken my socks off and the traces were still there! At 24, the decay of ageing reveals itself in mysterious ways.
I read some time ago that a brand of Japanese jeans had made jeans for women which somehow contained slow-release anti-cellulite cream or something in the material. Perhaps they should branch out into socks.
(I'm laughing already at the thought of you all checking your ankles after reading this blog.)
It's true! I looked at my ankles forty minutes after I'd taken my socks off and the traces were still there! At 24, the decay of ageing reveals itself in mysterious ways.
I read some time ago that a brand of Japanese jeans had made jeans for women which somehow contained slow-release anti-cellulite cream or something in the material. Perhaps they should branch out into socks.
(I'm laughing already at the thought of you all checking your ankles after reading this blog.)
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
A thousand shades of grey
The Evening Standard reported a gem today:
"The Met Office is to crack down on negative forecasts, banning terms such as 'small chance of showers' in favour of the more positive 'mostly dry'."
Interesting. The Standard then goes on to suggest that expressions such as "isolated storms" may be replaced by "hot and sunny for most," that "occasional showers" would be rephrased as "mainly dry" and that "often cloudy" could be expressed as "generally clear."
So, if this black-and-white principle were adopted by the New Orleans Met Office, I suppose last month's 80% flooding of the city by a category 4 hurricane would be expressed as "dry for some," would it?
Andy Yeatman of the Met Office says, "We have been doing a lot of work on how we can communicate the weather to people and the problem is that the weather is always different, so we want to try to cut down on the number of stock phrases that we use."
Good idea. Here are some suggestions:
"Same rain, different day."
"Sunny across the whole country, but that doesn't mean anything."
"The UV index today is high, as indicated by the red triangle to my left, and the red-raw flesh you will see about town today."
Mr Yeatman continues: "We are therefore issuing this guidance to all our forecasters, whether they are for television or the internet. We are asking them to think a little more about personalising their forecasts for their audience."
Alright! That's what I like to hear. Here is my personal forecast for British weather for the next decade:
"In its time-honoured tradition, the weather in Britain this decade will do everything it can to fuck you over. As I have experienced myself, there will continue to be spiteful days whereby the sky remains clear and sunny while you remain indoors all day but rains for the only five minutes that you go out to get the paper. Forget about seasons, this mish-mash of unpredictable weather is here to stay. At best you will get a few disparate patches of truly enjoyable weather here and there between the grey, rainy days and the intolerably hot ones; at worst you can expect the collapse of the North Atlantic Gulf Stream and the onset of a new Ice Age in north-western Europe."
My solution? Emigrate.
"The Met Office is to crack down on negative forecasts, banning terms such as 'small chance of showers' in favour of the more positive 'mostly dry'."
Interesting. The Standard then goes on to suggest that expressions such as "isolated storms" may be replaced by "hot and sunny for most," that "occasional showers" would be rephrased as "mainly dry" and that "often cloudy" could be expressed as "generally clear."
So, if this black-and-white principle were adopted by the New Orleans Met Office, I suppose last month's 80% flooding of the city by a category 4 hurricane would be expressed as "dry for some," would it?
Andy Yeatman of the Met Office says, "We have been doing a lot of work on how we can communicate the weather to people and the problem is that the weather is always different, so we want to try to cut down on the number of stock phrases that we use."
Good idea. Here are some suggestions:
"Same rain, different day."
"Sunny across the whole country, but that doesn't mean anything."
"The UV index today is high, as indicated by the red triangle to my left, and the red-raw flesh you will see about town today."
Mr Yeatman continues: "We are therefore issuing this guidance to all our forecasters, whether they are for television or the internet. We are asking them to think a little more about personalising their forecasts for their audience."
Alright! That's what I like to hear. Here is my personal forecast for British weather for the next decade:
"In its time-honoured tradition, the weather in Britain this decade will do everything it can to fuck you over. As I have experienced myself, there will continue to be spiteful days whereby the sky remains clear and sunny while you remain indoors all day but rains for the only five minutes that you go out to get the paper. Forget about seasons, this mish-mash of unpredictable weather is here to stay. At best you will get a few disparate patches of truly enjoyable weather here and there between the grey, rainy days and the intolerably hot ones; at worst you can expect the collapse of the North Atlantic Gulf Stream and the onset of a new Ice Age in north-western Europe."
My solution? Emigrate.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Dance, dance, dance
I went to see Sylvie Guillem dance at Sadler's Wells tonight, in another spectacular piece of modern choreography by Russell Maliphant. She's probably the world's greatest ballet dancer, 40 years old now but still outstanding. She will probably retire sooner rather than later, so I'm so happy to have seen her perform twice this year.
Incidentally, from the sublime to the ridiculous, Richard and Judy were sitting in the row behind me. Do they spend no part of their day apart?
I've always thought if I saw a cast member from The Bill it would mean I had lived in London for too long. There's still two and a half weeks for that to happen, but I feel God is somehow sending me a message through Richard and Judy, but I'm not quite sure what.
Incidentally, from the sublime to the ridiculous, Richard and Judy were sitting in the row behind me. Do they spend no part of their day apart?
I've always thought if I saw a cast member from The Bill it would mean I had lived in London for too long. There's still two and a half weeks for that to happen, but I feel God is somehow sending me a message through Richard and Judy, but I'm not quite sure what.
Friday, September 30, 2005
From everyone I know who has used the 3 network, including myself, it's a pile of wank. Twice in Cambridge I dialled a number pre-programmed into my phonebook and got put through to someone completely random. But today, I think I may have experienced a telecommunications first. I'm waiting for a friend in the street and my phone rings.
Me: "Hello?"
Him: Hello? Who's this?"
"Ashley. Who are you?"
"Gareth... erm, Is David there?"
"Er, no, I think you have the wrong number."
"What do you mean? You called me."
"Er, no I didn't, I'm in Paris and you just called me."
"No, my phone just rang."
"Err, so did mine. Are you on the 3 network by any chance?"
"Yes."
"Yeah, they have a habit of playing tricks like this."
"Oh, okay. Well, see you."
"Bye."
Is 3 remarketing itself as a matchmaking service?
Me: "Hello?"
Him: Hello? Who's this?"
"Ashley. Who are you?"
"Gareth... erm, Is David there?"
"Er, no, I think you have the wrong number."
"What do you mean? You called me."
"Er, no I didn't, I'm in Paris and you just called me."
"No, my phone just rang."
"Err, so did mine. Are you on the 3 network by any chance?"
"Yes."
"Yeah, they have a habit of playing tricks like this."
"Oh, okay. Well, see you."
"Bye."
Is 3 remarketing itself as a matchmaking service?
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Le Fuck You
I think being from London has generally set me up well for the world. It's so expensive that just about anywhere I go, even Japan, seems cheaper. The weather is so unpredictable that other countries always appear to have a better deal: Paris basks in the autumn sun like the Grande Madame of Europe. And customer service in London is usually so average that the politeness and friendliness of waiters elsewhere in the world, especially in the US and Japan, has astounded me.
Not in Paris, however. No, French waiters can take pride in the fact that they excel themselves par excellence for such unwarranted, unsolicited rudeness.
Not in Paris, however. No, French waiters can take pride in the fact that they excel themselves par excellence for such unwarranted, unsolicited rudeness.
Biggin' it up in da hood
I was walking to Forest Hill station at around 4pm when the local schools unleash their masses of semi-feral, shrieking pupils onto the streets. I was walking behind a group of them thinking that while they may scream like a choir of up-and-coming Big Brother contestants competing for the limelight, at least I didn't feel physically threatened by this particular bunch. As I'm walking past them, I hear a girl call out "excuse me" but I pretended not to hear, afraid of getting another verbal mugging from a 14 year-old girl (yes, this has actually happened). But then she comes round and taps me on the shoulder and wants to know where I got my bag from. She was visibly disappointed when I said I got it in San Francisco, but said she thought it was really cool. Awww! The younger generation has given me its approval!
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Foiled again
I went to see Saara at her bookshop today and witnessed for myself some of the stupid questions that she has to put up with from people. She was working on the front desk today so she bore the brunt of all the lazy cunts who come in but can't be arsed to look beyond the lobby for what they want.
"Excuse me, do you have a film and cinema section?"
What the fuck kind of question is that? Every bookshop has a film/cinema section: the bigger the bookshop, the bigger the section. Presumably if you're looking for a book that means you can read, so read the floor guide and go find it yourself!
And that, from the stories Saara has told me, was nothing. You can read about it all on her blog, here.
"Excuse me, do you have a film and cinema section?"
What the fuck kind of question is that? Every bookshop has a film/cinema section: the bigger the bookshop, the bigger the section. Presumably if you're looking for a book that means you can read, so read the floor guide and go find it yourself!
And that, from the stories Saara has told me, was nothing. You can read about it all on her blog, here.
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Hurricane Bin-Laden
Of the many ridiculous things my mother has said in recent memory, I think that last night, over dinner, she topped them all: that maybe the reason Bush stayed away from New Orleans for five days after the hurricane was because he thought it was a terrorist attack.
And no, I checked, it was not a joke.
And no, I checked, it was not a joke.
We have touchdown, straight into a puddle.
So, as sure as the sun was shining in New York at the moment I landed at Heathrow yesterday, the weather in England was grey and drizzly. From three weeks of perfect weather in the US... back to this.
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