Ane Anne etc.

So much has happened since my last post. I’ll fill you all in what I’ve been up to a gradually.

The highlight of July has to be the arrival of my sister and co. My sister came to visit with her boyfriend, and best friend/business partner, Kate, the other week. So for a week I was running up and down the country sightseeing and exploring new parts of Japan.

We were lucky to be greeted by the shrine carrying ceremony, when we arrived in my home ‘city’ of Kisarazu. It was quite lucky that the gang got to see something so quintessentially Japanesy for the first day. Day two was a trip straight into the big city. First stop we had the slightly disappointing visit to the Imperial Palace. Then onto a whistle-stop tour of Shibuya and Harajuku, where we met up with some old friends from Sheffield. Sunday, in Harajuku is famous for ‘Cos Play’; where people dress up as their favourite anime character or Little Bow Peep or few drinks before we headed to an izakaya.

High at the top of Anne & Kate’s list of ‘things to do in Japan’ was Tokyo Disneyland and admittedly I didn’t need much encouragement to visit the other Disney amusement park. Again we met up with Kate’s old friend Joe and her sister, who also happened to be visiting Japan. I actually preferred Disneyland to Disney Sea, which is always purported to be the more grown up, but actually Disneyland has a lot more rides and a lot more of the classic rides. It was quite nostalgic going on some of the rides I remember from Disneyland Paris, like Star Tours and Michael Jackson in ‘Captain EO’ (which I found hilarious). Other highlights include being told that we’re all too big gaijins that needed to be in the two-person carts alone.

After Disneyland we headed to Kyoto and then Nara. We were lucky enough to stumble upon 3 shy geishas in Kyoto, which really impressed the girls. This was my second trip to Kyoto and so I tried to encourage the exploration of districts I hadn’t seen, which wasn’t hard, there is so much to see in Kyoto. We ended up exploring the Higashiyama district, which has some of the most quintessentially traditional Japanese streets. After a portion of temple shrine and geisha viewing we moved on to Nara to gawp at the huge Buddha and stroke some very tame deer. Probably the most memorable episode of Nara was the Youth Hostel we stayed in, which had a very 1960s Scout hut feel to it. It was a very nice traditional room with tatami mats and futons but we were requested to check out by 8.00am, there were no real showers to speak of just a large, communal Japanese style bath and no breakfast. There was also an 11pm curfew. Nonetheless we had fun playing drinking games (which was against the no alcohol rules) in our traditional Japanese style room and had a lot of fun.

There’s a lot more to tell about Anne’s etc. time here, which I’ll hopefully update later. Needless to say I was very pleased to see everyone and enjoyed having them round and guiding them through my favourite parts of Japan.

I’ll try to update this soon. I have my friend Jenn down from Hokkaido with me at the moment and we’re doing a fair bit of travelling. We’ll be off to Yamanashi on Tuesday and hopefully climbing Mount Fuji on Wednesday. Can’t wait.

Snakes on a Plane! (or rather one snake in my school)

This week I witnessed my first Japanese snake. I was quite impressed that I remembered what the vocabulary meant, after I heard yells of ‘Hebi’ ‘Hebi!’ and a few elementary-school-girl screams, from the stationary cupboard. I rushed over to the front porch to find a snake, as slim as two fingers and about 4 feet long, coiled up in the corner terrified of the 7 year old boy that was bashing the window from outside and screaming at it. For a moment I thought that I might be called upon as the only adult male present, to have to deal with it, despite having no experience with snakes whatsoever (a similar thing happened to my Dad when we were in Italy. There was Pakistani couple honeymooning nextdoor to us and a snake crept in while the newly wed wife was alone. She called on Dad to help, although she must have had much more of a clue what to do). Luckily the Vice Principal came to the rescue with the sasumata, the man catching device I mentioned in one of the previous instalments, and chased it out of the building.

The rainy season really hasn’t been as bad as I anticipated. Or rather the level of rain wasn’t quite as bad as I anticipated. Although it has rained fairly heavily, fairly frequently there has also been decent amounts of sunshine in-between. The main problem has been the heat and humidity, which has been quite unbearable on a couple of occasions. There was one hilarious moment when the Japanese English teacher asked me to drill the phrase ‘I’m really sweaty’. I had to do it three times and control my laughter as 30 Japanese school children replied in unison ‘I’m really sweaty!’.

It was a shame to see England get knocked out of the world cup earlier in the week. The match started at 11pm on Sunday, in Japan, and so what with having to get up for work at 6am the next day, I ended up watching it alone in my flat. Although it was sad to watch them loose after gaining so much of the possession and having a decent few chances on target, I couldn't help thinking that if they were to finally beat Germany in World Cup, I’d like to be in an English pub with English friends celebrating, rather than on my own in a flat in Japan. So I suppose that’s some consolation.

I can’t believe how soon it is until people arrive from Sheffield. It’s only really a week away now. I finally booked my tickets to California. I’m really looking forward to that too. It’ll be really good to see Cortney and Kevin and speak English to anyone in the street. It’ll also be good to get somewhere, if not a little cooler, then a little less humid. It’s going to a summer to remember.