Adventures in the Looking Glass

Today is a day I should be spending de-cluttering the apartment in anticipation of getting the all-clear to move apartment next month.  However, having felt like a pig shat in my head all week, I've decided that today is the summer equivalent of "Bed, Bath and Book" day, in which I do nothing but laze around in bed, read books and have a nice long bath.  The summer equivilent, however, involves me getting out of the bath and having to apply ice packs ot my face to get it back to normal from the hideous scarlet it had turned.  Then there's plenty of sweating, and lying around, and music, but not much reading.  I've also voted today a liquid day.  I've already consumed two litres of water and have now started on the free juice we got at work yesterday.  This one is a quite pleasant mix of berries and tomato.  Now I'm craving a Virgin Mary.  I have done some washing, which is being battered around by the wind outside, none of which seems to be making its way inside to me.

I went to Ina last week to see my friend Brooke before she returns to Florida.  I met Brooke two weeks before I left Ina, and we became firm friends straight away.  She has a fabulous potty mouth and I wish I'd met her when I first got to Ina as it would have made some of those lonely first months alot more bearable.  I was horrified with jealousy to find that her house, yes, house, is about 8 times the size of my Tokyo apartment and that she pays less than a quarter of what I do for mine.  It is subsidized, but still.  The downside is that there's no heating, so winter finds her confined to one room getting high off the the fumes from kerosene heaters.  In fact, one of the last times I saw her before I left, she was an hour late arriving becasue her front door was frozen shut and she couldn't get out of the house. 

It was wonderful to go back.  As I was heading in on the bus, taking in the view of the mountains all around, the verdant rice and vegetable fields, I wondered why I'd left.  Still, despite the various issues I have with life in the metropolis, I'm currently glad I made the move.    I'll put up some pictures when I finish the roll.

I've been feeling pretty rough this week, and I'm certain that it's the heat causing the problem.  I left the aircon on all night on Monday and woke up on Tuesday with a sore throat and a swollen lymph gland on the left side of my neck.  The sore throat disappeared, but the swollen gland is still causing me discomfort.  However, it being the end of the month, I don't have enough money to go to the doctor for the second time in six weeks.  I guess I'm just run down from not having had a rest for at least 6 weeks.  I've been running about doing stuff every weekend, and I've probably been drinking too much as well.  So, this week, I'm going to overdose on fruit in a bid to right the balance and make myself feel a bit better. 

Hmmm, the cicadas are whirring away.   There are two kinds I can hear: the ones that sound like a rising chorus of rattles and the pulsating ones which sound a bit like power lines buzzing and snapping.  I think it must be time for some reading on the balcony.

And I have a weird sore throat.  Only half of it hurts - rather like a big lump.  It had better not be bloody tonsillitis, as I may have (shock horror!) a date on Monday, and the timing would be less than perfect.  And the honey and lemon isn't working.  It may be time to bring out the ginger!

I had a dream about cockroaches last night, which was also heavily influenced by the book I'm reading.  More on that when the three week toil ends.  Or is it four?

I was remarking to myself the other day, as one often has to when one lives alone, that I had not fallen ill for almost a year. Clearly I forgot to bang my head against the table for good luck, as I have contracted a rather oppressive presence currently prohibiting the movement of air in and out of my nose. So, I made it ten and a half months without illness, which must be a lifetime first.

To celebrate I have decided that today is Bed, Bath and Book Day II. So far I have watched two rather excellent episodes of X-Files Season 3 (D.P.O and the one about the psychic guy who talks about auto-erotic asphyxiation to Mulder) and uploaded some photos on Facebook for you to peruse. At some point I may add them to Flickr, but not today. Next I shall be sinking into a nice bath out of which I do not plan to emerge for some time. I wish I had a Mum here as someone bringing me hot chocolate and Mum Toast in bed would be lovely.

So I haven't spoken about my adventures of the last few weeks. Two weeks ago I spent Sunday in Matsumoto hanging around and looking at the castle, which was pretty cool (especially as it's black). I got a guided tour in English (for free) around the castle and got to mess about with Samurai windows and risk death on some very steep steps. Cho omoshirokatta. After I walked to the nearby Museum and looked at Tanabata dolls and large phalluses. It seemed rather strange to observe small children looking at giant wooden penises in display cases, but I guess that is just my inherent Western discomfort about anything sexual. Still, the attention to detail was remarkable. After that I took a wander round town looking for a Mexican restaurant, but no luck so ended up in a cute little cafe full of Marilyn Monroe pictures. Unfortunately a headache set in soon after so I headed back to Ina.

Last weekend I travelled down to Nagoya to meet up with some other teachers for an end of summer beach party. We met at Nagoya station and travelled to a place called Utsumi. I guess when you travel to the seaside you expect to see it as soon as you arrive, so there was a small sense of disappointment that we couldn't see the sea from the station. But there were palm trees lending an air of antici...pation. We stocked up on provisions for the picnic and then headed off to the beach, were we promptly flung ourselves into the sea. Of course, very few others were in there on account of the seasonal presence of jellyfish, but we figured they weren'tkiller jellyfish so we'd take our chances.

We spent the day in and out of the sea, walking along the shoreline collecting sand dollars (about which I was very excited, having never seen one before), and drinking beer. Of course I neglected to remember that my back was exposed to the sun, so despite the hat and a liberal dosage of SPF 50+ elsewhere I still got badly burnt by a sun that merely peeped from behind the clouds every so often. Behvin also got stung by a jellyfish, so badly that she had to pull the creature off of her leg. Ouch!

To end the trip we headed to an onsen to have a wash and soak in a glorious yummy series of sulphurous baths. Then back into Nagoya for dinner. I stayed at Behvin's apartment for the night, but slept badly on account of the sunburn. The next day we headed into town to meet up with my old student Miho, who has a cool haircut and a fetish for men with glasses. We investigated Nagoya castle and then headed into Sakae to pick up books, magazines and munch on Haagen-Daaz. By this point I was flagging and so raced back to the bus station to catch the bus, arriving back in Ina with swollen and bruised feet utterly exhausted. Though in an entirely good way.

You can see pictures here.

There is other news but I'm waiting until next week to reveal it as it's not quite 100% certain (on my part) yet. Last night, despite the clear onset on illness, I had promised Mikio a karaoke session so he, Joe and I went to a snack bar to sing and down beer. I was barely inside before the Mama there put on Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf". I have no recollection of singing it there before but clearly she knew I knew it. I also sang some Abba, Madonna and Whitesnake (the latter was a little unsteady, but not a disaster). We also livened up the evening by exploring the word honki which translates as being earnest about something. So Joe amused us by singing all his songs earnestly, with accompanying hand gestures. Almost as good as Rob Halford back in the stadium days of Judas Priest. You know, I swear Spike in Buffy was modelled on him.

Right, I need to bathe, read a book, do my Japanese homework, and attempt to write something in iambic metre as part of my poetic self-rehabilitation.