Adventures in the Looking Glass

Right now is my favourite kind of time.  It's pouring down with rain outside, with occasional bursts of thunder and lightning. I'm listening to Late Junction on Radio 3, and my house is filled with the smell of cooking chickpeas.  After the 36 degree heat of yesterday, today is a much welcomed relief for me.  All I need now is some hot chocolate and a good book or movie and my day in made.

I was awoken this morning at 9am or so by thumping of rain on my apartment, and then through my sleepy fug rejoiced as the storm passed over and shook the whole place as it crashed by.  My showa glass doors were quivering on their runners and the floor was vibrating.  I haven't heard thunder that loud for a couple of years, not since a summer storm in Omori when myself and the neighbours thought a bomb had gone off when a storm unexpectedly cracked by.

Last weekend I went to my friend Brent's wedding.  It was a lovely place called the QED Club in Ebisu, with a sloping garden and a huge patio upon which we had dinner.  Here are a couple of photos:

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.

My birthday weekend has been pretty nice. On Saturday night Kumi organised a little party at a place called Bar-7 - or Bar Nana - where we drank lots of beer, ate birthday cake and played darts. Then we wandered off into the night to karaoke, where I serenaded everyone with "Wuthering Heights". Then off to Dei-ai for further drinking until 5am.

On my actual birthday I woke up far too early. Andrew and I went to West Village where we met up with a couple of my students and had lunch followed by Crazy Parfait - 18 inches of ice cream. Tabezukare deshita! I had a brief chat with Gideon by phone, which was nice. Then Yasuko picked me up and took me to her place for sushi.

Today Mikio took me to Okaya to see Pirates of the Caribbean. It was dubbed. In Japanese. But I still thoroughly enjoyed it, even though I only understood about 10% of what was said. Then we stopped off at a restuarant where a friend of his works. I was flagging by 6.30pm so he dropped me home. I'm still flagging but I'm too hot to sleep yet.

Pictures to follow next week!

Sleeeeeep!

I was rudely awoken at 11am by a man who I thought might be the postman. The intercom is at the end of my bed so I was launched from sleep doubled over, half in, half-out of bed with my earplugs rolling into the duvet.
" Hello?" Of course the reply was in Japanese and so I met it with a barrage of apologies and "wagarimasens" - I don't understand. He wandered off then. Given that I had got home at 5.30am and was still quite drunk it took me a few minutes to figure out where and who I was. For some reason I got out of bed, put on my coat and then stood in the middle of my apartment before realising that it was Sunday and therefore I had no need to do anything but sleep. Three hours later I got up and have been pottering about my apartment since.

Whenever I'm drunk, hungover or just feeling weird I drink miso soup. Miso soup is the cure for all ills, I have discovered, and has quite stunning curative properties when it comes to sore heads and dodgy alcohol bellies. Don't buy the nasty stuff in Sainsburys, it's not the same. Get thee to a asian supermarket, or the Japan Centre in Piccadilly and stock up. Miso soup is the new... well, it's darn fine stuff. I particularly enjoy chomping on the wakame pieces.

Last night was the usual Saturday night routine, kicking off in Genghis, then the Korean bar where one of bar staff made it glaringly clear that she doesn't like Sam's singing voice, then a snack bar at 4am where people kept saying I was "kawaii" - that means cute. I'm not sure what last night's karoke included. Sam keeps making me sing new songs, and actually has good taste in choosing them for me. Last night though I do recall singing Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn", The Carpenter's " Mr Postman" and a duet with Sam, though I really can't recall it at the moment. There was some other songs in the early hours but whatever they were, they're staying in the depths of drunken mindlessness.

Over the course of today I have: watched an episode of "Hellsing" (I was not impressed, maybe I'll try "Vampire Hunter D" next), the first episode of "The Lost Room" and downloaded the second (more on that when my brain functions), mooched about the internet, looked at tattoo flash, listened to X-Japan and learnt a bit more about Visual-K bands, discovered that Goteki released another album in 2005 and came to an end in 2006, looked at Emilie Autumn's website, found a supplier of goth, metal and other music in Japan; found a second-hand English bookshop in Tokyo (which I hope to visit on Tuesday), Skyped my mum, made a pasta-gratin thing with salmon and broccoli, washed my clothes, washed my dishes, eaten popcorn and toast, drunk a glass of wine (which put my head right), read a chapter in a Chaos Magick book about Gnosis and considered creating a sigil for my own "magickal workings".

I'm going to Tokyo for two days this week for training. I'm going to Isetan to stock up on MAC make-up and will also try to get into Tower Records to get some magazines and a few CDs.

Right now I guess I should get to bed, what with it being nearly 1am.

I was in Genghis Khan last night, my usual haunt, eyeing up the young but rather pretty boy behind the bar, when Miki-san the chef said he heard I had a good singing voice. WTF? How did he know this, as his place has no karaoke machine and Sam wouldn't say such a thing? Turns out all the bar owners in Ina drink in each others establishments and talk about the gaijin. I said I had no idea about that as I can rarely hear myself sing - partly related to the beer consumption I suspect. Sam also confirmed that there was indeed a Madonna song the other night, and that it was me who sang it. It must have been a request as I wouldn't have chosen "Crazy For You". I feel the urge to swear in Chinese.

The kind that also serves all of its fish pregnant.

I had my first day at GEOS Ina yesterday. I woke up at 7am and went back to sleep, then woke up at 10am. Sam, the other teacher, was going to walk to school with me at 10.30am. I was showered, made-up and dressed in 20 minutes. I think that's a personal record.

I spent the day observing Carl, the teacher who has been covering since the other teacher left. He's a very friendly, laid-back Canadian, and it was useful watching the GEOS method in action. The students I've met so far have all been really nice, so I hope the trend continues. I have a few kids classes, including an under-5s class, called Hippos. I'm aware that children under a certain age in Japan tend to be treated as "little gods" so it will interesting to see how I get on with them, as their mothers will be in the room watching intently.

After school Sam, Carl, Yasuko and I went out to a restuarant. As we walked in I had a sudden sense that Bill Murray and Scarlet Johanssen would be tucked in a corner somewhere pouting. The tables had small BBQ grills in the middle, and you were brought plates of food to cook. I explained that I was vegetarian to the chef, and said that fish would be okay. he came back with a picture of some prawns. "Okay." I said. About five minutes later two battered and fried fish arrived for me. They were whole. I could see thier eyes looking at me through the tempura. It was at this point that Carl mentioned that restuarants like to serve their fish pregnant. Still, I ate them, though I didn't enjoy them. This was followed, thankfully, by a great big bowl of salad and some potato wedges. And then two of the hugest shrimp I have ever seen. Again, their beady eyes were watching me as I cracked them open. They were probably thinking something along the lines of: " You murdering bastard, eating me AND my children". I trult ditched my vegetarian ethics last night, and all of today I've been cringing about what I did.

After the restuarant (and five pints of Sapporo) we headed over to a bar. It seemed nice and cosy, with comfy seats and Sam's specially reserved bottle of whiskey behind the bar. Then these books came out. I wondered why Carl was looking through a phone book. " It isn't" he said. " It's a karaoke book". To cut a long story short (too late), I ended up drinking more beer and siging not one, not two, but THREE songs. If my memory serves I started with Blondie's "Heart of Glass", then The Presidents "Peaches", and then Smashing Pumpkins "Disarm". I dread to think what I sounded like but everyone was clapping, and I know I wasn't the worst one - Sam has a particularly good ability to flatten every sound.

I think I got ohme about 3am. Somehow I got undressed, washed my face and brushed my teeth, and even managed to find an extra blanket before falling into a stupor. I got up about 2pm and went for a wander, and it's now 6pm and I'm back in bed, and I think I'll stay here. My apartment is really cold. I have a half-hearted heater in the main room, and an air-con thing in the bedroom which I can't persuade to warm up. I also can't get the hob in the kitchen to work so I'm without tea, or anything hot to eat. I'm going to snuggle down and watch Firefly for a few hours, it was the only DVD I brought with me.

Please send warm vibes in this direction. I promise a weekly write up (with pictures) tomorrow.