Tokyo Notes

Having let my pool membership lapse, I went to renew it on Tuesday. Joining this time last year was something of an effort, and required Tapi's help, but this time it was unexpectedly straightforward. I could largely understand everything that needed to be understood, and could do all that was required, except write my address. I practice from time to time, but it contains some difficult kanji which I always chicken out of attempting for real. Nonetheless, a definite measure of progress. I was so pleased with myself that I took out a video shop membership too.

Tom's Mum, and her friend, and her daughter were in town, so joined us for our regular Tuesday evening izakaya session. Prior to that they had been very organised and arranged a kimono-wearing and flower-arranging session for themselves in someone's private house in Kyoto.

At work that day I had done a parents' workshop. Being a senior teacher entails this sort of thing. The idea is that we try to persuade the parents that we in fact know what we're doing with their kids in the classroom, despite appearances. The second, and more rewarding part is teaching the parents how to help their children with English at home, despite not knowing much themselves. This is worthwhile, because an hour a week in the classroom is not enough, and they should be revising and consolidating outside. The parents know this, but don't know what they can do about it; hence the workshop.

Saturday was spent visiting Tapi's sister, who lives in Tokyo. It's almost a year since I last went there, and the children have grown. Hibiki, who is six, is starting to learn kanji, but I'm still ahead of her - just. Her spoken ability far surpasses mine, however. Kaoru, 4, knows some English: "apple" and "ambulance" are his favourite words. Having played with the kids for a bit at their flat, we went out for dinner, and Fujiko, another sister, and her chap, Piorin, came along too. We had sushi, at a kaitenzushi, or rotating sushi, restaurant - the kind with a conveyor belt loaded with stuff, from which you grab what you fancy. Kaoru shouted out "apple" when he saw a carton of apple juice, which he wanted, rotating past. Amongst the things I ate were mentaiko, small fish eggs, stewed with fish testicles. I've had mentaiko quite a lot, of course, but the testicles were new to me - they're rather creamy, for the record. The combination is actually delicious, but they told me what it was after I'd eaten some. Also little squid, with which I also made my first acquaintance. It was mildly odd to be amongst people of about my age who have proper jobs, and children, and a family home. They own a car, and are in every way proper grown-up members of the middle class. I don't particularly want a car, but possessing one has never been a possibility for me. I don't quite understand why this is: I'm not significantly less intelligent, or diligent; I have a privileged background; I'm better than averagely qualified, and so on. Solutions to this mystery on an e-postcard, please. There is a full photographic record of the sushi evening.

Lots of new photos, and some old ones.

My little holiday has been going pretty well. First up, on Friday, there was the Franz Ferdinand gig. Since it was being held next to it, we took in the notorious Yasukuni Jinja at the same time.

Having been to Yasukuni Shrine, we still had a couple of hours before the doors opened, so we found a pleasant little bar which did a biiru setto, or beer with nibbles. The nibbles were so good that we stayed and had more, including some excellent shumai. The show was in Nihon Budokan, almost in the grounds of the emperor's palace, certainly within one of the circles of moats. It's really a sports arena, used for martial arts competitions and so on, and so approaching it feels, architecturally, more like entering a temple than a music venue. It was peculiar to see the long-haired, pierced masses wandering through the very traditional buildings. When we got in, The Magic Numbers did a very creditable support act, but they weren't who the crowd had come to see. Franz Ferdinand were very good indeed - tight, slick playing. Alex Kapranos did plenty of stage antics. His ambition to have written music that girls could dance to seemed to have succeeded: the girls in front of us danced and jumped and squeaked with enthusiasm the whole way through, and we were in the worst seats in the house. It looked even more energetic down at the front. And then we went home.

Yasukuni Shrine is Japan's national monument to its war dead. The controversy surrounding it is due to a number of war criminals being enshrined there, along with the millions of ordinary others, and that it has always been a focus for nationalism. The controversy erupts every now and then when the prime minister goes to pay his respects; on every such occasion China and Korea make formal objections. Prime ministers usually, and Koizumi is no exception, claim to be visiting in a private capacity, although one prime minister in the 70s signed the register "Prime Minister", which was even less (or more, in certain quarters) popular than usual. There's not a lot to see there: a fairly ordinary shrine, and a war museum, which we didn't have time to go into. We saw a group of salarymen pay their brief respects, before departing for their Friday evening drink. The pattern at the altar, which handily doubles as the collection plate, as at all shrines is: bow..bow......clap.clap...bow.

The time has come, and I am the walrus. Ceiling wax doesn't play a large part in the following, nor do cabbages, but King's has a cameo role. I'm going to tell you about my trip during the New Year holiday, but I'll start with Christmas.

Christmas in Japan is odd. This year we managed to create a Christmassy atmosphere by popping up to the Tokyo Millenario, an illuminated street of Blackpool-like proportions. This was on Christmas Eve, when it was very cold and the queues were very long, so we decided not to stand in them, and so didn't in fact see the illuminations. Instead, we went to the Millenario Club, which was in the Ship Building, my favourite structure in Tokyo. There was a multitude of good things there: glüwein, roast beef and potatoes with horseradish, yakisoba and a full orchestra playing Mozart and Wagner. They had set up a light show in the main atrium; it was multicoloured but subtle, and covered the entire walls and ceiling with a magical patchwork of colours. We watched the Harry Potter film, a firm Christmas tradition, in a cinema on the 9th floor of a shopping centre. It was spacious and comfortable, and they served excellent coffee. We returned to Fujisawa to a bar we've nicknamed "Buck Rogers" on account partially of it's retro-futuristic styling, but primarily due to its toilet, which senses your presence and raises or lowers its seat automatically. They too served an excellent mulled wine. We returned home in time for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols; this of course is where King's makes its brief appearance in my story.

On Christmas morning, champagne was drunk, presents were opened and mince pies were eaten. Tapi was off to visit her folks in Ishigaki, so we set off to Haneda airport. After seeing her onto her flight I had a very fine sushi dinner, and returned to Fujisawa, where some friends were playing board games and wearing silly hats in a pub to the bemusement of the of the non-Christmas-celebrating majority. I produced my crackers, to thunderous applause (I'd missed a fair bit of drinking by that time), and the sound of sides splitting as a result of the jokes contained therein could be heard as far away as the next table. Everyone had various activities planned for Christmas evening, and the gathering split up. I returned to my flat to make phone calls home.

My activity was a party at Clare's house, which had a large, but not completely overbearing number of Americans at it. They were sufficiently in the minority for their inevitable suggestions that we play drinking games to be ignored. There were a sufficient number of Japanese people there that the food was good, and indeed that there was some food. My contribution was mulled wine: I had discovered my stock of wine-mulling spices bought in Hamburg a few years ago at the back of my cupboard. The mulled wine was a critical success but a popular failure. A genuine misunderstanding occurred due to the differences between the literal and the idiomatic UK and US meanings of the word "pissed". It was, of course, exacerbated by us being, by and large, in the state denoted by the British usage of that term.

It happened like this. When there are 40-odd people in a house, the shoe area by the front door becomes an ungovernable mound of footwear, and it becomes socially acceptable to put on whatever pair comes to hand when popping out for a cigarette. At one point I did so, and was somewhat surprised to see a girl squatting by the side of the house and having a wee-wee, whilst wearing my shoes. I quickly averted my gaze, but not quickly enough to avoid being accused of not averting it quickly enough. I leapt to my defence, making reference to my lack of sobriety and the dampness of my shoes, both by means of the aforementioned mild expletive. She, being American, understood this to mean that I was disproportionately angry over her actions, and it could have got nasty, but the spirit of Christmas prevailed and it didn't.

That was my Christmas story. I have 5 days of holiday from tomorrow, so should have time to write up my trip, which will give you some context for the photos I posted a couple of weeks ago.

A truly sensational bookclub this evening. It had promised to be a good one, with the pub-talk in the pre-meeting weeks fizzing with enthusiasm, and a record turnout in prospect. As happens so rarely, it exceeded its hype. Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami, was the material under discussion, and, for the first time in bookclub history, everyone present had read all of it. It was a good start. Most had read it more than once, including our star turn, who had read it about ten times in Japanese, and indeed who was Japanese. Not only that, but he was an enormous fan of the book, and had been to the same university as the author. Since it's partially autobiographical, and set in his student days, his input felt like a direct line to the source. Bookclub meetings are traditionally rounded off by The Simpsons, watched on Tom's enormous TV, whose start time gives an hour or two for discussion, before the end of which period we've usually said everything we can. Tonight, in a further first recorded at this remarkable meeting, we missed the opening credits.

February 3rd is bean-throwing day. Setsubun, as it is known, is the day before the first day of spring. Traditionally, one throws beans out of the house, and with them evil spirits, and one throws beans into the house, and with them good luck. It's also customary to eat as many beans as your age in years whilst praying for good health. Another tradition is to eat norimaki, which is that rolled-up kind of sushi (at the far right of my board). However, at Setsubun, norimaki is of Swiss roll proportions. Further, it isn't sliced: you're expected to eat a whole roll, and you're not allowed to speak while you're doing it. On Friday, two of my students each gave me one of these epic delicacies, of which I managed about a half. One of them took it further, and introduced me to yet another tradition, which I suspect of being instituted by compass manufacturers. At the time of eating this enormous log, and not talking, you have to face the current lucky direction, which happens to be South South East this year. Hence, he presented me with a complete Setsubun kit: a huge norimaki, a packet of beans, and a pocket compass.

More snow again today. It's the first time, in the memory of anyone, that it has snowed twice in one winter in this area. It's a big deal: everyone has watched The Day After Tomorrow once too often. It is quite a popular film here. I have a cold, and quite a nasty one. I should probably have taken the day off, but my terms of employment are such that it works out better in the long run to sneeze at the students. I'm going to take a hot bath and go to bed.

One of the problems in keeping a blog is that when I have interesting or exciting events to report, I'm too busy having the interesting or exciting experiences to write about them. Conversely, when life is more stable and prosaic, not to
say dull, I feel the urge to put finger to keyboard. Welcome to another instalment.

You may from the above conclude that the lacunae in this blog's archive record coincide with periods of intense excitement in my life. This is not so far from the truth. The significant events which have escaped blogging include: my creation and nurturing of a book club, Koizumi's "Post Office privatisation" election, a number of very unseemly evenings in Wesley's and at karaoke, my Japanese test, our trip to Sado Island, my Christmas, the arrest of Horemon and collapse of LiveDoor, my return to UK last summer, a number of earthquakes, the exceptionally cold winter weather, my New Year adventures, and the adopted aunt of all beach parties, at Sputnik, on Tsujido beach. I may choose to recollect and cast into prose these happenings, but baiting your breath is at present inadvisable.

But back to the events of today: Gareth knocked together a tasty supper at his house after work. He's learning to principles of Japanese cookery, one of which is "sa shi su se so", following the letters of one row of the Japanese "alphabet". It's a nmonic for the order in which you should apply various essential ingredients. "Sa" is sato, sugar, first because it's in the marinade, "shi" is shio, salt. Su is vinegar. I can't remember what "se" is, and "so" is "miso". Looking at the above, it seems that I must be misinforming you, because there's no place for shoyu, soy sauce, which is definitely required, unless the "se" can be co-opted in some way.

What I forgot to mention yesterday about the earthquake was that it stopped the train that I needed to get home on for a couple of hours. I didn't get home until just around midnight, and spent today feeling even sleepier than usual. There seemed to be a lot of men in fluorescent vests with torches checking out the bridges and general structure of the station. I'm not sure whether this is routine after a sizeable quake; they've been renovating, so it could be unrelated.

Tapi cooked sukiyaki. We have an electric nabe; usually they're gas fired. It's a cooking pot which sits in the centre of the table bubbling up various sorts of wholesome stew into which everyone dips. It's warming in the winter, and I've been eating nabe quite a bit over the last couple of months. Indeed, we had fish nabe this week at our regular Tuesday night izakaya session, and made the following schoolboy blunder. The primary ingredient was white fish, which is rather bland, so they provide tare, a piquant sauce, and some other bits of spicy stuff and onions to liven it up. We tipped these into the pot, which has no effect at all - with a despairing roll of his eyes, the waiter demonstrated that we should mix the tare in a small bowl, and dip stuff into it before eating. Doh! The sukiyaki this evening used raw eggs for a similar purpose.

There was an earthquake of feelable magnitude last night. Oddly, the last one I felt, a few months ago, happened at the same time, on the same day of the week, and so I was in the same classroom, teaching the same student. Morgan, the other teacher who was present, and who is very careful about his health, stood under the same doorframe, and was mocked in the same manner by the more earthquake-savvy Japanese.

I've posted some pictures from my new year trip, which you might like to see. I've got pretty good notes of what I got up to around that time, and they will make their way up here in the fullness of time.