Friday 7 August 2015

An Englishman in Japan

I am safe in Japan; as for being sound, well, that's for the courts to decide.
I arrived at the airport twenty minutes before I was meant to, even though we'd actually planned to arrive about an hour ahead of time, which says bad things about my time management skills. I said goodbye to my parents who, true to form, seemed much more concerned with getting back to the car before the half-hour £3.50 parking ran out than seeing me off. They left before anyone else's parents (yes, I was keeping score) and the last thing my dad said to me was 'download Whatsapp'. Truly, the art of valedictoriation is dead.
The flight was split into two: one lap to Amsterdam then on to Tokyo. I was out like a light on the way to Amsterdam; I slept through the entire flight, just woke up in time for them to give me cookies and then we landed. The perfect journey if you ask me.
The flight to Tokyo was hell in the skies. I didn't sleep at all. We were on the plane for eleven hours. I felt nauteous and hot and stressed and grumpy. And the TV kept on stalling so I couldn't watch Shaun the Sheep all the way through in one go.
Then we alighted the train and were hit with a wall of heat. Fun fact: Japan has no atmosphere, just steam. So far, whenever I've stepped outside I've felt like I'm being waterboarded in a sauna. It's horrible. Thankfully, most indoor structures so far have had air conditioning and everyone says that at the end of September it gets more bearable, so that's only two months.
Yay.
However, not for me the furrowed brow. The vast majority of the other JETs were lovely and sympathetic and laughed at my pathetic attempts at humor. I was sharing with two other Brits, and I made some friends during the various workshops and lectures (most of which were almost entirely, but not quite, pointless). On the first night, I went out for sushi and ended up eating raw octopus and then ordering more when I tried to ask for the bill. We live and learn.
Other good things: the hotel breakfast was amazing,

and it we got to go a couple of posh parties hosted by the British embassy. I tried traditional Japanese drumming
which was, naturally, set to 'Yellow Submarine'.

I went to karaoke with some other jets and ruined my voicebox singing to Sweet Dreams Are Made of This and Copacabana and, most triumphantly, Hey Jude. It was All-You-Can-Drink, which means the edges of the memories in my head are fuzzy but tinted with joy. I climbed a government skyscraper which had an observatorium on top, where I finally began to realise just how much of Tokyo there actually is, and they cleverly thwarted my efforts to break their copyright on this view by photographing it by erecting a sheet of glass between me and the air, thus rendering my reflection my own worst enemy. This was the best I could do:
Yeah, it's not so much the window that trounced me as the fact that I'm awful at photography.
'But, Rory!' you cry, hoping I'll hear you all the way across the ocean, 'What about the place you're actually living in Japan?!!' To which I say A) Don't shout and B) I'm getting to that, jeez. So, yes, early on Wednesday, I left Tokyo and the fanciest hotel in which I will ever stay, and headed to Himeji. The journey was quite long, but I got to go on a bullet train, which I photographed from the outside instead of any of the beautiful countryside through which we rocketed because I am an aesthetic genius.
The bullet train goes fast, that is all I have to say on the matter.
So, we got to Himeji, and I met my supervisor, who is lovely but who asked me if I wanted to be called 'Lawley' or 'Lolly' and then said 'obvious-ry', so I know he can get the rhotic but just seems not to with my name. I also met Brittany and Louis, the other JETs (though from Canada and New Zealand, respectively, not Britain) who are stationed in Himeji. Though we are the only JETs, there are other English speakers here, through the Sister Cities programme which I think is bullshit, because I've don't even know where my hometown is twinned with and have certainly never been invited to teach there. Yes, I'm bitter.
Anyway, Sister Cities means that there are lot of Aussies and Yanks and I have experience with both of those groups, so it's all good.
Himeji seems lovely, if a little incredibly unbelievably mind-staggeringly hot and humid. This is the city mascot:
Her name is Round Castle Princess and they're really lucky they got there before Adventure Time did. 
I want to genetically engineer a real one and have it round around my back garden eating the grass. She is frickin' adorable.
We went out for noodles with the other English teachers in Himeji, and it was great- everyone was so welcoming and positive and I just hope I can be the same when more new teachers arrive (later this month and in December).
So far I haven't done any actual work, but I've been told a lot about what I'll be doing and how to comport myself in Japan (I've had to alter how I write 7s and 1s, because Japanese people can't recognise them: my handwriting is also too big for Japanese forms. Also, I put down my basket in a supermarket the other day and a woman looked at me as though I'd just spat at a baby, so there is so much I have to learn.

Lots of folks have asked me what the weirdest thing I've seen so far is, and I'll answer with this:
That's the Coco Pops monkey shilling Weetos. Weetos aren't even a Kellog's product! TRAITOR!

4 comments:

  1. You sir are hillarious! I'm one of the JETs who just left Shirasagi (but I'll be back living in Himeji soon) and I had a rather heated debate about the usefulness of Tokyo Orientation here in Montreal. See, some people believe they are quite useful and one might gleam a lot of important information from them.

    I know, pretty funny, right? Enjoy Shirasagi, friend.

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  2. Check out jvlogging YouTubers Rachel & Jun and Texan in Tokyo for tips on living in Japan, culture and etiquette :)

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