別の外人

BEFORE I POST ANYTHING, MAIN THING IS THIS:

Click to view my photo album from Shanghai

PHOTOS OF SHANGHAI SO FAR :) Enjoy :)

Right, so once again LIFE has gotten in the way agh why am I so busy this makes no senseeeeeeee... I thought people said the Year Abroad was like a holiday, but it so isn't, there's always something important to do. Or people to see, or emails to write, or people to ring, or places to go... yeah I imagine you get the picture.

So, last week.

Monday:

IT RAINED, SRSLY. Very surprised, as it's pretty much been consistantly warm here since arriving (although smog has made the blue sky non-existent, but then again this is China, not THIS IS SPARTA and should be expected). Got all wet, realised I left my Converses in the hotel (though John and Claire have them in their apartment now) so I wore some flats, and the top of my feet got all wet... Plus it was too warm to wear a coat or even a cardi, so going out into the rain in my epic

GURT LUSH

t-shirt seemed a tad foolhardy, but there we go. Ate muchos food which was definitely needed, shenzhen bao (or however you write it in pinyin) were awesome even though once again Nerys spilt hers everywhere. We went into uni and tried to sign up for optional classes during the break, but we weren't able to for some unknown reason. It said on the sheet of paper (yes another one) that it would take place in Room 222 but that grumpy-arse woman said in Chinese that only HSK stuff could be registered for today. Meh.

Had my first proper speaking class, and it was AMAZING I felt really positive and proud of my Chinese level for the first time. Now I know anyone who sees this is gonna bring me down, but I do honestly feel myself improving here and I'm so happy about it. Eeeeee ^_^

Went to buy cakes from Croissants de France as a treat, and also to do homework out of the rain. Sitting on the chairs, I almost fell off mine with laughter when some really fat Chinese man proper walked BANG into a glass wall that he thought was the door, looked confused, touched it, then tried to regain dignity and walked away. Hahahahaha

Tuesday:

Adele came round with her laptop and we had a geeky moment of her on her game on my bed, me downloading an update for Ether Saga and on my DS playing Phoenix Wright, yays :D We're just that cool, obviously.

That evening, we went round to Jennie's to meet her flatmates, but as it turned out we wouldn't be going for tea with them as they were a bit afraid of us, presumably coz there were SEVEN GIRLS who suddenly appeared in her living room. It was fine though, we ended up going to this hotpot place which looked really expensive, so we didn't pick too much food as we were afraid it'd end up costing us like £10 each, which we didn't have... Nerys thought it'd cost us £15 including drinks and optional extras. We had to pick the sauces, meats, vegetables, dipping sauces, noodles as well as drinks, though we did turn down

'SHEEP PIZZLE' (never seen Jo laugh so much)

and duck blood for 60p. Oh and we could have had a frog too... It was really good, though we didn't quite order enough due to our fear, but it only cost about £3 each, result :D I was satiated but not full. On the way back from Jennie's we walked past a live animal supermarket... well, amphibians and fish mostly, with the occasional reptile. Nerys was freaked out.

Wednesday:

Finally signed up for optional classes :D I am studying Calligraphy which starts next Wednesday, on the 30th Sept, and Taijiquan which starts after National Day Golden Week holiday. We went shopping for new shoes, I bought some gorgeous high heels which aren't too high, amazingly fit perfectly (though I am the largest size it is possible to buy for in China) and only cost £5, then went to an expensive shopping mall but found some good stuff there in the sales, got two tops for about £3 each and one top for £13 but it's really nice and good quality so it's ok. Adele went and bought a DS as she's wanted one ever since seeing me play on mine, while people discussed arrangements for going out.

I got dressed up, went round to Connie's... but in the end realised I was just too tired to go out, and ended up going home and sleeping. Definitely the right choice; it sounded like fun, but I would have been no fun at all.

Thursday:

We had class starting at 8.30, like every day except Monday and Friday, and... only me and Jo showed up in our class, the majority of people who went out the previous night ended up sleeping in to try and recover from the hangover. Jennie who's in the other class managed to drag herself in on 2 hours sleep, while Adele who went to sleep at 10pm I swear, didn't even come in til 10.20... Very very funny seeing everyone in such pain xD We bought them a BLT, while we ate baozi or xiao long bao. Yum.

That evening, everyone came over mine and we ended up having a random conversation about us being like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, continuing it on from another day in CDF, but then it got onto the topic (probably from Marco 'he's so sleazy') of a new Snow White for a more mature audience...

Originally,

Snow White = Jennie
Doc = Jo
Grumpy = Adele
Sleepy = Adele (she's both)
Sneezy = Connie
Bashful = Abi
Dopey = Nerys
Happy = Georgie

Hilarious xD Best new names were 'Sleazy' Connie, 'Boobful' Abi, 'Humpy' and 'Creepy' Adele, though 'Slappy' Georgie wasn't too bad :P

While we were cackling, we had my landlord appear round at my flat as well as a mechanic to fix our bathroom cabinet, which would have been fine except Jennie was maybe kinda asked out by the landlord... oh bad timesssss xD

Friday:

Eventually had a day with a 1pm start which meant a LIE-IN which was so badly needed it was ridiculous. Wait, NO, no lie-in, had to get up early as today was the day we had to get the forms from SJTU for passport collection and then get to the other side of Shanghai to collect passports before 11 which is when the exit-entry bureau shuts for lunch, and we have class every Friday afternoon. Plus the bureau is shut at the weekend, so yeah, way to make it easy for us to get our passports back...

Went to the international office at uni, gave them our receipts and they gave us our medical results as well as the form to take to the exit-entry bureau... but wait, what's this, oh, of COURSE we can't go today, of COURSE we can only go on Sunday now as that's when they'll be ready, and of COURSE it'll be shut for National Day. That makes perfect sense. We really couldn't wait much longer either as we needed to book our train tickets to get to Qingdao before they all sold out. Aghhhhhh Chinese bureaucracy annoys me. Also found out that despite giving the uni money which I thought was for residence permit, no, I need to take another £40 along on Sunday. :(

That evening, people came round for food and a beer :) Nice and relaxed, getting ready for our ONE DAY WEEKEND which we were so gonna make the most of , going out OH YEAHHHHH

Saturday:

Did my washing, yay :D Clean clothes :D As whenever I go out, I seem to come back with clothes smelling of cigarettes which is sad. Dislike. We booked the hostels at last, though we didn't have any train tickets, but at least we'll have somewhere to stay... was a bit of a nightmare booking them as there wasn't enough room for us on just one night out of 6, so we booked a hotel for 3 people for that one night.

That sorted, we went out to a place called Paramount in Jing'an. It was AMAZING:
£8 entry and drinks
Random bouncy things with a light inside them
Polystyrene glow sticks
A fake plastic syringe with a daiquiri inside it
A cage in the middle of the floor...
Falling on the DJ
Dancing on the stage in front of everyone
Really fat Canadian guys trying to find a Chinese girl >_<
A long grey-haired guy >_<
Sweaty guy
Empty bar upstairs :D With seats :D
Loos which didn't lock, so interesting techniques required
Meeting cool people from University College Dublin, including Lou from Manchester

... Got back about 3.45, bought noodles from a street seller, prob fell asleep at 5am...

Sunday:

Was supposed to wake up at 7.30 in order to shower and get ready for passport collection, but in reality woke up at 8.40 when Adele rang me asking if I was on my way...

Adele: 'Georgie? Are you ok?'
Me: '[incoherent]'
Adele: 'Are you on your way?'
Me: '...whaaaaaaa [mumble] eeeeeeeh [groan]'
Adele: '...you're in bed aren't you?'
Me: 'Uhhhhhhh sdhdkjfskdfjhksdhfks'
Adele: 'I presume you're not gonna be ready to meet us right now... shall we meet up with you later?'
Me: 'Ghhhhhhhhhhaaaa okaaaay [incoherent babbling]'

...Oops. Still, as it turned out, I arrived just as they'd finished, so they waited for about ten mins, and then we were done. Though I was so tired, I was like the living dead... I gave up on going to the station, luckily Abi bought my tickets for me, and I went home and slept. Ick.

But I now have my PASSPORT

and a YEAR LONG RESIDENCE PERMIT YAAAAY

I'M A LEGAL ALIEN :D *hums Sting*

Happy timessssss :D


And now I've been abroad for a month. This is a very weird feeling, as simultaneously it feels both like it's been much longer, but also that it's flown by. I do miss the UK, I also really miss Japan, but I like it here. I miss things like cheese and fresh milk desperately, but I am developing a liking for naicha and beer. Highs and lows I guess. *sigh*

I'll leave you with this Pudong landscape, which illustrates why I both love and fear China... answers on a postcard :P

Right, so this week was my first week at class.

Monday, ended up getting up early (again AGH I HATE THIS SO MUCH) for the medical, which was... let's just call it interesting and leave it at that. Well actually that's no fun xD

We arrived at the building at the godunearthly hour of 8AM SO NOT NATURAL and parked outside was a bus type thing. The first thing that came into my head was 'death bus' o_0 then we thought it might take us to the hospital, but no, apparently it WAS the hospital... which was odd. We had to show a random pamphlet (though I'd lost mine and talked my way past it), were given a number on a piece of paper, and had to queue. Then we were given a checklist to make sure we had our:
passport
visa
residence permit
passport photos x 3
student card

which of course we all did, and then in groups of 5 we had to move chairs and sit on chairs in a hallway, where they checked we had all the right shiz, and then we were moved in small groups into another room with tables and chairs (SO MUCH MOVEMENT) and given long and complicated forms to fill out (do you have TYPHOID?? WELL DO YOU?? What about the PLAGUE?? I felt so medieval... and wanted to sing Weird Al 'get medieval on your hiney' lalala). You'd be half way through the multiple page form, and then someone would finish and get to go and talk to someone about the form, so a seat would become free, and instead of getting new people to sit there, they'd make everyone move up a seat. CONSTANTLY. Eventually I went up to the desk, they took things off me, gave me more things, sent me to the next person... times by 5,and eventually you end up with a form the medical people have to fill in (apart from your temperature, height and weight which we're meant to know, and Jo guessed her weight and the guy CHANGED IT how harsh T_T)

Then we went to someone who took away our passports and residence permits, who then sent us to the SURPRISE BLOOD TEST woman which was not nice. She tied a piece of plastic cable round my arm, then quickly stuck the needle in and took blood (no idea how much, I wasn't looking, after I knew she had a clean needle I shut my eyes and repeated 'bu yao bu yao' over and over again). We then were given cotton wool and told to hold it on the site for 5 minutes, but yet we had to instantly move from one wooden chair to another. Then we sat on more corridor chairs, and then were sent to the medical van. We had to put on sterile blue plastic things over our shoes to keep the van sterile, but we put them on OUTSIDE and stood on the dirty ground in them before going in... First thing, bras off and time for chest x-ray. I had to take off my St Christopher pendant, first time I've done that since leaving, not doing it again. Was a bit weird, and then I went for an eye test and blood pressure test. I took a while to answer the eye test questions as I can't do left and right very well normally xD Finally was ultrasound (I saw my insides on a tv screen, was so bizarre) and an EEG which felt like being clamped to a table before torture. Then, we were free xD Went to go get food (pink wafers, yum...?) coz was feeling a bit faint as you're not allowed to eat beforehand, and then it was time for class.

Class. We were told this level would be perfect for us... how ridiculous. We 'learnt' as our grammar point,

'tai hao le' which means 'how good'. We did this at Christmas in Leeds... plus we spent an hour and a half (one period) on one lesson, and didn't even finish it, whereas with Ning Yi we did 2 lessons in an hour. We came out bored out of our minds as we even knew all the vocab. In the afternoon, Adele and Jo decided to go sit in on someone else's class to check out that level, but me, Abi and Nerys stayed and studied. That evening, we panicked and researched how to switch classes.

The next day, I was suffering a bit from some dodgy food from a street noodle seller near the university, and didn't go in. By the evening, was feeling a lot better so studied ready for class the next day. Jo went to the office to try and switch classes, and ended up being moved into the complete beginners class, aka the 'ni hao' class. This is ridiculous, as she's so good at Chinese.

Wednesday morning, we all got up early to go to the office and try to move class, we eventually got through to the guy that we needed the timetable for another class after the first period was over, so we decided to go and buy our new textbooks for the new class instead of launching into the harder class with speaking class, which is definitely our weak point. Then it was off to Kesongfang (Croissants de France) for cakes and naicha/other random drinks :)

On Thursday was our first day of class at the correct level... it was definitely the correct level. There are some lovely Japanese women in our class, our friend Snow from Guam is in the same level, and there's a cool guy called Igor. Which is an awesome name. However very quickly class gets boring because we move so much slower in China than we did in Leeds... sadly enough. Listening class was actually really hard as well as really boring, and we've been told we should buy the cassette tapes so we can do the work outside of class... come on, 20th century and all, why not CDs?? Still, we're learning new stuff now, so yay :)

Friday we only have class in the afternoon, which was nice, but we ended up having to get up at 8am because we had been told that in order to transfer to a higher level class, we'd have to sit another placement test, so all week we had been frantically revising for this exam. We arrived, and were told that in fact we didn't need to do a test at all. I think it was thanks to Jo, who mentioned the fact that the teacher from the lower level class said we should move and the teacher in the higher level class said we'd be fine in her class, and since we haven't really stood out as not being up to scratch, we're all officially now in Elementary 3, like pretty much everyone else from Leeds, bar I think 3 people. Yay ^_^ Class made us quite sleepy as we'd been up for a fair few hours already, and after class we went to the supermarket and then back to our respective homes to get ready for the night out :D

Night out was epic: first we went to the hotel and drank some beer there, then went to a student night bar thing which Connie had been given a flyer to previously, which was a 5/10 minute walk away from campus. It was pretty good, packed, but they had a 15RMB offer on on some drinks which was good. We got some seats, I saw some people I recognised from class, then I saw Connie talking to people who I thought were randomers, so thought 'I wanna talk to randomers too' and wandered on over to some random guys who turned out to be HORRIFICALLY posh, (prob didn't help that they went to Durham for BA and Masters) in Shanghai to 'rediscover themselves' (their words not mine) and in suits. I left quickly :P Ended up chatting in French for about an hour to this half French half Chinese guy, and kept trying to make Abi talk to him in French too, poor girl was not happy xD Nerys got to speak German to a Swiss German bloke, and then I think the bar was shutting as everyone went outside to a pavement and tried to get a taxi, we ended up, all 5 of us, fitting into one taxi, going a long way to this random bar someone had told us to go to, I think it was Sophie, and eventually came out of the taxi onto this fairly deserted street in the middle of nowhere. There was a bar, we went in, and lo and behold there were some of the people we knew.

Turns out the bar was in Jing'an (which is FAR from Xujiahui), but we got free drinks and the bartender was awesome, if very random. He was called Ian and he bust a rap for us (well several) which was bizarre. We then got another taxi and went to a club and danced for a bit, til some random Chinese guys came and started being pervy, at which point we left and ran up and down the taxi queues asking them if they'd take 5 girls in one (there must've been a police station near by as they all refused). In the end, me and Jennie got one together to my address and she walked back from there. A very cheap night :D Fell asleep after 4am... whoa.

Next day was woken up at 11am, all confused, by an AIR RAID SIREN. Seriously. Air raid sirens. Incredibly loud, the siren itself must have been nearby as it seemed to permeate everywhere. This was terrifying. It was apparently the first time since 1946 that there has been an air raid siren sounded anywhere in the world, but yet weirdly enough I still was able to recognise exactly what the sound was... And then I panicked. Didn't know whether to run to a metro station, stand in a doorway like you do for an earthquake, didn't know how to tell if it was a drill or a warning... so I looked out of the window. THERE WAS NOBODY ABOUT AND ALL THE CARS WERE DRIVING IN ONE DIRECTION. I then proved my geekiness by... checking on Google. Luckily 2 weeks ago in the Independent, they said that there would be a city-wide drill in Shanghai. It is apparently the first 'National Defence Awareness Day' and this drill will happen every year from now on... Just my luck that it was the first one when I was here. It's basically a macho show against Taiwan.

That afternoon, after I'd recovered a bit more, we went to People's Square to go shopping... I think I need to change my standards a bit, as I wanted to buy clothes but while looking around could only think of the Western-style stuff I wanted to buy. We ended up going and sitting in People's Park, drinking naicha and eating meat off a stick. We then saw lots of pieces of paper attached to hedges and walls with people reading them and other people standing by them, so we wandered over to one poster that was all by itself. They were lonely hearts adverts, well sort of... they were for parents to go along and look at, to find a partner for their child, introduce them, and hopefully get them married before they got too old. We were looking at this one sad poster, of this fairly unattractive 30 year old guy, when this old guy wandered up to us, and then we realised he was this guy's dad... and even worse, his son was standing nearby!!! We were terrified we'd end up with some sort of Chinese husband, so we hurriedly left, and ended up walking into this massive queue for Haagen-Daaz who were selling commemorative Moon Cake flavour icecream at an extortionate price. How random. We eventually left, went home for a nap then everyone came round mine for food from the street sellers near me, and then beer :) We also had some fun discussions about the previous night, including being told that we were singing crap songs in a taxi at 3am xD Mostly cheese, so we listened to a load of cheese til everyone went home at about 1am.

Sunday, today, I actually did nothing, which was wonderful. Was in bed til about 4pm, went out to get food, then came back. Some of the others came over for a bit (and food) but that was it. I really think I needed a day of just nothing, as I've been busy every day since leaving England on the 28th August. And now I feel much more well-rested. Tomorrow I don't have class til the afternoon, so I'll get lots of sleep tonight too. We've made vague plans for next weekend, we'll see if that ends up happening :)

And a quote... "Oh, he's Kazakhstani? Is his name actually Borat?" - oops *blush*

Right, so sorry for serious lack of updating... it's been an entire week, I'm frankly appalled with myself, although I understand why I haven't, everything has been so epically busy.

Last time I wrote, it was just coming up to the weekend. We ended up trying to go out, but as we didn't know where was good to go to, we ended up wandering for miles and miles (about 5/6 in total) looking in vain for a bar. Nothing special, just a bar... we eventually found a jazz bar, but drinks were about £7 so we were not impressed. We walked back to People's Square (this was Friday night), I wandered through the underground bit to get to my exit and went back to the hotel. I love that hotel, it's so gorgeous :D If only I could afford to live there permanently... well I say that but I do actually want to live proper Shanghai life, not just 'rich businessman/expat' life.

On Saturday, ended up having to wake up early (which was unpleasant since we were out late the night before) as I needed to catch John before he went away for a few days. Spoke to him and Claire, gave the kids their presents (Lara loved her doll, and Liam apparently liked his toy, but he didn't open it while I was there as he was sleeping) and then went to the apartment block to meet the landlord. I arrived there, and the landlord was not there... I was like WHAT as he said he'd be there at 1.30. I ended up getting lost trying to even find the block, as I'd only been there once before, and then when I found it I had to negotiate my way past about a million building sites and piles of rubbish/construction detritus. Got there, he wasn't there, and it was 1.33pm. Very unimpressed, I rang him:

Me: Where are you?
Him: I came, you weren't here so I left.
Me: But I'm 3 minutes late, why didn't you ring?
Him: You weren't here.
Me: How could you leave the building in 3 minutes?? It takes 5 minutes to leave it.
Him: Come back at 4pm.

... I didn't really have much choice in the matter. Connie and Nerys and everyone were going to the Carrefour, and I really wanted to go, but I had to now wait around for another 2 hours. I faffed around on this road, getting to know it all a bit better, went to the hotel where Adele was for an hour or so, played Phoenix Wright (now COMPLETED OH YEAH AS BECCA WOULD SAY 'I AM THE LIZARD QUEEN') which was ace, and then went back to the flat for 4pm. At 3.50pm, got a phone call:

Him: Where are you?
Me: I can see the apartment building.
Him: You need to be here now.
Me: Why? I said I'll be there for 4 to sign my contract.
Him: Oh, you're not doing that today, come back tomorrow for contract... today there is a man coming to change the locks, you need to be there. He's outside now.
Me: I'll be there in one minute...

... Got there, the locksmith only spoke Chinese and needed the keys to the flat... WHICH I DON'T HAVE. AGH. He seemed surprised I didn't have them, but as I was meant to collect the keys from the landlord today, it was a bit confusing and annoying. Passed my phone to the key guy... who also was a shit locksmith as locksmiths are meant to be able to open locks if you've lost the key. This guy was scared bout breaking the lock but we were meant to get a NEW LOCK. Made no sense... my new flatmates apparently came along later in the evening and gave the keys to the crappy locksmith.

That evening, went along to the hotel on campus for a bit, before going back to the hotel for my final night there... so sad, but I was only registered with the police to live there until Monday anyway, so only miss out on one night. Packed, and went to bed at about 1am.

The next day, got up at 8am, brought my massive suitcase (only half full though) to the metro station, slid it under the ticket turnstile, dragged it onto the metro, up stairs the other side, then wheeled it along for the 20 minutes until I got to the flat. When I arrived, my flatmates were there who gave me the keys to the flat, and I started to doss around until the landlord arrived at about 10am. I went through the contract with a fine toothcomb, made sure he had filled in all the specifics himself before I signed it (even though he told me to sign it first, I was NOT having that), specified my terms, negotiated the price, reminded him of what I still needed, and after all that, gave him the money and received a receipt for my payment. I now have an apartment :D

It's pretty nice, my mattress is rather hard (though it's softening up now after having friends come over all week), bathroom isn't very clean and I didn't have my sofa chair when I moved in (though I have it now), but otherwise it's good. Went to the hotel again, the others came round and helped me pick up my stuff to take it to my new flat. After that, me and my flatmates had to go locate a police station as you only have 24 hours to register with the police after arrival (although they had illegally been here for a week), and we tried so many places...
Place A: Really small, full of smoke, 3 people inside who all wittered at me in Shanghainese, said I couldn't register here, wrote an address down in very messy writing.
Place B: We couldn't read the address, so we tried the police station on campus, but we weren't allowed to register there.
Place C: Was near Shanghai stadium and we got a taxi from campus to this one, it cost 22 kuai which means it was about 4/5 miles away. We were on the right road, but this police station wasn't right.
Place D: Other end of the road, was the correct place :D Though just getting the residence permit was hard...

When we arrived, we got constantly redirected from room to room, it can't be that hard surely, every single foreigner has to do this ffs!! Eventually arrived, told they were shut for lunch so we sat down and waited... then this random woman entered, told us in Chinese that the other woman was the Chief of Police of this section and that we needed to go with her. We needed to have a photocopy of our passport, a photocopy of our visa, our temporary residence form from a previous hotel, our passport, our visa, a form from SJTU, a copy of the contract we signed, a copy of the landlord's contract, a copy of the landlord's residence permit and a copy of the landowner's ID. So much stuff... I ended up making friends with the Chief's 7 year old daughter who was fascinated by the fact I was Western, had never met anyone Western before, and liked my Chinese name. I gave her an old train ticket I found in my purse, which was from Bath Spa to Chippenham, so she ran off to show her mum, who came back in, said a few words to me in Chinese and then decided not to charge my flatmates the fine of 500RMB (£50) a day for every day that registration was overdue. They were pleased about this! At the end of all that, got my passport and this document with a stamp on it back, and I couldn't even keep it, as I had to hand it in the following day at my medical in order to try and obtain my year long residence permit and try and extend my visa.

After that, went to Shanghai Indoor Stadium metro station by metro to meet Jennie, as we both needed to go to IKEA. I bought some pillows, a duvet cover, a lamp, but I still need to go and buy a bin, another pillow and some lightbulbs... Yes I forgot to buy lightbulbs. I'm special... I thought there were lightbulbs in it but no of course not. That night, went to bed about midnight in my new flat, as I had to wake up early the next day to be on campus for 8am to go for our medical.

My first week of class will be in the next update :)

Again, sorry for the delay in posting, have fallen behind a bit with the last few days of hecticness... gah really actually can't wait to start class and get a bit more time (maybe) :P Though that said, I know that as soon as we start, I'll get tired and run out of time and agh yeah.

On Tuesday, we decided to all go to Jing'an, where Jo lives, to go look around, see her flat and just generally explore a new area. We met up for breakfast of dumplings (I think a pattern is starting to emerge now) and then went to try and get a mobile phone or a sim card etc from the large market we have in Xujiahui, called Metro City, but there were so many really crowded floors, full of fake merchandise (and overpriced at that) that we ended up going next door to the Best Buy, where we all came away with a phone and sim card for about £30/40 :) Pretty good really... I mean yeah we could have got it cheaper in a market, but I don't think any of us wanted to run the risk of ending up with a fake, crappily made one which would fall apart within a few days. After that, we reemerged from the massive building, and went to find a bus stop.

Now, none of us knew this (except Jo and Connie most probably), but Chinese buses have no rhyme nor reason. There are 1000 different bus lines in Shanghai, but no central record, and no way of knowing where each bus goes from a certain stop, and no way of knowing which stop has which buses unless you find the stop you want. We wanted bus 830, but we couldn't find a stop this bus stopped at anywhere. Plus you don't put your hand out to summon them, they just stop and you run to it, jump on and drop 2 kuai into the box. We ended up getting on a random one that some guys said went to Jing'An, and we made it safely :D We walked along some small streets, some street seller streets, and some busy roads, before going up to Jo's apartment. Inside it's gorgeous, outside it's very Chinese, and the lift is a bit scary, but meh mine will be like that :P She seemed so at home there, and I can't wait to move in my place now, and finally unpack my suitcase :D

We got lunch in Jing'an, from some random street-side cafe, for about 50p, which wasn't half bad. In the evening, went out for Jennie's birthday, which kinda failed... we went to a nice restaurant on a street near me, and then walked all the way along Nanjing Xi Lu towards the Bund, walked down the Bund, and saw very few bars (and the ones we saw were like £5 a glass of wine). We know there are 100yuan all you can drink offers out there, we just haven't found them yet... We saw many touts and this one beggar girl with a mother. I think she had no legs or something, Connie and Abby thought she was just standing in a hole xD We ended up walking about 5 miles, doing the veryyyy long way round back from the Bund, but ended back up in People's Square which was good. Adele, with her blisters, was especially pleased we made it back before the Metro shut.

On Wednesday, after I went to see my new flat (have changed from the previous one as the girls dropped out and it would have been all boys) which is on Guangyuan Lu, still pretty nice with a double bed etc, we went to Qipulu, a massive 'fake' market area, and when I say massive, I mean massive... all the streets around this massive store complex with lots of complex narrow corridors selling everything for an alright price, better once you've haggled them down, were selling loads of random stuff. The entire area was buzzing with life, people shouting for customers, dodgy looking guys siding up to you to offer you 'DVD, watch'... unnerving. When we all met up at the metro, Jo was already outside waiting for us, accompanied by a Chinese lady. We all presumed Jo knew her, and so chatted along to her in Chinese... turns out the woman had randomly started talking to Jo, and we're almost definite she was trying to sell us her cheap Maybelline-ripoff makeup, Mary Kay. We were a bit nervous she was gonna try and charge us for being a guide, as she did lead us to the general area we needed to go to, though we haggled the prices ourselves (Roxy flipflops for £1.70, cute parasol for £1.40). Once we got into the large market, me and Connie managed to get rid of the lady, but very politely of course, and we wandered through the narrow corridors of stalls. There were 5 massive floors... so intense.

Every time we stopped at a shop, the owner sitting at the door would jump up immediately and presume you wanted to buy it. The expression 'women keyi yidianr kan kan ma?' proved very useful. We got an entourage of sonme sleazy looking man who wanted to sell us his shit watches, and some woman who kept trying to lead us to her stall. We mostly ignored them, because we didn't want them to become our guides, but if they got too forceful, we did do the whole 'bu yao' thing, though these people just ignored it. Eventually we lost them, and came away poorer, but with clothes (me and Abby managed to haggle this one skirt she really liked down from 95yuan (expensiveeee) to 50, basically half price :D SO impressed, as she offered us 65 as her last offer, we went to walk away, and so got it for 50.

Walking down the street, people needed the loo... turned out it was a communal squat trench, or as Nerys called it, a 'canal'. The door was propped open... I didn't even venture in xD We then tried to find a Western shop with western style toilets, saw a KFC and that also turned to be a squat, but in its own cubicle. We then caught the metro back (though while walking through the station, we came across some shops that sold these demonic-eyed barking dogs... SO FREAKY).

When we returned, we dumped out stuff in people's hotel rooms, then ventured on out to find the supermarket. I have a supermarket fairly near my flat, yay :D Not that I'll be buying much from there, but some things were great value... 29p for the large size bottle of beer, anyone?? :D Fish so fresh that it was still alive, interesting fruit and veg...
...and all I ended up buying was a bar of 'Dove' (like Galaxy) and some washing liquid. What an exciting life I lead xD Went back to the hotel, washed my clothes from the flight, Japan, ferry and China, and felt very proud.

Thursday, we arranged to meet outside Shanghai Tiyuguanzhan (Shanghai Stadium Station) at 1pm, so I was fully intending on getting a proper lie-in... but for some mental reason I woke up at 8.30am. Pain :( We went first to a roadside seller for some xiaolongbao, and then to IKEA, bought some cheap nice things, and I bought a duvet for my new flat :) Jennie has now got a flat sorted, with my landlord actually I think, which is great :) We then explored campus a bit, went to locate the swimming pool, which was fairly abandoned with lovely green water (it's only open June til August), sorted out Abby and Nerys' internet and tried to sort out their keycard problem, before me and Jo went home. Stopped off on the way to pick up some mantou, yum yum, then ended up walking all the way from Huaihai Xi Lu down Panyu Lu before getting onto Guangyuan Lu (my road) and then Huashan Lu for the metro and bus stops. Jo went off to try and find a bus stop for her bus, and I came back to the hotel and chilled. Tomorrow is the entrance ceremony, and I think we get our student cards, yay :)

Well, what a busy two days these have been. I arrived in Shanghai early on Sunday morning, got off the ferry at 11am and was ferried away to the customs check and all that malarkey. Our bags got scanned, then we went through immigration (queues fairly small and straight-forward, I was convinced the guy would say something considering my embarkation card said I was here for study although my visa said tourist) and then passport check... Even the British guy who was travelling with me on the ferry and whose visa was no longer valid since he accidentally went through security in China while flying to Japan got through safely, thanks to the Chinese guy called Joe who acted as interpreter. We then waited in this lobby area for the bags to come off the ferry, then you had to show your luggage card to a lady to be allowed into the area, find your bag, and then go back to the lady who checked the numbers were the same. My bag was fine :D Then we walked up, had our luggage scanned again, and then after that, walked up a slope and we were finally in China :D

The temperature difference wasn't such a shock, as I had been out on the top deck of the ferry at about 9.30am, and felt the heat and humidity. At the top, was a guy in a smart suit, holding a piece of paper saying 'JW Marriott, Miss Georgie' on it xD which I found highly amusing. The guy took my bag, wheeled it through the dusty, broken street to the big car, where I found some water and a phone so I could call John to confirm I had arrived. The car then whisked me away for half an hour to the hotel, and driving through was surreal:
a) For the first time, it really hit me I was actually properly in a foreign country, not just in a place where people didn't speak English
b) Chinese drivers are NUTS: srsly, they just drive wherever the hell they like, and if there should so happen to be an unfortunate pedestrian crossing, well it's their life...
c) Pedestrian crossings apparently mean nothing. People wander across the road whether or not it's on green, taxis and cars go whether it's on red or green...
d) The meaning of poverty has altered in my mind now, after seeing rickshaw drivers, and guys on tiny bikes with masses of rubbish that they can get a few mao (10 mao = 1 yuan, 10 yuan = £1)
e) SO MUCH SMOG
f) Pavements in a state of collapse
g) People in pyjamas and slippers in the backstreets
h) Spitting
i) People just doing whatever they like, like cooking on the ground/road/roof/roof of a car or playing with a baby in the middle of the road

So... yeah.

Then I arrived, and I'm in the Chinese equivalent of Oxford Circus. I'm on the 34th floor, in my own executive apartment (oh yeahhhh) with a view over the city. I can see the tallest building in Shanghai and its cool changing rainbow lights when it's nighttime :D

Stayed here for about 2 hours, then went to the pub with John, Claire and their two kids. We went to a German pub and met up with a load of other expats... by Chinese standards the food was very expensive actually, and they didn't really speak/use any Chinese... but meh I can't complain, each to their own.

Then I was allowed to take the driver (they have two, I had the non-English speaking one) who took me to the airport to meet the others when they arrived. I waited at the arrivals gate in Terminal 2 (bit fun trying to tell the driver I wanted Terminal 2, he was dead set on going into 1 xD though I realised I can NEVER hire staff, I don't like telling people what to do if it's just something I want them to do, like drive or clean etc) and met Abi, Adele and Nerys :D Was lovely to see a familiar face in an unfamiliar city. We then had to find Connie, but none of us remembered which flight she was on, so me and Adele went searching, found out she was in Terminal 1, did the massive 15 min walk to the other terminal, found out her flight was delayed and would arrive in an hour, so walked all the way back to Abi and Nerys, who then came with us, and they sat at the Meeting Point while me and Adele went to the arrival gate of this terminal... no Connie. She had wandered off somewhere, but luckily bumped into us xD

Abi and Nerys went on the Maglev (magnetic levitation, goes up to 350mph) train back into the centre of Shanghai, while me Connie and Adele went back to Terminal 2 to where my driver was parked and they came back to my room to have a look. They got a taxi back, and I slept on stationary ground, with a PILLOW. It was amazing.

The next day, woke up at like 7.30am, got changed, faffed around a bit before braving the metro for the first time to get to Xujiahui. Found out it was 5 stops on Line 1, takes about 20 minutes, and luckily I found the correct exit (there are like 14) in Xujiahui to end up on Huashan Lu. Walked along it, southbound at first, before realising I was meant to go northbound, and carried on, trying to find the university. Fortunately, I spotted Jo waiting near Ke Song Fang (Croissants de France), who was waiting for Jennie, while I was meant to be meeting Adele and Connie at the Huashan Lu gate. Jo took me there, and then the 7 of us all went to register together.

It was a bit of a nightmare, registering actually, since I had none of the right paperwork, since it was all out of date, so I didn't even have a letter of acceptance and everyone got confused as my student number is a 2010 number. Ended up running up and down 4 flights of stairs inbetween getting photo taken for student cards and doing the placement test, I'm in the Primary Intensive class which means we are going to learn 800 characters this semester and move into Intermediate :D Still a lot of problems, but eventually it worked after I found Ning Yi (my Chinese teacher)'s mate Gu laoshi :) Still not completely convinced that everything is ok, but meh we'll see :)

We went for lunch at a little restaurant near campus, pretty good food, bit overpriced but still good, and then we wandered around, trying to buy a phone and stuff (we all have Chinese phone numbers now :D) before heading back to mine. When back in People's Square, we walked up some side streets for food, before finding a street seller who made us egg fried rice for 50p, not bad :P tasty too, though I think there was a lot of MSG xD

Eventually slept at about 11pm last night, once everyone had gone. Will post about Tuesday and Wednesday on Wednesday :D xxx

Adapted from an email sent to Tori:

So, the boat... well, getting to it was the first problem xD After I stopped talking to Tori on msn while in the youth hostel on Thursday evening, I ended up staying up til 2am writing the backlog of blog entries, oops :P The French guys were still lurking around, giving me booze from some of the stash they had (Japanese beer isn't great but meh I wasn't complaining, plus one can is hardly gonna do any harm), which helped me to stay awake til it was all written. Went to bed, the hostel was nice, my room was basically empty except for one Taiwanese girl, only problem was that the lights in each bed didn't seem to work, and I could hardly turn on the main overhead light and wake her up, so I ended up fumbling around in the dark to make sure I had everything ready for the next day, packing my bag and so forth. Woke up on Friday at like 7am which was nastyyyyyyyyy but loads of people were already up faffing about, and I figured if I got up early enough then the communal showers would be empty (and they were THANK GOD you know I don't like communalness and baring my NEKKID self to strangers isn't my idea of fun EUGH NOOOOO) even though they're as weird as all hell. Managed to swipe some rice from the counter which was my breakfast... so much rice... I miss potatoes. And CHEESE. AND MILK. Three portions of rice a day... not so fun.

Left the hostel at like 8.30, braved a Japanese commuter train (well actually three) with my 10kg backpack, 4kg handbag and 30kg holdall, which was interesting to say the least. I kept getting stared at, it's so weird, coz Osaka is like Manchester in size and international-ness, but yet from the way I was stared at you'd think it was bloody Biddestone haha. There was a massive gap between one of the trains and the platform, and all these commuters just pushed past me Sad times. Eventually I got to Bentencho, which is a station on the Osaka loop-line (I had to go from Shin-Osaka to Osaka, Osaka to Bentencho and Bentencho to Cosmo Square) and I discovered that
a) THERE WERE NO ESCALATORS OR LIFTS: IT WAS TOTAL HELLLLLLLLL
b) the subway platforms were somewhere completely different, not in the same station, and of course there were no signs telling me where to go, so I had to ask the station manager in Japanese, who looked puzzled (coz it was actually /that/ far, but of course the maps don't give any such indication) before giving me vague directions of 'cross the road, go straight for a bit then turn left'

I wandered along, discovered the only way to cross this busy city road was via an overpass, again with what do you know but NO FRIGGING LIFT AAAAAGH so I dragged the suitcase up about 30 steps, so much pain, then down the other side (there were about 8 exits, thank god I ended up picking the correct one in the end xD), got to the other side, wandered on down left and there was still no indication on a subway being anywhere nearby, so I ended up asking more random Japanese people where it was. Eventually found it, wandered on through, found a weird ticket machine; I needed a ticket for 240 yen, but I only had a 1000 note with me, and I couldn't see any option indicating that you didn't need exact change... Eventually some woman came past and I did the old 'TASUKETE' (help meeeeeeeeee) on her, and it worked, thank God xD Found the platform... and what do you know but there was only a 30 STEP FLIGHT OF STAIRS

I got half way up, and physically couldn't go further, fortunately some kind Japanese guy saw me struggling and helped me lift it up the remaining steps. He looked very shocked when I told him how heavy it was... I think he was also proud he could carry that much weight xD Subway itself was fine, packed with commuters fun fun, got to the terminus station and tried to find this bus stop with a free shuttle bus to the ferry... except there were 4 exits, obv just north, south, east and west. Ridiculous. I chose East, came out and saw a bus stop, except it said chocolate something on it (in my mind's eye I pictured a Japanese chocolate factory xD), and so got very confused... that was until an English looking guy (who later turned out to be from Nottingham) came wandering up behind me with a massive backpack on. Then out of nowhere some very excitable Chinese guy ran up to us at top speed and told us to wait while he brought the bus. The bus turned out to be like a Faresaver minibus, with like 5 steps to get onto the bus with xD Bad times... but the bus guy excitably again grabbed my bag and hoisted it onto the bus before I could say anything.

Got onto the bus, arrived at the port, which was a bit shit to be honest, it made me think that I'd be travelling to Shanghai on just some old fishing tug, gave the suitcase to them to put in the hold, and went through security. Despite the customs problem in Japan, I reported it in Japanese to the customs guy, and thank GOD he ripped the paper out of my passport. I'm freeeeeeeeeeeeee...

The ferry itself is really cool, pretty big, three decks, it's more like a boat than a ferry. I am staying in a Japanese style tatami mat room with 6 others... that might not sound great, but it's a fairly big room which is built to hold 16 people so you know Actually the entire passenger contingent of the ferry is very under-booked, I reckon they must make a large amount of their money through freight transportation. There are probably about 50 passengers and there are supposed to be 350... so yeah, very empty. It's nice though

First day and night, pottered around, ate various meals in the restaurant, chatted to the English guy I met who is going round the world for a year and has just started, and to two Australian girls who are travelling for 4 months round Asia. In my room there is also a Japanese/Chinese joint national lady and her 3 year old daughter (cute but annoying when she keeps running over your bed, as we're only sleeping on thin futon mattresses on the floor), a Japanese lady who just wanted to see how far it was to China (good a reason as any xD) and a French girl who's travelling with her boyfriend for a year and a half, after having worked 2 jobs for 3 years to save up enough money. The room itself is like... well, have you seen Spirited Away recently? The room where Chihiro/Sen sleeps is very similar to this.

Second day and night, this is when it got interesting. I am now writing this on Sunday morning my time, and I am now 7 hours ahead of you. At breakfast, chatted to the first English guy and the Australian girls, we looked over my guidebook to Shanghai. Lunch, got chatting to another British guy who's from Kent, and an Australian guy from Perth. We ended up all going up onto the top deck to watch the sunrise and drink beer (I'm having to force myself to drink beer, as they don't really have much else, and what they do have is either baijiu which tastes like a mix of liquorice and nail polish remover, or really really expensive wine) together The French girl and her boyfriend joined us, and for a while an elderly French couple also joined us, who are cycling round the world for 2 years. We ended up having a massive 'gaijin' (foreigner) gathering out on deck, with every non-Chinese/Japanese person joining us there. We then all counted our remaining yen, which only had to cover one more meal, and I had the equivalent of 9 quid left, and a 500ml can of beer was £1.30 in the vending machine...

Went and had seared beef with rice for tea which was tasty, then went back up on deck with more beer. We all got through a can or two, chatting about random things like Australians always saying 'eyyyy' or serial killers in Tasmania, before someone decided we should go liven up the karaoke going on in the posh bar downstairs. It was pretty much empty, with about 5 Chinese guys there singing Chinese love songs... until the Australian guy decided to sing 'Golddigger' followed by 'Sexual Healing' and it went downhill from there. During the Marvin Gaye song, some Chinese couples came in and danced... so bizarre xD We then all sang 'Livin on a Prayer', well the Australian guy, Andy, screamed it. Hilarious xD As the last song, we did 'Let it Be' as the Chinese guys seemed to know some of the lyrics, and we were all swaying together xD There was one very creepy Chinese guy though, who wore a red t-shirt and kept videoing us and trying to get really close to us, aghhhh. Karaoke shut, we were kicked out, and we all went back up out on the top deck to continue with the drinking.

We all pooled together our last few yen and wiped the vending machine completely out of beer, ended up taking off our slippers so the soles of our feet got stained green, and had Andy teach us 'Soulja Boy' under the light of the full moon xD

It got to about 1am, and we all decided to call it a night except for one British guy and the Aussie, so I went to bed and fell asleep so quickly.

Right now it is 8am Chinese time, 9am Japanese time (I have just put back the clock) and we're bout 3 hours away from arriving, so I have started to pack up everything. I was originally so nervous about this boat, but now I'm so glad I did it xD On board, there is no time pressure, you have as long as you want to do whatever you want, so it's quite surreal when you can think 'Hmm, shall I go put some socks on? Meh, I've got 2 hours to decide...' and if we had more yen, all the British and the Aussies agreed that we'd have stayed for a few more days in the No Man's Land of the Sea of Japan.

~At the time of posting I am in Shanghai, will post that tomorrow :)

Leaving Utsunomiya and travelling

Today was my last day with Mayumi. Last night, I said goodbye and thank you to Mr. Toyoda, and Kotaro came to see me, he really hasn't changed a bit, except a tad taller and facial hair now, since 2002. I woke up fairly late as Tuesday involved a lot of walking around Nikkou, and the others were awake by the time I came downstairs. Mayumi was doing her work at the table, making fuses, and Kotaro was slouched across the very low sofa watching the television. I had yaki-onigiri with something mysterious for breakfast, which was still tasty :) I chatted with Mayumi for about 2 hours about my experiences in Japan, when she told me that I would always be welcome to come back to see her and stay with her, a room would always be available for me, and she now considers me like an honourary daughter :) She said that if I had time at Christmas, I could come and stay and we could go to Disneyland Tokyo together, which was very sweet :) I was pleased my Japanese was sufficient to be able to communicate with her without too many problems. I then showed her an old Japanese song that a TV gameshow about recognising song artists/titles had reminded me of: Kawa no nagare no youni. It's a beautiful song :) She then showed me her favourite song, a Kyushu folk song, from the area which she comes from. We then somehow go onto the topic of X Factor and Britain's Got Talent, as there apparently isn't anything like that in Japan. I showed her Susan Boyle, a few really awful auditions from this year's X Factor, Danyl from this year's X Factor, Diversity from BGT and George Sampson. I think she was impressed, she certainly seemed to like it.

Kotaro then came downstairs, and we all went to dinner at a small local restaurant around the corner from them. I'm still in shock at the fact that people are still allowed to smoke indoors here, even on public transport :O

After dinner, which was sashimi bento, and delicious to boot, we chatted to the chef and the hostess who had never had a gaijin in their restaurant before. Wahay.

Kotaro then drove me and Mayumi to the station, where we said some sad goodbyes before I got on the Shinkansen.

In the youth hostel today, I have had a very strange multilingual experience, where there was a Japanese girl who only spoke Japanese, Japanese who were learning French, a Japanese guy who spoke English, a French guy who spoke some Japanese, a French guy who only spoke French, and me. I seemed to be the only person capable of acting as interpreter if needed... it was so surreally amusing xD

I will not have internet again now until I arrive in Shanghai. Thank you Japan for treating me so well, ja ne :D <3 <3

Nikkou (Nihon no hikari ha Nikkou)

Japan is not just trying to hold the olympics, you know 日本だから、できる：　あたらしいオリンピック
But also is Japan's sunlight:　日光 - amazing pun :P I actually laughed out loud on the train.

On Tuesday, Mayumi and I went to Nikkou-san, which is a Shinto holy site, and also a World Heritage Site. You could sense the spirituality from the moment you entered the park. We saw a lot of shrines and statues of gods and stone lanterns... apparently part of Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi is based off this site, and I could see that. We also saw Ieyasu Tokugawa's grave... I really seem to be doing a Tokugawa related tour atm xD

We got the bus to the station again, this time discovering that it was a JR bus and I could use my pass (result :D) and then got on a teeny tiny touristy train (yay alliteration) to the actual place. For once, I wasn't the only gaijin, there were many others on this train; a lot of Italians, some Irish and some people I think were Russian. Yay. The train was fairly slow but meant we got to see lots of rural Japanese villages from the train, and we also went through a bamboo forest :D Which was pretty damn awesome.

Upon arriving, there was a fairly long walk to be done to get to the actual site, then you had to walk up some very steep stone steps before arriving in the old heart of Nikkou. People even now live around the shrine, which I thought was amazing.

As for what is actually there, words do not suffice, I'll add some pictures...



later :P

We went to a tiny local restaurant for dinner, there were two other tables occupied, and three empty... it was definitely a Japanese restaurant, not like one of the many 'gaijin-friendly' ones around. It reminded me of how different it was here to the Katsudonya in Tokyo, coz there they tried to foist the more expensive gaijin menu on us.

After food, we got the bus down to the station, which was definitely overpriced, and when we arrived, we discovered we'd missed the train by 5 minutes, so there was a 55minute wait. Me and Mayumi chatted in the station, I showed her some fun videos I had on my camera of my mum singing along to Abba's Dancing Queen in the kitchen, but of course changing all the lyrics :P She was very amused by 'Mrs Chris'' behaviour.

When we got back, Mayumi informed me that she had told Kotaro that I was staying and he had expressed an interest in coming to visit, so he came around 6pm. We ate ebi tempura together, as well as renkon tempura and 'okura' which was a bizarre vegetable:

Mr Toyoda, Mayumi, Kotaro and I chatted for hours, before it was time to go to bed. I would leave them tomorrow, very sad :( I packed my bag, sorted out my belongings, then went to sleep.

Right, this is ever so slightly late but better late than never...

On Monday, I went into Tokyo. Woke up fairly early, breakfast was good, well yaki onigiri, some random really bony fish, and some stuff in some mysterious brown liquid. Chatted to Mayumi over breakfast, in very slow, stilting Japanese, and then we got ready to leave the house. It was amazing to leave my massive suitcase at her house xD I slept really well, even though I had to wake at about 8am. We caught a bus at about 9am from Ishi-Machi (just down the road from where she lives) to Utsunomiya-eki. The bus itself was rather epic, as it was pretty damn small, had several floors, the driver had the world's largest moustache, and I'm not even kidding, and you took a ticket from the bus machine which had a number on it, but you didn't pay. The number was meant to signify a zone, and then there was an electronic automatically updating LED display which told you how many yen a ticket from that zone would be at any particular point. The ticket we picked was a 6, though it could have been a 9, we just weren't sure, and after we had decided that indeed it was a 6, you got the correct amount of money and dropped it through a hole onto a little conveyor belt with a clear plastic covering surrounding it. There was a thing at the end of the conveyor belt that ate you money... Dunno if it even counted the correct amount of money, but regardless we were allowed off the bus and we were at the station. Me and Mayumi wandered around the shops (98000yen kimono anyone?) and I've never seen so many shops in a station, even more than Paddington :O Eventually we arranged where to meet in the evening when I returned (I would get collected by car from the pick-up/drop-off point) and off I went, through the Shinkansen barrier.

Went up the escalator, onto the platform number 4, and caught a Tohoku Shinkansen, a Kodoma, to Tokyo. The journey took just over an hour and a quarter, and when I arrived, I was 5 minutes earlier than the time I had stated to arrange to meet Miles, Katy and Rob on the platform. Too late, I realised that not only was the platform stupidly long (16 cars, each of which was double the length and wider than your average FGW carriage) but also that to be able to get onto the Shinkansen platform, you have to have a ticket. I ran down the stairs to the Shinkansen gate, only to find that for some reason, there are two. I went to the other one, still no Leeds-tachi. I then went to a phone booth in the station and tried to ring Miles' mobile number, but it must have been wrong, as I ended up speaking to some random Japanese dude on the other end of the line who definitely wasn't Miles. I then went to the gate and asked them if they could do an announcement, midway through and who should tap me on my shoulder but them lot. Here I was, thinking it was my fault, and it turns out Katy was just late. She actually is turning into Peter, along with her new favourite phrase (hahaha)...

We left the station and went outside into the boiling hot humidity to see the Imperial Palace. It was majestic, and I swear I must've gabbled on about it for a good 10 minutes, though in my defence I hadn't been able to speak English for a while :P The sky was beautifully clear, the trees and the moat around the palace gave it a feeling of completely serenity and tranquility, even though we were in Tokyo. We then realised we were far too hot, so after getting lots of photos, including one of Rob (now Nob) the giant with the midget, some disgusting dead bug on a wall we tried to shock Miles with when he came out of the loo (such a woman) and a cicada on the floor, not to mention numerous other cicadas being very loud, and koi swimming around in the moat, we went into a station to buy some water from a vending machine and then the others bought a subway ticket to go to Akihabara. There, we ate katsudon which was delicious (me and Katy saw a picture and then dragged the guys around until we found somewhere that did oishii looking katsudon. Katsudon katsudon katsudon.), then went into a MAHOOOOOOSIVE technology shop to buy Katy a new camera. We also played with the foot massage machines and the shakey-plate thing and the thrust-o-matic. Hahahaha. After about an hour of accidental tax evasion related problems... /that'll teach us/

DUTY FREE JYA NAIIIIIII

Oh and there was also an

ELECTRIC ROMANCE

between me and Katy. Much RUB ga arimashita. Rub rub rub.

We got back on the subway and went to Shinjuku, where we went to the Muncipal Police Headquarters and went up to the 51st floor from where you are supposed to be able to see Mount Fuji, but it was too overcast. Still a nice view, even if Rob couldn't get a cheap milkshake like he wanted. Outside were some street entertainers who had attracted a fairly large crowd, there was a magician and a juggler (crusty jugglers... 20 points if you get the reference), and then a teeeeeny ginger cat appeared, with a collar on. It was very cute, and the first ginger thing I'd seen in Japan xD Then it was back on the train, towards Harajuku.

Upon getting off the train, what struck me was how busy it was, but yet the majority of people seemed very normal... then a whole gang of gyaru went past, closely followed by several loli. Oh Japan... Lots of overpriced loli outfits, weird looking dresses, guys that look like girls... and one guy with pink underwear and his jeans round his knees; was like being in Chippenham haha. Lots of fun Engrish, Rob was telling us about the amount of African-Americans street sellers around who picked on him, and he was proven correct. There were so many of them, all selling crappy hats and t-shirts... suffice it to say we didn't buy anything there. At one end of Harajuku was the most bizarre shop ever, Condomania. I have some photos of it... we were told afterwards we shouldn't take photos inside, but I got one :D We were gonna go to a large shrine in Tokyo, but it was shut. Boo.

After that, we did our second to last subway ride, this time to Shibuya, where we did the famous road crossing, went through the crowds of schoolgirls towards Shibuya 109 :D Inside was pretty damn awesome, loads of cool, chic clothes and stuff, I want some, but I am vair poor. Katy said it wasn't her style, but I can see her in it. Actually, I can see Miles in it more... haha. It became dark, and since I had to catch the train back at 7.30, we did the famous crossing at night one last time, tried to get on the rush hour subway, because we hoped we'd get pushed onto it but sadly not, our carriage was actually empty, and then I got waved off at the Shinkansen gate. When I got back to Utsunomiya, it was about 9pm, and I actually went to bed early.

Thanks guys for an awesome day and a fantastic whistlestop tour of Tokyo :D