別の外人

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 :)

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.

This is my last day in the UK now. Got Laura staying with me at the moment, so tomorrow my parents will have two large suitcases to take to the airport. Fun times. I still have to locate my final few Chinese books, and pack my shoes, some socks and a cardi, as well as all of my electronics and an empty bag or two, but then I will be done and dusted, ready to leave the house at about 8.30am tomorrow.

Last night, went into town, met up with Kim, Reva and Demon which was nice, even if I got all teary. Dunno if it was the cocktails (an Alexander and a Chocolate Martini, yum) or just the fact that I won't see them for ages, but regardless I got all teary. Then I got to properly say goodbye to the UK coz we got one final look at the utter incompetence of First Great Western, when they decided to reroute my train to Chippenham via Bradford-on-Avon xD Yay thank god I don't have to go on that train for a year :P

Need to decide whether to take my bear... you may laugh, but I love my bear. Probably shouldn't take him then, he might get lost or damaged... Still have to pack jewellery as well, so prob no room for him. Also need to print off a few more maps and stuff.

Preparations wise, got a few more things sorted over the last few days:
I now have my accommodation contract :D It's awesome :D I love my new flat already and I haven't even gone yet :P This is my room:

I don't think it comes with the bedspread, but it does come with the sofa and AIRCON THANK THE LORD.

There are two bathrooms, a living room which looks large, 4 other bedrooms and a kitchen. Looks snazzy :D I kinda can't wait to move in now.

Although I get to live in a 5 star hotel in the meantime...

On the aeroplane, we've got our seats sorted, sitting by Peter and Laura to Dubai, and then by them and Camilla, with Anna, Juni and Jamie behind us. Should be fun :D

Also got Sunday plans sorted, going to Nagoya to meet up with Chika, Miki, hopefully Mari and Marie. Getting the train from Shin-Osaka to there, and then I'm going on to Utsunomiya alone. Hopefully gonna go to Tokyo for a day, maybe meet up with Miles or Katy :D

... It's actually happening now. AGH.

Oh, and this is a video tour of my flat. Enjoy :P