別の外人

Last two weeks have been weirdly busy, despite doing very little indeed, I do apologise. Well I have done something every day, but usually that something has turned out to be hanging out with Jo, eating youzi and watching British comedies. That little reminder of home is really helping :) Thinking about my daily routine, most days have been spent either in Jing'an with Jo or here with Jo, woo :D

Everyone is still struggling a little atm with missing home, especially with Christmas approaching, and lots of people are talking about going home for the week we get off for Christmas. On the other hand, my plans are to go to Beijing to stay with Rosie, Bonny and Egle and see Jess lots :D Which should be really fun if it works out. Can't wait to see Jess, I wish she had come to Shanghai, as it seems that she's a bit left out there in Beijing; her 'crowd' as she put it are spread all over East Asia but come February when Laura arrives and we go visit her, it'll be a bit more like the old crowd reunited :) Been looking at a lot of old photos as well recently, well I say old, as in pre-China photos. Watched the epic video of Becca with the pepper grinder haha as well as the amazing one of Laura dancing and stealing my phone... haha.

Currently got a picture of the White Horse at Cherhill (pronounced Cherrill) set as my background, love it :) It is such a gorgeous view, and brings back memories of my Dad with disastrous kites, my brother climbing the obelisk or threatening to run down the ridge at full speed across the White Horse. Ah memories... Also watched Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, loved how it was filmed in Lacock, was literally bouncing up and down on my bed in my excitement 'ahhhh me and Jess stood there... ahhhhh me and Laura went to the pub just down that road' :D Made up for the fact that loads of people met up in London WITHOUT ME which is most sad... looking at their pics on Facebook made me quite jealous.

So, events here in China... Connie and Jo are still in training for the half marathon which takes place on Sunday, good luck to them :D It's blooming nasty trying to train now, we've had some rather epic torrential rain and it has definitely gotten cold now. On the plus side I discovered (after spending a while with Jo's aircon before getting it to become 'warm') that mine also acts as a heater :D I have also now officially shut my curtains to keep in the heat. Have written a long itinerary (or in Westcountry itiner-rary) of my planned travels of the next few months. I need to book Cambodia flights THIS WEEK AGHHHHH

We went to Suzhou, it's about an hour away by train, it was pretty but empty. Actually properly empty... we went to the temple of mystery, and ordinarily I love temples, I love the sense of spirituality, of peace and tranquility, the same as I get in old churches in Britain to be fair, but yet in this one, there was nothing. It gave me quite a feeling of unease, as if something quite horrible had taken place. I know that the temple is all reconstructed in the design of the original temple that stood on that spot pre-Revolution but there should have been something left of the original in terms of atmosphere, but no, not one thing. The other thing is that I have decided that I really don't understand Taoism: Shintoism has bowing and clapping yes, but I don't know, it feels right? At Nikkou it felt how it should. But here people properly kowtow to these hundreds of statues, and I hope the reason it felt weird was just because it was all artificial. We also got horrifically lost somewhere in the vicinity of a main road and Suzhou University down a backstreet, and found some more fake pagoda things. Least we didn't get ripped off by rickshaw people... unlike some people mentioning no names Abi : It would have been nicer were it not RIDICULOUSLY cold, with epic amounts of rain, and were I not suffering from some horrific cramps. We had to walk from one side of the city to the other, which took about an hour and a half, in the cold windy rain. Fun times.

The builders are still faffing round but fingers crossed they are at last DONE, PROPERLY DONE HUZZAH. They came round at 6am this morning (which isn't even funny), rang the doorbell at 7am which made me distinctly unimpressed. It said on the board downstairs the water would be back on by 7.30pm, but I checked at 8pm and not only was there still no water, but also a massive space where the final pipe was supposed to be. Which even to my unmechanically minded brain didn't quite make sense... Went and rang the landlord, had a whinge at him, located some plumbers (called them 'shui gongzuo ren' haha) and had a whinge at them, result being... WATER FINALLY HALLELUJAH. I'm getting quite irritated by everything constantly being under repair. I swear the whole of China is under repair.

Some things give me hope though, such as a 25p corn on the cob, all hot from being freshly cooked in the skin, yum yum yum eating it while wrapped in a big coat, walking down a Shanghai street :D Getting on a bus and understanding when the stops are announced in Chinese. Going for food at a nice restaurant with my language exchange partner and her roommate, even if they did insist on ordering nasty tofu dish. Curling up in bed and sleeping for 12 hours, as I did on Friday night. Yay :D

Last night (Saturday 21st November) went to a flat party for a classmate's surprise birthday party, which was really nice as there were loads of our classmates there who are mostly Japanese and Korean, so it was necessary to speak for the most part in Chinese. I can feel myself very very very gradually improving (as my exam results also would seem to indicate, yay 62%, 60%, 80% :D) at speaking Chinese... who knows, maybe by the time I get back to the UK I might be able to hold down a proper conversation ahaha.

Have to do a group presentation tomorrow in class, well it's more a dialogue, our version of a job interview. It might go ok, who knows, but me and Nerys (and Abi before church) spent the day writing it and writing it out, so fingers crossed that our grammar is up to scratch. Have spent a lot of time also buying lots of random cute stuff while Jo bought the best thing I have literally EVER seen. Discovered the joy of Nutella hot chocolate too, purchased from a foreign supermarket in Jing'an metro station. Need to buy an advent candle and go to the post office tomorrow to collect a parcel, and also have to buy some last stuff to send to England as part of my 'Secret Santa' so watch out, Bath people :D Hopefully this impending cold will hold off long enough to let me do everything I need to do... also need to speak to Laura soon, has been too long. Miss you all xxx

QINGDAO PHOTO GALLERY :D Click here to view :D

We were all ready to go on holiday, then, two days before class ended, I started to feel really rotten, started to get a fever and aches... the following day, I had to miss class as I was not really able to move, had a fever and stuff which was really unpleasant, I ended up ringing NHS Direct (I was not gonna go to a Chinese doctor, come on :P) who over the phone were pretty certain I had swine flu. I quarantined myself, stayed in bed for two days without moving or seeing anyone, and looked up info about it on the internet... apparently once the fever has been gone for twelve hours or something you're no longer contagious. I was still in bed when I realised I was going on holiday the following day :O Fortunately the fever disappeared during the night, so when my friends came round to collect their food and me, I was no longer contagious, although still a bit snuffly. We left at 10 for the train which left just after midday.

At Shanghai train station, we had two randomers stop us and ak for a photo with us, very bizarre. They came over when we were sitting down later and started chatting, and then literally every Chinese person within earshot was staring at us and listening to this conversation, and there were about 20 people in a circle surrounding us bearing witness to this conversation with the foreigners :O We got on the train, it was really cheap (£15) for a 800km journey, so we got a hard seat each. We all sat together, but there were a lot of people standing who kept asking to share our seats, as they had't paid for a seat, and there really wasn't much room. This train was an overnight train, arriving at 6am. Oh the pain. We hardly slept, and when we arrived in Qingdao at 6.30am, we were just all dazed and half asleep. Nerys rang the hostel owner who said he'd come pick us up, though she didn't believe he understood her so we tried to get a taxi from the rank, got a non-metered one and, even though we haggled, still got ripped off, and taken to the wrong place. We were all tired, dirty, hungry and needed a Western loo (the squat on the train was the worst thing I've EVER seen in my life) and we couldn't find this hostel... we wandered down backstreets past fruit sellers just putting their wares out, and... eventually...

there it was :D

Some people showered, I just kinda slumped and stretched my legs, then we went to the first place that was open for breakfast, which turned out to be McDonalds xD We went to the beach then, me Abi and Jennie were sitting there and there were a load of guys on like a viewing point above the beach staring at us, a group of teenagers asked for their picture taken with us... We went back to the hostel at midday and slept. It was wonderful.

That evening, there was the Shanks incident; there was this random Scottish British-Indian guy who used to go to Leeds Uni, and he was chatting with us even though this wasn't his hostel. Most of us weren't keen on him so when Nerys and Connie were talking about going out, we decided we'd rather sleep. They went out and got back safely, after having put him in a taxi to his hostel since he was very drunk, but then, about 5am, there was epic banging on the door.

He was OUTSIDE the hostel trying to get in. The hostel owner is woken up by this and goes down to see, and Shanks forces himself in and was saying that he needed somewhere to sleep and he'd just sleep in our room (I was quite worried by this point), the hostel owner grabbed him and pulled him down the stairs away from our dorm room, he then tried to get into bed with the two female staff members, and when he was stopped, started getting really verbally abusive. At this point, the hostel owner called the Chinese police xD who came round and took him away. In China, if you're arrested and you're a foreigner, you're usually deported with your visa revoked... guess his teaching job is gone now then.

The following day we went to another beach which involved getting a bus to it. The bus was fun, I gave a positive impression of English people to people by giving up my seat to elderly and kids and pregnant mothers etc, they looked shocked but pleased. The beach itself was beautiful, big waves, sandy beach... apart from the jellyfish, was perfect. We again had people, Chinese tourists, come up to us and ask for a photo with us, I still find it bizarre.

The following day was our final day in Qingdao, and we went to the brewery. It was amusing coz of the omitting of certain historical events... We also got free samples and then we bought some Chinese stout. Fun times. That evening we went out with a random German guy from the hostel to a club with a bouncing dancefloor, met up with another German guy when we were out, and also found some SJTU people in Qingdao, coincidentally. Was a fun night :)

The next day, our train back was at 10.30am, so we woke up at 7.30am... only to have Abi run into our room and tell us Jennie had collapsed and she was going to the hospital by ambulance. So we packed, packed Abi's stuff too, tried to contact Leeds, find insurance company, get hold of team leader etc etc, and then ran to the train station. Fortunately Jennie was let out of the hospital in time so her and Adele made it to the station in time. The train back was much more comfortable, and much faster, as we got home for 9.30pm. I was in a bad mood, but after spending time alone, was fine :)

For the next few days basically all I did was try and sort out my bank stuff and locate my money which had gone missing during the transfer of it from the UK to China. Very worrying stressful time, but it's all sorted now :)

Had my first T'ai chi chuan class, it was awesome and I loved it :) Apart from the mosquitoes though.

Got class again this week, the holiday time is over until Christmas now, will update again soon :)

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

I made it to Utsunomiya, safe and sound :D Woke up on the 30th at 7am, as that's when the shower/bathroom opened, had a quick shower (was in awe of the fact that the entrance to the room was covered by a big curtain saying ゆ on it) and then went for breakfast with some of my roommates, ie a Japanese girl from Yokohama and a Chinese lady from Taipei. We ate breakfast together, talking in a weird mixture of Japanese, Chinese and English, talking about how Taiwanese people eat vegetables and how the Japanese girl fancied Gordon Brown o_0, while eating the interesting Japanese style breakfast which consisted of fish, rice, tofu, egg roll, seaweed and miso soup with bits of tofu floating in it... and I swear it had exactly the same acidy nasty taste that vomit has. Eugh.

Went back to the room, packed up my stuff, checked out of the hostel (and was given a cute little memento keyring, aww) and walked back towards the train station, pulling along with me my giant suitcase. Found the Nagoya Shinkansen, and went to Nagoya. Chika greeted me at the platform, although she told me to meet her by the West Exit from the platform, and there wasn't one xD Went down the escalator, met up with James and Hugo, Marie and Mari also joined us, and we tried to find a coin locker to put my massive suitcase in, but since there were no lockers left, Chika found out we could leave it in the cloakroom of a department store for free. We then went to a ramen-ya for lunch. I had a really good ebi tempura ramen dish :D

We then all went on the bus (on which we discussed Marie's devil smile) through Nagoya to the Tokugawa museum and the Tokugawaen, and looked at the exhibits of Edo period armour and saw copies of the Genji Monogatari. We were amazed by the swords, but even more amazed when me and Marie watched some of the others get scolded by a information lady for walking across a map too much, as it seemed like they were children again xD Hugo was desperate to get back to studying, and since the rest of us had all had enough of Genji Monogatari, we went to the gift shop, where we taught Chika how to pronounce 'hubba hubba'. We then went outside, into and around the gardens, which were truly beautiful, but we weren't out there long before the heat (must've been above the 100 mark) and humidity got to us, so we sat on some benches in the shade and ate milk sweets.

Before long, it was time for me to leave Nagoya, leave the others, and get on the Shinkansen again and go to Utsunomiya. I swear I have now mastered the Japanese train system, as at the time of writing I have been on 3 Shinkansen, a local train and a limited express train, and even understand all the overhead announcements! We said a sad goodbye on the platform, the others surprising me with a little gift which was so sweet, and hopefully I'll see them again if I can come back to Japan in my holiday. I then got on a Hikari train going to Tokyo, lugged my suitcase onto it, and departed. I kept dozing off on the train, which really was not a good idea as upon arriving in Tokyo, I had 10 minutes to find my train to Utsunomiya, and obviously I needed all the time as the signs for the destinations were all in Japanese. I had to actually ask a security guard where the Tohoku line departed from, and with 2 mins to spare, got on the train and did the last leg of my journey.

On the train, a torrential downpour started, cooling me down considerably. I arrived at about 9.15pm, called Mayumi on a payphone, who was obviously expecting my call, and told me she'd meet me by the Shinkansen gate in 20 minutes. I sat down, just to the side of it, and tried to keep an eye out for her coming in through one of the 4 different exits. It reached 20 minutes, and I hadn't seen her so was getting slightly worried, when I heard an announcer ask for 'Georgina Kura-ku sama' to come to the Shinkansen gate. Since I was sitting just next to it, I got up, started to walk towards it, then saw Mayumi running towards me xD She seemed much smaller in height than I remembered, but obviously I was only 11 last time I saw her. We walked out through the rain to her car, loaded my suitcase into it with some difficulty, and then stopped off at a supermarket to get me something small to eat.

We arrived at hers at about 10.15pm, I met her husband, was shown where everything was in the house (and it is so Japanese xD), and it feels a lot like a homestay experience would. I tried some of Mr Toyoda's curry rice, which was really tasty! I went on Skype, and then got into bed about midnight. While dozing off, I suddenly could feel the entire ground moving, the house moving, the bed moving... There was an earthquake!!!! My first 'proper' night in Japan, where I didn't have to worry about my bags, and there was an earthquake! I wondered what I should do, whether I should do the earthquake procedure of standing in a doorway, but since I didn't hear Mayumi or her husband moving in the room next to mine, I presumed that it was simply a light earthquake and just carried on lying in bed. It earthquake and just carried on lying in bed. It lasted about 20 seconds, and was quite weird.

Today, I woke up fairly late, but Mayumi had told me I was allowed, and I should have, a lie-in to recover from the amount of solo travelling I had done since arriving, which is true xD I gave her the Biddestone apron, the Twinings tea and the Lacock fudge, she liked the fudge and loved the tea, (I told her she should have it with milk) was amazed that the Queen drinks the same stuff, and is now wearing the apron. I still can't believe I actually survived the most difficult part of my week in Japan! I have about 9000￥ left, which should be fine as all that is only for food really. Mayumi had a friend round for a crossstitch related conversation (haha) so I have retreated upstairs... this computer is like my sanctuary of Englishness! It's weird being here though... Again I am pretty damn far away from everyone and everything, I can get the gist of a sentence spoken in fairly fast Japanese, if not the words, but I really do have to think hard and carefully to be able to understand it. Hard work T_T

Still, I am lucky to be here, even if there is an epic time difference! Ja, mata!

Wow, I can't actually believe it, but I am now here. Currently sitting in a youth hostel in Shin Osaka (which I would coincidentally really recommend to anyone thinking of travelling this way...) with a load of mad children running around and Japanese game shows playing. Oh and there is the largest amount of manga I think I have ever seen... an entire wall is covered. Think of the size of Michael Sadler LG 17, take a wall and cover it in bookshelves. Yeah... too much kanji for one girl to handle ^^;;

Been enjoying the Engrish as well so far, had a little 2 year old Japanese boy with a t-shirt on that read 'D is for dreamy. O is for openness. G is for gentle. LABRA' ... Dunno why they missed the DOR off LABRADOR or maybe there's a secret meaning... Who knows.

Saw an epic vending machine in the train station at Kansai International Airport:

"Drinks packed in paper carton
are kind to the environment.
They will surely put you
who drinks them in a kind mood
Won't you too refresh
with a delicious soft drink?"

... It was not just juice cartons of date juice, but also icecream cones. Wow.





Back to the actual journey to get here...
Before we left my house, I had a minor stress attack about the weight of my luggage and my hand luggage. Turns out all that worry was for nothing, as my luggage weighted 30.3 (I think the guy ignored me being over the limit by 0.3) and hand luggage I think was 7kg, but they never even weighed it. Thank god :D Weird though, coz people who flew from Birmingham had their hand luggage weighed...

I didn't set the security alarm off, yay :D Wandered around Heathrow, ate a carrot cake and a sandwich, went to the boarding gate but couldn't board straight away as the luggage guy had put both mine and Laura's luggage receipt on my boarding pass, and this really confused the check in lady, who made us see the supervisor (who blatantly didn't actually care xD)

The plane was SO big and it had STAIRS though we couldn't go up them sadly enough coz there was a velvet rope barring the way... SO many films and tv shows we could watch and music we could listen to, even multiplayer games on every screen on the back of every seat haha. Took 7 hours, we were tired by arrival, though the airplane food helped to perk us up a bit. Arrived in Dubai in the middle of the night, had the problem of some places only accepting UED when we had every other currency, but met up with Juni, Anna and Camilla which was nice :D Found Jamie eventually down the steps after we had checked in, though we had temporarily lost Peter at that point :P Dubai arrivals security was so much more laidback than Heathrow was, my liquids could stay in my bag, all I had to do was take off my jumper. Result. But yeah was pretty good. Though I did manage to get moaned at by a scary looking Dubai police officer in his army-esque uniform for loitering... least I presume it was loitering, the command was in Arabic.

The plane to KIX took soooooooo long, from 3am Dubai time to 5pm Japan time, so you've no idea if you should be awake or asleep. We all tried to sleep, but, with the exception of Peter, none of us really managed it that well. I napped on and off throughout the journey, but kept getting too uncomfortable, or getting woken up by a really annoying child who kept doing this throat clearing sound, but which was about 5 seconds long each time. And then he'd scream. Grr.

Arrived at about 5pm, had the massive queue for security (with the fun woman who allocated you to your queue and was very abrupt: 'Dozo' and then you /had/ to leave. Also loved the massive sign saying FOREIGNERS THIS WAY xD the Japanese people got a lot more staff as well... We handed in our disembarkation forms, and I got my temporary visitor visa :D Then luggage reclaim, Jamie's luggage appeared near to the end as we came through, so he had to quickly grab it. I had forgotten just how heavy mine is... Finally was customs, nothing to declare for me though the security guy did ask suspiciously 'What are you doing in Japan?' which apparently nobody else got asked.

Everyone else got collected by Kansai Gaidai, I wandered upstairs to try and find the JR ticket office, found it, only spoke to the guy at the counter in Japanese, and now I have my railpass :D The ticket guy told me which train to get in Japanese, and I understood that too :) Pleasing times.

Waited for the train, was amazed by the many staff CLEANING IT (seriously, hoovers, hand hoovers, everything. Looked like new) when it arrived, had a random Ugandan guy try and start a convo with me but I wouldn't let him, watched the staff keep on rotating the chairs, and then got on the train. The guy in front of me in the queue who was Japanese helped me with my suitcase, then asked me questions about London and Stonehenge as he's apparently going on a business trip there next week. He helped me get my luggage off the train, and even though he only had '6 minutes until my Shinkansen train' it was 'plenty of time' so he first directed me to the gate out I needed. Walked down the road at about 8pm with my big suitcase, there were no signs for the hostel but eventually found it, and it's really nice :) On the 10th floor, but with the bedrooms on the 9th, and the view from my room is amazing, will take pictures.

Right now, writing this from the lobby area of the hostel, it's pretty amazing :D

Will write next from Utsunomiya, most likely :)

Today is a good day: I have sorted out everything. Well, the stupid Shanghai accom guy hasn't gotten back to me yet, but I'm not too worried, there are many things on Craigslist if this doesn't pan out. But otherwise, I have booked a night in a capsule hotel:


Doesn't it just look funky.

Best bit is, I'm gonna have a frigging massive holdall.

...

I think I'm gonna have to sleep on it.

Still, it's gonna be such an experience ^_^






I also purchased a Japan Rail Pass for 7 days from a place in Bristol that does it. I calculated, and to get from Osaka to Utsunomiya one way, it normally costs about £100, so the unlimited travel on JR trains for 7 days for about £170 is a great deal. Hopefully gonna also go to Nagoya with it too: thank god for the tourist visa!! Should probably check though that I don't need to get that in advance...

Also, now have a hand luggage bag/backpack type thing. It's pretty good, is designed to hold a laptop, and as long as it doesn't go over Emirates 7kg limit, all will be well... :P

Tomorrow going into Bath to get a few more yen (Have 30000 atm, but 21000 of that is going towards paying for a ferry, so another £50's worth is probably needed), padlocks, medicines and bras. Then, hopefully, that's it. GASP.