This is the view from our flat in Oji. Whilst it does give you some idea of how high up we are, it doesn’t show the huge amounts of construction work that go on from 10pm to 8am every night.

Sorry this is such a short update – I’m writing a huge one explaning what I get up to on a weekly basis but it’s taking a long time. Bear with me.

A common Western stereotype of the Japanese is that they are serial workaholics – getting up at some ungodly hour and not getting back home until late evening. To a certain extent, this is true. I had lunch today with a man from a local office who works 8am – 11pm. Obviously we gasped at his working hours, however it’s not as bad as it sounds. It seems that the greatest skill any Japanese can master is to do absolutely no work whilst at work. I’m hardly the most productive person when it comes to boring work, but I seem to achieve more on an hourly basis than the natives do in three. There is a great art to making coffee exceptionally slowly, rearranging your desk to best channel chi into your laptop, or holding pointless meetings to discuss ultimately pointless notions. Whilst I sound quite pessimistic, I must be quick to point out that I had no problems adjusting to this style of work. This morning I spent about an hour learning my katakana (boring!) and then listening to music and writing up a single lesson plan. I thought I was being terrible and was going to get in trouble, yet I think now I came close to breaking the all time Japan productivity record.

Much more important than work, however, is the fact we’ve moved into our flat. I am so glad we’ve finally done so. It’s great to have a place where we can relax, listen to music or read or whatever, and generally be as Japanese or un-Japanese as we like. Never one to miss a photo opportunity, I’ve taken a couple of snaps to provide a walk though of Mike and Matt’s flat. Enjoy!

This is the entrance hall (genkan) of the flat. Just below the photo is a little space to kick off your shoes. Because my room has tatami on the floor, everyone needs to remove their shoes to prevent it from being destroyed. The Tatami itself is new, and has a really strong smell. Originally, it was a disgusting smell, but I think I’ve got used to it, as I don’t mind it so much now. The flat itself appears small to Western eyes, but for two people living in Tokyo, this place is a palace.

Up next is the living room. I am quite confident that Matt and I are the only volunteers with Project Trust that have a living room. We’re certainty the only ones with a Gamecube. I think the previous inhabitants were very techy, as there were hundreds of cables littering the place when we arrived. They’ve also left us a working hi-fi system. Nice one guys!

This monstrosity is our utility room. Just off to the left is the spacious bath and shower room, whist on the right is the toilet. Having been living out of suitcases for nearly two weeks, we had loads of stuff to wash, and as a result nearly every solid surface in the flat is draped with drying clothes. Surprisingly, the stuff we hung outside (wet jeans) dried without an hour. It seems the unbearable heat of Tokyo has some benefits.

This is my room. Isn’t it lovely? The aircon is on full blast and it’s still pretty hot in here. Aside from that, I’ve hung up all my clothes in my dresser and chucked all my bags into the big storage closet, and got everything the way I want it. I’m finally home! Notice the nice new tatami mats – they were worth staying in the dorms for.

Whilst I was aware that we would be sleeping on futons all year, I wasn’t aware that they aren’t as comfy as normal beds. Much thinner, you can really feel the floor through them. At least, I can. I’m not absolutely sure that we made mine right. I tried doing it on my own and failed miserably, so Matt did it. I hope he’s not trying to spite me by breaking my back!

I tried getting some photos from our balcony, but it’s late now and very dark outside, so all the photos are just a mess of slow exposure. I’ll post them on Flickr tomorrow, along with the rest of the photos.

So there we have it! At home! I feel as if the holiday is over and the life has begun now. I have my workload, my base, my friends and my (horribly broken) Japanese language. Now it’s only 350~ days to go. Oh My God.

My profuse apologies that this has taken so long in arriving. We are still relying on connecting to what seem to be the weakest wireless networks in existance. It wouldn’t suprise me if I’m connected to a sewing machine right now.

In the first few days here, I took about 100 photographs. Some are good, some are horribly out of focus. I thought I would post my favourites here, and put the rest of the good ones on Flickr. Please forgive the lack of descriptions of the photographs on Flickr, but we are very pressed for time at the moment.

This is a picture of a shrine near the hotel we stayed in during our training course. I can’t make out the content of the majority of the writing, although there’s one that says “GEM” in Romaji.

Just after we arrived (at around 9am) we were fortunate enough to see the daily blessing of the shrine. A man dressed in a light blue kimono walked slowly out of the shrine holding what looked like a stick with tassles on the end. He then waved it in front of the shrine and bowed, then repeated this for both sides of the shrine. I hope I can get back there again at some point to take a video clip of it.

This is a photo of the trees that are inside the Meiji shrine in Harajuku. It’s difficult to express the collosal size of the entire shrine, although I think this picture of the entrance gate suggests it’s no single story cottage in the woods.

I realise that there is no way I can do a photo update without posting a picture of the nightlife of Tokyo. To do this, I shall borrow a photo taken by my volunteer partner in crime Matt. This photo was taken on a night out in Shinjuku.

As I mentioned, the rest of my photos are available on Flickr. I hope to do another update this week detailing what else we’ve been up to.

Because the school LAN is crazy, I can’t get any of my photos online yet. Bear with me.

Our flight left London Heathrow at about 5am UK time, and touched down in Copenhagen two hours later, where we sat in the departure lounge for a full six hours before sitting in a cramped plane for 11 more hours. Apparently Scandinavian Airlines are big on minimalism, as I spent most of the flight practically on top of the person sitting next to me. Needless to say, we got very little sleep on the plane. This would have been fine had it not been 9am in Tokyo when we arrived, and the group of students waiting to meet us had planned out two of the most exhausting days imaginable. Still, I made a good friend on the plane, Shintaro, who’s parents own a bar in Roppongi.

The first activity was cookin. The four volunteers took two of the volunteer native students each and we each prepared a different traditional Japanese dish – Sushi, Onigari, Octopus and Ramen. For those of you who haven’t tried octopus, it’s probably worth trying once but it certaintly won’t be taking up any space in my fridge. After destroying the entire meal in about thirty seconds, the volunteers took us to Karaoke. It should be mentioned here that Matt, the other volunter Project Trust send me with, is an amazing singer. It took him about thirty seconds to have all six of the native girls fawning over him, something only my height and blonde hair could compete with. Finally, we all went to the local park and set off fireworks. Koichi, the native boy who came with us, deemed it perfectly fine to set off fireworks with other lit fireworks. Where the hell is Blue Peter with their 12 steps to a safe bonfire night?!

Early on Sunday 10th, we visited an Earthquake centre. Here we practiced how to get under the table in an earthquake, how to turn on a fire extinguisher and how to crawl through a smoke filled room. It was painfully obvious, yet explained to us in excruciating detail. We were nearly lectured to death. Next we went to techie town Akihabara, where we were battered with techno, neon lights and seven foot inflatable anime characters. The whole place stank of geek. We climbed to about the sixth floor of a huge arcade to watch teenagers complete Dance Dance Revolution without so much as a casual glance at the screen, before taking group photos in little “Picture Party” machines, which spit out hundreds of tiny little stickers of you looking like an idiot. Hopefully I’ll be able to post a picture of them. They are not my finest hour.

On the final day of induction, we met some older students who took us to Harajuku shrine, followed by the “cheap street”. I wish I’d got some photos of the clothes people were wearing. Imagine if Barbie crashed into Marilyn Manson in here Barbie camper van full of explosives and pink paint.

Thus ended our first three days in Japan. When I get the time I’ll write about starting work and being the most popular kid in school. (“Holy Shit! Blonde Hair!”)

Well, this is the last entry I will be writing before I leave. I'm travelling down late thursday night to stay overnight with friends in London, and I board the plane to Copenhagen at 6:50am. Following a six hour stay in Copenhagen I will be flying to Tokyo Narita airport. Altogether I will be in the air for around thirteen hours. Needless to say I am not looking forward to the travel, especially considering the current restrictions on hang luggage. I'll be arriving in Tokyo at around 3am local time, if my maths doesn't fail me, so I also get the extra special bonus gift for travelling – horrendous jetlag. For some reason, as soon as I step foot in an Airport I become incredibly uncoordinated and worried. Not great when you're flying into one of the busiest airports in the world. Ulp.

I've been saying farewell to all my friends. Although plenty of them will be on my mailing list, I'm aware that they will probably make new friends at university and all but forget about our school community. I still find it hard to believe that they're all a year ahead of me education wise.

Packing has been pretty awful, too. Our weight limit for baggage isn't too strict, but with only two days to go I am still remembering things that seem vital (alarm clock, razor) that I would have forgotten otherwise. This in turn makes me panic that I've forgotten something essential like my passport or tickets or something. I'm fully aware that sod's law dictates that I'll arrive then realise I've forgotten something essential – I'm just hoping it's something I can get hold of abroad. 

I'd like to take this opportunity to say farewell to all my friends and aquintences, be they online or real life friends. It's going to be really hard not seeing any of you all year, and please do feel free to bombard me with emails detailing how university is going or whatever. I've been collecting emails to add to my email so I can send everyone updates. Comment on this entry if you think I'm likely to forget you. Aside from that, there's really only one thing left to say;

Sayonara!