Japan Is Doomed

I fought against myself not to use that incredibly cheesy update title, but in the end my desire to embarrass myself until the end of time won through. Also, as I sit here writing this now, a huge typhoon rages around just outside the thin walls of my apartment. If I don’t make it through, I leave all my photos of shrines and dead fish to you, the reader.

I couldn’t sleep last night. I can’t really sleep at all right now - it’s rainy season, my air conditioner is on it’s last legs, and to top it off, whichever idiot is renovating the flat next door to us decided to renovate the wall where my head is pretty hard for about two hours at one in the morning. If he does that again I’m going to renovate a patio door down his throat. I think I got to sleep at 1am, which made waking up at 5.30am quite a challenge. Still, I did, as this was the day I was going to Tsukiji Fish Market. Apparently, the market carries over 400 different types of seafood, is world famous for quality sushi, and handles over 2000 metric tons of seafood each day. I assume that does not include the boats because otherwise that’s not really very impressive.

One last word of warning - if you are squeamish you might not want to click any photos in this update. Fish with no heads abound!

Basically, after hopping off the train and walking for a few minutes, a powerful smell overwhelms you and you feel like you’ve just been hit with a haddock. You spend the next twenty minutes trying to dodge the miniature cars they use for transporting the fish and eventually you make it inside the oversized barn that the market is held in. Once you are there, you wander up and down the millions of isles, being pushed out of the way by irate old fishermen and enthusiastic old women, desperately trying to stay dry. An endeavor you will inevitably fail at.

I am about to tell you about two things that happened to me during my visit to the market. I want to make it absolutely clear that before today, I held no grudges against fish. I quite like them, especially when they are swimming around in big shoals. Plus, I enjoyed Finding Nemo. However, this alliance ends today.

• The walkways between each set of stalls in incredibly thin. As a result, you have to walk very slowly. This gave one fish that wasn’t quite dead yet a chance to thrash around in a vain attempt to escape. This fish failed, but the water that was ejected from the box as a result of it’s fight made it’s way rather quickly to me, where it covered me. Entirely. Thanks a whole lot, you stupid fish.
• Not more than ten seconds later, we came to the end of the pathway, and prepared to go back across the market the other way along the next pathway. However, just as I was stepping out, an eel which was not in any way dead leapt from the box it had been put in and started thrashing all over the place. It cornered me and I was afraid it was going to come down to Shorinji Kempo, which might be quite hard against an eel as I’ve only practiced against foes that have arms and legs. In the end, the fisherman responsible for this feisty rebel cut it’s head off. Another victory for mankind!

That’s right. I was assaulted twice today by fish. I bet nobody has ever used that sentence before.

Aside from my near death experiences, the fish market was a pretty cool place, especially if you like seafood. The people who took me were pretty professional fish buyers, as not three hours later we were tucking into a delicious meal of fish, fish and more fish. Whilst watching the English language channel on the TV, which I tried to translate as best I could. (I couldn’t).

So there you have it. Another day, another salt water bath. I would definitely recommend going to the fish market if you are in Japan and can stand getting up at about 5am. You really need to be there by 6am to get a proper look around the place. I shall leave you today with a picture of the killer eel’s brothers, no doubt saddened at the loss of a comrade. Remember that I had just suffered a terrible assault, so to take this photo took bravery unmatched throughout all of human history. Or something.

You knew after my incredibly wordy June that it would take me two weeks to write anything in July, right?

Rainy season rages on, and with it a serious lack of photographs. Everyone in the country is currently suffering from a slump in enthusiasm, myself included, because all day we are pelted with rain and boiled in the humid air. I’m not sure how much longer I can take living in an oven. If I start displaying signs of madness I want someone to put me in a freezer for an hour.

Anyway, throughout last week and this week, I have been saying “goodbye” to all my various classes at Junten, as well as the four different adult classes. Each class had a different, unique way to say farewell before sending us on our way;

My Junten Parents Class (PTA) decided to throw a large party in the English centre at the school. Bearing in mind this meant having to shut down access for all students to our office, I was quite surprised that the school were happy for us to have the party there, but I think the PTA might hold a lot more power than people realize. They’re like the mafia, except they replace arranged murders with cups of coffee.

The Wednesday Lunchtime class, limited by their number of members and time, decided it would be best if we just had a normal lesson. I say normal, they provide lunch for us every week and I swear they were trying to kill me with the amount of bread I was supposed to get through. Then as it was the last lesson I did a pretty boring “Everyone remember what we’ve done and don’t forget me and send me chocolates” speech, and everyone was very sad. Then it was back to Junten to be assaulted horribly by bad English students. Oh well.

Our Wednesday Evening class, the most advanced class of the four, threw a big party at an Izakaya, where they gave us these stunning pictures of us that one of the members had drawn, and everyone had signed. I don’t currently have access to a scanner, so you’ll have to make do with a dodgy photo.

We had a great time at the Izakaya (Japanese pub/bar/picnic), and everyone said goodbye. Weirdly, I went along to their lesson with Lynsey two days ago, and we said goodbye again. So really they said goodbye to me twice. That’s right, I broke their hearts twice. I’m a terror.

Finally, the Monday Evening first took us out to an Izakaya, then the following week took us on a two hour all-you-can-drink party ferry. I wish I’d taken my camera now as I doubt anyone is going to believe my description of this, but basically loads of surprisingly middle-aged Japanese people dress up in traditional clothing, then “dance” to “music” on a boat which is circling around the Tokyo bay in the freezing cold. I can’t really go any further than this without bringing to light some terrible memories that I’ve successfully repressed, so I shall stop here.

Tomorrow morning at some horrible hour (6am) I will be going to Japan’s famous Tsukiji Fish Market. Going with me will be my camera, so no excuses here!

Way back in September, I wrote a little update about our flat, with some pretty dark photos that basically showed you nothing of our living conditions. The flat is now significantly messier that it was back then, but that’s what you get for living in it for nearly eleven months. Still, I thought I’d risk the possibility of being told off by my mother and post some photos of the state of our flat now. I took a photo of every room apart from Matt’s room, as I thought he might not want pictures of it put all over the Internet, and the toilet, because nobody wants to see that…right?

This is my incredibly clean room, maintained beautifully by myself. As you can see, I’ve successfully filled up all the shelf space in the entire room with large amounts of things I “know I’ll need one day”. Sadly, that day will never come but for some reason I can’t bear to separate with anything. I feel I should justify a few piles of the rubbish though, to make it appear fractionally less bad than it really is;

• The large pile of clothes behind the dresser is things that need to be washed. We don’t have a washing basket so I have invented my own “washing corner”. Usually I get everything washed within a day or two so soon that pile will be a slightly different size and colour but still there. I think the last time I had everything washed was Christmas. As we are currently stuck in rainy season there’s no way I’m going to ever get rid of that mountain again. Curses.
• The pile behind the bin is actually a load of textbooks I use for studying, as well as a small towel I carry around during rainy season (when I remember it) and a bookbag. I am a good boy and I study very hard every day, so it logically follows that I would be too lazy too hardworking to put those away neatly.
• The clothes that are hanging from the shelving unit on the far left are my suit and also a tennis shirt. That is my “clothing to-do list” and infact, after I finish this update I am going to hang them up. I promise.
• The mountain of rubbish on the desk and above my laptop are…well piles of stuff I haven’t gone through yet but I will.

Hopefully this list has satiated any cleanliness bloodlust anyone might have had long enough for me to sort some of it out.

This is our kitchen and dining room. Isn’t it wonderful. Notice if you will the rather classy “really old and uncared for” look that the designer went for, possibly whilst high on PCP or takeaway ramen. To the right is our amazing fridge, microwave, toaster triple cooking threat, whilst cleverly off screen to the left is the amazing “shove all our cutlery” storage units.

This is the drying room, where we hang things to, well, dry. There is also a TV with some games consoles that we used a bit over Christmas when it was too cold to go outside, and to prove that the Tokyo volunteers are clearly way better at fighting games than the Hokkaido volunteers.

Next is the bathroom. The door to the left leads to the shower room, which is basically one huge sink you stand in. The only problem is older volunteers forgot to leave the fan on, leading to some pretty nasty looking mold in the corners of the room. It’s probably not healthy to shower in there but nothing bad has happened to me so far, unless you count the hours of painful coughing and the extra arm that is growing out of my chest.

Finally, this is the various crap that sits atop my desk. We have Mr. Snowman, Mr. Mushroom, Mr. Manju (the white ball, Mr. Dragon and Mr. Duck. I also have another dragon who lives on my desk at school, and Mr. Fox who lives on my bed.

So there you have it. Am I living in squalor? Yes. But am I too ashamed to post it on a blog where all my family and friends will read it and email me demanding I clean it up? No. Was that a wise move? No.

So this update is a bit late. You want a fight about it?

It was one day after the end of Junten’s sports day. I was tired, sunburned and incredibly confused about what I had just seen. Whatever we did today should not involve riding a train for more than an hour whilst trying to stop people from squashing a small chocolate cake. However, this is exactly what I did as I feel if I ever decide to become a ninja, they would really be impressed in the interviews when I told them I was excellent at defending desserts on public transportation. Or something.

Barney, an American teacher we work with at Junten, invited us to his house to meet his family and explore the local countryside, near the sea in Oiso. That’s right! Countryside! Beaches! I think this about the third time this year I’ve seen some real nature. When I get back to England the first thing I will do is scale a tree and eat leaves for a few days.

As you can see, the sun was one again beating down, although it wasn’t quite as bad as Saturday, I had a full day of jumping between patches of shadows ahead of me. It actually turned a little bit cooler in the afternoon which was perfect as it allowed me to slowly but surely edge out into the sun, like a tiny squirrel exploring a forest grove for the first time. Except I don’t have an irrational fear of Badgers.

I’m sorry to say it, but this update has a picture of flowers in it. The place was just stuffed full of them and it was so nice to see some colour other than grey. I took quite a lot of pictures of flowers, but in the end I decided just to stick with this one. Again, I’m sorry. Prepare to hold your breath…

There, that wasn’t so bad, was it? Plus, look at all the pretty colours!

Anyway, after a short stop and tour of Barney’s half-Western, half-Asian house, we headed out to climb one of the nearby mountains, which is where the title of this article comes in. Along the way we were assaulted by various forms of wildlife, mostly the very small, creepy variety. If you’re squeamish please look away now, as the next photo has 8 legs and would like nothing more than to eat your toes.

The point of wading our way through all this horrible nature was to get a good view out of the tower which adorned the top of the mountain, offering a few as far as Tokyo, and in the opposite direction all the way to Atami. It was truly a stunning view, and even though the sun had gone in a little you could still see a great deal of distance.

I haven’t been up the Tokyo tower yet, but it’s something I really want to do during the day so I can get a photo like this of the city I live, although to see a picture which would sum that up pretty well, click here.

After we made our way back down to the ground, it was time for dinner, which included mashed potato! After that superb twist of culinary fate it was time to go home, as we had an hour and twenty minute train ride ahead of us, and work in the morning. The last thing we did was take a nighttime stroll along the beach close to Barney’s house, filling our hearts with joy and our shoes with sand, before walking to the station.

Thus ends another page in my book of Japan. We made it home by about half past midnight, collapsed into bed, and although I don’t remember going to work at all on Monday morning, I apparently did as I’ve still got my job.

Throughout the Junten Sports Day, various different classes and year groups of students performed Yosakoi dances. Yosakoi is a traditional Japanese dance and is typically performed by quite a large number of people (usually 20+) at the same time. Although we only saw about three or four performances, it’s really quite a large and complex thing so if you’re interested, you can read more about it here.

I quite enjoyed the performances because the students who were doing it wore these cool costumes and it’s pretty impressive when they all move together. That said, the less well behaved students would refuse to get into it and grudgingly threw their limbs around but it’s hard appreciate a dancer when he has a look of pure boredom on his face. Nevermind.

I’ve decided to just post a few photos here today, as most of them are the same but with various different poses and groups of students. Enjoy!

So there we have it. This concludes the four-update write up of the sports day, one of the strangest events I’ve ever bore witness to. Tomorrow I shall tell you of my amazing trip to Oiso, a town not too far from Atami, a place I visited and wrote about way back in October.