Well, it’s late on Tuesday night. I’m back in my dormitory just having had my first day at university in 2010. Because we’re technically still in the first semester (of which we have around three weeks remaining), we’re covering exactly the same material as we were before. Not fun!

I realised I didn’t post anything about Nagano after New Years’, which is odd considering that’s the main reason I went, but the decision to leave my laptop charger at home was a deciding factor in my blog output. So apologies for that. I was very kindly given a CD as I left which contained more photos, so I will now recap on some of the things I got up to before coming back here, breaking up the cold, hard text with even colder pictures (because they’re full of snow).

On the big day itself, we waited until about 11:30, then headed out by foot through the snow to the shrine near Mako’s house. When we got there we joined a huge queue and waited to pray and buy good luck charms for 2010. I chose the one designed to help people pass exams. I assume it works 100% of the time and am therefore taking thirty seven masters degree exams this year.

After that it was sleep time, but then on New Year’s Day, we headed into the city of Nagano and checked out the big shrine. More praying. Lots more people. Awesome food. Oh, and even more snow!

Yes, I don’t know if there was snow where you guys were but we had plenty on New Year’s Day. What makes this extra fun is that they had none in Tokyo! Hah!

In the evening it was time for the event I’d been simultaneously anticipating and dreading. New Year’s dinner with the extended family. I have to say, just meeting Mako’s family on the first night was pretty nerve wracking, but it looked like my generous use of polite Japanese was sufficient. (At least I think it was, I have no idea if they now plan to besmirch my good reputation due to my rudeness. I hope not.) I remember walking into a room and watching nine or so faces drop about three foot. You see, in a hilarious twist the visitors had not been told about me. Needless to say they assumed the British were invading. Which we were. We had come to eat their delicious New Year’s food! (By ‘we’, I mean ‘I’. I get all the food.)

Can you spot me in that photo? I’ll give you a clue – I’m the girl on the right. The meal was delicious and everyone was really kind. I couldn’t shake a feeling that I was sort of gatecrashing the meal in the day or two leading up to it, but they all seemed genuinely pleased to have me join them. It was a really heartwarming feeling.

After the meal, Mako’s mother and her nieces (I think, everyone introduced themselves really quickly and I got confused. I think I remember someone being a robot or something) played us some songs on the piano and violin, which was a great way to end a memorable evening.

On my last full day in Nagano, we finally went off to do something I’d been dying to – go to an onsen! I’m pretty sure the last time I went to a hot spring was the one in the hotel in Nikko, in September 2008. That’s fifteen months! The view looked over the little town and the surrounding mountains, everything covered in snow. It was lovely. Sadly, you can’t take a camera into an onsen (for obvious nudity related reasons) so instead here is the view from my bedroom window taken on the last full day I had. It’s so beautiful, it makes me sad when I look around my dingy dungeon room.

So that’s it for my coverage of my lovely week in Nagano. Thanks obviously to Mako and his family for putting up with my confusing British traditions and poor grasp of how showers work. I was going to write my 2010 resolutions at the end of this post but it ended up being so long I won’t! I guess I will just have no resolutions this year! ANARCHY!

I put the photos I was given in a special folder in the gallery.

I thought I’d go for an ‘arty’ title with this one. Today at around lunch time, snow came to Nagano in a big way. If you didn’t see it, take a look at my post from yesterday, because these pictures honestly look like they came from a different season.

As usual I will put my favourites up here and write captions, the rest are in the photo archive.

This is the view from my window. It sure beats the skyscrapers and roads I usually see. The snow came really fast – I remember looking out the window and there being no snow, then I took this photo about ten minutes later. Since I didn’t get a white Christmas this year (or much of a Christmas at all. Santa doesn’t work in Asia, apparently) a white New Year’s was extra nice.

This is the line that runs through the area. The trains only come once an hour, so they’re not quite as handy as the ones in Tokyo, but at least people here can actually hear themselves think rather than just get told to stand behind the yellow line the whole time.

This is Kaizujyou (Matsushirojyou) castle. Inside is a really wide and open courtyard. It was quite a surprise really that there was no building inside, but it added to the ‘wide’ feeling of Nagano. I like the feeling of being able to swing my arms without hitting three people, eight buildings and then getting arrested.

Ducks of the moat around Kaizujyou castle. They were too busy swimming around to pose for any photos, though.

So yeah! Snow! Awesome! Also tonight I’ll be sitting down with Mako’s family to eat traditional Japanese New Year’s food. Everyone keeps telling me it’s ‘unique’, I choose to understand that to be a good thing.

Anyway, thanks for reading! As I mentioned all the photos are in the photo archive.

So I’ve been in Nagano (not Nagoya [blog 1, 2] as I keep calling it!) for two days now. Since I got here my friend Mako and his family have just been so kind – I’ve eaten really delicious food and slept in literally the most comfortable futon in the universe. My back will be thanking me for months for this one.

This place is so calm and quiet, unlike Tokyo. It makes me really doubt if I want to end up in Tokyo – living in such a bustling mess of pollution knowing that places like this exist is going to be a challenge.

Today we headed to a small shrine which is hidden away on one of the mountains that surround the area. I saw two other people on the mountain the whole time, and I’m pretty confident I’m the first foreigner to be there. I don’t think I can do justice to the place any way but through photos. Here are a few of my favorites, the rest are available in the photo archive.

I think this photo sums this place up very well. It’s a town – people live here. But it’s a town that has been populated for a long time without destroying everything around it. I know I sound a bit like a hippy right now but just look at that mountain. That sky. Nature rules, I’m going to chuck my laptop away and fashion a new computer out of snow and wood.

Mako and I went a little way up a mountain near his house to see what I think is called Shirotori Shrine. It’s a well hidden but beautiful place, this is just one of the buildings. Based on the expressions of the people we saw on the way (not many!) I may well be the first foreigner ever to go there. For some time, anyway. Makes me feel special.

Oh yeah, it’s really cold here. But it’s nice and bright, too, so I can take pretty photos, breathe in the nice air and try to forget I have to head back to the Carbon Dioxide party zone that is Tokyo in a few days.

Finally, this was the view that greeted us from the mountain. How awesome is that? It sure beats huge skyscrapers and an overwhelming sense of dread and profit margins.

Anyway I hope I’ve gone some of the way to expressing how lovely this place is here. If you’re interested, the rest of the photos I took today are available in the archive here.

More to follow!

Ok, the title of this post sounds like some dodgy festive hazing ritual, but what I meant really was ‘How am I replacing English with Japanese in my every day life?’ It sounds odd, saying I need to do that process when I’m in the country, but regardless of what people say;

• You can’t pick up a good level of Japanese just by ‘being around’ the language. You have to interact with it.
• It’s possible, in Tokyo, to get away with using basically no Japanese at all.
• You learn more if whatever you’re doing is fun. (This is also my ‘I ain’t readin’ no stinkin’ textbook!’ clause)

I honestly believe all of these things to be true, so as a result I have to fight my urge to buy awesome looking books in English, and stick to Japanese ones. So today’s update is ‘what I’m reading / watching / playing’ in Japanese. So let’s get started!

Battle Royale, Japanese Novel

Oh yes. I’ve read Battle Royale in English and watched the film. It’s safe to say it’s one of my favourite stories of all time. Yes there’s plenty of violence in every version, but there’s also love stories, some really memorable characters and backstabbing aplenty (in some cases, literally!). But today’s not the time to rant about how great it is. I’ve not read too much of the book, but my first thoughts are;

• Japanese names are horrible. There are 42 students, all with different names and thus different Kanji, to remember. I keep forgetting who is who and later on I’m wondering how someone who already got killed is now running away. Unless I accidentally bought ‘Zombie Royale’. Actually, that’s an awesome idea for a book, nobody steal it OK.
• The Japanese version of the book is ‘punchier’ than the translation. It’s told from the perspective of one of the students, and in the Japanese version he comes across as more opinionated. More realistic, I suppose. The English translation is good though, I’m not having a go at it!

It’s a great book though, although I already know what’s going to happen. My Japanese is at the point I can usually go a few sentences understanding everything, and most of the things I don’t know take not much time to ‘get’. (Usually symbols I’ve not come across before).

Liar Game Season 2, Japanese TV Drama

My TV quota is being filled nicely by the second season of Liar Game, a Japanese TV drama which averages 281 twists per episode and 194 cases of overreacting to frankly unsuprising revalations per episode minute. I reviewed the first season here. It’s helpfully boosting my strategic war game vocabularly to heights unknown!

Gyakuten Kenji / Ace Attorney Investigations, A Logic Puzzle Solving Game

Phoenix Wright, for those that don’t know, is a DS game where you solve crimes. I’m playing the new one, in which you play a prosecutor busting criminals left right and center. It’s hard, because they really love throwing legal vocab all over the shop, but it’s fun. After you get accused of murder for the 20th time, the word ‘situational evidence’ really starts to stick in your head!

Finally, something I’m buying on Thursday. If you are one of my parents please look away now.

Final Fantasy XIII, A Role Playing Game

Oh YES. It’s nearly here. 100+ hours of beautiful, fully voice acted awesomeness. There’s going to be complex words, fast moving Kanji characters and explosions all over the place. It’s like if Michael Bay got into a fight at the Scrabble world championships. Using grenades. I’m not going to write about it until I get some way into it, but needless to say I’m pretty excited. It’s not really that expensive, which is a bit of a suprise, and the console means I can finally start catching up on my Japanese films too. I got a membership to rent DVDs from a place called Tsutaya but my laptop goes mental at the very idea of a DVD being produced outside of England, so this will finally let me watch some mental films.

Alright so this concludes my ‘write loads to make up for not writing for weeks then hope the feeling of guilt goes away’ project that didn’t work. (I still feel guilty!) I’ll try to do at least one update a week, probably on Sundays, from now on. I’d like to do one per exciting thing I do though, so it should (hopefully!) be more frequent than that. This update was really wordy though, I’ll try to cut down next time. Later!

“Oh yeah, I have a blog!”

I hate writing things like this. I haven’t updated in 3 weeks or so and I apologise. Writing these ‘catch up’ blog posts just remind me how much I have neglected you, my beautiful readers. To make amends, if you send just £5 / ¥1,000 / the deeds to a hectare of land in North America, I will send you a personalized Christmas message! (It will be in the form of a letter that you can’t see or touch and that only I have knowledge of).

Anyway. I’ve been playing a lot of racquetball with my new circle. They’re all lovely people and it’s a great chance to practice totally natural Japanese. It’s especially nice in that none of the members really know how to ‘gear’ their Japanese to a foreign learner. This isn’t easy mode, folks. This is the real, complicated deal. I have also learned that sport vocabulary is surprisingly simple. Things like ナイスショット (naisu shotto!) and ナイスカッチュ (naisu kacchi!) get banded around a lot. I tried saying ‘Nice Shot’ and ‘Nice Catch’ in natural British English and everyone got confused and thought I was summoning a devil or something. Nevermind!

The racquetball circle had their Christmas Party on the 5th of November (only 20 days early!) which was fun, although it was a little on the tame side. Still, next weekend the 3rd year students, who make up the bulk of the circle, are all leaving because they have to focus on job hunting. I’ve heard this upcoming party is going to be massive. They warned me ‘it might get a little crazy’. Frankly, I’d be offended if it didn’t.

The other thing I’ve been doing a lot of, and it feels great to write this, is improving in Japanese. Since I’ve got here I’ve sort of felt I’m on the ‘plateau’ that people talk about a lot – it just feels like it’s all going nowhere. But yesterday I watched most of a whole TV show and understood everything. It surprised me a lot as I couldn’t do that when I got here, and I don’t feel like I’ve been working much. It’s like a Christmas gift come early!

Speaking of Christmas, we have a few weeks off starting December 23rd (yaaay!) I’m going to be spending Christmas day in Tokyo, then soon after I hope to head off somewhere. Possibly to Hakone, I’m not decided just yet.

Other than that, not much to report on. Look forward to a video. I’m going to shoot some material on Thursday for something special, I’m not sure when the video will appear but it will. If it doesn’t you may throw anything you like at me.