The Lie-in, The Bitchslap and the Floordrobe

According to Helen Leitch at the Edinburgh University International student office, the would be exchange student will experience four stages of emotional change during their year abroad. Similar to the four stages of grief; denial, anger, grief itself and acceptance. Helen's version had some thing to do with four H's, although I seem to remeber there only being three, and one wasn't an H. This morning I have experienced all stages of Helen's guide before I even got out of bed. The Honeymoon period; the initial feeling of excitement and awe for the new experiences of a new place. The Homesick/Hate period; the realisiation that the rose tinted telescope used to view Japan from the otherside of the world had hidden a few important details, and they don't sell reggae reggae sauce. Then finally acceptance, peace, love and harmony; the part where everything falls into place and life has a soundtrack by the beegees.
I have a free friday, so I went to bed thinking tomorrow could be a day for exploration. Stepping out like Scarlett Johannson in Lost in Translation to find Robots and Buddhists in zen gardens. At the very least find some bloody blue tak. This morning brought on stage two of Helen's irrefutable three fold plan. Somewhere beyond the Sumatran jungle beneath my window is a school, at least I think its a school... it could be a young offenders institute. I was bitchslapped from sleep by a rousing stalinistic communist work song cum nursery rhyme and the sound of a few hundred Japanese children chanting at full pelt in unison. They mercifully stopped pledging allegiance to the motherland after 45 minutes and a headache, and I managed to sleep for another 10 minutes. Then there was an earthquake. Stage three came as I finally got up, rearranged my spinal column and opened my blinds. In a morning has broken, blackbird has spoken sort of way I realised stood amongst the clothing strewn around my holding cell bedroom that I've got grand plans with genuine, authentic Japanese people today and I have marmite...but still no reggae reggae sauce. If anyone feels like sending me some, I'll reciprocate by sending back a week's supply of crunky.
I am playing tennis with Susumu and some of his mates at two forty this afternoon. Susumu is a fairly jokes character, he's eighteen and a prime mover and shaker in Ryu Soc (the 'lets get giggling akward Japanese people together with socially inept western people and see what happens club'). Actually I think what happens is pretty classic. At yesterday's lunchtime gathering I met a heavy metal obsessed student, dressed like pinnochio, two slightly punk lads who said I looked like a pirate of the caribbean (one of them had a skull and crossbones earring....I pointed this out, but they stuck with their first impression), and was finally accosted by a gang of Japanese girls who all knew my name, I don't remember meeting any of them. Tonight is the official welcome party for International Students, and I have been caught on camera for the promotional video.... a moment I will not be revelling in when they air it at the event this evening.
Japan presents an overwhelming feeling that it has intentionally chosen to write a sign in the most complicated fashion, and that it doesn't understand your textbook perfect attempts to order two large beers. An old lady genuinely turned her nose up at me on the train when I sat next to her in a free seat, and got up to move two seats further down from me. However, my driving instructor Graham Howe (of Howe to Drive driving school), always told me that 1st gear needs to be the most powerful gear even though it is moving the car the slowest, because eventually the car only needs to be kept in perpetual motion.... its building up momentum that takes effort. So thats why I'm going to go and kick Susumu's arse at tennis.

Crunky

The view from my room isn’t exactly in keeping with what I expected from the second largest city in Japan’s national university. It feels more like I’ve landed in the Sumatran jungle. The sound of crickets and the angry debate between crows in nearby tree canopies do little to suggest that I am in a country responsible for bullet trains, pokemon and heated toilet seats. I am 5 floors up in the B block of Minesawa international house, and glad that the typhoon four days ago has been and gone. Sleep was given a back seat in favour of exit strategies and a nagging fear that if my window were to smash in, I would be fully transported from my rock hard mattress to join the Jungle Book 2 auditions sixty feet below. The other Edinburgh peeps at Tokyo universities were given the day off because of the severe weather (which had cleared up by 9.30 to reveal cloudless blue skies and redundant umbrellas). We were not.

Google maps shows Yokohama National University to be right in the centre of town, a ten minute walk from anyone who’s anyone. This is an optical illusion. There are lots, and I mean lots, of cabbage patches. Despite the backwater area, the university has much the same feel as any other; it has a canteen, faculty buildings and best of all their own brand of door to door God squad oozing broken English charm, desperate to get anyone to come to bible study sessions. The layout of the dorm is similar to one of the grimier Pollock halls buildings. A dingy Japanese Grant, for those of you in the know. The shared showers require 100 yen for ten minutes, making it an impossibility to maintain a suitable level of hygiene if you don’t have the right shrapnel in your pocket. Blue tak does not translate well into Japanese, so I have had to make do with a large pin board to put up my photos from home. The typhoon made quick work of its not so secure position on my, ironically, blue tak stained wall. So now it sits, looking a little forlorn propped up against the wall on my floor.

Japanese people love bureaucracy. I have never had to sign so many sheets of paper that I cant read. I may, quite feasibly, have signed away my human rights for all I know. Luckily the university appoint every new international student with a ‘tutor’ to help wade through it all. Mine’s called Koshi. Koshi is quiet, but mercifully has a fair grasp of English thanks to a year spent in California. He is keen to learn slang, so I have been indoctrinating him with a few choice London rude boy turns of phrase to compliment his already terrifying arsenal of ‘bummer’ and ‘dude’. Despite his enthusiasm, he has a tough time grasping the concept of ‘wagwan’, let alone pronouncing it. With his help, I have enrolled with the university and have a rough timetable of grammar, kanji and culture classes. One of the latter being ‘Cool Japan’, a class involving a syllabus of sword waving, calligraphy and T-shirt painting. Last weeks calligraphy class involved public ridicule in front of the whole class because apparently my lovingly crafted kanji character looked like spongebob squarepants.

Last weekend served to take the edge off my somewhat dingy accommodation. I have a free Friday every week, and Monday was a national holiday. Cue triumphant four day weekend music. The Keio University guys live somewhere between Yokohama and Tokyo in an area called Hiyoshi, so Friday night was deemed to be a suitable time for sushi and Karaoke. Although almost too much of a cliché to be taken seriously, I totally understand the obsession with both. Forget Yo Sushi (which was set up by a rowdy Scotsman from dragon’s den), there is something undeniably weird and wonderful about ordering one more horse meat dish in broken Japanese and no-one thinking it out of the ordinary….although Black beauty was a bit stringy for my taste. I’m no singer, even in the shower, but a few drinks and a selection of songs the right side of the Pet Shop Boys meant that no tonal range was out of the question. Each karaoke booth faces onto a corridor, at the end of which were the loos and the manager’s desk. Returning from nature’s call to the booth revealed the reality of the situation. Brash English accented attempts to do any semblance of justice to ‘Man in the mirror’ drowning out any of the much more serious J-Pop renditions from our, by 5am, long suffering neighbours.

The slightly truncated time frame of all this is due to the fact that only today have I actually got internet in my room, thanks to a very efficient 10am wake up call by a Japanese IT gremlin, who sat on my floor for half an hour. We both revelled in the awkwardness of our inability to communicate until he told me that I was officially connected to the internet. Not that I understood him when he told me. So this smattering of accounts does justice to nearly two weeks of life in Japan. I have a few Japanese names in my phonebook, a few new friends on facebook and a growing addiction to a chocolate bar, amusingly called Crunky.

Tea time of the living dead

Its 5.16pm... apparently. At this point you could tell me the four horsemen of the apocalpyse are coming over for a chat about drapes and I'd believe you. I landed into Narita through thick low fog, very symbolic considering the jet lag fug of thirteen hours of trashy films and rubberised food. I have yet to decide if I'm really here, sat in Robin's toilet cubicle sized room listening to slightly camp music in the sleep making (as if thats necessary) low light of his 'mood lighting' drape hung over the ceiling lamp. Probably a fire hazard. Come to think of it, I do smell a slightly toasty smell... but that could be an onset of a brain tumour as a result of about 17 coffees in a bid to remain awake. Robin has taken me on a little tour of Ebisu and the surrounding area in the grey drizzle of Japanese october on the back of his 50cc scooter. This is totally illegal. Robin casually tells me that he has never had a run in with the authorities regarding minor moped related traffic infractions...this suggests he's had others of different natures.

Within five minutes we have had to outrun the fuzz (who was on a bicycle), and having stopped for noodles costing all of 500yen, found ourselves outisde Keio university. Before we had a chance to meet up with Elliot and Henry, who are on a tight schedule because they are trying out for modelling jobs at the new Abercrombie shop in Ginza, we have another confrontation with the law. I imagine its probably quite an amusing site for a security guard to see two western lads, one of which is barely hanging off the back of a black hairdryer powered Honda, creaming past him up the hill towards the back entrance of the university. He didn't see the funny side. In fact he was, as only a Japanese security guard can be, politely really pissed off. Robin called him a racist and told me to bail out of the situation. So I walked off (helmet still on head) down the road trying not to look western, guilty or jetlagged. Shigeko Lewis, my student advisor/ liason at Yokohama Uni, told me that if I were to stay in Tokyo before coming down her way that I should stay out of trouble. I've been here 5 hours.

Its surreal, being used to certain people in certain settings, to sit in a cafe surrounded by japanese bijiness (read business) men, with Elliot, Henry and Robin (who finally decided to drive away from his spot of bother with johnny law and join us) on the other side of the planet. I have a date with the rest of the Japanese crew from edinburgh this evening, but I think by the time it gets to eight o'clock I may have to crawl there. Even though I am viewing this city through the head fog of twenty four hours of sleep deprivation, consequently feeling like an extra from resident evil walking past neon vending machines and little old ladies sweeping their front porches, it is just so cool. Fashionsta youths with winkle picker shoes and chain smoking salary men. 15 different types of iced coffee from 15 different vending machines all glowing in a row next to a wooden shrine with rain dampened prayers tied in paper knot bunting. Now I need to work out a way of sleeping in Robin's room tonight without waking up in a comrpomising position