The Overly Long Catch-up Post

Ahah, I shouldn’t make promises to myself about regular updates on this blog… it just makes me feel guilty when I forget to write anything for a while…

So, my last post was waaaaay back in November. Since then, a lot has happened (obviously), including a visit back to England for Christmas. I think I mentioned in my last post that I was trying to write a novel. November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, and it's a challenge to write 50,000 words of a novel in a month. I actually managed to complete it, for the first time, although the end result was pretty dire. Still, I now know what I want it to be like, and there will no doubt be updates as I try to beat my ideas into some sort of coherent shape.

Anyways, my year in Japan is over, and I am finally back in England (actually, I’ve been back for a month), and I even have a summer job! So, quick recap of the last few months in Japan: I went to language classes, it was dull, especially when the sensei split me and Ohannah up and put us in different sections. This was definitely not inspired in any way by our penchant for sitting next to each other and having entire conversations in my notebook… I had an awesome lecturer for Religion in Japan, who may have been my favourite lecturer of my entire university career, which may have also lead to me figuring out what I want to write my dissertation on!

The Japanese school year begins in April, so in February we said goodbye to the Japanese 4^th years, and then on the 2^nd April we welcomed the new first years. They were all awesome, and got really involved in Global House and I miss them all :(

My birthday in April was a bit of a failday, although my unitmates gave me the cutest cake ever, and I got other tasty foods. Like rainbow pancakes!

Super cute cake, right? One of the nicest tasting ones I've ever eaten too!

In May, I went to Kyoto and Nara with Hannah, which was my parent’s birthday present to me, and I got to play with the wild-but-almost-tame deer. The bruise on my side from where one of them bit me for not feeding it fast enough only lasted a couple of days… we also couch surfed for the second night, which was awesome – the guy who owns the house doesn’t live there, but he lets couch surfers stay there for free for as long as there is space available. There are little thank you messages to him written all over the walls – was really very awesome!

This was my favourite deer. He let me pet him for ages

Couch Surfing - Seriously these were all over all the walls. There were even some on the ceiling when people ran out of room.

Back in Tokyo, I managed to pass Japanese! Though it was a very close thing… strangely enough, the day after my last exam was the first day I felt like I can do this language thing. The last week in Japan, I was chatting with random people in shops etc like I can actually speak Japanese or something! Crazy, I know!

After exams we only had a week before we got kicked out of the dorms and I had to come home, but we definitely made the most of it, doing a lot of the things we had been planning. For example me and Hannah went to Ikebukuro for the day, cosplaying as Shizuo and Izaya from Durarara (an anime set in Ikebukuro). Cosplaying in public is kinda not something people do in Japan, but by this point I didn't really care if I shocked the random Japanese passersby with being unJapanese. Something I learned very early on is that no matter how hard I try, I would never be thought of as anything other than a foreigner and you have a lot more fun if you don't try to pretend to be something you're not. So yeah, cosplaying in public. Was awesome.

What you can't see is the friends of that Japanese school girl  who were staring at us and proclaiming how 'kakkoi' (cool) we were :P

Anyways, the being able to speak Japanese thing was quite helpful when it came to getting to the airport. Some people reading this who were around on Facebook at that time might remember the panic I managed to work myself into. I meant to put up the whole saga earlier, but I was so relieved to actually be home that I forgot. Sooo, I will try to keep it brief!

My flight was going to be at 9.45 am from Narita airport. This meant I would have to get there by 8.45 at the very latest. It takes two hours to travel from the university I was in to the airport. However, the first part of the journey had to be done by bus, bike or walking. Needless to say, with the amount of stuff I was bringing home, bus was the only option. Problem number 1 – the first bus was going to be far too late – 7.30 or 8am or something. There was no way I would be able to take it and still get there in time. Problem number 2 – I did not have the money to get a hotel room for the night or something in a place that would be closer to the airport.

With my typical genius, I therefore decided to go to Narita airport the night before and stay overnight in the building. I checked the website (albeit briefly), and couldn’t find anything about the time they opened/closed, so I assumed that they would be open all night, like Stanstead in London and, I presume, London Heathrow.

My friend Hannah had very kindly offered to help me get all my stuff onto the train that would take me direct to Narita, so off we set. Problem number 3 – we were leaving at the same time as one of the last parties in Tsuru – the social room of the dorm, and so of course, everyone wanted to say goodbye, hug me and all that – what can I say, I’m awesome and everyone loves me! This wasn’t technically a problem, except that it made me a bit later than I had planned and caused more problems later.

So! We got to the bus stop, having missed the bus I wanted to get, but with another one only 15 minutes wait away. It was at this point that my archery bag decided that it hated me and that the zip was going to break. I fixed it up with pin badges and started sewing it shut when the bus arrived. We got on the bus with minimal difficulties, and then soon we were at Musashi-sakai station, the closest one to our university. Hannah had agreed to help me to Nippori station, where I would change on to my final train of the journey. I used the hour long train ride to Nippori to finish sewing my archery bag back together. We arrived at Nippori, and I realised that I hadn’t remembered to check the route to the airport before I had left. Nevermind! I had done this journey before, and there were easy to follow signs all around! So, we went to the platform that said it would take me to Narita, and Hannah helped me onto the train. Right, the time at this point was about 11.30pm, so I was aware this was probably the last train, and that it might not actually go all the way to Narita. It didn’t, but there was another one that did, and I managed to do that change surprisingly easily with all my stuff. I arrived at Narita station at about 1am. Problem number 4 – Narita station and Narita Airport are NOT THE SAME PLACE. If I had arrived an hour earlier, I would have been able to get a train from there to the airport, but having been delayed, the next train was going to be at 6am.

No worries! I thought, I’ll sit outside the station and wait until then. I am a strong independent female who can cope even when I make stupid mistakes! Needless to say, I had been sat on my suitcase for less than a minute when I started to cry. What can I say? It was late, I was tired, I wanted to get home, and I was annoyed at myself. Plus, my arms hurt from lugging heavy bags around.

Thinking back, the expressions on the faces of the Japanese people hurrying by were priceless. They clearly had no idea what to make of this strange foreign girl crying her eyes out at about 1.30am by a station, surrounded by suitcases.

It actually wasn’t long before this random old guy came up and asked me what was wrong. Bearing in mind all the conversations I had that night were in Japanese, I feel quite proud of myself. I managed to explain the mistake I had made that that I just wanted to get to the airport, but the trains wouldn’t start until 6am. Bless him, he tried really hard to calm me down and stop me from crying, and then offered to pay for me to have a taxi ride to the airport. He said he wouldn’t be able to give me more than 3000yen – about £25, because he needed the rest of the cash he had on him to get home. The taxi driver we spoke to said that the taxi would be 4000yen, but I did at least have 1000, although I think only just, so I would be able to do it.

Off we set, with me having thanked the old guy profusely. While in the taxi, me and the driver chatted about why I had been in Japan and how I had got myself into this stupid mess. Part way there, he said something like ‘you do know that the airport is closed at night, yes?’ Behold! Problem number 5 raised its head. A bit panicked I asked if there was a McDonalds or similar fast food place nearby that I could wait in. He said there was a gyudon (beef ricebowl) place. He took me there, with a brief detour to a hotel to show me where I could get a free shuttlebus to the airport at about 5.30am. It was about a 5 minute walk up the road from the gyudon place, which he took me back to. In the end, he only charged 3000 for the ride, and then gave me 1000yen, telling me to get myself something to eat and take care.

So yeah. I got to the airport, via the shuttlebus the next morning (I was able to access the hotel wifi from the pavement outside it, and so freaked out on FB until people helped calm me down)

The rest of the story is fairly dull, interspersed with me being VERY ANGRY AT LUFTHANSA, and a really nice lady giving me a lift in a motor trolley thing across Frankfurt airport.

If anyone needed proof that human beings can be amazing, kind and just generally awesome, I think I found it in spades over that 36 hour travelling period.

AND I’M DONE! Further blog updates may include, but not be limited to: The trials and tribulations of searching for and then acquiring a summer job, the joys of LARP and the amazing people I’ve met there, my attempts to continue my novel/clothes designing/nyan cat plushie making.

Peace out :P