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

Akihabara and other misadventures

A bit later than I planned to post this, but then this weekend was quite busy. Well, I say busy...

Firstly, there was the terribleness that was Friday. Now, originally I though Friday was going to be in the 'Best. Day. Ever' folder of my life. Okay, maybe that's exaggerating. But at least in the 'Pretty awesome day' folder. Turns out I kind of fail at planning things. So in Japan at the moment, there's a whole load of stuff encouraging us to reduce electricity usage (or maybe its not all across Japan and is just in my uni, I'm not sure yet) I think it's to do with the fact that there are less power stations in Japan now, so power from elsewhere is being rerouted to the Tohoku area.

So, in aid of this 'reducing electricity usage' thing, ICU decided to have last Friday as a 'no power' day. From 8am to 5pm they turned off all electricity on campus, so no lights, no cooking, and no hot water. Now, all this was fine. They had warned us in advance, and a lot of people were planning to go sightseeing for the day, because they had also cancelled classes. I decided to sleep in for a bit, then use the battery power of my netbook for a few hours of chilled internet time. Turns out no power means no internet. Don't know quite how I hadn't figured that out early enough. But by the time I had, everyone else had gone to fun and exciting places and my very last minute plans fell very, very flat. Still, I had the chance to study for hours more than I thought I would! Then I got bored and went to a nearby bookshop and bought a book to try and read. Turned out that felt a lot like studying too, as I had to have my electronic dictionary next to me the whole time and look up almost every other word.

Saturday was a lot better though, as I finally managed to get to Akihabara. For those who don't know Tokyo, Akihabara is also referred to as 'Electric Town'. It is full of shops selling electrical goods and gadgets, and is an awesome place to find a good deal, if you know anything about that kind of thing, which I really don't. However, as Akihabara is a haven for the geeks of Japan, it doesn't just have electric things. It also has many, many shops filled with wonderful anime merchandise. And arcades, which will eat your money up faster than a trophy wife (I assume. I have never actually experienced that, but I have read about it in Regency era novels...)

However, arcades are also the home to the wonder that is Purikura. Also known as sticker pictures, these things are amazing, and we should totally have more of them in England. You take pictures with your friends, then decorate them. They are designed for girls who often want to look more American, so there are options that make your eyes look bigger, and your skin look paler. For the sake of irony, I usually go for the biggest and most dramatic eyes and the palest skin tone. I went with Alyssa, who is pretty cool, even if she doesn't live in the best dorm on campus (unlike me). Sadly, I didn't get to go and look for shady alleyways, because Alyssa was afraid that at that time of night, in Akihabara, I might actually find some. Apparently explaining that  it would be alright, because I know aikido/self defence was not comforting, especially when I explained the first thing I had been told to do if I got in a fight - try to run away. Turns out she doesn't know aikido/self defence and I didn't have the time to teach her the finer points of the great and noble art of running really fast from danger, so we came home.

Also, the sign in the picture on the right below this paragraph entertained me so very much. It's basically saying that this is a 'women only' zone. There were other signs which I think were saying that guys were not even allowed downstairs to this whole area without a woman. The pink rectangles are the Purikura booths that guys are completely forbidden from entering, whereas they are allowed in the blue ones, but I think they're still mean to have a girl with them. Not that many groups of guys would want to do Purikura, it just entertained me that they made it into a rule.

An example of Purikura, me and Alyssa

Just out of the shot is a little additional sign,
saying 'no cameras'. Oops?

So with all that over and done, and me back safely, even though I had left my bike unlocked for hours, with the key still in the lock, and no one had taken it (I love Japan) Sunday came next, when I finally managed to get along to church. Which was cool because I got to meet up with a friend I haven't seen for almost three years. It was a little bit weird being so far from home, yet still in church. It was nice though, made me feel like I'm finally settling in or something. It was quite a journey to get there, especially as I missed the stop on the bus, and had to go round the loop circuit, which luckily only takes about 30 minutes, with the bus driver staring at me like I was crazy... But yeah, I managed two solo journeys this weekend, without getting too lost, and managing to make it to everything on time. I'm totally not counting the bit of the return journey on Sunday, when I got on the wrong train and went two stops in the wrong direction before I even realised.

Backtracking a bit now, because I covered the weekend which, to be fair is when most of the actually interesting stuff happened, but there was some interesting stuff in the week. So I mentioned how I feel like I'm finally settling in. Well, I think the two main things that are bringing it home to me that I'm living here, and not on holiday, are my bike and my phone. Those are not things that a vacationer buys! Or if they are, then they must be some kind of really rich vacationer, who really likes bikes, and doesn't want to hire one... Anyways! Yes, I got a Japanese phone last Tuesday. My flatmate Yukari took me to the phone shop and dealt with all the confusing translation stuff, and I walked out with a phone. It was a bit of a weird process, as I didn't pay a penny, and now have unlimited emails - Japanese phones email without having to be officially connected to the internet. It's basically like texts, except I can send them to normal email accounts as well. I have never in my life had a contract phone before, and I keep being slightly weirded out by having one, but it's amazingly useful for finding out what's going on and everything.

New phone!

Behold, my beautiful Tavros. Yes, I named my bike
Because it is an awesome bike and deserves an awesome
name.

If I remember rightly, I have already ranted about 'yay I have a bike, yay' in a previous post, but seriously, it's like every time I ride it, I'm reminded that I live here now. That this isn't like before, that I'm here for ten months. While that sometimes seems scary, I'm loving being in ICU. This place is like everything I always dreamed a university would be like. Sure, its a bit disorganised at times, and I wish the Japanese Language Program had made the workbooks to have ALL the chapters we're going to be studying in the order we'll be studying them in, so they don't keep having to give us more paper, which I inevitably lose, but I really love it here. I'm enjoying studying Japanese again. I'm enjoying all my lectures. The campus is beautiful and there are tennis courts, and a gym (which you can use for free) and a swimming pool (which has a small fee for each use). The people are all really kind and friendly, and my dorm is just awesome.

So even though days like last Friday are kind of annoying, I am really looking forwards to these next nine months (and can't believe that I've already been here for almost a month!)

Last minute rush!

There are now ten days before I will be on a plane, leaving England for ten months. I just typed that sentence then sat and stared at it for a good five minutes - I think. I wasn't really timing myself, because my mind may have gone into a form of meltdown known as 'pure terror on realisation of the imminent approach of the most adventurous and most nerve-wracking thing I have ever been stupid enough to sign up for, and I sign up for a lot of stupid things'.

On reflection, that feeling should probably have a shorter name. Now, if I was terrible dull/conformist/normal, I would just refer to it as 'nerves'. Ha! If I were slightly more dramatic (also known as 'cool'), I might refer to it as 'fear'.

I think I will call it fearror. Because why say 'fear', when you can combine it with a more dramatic synonym (terror) to make a much more descriptive portmanteau.

If I'm being honest, I shouldn't really have any reason to be feeling so much fearror. I have my visa. I have my ticket. My suitcase is almost completely packed! Which is fairly weird for me, being one of those people who packs when the parents are loading the car and yelling for me to hurry up or we'll miss the boat/plane/spaceship. But no! I have been prepared! Packed two weeks early! I am more prepared for this than I have been for, I think anything, ever.

Maybe that's the problem. By putting things off, I normally manage to escape thinking about it all until the last minute, whereas now, I've had months of having to actually prepare and think of more and more things that could go wrong.

Now that everything's practically ready, I have ten days to totally forget that I'm going to try and lessen the fearror. Yes. That is most definitely the best option now.

Land of the Rising Sun.

So, I'm going to Japan soon. People who know me well will be aware that I study Japanese at university in London. People who don't know me and managed to magically find this via some interesting google search (like my caterpillar post and the rock paper scissors one) will probably not care, although they will have provided me with the entertaining thought of them somehow being directed to this post. Anyways, a part of the course is a year studying in Japan. That year is fast approaching. That means I may actually write blogs more frequently, what with the whole 'I will actually have stuff to write about' thing.

So yeah, ten months in Tokyo, studying in the International Christian University. It's going to be awesome. And possibly terrifying/exhausting. But still, awesome.

Ooh! So pretty! ICU has 150 wooded acres as part of the campus!

Good news includes my camera being fixed, so I will be able to post a photo or two (which I will actually take myself, unlike the photo above). Bad news includes my best friend not going with me, so I will have to find my way around by myself until I make new friends.

I would write more now, but there's really nothing much more to say. More interesting posts will follow, no doubt dealing with my visa traumas, me getting lost in Tokyo with all my luggage on the way to the university, and adventures such as trying to pass as a tourist so people don't realise I can technically speak Japanese and ask me awkward questions. There may also be pretty pictures.

To Tokyo we shall go!

So I hear blogs usually contain actual news, not just the blogger rambling about the things that caught their interest during the day... Fun as that may be... Also, I actually have interesting news. Rare, but true. So, future-me, I hope you remember yesterday (yesterday to me, not to you. Although I hope you remember your yesterday too, otherwise the accident-caused amnesia that I have been presuming you have may be worse than I had thought.) If not, I will remind you.

In our university, SOAS, second years studying Japanese have to take a test in February to place them within the year. Then, the people who got the best results get their first choice of which university in Japan they go to next year for the compulsory year abroad, and the people who do the worst get whatever is left over. That means, for about three hours of one nervewracking day, fifty people hang around in the SOAS bar, waiting for it to be their turn to find out their Fate. Some, upon finding out, return to comfort others and quietly celebrate with friends, some slip off, not wanting to be too excited in front of those who are still waiting, or not wanting to burst into tears amongst friends. It's like the set up for a dramatic movie about friendship, betrayal, joy and heartbreak. I would totally make a movie about it if, you know, I had money. Or a camera. Or friends willing to slightly mock themselves.

Now, we were very lucky, future-me. We, unlike some, managed to get our first choice! That being the International Christian University (ICU) in Tokyo - a campus uni full of awesomeness! Hoorah! Here's to hoping we get into on-campus dorms! As we originally applied to go there instead of SOAS, then had to turn down the place due to funding issues, it feels like a two year long plan/wait has finally clicked into place! Even better, instead of going by myself as the previous plan entailed, I will be going with my wonderful friend, Fran!

And another good thing is that none of the fictitious scenarios we came up with happened - like one of the guys being sent to Ochanomizu (an all girl's university) due to it being the only place left, or there being no places left in Japanese universities at all, so being sent to China. It's amazing the things your overly nervous brain can tell you are possible...probable... DEFINITE!

On an ending note, following other people's blogs is mildly addictive. Especially as there are so many good tutorial blogs... And I managed to start a mini-craze amongst my friends (ie two of them) for creating blogs, which has made my brain hurt due to the realisation that I'm following Half a nice day, who's following me, who's following Deboscribbles, who's following me, who's following Half a nice day...And round and round we go in a weird circley pattern, never to end...