It was inevitable, really...

I think we all knew it was just a matter of time... yup, within one month of being here, I find myself taking my clothes off in a public place in the busiest suburbs of Tokyo on a friday night. And there's photographic evidence to chronicle this momentous occasion. I made a decision not to post it on the blog, though, because it might breach some full-frontal nudity prohibition that the web server has in place. (Yeah, it's a darn-tooting shame)

The quick story is that I lost (spectacularly) at pool last night. It wasn't so much that I played poorly (which I do) or that I was drunk (which I was - but has the strange effect of making me a better player), but that I didn't even get to have a shot. So being the strict rule-adherent that I am, I drop the pants and did a lap around the pool table... with the paparazzi crowding around me, going crazy with the cameras. On the plus side, at least we weren't playing for money...

Enough room to do the can-can...

So I've lived in Japan before, and I've lived in a tiny room in a student dormitory before, but I don't ever remember bathrooms being as small as the one I have now. As can be seen below, the sink kinda hangs over the bath slightly, and when you have a shower, you can't move too much. If you move too far to one side, you hit the soap holder, and then when you go to compensate by moving toward the other side, you bump into the sink. And so now I have bruises all over me - including one on my forehead when I got up suddenly in the night and headbutted the corner of the wardrobe...

--------Enough room to do the can-can----------

---------------------------------------

Procrastination is the thief of time...

Sun - 3:14pm - 21hrs to go until presentation is due
Well Japanese Playboy was a bust. The articles in it were no help whatsoever. I must have read the entire magazine a dozen times, and there was nothing suitable for a 15 minute speech infront of a female teacher and a class comprised of more girls than guys. And so I decided to do what I do best - procrastinate.

Sun - 4:22pm - 20 hrs to go until presentation is due
I decided I need to watch some TV, and this guy on tv show said something that I didn't understand - I checked it in the dictionary and it was a Japanese proverb - "procrastination is the thief of time". I took that as a sign, and went downstairs to check out the newspapers and see what I could find. By page three of the first newspaper, the effect of the "sign" had worn off, I lost inspiration and went out to an Aussie bar to spend Anzac day with some friends... that's as good an excuse as any for not doing my homework (although technically, Anzac day is on monday).

Sun - 11:10pm - 13 hrs to go until presentation is due
There's only one thing to do. Throw the newspaper up into the air, and when they all land on the floor, the first article I see will be the one I'm going to do. But then that would be messy, and there is a big-arse metal binder on the side, and knowing me, I'll probably end up dropping it on my head. So I flip through the newspaper, eyes closed, put my finger down on the paper, open my eyes, and found out that the cosmic forces of the universe have destined me to do a speech about the weather last friday... apparently it was abnormally cool down south on friday. It advised people to wear a coat. Yup, tomorrow is going to be an important day in the history of public speaking.

Mon - 1:23am - 11 hrs to go until presentation is due
So it turns out that Kofi Annan is going to be the topic of my presentation. It's boring, but its short and its easy, and those two requirements really are the threshold test for everything that I do in life. It's got heaps of difficult words in it, so maybe I can bamboozle the class into being so confused that they don't ask any questions - thats the plan.

Mon - 4:46am - 8 hrs to go until presentation is due
zzzzzz

Mon - 3pm - 2 hrs since my presentation
It's over. It's done. My mission to bamboozle the class into being confused by the topic was thwarted when one of the girls in the class asked me to write down the difficult words on the board and explain them...DAMMIT! But its over now...

Word of the day - 'sophistic'

so·phis·tic adj.(courtesy of www.dictionary.com)

(1) Of, relating to, or characteristic of sophists.

Well that's just brilliant, thank you.

(2) Apparently sound but really fallacious; specious: sophistic refutations.

Thats much better.

So why am I interested in learning what sophistic means? Well I've just found out that I have to sit an entrance exam - as if three exams, two interviews and a seven page thesis proposal wasn't enough. Now I have to do two exams and an interview (in addition to the one I did the other day)...

One of the two exams is a translation exam - I have to translate a passage from English into Japanese. This is part of the English passage from the 2002 entrance exam:

The world depicted by Thucydides is a ruthless world, in which the strong openly assert and pitilessly exercise their right to rule over the weak. Some historians draw from this the inference that the historian himself held the same values which obtain in the world which he portrays; that under sophistic influence he had come to believe in the right of the stronger; that he regarded Athenian imperialism with wholehearted approval, and deplored only the tactical mistakes which after the death Pericles led to its collapse.

What the hell??? I'm supposed to be studying law!!! I can't even pronounce these names, much less know how to write them in Japanese...much less translate the whole passage into Japanese!!!

With all the horror of having to sit the entrance exam in Japanese, the Law Faculty thought it best to supply me with a tutor. The poor bastard doesn't know what he's gotten himself into. He does get paid - but it's a pretty poor sum of money by Japanese standards. Apparently it's a 6 month assignment, and after I told him all the topics I wanted to cover, he looked at me with pain in his eyes, and I can see that he won't want to continue with another 6 month tenure - he seemed to think that this would be easy money...

For future reference, you may want to know that the Japanese translation of 'sophistic' is kiben.

Japanese Law

Being a law student studying at a Japanese University, I feel it's my responsibility to teach the general public about Japanese Law - specifically, the unspoken laws of Japan as it applies to young gaijin (foreigner) males riding on trains. I'm taking a big risk verbalising it, but I feel it's my responsibility to educate the wider community...

-----------A shout out to all my Japanese speaking peeps---------

-------------Feel free to correct my Japanese if necessary----------

As a general rule, if you're a male gaijin in Japan, you're never gonna get a seat on a train. Even if the train isn't hopelessly packed to the brim, and the train station staff haven't had to compress your 4th and 5th vertebrae trying to push you onto a train, and there happens to be a seat available - chances are that there is going to be some old person, pregnant lady, person with a heart condition, broken leg, blah blah blah who's gonna want it. And if they do want it, they're gonna move damn fast once the doors open, and you will get pushed out the way and beaten to the seat. It will happen. But being a gaijin male, chances are that you will also have the internalised shame of sitting down whilst a lady is standing. Mothers in Australia teach their boys to stand and give a seat to a lady - its really just a conspiracy devised by women to screw the men out their hard-earned seats.

Also, as a gaijin, even if there are seats available, chances are that you're going to encounter the "1 foreigner, 3 seat" phenomena. This is where when you take a seat, and the two adjacent seats are vacant, then there is a damn good possibility that they're going to stay vacant (because no one will want to sit next to you). That's a generalisation, but it has happened and is not unheard of.

I've come to terms with this. I've come to terms with being a young male gaijin on a Japanese train, and that I'll only get a chance to sit down on days when moon is in the house of Jupiter, and the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse come to town. But I have come to terms with it.

I find, however, that quite a few young Japanese guys are under the (incorrect) assumption that they're going be able to beat an old person to a seat while I'm on the carriage. Like today, for example. I'm there on the train home, minding my own business, standing up - as is the normal order of things. The doors to the train carriage open, and in the red corner (the left hand door) we have your stereotypical granny busting through the doors pushing people out of the way, she spies a seat, only to find that its become a race with the young uni student guy in the blue corner (the door closest to me). This is an all-too-common occurence in Japan, and I know who's going to win the race for the seat (the guy), and how he's going to do it. He'll move quickly, keep his eye's to the ground, and when he reaches the seat, he'll put his bag on the ground and look around in it for an iPod or something so he doesn't have to 'notice' the granny he just snuffled it from. Then he'll close his eyes and pretend he didn't see her.

But if I'm not gonna get the seat, then ain't no young bastard gonna get that seat. So as he started to move towards it, I tapped him on the shoulder. He turns to me confused, because generally, people don't strike up conversations with other people on trains...

-------------------------------------

"Hey! How are you?", says I, "What have you been up to? It's been a while since I've seen you last!"

"Ummm", says he, perplexed.

"Don't you remember me? I was the exchange student at high school!", says I. [This is pretty easy to get away with, because most Japanese high schools have an exchange student at one point or another, and having been told many times that all white people look alike, I decide to take adavantge of it...]

"I'm not sure...", says he, still confused and has forgotten about his seat.

"Oh? You're not Takahashi-kun? I'm sorry, my mistake...", and I put my headphones back in and stare vacantly out the window...

-------------------------------------

By this time the granny has taken her seat, and the guy doesn't seem to know quite what to do - But the important thing is that I've done my good deed for the day.

For the most part, I like use my superpowers for good and not evil. It really depends on how I feel on the day.

Today I'd like to talk about Playboy magazine...

(Sigh) It was bound to happen eventually - I knew that being a smart arse in class would work against me, and so it has. I had my second Japanese language class today, and we've been told that each of us have to find an article from a newspaper and give a 15-min presentation on it. I made a throwaway comment that that sounds like a fantastic idea, but a combination of my voice being slightly too loud, other people speaking slightly too softly, together with the fact that sarcasm just does not translate into Japanese, resulted in me being the prime candidate for the first speaker for the next class...DAMMIT!!

So what do I do? I make the suggestion that we 'draw straws' to determine the order of the speakers - normally, this ploy would not have been successful, but for the fact that not 5 minutes earlier, the teacher had taught us the Japanese for 'to draw straws'. It was pure genius! A master stroke! In one swoop, I had managed to use a Japanese verb the teacher had just taught, deflect a homework assignment for next class, and postpone it until a later date (which fits nicely into my habit to procrastinate). So the teacher shuffles off to get the straws (actually, they're strips of paper with numbers on them), and comes back where we each draw one. Other people were grimacing as they looked at their numbers, and I was chuckling to myself, mentally patting myself on the back..."job well done, Kallun!". I pick my strip of paper, turn it over, and it's a capital 'D'... or maybe a lower case 'e'... I couldn't work out what it was. Until it dawned on me that it was a 1 in a circle...#%$''(&('#!('%'&"#?" !!! Internally, the expletives were many and plenty, on the outside, I smiled, winked and said I was fine with it! DAMMIT!

I have therefore decided that instead of some boring article from the Japan Economic Newspaper or some other dull piece, I'm going to present an article from Playboy...I only read it for the articles, so it'll work out well. I'll see if I can come come up with an interactive component for my presentation...

When gaijin (foreigners) collide...

I had my first Japanese language class today, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. They had given us two newspaper articles to read - one on turning old rice into plastic, and another on how evil men are and how they destroy the environment - and I was concerned that the class would turn into a man-bashing hippie congregation... 'pass the bong and hug a tree' kinda crap. It wasn't quite like that. But instead, some of the stronger personalities appeared in class, and there were often times I wanted to yell out a "LETS GET READY TO RUMBLE!!!!!" when there were disagreements. The poor teacher couldn't keep up - she mumbled a humble "There certainly are alot of opinions, aren't there", and desperately tried to get the class back on track. I loved it, and I'll certainly be looking for more opportunities to 'stir the pot', so to speak. (Mwa ha ha ha ha)

I felt slightly ignored during the class, though. She set us homework for Wednesday, and asked everyone if that was too soon and whether it should be postponed until next monday. Some people said that they were fine with it - I pointed out that I had three classes tomorrow, and would prefer to postpone having to do this useless mind-numbingly boring assignment until a later date when I could be arsed... she clapped her hands together, smiled, and said "Wonderful. Well you can all hand it in on Wednesday!" (Damn you to hell!)

On the way out of class, I came across a group of guys sitting on the ground, ostensibly working. These people are what I like to call the Superfluous Tribe. They do bugger all, but officially they supervise each other supervising each other. The whole system just smacks of Japan.

---------------The 14 blokes taking a break from doing nothing-----------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've actually gone ahead and labelled them all - (from left to right) I call them Superfluous#1, Superfluous#2, Superfluous#3, Superfluous#4, Superfluous#5, Superfluous#6, Superfluous#7, Superfluous#8, Superfluous#9, Superfluous#10, Superfluous#11, Superfluous#12, Superfluous#13 and finally, Bob. He's my favourite - he stands by the wall all day and smokes. S#4 has a cheeky grin, and S#8 always seems like he's in a hurry. S#7 can't get a girlfriend, and S#9 and S#1 always tease him about it. S#10 is always laughing - either he's really happy, or he's really high. At the end of the day, all 14 of them do the job of one. Reminds me of some middle managers from Wonderland I know...

When you go down to the shops today,
you're sure to get a surprise...

I went out to dinner in Shibuya the other night, and the shops are open late, so I went for a look around and came across two items that I thought were noteworthy...

Jenifa da slut
(as printed on a t-shirt)

Play with joystick
Knockin' da boots by Juicy-Jenifa
It's excited by the exotic and erotic party!

Poetic
(sign for a restraunt)

Issa - Foodiun Bar

Quietness --- It is the summit
of the clouds that can be seen
at the bottom of the lake.

They take their tennis seriously at Waseda University

A friend of mine was wandering around the streets of Tokyo when something caught his eye...

-------------------Waseda have their own jihad club-------------------

Now I have proof!!!

I think anyone who has every asked me about Japan has asked me about the 'rumour' that you can buy used-school girl undies from vending machines in Japan. It's true, and yet strangely, this conversation always seems to happen when I'm drunk, so I'm not sure that my confirming it carries a great deal of authority. And I've always added that I find the whole thing stupid - even if you do get your rocks off over sniffing someone else's pants, how the hell do you know that they belong to a school girl and not some old granny walking up and down a staircase or something... uurrgghh!!! Well now I have proof, not the probative kind, but it's good enough. This is an MTV Asia advertisement...

My mobile phone (keitai denwa)

I figured it was necessary to introduce my new keitai. Its got a digital camera (1.3 megapixels) that takes both pictures and movies, gps, email address, easy to use buttons, bilingual OS, voice recorder, and bunch of other stuff that I haven't discovered yet... But the best bit is that it only cost 1 yen! Score! The only problem is the email address I've been assigned - its 0jm17j26845025m@ezweb.co.jp... that's gonna have to change - just try remembering that and writing it down on beer-soaked napkin paper for some chick you meet in a pub...! (Don't bother trying to email it... it won't exist by the time you read this post)

Feeling furry...

Have you ever had one of those days where you knew that you should never have got out of bed? No? Neither have I, but today sure came close.

I woke up this morning feeling a little furry (translation - hungover) after the after-party last night. The main event was predictably dull, and there wasn't nearly enough alcohol. I managed to meet heaps of people, and then I managed to forget their names. I was so clearly off my face, rip-roaring drunk, though, that I'm sure nobody will be expecting me to remember them. I have a very vague recollection of sending an email to someone last night in my inebriated state, but I'm not sure to who (and my 'sent box' didn't record the email address) - I could have sent it to either a female friend, or a former university professor... so the contents of the email will be either inappropriate, or really really inappropriate.

So I wasn't feeling the best of British this morning, and when I stood up, gravity gave me a bitch-slap and I sat back down again. My stomach didn't appreciate the sudden descent, and my head started yelling at me. I'm never going to drink alcohol ever again. Which reminds me - my alcohol contribution to the after party were two bottles of beer I nicked from the main party, thanks to my cunning and another Australian's deceptiveness. There is very little I can't accomplish when alcohol is involved.

I made it into university without any dramas (ie: me showing everyone on the train what it was that I had eaten for breakfast). I had to rock up to an interview for placement into a Japanese language course - but it turns out that I was an hour and a half early, so I spent the time wondering around and contemplating what drugs the architect must have been on when he/she was designing the classrooms. Case in point - there is a vanity unit in one of the classrooms.

-----------Vanity Unit-----------

It's a pure stroke of genius! I've lost count of the number of times I'm in the middle of class and I think to myself "Goodness! My lipstick is all a-skew" or "I need to urgently reapply my foundation" and wished and wished that there was a mirror and sink nearby... and voila! There it is... So I'm sitting there in the classroom, thinking about reapplying my lipstick with the conveniently-placed mirror in the vanity unit, when I get called to go into the interview - round 1 (ding ding).

I laughed throughout the entire thing, and so did the interviewer - either I was hilarious, delirious, or my Japanese was atrocious and he was laughing at me - but it was over before I knew it. And so begins another interview - round 2 (ding ding).

It is often said that Japanese speak with subtext, and so allow me to translate the interview for you (subtext included). It went a little something like this:

Interviewer: Hello, welcome, come in and please take a seat.
[Subtext] Hurry up and sit your arse down. You're wasting my time.

Me: Thank you.
[Subtext] Screw you!

Interviewer: So you're applying to take Academic Japanese?
[Subtext] You've got to be kidding me, right! YOU!

Me: Yes, that's correct.
[Subtext] No - actually I'm here to apply to adopt a baby girl from China - you idiot! Of course, I'm here to apply for the course.

Interviewer: What is it that you're proposing to study here at Tokyo University?
[Subtext] Why has the Japanese government thought fit to give you taxpayer money?

Me: Judicial Activism.
[Subtext] Screw you... and the horse you rode in on!

Interviewer: Is that even a word??
[Subtext] Is that even a word??

Me: Yes, yes it is.
[Subtext] No. I made it up. You're still an idiot.

Interviewer: Could you please explain it for me.
[Subtext] BULLSHIT!!!! I don't believe you.

Me: Certainly, it means ....
[Subtext] La la la, la la la, la la la la la (hummed to the tune of Jingle Bells)

Interviewer: Well that sounds very interesting. Now, I read the essay that you wrote in the exam yesterday... and... well... there were one or two mistakes.
[Subtext] I didn't even bother reading it... I used it to line my cat's litter box. She took a big crap on it.

Me: Yes, I thought as much.
[Subtext] There are no words to tell you how much I don't care.

Interviewer: Well, I'll give it some consideration, and I'll be posting the result of your application on the board tomorrow.
[Subtext] There is no way, no how, that I'm letting you into my class.

Me: Thank you very much for your time.
[Subtext] There is no way, no how, that I'm going to waste my time studying in your class.

And that was that. Now its entirely possible that I may have misinterpreted some of the underlying subtext, but its unlikely. I have another interview tomorrow - for which I am grossly underprepared - with my supervising professor. That one should go well, though. Anyway, my final photo for the day is of me standing infront of the main entrance of the university - akamon (lit. red gate).

-----------------Akamon-----------------

----The person who took the photo didn't realise I was more
interested in a photo of me, and not of the gate so much----

Me and my 400 kg television
(or, My 400 kg television and I)

It's essential to have a television if you're trying to learn Japanese. That's how I'm justifying my recent purchase. I went to Akihabara yesterday to buy a television, but everywhere was selling the flat screen plasma/lcd tv's that would have required me to prostitute myself for the better part of the year in order to pay for it. I'm not ruling that out, but I needed a TV NOW! The plasma one will have to wait...

So I managed to find a small, nondescript, backalley TV store that looked like it could sell you a kidney or a lung if you had enough cash on you, and bought a small flatscreen TV. But it turns out that the reason its so cheap is because you have to carry it home yourself.

"Not a problem, how much does it weigh?", I ask. "12 kg", says he ("he" being the nondescript owner of the nondescript TV store). "Thats fine! I'm a strapping young Aussie lad that used to bicep curl 20 kg - this is nothin'! NOTHIN'! Just wrap it up for me my fine fellow, stamp "CHEAP-ARSE FOREIGN UNI STUDENT" to my forehead, and I'll be on my way!"

The trip from Akihabara to home takes maybe 40 minutes - involves 5 train stations and 3 different train lines. I also had the supreme foresight to carry it home at 5pm - rush hour in Tokyo... and thus begins another episode of the melodrama that is my life.

Forget for a moment that the hordes of people all seemed to be rushing in the opposite direction to me. Forget that there were staircases where I never remember there being staircases. My biggest problem was the weight of this seemingly light TV. By the time I had walked from the store to the Akihabara train station, the TV magically seemed to gain weight - it was now 15 kg. Akasaka-mitsuke - 50 kg. Shibuya - 90kg. And by the time I had made it home, the TV weighed 400 kg.

It now sits snuggly wedged up against the side of the table on the floor (because I don't have an extension cord and couldn't be arsed buying one at that point) and I have to lie horizontally on the cold wood floor in order to watch it... ho hum.

Freezing Flowers of Death

One of the few joys of living in Tokyo during winter-cum-spring is what I call the Freezing Flowers of Death!!! Its currently hanami season (cherry blossom), and all the pretty pink flowers are fluttering softly to the ground - like little gay angels in an aerial mardi gra.

But combine this with the scrotum-shrinking frostiness of winter and the battering monsoon of new-spring, and you get to experience the Freezing Flowers of Death!!! Stand still long enough, and you just get pelted with pink buds. On the plus side, you do end up looking very pretty, with flowers plastered to your forehead.

Case in point - I woke up this morning and the rain was softly sprinkling down - no wucking furries for a true blue dinki di Aussie, so I'm walking to Uni with a fellow umbrella-less Aussie, all the while making jokes about the passing "crazy Japanese" and their umbrellas. Ho ho! What a jolly good time we had deriding our neighbours. This was my first mistake.

My second mistake was thinking that because it was humid outside and unusually warm, I should wear a cotton shirt. Oh no, how wrong I was! The temperature dropped a good 10 degrees, and on came the monsoon. So here's me - wearing my light, white cotton shirt, heavy jeans, and my new blue suede shoes (seriously) - standing in the middle of a monsoon getting battered with horizontal rain. It's a safe bet that a good number of my new Uni chums now have a fair idea what my nipples look like through my soaking wet shirt - and perhaps the better part of metropoliton Tokyo do as well.

What a sight! I'm sure all the girls at Uni were impressed... "Yep, ladies, it hard to believe, I know - I'm single!! Just form a line and write your contact details and measurements and leave a photo of yourself in this black book... Arigatou!"

You rock my world...

I woke up this morning and my bed was a-rockin'. Sounds exciting, doesn't it. Unfortunately, it wasn't anything kinky. Rather, I was thinking that it was an earthquake - my first since arriving here. But after yesterdays drama, I knew that it was just a dream. "Ah ha!" I thought, "I'm not gonna be tricked again! This is just a dream and any minute a bevy of naked beauties are gonna jump into bed with me!" So I decided to wait it out... but the bevy of beauties didn't appear, and the bed didn't stop shaking. DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT!

Turns out that there was an actual earthquake. The only thing that I could think of was the lady at the community centre who I had scoffed at when she gave me a pamphlet on how to survive an earthquake. I quickly decided that now would be a fitting time to read the pamphlet. I fished it out of the bin, read it, and now I know everything there is to know about surviving an earthquake...

FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!

Something you probably didn't know about me #436: I wake up from dreams thinking that there is something that I must do immediately.

Take this morning for example. It was a spritely 6 o'clock in the morning, and the security guards for the dorm called out over the PA system that there is a fire drill and that everyone must evacuate immediately!

BAM! Outta the bed I get. WHOOSH! Straight to the door. DAMMIT! I need to put on some pants - I can't let the first time I meet all the ladies of the house be outside in the freezing cold, and here's me wearing my boxers with my whiter than white legs...I put some pants on. Not jeans, though, because it involves a zipper, and I'm too sleepy to negotiate my way into jeans with a zipper for it not to be dangerous to my manhood.

WHOOSH! Straight to the door. DAMMIT! I forgot my key. They're pretty anal about locking doors here. The Japanese just don't trust foreigners here, and they think we're all a bunch of theives! This perception has started to transfer across to me, because I'VE started thinking that we're all a bunch of theives... I see that I'm going to be leaving Japan with a great deal of self-loathing.

Anyway, FIRE! I leave my dorm room, and lock it just to be safe, looking up and down the corridor for any of those bastard theiving foreigners... "Yeah, just try it, bitches! By the time you make it through the heavy-duty lock, you'll be burnt to a crisp! Mwa ha ha ha (evil laugh)!!!", I thought to myself. (By this time, I had forgotten it was just a drill)

So its 6-something-a.m. and I'm walking at a brisk pace down the steps (can't use the elevator... there's a fire) and there is no one else around me. DAMMIT! I bet I'm too late - they're already out there and assembled, and then I'm going to turn up when they're doing a head count, and I'll get a lecture on the importance of the fire drill blah blah blah - but what the fuck!! Its a sunday morning - and to those of us that have a social life - its technically a very late saturday night!

But I get down to the foyer, and there is no one walking around. The security guard is in his office, and he gives me a little frown, and there are a bunch of guys sitting in the reading room. It now dawns on me that I had dreamed that there was a fire drill, and I woke up to evacuate... Oh ho! Isn't this embarrasing!

As I'm leaving, one of the guys in the reading room gives me the "What-the-hell-are-you-doing-up-at-this-hour-?" look. And I respond with my very best "Screw-you-punk-!-I'll-kick-your-ass,-Bitch!" look. Pretending I had come down for a reason, I casually walk over to the vending machine, look at the available selection of beverages, and with my head held high, walk all the way back up to the room without making eye-contact with the punk... and fall asleep.

Hello, my name is Saga. You can call me...(long pause)...Saga

That's one of the few gems that I had to listen to at the orientation session the other night. Exciting stuff. My favourite was the prophetic -

Do not stare into the neighboring houses. Japanese people are upset when a stranger looks into their houses.

Good to know. Because in Australia, our favourite pasttime is pressing our faces against the windows, breathing heavily, and watching the people within. But with us being foreigners and all, the Japanese feel it's necessary to point this out. It reminds me of the time that mum came to Japan, and we went down to the old Emperor's palace to do our touristy bit. Our tour guide, a lady who was constantly waving an ugly big yellow umbrella above her head, told us not to scratch the moss or the wood pillars...

Never would doing something like that have occured to either mum or me, so we then felt obliged to run up to a wood pillar everytime she turned her back, and scratch the shit out of them. Now that I've been prohibited from staring into the neighboring houses, well...

I'm here...

Well I'm here. And I've been here for 4 days now. But tuesday night doesn't count, so lets say 3 days.

It doesn't really feel like I've left home. It feels like I've moved into Chinatown, and thats about it. Because I'm living near Shibuya (a massively big suburb of Tokyo), I know the area pretty well, and I know my way around, so there isn't anything new to look at.

I've got a fair bit more to report, but I'm about to go out for drinks with the other Australian scholarship recipients, and tomorrow I'm going out to hanami to drink some more and meet some Thai people, but I should be able to write some more on sunday.

Incidentally, hanami is the activity that takes place every year around this time which is simply a picnic under the Cherry Blossom trees.

--------------------------------Hanami--------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just imagine some drunk people sprawled out on the ground where the bambi in this picture are.

Welcome to where I live

They gave me a map when I arrived, and looking at it now, there is a drag store just up the road. Sounds exciting, doesn't it. Just when I thought I had managed to escape Sydney and all of the antics that the Sydney-siders get up to, here it is in my own backyard. Of course, its entirely possible that they meant to write 'drug store', but it sounds more interesting if I make it seem like I live in a culturally diverse area.

Having said that, I live in a dormitory for foreigners. Foreigners from near (China) and far (Bosnia ... or even Australia), but no one seems to be much interested in talking to people beyond their own ethnic/linguistic roots. The Koreans all seem to stick together, the Indians all seem to stick together, etc. I guess its up to me to unite the people of the world. On monday night, there is a 'welcome party' with free alcohol, whereby I hope to get absolutely smashed and 'spread da luv'.

Which brings me to my next point, or 'point of concern', actually. We're not allowed to have people 'sleep over'. In English, its written that we 'cannot live with another room', but those of us that can comprehend the various contortions that the Japanese put the English language through know that this means that people are not allowed to sleep over. With my 5 years of law school, I must be able to find a loophole....

There is also a 99 yen store. Not to be outdone by the 100 yen store. No. It is that additional 1 yen that makes all the difference (which is .922178 US cents or 1.19594 Australian cents - courtesy of XE Currency Coversion).

Crying girls and their haircuts Yup - men and women are different. And if ever you need some proof, go to the hairdresser. Never have I seen such a performance as that put on by the girl I sat next to when I went to go and get my hair cut. Her hair was hanging down past her shoulders, but apparently that was 4cm shorter than she had instructed - bullshit! I was there, I heard it, I can testify.

That didn't stop her from bitching and crying about it - but then the word "crying" doesn't quite sum up the melodrama. Imagine a gut-wrenching screech coming out of an 18 year old and tears streaming down her face. At first, the reaction was surprising, then it was confusing, and finally, annoying. I was tempted to lean across and snip snip. That'd give her something to bitch about.

But at the end of the day, so what? It'll grow back. But it highlights the difference between men and women - we don't give a toss, so long as it moderately symmetrical. When the hairdresser got to me, she asked me "How short would you like it?". I said, "As short as you like."