Flights

Three Episodes which Prove why I Take After my Mother when it Comes to Public Transport.

Episode One

Firstly, I must explain the layout of this plane. It was hardly even half full, so I amazingly ended up with the whole middle three seats to myself. On the left was a young couple, and on the right was a mother with her 6 or 7 year-old child. Behind the couple was a middle-aged Australian man.

Now, about halfway through the flight, when everyone was asleep except, apparently, me and the Australian man (I can’t sleep on planes; I don’t know his reason), he suddenly decided to turn on his light. The positioning of his light, as it happened, made it so that I could make shadow puppets on the seat in front of me, so naturally, I made a dog and got it to sing along to the music I was listening to at the time. I was rather enjoying this, until I realised that the little boy at the end of the row had in fact woken up, and was now staring at me with sheer puzzlement. He of course couldn’t see the shadows and was therefore wondering why the apparently fully-grown lady along the row was making her hand talk to her.

Episode Two

My sister gave me a little toy penguin to cuddle on the plane, which was very nice of her. This particular penguin stands up of its own accord and is about the right size to hold with one hand. Now because I had three seats to myself I decided to lie across them to see if I could get any sleep (result: none, see earlier). At one point I happened to be holding the penguin and lay on my back with my hand, holding the penguin facing my head, on my chest. Needless to say, I got the shock of my life when I opened my eyes a few minutes later and thought the Penguin of Death had come to get me at last.

Episode Three

Waiting in the “Foreign Passport” queue at Hiroshima Airport, I noticed that the man in front of me was white (that may sound normal but we were probably the only two in the airport) and had a passport coloured exactly the same as mine. I had also seen him on the flight from London. I now wonder why I felt I had to speak to him in the first place. I guess it was because, as aforementioned, we were the only two white people in the airport, but anyway. Great, I thought, another English person! I shall make a patriotic comment! “We’re winning the Six Nations!”, I proclaimed enthusiastically, waiting for a joyful agreement.

“That’s great,” he said, slightly sarcastically, in a very Irish accent. “How much are you winning by?”

Luckily, after I’d apologised, he didn’t seem to mind too much and we chatted until we got to the front of the queue. Later on, however, I think he was glad I’d made the mistake, because he couldn’t speak any Japanese, and I happened to be waiting for a bus as he was trying to explain a few things to an information assistant who couldn’t speak English, so I helped him out.

I think this proves, to anyone who has read my mum’s blog, that I take after her in more than just eye colour.

England

Sorry for not posting anything recently - I haven't had anything particularly interesting to talk about, so I haven't talked, as it were.

I'm back in England for a month. It's been two weeks already and I've got another two to go. And I have to say, I miss Japan. I don't really see it as "coming home", as such, because I haven't really had a proper home in England since I went to university and my parents moved up to the Midlands. Hiroshima, now, feels like as much a home as Sheffield or Leamington ever did.

That, plus the fact that the friends I've made on the HUSA program are some of the best I've ever had, makes it harder to be away than I expected. Facebook doesn't help either, with its daily reminders of how much fun everyone's having without me. Sure, I might be bored, stuck in my cold room, but at least in Japan there'd be people to be bored with.

Now I'm wondering what it's going to be like when I leave for good in August. Since most of my friends in Japan are in fact American, Japanese or Korean, there's a good chance I'll never see a lot of them again - and that's a horrible thing to think about. Shame I've had a lot of time to think about it.

Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if it were a few months, but a year is such an awkward length of time. It's long, but it goes so quickly. It's enough to get to know people but too soon to leave them. And language wise, it's enough to improve, but not nearly enough for fluency, which is something I was misled into believing.

Don't get me wrong; I don't regret going, not in the slightest. So far, it's been the best time of my life. It's just that being back in England has made me realise how fast I have to leave the best time of my life, and go "back home" to carry on as if it had never been.

Showers

In our dorms, there is a shower room on each floor with three showers in it. The shower rooms are not heated and it's minus temperatures outside. Also, each shower has a changing room area separated from the actual shower room by a curtain, but the changing room areas all have pools of water in them a centimetre deep.

If anyone has ever succeeded in taking their trousers off while standing in a pool of water without getting them wet, I commend you, Sir/Madam. It is an almost impossible task, hindered further by the freezing temperatures making you want to get them off as quickly as possible so you can turn the hot water on.

So, with the trousers hanging up on the door hook, sopping wet up to the knees, time to turn the water on. Except someone else is in the shower two cubicles down, and they keep turning their water off and on again, so the shower you just managed to get to a good temperature has a mini panic attack and decides it doesn't like working at full power or full temperature - for ten seconds, by which time you've turned the heat up and are now hit with a powerful spray of boiling hot water.

Okay, so you managed to shower. Back to the trousers dilemma. Do you risk trying to put them on while standing in the pool of water again (which, by the way, has become two centimetres deep)? Or do you run outside of the cubicle and pull them on as quickly as you can, hoping no-one comes in at the wrong moment?

Option two was a success. The shower has been successfully navigated. Tomorrow is another story...

Bicycles

Things Japanese People Can Do On Bikes Which Apparently No-One Else Can

1) Hold umbrellas

This is technically illegal, but everyone does it. You cycle on the pavement so you don't need to signal, leaving one hand free to hold the umbrella and the other to steer. Usually safe enough, except when holding the umbrella right in front of your head against the wind, which blocks your view. Yes, I saw a guy doing that.

2) Text

This is quite an incredible skill. I've been able to hold a phone to my ear while cycling, since you still have eyes on the road, but to text you need to be able to watch two things at once. To be fair, I have seen mostly girls doing this (it is multi-tasking, after all), but I would definitely crash into the nearest lamppost/wall/pedestrian/small child if I tried it.

3) Smoke

Okay, so maybe anyone could do this, but wouldn't the cigarette just blow out?

4) Ride up ridiculously long hills without gears

Japanese bikes are available very cheaply, because everyone has them, so they come without gears. The hill on the way back to our dorms is hell, but the guys seem to cycle up it with absolutely no problems. Maybe it's a proof of manliness thing and actually they're dying inside.

Christmas

Contrary to popular belief, Japanese people do celebrate Christmas.

Well, they celebrate Christmas the same as how it's becoming in the West: as an entirely commercial holiday. Our Christmas, where everyone in the family gets together and exchanges presents, is their New Year; their Christmas is more like our New Year (an excuse to get drunk, mostly).

A couple of weeks ago we saw the first Christmas decorations being sold in the home store, and about three days ago I heard the first Christmas music being played in a shop. It was one of those moments when you hear Mariah Carey's voice singing "I don't want a lot for Christmas..." and you feel like curling up in a ball and screaming NOOOOOOOOOO...

Generally my rule is: If it's not December, it's not Christmas yet. When it becomes December, I shall give in and buy a very small fake Christmas tree from the 100 yen store to put in my room, but until then I shall not acknowledge it.

Oh, hang on... by writing this, was I acknowledging it?

Autumn

This is my university campus as it was at the beginning of November. I just wanted to share this because the leaves are turning and it looks stunning at the moment - apparently Japan is famous for its autumn scenery.

Even though the sky is still blue, it recently got very cold very quickly, and everyone is now wearing coats and scarves. They don't heat the classrooms until December, either, so we sit shivering.

At least I finally worked out how to turn the heating up in my room...

まつり(matsuri)

This weekend was the university festival. In England, and apparently in America, we have nothing that remotely resembles a Japanese school or university festival. For a school one, every class in the school decides on a stall or a performance, but at the university there are all sorts of groups, so it's huge.

We arrived quite late, at 4pm, and it was already getting dark so unfortunately I have no photos, but I will try and describe it. There was a small stage outside the Education Faculty building, on which the 'Miss Education Faculty' contest was being held, with an audience of maybe 200. Walking for 5 minutes across the campus, there was a large area of stalls, mostly food - yakisoba, ramen, fried chicken (kara-age), beer - and then the main stage.

When we got there, the main stage was occupied by a very good a-capella singing group, doing covers of famous Japanese pop songs, who made way for a similar group singing Western stuff. Then came a fashion show, which I guessed was put on by the fashion department. After that, though, was the highlight - the university's 10 or so hip-hop dance troupes, each performing for a few minutes. Hip-hop dance is huge in Japan, and some of the troupes had 40 or more people in them. There were a couple of all-female ones, a couple of all-male ones, some with equal male and female, and one with a single girl, who was brilliant to watch and completely held her own with all the guys. All of them were fantastic.

Finally, when they were all finished, there was a huge fireworks display to round everything off. I really wish English universities had events like this - the atmosphere was brilliant.