Transform to Tokyo

Hello everyone, sorry it has been so long again. Since it was the `season to be jolly` I have been pretty busy recently and certainly was in December, as always, Tokyo is keeping me on my toes, even when I don`t have to go to work. My mother`s visit is now over, it was so good to see her and so sad to see her go. Thank you for coming over Mum! Anyway, here are some more short entries of what I have been doing recently:

Tofu meal with Junten teachers: Mike, my mother and I went to an awesome Tofu restaurant in Komagome (I think), recommended to us by Miida-sensei (who unfortunately couldn`t come because she was ill). It was strange to think how a restaurant could operate only serving Tofu but somehow this place managed it. Really well too! It was really good food. The main part of the meal was Tofu in like a nabe style. Nabe (pronounced na-bay) is kind of like a hot pot that sits in the middle of the table and everyone shares it. It`s kind of hard to explain, sorry! It was a good night out though!

Daft Punk concert at Makuhari Messe: This was on the 9th of December, well back several weeks ago. Anyway, Mike and I set off to Makuhari Messe (pronounced Makuhari Messay. Like essay with an `M` at the start) around 3 or 4pm and got there in quite decent time, considering the fact that it is in the next prefecture (Chiba-ken). Makuhari Messe is massive. Please try and say that really quickly five times. Anyway, no joke, it is really big and we managed to see three acts there, Boom Boom Satellites (a Japanese electronic rock band, who I thought were awesome) then Sebastian and Kavinsky did a set together, that was cool towards the end, especially with a remix of `Killing in the Name Of“ by Rage Against the Machine. After that, everyone was exciting for Daft Punk and man they put on a good show. The show was pretty much exactly the same as the new live album, `Alive 2007` (which I thoroughly recommend) but with a cool pyramid set and some mental lights. It was awesome!

Disneyland!: Before the Christmas party we took some time off and decided to go to Disneyland with my Mum. It was a fun day as the three of us could all spend time together and relive our childhood Disney memories…in Japanese. Unfortunately though Splash Mountain was closed and the fireworks were cancelled at night due to the weather. But luckily everything else was open and my Mum even managed to conjure (not in an evil magic sense) up enough courage to ride Space Mountain with me and Mike. This Christmas season just seemed to be fun day after fun day after fun day, which was good after we had been working so hard all year. Though there was one more bit of work left…

ELC Christmas Party: We (we being Mike, me and my Mum) held a Christmas party in the ELC on December 14th. We decided to plan the party as a `Let`s make a Christmas` party, in which we split the students (and visitors, as some of the exchange visitors attended the party too) into teams and have them `decorate the tree`, `wrap the presents`, `give Rudolph his antlers` and `give Santa his hat and beard`. As well as this we had a short Christmas around the world question panel, a quick and badly drawn version of the Nativity and then the grand prize game; draw a snowman on your head and not to mention the Christmas food (mince pies, Christmas cake, Stollen and Christmas pudding) we managed to serve to everyone). I thought it was a really successful party and even had fun myself! (Though I didn`t get to eat anything…)

Cultural Day: I think this was on December 17th, but I don`t remember it so well. Me and Mike were at work anyway because we had some marking left over to do, but were finished within 45 minutes. Nakahara-sensei had told us that if we came to the cultural day that we could get a free lunch and be entertained for a few hours, so we decided to go for it. Though the free lunch took a while to arrive (as they didn`t seem to expect to see us), the entertainment was pretty good, as me and Mike could see the orchestra play again and watch an amusing Shorinji Kempo performance (styled like a Japanese comedy drama). We also got to play bingo, but luckily I did not receive the embarrassment of winning (phew). It was interesting though, and each of the people from each of the countries made a short speech (usually in English, which was good for us) about their stay in Junten and Tokyo.

FujiQ Highland: On the 20th of December, my mother returned to England and Mike and I went on a mammoth trek out to Fuji. Not mount Fuji though, FujiQ Highland; a theme park very close to Mount Fuji, famous for its roller coasters and very large and long walk through hospital. When we first got there, I was feeling very ill, but after a good trip to a bizarre Japanese toilet block I was fine. When I say bizarre, I don`t mean the actual toilet unit (though, obviously this one has heated seats), I mean the writing on the wall was strange. Above the mirror it read (in English) `Don`t worry, you are handsome guy`., above the urinal it read `Are you ready?…Fight!`, above each toilet it read `Hurry!` in a downwards arrow and my personal favourite was on the back of the toilet door which read `Smells good!`. Just to top it off, everything was a completely clashing blue and orange…nice. Anyway, back to the actual park. Not only was I ill when we got there, a lot of the coasters weren`t open. `Dodonpa`, a really fast, magnet powered coaster, which used to be the fastest in the world was closed for repairs and the other two, Fujiyama (the tallest roller coaster in Japan or something) and Eejyanaika (a really interesting looking roller coaster that holds the world record for the most number of inversions; which means, not actual most number of loops or cork screws, but most number of times for the passenger to be upside down…I think) were also closed because the tracks had ice frozen to them. We managed to get one quick ride on Fujiyama in while it was open mid-afternoon, but things look very grim for Eejyanaika. We rode (or did, lots of rides in Japan don`t require any riding) pretty much all of the rides in the park, which included an interesting Gundam building game called Gundam Crisis. For those who don`t know, I`m very into Gundam, so this was an exciting thought for me. Basically, we had to run around a maze type area (supposedly White Base from the original Gundam) with PDAs in hand, scanning spots on the wall to retrieve `Magnet Armor Coating` which would make Gundam quick enough to battle its enemies (or as the merchandise afterwards said, `Know the Quick`. Their English was obviously awesome in this place). After we had ran around the maze picking up pieces (or, losing all of our pieces in my case) we were able to go down to a huge scale Gundam model (life size if they were real) and `install the parts` or again in my case, have all my data deleted. Those who completed the Gundam (who were few or none) could go through the `X gate` and those of us who didn`t (everyone I think, Mike was only one part off though) could go through another gate and watch a movie of Gundam fighting in 3D, which was cool. As for other memorable attractions, the haunted hospital remains in my mind more than anything else. In Japan, there are a lot of rides in which you have to walk through a haunted house and be frightened by robots, actors and generally bad karma. I call these rides, `walk-through rides`. Now, Mike and I are terrified of these walk-through rides, but want to do as many as we can, as the adrenaline shots received during and after are pretty awesome, as there are actually quite scary for us. Waiting in the que I was pretty scared to enter, but wasn`t going to bail. Funnily enough, who rather extremely dressed Japanese guys and their girlfriends were waiting to do the ride too, and just before the debriefing room, the 6 of us decided to go through the hospital (which at the time was Resident Evil themed (or Biohazard, as they call it here) all together, but as I joked to them `Gaijin mae` (Foreigners before). When we got in, this place really was the biggest walk-through ride ever and was actually really cool, though, because I was being forced to lead, I was never really attacked by the zombies since they always pounce on the middle or end of the group (just when you think it is safe). It took us about 20 minutes to get to the end, in which time we had lost the japans guys whose girlfriends were in fits of tears. We left those guys to sort them out, but managed to find a group of Japanese girls, who we had caught up, who were afraid to enter one of the rooms, but didn`t mind going behind my human shield. We completed the last 5 minutes of the hospital with them dragging on us continuously. There was a cool shooting range bit at the end, where actors jumped out and we could shoot them with light guns (but this was kind of ineffective, but that didn`t matter, as the actors just messed about and even did an `Opapi` (a very famous, recent, Japanese comedian, real name Kojima Yoshio) impression. Afterwards the girls thanked us and Mike and I decided to go on a few more rides and then eat. Luckily for us, Eejyanaika (pretty much that and the haunted house were our main reasons for going to FujiQ) opened and we managed to ride it 3 or 4 times in a row. It really is a cool roller coaster. Basically, it is a roller coaster, but the seats also spin round (like front flip and back flip style) and because the track can also become inverted (sometimes rails above, sometimes rails below the carriage) sometimes you are going forwards and sometimes you are going backwards, but for all of it you can`t really tell where you are. There is a really cool bit too where you do a back flip in the chair while doing a corkscrew on the track). It was exhilarating…and that`s not a word I use very often. All in all, it was an awesome day at the park, even if it was far away!

Leon and Saori`s Wedding party: On December 21st we made a trip out to Ebisu so go to Leon and Saori (two of our friends)`s wedding party. They already had a wedding (well, became married, I don`t really know the details) but this was just a party celebrating it. Me and Mike got there eventually (pretty late as we got lost and Sven had to come and find us) and were considerably under dressed for the occasion compared to everyone else, but no-one seemed to mind. It was a fun party, but after the day before (maybe I was still a bit ill too) I felt really tired at about 10pm, but still held out to the after party at Leon`s house, where we stayed up a bit and then my body shut down on the floor in his computer room. I had a comfortable bed of a laptop and some tools (pliers and screwdriver etc) and kind of regretted sleeping there the next morning…

Speed Disk Records Shiranbanshow: The next morning also happened to finally be the morning of the day of my first (real, Diru don`t count anymore) visual kei concert. Me and Mike had already been to two concerts in Japan, but this one was going to be, and was completely different. Visual kei (visual style), for those who do not know is a style of music where the members of the band like to dress up in strange clothing and usually play heavy rock music. The outfits and musical styles differ greatly from band to band, which in my opinion makes a lot of the bands very different. I guess it is another one of those Japanese cries out to be as individual as possible and for the Japanese, cross dressing is a great way to express this. I have been very into this style of music for a long time and was dead excited about the concert, but wasn`t really sure what to expect. The bands I saw were (in this order) UnsraW, LiZ, D=OUT, Serial Number, ayabie, Screw, Guy`s Family and then the headliners, Wizard. I arrived at Shibuya O-East by myself and once I got in, realized I was one of the only men, and almost certainly the only foreign man (if you are a non-Japanese man and saw the show too, drop me and email!) in the 99% female audience. When the bands were performing, I was really surprised, that everyone does the same thing (which is often a strange hand dance or action or even heavy head banging, which I was surprised to see cute, dainty Japanese girls go so hard at). It did seem like a very `follow the leader` or even a herd activity and I decided not to join in (I had certainly had some strange looks already and was asked on the door if I even knew what the bands were like). Instead I did my own head banging thing, as everyone does in England. This was a rock gig, but it just didn`t seem to have the pit of chaos that most rock gigs usually have towards the front of the stage. I still really enjoyed the gig in the tiny hall that is Shibuya O-East and I certainly received some attention from the band members on stage, who I think were surprised to see a young plainly dressed western male enjoying their music, when the core of their fan base appears to be strangely dressed eastern females. After the concert had finished though, I had to head to Kanagawa-ken (the next prefecture South of Tokyo) to Dave`s Christmas party.

Christmas at Dave`s: The journey here was long and hard and by the time I arrived, barely even worth it. It was too late to catch and bus from the train station, so I had no other choice than to walk for 40 minutes in the rain. I enjoyed the solitude, but forgot to buy an umbrella (I forgot you could buy them in convenience stores completely, I just wanted to sit down after being stood up for like 6 hours straight), so when I got there I was soaked, and had missed the party. Only Mike, Dave and Ritsuko were there and the food was cold, but I still had a bit of it. One of Ritsuko`s friends arrived later on, only for us all to go to sleep shortly after she had arrived. It was good to deliver at least two Christmas presents though and wish them Merry Christmas…

Christmas at Leon`s: After travelling back home, later on in the night of the 23rd we were invited to go to Leon`s house for Christmas dinner. We got there and drank all as friends and watched TV and stuff and eventually could eat Christmas dinner when Saori got home from work (which was 10.30pm, since she is a nurse). It was nice and homely, as it was only Me, Mike, Leon, Saori and Minami there. We then watched a movie and went to bed. I really enjoyed it; it was just a comfortable and enjoyable night. (Even if I had to sleep on the floor again for the 3rd night in a row, but this time there were no tools around)

Christmas at Junten: On Christmas day, me and Mike had to turn up at work firstly to listen to some speeches (mainly from the principal of the school) and then to attend to staff Christmas party in Hokutopia later on in the evening. Luckily we managed an extended skive during the day between 11am and 6.30pm. The place in Hokutopia was a really nice place and the food was good too. Mike and I had to make two performances as well, though by the time they came up, most of the teachers were tipsy if not drunk. We sang `Yellow Submarine` on the karaoke together and then ad to give speeches in Japanese (pretty much right at the end, so we were being heckled by our drunken colleagues). It was a nice thing to go to though, even if we weren`t allowed to drink at all.

Hopefully I will be able to post again soon about our trip to Hokkaido and the Hokkaido volunteer`s trip down here to Tokyo! I hope to post on about the 12th or so. Sorry again it has been such a long time!