28th Dec 2006

…another party last night. However, this one was organised by our RA’s (Residential Assisstants). This time no Pikacho, but I did discover where the costume came from…the guy who brought…well wore it to the party borrowed it off a friend (who lives in halls)….which begged the question why his friend had it and apparently her brother (28) bought it for himself and then lent/gave it to his sister…why he needed to buy one I don’t think anyone will ever properly explain, but it was seriously suggested that he was slightly nuts…SO, there you go.. that’s why there was a Pikacho.

The great thing about the party was that everyone was speaking Japanese as opposed to speaking mainly in English for the benefit for the foreign students…so, good practice…learnt the Japanese for ‘Poo’ (always useful) and ‘Drunk’. Anyway I got through conversations by a mix of guessing, some translation into English and Chinese translation. All good practice.
Also met a Japanese girl doing a masters in Vegetation…who seemed overly ecstatic that when she mentioned her major that I didn’t ask: 1. Why?, 2. How?!?. Anyway she’s studying vegetation on a small (very far off main land Japan) island which takes 26hours by boat and she has to pay for travel there because her university is too poor to help L. Apparently, no sampling of vegetation…just watching…photos

25th Dec 2006

Right, although I thought I would be spending a very lonely and boring Christmas in Tokyo, there was actually a party in my halls on monday night, which was great because it meant I didn't have to battle my way back through Tokyo to get back to my room... so I could stay as long as I wanted...Hurrah!

Anyway, some genius had gone through the effort of wearing a Pikacho (Pokemon) costume...which was then susequently worn by practically everyone else at the party...
I've put some of the photos up on blogspot...kindly provided by Yessy...

15th Dec 2006

Made some apple crumble today…and chips….well potato wedgy things. Not all for me though because I’m going to French-dudes apartment tonight then apparently we are going clubbing. But this is clubbing Tokyo-stylie…where you can’t get home between the hours of 00:00 ‘til 05:30 because the train system is shut and there aren’t really any night buses and taxis are extortionate…anyhow I decided that I would head home after my Japanese lesson in the morning then cook stuff then go back in for the evening seminars (5pm-7pm…I KNOW! How rude…so late on a Friday night?!?!?! Shocking…anyway that’s not as bad as YiPing’s Prof scheduling a seminar on the 25th of December…when they say that the Japanese don’t celebrate Christmas they really mean it….however, they have really gotten hold of the true essence of Christmas – buying presents) luckily the seminars were actually rather short…I *love* the undergraduates and masters students…they don’t go on for hours and hours like silly PhD students…

To be honest the amount of travelling I’ve done today probably wasn’t worth it…but hey…

So, after the seminar I head home again to pick up the crumble (which I left cooking in the kitchen…I had horrible images of it slowly burning down the dormitory because I hadn’t actually set it to stop after 45mins properly…but it was all Fine!) packed up the food, got dressed and went off to Shinagawa to meet Greg and Annalisa.

Now. You wouldn’t think that getting out of the station would be that hard right? No? well, not if you’re wayway…I was told to go to the Konan exit…and usually there are signs all the way through the station, from the platforms to show you how to get out via different exits…but I couldn’t find any…and there was no mention of the Konan exit on any of the maps on the platform…So I got up to the concourse and found the central exit and there was also a small sign for the konan exit pointing to the right…so I followed that and ended up in a shopping centre…which was weird…I walked around and then thought I’d try to go more to the right…but that just took me to the entrance for the Shinkansen trains…so I walked back…then Greg called me to find out where I was…unfortunately I couldn’t understand a word of his instructions. This stresses me out somewhat and i walk around a bit more before deciding to go out of the central exit anyway…That’s when I run in to Greg. It was just my incompetent sign reading that made me turn right too early…usually station exits all have their own ticket barriers for that exit…but HERE apparently there is just the one set of ticket barriers then the exits…argh! Too complicated for my poor brain…L anyway he’d left Annalisa with some shopping and we picked her and shopping bags up before walking to Greg’s apartment…which looks more like a hotel than my room does…he has free breakfast and room cleaning and a spa in his serviced apartment…VERY posh…

Anyway the first thing me and Annalisa do is look around the apartment…Annalisa manages to show Greg a light he didn’t know he had…I find a cupboard that he also didn’t realise he had…he obviously hasn’t been exploring his room enough…Apparently it took him 3 days to find his washing machine, which was hiding behind his bathroom door….craziness. I point out that his ‘microwave’ does have an oven…He lied to me and told me it didn’t!!! which is one of the reasons why I cooked at my place and brought the food over! Only then does he look at his instruction manual again…the fool!

Anyway we get a good feed and then at midnight Rei turns up…dragging Greg away from his crumble (he seems to have gotten rather attached to it and isn’t happy about leaving it) we finally leave for the club at about half past and as the trains have stopped we get a cab. I say get a cab, but what I really mean is TRY to get a cab…which for some unknown reason is rather hard… all of them seem to be going to Shinagawa train station for a rest… and not to pick up new customers….weird. After launching our selves at several cabs we managed to get one and head to Ebisu. We get ID’d on the door (compulsory here, has to be photo ID and you must be over 20) there is some horrendously high cover charge to get in and it’s house music…some DJ dudes are actually mixing live…which is nice…but not really my kind of thing…

Greg however is exuding energy for some unknown reason…he loves clubbing in foreign countries. 1) they can serve redbull (illegal in France-land) and 2) you don’t have to wear a suit to get into them (like you do in France-land), odd eh?

We drag Greg away from his clubbing at 5am (he’s noticeably upset by this…poor mr. froggy…) and Head home on the first trains…I swear I’m too old for this kind of thing…but was good to try at least once. Okay, now I know I’m too old…
Winging about clubbing indeed…oh well who cares…

26th Nov 2006

Had a good sleep, then a shower. Amble about having breakfast then I get a call from Mike at 10am to meet up at Shinjuku to say a final goodbye to Marc. We head to the bookshop again so that Marc can get the books that he wants…including ‘Captain Underpants’ what a cool name for a book!...then we go for lunch at a tempura restaurant. We sit at the counter, behind which there are about 4 tenpura chefs working away and behind them a tank full of prawns who are scuttling about at the bottom…while we are chatting away our chef suddenly pops two very bemused looking prawns on the counter just in front of us and says something in Japanese…I didn’t hear what he said but my instinctive reaction was to wave hello to the little prawns…Marc meanwhile was in midflow of talking and sonly realised the prawns were there just as they were being whisked away…anyway they came back half a minute later having been beheaded and tenpurified…they were sooooo tasty…not the nicest way to die for the prawn…but his demise was a very tasty one…well for we anyway. We also had squid, which was very fresh…I could tell because it didn’t have the consistency and taste of old rubber…Marc at some point managed to mistake the soy sauce pot (which looks much like a tea pot) for tea and proceeded to pour rather a lot of soy sauce in to his tea cup, much to Mike’s amusement, who saw exactly what was going on but had obviously decided that it was funnier to watch than to intervene…

A delicious lunch later, we headed off to Shinjuku station to put Marc on to the Narita express to the airport…

25th Nov 2006

Argh! Seemed to have ignored my alarm and woken up at 7am! So I’m late! Rush out of my room to meet Marc and Mike at Shinjuku. Ends up not being soo bad as they are a bit late too… We have breakfast at the station noodle bar which is almost as cheap as the university canteen…330 yen for a bowl of udon…
Then get on a train to Kamakura. The train is packed so we have to stand most of the way…however, when we do manage to get some seats Marc falls asleep within about 2mins of sitting down…poor guy hasn’t had much sleep…Mike and Marc have been staying up all hours catching up on the past 6years in which they have not seen each other…

When we get off the train we then go find the large buddha (see http://waywayinjapan.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html) Go walk around some temples. We even get to walk into the Buddha…for a sum of 10yen..which was fun…it was and empty Buddha…with people standing inside it obviously thinking ‘I’m inside a hollow Buddha…isn’t that nice…now how do I get out?’ anyway there was one tiny staircase to get both in and out of the Buddha…and that was just wide enough for one person to happily do that and there were people trying to get in and out at the same time through this space…so that was fun.

Mike buys some incense sticks to pray to the Buddha with, and I manage to offend…well…Buddha I guess by blowing on the incense to get it burning…although in true wayway style I was rather overly efficient at this and instead of burning like incense should it caught fire properly…ooops! Yeah, anyway apparently you shouldn’t blow on the incense to make it light…bad luck or something. We wonder around the grounds for a bit…very peaceful…

On the way to the next temple we stop off to buy some yam crisps (sweet and very nice) and some yam jelly (meant to be eaten with green tea) and look into a crazy souvenir/heavy weaponry shop…although I think most of it is for ‘displaying-on-your-wall-at-home’ purposes…which includes lots of knives swords and ninja stars…nice. There’s also a special ‘plum’ shop, which sells a range of things made from plums…kind of condiment for savoury foods…

We then walked to another temple, although I think this one was actually a Shinto temple rather than Buddhist…on the account that I didn’t see a giant Buddha. It had an amazing view of the town as it was high up on the hill.

We then get on a tram to Kanagawa and have lunch at a nice little restaurant. We had Japanese omelette which is veg and some meat (if you like) or seafood fried with egg on the hot plate in front of us. We also tried the non-eggy version which was just fried veg. I kept doing every thing wrong but is was fun to play with the spatulas any how…and it was sooo tasty. Will have to do it again.

After lunch we walk around to the island, this involved lots of stairs…and a nice temple at the top…we happened to see lots of eagles flying about overhead. Eventually we reach to beach and rest for a bit before taking the boat back towards the station to save us the walk.

We get to the station and buy tickets back to Tokyo but as we have to wait an hour for a train we go sit in a bar and have root beer. The train we got wasn’t any train…it was called the ‘romance car’!!! I have no idea why. Anyway we ate the yam jelly and yam crisps.

Back at Shinjuku we decide to go to dinner in Koenji to a flamenco bar that a guy that Mike knows owns. It’s tiny and packed (there are 3 birthdays going on there)The great thing is that we can see the owner (john) cooking! It’s great. We drink sangria and eat tapas…everyone is tired (particularly marc) but the food is amazing. Parma ham, chorizo, olives, burdock root, cockles, mushrooms stewed, hand baked bread sticks, duck and chicken terrine, chicken liver pate (soo smooth). Had some deep fried meat balls with aubergines, peppers, fresh tomatoes and handmade mayonnaise.

24th Nov 2006

Just after finishing my Japanese lecture I get a call from Mike…well actually it’s mark on Mike’s phone…they apparently have just gotten up and are going for breakfast in Harajuku and suggest meeting at the station at 1pm.

We walk around the back streets to find a nice little restaurant Mike knows which sells tradiational japanese porriage dish…like water rice (congi) with egg and meat and veg. very tasty. We then take a walk towards Shinjuku park, past the 1964 olympic stadium. Unfortunately, one of the gates to the park is shut so we have to walk around to the other side. Wonder in there for a bit…very peacful…and has the equivalent to Kew Botanical Gardens there too…but it’s just shutting.

After wondering through the park we then walk around Shinjuku. We head to the nearest Tokyu Hands store. Tokyu Hands is a chain store which sells nearly everything under the sun…it’s the shop chain in which I found the dog nappies and this one has 7 odd floors of stuff…buy some weird sweets which look like a bento box. We then head to a big book shop with a large english novel collection. Then a sushi place in Shinjuku. It was Very cheap, small and had a conveyor belt. We tried sea urchin (specially ordered) and practically everything else there too. Under 1000yen (a fiver) for about 10 plates each. Genius.
Then walk to the station have a coffee (or a special green tea + tofu soya milk). Agree to meet at 8 the next morning at Shinjuku.

23rd Nov 2006

Haha! Today is a National Holiday. Hurrah!
Tried to do some coursework this morning … didn’t get much done. I am mainly waiting around my room because an Imperial College friend who moved to Australia 2 years ago is happening to visit Japan on some conference and is staying on a few more days to sightsee and see friends…well there’s only two of us here but hey.

I get a call from Mike, Marc’s friend, that he was waiting for Marc to turn up from Tsukuba where he was doing his conference thing. We decide we should meet up and wait for marc around Akihabara (apparently, Akiba, for short). So, at about 5pm, I make my way to Tokyo station…well yurakucho station (As it’s on my line) then give Mike a call and he manages to find me. We take a little walk from Tokyo station to Akiba from Yurakucho station…which doesn’t take more than 20 mins. Think I’ll have to spend some time getting lost in Tokyo some time so that I get more orientated so I don’t have to take the metro every where. Anyway we get to Akiba and find a coffee shop to sit in to wait for a call from Marc. The last that Mike heard is that he was made to give an impromtu lecture at round about 1pm…but it’s 7 something and we still haven’t heard anything. We continue to wait. At quarter past 8 Mike gets a call from Marc. Which he promtly hands to me and (as he legs it off to the loo) and I speak to a very confused marc who was obviously expecting mike. I don’t think it has really helped his day… I mention that it’s me (which calms him slightly) and we work out that he’ll be where we are in about an hour…so we continue to sit in the coffee shop (which weirdly seems to shut at about 9pm…because it’s a holiday apparently) and then walk a short walk to the station…and wait patiently at the gates for him.

Marc seems to have had a bit of a traumatic day. But he did win a prize and some yen to go with it to make up for it slightly…anyway from ticket buying to getting through ticket gates everything happens to be conspiring against him slightly…
We go for dinner…at ‘sky dog’ some kind of mythical creature in japanese mythology…have a big dinner…with sushi…and meat skewers. And a few beers…Mike kindly pays for the whole night…which is very nice…then we head home…

18th Nov 2006

I thought I’d find out how many people I could fit into 20m2 of room by inviting all the people I knew in Tokyo to a party in my room. It was also an excuse to show off the rather expensive speakers that I’d bought.

So I spent most of the morning faffing about cleaning and doing my laundry…and trying to find a cash machine to extract my money from the bank.

Anyway come 8pm people started arriving and people kept coming until about midnight…it was hilarious there was a ‘barman’ who was sorting out the alcholic drinkies by my microwave and people had brought food and drink…to be honest there was soo much chatting I don’t think anyone heard the speakers…
Most people had to leave for the last train at midnight but some people, who live in my building, stayed on ‘til the morning…we ended up talking about concrete…a downside of leaving three civil engineers in a room. More worryingly, I actually found it interesting.
Anyway I should really have counted the number of people that got into my room I think about 25…but I might just have to have another party to check…

ooops

well...i managed to set up two blog accounts in google because it wouldn't let me sign in...not my fault honest...anyway i've put some photos up in http://waywayinjapan.blogspot.com if you're interested...

The majority...well all the blogs are still on myspace http://blog.myspace.com/81363346 so feel free to have a look...

not sure if i can be bothered to move everything over here...not sure if it's worth it... i shall have a little ponder...

enjoy my little pyramid of piffle...

12th Nov 2006

Woke up at a crazy time of 430am this morning…I knew I'd be much slower than normal this early to get ready to leave the house by 6am…Stupidly I went to bed at about 1…trying to arrange my packed lunch for the adventure ahead.
Fool.
Anyway, I set up my camelbak, pack my lunch, shoes, harness and everything I think I could need for a day trip. It's rather cold out, so I put on the 5 million layers that I bought yesterday…

Oh yeah, yesterday, I made an attempt to prepare for today and looked for some non jeansy trousers that would be good for outdoor stuff…walking and climbing…something that wouldn't weigh a ton when/if it got wet…This mission didn't go so well…mainly because I refused to go anywhere but Muji and UniQlo…which are the cheapest places I know of. So, no trousers….but I did buy some thermal leggings (1000yen – ahhhh cheapness….) from Uniqlo and then some stripy leggings from Muji for 1050yen…which sorted out my fashion and coldness issue for Yugawara…

So, I'm now wearing thermal leggings, stripy leggings, baggy shorts, my thermal skin layer, t-shirt and a hoodie…and a scarf and a woolly tea-cosy on my head (sorry, hat). And get a ridiculously early train to Tokyo station…which got me there much earlier than I needed…the train leaves at 724 and I was there at about 10 to 7. so it's all good…much better than being late! It wasn't actually as hard as it could have been to find the right platform…which was wonderful…as it actually gave me time to buy a ticket…

I get on the train and make my way to the front of the carriage where we agreed to meet everyone else…at Yokohama, Annalisa gets on and we find the french guy (greg). Who was told to look for two asian girls talking in english…that wasn't too hard…

The train ride is about 1.5 hours…I have a little nap…and wake to find that Rei has appeared! Hurrah! The group is nearly complete… unfortunately an american girl (a friend of the french dude) just missed the train by a minute…(at yokohama) and so can't make it…

We get to Yugawara and get a taxi to the nearest crag, where Bill said he'd meet us. Bill had taken the FIRST train (which left at about the time I got up) to get some routes in before we got there…

I should really explain…none of us have any gear…and Bill has kindly agreed to come out with two ropes, his quickdraws and guide books just so that we can climb! How nice is that?

So he'd been self belaying off top ropes all morning…waiting for us to get there.

It's Crazy there are sooo many people here…several classes are going on…apparently this is the busiest Bill has EVER seen it…it is the start of the season and I guess it was raining yesterday, which may have made people reschedule to today… anyway we get a few routes in…I'm really happy because I actually lead a couple of things…

We then move on to small crag further up the mountain…which is overrun by children and parents on some kind of climbing deathwish… I have lunch perched on a rock and observe some of the WORST belaying and organisation of climbing EVER. It was painful to watch…who ever was meant to be supervising the group was doing a god-aweful job…or he/she was just trying to kill all of them…

I was told that some of the other climbers had been subjected to half an hour of screaming by a boy who was stuck halfway up the wall…who refused to go either up or down. They tried to coach him down from the ground, they sent up one of the supervisiors…then finally sent up his mother… FUN! Think it was driving everyone else mad…

Anyway these crazy people had about 5 ropes (top ropes) through one chain…and all five ropes in use at the same time…with children climbing past other children whilst some were being lowered onto others heads…being belayed by other small children who had no idea what they were doing being supervised by mothers who had about as much knowledge of belaying as a snake has about tying shoelaces. There was a horrensous amount of death-defying slack invovled…

We had to leave after climbing one climb so that we wouldn't watch anyone die. Argh…they just didn't realsise how serious the whole situation was…FOOLS.

We then move on to the last crag of the day…which is nicer and quieter…but with the most painful rock ever….the limestone is very sharp. Infact my problem wasn't the smallness of the holds….they were fine…it was the intense pain involved in having all your weight on sharp pointy bits of rock which were trying their best to work their way into your blood stream…anyway it hurt…but still managed to finish which was nice…

We saunter down the mountain…it's getting dark and Bill calls a taxi to get us back to the station…which takes rather a while to arrive. Most likely due to the number of climbers who have also called it a day and are trying to make it back home… on the bright side ours gets here first and we pile in…get to the station, buy tickets…with just enough time for everyone to grab a beer or snack from the combini and leg it on to the train…which arrives on the platform just as we are getting to the platform…

So. It's beer and snacks on the way back. Unfortunately, as I'm on antibiotics, there's no beer or brandy for me! Apparently, they have a tradition of beer (and brandy and chocolates) on the train ride back…which sounds good to me! There is also a bit of pull-up action on the train hand rails…which is a little dubious because we are in the carrage RIGHT behind the driver…and apparently they have been nearly thrown off the train before for trying to boulder all the way around the carriage…

All in all, an excellent day…with only a little rain at the beginning but the sun really warmed things up…I'm tired and drag myself home to have a nice hot shower and enjoy my bed…

Even better, I get intercepted by a girl on my floor who seems to have made too much food and forces some of it on me! Great!...i was just about to make some boring instant noodles… so that sorts out my food problems! And I get to try some phillapino food…:D

11th Nov 2006

I couldn't cope much longer…I gave in and made a roast…this turned a little in to a kitchen specatcle where other people on my floor watched in amusement at my attempts to cook. Anyway, didn't find any joints but I did finally manage to find lamb…they only seem to have pork, beef and chicken here (and weird fish – which I don't know how to cook…I'm going to have to interrogate some of the people who have lived here a little longer to find out…

Anyway, full on roast potatoes, yams, carrot, aubergine, courgette, peppers and lamb…was great…for me anyway…

So with the vast quantities of left over stuff I made a roast veg sandwich for lunch…mmmmm….

39.1 degrees

39.1º. Apparently, that was my temperature when I went to see the doctor…something tells me I might have a fever…I thought I was just feeling a little warm... oops! Anyway I'm not feeling too good, last night I was shivering and my whole body ached with some extra garnish of pain in my left kidney type area…not so good…hot shower helped a bit. Went to bed then this morning woke up in a sweat…tried going in to college, which was a bit of a mission. Walking very slowly because everything hurt – ignoring the pain yesterday was easier. Today not so easy to ignore. So went into college…was going to try and go to the health centre before Japanese class, but it doesn't open until 10am then shuts from 12 – 1330 for lunch…so sat in my Japanese class for the first hour then gave up and found Seda and we went to the health centre together…had some interesting language issues, had no idea what they wanted…they took some details gave me a card and took my temperature…which was a bit on the high side…saw the doctor, who's English wasn't too bad. Anyway after some poking he prescribed me antibiotics and pain killers because despite the painkillers ability to mask actual illness my temp was soo high and the amount of discomfort I was in, he said I should take them anyway…dragged myself back here to have lunch and take the medicine slept…the fever went down but now it seems to be back up… I don't think that this is a good thing…might have to go in tomorrow to see the doctor again if it's still like this…hmmmm, fun!

8th Nov 2006

Was stopped by a police man on my way to the metro platform this morning…asking me something I couldn't understand!!! Apparently this isn't normal…well that was what I was told by the Japanese…still have no idea what the police man wanted…anyway I showed him my college ID, he said to me 'shimu san?' I went 'hai' and he said (well pointed) that I could continue… I have no idea why he stopped me…odd…anyway the speaker system that I bought is arriving today…so that's exciting…went into my early (830) lecture then Japanese class then went home to wait for the delivery…and waited, and waited. It was 1630 and I was getting fidgety…so went downstairs to check that it hadn't already been dropped off in one of the parcel boxes…Nope. Nothing there but junk mail…so just as I'm about to leave to flat to go to climbing. The door bell rings! Hurrah! I now have I hifi system…I couldn't possibly leave the box with all the speakers trapped inside so I open the box and liberate the contents…and set about setting the stuff up. I guess I could have left so that I would have gotten to the gym at 6pm…but I'm kinda aching so I don't think my climbing will be all that good today anyway…So I hurriedly assemble the stuff…plug things in…and make an effort to guess which plugs go where. Progress is slightly impeded by everything being in Japanese which is a challenge…but all good fun!

Dinner after climbing was good, food tasted a bit too salty which was weird but we had some interesting conversations about panda porn and whether we could apply the same idea to tuna so that we still have more tuna to eat…could be interesting…

anyway i can't write anymore, my painkillers seem to be wearing off...better have another sleep...apologies for the sporadic posting!

6th Nov 2006

Monday 6th November
If in doubt, add an O on the end of a word and the japanese are more likely to understand you… this only really applies to words which end with a consonant which isn't M or N. I discovered this whilst trying to buy a large piece of dowel which I wanted to have cut in half.

Why was I buying dowel?

Well I decided that my speakers needed speaker stands (the ones at the back any way) and I couldn't find any to buy so I thought I'd make them…found some pre-cut circles of wood and some thinner hexagonal along with 4 pole ends…the screws which came with them were a little too long for the hexagons so I bought some smaller screws too…then the getting the connecting pole was interesting because the ones by the pole ends that I bought were all too heavy…walking around I eventually found some wooden dowel (slightly wrong diameter…but that's ok). I went to the desk to get it cut…much to the confusion of the staff…it only costs 30yen for a cut! Anyway trying to explain I wanted the thing cut in half was interesting…but 'cutto ban' seemed to work because I came back and there were the two halves of wood waiting for me.

So I get the stuff back home and make my stands…but I needed to wedge the pole in because they were 2mm thinner than the holders..so used some left over felt…seemed to work. But I don't think it will be very safe in an earthquake…definitely just topple over with the speaker on…oh well. I'm sure it will cope.

5th Nov 2006

Whilst on my way to buying junk at the 100yen shop saw some Japanese (?) dancing on the promenade outside the shopping centre. There were ladies dressed in what looked like Japanese style dressing gowns (I'm sure they weren't dressing gowns but they weren't kimonos…) with some sort of maracas…a wooden clapping device they move in time to the music with…there was also a very impressive martial arts type dance routine made up of girls wearing very skimpy crop tops hot pants and boy mainly topless (even the younger ones) wearing black trousers and some black waistband-cummerbund thing…which did just make them look like they'd pulled their trousers up to their nipples. Anyway large age range…OOooOoooh and there were two larger guys at the back waving the largest flags you have EVER seen… with Japanese on them. It looked like a lot of effort to get the kind of whooshing affect they were achieving… one of them had two mega flags attached to him. They looked ridiculously heavy… felt quite sorry for him actually…looked rather weighed down by it…anyway the whole troupe were running about doing some weird moves with nun-chucks and other things, generally kicking about and thrusting fists…etc.. a good show me thinks…

4th Nov 2006

ahhh...bought a 5.1 dolby surround thingy...impulse buy...could have bought something far cheaper...but it looked sooo pretty!

3rd Nov 2006

Met an American girl at a party and she invited me to the cinema in maihama…which isn't too far from where I live…but despite this I was still late…and the cinema was at the entrance to Disney land here…anyway we had some really nice dinner…I had a chicken and pineapple burger with actual chips! Was amazing to taste something that wasn't oriental for a change…think that was the first time in a month! Craziness. It's very tacky where we went, probably because it's owned by Disney and they try to make everything 'nice' we ate at a restaurant on a fake outdoor street…with neon signs lining up everywhere and a painted ceiling…it was weird…

The movie was cool, although I'm sure we all looked like idiots sitting there with out 3D glasses on. A fetching green. Obviously not designed for fashion purposes. The glasses clearly stated that they wouldn't protect against UV radiation…just in case you felt the urge to wear them outside the confines of the cinema as part of some crazy fashion statement…god knows.

The movie we saw was 'the nightmare before christmas' there is a crazy amount of marketing over there…sooo many things you can buy, also have a lot of pirates of the Caribbean things…lots of small jack sparrows to adorn you phone or key chain…

Today I have also seen a lot of young girls dressed up in kimonos…apparently, the culture day (the holiday that we just had) is some sort of coming of age day for kids…7-8 yrs for girls and a bit younger for boys…think the boys get dressed up too. But think they just looked like they were training for some kind of fight…with a head band…

30th Oct 2006

It would seem that the international community is rather tight-knit here… I go to a Turkish Embassy national foundation day thing (was invited by someone in my lab, who, funnily enough, happens to be Turkish) and manage to meet people who are good friends with a girl I met through a friend of a friend in halls. Weird….well I thought so.

Anyway I found that exciting… especially since I have now located some (well one for now) English people in my university…which is nice.

OOooOOooOh! Also, had my health check today. And in Japanese style, it was ridiculously efficient…1.medical history and blood pressure, then you go to 2. urine test then after that straight to blood testing. Sit down for 5 mins to recover from the blood sucking. 4. weighed and measured (height wise – by some weird machine which taps your head and weighs you all at the same time…) 5. get bra-less and go into some weird X-ray cubicle with a lead lined skirt to get chest x-rayed. 6. fill in a mental health questionnaire 7. see a physiatrist…have a little chat. 8. pick up results (who happens to be another guy I think I met at some welcome party on Monday…again with the weird)

That was fun…especially since the college ID card seems to store all the information of your medical well being…they have a card reader at each stage so that you’re records are all digitised from the beginning…all very efficient…anyway apparently if I want a more detailed break-down of if I’m dying of anything exciting, I can go back in two weeks and find out…

And the health check was all for free too…

On the bright side, I also think that I may be able to get some pocket money here (to supplement the little scholarship…) by talking to people in English…well trying to give lessons…so far got one lady, a doctor, who wants to keep her English up in mind to move back to Canada or North America…

Anyway seriously need to go to bed now…night night!

Week 3 update

Oooooh! Hello! Apologies for the long absence, but have been: 1. just doing boring day to day stuff, so not doing anything worth really talking about, 2. wasn’t sure if any one was really reading it, but due to several…1 is all a really need! (to give the ol’ ego a boost!) …passing comments about persons actually liking reading the crap I write I’m going to try and write more…. However, I’d like to point out that this is no substitute for actually talking (well communicating via email or instant messaging mechanisms) to me…

Anyhoo…what have I been up to…lets see…errr…japanese lessons everyday, some days are worse than others…I feel generally like an idiot because none of what we have learnt is settling in my brain yet…I think by cranium as some kind of teflon-like coating which is non-stick for languages…stupid brain…we’ve so far gone through the hiragana characters and now powering through katana…anyway, I’m slow and my Japanese skills are not much more advanced than a pea trying to invent a way to get itself into space…yes, I know peas can’t think…that’s the whole point.

Other than that I have dropped half of the lecture courses that I started in the first week. Mainly because someone kindly pointed out that lectures also happen in the spring term too (D’oh) and as I only have to do 5 lecture courses over the 3 years I’m here I can just stick to the geotechnical ones…more importantly however, is that my supervisor is going to be giving some of the geotech lectures next term…and I’m advised (by the other students) to attend…I am inclined to agree. So, three lecture courses this term and at least 2 the next…I’ve dropped all the mathsey ones, so it’s all good.

Unfortunately one of the lectures (the most interesting course I’ve attended so far) ‘Natural Disasters and Urban Disaster Prevention’…the one which the first lecture I attended was in Japanese + some English interpretation for the annoying English only comprehension girl…happens to start at 830am…which would appear to be a little harsh…but hey…I guess then my afternoon is completely free…On the bright side, I spoke to one of the Japanese students who took the lecture too and she said that his English explanation was very comprehensive despite my concern that it seemed to take a significantly shorter time to explain in English than Japanese. Apparently the other Japanese students are quite glad I’m there. Which I thought it was odd, as I thought I would be impeding the lecture…but they like the ability to practice their English comprehension…and there’s one guy who has been kind enough to sit next to me (his English is pretty good!) and try and explain what’s going on, as well as consciously writing his notes in English just for my benefit. How nice is that?! I have to admit though I’ve not actually been looking at what he’s been writing as I’ve been busy choosing which of my many colour pens to use next…and its actually quite handy that when the lecturer is busy explaining stuff in Japanese, I have time to finish writing down all the stuff from the English explanation. So it’s all good…

Socialising wise… there was an international student welcome party on Monday night (23rd Oct) which was actually quite nice…there was some amazing buffet put on for us. There was also some public humiliation, in the form of making all the new students introduce themselves on stage in Japanese…I giggled all the way through mine so that I was completely inaudible…unfortunately I find my attempts at speaking Japanese incredibly hilarious, just because I’m sooo crap at it…which just makes me laugh…which in turn makes any attempt at speaking even worse…anyway it was so bad several people asked me what I had been trying to say! Oooops! Oh well nevermind… there was also some building house of cards game (which our team lost spectacularly at) and muchos muchos free drink (this is a Japanese speciality).

Went to Roppongi on Wednesday, to some mega Halloween party at some huge club…know for hosting stuff aimed at foreigners (the western kind).

The weird thing about Roppongi is that it doesn’t feel like Japan…what it really feels like is more Leicester Square like. Infact you’d be hard pressed to find one actual Japanese person for every 10 westerners. It’s actually rather weird…that and the place is crawling with dodgy old white men loitering around the streets. Nice.

Shockingly enough, I actually turned up to a Halloween party underdressed…I felt like there is a little void in a part of my life here without all my little dressing up things…no fairy-wings…magic wand…flower-hat…*sob* ahhh the stupid stuff…how I miss it…there were some amazing costumes. One dude came dressed as a chandelier diffucult to convey the effect of this costume…but the head dress was basically a fully-lit multi-coloured light fitting attached to this mans head…to be honest he wasn’t wearing much some beaded type tunic over his glitter painted body and a silver thong… and yeah that was about it… someone else came dressed as a zombie school girl…very dawn of the dead…(in)complete with missing forearm. There were also some power rangers…more peoples costumes which seemed to centre around a thong…I’d like to point out that these were all men. And yes I was disturbed by this theme…but not as disturbed as someone elses costume where he came dressed in a nude top with some fake chest hair glued on and red lines drawing on muscles and a pair of boxer shorts with a very large fake willy protruding from one leg (of said boxer shorts) it was hilarious… in fact he was very popular for photos with ladies…

But yeah very interesting night… and Japanese stylie… free drinks all night. Which was definitely an interesting experience.

OoOoOooooh! On Thursday we were in restaurant and we caught a glimpse of an amazing news story…some man had gone bonkers and hacked to death three policemen with a knife, just slashing them all in the neck… NICE! Anyway as well as a report from a journalist running excitedly around the crime scene (I have no idea where it was…and nor did the Japanese students I was with) someone at the tv station had gone through the effort to do a VR reconstruction of the whole thing…it was hilariously lame…it looked like a cheap computer game and made a mockery of the whole thing…anyway that was fun.

Anyway tomorrow I’m going to try and meet some people that have lived here longer than I have so they can show me the best places to go shopping…girly day out…should be a laugh…

Think that’s all really for the moment…enjoy.

gloss paint? GLOSS?!??!?!....why?!

The climbing walls at T-wall in Tokyo are nuts. they have painted the holds different colours with Gloss paint...i want more friction not less! I want them to cut out bits of real rock and firmly attach them to the wall...or better yet make all the real rock, roofed, warm and to where i am for very little money...

gloss paint....honestly.

Magical things...

Wow! This laundry service is *amazing*!!! You leave your issued bedsheets in a white drawstring bag and hang it on your door on the morning designated day for your halls, and when you come back you get the bag of ridiculously white, pressed, folded and sealed in a plastic bag….MAGIC.

Anyway it comes in handy, because I’ve invested in another pillow…found one for the equivalent of £2.50 and completely made of feathers…although I can’t tell what type because I haven’t learnt the Japanese for duck, chicken, pigeon or dodo yet…but there is still time…

Oh. And I forgot something else about the halls…last Sunday, from my window I saw an open back van which at one point looked as though it had been selling veg in the square…but by the time I got down all I saw were people packing away empty boxes. Anyway, this Sunday I was actually out of my room in time to find out what was going on and it turns out that a fresh fruit and veg van drops by on a Saturday morning (before 11am…which I’m led to believe is morning here) and opens up shop…price wise it’s pretty cheap, it looks good and most of all fresh…that and the added convenience of not having to lug stuff back on the train…it’s such a good plan! They also sold some fish…all packaged and chopped…so I thought I’d try some…cooked some tonight (Monday) and it was awesome! It was actually fresh! And succulent. Am definitely going to be trying out more stuff next Sunday. Very cool.

16th Oct 2006

First Japanese lesson. I was crap. I don’t get it. L grrrrr…stuuuupid! Think that I may to work on this a little…

15th Oct 2006

So. Last night I decided not to mope around my room or halls and thought is should try and see some sights while I’ve still got time to do this kinda thing, before the University of Tokyo geek effect kicks in…and thumbing though my Tokyo guide, very kindly/generously donated by my brother, and decide I’m going to try and go to Shibuya to hopefully find some trendy Japanese people to take photos of…and to scout out the shops (I think I might actually have a shopping addiction. This is *not* good. Spent far too much money and can’t seem to stop…very dangerous. May be I’ll just have to burn my credit cards…hmmmm…) but yes. Take the metro to Shibuya and spend most of the day wondering…unfortunately I didn’t see any funky people standing around like my guide said they would but there was a sensory overload of huge screens of animated adverts on the side of buildings and big signs all over the buildings too. It was daytime though, so you don’t quite get the full effect.

More importantly I found a sock shop (which Seda, in my lab, had briefly mentioned when we were discussing the joy of long stripy sock ownership and the best place to source the items) which sells an array of foot coverings ranging from sock-ette type things which mainly cover the sole of your foot through toe socks, knee-high, over-knee and leggings…so I continue my addiction for purchasing items and buy some…I need socks. Really. No really I do. Haven’t you heard of the national sock shortage…I mean there are people panic buying everywhere…

After a bit more wondering and a cheap lunch in a little Japanese eating counter type place, which had the wonderful anonymity, and embarrassment reducing, machine which you put money into pushed the button of the food you wanted to order (some actual pictures to help…if not it was a case of matching characters to the picture menu outside…) and it gave you a ticket (and any change you were due). You then sit down at a stool facing the serving counter and hand over your ticket(s) to the waitress and wait for the food…all very efficient…

I also explore Tokyu Hands. A crazy ‘all-under-one-roof’ type department store. It’s nuts. Not only because its split into quarter floors (eg. 1A, B, C and D) which kind of spiral around it’s got everything you could possibly ever want for the home and even some outdoor stuff…However, it’s rather expensive for what it is. On the other hand it is convenient that you know at least one place where you can find picture hooks, chisels, artists materials, nappies for dogs (yes. I thought this was strange…I stopped for a good 5-10mins to stare at them and the picture of a dog’s rear end modelling the ‘device’. Nuts. Can you get anything like this in England? I guess I’ve never really looked…anyway please feel free to email your answers to me), laptops and even some climbing gear.

Actually, the sheer amount of stuff there really wasn’t that exciting. I think I’ve just been saturated with stimulus that my brain has now given up of trying to process all the data it receives from my eye-balls… I eventually wonder out in a daze…

14th Oct 2006

Had my first attempt at flower arranging today, mum would be most impressed (in fact when I told her, she was), was going to go out to the nearby museum of emerging technology because I couldn’t be bothered with doing the whole long travel thing, but on my way down saw posters for Japanese culture experiences in halls…it listed activities you can take part in in halls…1st Saturday of the month = tea ceremony, 2nd Saturday of the month = Japanese flower arranging, 3rd Saturday of the month = Japanese cooking lessons, 4th Saturday of the month = Karate!...they all cost money for the ingredients I think…flower arranging was 1000yen and I think karate is 4000 yen for hire of equipment…but yeah…it was actually about quarter to 2 when I saw this and class starts at 130…so I was late…and I think you had to register too… but I walked over to the room and made a lame attempt at speaking to someone who didn’t understand English…to see if I could join today…after finding someone who could speak English I was signed up and sat down by a bucket of flowers and basically copied what was in front of me. I think there was some deeper meaning to the arrangement but as I missed the instruction part of the lesson and it would have been in Japanese, I just copied the example…

Anyway I was given a big black dish and a heavy metal plate of vicious spikes (which sat in a pool of water in the black dish) to stab flower stems on to. And started to cut various flowers to different lengths and impale them, on what I thought was a rather artistic way, on the flower base of spikey-doom. After about 15mins I was done and the little old Japanese flower arrangement checker (I assume she was the one who showed everyone how to do the first one) come over and sat by my attempt…then rearranged 2 of my flowers so that they lent out at more of an angle…now it was complete. And apparently there was a show next week in the adjoining building (which I was invited to) to show other people how to do Japanese flower arranging, hmmmmmmmmmm…but anyway thought I’d go along because I now means that I can have the weird flower arrangement in my room and keep the base and bowl for a month…

13th Oct 2006

Went in to college for another orientation lecture, but this time for the Japanese language class…it also turned out to be a bit of a lesson in Japanese life and customs…which we got a handy leaflet on…anyway lessons start on Monday…

Also tried signing up to the university gym which was interesting because they don’t really speak English…I tried to explain to the people on the desk that I wanted to use the climbing facilities…so they passed me on to another guy in the gym who I was meant to ask something (I didn’t catch what the guy said to me before he ran off) anyway, there’s this guy behind a desk with a computer, with less grasp of English than the guys on the front desk (I really need those Japanese lessons to start!). I try and explain to him that I want to climb…which I’m sure he’s misunderstood because he’s just given me a temporary wrist band. And we spend the next ten minutes or so communicating via very confused expressions and him typing into Yahoo translate in Japanese to show me what he means in English. Ahhhh…the hilarity of the situation…

I wonder over to the bouldering wall…stare at it…and read the sign in English beside it saying that you’re not, under any circumstance, allowed to even think about touching it until you’ve gone to a special training session.

I wonder back to the man behind the desk…and try and ask him if I can move the bouldering mats off the other bouldering mats under the wall so I can climb… I think now he gets the idea that I want to climb and not use some form of treadmill or something silly like that…but yeah, he then trys to explain to me that I can go online to register for a training session. On a site which is *entirely* in Japanese. With the help of universal sign language (meaningless hand-waving) and a website translating typed Japanese…he helps me fill out a form to get a permanent membership for the gym and a training session for climbing.

12th Oct 2006

This was definitely a long day! Got in to college at about 930 … it actually only takes me just over an hour to get in if the trains are being good…and sit around doing nothing in particular until one of the guys in department reminds me that we have an orientation lecture at 10…which I had written down somewhere from one of the other orientation lectures but had completely forgotten about. The engineering department try and make sure that we’ve done everything we need to do, but to be honest the first few days when I got all this stuff done was a complete blur and I have no idea what I still have to do…arghhhhhh it’s all a little complex. Anyway all this ends at about 12 at which point we have to make a move towards Komaba campus (which is ridiculously far away) for a foundations lecture. Don’t ask why some of the civil engineering department is on a different part of campus because no one seems to know. There’s also a second geotechnical laboratory doing some research here, not that different to the one on Hongo where I am just led by different professors. It all sounds a little pointless to me…especially as there is about 1 and a half hours travel time to get from one campus to another…

Lan is very kind and had offered to take me there yesterday…so three of us trek down to a station to catch a train (I have no idea where I was going… just followed…I can just about cope with that. They could have taken me to outer Mongolia and I wouldn’t have noticed…) train ride was about half an hour…then we had a rather long walk to the campus from the station… not the most convenient place to get to… I would never have found the place if I’d had to do it by myself. And I was also glad to have brought some leftover dinner from last night for lunch as my stomach was reminding me that it wanted to be fed. So I was scoffing down my lunch as the lecturer walked in.

Interestingly enough the lecture was given in both English and Japanese by the lecturer…very impressive. Think I’ve done some of this stuff before…but it’s very interesting as some things they have a different slant on what they learn here, due to the different engineering conditions they encounter…so I’m mainly learning about the problems in geotechnical construction in Japan and their common construction practice…

So, yeah….this Komaba campus is rather new…well the buildings still look very shiny the engineering building here is very concrety…they seem to like their huge concrete columns…with lots of glass and black granite everywhere….very dark building…think the building in Hongo is much nicer.

We get back to our own lab…I finish off the rest of my lunch then faff about a little more before harassing people in the lab to see if anyone will teach me how to use a triaxial machine…Daniel seems to be grappling with one so I harass him for an hour or so…he gets me some literature to read and apparently there are several machines free which I’m free to play with. Not like imperial at all where most of the machines are occupied and treated as something precious…. I can build my own machine if I’m so inclined….think I’ll just try and learn to use the things here first…they have different transducers and systems here to that which I am used to…I’m expecting it will take me this year to learn how to use the equipment. But it should be fun…

All this loitering takes me neatly on to 6pm when we wonder up to one of the lecturer rooms for a seminar given by Towhata sensei…which we all wait dutifully for as he’s late coming from another meeting. So we choose a lecture on Sumatra…we learn all about the Sumatra earthquake…then we go on to our book reading seminar…

We’re reading about excavations in soft soils…however, Towhata sensei points out that the authors are German and that what the Germans call soil is considered rock in Japan…mainly because in Japan the soils can get ridiculously soft…the book reading is rather pained mainly because the Japanese students are having issues with the whole thing being in English…but well interrupted by sensei with werid little comments (which aren’t, on the whole, directly related to excavations, but very funny none the less). Like about two American geotechnical academics (both men, obviously) who are only ever seen together…live together, go to conferences together and write papers together. It’s not actually the story that he’s telling that is the funniest thing but HOW he tells it! Maybe it’s just because of the Japanese accent and gestures… but it’s hilarious watching him subtly spread gossip…that and he was telling us about some of the more prominent guys who used to be in imperial…who used to live with his mum until he was 50 then got married then died (something like that anyway).

We finish at 830 (ahhhh long day) and I cant be bothered to cook so go to the supermarket on the way back home (which is still open at 10pm! How cool is that?) and discover reduced food goods! Hurrah! Anyway there are cooked foods with red stickers on them which I can’t read, but when I get to the till I get half priced food! Might have to do this more often…

The thing about Japan…

… is that everything is smaller. That includes dogs (I say 'dog' I really mean 'small-dog-like-looking-rat-on-end-of-leash-wearing-little-doggy-jumper-and-goes-'grrrrrrr''), people (this is great! I actually feel taller than most other people…although some of the men are rather tall), towels (rather annoying actually, because I want to buy another one) and so far…that I've noticed…washing powder (for clothes) and softener…not sure why…although the scoopy thing that came with my packet of washing powder is also suspiciously smaller…I'm hoping that it's more concentrated…

On the whole subject of things to wash clothes with…when I was buying this stuff in the supermarket, I noticed that they are very into their refills…also and excellent way to reduce packaging… lots of choice and makes things more economic…thought that was cool not only is this done for softeners, but for body wash, shampoo, liquid soap, conditioner…practically everything that's sold can be refilled…

Another thing, on the pavement (all around Tokyo, especially on the metro system and on campus) there is tactile paving…taking you all around Tokyo, they are yellow paths with raise lumps…straight raised lines aligned to the direction of the path and raised dimples for when the path changes direction…all for the partially sighted.

Anyway these pseudo dogs. Are TINY! I didn't know you could get then that small… and I've seen millions of them…running behind their owners, in trolleys in supermarkets but mainly being carried around in bags.

11th Oct 2006

Ahhhh in the excitement of yesterday, with the whole orientation lecture thing going on...I didn't actually check which lectures were starting when...and I missed on yesterday lunch. ooops. so anyway I go in and register for courses and sign up to more than I need to for my credits...and then decide it would be a good idea to go to look for stationary (to be able to wrote notes in lectures and to have something to write on) so I head to Yurakucho too look for a Muji... but fail to find one... so go over to Akihabara again to see if I can actually find a rice cooker this time... I eventually come back to college with a rice cooker, iron (this is a very cute iron with its own little case and everything…I need one, really!) and adaptor for my ext HD (actually that reminds me I've got to check if it works), battery chargers and some more batteries… mmmmm tasty.

Anyhow get back to college with my loot and then realize I'm waiting for the wrong lecture 'DoH! Should have been in for 1pm not 4!... you idiot! Argh. Go and find the lecturer whose lecture I missed and get notes then go to a lecture I don't particularly want to go to…. But feel like I should since I'm here…it's horrible. He expects me to remember things… and actually I don't remember solving ODE's with Fourier series EVER… even his 'simple' examples don't make sense… I don't think I'll take this course…

10th Oct 2006

Orientation lecture at 10am...which was nice... I'm the ONLY person from the UK in the whole of the new International graduate intake for Civil Engineering (which is also the ONLY department, I found out today, that will let you attend a course with no grasp of Japanese and off lectures in English as well as the only department who don't' force you to take a research year to get used to Japan) and one of 3 ppl from Europe...most ppl are from Asia...Pakistan...and Nepal are more popular...and people seem to be able to guess I'm British for some reason ... usually happens after I start talking...hmmmm

THEN in the evening we had a welcome/good bye party...(one of the PhD students is leaving...) which was cool, food was provided which included hand made Vietnamese equivalent to spring rolls (very nice) which were cooked on a portable gas stove...incase people who stay late in lab need to create dinner (note that there are also a bad number of Duvets and Bedding material in the common area of the lab...NOT a good sign...I thought they were joking when they said you could live there...apparently some ppl do) there was also pizza...meat and beer (Japanese of course) some fruit wines and Sake...which I was made to try and was not particularly impressed...it was a lot weaker than I thought it would be...but not my kind of thing....

The new Swedish guy (Carl) also brought some Swedish schnapps...which all the natives were eager to try...which was amusing in itself... Prof Towhata (head of department) was also there and fully joining in with the drinking...which was hilarious as he then started complaining that he was drunk... and also accused Carl of looking very scary in his application photo...then drew a picture of an angry Viking hatted man on the board to further illustrate the fact...more importantly the people in my department seem to get on very well and are a good laugh.... especially when trying to get each other drunk...

9th Oct 2006

Wondered around my halls of residence…the path conveniently leads to a nice path and I now finally know what the weird building with the silver orb is! (fuji tv)
Weird flame statue and statue of liberty….cute

Aqua city… had a look aroundBought soil for plants…and pots… to hopefully make them happier.

any how on Monday (which was a holiday over here... something about health and fitness...neither of which I did anything about) I went for a little explore around where I live and took a few photos, which was nice...I also found out what the weird building with a silver orb in it is...although it still didn't really explain why someone had felt the need to build it. And I did find out the name of the funky cantilever/cable stay bridge near me is called then I promptly forgot. But yes...lots of weird buildings near where I live, and a nice new park too...
As I walked towards the docks more I also managed to find the statue of liberty....and a shopping (well several actually) mall...just past the statue of liberty there was a better view of the 'rainbow bridge'...spend a couple of hours wondering around the shopping centre (which also contains a cinema) but it's a bit of a fashiony mall....with more expensive versions of things that you don't want.

I wonder over to the silver orb building for a closer look and find out its' the Fuji TV building...and I think you can buy tickets to go up to the orb to get a view of the city...but I'm not sure I'm up to trying to buy more tickets by myself...I prefer the lower embarrassment factor associated by looking like an idiot in front of a machine instead of a person...

it's actually very sunny and rather hot as I walk back towards my halls...I take a detour and go over to the shopping malls of Toyosu...in search of potting materials for my new green pets...I think they would like larger homes that they can grow into...I end up buying more junk to fill my room with in the hope that buying more kitchen utensils will make me a better cook...unlikely...
so I spend the evening re-potting my plants in the hope that they will live a long and prosperous life...however my track record with plants is not so good...but hopefully these shall fair better :-S

8th Oct 2006

I get up late today… to recover from last night…and the remnants of jetlag still clinging to my brain making it hurt. I have decided to go food and household junk shopping in Toyosu, I need stuff to make a cake for tonights welcoming party (which requires guests to bring a dish, which I assumed meant a plate/offering of food as opposed to just a plate to eat off…). I’m looking forward to it actually, as I might be able to meet some more people who live in halls…as they are mostly proving rather elusive over the past few days…but first I buy up most of the household items available in ‘super VIVA Home’ which turns out to be cheaper than walking around for hours looking for a 100 yen shop or in Akihabara…rather annoying all that actually cost me more money….anyhow the experience was worth it…

Buying food is more interesting, especially cake ingredients…as I can’t read the words to identify vanilla essence. I just guess and look suspicious sniffing lots of small bottles trying to figure out what is inside. Buying baking paper was also a bit of a guessing game…the stuff I bought ended up being very efficient and waxy…easy to get out of the tray and off the cake… amazing…coco powder comes in the form of hersheys and flour in the form of ‘cake flour’… there are also more shops (clothing, book and electrical) on the same floor as the supermarket which I explore…no adapter but there is a webcam with headset on offer…mmmm more therapy of the pointless retail kind.

I’ve been carting all the stuff I’ve bought around in a trolley so it’s not until I have to unload the thing that I realise (again my own fault) that I’ve bought more than I should have…I then spend about twice the length of time needed to get home, as I’m slowed by my load…

I eventually get back and have to quickly try and cook chocolate brownies in a microwave oven…the instruction manual comes in handy again…and despite my fears of undercooking the cake… I actually manage to burn the top…I take it to the welcome party anyway, hoping no one will really notice…
The party is interesting…I’m the only European there which makes a change. The food is good, and there’s drink too…the Japanese RA’s (residential assistants) are funny and in the spirit of things…the whole thing goes on until past 2am…despite being moved from the starting venue at 11pm… however, numbers had dwindled by then. I discovered that several people in my halls are also at Uni of Tokyo, but even a few in Geotechnics…I was rather surprised…nice though.

7th Oct 2006

Hmmm…I’ve just walked back from Ariake to my halls… it’s the majority of the length of my part of the island and took me a whole 40mins in heels!!! Something tells me I need to actually check what time the last tube is and where it stops…it’s a nice walk…just a bit long that’s all…now my feet hurt…

Today has really involved a lot of walking, it started off nicely with a chat to mum then eventually got my arse down to ‘Electric Town’ in Akihabara…which is crazy…it’s like a permanent computer fare/Tottenham Court Road extravaganza…unfortunately I ran into another 100yen shop as well as a UniQlo then proceeded to try and explore the entire area…which was hard on my little legs. L But Soooo much stuff to see…was trying to absorb all the information, but the whole currency exchange thing is proving and issue…hence actual value of stuff is a little retarded…but am planning many purchases…once I get funding…mmmm….today I settled with a hot water flask thing, a new bag (more suitable to travelling on the metro) and some more kitchen junk from 100yen shop…

Ahhhh, but lunch was exciting!!! at first all I could see were rather pricey restaurants of American and Japanese food close to the mass of DUTY FREE shops which lure in the tourists…but I wondered deeper and found a little eatery on the corner of a street under a big green steel railway bridge…It looked absolutely miniscule and only had the menu in Japanese posted on the outside walls with no pictures!, but *best* of all there was a very long queue of Japanese people outside which must be a good sign. Not a foreigner in sight. So while I queued I whipped out my Japanese phrase book and made a vain attempt to figure out what they offered…but no luck. I settled for a poster I’d seen several other people in front of me pointing at…it had in smaller print “no.1” written on it, which I assumed would be a good thing…SO, anyway ordered one of those in a really timid manner whist professing my obvious lack of skill with the local language and the waiter dude was very nice and pointed me to my place…luckily most people seemed to be having what I was eating (must be good if everyone is doing it…) and I subtly attempt to mimic what they are doing. Unfortunately I’m not so good at subtle and just look like a idiot who’s obviously lost their way and should be in the KFC down the road. But, yeah, the food is put on an elevated counter in front of you, an amazing arrangement of raw (unidentified) fish [RUF] underlain by sushi rice with garnishing of wasabi paste and fresh chopped spring onion and pickled ginger…there’s also miso soup sitting there which I assume is mine too.

I carefully much my way through my lunch…taking far more time than everyone else does…and I think the waiter is trying to get rid of me when he puts down a hot cup tea by me, either that or he’s just being nice and making sure I get the full experience I can’t tell…communication hasn’t really been a fixture of this trip and I’ve kinda given up… but amazing and all for 1000yen.

Exploration continues until 530pm when I drag myself away before I buy a million appliances I don’t want or need. Because advertising gets to you at some point….particularly when Japanese girls in very short puffy skirted nurses outfits knee-high socks and the most dangerous platforms hand out leaflets to you or groups of people pounce in front of you when you wait at the traffic lights to cross the road to shout about some poster they hold up at you… it almost reaches weird levels of aggression…so I head home to drop off my haul and then get ready to meet Seda (a turkish girl in my lab who’s just invited me out tonight to see a live band in Roppongi)

Randomly, as I try and negotiate my way to exit A3 (which I might add, technically doesn’t exist…there’s only an exit 3, I mean for there are exits 1a, 1b, 1c etc but no A3) I am drawn to the map to see if it holds any better advice as to whether an exit A3 does exists or I really have gone blind where bump into another English girl (Lisa, Manchester) who was attempting to ask me something in Japanese…bad idea. Anyway I’m still glowing from the idea that I’ve finally run into another English person in Tokyo when Seda rolls up with her friend…Lisa goes on her way…and after collecting a few more bodies we make our way (eventually) to the bar…
Interesting cover night…some of the stuff is rather old and so I’m not so taken by it all… but Seda and her friend are dancing like crazy…they are a good laugh…and we eventually leave at 1130…hence the being caught on an unexpectedly shortened version of my train home…oh well, maybe one day I’ll learn… or not.

6th Oct 2006

Today I have a 12 o’clock meeting with Professor Uchimura, a potential supervisor…and as I’ve spent the morning fidgeting about in my room arranging and rearranging the few things which are in my room and showing the admin office of my halls my shiny new passbook so they may extract money out of me. I haven’t prepared for this meeting at all. He asks what I want to do. I try and refrain from saying ‘ooooh I don’t mind! I mean it’s only a PHd…not like it’s ground breaking or anything’ and instead settle for something vague like the whole topic of engineering seismology…it doesn’t go down too well…and there’s also the added issue of communication. I’m not sure expressing myself to him is going to be the easiest thing in the world…I think most people are having difficulty understanding my accent. He then goes on to describe what his current research things are at the moment and due to my lack of original ideas I am told I should really go see Professor Towhata…not such a good meeting I thinks…

The rest of the afternoon is spent trying to set up my computer on the college network, getting my email account set up so a can receive all the spam in the world through college email (great!) and to some degree getting to know some of the people in my lab.
This day is rather unproductive… oh well.

5th Oct 2006

I start the day trying to figure out how my Japanese microwave thingy works and if it will actually toast my bread or just nuke it…there is a button on the front with a picture of toast but I’m not entirely sure what you have to do with it…I argue with it for a while, as it tells me I’m doing lots of things wrong by beeping and flashing it’s little digital display at me…apparently I’m using the wrong plate thing at the oven…eventually I get toast. It comes out with a criss-cross pattern on the bottom and an evenly browned topside…how pretty…anyway it’s actually been toasted which is a bonus, and I haven’t turned on the microwave function by mistake…well it doesn’t look like I have anyway.

Toast is good…it makes me happy…and it’s raining outside which I would enjoy more if I were going to be staying indoors but I’m actually meeting someone. I head off to meet a stray English girl in Hibiya…I discover it’s very easy to locate fair haired and skinned people here…and we spend the morning wondering around aimlessly…which is nice and relaxing…we discover that Japanese shops rarely open before 11am…boulangeries (or at least the Japanese versions) open really early at 10am.

We sit in Hibiya park watching turtles, colourful fishes and processions of school children in their uniform hats parading around the pond…until I have to head to college to meet Lan for some more administrative joy.

I attempt to buy lunch at a takeaway shop outside the entrance to the agriculture department part of campus by pointing at a picture then handing over money. Then before I get time to eat it, Lan takes me to pay for my accident insurance for college, open my bank account and buy a mobile phone…all of which goes right over my head… including most of the information about any contract I’ve signed. Banks, interestingly enough, in Japan value the name chop more highly than a signature when opening a bank account and also have a nasty habit of shutting at 3pm every weekday…which is a bit of a bummer and also the reason why my bank account wasn’t opened yesterday. Although Japan is at the fore front of technology, the type of phone I can get is severely limited by the need for English language…and the need for cheapness, which leaves 2 phones to choose from…which makes things a lot easier…

We go back to department. I have lunch. Then after a while of faffing decide to venture to Ueno to look for a 100 yen shop… at which time the weather has decided to take a turn for the wetter and winder than you really want when walking anywhere, let alone somewhere you don’t know.

I’m a little disorientated about where I am in campus and how it relates to the rest of Tokyo and back track a few times until I think I’m going the right direction…on the way I pass older more traditional looking houses…and temples…and a strange car parking structure with cars stacked on shelves either side of a lift…with only enough space for 6 cars in total…

I get drenched from the knee downwards as I walk though Ueno park and round the lotus plant infested lake…eventually I reach the bright lights and busy streets of Ueno and walk around fighting the gale force winds which are trying to batter me and my poor little umbrella…after walking around most of Ueno I’m about to give up and start to look for the JR station to get me back to Iidabashi then home when just as I’m about to reach the station I see the 100 yen shop. Hurrah! Or not. As I proceed to waste money on junk which I try and convince myself is essential to my existence…this stuff probably isn’t even all that cheap…not for what you’re getting anyway. I pile up 2 baskets of stuff worth and launch an assault on the till.

Getting home was a bit of a mission, but it serves me right for buying so much stuff because now I’ve got to negotiate 3 interchanges and evil ticket barriers with heavy and cumbersome bags of things…foolish child.

There is still the issue of the student travel pass for the most expensive part of my journey…which is a bit of a communication issue, but the lady behind the counter doesn’t have a problem with the discount or my lack of speech. She efficiently makes my pass for me, filling in the form on my behalf and it’s a lot easier than the attempt yesterday…

First Day...

So first full day in Tokyo and I'm picked up by Lan at 9am from my halls so she can guide me through the Tokyo Metro system and test out my route to college. The main issue is not the mass of different companies and lines and stations, but the station names, which don't mean anything to me…the romanji (roman alphabet version of the Japanese pronunciation refuse to stick in my brain)…weirdly enough the Chinese characters seem to feel nicer over my neurons…odd. Anyway, the whole thing with the different companies running the transport network leads to a rather odd situation, where each company generally enjoys ignoring the existence of the other possible forms of transport thus neglecting to indicate the JR lines and sky train on the metro maps and the whole of the metro system on the sky train maps…interchanges are marked very clearly, but this doesn't help you if you don't know where these lines go or what stations they will pass through…nice.

We get to college and register at the main engineering building…get my student card and some card to enable me to get a discounted travel pass (always good) and various other things I wasn't really in the frame of mind to comprehend…I did what most people would probably do when you have no comprehension of what's going on, doing what I was told, signing for things and hoped for the best. We visited several more admin. Offices to sign more things for stuff, then had a little tour around my new department…which is in the basement of a rather pretty stone building…which has been rather crudely adapted to cope with the whole internet thing which appears to have caught the building by surprise…

Down in the dark corners of our basement (where suitably, very little natural light is allowed to reach… for fear of damaging the delicate skin and eyes of pale and over-worked researchers of mud) you take off your shoes to walk around the office type area where my new desk is but put shoes back on where you enter the lab. Lan goes about introducing me to everyone there, I'm then assaulted for the next half an hour with new (to me) peoples names which I immediately forget as I currently have the memory of a goldfish just hit by a terminal bout of severe amnesia. I'm then asked which desk I want…how would I know what desk I want…they all look the same! I've only been in the room for a while and I haven't quite had time to contemplate the chi flows through the building to optimise my productivity through feng shui, but the other researchers have their own ideas and argue (for more than really necessary) about which is the best desk… I leave them to decide for me…the tiredness has started to squish my brain in ways it should be squished…all in all, cognitive ability has definitely ceased.

I'm then shown around the actual experimental lab, which is amazing! Mostly because it looks like a war zone. TFT and CRT screens are haphazardly stacked on top of each other on random bits of floor space…presumably because they were moved from somewhere else where space was needed for another piece of machinery and dumped somewhere 'temporarily'…it's just that the temporary measure seems to have become more permanent than originally thought…

The equipment of soil element testing is crammed into every available space…there are pipes, tubes, valves and bits of moulds everywhere…and there are lots of people around looking busy.Now it's time for lunch so Lan leads me to one of the college canteens…where there is a big selection of things I've not seen before and can't pronounce, so we chose a set meal…I say 'we' I mean Lan…she also ordered for me…I think at this point any trace of my purpose as an independent human being has vanished…I make myself feel a bit better by choosing some fresh pineapple for desert. It all comes to less that 500yen and there's free cold tea instead of filtered water which will take some getting used to…

After lunch we head over to Koto city offices to register me as the alien I am…we've also been told to get copies of the temporary version of the certificate of alien registration for various other things I also fail to comprehend. We fill in forms, I sign more things and hand over photos. THEN it's back to college to give people that we saw first some forms that we have just gotten…argh!! Too complex.

Lan is still powering around to get me sorted out…and she takes me most of the way home and we try and buy my discounted travel pass…she fills in the little form for me and we get a nice little discount for the metro part of the jounrney…then we head on to Toyosu to get the pass for the yukaromome (sky train) line which is greatly hindered by the 'assistant' who refuses to assist and says that they don't do discounts…highly suspicious…because we know that other people who live where I do and go to the Uni of Tokyo have managed to get them.

I manage to do some food shopping at a newly opened supermarket in Toyosu. Which is fun, because, for a lot of the time I have no idea what I'm buying…the little phrase book I have doesn't cover, what wayway wants to buy to cook herself dinner and make some breakfast…I can't read the bottle labels, and guess what is soy sauce and cooking oil…it's all good fun, but I have no idea if I'm buying what I actually want or not.

After the joy of shopping , I drag myself back, cook, then get ready for bed…or so I think… but actually stay up on the internet, despite my exhaustion…oh well, you can't plan these things can you?

3rd Oct 2006

...so anyway plane flights stealing cutlerly yeah....so i've filled in my boarding card and am all ready to leap off the plane with all the junk i've lugged on to it (i'd like to point out that along with my heavily laden wheely bag i also had a 'handbag' and a coat and a jumper in my hands) to try and whiz through customs to get the 1550 bus to Le Meridian Grand Pacific hotel in Odaiba...i get to an empty row of immigration officers...hand over my passport...which he stares at for longer than he should...then asks the guy next to him something in Japanese...never a good sign. i'm then shuffled off with a different officer....the situation isn't getting any better...he tells me to 'take a seat' in a rather unpleasent waiting room...he comes back in after a couple of minutes and asks if i have any documents proving i'm actually a student...which i show him...he takes away and leaves me alone again...after a while he comes back and informs me that the visa i got is wrong. Apparently they don't do college visas for longer than 2 years so even though mine says 3 years i've only really got 2....so there's another sticker in my passport...and he lets me through a special gate for rejects...i awkwardly manhandle my luggage off the conveyor belt and sneak through customs...( i assume that duty-free means nothing to declare...)
Rather conveniently the Limosine bus counter is right infront of the exit and so i buy a ticket. Unfortunately i've missed the 1550 by a mere 3 mins (i blame immigration...) and have to wait an hour for the next one...i use up the time calling Lan to tell her i'm taking the later bus and then call home to let them know i'm still alive. Look for maps...try and buy some sushi type stuff...rice triangles...very nice...and with the added surprise of not knowing what you're buying! then loiter outside until i get my bus.
i keep falling asleep on the bus...despite the paranoia of missing my stop and feeling like i should really be taking as much of the sights as i can in my first few moments out of the airport. mind you all there are to see are motoways...i do however notice some soil reinforement measures...this last thought disturbs me somewhat so i try and look for things other than engineering especially with mud. We seem to reach more central regions of Tokyo. there are more lights for a start...and we pass some weird buildings...upturned pyramids ones with gaping holes in them and even one with a large...i say large, i mean GIANORMOUS... saw, the kind which should cut through wood and allows you to do baboon-punching-impressions, outside one building....weird. anyway it all looks hideously futuristic, everything is very artistically lit up.
I've now reached the Hotel where i meet my tutor, Lan. i see her waiting on a bench...i drag my little bag off the bus and exchange my ticket for the big bag. Lan is *amazing* and helps me pull the 20kg mini monster whilst i negotiate the beast, we walk to the halls of residence. my arms hate me. i can tell by the way that they hurt...i think i've stretched them.
We get to the halls and have fun dragging luggage to various entrances to try and find where we are meant to be to sign in. I sign my life away then, leaving the baggage to fend for itself (i'd like to see someone try and run with that kind of weight) we get the grand tour of the facilities...there's your own personal mailbox with a combination turny dial like on american lockers, if you get packages they have some electronic locker system with a touch-screen interface where you have to key in your secret code to pick up a package associated with your room number...VERY coool. There's also an incinerator which requires a key to burn things...recycling of PET plastics, and seperate non-combustibles...how effecient!
In my room (on the 3rd floor) there's a fridge/freezer, combination/oven/grill/microwave/teleporter (okay so there's no teleporter, but it would be useful), bed with feather duvet+pillow linens and matress cover - none of which i thought i'd have! not only this but the linens are cleaned free of charge every 10days all you have to do is leave them in a special laudry bag outside the room on specified pick up days. Now, the bathroom....well...there's a shower, sink and a toilet, but not any kind of toilet this is kind of one you see in sci-fi. NOT only does it have slow closing lids so that you'll never drop the lid loudly shut ever again, BUT it has buttons. BUTTONS???!?! yes. buttons. warm seat, warm water, bidet, fountain 'to spray bum' (i don't know how this differs from a bidet but there's a different button for it) there's also a turny knob to adjust the pressure...this in particularly worries me, mainly because it suggests that there can be an uncomfortable pressure on the bum washing. i am reluctant to experiement.

and Oh my GOD! i have a balcony?!?!?

electricity and phone for the room is prepay which you topup at some machine in the admin foyer. Somewhere in the complex there's also a swimming pool and a gym...
with all my baggage trollyed up to my room and with Lan gone i start to unpack my computer to connect to the rest of the world via the free internet. then remember that i need to eat dinner so stop my unpacking to search for the 24hr convenience store rumoured to be on site. i realise after walking around one building that i can actually see the damn thing out of my bedroom window. I spend ages trying to figure out whether or not the bottle of miscellaneous fluid is washing up liquid or not, then buy it anyway...i buy some things on pure curiosity...anyway i need breakfast for tomorrow...

i get back to my room, eat my bowl of instant noodles (i'm not up to trying to figure out how the cooker works, pouring boiling water on some stuff is about all my brain can cope with right now). and continue arranging my junk into the vaccum of space and check all the stuff off on the check list...it still looks very empty...anyway its rather late so i bed down for the night.

2nd Oct 2006

Right... I've been intending to write this since I got here but have been a horrible combination of being horribly jetlagged and run off my feet doing the most boring and essential things in moving oneself to the otherside of the world...this is an overview of the first 4 (or so) days in Tokyo, Japan.

Had spent last night, and more of the early hours of today than is sensible, packing and repacking all my junk into dad's suitcase, only to discover that it's broken in more than one way. The zippers are missing the convenient little tag which enables un-zipping and re-zipping with greater ease than threading an needle with frayed thread...not only this but the exentdable pull along handle (making any suitcase, irrespective of size, a nuisance to any one with or without legs trying to negotiate someone using said suitcase, for experience of this just go to Waterloo station at rush hour and try and get from one end of the concourse to the other...say platform 1 to the Eurostar terminal... in the shortest time possible) refuses to extend. Despite dad's assertions of the positive aspects with regard to the security of the contents and existence of a top handle to lugg all 50million kilos* of the carfully selected items i refuse to leave behind Quan is *amazing* and seeks out a suitable replacement so that i don't have to try and buy a humungous suitcase today... he enlists Jo's help, who kindly (thank you soooo much) donates her suitcase, with more wheels than is really necessary, to the war effort.Bearing in mind that my ticket (which also says that it cost GBP2675?!?!??!?!?) says that i'm only allowed 20kg of checked baggage and that i have more than 30kg judging by the bathroom scales...which i seriously think *LIE*...and having already packed all my lead-based text books into my handluggage regulation carry on wheely bag [of-people-stupid-enough-to -even-contenplate-walking-behind-me doom] and anything else heavy... i'm left with the dilemma of what to take out from the monster suitcase...after removing 2 items i manage to find other things around the house that i forgot to pack and have probably already made backup +extra what i just took out. Sod it, i say...i'll just try my luck at the check-in desk and cry if they don't let me on...

Anyway, after doing the suitcase equivalent to the 'hokey-kokey' with the contents of said suitcase in a vain attempt to loose some weight... i was packed. ish. Hence, finally go to bed...
SO. This morning, mum drops me off at Morden station, i make my way to the Japanese Consulate in Green Park to collect my visa...which all goes rather too well...suspicious...it's even free, which is nice. Then head over to Covent Garden Marks and Sparks to buy some money...because i'm a retard and forgot that if you buy foreign currency on your credit card you get charged a cash advance fee *DUH*...anyway i now have some money to buy things like bus fare and sushi when i actually get there.

I wonder back via the map shop....which doesn't happen to have any bilingual tokyo city maps...but buy one of the whole of japan instead...mainly because it looks pretty and might encourage me to travel outside Tokyo and see some sights, god-forbid i should leave the lab...

Eventually get home at about 1pm. To check my luggage again..

We leave for the airport past 3pm and get there ridiculously early so i attempt to check in. weirdly all the staff of Japan Airlines keep talking in japanese to me until they see the puzzelled look in my eyes and then try english...had to refrain from saying anything incrinimating...not even for the fun of it... So, i get called to a desk and try to haul my suitcase on to the conveyor belt...it's not that i'm weak, it's just that the suitcase is stronger...does not look good. i nervously squint at the digital dial which tells you how bad you are at packing and it hits 31.6kg...not bad...taking into account the hand luggage wheely bag that mum is babysitting out of sight from the counter staff is about 20kg...hmmm that's near my body weight in stuff...hmmmm :S i get ready to wail at full pelt. The dude at the counter, looks at the digital display and then at me and asks 'so, what are you doing in Japan then?' ...i whimper 'i'm going to study' fully expecting him to tut at me and tell me i need to pay my life savings in excess baggage fees...but yet nothing...he looks at my passport and we're good to go! hurrah!!! :D not only that but apparently i'm allowed to use the 'buisness lounge'...hmmmm

i'm so relieved i could implode...i bounce over to where mum is sitting and blurt out the good news...well it's exciting for me. Dad turns up from parking the car in outer mongolia...the terminal 3 carpark is currently being destroyed for the fun of it and the replacement appears to be in another county. oh well, i don't have to walk back there...and i've got 30kg on to the plane so who cares!?!

we hunt for a place to sit for a coffee...and wait for Quan to arrive from work...dad takes photos of us, presumably so he doesn't forget who i am or what everyone else looks like. we give up on the coffee and i'm escorted to the departures...an unexpectedly (but very nice) farewell to my family and i'm getting my passport checked...then X-ray, reveals that someone has to look through my hand luggage, which means unpacking the damn thing...and that i have to RE-pack it AGAIN. at least they aren't trying to destroy anything from there...i make my way to boots, the only place that will sell toothpaste plane-side of the security checks only to find that there's a toothpaste shortage...panic-buying has engulfed the plane-travelling public. By the time i have bought things to make sure my skin doesn't completely dehydrate an hour into the flight it's time to head to the gate....ahhhh no time for the buisness class lounge of joy...such a shame :(getting on the plane is fine, it's the trying to lift 20kg of handluggage when you're only meant to have a max of 10kg into an overhead bin whilst staying out of the isles and not falling over backwards form the weight which is the challenge. the Japanese guy sitting behind me gives me a hand...injuring my collossal ego no end.

the flight i mainly preoccupied with watching Luckly Slevin, Da Vinci Code, eating vegan meals (not bad....the first one was really good! but the second involved the trauma of microwaved tinned asparagus...) napping and stealing cutlery...i haven't packed any OKAY?!?! they probably don't even have forks in Japan... oh yeah, and i find out that i needn't have bought the toothpaste in Heathrow...they have lots of little toothbrushes in the plane toilets! hurrah! i can clean my teeth! nice...

*may be a slight exaggeration...