girl & kat

Chocolate and phones

2012-02-17T12:55:00.001+09:00

So the Sunday before last I visited a sex shop. It was either that or church and --when you think about it-- they're near enough the same.

... you all thought about it, didn't you? You sick sick people.

I was after chocolate body paint. I'd explain, but frankly, you'd be disappointed. I only used it on my face during a brief iPhone photo shoot with another girl. Hockey jerseys were involved. Then we sent the photos to a minister.

See? The church connection again. He now has plans to leave the country. I'm denying any connection.

As it happened, the sex shop was unnecessary. I could have picked up the goods at a local Shoppers Drug Mart (equivalents to CVS, Walgreens or Boots depending on your aspirin buying location). Still, I think I could have been forgiven for not thinking of that location first.

Our body paints were in the tame section of the shop, along with more interesting versions of board games I played as a child. Other parts of the shop sold items that I'd never consider buying (or at least not blogging about buying) and harness swings which I totally would. I wondered if anyone other than me would believe I just wanted to hang out in one like a seven year old at a playground. I concluded no.

After the make-shift photo shoot, my friend and I went to the mall. We were watching the superbowl later than day and so figured face paints would not look out of place. Besides, it was surprisingly difficult to clean off. I wanted a prepaid sim card for my iPhone and headed for the appropriate store. As I did so, I passed a mirrored pillar and concluded an unfortunate fact:

There was really no mistaking that I was wearing chocolate body paint.

In the apartment, the paint hadn't looked any different from normal, non-consumable, face paints but in the bright mall lights the chocolatey goodness was revealed in all its edible glory. In five minutes time, I was to become pretty certain that the sales representative at Telus Mobility had noticed this as well.

I, however, needed a sim card and I wasn't going to be distracted. This guy would look me in the eye, keep a straight face and explain to me exactly how many picture messages I could get for their plan.

He managed. Just.

Any apprehension I might have had regarding returning to the store vanished while I watched the superbowl. A 31 year old with two streaks of body paint on her face can't really compete with Madonna and a host of centurion guards.

Japanese efficiency

2012-02-04T12:18:00.001+09:00

It doesn't matter how much often you fly, to see a passenger near you repeatedly cross himself during the safety video is never reassuring. That said, I felt I already owed God one for making this flight at all.

For my trip back to Canada, I was connecting through Tokyo with a one hour change-over time. That was slightly on the tight side, but it was Japan so I had faith I would make it.

As we reached the northern half of the main island, our plane met a strong head wind. Towns below us had suffered a dramatic snowfall only a day before, with 3m of the white stuff dumped overnight. The resulting air currents made our plane bounce like a coffee bean in a grinder. It also made us 20 minutes late.

Our chosen landing spot appeared to be only vaguely connected to the airport. I mean, it was probably in the same prefecture. Just. We piled onto a bus for a ten minute ride across to the terminal. From there, I had to pass back through security and through the official country border to the international departures area. Then I had to get to the other side of the terminal, passing 30 gates to get to my own.

Any other country and I would have been asking about vacancies in the airport hotels and buying a toothbrush from the nearest shop. But... it was Japan... this might yet be possible.

I did all of the above in 15 minutes. The flight attendant didn't even look phased as she scanned my boarding pass and waved me through for an on-time departure.

The passenger crossing himself was also reading the safety leaflet, as per the instructions on the video. If anything, that was even more bizarre than the apparent desire for divine intervention. Upon take off, he ordered two (admittedly small, but still a containing a couple of glasses) bottles of wine. After that, negotiating the arm rest on his seat proved to be a more pressing problem than the need to pray.

Once in Toronto, I dubiously walked over to the baggage reclaim... to see my suitcase happily travelling round (at least, I would have enjoyed riding that belt). I'm not sure if there is any other airport in the world I could have connected through where that would have been possible.

This only left one final hurdle.

Canadian border guard: Wait, you were here two weeks ago?!

Here is my pay stub... will you marry me?

2012-02-02T00:47:00.001+09:00

"My supervisor thought it was too early for me to marry."

I was having dinner with a new friend; a PhD student at Hokkaido University who not only was from the UK, but had also grown up in my own home town of Oxford. Out here in Japan's snow laden northern island, it was a bit like finding a long lost twin. We had compared schools, discussed local shops and now had finally pushed the time line up to our current affairs.

While working at a summer camp for kids in Sapporo, my British twin had met her husband-to-be; a Japanese web designer who was starting his own company. Since it was still the early years for his business, his salary was not very large and it was this that was the source of concern for my friend's supervisor.

His advice to her was that she shouldn't consider marriage until her partner was making at least 5 million yen a year (about $65.5K or £41.5K, although it should be born in mind that the yen is a strong currency, so the equivalent spending power is probably less).

Growing up in a country where money was not seen as an object to marriage, I found this very surprising. Yet, apparently this view was fairly universal.

"Even my mother-in-law asked if I wouldn't rather wait until his income was higher," explained my friend.

Curious, I asked one of my Japanese friends at work whether money was always consideration in matrimony.

"It is probably one of the main concerns," she told me.

However, I was assured that women were not expected to give up their jobs when they married and when children came along, it seemed to be a matter of choice.

My British friend had obviously not stopped working after her wedding and once she graduates, she plans to join her husband in his business and provide English translations.

"What is your visa status now?" I asked curiously. "Do you have permanent residency through your husband?"

"Actually, a spouse visa is only for one year."

... Well, that was a whole new level of cynicism for you right there!

It turns out that it is very easy to get divorced in Japan. If both parties are in agreement, the whole procedure can be done in a day or less. This, combined with possible concerns over immigration, is probably one of the reasons for initially short-term spouse visas. After renewing your documents a few times you are deemed serious enough to get a longer term visa and after five years, permanent residency. Until then, you're considered about as married as Britney Spears.

[Note to self: Find smoking hot Japanese pop star fast. This visa business is going to take a while.]
[Note to self II: Make sure he earns over 5 million.]

Writing English for south paws

2012-01-30T21:36:00.001+09:00

On a scale of 1 to 10, it seems to me the formality of a document stating your resignation from a job --even if a near identical position is taken up with immediate effect-- should rate at least a 9. Maybe even an 11. To be handed a plain sheet of paper and a ballpoint pen to do the deed was therefore something of a surprise.

The instructions I received were quite specific: my resignation letter must be written by hand and copied word-for-word from a sample template. The latter was presumably so that it could be easily followed regardless of whether the author chose to express themselves in English or Japanese. I took both the blank sheet of paper and the template letter and arranged them on a nearby desk, lifting up my pen.

This staggering act resulted in a swift flurry of movement in which all the tools I had laid down on the table were rearranged. My paper was straightened and the template moved to the other side of the desk. I stared at this reorganisation, nonplussed.

"Ah, she is left-handed!" I heard one of the administrative assistants tell her colleague in Japanese.

"Ah!" The other man stepped forward and moved the template letter from the left side of the desk to the right.

I paused.

"Please write the letter exactly as it is here," the female assistant explained to me in English. "The same page orientation."

Light dawned.

"I will do!" I promised. "But because I am left-handed, I must tilt the paper." I rotated the writing paper 45 degrees clockwise and wrote the title. Behind me, there was a panicked intake of breath, followed by a sigh of relaxation as everyone moved away.

Since Japanese writing traditionally starts in the top right corner and moves down, I realised it was possible they had never seen a left-hander tilt the page to write neatly. Yet, if I didn't make such a move, my hand would press over the freshly inked letters and smudge. Before you ask, you would be quite amazed how much a dry ballpoint pen can smear. This sad sad fact confined me to pencil for years. Possibly, I wrote the world's greatest novel at the age of 8, but the non-permanency of my writing implement means no one will ever know.

As I finished, I dug in my pocket and produced my hanko; a personalised seal used in Japan instead of signatures. "Should I use my stamp?" I asked.

This produced a pleased babble of excitement around those seated nearest me in the office, possibly steaming from relief that they wouldn't have to deal with some freakish western signature. Carefully, I pressed down by my name on the paper. The woman next to me clapped.

I tried not to think exactly how low the general opinion of me must be to denote such an act an applause-worthy achievement.

"Can you come in again on February 2nd?" I was asked as I stood to leave. "To finish the paper work."

"Actually, I leave for Canada on the 2nd," I explained.

"Oh. How about the 3rd?"

...... OK, my travel schedule is crazy, but it's not THAT crazy.

"I.....," I began, hoping they would realise their error. They didn't. Or they thought it a completely reasonable turnaround.

"I'm sorry but I'll be in Canada," I said the last word carefully. "until March."

This achieved the desired communication and we agreed to complete all the paperwork on the 1st. I tried not to look too relieved.

Welcome to Japanese bureaucracy

2012-01-29T22:56:00.001+09:00

After one week in Canada I returned to Japan. For two weeks. Then on Thursday, I go back to Canada.

Confused? Let me explain:

This brief interlude from my collaborative work trip in North America was to allow me to interview for a job identical to the one I already had, be offered the position, formally start and then order a computer before this was prevented by floods in Thailand.

There. Isn't that clearer? No? Well, I will elaborate but I warn you now, it's not going to help.

Our story (although I defy Disney to create something more fantastical) opens with our young heroine (totally me. It is my blog, after all) assuming the role of "specially appointed assistant professor". The "special" part here means that my salary came from the Japanese Government, not Hokkaido University, who have a scheme to support women in senior roles for three years. After that time, it was understood that I would be moved onto the university's normal tenure track (leading to a permanent position) for faculty members.

This transition was not contracted, but I was told it was a question of honour for the university to uphold the verbal agreement. Since the breaking of Japanese honour traditionally results in disembowelment, I felt there was some incentive for the people who mattered to follow this through.

A few months ago, however, in response to increased pressure from the government to increase the fraction of female employees, Hokkaido University opened a call for two tenure track positions for female scientists. It was suggested that I apply for one of these positions, since it would end any uncertainty regarding my job status in three years time and everyone could retain their digestive tracks.

[As a side note, I don't really approve of any form of sex discrimination in jobs. My concern in this case is it could devalue female researchers' achievements if it is felt they only gained their current position through having a decreased pool of applicants. Despite this, I discovered when put to the test, my morals were surprisingly easy to sweep under the nearest carpet. No one put me in a court of law.]

Even though I had been hired for my current position just months before, I still had to complete the full application procedure, including the in-person interview.

I pointed out that I would be in Canada at that time.

Everyone agreed that it was incredibly daft just to come back so that I could be re-interviewed for a near identical position.

..... but that was just the way it was.

Since a foreigner was preferred for the job and since the Japanese have an innate suspicion of foreigners they have never met, my chances at getting this position were high. This led to a problem concerning money.

New faculty members are typically awarded a large one-off sum known as a 'start-up grant'. This is for single large expenses that are needed to equip a new researcher with the tools they need to do their work, for example outfitting a new laboratory. As a theorist, my wish-list was simple: I wanted computer power. Lots of it. Think 'the ultimate question' solving stuff. The problem was that all this money needed to be spent by the end of the fiscal year which was ... March.

Everyone agreed that it was incredibly daft to spend such a large sum in a month and it would only lead to wasting funds.

..... but that was just the way it was.

Now it transpires that machines more awesome than Steve Jobs builds are manufactured in Thailand. The way it was explained to me is that the ENTIRE COUNTRY disappears under water due to floods each year around this time. Since constructing electronic equipment in such a condition presents some difficulties, an ordered machine will take more than a month to arrive. Since the earliest I could begin the new position was February 1st and the money most be spent by March 31st this left less breathing space than for a snorkelling computer engineer.

The upshot was that I had to still be in Japan on February 1st, so I could officially begin this position as soon as humanely possible and order a computer from waterworld. I booked my flights back to Canada on the 2nd.

I think maybe I should have asked for two passports while in the UK.

Dubious documents

2012-01-26T22:26:00.001+09:00

"This passport was issued a few days ago. Why was that?"

Um. Because I needed a new one? Seriously, what sort of question was that? And how did I answer it without sounding like I was talking to a two year old and not a burly Canadian border guard?

I shrugged and tried to arrange my features into something that less implicative of 'WTF you moron?!'

"It needed to be renewed over Christmas."

There look, I spanned that out to a seven word sentence none of which were hamsters or elderberries.

"Are you gainfully employed in the UK?"

"No, I work in Japan."

I instantly regretted my words. The passport the border control guard held was a pristine virgin document, unsullied by any hands except those of the country from which is was forged and ....

... look, the point is it didn't contain a Japanese visa.

This wasn't a problem was far as Japan were concerned. In my backpack was my dog-eared cancelled passport which contained the still in-date visa for my job overseas. Unlike for American visas which have to be paid like a high-profile ransom to be transferred between passports, Japanese visas could chill in the old document until their own expiry date rolled around. The problem was, how much talking would I have to do to convince this border guard of that? Especially given his experience outside of Canadian bureaucracy would probably be with the neighbouring country of .... yeah. You see the problem.

I braced myself for a long hard wait. I was pretty sure that, had this been America, I probably wouldn't be making my flight out in a week's time. I'd be held in the country indefinitely JUST TO BE SURE I didn't stay there forever.

The border guard blinked at me. "Japan?"

I managed a tight smile. "Yeah."

A Brit coming from the UK into Canada with a empty passport, claiming she worked in Japan.

The guy burst out laughing and tossed my passport back at me. "Through you go!"

Maybe no one would ever make up a story that crazy. Maybe he decided he never wanted to know. I love you, Canada.

Stranger in a strange land

2012-01-22T12:44:00.001+09:00

"That will be 25p," the man behind the counter of Jessops camera and print shop in my parent's city of Leicester told me.

Bargain! I had gone in to print out a set of photographs that my Dad had taken that morning, ready for an express renewal of my passport while I was in the UK.

"Yes, it's cheap if you do all the work yourself!" the shop assistant joked as I rummaged in my wallet.

I tipped a collection of coins in my palm and examined them. "Is this a ten pence?" I held up a silver coin that seemed about the right size, although the design was different to how I remembered it.

The shop assistant looked at me oddly. "Where are you from originally?" he asked.

"I.... um .... here," I muttered. "It's just... been a while."

Major fail!

Waiting on the world to change

2012-01-21T13:28:00.001+09:00

The British understand class. There is an innate comprehension that cockney flower girls are at the bottom of the heap while you can get away with anything if you wear a crown. So when little English girls play at being princesses, it's not cute; it's a desire for world domination.

British class, however, comes down almost solely to money. In India, the situation is far more complex.

Naturally, discussion of social situations is an ethical mine field. So I want everyone to feel reassured that I have a full and complete grasp of this topic from spending AN ENTIRE WEEK in India and attending a play exploring class that was performed in entirely in Hindi. I knew you'd all feel better.

Two major ways of categorising people in India are caste and religion. In theory, the two are interconnected, since caste is a Hindu concept. However, this social stratification is seen in other religions which in theory should be outside the system. A Christian church, for instance, will often have a congregation predominately from the same caste.

Which caste you belong to is decided by birth. There are four major divisions (and about a gazillion subsets) whose origins stem from professions: the Brahmins are the priests and intellectuals, the Kshatriyas are the warriors and rulers, Vaishyas are merchants and Shudras are farmers. Below these are the Dalits, once known as the Untouchables, whose jobs involved the most menial and dirty of tasks, such as toilet cleaning and... midwifery... because small children are similar to toilets.

Discrimination against the lower castes has been banned by the Indian constitution for 50 years. Perhaps predictably for a social system thousands of years old, this has met with mixed success. On the one hand, the current chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, an Indian province that includes the Taj Mahal, is from the lowest Dalit caste. Her career has been colourful, although this is less likely to do with her born status and more with her actions which include commisioning a statue of herself and suggestions that fellow Dalits should beat upper castes with their shoe. On the other hand, despite the ability for low classes to reach high posts, it is still uncommon to marry outside your caste. This, perhaps more than jobs, emphasises the underlying separation is still very much felt.

Aside from the caste system, there is the question of religion. Upon gaining independence from the UK in 1947, it was decided to make two separate countries from the former British Indian Empire; India and Pakistan. The division was founded on the basis of religion, with Pakistan being an Islamic state.

A major problem was the division of land was that is was done by a British lawyer who had never visited India. He drew the boundaries based on population density, creating two areas with a Muslim majority to be East and West Pakistan. These two provinces of the same country were separated by thousands of miles of Indian territory.

... This worked every bit as well as you might suspect, and in 1971, East Pakistan gained independence as Bangladesh.

The whole division was bloody and left millions of Hindus and Muslims with an unappetising choice; give up their livelihood and relocate to the appropriate side of the border or become the minority in their own homeland. Whether this division should ever have been carried out is still a much speculated subject, but the fact of the matter is that it did occur with at least 10 million people changing countries and another half a million dead.

For the Muslims that did remain in India, they found themselves subjected to a significant feeling of bad will from those who believed they gained their own country in the partition and should have moved. This was one of the main topics discussed in the play I attended at the Indian International Cultural Centre on my last night in Delhi. The play was entitled "Ghandi Park", written by Manav Kaul, and focusses around who has the most right to sit on a bench in a city park (no, they can't share; don't complicate the issue).

The play opens with a small boy dancing to John Mayer's "Waiting on the World to Change". His father is concerned that his bad grades at school are because he is being discriminated against for being Muslim. The father in question appears as the boy runs away and is the first 'bench stealer' in the performance. His method has a charming simplicity about it; he threatens to vomit on a young man, Uday, who is currently sitting there.

Moving hastily to another bench, Uday is told to move again after the arrival of the school teacher. The teacher makes his case in terms of caste, profession and age, none of which impresses Uday in the slightest. The teacher's case was not exactly strengthened by his confession that he wanted the bench for the view it offered of the balcony of a girl he admired. The father then wakes up and ... well, things don't run smoothly.

While social issues aren't always the most enjoyable to discuss, I found this amazingly interesting perhaps because it IS discussed in India. It left me with a feeling that even the oldest traditions can change.

So, who is up for skipping Charles in the succession for the throne?

The greatest dead

2012-01-10T21:59:00.001+09:00

I confess, I find it slightly disturbing that India's trademark monument is a tomb. For one, the whole concept of a dead body being your most recognized landmark is unappetizing and for another, it looks like an opulent palace which is bound to be under-appreciated by those no longer inclined to tea parties.

It is the city of Agra that boasts the Taj Mahal, a day trip from Delhi by train. In theory, it should have taken us just three hours to reach our destination, but this timetable was designed without allowances for the Delhi fog. I was all for blaming this unexpected twilighting of the city on pollution (the auto rickshaws may run on natural gas but those road-walking goats just looked guilty) but it turns out it is a genuine weather phenomenon that attacks Delhi's winter. The net result was we departed Delhi at 7 am but did not arrive in Agra until 1 pm.

While rather long, the train ride itself was captivating. We travelled by slum dwellings that looked like whole villages with winding streets, monkeys sitting on walls by wheat fields drenched in mist and once a large pig on a station platform.

We rode in a second class carriage, seated in what was called a 'sleeper coach' with three people sitting on each long bench seat. There was no air conditioning, but about a gazzilion fans hung from the ceiling to ease the hot air in the warmer months. Up and down the carriages, venders walked with tea, cold drinks and crisps. Oddly, a woman also came by and demanded money. I ignored her since THIS DID NOT MAKE SENSE but she shook my friend awake who gave her some change.

"I don't understand," I said. "Why did you have to give her money?"

"It's what she does," was my reply.

I have to say this was a rather unsatisfactory answer.

The train network in India was first laid down by the British but has been maintained and extended by the Indian government to become the forth largest rail network in the world. Longer distance trains are designed for more comfort than the carriages for our relatively short journey, and are one of the best ways to get around the country.

When we arrived in Agra, we hired a taxi for the day at a flat rate; a good move since the major sites are surprisingly far from the station. Despite its size, the Taj Mahal is amazingly well hidden from the surrounding streets so that the first glimpse I caught of its large marble macaroon domes was after I'd passed through the site's main gates.

We took a camel up the long driveway because.... well, because we could.

The Taj Mahal was build by the 5th Mughal Emperor, Shah Jahan, to be the mausoleum for this beloved third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died during the birth of their 14th child. Its construction began in 1632 and was completed around 1653. Shah Jahan dictated that a huge brick scaffold would be used for the building work, whose design mirrored that of the tomb itself. This led to concerns regarding the time it would take to dissemble, but legend has it that the Emperor decreed that anyone who took a brick could keep it and the structure disappeared over night.

Rumors also persist that Shah Jahan intended to build a second mausoleum for himself, a mirror of the Taj Mahal built out of black marble. Regardless of whether this was truly his intent, he was overthrown by his son and spent his last years in the Red Fort in Agra, gazing out over his wife's tomb where he himself would also be buried.

Despite the fact it is a tomb, the Taj Mahal lives up to its name as India's most impressive landmark. Entering through the main gate, you are confronted with the classic view of the Taj in front of you, reflected in the long stretch of water that runs to its plinth. Closer up, it does not disappoint as it is an experience to walk on a structure made of nothing but spotless white marble.

To stand on the plinth and enter the tomb itself, you must either remove your shoes or cover them in elasticated cloth wraps. Notably, Indians visiting the site seemed to opt for the former while tourists the latter, although this might just have been a product of the shoe coverings being included in the more expensive tourist ticket. I was also given a bottle of water which possibly reflects the number of foreigners who collapse with dehydration in the grounds during the summer season.

Due to our late arrival, we were not able to see Agra's Red Fort before it closed for the evening but instead went for dinner and then took the train home. More delays meant that our train did not depart Agra until after 10 pm but then mercifully, took the predicted three hours to reach Delhi.

This was merciful because I was about to freeze.

In India.

Having lived in Northern Japan and Canada, that would have been plain embarrassing.

The problem was that the carriages weren't sealed, so the cold night air rattled through ill fitting windows in an icy draft. This direction, the train was much quieter so we were able to use the 'sleeper carriage' as had been the intention for quieter routes; with each person taking one long seat to lie on. The temperature was such, however, that long before we reached Delhi I wished we were more packed. Perhaps it was nights like this that caused people to design tombs.

This feeling of peril was intensified by a guard with a rifle asking my friend how she knew me. Apparently, he was just curious.

Finally we were at Delhi. My friend was bobbed on the head with a rifle to wake her and I tumbled onto the platform before the same fate awaited me. Slightly nerve wrecking, but ultimately worth it to see the most scenic of India's dead.

--
[Photo: left is... do I really need to specify? Right top is the view of the Taj Mahal's mosque while standing on the plinth of the Taj and bottom is the inside of our train.]

Just don't drink the water and don't breath the air

2012-01-08T07:10:00.001+09:00

Before going to India, I visited a travel clinic in Canada which provided me with three things: an armful of vaccinations to prevent hepatitis A & B, typhoid and tetanus, a course of tablets to prevent malaria and finally, an antibiotic for ... when ... I got food poisoning.

In a time where fear of resilient super-bugs meant at least one vital organ had to be missing to shake antibiotics out of doctors, it was rather disconcerting to be handed a prescription for a illness I didn't yet have. Perturbed, I queried both the clinic's nurse and the pharmacist to be told the same answer:

"Boil or peel food before eating."

"Then I'll be fine?"

"No, you'll just last longer. After that, you take these."

I wondered how long I was expected to survive. Could I reach the guest house from the airport? Or should I be wearing an adult nappy upon landing? Would I be viewing the Taj Mahal through a periscopic lens extending from my sick bucket? Was India secretly a biological warfare camp designed for the breeding of super-humans and therefore uninhabitable by the weak, normal masses?

When I anxiously arrived in India, I told the group of friends who had come to meet me about my culinary instructions.

"They told me I was doomed!"

The response was a shaking of heads, "We don't think that's true."

Encouraging, but if they were all secretly super-humans perhaps they just didn't understand danger.

The strategy I ultimately decided on was a simple one: take some basic precautions but then don't worry about it. My guide book suggested sticking to vegetarian dishes for the first few days, since meat dishes are often very rich which can in itself produce an upset stomach. Fortunately, eating vegetarian in India is far from being a hardship, with roughly a third of the population doing likewise on a permanent basis. Indeed, the first record of a vegetarian diet comes from ancient India around the 6th Century BCE with its popularity stemming from a religious-based advocate of non-violence towards animals. As a result, vegetarian dishes in India are numerous and delicious. Never had I visited a country with more choice for non-meat courses and the only hardship was reminding myself that I did want to try the meat before I left.

For the first three days, my friend and I ate in fairly formal looking restaurants. They were not wildly expensive --although certainly pricier than the many street vendors around the city-- but being in a proper sit-down establishment seemed a sensible tactic for minimising bugs I might not be able to handle.

In India, people eat with their hands. In Northern India, where wheat rather than rice is grown, naan breads accompany the main dish. Strips of bread are pulled off the naan and used to scoop up the meat, beans or sauce before the combined bundle is popped into your mouth. Traditionally, only the right hand is used for this process, with your left hand sitting idly by your plate. Even though I was assured that using both hands or a fork would not be offensive, I tried hard to follow the example of the people around me. Since this didn't involve a new skill such as wielding chopsticks, I thought this would be easy.

I was wrong.

The first problem was that I am left handed, but I'm not convinced this made a huge difference. Managing the entire routine above with only one hand is an impressive feat, independent of your limb of preference. The second problem was a willingness to get dirty. To successfully eat a meal in this style, you have to be prepared to really get your hand into the food. This is a very alien concept to someone used to using cutlery or chopsticks, both of which keep your bare hand at a significant distance from your plate. In theory, I was a keen participant, but I could see that I ended up using only the tips of my fingers and ultimately spilt more food over the table, my face and sometimes my lap. It was very hard to resist the urge not to wipe or lick fingers during the meal, but to regard that hand as a write-off until the meal's end where a finger bowl would appear.

The food itself was amazing and actually very similar to the higher-end Indian restaurants in the UK. While I knew the UK had pretty much adopted Indian cuisine as their own, you never know how much a dish has been altered to suit a different population. Possibly my favourite meal was a huge rolled up bread stuffed with potato called a 'masala dosa', a dish from my friend's home in Southern India. It was quite the miracle I did not also have to be rolled out of the restaurant after consuming it.

The level of spice in the foods varied a great deal. We stuck to the lower end, partly through conscious choice but also just through the dishes I happen to select. My conclusion was that no one should be worried about visiting India if they are wary of hot foods; there is enough variety to suit everyone's palette.

On the forth day in Delhi, we visited old town and ate at a street restaurant. This was a moment of truth, since while the stuffed naans were of renowned greatness, they were being made right there on the street which screamed gut troubles with every bread-turn. Just to make it clear I was laughing in the face of danger, I had a tangy dessert from a street vendor.

... and I was fine. Actually, given my irritable bowel syndrome, this meant I was considerably better than usual.

There was only one possible conclusion to this: I was quite clearly also an INVINCIBLE SUPER-HUMAN! See that goat? I could eat it right off the street, hooves and all! Crunchy.

All and all, it was probably a good thing we were on a rickshaw by this stage, heading back out of the town.

Disaster did eventually strike two days later, in the early morning of the day I was to fly to the UK. It was not a big problem; I woke up with my stomach aching and had to tumble out of bed to the toilet. After I recovered, I noted I was low on toilet paper and thinking this had the potential to end badly in the face of a second attack, I went to ask at reception for a new roll.

It was about 6 am when I nudged the security guard awake. He did not speak any English and assumed I wanted to check out of the guest house. While I understood the initial confusion, I did rather feel that --upon taking a step back-- he should have realised that the bare-footed, pyjama wearing girl before him, brandishing an empty roll of toilet paper, did not really look ready to get into a taxi.

But no, this seemed entirely plausible to him.

He took the empty toilet roll from me and put it to one side. He lifted the check-out book. I ignored the book and re-claimed the empty toilet roll.

Rinse, repeat.

After about 15 very confused minutes during which I declined from making any more gestures that might have aided understanding, a second guard appeared. He sized up the situation before I spoke and said:

"Oh, you need more toilet tissue!"

Bingo.

After that, all went smoothly and by the time we touched down in London, I was right as rain and ready to make myself really and truly sick through the sheer number of chocolates in the house over Christmas. Bliss.

--
On an unrelated but frankly, awesome note: Thank you to Mynx for giving me a blog award from her own awesome site!
--
[In the photo above: top: the giant masala dosa, bottom left: street restaurant in old town Delhi, bottom right, the tangy dessert that is eaten in one gulp!]

Dressing in India

2012-01-05T04:21:00.001+09:00

Unlike in Japan, where kimonos and summer yukatas are normally confined to formal events or festivals, traditional Indian clothing is clearly still a common choice of attire in Delhi. My brief analysis in the subway cars we travelled on suggested roughly one third of people were dressed in traditional garments, both young and old, with the rest in western-style dress.

There are two main forms of Indian dress: the saree and the shalwar kameez. The former is worn by women and is a single strip of cloth draped over the body in a magical way that prevents it from sliding off in a heap. Saree colours are often bright and have really beautiful designs. I thought about buying one but --in a moment of damning honesty-- knew I'd never remember how to wear it.

People have been wearing sarees for thousands of years, with its origin tracing back to at least 2500 BC. It is featured in many Hindu epics, for example one in which the god Krishna protects the queen, Draupadi against humiliation by the foreign king, Dusshasan who attempts to publicly undress her by unwinding her saree. Krishna responded to Draupadi's frantic prayer by making the saree infinitely long until Dusshasan passes out from over work. (I should add that Draupadi had previously laughed at Dusshasan for believing a marble floor was actually water and lifting up his robes to step on it, but Krishna apparently considered that fair play).

The second form of Indian dress, the shalwar kameez, is traditionally a Muslim design but it now worn by people of all religious affiliations. The exception to this is in some Hindu temples, which may insist women wear skirts or sarees. Consisting of loose trousers with a thigh length or longer tunic, shalwar kameez can be worn by both men and women.

Contrary to the saree, this is a much easier design to wear and, rather surprisingly, I already possessed one, since the UK city of Leicester where my parents live has a large Indian population with the food and clothing to accompany the demographic. Sadly, I had left my shalwa kameez in the UK, although I almost robbed a French girl staying at the same guest house of hers which was in a stunning teal. Possibly though, it was for the best since when I mentioned this planned mugging to my friend she replied:

"Foreigners wear shalwa kameez with the most ridiculous things.... but they get away with it because they're foreign."

Hmm. Perhaps within India I should stick to jeans.

Many of the school uniforms for government-run schools I saw consisted of shalwa kameez, being a practical and unisex clothing to wear. Private schools tended to prefer jackets and ties.

Both sarees and shalwa kameez come in a myriad of colours and patterns. Going into a traditional clothing store involves being shown a dizzying display of fabrics. Customers sit before a shop assistant who pulls down a series of cloths, narrowing down the selection based on the customer's preference in both colour and design. Like with western attire, some colours are specifically used in special occasions. In Hindu traditions, for instance, red is the colour for the bride at weddings while white is reserved for widows. Given the amount of wine traditionally served at weddings, I couldn't help but feel that India had forestalled a very common problem.

Hair raising journeys

2012-01-02T03:39:00.001+09:00

Nothing prepares you for traffic in India.

Not even if you watched the UK Christmas special of 'Top Gear' in which the crazed presenters drove three beaten up cars from Mumbai into the Himalayas.

For a start, there is the sheer variety of traffic on the roads. There are the auto rickshaws --three-wheeled motorised taxis with yellow canvas tops and green open sides-- cycle rickshaws (same idea as autos but with more sweat required from your driver), cars, bikes, motorbikes, buses and the odd goat and donkey. All of which have their hands permanently on their horn. Especially the goats.

Then there is the fact that lanes are utterly ignored with significantly more parallel lines of traffic existing than the road markings would suggest was possible. More often than not, the boundary between traffic going in opposite directions is marked out with a solid barrier otherwise, quite frankly, everyone would be dead. Instead, this heaving mass of chaos somehow churns along and the railings between opposite sides of the road are used to hang clothes to dry. Add pedestrians retrieving their shirts to that list of road users above.

To complete the effect, every vehicle contains more people than it was designed to accommodate by at least a factor of three. During one particularly busy evening, I saw a family of four perched on a motorbike, six people crammed into a two-seater rickshaw with one sharing the driver's seat up front, and an entire extended family stuffed into car.

Nowhere is this mesmerizing carnage more apparent than in Old Delhi. While many parts of Delhi have tall modern brick buildings, Old Delhi is ... well... old. Buildings close almost to the point of touching over streets too narrow for cars, while the main thoroughfares run past mosques backed onto Sikh temples and houses than have been added to so many times magic seems to be involved in keeping them aloft. Driving through here --even as a passenger-- is both culturally exhilarating and a so-far-unlisted extreme sport.

Most bizarrely, all of this is in complete contrast to the Delhi Metro, which is a example of slick, sparkling efficiency as it glides under the car-rickshaw-bike-goat mayhem on the streets above. Admittedly, half of its calmness was due to the existence of female-only carriages which meant my friend and I were never over-crowded, but even aside from this, it was still one of the most modern and clean train systems I have ever travelled on, including Japan. It is also one of the most extensive in the world, before you suspect they just added it in for the Commonwealth Games, held in Delhi in 2010, although there was an extension during that time.

Apart from the obvious difference from the area which you have just tumbled down from, the strangest aspect of the metro system is the security. On the surface, it appears to be very tight; you have to walk through a metal detector and submit to a pat-down to board the trains, while any bags are passed through an x-ray scanner. What is peculiar is that it is not at all obvious what the security guards are looking for. Since I wore a travel wallet underneath the waistband of my trousers, I set the metal detector off without fail each and every time I passed through.

And this was just fine.

No one asked me what I was carrying or requested to inspect it. I was just waved right through with my potentially life-threatening weaponry stuffed into my panties^[*]. The same was true at almost every tourist site we visited where similar security measures were in operation. The two exceptions were at the Taj Mahal and the Akshardham Hindu Temple, the former of which only wanted verbal confirmation I wasn't about to light up a smoke on the marble plinth. (Admittedly, the latter didn't allow so much as a camera into their premises and required you to empty your bag on video camera and then hand it over for storage. THEN they scanned you. Possibly, this was over-compensation for the rest of the city).

As for the metro, maybe the line of thought was that it was doubtful anyone could conceal anything more dangerous than the walk to the underground station.

--
[*] I hasten to add, the travel wallet DOES NOT stuff into my knickers, but it would require inspection to confirm this.

Photos taken while precariously balanced on a cycle rickshaw travelling through Old Delhi.

I see dead people

2011-12-30T03:34:00.001+09:00

It is a strange fact that the best people to visit in Delhi are dead. Since Hindu death rituals involve cremation, rather than burial, only the tombs of India's Islamic rulers survive as monuments to its history. Oddly, there are very few examples of palaces for these ancient rulers with even the Taj Mahal --India's most famous landmark-- being a mausoleum built for the third wife of the Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan. One is forced to conclude that each ruler dedicated his time to building the most magnificent resting place possible, while camped at the construction site in a degradable mud hut.

The fee to entre the main tourist sites around India is two tiered, with the fee for foreigners typically over a factor of ten higher than that for Indians. Still, even with this discrepancy, the cost was not unreasonable being typically 250 rupees or about $5. (The Taj Mahal was the high exception at 750 rupees for foreigners but then... it was the Taj Mahal). I didn't feel this difference was unfair, since maintenance of these buildings must be fairly phenomenal yet a single price would mean most locals couldn't enjoy their own city. My friend pointed out the only possible problem would be for visitors from countries such as Sri Lanka, whose economy was weaker than India's own. Possibly, the solution would be for them to claim to be local. With 1,652 mother tongues recorded in the Indian 1961 census, it would be hard to prove otherwise.

We started our exploration of India's great dead at the Qutub Minar: a tower 72.5 meters high made of red sandstone with decorative elements reflecting both Islamic and Hindu styles. Its construction was begun by the first Sultan of Delhi, Qutb-ud-din Aibak in 1192 and completed by his slave-turned-son-in-law and third Sultan, Iltutmish (and you thought America was the land of opportunity). The latter's tomb is in the same complex along with a few other Sultan's.

From there, we moved onto Lodi Gardens where multiple tombs from the 15th century lie in extensive gardens where families were picnicking and other... uh, soon-to-be-families... were doing slightly more than picnicking. Like in Chile, children in India typically live with their families until marriage, making the possibility of 'getting a room' rather slim. Also like Chile, there are stray, but friendly, dogs everywhere. Woof.

Next we visited Emperor Humayun's tomb, commissioned in 1562 by the Emperor's wife. Not only does this vast building contain the impressive resting place of the above mentioned deceased, but its plinth houses a further fifty-six cells in which rest over 100 other gravestones. Slightly strangely, these hangers-on are not all neatly stashed away inside the rooms but a select few seem randomly dropped outside the door as if left there by mistake. I suggested this was laziness on behalf of the people charged to do the burying while my friend opted for a building error like in 'Sim City' where you mistakenly place objects with an accidental click of a mouse button.

Some tombs, like the one above, were built by the grieving loved ones of the deceased as either a loving memorial or out of desire to maintain their own status. More tombs, however, were built by their owner during his lifetime. This seems a somewhat morbid occupation for a king, and doubly odd since no sign of where he might have lived in life survives.

The one exception to this is the Red Fort in Delhi. Outside, it appears to be a stronghold in red sandstone but, rather like a cream filled chocolate, once through its forbidding walls you reach an area of extravagant pleasure in white marble. Built in the 17th century, it was the residence of the royal family, with open walled buildings through which waterways ran. Clearly, one was suppose to laze by the pool side and.... think about the tomb you wanted to construct.

--
[Top image, clockwise from top left: the Qutub Minar, Lodi gardens, the Red Fort in Delhi and Humayun's tomb]

Hello!

2011-12-28T03:33:00.001+09:00

We were at one of the main tourist sites of Delhi and I was being mauled by children.

"Hello!"

"Take my photo!"

"And me!"

"Us! Us!"

It was good that my friend had warned me this might happen or I might have suspected such enthusiasm was a distraction to lift my purse; not an uncommon occurrence in parts of southern Europe. However, these children genuinely wanted to say hello to the foreigner, shake hands and have their photo taken. Some of them approached shyly in ones and twos and held out their hand with a polite 'hello', but others decided numbers were the key and surrounded me in an excited bubble.

"These are not private schools," my friend explained. "Their families are not so well off so they might not have seen a camera many times before."

I was surprised by this since the children were all dressed in immaculate uniforms that looked better than most of the private schools at home. There were several different schools visiting this site today, with the group currently accosting me wearing western-style white shirts and dark blue sweaters. Another group that were due to jump me in about 3 minutes wore white shalwar kameez --traditional dress consisting of loose trousers covered with a thigh-length tunic-- and a burgundy school sweater over the top.

Presentation, my friend explained, is important in Indian schools and there are monitors appointed to check the children arrive dressed neatly.

It was still impressive. To me, white trousers and a day trip did not equal long standing aesthetic bliss but apparently India manages it.

Things never to be experienced

2011-12-27T01:21:00.001+09:00

"I finally got confirmation of your room reservation this morning." The friend I was visiting in India told me once we has piled into an airport taxi. "If I hadn't, I would have had to put you in my friend's room but... then you would have had to deal with the toilets."

"I'm sure I could have managed." I told her with cheerful bravado.

"No." She shook her head adamantly. "Some things should not be experienced."

Probably best not to over think that one.

India welcomes clean people

2011-12-25T20:48:00.001+09:00

"We will now begin a disinfectant spray. This is government regulations."

I straightened from the slumped position in my seat that I had gradually sunk into during the flight connection from Hong Kong to Delhi. Sprayed?! What was the implication here? I had showered that morning! Admittedly, given the length of the flight from Sapporo and the different time zones, 'that morning' was a slightly vague concept but I was clean! Probably.

(I was to learn later that no one would think this was true, since there was a belief in India that people from cold countries didn't bother washing nearly as much as they should.)

Flight attendants started to walk down the aisles holding three smoking canisters that resembled the cockroach bomb I had used in my apartment in New York. This unfortunate analogy didn't help my feeling of affrontation. The smell from the smoke was sickly sweet and those with contact lenses were advised to close their eyes. I coughed.

It amused me that such precautions were necessary for India; a country whose big cities battled against congested traffic and pollution. In fact, it seemed more the sort of precaution that Japan might introduce. I hoped no one suggested it to them.

Oddly, the same de-roaching process was repeated on the way out. Seemingly, not only was it forbidden to remove the currency from the country but also any top secret germs you might have stolen while in residence.

However, for now it was over and with a bump, we had landed in India. One plane of squeaky clean passengers safe for admission.

Slippery grips

2011-12-24T22:46:00.001+09:00

I have discovered the all-time greatest invention in the world.

... if you live in a snow filled city with an ethos that suggests snowploughs are for the weak.

It is true that the heaps of powdery white flakes in Sapporo interspersed with trees covered in Christmas lights have a story book beauty. But no Disney princess ever stepped outside to slide across the street on her backside and break every bone in her skinny body. After a month of snow, I concluded that this was the most unrealistic part of fairy tales; Cinderella should have attended the ball on crutches and the Sleeping Beauty laid in traction on her bed.

The main roads through Sapporo are scrapped by snowploughs yet, compared to Canada, still seem buried for a large part of the day. I'm unsure whether this is a reflection of the relative quantities of snow in Sapporo versus Toronto or a nature-produced traffic calming measure encouraged by the Hokkaido government.

Pavements, by contrast, are not cleared at all. There is no obligation by home owners to clear the walkway in front of their house and --with the exception of the fronts of some businesses or apartment complexes-- the snow mounts up to form a bumpy slick causeway.

There isn't an easy solution to this. While I lived in Canada, I was legally obliged to clear the pavement around my apartment. This was a good (if tedious) idea in principal, but I often found that the thin layer of ice that would appear a minute after clearing was more deadly to traverse than the snow. Indeed, the hardest area on which to walk in Sapporo are the clearer roads which often are covered in black ice. Typically, within this category, the most treacherous surface are the white lines of the pedestrian crossing; a fact that makes me convinced all the city officials go to the southern island of Kyushu over the winter.

Work has become a dangerous expedition. Lunch, doubly so.

Then I saw the solution. Hanging up in the University's bookstore were a pair of crampon-esque attachments. Consisting of studs affixed to a rubber strap, these snap over the soles of your shoes to provide a better grip on snow covered surfaces. Amazingly, not only do they fit my shoes easily, they also make a significant difference, halving the time it now takes me to get anywhere in the city.

Admittedly, there is not much that can help you with ice on roadways, but for the slippery snow piles on the pavements they are unbeatable.

I was so much in love with this clothing addition, I've brought them to India. You can NEVER TELL when you might need such items. Armageddon? Bring it on.

Covering options

2011-12-11T18:45:00.001+09:00

In preparation for my trip next week, I needed to buy travel insurance. Since I would be away from Japan for almost three months in total, health coverage was my primary concern along with an extra boost in case one of my 101 connecting flights left me checking airport vending machines for a turkey Christmas dinner.

Hokkaido University sold such insurance packages and so on Thursday afternoon, I skidded across to the appropriate building. With me, I towed one of my friends to act as a translator, all the while assuring her that buying travel insurance was first class practice for writing her thesis, the draft of which was due the following week.

At the appropriate desk, we examined the brochure of options. My type of trip had a choice of three different packages for coverage. Each of these included a set amount for health costs, lost luggage, missed flight and --on a cheerful note-- compensation for death by illness and death by wounding.

The first three of these categories had different maximum amounts, depending on the option you selected. This was all good and understandable; depending on the number of flight
connections you would make, the value of your luggage and your
propensity for tightrope walking without a safety harness, you might
want more or less coverage in these areas. What was rather more perplexing was that while 'death by illness' had the same fixed amount in all cases, you could select different sums for 'death by wounding'.

Now, let us think about the thought process that must go into such a decision. Presumably, it starts as follows:

"Hmm. Yes, it is rather likely I will be stabbed to death in a dark alleyway on this visit."

OK, there are probably circumstances in which such a conclusion is inevitable. However, SURELY most people would CANCEL THEIR TRIP as opposed to thinking:

"I better take out the extended coverage for death by knifing in dark alleyways."

But no! Apparently, there are a whole class of people who, faced with probable death by violent homicide, consider the prudent course of action to take out more insurance.

GUYS! YOU DON'T GET TO SPEND IT!

I kept to the basic level of insurance for this nicety and pocketed the extra cash. Then I spent it. That's how to live, people.

Cutting it fine

2011-12-07T00:29:00.001+09:00

One morning I looked in the mirror and realised something profound:

I looked like a hedgehog.

For me, the state of my hair is a step function; everything is just fine until EXPLODING SPINY HEDGEPIGS! It's really not. This is probably more a reflection of my tolerance level than the actual process of hairstyle degradation but then, I only got furniture a couple of weeks ago so I think I can be forgiven for having my mind on other matters.

There was also the fact that I could see a trip to the salon going horribly and awfully wrong. For a start, I wasn't yet at the stage where I could have a remotely useful conversation about such a topic in Japanese. I knew the word for 'cut' and for 'hair' but that much was probably deducible from my presence in the shop. I suspected that, even with a photo, any hairdresser would feel anxious about wielding items with (quickly) irreversible effects without more than optimistic finger snipping motions from their client.

Then there was the fact that my hair wasn't typical of the local population. Quite how different Asian and Western hair was for a stylist was a mystery. I wouldn't have thought my hair was particularly tricky; it has a slight wave and a cowslick but it's not a pile of tight ringlets. Still, since I had yet to meet the Japanese pop star of my dreams, I hadn't had the opportunity to run my fingers through other locks to find out.

Being as it was the beginning of December, I could have gritted my teeth for another few weeks and just had it cut in the UK. However, this did not really seem like a long-term solution. Instead, I sent a message to a fellow Sapporo blogger who was originally from South Africa. She had an inviting button on her website labelled 'Ask' which was probably designed to instigate insightful questions such as 'What are your views on the Japanese economy?' or 'Is teaching abroad challenging?' or maybe 'Do you miss zebras?'. What she got from me was 'Do you know of an English speaking hairdresser in Sapporo?' Mundane but oh, what an amazingly affirmative answer! I made an appointment the following weekend and a mental note to ask about zebras later.

Rie from 'Earth' salon trained in London and had lived there for ten years. She was therefore fluent in English, used to Western hair and knew some aspects of the Japanese hairdressing experience would take me by surprise. Like the fact they cover your face with a towel while they wash your hair. Had she not warned me, I might have taken that rather personally.

After the shampoo came a massage. This wasn't just a scalp rub during the wash, but a head, neck and shoulder kneading that lasted about ten minutes. To be honest, I wasn't wearing the best sweater for this; it was a thick white fleece that the girl performing the massage declared was 'fuwa-fuwa', a Japanese onomatopoeia (read: peculiar sound) used for all things furry.

"Have you heard of Reiki?" Rie asked me when she returned. "People say it's Japanese, but we've never heard of it! Reiki?" she asked the girl massaging my shoulders. She got a completely blank look in return. "See?"

Rie took over and began to cut my hair. "When I first moved to London," she told me. "I was too scared to go to a salon because I didn't speak English at the time. Did you feel the same?"

... was there something about my current hair style that suggested the answer to this might be yes?

Rie told me that not only is Asian hair a very different texture from my own Caucasian strands but also the head shape is distinct, being typically flatter at the back. This makes the cut a significantly tailored process. She took a brief note of my photo but then went her own direction, sweeping my hair towards the front. I went slightly cross-eyed as a lock fell between by eyes. She gave it a trim.

"Your hair doesn't want to fall in a parting, it wants to go in a swirl."

I hoped this wasn't a new bodily commentary about the state of my life.

At the end of the cut, I was offered another rinse, but since everything had been beautifully styled I declined. Peaking in the mirror on the way out, I thought the result was slightly Asian.... you know, in a blond haired, blue eyed, pointy nosed sort of way. Maybe it will help with my language skills. Beats talking to a hedgehog in any case.

Silver & Rupees

2011-12-03T00:11:00.001+09:00

Banks in Japan have not yet taken to the notion of convenient opening hours. This includes CitiBank which, despite being a branch of an American business, has hours only between 9am and 3pm, Monday to Friday.

It was therefore Friday lunchtime when I slipped my way along the snow-packed street to see if I could acquire some Indian rupees for my trip in two weeks.

The answer was no.

But the woman at the branch did give me a map, directing me to the location of a currency exchange two blocks further south. Sliding along the ice and thinking this was almost thick enough for skates, I arrived at the "Travelex" kiosk, which was hidden inside a different bank, tucked out of sight of the entrance between the ATM and toilets, as if it were rather an embarrassing act to want to change Japanese Yen for any other currency.

Given the current state of the Euro, I could see where they were coming from.

"I'd like to exchange Yen for Indian rupees," I told the lady at the counter.

She checked her computer system, but then shook her head. "I'm sorry, we do not offer Indian rupees."

"... Can you not order them?" I could understand not having all currencies in stock, but surely they could be acquired.

Again she shook her head. "We do not offer them," she repeated. "I have Indonesian rupiah."

I appreciated the effort at a compromise, but unfortunately this was going to be an area where I stubbornly stuck to my original request quite beyond all reason.

"I really need Indian rupees," I persisted. "Since I'm going to India."

"Ah," the woman nodded as if agreeing this would be a problem. "You cannot get them in Japan."

No where in Japan?! I didn't quite know what to say to such blanket authority so I thanked her and left. It was only when I was half way back to campus (this taking a considerable period of time due to the weather) that I remembered reading on the website for 'The Rough Guide' that rupees were not supposed to be taken out of India. The guide had focussed on visitors with spare change and had said that, while this rule was not strictly enforced, there were currency exchanges at the airport for this reason. It had not occurred to me before now that such a rule would prevent me taking out cash in advance.

This wasn't a particular problem; since I was travelling to Delhi, any major bank in the city would likely accept either cash or credit card.

Clearly, this was just simply a case where it doesn't pay to be too organised. Literally.

Hello home!

2011-11-27T16:41:00.001+09:00

I sat on the corner of my bed and debated whether I was pleased that I had understood the last twenty minutes of the moving men's Japanese conversation or disturbed that it had consisted solely of the phrases:

"This is difficult, isn't it?"

and

"Dangerous, dangerous!"

How the movers had got my office desk into the elevator was to be a mystery for all time. Later, when the movers went back to the truck to collect more boxes, I sneaked out of my apartment and took a look down the hallway. As far as I could see, the lift was unaltered. Maybe, like the Harry Potter Room of Requirement, such feats could only be achieved in times of dire need. Such as when the alternative was nine flights of outdoor concrete steps in a snow storm.

Now though, the desk was wedged between my doorway and the bathroom as it was inched painstakingly around the two right angle bends into my main room. The walls, floors and fitted cupboards had all been covered with thick protective paper. My online dictionary had informed me that string had just been called for, possibly to reattach the fingers of the mover who had just shouted 'dangerous!'.

I was promptly seized by a strong desire to use the toilet.

Instead, I decided to live blog the entire proceeding on Facebook.

Then, two amazing events occurred. The first was that the desk was in my apartment and no one had died. The second was that it was a perfect fit for the alcove by my window. It could have been made for it... by a different architect to the one who had designed the entrance way. The fit was so snug that it wasn't possible for the person lifting the back of the desk to escape once it was in place. Personally, I would have got the desk near enough and pushed, but this was evidently not the slap-dash solution that was acceptable in Japan. Instead, one of the movers backed into the corner and then climbed out through the window onto the balcony, returning through the patio doors.

... then they realised they hadn't put the metal feet back on the desk.

Back the man climbed, the feet fitted and the desk lifted back into position. I could really only gape in admiration. After this came the bookcases, the desk chair, the dresser and boxes and boxes of books.

"I like books," I told the men cheerfully in Japanese.

If I were honest, I'd say the resulting laughter was rather dry.

I sat on my bed with the list of boxes I had been given in Canada. As each new box came in, one of the movers shouted the number out in English. I repeated it in Japanese and we both ticked it off our lists.

There was something slightly odd about that, but I didn't have time to dwell on it.

Finally, everything was in my apartment apart from the sofabed which seemed to be taking 5 in the hallway. Then the men started opening the boxes.

They were going to unpack. Seriously?!

THIS WAS THE GREATEST THING EVER!

I suppose since the company in Canada had packed, unpacking was part of the service but I was still taken by surprise. Not that I was about to complain; possibly the greatest part of this would be that the movers would take away all the empty boxes. In a place where my trash was already sorted into seven different containers, I did not relish the prospect of dealing with all the cardboard.

One of the men lifted up a collection of small books and studied the covers for a moment. "Japanese," he said in surprise. "Tenisu no Oujisama."

"Echizen Ryoma." Another of the other movers volunteered the progenitor's name in the series.

Oh guys, you have only just touched on my obsession here. Wait until you find the other comics, the CD singles and the fan-made, explicitly drawn, doujinshi manga...

... actually, I should probably find that first. Grabbing a likely looking box, I ripped off the tape.

In another box, my astrophysics texts had been found. One of the men lifted up the copy of "An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics" with two hands and an expression that said he'd found the reason he wasn't going to be able to walk tomorrow morning.

"Tenmongaku," I said cheerfully. "Astronomy."

"Hn," came the disgruntled answer.

My queen-sized duvet had become the flattened size of a pillow during its three months of captivity. I fluffed it about and then left it in a corner to think about air.

Finally (now there was some floor space) the sofabed was guided into position and --just for that final mind blowing effort-- one of the movers polished the floor with a cloth in case he had left a mark. It was doubtful he had; before they started the agonising process of getting the desk into the apartment, all the movers had politely taken off their shoes. Only in Japan.

Japan is a totally non-tipping culture. You don't leave extra money in restaurants, taxis or bars. Nevertheless, these movers had done an extraordinary job and I would have liked to give them something. I dug out my computer from under the inflating duvet and sent out a quick message to a Japanese friend:

"Can I tip?"

She wrote back, "You don't have to, but you can if you think they were really good."

I glanced over at the desk. Hell yes.

As the men prepared to leave, I handed one of the movers a small pile of notes. He stepped back in refusal but took them when I tried to explain that I thought their work had been amazing. Hopefully this means that tipping was OK and not that I have condemned him to a life of HARDSHIP, PAIN and MISERY while he tries to explain the extra income to his boss, his wife and his particularly accusatory pet dog.

Then they were gone. I moved from the cushion on the floor to the sofa and examined the contents of the room. Ooh, hello snowboots, how I've missed you!

The times they are a-changin'

2011-11-23T10:30:00.000+09:00

There is a saying among the Japanese that Japan is the only country to have four seasons.

Obviously, this is complete crap

... and yet ...

There is no denying that Japan pays some serious dues to the turning of the year. The most famous seasonal change is the fleeting appearance of the cherry blossoms heralding the arrival of spring. These pink and white delicate delights deck the trees for no more than a few weeks, but are probably more photographed during their brief lifetime than Britain’s newly wed royal couple.

Prior to this year, Autumn for me had been that drawn-out wet interval between summer and winter in which I stopped considering myself dressed without a sweater. At some point during that period, the tree leaves would change colour and and fall, leaving their hosts standing around like forgotten clothes racks for months on end.

In Sapporo, it turned out to be quite impossible not to fully appreciate the spectacular foliage.

This was because every man and his dog was on campus, taking photographs with giant zoom lenses. It was stop or be penetrated in a place that would give both you and the would-be viewers of the picture collection a nasty surprise.

To be fair, the colours were amazing. I am unsure whether it was to do with the number of trees, the fact they were all deciduous or if the range of hue was just particularly large. Trees with bark that appeared almost black were donned with leaves in a uniform deep red. Along one of the main roads, more trees in orange, yellows and pale greens tangled their branches in a mix that gave me an unnatural urge^[*] to decorate my entire apartment like a pumpkin. There were areas away from the road where the leaves had been allowed to collect in a carpet of rust and gold; the ultimate honey trap for the visiting photographers.

On my less amenable days when my focus was lunch, not leaves, I did think it was a pity that said leafy ball pens couldn’t be booby-trapped to superglue all the visitors in one place and out of my way. However, their cameras did look passingly like rifles and, given the convenience of Japanese technology, it was probably best not to risk anything.

"Snow next week." I was told grimly when I finally escaped the heaving Nikon mass to reach the department.

Feh, snow! The start of winter is never exciting. Rain that you have to squint sideways at to see that it's actually slush, not even a dusting of white on the pavement. The only disappointment is the likelihood of it knocking the leaves prematurely from the trees.

I woke up on the morning of the expected snowfall and looked out of my window.

Bam. Goodbye Autumn. Hello Winter.

“Is this unusual?” I asked my friends once I had bundled on all the clothes I had brought with me from Canada and skidded into work. “Shouldn’t there be.... well... a gap between the height of Autumn and that of Winter?”

“Actually, the snow is kind of late this year,” came the reply.

"But...." I protested. "They'll be a mix of days? Some snow, then warm then..."

I received blank looks in return.

No, it is now winter. Get with the program.

--
[*] No one would has seen me wield a paintbrush would consider such an endevour a good idea.

The beauty of tea

2011-11-21T08:30:00.000+09:00

There were two handle-less cups in front of me. One was an emerald green on the outside but white within. It was empty apart from a few dregs of damp green leaves stuck to its bottom. The second, wider cup, was made of porcelain in a light brown with leaves etched onto its surface. It held a freshly brewed black tea. Transferring my attention to this more promising item, I lifted the cup by pressing both sets of fingers to its rim and sipped.

"Did we need to change cups?" the woman sitting beside me inquired to our host, a Japanese lady who was the librarian in the Physics department. She had kindly invited me and the other female foreign professor in the department to her house for dinner. We had eaten nabe; a dish in which multiple foods are cooked in boiling water on a portable stove placed at the centre of the table. Our nabe had contained chicken, scallops, tofu and noodles. Removing chicken from the bone with chopsticks while trying to maintain the very greatest of manners was not easy. I wasn't totally sure I had succeeded. Still, no one had reacted in horror and thrown me off the balcony and some days, you have to consider that a success.

We had now moved onto tea, an area where I felt far more confident. I was British after all. The British understand tea.

I had presumed that we had been offered clean cups because the tea blend had changed. I personally would have been happy using the same container, but there was a delicateness to the way our host had added boiling water to a jug before dividing it perfectly between the three cups that suggested such reuse would be a crime against nature.

Our host however, shook her head. "There is no rule," she told us. "But green tea looks best when it is in a cup with a white interior." She indicated the pale ceramic of the empty vessels on the table. This elicited a nod of deep understanding from the other professor.

If I was strictly honest, I couldn't see much of a difference in shade between the inside of my first cup and the one I was holding now. This probably suggested I was barbarically uncultured. I examined my tea. This in itself was a strange act.

Rising from the table, our host opened a cabinet that seemed to contain a wide variety of different crockery. She held out a red cup. "This would be bad for red tea," she told us. "But good for coffee."

I sadly concluded I did not in fact understand tea. There was a whole school of aesthetics that our brown teapot at home had never fully epitomized.

In defense of tomorrow

2011-11-19T01:55:00.001+09:00

"What is the meaning of this Kanji?" Our teacher highlighted two Chinese characters on the sheet being projected to the screen in front of us. One looked a bit like a flower. The other, like a child's climbing frame.

"らいねん," we volunteered as a class. "Next year."
来年 rai-nen.

"And this one?"

The flower was still there but the climbing frame had been replaced by a broken ladder with the bottom-most rung twisted free.

"らいげつ," we replied. "Next month."
来月 rai-getsu.

"How about this one?"

Again, the same flower but now alongside a small chest of drawers.

"らいにち," we started confidently and then paused. "… next day?"
来日 rai-nichi.

"In this case," our teacher explained. "日 (nichi) is understood as if it were 日本 (nihon), Japan. So it means: 'coming to Japan'."

There was a silence as we took this in.

"…. why doesn't it mean 'next day'…?" asked someone at last.
a.k.a. Defend your language, Japanese person!

Our teacher paused. "Well, what is the Japanese for 'next day' or tomorrow?"

"あした," we all chorused.
明日　ashita.

"Yes. That's why."
a.k.a. Silence, you foreigners!

--
(Note: らいねん, らいげつ, らいにち and あした are written in the phonetic Japanese script, hiragana.)

Betrayal

2011-11-13T00:30:00.001+09:00

I feel so betrayed.

It all began when I set out on an outrageous quest to buy a new pair of trainers. The ones I was currently wearing looked fine, but the sole was thin and I was getting blisters.

While Sapporo is surrounded by high mountains, the city itself is amazingly flat. This makes it great for walking, causing me to neglect all forms of public transport and hop around the city like a teenager without a driving license. The upshot of this was that I had found the location of 101 backstreet Raman bars and had craters in my feet that looked like there were rodent-sized bed bugs hiding in my futon.

I was reasonably sure it was the shoes.

The pair I wanted were in a deep rust-colour and looked more like a fashion shoe than sports equipment. Despite this, they had a proper sole that was used throughout the brand's entire "easytone" range that included designs for serious gym workouts. This --I decided-- should allow me dress as if I were going to check out a few shops, but still provide enough suspension for a 10 mile run around the town. No one would suspect my crazy ways, oh no! At least, not until I hurtle into them.

The first shop I tried was in the indoor mall on the east side of town. They had the shoes in stock, but the largest size was a UK 5.5 (about a US women's 8). I normally take a UK 6, but I gave the 5.5 a try. Two minutes inside that shoe confirmed that I would have to lose at least three toes for a proper fit and somehow I didn't think that would help my walking problems. Peeved, but undefeated, I set off to the centre of town to try another few stores.

... only to find exactly the same problem.

I have never considered my feet large. In fact, I always thought I was a little smaller than average. It turns out this was a mistake.

I clearly have the foot size of an obese yeti.

"Maximum size." One of the shop attendants finally broke it to me, tapping the squiffy 5.5 box with a finger. He held out a different trainer in the 'easytone' men's range. "We have these in a 6."

To be fair, these other shoes were pretty nice. They just weren't the cute, golden brown chestnut delights I had completely set my heart on. The sort of shoes that I had determined it would be impossible to look bad in due to their radiative glow of adorable magnificence.

.... When you're coming from such an angle, it is hard to consider a different design.

A look around the shop did inform me that I was just unlucky with that particular brand. Other shoes for woman went up to at least a UK 6 or 7. Apparently, the 'easytone' shoes were very much focussed on the petit Japanese woman. As I left, I went back and glanced at the box of the shoes I was forbidden to wear.

The brand was Reebox.

A British brand.

Made only for Japanese women.

I feel so betrayed.

Nobody could make this up

2011-11-10T19:46:00.001+09:00

"Welcome to Japan."

It was a promising start to an email that was from a relocation company in Tokyo, the people who had just taken over the details of the shipment of my possessions from Canada.

The movers had come at the end of August and squirrelled away my worldly goods, whereupon they were taken first to Toronto and then to Vancouver, before being loaded onto a boat to Hong Kong.

I have no idea why we had to go via China. Maybe it was ex-Commonwealth love for Hong Kong or because all goods come from China, so they feel obliged to drop back in once in a while.

Last Tuesday, I was informed the shipment with my beloved artifacts had left Chinese shores and would arrive in Yokohama in a week. Yokohama is south of Tokyo, so still a good 700 miles from Sapporo but considerably nearer than Vancouver. At this point, everything would need to clear Japanese customs.

The relocation company requested I mail them the following documents in preparation:

(1) A clear copy of my passport showing the photo page

(2) The customs form I had filled in when I entered Japan, stating there would be unaccompanied articles to follow.

(3) A copy of my most recent immigration entry stamp.

(4) And finally, a copy of my work visa page which must be valid for at least one year.

The one I was clearly not expected to have was number (2), the request for which was followed by a slightly panicked note saying "Hoping you have chance to complete this form during your arrival in Japan??". There was no need to worry, I had remembered to fill in the appropriate form in duplicate, keeping one copy back for this purpose.

No. The problem was so much worse than that.

I had a visa, but it had been issued for a single year since the start of my position last July. This meant it was only valid for another 8 months.

Hmm --I hear you say-- perhaps you could renew your visa now and ask for the process to be expedited?

Such a course of action might well be worth investigating, if my passport had any free double pages.

It does not.

I have two single pages devoid of stamps, but a visa requires a clear double page. My plan was to renew my passport when I returned to the UK at Christmas, thereby acquiring a whole book full of deliciously blank sheets for inky fingered border control guards to smudge up like kids on a crayola high.

Could extra space be quickly added to my passport? The UK passport office has the following to say on the subject of additional pages:

27. Can the Passport Office add pages to my current passport if it is full?
No.

Well then, perhaps I could renew my passport in Japan instead? It transpires, however, that the British Embassy in Tokyo no longer issues British passports. Rather, you must send your application to Hong Kong (anyone seeing a sinister pattern emerging here?) who then send everything away to the UK. The processing time --the webpage ironically entitled 'Help for British Nationals' informed me-- would take at least four weeks.

I leave Japan in 5.

And I'm not back until February 25th.

With my cat.

If I was just heading off on a single jaunt for those two months, I could probably postpone my trip, clear everything through customs and then leave the country knowing all is well in hand. As it happens, the exit next month marks the start of a round-the-world trip that sees me spending a week in India, home for Christmas in the UK and then onto Canada to work at my old institution for 7 weeks. Awesomely great. Awesomely awful to cancel.

Fortunately, the relocation company I was now dealing with seemed to have a practical mindset. Their suggestion was we send in the documents as if there is no problem and see what happens.

And if they send everything back to Canada…. well, I'll see it there.

Musical chairs

2011-11-09T23:18:00.005+09:00

I had thought the Shinkansen seats were cool. They had the power sockets, the cybonic up-right chair backs and the leg room needed to satisfy a wookie with no knees. By the time I reached downtown Sapporo, I realised they were nothing more than second-rate, yesteryear designs in the same category as tape recorders and ball point pens.

It was true that the train that dragged itself up to the platform at New Chitose Airport did not look like it had the capacity to rock my world. It appeared as the standard rattly locomotive that did the subway rounds. Motion in general did not seem to be a strong priority, either in getting to our final destination of showing up at the airport in the first place.

I stepped on board behind an elderly man who was using his wheeled suitcase as a cane. We entered one of the back carriages to see the seats all facing the rear of the train. I was unfazed by this. My childhood Hornby model railway set had taught me that locomotives can clip equally onto the back and front of trains, so it was inevitable that sometimes the seats would be reversed. It was perhaps a little unfortunate, since I found that travelling with my back to the engine occasionally made me travel sick. However, since all the seats in this carriage faced the same way, I could probably vomit over the person in front of me and be off the train before they could truly kick up a fuss.

The old man was having none of it.

He released one hand from his suitcase and grabbed the handle on the side of one of the seats. With a squeaking of hinges, the back of the chair slid over the seat cushion to clunk down on the opposite side. The man then sat and looked expectantly out of the window towards the direction we were headed.

Well, that was surprising.

I took a quick look around the carriage and then gingerly stood up and pulled on my own seat handle. With an identical thump, the seat direction also reversed, accidentally crushing my carry-on as it did. I sat down hastily.

Shortly after this discovery, a group of school kids climbed on board. They proceeded to redesign the rest of the carriage, making some seats face each other and others stand in rows. It was possibly a complex reflection of their social network or more probably the result of each boy feeling the urge to move a least one chair before sitting down.

Rather like the desire to use the bathroom as soon as an exam starts, it only now occurred to me that I really wanted to take a photo of a chair half-way through its repositioning. There was the perfect single seat right in front of me but it contained a small girl.

A line of thought suggested that this wasn't really a barrier to me suddenly moving it.

I suppressed the notion.

Fortunately for all, the girl exited the train at the next station and, as we started to move again, I leaned forward and pushed on the seat handle, snapping a photo as the chair back moved. Behind me, the gaggle of boys went briefly quiet. I did not turn around. Travel on a UK train, kids, and you'll be composing Haiku to these by the time you return.

License to drink

2011-11-08T15:05:00.001+09:00

I walked boldly through the partitioned walkway to the security gate at Tokyo's Hanada airport. Nestled within my grey carry-on was one 150 ml bottle of moisturiser and a full sized tube of toothpaste (extra minty). Tucked into an outside pocket of my red rucksack was --bold as brass-- a bottle of fizzy orange soda I'd bought at a convenience store in downtown Tokyo.

Basically, I was armed up to the teeth.

Without hesitation, I dropped my pack onto the conveyor belt for the x-ray machine and then lifted out my laptop from the rucksack. That at least I had the good manners to declare, laying it gently in its own tray to be scanned separately.

"Anything in your coat pockets?" the security guard asked me, glancing briefly at my boarding pass for Sapporo.

Hell yes! My phone, wallet, keys and --just for good measure-- a sachet of liquid bubble bath I'd swiped from the hotel bathroom. I don't believe in doing things by half. Without bothering to list these items, I slid my arms out of the sleeves and slung the gortex onto another tray. Then, without even removing my shoes (possibly for the first time ever in a Japanese public building), I marched through the people scanner.

My carry-on, laptop and coat were already waiting for me at the other end. My rucksack was brought through by a security guard. He tapped the bottle of pop. "Check?" he asked.

I indicated he should go right ahead but as soon as he lifted the bottle he lost interest. "It's not open."

"No, still sealed," I agreed.

Contrarily, he slid it back into the pocket on the opposite side of the bag and handed bag plus bottle back to me. I went over to my gate and crack the top. Somehow it tastes so much better when it's brought from the other side of security.

When my flight came to board, I scanned my own boarding pass at the gate. Not once did I show any of the multiple forms of identification I was carrying^[*]. My demonic plans for world domination were now irrevocably set.

Sitting next to me on the plane was a passenger with a stinking cold. He proceeded to buy two cans of beer.

.... might have to put a hold on domination plans until after Christmas.

--
[*] Note to self, birth records of all family members dating back to 1742 are not required on Japanese domestic flights.

Innovation of the work called programming

2011-11-07T12:38:00.001+09:00

The theoretical astrophysics meeting at the National Observatory of Japan in Tokyo is primarily aimed at graduate students and as such, is one of the few science conferences to be held in Japanese. Despite this sounding like a recipe for unimaginable PAIN, CONFUSION and DISTRESS, I was chilled out for two reasons:

Firstly, I was informed my primary directive was to present myself to the Japan astronomy circuit which I pretty much achieved by walking through the door and eating sushi at the evening dinner.

Secondly, it was a theorist meeting. The talks were BOUND to have pretty movies. Words are so overrated. They are what observers need to justify strange grey blobs.

In fact, attending the talks turned out to be a bizarre walk through the babyland world of language learning. Before we left, I had asked my head of group whether the slides were likely to be in English, an occurrence that seemed common practice in the seminars I had attended in Hokkaido University. "Some might be" was the response that was elicited. By this, I presumed a few speakers might do their slides in English and others in Japanese.

This was not the case.

The reality was a completely random distribution of English and Japanese slides within the same talk. A presentation might be given entirely in Japanese but the list of concluding remarks written in English. Others had a sudden English slide buried in their midst and still more were written in Japanese throughout but would have a short paragraph or single phrase such as "Radial migration of disk stars" appearing unexpectedly half-way down a slide.

No one else seemed to consider this the slightest bit surprising.

Possibly, I reasoned, presenters had borrowed slides from other talks they had previously given in English. However, this didn't really explain the language switch mid-slide. That more resembled the writer getting up for a cup of coffee, becoming momentarily inspired by a line of Macbeth, and returning to type up his presentation in English.

An additional help to my comprehension was the use of katakana. Katakana is a Japanese phonetic script for writing foreign words, a catagory that includes many scientific terms that have been adopted rather than translated. Reading katakana, however, isn't the most straight forward process since while it's often transcribing an English word.... it's English on crack.

"シミュレーション" for example, reads literally "shimyureeshon". It's only by experimentally dropping 'U's and switching around a few 'R's for 'L's and all the while pretending you are eating a gigantic gob stopper does it become clear that it reads "simulation". Likewise, "ユニバース" ("yunibaasu") can just about be crushed into "universe". Similar feats allowed me to extract "dark halo" (mysterious things around galaxies), "dust" (everywhere), "dead zone" (for planets, not people), "Andromeda" (nearby galaxy) and "model" (unrealistic creation that allows the opportunity to produce a follow-up paper). Oddly, one presenter obviously became tired of katakana and just plonked "thick disk" in the middle of his sentence in English.

In terms of understanding what was actually spoken I found my comprehension was inversely proportional to the usefulness of the phrase. Pretty much all nouns and verbs escaped me but I was right on the ball regarding terms such as "there is...", "yes, that's right" and "and after that we...". Basically, if you could take it out of the sentence without affecting the meaning, I was all over it.

The program for the three day meeting was written in Japanese but my head of group had run it through an online translator. The bot for this had done a surprisingly impressive job although I think my favourite talk title is definitely: "Innovation of work called programming". Appropriately, this presentation concluded the conference.

Bullet to Tokyo

2011-11-05T21:54:00.001+09:00

For my train ride to Tokyo, I was issued with four identically sized tickets; one to take me down to Hakodate in the south of Hokkaido, one to bring me through the tunnel to Shin Aomori in Honshu and two for the Shinkansen bullet train to Tokyo. Standing in Shin Aomori station, I flexed the two card rectangles in my hand and wondered how the duplicate nature of this ride confirmation worked with the automatic ticket barriers. Presumably --I reasoned-- one ticket was a receipt or a seat reservation while the other would allow me to pass through the metal gates in full possession of my limbs. Experimentally, I inserted a likely looking ticket and stepped forward.

This outrageous act produced a squeal of red lights and the appearance of an attendant to see what the stupid foreigner had done stall their efficient system.

It transpired the required secret handshake involved inserting both tickets simultaneously, one on top of the other. To me, such an act should have resulted in a mechanical choking grind, the sound of shredding paper, and culmination with a flashing set of lights marked "DENIED" before ejection of what remained of both ticket and ticket owner. Instead, the machine sucked the paper through its body, stamped the bottom rectangle squarely across its front side and returned both in the exact position I had inserted them.

It shouldn't have been possible.

But it was.

Unnerved, I plucked the tickets from the barrier exit and hastened onto the platform. The Shinkansen carriages have a luxury air to them, with ample leg room for even the most spidery of foreigners and power sockets to charge your laptop or cell phone. The seats are also the most upright contraptions I've ever seen in my life. Mercifully, they recline to allow a position more suited to non-cyborgs.

As its name suggests, the bullet train does not mess about. It had taken me 6 hours to travel the 260 miles from Sapporo to the top of Honshu. I did the remaining 450 miles to Tokyo in 3.

Since it was now dark and I was jealous of my neighbour's bento box, I took a nap in my reclined chair, lifting my head only to squint at the lights of Sendai as we made a brief stop.

The Shinkansen stop in Tokyo is at Tokyo Station, a major station in the inner city but not actually the one I needed to travel out to my hotel. I had to transfer to another other large hub, Shinjuku, by taking the subway across town. I went through the Shinkansen barrier --whereupon one of my tickets was consumed never to be see again-- and found myself inside the normal ticket barrier for the subway. This left me with a conundrum:

Did I need a ticket to reach Shinjuku?

In the "no" corner, we had the fact I had been spat out inside the subway gate, still armed with one ticket, from which there was nothing to stop me taking a train of my choice. At least, not until I tried to get out the other side.

In the "yes" corner, there was the fact that the travel agent with whom I had booked this ticket seemed concerned regarding to which Tokyo station I wished to travel. Since we were battling with language, I told her Tokyo Station was fine and decided I'd easily work out a route to Shinjuku when I arrived. This confidence now seemed positively blaze.

Since it wasn't immediately obvious how to buy a ticket from inside the barrier, I decided to postpone the moment of reckoning until I reached Shinjuku. Then there would always be an fantastical option of jumping the ticket barrier altogether and trying to disappear in a crowd of black-haired Asians.

I walked across the station to the "chou line" and climbed up the stairs to the platform. The evening in Tokyo was its usual heaving self, and people pushed past each other to form lines ready for the next train. Over to one side of the platform, however, I noticed a crowd of people surrounding what looked like a ticket machine. This must be it! Those people were clearly all like me; they had magically found themselves on the other side of the ticket barrier without a ticket and were now trying to remedy this criminal act. I joined the queue and scanned the screen as I reached its front. According to the English guide, I could chose to travel to Shinjuku by 'semi-rapid' for 500 yen. I hesitated, decided it was better safe than sorry at this point in my journey, and bought the ticket.

The problem was the electronic boards were informing me that the next train due at the station wasn't a 'semi-rapid' but a 'rapid'. That sounded like the kind of transport for which my ticket would be invalid. I could have waited for another train but I was tired and wanted to get to my hotel. Such desperate times called for desperate measures. As the train drew up, I approached the station guard:

"このきっぷだいじょうぶですか。"
Is this ticket OK?

The guard looked at my ticket and nodded. "だいじょうぶです。" It's OK.

Ha! Who needs a communication class?

After this promising statement, the guard beckoned and led me across to another guard who looked at my ticket, took it and then handed me back my 500 yen. I was then ushered onto the train.

....... OK, I need a communication class.

This didn't make the slightest bit of sense. The train set off and arrived in Shinjuku about fifteen minutes later. Feeling dazed and confused, I stepped out into the station and decided to try my second Shinkansen ticket in the barrier. If it squealed, at least someone would come and rescue me and for an arrest, I bet they had to take me through the barrier.

The ticket machine took my ticket. The gates swung open. I scuttled away into the Tokyo city. The night was still young and there were undoubtedly another 101 ways I could be confused before midnight.

Underground overground (wombling free)

2011-11-04T23:20:00.001+09:00

There are a series of smaller tunnels leading up to the Seikan Tunnel between the Japanese islands of Hokkaido and Honshu. Possibly this is to allow unexpectedly claustrophobic passengers to disembark ahead of time, grab a pair of water-wings and meet the train on the opposite shore line.

The Seikan Tunnel is currently the longest and deepest operational rail tunnel in the world, although wikipedia informs me the Swiss are about to surpass it. According to the information sheet that was on the back of the seat in front of me, the deepest part of the tunnel is 240 m below sea level and 100 m below the ocean floor. Its total length is 53.85 km with the part under the sea bed running to 23.3 km. Its tracks are apparently of the Shinkansen-type which is amusing since the Shinkansen has yet to run up to Hokkaido. The bullet train's arrival in Sapporo isn't planned until around 2020, which goes to show the extent of Japanese planning since the tunnel was built in 1988 and the current tracks laid in 2005. My hunch is that in Europe, the tunnel would have been found unsuitable for Shinkansen tracks and the whole project would have to be started again. (To anyone who believes this to be overly pessimistic, I recommend looking up the gauge war of the 1850s in the UK. The slower track width was selected as the national standard due to cost.)

I was going through this tunnel because I was taking the train between Sapporo and Tokyo. This trip comes under the category of "an experience" as opposed to "a sensible way to travel". When the Shinkansen does come up to Sapporo, this trip could take as little as four hours by train but currently it clocks in at 9, compared with a 90 minute flight. I totally ignored logic and thought it would be an interesting view of the country.

As the train winds south from Sapporo through to Hakodate in the south of Hokkaido, the tracks approach the coast. Japan's northern island is mountainous, so we pass small seaside towns clustered between the wooded slopes and the water. The train barrels straight through the hills so my view flashed between:

Sea!

Pretty town!

Dark tunnel!

And repeat. At one point I saw a large collection of multicoloured buoys that looked like a ball pen for adults. In another town, a series of concrete sand castles led down to the waves that were presumably something to do with erosion. In the final small habitation before the tunnel, I saw fishing nets being apparently left out to dry. Do fishing nets need to dry? There is no time to ask such questions on a train.

Dusk is a short lived affair at this time of year. This meant our train dove into the Seikan tunnel as the sun set and emerged to pitch blackness. It was particularly disconcerting since upon arrival on Honshu, the train immediately disappears into a second series of smaller tunnels. This produced the surprising visage of suddenly seeing a lamppost and a group of trees in the gloom before being faced once more with a concrete wall. The first possibility that struck me was that the Narnia wardrobe had moved to Japan.

At different times of the day, there is the option to stop inside the tunnel at the Tappi Undersea Station. Disembarking here must be arranged in advance, but if you time it right, you can take a tour of a museum dedicated to the tunnel's construction. Unfortunately, going on this tour meant leaving Sapporo before my Japanese class this morning which --due to terrible threats regarding absences and the fact I'd be missing class on Monday while in Tokyo-- wasn't possible this time. Hopefully I'll get a second chance before the museum closes with the arrival of the Shinkansen to Hakodate in the next few years.

Once we reached our first stop at the top of Honshu, I jumped ship and caught the Shinkansen to Tokyo. Enough of this northern island layabouting; it was time to get a move on.

--
(Picture shows view from the train window as we travel to the edge of Hokkaido and the information sheet on the Seikan Tunnel that was on the train seat in front of me)

Confessions

2011-11-03T14:11:00.001+09:00

Confession time: I dropped my Japanese communication class.

This wasn't because it was DESTROYING MY LIFE WITH ITS HORRIFIC, SOUL DESTROYING CLASS EXERCISES AND MEAN GIRLS.

Although that did make the decision rather less regrettable.

The problem was I wasn't doing any astrophysics; the job for which I was being paid. It occurred to me that sooner or later this was going to end badly.

The full Japanese course at Hokkaido University for international members consists of seven 90 minute weekly classes; three grammar lessons on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, two lessons on the Kanji writing system on Tuesday and Thursday and two communication lessons running after Kanji. Each of those classes has homework for the next lesson which usually comprises of a test.

Amusingly, this was the general language course. There was also an 'intensive' version for students who REALLY wanted to get serious.

Each class is excellent and --for all my complaints-- I was learning a lot in communication even if I had to sit in a dark and silent room for half an hour afterwards. However, add to that a weekly 3 hour group meeting and sessions with my student and my own research became something I tinkered with for a few hours a week. I began to suspect I spent longer cleaning my teeth than writing actual code whereas previously, that activity had only been surpassed by the time I spent on facebook.

Clearly, this was very wrong.

I was also in work at 8 am and left just shy of midnight. Then I was admitted to hospital with a migraine. Could there be a connection? I doubted it but the potential that this could lead to a reduction in internet procrastination was concerning.

So now I'm down one class. To demonstrate that I COULD HAVE STAYED IF I HAD WANTED TO I wrote my email of explanation to my teacher in Japanese. At the very least, this proved I could always resort to a notepad and paper to get my point across at Starbucks if necessary. This had the unfortunate consequence of her writing back to me in Japanese whereupon I had to resort to an online translator to ensure she hadn't told me to burn in the fiery pits of hell. Since the Japanese are unfailingly polite, I'm still slightly unsure about this.

I did promise I would enrol again in April. I think she told me to get to it.

Rear cures

2011-11-01T20:02:00.004+09:00

Suppositories are my new crack.

I was lying in bed, gazing at the waxy bullet shaped tablet that was bathed in morning light on the counter top. Magic.

It hadn't been the best of nights, can you tell? I had to admit, exploration of the Japanese health system would have been rather more fun if it hadn't required certain sacrifices on my part. Like being horribly sick.

The headache had started in the early evening. Since I'm prone to such nasties, I took the opportunity to blame my communication class, swallowed an analgesic and didn't think much of it until I headed home about 8 pm. By the time I was half way across campus and had accosted two lampposts, I was forced to acknowledge I had a problem. At 9 pm, I started an indepth conversation with my toilet. At 11 pm, I called my parents because I firmly believed in their power to do something magic from 5500 miles away. They had the rather more practical suggestion of asking a friend to sit with me for the next few hours. I phoned one of my work friends who appeared and took one look at my face before calling for reinforcements in the form of a second friend. So began an extremely long night.

The problem was I knew this was just a migraine. An incredibly bad migraine that made me fantasize about drilling a hole in my skull, but not one that was going to cause my sudden exit from this mortal coil. By the time we reached midnight, this last fact was nothing but disappointing.

I had previously had three headaches on this scale, two of which landed me in hospital, once in the UK and once in the USA. The first time had sent everyone into a whirl of excitement involving cat scans and suggested spinal taps before I persuaded my parents to organise a break out. The second time, I'd been left in a room to die, optimistically because it was deemed unlikely since I had been sick before. The third time, I'd been in Tokyo with no mobile phone and so had just spent the night rolling around on the floor and trying not to wake the neighbours with my muffled screams.

All of this had led me to the conclusion that hospitals either did nothing or they locked you up for days and threatened terrible tortures. Then there was the fact that I didn't understand how the Japanese health system worked.

Japan has social health care, but unlike Canada or the UK, the Government only pays 70% of your bill. Judging from some of the prices I'd seen in the USA, the remaining 30% had the potential to still be a hefty sum. Add to that the fact my health card was in my office and I had no credit card to put down for a bill, I was anxious about going to a hospital when I was pretty confident I would live to deal with the financial consequences.

So I opted for the cycle of drawn out discussions with my lavatory followed by fifteen minute intervals frozen in my bed. My bed, incidentally, is the only furniture in my apartment. This meant my poor, faithful, uncomplaining friends were on the floor. They tried to get water into me, rubbed my back as I vomited and tucked me up when I was done.

Rinse, repeat.

At 2 am, I was no worse but no better. I agreed we should call for a taxi.

The hospital my friends were familiar with was in the southern part of the city. I was cuddled in the back while I sobbed and the taxi driver attempted the smoothest journey possible, undoubtedly fearing for his upholstery. We reached a brightly lit building and were bowed inside by the waiting doorman.

It looked nothing like the emergency rooms I had seen in the UK or America. For one, it was quiet and only a few people were about. The room looked more like an airport lounge than a medical waiting area. At one end, there was a wooden reception desk and at the other, a door through to the consultation rooms.

I was seen almost immediately by a nurse who took my details, my friend translating as we went along. Either side of me were two small boys, both crying quietly. One had a bandage on his forehead, the other was complaining of a headache. It was clearly a bad night for heads in Sapporo. Shortly afterwards I was seen by a doctor who took another set of notes and prescribed a suppository for the pain and a IV drip for the nausea and dehydration.

The great thing about a suppository is that it's fast acting and you can't bring it up. The worst thing is ... well, I think that's obvious. I'd been led off to a quiet ward and the nurse drew the curtains around my bed, indicating that I should turn on my side and...

... let's just say she was an expert and all I managed was a surprised squeak much to my friend's amusement.

"No 1... 2... 3...?" she asked when the curtains were pulled back.

The IV drip was less successful. Try as she might, the nurse couldn't get the needle to sit in my vein. I am not a fan of needles and a certain level of mental reserve is needed for me to deal well with them. Currently, we had no mental reserves. None. This was somewhat balanced by me being too weak to conduct a good getaway, but my veins had disappeared into hiding. The nurse put this down to dehydration and I was able to weakly agree that this was certainly the reason and not my fault at all. My punishment was to be a wicked bruise on my arm the next morning.

The suppository though was doing its job. Within about 20 minutes I was feeling a lot better. The pain was easing and with it the sickness. I started drinking water like a champ. An hour later I was discharged. Wobbly and sore, but considerably better.

"You look pink," one of my friends told me. "When I first saw you, you were blue!"

Anxiously, I approached the reception desk to be told that I had to pay the full amount now, since I didn't have my health card, but I could claim it back later. They put the bill in front of me: 9,500 yen, or about $100. I handed over the cash. Best $100 I spent this month. I even got medicine for the next few days, should I need it.

"If there is a next time," I told my friends. "Don't take any crap from me. We're going to the hospital earlier."

"I learnt two new English words today," one of my friends remarked cheerfully as we got into a taxi. "Drip and suppository."

Apparently, everyone got something out of this visit.

The next morning I took my second suppository. It's not really the sort of thing you want lying around on the kitchen counter.

You might like...

2011-10-29T18:06:00.001+09:00

There are times when I seriously wonder about the thoughts of web designers. Today, I followed a link to the website "The imperfect parent". It included an interesting article on the Girl Scouts of America welcoming transgender children. The report was brief, simply saying that the Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes any child that identifies as female into their organisation and I scanned through it to the bottom of the page.

Directly below the article were links to four other pieces on the website under the heading "You might like:" I glanced over their titles:

"Beaten, malnourished Oklahoma girl lives in closet - woman allegedly forced 5 year old to drink her own urine and eat feces."

"Parents go to concert, leave baby in trunk."

"California mother arrested for killing baby in microwave."

They were also all marked as "Minor Topics".

I stared at the headings for a moment and .... you know what? Despite the website's suggestion, I don't like ANY of these articles.

Never seen a raccoon fly

2011-10-28T22:22:00.001+09:00

The Japanese love to wrap things; presents, beautifully presented boxes of cakes, even coke bottles or hot buns from the convenience store. The last time I purchased a loose apple, I concluded it might be quicker to grow the fruit myself than to wade through the layers of packaging the cashier had decided to bury my snack within.

This obsession is particularly unfortunate in light of the fact that one of the most complicated activities in Japan is taking out the garbage.

Upon taking up residence in my new apartment, I purchased a bin with four separate compartments. That's three compartments less than the number of designated rubbish types, each of which have their own collection day. Mondays are for burnable waste. Exactly what is burnable involves some guess work due to a misspent childhood not engaged in pyromania. It definitely includes food but not paper, since the collection day for that is Wednesdays. However, the Wednesday pick-up doesn't include newspapers, magazines, milk cartons or cardboard which must be collapsed and folded up separately before being taken down to a local store. It also doesn't happen on the third Wednesday of the month which is reserved for garden waste or the first Wednesday which is for all items that do not fit into the other six categories. Tuesdays are for plastic wrappings and containers, except for recyclable bottles which are to be taken out on Fridays. Thursday is a second burnable trash day since food is liable to smell and you can't take it from your apartment between collections, least it be thought you considered your half-eaten strawberry sandwich a plastic bottle and be carted away to a mental asylum.

Burnable items must be put in yellow bags, while everything else must be in white. It must also be taken out on the day of collection before 8:30 am. Under no circumstances must garbage bags be taken outside the night before their designated days.

This is because of the crows.

Crows are Sapporo's version of the raccoon. Disconcertingly similar in size, these giant evil looking fowl gather throughout the city staring hungrily at humans, pets and red, meat-coloured cars. Given the opportunity, your empty crisp packet will be in pieces throughout the city's four corners. It is impossible to know if the smell of food drives the act, or if it is a demonstration of what these black winged inhabitants would like to do to your eyeballs.

While being stalked around campus, I was reminded irrevocably of the signs that used to stand by Florida's waterways regarding alligators. These warning boards alerted the uninitiated to the local reptile's unfussy eating habits, be it child, beloved poodle or indeed, raccoon.

I feel Sapporo would benefit enormously from a similar sort of sign, but with the appropriate adjustments made:

The area for rubbish bags outside my apartment complex actually has a crow-proof net around it. Nevertheless, it is still against the rules to take your trash out the night before.

Why?

Because.

The upshot of this is that I spend a significant fraction of my time at home standing in front of my bin, trying to decide what container to put whatever piece of trash I have accumulated. Such exertions commonly leave me hungry, which results in me opening a bag of food and promptly being left with...

Not all new hobbies are fun.

Retro desires

2011-10-23T04:21:00.001+09:00

Alarm clocks have few redeeming features. For 90% of their existence, they hang out and do nothing. A leech on your bedside's hospitality. They sit and wait until their owner and rightful lord and master is in a deep slumber of blissful relaxation after a hard day paying for their electricity.

Then they strike.

The only justice is that they frequently get clonked on the head.

The worst alarm clocks, in my opinion, are the ones that just beep. Not only is this particularly lazy on behalf of the object you have given houseroom to but it's downright obnoxious. I am forced to respond to such obsessive compulsive behaviour instantly rather a slower contemplation of what life might be like outside these blankets.

While it is rare that such considerations lead to acts of enthused energy, I still prefer to listen to the radio in the mornings. I therefore wanted to buy a radio alarm clock of the type I'd been using ... well ... all my life. I'm sure you know the idea; illuminated clock on the front, alarm and FM radio tuner controlled by buttons on the top.

The electrical system in Japan is similar to that in Canada, but their FM radio station frequencies are not, running from 76 - 90 MHz rather than 88 - 108 MHz. This meant that my previous North American-bought clock would be a paperweight, although not as illegal as USA baby monitors which can result in a year's gaol sentence until your offspring is too old to require such a device.

I assumed that replacing my cheap radio alarm clock would be a simple, easy chore.

I was wrong.

It is not acceptable to purchase a radio alarm clock in Japan.

Technically, it is possible to find these items. After weeks of searching, I located the appropriate shelf in a five story electrical store. They even had an exact replica on the one I had in Canada, purchased only a year previously. The problem was I obviously was not supposed to want to buy it. These clocks were in the 'retro' section of the shop. The area where grandpa drags the kids to show them was life was like in "dem good ole times".

Don't believe me? Allow me to put it in perspective:

On the same shelf, about six inches further along, were tape recorders.

Remember those? No, half of you don't. Consider your childhood twice the length of mine.

One tape player (middle photo) was of the walkman type; the must-have accessory when I went on a school trip to Paris in 1992. The other (right) was a replica of the type I connected up to a computer when I was five to load games. The process took forever (double that by five year old standards) and frequently failed half-way through a load. Heaven help you if the tape needed to be reversed during that process. I probably played each game I owned twice before turning six and I was seriously into that computer.

So there I was, wanting to buy this radio alarm clock, but feeling far too young to be seen taking it to the cashier. Not only would the purchase be an embarrassment, but clearly the clock would become a forbidden never-to-be-discussed item in my apartment. Like the insane ex-wife locked in the west wing. I could see my future magical relationship with a Keanu Reeves look-a-like ending with:

"I'm sorry Elizabeth... I really like you... but ... we could never build a joint home together. First you want a radio alarm clock, then you'll talk of hunting mammoths and eating our young."

Bad.

I looked around. Radios in general were apparently perfectly acceptable. There were many either on their own or part of elaborate stereo systems, but none with a clock that could balance on the sole chair --currently doubling as a bedside table-- in my apartment. Judging by the dizzying varieties available, the alternative you were supposed to buy was an iPod dock. Since I had an iPod, in theory this was a match. However, most of my music is bouncy upbeat tunes that makes me run into work. If that blared out at me first thing in the morning, I'd probably break my ankle jiving to the bathroom.

It was all too confusing. I went home, closed all the curtains and flipped open my computer. Alone in the dark, I browsed an online shopping site and I found a radio alarm clock that included an iPod dock (top left photo). If anyone asks, I did not scroll through twenty pages to find one that included a radio.

I have no mouth and I must scream

2011-10-20T18:53:00.001+09:00

"すめません、先生？"
Excuse me?

It was after my Japanese communication class and I was anxiously bobbing behind our teacher while she packed away the materials she had used during our lesson.

"私は...."
I...

We weren't supposed to speak English in this course, yet I had no idea how to express "Look, I suck. I gotta go down a level." in Japanese. Although possibly my attempt at such an expression would get the idea across. I gave it a go:

"よみ... と... ききーlistening ... だいじょうぶです。あの.... はなし... むずかしいです。"

I was trying to say that reading and listening were fine but anything that came out of my mouth would make even the vocally challenged 'Hello Kitty' weep. The teacher nodded sympathetically, undoubtedly recalling the seventeen handkerchiefs she had soaked through herself after our last lesson.

"I want to go down to 'Japanese Communication I'," I said in a rush. If you speak fast enough, no one will remember what language you've used, right?

The teacher put down her folder and considered me properly. "あなたにとって 'Communication I'のクラスはやさしいすぎています。"^[*]

This is where I made a fatal error. If I'd had a bit more quick witted gumption, I'd have looked at her completely blankly and maybe inquired as to why she was talking about sweet potatoes. Instead, my treacherous features showed comprehension of what she had just said. This was unfortunate since she'd just told me the class below would be too easy for me and the fact I'd understood probably confirmed she was right. My shoulders drooped.

"I am concerned that I will hold the other students back," I explained in English, taking in the now empty classroom with a wave of my hand.

Let's cut to the chase; I knew MEAN GIRL was MEAN and I hated adding to her ammunition every lesson. Not that she'd said anything to me that day, but ... but ... SHE MIGHT HAVE DONE, OK? Being bottom of a group basically sucks.

"I think you are OK here," the teacher replied, stubbornly still speaking the language I was supposed to be learning.

I nodded resignedly, but I did feel a bit better. After all, if the teacher didn't mind my stuttering attempts at the exercises, it probably was fine. There was also no doubt I'd learn more in the harder class than going back over the basics and that was rather the point of being in the language school.

... and if I keep telling myself that, I'm totally going to start believing it.

I went to lunch and plotted revenge on mankind while eating noodles.

--
[*] Not an exact reproduction. If I could do that, I probably wouldn't have any trouble with this course.

MEAN GIRL

2011-10-18T13:19:00.001+09:00

The problem with spoken language is that it's horribly time dependent. My Japanese would be infinitely better if it were considered normal to say a sentence then wander off, have a cup of tea and maybe a fruit scone, take in some of the local sites before returning to see if the person you're speaking to has comprehended what you have said.

Such delays are not allowed in my communication class.

Held each Tuesday and Thursday morning, this class is entirely in Japanese and is focused on listening and speaking with dribbling recaps of the necessary grammar. The level is at the limit of my current Japanese which makes it NOT EASY. Add to the fact it's impossible to hide at the back when you have to speak the whole time, and this class is upgraded to HARD. The teacher, however, is cheerful and kind and so this would be fine if it wasn't for someone who will hence forth be known as:

MEAN GIRL.

MEAN GIRL's Japanese is better than mine but the jump between the different class levels is large, so such disparity is inevitable. Today, we were split into pairs to discuss our homework; stating what you want to do in response to a variety of different situations. I was paired with MEAN GIRL and we started going through the questions together. My stuttering speech led to overly patient looks and irritation that I'd misunderstood one of the questions. In actual fact, I'd showed this particular problem to a Japanese friend and he'd translated it as I had so it was NOT OBVIOUS, MEAN GIRL.

When it came to our turn to tell the class about each other's answers, I misread my handwriting which caused the teacher to pause and query me. MEAN GIRL mouthed the answer to the teacher behind me with an expression that suggested she had been paired with a retarded preschooler and was bored out of her wits.

This is why we do not like MEAN GIRL.

To be totally fair, this was my first dealings with MEAN GIRL, so some of her supposed distance might be her natural manner rather than a particular vendetta against me. However, I have declared her as MEAN GIRL and I believe she is MEAN.

On the way back to the department, I was accosted by another recruiting Christian group. I told them I was Jewish. Cockerels^* or not, there's only so much you can take in one day.

--
[*] "This very night, before the cock crows, you will disown me three times." -- Matthew 26:33-35, denial of Peter and all that...

Call me

2011-10-16T23:12:00.001+09:00

However hard you think buying a phone is in Japan:

You're wrong.

It's harder than that. It's so hard it makes hard things look easy. Really hard things, like painting an elephant's toe nails or trying to reattach a wing of an aeroplane mid-flight.

The first problem is choice.

There are three major mobile phone companies in Japan; docomo, softbank and au. Docomo offers the best nation-wide signal, softbank offers the iPhone and au offers an android phone that runs on wimax (4G), rather than 3G. Each of these companies have a wide range of plans for their phones, depending on the handset you get and your usage. Amusingly, while all the smart phone plans have a sliding scale that caps out at a reasonable sum for unlimited data, you always pay for calls. In Japan, talking on your phone in many public places is considered rude, so email services run on even the most basic handsets.

Then there was the fact that Japan just doesn't do wifi hotspots. Not in stations, not in restaurants, not even in Starbucks. Nothing. Nowt. Yadda. Instead, people carry little pocket wifi routers that take a 3G signal and broadcast their own wireless hotspot that allows you to link up your laptop, tablet or any other device that has a hungering for internet anywhere where you are. These routers have similar contracts to mobile phones, although softbank were offering their own router in a special deal with their smart phones. On the other hand, an android phone from au would allow tethering to the wimax network which was a potentially faster connection with a single device. Tethering does wear down a battery though, so perhaps it would be better to have two devices and ...

It was hard, ok?

Add to that the iPhone 4S was due out in a week and would be offered by both softbank and au and I had a headache.

The second problem was all these options were in Japanese.

This meant that I had to glean what I could from the websites and then try and corner an assistant in one of the big electrical stores. In a large enough shop, there was a fighting chance that someone somewhere would speak some English. Sometimes my chosen captive had to be encouraged to go and find such an individual and sometimes they failed. Really, however it went down it was painful and I had to go back several times since it wasn't possible to answer all my questions in one go without putting the shop assistant in danger of cardiac arrest.

Ultimately though, I needed a phone. It was difficult to receive deliveries on the weekend, hard to catch up with what my friends were doing and the credit card company had point blank refused to issue a card to anyone who was too ridiculous to not own a mobile. I had to get this sorted and fast.

But I wanted to select the right option. The phone I would delight in using every day. A contract which would allow me to drink 101 pumpkin lattes in Starbucks while hooking up my laptop in a pretence of work. A miricle handset that would...

"Just get a god damn phone!"

That was a friend's comment on facebook after my 800th post on the subject.

... oh right. Bought the iPhone 4. Am delighted with it.

Then there was light

2011-10-15T09:50:00.001+09:00

Japanese apartments --I was told-- do not have lights.

"You will find this a little strange."

Well, it did sound decidedly peculiar. In a country where the router stuffed in my back pocket gives me a 42 Mbps wifi connection, you'd think I'd be able to read a book at night.

What I had presumed this meant was that Japanese apartments did not have central ceiling lights. This wasn't completely bizarre, since I had seen America apartments which were lit purely by lamps plugged into wall sockets. This gentler 'mood lighting' was sometimes considered preferable to the dazzling illumination of a single main light.

Personally, I wasn't a fan of mood lighting. Either there should be light so I can see what is going on or there should be dark in which everyone disappears and I can get some sleep.

Light. Dark.

Simple binary love. Still, I was sure I would adapt and I went up to my new apartment to check out the possible positions for a set of lamps. Last time I had come up here, I did not have electricity so lights were a rather academic question and I hadn't paid the situation any heed. Now, I discovered two things:

Firstly, I did have normal spot lights in my kitchen, entrance way and bathroom. This was good to know since I saw disaster striking while I fumbled for a lamp to turn on when I came back at night.

Secondly, there were plugs on my ceiling.

Each room had a centrally positioned clip in the centre of its ceiling which was clearly designed to hold something electrical. This suggested it was time for an exploratory visit to a department store. The shop I picked had a wide variety of light fittings but the largest and most common were wide semicircular lights that clearly weren't supposed to stand alone. It was hard to examine the fitting, but it seemed highly likely that it would fit the ceiling plugs in my apartment.

I bought a single one experimentally and zipped back home.

Upon unpacking the light (left image), I found it had a detachable clip that did indeed plug into my ceiling socket (top centre and right images). Balanced slightly precariously on a stool, I plugged it in and then clipped the lamp on around it. There was a single wire to link the central clip to bulb and a smooth plastic shell to slide over the top.

I jumped down from the stool and tried the light switch.

Then I couldn't see anything for about 10 seconds. Probably shouldn't have been looking directly at the light when I did that.

Nevertheless, success! Even if I was now blind. This particular light came with a remote control, so I can turn it off from my bed... when I get a bed. It even has a timer so I tell it to go out in 30 or 60 minutes. Ideal for fooling stalkers who might be hanging outside my 9th floor window.

Light. Dark. Light. Dark. Light. Dark. Light....

Back in a bit.

Flush

2011-10-09T21:54:00.000+09:00

There is nothing remotely pleasant about having irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). You can eat a perfectly good meal, identical in every way to one you have eaten before, yet by the time you have walked two blocks from the restaurant your abdomen is one rolling mass of cramps. You then have about fifteen minutes to find a bathroom --every second of which will be indelibly printed on your memory-- or you will never wish to wear your current outfit again.

I liked the trousers I was wearing today. A bathroom needed to be located fast.

So started the near run towards the mall. I contorted myself into various peculiar postures at each set of traffic lights before falling through the doors of a large department store. Since I had no intention of being a paying customer, the anonymity of a multi-level shop was preferable to trying to sneak past the staff at Starbucks.

Up the escalators I scooted, trying to smile in a pleasant and relaxed manner at the other shoppers and resist the urge to kick small children out of my way. Into the bathroom I fled to discover I was at the back of a line.

It was okay... the line was moving quite fast... I could wait... probably.

My turn came and I zipped down to the vacated stall to see a traditional hole-in-the-ground toilet. I just couldn't use it. Normally, I shrug and squat but I knew I had to be there for a while. My knees didn't feel up to it. This meant I had to turn away, walk back up the aisle and join the end of the queue. To add insult to injury, this particular restroom had an accompanying make-up area so I had a significant audience of reflected women and lipsticks for my unusual actions. Lipsticks are so judgmental. I glared at one in its black tube, daring it to mock me. I might have been feeling slightly stressed.

The cubicle stayed unoccupied. Evidently, everyone thought that I had not used it because it was blocked or over-flowing or filled with monsters. I thought about saying:

"No, no monsters. I am merely rejected your entire culture by demanding you provide facilities like the ones I have in my own superior country."

Somehow it just didn't sound right. I waited. I tried not to soil my clothing. My turn came again and I silently prayed that the next stall to become free would be one with a western toilet. A door swung open and I stumbled in to see all my --greatly reduced at present-- desires in cream plastic.

It was all going to be fine and what was more, I could even write my blog post on my iPad while I waited for the fires to abate. I'll leave you to decide if I really did that.

Fun with undergrads

2011-10-09T00:29:00.001+09:00

It is a sad fact that my head of group has a penchant for torturing students. It truth, I wouldn't really mind all that much, except that he has picked me as his tool for unimaginable mental pain. Newton's third law[*] tells us that this doesn't do anything for my own well being.

Friday night was the department party to welcome new physics undergraduates to Hokkaido University. The first set of students I would actually teach would be next year's intake, but I went along so that my face was known, senior undergraduates would recognise me as a possible project supervisor and --ultimately-- because I was told to...

... by my head of group

... who is secretly evil.

The form of torture was simple; creep up behind an unsuspecting undergraduate about to tuck into a piece of sushi. Then insist they come over and talk to me in English.

None of them wanted to. Many tried to literally hide behind their friends. Neither of us knew how to end the conversation. It was awkwardness supremo. Yes, I did make that word up. Such vocabulary acts probably didn't helping the situation.

Fortunately, once we got over the initial "Hello, my name is ..." part, things relaxed a little. For a start, I could also manage a basic self-introduction in Japanese which put us on a more even footing. They gave their rehearsed spiel in English, I gave mine in Japanese and neither of us knew what to do next. This sometimes gave them the confidence to ask a question. Eventually, they found a reason to escape (work / friends / dead grandmother / ooh look squirrel!) and we moved onto the next victim.

After an hour and a half things eased up. This wasn't due to a pause in our relentless pursuing of innocent young language sacrifices but due to the fact that said sacrifices were getting hammered. The legal drinking age in Japan is 20, so students in their second year and above were indulging in the large bottles of Sapporo beer scattered liberally around the tables. Since they would inevitably be the ones unable to run, we ended up in enthusiastic --if unintelligible-- conversation with two or three until my head of group decided the lack of terror was not nearly so fun and suggested we left.

Next time we do this, I'm sneaking in early and drinking one of those large beer bottles prior to the party starting.

--
[*] You push me, you feel the same amount of force back.

Street wise

2011-10-04T23:16:00.001+09:00

The street naming system in Sapporo is confusing.

The most confusing thing about it is that is it on a grid and therefore should not be confusing.

Yet it is.

It is confusing and makes you feel like an idiot for being confused. See, just like that it gets you twice.

Contrary to popular opinion, just because I am British does not mean I can't handle a grid system. I did well in New York until I hit Broadway and I was fine in Florida until I found that 38th Street was followed by 38th Terrance followed by 38th Drive. America tried to confuse me. She failed. I just had to do a bunch of U-turns. Japan, however, saw me standing on a street corner utterly flummoxed.

On paper, Sapporo's street system looks amazingly ordered for a Japanese city. It is a strictly adhered to grid divided into quadrants by the long Odori Park which runs east-west through the city and the river which runs north-south. Addresses then have the format 'North X West Y'. Easy, no?

So how was it I was standing on the street corner of a road labelled '5-South, 12-West' which was being intersected at right angles by another road also declaring itself to be '5-South, 12-West'? What was more, the previous road that had intersected '5-South, 12-West' a block back was ALSO called '5-South, 12-West'.

My new apartment, incidentally, was at '5-South, 12-West'. I had previously visited the building by car (driven by the real estate broker) back in July, but now I had signed the contract and picked up my keys and I was excited to see my new home. Or at least, I had been until about twenty minutes ago. Now I just wanted to kick something.

Since I seemed to be in some kind of crazy magic mirror maze, I decided to scrap actual addresses and go for deduction. I had to be close and my apartment was on the ninth floor. That ruled out all the buildings in my immediate vicinity apart from four apartment blocks.

The first one of these was pink. I would not have picked a pink apartment. I dismissed it.

The second building had the wrong name. My building's name is "Classé", written "クラッセ" in Japanese, and this one was called 'Helio'.

The third building had the name "グラッセ" which is frankly just being mean.

Finally, I went to the forth building. This high-rise was one street over and as I walked, I realised what the street numbering system meant. '5-South, 12-West' wasn't a road or an intersection, it was a block. The roads on three of the block's four sides have the same name. This means that the street address actually marks out a region, not an individual road, and sometimes quite a large region since blocks can be big. It also explained why the taxi driver turned down a street too early when driving me from Sapporo station. I had just thought he was incompetent.

At this stage, I probably would have just broken in but fortunately my key fit the forth building's lobby lock. I walked into the bare apartment and went to sleep on the floor. Directions are too hard; I need a smart phone again.

Catch 22

2011-10-03T22:58:00.001+09:00

"Your credit card application has ... this time ... been refused."

Our head of group was scanning the letter I had been sent from the credit card company which was all written in Japanese. I tried to rearrange my face into an expression of polite confusion as opposed to indignant fury. I had filled in that application at the end of July. It has come back to me once with queries about my contact details and now they had gone and rejected me point blank. What was more, it was the university's own credit card system for its staff and students, so credit history (or lack thereof) was specifically supposed to be not an issue. What was their beef?

"I will call them," our head of group promised. He returned a short while later saying that they were due to call him back with an English-speaking representative who could talk directly to me. Security considerations meant that they could not pass on details of my account to a third party. It made sense. I followed him into his office and waited for the phone to ring.

"Is this ... Tasker Elizabeth?"

That'd be me. In a backwards sort of way.

"Can you confirm your identity with your date of birth and office phone number?"

"Erm... could you please hold for two minutes?"

I hasten to add it was the phone number that I had no clue about. I never touch the handset on my desk since (a) fundamentally, I hate talking on the phone and (b) the fact it is likely to be in Japanese does not endear the situation to me. I dig out the phone number from a list of documents on my desk.

"Unfortunately, your application for a credit card has been refused this time."

"Why?"

"We cannot give details of our process."

Well, that clears everything up! I looked around for something to bang my head against.

"What confuses me," I tried again politely. "Is that I know you offer the credit card to foreign students. I am a foreign professor. How can I not qualify if the students do?"

The woman hesitated. "Well...," she said carefully. "It is hard to fill your details into the system when they are not complete. You have no number for a home or cell phone..."

"I don't have either."

"Yes, but that section is blank..."

I got what she was trying to tell me. My credit card application had been rejected because I didn't have a cell phone. That was all well and good except I needed a credit card to get a cell phone.

There was really nothing suitably hard enough to smack my head against in this room.

To be fair, once I'd recovered from my mild concussion, there were solutions to this problem. A credit card was not needed for a prepaid phone, I was just loathed to get one just so I could replace it with a smart phone once I got my credit card. However, I had only asked one company about contract deals and it would later turn out that other providers would accept a bank debit card instead of a credit card. Now the decision became: do I wait for the iPhone 5 later this month or get an android? Then if I went for the latter, there was a shiny new Fujitsu handset due out in November and ...

.... basically, I'm never getting that credit card. Or a cell phone. If you want to contact me, I hear messenger pigeons are great.

I eat a hand grenade for lunch

2011-09-24T20:37:00.001+09:00

When I left Sapporo at the end of July, Odori Park was in the midst of a summer beer festival. When I returned in September, it had moved onto an autumn food festival. Me and this city were bonding.

On Friday lunchtime (a public holiday before you accuse me of skiving off) the festival stalls were bursting with different foods; crab was being cooked in its shell, skewers of chicken, beef and golden potato dumplings lay on a grill, deep fried balls of octopus sat in rows along with corn on the cob, pots of chowder, curry with giant naan breads, oysters in the half-shell...

... and spiny black balls that looked like hand grenades.

I did a double take as someone passed me with two balanced on a plastic plate. Was this a military training exercise or a snack with extra punch? Should I wrestle the man to the floor and call the police or... watch while he cracks one of the demonic spheres open and probes it with chopsticks. I tried to take a photo so I could demand answers from a safer distance but black spines on a black ball had stealth bomber properties for my phone camera. Short of propping my handset on the guy's shoulder (... no), I wasn't going to get a decent shot.

I had to find out where these came from.

I pushed back through the crowd, searching for people with similar platters of terminator snack food or the location of a high security military camp; one of the two. Eventually, I came across a grill that was advertising food from Rebun, an island off the northern coast of Japan. Judging from the map, it would indeed be the perfect place for a biological warfare unit.

I joined the queue.

Then something rather miraculous happened: my Japanese came through. Two places in front of me, I distinctly heard the woman order 'uni' meaning 'sea urchin'. I had eaten sea urchin before; it was a luminous orange, salty semi-liquid of a sea food. I'd had it with a rice bowl and on sushi but never ... well, in a sea urchin.

I tried to squint through the cracks of the grilling hand grenades to see if I could recognize the interior flesh. Different colours unhelpfully met my eyes. Still, since we seemed to be on a linguistic role, there was another option:

"Sore wa uni desuka," I inquired as I reached the counter.
Is that sea urchin?

The woman gave me a cheery smile, "Uni desuyo."
Yes, it is.

Comprehension AND communication! I was on fire.

"Ichi." I held up one finger.

In Japanese, numbers are usually followed by counters; words that indicate the type of object being enumerated. However, I had no idea what the counter for black-spiky-sea-urchin-bomb would be, so the request for 'one' was all she got.

I scuttled off to the corner of the lawn with my prize and pried it open with my chopsticks. Inside, there was the familiar orange strips that I had previously eaten, surrounded by green goop. What was the edibility factor for the green goop? Where a score '10' sees you ordering more and a '1' means that it is served at your funeral for company in the afterlife? Unfortunately, I had run away from the other urchin-bomb customers so I had no one close to compare eating habits to. In the end, I concluded that if anything green had to be definitely avoided, this would be one dangerous little number to serve up at a festival. Since no one seemed to be in charge of carrying off dozens of corpses, I ate all the orange, some of the green (I'll give it a '7') and decided that was enough excitement for one meal time.

Later, I looked up 'sea urchin' on wikipedia. Apparently, the orange delicacies are actually the sexual organs. Not all knowledge is good.

One size fits all

2011-09-23T00:48:00.001+09:00

There are times when I feel that automatic emails could benefit from some tailoring. This evening I received an email with the subject:

Itinerary Change - Important Information from Virgin Atlantic

This raised alarm bells since the only pending Virgin Atlantic flight I had was my trip from India to the UK on December 23rd. Needless to say, I was cutting it rather fine for spending Christmas at home with my family and a delay could be bad. The start of the email was not encouraging:

We regret to advise there has been a time change...

The heavily serious tone was more reminiscent of a funeral than a flight alteration. It suggested that I would be spending Christmas in an airport in Europe, having been deposited there after all transportation services had stopped running for the season. Since it was a flight booked with my airmiles, I doubt I could change the date easily. My festive turkey was looking likely to be a chocolate bar out of a vending machine. Assuming I had change.

The flight is now departing Delhi on 23DEC at 1350.

The original time of departure had been .... 1345. I looked at the arrival time in London. That hadn't even shifted by 5 minutes.

Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

Evidently they mean to my health from reading that email.

Dance 100 billion stars

2011-09-21T18:06:00.001+09:00

If you select the paper work type of lectures, you can limit number of students in your class and you will get a teaching assistant.

I was discussing the undergraduate course I would be teaching next semester with my head of group over email. The basic idea of the lecture series was to teach an introductory physics course in English, available to all students enrolled in the university. However, there were options concerning the structure of the course that I was struggling to understand, having not gone through the Japanese higher education system myself. I wrote back:

Could you please explain what a "paper work type of lecture" is?

My best guess at present was that there was a course type that shunned written material and presented information through interpretive dance. I wondered if I could get a student to leap through a wall in a demonstration for quantum mechanics. A few minutes later, I got my answer:

"Paper work type of lecture" means that in this lecture a professor spends his class time to make training of student's ability to write their papers, presentations or something.

.... whereas in the other type of lecture, the professor just sets up a game of hangman and doesn't bother with anything educational? This seemed implausible. I walked next door to see if I could extract a more complete explanation but failed. The joys of a language barrier!

Just when I'd resigned myself to showing my class how to play 'Portal' and leaving it at that, my head of group came back with a more complete explanation. It turned out that there two types of courses at Hokkaido University; the ones I would refer to as 'core' and were needed to graduate in a particular field and others that were more general interest and could be taken by students in any discipline. This second category (which was the one to which my course would belong) was again broken into two variations: courses where the professor stood at the front and delivered material to a passive class and another with a workshop competent that involved a level of audience participation. The course I had proposed included presentations from the students on different scientific topics and would therefore belong in this workshop or "paper work" type lecture.

So no computer games but no jumping through solid walls either. Perhaps it is for the best.

The sound of music

2011-09-20T21:33:00.001+09:00

"Can I ask you a question?"

Evidently so, since you just did. Still, this particular Japanese passenger on the express train from New Chitose Airport to Sapporo was manoeuvring an intriguing large bag into which he'd managed to wedge a hard guitar case so the curiosity was mutual. I produced a smile that I hoped belied the fact I'd been travelling for over 24 hours and encouraged him to continue.

"What are you doing in Sapporo?"

He probably expected to hear something involving English teaching but instead received a far more unlikely tale consisting of an astrophysics appointment with a splattering of physics lecturing at the university.

"You're British!" he exclaimed. "Were we on the same plane?"

It turned out that my new friend had just arrived back from a year in London where he had been taking a graduate course. Prior to that, he had been teaching English in Taiwan. The guitar, I learned, was a British acquisition.

"I used to have a very expensive guitar," he told me wistfully. "But I sold it before I went to Taiwan and I didn't have one there. I really missed it. When I arrived in London, I went straight to the music shops!"

He looked like a musician too, if musicians can have certain looks. His black hair was shoulder length and he wore round glasses.

"Sapporo is a popular city to live in," he continued. "But few can because there aren't enough jobs in the area."

Suckers!

Wait no, that's the jet-lag talking. I re-phrased my instinctual response to say how much I had liked the city during my previous visits. He mentioned that he was particularly envious of me being at Hokkaido University since he would have liked to study there himself. I asked him where he had done his first degree.

"Ah, actually... not in Japan. I went to San Francisco." One hand dropped down to fondle the top of the guitar case. "I... didn't do all that well in High School so I couldn't get in. But in America you can study at community colleges to improve your grades and then transfer!"

It was a great system since school grades can go awry for many reasons. I glanced down to see my companion's hand was still hooked around the encased instrument. Of course, some instances of students under-performing perhaps had more obvious sources than others. It was interesting to note that apparently Japan did not have such a scheme for correcting the errors of a miss-spent youth.

"Yes... I really loved my music in school... perhaps too much."

Mmmhmm. Despite my amusement, it was impressive that this was now water under the bridge. Also, given the intense nature of the Japanese education system, it was rather reassuring to find that people have the same pitfalls the world over.

"The English was difficult in California." I was told after mentioning the musician's obvious linguistic skills as we pulled into Sapporo station. "The Japanese are very good at taking tests so we tend to get put in a high level language course. Then we struggle much more than other students with speech, but we catch up again with the essays."

I could see this so clearly that I had a feeling this was about to become the byline for my life.

Chipmunks and pudding

2011-09-08T05:39:00.001+09:00

"You're scared because you're not from Yorkshire!"

No, I'm pretty sure it's because I've been physically strapped to a chair and now an IV drip is being fitted to my free hand. It was like the final scene in a death row movie where they administer the lethal injection.

But but but I only stole my Mum's sausage rolls once when I was 7 and I promise never everevertodoitagain!!

There were multiple reasons why I was about to make the heart monitor they'd attached to my chest leap off the scale:

Firstly, there was really very little to enjoy in the prospect of being heavily sedated so your impacted back teeth could be cut out of your mouth. It was like the problem with the potentially painful typhoid vaccination: how do you prepare to be ill? People's accounts regarding their wisdom teeth varied from mild discomfort to rolling around in agony on the sofa for weeks and there was no way of knowing which way this cookie was going to crumble.

Secondly, I'd arrived (as per my orders) with a friend who also happened to be a respiratory therapist (never hurts to have a back-up plan). This was not the problem. The problem was that she had brought along her five year old daughter. This little poppet showed me she had lost two teeth of her own recently but assured me they would grow back.

... whatever I might know logically about the situation with baby versus wisdom teeth, it was still like being told I'd have to repeat all this next year.

I was sent out by a rather brisk receptionist to use the restroom; not a particularly easy task since I hadn't been allowed to drink anything since midnight the night before. When I returned, I found mother and daughter reading together. I hoped this would be a nice calming story about fluffy bunny rabbits I could listen in on. But no. Out of ALL THE MATERIAL in the waiting room, this demonic child had selected a leaflet on wisdom teeth to read. By the time I joined them, they had reached the page on 'possible complications after surgery'. With pictures.

My friend took one look at my face. "You know, let's read this page after El's gone in," she suggested to her little girl, who shortly afterwards demanded to know if she could watch the procedure.

Finally, the dental nurse had come out to give my friend some instructions regarding my aftercare. Her voice was a low, calming pitch which DID NOT HELP AT ALL. It sounded like the kind of voice you might use when discussing something very very serious and terrible. What I really needed was for someone to clonk me over the head with that rolled up leaflet on wisdom teeth and tell me to get in there because it'd be over in about forty minutes. Instead, she talked about pain and swelling and passed over a prescription. I whimpered.

"I'll give you two some time alone," she said as she went back behind the door.

WHY? SO WE CAN SAY GOODBYE?!

"That is not the voice you use when you're telling someone that you have to switch off a ventilator machine," my RT friend told me firmly. "Trust me. Now go in."

There we go.

I inched through the door and crept towards a room full of IV bags. One positive thing the wisdom teeth leaflet had shown was examples of the different problems that occurred with these late arrivals. Two of the pictures matched my own issues; one tooth on its side and decayed and the other stuck under the jaw bone. They really did have to be removed.

Two nurses helped me to get set up and they were super nice. They assured me that everyone was nervous and told me at frequent intervals that I was doing really well. Given the reading on the heart monitor, I think the standard for this comment was that I hadn't yet bolted from the room. There was a blood pressure cuff on my right arm which is why that wrist was attached to the chair (very gently, I could have pulled it free). Then the dentist came in to fit the IV drip to my left hand, after complaining I wasn't a Yorkshireman. He then started slapping my hand really hard.

"Owch!" I complained indignantly.

"It's your fault," he told me. "You've gone and made yourself all nervous and now your big veins are hiding."

I was still in the chair. I think he should be grateful for what he had.

Despite the fact this did make me laugh, I started to feel sick and dizzy. I attempted to call one of the nurses 'Mum' but it didn't really help. I was assured this was just nerves and indeed, a few minutes later everything eased. I suspect some cheating was going on here and an anti-nausea agent was added to my drip. Either way, I started to feel a hell of a lot better and relaxed. An oxygen mask was fitted over my nose which ten minutes before would have made me think:

OH GOD THEY CLEARLY THINK I CAN'T BREATH

but now I thought:

Bet that looks funny.

.... Then I was being guided into the recovery room and looking up at a five year old peering curiously at me and mercifully not reading a leaflet on wisdom teeth.

My mouth was entirely numb and there was a couple of rolls of gauze tucked in the back but I felt fine. It would turn out the local aesthetic was quite powerful since it didn't wear off until the early evening. The current side affect was that I couldn't talk.

"We can leave when you're ready," my friend told me brightly.

I sat up. "Mumble wumble dumble!"

"OK, we can leave when the nurse says you're ready," came the slight amendment.

Damn small print. Still, it was only a few more minutes and I was finally free to flee the dental surgery ... the sort of fleeing that requires you to be propped up by one adult and one child.

I was tag teamed over to a second friend (this one a minister who could potentially forgive me for the sausage roll incident and send me in the right direction if all my original suspicions had proved to be founded. Never let be said I did not think this through) since the sedative meant I had to be supervised for the next 24 hours. The only real challenge was that I had to drink two glasses of water without being able to feel my mouth. In the end, I used my hand to pull my lower lip over the glass' rim and tipped. I also had a few tablets to swallow. I put one on my tongue and tried to swallow except...

"Did you loose it?" my friend asked with a grin.

It was somewhere in my mouth but where .... I felt it reach my throat. Gotcha!

We watched a movie and some lie was spun to me about it being several hours long. I was there and it was 10 minutes, tops. As was the second one. But by the time the evening rolled around I was de-numbed and feeling right as rain. I really wanted a cheeseburger but was offered an apple puree pudding instead. It's possible the next few days will still see me looking like a chipmunk but I'll take that look and make it awesome.

Then future cheeseburgers; they will be mine.

(Plus my friends are awesome. They can share the cheeseburgers.)

Pin cushion

2011-09-02T13:27:00.001+09:00

After being randomly accosted in the streets of Sapporo by a man telling me to go to India, there was really nothing left to do but book my flight. Since I was circumnavigating the globe at the end of the year to go home for Christmas and then onto Canada before returning to Japan, I thought it would be practically rude not to stop off in Delhi.

In terms of flight paths, this actually makes no sense whatsoever but let's just pretend the Earth is flat and carry on with the story. Besides, the difference in cost was pretty small.

The only downside to this plan-of-awesomeness was that India is home to more exciting diseases that those found in your average Toronto suburb and requires an arm full of vaccinations. Canada deals with such things through specialised travel clinics where the only difficulty is finding one open during the summer since they tend to be populated by doctors who go to tropical parts for their vacation rather than Niagara Falls like everyone else.

"Which vaccinations have you had?" The nurse clicked through her computer system, bringing up the list of inoculations needed for India. The page seemed rather long.

"Erm."

The problem with moving around so much is that it's hard to keep a consistent record. I rattled off the few I remembered with their dates and the nurse ran a pen down the screen.

"How about tetanus?"

"Maybe 2007."

I'd found a slip of paper while sorting out my apartment before the movers came that suggested such an event. Since it came from the USA, it was naturally a bill. Oddly though, I had no memory of the proceeding at all.

"... maybe 1995."

That was the last one I was certain about. The nurse lifted an eyebrow and pulled out the appropriate medicine vile.

"How about hepatitis A, B, typhoid or polio?"

I shook my head and the viles stacked up. She swizzled me around on the chair so my right arm was facing her and loaded up three syringes.

"You don't have a problem with needles, right?"

My mind flashed back to my school days; to standing in the queue for my measles booster, becoming so completely scared that I refused it point blank and felt sick all day with guilt and the huge unused adrenaline rush. To anyone who knew me then.... I can hear your laughter.

"Nah, it's no problem."

I am all about denial. Besides, it was probably true; eight years ago I took a course of prozac for a boat of clinical depression. Not only did it have the desired affect of re-balancing all to where it should be but it removed my fear of needles. The only (non-medical, entirely guessed) explanation I have, is the antidepressant suppressed the overwhelming adrenaline rush, allowing me to stay in control. I still don't like injections but then, if I actively enjoyed being shot in the arm with a needle that would also be of slight mental concern.

We did the first two and then I asked for a break. The dual hepatitus A & B vaccine is double the size of a normal shot and makes your arm ache. It wasn't painful but you couldn't ignore it was happening either. The nurse plonked me on the floor for good measure.

"People are really heavy when they faint," she told me matter-of-factly.

Still, there was only typhoid left and it was the normal quantity. I started to sit up again.

"This one feels like you've been punched!"

... I lay back down.

"I always believe in honesty. Some people don't feel a thing but one of the other nurses here said it was like being kicked by a horse!"

So, for the record, this is a situation where I DO NOT BELIEVE IN HONESTY. I totally support telling me it'll be totally fine and I won't feel a thing and then adding in the correction after its done. I don't actually have a low tollerance to pain, but the prospect of pain? I don't do it well. My imagination is good and Dante's inferno becomes a scorching likelihood in less than a second per circle of Hell.

"You need a second shot for your hepatitis next week, so we could do it then," the nurse suggested kindly.

I considered it but the wisdom teeth were next week. There's only so much I felt I could sign my future self up for.

"It's fine," I muttered, sitting up and looking away.

The nurse administered the shot and I lay straight back down again.

It was totally fine and I didn't feel a thing.

The nurse waggled a finger at me. "Stay there. You're green."

There's no accounting for what you can do to yourself.

Tell them a Yorkshire man did it to yer!

2011-09-01T12:00:00.001+09:00

"This is a lot harder now you're older. Really, 28 should be the maximum age for this procedure. Some people say over 30 is a problem, but I say 28."

28? 30? We were only talking about two years and more to the point...

"I was 31 last month. How can it make that much of a difference?"

"Oh, it does." I was assured. "The 40s are the same. 40 is always fine but 41... same with 50 and 51...."

Picture the most unamused expression imaginable and crank it up by a factor of ten. That was a fraction of the look I shot the dentist who was examining an x-ray of my bottom wisdom teeth. It was true that by North American standards, I was late to have these problematic calcified numbers removed. The logic goes that the teeth become progressively more difficult to extract as the patient ages and the roots cement more firmly to the bone. In the UK, the premise is that not everyone has issues with their wisdom teeth and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Regardless of the right or wrong of the matter, I had to have mine out next week. And I was being teased which was mean.

My dentist was a cheerful Yorkshire man who acknowledged our kindred roots by declaring that there were two types of people in the world; those from Yorkshire and those who wished they were from Yorkshire. He took unashamed delight in first describing the process in detail to me and then the after-care.

"You'll have holes in your mouth like the Grand Canyon! They'll be so big that ... "

I blanched. "Um, is it necessary to describe it so vividly?"

"Yes! Because the most common emergency call I receive on a Sunday afternoon is from people panicking they have holes where I took out teeth!"

Well, I guess that would annoy you. Apparently, the holes take four to six weeks to heal and they must be washed out to prevent food settling in there. I thought that sounded pretty disgusting.

"Oh, you wait till you see what comes out!"

I started to regret eating lunch. The swelling, I learnt, is likely to appear two or three days after the surgery and there were some who claimed they could see the inflammation come up in real time while watching in the mirror.

"... they don't really have very much to do," the dentist conceded after a moment's consideration.

I was also a little nervous about the recommended aesthetic, since the normal procedure involved an extremely heavy sedative. Then the dentist told me he couldn't really freeze with a local injection that deep in the mouth. Suddenly, I was all about sedation.

"Just don't make any important decisions that day," he recommended. "Could you be pregnant?"

"Hell, no!" I exclaimed in surprise.

"That's the answer I wanted to hear!"

Oddly, I was also told not to wear nail varnish the day of my appointment. It acts as a barrier for the pulse reader they clip on the end of your finger.

"Any other questions?" the dentist concluded.

I tried to think of something cool and calculating. Something to demonstrate that I had processed the information and was now calmly prepared to undergo this trifling event. "How long will it take?"

"The actual procedure, about forty minutes."

I felt relieved; forty minutes sounded short and manageable.

The dentist grinned as he left the room. "Good job we took your blood pressure before I came in," he said in way of a parting farewell. "Or it'd be through the roof!"

... Perhaps not so cool and calculating.

"Just tell them a Yorkshire man did it to yer!"

Everybody wish me luck for Tuesday.

Moving day

2011-08-31T12:47:00.001+09:00

There was a skidding sound of paws on a polished wood floor followed by a thump. Then a brown and gold shape streaked from the main room to the bedroom. Rinse, repeat.

I leaned back against the kitchen wall and lifted the remains of the 2 litre soda bottle to my lips, waiting.

After a few more minutes the cycle seemed to break and my cat appeared beside me.

"MEOW!"
** There is nothing here! NOTHING! **

Then she was off for another lap around the apartment that had just been emptied by the movers in the first stage of shipping my belongings to Japan.

This had been my first experience with a moving company that packed as well as shipped. Normally, not boxing up everything yourself adds a ridiculous amount to the moving cost but it seemed for a journey over these distances, the company wanted to do it themselves and basically threw it in for free.

I had stood watching while one of the movers painstakingly wrapped my plastic water bottle in three layers of paper before gently placing it in a box before deciding I wasn't going to understand this process and retreating to the basement. Down here, I had put all the items the movers weren't to touch: my suitcase for the next 2-3 months, a few items I was donating to a charity thrift shop and my cat. Said feline had decided to take no chances and had curled up actually in the suitcase as a rather pointed hint.

Despite the simplicity of my instructions to the movers ("please take everything"), I was still asked a few of bizarre questions:

"Is this bookcase coming? And all the things on it?"

No dude, that's just my hand luggage. The mind boggles.

Now, however, they were gone and all I had left was a suitcase. Tallis came back from her mad sprint and sat at my feet.

"Meow."
** Our life used to be so much cooler than this. **

I picked her up and submitted to having my face washed. Possibly she was remembering the last time our house was emptied; an event that preceded a bunch of car rides and a three hour flight up from Florida to Canada.

"Basically," I told her. "However bad you think this is going to be...? You're out. Waaaaay out."

Punch buggy

2011-08-29T11:00:00.001+09:00

"This isn't a normal amount for you to deposit, is it?"

I looked down at the bank teller's desk where the cheque for several thousand dollars was sitting. "Sadly," I replied. "No."

The teller grinned and went to find her supervisor to countersign the cheque. The second lady came over and recognised me from a previous visit where I'd moved US dollars from my Canadian bank account to my Japanese one, much to the anguish of the bank's computer system^[*].

"How's the move to Japan going?" she asked.

"It's progressing," I nodded towards the cheque. "That is for the sale of my car."

In the comment part of the cheque was scrawled the note 'For sale of 2002 VW Beetle'.

"Oh we both drive bugs!" The supervising teller indicated herself and the lady serving me. "It's so funny when you see the kids punch each other when you drive past!"

.... What?

"You didn't realise? It's punch buggy! If you see a beetle, you have to punch the person next to you on the arm and call out 'punch buggy! No punch back!'."

"It's important to remember the 'no punch back' part," the other teller added. "Otherwise you just get hit back."

I opened my mouth but all I could produce was a slightly bewildered "....Oh."

Both the tellers laughed. "You've just been thinking Canadians are all extremely violent? But no, it was because of your car!"

--
[*] For some reason, it had thought that CAD or at least Yen should have been involved somewhere along the line.

Stick short

2011-08-27T00:35:00.001+09:00

By my quick assessment of the sea of red jerseys the other side of the score keeper's box, I would estimate our opposing team had at least three lines of players.

We had two.

Players, not lines.

To be totally fair, our first line was on the ice, so we had one complete set of players and two substitutes. For those not glued to the NHL, in ice hockey a line consists of five players; two defence, two wings and a centre who both attacks and defends. For novice hockey, an ideal team would have at least two sets of defence players and three sets for the wings and centre; so a total of 13 players plus the goalie.

Seven players was therefore slightly short-handed.

Apparently, people went away in the summer; a shocking lack of commitment to this predominately winter sport! In the end, we managed to capture three extra players from teams that had played earlier that evening, making our bench a cheerful rainbow of coloured jerseys. Just don't pass the puck to anything in red.

One of the fun things about playing slightly short-handed is everyone tends to play their absolute best. After all, there is no point in leaving the leg work to someone better than you if your only substitute has collapsed from exhaustion a mere 30 seconds previously. This works until the third period where no one can move any more.

In the end, we lost but narrowly by a goal scored quite late in the game. I ate nachos with my team. Then found I couldn't stand up. It rocked.

One last love song

2011-08-15T10:13:00.001+09:00

"Try and take a seat over there."

For the first time in over a year, I was driving to the USA after more than three months since my last airflight in. This had the unfortunate side affect that I needed to stop and get a new green tourist I-94 visa waiver. My flight from Buffalo airport was at 1:10 pm and --knowing as I did the affection US border control has for human kind-- I had left just before 9 am for what would be a 90 minute drive if I was in an armoured Bat mobile with a disregard for international laws.

I arrived at the Niagara bridge around 10 am and shuffled my way for half an hour through the giant car tetris game to the border crossing. There, my passport was sent up a pipe leaving me to follow through the more traditional entrance of the office's main door. That was the point where I was told to try and take a seat.

... the operative word here was 'try'.

As far as I could see, everyone in Ontario required a US tourist visa right now and they'd each brought seven possibly-illegally-immigrated friends along for the ride. I stood for the first fifteen minutes before managing to squeeze into a seat beside a family with two children. The mother was exclaiming at the men in uniform while her ten year old son wanted to use up all her US change in the drink vending machine. She refused him. I obnoxiously decided to buy a soda, just so I could suffer slightly less than at least one other person.

Really, it was worth getting an iPhone just for situations like these. I worked my way through two games of 'plants versus zombies' and multiple chapters of my ebook before I was called to the counter. The border guard in charge of my passport was evidently a new recruit; he smiled at me and was fascinated by the computer system. A detailed conversation with a colleague ensued while he inquired why the system required both my sets of finger prints but no thumbs; apparently variations on this biometric theme are demanded depending on what the database finds when the passport is scanned.

Enchanting though this was, time was running out before my flight. I tried to keep smiling pleasantly and resisted the urge to tell him it was a magic 8 ball and just live with that.

Eventually, cash was handed over and my passport was stamped. The guard asked me the time of my flight (I had the impression that many he'd asked that day had replied with an hour in the past) and how many times I had visited my friend in Missouri before.

"Oh ... uh .... none."

I tried to make it sound damn casual in a manner that didn't suggest this was someone I had met on the internet. Fortunately, he seemed to consider this normal. Maybe the computer was just more interesting or perhaps no-one ever visited the mid-west more than once.

I took my passport, smiled at everybody, nodded to the guards on the way out... then I slammed on the gas. It was lucky that I'd checked in for my flight online. I was the last person to board the aircraft but then, I was totally worth the wait.

It occurred to me as we headed down the runway that this might be the last time I would face the US border for quite a while. Will you miss me, guys?

Cat tales

2011-08-13T12:22:00.001+09:00

"Look, it's your mommy!"

My cat was milling around the door to the apartment when I arrived to pick her up after my month in Japan. I held a hand down to her as I slid out of my shoes. She sniffed it, let me rub her ears and tickle her chin.

Then, she fled.

It took me fifteen minutes to locate her under one of the beds. I had to move several boxes and other items out of the way before I spotted the pair of yellow-green eyes staring back at me. Evidently, her time at the home of her feline foster family had been a success.

Saddened by the loss of a cat of their own, this family had decided not have another pet. Instead, they enthusiastically cared for other people's animals while their owners were away. I had been put in contact with the family's daughter through a friend and had explained that I was moving to Japan, but would ideally leave my cat in Canada for the first six months while I found an apartment, my possessions were shipped and things generally became sorted enough that we would have a place to recover from what would undoubtedly be a traumatic journey for the pair of us. It seemed like a rather high demand, but the response I received was extremely enthusiastic. So, we set up July as a trial run for both the family and Tallis.

Apparently, it had worked out well.

I sincerely hoped (as I pounced on my cat and carried her back downstairs) that Tallis' reluctance to stick around was due to her knowing that the next step involved the hated cat carrier and a car ride, rather than a declaration of her home of preference from this day forth. Since, upon arriving at home, she reverted to a furry ball of purriness, I've convinced myself this is true.

If it's not, well tough. I missed her even if the feeling of loss wasn't reciprocated.

This week I sold my bed. This move was apparently also not appreciated since Tallis refused to sleep on the sofa bed with me at all and spent all night on her seat by the window. There are times when I feel my home lacks support.

The soul of Seoul

2011-08-11T08:52:00.001+09:00

Window shopping in Seoul was proving to be somewhat challenging since the shops didn't have windows. Well, strictly speaking they did; the mall consisted of the usual array of glass-fronted stores on multiple levels connected by a central escalator. The difference was that the shops seemed unable to be contained behind their façades. Like an outdoor market, rails of goods spilled onto the aisles making it impossible to tell where the actual front of the store began. It also bustled with people and it was past 10 pm.

When booking flights between Sapporo and Toronto, I discovered I would have to stop in Seoul for an eight hour layover. Feeling this was a stupidly annoying length of time to be stuck in an airport, I'd added an extra 24 hours to the stop and booked a couple of nights in a hotel. The plan was to see the entire South Korean capital in exactly a day and a half. Much more sensible.

I'd already fluffed part of my plan by falling asleep when I reached my hotel (it had an air-conditioner) so I emerged rather sheepishly in the evening to see if I could still get something to eat.

Since the hotel was in the Dongdaemun Market commercial district where the shops are open for 18 1/2 hours a day until 5 am, this turned out not to be a challenge.

Outside the mall, I browsed through the stalls of street venders trying to choose between meat skewers, sushi-like rolls or an orange pasta-looking dish. In the end I selected the possible-pasta, accepting a bowl of hot somethings with a cocktail stick to eat it with. The orange sauce turned out to be pretty spicy and the pasta consisted of a glutinous rice dumpling. I took a photo with my phone and posted it on facebook. This action had two results: the first was the discovery that the dish was called 'Ddukppoki' (떡볶이) and is apparently a very popular snack in Korea. The second was facebook asking me whether I had a Korean name that I'd like to add to my profile...

It was just dinner, I tell you! It didn't mean anything.

Prices in Seoul varied a great deal. My hotel was good value for its location, but not cheap at $100 a night. Food prices ranged a fair bit and transport was very cheap. It costs only $1 to ride the (extremely nice) subway and the shuttle bus from the airport to my hotel cost only $14 for roughly an 1.5 hour journey. Also, I did not invent the cheesy title to this post; every English language guide book I saw was entitled something similar. By contrast, the French version had the boring translation of "A guide book to Seoul". But, eh, they deserve it.

The following day I set out for some serious site-seeing. I started at the Gyeongbokgung Palace (top left photo); a royal palace that dates from the Joseon Dynasty in Korea. This period of Korean history lasted five centuries and ended --ultimately-- with the annexation of Korea by Japan at the start of the 1900s. This had the unfortunate consequence of most buildings being reconstructions of the original (although some are still quite old) which met their untiming decimation at the hands of Japanese forces. Each of the small information plaques beside the buildings states their use, their original date and the date they were destroyed by the Japanese.

... I was starting to see the historical problem between these two countries.

Traditionally, the Japanese and Koreans hate each other. Their history is bloody, destructive and recent, with the annexation of Korea only ending in World War II. The present conflict has a different feel to it than the one between the English and the French. Don't get me wrong, of course I can't stand the French! But that's because it's just such fun to beat them at football^[*]. One of my Japanese friends (while somewhat inebriated) once told me; "Older people are very prejudice against Koreans. I don't feel that way and yet ... I understand why they do." Some wounds are still too raw to be confined to sporting events.

My guide books' pictures of Gyenogbokgong palace did not do it justice. They shows the outer wall; a military-looking affair at one end of a large concrete square. Behind this, however, the palace buildings extend back into large gardens around a central lake. There is not one huge building like the large houses and palaces in the UK but rather a multitude of smaller establishments designed for different purposes. Each of these was compact enough that you could see its extent by looking through the wide doors and windows. Despite their open frontage, the breeze passing through high-ceilinged rooms felt cool, smelling of wood and incense. If it hadn't been completely inappropriate, I would have jumped the rope barrier and laid out on the tatami mats; Seoul in July is not comfortable.

After the palace, I took a cable car ride up to the communication tower overlooking the city. It was slightly cooler here and there was a demonstration of ancient battle techniques which was pretty awesome. Many a straw dummy did not live to provide opposition for another day. I later walked back down to street-level where I saw a mother luring her small children up a steep set of stairs with a game of 'rock, scissor, paper'. The person who won each round was allowed to climb five steps. Cunning, very cunning.

Finally, I browsed in Namdaemun Market (right-hand photo); the largest traditional market in Korea. It was remarkably similar to the malls.

I left my hotel early Sunday morning to head out to the airport. The traffic in Seoul is notoriously bad but at 6:30 am it was still relatively quiet. The main people about were the street cleaners ... all of whom had "The Seoul of Asia" embroidered on his breast pocket. The old jokes are apparently the best ones.

--
[*] When, you know, England knew how to play

Humongous wasps of hell

2011-07-21T01:25:00.001+09:00

I had been to bed late the night before but despite this I was wide awake at 5:30 am.

This was because there was a two inch wasp in my room.

The size of my thumb and then some, the creature's loud buzz alerted me to its arrival, causing me to spring from my sheets before it landed on them and squashed me flat. Its body was covered with dark fur but beneath the hairs I could see the yellow and black stripes.

Those stripes did not say harmless cutie pie.

They said you are going to die.

... right after I've mated with your coat.

Not wishing my bedroom to be the breeding ground for humongous wasp / Gore-Tex hybrids I picked up my umbrella... which promptly broke. I gulped and prodded my coat with the broken end of the brolly, getting ready to run. Fortunately, even Satan's own insects succumb to the common male problem that size isn't everything and --done with my coat-- it left out the window. I swiftly barricaded all the entrances.

Later that day I was describing this horrifying, death defying experience to a friend at work.

"Ah," she said nodding. "If those wasps sting you more than once, you can die."

We're all doomed. Someone bury me under an apple tree.

--
(Note: for the record, I'm pretty sure what we're talking about it one of these, even though the body seemed less brightly coloured.)

Dark dealings

2011-07-18T22:01:00.001+09:00

The fact that public restrooms do not usually have western style toilets is not normally a problem. After all, even the best facility in a park has people traipsing wet and muddy feet throughout its tiled interior, while its open door policy and au naturale location means the majority of its guests have six legs and do not use toilet paper. As a result, I'm usually less than enthused to place my shiny-clean bare backside down on any surface.

The traditional squat toilet takes away that problem by being specifically designed for non skin to porcelain contact. In fact, one might even describe it as ideal... if I could see.

It was 5:30pm when I wandered into Nakajima park and the daylight was just starting to drop. The restroom actually did have lights --short fluorescent strips above the two wash basins-- there was just no way of turning these on. There were only two buttons in this side of the building and both controlled the water for the taps. Either this was an automatic detection systems that failed to note my stealthy restroom usage or someone had forgotten a key design feature.

Once I had closed the door of a cubicle, I couldn't see much. With no substantial ceramic object to grip, it was a question of crouch ... and hope. Fortunately the lack of light also prevented from knowing whether I was successful.

Bright orange lunches

2011-07-18T01:38:00.001+09:00

Sapporo fish market is small. Well, let me clarify the scale: Sapporo fish market is tiny compared to Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market but since that is the largest in the world, perhaps that is setting the bar rather high. Compared to the fresh fish counter at Sainsbury's, Sapporo's market is humongous. It is also largely filled with crabs. A Hokkaido speciality, there were huge crabs swimming around in glass tanks, crabs sitting on ice with their legs neatly tucked under them in a crab package and crabs being served up in the restaurants nestled between the stores. It was into one of these that I stopped for lunch.

My guide book particularly recommended not the crab, but the fresh sea urchin and salmon roe. I picked one of the restaurants in the centre of the fish market that had a steady stream of visitors. By trying my usual trick of looking hungry yet solvent, I was guided to a seat and handed a menu with a lot of pictures. After I'd pointed out my selection (a rice bowl with salmon, roe and sea urchin), I sipped my iced tea and looked around. My choice of establishment was one of the larger options with maybe three large tables that could sit about six, another three smaller tables for two and the counter area where I was seated. Many traditional Japanese restaurants are very small, with sometimes just half-a-dozen tall stools pulled up the counter. Somewhat incongruously, this restaurant had Indian music playing continuously through the speakers above my head.

My meal arrived in a spread of florescent orange goodness. Sea urchin in particular looks the opposite of what it is; appearing to be highly processed and faintly radioactive rather than freshly caught that day. It was all excellent. The salmon roe popped in your mouth and the sea urchin had a salty tang.

I left and accidentally walked straight into one of the crab stores opposite. A particularly large specimen snapped a claw at me. I narrowed my eyes; next time buddy, you're mine.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit.... and his wife

2011-07-17T00:45:00.001+09:00

Today, I was accosted by a crazy Christian group. This was surprising for three reason:

(1) Firstly, the majority of Japan is not Christian but Buddhist with a Shinto flavouring.

(2) Secondly they kept asking me about Passover which, being a Jewish festival that occurred in April, didn't seem to have an obvious connection to the topic in hand. I tried to explain this, they looked astonished and it was only with the later help of wikipedia that any of this started to make sense^[*].

(3) Thirdly, they asked if I knew Obama... I admitted I might have heard of him.

Nevertheless, it was an unmistakably Japanese experience as proved when one girl went looking in her bag for a Bible and produced her iPhone with the appropriate religious text App. Two of the others were also carrying open netbooks. The group consisted of four women; one older lady and three girls who looked to be students. Despite their enthusiasm for evangelising to random foreigners walking across Hokkaido University's campus, the small group's English was only slightly better than my Japanese. This meant than indepth philosophical discussions were even less likely to be successful than with your average megaphone wielding street preacher. To their credit though, they tried hard.

While they spoke Japanese and their iPhone Bible App appeared to be in Korean, the literature they had about their church was in English. Various parts of this were thrust under my nose from which I learnt that this was a Korean-based denomination and one of their main concepts was "God the Mother" as opposed to the more usual, "God the Father". They also held their religious day on Saturdays and were somehow involved with the United Nations and had donated to Haiti. Then I was shown a picture of millions of people all holding up their right hand.

... After which I concluded this was a Feminist cult with plans to take over the world who was not above political bribes and possibly had enough people to be successful.

Later investigations on wikipedia didn't immediately suggest world domination plans but explained that this church believes that there is both a Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother which exist as two facets of the same God. Their current leader is a woman who is considered to be the one promised in the Bible. They also believe that the second coming of Christ has occurred but before you get too excited, you've missed it; he died in 1985. Additionally, they keep Passover which their interpretation of the Bible states is essential for salvation.

After many minutes of strained conversation, the group attempted to lead me to their church. I declined, explaining that I had to teach. The fact they believed me on a Saturday afternoon says much for the Japanese work ethic. They did try and persuade me to come back and then asked about what I was doing tomorrow... or next week ... or ... I evasively suggested I taught continuously; morning, noon and night. My commitment to education knew no bounds! In the end, I touched my eyes and told them I would look out for them in the future.

"毎日! We here everyday!" They assured me.

I must find an alternative way to work.

--
[*] This term is used lightly.
[Author note: I should add that I have a huge amount of respect for all religions and the denominations within them and have a strong set of personal believes, but I'm slightly perturbed by street recruitment.]

Knowing where one's towel is

2011-07-16T00:55:00.001+09:00

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is completely clear on the subject of towels:

"...Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it,
slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows
where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

As opposed to a random western foreigner with sticky, butter covered fingers who just looks plain incompetent. In truth, I did know exactly where my small towel was... it just wasn't in my pocket. Currently, that was particularly unfortunate.

Walking through Sapporo's Odori Park on a Sunday afternoon, I had stopped at a stall to buy a corn on the cob. I sat eating it while I watched a group of teenagers rock out to a jpop dance routine they seem to have prepared especially for the group of girls perched watching them on the lip of a fountain. As I finished and dropped my devoured cob into a trash can, I looked down at my hands. No napkin had been provided with my purchase because Japanese people tend to carry small square flannels (wash cloths) with them for just such occasions. These towel-like accessories were thicker than a normal handkerchief and normally brightly decorated. I had two .... but one was in my desk at work and the other was floating around my bedroom. Sighing, I rubbed my fingers together and turned away.

"Ah...?" The inquiry came from a Japanese lady who had been sitting close by and had bought her own corn shortly after me. She was now holding out a disposable wet wipe.

I stammered out my thanks in Japanese as I accepted it, ducking in the customary bow. "Arigatou gozaimasu!"

She smiled and stood up, "Bye," she said as she walked away.

".... Bye."

Perhaps if I bought another 20 cloths and shoved them into all my pockets, I'd be good for the streets.

Flower power

2011-07-11T23:39:00.001+09:00

"You can eat that flower."

I examined the serving dish in the centre of our table. It contained the sashimi starter for the night, including tuna, shrimp and scallops laid out on a bed of leaves and flowers.

As far as I could see, the yellow flower was quite blatantly a marigold.

"In Japan, it is normal to be able to eat everything on the plate," another person at our table explained. "Although, it is worth taking care. Sometimes, the flowers are plastic."

Potentially crunchy. Got it.

I picked up the flower with my chopsticks and examined it closer. Still a marigold.

"The taste is very bitter." The first person who told me that the flower was edible was our head of group. "I don't really recommend you try it."

You just told me it was edible. It's totally getting eaten.

I nibbled off a handful of leaves. The taste was slightly tangy but not particularly strong. Clearly these people just had weak taste buds! I popped the whole thing in my mouth.

Hell, the centre was bitter!

Wincing, I swallowed and took a swig of coke. It didn't help, so I followed it with a scallop. It marginally softened the taste.

Our head of group touched his chopsticks at a large green leave with a sharp point. "These are less strong," he assured me.

.... For the record, that proved to be only marginally true.

More than words

2011-07-08T00:03:00.001+09:00

The problem with language --apart from it not always being English-- is that it is more than just words. This means that even the best non-native speaker can sometimes convey a meaning quite contradictory to the one meant.

One such example occurred in my first research meeting with my new group at Hokkaido University. We were discussing a project to model a small spiral galaxy with the astrophysics simulation code I had been using in my work and had now brought to Hokkaido.

"We would like to use a rotating reference frame," our head of group told me.

Yeah? Well, I'd like a pony.

The desired numerical jiggery-pokery which would allow the galaxy to remain stationary during the simulation while retaining the same properties as if it were rotating, was no minor task. It was especially difficult for this particular type of code. To implement it would take months of coding, testings, more coding and frankly, I'd probably screw it up.

However, what was really being asked of me was:

"Is it possible to use a rotating reference frame?"

Which has quite a different tone to it. In the first case, it sounded like a politely phrased demand for the project; the equivalent of telling an architect you wanted a revolving restaurant on the 43rd floor of your new building when he had been drawing up plans for a log cabin. By contrast, the second option is simply a request for information, with no implication that a negative answer will result in the project being unsatisfactory.

So far, I have been able to remember this likely translation error in time to stall voicing my equine desires. Answering the inquiry as if it had been phrased in the second way produced an entirely satisfactory response.

Hopefully, time will allow this to be the automatic understanding so that I don't have to mentally go through selecting breed, coat colour and wing span for my new steed. Not least because Japan might just produce such a mount and then I'd have an awful lot of computer coding to do.

Conforming to type

2011-07-04T16:44:00.001+09:00

"In Japan, we think no one in the UK uses an umbrella. Is this true?"

It had been a gorgeous weekend, but on Monday morning I had awoken to heavy rain that continued into the afternoon. It was now lunchtime and the theoretical galaxy research group were gathered in the hallway, waiting for the lift.

I looked around our group.

Every single person was carrying an umbrella. Apart from me. I was in a rain coat.

It was hard to deny with any sense of conviction.

No clothes beyond this point

2011-07-04T07:11:00.001+09:00

It's surprising how quickly you can get used to being naked in public. I plopped my small towel on my head as I entered the 40 C outdoor pool at one of Sapporo's city onsen. Around me, other women similarly attired as the day they were born, chatted quietly as they soaked in the hot water.

The traditionally Japanese onsen always feels to me like an cultural oxymoron. Here, where people are reserved enough to bow rather than make contact when greeting one another, everyone is perfectly happy to strip down to their birthday suit and climb into the same bath. The genders are usually separated but my new country has still seen more of me than all of my old ones combined^[*].

Onsen are geothermally heated by the hot springs that are prevalent throughout Japan. In previous onsen I had visited, everything you required was provided on entry. There was usually a large pile of bath towels, a smaller one to take into the onsen with you and soap and shampoo at each of the wash stands you use before entering the pools. Perhaps because it was a city onsen, as opposed to a larger resort-type establishment, this facility worked differently. At the entrance was a machine covered with buttons where you could select the options you wanted. This then dispensed tickets that you took to a counter. I pressed the button for an adult admission to the onsen, looked at the others in blank confusion and went into the changing room, showing my ticket as I entered.

Then I came back out again.

Whatever the other options were, one of them involved being able to rent a towel. I approached the woman at the desk and gestured my confusion. She spoke a little English, I a little Japanese and more helpfully, her spiral binder of options and prices for the bath house spoke both. I pointed to the choices for two towels, a shampoo and a bar of soap. She walked over to the machine and showed me which buttons they corresponded to. I tried to remember the combination, realised I was likely to fail, and made a mental note to bring my own toiletry bag next time.

Back in the changing room, I pushed my clothes into a locker, picked a location to conceal with my tiny towel and stepped through into the bathing area. There were a series of pools to choose from; two indoor and one outdoor. There was also a jacuzzi and deckchairs half emerged in water to relax in. Before entering any of the communal pools, you have to wash at one of the multitude of little stands around the outside of the room. Each place has a small seat, shower and bowl associated with it. I washed thoroughly. Then I did it again because I didn't want to be thought an incompetently unhygienic foreigner. I was half-way through my third rinse when I realised this was ridiculous. I cleaned my area and walked to the outside pool. Later, I tried the chairs, the jacuzzi, the outdoor pool again, the .... You get the idea. I bathed. It was good.

Not all Asian women have model-thin bodies and gleaming hair, but enough do to be slightly disconcerting. However, any feelings of inferiority are masked by the realisation that you are COMPLETELY NAKED in public. Fortunately, you are also quite obviously the only person who considers this remotely out of the ordinary so the feeling of awkwardness doesn't last.

Since my accommodation only has showers, being able to easily drop by a natural hot spring is all kinds of amazing. The only problem was I was so tired afterwards, I only made garbled sense to my parents when I called them. It is feasible they didn't notice anything strange.

--
[*] OK, so possibly this isn't true of the UK, but if I don't remember those early years, they didn't happen.

A call for change

2011-07-03T02:55:00.001+09:00

"When the trouble with the Fukushima reactor started, young people in Japan felt that they wanted better information from the Government."

It was evening at DK House and I was sitting on the porch step. Most people came out to this area to smoke. I was there to eat an egg. The speaker was one of my new Japanese friends who was in Hokkaido to take advantage of the cooler weather before returning to Tokyo in the Autumn for law school. He had previously told me that the power saving measures in Tokyo in the wake of Fukushima shutting down meant that the city was uncomfortably hot. Prior to taking up law, he had worked for one of Tokyo's TV companies and had a strong interest in journalism.

"You mean they want the government to be more honest about the situation?" I asked, opening the small container that held three eggs.

My friend nodded. "The problem is that newspapers will not speak ill of their sponsors," he explained. "But the electrical company is one of their major financial backers."

"So the newspapers won't report that Tepco [Tokyo Electric Power Company, owners of the Fukushima plant] has done anything wrong because money from them supports the paper?"

It was a natural reaction; no organisation would want to jeopardise their main source of funding. What it produced was a financially imposed restriction on freedom of speech in the press. Probably in the past, this limitation had not been an issue or it had gone unnoticed. As problems with Fukushima escalated, however, people wanted to know why Tepco weren't being hounded for answers.

In Japan, very few companies are allowed to produce power, giving those that do a monopoly in their region. This means the reach of electrical companies is long and the power they wield (social as well as literal) is substantial.

"They are also one of the biggest donaters to Tokyo University," added my friend dryly.

Oh. OH. So academics were also subject to these bonds.

My friend rose and returned with today's copy of a Hokkaido newspaper. He opened it and leafed through the sheets, looking for a particular section. "This page is very important," he said, gesturing to three or four articles. "It is the newspaper's opinion page." He pointed to a picture of a middle-aged Japanese man in the right-hand article. "Remember this man. He is the president of SoftBank."

Softbank is one of the largest telecommunications companies in Japan. Its president and founder is a man named Masayoshi Son who has the dubious honour of being both the richest men in Japan and the person who has lost the most money in history. He has been previously described as a philanthropist.

"He supports many new ideas, including renewable sources of energy." My friend's hand moved over the article in disgust. "This piece claims he is only interested in doing so for money."

I frowned. "The newspaper thinks he wants to make money for himself by promoting alternative energy sources?"

"The newspaper is largely funded by the electrical company in Hokkaido."

Ah.

"Hokkaido University may also receive money from the electrical company," my friend said. "You should ask. I would be interested to know." He folded up the newspaper again. "Change isn't easy. But many young people in Japan want to see these things done differently." He pointed to the egg still in my hand. "That will be soft inside. You will need a bowl."

Think I'm gonna eat worms

2011-07-01T22:50:00.001+09:00

"Here, have one of these."

A small tin and a pair of chop sticks was passed my way. I had just got back from my first day in the office and was now sitting at a table in the communal area of DK House; student dorm-like accommodation specialising in international visitors to Japan. Peering into the tin's contents I saw a series of small curly brown nut-sized objects suspended in water.

"What are they?"

"Silk worms," the girl next to me declared cheerfully. "They're from Korea."

I instinctively dropped the chop sticks. "What do they taste like?"

"You know those things you can sometimes eat ... and afterwards, it feels like your mouth is full of rotting garbage..."

"You're not selling this to me."

Obviously I ate one. Well, how often in your life are you casually passed a tin of silk worms to nibble on? It tasted .... exactly as you might imagine. Even if you didn't look at the curled up little striped bodies, there was really no way from the texture you could pretend you were chewing on a nut. Or rotten garbage. Nope, it was a worm.

I took a large swig of beer and downed a carton of strawberry milk. Amidst the laughter, one of the other girls leaned across the table:

"Welcome to Japan."

Rice pudding

2011-07-01T14:11:00.001+09:00

"Omelette or rice pudding?"

By my watch, it was 1 am in the morning and we were about an hour from touching down in Tokyo. While I am normally cheerfully adventurous with my food, breakfast was a meal for which I found hard to stomach anything out of the ordinary. Admittedly at 1 am EST and 2 pm JST, this wasn't really a morning meal, but I had just woken up so my body seemed to think it might be.

"Rice pudding," I requested.

That sounded like a good plan; gentle on the stomach with perhaps some sugar or fruit...

..... or carrots, chicken and mushrooms.

This was one of the rare occasions I was completely caught unaware at the differences between Western and Asian style cooking. While the 'norm' for meals in the different areas of the globe is substantial, the food usually has a different name. Plus I was on an Air Canada flight so wasn't really expecting any surprises. The stewardess should have knocked me on the head with the food tray and given me an omelette.

In the end, I managed a few mouthfuls and then switched to the more comprehensible melon side dish. I'm pretty sure the two Japanese passengers either side of me were amused. They also both ordered an omelette.

Open wide

2011-06-30T17:03:00.000+09:00

"Open really wide."

There are occasions for which such request would lead to great, likely unbloggable, things. This, however, was not one of them. I inhaled and squinted as light bounced from the mirror being inserted into my mouth. It was the day before I was due to leave for a month in Japan and I was having my first tooth filling.

This rather ill timed event had been instigated by a conversation with my advisors the previous Friday. They had pointed out that since I would no longer be their postdoc once I officially took up my position in Japan, all my employee benefits would cease. The most important of these, my health coverage, was exempt since Canada's socialized medicine meant that it was tied to my residency and not my employment. This would end with my visa in October. I therefore waved the information away... until it occurred to me I hadn't seen a dentist in about three years.

Whoops.

The reason I hadn't been to a dentist was because I hated them. All of them. They had drills and needles and scalpels and you couldn't even pretend it wasn't happening because they were RIGHT THERE in your face. Literally. What was more, I hadn't really needed much in the way of said drills, needles and scalpels and therefore I was irrationally scared. And there was really no point in trying to talk me out of that.

Prior to this particular Tuesday, the only time I had needed more than a clean at the dentist was when my top two wisdom teeth were removed. That procedure had been triggered by an infection in one of the teeth and --after a transatlantic flight where I failed to perform the extraction myself with Virgin Atlantic's plastic cutlery-- neutralized all concern regarding drills and needles and scalpels. Plus, each tooth only took two minutes to remove.

I actually needed two fillings. One was so small that no anesthetic was needed. The other was going to require more work. I shuffled along the corridor at work, expressing my highly legitimate concern to those I met.

"It's not really a drill, it's like a sand paperer." One of my friends assured me.

Clearly this was lies. It was going to be a HUGE PNEUMONIC DRILL probably supported by two other dentists as it was lowered into my mouth.

.... I'd had all weekend to think about this, can you tell?

It was probably a good thing the dental surgery was only across campus. If it had been further I'd probably have run for the hills and even now be living a life as a toothless hermit in the foothills of the Rockies. They were also extremely kind to me. The dental nurse held my hand while they gave me the injection (I might be 30, but at that moment I felt about three) and after that I couldn't feel anything so it really didn't matter what they were doing. In fact, the hardest thing was to hold my mouth open for half an hour, but the dentist gave me a block to bite down on so I could rest my muscles.

The anesthetic wore off after a couple of hours and the following day I wasn't able to see or feel where the work had been done. Pretty amazing really.

Oh and the drill? Totally a sandpaperer. Didn't actually require multiple people to lift it. I knew you were wondering too.

This is a Buffalo bound local aeroplane

2011-06-21T11:29:00.001+09:00

Our plane touched down in Charlotte twenty minutes late. Fearing another missed connection, I sprinted across the airport and made it to my gate just as the last few passengers were boarding. Taking my seat, I waited .... and waited... and ...

"We apologise for the delay. We're standing by for passengers from a Rochester flight that was cancelled."

That made sense. Buffalo is about an hours drive from Rochester so while undoubtedly irritating, it provided an easy alternative for stranded travellers. After a few minutes, a small gaggle of vexed Rochester-bound people boarded. From their conversation, it appeared that the flight had been too under-subscribed to fly. Still, at only 60 minutes away, there were trains, buses ...

"This flight will now be making a stop in Rochester before Buffalo."

... and apparently planes. Since when did flights make local stops like a weekend NYC subway? There was so much fury at this that one passenger had to be calmed down by the pilot. A young man in front of me was especially put out since he would actually have preferred to go to Rochester, but his bags had been checked through to Buffalo and couldn't be retrieved.

During this furore there was more waiting while we took on the extra fuel needed to make our spontaneous touch down. We were assured that the time on the ground in Rochester would be no more than 30 minutes and our flight time to Buffalo would be a staggering 15 minutes. This just left one very obvious question:

WHY WOULD ANYONE DO THIS?

The total delay on the Buffalo flight was two hours. The driving time to Rochester would have been one hour and the fuel costs to bring a plane down and back up can't be low. Perhaps there was no way of getting a bus in Buffalo after midnight. Maybe all the car rental places were closed or only rented out two-seater sports cars. It could be that US Airways only ever thought about planes.

Or maybe the world has just gone completely mad.

Computer says no

2011-06-20T12:00:00.001+09:00

I dropped the rental car keys on the counter of the AVIS desk at Gainesville airport. "The gas tank is 3/4 full," I said. "But I'm on the state rate."

Since I no longer worked at the University of Florida, I shouldn't be using the special state rate for car rentals; a discount that gave you a preferable daily rate, removed the hefty excess charge for dropping the car at a different Florida location from where you collected it and gave you a reasonable price for fuel usage, making it less important to refill the tank. However, since I still knew the magic phone number and no one ever asked me directly whether I should be doing this, I remained numb on the subject.

The assistant behind the counter punched in the details of my rental agreement to his computer and handed me the bill. I had been charged $25 for a quarter of a tank of gas. In the UK, this might be quite reasonable, but the gas stations in town were displaying around $3.61 / gallon. I shot the man a peeved look.

"I'm on the state rate," I pointed out. "It's only a quarter of a tank of gas."

He looked at the bill and shrugged. "It's what the computer gave me."

I was reminded unavoidably of Carol from the TV show Little Britain who works as a bank clerk and has the catchphrase "computer says no" which she utters in deadpan tones in response to customers' ever more desperate pleas.

"That doesn't mean it's right." I tried to smile pleasantly.

My unhelpful friend shrugged again and tapped away at the keyboard. This did not look good. But then:

"I could just remove the cost of the fuel from your bill."

"..... Yes, I would find that acceptable."

Hard not to, really.

(Literal) missed connections

2011-06-16T23:31:00.001+09:00

"The flight to Jacksonville has left."

Given the time, this wasn't a surprising statement but I had hoped that my connecting flight had also had been delayed due to the weather in Chicago. Quite how a storm in Illinois came to be my problem on a Buffalo to Florida flight is anyone's guess. However, it was apparently due to this that my first flight had been late departing, causing me to miss my connection at Washington Dulles. At 10 pm, I knew there wasn't going to be another flight that day and I trudged off resignedly in the direction of the United Airlines customer service counter.

To be fair to them, United were making an attempt to sort everyone out. I had expected to be told that weather was considered 'an act of God' and I was responsible for my own arrangements until the next flight out of Dulles. Instead, I found out that I had been automatically rebooked on a flight the following morning and could have a complimentary a hotel room .... except there were no hotel rooms left.

Slightly strangely, the fact I qualified for a hotel voucher was due to not being a US resident. While I wasn't going to object, I couldn't see why my situation as a Canadian resident was worse than anyone else who had flown in from Buffalo. They couldn't exactly nip home for the night either. Perhaps it was due to a believe that nowhere outside the US had exciting buildings such as hotels so foreigners would be flummoxed. Or maybe it was merely that Americans should be responsible for their own weather system.

Either way, Canadian, American or British, there was no room at the inn so it was rather academic. They did provide everyone in the queue with a $15 meal voucher. The person next to me in the line looked at this coupon before asking;

"Where is the nearest restaurant?"

"Behind you," he was told. "But it's closed."

I was preparing myself for an uncomfortable, hungry night in the airport lounge when a woman in front of me asked about taxi vouchers to take us into Washington DC. Dulles airport is about 30 miles outside the city, so a cab ride wouldn't be an incidental expense, coming to around $60 each way. Her idea was there might be hotels there with free rooms. My idea was that there was a friend there with a free couch. Surprisingly, United bought into this idea. Possibly the line of irate passengers was becoming annoying and sending them to get lost in the city sounded like a great plan.

It's perhaps not conventional to visit someone between 12 and 5 in the morning, but my friend took it well. I rolled into his apartment in the middle of the night and was out before the dawn to catch an early morning flight. Really, when you look at it, these were highly questionable actions. I blame United and that's all I have to say on the matter.

It's now 7:30 am and I'm waiting at the gate. Sadly, I'm now going to miss a friend's thesis defence which is this morning but I'll be there by the time everyone's moved onto the party. And really, I'm far more in it for the after party than the astrophysics in any case.

Kawaii

2011-06-13T13:00:00.002+09:00

As my time in Canada was now drawing to a close, my advisor invited our research group over to his house for a BBQ. Among the guests was a Japanese friend of mine who brought along his three year old son. Feeling this was the perfect victim on which to try out my very basic-level Japanese language skills, I approached him holding my advisor's kitten.

"これは小さいねこです。かわいいですね。"
This is a small cat. It's cute, isn't it?

"かわいくないです。”
It's not cute.

"....."

Where does one even go from there?

Too stupid for eggs with toys

2011-06-12T13:01:00.001+09:00

While passing through the US border control can be infuriating, it goes without saying that the guards are there to protect us all from something much worse. It is quite understandable that the American government would want to monitor imports such as animals, food that might not conform to US safety regulations, drugs that could be sold on the black market, firearms, suitcases collected from strangers in Japan belonging to someone whom the carrier met on the internet^[*], expensive items such as alcohol whose sale could damage the economy and, above all....

Kinder surprise eggs.

These small chocolate eggs that contain a toy are loved by children in both Europe and Canada (a snack, a surprise and a toy; 3 treats in 1!). However, I learnt tonight that the US border control guards are under orders to seize and destroy any kinder eggs that pass through their gates. Apparently, American children CHOKE on the toy and DIE INSTANTLY. ALL OF THEM.

There is really only one word that springs to mind at this news:

Darwinism.

--
[*] If you don't know .... don't ask.

Licensed to travel

2011-06-11T13:14:00.001+09:00

The United States of America is a nation of immigrants. The concept goes that anyone from anywhere can make it in New World and for centuries, people have entered the country searching for their own 'American dream'. There are many good reasons for this but let me assure you none of them involve visa applications.

To be strictly fair, getting your US visa is not so much hard as long, tedious and expensive. Once you have received your work papers from your employer, you must make an appointment with the US embassy.

In your country of citizenship.

It is impossible to apply for a US visa from inside the US. Technically, you can go to a different, randomly chosen country that might have good margaritas, but the documentation warns that this increases your chances of refusal. The idea being that if you can't stand even a week with your parents, perhaps you'll conveniently forget to leave America once your visa expires.

To make an appointment at the embassy, you have to call their premium rate telephone number. This call must be made up to a month in advance of your desired appointment and ....

.... also from within your country of citizenship.

Because it is charged at the inflated rate of £1 per minute (or equivalent), you can't use skype and it must be from a national land line. The last two times I had to get a visa, I was living in the US so I had to ask my Mum to call on my behalf. It occurred to me recently I probably owe her dinner at the Ritz as a thank you.

After this you receive an appointment letter in the mail with dire warnings about being turned away if you are late. Despite this, pretty much everyone has the same appointment time. You all queue up outside high wire fences and watch the only guys armed with guns in the UK prowl the outside. The documents you must be equipped with include your current passport plus any past passports that contain stamps from the US, a receipt for several hundred dollars worth of fees, a pre-paid recorded-mail envelope for return of your passport and an application form that lists every instance you've passed through US border control.

... Did I mention I was living in the US during two of these applications? That list was somewhat long.

Amusingly, my American friends who have moved to the UK tell me that the fees for a British visa match the ones for the US equivalent to the last cent. The Brits, however, don't bother actually seeing you. You just mail in the money stuffed in your passport like some form of documented bribe. Fair's fair, after all.

Once done with the queue, it's through the metal detectors where laptops, phones and anything fun that might play 'angry birds' is removed from your possession. You end up in a room that resembles an airport lounge and has a ticketing system like a fresh food counter. In one corner there is a small kiosk selling muffins and coffee. It may seem unexciting, but after a five hour wait that snack counter is where it's at.

Finally, there is a couple of two minute interviews, a finger print scan and you get to leave with a note saying that your passport will be mailed to you in roughly two weeks, barring any unforeseen circumstances such as concern over your second cousin Osma or the playstation IV being released.

It was therefore with a sense of resigned apprehension that I went into Toronto to get my visa for Japan. Japan, in contrast to America, is perceived as a mono-ethnic society so their immigration process had every reason to be difficult.

The embassy building was two blocks away from the bus station. I was there and back in time to get the same bus and driver back to Hamilton.

No appointment was necessary, the paper work was a single page that accompanied my work papers and my passport can be collected on Wednesday in exchange for $35. Where does one even go from here?

Oh right. Japan.

It's cool to be 20

2011-06-10T12:38:00.000+09:00

So here's the thing Canada; I feel you're undervaluing the 20s. The positive 20s in centigrade I mean; I know you got the negative ones covered. Weather for you is all about extremes and I've noticed that your year seems to go something like this:

Snow, snow, snow, too cold for snow, snow, snow, frozen snow on ground, thaw, bigger thaw, snow cleared, surprise! snowpocalypse!, thaw.

This is typically followed by two weeks over which the same volume of snow is dropped on us again but in the form of water.

Then KA-BAM! It's the mid-30s and I have to hide in the dark coolness of my basement as if 'Twilight' was my favourite novel. In truth, Canada, I preferred the Harry Potter books and the wizards got to go outside all the time. All. The. Time.

What I am trying to tell you, Canada, is just because I am going to be 31 this year, you don't have to beat me. Perhaps you feel intimidated by the USA working in Fahrenheit? Is Buffalo laughing at you, saying that temperatures over there are reaching 100 and you can't even get mid-way to triple figures? You shouldn't feel bad, Canada. Remember, they have to pay to get their sunburn treated.

So next time you wonder how much water can be extracted through the skin of an average Canadian resident, pause a moment. You don't have to always stay on a trend to the very top; it's cool to be 20.

Late spring

2011-06-06T05:42:00.001+09:00

Woman on the bus to a couple of random children: "Are you enjoying the summer?"

Small child #1: "It's not the summer. It's late spring."

Smaller child #2: "Summer doesn't begin until the 21st."

Woman: "Oh my god, you're absolutely right! I was completely wrong."

So all of you get your facts right out there. It may be hot and sunny, but it is still LATE SPRING.

Everybody look at me coz I'm ridin on a segway

2011-06-05T12:59:00.000+09:00

"What are those lights between my legs?"

This unfortunate choice of wording was underlined by my friend having to clutch the handle of her own illuminated machine as she doubled over with laughter. Our tour guide made a brave attempt to answer my question straight-faced.

"They tell you the segway is activated."

Yes, I was on a segway. One of those electric two wheeled mobiles that look somewhere between a scooter and a circus act. It was one of the multiple options I had for taking a tour of Chicago; bus, boat, bike or segway. Sorry, did I say this was a choice? Who wouldn't take a segway?!

Segways are operated by touch sensitive pads under your feet. Move your weight onto your toes and you will accelerate, lean back and you slow down. Lean too far back and you reverse; not a good thing. Pulling the handlebars straight to the left or right causes you to turn. After a brief instruction, we were set free to wheel around a small square in Millennium Park. Forwards, backwards, round and round and ... okay, I was good to go!

Our tour guide explained to us that our route would involve many hills and dips and a few road crossings. By the time he had explained what we had to do to handle each of these events (lean forward, back, speed up slight to go over bumps) I was less good to go. Actually, I was quite sure I was going to die.

Myself and a long-standing friend were the only two people taking this particular tour. This situation (me feeling death was imminent while my friend wondered where the turbo-boost button was located) had been mirrored multiple times throughout our childhood. It perhaps didn't help that I had been reminded of a certain horse riding incident from when we were about eight twenty minutes previously. Currently, I was concerned about how I'd explain what a segway was to Saint Peter at heaven's pearly gates.

Evidently, my anxiety regarding this near-future conversation must have shown on my face. Our tour guide kindly suggested I went behind him in our line and my friend behind me. As we reached the road, he put a hand on my segway to ensure I survived the crossing, or at least had company into the afterlife.

After a short distance, I gained more confidence and zipped off after our guide around Chicago's parks. A typical segway has a maximum speed of 12 mph and when switched on, cannot be over-turned. The police, incidentally, have suped-up segways that can travel up to 30 mph, go down stairs and can be over-turned so the riding officer can jump over the segway's handle to bring down a suspect. I tried to show enthusiasm for this information while feeling secretly grateful my segway could do no such thing.

The paths we travelled along where largely very smooth, making it ideal segway conditions. Occasionally, we did go over a bump large enough to warrant me holding onto the segway's handle pretty firmly but the large wheels meant they weren't a real problem.

"Boing." I helpfully supplemented as we went over a particularly big crack.

We saw the Chicago Planetarium, the Buckingham Memorial Fountain (which is one of the largest in the world and is bizarrely operated by controls in Georgia), the spot where Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech for president, the four-story presidential suit on top of the Hilton Hotel (complete with helicopter pad), the building that looks more like a vagina than a penis (apparently an intentional move by the female architect) and the outside of the aquarium and Field Museum where Sue the most complete (and male) Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton is housed.

Our tour guide greeted people cheerfully as we moved around the pavements. This had the combined effect of being good publicity and preventing people from getting annoyed at the more unpredictable driving of the people following him. As we drew level with a runner, our tour guide glanced at the computer on his segway and said casually, "You're going at about 8 mph." He then glanced back at us and shrugged. "I thought he might want to know!"

Finally, we headed back to the rental shop. As we roller over a few cracks in the street, our guide turned to me, looking slightly exasperated;

"Thanks to you, all I can think of is 'boing!' everytime we go over a crack."

My work here was done.

The bordinator

2011-06-04T11:30:00.001+09:00

"Nationality?" the humourless US border guard demanded, staring at the cover of my British passport.

".... British."

"Purpose for your visit to the United States?"

"I'm visiting a friend in Chicago."

"What is in Chicago?"

".... my friend."

Ever noticed how my conversations at the US border are highly circular? The guard flicked through my passport, pausing as usual at the two expired US visas.

"You were a student here or something?"

"Yeah, a few years ago."

This was true, but in fact both the visas in my current passport were for research jobs after I'd graduated. I contemplated whether this was going to matter but apparently it went unnoticed.

"I have a recent stamp," I pointed out. "On the back page from April."

The guard continued to look at the centre of my passport. "These are old," he declared.

"Yes, my visas have long expired."

Through the tinted glass, I saw him put my passport in a tube to send it across to the main office.

"Hey, excuse me! I have a recent stamp! I don't need to stop."

I was ignored.

"Excuse me!!"

It was 8 am and my flight was at 10. Technically, I had time to stop if I was forced to go in and get a new visitor visa and passport stamp. The problem was that a delay could cause me to run smack into rush-hour traffic in Buffalo. I also wouldn't put it past the border office to take more than an hour to write out the necessary small green slip.

It is rare to meet a border guard with any care for humanity. This guy was no exception and, should I sound too irritable, I was quite confident would pipe my passport away out of perversity, setting it alight as it flew down the tube.

The guard paused. "It's from April," he said curtly, still holding the dispatch tube like a pipe bomb. "It's expired."

"No, I got it in April," I protested quickly. "It's good to July. Would you let me show you?"

Admire my politeness in the face of obnoxious sadistic border guards. There was more superfluous flicking through the passport. Then a long pause.

Cake or death?

The passport was handed back to me. "I found it," he said expressionlessly.

"Thank you." I flashed him a charming smile. He returned it with a look that made me confident he was the precursor model for the Terminator. I accelerated hurriedly and scooted off over the bridge.

Zoom.

How to impress a female squirrel

2011-05-30T01:16:00.001+09:00

Spring has finally arrived in Ontario and the squirrel mating season has begun. But how does a young gray-tailed lady know that the black tree rodent posing for her attention on the front porch is worthy of being her mate? The answer apparently comes down to one rather unfortunate challenge:

Who can terrorize my cat the most?

This particular black squirrel has long been a major source of entertainment / annoying itch / enemy who will one day be vanquished (delete as appropriate) for Tallis. It was clear from an early stage that he didn't give a jot about the fact a carnivorous feline was pressed up against the window a mere foot from where he was hanging from my deck rail. Still, until this morning, the squirrel's main objective had been to raid the seeds in my bird feeder and the frenzy my cat blew into was no more than a passingly interesting side-effect.

Today was different. The bird feeder was completely ignored and instead the squirrel danced in front of the window while the newly arrived gray squirrel looked on from on top of the dustbin. Tallis watched, nonplussed, from where she was sitting on my desk. The gray squirrel looked equally unimpressed. Evidently, this was not demonstrating the required quantity of bravado.

Our black friend then leapt onto the wall and ran around the outside of the window frame. Tallis had now moved to her window seat, but couldn't see the squirrel when he was above her. Feeling that his presence needed to be fully marked, the squirrel scuttled down the side of the house and leapt across onto the bug screen attached to the outside of the window pane.

Yoo hoo!

A dance was then performed across the window, complete with a nut clamped in the squirrel's mouth. The addition of the food was quite blatantly to emphasize that while the squirrel had breakfast, my poor cat would be forever without the snack she desired. That didn't stop her trying to chew the squirrel straight through the glass.

In the end, however, the torment was too much. Tallis retreated to sulk in the middle of the room and the squirrel was left still clinging to the window. At length it dropped down and I've not seen it or Miss Gray since. Assuming this bold act of daring was accepted as a feat worthy of a father, this summer could be a tough one for Tallis. We may just have to draw the curtains.

Does whatever a spider cat does

2011-05-23T12:41:00.001+09:00

There comes a time in everybody's life when it is desirable to make your cat radioactive.

For many, it is a feeling that a remake of the 'spiderman' movies could be a real hit with one obvious improvement. For others, it stems from a dream to get even with the neighbour's newspaper-chewing dog. For one of my friends, the source was his cat developing an over-active thyroid.

Ramses --known as 'Sir Ramses' by the people who cared for him over Christmas and 'pussy' by his family's newest addition-- had developed hyperthyrodism; a condition caused by tumours (not necessary malignant) on the thyroid gland which leads to an overproduction of hormone. To emphasise his displeasure at this condition, Ramses underlined the inconvenience by having an allergic reaction to every medication designed to treat the problem and ended up in the veterinary hospital. The suggested solution was a dose of radioactive iodine which is absorbed by the thyroid and kills off the excess cells. It only needs to be performed once for a permanent cure.

There is no mention in the veterinary guidelines of a treated cat morphing into a immensely powerful super villain but, hey, I was optimistic. Especially since said cat was not living in my house. (Though if he appeared at the door, my Tallis could totally take him -- it's what she's been preparing for all these years.)

The 'make your own glow in the dark cat' procedure took place at a hospital 90 minutes drive away. Sick people went in the front, cats were wheeled on a trolley through the back. The nurse who appeared to collect Ramses eyed my car with disapproval.

"When you collect your cat, you shouldn't bring the baby," she informed us, nodding at my smallest passenger who had come along to say goodbye to 'pussy'. "He'll still have quite a high radiation count and that is a very confined space."

Woman, size isn't everything! I covered my car's wing mirrors so it could not hear such comments.

Iodine has a half-life of eight days. Since Ramses ended up staying at the hospital two weeks, he was down to roughly a quarter of his original radiation level by the time we collected him in a baby-free car. Had he been human, there would have been no further guidelines concerning his health. As a cat, however, there was a list of rules that included storing his kitty litter for a further week. Apparently, the radiation levels were still high enough to trigger the alarms at the rubbish dump.

It was after dropping the cat off at the hospital that we all visited the large cats at Killman Zoo. It's good to be prepared.

Bugs in bugs

2011-05-19T12:37:00.001+09:00

"This is a front wheel drive?"

"Mmmhmm."

Chunk. Chunk. Chunk. I watched dispiritedly as the front half of my car was lifted into position behind the tow truck. Resignedly, I noted that this trip was not going to end in a hockey game as originally planned.

I had only driven about ten minutes when the problem started; a juddering from the engine that shook the car. My engine warning light came on and started flashing. I didn't actually know that light could flash but, under the circumstances, I felt a conservative translation would be 'STOP OR YOU WILL DIE'. I bounced into a parking lot and optimistically tried shutting everything down and then turning it back on. Hey, I was a Microsoft Windows user too once. The resulting vibration might have been a seat feature if the car felt remotely safe to drive.

I called the CAA.

I rode with the tow truck across town to the VW garage, resentfully eyeing all the other vehicles around us.

"If we see another yellow beetle, could we just stop and switch them over?" I asked sadly as I spotted a grey bug parked by the curb.

"No problem. I know a guy who'll get you a set of keys for it for $150."

.... all in all, it was probably a good thing we didn't spot car like mine. I wasn't sure what my bill from the garage was going to be, but I was fairly certain it wasn't going to fall below $150.

The price of the repair was a particular concern. In all likelihood, I would be selling the car by the autumn and, at 10 years old, it wasn't going to be worth all that much. An added complication was that I had brought it into the country on a temporary import, so it would be preferable to sell it back in the USA rather than pay tax and duty on it in Canada. That meant that it had to be able to reach the border. I didn't like the idea of pushing.

I sat anxiously at the garage while I debated what my cut-off sum was; the amount at which I run from the room, denying all knowledge of having ever owned a car or evening knowing how to drive. I decided it was somewhere close to $1000. Around the price a serious engine malfunction would probably cost. I knotted my shoe laces tighter.

Miraculously, it turned out to be the ignition coil. Not cheap to fix, but not $1000 either. What was more, the garage had one in stock and fixed it within the hour. I had been hesitant about going to the VW dealership; as a general rule they are more expensive that a generic garage. The fact they were open until 8pm, looked at my car immediately and fixed it on the spot made it all worth while. The only bad news they gave me was that my spark plugs and wires also were showing wear and the oxygen sensor (emissions detector thingo) also needed replacing 'in the next few months'.

I'm pretty confident that'll mean after September.

Meow

2011-05-15T13:01:00.001+09:00

There are several surprising things about Killman Zoo.

Firstly, it is home to one of the largest collections of big cats in Ontario.

Secondly, despite this first point, it has almost no signposting. My GPS unit point blank didn't believe it existed and tried taking us to a school instead; the only location of note it could detect in the rural fields around Hamilton's tiny airport. Google maps did acknowledge the zoo's existence and took us down a rough gravel track where we eventually saw a small square sign directly opposite its entrance. The website for the zoo describes it as "truly one of Ontario's best-kept secrets". Evidently, they're completely serious about that.

Thirdly, several of the cages contained two cats of different species. A female lion and tiger shared a run and a cougar with a lion. Everyone seemed okay with this....

Finally, it has possibly the most unfortunate name for a place containing large carnivorous animals. Since its founder was a man named Murry Killman, the origin of said name is understandable, but I think in such a circumstance I might have changed my name to Willnotkillman.

The animals are housed in cages that look like they've been cobbled together out of salvaged wood. In fact, the whole area has the feel of a animal rescue centre, except for the fact the pens contained GIANT MAN EATING CATS rather than, you know, raccoons. On the other hand, maybe Hamilton is frequently plagued by wild jaguars and the zoo is just very good at rounding them up. It would explain why the local Canadian football team is known as the Tiger-cats.

In addition to lions, tigers, cougars, jaguars and panthers, the zoo is home to a bear, emus, pigs, turkeys and a whole bunch of bunny rabbits. Evidently, there had been some concern for the fate of said fluffy bunnies, since there were large signs all around the zoo stating 'we do not use live prey'. Since there was one pen that was labelled 'African porcupine' but now seemed to consist only of rabbits, this precaution might have been introduced for the reverse reason than most would presume.

The cages themselves appeared not to be terribly big which left you with the mixed feelings of pleasure at being so close to the animals mingled with concern for their welfare. However, a closer inspection showed that the cages interlinked to give a more respectable sized run, and each cage had a door into one of the large open areas that were alternately occupied by the zoo's inhabitants. Nevertheless, the website indicates that not everyone is satisfied with this solution since it lists warnings to PETA and Zoo Check that Killman Zoo is private property. To me, the cats looked healthy and one suspects if they were very unhappy, those cages wouldn't hold them for long. Undoubtedly though, any such containment is a hard moral call.

With me on this trip were a couple of friends and their eight-month old son. While we all admired the cats, the baby's all time favourite site was .... a tree. This was likely due to the meanness of his parents in not letting him stroke the large tiger. With one hand on the tree bark, he looked at me and grinned.'

"Mu-mu-muuuummm."

I raised an eyebrow. I see the logic kiddo, but your generalisation is too great.

Demon brides

2011-04-24T11:08:00.001+09:00

"Is the hat traditional?"

It was amazingly lucky that we had chosen to visit the Hokkaido Jingu Shinto Shrine just as a wedding was taking place. Seated just inside the shrine itself, the bride and groom were being photographed with their close family. I hesitated before taking a picture, not wanting to invade the scene, but since other visitors had no such scruples I tacked on behind them.

One of the major shrines in Sapporo, the Hokkaido Jingu was established on September 1, 1869 by decree of the Meiji Emperor. It is set in a large park which, while not at its most attractive while winter was only reluctantly releasing its grip before spring, was lovely to walk through away from the main city streets. There were several small shrines around the grounds but the wedding was held at the main site.

Like with most western weddings, the bride was dressed in white, but she wore a large semi-circular hat that dropped down over her ears and almost entirely obscured her dark hair. I assumed it was an alternative to a veil, but in fact I was wrong.

"It's to cover her horns." I was told matter of factly.

".... horns?" Was this another part of the traditional wedding dress for Shinto services? If so, I was sorry that the hat had to hide such .... unique .... adornments.

"When they were going out," my friend gestured at the married couple. "Everything was nice between them. But now the woman is a wife, she will become like a demon and will grow horns."

Well, there you have it. There is a refreshingly honest look at marriage in Japan that even the ceremony traditions embrace.

Red pill or the blue pill

2011-04-23T04:58:00.001+09:00

It was the moment of choice.

I couldn't leave the cubicle without flushing the toilet, yet if I pressed the wrong button I might be surrounded by half the store's emergency staff. Even aside from the embarrassment, I obviously wasn't very well so the risk of being carted off to hospital before I was able to offer any explanation seemed dangerously high.

It occurred to me just then that I still couldn't differentiate the sound for the Japanese for hospital (byouin) from that for hair salon (byoin). Unlikely to be relevant, but it added to the annoyance of the moment.

Looking wildly around for some form of guidance (English directions, alternative flush button, Japanese-English dictionary...) I suddenly spotted a large red button mounted on the wall behind the toilet. This was marked in both English and Japanese with 'Emergency'. So if that was the emergency call button, than neither of the other push buttons could be for that purpose. In which case, surely it didn't matter which I hit ....

I pushed one.

A flushing sound filled the cubicle. It would have been even more wonderful if it had been accompanied by water actually going down the toilet bowl. I looked back down at the row of buttons mounted by the toilet itself. Most toilets in Japan are accompanied by a button for creating a fake flushing sound; they were introduced because the too-modest Japanese woman would flush the toilet needlessly to cover up any bodily sounds, causing a significant waste of water. However, they are usually depicted by a music note and situated along the side of the seat. Indeed, this toilet was no exception. The button was there which is why it hadn't occurred to me that the larger button mounted on the wall would also have this result. Clearly, the department store had felt that one button was simply not enough and what was required was some kind of surround sound experience where both noise options could be engaged. Perhaps customers like to feel that they themselves were being flushed through the plumbing in some strange variation of the 3D movie experience.

Shaking my head slightly, I hit the second button. The toilet cleaned itself. I could go.

Return of the toiletator

2011-04-19T12:56:00.001+09:00

WHY is it that everytime I have a stomach upset in Japan, the only restrooms I can find have the traditional Japanese hole-in-the-floor style toilets?

The potential for this had seemed amusing as I attempted not to bowl over every department store shopper while making for the restrooms. When actually confronted with three empty cubicles containing floor troughs, the entertainment value dropped by roughly a third for each convenience. The forth and final door in the restroom had a small sign on it marked 'western'. It was occupied.

I swallowed. Did I go with the squat pot and deal with the fact I might be crouched down and unable to move for quite a while? Or did I wait for the western-style toilet to become free with all the discomfort that delay entailed?

I really did need to sit. Casually, I lent against the tiled wall, trying to conceal the fact I was surreptitiously doubling over. At the basins beside me, two Japanese women were washing their hands. I felt a stab of regret I wasn't moving to use the traditional ammenities. No doubt I was confirming every stereotype regarding inflexible foreigners right there. However, there are times to worry about impressions. And there are times to worry about not soiling your clothes. Broadly speaking, they are mutually exclusive.

The door to the occupied cubical swung open. I tried not to nose dive through it. Taking only the moment needed to confirm that no western toilet had this many buttons, I collapsed with relief onto the seat.

Beside me on the wall was a button marked 'push'. Undoubtedly, this was the flush... Unless that was the second button directly above it, also marked 'push'. This upper button had a further description of what said impression would instigate, but it was all in Japanese. The only action I could think of was that one of these choices was an emergency help button, a fact made more likely by the necessity of a disabled customer to use this cubicle. So, if I pressed the correct button, the toilet cleaned itself and I was free to go. Press the wrong button, and the store alarm would sound bringing twenty paramedics into my cubicle.

Was it going to be the red pill .... or the blue pill?

Later, I was to acknowledge there were times when Japan was a bit too exciting.

Here's looking at you, kid

2011-04-16T20:28:00.001+09:00

"You can really eat the whole thing?" It was a question worth asking. One day, I am sure people will lie to me.

A dinner out in Japan is a sociable affair. Rather than each individual selecting his or her own dish, you gather as a group around a table to share sushi, hot pots, savoury pancakes or some other form of fare. Not only is this fun, it also guards against over-indulgence from a desire to finish your entire plate. Of course, this does require everyone to agree on the type of food and it helps not to be a fussy eater. The fact I was not a fussy eater was about to be put to a whole new level of testing.

Uo-isshin (whose name is possibly poorly recalled due to google being in denial) is a seafood restaurant with a specialty in crab. Hairy crab. It was originally described to me as 'furry' but since said fur sticks in your fingers like a fine-combed porcupine, I fail to find that description accurate. Still, since I helped devour its interior and than drank sake from its dessicated carcass, I guess I had my revenge.

The crab was served alongside a large plate of sashimi which included large king prawns with all body parts attached. Rather to my relief, since these were raw, the heads and tails were removed before eating. This complacency was short-lived since a short while later a plate of just prawn heads was produced, cooked and ready to be eaten; eyes, front legs and all. A basic rule I learned was that pretty much anything is edible if you fry it.

"The Japanese do not like waste," I was told by the students who were clearly having far too much fun at my expense. Admittedly, my memories of having to sort garbage in Tokyo into half a dozen different piles made me sympathise with this philosophy. I bit into the head. Crunchy.

The shrimp heads were followed by a grilled flounder. This looked totally delicious and I watched as one of the students carefully lifted the bones away from the white flesh.

"Don't throw out the bone!" The call came from down the table. "I want to eat it!"

I studied the fish skeleton. It consisted of almost nothing beside the delicate array of hair-like bones, held together only by the grilled membrane of skin. People were reaching forward, snapping pieces off and popping them into their mouths. I'm pretty sure this contradicted everything I had been taught about eating fish as a child: remove the bones or else THEY WILL CHOKE YOU AND YOU WILL DIE. Apparently, the secret was just to chew them first.

It was maybe a good thing that this meal was served with sake.

From the flounder we moved onto entire individual fish that were eaten like candy sticks. Roughly the size of a sardine, these fish were pencil-long silver lengths that you chewed your way down. I watched to make sure people really did eat the heads and tails, then bit. They were extremely good once you got over looking your dinner in the eye.

A huge salmon complete with extra roe concluded the meal along with a surprise; two pieces of cold flounder sushi for the gaijin to try (that's me, folks!). They tasted of lemon with a firmer, thicker texture than tuna. There was also a pickle-like vegetable that looks like pineapple triangles and humongous squid served in their shells. We drank sake from the shells too. It seems that it looked big enough to be a threat, it was worth toasting your victory by drinking from its remains.

As we walked back to the station, I was told that other westerners had not liked to try so much of the seafood.

"You are very brave." I was told.

Why, yes. Yes I am.

Nasty Children

2011-04-15T13:16:00.001+09:00

"That is a place for nasty children."

"Nasty children?!" I looked in surprise at the innocuous low-rise building. Could there really be a detention centre for young offenders on the corner of Hokkaido University campus?

"Yes. They are very small."

Well, it wasn't that I didn't agree with the sentiment. Small children were indeed often downright obnoxious. Still, it seemed a surprising comment to come from someone who I knew had a son.

"Do you say 'kindergarten'?" One of the students had noticed my confusion. "No, that's German."

"It is German but we sometimes use that for a school for young...." I made the connection. "Nursery children."

"Ahh, nursery children."

I think I should have left that uncorrected at 'nasty'. Far more accurate.

The hand that rocks the cradle

2011-04-14T22:40:00.001+09:00

It had to be asked.

We had covered teaching duties, computer resources, research grants, the hiring of students and language requirements. It was quite likely this final point would never be an issue, but for completeness it really ought to be queried when discussing a permanent position.

"How do maternity benefits work in Japan?"

"Matern....?"

The person I was discussing the job details with was a senior male professor. His English was good, but not fluent and this was probably a topic that didn't come up too often in places where he would use the language. Like at conferences on galaxy formation.

"If I were to have a baby....?" I made a hand gesture of show a swollen stomach. Either I would be understood, or it would be assumed I was concerned about sudden and chronic obesity from over indulgence in sushi. The latter was possibly a risk, so finding the solution to that too would be no bad thing.

"Ahh, so you...?"

"No! Not now!" I hastened to clarify my current state of being. "But possibly in the future. Maybe." I stretched my arms out to indicate vast amounts of time passing. I received a gratifying nod of understanding.

"My wife was a graduate student when she had our son. She had six weeks off."

Six weeks?! Did she drop the baby, rock the baby and declare it ready for school? The Japanese education system is notoriously hard core, so this was almost plausible.

"But that was twenty years ago. Now, the Japanese Government wants more women employed, so it may have changed."

Hmm. Note to self: look into getting birth control in Japan. I smiled, "Well, this will probably never be an issue."

However, this produced quick reassurance that such a move would be a positive thing:

"Please, do find husband and have babies."

Well... let's not contract that in quite yet.

--
[As a side-note, this professor very kindly went to find what the current maternity leave protocol was and told me this afternoon that is was 8 weeks (I think...) full pay and up to one year on reduced pay.]

Ace serve

2011-04-13T21:12:00.001+09:00

There are some situations that are just going to be awkward. Finding yourself opposite a dozen wide-eyes students who are all clearly anxious about having to speak English to this prospective British faculty member is bound to be one of them. I nodded, smiled encouragingly and wished I could help out by discussing my research in Japanese but ... well, I couldn't.

"What does your favourite character in Harry Potter teach?"

The question wasn't put to me but to a master's student who gulped audibly. The idea was a great one; start a conversation about an incredibly popular British-based franchise to kick off the conversation. The problem was that the professor who poised the question hadn't read the books himself and didn't realise that the answer was unlikely to be in a list of common English vocabulary:

'Apple... chair... book... school... transfiguration...' No, I couldn't see it.

Fortunately, this was an idea I could use but with a small twist.

"I like Japanese anime," I volunteered.

"Ah! Which ones?" came back an enthusiastic question.

"Prince of tennis?" I paused. "Tenisu no Oujisama?"

"Tenisu no Oujisama! Mada mada dane!" The response rang down the table from every student.

Problem solved. Ore-sama no bigi ni yoi na.

--
("Mada mada dane" is the catch phrase of the anime series' progenitor, Echizen Ryoma. It obnoxiously means "You still have a long way to go". "Ore-sama no bigi ni yoi na" is said by one of the rival team members, translating to "Be awed at the sight of my prowess".)

Please don't flush your sanitary thing down the toilet

2011-04-13T08:30:00.000+09:00

My first night back in Tokyo, I slept in a coffin.

Capsule hotels are Japan's answer to cheap accommodation for business men who just want somewhere to sleep. Stacked together in the same room, the enclosed beds have just enough space for you to stretch out lengthways and --in the luxurious versions-- enough height for you to sit up. The pictures I had seen resembled coffins in a morgue but with doors that could be opened from the inside and an internal TV in case the afterlife got boring. Due to the close proximity of the guests, capsule hotels are usually male-only, so I had to hunt around to try out this quintessential modern Japanese experience.

With the help of a couple of friends, I found the Ace Inn; a capsule hotel in Shinjuku, one of the major districts in downtown Tokyo. This place had both mixed and separate floors for men and women with shared bathroom facilities in the basement. Frankly, after being promised a claustrophobic night, buried alive with zombie-fied neighbours, it was disappointingly nice. The capsules resembled enclosed wooden bunk-beds with curtains over an opening in the side. Everyone had a locker for their belongings, but it was a narrow affair which was fine for my valuables, but wouldn't have taken a suitcase. The downstairs showers required a 100 Yen (~$1) coin to operate, apparently to limit the time and ensure everyone has a fighting chance to get clean in the morning. Clearly, some people must have been extremely smelly since I showered and finished before my 100 Yen had run out.

Despite it being 'Hanami' in Tokyo, the traditional weekend to view the cherry blossoms, the capsule hotel was nearly empty. There was a sign pinned up inside the elevator in English thanking visitors for coming to Tokyo during this difficult time and asking them to pass on the message that Tokyo was safe to visit. There is evident concern that the drop in tourism may succeed where the tsunami has not, and drive smaller businesses into bankruptcy.

That particular notice was written in almost perfect English, but elsewhere in the hotel the signs were more entertaining. My personal favourite was the note in the women's toilet stalls saying "Please don't flush your sanitary thing down the toilet". Although, I must say the prospect promised by "If you want to have fun, go to Roppongi or Shibuya!! You can have a hot night there." made me wonder if I should reconsider going to see the cherry blossoms.

There was an earthquake during my brief stay. A 4.3 magnitude shortly after I arrived at the hotel that vibrated the building. Earthquakes are never rare in Japan and the infrastructure has little problem coping with the vast majority of them. There is no doubt though, that the ringing of Japan's main island is a reminder of the all too recent tragedy. As night fell, the usually dazzling lights of one of the world's largest cities appeared at half-mast, both due to the saving of power in the wake of Fukushima's reactor problems and out of sympathy for the huge numbers of Japanese who had lost their homes further north.

In practical terms, the power shortage caused few inconveniences. The express train service running from the airport wasn't operating during the afternoons, but there was a direct bus that took the same amount of time, so it was a non-issue. Even the lack of lights at night was only dark by Tokyo standards; the city still shone with activity. I therefore echo my hotel's sentiments: if you are planning a trip to Tokyo, go. Take a camera. It's going to be great.

A difficult situation

2011-04-07T10:41:00.001+09:00

In addition to evil old biddies who think my idea of a fun evening is to have my car breakdown on the sidewalk, there is another lady who frequently passes by my house. She is short with thin greying hair that is cropped to chin level. Her clothes are usually baggy and slightly ill-assorted and she speaks in a pre-occupied manner. She looks to be in her forties and despite seeing her regularly in the same place, I have often wondered if she has somewhere to live.

Regardless of her situation, she is always friendly and treated my stuck car debacal with a great deal more sympathy than the afore mentioned evil biddy. Once she told me she owned a yellow car too. I strongly suspected this was an equally friendly bare-faced lie.

This evening on the way back from work, I saw her not on my road, but near the highway. Crossing the road to head home, I greeted her and asked how she did. I recieved the usual vague answer of "fine, fine", followed by:

"I suppose I can walk back home with you."

I replied that of course she could, took my headphones from my ears and fell into step with her. I noted she was shivering, despite a large sweater and I asked if she was cold, adding that at least the weather had become warmer the last few days. She agreed and started talking to herself in a low tone with words I couldn't make out. We had not gone many steps when her pace slowed and she stopped.

"I think I'm going to walk the other way now."

I should emphasise that this road was near absolutely nothing. Walk twenty minutes and you would reach the cluster of houses and shops belonging to Westdale village, the other side of which the University was situated. Twenty minutes in the opposite direction would see you in downtown Hamilton. An incredibly slow pace alternating directions would see you nowhere, unless you had a particularly favourite patch of highway concrete.

"Are you all right?" I stopped and looked down at her. For the first time, I felt as if I loomed above her stooping figure. "Are you sure?"

She insisted that all was well and started shuffling off along the sidewalk again. Reluctantly, I headed for home.

Technically, I had done my duty, yet there was no doubt that it was within my power to offer more. The problem, of course, is that more personal interventions --for example an offer of money or an invitation to my home-- come with an associated risk. If I gave her cash, it might set a precedent for a continual donation of funds which would deplete my own resources and, if she really was homeless, would not ultimately help the problem. If I let her into my apartment, I left myself open to robbery or worse. Undoubtedly, there are social services who could be contacted, but I'm not at all sure what I could tell them if I called. I should make it clear that never once has this lady asked me for anything, yet self-preservation makes me keep my distance.

It's not that I feel my behaviour is wrong or even unnecessary. It's just damn unfortunate.

Snowpocalypse in spring-time

2011-03-24T12:24:00.001+09:00

Hello March. I didn't see you there under ALL THAT SNOW.

It wasn't really the sheer quantity of white stuff that had me gawking out of my window on Wednesday morning. I mean, I live in Canada. I know that has consequences. Perhaps I was daft, but I thought that 20CM OF SNOW would be preceded by, you know, cold weather.

It wasn't even that we'd just had a brief warmer day. It hadn't snowed for weeks and on the weekend, I had finally dragged the bag of de-icing grit for the sidewalks back down to my basement. I had picked up my snow boots from their spot by the door and stowed them in my closet and laid aside my full length coat in favour of a fleece. I had even switched my violently coloured knee-length socks to violently coloured ankle socks. Seriously, spring was coming!

I noted my actions on Facebook and received the prompt reply that I'd jinxed everything and now it was going to snow on Wednesday....

.... I'm still hoping a weather forecast was involved somewhere in that.

Having completed a serious 20 minutes worth of slack-jawed gawking on Wednesday morning, I shovelled my drive and staggered into work. Notably, only the few most major roads had been cleared; something that was true even when I returned home in the evening. In Ontario, much of the snow clearing comes from residents with plough-attachments on their pick-up trucks. They get paid by the province for the work they do, but apparently I wasn't the only one who had packed up for the season.

Upon arriving in my office, I found my Facebook wall had become a site of blame:

"Cause and effect -> didn't you put your salt/grit back in the basement? Doomed..."

Sad but true. Evidently, the clearing of my drive had also been a repulsive act to Mother Nature and she worked steadily all day to cover up any evidence of my labour. It was extremely successful.

I returned home and wrote my message to the world in my car's rear windscreen.

Typical homecoming

2011-03-22T09:26:00.001+09:00

Upon walking up my driveway towards the door of my apartment:

Neighbour's dog: Ruff! Ruff ruff ruff! Ruff ruff!

Me: Ruff ruff ruff ruff. Ruff!

Upon pushing open the door and entering the kitchen:

Cat: Meow! Meow meow meow meeeeooooow!

Me: Meow meow! Meow!

I'd feel better about all this if I felt anything I said during the preceding day had made more sense.

The ultimate warm-up

2011-03-20T14:32:00.001+09:00

I stepped on the ice and flailed as my right skate shot out from underneath me. Hurriedly, I swung my weight to the left, becoming an ice ballerina as I sailed on one foot towards the barrier. Was the rink slick with water from the new surface deposited by the departing Zamboni? Normally, freshly cut ice has the reverse problem, with the residue thin layer of water causing the puck to stick to the rink before it freezes properly.

Gingerly, I put my skate back on the ice only to have it slide hopelessly sideways. What crazy ice problem was this? Two of my team-mates passed me, apparently unaffected. Was the issue with my skate? Had my blade come loose without me noticing? That would be bad; I couldn't skate with a blade so displaced it sent me flying every time it touched the rink. I'd have to not play.

I scanned my friends performing warm-up exercises. We were low on numbers tonight, I had to skate! I'd just have to ... have to .... skate on one foot. At least I'd have the element of surprise. Maybe if I pushed off from the bench really hard at the start of each of my shifts, I could sail across the rink, intercept the puck and ...

... be carted off for six weeks traction before the end of the first period.

This was clearly a COMPLETE DISASTER! However you looked at it there was going to be carnage and missed goals and broken bones and bandages and probably an iron lung.

I reached the barrier and leaned against it, allowing me to get a proper look at my feet. My eyes narrowed at the lump of sticky tape attached to my right blade. Okay, perhaps no one had to loose the use of their lungs. This seemed like a solvable situation.

The next few minutes progressed in a remarkably similar manner to this video clip. I pushed the lump of tape with my free boot but it just slid along the blade. Next I tried pinning it down with my left blade while I lifted my right skate up. That caused my skates to be stuck together. Then I tried trying to rub it off on the barrier after which I attempted ... Look, it doesn't matter. Let's just say in a battle of me versus tape there was a clear winner and leave it at that.

Ultimately, I was rescued by a team-mate who was able to bend down and tug the offending stickiness free of my skate. The exposed blade finally cut into the ice and I shot forward just as the whistle blew for the game to begin. Fortunately, I had just stretched out every single muscle. It was the ultimate warm-up. I must write to the NHL.

Don't knock it

2011-03-17T22:48:00.001+09:00

"That ... can't be right..."

I was watching the student cashier count out a pile of coins from the till for my change. The thing was, I'd given him $2 and my drink was $1.90. It might be first thing on a Thursday morning, but even I could work out that I shouldn't be receiving a fistful of silver coins back.

The cashier paused and looked at the till screen. It read:

Purchase: $1.90
Change: $0.85

"No ..." he agreed and then shrugged. "Just ... you know ... go with it." He passed me over the coins with a sunny smile.

"Um. Okay. Thanks." I took the coins and the drink and wandered off.

Probably a sociology student.

Sled hockey

2011-03-16T12:59:00.001+09:00

"On the off-chance this ever becomes an issue ... which way are we shooting?"

Even for me, it was strange question to ask during a hockey game. This, though, was no ordinary match. This was sled hockey. Designed for disabled players, sled hockey is played --as the name suggests-- on sleds. These devices resemble metal stretchers supported on short twin blades with a plastic bucket seat on one end.

A member of my regular hockey team coaches in a sled hockey league and, finding her team had an hour of extra ice time at the end of their season, she suggested we come and try it out in an exhibition match. There is clearly no other answer to such a suggestion than 'hell yes!' and it was utterly awesome. The 'exhibition' naturally turned out to be us, rather than the game, but this was suspected well in advance of the reality.

The first obstacle I had to cross occurred in the changing room when I attempted to put my hockey gear on without my skates. The issue was not the emotional guilt from leaving my skates in my bag (although that was rather sad) but simply that my kit goes on in a certain order. Like Ikea furniture, forgetting one of the steps usually results in the end product falling to pieces. In this case, my shin pads felt dangerously slippy.

As it turned out, this wasn't a problem since my ankles got taped to the sled. What was more of an issue was getting my GIGANTIC BACKSIDE into the tiny plastic seat. If the proceeding game wasn't enough to wreak my ego, this would have sealed the deal. It transpired later that sled hockey players don't wear the same padded shorts as skaters in the traditional game (IT'S TRUE I TELL YOU!). They either wear lighter shorts similar to those used in roller hockey or just leggings. As a result, I had to be levered into my sled by the referee.

Then I was off!

.... if I could work out how to move. Instead of a single long stick for manoeuvring the puck, sled hockey players have two short sticks roughly a third of the length of a traditional hockey stick. The shooting blade on each is the same size and shape as a full-sized stick but the reverse end is equipped with metal teeth that are dug into the ice to propel you forwards. It was quite like rowing a boat on frozen water. When you wanted to hit the puck, you inverted the stick to put the blade against the ice and shot towards the goal. At least, that was the idea.

The sled blades were adjustable and could be set at different distances apart. Ours were separated by about half a foot rather like the training wheels on a bicycle. A few of the real team members had theirs mounted so close together they looked like a single blade. This forfeited stability in favour for manoeuvrability. Since I had a habit of tipping over, being unable to do handbreak turns on one stick was not overly upsetting. Normally when I fell to one side, I was able to righten myself with one hefty push. However, while guarding the goal (probably from nothing, I have no idea where the puck was at the time), I tipped over so fully that I partially came un-wedged from my seat. This meant that when I tilted back up, my centre-of-mass was off to one side and I just fell down in the opposite direction. Team members surrounded me like a bovine heard around a wounded animal. However, since we were all tied into our sleds, no one was able to provide the leverage and stability to correct the problem. In the end the referee (laughing hard) appeared to stuff me back into position. Time to go!

Never had the ice rink looked so big. None of us were used to working our arm muscles so much and we couldn't yet move at any great speed. Someone sped past me, guiding the puck with one stick and manoeuvring with the other. He approached the goal, lifted the entire sled up about an inch, and shot the puck underneath it to land in the net.

I waved my sticks a bit in stunned admiration.

When the whistle blew, I cut myself free of the tape round my ankles and tumbled unceremoniously onto the ice. Strangely, one of the sorest parts of me was not my arms but my unused legs. This is apparently not uncommon, since you do not normally sit with your legs absolutely still for an extended period of time.

I picked up the sled and carried it to the store room noting, with some surprise, that many of the regular players did the same. Upon inquiring, I discovered that to play in the sled hockey league, you have to have some form of disability, which need not be physical. This led to one very important question:

If you could walk, why on earth is sled hockey considered easier than the traditional sport?

Chocolate, traffic and visas

2011-03-12T13:28:00.001+09:00

My car was full of chocolate aero bars. I'd stuffed three in the glove compartment, two in the cup holders and now I was trying to find homes for another five. Clearly, some rearranging was required.

I was parked at the duty free store by the US-Canada land border near Niagara. While this leg of the journey should have taken only an hour, I had left home at 9:30 am and it was now 2 pm. The heavy snow the night before had taken not only me by surprise, but caused a tractor trailer to jack-knife on the highway, blocking all three lanes and resulting in near-stationary traffic for hours. This had led to repeated texts to my friend providing ever longer estimated arrival times.

I supposed I should count myself lucky. As I had sat there flicking through the radio stations and failing to find any traffic news, a car carrier truck had drawn up beside me loaded with three mashed-up vehicles. I suppressed the temptation that had been growing within me to start ramming the car in front.

Despite the fact I was anticipating spending at least another hour at the border office getting a tourist visa, I had pulled into the duty free to use the bathroom. Feeling that someone should benefit from this chaos, I had bought another US residing (a.k.a. the country without aeros) friend more of her favourite chocolate while in the store. Well, it was better than the other (rather tempting but probably regrettable) option of accepting the free samples of ice wine.

For reasons designed to vex me, the US air and land ports have different policies regarding entry visas. The airports have moved over to the electronic ESTA applications and consider these so shiny and superior that they confiscate the old green paper visas on sight. The land border, by contrast, has rejected this crazy modern technology and wants you to have the green slip in your passport. The upshot of this is that I am either sulking in the land border office waiting to be called to the counter or watching sadly as the airport guy destroys my paper visa like a mother weaning a child off a pacifier.

Before pulling onto the bridge, I called my friend and told her I should be in Buffalo in about two hours, depending on the queues and busyness of the border office. I hoped for once that I wouldn't have send the follow up text telling her to double that estimate. Then I stuffed the chocolate into my bag and slid onto the road.

"Reason for coming to the USA?" The border control guard took my passport and flicked through its pages.

"I'm meeting a friend."

"How to you know them?"

I'd long ago learned to outright lie to this question. The friend I normally met when driving over the border I knew from an internet fan group for Japanese anime. If that didn't sound like something for which I should be detained and questioned for 6 weeks, I don't know what does.

"College," I said, my face bland. I watched the guard examine my collection of visas and took a long shot. "I've entered the US recently," I explained. "Less than a month ago through Atlanta airport. There's a stamp in the back."

A visitor visa to the USA lasts three months before you have to renew it. Every other time I had passed through though, the lack of the green paper slip has meant that I have to get a new pass done. Still, I'd never explicitly tried pointing out that this should be unnecessary.

The guard examined the stamp. "Okay, carry on."

....Seriously? I was so surprised, I nearly forgot to put my car back in gear. It was a good job I'd stopped to use the bathroom at the duty free. I drove slowly through the gates, reaching for my phone to text:

"25 minutes."

Late night

2011-03-08T11:39:00.001+09:00

As the zamboni rolled onto the ice, we pushed open the rink door and made our way over to the benches. We stopped in the 'away' team's area and started to deposit our sticks and water bottles.

"Guys, we're the home team tonight!" Our captain had arrived and was now waving us to the next bench over.

We all turned to stare at him for a moment. "But....that one's further...." someone protested.

Can you tell it was a late game? It was.

Apart from the fact that everyone looks dazedly confused when the puck is first dropped, the other problem with late games is that the outside temperature is prone to plummet. As Saturday night swung to Sunday morning, the heavy rain that had been dousing the city all day morphed into horizontal snow. I left the rink to find one half of my car covered with a dusting of white icing powder and the other half buried under 2 inches. It was kinda awesome. And difficult to shift.

After about half an hour of dedicatedly fighting against nature's desire to preserve my car in ice while the fans warmed the windscreen, I was able to trundle away out onto the road.

Hamilton city is divided into two halves by what is locally known as 'the mountain'. This is a wholly inaccurate description for what is actually an escarpment, the same one that runs south-east of Hamilton to form the cliff from which Niagara Falls plunges. The ice rink is located on the raised escarpment while my apartment sits in the downtown city area below. This meant I was looking at a steep and snowy decent to get home.

I rolled unenthusiastically along the road, trying to follow the path carved by the few other vehicles up and about at this hour. I could mentally see myself turned upside down in a ditch, my car wheels turning like its upturned bug namesake. Sadness!

Then, I spotted a snowplough. Sneakily, I went twice round the roundabout and slid in behind it to follow it down to the city. It was a bit like tailing an ambulance to avoid red light except .... much .... slower.

I ditched my new best friend at the bottom of the hill and scooted off for home. When I arrived, my driveway was already thick with snow. Should I risk trying to pull into it? Images of angry old ladies lecturing me on the location of my broken-down car filled my mind. I scuttled off to park in the street. That woman seemed just the type to be out at 2 am.