Brits win the tooth race (of 6 countries, except for Sweden)

Writing in "Communication Breakbown" about my embarrassing dentist experience in Japan got me a-thinking about teeth in Japan, as you do, so I thought I'd write a couple of my funny observations here...not that Japanese teeth are different to British teeth, but, you know, Japanese people and their teething escapades.

One thing I would say about when I went to the dentist in Japan is that I walked in, showed my little health insurance card (faded so much it was essentially just a piece of card) and I was immediately taken in for a check up...no forms (well a tiny form with my name and stuff, but let's just say I found it easier to fill out the form in the JAPANESE dentist in JAPANESE than I did to fill out the re-registry one in my ENGLISH dentist in ENGLISH.) No waiting...certainly not true of British dentists where you often enter in broad daylight, just before lunch, and, in spite having an appointment that you were on time for, emerge from the light-deprived sterility to find that 6 hours have passed, it's dinnertime yet you can't eat, drink or speak. It was all relatviely fuss free for a hypochondriac country prone to fuss dealing with a foreigner. The biggest fuss was when I put my slippers on the dentist chair carpet (see Communication Breakbown).

Of course, I couldn't understand the dentistry terms in Japanese, but the lady had a book with English translations, as if she had been expecting a foreigner to waltz into her surgery, in the middle of a rice filed in Ita-where (drenched and bewildered as it was typhoon season and typhoon+bicycle is not a happy combo). She pointed wildly at her book which had many medical terms that I didn't understand in English anyway. One thing she did do was cover my mouth with purple dye, then ask me to brush my teeth. Then we looked in my mouth with the mirror thing and saw the bits that still had purple dye as they were the places I didn't brush. I thought that this was SUCH a clever idea and went on ranting and raving about how it had changed my life and how amazing and forward thinking everything in hypermodern Japan was, until finally telling a British friend of mine who said that she had had it done at school in the UK 20 years ago and couldn't believe I hadn't. May have taught quite a few teachers and children a slight mistruth about the UK there...naughty ALT, doing more harm than good.

Whilst in a primary school once in Japan, I went along to the assembly which was all about how to clean your teeth. It had all the bog-standard things you'd expect from such an assembly in the UK too...information about how often to clean your toothbrush, a power point presentation, 6 kids with the flag of a country each hung around their necks who ran around the hall a few times in a fake race to demonstrate which country's children had the least fillings and a prize giving at the end where every child with no fillings was made to stand up, recieve applause and then was rewarded with a piece of tinsel to drape around themselves. All the usual.

In this assembly, Japan came last of the 6 presumably random countries, with the most fillings. I think the UK came second after Mr. perfect Sweden, beating the USA. I've heard that Americans think the Brits have really bad teeth...well the flag-necklace-running-race in Ita-where PROVES otherwise. Actually, I've found this incredible confusing graph from Gapminder online, which, if I'm interpreting it correctly which I'm fairly sure I am not, also places the UK as having better teeth than Japan and the US, so HAHA!. Link to graph.

Actually, a few American friends seemed fairly shocked that I'd gone to the dentist in Japan, as they'd heard horror stories. Their horror stories were that you get SILVER FILLINGS instead of the perfect little white ones. I opened my mouth each time, including to relative stranger, because I was that offended, to show my two silver British fillings...not just Japan there. Maybe that's why Americans think we have bad teeth...because we are loud and proud with our fillings instead of being shallow and coy about them.

Another part of the assembly featured empty bottles of softdrink with sugarcubes inside them to demonstrate how much sugar there was in each bottle. That was a really great visual and I can honestly say that I drink a lot less Coca Cola since seeing it. There were 15 cubes I think in one 500ml bottle!! Pocari Sweat, my fave J-drink was much better with something like 8 (still disgusting though, not stopped me going to the Japan Centre in Picadilly and buying a couple of bottles since being back in London though!) These bottles are STILL on display in the school TROPHY CABINET (or they were in July, assembly was last year) and the assembly won some sort of prize and was in the local paper. I didnt' see any assembly judgers present, but I feel very priveleged to have experienced a prize-winner.

I did notice that very few children had braces in Japan. Quite how Japanese children have more fillings though, I am not sure. Firstly I thought, it's their awful sugary school lunch, but, then I thought, I used to drink Coca Cola for lunch every day after the age of 11 I reckon, which is not possible for kids in Japan - they only get milk until the age of 15. There were also vending machines at my secondary school with chocolate and crisps...not so in Japan, where, surprisingly seeing as you often feel that vending machines outnumber PEOPLE 2:1 in Japan, schools are a no-vend area. Also, all the teachers and students brush their teeth after lunch in Japan, which we don't do in England (they used to do it in my office in Paris when I worked there though, so it's not only Japan). My only conclusion on the reason why Japanese children have a lot of fillings is their good old trait for hypochondria and fuss which means they put them in just to be on the safe side, even if there is no cavity to be seen. Problem solved!

Communication Breakbown

Something to amuse you as you hear how fully incompetent I am at communicating in my own country. I am bowing right, left and centre, then being embarrased that I've just bowed so bowing more in apology/embarrassment, my head nodding up and down like one of those annoying dogs that sit on the car dashboard...it's starting to look like I'm half way between having a seizure and starting a break dance or something as my bows get continuouly deeper and force my nose closer to the floor...I might learn break dancing so that I can just start styling it out into that - I think that would look more natural!

I have just come back from Vienna on holiday (I used to live in Vienna, it's amazing) - I went and asked a lady in the airport which U-Bahn line my desti-station (I've just made that word - why don't we have that word?) was on, in German - it was no problem when I prepared myself slightly, she answered, but I, unfortunately hadn't prepared myself to respond, and even the simplest "Danke" seemed to escape me, and I opted for athe next best thing: a big bow and an "arigatou gozaimasu" in the middle of Schwechat airport in Vienna...how was I supposed to explain that? "Oh sorry, that was Japanese, I'm not Japanese though, obviously, but I used to live in Japan, but you can hear I'm also not Austrian, I'm British, but I'm here on holiday and I can speak German because I used to live here and studied it at uni"...then how would she respond having just felt that she'd watched an episode of "This Is Your Life with sushi-less" and we'd both missed our trains. So, instead, I sort of yelped and leapt back at the same time and ran to the ticket machine, leaving a very confused Austrian in my still semi-bowing shadow...NOT GOOD.

I've become so used to getting it wrong and embarrassing myself, my new tactic is to just say nothing in reply to people, which is incredibly rude, but at least it saves me looking like I'm one of those chronically shy people that is on their first day out of the house in two years. It's so weird, because I seem almost fine when I'm with my mates, but the second I'm amongst actual general public, who have no idea that I've just been living in Japan for two years, I start getting everything wrong and looking like a crazy person!! Typical! One thing that I haven't got out of the habit of, even with my friends, is gesturing everything...this is not from my experience of talking in Japanese in Japan, but of speaking English to a bunch of kids who understood very little of what I said, meaning that I got into the habit (which I apparently can't shake) of gesturing everything possible, which means doing a little pencil gesture when I say "write", making a little book with my hands when I say "book" or "read" and pointing at people when I say "you". This means that I am treating my fully native English speaking 2o-something friends, as if they are 5-year-old Japanese children with no grasp of the English language. One such gesture is that every time I say "me" or "I", I point at myself....unfortunately in Japan you point at your nose not your chest when you say "watashi" (true story), so I keep pointing at my nose at the dinner table...beautiful. I'm also counting with my fingers in the Japanese way, which is getting a bit ridiculous now and getting many strange stares. You should be able to see them below: this is how a Japanese person gestures when you counting, and this is now how I now gesture when I count...to people who don't need a gesture as they fully understand the words 1-10 of course. My worst gesture faux-pas so far was yesterday, when I shook my finger (wagged it, you know, like a patronising head teacher) at the girl in the chippy (fish and chip shop) when she asked me if I wanted salt and vinegar on my chips. She looked horrified, which I can understand - it was very sort of..."no little girl, of COURSE I don't want salt and vinegar." Must think harder next time...that or tie my hands behind my back when outside of the house.

Of course, I wish I could say that my problems here in the UK stem from the fact that I am an example of perfection in my communication style in Japan...not so. I recall not long from the end of my stay in Japan that in ONE DAY I managed to not contradict a man when he said his granddaughter was a bit slow, and instead agree, fall asleep in the waiting room at the dentist's, wear my special dentist surgery's slipper onto the MINISCULE piece of carpet situtated at the bit where you put your feet when you sit on the leany-backy-dentisty chair, put there surely only to catch out the gaijin, over-confident in outdoor shoe-indoor shoe-slipper-toilet slipper-bare foot CHAOS that is Japan's complicated shoe system...why that TINY piece of carpet just there that you had to be bare foot on...WHY?? And also I was in the school's announcement system room and managed to play some music on the loud broadcast outside the school when I thought it was only playing in the little room I was in...bit of the Norwegian Eurovision entry for the kids outside on the PE field. That was all in one day too!

So, what I am telling you is that I left Europe 2 years ago a fully competent member of British society and, I think, Austrian society, to being some kind of half-way-house, not fully competent anywhere and not to be trusted alone in public at any time...I might get myself a sign to go round my neck saying "WARNING: just been living in a strange country, high risk of social awkwardness and head nodding," or maybe I'll just give in and buy myself a Dunce's hat...embrace my new-found incompetence!

First Reverse Culture Shock....PUBLIC TRANSPORT

I am going to do my absolute best to not make all of my reverse culture shock negative things about how rubbish London is compared to the heavenly land of milk of honey (or sushi and udon) aka Japan, but one thing that is TRULY frustrating is the public transport in London, especially when you have just come from a country where they manage to make trains run on time and put out an apology (you can hear the bows in their voices) if it is even one minute late. No such luck in London town...I wonder if maybe they make an announcement when the trains arrive on time (Ryan Air styleeee), but I wouldn't know because I've never experienced a South Eastern train run on time. South Eastern are the overground service that go to Greater South East London and is the company I have to use, along with the rest of the damned. Today I was sitting on the 15.02 from Charing Cross, it was 15.04, still in Charing Cross. The little electric sign (no announcement) updated itself and said "expected at 15.05," which I was slightly sceptical of, more so as it hit 15.06 and I was still sitting there. It then updated itself to 15.09, eventually leaving at 15.11. As it left they have the cheek to announce "The train departing from platform 3 is the 15.02 to Dartford." No sorry, no explanation...not even a bloody acknowledgement, they just said it casually as if it was still 15.02...we do have watches you know!! Is there not some EU regulation against calling trains leaving at 15.11 15.02 trains? I bet Brussels's trains run on time. Lucky that I didn't have an important meeting or hospital appointment, but was in fact just going home to wallow in my current unemploydom. In Japan, you can use the fantastically amazing Hyperdia website and actually plan your schedule and life around the train times it gives...using the TFL (Transport for London) website is totally useless...I wonder why they put times on it to be honest! How can a train even be 9 minutes delayed when it's still at it's first station? My local train map in Japan (above) may have been bloody confusing, but it never failed me once!

Anyway, enough whinge, more of what my loyal readers prefer...self-depreciating stupid stories of stupid stupid things I do. We have the Oyster Card in London for paying train fares in advance, because the world is your Oyster (albeit it 9 minutes later that you were wanting it to be). I have no excuse for this as we had Oyster cards long before I left and they also have Passmo in Japan, but I just keep getting it wroooooong and feeling like a big tourist and wanting to cry, as I get it wrong, I bow at the man for being stupid and get more embarrassed and then want to cry some more - vicious circle line. Nearly had a full-blown row with the Waterloo East man the other day for treating me as if I had an IQ of about 25 just because I didn't know the ins and outs of the Oyster system...I was only asking where I need to check out!! I was already checked in!! I'm the good guy, I wanted to pay!! I say I nearly had a row...5 minutes later I was fuming and would have had a row with him, but my stupid indirect Japanesified self basically bowed and almost cried again. More bowing stories to follow believe me, I'm thrusting my head in people's genitals by accident right left and centre and it is SO mortifyingly embarrassing.

Reverse Culture Shock, Transport Chapter : Japan 1, UK 0

Sayonara Nihon!

I am sorry (imagine me bowing many times), I am aware that I haven't updated my blog in an age. The sad reason for this is that I have left Japan. I made the decision way back in January not to sign for another year in baby Ita-where, and my contract expired at the end of July. What with a million goodbyes to say, gifts to buy (naturally), things to clean, pack, cancel and pay and a remaining box of sekihan to eat, my last couple of months didn't leave a lot of time for blogging I'm afraid. I was very upset to leave, and I received many lovely comments about my affect on the kids, the schools and the community from so many people (some obligated, some totally out of the blue), but, I knew that it was the right decision, as, I was sure that I couldn't live the rest of my life in Japan so that meant it wasn't wise to spend a third year making deeper connections and distancing myself further from my life in London. For ramblings on my final thoughts on Nihon, please see the articles for other websites section as I have written a piece for the Gunma JET blogzine.

I still had many articles that I was planning to write about Japan (I have a list) and there is so much that can be said about settling back into London after two years in the safe little bubble of Ita-where, so I am thinking of re-opening this blog under a new title soon, to post ridiculous stories of me bowing at people...I can sort of see London from the inside as a Londoner, but also from the outside as a foreigner now I think, so I'm sure there's something interesting to be said...watch this space.

In the meantime, as so much of this blog has revolved around the craziness that is the Japan gift-giving-omiyage custom, I thought you might be interested to know just what 2 years working (hard and with a big smile) can earn you in presents (and cost you in extra baggage)...I was very lucky to receive - 2 yukatas, 3 pairs of geta, 1 yukata pouch, 2 bags, 2 dvds, 2 posh green tea cups, 1 baumkuchen, 6 bouquets of flowers, 1 3,000 yen gift envelope (20 quid), 1 10,000 yen gift envelope (70 quid, all from one headteacher....WOW, couldn't bow lowly enough, my nose almost hit the floor), 21 packs of letters from kids (so happy with those...many a tear shed), 1 booklet of notes from teachers, 2 letter boards from teachers (sort of decorated piece of cardboard with teachers signatures, messages and photos), 3 letter boards from students, 1 letter board from a friend, 1 letter board from my taiko group, some home made sewed macaroons from the home ec teacher, some home-made sewed sushi by the home ec club, 7 fans
2 certificates saying how amazing I am in Japanese I can't read, 1 huge photo album with letters and photos from students, 2 special edition 500 yen coins, 5 sets of photos of things I have done whilst in Ita-where, 1 bottle of shochuu, 1 tub of hair gel (from my hairdresser...insane!), 1 bookmark, 3 straps (for mobile phones), 2 photo frames (1 with super-cool photo of my taikoing), 1 poetry book with Japanese and English translations, 5 paper aeroplanes from students...aaaawwwww, 2 posters/pictures from studetns, 1 notebook, 1 bag of homemade cookies, 2 tablecloths (!!), 2 taiko drumsticks signed by my group, 1 taiko drumstick carrier bag which I LOVE, 1 happi (google it), 1 taiko headdress that I don't know how to wear, 4 mini Japanese cloths, 1 homemade J-pop CD, 1 pack of stickers, 1 Mount Fuji paperweight (?), 1 pack of origami paper and 2 fairly creepy dolls that mean that I will find love...basically I have brought half of Japan home with me, so if you see on the news that Japan has no stuff, you will find it all in a house in South East London.

Like I say, I am likely to still write the odd bits and bobs on here about Japan and about London and my rediscovery of it...I'm scared! Anyway, please keep checking the website or "Follow" it. Japan, I will miss you so much, you have treated me very well! Everyone, please visit Japan! And, do not forget about the awful affects the tsunami and earthquake had on so many lives and the continued affects it has on people's lifestyles and the economy...please keep giving! Ganbatte Japan! I leave you with one last little piece of info...sushi-less was such a catchy title, I went with it, but, this blog is in fact based around a big lie! There is a gorrrrrgeous sushi restaurant in Ita-where, about a 5-minute-walk from my flat...sorry (big nose-hitting-floor bow).

BLANK Of The Day 8

Mid-skit, where I was a shopkeeper and the teacher was a shop assistant, in front of a class of 40 and a few men in suits from a super-duper important office somwhere in the back of beyong who we were demonstrating too, my teacher says 'My Father would like something to eat'...'F***' I think. We are doing a skit about shopping for souvenirs to bring home from England and he is buying something for his Father to EAT in spite of me asking him roughly a thousand times to choose READ (matching my typically British Harry Potter flashcard) or LISTEN TO (matching my typically British Beatles CD flashcard) but he chose EAT, one that I had specifically asked him not to choose as I looked at the board to see that I had a choice of his three carefully prepared flashcards as options for souvenirs to take back for his Father from England....a bowl of curry and rice, and ebi fry (a deep fried prawn) on rice, and an omuraisu (an omelette filled with rice). What the hell am I supposed to do with that??? Offer him a Japanese dish of deep-fried prawn and rice to take back to Japan on a plane as a gift?? I said, how about chocolate, choosing to ignore flashcard situation and said jokingly 'omuraisu isn't not really omiyage (souvenirs) of England'...'It's FROZEN omuraisu,' he laughs and says to a class who don't understand the word frozen. I understand frozen but I don't understand the reason he said it. A whole big, fat portion of misunderstandings and rice is my souvenir of that lesson!

Fuss Of The Day 10

Calpis, the Japanese sort of milky and very sweet drink, named after its taste of bovine urine, have made a new product called "Calpis Cream" (カルピスクリーム) to spread in a cake or on a sandwich, giving it that lovely hint of cow's piss, that had always been missing from your sandwiches until its invention. We got TWO TINY samples (sort of half a McDonald's ketchup size) for a staffroom of almost forty people! It was like sekihan in reverse...how to share two mini portions between four people. Fuss-o-rama (this was fuss number two, after the first overreaction (screaming, panting, orgasming) over the fact the new product in itself) broke out. I think it was still going on when I left to go home, but there was talk of someone bringing in some bread and trying to share it round us all tomorrow...watch this space. I'm sorry, but this was clearly someone at Calpis' marketing department having a laugh about how big a fuss they could cause in Ita-where's staffroom...FORTY people and TWO samples!!?? Evil, cow-piss-creaming bastard!

Fuss Of The Day 9

Wow! Do I have a big-fat-mama-sized fuss for you today or what? Yesterday was sekihan-gate. Sekihan is a sticky rice dish with red beans. The rice is soaked in the bean juice before it's cooked or something or nothing to turn it pink. Yesterday, there was no school lunch due to exams, meaning the kids go home early, which is enough to cause a bit of fuss anyway, so we were already in the mood for a big old overreaction.

We have bought a new rice cooker at school (another long, drawn out, fussy decision). I feel like this is a history lesson of sekihan-gate with the "Causes" and "Triggers." So...they decided to test the rice cooker (not sure why a new rice cooker wouldn't work) on exam day by making shit loads of sekihan, thereby hopefully ending both rice cooker fuss and the "what should the teachers do for lunch fuss?" simultaneously. Which I suppose it did, only to offset it with the biggest fuss I have experienced since being in Japan. The first huge box of sekihan arrived. 21 plastic boxes inside. Large plastic boxes, each one with enough sekihan to feed two people probably. Bear in mind that many staff take time off on exam day, so we are looking at about 25 staff and 21 boxes (42 portions) of sekihan. Then comes big box number two. That's 25 staff, 42 boxes and 84 portions of rice. Cue fuss. Dishing out lunch is fuss enough at the best of times. Mid-fuss, along comes big box number 3. That's right: 25 staff, 63 boxes, 126 portions of sekihan. Sekihan hysteria is breaking out. The secretary yells at the 20/25 staff who are for some reason ALL needed to give out the sekihan (I dont know why I'm criticising - I was one of them) "Still only start with one box per table, in case there's not enough for two." OK, Japan's culture might be different to many, but even here 63 boxes of rice go around 25 staff twice. Everyone is discussing how much they should eat, how many family members/neighbours/passers-by they can dish their sekihan out to and we just about settle down to there only being about 10 boxes (20 portions) left over, when, I kid you not, I yet out a yelp as BIG BOX NUMBER FOUR comes in. Keep in mind that it's the lady responsible for school lunch carting them up the stairs, so no-one can be rude, we all grin (if she can see us grinning behind the pile of sekihan boxes on our desks) and go "mmmm, loooovve sekihan, thank you!" until she leaves the room and we all burst into tears. We are now on 84 boxes, 168 portions of sekihan, and what's worse, we are down to about 18 staff as 7 others have taken holiday only for the afternoon and the selfish beggars have got away with only one box each.

It was at this point that I thought to myself...THIS is going on my blog as fuss of the f***ing year. Little did I know that it was only just beginning. I refused to take a third box of sekihan, saying that I lived alone, it wasn't fair. I've been told that it's freezable, so I have two portions eyeing me up from inside my freezer as we speak...I never want to see the stuff again, let alone eat it. ANYWAY, the fourth big box is sitting on the side being ignored and the fuss is dying down, when stupid stupid stupid me (full of one box, two portions of sekihan that I've wolfed down, because I didn't want to take 3 portions home) decide to throw myself right into the centre of the fuss. Why oh why I thought any more sekihan-related discussion, no matter how simple it would appear to be, could go down without a massive fuss, I do not know. I was thinking mid-original-fuss that we should have just rang the community centre across the road, or the town hall, or any other workplace in Ita-where the day before and mentioned that we were going to create a world's supply of sekihan and not to bother bringing lunch the following day...but that would have been too simple I suppose.

However, I thought (STUPIDLY), all is not lost. I was about to go to the Board of Education in the town hall for a meeting. I mumbled to the nurse next to me "maybe I could just take a few boxes with me to the Board of Education, seeing as I'm going anyway", thinking that it would just help to ease the problem. She said "good idea!" Let's ask the nutritionist, who had to ask the secretary, who had to ask the Deputy Head, who had to ask the Head (I'm late for my meeting already). We spent a long time discussing (all 6 of us, including the two most important people in the school (wages well spent)) who I should hand it to at the BOE, how much I should take, whether there would actually be any left over at the end of the day (!!!). I said "don't worry, don't worry, nobody's asked me for it, they aren't expecting it, it was just an idea." In face, I said that almost as many times as I'd been offered sekihan. I wanted the ground to swallow me up, even hell would be better than hearing the word sekihan again. I wish that I had never ever spoken, when will I learn??? "Do you think they want it?" chirped the head teacher. "Well WE clearly don't, the town hall has more than 18 staff in it, and we already have at least 4 portions each - the fact that I didn't want it didn't stop me being accosted with it" is what I thought. What I said was "sou desu ne." But I was in for the long haul now - I couldn't get out of it. The Head teacher wound up ringing them to warn them it was coming. (Mid-conversation by the way, another bowl of sekihan arrived, as there were no more plastic boxes). Then they remembered that I go around by bicycle. "You can't take it by bicycle!!!" The whole staff room starts wetting themselves. "Mark-chan" whimpers someone. I was like "I can." It's all in boxes, I have a basket and a backpack, I wasn't gonna take the whole 84 boxes, I was thinking about 10? "No, no, no." "muri muri (impossible)" We fussed it out for another 15 minutes (my meeting was supposed to have been over by now), and the final decision was that the poor school nurse, had to get signed out by the head teacher to make a special trip to the Board of Education just to deliver 10 boxes of sekihan that they didn't even want!! Let alone a blog post, I could write novel about this one sekihan episode.

Fuss Of The Day 8

茶毒蛾, chadokuga, which Wikipedia tells me is Tea Tussock Moth Caterpillar in English, although I'm sure you all knew that already were out and about in Ita-where a few weeks ago, and BOY, was it the talk of the town. If they get on you, you get a rash it seems. A rash in Japan, at least in my school, is often enough to get you sent home to rest (after the potentially 45-minute bike ride that is), so, you can IMAGINE the mega fuss that comes when somehow a boy gets a rash ON HIS FACE. An announcment was made in the staff room between lessons, saying that all teachers should tell students about it, and then, after a supplementary mini-fuss, it was decided that it would be better just to put an announcement over the tannoy for all students to beware of caterpillar-face related rash danger. Then, quite literally 15 minutes later, an exterminator-type man, just like the ones I've only ever seen on the films, because in the UK our biggest problem is probably woodlice or something, was in the school, spraying all of the trees. In a country where I am currently undertaking a 3-week-long discussion with no sign of ending about when/where/how/whether to throw away a virtually rotting kotatsu futon from my flat, how can these things be organised in 15 minutes??? Maybe if I told someone my kotatsu futon had given me a rash...can I cope with the fuss that would result though? Catch 22!

Random Event Of The Day 14

Whilst volunteering at an adult English conversation class in my town the Saturday before last (when I was originally asked I was told it would be mid-week...not too happy about the change in schedule there), I was given a list of "important phrases." We are going to focus on these at the start of each lesson, because if they are so important, I was told by the main teacher. We set about repeating after me, Japan's favourite learning method (there are literally about 80 of them, so it's taking half of the lesson every week it seems), starting with "hello." It's a beginners' class, but none of them are such beginners that they can't say "hello," especially as towards the end of the lesson, we have moved onto repeating a whole entire cabin crew aeroplane safety announcement after me, just in case they go abroad, the flight attendent faints, or gets stage fright, or loses her voice and one of the people in my English conversation class has to do the announcement for her. Anyway, one phrase that struck me as being particularly important, was the Japanese ハクション！　In English : achoo. Yes, I had a room full of 50+ year-old Japanese farmers repeating how to sneeze in English after me...words fail me, they really do.　

Random Event Of The Day 13

I've been eating lunch with the kids over the last couple of weeks and have taken some photos I've pinched from online of school dinners in the UK. One has an innocent little black boy in it, eating his lunch, blissfully unaware of the fact that not one, not two, but three of my students has looked at this page of 8 photos or so and immediately pointed at him and yelled "Obama!" and burst out laughing...casual racism alive and well in Japan. I asked them what they would think if a Brit thought they looked like Keisuke Honda, just because they were Japanese and all three went "Keisuke Honda's cool...yay" Point safely lost there. I have also been told that I look like Justin Bieber and Daniel Radcliffe this week (probably the only two famous young white men in Japan). My internationalisation work has clearly paid off.

Fuss Of The Day 7

Missing M-chan

About one minute after the bell for the start of third period went the other day, a teacher came running into the staff room, said something that I didn't really understand and, quick as a shot, every teacher in the room stands up and the fuss of the century breaks out. All the teachers started opening doors, going in and out of the toilets and stuff, evidently searching for something. I asked, and then followed suit, on finding out that they were searching for a boy (we'll call him M-chan) who was one minute late for class. It crossed my mind what would happen if a 13-year-old was one minute late for something in the UK, and just how long they would have to disappear to cause a scene of 10 teachers strutting around the school shouting at eachother "Have you checked here?" "Have you checked there?" etc. I actually think somebody would have to be missing overnight. It turned out that M-chan was wherever his PE kit was somewhere downstairs. What did they actually think could have happened to him in one minute anyway? Especially as this is a boy whose mind works about 10 minutes behind everyone else's anyway, testamented to by the fact that he is often referred to with the little girls' suffix -chan instead of -kun for boys. He's like a toddler trapped in a late 13-year-old M-chan body. Still, very dramatic fuss all round.

Random Event Of The Day 12

Video and DVD section in the library in the local community centre. Loads of awful Japanese TV series, some anime films and the odd Hollywood blockbuster. I just happened to glance at the videos for the first time other day to find a row of Rowan Atkinsons grinning at me. An ENTIRE SHELF of "Thin Blue Line" videos, a British policing sitcom from the 90s with Rowan Atkinson in it...what the hell is that doing forming about a third of my library's video section in Japan???

Random Event Of The Day 11

Me : "How are you?
Student : "I'm hard."
Pause.
Me: "What?"
Student : "I'm hard." (and his mates weren't around so I don't think it was to make anyone laugh)
Me: "Ermm...hard isn't really a feeling, do you mean angry? strong? clever?
Student : "I'm....hard. Every day I'm hard."

Good Little ALT Post Script

Just another little project I've done recently (although receiving far less support from wanky useless teachers.) It revolved around the Eurovision Song Contest 2011. For those who don't know what it is, please Wikipedia it or something, because I have spent the last 3 weeks of my life trying to explain it in both Japanese and in English and I can't bring myself to type it. It's a very famous music competition that happens once every year and is broadcast around the whole of Europe is the bare bones of it. Anyway, I went around the classes and they pulled 3 countries flags out of a hat. Then, I gave them the flag and some information about the country to put up in their form rooms, like how to say hello in their language, where it was on a map etc. and they became the supporter of that country. It was great...quite a few classes really got behind it. I played clips of one of the songs each class was supporting after the lunch menu on the speaker system every day the week before the contest and announced the winner on the Monday after the event, with the winning class getting little presents that my Mum has kindly sent from the UK for me/them. Of course it was sod's law that this year's winner would be just about the least famous country in the whole competition, Azerbaijan! Quite the anti-climax...and it's barely in Europe, which was another explanation I was rather out of my euro-depth in. The Eurovision Song Contest is only well-known in Europe, of course (although I've heard that some Australians give a sneaky peek). Any road, as Peter Kay would say, Eurovision is naturally not known in Japan at all (I found online that a couple of Irish pubs or sports bars in Tokyo do screen it every year, not that I'm enough of a loser to be that desperate to watch it!). It was great to hear that some of the kids really liked some of the music, and could understand parts of the lyrics. Its that perfect cheesey pop with really simple cliche lyrics aimed at non-native speakers. Their favourites were Denmark and Norway, the same as me! Especially Norway's African-vibey "Haba Haba" went down really well! They were all running round saying "haba haba" (or things that sounded vaguely like it). Strange that it literally came right near the bottom even in the semi final when it was catchy enough to get my kids onto it after a 15-second clip. It was also nice to teach the kids about an event from abroad and for them to see just how many countries (many they'd never heard of before, quite understandably as there are a couple I know nothing more about than their Eurovision entry every year...Andorra anyone?), people and languages make up Europe. Foreign does not just equal English and it certainly does not just equal the United States of America. However, I don't think any of them will be booking a ticket to Azerbaijan, in fact, I doubt if any of them can remember how to say it in Japanese, let alone English!

Good Little ALT

Just allow me a couple of minutes of your time to boast about how brilliant I am at my job. One of the problems many ALTs in Japan find is that some schools just want you there to tick the box that they have a foreigner and can show you off to the parents on open day, but don't actually want your input for anything at all. I feel like that with regards to lessons at my junior high school I must say, so I contribute in other ways like the amazing person that I am by organising various things outside of lessons.

Don't worry, I won't go through everything I've ever done in 2 years in Japan as if I'm filling out an application form for a job, but, I want to tell you about one such project. In February, after months of asking for permission and fussing, Ita-where's Junior High school had its first (and possibly only as I'm leaving in August, but I will tell my replacement about it, so here's to hoping) English Week. It was fantastic for me, because, once it had the title of "English Week," it seemed that I had the permission to do a whole host of English related things, that I would never normally be able to do or would have to wait for months of permission discussions for, just because it was "English Week." Thanks for your love of categories Japan. The art club made me posters that were hanging up all around school to get the buzz going, and I put up a table in the entrance hall full of little bits and bobs from England, such as magazines, comics, newspapers, stamps, money, postcards, photos, food.... There's a very rubbish zoomed-in picture above there, because all of the decent pictures have my kids in them (not my babies, my students, but they feel like my kids, because I'm just so brilliant and loving and perfect...ooo this is beginning to sound like one our lovely lovely ALT "training seminars" (aka listen to how great I am at my job and how much I know about Japan speeches). Anyway, there was a nice crowd of kids around it all week long, and it lead to many questions, which was cool. Very few of these kids have travelled, so they enjoy looking at foreign articles (came up in class today actually....only one out of forty students had a passport "Where have you been?" "Nowhere, I just had a passport.").

Also, we translated the lunch menu into English every day and broadcast it on the speaker system (in Japan the kyuushoku (school lunch) menu is broadcast every day so we just did it again in English after that. Then, I did a speech in English, with some Japanese for help about school lunch around the world and put posters about it up on my English White Board (see Norway there with one of the amazing art club posters too (there are no hot lunches in Norway by the way, everyone brings packed lunches...school lunch is quite the institution (and fuss causer) in Japan, so Norway's lack of lead to mass hysteria fuss indeed in my school.)) Then we played some of the latest pop music from the UK (quietly so that the Head Teacher couldn't hear through the door, because he said it was ok as long as there were no guitars, electronic noises, rap or too many drums, before suggesting the national anthem of the UK for one day.....secret naughtiness there by me, but surely it was allowed, because, it was English Week after all!) To complement this, the amazingly lovely nutritionist (Japanese schools often have nutritionist who are there just to plan the school lunch menus combinations and calorie balance...mentalness really, especially when you see how odd/unhealthy some of ours are, but, that's not for here) arranged for us to have FISH AND CHIPS and a jam sandwich for lunch that (plus the not so British cabbage soup) with English Week making an appearance on the monthly mantra that is the school lunch menu handout!! It tasted of nothing but salt and I think I've given them all a bad impression of British food now, but, who has a good impression of British food anyway?

The most popular part of English week (apart from the for the school dinner ladies whose favourite part must have been shaking their salt shakers and getting carried away) was an orienteering type task where the kids had to find pieces of orange card hidden all around the school. There were 53 cards in total and each one had a reason for why it is worth studying English written on them in Japanese (it just had to be in Japanese or otherwise nobody would have bothered...it was not an exercise for learning new English, but for motivation as to why they study it). It proved quite the talking point of the week, and even prompted some of the most button-lipped-I'm-petrified-of-that-foreigner-type teachers to talk to me. I sort of assumed when I arrived that everybody knew there were many reasons to study English in today's globalising world, yet, on being questioned, my students can only ever muster up "to talk to foreigners" as a response, which isn't particularly meaningful to them when they live in the countryside of Japan, not exactly abundant with foreigners. So, I wanted to introduce them to a few more.

My favourite part of the week was my English newsletter. I made various articles, either in English, or about English in Japanese. Through the various activities I took part in in order to create the newspaper, I learnt a lot about my kids and about Japan's attitude to English. I asked some of my friends and acquaintances (plus somehow a friend of a friend who is some amazingly important person at Nintendo apparently) from Ita-where, to write about why they are happy they can speak (some) English, even though they live in the countryside and might not have any foreigners to speak with. It was really nice to read the responses and to see how happy they are to be able to understand English and how interested they are in travel, international news, culture and media, in spite of the overriding impression I often feel in Japan of a general ambivalence to these things. I hope some of my kids took note. I also did a quiz about Christmas and asked my kids to fill it out, which taught (or confirmed for) me that they know absolutely nothing about it at all. I came home for Christmas in the UK and before that I gave all of my third graders (15) a piece of paper and asked them to write a question in English. I took the slips home and got my friends and family to write answers for them and I took them back in January. I printed some of the more interesting answers in the paper. They were so happy to get their little slips back, and, many kids who don't normally show much enthusiasm for English, were really trying hard to work out the meaning of the answers by asking their friends, the teacher and me for the meanings of words and hunting through dictionaries. It was really funny for me to see the reactions to people of other races too (I put photos with the answers). They couldn't believe that black people were English and they pointed at my friend who has Chinese parents and said "nihonjin (Japanese)" straight away. In spite of mild racism, thanks to all my friends for filling those out if you are reading this, they really appreciated it. Equally as interesting was a survey I did with the first grade. I asked them if I said to my friend in the UK "Japan," what would be the first things that would spring to mind? I will show you the top few answers of each class (I did it with four classes of first graders, 13-year-olds):

1-1 : sushi, samarai, Mount Fuji, big Buddha statues, harakiri (I believe it to be a traditional type of ritual suicide or something ??), kabuki (traditional Japanese theatre)

1-2 : AKB48 (J-pop band), Ichiro (Japanese baseball player), One Piece (Japanese manga), Sky Tree (a new skyscraper in Asakusa, Tokyo), Dragonball (manga), Anpanman (kids' character), Keisuke Honda (footballer)

1-3 : Sky Tree, AKB48, sushi, Mount Fuji, manga

1-4 : Sushi, Tokyo, Sky Tree, samurai, Kyoto, Pokemon

I asked my friends and family to name five things they think of when they think of Japan each and the actual top 10 went as follows:

1. Sushi

2= Geisha

2= Kimono

4. Noodles

5= Tokyo

5= Anime

7= Mount Fuji

7= Crazy Fashion (that word crazy popping up many times)

7= High techonology

7= Fans

I was surprised as to how many traditional things came up, and also how many people thought of Mount Fuji and of cherry blossoms (a bit further down the list), two things which I don't think I'd ever heard of before coming to Japan!!

I can't think of a nice ending to tie this up, but, if any ALTs are reading...try out an English Week!

Random Event Of The Day 10

I've just watched a 5-minute news report on TV about two old people who got sick after drinking what they thought was oolong tea but was actually pesticide, followed by a man in a suit telling us that the colour, smell and taste of pesticide is different to that of tea, so checking should help us make the decision...maybe my level of Japanese has made me misunderstand something and this might actually be some huge new story that is going to come back and bite me on my backside, but surely in a country still half in ruins from one of the biggest earthquakes in history with a broken nuclear power plant has something more important to report about? If you're interested, pesticide is white not brown, it smells horrible, not nice and tastes of poison not tea.

Random Event Of They Day 9

I was waiting in the photo printing shop, whilst the photo lady was behind a screen taking photos of someone...photo photo photo. There was a lot of "kawaiii" (cute) being screeched by her and another woman with no response, so I was assuming that it was a baby or a shy toddler being photographed. Ten minutes later and what walks out? A woman holding a DOG dressed in a wedding dress! Dressing up your pets is fairly popular in Japan and there are lots of shops dedicated to costumes and dog spas etc. (believe me the dog was dressed better than the woman). She sat down on the seat next to me (the woman, not the dog) and set about changing her out of the wedding dress into her normal clothes and putting the ribbons on her ears into a box full to the brim with doggy accessories, before replacing them with slightly less fancy ribbons (just the everyday ribbon as opposed to the bridal one)...Craziness!

Random Event Of The Day 8

Bumping into one of my 1o-year-old students at the supermarket, and the man with her pointing at her and saying "My father"...that is one confusing family!

BLANK Of The Day 7

We had a new deputy head start in April. I have introduced myself to him personally, to all of the new teachers together, and to all of the new students in front of him, each time stating that I was from the UK, I also have an English notice board almost directly in front of the staff room door with Union Jacks and posters about the royal wedding and The King's Speech all over it, plus I wear a Union Jack bandana when dishing out the school lunch (a hanky I use as a bandana - don't ask me why serving school lunch necessitates a bandana, let's just put it down to Japanese fuss). Anyway, other other day I was comparing Japan to the UK when talking to the deputy head and he said "but you're from America right?" I mean, how many times does he need to be told? And, it's so weird, because he was obviously fairly sure of himself to not just think it to himself but to just abruptly say it, in spite of never hearing that I was American once (white person = American) AND, he didn't even apologise afterwards, even though most Japanese people spend most of their lives apologising anwyay...I mean, some people in the UK might see a Far Eastern person and think China immediately, but I don't think many would forget after being told many times, and I think everyone would apologise a million times and want the ground to eat them up after making such a mistake. He then proceded to declare that he'd been to the UK and he didn't like it much because it was dirty, old-fashioned, scary and impractical (to name but a few of its problems) AND, WORST of all, he said that he preferred France!! Never say that to an Englishman! Deputy Head lost about a million brownie points in 3 minutes flat.

Fuss Of The Day 6

One of the teacher's car alarms going off in the carpark around lunchtime on Wednesday...I don't think I need say anymore.

Random Event Of The Day 7

I went to a huge gay night this weekend at a club called Ageha in Tokyo. It's not always a gay club, in fact, the event, Shangri-La, only takes place about three or four times a year so it's a pretty big deal, and loads of people come. The normal gay scene in Japan, centred around Shinjuku's Ni-chome leaves a lot to be desired, so this was a refreshing night with various styles of music, dance performances, a pool, an outdoor eating area and a whole host of fit guys. Needless to say, nobody came on to me, but, following sod's law, on the way home, whilst waiting for a train about four stations from my own, hungover, bedraggled and half asleep on a bench, I apparently gave off some kind of irresistable charm to a mid-40s, Hulk Holgan stylee bleach blonde mulleted Japanese man, who stank of sick, booze and fags....lovely. He talked to me for 20 minutes at the station on my bench, and all the way back to my station on the train, announcing "kakkoi" (cool) at everything I said and trying many times (unsuccessfully I believe) to take my picture...WHY ME???

Enough Ganbatte ?

Things in this part of Japan are returning to normality, but reminders of the wide range of problems the country is facing and will have to face for months to come, rear their head often. The upgrade of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima to level 7 and a 5.something earthquake yesterday very near to me have served to unsettle the people in my area again. This one was had its epicentre in Tochigi, only about 30km or so from my town and was the first since the 9.0 on 11th March in Miyagi to send things flying about in my apartment (another broken plate). I very much freaked out. The news has since said that this was officially NOT an aftershock of the Miyagi quake and has reminded us that other big earthquakes in various parts of Japan are an ever-present possibility (as they were before 11th March anyway). With these events still occuring, as resilient as the Japanese people seem on the surface, two drinking parties I have been to this weekend have shown how quickly the conversation turns to various concerns, once inhibitions are slightly lowered.

Understandably, people are very interested in what the UK government are saying and how many of my foreign friends in Japan have returned home. A couple of beers down and these sort of questions come thick and fast. Many people seem to have the impression that almost all foreign residents have fled to their home countries, which is grossly inaccurate if my friends are anything to go by. Even the people I know who did leave at first, have all returned to Japan as far as I know.

Last night, whilst at an open-air restaurant and drinking party in the name of charity for the people in Tohoku, I had a very interesting conversation with some of my Japanese friends about the word 'Ganbatte.' Without a doubt, this is one of the first pieces of vocabulary I learnt after my arrival in Japan. It is used all the time, with reference to work, sports, lifestyle, study... It is used when things are going well, or when things are going badly and need to be turned around. I like the translation 'to do one's best,' but Japanese people often translate it as 'to fight.' This is perhaps a little strong (but nice and pithy and easy to say for the Japanese), but I think it does often have slightly more persistent and tenacious connotations than simply to 'do one's best.' In a more negative situation, 'hang in there' may also be appropriate. It is used in so many situations, that it is probably a bit difficult to pin it down to one set English equivalent.

The Japanese media is currently flooded with adverts, speeches by politicians and celebrities and posters telling Japan, as a nation to 'ganbatte.' I have always thought it a fairly positive phrase and quite fitting for this sort of circumstance, but, many of my friends last night said that they found it a bit patronising to be told by the media to 'ganbatte.' The dictionary form of the verb is 'ganbaru' and 'ganbatte' is a sort of command form, so it is effectively saying to people 'do your best!' Friends' comments revealed that they felt they were doing their best anyway, what more could they do, they didn't need a politician or a pop star to tell them to do their best, as they would naturally do that anyway. Given how often the phrase is used in normal conversation, and having never picked up on a patronising tone to it before, I was surprised, as were some of the other Japanese people at the table, but, it was by no means just one person who shared the sentiment. They seemed to prefer 'ganbarou' which indicates that the person speaking is doing their best too, so that we should all do our best together. Maybe it's just been slight overkill, or that in such a serious state of affairs, it doesn't apply, but, for whatever reason, it is getting some people's backs up. I have also noticed that the term has been used in the foreign press a lot, such as the Independent front page on March 12th. I wonder if it has become a famous phrase in other countries in the past month? I don't think anyone would find it patronising from a foreigner though, as the sentiment alone is so appreciated.

With my level of Japanese, I can't understand all the connotations of the word, but, as most people seemed to agree that ganbarou was far more fitting, I will stick to that.

Japan, let's all do our best together! 日本！みんなでがんばろう！

Fuss Of The Day 5

1st April is a time for change in Japan. It's the first day of the new school year, and a bunch of new teachers start at every school. It also means that you have about a week of meetings following the 1st April, in which opinions do the rounds, time slows down and fuss abounds (TV Burp Poetry Corrrrnerrrr - I love Harry Hill). One such fuss was a 15 (no exaggeration) minute discussion about where we dispose of our paper. Many teachers gave very long monologues about where they used to put it at their old school, generally pissing all over Ita-where's system and how rubbish it is. I thought for the whole time that they were complaining that Ita-where doesn't recycle its paper, which, as a school with a hell of a lot of waste paper, I also find slightly ridiculous, so I was listening intently to the many teachers giving their ten pence worths. Slightly confused by the final decision which was 'we'll put paper in a box in the room with the photocopier in,' I asked the nurse, who sits next to me, where they would actually start recycling it and was told that the entire 15 minutes hadn't been about recycling at all, but rather about a new seperate bin for paper, because there is so much paper that the bins might fill up a bit too quickly (??)...another quarter of an hour of my life wasted, thank you very much staff fuss meeting.

BLANK Of The Day 6

An un-blank this time. I walked into one of my junior high 2nd year classes (14-year-olds) to find two girls singing to each other and jumping around in excitement. I said to them 'AKB48?' (anything longer than one word and they get lost). AKB48 are a ridiculously popular J-Pop girl group with about 75 members who all prance around in cheerleaders outfits and bikinis looking about 12, singing or chanting songs with 3 word English titles that still manage have mistakes in them. Sorry, went a bit Victor Meldrew then. Anyway...they said 'no...aburu labein.' I thought, I haven't heard of them before, they said the title was 'What The Hell' and thinking that that was incredibly accurate English for a J-Pop group, it dawned on me that they were saying Avril Lavigne!! All the most famous music artists in the world that these kids BLANK on, but they KNOW and LOVE Avril Lavigne!! Even to the point of them knowing a newer song by her than I do (not that I am exactly a big fan of the little weasel but still). Anyway, finally I have some kudos with my kids for being able to sing and understand some music that they like! This is what I was expecting right from the start of arriving in Japan, can't believe it's taken a year and half (except for I'm a Scatman)! So, I have fully jumped on the bandwagon and am a total Avril sellout, putting her on my English notice board and downloading the truly awful 'What The Hell' to play on the school radio soon. I am thrilled that Avril Lavigne is motivating my kids to like and learn English, but, I am slightly unsure as to how much of the lyrics of 'What The Hell,' a song that appears to be about not caring, sleeping around and being an annoying little weasel no matter what anyone thinks, I should explain to them...what a role model!

New Aftershock

7.4 aftershock off the coast of Miyagi again at about 11.30 tonight. The information on the news says that it was about a minute long - it felt about that long here (I ran outside and met the new neighbour who was doing the same, but he was also mid brushing his teeth and the ground was shaking so not easy to make polite conversation). It says that there are some power cuts in the Sendai area and that some trains and shinkansens have been stopped. TEPCO are still checking the Fukushima nuclear power plant. There are strong tsunami warnings in Miyagi and smaller ones up the Eastern coast as far as the tip of the island in Aomori and as far down as Ibaraki (not as far as Tokyo). Just for your info, peeps, I am totally fine.

Happy Tanjobi To Me!

Enough of radioactive earthquake talk. Let's go pre-quake, when all in Jappy was still happy. At the start of March, I was particularly happy, as (aside from having to confront the depressing fact that I am now TWENTY FOUR meaning that next year I will be half way through my twenties, meaning that old age is a stone's throw away) I had the chance to celebrate my birthday! I think it's fair to say that birthdays aren't as big a deal in Japan as they are in the UK, but, I thought, poo you Japan, I am gonna celebrate it and I am gonna bloody well celebrate it in style. The celebrations were not one, not two, not three, but FOUR FOLD. Go me.

Celebration 1 - Pre-birthday cinema. Two of my lovely Japanese lady friends took me to the cinema and for lunch on the weekend before my birthday, buying me a set of postcards by 18th-19th century Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, paired with a sushi pen with the names of all of the sushi written on it (useful in so many ways...that's actuallly not supposed to be sarcastic) and a truly horrible egg sushi keyring, which I now have to use as I see them all the time. They already plagued my phone with the most effeminate, impractically shaped, loud ringy belly mobile phone strap I've ever seen in Japan, with a design surely aimed at Ann Widecombe or someone equally awful old-lady fashion-y, which refused to break for about 6 months and they have now done something just as tacky to my keys...will it ever end? We saw "Hereafter" with Matt Damon (incidentally now off screens in Japan due to the graphic tsunami seen - that scene was horribly realistic anyway, I didn't enjoy the film much to be honest). Then we went for lunch at an Italian restaurant, where I had the traditionally Italian sweet French crepe filled with dry salad...Nigella eat your heart out.

Celebration Number 2 - On the day celebrations. My boss text me as it turned midnight on my birthday and asked me what I was doing in the evening, so that she could bring me a present. I told me I would be in, and then she said that she would take me out instead. So, we went to an izakaya with her husband and another colleague of mine. I hadn't been there since my first month in Japan, so it was so nice to see how much I understood now compared to the last time! We ate an awful lot, drank some "local" beer, which turned out to be from miles and miles away and generally had a lovely old chinwag. They got me a mug with the Japanese flag on it and I also somehow wound up with the rest of a bottle of sweet potato shochu (a Japanese spirit) that we couldn't finish on the evening (still in the fridge a month later, I might add).

Celebration Number 3 - Party Time! My lovely ALT friends and I, who spend our whole lives sticking out like sore thumbs in our respective rural dwellings, came together in Tokyo, to stick out like two big fat sore hands. Present-wise, I got the biggest set of bright purple blankets off of my crazy friend, who somehow managed to smuggle them around without me noticing until she whipped out the biggest package I've ever seen...not quite sure how that happened, plus some manga, some funny sticker things that you can stick on your phone or material too that will make me look super-cool (as if I don't already) and a ticket to a football match. I got more than I got when I was at home in the UK!

In the way of celebrations, I managed (not without a large helping of fuss) to book a ridiculous bargain in the centre of Shibuya, one of the young fashionable night-out districts in Tokyo on a Saturday night. It was in the izakaya where everything on the menu is 270 yen, not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I love the place. It's a chain that always seems to be full. It has a computer menu which you use with a touch screen pen and also has an ENGLISH BUTTON! Woo! This particular branch is full of young people on Saturday night. It's the one near Tokyu Hands, if that helps anyone that knows Shibuya, but it probably doesn't because you are falling over those chains once every 3 steps there. Oh, it's the one by Outback Steak House. A pretty cool branch if you ask me. For 2,480 yen each (about 20 quid) we got 8 different types of food, including big nabes (huge Japanese broth type meals) and 2 hours all-you-can-drink. BARGAIN. We played silly animal and pointy drinking games, the rules I can't really recall and then some of us went out to Club Asia around the corner.

It was my first time there....main impression is that two people were sick on my leg in the space of about 10 seconds. I was literally mid-schock at the first sick episode and, before I'd had a chance to even tell my friend next to me what had happened, it was happening all over again. Apart from that, it was a club with a nice atmosphere, a lot of dancing, and, more than one room, allowing you to change when you got bored, or when you got sicked on. The night was called "Flash" and involved lots of Japanese people pretending to be cool and love electro and house music all night (including a lovely song in English that clearly only we understood, about needing the toilet) but then giving the biggest reaction of the night to the new cheesey K-Pop band Kara (see left). I ended the night with a kebab, a Japanese style breakfast, a sleep in a manga cafe and then a McDonald's and a Starbucks ham and cheese panini and painfully sweet sakura cherry blossom latte (I think I let out a groan at the sugary taste, when will I learn?). However, in my defence, it was my birthday and I did have two people's vomit on my favourite pair of jeans. Thank you friends for a wonderful evening in spite of various fusses and impracticalities!

Celebration Number 4 - More Food and Drink. Rather inconveniently scheduled on the evening after my big night out in Club Asia, i.e. on the same day that I'd been trapsing around Shibuya in sick jeans with a hangover, eating junk food, was a dinner and drinks with three Japanese friends in Tatebayashi. We went to my Taiwanese friend's Taiwanese restaurant. What I thought would be a simple and small affair, especially given that not a huge fuss is usually made in Japan for birthdays (just for things like choco chip pan and broken magnets), turned out to be truly one of my best evenings since being in Japan. My lovely lovely friends had invited more people (some that I knew, some that I didn't), making a total of 10 or so, I receieved gifts of handkerchief things (very common in Japan), a bath bomb from Lush which was shaped as a frog and turns into a prince when it goes in the water (yet to try it...sounds interesting to say the least) and, a VERY cool and for the first time since I've arrived in Japan, NOT tacky strap made of leather, and, indeed, made BY the friend that organised the party as he is a leather thing maker. I love it. Love love love. I am so cool now and I wear my phone so that it comes out of my pocket and everyone can see how cool I am. So lucky to be in Japan and not in the UK where doing that would lead my phone to get nicked as quick as the second sick episode followed the first. My Taiwanese friend gave us champagne and my friends had also had a cake made with my name on it. It was all just too nice for words, I actually didn't quite know how to react. I thought I was going to cry! But I didn't...that wouldn't have been too cool. I also got a two parcels sent to me, one from my friend at home with WINE GUMS and one from my parents with various chocolatey things and some money in my account from my family, which was spent on various clothes in Harajuku at Uniqlo and We Go a week before it was my birthday...so much for saving for travelling in South Korea in May :(. Everything I bought was on sale, and, what can I say, I'm weak. Embarrassingly, we had been studying birthdays in sixth grade at primary school, and in practice conversations I had been telling people my birthday at school. One of the teachers remembered and, on the day, had the kids sing happy birthday to me, and one of my kids from another school remembered from about three weeks before and that class sang to me the following day (the closest day that I was at that school). Lovely kids. Lovely friends. Lovely Japan. I may have had my ups and downs with living in Japan, but this was a week that truly made me sorry to know that I'm leaving in the summer.

Japan Three Weeks On

The 9.0 Miyagi earthquake struck just over three weeks ago now. It's been a fairly uppy and downy three weeks, for want of a better expression. The death toll continues to rise and the situation is still dire for many people in Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima prefectures.

The atmosphere where I live has been tense but calm. Generally, people have done their best to carry on with life as normally as possible. I admit to being a little bit freaked out by radiation reports every now and again, mainly because I know nothing about radiation and quite literally wouldn't know a gamma ray if it hit me. I'm not glowing in the dark yet though, so I won't be using the iodine tablets the UK embassy has distributed to us "just in case of the worst case scenario" for the time being.

A friend of mine was supposed to be visiting me here over the last two weeks, but, unfortunately had to cancel, as much due to practicality of travelling at the moment as due to health concerns. I used some of the holiday and transport that we'd already booked to take long weekend trips/evacuations to Osaka and Kanazawa. A certain amount of panic stirred up by various media sources has led to quite a few foreigners leaving Japan, at least temporarily, but I am happy with my decision to stay. In Gunma, it's been a few weeks of empty petrol pumps, pretty bare supermarket shelves, scheduled power cuts, fairly hefty aftershocks and elevated (but perfectly safe) radiation levels (except for in our spinach and かき菜 kakina, a Japanese leafy vegetable thing to the left there whose existance I was not aware of, until its radiation became dangerous, so that has affected my life precisely 0%). How it gets into spinach and kakina but nothing else, I have no idea, but, I have asked and been told and failed to understand...I have learnt not to ask again. I do not care. End of.

Over the last week, however, radiation levels have dropped (maybe I will be able to try some kakina soon), aftershocks have significantally decreased, petrol is available if you are willing to queue and pay a month's wages for a tank, supermarket shelves are back to normal unless you want yoghurt, milk, or pot noodles (don't ask me why) and power cuts have been cancelled almost every day for the entire week and are also off tomorrow. People have been told to save power...some people and companies seem to be taking this advice much more seriously than others, (ie some of the train stations have their escalators off, others don't, some of the massive screens in Shibuya and Shinjuku in Tokyo are off, but some aren't, some department stores seem to have one lift operating, whereas some seem to just have one token one shut), but, whatever we are doing, must be working, because there has been no need to carry out the scheduled cuts! The area of central Tokyo (the central 23 "wards," it's not a hospital, but for some reason the translation is "ward") is not having power cuts. To be honest, I think all the escalators and lifts except for one should be off in all department stores, because unless you have bad legs or something, if you really want something on the 8th floor enough, you can bloody well walk up and get it!! Especially if it will save some poor person in the countryside of Gunma having to go without lighting for 3 hours, but still, at least some effort is being made everywhere.

We are starting to get refugees arrive in my town. I will be teaching some of them next year I imagine (the school year starts in April in Japan, so, by next year, I mean next week). Some have moved into houses here and some are in one of the community centres. I will also be working the desk where people can drop off donations of clothing, blankets and dry/tinned food as the Board of Education representative one day next week. I've sent some other bits and bobs and have given some money to charity (there are people collecting EVERYWHERE and most shops, restaurants and schools seem to have collection boxes, which is lovely). I suppose I should think about doing more but I'm not allowed any time off in April and I'm a bit wary of going up there and just being a nuisance. I think they will need help for a long time, so maybe I can go later. It's nice that my town has taken some refugees though and from a selfish point of view, it certainly reassures me that where I am is safe from radiation!

In the mean time, I am getting through by treating myself to an obscene amount of chocolate and watching the NHK evening news reports with my new favourite person 青山祐子 あおやま ゆうこ Aoyama Yuko. She is so calm and trustworthy, and FAR braver than the wusses in the helmets, who just make me feel more scared.

The best newscaster ever.

The most chicken hard-hat newscaster ever.

Bottom line is, things here are safe, and touch wood, returning to normal. Things up north are still bad, so please give to charity or send things if you can! Yoroshiku onegaishimasu!

Wish I'd paid more attention in physics...

I literally do not understand ANYTHING about earthquakes or nuclear things...forget about Japanese, it might as well be written in Double Dutch for all I can understand. I have decided to stay in Japan for the time being, but I might head south to a safer part, just in case. My friend was supposed to visiting me this week, so I have holiday booked from work anyway. The official advise from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office states that people in my area should "consider leaving" the area, but more due to concerns over food and power shortages, than due to actual health risks. I have rung them to confirm that I am understanding correctly, so please try to ignore the selective attitude that "news" reporters, such as the BBC, CNN, The Telegraph, and The Guardian seem to have to the facts. The most reliable news I have been reading seems to be from The Independant so far, who give a far more balanced view and qualify the things they are reporting with facts and comparisons. I have just had my first power cut. Three hours in the dark, but the water DID work and it's not so difficult when you have prepared for it. Had a glass of imo shochuu (芋焼酎), a Japanese alcohol made of sweet potatoes, which sent me nicely off to sleep. I may have pranced around in the dark with my torch to Live And Let Die by The Wings first, it's a great song to prance with a torch to. I was woken up by everything switching back on, and a perfectly timed afterschock. What a jolt back into action. I can't understand how the official things tell me that some quakes of magnitude 6.0+ I can't feel, but can feel some of around 5 even though they are in the same area, and the readings say that they are all registrering 3 on the Japanese shakey scale near me. Still, I know I felt that one really strongly, but, on the upside, it's only the second one I've felt all day. Still very worried about the people up in the north...there are all sorts of clips of people without heating, just under blankets in school gyms etc. It's snowing quite heavily up there by the looks of it. I'm lucky that it's not snowing here. Also, everyone at work is being very kind, although I don't want to think of the panic and fuss that might break out if I decided to go home...a couple of English teachers in the next city have decided to leave and the fuss has spread to my town on that one. The FCO still says that we are safe, so I am following that. My Board of Education have lent me a battery-powered radio and lamp for the blackouts. Sorry that this post has been a bit of a ramble, probably a sign of the state my head is in at the moment. I feel a bit calmer that the TV is back on, and I have my lovely reliable news lady back. She wouldn't let me come to any harm. Current biggest health concern : potential overdose on chocolate.

My Latest on the Earthquake

I've been a bit up and down over the last few days...yesterday was a particular low, with many aftershocks waking me on Monday night, leaving me very tired, and constant, conflicting reports about the ongoing nuclear 'catasrophe' in Fukushima, as the foreign press are so reassuringly calling it. Yesterday, there were many reports of well above average radiation deteced in the prefectures surrounding me, but, not in my prefecture. However, my location right on the corner of Gunma, between Saitama and Tochigi, made me somewhat doubt that Tochigi and Saitama prefectures were recording unusual levels and we weren't...I don't think radiation cares too much for local political borders. The foreign press continued to whip up a dramatic storm, I was struggling to understand any of it, no matter what language it was in, and was starting to think that I was going to headbutt the TV if I had to see a diagram of the inside of the bloody reactors again, either that or just scream 'I don't know what a f***ing nuclear reactor looks like when it's working anyway, so that stupid diagram is really not going to inform me of anything, it could be a diagram of a car engine or a piece of modern art, or a random doodle drawn by the newscaster for all I know.' The information all seemed very scientific and not very user-friendly. I admit to having a small panic. When I went home, I put on a mask and cycled with quite literally only my eyes showing.

However, looking at all of the information from the Japanese goverment, the scientists and the British government and embassy (who I trust the most, the Foriegn and Commonwealth Office has reassuring advice for British nationals), I realised that I was allowing myself to be whipped up into hysteria, which is not going to help anyone. I feel much calmer today. The current levels aren't enough to harm anyone, even in the area right next to the plant, which has already been evacuated, and the sort of levels recorded around me (200km away, similar distance to Tokyo) aren't harmful at all. All scientific reports seem to say that even in a realistic worst case scenario, only the current 30km evactuation/quarantine (can't think of a better English word) would be at any serious health risk. I feel reassured by that. Also, when first looking at international news, I was worried that the Japanese media were trying to sweep it under the carpet, but, now there is almost 24 hour news on the TV about the developments at the nuclear power station dai ichi ni san yon (福島第1234原子力発電) and a man, who is looking older and sweatier by the day, is making announcements every few hours or so. Also, I love the evening NHK (Japanese BBC) news reporter, she looks so professional and talks with such sincerity...I would trust her with my life. I love her. I'm going to take her photo tonight. The wind is also blowing strongly eastwards today, so that is a relief too.

Afterschock-wise: we are officially down to a 40% chance of there being an afterschock of magnitude 7.0+ in the Miyagi area where the first big earthquake hit. Other aftershocks are still going on, in various parts of Japan, some are big, at around richter scale 6, and they are unnerving, but more because of the worry that it could be a big 7.0 up by Miyagi again which might cause another tsunami and do more damage to the region that has already been hit, or upset something at the nuclear power plant, rather than the thought of any immediate damage in this area...I am safe there touch wood. For me, the afterschocks are just a reminder that things are not back to normal yet and of the tragedy that is happening in the North of Japan, rather than a worry for my personal safety. There was a big one last night, which was pretty strong apparently, but I barely even felt it because I was on the toilet! Apparently you feel them a lot less on toilets and in baths, so it wasn't just that I was concentrating on a big poo or anything.

In other related news - things up north still look horrible from a recovery point of view and the death toll continues to rise. The Emperor of Japan, Akihito, has made a TV broadcast saying that he is 'deeply worried' which sort of makes you want to say...what an understatement, and what a delayed reaction, but, he NEVER appears on TV normally, so I imagine it might have really touched the Japanese people, although I haven't spoken to anyone Japanese since I've found out that it's happened. I didn't even know what the man looked like and I've been living here for a year and a half. In my area, fresh food is almost all gone, as is toilet paper (?) and petrol. It's slightly worrying, but I've got a few tins of food and quite a bit of dried stuff and my boss has given me enough rice to feed the 5,000, so I might turn into a riceball and not be able to wipe my bum (not a common problem amongst rice balls I imgaine), but I should survive. No need to panic!!

Fuss Of The Day 4

I truly admire the Japanese cool and calm in the face of the crisis going on around them, but, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when, admist fears of aftershocks, power shortages, radioactivity and lack of food and petrol, I was sitting in a 10-minute long meeting about whether the kids could take their chocochip pan チョコチップパン　chocolate chipped bread home with them (school lunch has been cancelled due to various problems, so the kids had brought packed lunches, but, in some chocolate chipped miracle, the bread had arrived and they weren't sure whether to make the kids eat it at school or whether they would let them take it home in spite of that being against normal school lunch rules). Ten minutes of fuss meant ten minutes of lessons missed, ten minutes of tiny kids left in classrooms to their own devices when aftershocks had been happening all through the night before....why the choco chip fuss?? Miraculously, in just 10 minutes a decision was reached, and.....they COULD take them home, but only if they hadn't opened them in school...what a worthwhile fuss that was.

Random Event Of The Day 6

It's all a bit tense here at the moment, so, might as well lighten things up with some good old Japanese randomness.

The power cuts, as mentioned in my post below, have been going on in various areas around Japan for the last few days. On Tuesday, the school I was at decided to carry on with normal lessons in spite of a three-hour cut planned in the middle of the day, which I think makes sense. What didn't make sense was everyone worrying that it was going to get too cold...it was so strange. All winter I've been going to that school, in freezing temperatures, snow a-falling outside, feeling like I was in the coldest place in the world and I can't ever remember anybody mentioning anything about the fact that the kids might be cold. It's an old building, the heating is so poor and, indeed, the room I teach English in has NO HEATING AT ALL. But a 3-hour power cut in not too cold weather and all anyone was talking about was how cold it was. "Mark, aren't you cold?" "Yes" I answered, stumbling, bewildered because I was thinking "I've been cold for 4 months and you've never asked before." Everyone worried a lot about the lack of heating (bear in mind the English room has no heating ever anyway!!) and one teacher even gave me an extra jacket which I felt was a bit rude to turn down so I was marching around school, pretending to look colder than I was, in a really nice white Zara long-necked jumper, poking out from underneath a GIGANTIC plastic navy tracksuit top...ironically this was all before the cut even started and...it never even happened! I think I was actually a bit hot in the end!

Latest - Power Cuts

I think I may have been a bit naive on the front of life seeming like it was returning to normal. The difficulties caused by the Miyagi Earthquake on Friday in the way of power supply has led TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) to carry out planned power cuts over several prefectures tomorrow, so that people will know when the power will be cut, rather than there simply being a power shortage at some point in the day and everything stopping. From what I understand, except for important public services like hospitals and fire/police stations, everything will be cut in the given areas. Trains should also still run in spite of the organised power shortages. They had been calling for people to try to keep their power usage to a minimum anyway, but a spokesman announced this plan a few hours ago. Amazingly, just a couple of hours a later, a list had already been drawn up, giving the concerned cities, towns and villages individually by name and the times they would be out. Ita-where? will be cut for 3 and a half hours in the mid afternoon. Fun school day afternoon for me! Some places have two periods of three hours each it seems! Generally, it all sounds like a very sensible and well-organised plan so far. I'll post about how it goes afterwards. Rumours say that, at worst, this could go on for a few weeks, but the situation will be in constant review. Tepco's website is down and is not working at the moment, so the list of towns and when the power cut will be carried out is not available, but it has been on the TV a couple of times, so hopefully most people have noted their designated time.

The affected prefectures are Gunma, Saitama, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa, Yamanashi and Shizuoka with various towns at various times. Out of the Kanto region, it seems that only central Tokyo isn't affected. There are some mistakes on the lists though. Ita-where has, for instance, been placed in Tochigi-ken, when the poor little baby is in Gunma. There are concerns about water supplies being cut too.

Furthermore, experts say that there is a 70% chance of an afterschock of 7.0 magnitude or more in the next 3 days, which could cause more tsunami worries...3 more days of anxiety in Japan it seems.

I'm taking my mind off things by laughing at the new presenters on Japanese TV, wearing helmets in the studio. Small pleasures.

The Miyagi Earthquake

I thought I had better post something about this. Obviously I don't need to tell you that a massive earthquake occurred off the coast of north east Japan on Friday afternoon. It has just been upgraded to a magnitude of 9.0, making it one of the five biggest earthquakes in recorded world history. Bottom line from my point of view is that I'm ok, and am currently just sitting at home, thinking of the poor people in the devastated area in the North of Japan and watching (but not really understanding) the news about the nuclear plant in Fukushima which is currently having various issues.

Anyway, I'll tell you how it's all played out in my area, although it is not one of the worstly hit at all. For info, if you look at a map of Japan, I'm in Gunma prefecture, right on the tip bit nearest to Tokyo. At about quarter to 3 on Friday, tremors began. Earthquakes are very common in Japan and it only took a few weeks of living here to get used to quick jolts beneath my feet. The longer ones are always slightly scarier for me, but, by and large, you just learn to just wait for it to finish and to carry on with what you were doing. Friday's one was a lot different. After 20 seconds or so, the ground was still shaking and it just felt like it was growing and growing. I was in the staff room at my juniour high school, with about 15 other members of staff. Everybody started looking at eachother in a sort of a "is this a really big one then? Should we be doing something?" way. I am so relieved that I was with other people...basically, I just copied everyone, so I put out my hands and held my computer screen in place. Some of the teachers went and opened the windows (I'm not actually sure what that's for, something to do with less chance of them breaking?) and then the vibrations got much bigger, anything that was hanging began swinging back and forth and then, all of the computers and lights went off. Previously to that, a few teachers had been nervously saying "should we get under our desks?" but the lights going out made it clear that that was what we should do, so we all got down and sat under our desks, while the shaking continued. A few things crashed and banged around me, but it was fairly clear that is wasn't the building and was just fittings or other objects. The only person not under his desk was the headteacher, who walked down the staffroom to hold up the massive new free-standing air-conditioner thing they've just brought. I watched his funny trainers going past and just thought he was like Superman or something. I was so scared! I can't believe he was so so concerned about the air-conditioner!! I think the earthquake might have lasted about 3 minutes from the first time we could feel a tremor to it stopping. It was really unnerving and it felt like it was shaking so much...I can't imagine how terrifying it must have been nearer the epicentre. It must have been horrendous.

On emerging, everyone looked worried but calm. We all set about clearing up broken glasses and picking up fallen chairs and books etc. Some of the brave staff went around and checked all the rooms for damage and the other staff - there was next to no damage and everyone was fine. Luckily for me, the children had already all gone home, because it had been the graduation ceremony that day and so they all went home early. I was in the best place...the thought of being on my own, or on a train full of strangers, or, as I would have been on any other weekday this month or last month, in a room full of primary school children that I am responsible for, and, even worse, a room without desks. Having said that, I have since spoken to two friends, one who was teacing in primary school and one who was in nursery school, and they also noted the lack of panic. I have been INCREDIBLY impressed with the reaction of the people here. No hysteria, no panic. Even talking to friends in worse affected areas or watching the pictures on TV of the devastated towns, the reaction still seems relatively calm. A true testament to the lack of selfishness amongst Japanese people and putting what is best for the wider community first. Anyway, I was truly in the best place. Well, a better place would have been further south in Japan, or indeed, not in Japan, but, you know what I mean.

In the staff room, somebody managed to access the internet on their mobile and found out that the epicentre was in Miyagi and that is was a "7" and that we had felt it as a "weak 5." I thought they were talking about the richter scale, but, it turns out that there is a different scale in Japan based on shakiness (?) instead of energy, 7 being the top. Weak 5 is basically still a lot but unlikely to knock down buildings. Most of Tokyo felt a strong 5 apparently. The fact that it was in Miyagi (two prefectures over from me and about 200km away as a teacher told me) made me very worried about what the damage might be there, but, I was slightly relieved at the same time that it hadn't had its epicentre in Tokyo. Everyone in the staff room speculated for a while about whether there would be big aftershocks and, sure enough, a couple of minutes later they started. Two of them sent us under the desks again...actually, one of them sent us all under our desks and the other one sent a few of the wusses under their desks - I am a wuss. The atmosphere in the staffroom remained calm, humour was still present. One teacher teased me for getting under my desk the third time and the school secretary got word from her husband that he was ok and announced "he's ok...unfortunately." I'm not sure how different nations react to things, but the continuted nervous humour and the reluctancy to panic and assume straight away that the earthquake was going to be big when we first felt shaking, or that it was likely to have been a tragedy in the area that it hit before we knew anything, reminded me somewhat of a British reaction to big events...maybe all countries react like that, but I'm not sure. However, I'm sure the UK would have seen much more hysteria once it became clear just how dramatic the effects were in reality, but Japan really doesn't seem to have. For the next hour and half, the mainline phone was off and on, but we had no power, water, or mobile coverage. The headteacher, Clark Kent, told us to go home and check our homes etc. I didn't really want to go and be alone, because the aftershocks were still rumbling away and I knew that I would literally have no information at home. However, as the last few people were leaving, I went too. I walked my bike back, just to be on the safe side, as the ground was a bit shakey and the traffic lights weren't working. There were no signs of damage in the town, except for a broken plaque to a park and some fallen roof tiles.

I was a little bit scared to open my flat's door, but, I had to let out a laugh as I did, to find two eggs had broken on the floor. If that's the worst that's happened I thought! I'd bought about 10 eggs the other day for pancake day as it was all I could find and was worried about using them that night as they'd officially gone off on Thursday, so that was that decision made for me! The only other damage was a broken mug which had jumped into the bath, as I'd left it on the side after my naughty breakfast bathtime coffee...silly Mark. Also, my globe had committed suicide from off of the top of my TV and into my kotatsu. Apart from that, it was mostly just food that had been flung about a bit and the fridge that had leapt forward a tad and sent the blender down the back of it. It's really amazing how strong things are!

Anyway, I still had NO IDEA how large the earthquake had actually been up in Miyagi. My flat was without phone, electricity, water or gas. I just sort of sat for a couple of hours to ride out the aftershocks and tried not to panic (not easy...I had no idea how to tell what was going to be a big one, and couldn't decide if it was safer to get under my kotatsu if a big one came or to get out of the building.) Just on the off-chance that somebody saw something about it on international news, I updated my Facebook status from my phone and emailed my parents...thank God I did! I still hadn't imagined that it would make worldwide headlines. Gas came back on, but unfortunately, I spent the night without water, power or phone, and my mobile phone's battery went dead. I stupidly waited until it went dark to find a torch, so I was clambering around using my iPod for light as I tried to find it and then find batteries for it. Not my most nimble of moments. In the night, I didn't sleep more than 15 minutes at a time without being woken up by an afterschock, or sirens outside, or the town hall's van going round making announcements that anyone in trouble should go to the community centre.

Everything came back on at 6am the following day and I managed to speak to friends and family at home and in Japan. I was in complete ignorant bliss of the tsunami and the damage that had been caused, so I was very shocked to find the number of emails and Facebook messages piling up. I was very grateful for Facebook yesterday - it was great that I managed to update my status to let people know that I was ok and put people's minds at rest. Seeing the pictures on the news really paints a scary picture and, thankfully, where I am is nothing like that at all...neither is Tokyo. Most of the country has been very lucky. The Japanese and the British media coverage has been VERY different. It seems even the BBC has sensationalised something that really doesn't need to be sensationalised at all, it is dreadful as it is and everyone knows that. I might write another piece about that another time. Of course, this massive earthquake and tsunami have caused a great deal of devastation in the area, and the media shouldn't play that down, but it doesn't need building up either.

Yesterday, last night and today, the afterschocks have been much smaller and further between for the most part. I don't think I've felt any in the last 3 hours or so (touch wood!). My supervisor from work drove me to the supermarket yesterday to get supplies and explained some more things about the earthquake to me, she also rang me at about 7.30pm on the night of the earthquake, when the phones were working briefly, to check that I was ok and that I had a torch etc. She has been amazing, because, it has been a very lonely time and not having any electricity on the first night was truly horrible, so even speaking to her for one minute was very reassuring, even if it was what put my phone out of battery - ironically just as she was telling me that if another massive one was going to come, my phone should bleep and warn me! The phone warning system was a bit broken she said the next day. None of us got anything for the actual quake (it's only about 10 seconds or so in advance anyway, but still...) and then I DID get one at about 7 on Friday evening and almost had a heart attack, running outside, thinking, it's going to be even bigger, seeing as I've got a warning this time, but, I didn't feel anything at all. Yesterday's ones were all correct. They come on the TV as well, anything that ranks about 3 on the Japanese scale I think. Amazing to get any warning at all really! Very intelligent!

Today, I've cleared up the last of the mess here, caught up on lack of sleep with little interruption and emailed a couple of friends. I've also made the mistake of thinking my bath was totally dry, so that it would be safe to try and hoover up the tiny bits of broken china in it, please picture that image to give yourself a laugh...the electric plug is a mile away as well so it was bit of a stretch around a corner, and then picture my alarmed face as I realise that some water has got inside the hoover and my bathroom floor is getting covered in brown water!! Still not quite sure what I'm gonna do about that...I hope it's not broken for good because it belongs to the board of education and I can't cope with fuss! What a plonker!

The supermarket trip yesterday showed that it was pretty much business as usual around here...hairdresser's was open, some kids were about in school uniform, obviously coming back from sport practice. I've heard that Tokyo is fairly similar. It's just the really hard hit areas around the coast in Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima that are in big trouble still it seems. There are some other electricity problems still in other parts of the country I think. I've been very lucky. Really, it's just time to think about the people who haven't been so fortunate. It's a massive shocking earthquake, and the tsunami has caused a lot of damage in certain areas. Many people are totally out of contact and are not sure if their relatives are safe or not. Naturally, the death toll is rising. Aftershocks and cold weather are making it even harder to sort things out. I hope people are able to make contact as soon as possible. Clearly the whole of Japan is shocked and worried about the people in the affected areas.

I've been very humbled by the amazing calmness and consideration of the Japanese people and the unity and support I've felt from all of my friends in Japan (not just the Japanese ones), let alone the concern from my friends, family, friends of family, and, indeed, people I've never heard of back in the UK...My Mum's been telling all about cousin George and the lady that comes into her work once a week, the next-door-neighbour-but-one's ex-girlfriend's dog etc. all asking about me...Thank you everyone for your concern! I am fine, just a bit, pardon the pun, shaken.