The flight (25/05/03)
Direct flights over twelve hours = a very long time. The flight itself was not too bad but it did feel quite bizarre because we flew so far north that the sun did not set and we did not see night time at all, which was very disconcerting. I flew with about ten other teachers - though that really should be "with". I ended up a bit isolated, a few rows behind them and so ended up not knowing them too well when we disembarked. I had met a few of them on my training sessions but had hardly seen the others. I did try to minimise my social pariah status by doing a quick meet and greet on the plane but cattle class makes it difficult to have a chat really. Entertainment wise, there was nothing special. I saw "Daredevil" which fell into the "OK but no real recommendation" category. The superhero is blind but has amazing senses of smell and hearing to make up for it - a bit like me, but without the amazing senses to make up for it. I tried yet again to "get" the Matrix and failed for the hundredth time. The radio was pretty decent actually, bit of Giles Petersen and some random decent tracks but over 12 hours it gets somewhat repetitive. Food was edible but not exactly great. Good for plane food I guess. I think I might try to get a Japanese airline, like JAL or ANA, for the return trip actually as it will be different at least and I'll get some interesting food. Hopefully I will understand a bit of Japanese at that point.
A distinct lack of sleep did mean I was pretty tired by landing but I think the adrenaline helped me through.
Monday (26/05/03)
Once we landed, I went and met up with the strangers that I had spoken to briefly on the plane. They seemed friendly enough and we went through customs and the baggage collection together. I got stopped at customs for the first time ever[A]. The guy stops me and asks if I packed it myself, and all the standard stuff. I reply in the affirmative and then he holds up this sheet with a load of pictures of firearms, knives and other (very obviously) banned items and asks if I have any. He then picks my case and asks to see it but when I open it he didn't really look through it and then helped me put all my stuff in. Quite helpful actually and I see a possible theme develop[B]. Once I get through to the landside area, there is a guy from Shane to meet us all along with a few other new teachers from other flights and parts of the world. I couldn't follow it all but once we got to the meeting room we had got a few extras and were then split up according to where we were based in Tokyo. Tokyo Narita isn't really in Tokyo but a little outside so a train[C] is required to get to the city (we get off at Nippori), which is pretty spacious and comfortable. I get to have a chat with some people now and look through the packs we have just been given which have hotel and apartment details. I now have an address but still no idea where that actually is. The maps are pretty confusing and I am trying to take a lot in through the windows (it seems to get more built up station by station), what people are saying and the reading we have. After a quick change of trains and another split of people we eventually reach "Akabane", which is where our hotel is. This was with the able assistance of Tomoko who is housing admin at Shane. Due to our apartments being occupied, we will not move into those until Sunday, which is our first day off after training. It was annoying to hear that at first but I reckon it might work out better as there are six of us at the hotel and we are all new to the country so there is a bit of company.
To be perfectly honest, and this may sound a bit lame, but the first real "shock" is the number of vending machines. They are everywhere and sell all kinds of drinks (such as iced tea, cola, coffee - both hot and cold, fruit juices, water, yoghurt and even beer) and cigarettes. I didn't see any of the mythical (and possibly false) knickers machines[D] though.
Once I dumped my bags in my room, had a shower and had a look at what was in the room, I was eager to check my surroundings out. I found a willing colleague (Elin)[E] and walked in a random direction. Eventually, we passed a load of shops and stuff so we have a look at the prices and they seem reasonable. Japan is so very expensive according to urban legend and Tokyo even more so. We were both pretty shocked, on first glance, to see that pretty much everything there was cheaper than London - often pretty significantly. The trains were cheaper too[F]. Went back to the hotel to get the others so we could get some lunch. All except one came a long and we found a random restaurant. I got some salad, ramen, fried rice and coffee for about 780yen (about £4), which was very tasty, filling, and far too much for me. I even used chopsticks and managed to not totally embarrass good and myself -always a bonus when I am out - for a first time. I think I could get used to this.
Everyone then has a bit of a walk around to soak it all in and then goes back to hotel for a kip…that lasts till the next morning. I wasn't too keen on that so I have a sit down and then look for an internet café or phone to try and get a message to my parents somehow that I am OK. The telephones are a bit confusing and most are not suitable for international calls so I use the net for a bit. Apparently there was a massive earthquake when I was there but I didn't feel it though everyone else seemed to. It was on the news after I got back though.
I just sat in my room for a while where I eventually fell asleep briefly. Then I went to try and find some food and grabbed some sushi and a drink from a convenience store[G]. The sushi was pretty decent and I got a good amount for the money (6 bits for a little over a pound). Also made a phone call to my "mate" Allan (hopefully I won't put that in quotes again) in Tokyo who I had never met before but had helped me loads with the whole Tokyo thing[H]. Rather embarrassingly he didn't recognise me as he had thought my name was said differently. I hope that is the only reason anyway! Organised a meeting with him the next day after my orientation.
Once I got to the hotel, I had a chat with Steve (a colleague) until the South African girl (Pritiva) popped into my room. If I am honest, I have no idea why she came[I]. She told us that she had never left South Africa and was sick of Tokyo (already). That it was too many people, she didn't like the people, she thought the food was rubbish (though she had not tried any) and that the culture was "aerated" - meaning fake and plasticky I guess. I tried to allay her fears and told her that she had to see it out and check the place out. Steve and me persuaded her to leave the Hotel and went for, yet another, walk. It seemed very safe even though the area we were in took on a different image now we were looking a bit closer. There were tons of drunken men - salary men, floating about at the bars and all the bars seemed to be "hostess bars". I have no idea how they work but I think that there are women there that "accompany" the men for a while whilst they drink[J]. There were a lot of women hanging about too so we assumed they were looking for some cash. I think it is a cross between Soho and King's Cross-, with the majority of the seediness stripped away (leaving nothing?)[K]. We walked through and had no trouble at all and it was all pleasant and totally lacking in the aggression that you would expect elsewhere.
---All lettered footnotes were written in 2015---
A. I was also stopped on my way out 3+ years later, a symmetry I realise only upon re-reading. That time, I was taken aside and asked about my immigration status and my foreign national ID card. As it happens, they were quite slow at asking this (or me at answering, and I was a little chattier than I needed to be) and so eventually, there was an announcement requiring me to get to the plane as soon as possible. This was a stress that I didn't really want and I was told, by a female staff member, to run. She helped by running with me and taking one of my bags! Narita is a pretty big airport so I got a little tired, as did she. No problem. My bag was then passed on to another (female) staff member who then ran along with me so that the first person could rest. A relay style race for time. It was pretty bizarre and a wonderful last moment. Ahh, Japan.↩
B. The theme did develop and people were unfailingly helpful and polite throughout my first three years. After that, not always...↩
C. I cannot remember which train we used as there were two "express" services to Tokyo - both taking about an hour - which should give an indication of the distance.↩
D. I think every single (non-family) visitor I had mentioned how somebody had asked them to get some schoolgirl pants from a vending machine - this was a popular story to indicate how weird Japanese culture was.↩
E. I am averse to naming people on blog posts now and so I would not have done so were this written now. On a later trip, I coded all the people with numbers so I could refer to them without giving their names away. As it happens, although I have kept in touch with quite a few people from Japan, Elin is not one of them. We did stay in touch for the length of time that she stayed in Japan though - about a year if I remember correctly.↩
F. When I went to Japan, the exchange rate was about GBP1=JPY180 and had changed a bit as the yen weakened. As it happens, Japan had had very little price inflation since the late 80s and so prices were fairly reasonable in 2003 although they may have been very expensive at the point in time before price stagnation. I would guess that London is a fair bit more expensive now, sadly. In 2003, I was told that train tickets had not been raised since 1987 (when it was privatised and I did not notice a single increase in the time I was there or on subsequent visits.↩
G. Convenience store food was actually of a decent quality and I, along with millions of others, would have food from convenience stores quite regularly. Each of the chains had their own types of food and it ranged from rice and noodles to sandwiches and steamed dumplings. If you go, don't turn your nose up at it - it is pretty nice and a very good snack in the case of the dumplings or onigiri.↩
H. At this point in time, I had quite a strong interest in videogames and was a member of a games forum called NTSC-UK which specialised in "import gaming" - basically games that were from outside the UK/Europe. Apart from the obvious difference in release timings and certain games not being released in different territories, the main reason importing appealed to me was technical - due to the vagaries of the electrical and TV systems (PAL/SECAM and NTSC) in different countries, games ran at different speeds. The forum brought likeminded people together and it was a lovely community where I made loads of acquaintances. I even met up with a few of them and there was a regular discourse on many topics with an openness that was really welcoming. There is something quite special about a group of people that are into something and I have found, even as my gaming has dropped off, that (self-certifying) gamers are amongst the friendliest and nicest group of people. I mean everyone games nowadays, but as with so many things, not everyone takes it seriously. It was a great environment and everyone just wanted to share the joy and excitement of new things.↩
I. As in footnote E, I am averse to naming people on blog posts. As it happens, I have kept in touch neither of the aforementioned. I liked Steve but he left a few months later [ http://walletsandswords.blogspot.co.uk/2003/09/revolving-doors.html ] and Pritiva also left a few months later. I think I saw her one more time at a training session a few month after. I found out that she was vegetarian when we went out for lunch as she explained that Japanese people didn't understand vegetarianism. In many cases, I think that this was true and you could often see bits of meat in vegetable dishes. In her case, I think it was more that they didn't understand her. At this point, we'd been there a few months and although I could not speak Japanese or had any lessons or anything like that, there are things which it is just useful to know. Phrases and words to use. Pork, (or pigmeat, more accurately) is butaniku - I knew this so I could find out if it was in dishes or not. To check whether it was in a dish, you could easily say it with a questioning tone - "BUTANIKU?". Grammar isn't always necessary to be understood. Anyway, Pritiva had not even learned this simple word (and vegetarian in Japanese is just BEJETEERIAN, which sounds remarkably like the English word with a b instead of v (as there is no "V" sound in Japanese) and ordered in English saying that she didn't want meat. This was accompanied with the crossed arms action which is a very strong "no". As our food came, she got "no" meat. And "no" food. Of course it was everyone else's fault (I cannot remember why nobody else helped her, think she refused help) but I remember thinking that learning a word is hardly difficult.↩
J. This is, indeed, how they work. There is an hourly fee for the accompaniment of the hostesses and then the drinks are bought on top of this (including for the ladies). The idea is that the hostesses, and there are also host bars, will bring an enjoyable element to the night with their great social skills and abilities. They are also usually rather attractive. My understanding is that this should not be far removed from the geisha/maiko concept and there is, theoretically, no sexual aspect to it.↩
K. I was told that the name, Akabane, which means "red wing" was so named as it was a traditional red-light district of the Edo era but I couldn't find this later. I did believe it for most of the time I was in Japan and it did seem to have a reddish hue. The Edo period red-light district seems to have been Yoshiwara - it is a risk to believe things when you first go somewhere!↩
Direct flights over twelve hours = a very long time. The flight itself was not too bad but it did feel quite bizarre because we flew so far north that the sun did not set and we did not see night time at all, which was very disconcerting. I flew with about ten other teachers - though that really should be "with". I ended up a bit isolated, a few rows behind them and so ended up not knowing them too well when we disembarked. I had met a few of them on my training sessions but had hardly seen the others. I did try to minimise my social pariah status by doing a quick meet and greet on the plane but cattle class makes it difficult to have a chat really. Entertainment wise, there was nothing special. I saw "Daredevil" which fell into the "OK but no real recommendation" category. The superhero is blind but has amazing senses of smell and hearing to make up for it - a bit like me, but without the amazing senses to make up for it. I tried yet again to "get" the Matrix and failed for the hundredth time. The radio was pretty decent actually, bit of Giles Petersen and some random decent tracks but over 12 hours it gets somewhat repetitive. Food was edible but not exactly great. Good for plane food I guess. I think I might try to get a Japanese airline, like JAL or ANA, for the return trip actually as it will be different at least and I'll get some interesting food. Hopefully I will understand a bit of Japanese at that point.
A distinct lack of sleep did mean I was pretty tired by landing but I think the adrenaline helped me through.
Monday (26/05/03)
Once we landed, I went and met up with the strangers that I had spoken to briefly on the plane. They seemed friendly enough and we went through customs and the baggage collection together. I got stopped at customs for the first time ever[A]. The guy stops me and asks if I packed it myself, and all the standard stuff. I reply in the affirmative and then he holds up this sheet with a load of pictures of firearms, knives and other (very obviously) banned items and asks if I have any. He then picks my case and asks to see it but when I open it he didn't really look through it and then helped me put all my stuff in. Quite helpful actually and I see a possible theme develop[B]. Once I get through to the landside area, there is a guy from Shane to meet us all along with a few other new teachers from other flights and parts of the world. I couldn't follow it all but once we got to the meeting room we had got a few extras and were then split up according to where we were based in Tokyo. Tokyo Narita isn't really in Tokyo but a little outside so a train[C] is required to get to the city (we get off at Nippori), which is pretty spacious and comfortable. I get to have a chat with some people now and look through the packs we have just been given which have hotel and apartment details. I now have an address but still no idea where that actually is. The maps are pretty confusing and I am trying to take a lot in through the windows (it seems to get more built up station by station), what people are saying and the reading we have. After a quick change of trains and another split of people we eventually reach "Akabane", which is where our hotel is. This was with the able assistance of Tomoko who is housing admin at Shane. Due to our apartments being occupied, we will not move into those until Sunday, which is our first day off after training. It was annoying to hear that at first but I reckon it might work out better as there are six of us at the hotel and we are all new to the country so there is a bit of company.
To be perfectly honest, and this may sound a bit lame, but the first real "shock" is the number of vending machines. They are everywhere and sell all kinds of drinks (such as iced tea, cola, coffee - both hot and cold, fruit juices, water, yoghurt and even beer) and cigarettes. I didn't see any of the mythical (and possibly false) knickers machines[D] though.
Once I dumped my bags in my room, had a shower and had a look at what was in the room, I was eager to check my surroundings out. I found a willing colleague (Elin)[E] and walked in a random direction. Eventually, we passed a load of shops and stuff so we have a look at the prices and they seem reasonable. Japan is so very expensive according to urban legend and Tokyo even more so. We were both pretty shocked, on first glance, to see that pretty much everything there was cheaper than London - often pretty significantly. The trains were cheaper too[F]. Went back to the hotel to get the others so we could get some lunch. All except one came a long and we found a random restaurant. I got some salad, ramen, fried rice and coffee for about 780yen (about £4), which was very tasty, filling, and far too much for me. I even used chopsticks and managed to not totally embarrass good and myself -always a bonus when I am out - for a first time. I think I could get used to this.
Everyone then has a bit of a walk around to soak it all in and then goes back to hotel for a kip…that lasts till the next morning. I wasn't too keen on that so I have a sit down and then look for an internet café or phone to try and get a message to my parents somehow that I am OK. The telephones are a bit confusing and most are not suitable for international calls so I use the net for a bit. Apparently there was a massive earthquake when I was there but I didn't feel it though everyone else seemed to. It was on the news after I got back though.
I just sat in my room for a while where I eventually fell asleep briefly. Then I went to try and find some food and grabbed some sushi and a drink from a convenience store[G]. The sushi was pretty decent and I got a good amount for the money (6 bits for a little over a pound). Also made a phone call to my "mate" Allan (hopefully I won't put that in quotes again) in Tokyo who I had never met before but had helped me loads with the whole Tokyo thing[H]. Rather embarrassingly he didn't recognise me as he had thought my name was said differently. I hope that is the only reason anyway! Organised a meeting with him the next day after my orientation.
Once I got to the hotel, I had a chat with Steve (a colleague) until the South African girl (Pritiva) popped into my room. If I am honest, I have no idea why she came[I]. She told us that she had never left South Africa and was sick of Tokyo (already). That it was too many people, she didn't like the people, she thought the food was rubbish (though she had not tried any) and that the culture was "aerated" - meaning fake and plasticky I guess. I tried to allay her fears and told her that she had to see it out and check the place out. Steve and me persuaded her to leave the Hotel and went for, yet another, walk. It seemed very safe even though the area we were in took on a different image now we were looking a bit closer. There were tons of drunken men - salary men, floating about at the bars and all the bars seemed to be "hostess bars". I have no idea how they work but I think that there are women there that "accompany" the men for a while whilst they drink[J]. There were a lot of women hanging about too so we assumed they were looking for some cash. I think it is a cross between Soho and King's Cross-, with the majority of the seediness stripped away (leaving nothing?)[K]. We walked through and had no trouble at all and it was all pleasant and totally lacking in the aggression that you would expect elsewhere.
---All lettered footnotes were written in 2015---
A. I was also stopped on my way out 3+ years later, a symmetry I realise only upon re-reading. That time, I was taken aside and asked about my immigration status and my foreign national ID card. As it happens, they were quite slow at asking this (or me at answering, and I was a little chattier than I needed to be) and so eventually, there was an announcement requiring me to get to the plane as soon as possible. This was a stress that I didn't really want and I was told, by a female staff member, to run. She helped by running with me and taking one of my bags! Narita is a pretty big airport so I got a little tired, as did she. No problem. My bag was then passed on to another (female) staff member who then ran along with me so that the first person could rest. A relay style race for time. It was pretty bizarre and a wonderful last moment. Ahh, Japan.↩
B. The theme did develop and people were unfailingly helpful and polite throughout my first three years. After that, not always...↩
C. I cannot remember which train we used as there were two "express" services to Tokyo - both taking about an hour - which should give an indication of the distance.↩
D. I think every single (non-family) visitor I had mentioned how somebody had asked them to get some schoolgirl pants from a vending machine - this was a popular story to indicate how weird Japanese culture was.↩
E. I am averse to naming people on blog posts now and so I would not have done so were this written now. On a later trip, I coded all the people with numbers so I could refer to them without giving their names away. As it happens, although I have kept in touch with quite a few people from Japan, Elin is not one of them. We did stay in touch for the length of time that she stayed in Japan though - about a year if I remember correctly.↩
F. When I went to Japan, the exchange rate was about GBP1=JPY180 and had changed a bit as the yen weakened. As it happens, Japan had had very little price inflation since the late 80s and so prices were fairly reasonable in 2003 although they may have been very expensive at the point in time before price stagnation. I would guess that London is a fair bit more expensive now, sadly. In 2003, I was told that train tickets had not been raised since 1987 (when it was privatised and I did not notice a single increase in the time I was there or on subsequent visits.↩
G. Convenience store food was actually of a decent quality and I, along with millions of others, would have food from convenience stores quite regularly. Each of the chains had their own types of food and it ranged from rice and noodles to sandwiches and steamed dumplings. If you go, don't turn your nose up at it - it is pretty nice and a very good snack in the case of the dumplings or onigiri.↩
H. At this point in time, I had quite a strong interest in videogames and was a member of a games forum called NTSC-UK which specialised in "import gaming" - basically games that were from outside the UK/Europe. Apart from the obvious difference in release timings and certain games not being released in different territories, the main reason importing appealed to me was technical - due to the vagaries of the electrical and TV systems (PAL/SECAM and NTSC) in different countries, games ran at different speeds. The forum brought likeminded people together and it was a lovely community where I made loads of acquaintances. I even met up with a few of them and there was a regular discourse on many topics with an openness that was really welcoming. There is something quite special about a group of people that are into something and I have found, even as my gaming has dropped off, that (self-certifying) gamers are amongst the friendliest and nicest group of people. I mean everyone games nowadays, but as with so many things, not everyone takes it seriously. It was a great environment and everyone just wanted to share the joy and excitement of new things.↩
I. As in footnote E, I am averse to naming people on blog posts. As it happens, I have kept in touch neither of the aforementioned. I liked Steve but he left a few months later [ http://walletsandswords.blogspot.co.uk/2003/09/revolving-doors.html ] and Pritiva also left a few months later. I think I saw her one more time at a training session a few month after. I found out that she was vegetarian when we went out for lunch as she explained that Japanese people didn't understand vegetarianism. In many cases, I think that this was true and you could often see bits of meat in vegetable dishes. In her case, I think it was more that they didn't understand her. At this point, we'd been there a few months and although I could not speak Japanese or had any lessons or anything like that, there are things which it is just useful to know. Phrases and words to use. Pork, (or pigmeat, more accurately) is butaniku - I knew this so I could find out if it was in dishes or not. To check whether it was in a dish, you could easily say it with a questioning tone - "BUTANIKU?". Grammar isn't always necessary to be understood. Anyway, Pritiva had not even learned this simple word (and vegetarian in Japanese is just BEJETEERIAN, which sounds remarkably like the English word with a b instead of v (as there is no "V" sound in Japanese) and ordered in English saying that she didn't want meat. This was accompanied with the crossed arms action which is a very strong "no". As our food came, she got "no" meat. And "no" food. Of course it was everyone else's fault (I cannot remember why nobody else helped her, think she refused help) but I remember thinking that learning a word is hardly difficult.↩
J. This is, indeed, how they work. There is an hourly fee for the accompaniment of the hostesses and then the drinks are bought on top of this (including for the ladies). The idea is that the hostesses, and there are also host bars, will bring an enjoyable element to the night with their great social skills and abilities. They are also usually rather attractive. My understanding is that this should not be far removed from the geisha/maiko concept and there is, theoretically, no sexual aspect to it.↩
K. I was told that the name, Akabane, which means "red wing" was so named as it was a traditional red-light district of the Edo era but I couldn't find this later. I did believe it for most of the time I was in Japan and it did seem to have a reddish hue. The Edo period red-light district seems to have been Yoshiwara - it is a risk to believe things when you first go somewhere!↩
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