If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I need to write down things that I have done somewhere as I do lots of stuff and then forget to include them or write about less important and interesting things that I have done. I am watching Japan lose to Australia at baseball in the Olympics at the moment amid scorns of derisement to Reiko`s family. I want Japan to win but seeing as most of the events so far seem to have been won by the Japanese (or so you would believe from the coverage here) I haven`t seen any English people compete in any event. A lot of the events so far have been events which you would expect Japan to win anyway Judo, Table Tennis etc. I reckon that when the proper Olympics and Athletics get underway involving people with legs longer than a small chair the British should catch up? Probably not. Nevertheless there is something very satisfying about watching a slight, Japanese person take on a blue eyes and blonde hair behemoth from USA, Australia or Germany and the Asian comes out the winnner. Something about wanting the underdog to win - very British.

Anyway we went to Namba had some drinks in an English bar called HUB (”You`re English let`s go drink in an English pub. Well…um…”) Guinness cost four quid a pint or 800 yen and we ate some food and it was all mostly paid for me so I had a good time. These people were good ones though - very funny. They all work at Kansai airport which is built on the sea and they all hate their job. One of them is going to Mexico to study Spanish. Yes.

Reiko and I went to Namba again yesterday to buy HEAT magazine again. Nadia eh. Then we went to UNI QLO and I bought four decent T-shirts for a tenner or 2000 yen. There is one in London centre near Piccadilly. It is a Japanese shop and I recommend it. Then it was time for more karaoke with the now neccessary alcoholic tea. Today I have started applying seriously for teaching jobs. I applied for the ECC scum but they turned me down as no positions until March. I have a copy of the local English speaking magazine Kansai Time Out www.kto.co.jp and have circled the adverts I like and will do more tomorrow on that. Great. Getting a job. Great.

Well yes, I have had yet again an eventful couple of days since Wednesday. After having done nothing at all of note during the daytime apart from reading other peoples blogs about how much they hate going to school and others written by right-wing Christian republicans in America during the sunlight hours of Wednesday, the Shiraishi family and I boarded a ferry which left at eight in the evening from Osaka which would take us to a port relatively near to the Yamaguchi prefecture which I have forgotten for the moment. We ate dinner there in the restaurant which was directly above the engine room and so there was much damage limitation as we tried to keep the food in the plates and bowls provided.

As this was an overnight voyage, there were sleeping areas provided and ours turned out to be a room for sixteen people with a curtain as a barrier between the room and the corridor with two sets of large towels per person folded against the walls on the floor which were to serve as our beds for the night. Reiko wasn`t too happy about this although I had slept in worse and wasn`t too fazed by it. I decided that the best thing would be to both get drunk and sleep until the morning and that is what I did. We brought some cans with us in a cool bag and proceeded to drink on the floor outside on top of the boat until we felt groggy and went down to sleep.

In the morning I was dreaming about being outside in a garden at night in almost complete darkness. Then the lights in the garden rose suddenly to a blinding level and I instantly woke up. Realising that I was no longer dreaming and that the lights were the rooms lights, I slowly opened my eyes to check if they were still working. They were. The time was 5:50 in the morning and there were still two hours to go until we were to arrive at port. Why we were woken up at 5:50 and not six I do not know. Those ten minutes are precious. Reiko`s dad, having been awake already for a few hours, excited to see that I was awake and knowing I enjoyed watching football, imediately gave me extended commentary in broken English of the Greece vs Korea Olympic football match that had completed whilst my garden slumbers were underway. My head was spinning. Ten seconds ago I was outside in a garden dreaming and now I was living the highs and lows of a football match. I wasn`t prepared for this.

After having watched the small mountainous islands dotted around the Japan mainlands covered in bambo trees from the side ｏｆ the boat, we arrrived in port at eight in the morning. Then it was off to Reiko`s father`s aunts house. This week in Japan is the time when the Japanese go and visit their dead relatives. We visited the grave of Reiko`s father`s mother ｉｎ
Fukuoka and then went off to Yamaguchi. This involved a large bridge from one island to another. Then we went to Reiko`s grandmother`s house in Ube, Yamaguchi which was about a forty minute drive away.

In Japan, many families live close together. Really close. Reiko`s gran lives next door to Reiko`s aunt and their family. Then in the small block of flats next to them lives a daughter of that family and her husband and baby. So when somebody arrives everybody knows about it. We went out for dinner with her gran and the Shiraishi family. And spent the rest of the day eating and drinking Reiko`s gran`s homemade plum wine. For homemade read super strength. My head was spinning. Later on in the evening after extended wine drinking, we went to a barbecue at their aunts who lives a bit far away in Yamaguchi. Reiko`s cousins young baby had found a new game of finding the beer bottle and offering to pour people drinks. I had already had a few and not wanting to seem like a piss head cursed himn silently everytime he came over and filled the glass. Oh he`s cute isn`t he. NO! NO! Piss off. That night I woke up in the night sweating and feeling violently ill. Ｔｈe last thing I wanted to do was be violently sick in Reiko`s gran`s house. I went to the toilet to clear my head and splashed water on my face and it seemed to do the trick. I slept without incident for the rest of the night.

The next day we drove to an onsen hotel where we stayed for two nights. I got dressed up in the (hotel provided yukata) and visited the onsen six times in two days. Before the onsen and hotel though we drove to the tiny island of Tsunoshima which has amaxing beaches and clear pacific blue sea. The best sea I have ever been in. Really tropical. Look here for a picture of it and the bridge which connects it to the mainland. http://www.ubemachinery.co.jp/english/bridge/hako/hako8.htm It cost three quid to get on it but I would have paid more.

I also went to lots of places around Yamaguchi on Saturday. There is lots of countryside around Yamaguchi. Steep green mountains full of bamboo trees and rice fields being harvested with thousands of tunnels snaking through them. Today I have been on an eleven hour car journey from there back to Osaka. To put it into perspective, it takes about twelve hours by boat to get relatively near there, eleven hours by car and two hours on the super speedy bullet train or shinkansen. The Yamaguchi area and the beautiful island of Tsunishima are amzing and I recommend them oh yes.

Well as you may have guessed I have worked out how to do pictures on this. Thanks to the lovely people at www.flickr.com. This means a significant increase in my phone bill but I feel like a kid with a new toy. I am conscious that I don`t want to bore you with a photo album of my stay in Japan but then again.

I haven`t done anything of note since the last written post. The okonomiyaki is cabbage pancakes with kimu-chi this time (a Korean spice which played havoc with my piping last night) I also ate squid tentacles with them. Notably they are delicious. I recommend them.