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Today being Sunday was the last day I had to walk Marrosan at five. Success. I have had problems getting back to sleep after exercising so early so I spent the rest of the morning listening to the excellent BBC Radio and News player on the internet. Thanks to this, I can keep more up to date with music, news and sport in England. I am no longer forced to listen to Americans translating two day old news on NHK for me and I can listen to proper English speaking English voices what what what. Thanks to this I have discovered the greatness of Graham Coxon`s music as well as some other English music which I wouldn`t have normally heard until they come to Japan three months to three years later.

In the afternoon we went to Shin Osaka which cunningly enough is the station the Shinkansen stops at in Osaka to pick up Reiko`s mother back from Yamaguchi. After that we went to a restaurant and ate a truly beautiful meal of sashimi which is raw fish including squid. We also ate some onigiri, tofu and lots of other delights. I was in a supermarket a couple of weeks back and I saw some tofu and I started salivating. I couldn`t believe myself but it looked so nice (add a bit of soy sauce. Lovely.)

On the way to the Shin Osaka which is just under an hour`s subway journey from our house, a brace, a group, a gaggle, a quartet of Western business men got on the same carriage as us and started talking loudly. They had two Japanese colleagues with them and I think they were German by their accents. We all resolutely attempted to pretend we hadn`t seen each other even though at one point one of them sat down next to me.

Spotting a Westerner in the street or in a confined space is worse. What do you do? Previously, as I have written in these hallowed pages, I have smiled at them or said hello and either been blankly ignored, given a face that says, “My life will not be complete until I have force fed you cowshit.” or an apologetic smile. What are you apologising for? Japan is great. Well done for coming over here AND not choosing to eat at KFC. But it seems almost like a game. “Ok you caught me I`ll get the next plane out I promise. Just don`t tell the kids.”

But if I were back in England I wouldn`t go up to the first English person I saw and smile at them. Or I wouldn`t say hello just because they were Western and I had caught them on the way to the post office. So why should I say it to them in Japan? In Japan we are the minority. An increasingly loud and vocal one depending on which country you come from but a minority nonetheless. I think we should see an increase in solidarity between our Western brothers and sisters and shout Hello from the rooftops. But after you.

Last night whilst cycling past the convenience store Familymart, I thought I was back in England. I saw a group of youths in oversized jackets, crowded outside in a circle. They were drinking and smoking and were accompanied by their racer boy sports cars replete with naff underlighting and spoilers. I thought I had left these people (Chav scum) when I left England but no luck, they are after me following me around the world on a mission to agitate. They shouted something at me which I couldn`t understand and so I cycled onwards.

Today has been excellent however as Reiko`s cousins who I like very much, Nao and her husband Toshi came to Osaka from Yamaguchi and brought presents. Aha! I cunningly got an acoustic guitar and Beatles tablature book. Aha! Swag! Now, where`s the Matsuken Samba score? Yes!

I cooked myself food last night for the first time in Japan. The experience brought some interesting problems and challenges. You may say, “Simon, you have been here for four months and this is the first time you have cooked?” Well my help has all but been refused in most cases apart from chopping a random root vegetable or two and grating some radish and we often go to restaurants. Oh La de da Simon! Restaurants! Fortunately, eating out isn`t the financially crippling event that is in England, especially when the staple with most foods is noodles or rice..

Everyone else, apart from Reiko who works late, is in random locations over Japan such as Yamaguchi or Matsuyama leaving me to choose to cook for myself. I was aiming for fish with egg fried rice and some vegetables. I only had some asparagus and hot chili peppers. This will give an indication of what the final result was like. I was quite a good cook at university. My speciality was stir fries. My tactic was to bundle as many vegetables and flavours as possible and see what happens. Whilst this brought many inedible failures, the successes were spectacular if I may say so myself.

I couldn`t find the cooking oil and so left the wok on the stove heating up for about ten minutes. Finding no oil whatsoever except vinegar or soy sauce, I resorted to the soy sauce. Marrying it with the hot pan created a thick black smoke to disperse throughout the room. Fortunately there is an extractor fan in the kitchen with two buttons. Yet however much I would frantically press these buttons; individually, simultaneously or together, nothing was being extracted. I found out that if I waited a short time lasting more than a second instead of desperately jabbing at them, the fan would get into gear. I gave up on the oil and cracked two eggs into the wok and hoped it wouldn`t burn. Then I added the cooked rice and asparagus and chilli peppers and mixed it a bit until I had an almost dough-like consistency. Although the rice was hot, the vegetables were near stone cold. I decided to cut my losses and serve with the half cooked fish I had been grilling and Voila! Looks nice. But appearances can and were deceptive. Come back Shiraishi family, all is forgiven.

An interesting article on what mums and dads are called in Japan. Reiko calls her mother Nontan which is a familiar version of Nobuko (her name.)

Do not ask the fat kid what sport they like. There is a reason why they are fat. They will start to cry.

Lately I have been teaching for just two or three days a week with the rest off. I know how stand up comedians feel now. I either get them roaring with laughter and playing along with what I want or I get the class I like to liken to the retired sheep wrestling club in the isolated back waters of Wales. I tell the one about sheep and a lampost being a leisure centre in that area and the entire audience silently swears to tie me up to a lampost and leave me for dead or worse - to Owain the half man hunchback with a hankering for derrieres.

Still I get paid whether they like it or not (and mostly emerge breathing) and it`s fun. Most of the other time is free. Today for example we went to the excellent Virgin Toho cinema and had seating in the even better Premier room which features large reclining seats with extra leg room and a waiting room which brings to mind an airport. We were there to see 2046 a Hong Kong film translated into Japanese cunningly enough about the year 2046. Of course I do not understand Japanese (or Chinese) but that`s half the fun. Opportunities abound to make up translations to the dialogue and working out what is going on anyway.

I didn`t see the film in the end as Reiko`s gran has fallen ill and there was an emergency and we had to go, but I like those cinema anyway.

At last! A decent page with some good onsen pictures.

I was recently asked (with a note of amusement) whether there had been any more earthquakes, typhoons or volcano disasters in Japan since I had last spoken to him . I replied that it was no laughing matter. Over the last week Japan has witnessed Typhoon Tokage which was the 10th typhoon of the typhoon season to hit Japan (forcing it`s way over the entirety of Japan) and the deadliest in over 25 years with 80 killed and 12 missing. On top of this, the Niigata prefecture in northern Japan had also suffered from an earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale on Saturday night with two almost equally powerful aftershocks that evening and several others throughout Sunday and Monday. These earthquakes so far have killed 21 and injured 1,800 as well as forcing people to evacuate their homes and live in temporary shelters.

It`s been a weird year all over for weather and disasters. It was the longest and hottest summer that anyone can remember as well as having the most typhoons hit Japan. Time and time again you see graphics of typhoons being spawned around Indonesia and heading northwards to China and then being pushed east and plunge through the central areas of Japan. I always pictured typhoons as the visible twister in “The Wizard of Oz” but wikepedia defines them as a type of low-pressure system which generally forms in the tropics. These act just like bad weather with strong winds and heavy localised rainfall which cause flooding and widespread damage.

It constantly amazes me how dangerous Japan is or in other ways how safe England is. There are no typhoons, earthquakes or deadly snakes and spiders By walking out of my front door I am not exposed to a risk of contracting malaria or suffering from bear attacks

I, (being sick of mind,) previously wanted to be in a large earthquake just for the ability to say I survived an earthquake and to watch, “tall buildings wobble like jelly.” as a survivor recently testified, but now I’m not so sure. I wouldn`t wish that experience on anyone.

Talking to my coordinator today, she told me she`d bought a window making machine over the weekend. I was surprised. I knew the Japanese were highly technically advanced but I wasn`t aware that they had built gadgets and machines which could make windows materialise. I told her I didn`t understand what she meant. She typed the Japanese into her dictionary and it came up with electric fan. She meant a wind making machine. Of course this is not their fault but mine. LEARN JAPANESE SIMON. YOU SCUM!

It`s the same with working and walking. They sound similar.

“I walked on Sunday.”
“But I thought it was a day of rest…..?”