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My parents are coming to visit for two weeks in five days time. This gives me a chance to play at being tourist after eight or nine months of trying to prove I`m not. Picture the scene:

Saturday comes in Osaka centre filling up with Western family tourists. But I`m not one of them Ah ha ha! I have a Japanese mobile phone. Look at it! Look at it! I`m not tourist scum, I`m English teacher scum. I can ask for a Mcdonalds meal at a level of Japanese that in any other country would have the cashier thinking illegal immigrant. One level up the greasy ladder!

But being a tourist does have its advantages. I can proudly wear my camera around my neck like a gold medallion broadcasting my copius stash of precariously loose yen in my back pocket, complain they can`t speak properly and if my pitiful Japanese crumbles like a wet sand in my hands, I can resort to the classic British tactic of trying to make them understand by talking even more loudly at them in English “I WANT SOME FOOD THAT ISN`T SLIMEY! EIGHT GOD DAMN MONTHS - GIVE ME SOME CHICKEN!” Well at least I`ll have some nice pictures…