I'm Home Almost 7 weeks after leaving my flat in Oita, and three and a half
weeks since I left Japan, I've finally arrived back in Banbury.

I arrived in Berlin yesterday as planned and had no trouble at all
getting a bus to London for that evening. After getting my first
glimpse of Orion this year I wandered around the city aimlessly for a
few hours before miraculously finding myself at the start of the
walking tour I had planned to join. The tour was a great overview of
Berlin in a few hours - exactly what I needed, and what it really
brought home to me was how close to impossible this trip would have
been 20 years ago.

After the tour I visited the Pergamon museum with a few new-found
friends, then at about 7pm after a desperate dash across town, I got
to the coach station and headed for London. It turned out that the
coach took the Eurotunnel rather than the ferry, which was a little
disappointing because I was looking forward to seeing the white cliffs
of Dover emerging out of the mist, and stepping off the ferry onto
English soil, but going on a coach in a train was pretty interesting
and it added another famous train journey to the list.

Once I arrived in London I met up with my friend Andrew and went for a
proper beer and a Full English Breakfast. Then I headed back to the
coach station to get a coach to Oxford. I stopped off for supplies on
the way, grabbing a cheese & pickle sandwich, a Cornish pasty, some
wine gums and some ribena - at this point I had to stop myself from
buying every single food and drink I've missed over the last year.

Once I got to Oxford I had to take the train to Banbury (7 pound 20
for 30km! I wished I was back in Siberia!), and in no time (well a
little time, this was a British train after all) I was back in
Banbury.

I couldn't resist heaving my rucksack on one last time and walking
home from the train station. I got one shout of 'nice rucksack mate'
to remind me that I was home and that Banbury was pretty much as I'd
left it. My favourite pub has changed its name, there's a new statue
next to the cross, but that was about it.

And now I'm back at home. Happy to be back but disappointed that the
adventure is over. Still, I achieved my goal so I can spend the next
few days basking in that glory and cycling around Banbury to check
it's all still there.

I hope you've enjoyed following this journey with me. As always,

Take care,

John x  ¶ 11:12:00 pm 0 comments

  Sveiki Hopefully you've guessed that I did get the tickets out of Moscow and
I'm now in Riga, Latvia: The smallest, cosiest capital city I've ever
visited.

I think I'd need to spend a little longer in Moscow to learn to love
it. As it was I only had just over a day of sightseeing. Enough time
to wander around Red square and the centre of town. Amazingly, unlike
the tiny little village I stayed in near Lake Baikal, the entire city
of Moscow doesn't have a tourist information centre, so once I'd
toured the obvious sites I wasn't quite sure what to do next. I'd
heard about a cosmonaut museum and after buying a map I was able to
track it down.

The most striking thing there for me was a life size model of Laika
and a little doggie spacesuit, I don't know why but I'd always
imagined they'd sent a big butch dog on that suicide mission, but I
suppose it makes more sense to send a tiny little kawaii one.

So that was Moscow and on Wednesday evening I hopped on the train to
Riga. I liked the city as soon as I arrived although there were a few
minutes of confusion when I realised I had no idea what Latvia's
currency was or what it was worth. It turns out that 1 lat is almost
exacly 1 pound. In fact there's lots of things about this city that
remind me of home. Riga is definitely European in a way that Moscow
isn't. It's very young and vibrant, clean and well looked after, but
it's full of history and old buildings - hard to imagine there were
gun battles on the cobbled streets only last decade.

Anyway, tomorrow morning I take the coach to Berlin and arrive there
early Sunday morning - election day. Hopefully I can get a coach out
Sunday evening, but if I end up marooned in Germany for a few days
there's always the Oktoberfest down in Munich.  ¶ 8:51:00 pm 0 comments

  Greetings from Moscow After a week or so of travelling by train I've finally arrived in
Moscow. I can't believe there's a country that makes Australia look
small!

As far as I can tell I was the only foreigner on the train and not
much English was spoken. Still I got lots of reading done, and
postcards written (but not posted). Also, it's the start of autumn
here as far as the trees are concerned so the views from the train
were very nice.

Unfortunately my train arrived in Moscow at 0420 this morning. Not
particularly wanting to brave the mean streets of Moscow at that hour
I sat around in the station waiting room for an hour or so, then went
and waited with a big crowd of people for the the first metro which
finally arrived about 0600.

Then after making it to the hostel, I found out that it was closed
until 0800! At least there was an Aussie guy there to talk to so I
could have my first chat with a native speaker of English since
Chrissie 11 days ago - and she's from Bolton ;) If only the news of
the Aussie's shameful defeat in the ashes had reached me!

Anyway, I've got to go and get my tickets out of here booked,
hopefully as far as the UK, but we'll see.  ¶ 8:12:00 pm 0 comments

  On to Moscow! I managed to get tickets to Moscow! It couldn't have been easier. I
wrote down the tickets I needed in Russian (copied from my guidebook),
handed it in at the booth at the station, and 2 minutes later I had my
ticket.

Have also spent a couple of days at the deepest, oldest lake in the
world. Wasn't able to do any Scuba diving but stayed in a lovely old
fashioned guest house (no running water, toilets in the yard) for 3
pounds (600 yen) a night. Met lots of Finnish people who all spoke
excellent English and some Russian, and went to a sauna (85 deg C) and
followed that with a dip in the lake (12 deg C).

Will email once I get to Moscow (Monday morning)  ¶ 7:37:00 am 0 comments

  zdraztvooytye I managed to catch the train! No surprise really after getting to the
station insanely early to avoid missing it. I've arrived here safe
and sound in Irkutsk having survived 3 days on a mixture of food
bought from the platforms of remote stations, Chinese and Russian
canteen food, Food shared with other passengers and instant noodles.

The train left Beijing dead on time and it was clear pretty quickly
that there weren't many foreigners on the train (non-Russian and
non-Chinese that is). In fact during the course of the journey I met
one Japanese, one Israeli and one German and that was it. Luckily one
of the Russians in my compartment spoke a little English. All of the
people in my carriage were heading to Irkutsk, in fact the train
leaves the empty carriages behind as it goes along.

The first night day and night was spent heading gradually up to the
border. We arrived at the Chinese border town at 3am and we waited
around at the station for around 3 hours while we cleared customs.
The train then trundled the few miles down the track to the Russian
border town where we waited around for a further 3 or 4 hours to clear
Russian customs. The Russians in my compartment clearly weren't
scared to cheek the border guards a little, asking if they could go to
the toilet, make a phone call etc. etc. so fortunately they didn't
bother staying too long.

After that, we had to wait around for a couple more hours while the
bogeys on the trains were changed (Russian trains run on a different
gauge to China) and finally we set off having travelled about 3km in
the last 12 hours.

Other than that though time passes very quickly on the train. There's
something to see every hour or 2 and you kill a lot of time checking
the kilometer posts to see where you are, then checking the guide book
then waiting for whatever it is you want to see. Then there's the
Indiana Jones experience of traversing the train to get to the
restaurant car. The train also stops at a station every hour or two
for somewhere between 5 and 15 minutes which gives you a chance to
stretch your legs and buy food. Anything from Chinese dumplings to
dried fish from Lake Baikal.

Which I'm just up the river from now, staying in a very pleasant
hostel in the middle of the city. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get my
tickets booked onwards, and then head over to the lake for a couple of
days.

Must be off to have my first shower in a few days, and to get some
food.  ¶ 11:37:00 am 0 comments

  Ni Hao I've arrived in Shanghai. The journey was amazing. Within half an
hour of getting on the ferry I had a social circle of about 10 people,
including a friend of my travel agent and her travelling companions,
and a guy from Melbourne who did the hair and wigs for 'We will rock
you' He has travelled with the show around the world and now the Tokyo
run has finished he's going travelling for fun.

I was expecting the ferry to head south of Japan straight away but
instead it took us through the inland sea, under the longest bridge in
the world , then down past Oita (while I was asleep), then stopped to
pick up passengers in the south of Kyushu.

The ferry was fantastic. The sea was calm, so we able to take
advantage of all the modern conveniences including an onsen and a
karaoke machine. Obviously I did a bit of Rod Stewart, and more
unexpectedly Ride a cock horse!

When I woke up this morning, the sea was a dirty brown Even though we
were some hours from Shanghai the rivers were already silting up the
water. The trip up the river into Shanghai was amazing. Mile after
mile after mile of container cranes, and the waterways were chocked
with huge barges barely clearing the water filled to the brim with
sand, which should have been prevented from sailing by the laws of
physics, let alone the laws of the sea. How many things that I've
owned have gone through this port? More than 50% is my guess.

I often thought that Japan was a country of many faces but it can't
even compete with Shanghai. Huge skyscrapers, some truly
modern-looking, others a 1950s vision of the distant future, mixed
with hovels, mixed with grand old imperial buildings. Child Beggars,
Peddlers, businessmen, lunatic bus drivers, a big bottle of beer is
50p, a bus journey across town is less than 10p. this is truly an
unmissable city, and the ONLY way to arrive is by boat.

Anyway, I'd better stop enthusing and get some shut-eye. I only have
2 days to try and do this city justice.  ¶ 5:53:00 pm 0 comments

  Having expected to wake up in the middle of open ocean, I was surprised to wake up in port. It turned out the ship had traveled down the east coast of Kyushu during the night and we were picking up more passengers in the south of Kyushu. As we left the port and headed east we were hoping to catch a glimpse of Sakurajima, a huge volcano near Kagoshima. Unfortunately it was too far inland for us to spot, but we saw Kaimon-dake, and lots of picturesque islands.

By about mid-day though there wasn't much to see anymore so we watched films, played tennis and then in the evening we went to the bar, had a few beers and did some karaoke.

Today's Photos  ¶ 1:00:00 pm 0 comments

  Today's the day I finally set off from Osaka.

I started the day with a Japanese-style breakfast from the great hostel I've been staying in and then headed to the internet cafe for yet another attempt to secure tickets out of Irkutsk. The internet cafe gave me a free breakfast as well, so by the time I left to catch the subway to the ferry port I was pretty stuffed.

When I emerged from the tram station it was a beautiful day - not a cloud in the sky. I strolled over to the ferry terminal, enjoyed a last drink from the vending machine, then after a wait of an hour or so I finally passed through customs, surrendered my gaijin card and boarded the ferry.

I can't say I missed Japan straight away because the ferry was Japan in miniature, including vending machines, karaoke, onsen, table tennis, and of course lots of friendly Japanese people.

My berth was in an open room with about 15 other blokes, but it wasn't shoulder to shoulder and there were lots of spare futons so it was much more comfortable than other ferries I've been on. I quickly made lots of friends including Cieren, an Australian hairdresser who's travelled around the world with 'We will Rock You', Haruka, a friend of my travel agent who was going to study Chinese in Shanghai for a year, and many other students doing something similiar.

We spent most of the day watching the sights of the inland sea roll past, including the longest single span bridge and the longest two-tiered bridge in the world. As darkness fell we had a chance to do a bit of stargazing, spotting Venus and Jupiter along with a few meteors and satellites.

When I went to bed we were just reaching Kyushu and I was was expecting us to pass between Honshu and Kyushu and head out into the middle of the East China Sea, so I had one last glance at the passing lights of Shikoku before turning over and going to sleep.

Today's photos  ¶ 1:00:00 pm 0 comments

  Sayonara I finished working for Nova about 1 month ago and since then I've been travelling around Japan with my family and after they left, Meric.

But in spite of all the adventures I've had so far, this is only just the beginning. The crazy goal I've set myself is to make it all the way back to Banbury using only surface transport.
As I write this I'm sat in an internet cafe in Osaka trying hard not to stress about my journey and instead enjoy my last evening in Japan. Tomorrow I board the ferry to Shanghai. After 2 days I'll arrive there and after spending 2 days exploring Shanghai, then I'll take the overnight train to Beijing and a few days later I'll take the Trans-Manchurian train to Irkutsk in the middle of Siberia and spend a couple of days at Lake Baikal.

Seen on the scale of Russia and China it doesn't look that huge, but it has the same surface area as Belgium and it's the deepest lake in the world. It's water could fill all of the North American great lakes with room to spare. I'm going to do a homestay there and hopefully a bit of hiking. Maybe even some scuba diving!

That much of the journey is booked. I'm desperately trying to get train tickets onward to Moscow and then Latvia as I don't fancy arriving at the Russian Border without tickets out of Russia. Russian border officials are the people most likely to thwart my quest, although since 60% of them have been judged too mentally unstable to carry a gun, If they turn me away at the border I can at least be happy to have escaped with my life.

After Latvia I haven't finalised my plans but it'll probably involve a combination of coaches and trains across the rest of Europe. All going well I should be seeing the white cliffs dover (or just possibly the marshlands of East Anglia) some time around the 20th to 25th of September.
Booking this much has frankly been a bit of a nightmare and was only possible at all with the help of the best travel agent in the world. I'm hoping the rest should run a little more smoothly.

Anyway, I'd better have another go at booking those train tickets.  ¶ 8:31:00 am 0 comments

  I felt that one! I was in bed and the whole house shook rhythmically for about 15 seconds strongly then for another 15 seconds less strongly.  ¶ 2:21:00 am 0 comments

  I survived the 7.0 earthquake that hit west of kyushu! There was a tremor (3 or 4) in Oita but I was walking to work at the time and I didn't feel it. There's been a couple of aftershocks since but they've only really been noticable in Fukuoka.  ¶ 11:01:00 am 0 comments

  Yufu Dake in the snow On the 18th of January I felt like a bit of a challenge. I'd heard about winter mountain climbing in Japan from some of the students and I could see some amazing snow capped peaks from just outside my apartment. Unfortunately though none of my friends were stupid enough to accompany me. I decided that my safest bet would be Yufu Dake which I'd already climbed, and to save a bit of money - and add to the challenge - I decided to cycle to Beppu where I would catch the bus up to the mountain.

The journey their all went according to plan and the bus dropped me off at a very chilly trail head. The hike up the mountain went very smoothly. I was incredibly lucky with the weather, the day was overcast, but the cloud base was well above the mountain tops and sunbeams were shining down into the valley below.

The going got a bit more tough towards the top of the mountain. The rubber souls of my Australian summer hiking boots weren't really made for walking on steep ice-encrusted slopes and I had to kick steps into whatever snow there was.

The sight at the top was well worth the climb. The crater was filled with hundreds of bushes completely covered in hoar frost.

After a brief stop at the top I made my way down the mountain pretty quickly sliding down the steeper bits. I arrived back at the bottom just in time for sunset and saw a few deer, before settling down for a dark, chilly wait for the bus

Once I got on the bus however, I realised that my wallet was missing. This contained my bank card, gaijin card, all of my money and the keys for my apartment and my bike lock. This meant that I had to try to make it all the way back to Oita without any money!

The first hurdle was getting off the bus in Beppu without paying the 600 yen fare. (on Oita busses you pay for bus journeys when you get off). I decided to pretend to be even more ignorant of japanese than I was, and just said in English 'sorry no money' and bowed lots. Eventually the bus driver realised there wasn't much he could do.

Hurdle number 2: get onto a train to Oita without any money. I achieved this by explaining in japanglish to the ticket inspector that I'd lost my wallet and a friend was meeting me at the other end who would pay my fare. I figured I could actually arrange this if necessary.

Hurdle number 3: get off the train and out of the station: I thought this would be the stumbling block as Japanese train stations tend to be pretty overstaffed. Luckily though one ticket inspector turned to flirt with another and I was able to slip through without breaking my step.

All in all quite a successful day. I climbed Yufu Dake yet again with Jasmine a few months later. In spite of the spring weather though, a little of the ice still clung to the trees. There was a continuous tinkling sound as it fell off.  ¶ 1:51:00 pm 0 comments

  Well finally it is actually getting cold, we haven't had any snow here in Oita yet, but there's been quite a bit inland. I'm hoping it doesn't get much colder because our apartment isn't really built for cold weather. It has large single-glazed windows and no central heating to speak of, so the mornings have been pretty cold!

Since its been a busy month I'll try to tell you a bit about all the things I've been up to:



Usa Jinga
Way back on the 15th of December, I took a trip to this shrine. All of the tens of thousands of shinto shrines in Japan are ranked according to importance. This one comes in at number two. It is dedicated to the deity Hachiman, a god of war and warriors. A shrine near Fukuoka dedicated to the god of study gets 2 million visitors over the new year period which gives you some idea of how seriously the Japanese take their education.



Karaoke
Karaoke is a bit different in Japan, rather than making an idiot of yourself in front of a big crowd, you get to do it in the privacy of your own little booth with your friends. The one we went to also had pizza and all you could drink for two hours. As you can see from the photos, a good time was had by all.

Yufuin and Yufu Dake
I've visited the beautiful town of Yufuin three times in the last month, but since the weather has been getting colder very quickly, each trip has been different.

On my first trip, Cat and I climbed Yufu Dake, a mountain 1584m high which towers over the town. We were told to expect freezing cold weather at the summit but in fact it was sunny and warm with amazing views all the way back to Oita. After a few pole dancing shenanigans we headed back down to enjoy a beautiful sunset.

I took another trip to Yufuin one week later while Chrissie was staying and by that time the top of Yufu dake was covered in snow. We took the bus back to Beppu stopping off on the way to take a cable car up yet another mountain (Tsurumidake). The trees at the summit were covered in haw frost and we had beautiful views of Beppu bay and of Yufu Dake. Only two days later when I went up the ropeway again, about 3 inches of snow had fallen and Jasmine experienced her first ever snow (and, thanks to me, her first ever snowball!)

On my 3rd trip to Yufuin even the bottom of the mountain was covered in snow. Yufuin is further in-land than Oita and the ground was easily cold enough for snow to settle. The cold air meant that steam was rising off the volcanic lake Kinrin. We took the bus back over the mountain pass where we'd started our walk two weeks before and Yufu Dake looked less than inviting.

Christmas
As I've already mentioned, Christmas is a little different in Japan. This year we celebrated it with food poisoning!

We went out for our Nova Christmas party on Christmas eve and went to an all you can eat restaurant. Cook-your-own food places are quite popular in Japan and this one had deep fat fryers built into the table so you could cook chicken skewers, which we were told took 3 minutes to cook. Since after 3 minutes the chicken was barely warm, let alone cooked, we decided about quarter of an hour was safer. Nevertheless the next day most of us (not me luckily) had food poisoning to add to our hangovers. The people who were well enough to make it into work (yes, me) had a pretty busy day.

The day finished pretty well though with Christmas dinner at Joyfull [sic] (a 24 hour restaurant) and presents around the Christmas tree.

New Year
New year is a much more important celebration in Japan than Christmas. Most people spend new year with their families. Two of the main traditions are going to a temple at midnight, and watching the first sunrise. We decided to do both and doze in front of the telly in-between.

After eating a dinner of soba noodles (another tradition) we cycled off to a Buddhist temple near the centre of town. As we arrived the temple bell was ringing. The bell is rung 108 times, once for each of the 9x12 human sufferings. Each of us took a turn at ringing the bell, then we drank hot sake served by the monks. The actual instant of midnight wasn't really marked, except by us sending a few text messages!

After watching a couple of films we spotted Mercury and Venus, then watched a beautiful sunrise.

On the 2nd of January we went to a shrine to pray for good fortune in the new year. My omikuji said I would have middle good luck (an omikuji is a little slip of paper with your fortune written on it, after reading it you fold it and tie to a tree in the shrine)

Onsen
Onsens are a bit of an obsession in Japan, particularly in this area. It's basically a spa fed by a hot spring. They come in different forms but the one I went to this morning just looked like a leisure centre from the outside, and inside it had a changing room, a sauna and a few pools. Men and Women are (usually) segregated as everyone goes naked.

There are quite a few very important rules, such as always washing yourself thoroughly before you get in the water and so on, and after some of the stories I'd heard about old men coming up and soaping your arse for you I was slightly nervous. However, my first trip passed without any major embarrassment. Next time I like to visit an outdoor onsen and bathe beneath the stars.  ¶ 10:28:00 am 0 comments

  First things first, I've finally got around to putting my photos on the internet - pretty much every digital photo I've ever taken! Highlights can be seen here and I'll be adding to them shortly. Alternatively you can wade through the full archive of 400 (and counting). Incidentally this also includes all my photos of Naxos and the transit of Venus.

I've started at Park Place now and I'm settling in pretty well. The workload is pretty similar but the atmosphere is a little more relaxed than Oita. The design of the branch is very open plan which means we are treated to the cacophony synthetic christmas jingles emanating from every shop including Nova.

A note on christmas in Japan. The commercial stuff is pretty much the same, although slightly less intense (except for the bloody jingles, at the moment in the quiet of this internet cafe I can hear 'Merry Xmas War is Over' plus a musak version of 'Winter Wonderland' plus a couple of others which I can't quite make out) . Other than that though, christmas isn't as big here. Some common christmas traditions in Japan include going out on a date, eating christmas cake (sponge cake), and eating KFC (which you have to pre-order or wait in a queue for an hour). New Year is the traditional celebration and is usually spent with the family. Unfortunately I don't get any time off for christmas. We're hoping to create some kind of christmas dinner but this may be difficult as none of the apartments here have ovens!

I've also done my kids training which means that I get to teach kids' classes, the kids are aged from 3 to 12, and their behaviour ranges from angelic to hellish, I don't think they'll be too bad once they and I have got into the routine.

Last week Cat and I went to Usuki, a town near Oita. Just outside the town is a little valley with lots of stone Buddhas carved in hollow cliffs. Luckily we arrived a little before the coach tour, and we had the place pretty much to ourselves.

I was wrong about the weather in the last email, it is getting a little colder and there's been a few days of bad weather as Kyushu caught the edge of an unseasonal typhoon but there's been unseasonal hot weather as well, most days are still warm and sunny. Maybe next month it will start getting colder.


  ¶ 8:32:00 am 0 comments

  The weather here has finally started to change. So far, apart from the occasional typhoon or downpour, most days have been like a really nice September day in England: Blue skies and hot (sometimes too hot in shirt and tie). Over the last few days there have been a couple of cooler evenings and today it was cold, overcast and drizzly. I went for a run along the river bank and it felt very much like home.

I'm also moving to a different school from the start of next month. Instead of working in a shopping centre in the middle of the city I'll be working in an out of town shopping centre called Park Place, just next door to the Big Eye Stadium which hosted some World Cup games. The advantage is that my days off will change to Tuesday and Wednesday which matches with my friends'. The school also has lots of kid's classes which means I'll probably be kids trained pretty soon.
  ¶ 7:53:00 pm 0 comments

  Things are going pretty well, I'm beginning to feel a bit more settled in Oita. A couple of other new teachers have started which means that there's a few other people in the same boat as me, and we've hit it off really well. Also my housemate Jayd is moving a couple of hours up the road to Fukuoka so that means that soon I'll either have an apartment to myself or a new teacher moving in with me.

A couple of weeks ago I went to Beppu, the town up the road which is the hot-spring capital. The main attractions other than the Onsen (hot springs) are the Jigoku. Jigoku is the Buddhist word for hell and the 9 hells are various geological features including gurgling hot springs, belching mudpools and geysers. My friend Cathlin and I visited all nine, one even had a sulphurous foot spa, which magically turned Cat's silver ring gold! (Unfortunately later on it just as miraculously turned back to silver)

Last week, I took a couple of trips to Takasake Mountain, between here and Beppu. It's home to an aquarium and also 2 groups of Macaques, one of which is, apparently, the largest community of non-human primates (about 500).

I've shaved off my beard. which apparently makes me the spitting image of Rupan III, a well-known anime character who is a lovable, womanizing thief Only you can judge if there is a real resemblance

Anyway, I began to bore of the shouts of 'Rupan!' so I'm growing a goatie!
  ¶ 7:03:00 pm 0 comments

  Just a quick note to say that I survived the earthquakes, in fact they were miles away, so not even a tremor here. Even small earthquakes are pretty rare in this part of Japan. It's the active volcano up the road you want to be worried about ;) Anyway I've got to go, I'm off to Beppu, world capital of hot springs!
  ¶ 11:48:00 am 0 comments

  One piece of advice for the people of Japan: an umbrella is not a suitable implement for dealing with a deadly typhoon. Every news report I saw showed people clutching umbrellas in wind they couldn't even stand up in, and today their tattered remains litter every street and subway in Oita (the brollies that is, not the people ;) Seriously though, at least here, the typhoon wasn't as bad as all that

Nova gave me the choice of coming into work, or forfeiting one of my days off. I decided I would prefer a day off on a fair weather day and resolved to make it in. I put on my waterproofs and boots and left the flat (at the very peak of the typhoon). It was windy and rainy but nothing I haven't walked to work through before. The best bit was crossing Oita river. It had burst its banks, flooding a few main roads and some pretty big trees had got caught on the bridge as they floated downstream.

The Japanese staff were pretty incredulous that I'd walked in, only 1 other teacher was there but since hardly any students turned up we hada pretty easy day. And there ended my first full week at Nova. No big disasters, in fact although it's still a long and stressful day, it's becoming quite routine. I've also got my swish mobile phone, for those of you who asked, the first camera is for video calls and self portraits, the second is for other pictures and has a flash.
  ¶ 9:10:00 pm 0 comments

  Well another week on and I've explored a bit more, done my basic training and met a few more people. Oita seems like quite a nice city. The going out area/red light district is about 5 minutes north of the shopping mall where my school is. Everything is very compact, often one multistorey building will contain dozens of bars and restaurants with all of the signs on the front. There is of course the ubiquitous irish pub and also a very cozy little gaijin (foreigner) bar, run by two friendly Canadians.

I've done my 3 days training and it wasn't too difficult. Every lesson is planned out for you pretty explicitly, all you have to do is go through it. The Japanese students are incredibly keen and often (unwittingly) very funny. I'm really enjoying classes although to begin with it's very difficult getting planning and writing up done in-between. One problem apparently is that psychologists in Japan often suggest english conversation classes as a way to escape everyday life to people with severe personal problems. Not something I've experienced yet, but the old hands have some funny stories!

The food I've had here so far has been great, it's a really varied cuisine, plenty of raw fish although so far I've avoided the fresh seafood restaurants (fresh = still wriggling). A delicacy near here is raw chicken, the locals claim there's no chance of salmonella as the meat is so fresh (a loud squark precedes the dish arriving and it's served at body temperature), I don't think I'll take the chance. I'll probably get in touch next when I get my mobile. The one I'm getting is 3G, has TWO digital cameras, and I'll have an email address so you can email straight to it.  ¶ 9:41:00 pm 0 comments

  Well I've been here a couple of days now, and I think I'm getting on OK. I've had lots of mini adventures, journey went reasonably smoothly, except I wasn't met at the station here in Oita, and I had to get a cab to my accomodation, which I managed with the help of some very friendly Japanese people.

Apartment is nice, quite surburban, about 30 mins walk from the city centre opposite a car showroom called Bob. Supermarket, internet cafe, 24hr noodles, 100yen shop (like a pound shop but half price!) and big electronics store are all nearby.

My housemate Jayd seems like an OK guy, not a man of many words but I'm sure we'll get on fine. I had to register as an alien today, could have been difficult but luckily there was a guy working at the town hall who graduated from Lancaster last year to help me out!

Anyway provided I survive this weekend's typhoon I'll be doing my training next week, hopefully then I'll get to meet some more people from my area, there's 3 schools in my city and lots more nearby.  ¶ 5:10:00 pm 0 comments