Observations: Fish Knives and Rodent Sweat

That brings us pretty much up to date folks, so I thought I'd share some of the more bizarre, often amusing and at times slightly disturbing discoveries that have been made during my time in Japan. Where to begin... oh I know...

1) The phenomenon of 'Morning Coffee'. Most coffee shops here will have a set menu called a morning coffee set, which is basically what it says, but you'll usually also be served a small salad, a hard-boiled egg and a couple of slices of toast all included in the price. It's not the existence of this very reasonable and pleasant early pick-me-up that is strange. It's the fact that on more than one occasion and at more than one venue, I've been given a fish knife with which to butter my toast. It's not such a big deal, I assume the proprietors felt that it would be apprpriate for their customers to be using a more 'fancy' looking piece of cutlery. However my issue is this: I don't know if anyone else routinely uses a fish knife with which to butter their toast, but if they do, they'll know that the motor skills involved are a little different due to the curvature of the tool and therefore it requires a little practice to get comfortable with this method.

2) The word convenience plays a massive role in Japanese life. The local equivalent of the British off-license or North American 7/11s are known here as 'convenience' stores. And they are very convenient, they are usually open twenty-four hours and stock various groceries and you can even pay your gas and electrticity bills in them. Of course public transport here is world-famous, not only for being convenient but also very easy to use and efficient. However I've never been to any other country in which you can buy pornography in a toy shop! This as I'm sure you'll agree, is a rather disturbing example of convenience being taken a step too far. I can't speak for a anyone else, but personally I like to keep my porn and my 'Lego' very much separated.

3) Anyone who's been to Japan will know about the myriad vending machines and even the phenomenon of people bowing at them in gratitude for serving them a tasty hot or cold beverage. However I think we need to examine some of the products contained within. Firstly the wonderfully titled 'Pocari Sweat'. This is a sports drink made, presumably from the sweat of a Pocari. I'm not exactly sure what a Pocari is, but I think it's a small amphibious rodent that lives in the rainforests of Costa Rica and Belize. Nevetheless, it makes for a refreshing and not unpleasant tasting concoction.

Next the soft drink known as 'Calpis'. Now we all know about the difficulties the Japanese have when it comes to pronouncing certain English letters. For example the English l and r sounds are indistiguishable to the Japanese ear and therefore cause rather amusing problems with pronunciation and spelling. This was so wonderfully demonstrated in the film 'Lost in Translation' and I actually have a student who tells me that his hobby is playing the 'fruit'. I must admit an awful truth, that I've been far too childishly amused by this to work with him on his pronunciation.

However I believe 'Calpis' has been so named to get back at foreigners that giggle at the difficulties Japanese people have with English pronunciation. After all, who in their right mind, would consider half a pint of cow piss a reasonable way to quench one's thirst! As side note, I also have a major issue with Japanese drinks commercials on television. It doesn't matter whether it's a soft drink or an alcoholic beverage, the marketing-men (and women) at 'Calpis', 'Suntory', 'Kirin' and 'Pocari Sweatshop' all believe in the power of hearing the ingestion process in full, and so no drinks advertisement comes without what can only be described as a disgusting, generic 'gulping' sound-effect, as the hero of the ad takes a swig of their product.

4) This little cafe near where I live, goes in my personal collection of pictures of cafes, restaurants, road-signs, shops and other things that have been rather unfortunately titled.

In this particular place you can get much more than just a fish knife and a boiled egg with your coffee. I'm sure you'll all agree, it's quite convenient really.

I'm a Seoul Man!

In May I made a short trip to the Republic of South Korea in order to confirm my legal work status in Japan. Despite the fact that it rained solidly thoughout my time in the capital, I really liked Seoul. It's a chaotic hodge-podge city where tradition and modernity have been brought together so quickly, resulting in ancient temples and palaces sitting right in amongst the sky-scrapers.

　

The subway system is fairly confusing to start with, but you soon get used to it, in fact it has very similar atmosphere to the London Tube. However what is very different from London is the friendliness of the people. The cops all look about twelve but are incredibly helpful whether they speak English or not. I've never been to another city where a businessman will take time out to show a random foreigner which train to take and personally walk you to the platform. And where someone will jump on the wrong train just to give you a street map that fell out of your pocket on the platform.　

I also met a lovely young lad from Singapore, who was remarkably well versed in British comedy. Despite having soaking wet feet for practically the entire time, I had a blast in Seoul, there's always someone around with just what you want or need. It's definitely a place I'd like to return to one day and explore further.

Rising Sun

March 16th: The last valid day of my Russian visa and as I had been forwarned, I was briefly checked for my registration details but generally the atmosphere in the tiny departure area of Vladivostok airport's international terminal was very friendly. A little too friendly really, as it wasn't long before I picked up a new travelling companion. I had been informed by Vladimir that most Russians flying out of the country from Vladivostok are sailors on their way to rendezvous with a their international crews in places like Singapore, Yokohama or Shanghai. My new friend Misha, was one of these individuals.

After the customs officials had cleared my departure and I had relieved my slightly nervous bowels, I was treated by, or more accurately forced by Misha to drink several beers with him before boarding the plane. He was obsessed with asking me one question: "Sam, who are you!" He incessantly demanded that I answer this question never content enough to believe me when I told him I was just a lowly teacher on my way to work in Japan. Anyway he was quite entertaining for a while and I must admit I was a little tipsy by the time we boarded.

By late afternoon, I was in Seoul's international airport and had somehow managed to shake off the attentions of the Russian 'Popeye'. I would be meeting my new boss for the first time that evening and didn't really think it was such a good idea to turn up completely wasted.

It wasn't long before I had my first taste of Japanese life and culture. Whilst waitning at the gate in Seoul the sumo was being broadcast on television screens and I was clearly the only foreigner or at least the only caucasian, getting on the plane bound for Nagoya. Feeling rather conspicuous, my nerves began to reach a climax. I hadn't had the time to go through all the official channels before leaving the UK, so I had no valid work permit and was about to arrive in Japan as a 'tourist' with a lot of 'stuff'. I had been warned that the Japanese customs officials would probably stop me and search my bag for any indication that I intended to find work once I was in the country. Indeed they did, but they seemed more interested by the fact that I had travelled across Russia to get there, but I was asked why I needed so many pairs of shoes.
Fortunately I wasn't deported and instead granted entry.

It was all smooth sailing, from this point onwards, I arrived, met my new employers and was taken to my new flat. In the morning sun, I went for my first explorations around Kakamigahara city. The very fact that I had a fantastic view of Inuyama castle, one of Japan's oldest, from the steps exiting my apartment had me feeling giddy with excitment to finally be in my personal 'Mecca'.

I was fortunate enough to arrive in perfect time for the cherry blossom season and the Inuyama festival which was quite something. However it seems I of the age now where the novelties of being in a new and fascinating place for the first time don't last as long as they once did. The realities of starting a new life here in such a rushed fashion, soon set in. I was poor, unable to speak to anyone outside the country and suddenly felt very isolated. This situation wouldn't be somewhat resolved until I was more legitimate. And to become more legitimate I would have to go to Korea!

Vlad in Vlad

The journey from Irkutsk to Vladivostok was particularly memorable for it's length, the two Babushkas on the bunks below me and a troupe of adolescent circus performers who continued their training, by any means necessary, thoughout the entire three days and nights. Some of the gymnasts were actually pretty good, but as a bunch of them were doing somersaults and flips at a short station stop somewhere in Siberia, I couldn't help wanting to see one of them cock-up and go head first into the snow.

It was more amusing to watch them practising on the train itself. The carriage attendants kept, getting really pissy, as is often their want to do, because the trainers had the kids doing hand-stands in the tiny aisle between the compartments. I spent the rest of the trip as on other parts of the journey, mastering the Russian card game of "Doorag", which means fool. As you can well imagine, I was the fool on a number of occasions. But "Who's the more foolish, the fool or the fool that follows him." - Obi-Wan Kenobi (The wisdom of 'Star Wars' as my friend Chris will agree, is all you really need to get through life unscathed).


Anyway with one lovely old arithritic babushka supplying me with extra pot noodles and smash, in return for my help in the hot-water collection and more dextrous duties, and my general train survival routine down by this point (it's a bit like camping really) I was feeling like a seasoned trans-siberianer. Unfortunately opposite the nice grandmother was an absolutely awful miserable old bat, who put a bit of a downer on the mood in the compartment.

Three days and nights on the cramped train did feel like a bit of an endurance test. I also couldn't remember how I had organised meeting my contact in Vladivostok. With my phone out of battery, the last few hours became a slightly nervous affair. However I was so relieved to find Vladimir a lovely bloke who had agreed to host me for three days, waiting on the platform for me.

Vlad is a top man; lawyer, lecturer, musician, and all round talented indivdual, who if he wasn't so successful, could easily make a living as a tour guide in Vladivostok. I stayed with him for three days and he kindly showed me the must-sees of Vladivostok. It was also here, of course, where I had my first views of the Eastern side of the Pacific Ocean. I had hoped to take the ferry from here across to Toyama in Japan. However sadly, my timing just didn't quite fit and this was no longer a possible option. Given that I had no time wait around hoping to get on another boat with visa rapidly running out I considered swimming the Sea of Japan. But in the end settled on good old Korean Air to get me out of Russia, which fortunately inspite of a severe blizzard the day before departure, they did successfully.

Irkutsk and Baikal

I arrived in Irkutsk on the evening of March 8th. The temperature was a balmy minus 18 degrees centigrade, but the wind chill that hit me while crossing the bridge from the station to the town, made it feel much more severe. As I tried to use my scarf to shield my face from the icey wind, it reminded me of the scene in the Empire Strikes Back when Luke Skywalker first escapes from the ice monster- I know, I'm a nerd!

Anyway Irkutsk is rough and ready, there's a dangerousness to this place that feels like it could be in the 'Wild West', or should I say 'Wild East'. Anyway the real highlight here is taking a short 'marshutka' (Russian mini-cab) ride out to the small port town of Lisvyanka to see the mighty Lake Baikal. An amazing place to see in both summer and winter. As you can see I was there in the winter while the whole thing was still frozen over to the point where cars and trucks use it as an alternative highway route.

A simply stunning place, nuff said.

Novosibirsk

The best thing about this city is the imagination that's been put into the average coffee shop. I now know what they did with the 'Crystal Dome' when they stopped making the 'Crystal Maze', when I walked into this place and ordered a skinny latte I half expected Richard O' Brien to appear from nowhere wearing a leopard skin coat, playing a harmonica and yelling "Would start the fans please!" at the top of his voice.

If you're wondering my final count was 123 gold but 67 silver so I didn't win a hang-gliding holiday. Not 200 metres down the road from this magnificently different coffee shop is the imaginatively titled 'different' cafe. It appears that you really need to have somekind of gimick in order to survive in the dog eat dog world of the Russian cafeteria industry.

Trans-Siberian Diary

I originally thought about giving a day by day account of the journey from Moscow to Vladivostok, but have since come to the conclusion that nobody really wants to read things like "Day One: I slept a little bit, woke up ate an instant noodle for lunch, read some of my book, and went back to sleep again and Day Two: Diarrhoea today etc."- You get the general idea. So I'll just mention a few of the highlights and lowlights and give some general advice or ideas to those of you who maybe thinking about doing the trans-siberian sometime.

Okay so the first piece of advice is, as anyone who's done the trans-sib will tell you, take plenty of water, food (e.g. Doshirak, the Russian pot noodle), a lot of reading material and some toilet paper. There were times during the journey where I inevitably had a shortage of at least one or two of the items mentioned above and it can make a leg of the trip a lot less pleasurable. As can belligerent Babushkas, irritable train attendants, the odd smelly drunken travelling companion and the god awful music playing on the train's speaker system. However that's just all part of the adventure and for me, the appeal. And I must admit, I did kind of giggle to myself everytime I heard "Ra Ra Rasputin, Russia's greatest love machine" piped through to the carriage.

I met and made friends with some wonderful characters both on and off the train and despite being a foreign traveller threre's an amazing 'we're all in this together' feel to life on the train and people really do look after each other. Some guidebooks will tell you that you need to take extra special precautions to safeguard yourself and your belongings on the train. I certainly didn't feel that this was the case; I felt that my things which given that was on my way to live and work in another country; were pretty much my worldly possessions, were much safer than they would be on a British train for example.

I chose to make my brief stops for sightseeing and just to break up the journey a bit to get off the train to stretch the old legs properly at Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and Irkutsk before finishing up in Vladivostok. Ideally, I would've put in another stop at Chita or Kharbarovsk probably and I missed Ulan Ude also, which was a bit of a shame. However I did have a job to get to, so was under a little bit of time pressure. Plus I was only in the country on a month long tourist visa at this time and things aren't very pleasant if you overstay you're welcome in most countries, let alone Russia.

The highlights of Yekaterinburg: the friendliness of the people there and a great relaxed vibe to the city, that reminded me of St Petersburg which I love.