Japanory

<<< I Love This!

I really do love this little widget here on the left of the screen! The one that shows where all my readers are coming from. Isn't it fascinating?

It's fabulous to see all the different countries listed, and wonderful that this blog is being read by people all over the world. I'm learning a lot of geography, discovering different countries and their corresponding flags.

Thank you for visiting! I'm very flattered and hope you are reading and enjoying my ramblings.

I would really appreciate it if some of you could add some comments so that I don't lose heart by feeling I'm just wittering away to myself! I'd love to hear from you.

I'm finding it quite hard to catch up with myself, and am rather cross for leaving my blogging so late. I've been here over two years so far, another two to go (maximum) and have only managed to blog a fraction of that time so far.

However, I WILL catch up, I WILL finish and get "up-to-date" as soon as I feasibly can.

Once we leave Japan, hopefully we will end up in another fascinating country and I can start all over again!

Thank you once again for visiting Japanory. Mwah! XXX

Bus Bliss

Oh, what a difference finding the bus has made to my life!

We can leave for school almost an hour later, meaning a lot less shouting (from Mum) and a lot less resistance (from Rhiannon). It's a new experience for Rhiannon who hasn't had the pleasure of riding a bus before, and we can see more of the surrounding areas.

The bus route seems to finish just around the corner of Shibuya station and then there is a little walk to school, but nothing compared to taking the Metro.

The scenery en-route is fascinating. Just up the road from us is a small area of greenery – trees, shrubs and some large rocks. Very pretty. Interspersed amongst the trees are a number of blue tarpaulins fashioned into tents and lean-tos. It's a small and seemingly permanent area for homeless people. What a very appealing place to set up 'home'.

Then we travel through Harajuku, the centre of fashionable Tokyo along with an incredibly busy station. And home to an enormous multi-storey shop called 'Snoopy Town'. What do you think it sells? Yup: everything to do with Snoopy and his friends! After this the bus negotiates the unbelievably hectic crossings around Shibuya, including the famous Hachiko crossing. This takes some time but it's still way better than taking the train as I get to people-watch to my heart's content.

On one bus journey, we spot a mum with her daughter who is wearing the BST school uniform, so we pop over to say "Hello". The mum is Japanese and married to a Greek man, while the girl is in the year above Rhiannon. We have a lovely chat and then the mum asks me why I get off the bus so early? It appears that, if I had a little more knowledge and more patience, the bus doesn't terminate at the stop where we normally disembark. After waiting there for 5 or 10 minutes, it then moves up the road to stop literally just across the road from school. Bliss!

Returning home is even simpler. After dropping Rhiannon off at school, I can nip back across the road and within a few minutes catch the bus home. I still have to watch very carefully where to get off and press the little button to ring the stopping bell, otherwise I end up some distance away and have to retrace my steps by about half a kilometre.

The reverse school run works just as well, with enough time for Rhiannon to get a little play in the small playground near school before catching the bus home, arriving more than an hour earlier than before. Happy child = happy mum.

I've bought myself an MP3 player – something I've never been too keen on as I prefer not to have things stuck in my ears. But have since discovered the joy of tuning out. However, after finding myself singing aloud to some Leftfield track (oops!), I decided to download some Japanese lessons instead. Might as well use my extra time for good intentions. I've learned how to say "hello" for the different times of day, finally mastered "thank you"... and that's about it so far.

After a few drinks, I agree to do something different...

Monday 22^nd January 2007

This is something new. It appears that I've offered to help some student doctors learn English! It's amazing what one will agree to after a few drinks!!

One of the other wives I've met through Tim's work is a GP and has contacts around Tokyo. She's persuaded a few of us who are at a loose end to help out in a brand new training session in some teaching hospital on the other side of Tokyo.

Today is the "train the trainers" induction. And even better, we'll get paid for it!

So, after a blissful school run on the bus we met up at a Metro station and headed off on quite a long journey to this hospital. Once at our destination Metro station, we proceeded, as is normal, to get completely lost. It seems most people get lost in Tokyo on a daily basis so everyone is incredibly helpful. However, if the person we've asked directions of doesn't know the way, they won't actually say they don't know – saving face? Or just wanting to help? I don't know; instead they confidently give directions to somewhere else, anywhere! I guess they hope we will find someone more clued up. An interesting yet frustrating characteristic.

Eventually after much walking and luck, we find the hospital; a huge, imposing and unprepossessing building with many pale and exhausted-looking young people in white coats bustling around. Just like hospitals in the UK, really. I think I was expecting something extremely modern, state-of-the-art and high-tech. This it most certainly wasn't.

There was a vending machine, of course, so I grabbed a tin of coffee and swigged it down. I quite like the vending machine coffee as it's hot and sweet. The taste isn't really coffee, but it will do the job.

We found out where to go and squeezed into a very small and rickety lift along with a few other gaijin who were all there for the same session. One of them carried rather a lot of extra weight... and the lift started complaining! The maximum weight it could carry was exceeded and it was not going to move until this was sorted. Unembarrassed, the large gentleman got out and the lift worked again.

Next, a trail of bemused gaijin wandered down a low-ceilinged corridor and found a huge room set up with a number of desks and a speaker's podium at the front.

There were about 70 gaijin of all ages, nationalities, skills and reasons for being there. Most were after the promised money, some were there for the experience and others were there as favours to friends. A couple of back-packing types barely had any English themselves, this didn't bode well for the poor students. Feeling a little nervous we got a bit giggly and silly, but soon behaved ourselves when the "teachers" came in.

Names were taken, paperwork handed out, instruction leaflets and scripts to read from. How to work with the students, some of whom had barely any English at all, apparently, and pep-talks from a number of high ranking doctors.

Then the bombshell – we WEREN'T going to get paid for this! Oh, the uproar that caused! Misinformation, change of mind, who knows; but there was a lot of unrest and complaining so a gopher was dispatched to find out what had happened.

Meanwhile, we broke for coffee.

On our return, the powers-that-be had come up with a compromise – we wouldn't get cash, but we would get a railcard to the same value – about £25 per day's attendance for the actual training to commence next week.

Not particularly happy about this, but as I do use the Metro it will be useful.