Greetings from Nishio City!!!

My apologies to my readers out there that I haven't got back to you sooner, this is going to be one hell of a long post as so much has happened. Feel free to skip through to the bits you find interesting.

Well after a VERY eventful couple of days I am now finally settling in to my home of the next six months, Nishio City. I was amazed, when we arrived we were given a whole flat to ourselves, a mobile phone and a Bicycle. On top of that we get unlimited free meals at the cafeteria. And free Japanese lessons at the local City Centre.

Since the last post an unbelieveable amount of things have happened, the most siginificant being that we were in Tokyo when it was hit by a typhoon several nights ago, that was quite an experience. Windows were shaking and the rain was truly incredible, beats any of the storms we've had in the UK before I left. Scarily at about six o'clock police cars where driving up and down the streets telling everyone to return to their homes and not to leave again until six am the next morning. We spent another day in Tokyo, and again went to see many sights, like the Meiji Memorial Park which was a truly spectactular almost tropical jungle, right in the middle of Tokyo. We explored many shopping districts and saw some incredible sights, and really weird shops selling things that you couldn't possibly even imagine. Some stuff we didn't even know what it was. Over the time Japan has become a lot less scary and more welcoming, as I start to adjust to the different attitudes and values over here.



So after all of the talk about Japanese trains being perfect and on time, ironically we got to the staion to take the bullet train to nagoya, and all the trains were delayed due to the typhoon!!! I also tried a traditional Japanese "Lunchbox" which is basically an elegantly arranged portable sushi. We got the bullet train which was a weird experience, I have never travelled so far on land before in my life, over 200 MPH and the countryside just flies by, but the interior of the bullet train felt like it was designed by an engineer, not a stylist. The interior was quite spartan all sticky plastic and hard seats, although the legroom was fantastic!! It reminded me in many ways of being on a plane, right down to the rounded windows, and air hostess style clothes the staff were wearing.



In Nishio I have been lucky enough to be granted with a massive amount of space I've got a kitchen, a bathroom (with shower) a toilet, washing machine, and a moderately large lounge area. It seems our predecessors where a bit, er, lively. Several things have been damaged like the curtains, the sink (don't ask!), and the toilet door. My hosts seemed absolutely horrified when I told them about this, and immediately ordered in a professional cleaning team to sort out the problems!!! I couldn't believe the curtousy! Everything in Japan seems to have been designed with curtousy in mind, right down to traffic lights. When you press the button for traffic lights, instead of hearing beeping sounds when it's time to cross, you hear birdsong!!! I've been told this is to reduce "noise pollution" and also to make sleeping more comfortable at night for those who live near traffic lights....

Most interesting thing about the room however, is that I have no bed, I have a futon!!! It's quite odd because I have to get it out every night and put it down on the floor, kind of like when you sleep over at a friends house. Every week or so I have to hang it out outside to let it dry out, as it absorbs moisture, which is strange.

The weather here is still incredibly hot and humid reaching 33C most days and cooling to about 26C at night. I need to keep the airconditioning on in my apartment all the time (except when I'm out) to stop the place turning into an oven.

At night Nishio City becomes a ghost town. Everyone disappears after about 11pm, even my hometown of Winchester had people wandering around at night making a drunken nuisance of themselves, but here it's non existent. There seems to be quite a different nightlife culture here compared to the UK, it's just as lively but not as obvious, most night venues are underground hidden away from public view (apart from Kareoke bars, which I have yet to visit)

I get two japanese lessons a week, which is great because this language is something else. I thought German was hard but this takes the biscuit. This language has no alphabet, every single sound that you can make in the language has it's own character and a set of about 200 (complete different) characters make up a writing system, and on top of that there are three different writing systems! The most complicated one Kanji, has over NINE THOUSAND characters. Right now my Japanese speaking and writing is still extremely basic, but I can't wait to start to expand my vocabulary, particularly speaking vocabulary.

Aside from all the excitement we've also been given prelimenary introductions to work. The place where I work is more like a hospital catering specifically for elderly people than the care home I envisaged. I've been given my timetable which has a lot of very varied work, from X-ray room duties, to cleaning, to food delivery, to working in the rehab centre, to playing with children at the nearby nursery. The work is varied which is good, because I know from past experience that I can't stand repetitive work. My first day of work is this Friday.

One of the changes that I was not expecting was the impact that the new diet would have on my general wellbeing. I feel so much healthier, far less lethargic and much more engergetic and physically well. I have had fish and rice and some kind of seaweed varient every single day I've been here so far and probably will continue to until I leave. All the Japanese look extremely healthy too (well except for a couple in the rehab centre!). After experiencing this for a week, I'm not sure I could go back to the diet I had before. My parents always gave me the most delicious balanced diet, but I unfortunately ruined any positive efforts this may have contributed by frequently snacking on crisps and junk food! There is a KFC down the road and a few other western style restaurants here and there, but I have yet to visit them and don't plan to in the near future. The other thing about this country is it's the first place I have visited where Coca-Cola does not have a stranglehold on the drinks market, In fact the biggest foreign drinks maker here appears to be Lipton, of ice tea fame, although they don't actually seem to sell Ice Tea here. The most popular drink here is cold tea (nothing like Iced tea in the UK, far less sweet) and cold coffee. All fizzy drinks come in weird and wonderful flavours, my favourite so far being "Melon Cream Soda". Some drinks have bizarre names like "real gold".

Japan is ethnically, not very diverse. The only other ethnic "Gaijin" (foreigner) groups I have seen are Western Europeans/Americans (both quite rare) and Brazilian Japanese (more common, but still hard to find). It's only now that I truly appreciate how ethnically diverse the UK really is, and, I know a little how some of them must feel like being surrounded by British. At first I found this a little intimidating, but now I am completely warming to it. Most Japanese won't talk to you outright, because they don't want to interrupt you, or get in your way. However if you start talking to them, a barrage of questions will usually ensue normally about where your from and what you're doing in Japan. A lot of the time they use these opportunities to practice their English too. At heart many Japanese appear to be quite shy and not particularly outgoing. There's a Japanese saying that certainly rings true here "The nail which mosts stands out is easily hammered down"

That being said the mobile phones we have inherited from our predeccesors are full of contacts, some fellow Gaijin, others are locals. Quite early on I received a phone call from a mysterious Japanese man. His English was OK, and my Japanese wasn't going anywhere. At first I thought he might have been one of my co-workers wanting to go out on the town. But it soon emerged that he was an English teacher, and that he wanted to come round to meet us. Not wanting to be rude, I told him he could come over two nights from then. After the phone call I turned to my fellow gappers and explained the situation. We were naturally quite concerned, because we had no idea who this guy was at all, apart from what he had told us, and he wanted to come to our house late at night. On top of that when I mentioned this to the staff at the centre they had no idea who he was either. I was starting to think that this might have been the biggest mistake I had made so far. So for my protection I asked my fellow gappers Tom and Lee to stay at my flat that evening as a precaution. It turns out that our worries were completely without reason. The man arrived with his girlfirend and with some snacks to share, I invited him in and the five of us had a great chat long into the hours of the morning over glasses of Melon Cream Soda and Japanese pastries, about Japan the world and everything. Afterwards we exchanged email addresses and shook hands. It was a real experience, and one that convinced me that the Japanese are some of the friendliest people in the world.

If there's one thing Japan needs which the UK has it's a smoking ban. Smoking seems to be OK EVERYWHERE! Sat in an Arcade, people just light up and blow smoke everywhere. It's quite weird to be back in a smoking situation after the ban in the UK nd this has helped me realise what a massive step this truly is. Talking on the phone while driving is also completely legal here, and I nearly had a heart attack when Hosakawa-san (the guy responsible for looking after our wellbeing in the apartments) started chatting casually on the phone while driving us here.

I could talk about the virtues of this place for hours but instead I'm going to leave it there and try and get on with trying to organise my rubbish in to one of four bags: combustable, non combustable, glass, and plastic. Have a look at some of the photos I've uploaded of my flat and such. I hope everyone is well who is reading this and that everyone is getting along alright.

All the best

David.

PS I've added a link to a fellow Gapper Tommy, who is staying a few miles away from me in Nagoya. Feel free to visit his site.