Why does it always rain on me.....day off.

Eeeh, hiya! Sorry I didn't see you there, I was too busy living in Japan.

This week has been surreal, as my body has slowly started to swapsy it's hours from UK to Japan time, I've had such a disproportionate sense of time that all of my efforts to do anything have been met with a war of attrition between my mind and my body. So this week, rather than really truly explore, I've settled a little more and tried to get my bearings. Today's day off, rainy, or not, has been really welcomed.

Despite being a bit blurry eyed and feeling like a dot to dot drawing, I still managed to draw (heh!) enough energy together to do as much as possible last week. I freewheeled around on my bike to an absolutely fucking MASSIVE (seriously, capitals are needed) sports shop. They have a trainers section bigger than most other shops, I know sports shops arent exactly something you'll read about here and think 'Fuck! Those Japs have got some whacky shops like!', but I have a point. I was walking around proudly in my Newcastle top (Fucking Get in by the way!) and this Japanese man shouted over 'OI, AMEOBI!'. Obviously I didn't for a second think that he meant Newcastle's Legendary (!) number 23, but that 'Ameobi' must be Japanese for something like 'Can I help?' or something, so I shouted back 'Sorry, I don't speak Japanese.' (In Japanese) and after some awkwardness the bloke goes 'No, I mean "Do you like Ameobi?' I felt like a bit of a dick for automatically assuming he was speaking Japanese, but then 'Ameobi' as a word isn't all that English, like. Either way, after a bit of talk about football, including questions such as 'Oh, so Keegan quit then?' which were met with winced words, and looks around in every direction looking for an answer, we swapped numbers and when my work goes out for a drink next, I'll invite him. Days off: 1, Friends made: 1. Good conversion rate, that.

After that I thought I best see what unique features Koriyama has to offer, so I went to the park and wandered around for a bit. It wasn't quite Cherry Blossom season yet, but the park is still canny. There was a plants, and flower market on so I got a few plants for my flat and awkwardly tried to speak very basic Japanese with an old man who was the Japanese version of Monty Cheddar from Chip 'N' Dale.

The scenery in the park is quite fitting for what I've experienced so far. In one glance you'll see a traditional bridge amongst a calm looking park with weeping willows and Cherry trees, and behind that there's a beast of a bustling city, with advertisements attempting to steal every inch of the sky with the nebulous din of everything you associate with a perpetually functioning city. Beyond that the horizon is abruptly interrupted by a massive set of snow topped mountains.

I don't want to make any sweeping, or lazy observations (yet), but certainly so far, that image says a lot about what I've come across in Japan. Everything seperate, but side by side. Walking down Sakura Street, and the street is a total contrast in styles, but none are mixed or developed. It's old, or its new, without alteration. Shrines are untouched, new buildings show no sign of ever having been anything but that. If you go into just about any Pound Stretcher looking shops in Japan and it's crazy in a way that you wouldn't expect. I expected an attack on the senses, but, when your perceptions are so resoundingly grounded in the UK, it's surprising to go into a shop that looks like the £1 shop and find not just things like key-rings, and other general crap that my sister would have bought with her pocket money when she was 10, but things like £600 Nixon Watches, £4,000 Louis Vuitton bags, and then there's bargains too. There's no way of saying that one shop sells bargains, or one shop is expensive because they're all extortionate, they're all cheap. There's no rule. When you're walking around, it's hard to decide whether it's all food for the senses, or an attack on them. If one section is selling stereos, then a stereo is on, if one section has CDs, a CD is on, if one section has TVs, a TV is on with sound. And then there's the continuous sound of the shops very own jingle that plays over and over, and the cries of 'si ma saaaay' ('Welcome to the store') from the staff in every shop. This is all within quite a confined environment meaning that you hear it all, unless you hone your senses. I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make, but everything, not just in shops, is on, everything is there, It's just bloody mental, and I love it!

Any shop you visit has an unbelievable range too, it feels like they have everything of everything if the shop is specified down to something like electronics, shoes, or clothes. Speaking of which, I visited an Urban Outfitters type shop, where the range was almost glutinous. I got some Levis 501s for £7, which is just ridiculous really.

I don't want to talk about shops too much, because in a couple of weeks I'm going to Tokyo for Golden Week, so I'm sure I'll have plenty of ammo to talk about that then, but it really is that element of Japan that's got to me the most so far. Not the ubiquity of vending machines on the streets, or the 'chorus milk' (watered down milk that people buy due to the high lactose intolerance in Japan), or the cleanliness, or the receiving of money, or anything with two hands, and never one. It's all of it, and it's all in the shops.

Work has been a real treat too so far. I'm not very good with the lower level students, because they've learned specific commands that I keep forgetting, but the higher level lessons are brilliant, because you're constantly challenged to explain the differences between relative clauses, simple past, continuous present etc, and it's amazing when you notice that look of understanding when you just know that it's clicked with a student. Old Japanese women trying to say 'cant' and 'bank account' and coming out with 'c**t' and 'bang a c**t' also had me so creased, it was almost origami. (waheeey!)

I still need to visit Koriyama Planetarium, because it was closed the last time I tried, but truthfully I'm desperate to get out of Koriyama and see, not just Tokyo, but much more of the rural side of Japan. al geet find mesel nd that. dubble cush m8.
But seriously, I fancy trying the hot springs, and somehow offending someone.

I'll leave it at that, it's getting a bit like Japan: The Dissertation by Michael McNally, so I'll leave it for a bit, and unless something astounding happens, update after, or during Golden Week.