The Mimed Screams of Joy

Ok this weeks been pretty awesome so Ill get straight to it.

When I got back to work on Saturday one of my kid students asked me if I could come to his house that night. I was a little confused but I said if its ok with ur mum then cool. I later found out that his parents were having a “Nabe” (Japanese stew) party and the other teachers had all been invited. Never being one to turn down a free meal, I agreed of course.

I had also agreed to meet some friends in the pub later, so had to go home to get changed after work. Unfortunately the party started at 5 and I finished work at about 10 past 3. It usually takes between 45 minutes and an hour for me to get to work, but because it was a Saturday the buses were well irregular. Anyway I eventually got back to the school (they lived next door to the school) well late but no one seemed particularly annoyed so it was all good.

When we got to their apartment Naoto (my 6 year old student) opened the door to us, and we met the rest of the family, (although they all come to ACC for their English lessons so some teachers knew the other family members). Naoto had a kid brother Shun which made 4 in their family, and there were 4 of us teachers making it an 8 person party (although as I`ve mentioned in previous blogs it is not unusual to have a fairly low number at a “food party”).

Their apartment was proper nice and had a corridor and everything making it at least 10 times the size of mine. When I got in there the women (the other teachers are all female) were given aprons and asked if they wanted to help make the nabe. This left me pretty empty handed so to avoid sitting awkwardly in the corner of the room I decided to play with the kids. This proved to be more fun than expected as Naoto had a bitching train set. As it was Japanese, he had a load of remote controlled shinkansens with flashing lights and sirens and all that stuff.

I found playing with Naoto was A LOT easier than teaching him. Whilst he`s a really sweet kid, every Saturday he causes a lot of trouble and doesn`t pay much attention. Still he always says “Sorry Jack sensei” so I end up thinking “He`s not so bad”. Anyway he`s nothing compared to my Monday hellraiser who I`ve mentioned in the past, so it`s ok.

After Naoto showed me all his toys (and hes a fairly well off Japanese kid so there was a lot of toys), we were invited to the table on the floor to start on the Nabe. There was a gas cooker on the table to keep it hot and bubbling and also there was still loads of food that hadn’t been cooked which would be added later. I wont bore you with a list of fish vegetables and meat that was put in but there was a lot.

Every time the amount of food in the pot diminished, more was added, and since I have the bad habit of not being able to leave food behind ended up eating a ridiculous amount. Despite my stomach complaining occasionally I figured I was ok, until they brought out the dessert which was cakes, followed by strawberries, followed by tea and biscuits. I stupidly ate everything and by this time my stomach was not happy. In addition to the colossal amount of food I had ingested I had also been drinking beer throughout the meal which doesn’t agree with my stomach at the best of times. Somehow I managed to keep it together, and after an hour or so watching Japanese TV (which was awesome by the way, they had this monkey gameshow where they set challenges for monkeys using bananas as incentives. Then they started dressing them up in schoolboy uniforms and as a farmer and it all got a bit weird but hey that’s Japanese TV for you) I headed out to the pub to meet my friends. When I got there there was a massive group together, most of whom I knew. In fact I would go as far to say they`re my “crew” in Nagoya.

After drinking heavily (screw you stomach!) me, my friend Callie and my new friend Michyo headed out to find a Ska night which was apparently happening. It was ridiculously cold outside so we hurried. On the way it started snowing really heavy and then it got really difficult. We stopped at a combini to get some food and some charge for Callies phone. In Japan at all combinis you can buy portable battery chargers for your phone so if you do run out of battery you`re never far from anywhere to get some juice (as combinis are EVERYWHERE!).

After a while we got to “Club Buddha” which was on the 4th floor of a Sakae building. When we got there we found it was not ska but actually “Rocksteady and Reggae” which I thought was really cool. However the ridiculous amount of cigarette smoke together with the ridiculously laid back vibe together with the fact I had eaten a ridiculous amount meant I started to get well sleepy.

Anyway we got some drinks and chatted to this random bloke called Toru who was an optometrist (a bad one by his own admission), but a funny and interesting guy. After an hour or so we decided to leave being as things weren`t hectic enough. We said our goodbyes to Toru and headed out. On the way we saw someone lying down on the floor fully asleep. I found out that in Japan its ok to sleep in clubs. Anyone who`s nodded off in a British club will testify to the fact that bouncers have no mercy in throwing someone out who`s trying to catch a quick kip. In Japan its ok though, and people do it regularly. I guess if its ok to sleep in Manga cafes and the subway then why not nightclubs? In the UK I understand the idea is to keep out people who have drunk so much that they can no longer retain consciousness. But in Japan sleeping in public is so normal that its not frowned upon. I suppose its assumed that its more down to exhaustion from the intense working hours than from drinking too much (although in reality its probably a combination of both). In any case it was another reminder of Japans superiority over Britain.

When we left the club the snowing had gotten worse. We decided to try to find a House club to wake us up. After tracking back and forth between pretty much every club in Sakae and finding there were no House nights tonight we decided to go back to the pub to get some warmth and ideas. By this stage it was around 2. After a short drink we headed to find a club whos location Michyo wasn’t sure about. Throughout the night she had been the one ferrying us between clubs being as she had lived in Nagoya a lot longer than me and Callie and actually knew where she was going. She had a sense of direction which I found astounding. I have lived in Nagoya nearly 6 months now and still can only negotiate about 20% of Sakae, and being as all the clubs are pretty tucked away, someone like Michyo was essential.

She once again managed to find the club although they were pushing hip hop. After chatting to someone hanging round outside we had 2 more leads, and went to check them out. Both times we found they were not what we were after. In the end we decided to head back to one of the hip hop clubs we had been to earlier. At this stage Michyo said she was too tired and so would go home.

Me and Callie went into “Lush” and paid the 2500 yen (around 11 quid) entrance fee despite having already paid the same entrance fee at the reggae club earlier (Nights out in Japan are so expensive!). When we got in there things had degenerated into a sleazefest replicating Roppongis notorious “Gaspanic” bar (No Tits, No Ass, No Service). There were some extremely scantily clad girls, totally wasted dancing on the bar, stage and even the DJ booth. The barman, DJ and some of the male punters had all decided to take their shirts off. Still we had taken a leap of faith and there was no going back. At least we were out of the snow.

After a couple of overpriced drinks the music changed from hip hop to Ubergay Eurohouse with the odd gem thrown in (Daft Punk). It ended up being quite a good night, and at the end when the lights came on and the music switched off I was a bit surprised to see nobody leaving. Then I realized it was another 30 minutes before the trains started and I guess nobody wanted to be out in the snow at this time waiting around.

Me and Callie sat down and started chatting to the DJ. After a while the other staff came and joined us. It turns out that they`re pretty much all DJs and took great pleasure in telling us when their sets would be and where. After saying goodbye to our new found friends me and Callie went our separate ways and when I got home went straight to bed.

The next day had an event at the end of it which I had been anticipating for sometime which was the Carling cup final between Spurs and Chelsea. After finding out that my TVU internet thingy would not be showing the game live I settled for the fact that my friend Raul would be taping it off cable (No sports bars are open late enough on a Sunday to show it and even if they were train times make it impossible). However around 1130pm, half an hour before the game started I decided actually that I really wanted to watch it live and so trawled the internet for some legitimate coverage. Eventually I found this site which offered pretty much every soccer game in the world live for 8 quid. I was extremely skeptical but decided to take a risk. The site requires that you download a load of different software packages to watch international channels which show English soccer games live. By the time Id downloaded the first piece of software it was about 30 minutes through the first half. I found that it didn’t work so tried the next one, and the next one, and the next one. After downloading about 8 different useless applications there was one left and my hopes were pretty low. However after trying it and toying with it a while I managed to watch Guangdong TV which was showing the game live. It was 60 minutes through the game and we were a goal down. I was still happy however with my victory over the software, even if I did have to watch it in Chinese.

A few minutes after I tuned in Tottenham were awarded a penalty and while the world watched with baited breath the commentators talked like they were chatting about their shopping list or something with absolutely no flair or charisma. I didn’t even know we had a penalty until I saw Berbatov lining the ball up.

Anyway I don’t want this to turn into a match report of a game that happened a week ago but being as this was a major event of this week for me, it makes the blog. After we equalized it went to extra time, where we then scored again. After a tense 25 minutes of defending we held on to win the Carling cup. Since I have been a fan of Tottenham this is the first time we`ve won anything (well, we won it in 99 but I was off football then) so this was a feeling I had never had before.

However by the time the game ended it was nearly 3am here and being as I live in an apartment building my going mental had to be restrained. Having said that there was still a lot of jumping round the room and mimed screams of joy. After about half an hour I managed to calm down a bit although sleeping was out of the question, meaning much of my Monday morning was spent catching up on sleep.

Monday and Tuesday I had work which went relatively smooth although on both days I had parents observing some of the classes and my performances weren’t particularly impressive. Still hopefully I wont lose any of the students because of it although I suspect it is a possibility from one of the parents reactions. Anyway negativity aside, I went on another trip on Wednesday.

Yusuke, Ayaes brother got into snowboarding when he was in Canada and had offered me the chance to spend a couple of days up in the mountains of Gifu which is about 2 hours away. Obviously I accepted.

He picked me up on Wednesday afternoon and after driving along the highways and the stupid number of tunnels (there`s a lot of mountains in Japan) we eventually arrived at the hotel we would be staying at.

The first thing that struck me about this hotel was that it was extremely similar to the hotel in The Shining. Not just the snowy setting, but also the lobby and corridors beared a really striking resemblance. Anyway as far as I know it wasn’t built on any ancient Indian burial ground so I figured I should be alright.

After settling in we could help ourselves to the “Bai Kingu” (Buy king) which is Japanese for an all you can eat buffet. This was a pretty good buffet with Oden and Nimono being represented as well as Western classics like Spaghetti Carbonara and Chips (Not Spaghetti Carbonara and Chips but as separate dishes. Obviously). The conversation flowed fairly easily thanks to the fact that Yusuke wants to improve his English and I want to improve my “Japanese”.

After a huge meal we returned to our room to watch some Japanese TV. It was around this time I realized there was no shower or bath in our room, just a toilet and a sink. This meant that the public bath downstairs was the only way option if you wanted to stay clean. I had no problem with this except that I had to go down 3 flights of steps to have my morning shower (the lift was really cold for some reason. Maybe there was an angry spirit in there….).

Anyway early the next day after taking my morning bath and having a Bai Kingu breakfast, we headed for the slopes. Yusuke had his own board and equipment (and luckily a spare pair of almost everything for me). After renting some boots and a board I was ready to go. I hadn’t snowboarded in about 5 years so I did wonder if Id still be able to do it. Luckily I could.

We tried some basic slopes first to get our confidence up, then went on to the intermediate ones. Yusuke only started about a month ago but is a total natural, and seems completely at home on a snowboard. In fact he beat me to the bottom every time. He also only fell over about 3 times the whole day. The bastard.

I however have a different style which involves a lot of falling over and stopping just before I go over the edge of the mountain. After getting into my style a bit more we took a chairlift to the top of the mountain. There I had an absolutely awesome view of the gorgeous snow covered Japanese mountains. If that wasn’t inspiring enough the ski resort had its own radio station which pumped out music through loud speakers located throughout the mountain. Whilst I`ve snowboarded to music before, its never been to the sounds of Dragon Ash, Yui and The Offspring.

After doing a few more beginner and intermediate slopes we had lunch at the overpriced restaurant. (Tempura Udon for those keeping note). We then headed back to the slopes and tried some of the same courses and a few new ones even venturing into some of the “Pro” courses, which led to me face planting the snow and falling on my face down the mountain for about 10 metres. This left me with what they call a snow bath- snow in every gap of clothing on my body, I was literally spitting snow and blowing it out of my nose. Nice. Oh well I guess that’s why they call it the Pro course. If it was meant for me they would call it the stupid beginner course. Although in all fairness it was Yusuke`s idea in the first place. He has a real taste for danger and a lot of confidence which I guess makes him a great snowboarder. Anyway he had a 2 week intensive course in snowboarding which I keep telling myself is the real reason why he is better than me.

After a tea break and then some more snowboarding it was time for the slope to close so we headed back. When we got back to the hotel I was disappointed to find that I had a massive blister on my right foot. I suspected that this was the case as towards the end of the day I had real trouble carving without being in a serious amount of pain. The boots I had rented were the perfect size but the tightening mechanism was very badly designed meaning that my heel was slipping about a bit. This was really annoying as not only did it mean my foot was gonna be in pain for the next few days every time I put my shoes on, but also I would be out of action for tomorrows snowboarding. After cursing and asking “Why me??!!”, for a bit I settled on the fact that it was a vengeful ancient ghost and was thankful that instead of butchering my family I had just got a blister. Japans so much nicer than the rest of the world.

Anyway following this realization I headed to the Bai Kingu with Yusuke for some serious comfort eating. This worked although my muscles were also aching intensely. I had done some warming up, but apparently not enough. Yusuke was the same and we both lay in bed for hours watching Japanese TV after dinner. At this point it struck me that every show we`d watched the 2 nights we had been there had been basically the same, that is a bunch of Japanese celebrities answering questions on the subject of “Really interesting things from Japan and the rest of the world”. This was pretty good for someone who couldn’t understand Japanese as I just got to see some really cool stuff (like the laser that cuts up gas stations, and what Manchu is like in Hokkaido (kind of like a rolled up pancake with sweet beans in!!)). In fact every night a show, no pretty much all of the shows on certain channels will be on this subject of interesting/ crazy things, and celebrities going “Ehhhhhhhhhhh???!!!”.

Anyway Ive covered Japanese TV in previous blogs so I`ll leave the subject for the moment. After an intensely long soak in the public bath, my muscles felt better and I headed to sleep. The next morning I got up bright and early to have my morning shower (The bath was only open from 6 til 8 in the morning), and I had breakfast with Yusuke. After that we checked out and headed back to the slopes so Yusuke could do a bit more snowboarding. I chilled in the café and read my book which I probably enjoyed way more than I should`ve (although obviously I wished I was snowboarding, especially since the fee came with the Hotel so I`d basically already paid for my lift pass).

However the time went fast and after Yusuke had finished and we had lunch (I had a "Special Omrice" which had a tomato and bacon sauce one side, and a creamy white mushroom sauce the other. Lush.) we got back on the road and managed to make it back to Nagoya in an hour and a half which was pretty good.

That about takes me up to now and writing this blog, so I`ll leave it there. I`ve got no plans for March so I don’t know what I`ll be doing, but I`ll be sure to let you know when I`ve done it.

Thanks for reading!!

Peace Yo

Jack

The Bekuhamu

This week has been dominated by me in bed sleeping trying to get rid of this heinous flu Ive got. Unfortunately my presence at work has still been required, so I have had to teach with this evil cough. It hasn’t been too bad, but bad enough that I want to be well again ASAP.

On Wednesday I went down to Ayes parents to visit her. She has been staying their ever since the trip to Osaka and has no plans to come back, which means for the moment Im having to look after myself in the Nagoya flat.

Going to visit Ayae was cool, I got to eat some fresh fresh sushi as usual, and got some fresh country air. Also as it was valentines day I got a present from Ayae which was an English Japanese dictionary for thr Nintendo DS. Whilst I got rid of my last one last month, this one has a kanji converter so I figured it would be better. I was right and it delivers pretty well. Theres still no good English to Japanese converter, but the kanji thing works very well although sometimes I have to write it a couple of times.

On Friday I went home, and attempted to make a “Nabe” which Ayae had told me we had in a ready made packet at home. Whilst looking through the food cupboards, I thought I found it but was unsure of the kanji on the packet. After entering it into my DS though I confirmed it was the correct packet and felt rather smug.

After my half working week was over I headed to Himeji to meet Ayae. Ayae and her Dad had decided on the spot to travel round Japan for a few days and offered me the chance to hang with them for a couple of the days. I got to Himeji (near Kobe, just past Osaka) on Wednesday morning after a short shinkansen ride.

First on the agenda was Himeji castle which is famous for being one of the most beautiful of all of Japans castles. When we got there it was proper lush. Very similar to Osaka and Nagoyas castles, except the roof had this special design which made it look even nicer. We looked round and saw all the usual exhibits from 400 years ago. It was a pretty typical castle but the weather was really sunny which made it much nicer. Also I got to see the Seppuku stage where disgraced Lords would commit ritual suicide on a special stage. Pretty nasty but kinda cool.

After the castle we had a nice lunch at a local restaurant and then went on to Mount Shosha. This is a mountain containing a massive temple complex called the Engyoji. We took a bus and then a cable car to get to the top of the mountain. When we got there it was absolutely beautiful.

As it was a weekday it was pretty much empty except for the monks that look after the buildings. The buildings were all slightly hidden amongst the heavy forest that covered most of the mountain which gave it a very peaceful atmosphere. There were lots of temple buildings but being as we were pretty strapped for time we stuck to the main ones.

They were all elaborately designed but more so than the average shrine, and looked truly astounding. In fact the temple complex was used in a couple of scenes in The Last Samurai. When we got off the bus stop I heard the person on the PA say in Japanese, “Change here for the cable car to Engyoji etc” as you do with most tourist attractions but in the middle of the next sentence randomly heard “Tomu Kuruzu” which was funny. No idea what they were saying, probably something along the lines of “Change here for the place that Tom Cruise was at this one time”.

After looking around and seeing pretty much everything we left and headed back down the mountain. The plan for that night was to make our way to Awaji-shima which is an island fairly near Himeji. We took a train to the suspension bridge connecting the island with mainland Japan (the longest suspension bridge in the world for those who are interested). We then took a bus to Awaji shima and then got a taxi to our accommodation for the night which was to be a log house. Log houses have become quite popular in Japan both for rental and living. We got very lost on the way, although the taxi driver was very nice and chatty. After going from log house to log house we eventually found the one which was to be ours.

It had a wood fire inside which was really nice and warm, and the whole place was very un-Japanese with big open rooms, and a pretty big garden. We ate some sushi we had bought from a food market in Himeji earlier and went to bed.

The next day we got up bright and early and went to a log café next to our house, for some breakfast. This consisted of a salad, a boiled egg, some bacon and some toast which was well lush.

After that we got in a taxi and headed into town. We had booked a taxi for the day to take us to all of Awaji-shimas tourist spots. The taxi driver was the same chatty one from the night before, and we started off going to see a beautiful shrine. Apparently it’s the oldest in Japan although I heard the same thing about Ise-jingu. The taxi driver said they were about the same age. Anyway I`ve seen both so I guess Im covered.

After the shrine we went to an incense shop where you could make your own incense. We participated in this and made our own incense things. We did this using a powder mixture thing then rolling it out and cutting shapes. I now have a box of air freshener things which Ill probably never use, but it was pretty fun.

After that we went to a gold museum which holds in it a gold bar worth 100 million yen. You can go in it and touch it which we did. Next to the gold bar was a huge picture of David Beckham touching the gold bar during the 2002 Japan world cup. Beckham is like a God here, and the picture of him was bigger than the display of the gold bar itself. On the wall nearby were some smaller pictures of Michael Owen and David Seaman, and another huge photo of Beckham.

On the way out I noticed a large cage which contained a monkey and a dog. The taxi driver said that dogs and monkeys never get on which is why the cage is such an attraction. OK.

After this we went to an awesome Italian restaurant. The chef came out to greet us and told us he had studied cooking in Italy. The restaurant had a very European feel which I have never really felt in Japan yet. For a starter we had fried mushrooms with a squeeze of orange. Following that we had a pumpkin soup with croutons, and after that we had a cabbage spaghetti which was a little strange but really delicious. The meal was served with Italian style bread and olive oil which was really cool. After that I had a Cassata (kind of an ice cream thing) for dessert. The whole meal was really delicious, and the chef served each course and chatted to us throughout. An awesome restaurant.

After lunch we got back into the Taxi and went to Awaji castle which was similar to other Japanese castles but about a tenth the size. Despite its shortcomings we did get a pretty good view of the Islands port which was cool.

We then headed to a museum commemorating a famous Japanese sailor called Kage, who made peace with the Russians during their war. We watched a short film about his life which I couldn’t really understand but Ayae translated the basic concept. We then saw some exhibits most of which I didn’t find that interesting but the old style Japanese drawings of the Russians were quite funny, drawing them with ridiculously oversized noses and eyes.

After that we headed home. The restaurant next door delivered to us a huge plate of cut up vegetables (such as cabbage, mushrooms, beansprouts, carrots), fresh shrimp, crab, and scallops, as well as a meat ball mixture, some rice, and some eggs. As well as this we were also given some Udon noodles and mochi. We were then given a huge pot with a nabe sauce in, and a gas cooker. I don’t know if this came as part of the deal with renting the house or whatever, but it was an absolutely epic amount of food especially for 3 people.

We cooked the nabe sauce and gradually put some of the fish and vegetables in. We then cracked the eggs into our bowls and when the Nabe was ready we helped ourselves, eating the nabe with raw egg. After we put a dent in the first lot of food we could put some of the other stuff in. After some of that was gone we could finally put the last lot in. We had no chance of finishing it although we could save it for tomorrow. The next day we all had a huge breakfast of nabe but still couldn’t finish it and had to throw quite a lot away which sucked!

Early in the morning we got a taxi to a bus terminal, and each went our separate ways. Ayae and her Dad would be heading to Shikoku to continue their trip, whilst I would be getting a bus back to Nagoya, to get back in time for work.

Ok that’s just about all for this week. Next week is wide open so I have no idea what Ill do. Until then….Peace out.

Jack

The Rage

Ok, Ive actually been really busy this week so Ill get right to it.

On Sunday Feb 3rd it was the “Osu Kannon Setsubon Ship Parade”. Setsubon is a festival to celebrate the start of Spring (although it seems a bit early to me?), in which people pray for good health for the year, and scatter parched soybeans.

We got to Osu Kannon in time to see the “Takarabune” to arrive. This is a giant model ship that is dragged from Sakae containing the “Shichifukujin” (Seven Gods of Fortune), which are 7 people dressed up as Gods. I have to say actually that their costumes were awesome, with this one guy who had a really massive forehead. Apparently to get the privilege of wearing this costume at this time of year you have to be very rich or important, so here was Nagoya`s most elite VIPs dressed up like it was Halloween. I love Japan.

There was a lot of people dressed up in traditional Japanese samurai dress, and after the Gods arrived, they started scattering soybeans from atop this massive stage set up specifically for this purpose. The people below had containers (usually upturned hats) to catch the beans and the idea is that the more you catch the more wealthy you`ll be. After that the people who had paid for the right to do so, themselves climbed the stage and threw beans to the rest of the mame adoring public.

Meanwhile the “Gods” had entered the temple and were involved in a Shinto ceremony with some monks. Me and Ayae paid for some candles and also a big roll of incense sticks. We lit the candle and put it with the rest, then threw the roll of incense sticks into a big fire. We then had to try and catch the smoke that came from them and put it to the parts of our body we wanted to be healthy.

After that the Gods left the temple and themselves chucked beans to the public. I should mention there was also a few Onnii wondering round during all this. These are demons, and I thought the idea was that we threw the beans at him, but unfortunately this was wrong. I didn’t do this but I thought about it, especially when he had his mask up, you know take him by surprise like. Oh well.

Anyway they went round scaring kids and hugging people, so I got this pretty bad ass picture of him. After this we went back into Nagoya and to a chocolate festival. In Japan Valentines day is a really big commercial festival and chocolates are the typical gifts. On the 9th floor of Nagoya stations department store, this festival thing was going on. They had live shows showing how they make chocolates and interviewed various chocolatiers from around the world through translaters. In addition to this they had a ludicrous amount of chocolate stalls, and most were offering free samples. Obviously this attracted me!

As well as the novelty chocolates in the shape of animals there was also this one stall which did chocolates in the shape of various tools including a horseshoe and a monkey wrench.

After eating too much chocolate we decided to go home although first stopping off to get a Maki roll. This is a huge sushi roll and apparently it is tradition to eat it on Setsubon. Anyway it was late by the time we started looking so I couldn’t find a humongous one like I sometimes see, but the one I got was still pretty epic. This was as I suspected really tasty.

On Monday I went to work despite getting a nasty cold. In one of the lessons I was informed that I would have an observer which I was fine with until I was also told to teach infinitives and gerunds. I had never taught these before (and to be honest didn’t really know what they were), and had about 10 minutes to look them up in my grammar book and try and make something up.

When I got in the class I realized I not only had an extra student observing the class but also her mum. I tried to go with my original idea of sentence gap fills on the board but none of them really made much sense even to an English person. I don’t know how I got through that one.

On Tuesday I went to work again although my cold had gotten a lot worse. I couldn’t wait for the day to finish and when it finally did I went home and went straight to bed. Ayae hadn’t moved from bed since I left for work, as she had the same cold (although by this time I had decided it must be flu). When I woke up on Wednesday I was meant to go to Osaka but felt absoloutely hideous. Ayae had already decided she wasn’t going to go anymore, and her brother came and picked her up from our apartment to take her back to her parents.

After she had gone I wrapped up as warm as I could and headed out to go to Osaka. Whilst this flu was certainly one of the worst things I had experienced in recent times I had decided nothing on Gods earth would stop me from probably my only chance to see Rage Against The Machine live. I arrived around 5 and checked into my hotel. Originally Ayae was going to be with me and she had chosen a hotel which was designed mainly for Japanese guests. However they were very happy to have a foreign guest and the little Japanese I spoke got buckets of appreciation which was nice.

After unpacking I checked the Lonely Planet book for good nearby restaurants, and it described the Doutombori area I was staying in as “Full of terrible restaurants”, although it did say there were a few that were less terrible. One of these was Chibo, an Okonomiyaki restaurant. Since this was an Osakan specialty I thought itd be a good place to check out. This was actually really really good Okonomiyaki and they made it on a big Teppanyaki grill in front of me which was cool.

After this I went home and after watching the Japan Thailand World cup qualifier, I got a bit bored so decided to go out and buy some Takoyaki, which were real Osakan specialties. These were being sold everywhere but I went to the first one I went to. The woman didn’t have any change for my large bill so I had to go get change. When I came back she was so happy to see me that she gave me an extra Takoyaki. Bargain.

When I woke up the next morning I met my friend Sam and we explored Osaka. We went to Amerika-Mura which is a shopping district full of garish American memorabilia, and also walked to the Osaka dome just because there wasn’t really anything else nearby. This proved to be a lot further than expected and we were absolutely knackered by the time we got back to the hotel.

After a short powernap, we went out to the gig. The venue was Osaka Jo Hall which is a big stadium in the grounds of the Osaka castle. There was loads of people hanging round outside, with quite a large gaijin turnout as well unsurprisingly.

After getting some food we headed in and to our surprise we were directed to the seating area. I said our tickets were standing but they assured me they were not, which was weird cos when Ayae bought the tickets she definitely selected standing. Anyway we were both pretty narked off by this and tried to blag our way into the standing area but to no avail. The standing area itself was the most bizarre Ive ever seen, every 3 or 4 rows of people there was a separate guard rail, to stop large groups moshing or whatever I guess. It reminded me of what gigs would be like if the Nazis won the war.

So the venue pretty much sucked, but I decided to not get too down about it and that it could still be really awesome. An hour after the doors opened with no support band or warning, a large black flag with a red star began to be raised behind the stage while the Cuban (or something similar) national anthem played, everyone went frickin nuts at this point and went even more when Rage took to the stage. After a short drum roll and guitar effects they Exploded into Testify, knocking me back with how loud it was. Even the seating area had everyone on their feet going mental.

Rage played an awesome set containing most of their best loved tracks including (from memory), “Calm Like a Bomb”, “Bulls on Parade”, “Sleep Now in this Fire”, “Down Rodeo”, “Guerilla Radio”, “War Within a Breath”, “People of the Sun”, “Vietnow”, “Bullet in the Head”, “Tire Me”, “Bombtrack”, and “Renegades of Funk”.

They closed their encore with “Killing in the Name Of”, which left me an awesome memory of 16,000 people screaming “FUCK YOU I WONT DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!!”. Unfortunately they didn’t play “Wake Up” and also neglected a couple of others, but it was still a really sweet gig. We were both pretty bumped out about the seating area tickets, but Rage are so good that they can even make that not so bad.

After the gig we headed back to the Doutombori area around our hotel to find a bar. Osaka and in particular Doutombori are famous for the massive selection of bars on offer. However after looking for a while could find nothing that wasn’t surrounded by Japanese men in suits. Places where you know you`re not welcome.

Eventually we stumbled across a Jazz/Blues bar called the TakoTako (Octopus) King. When we decided to go in all the staff inside the bar cheered loudly and had the biggest smiles on their faces. We got a table and a couple of drinks. Everytime a new customer came in they all cheered at the absolute top of their lungs and it was a small bar so they were always near you. There were 2 other tables and a bar with about 4 stools. It was mostly full, and had one of the best atmospheres of any bar Id ever been in. The staff were so friendly to everyone, and me and Sam had some really long conservations with them in Japanese about music, films and sport and stuff. In fact pretty much everyone in Osaka seems to be friendly at a level which is above and beyond what any reasonable person should be. I decided that night that its probably my favorite place in Japan.

After a few hours however the night took a bit of a turn for the worst for me. My flu had still been there all along and despite knowing this I foolishly decided to ignore it and drink. After I started feeling rough we left (after receiving a ridiculously massive hollering of course).

My flu felt like it had mutated into some hideous creature that had possessed me and was going to burst through my skin at any point. Luckily I managed to get to bed before that happened, although I did not get much sleep.

The next morning Sam had to waste the whole day as he was getting the night bus, so I stuck around and got lunch with him. We also went to the Osaka castle to see the actual castle, but as soon as I got a picture of it I decided to bail, as my illness got worse. Somehow I managed to get my way back to Nagoya get home and get to sleep. Ayae had been at her parents so the flat was still in the horrible mess I had left it in. When I got in I phoned my boss to ask for the day off. Surprisingly I was told that no one could cover for me so Id actually have to go in, in this obscene coughing spluttering feverish state although only for my adult classes. I got up early in the morning only to find that it was snowing unbelievably heavily. Of all the days to start snowing….

This meant I was really late and got into work about 30 seconds before my first lesson. My voice was literally almost nothing, it was hollow, a shell and I had to do 2 and a half hours of conversation classes. All my students were really sympathetic even when I had a really flemmy coughing fit in the middle of a sentence. In fact one of my students even offered to finish 15 minutes early for my sake, or maybe it was just because he felt really awkward…..?

Anyway eventually I got to go home although my bus was an hour late due to the snow which meant an hour of waiting in the snow. Then when it finally began moving it had to finish early as it couldn’t get up the snow covered hill which meant I had to walk the last part of the journey on foot in the snow.

This was definitely a low point I think and probably the worst single day since Ive been in Japan, given that everything happened on the same day. But after the Rage gig, it still was all worth it.

That’s all this week guys thanks for reading. Next week I plan to spend as much time as possible in bed trying to get over this bloody flu.

Peace out

Jack

P.S Heres a video of Rage in Concert doing Bulls on Parade. Sorry for the shaky work but I was trying to dance at the same time.