Day of rest

Having an enormous hangover from yet another `quiet` night at the George, I tried to settle down to the Sex Offender`s complimentary copy of the Lord of the Rings, but the day seemed too nice to waste so I dragged myself into a passable state and took myself to Omiya park. It seems far more like a treed avenue with a small rock garden and water feature taking you towards the shrine, but I may be wrong. The shrine itself is quite small and in active service. It is nestled amongst more trees and you have to cross a small red bridge, leading over a pond alive with koi, to get to it. Today there was some kind of ceremony taking place and lots of young children in their kimonos (I tried to get one in the picture, but I wasn`t particularly successful) trotting around the gravel yard ahead of the shrine. I felt a small pang of disgust at my tourist self taking shots of the service on my phone whilst others were praying, but you have to throw in money to pray and I am skint (and not a Buddhist, though this is no barrier for the Japanese who heartily partake in any old festival), so I couldn`t join in.

I strolled back into central Omiya and found a strip of hairdressers to take my sorry barnet into. I will check at my Japanese lesson on Wednesday if `shorto` will work before venturing in. The contrast between the serenity and class of the shrine and the consumerist haven of the rest of Omiya was overwhelming. Particularly as this internet cafe is in the midst of hostess bars and strip clubs!

Steven (the Scottish one) called and has offered to take me to the cinema to see Sin City this evening. I am constantly on the scrounge and hope that next month I will be more sensible with my money and less shameless in my begging. Last night, I had to force Ken (a possible private student - we may exchange English for trips to the izakaya) and Eto to buy me drinks, although men here do seem more than content to pay for a girl`s company. The up side to a society that founded hostess bars. I will stay in for the rest of the week and try to avoid thinking about the down side. You do have to keep your hand on your ha`penny and Ken was most interested in practising his bar room compliments than any other phrases. He mastered `pretty` in minutes.

School report

I`m feeling more and more at home here. I should have celebrated my first month away, but the anniversary slipped by unnoticed. I always think it`s a good sign if you`re too distracted to clock-watch. Japan was such a good idea. I think it was made for me.

I may have seen Mount Fuji on my way to Kawagoe last week. It was certainly a mountain jutting into the sunset, but whether it was that mountain, I`m not sure. Hopefully my Lonely Planet will arrive soon and explain all. It was beautiful anyway. The sky was, for once, clear and the view an array of warm oranges fading into crisp blues. I managed to ignore the hotch-potch of apartments and office blocks, which looked like a shabby shanty town in the near-distance. You don`t get that on the 11.47 from Euston...

I started Japanese classes on Wednesday. I searched vainly for 20 minutes for the Sheno Building and had passed the S-ino Building, wondering whether it was one and the same, and was starting to pray for another eager Salaryman hoping to practise his English on me, when one appeared from a nook between office blocks and asked if I needed directions. Sadly, his were perfect, but my Japanese teacher`s weren`t so there was a prolonged debaucle of me leaving lifts on the 6th floor hoping to find her, ringing and being told she was also on the 6th floor of the south tower before she then explained it was actually another tower within that tower. I got there two minutes before the break and she had time to find out I spoke a smattering of Russian before pushing me towards a Russian girl in the class. She`s really nice, although I can`t remember her name (Anya, possibly?). It was particularly good as she didn`t understand when I asked her what her job was, so I had to translate her bad English into my bad Russian and she understood. By saying I was English and asking her if she worked I exhausted my knowledge of the language, but it seems I have a guinea pig to practice on. From our brief chat, she seems to have met her husband on the internet, which I hope to find out more about. The class is held in a conference centre designed for Home Ec and run by bored, rich housewives wanting to brag about their travels. At the end of the lesson I had to stand up and introduce myself, which seemed slightly harsh, although after a couple of Hardy`s complimentary vodkas in the George last night I was more than happy to repeat the performance.

Ryusuke, my problem student, seems to be enjoying the extra efforts I`ve put into lesson planning. He no longe visibly despairs, but when I asked if he liked English, he said `so so`. As close to a no as I could hope to get from a polite Japanese child.

My students update me on the bird flu epidemic striking Europe with considerable excitement, but the news here is very Asian-centric (obviously). I watch it on my bilingual TV with a stunted American voiceover. It is very amusing, but I am growing bored of Koizumi`s `dashing` hairstyle.

Keisuke, one of my weirder students, is becoming increasingly so as he grows more relaxed in my presence. This week, we avoided using the book by discussing whether art and literature should have a meaning or lesson in it, the differences between moths and butterflies (he eagerly copied my drawings off the board, though I`ve yet to see him do that with model sentences) and whether Jesus Christ existed, at all or as a carpenter, and whether he might have murdered a rich man`s daughter for her cruelty and attempts to tempt him. After his dialogues loosely inspired by Planet of the Apes (here called Monkey World), about brain transplants and intergalactic guided tours, I can only wonder where next week`s lesson will take us. I will set him Kurt Vonnegut as a reader so I can manage the conversations more easily.

The receptionist at this school (Ageo) laughed as last week my discussions with Keisuke meant we missed the train and our conversation was stilted and uncomfortable for the whole journey home (I think she invented a bread purchase to escape) and this week I packed up with incredibly efficiency, writing up my notes and booting him out of the door on the dot, meaning we had time to nonchalantly saunter to the station. On the journey home she suggested we visit an izukaya after pay day, which I am so looking forward to. It is the izukaya that has made me fall in love with this country.

Thursday night, I went to the George (again, I know - next month I intend to go native) for Sarah`s leaving do, although Sarah never arrived. I took myself in with shame and trepidation, and was greeted, while peering in to see if anyone was there, by a Japanese man I vaguely recognised. I didn`t know if he was just gaijin-crazy so looked confused - a bad move. He had spent most of Saturday night helping his friend Ken through an impromptu English lesson and buying me drinks. As soon as I realised my mistake, I apologised, but Yoshi is painfully shy at the best of times. I will have to make an effort this evening to rectify my mistake. I only had ￥600 and George mocked my studentness, as I nursed my lime and sofa, but Ken arrived and took a shine to me, buying me a gin and tonic, before slyly sending a tequila my way. It was almost a double and I had to drink it to avoid offending him. Why is it more polite to foist an awful drink on a girl that for the girl to say no? This place is ridiculous. Fortunately, Ken`s efforts to get me drunk didn`t on me as well as they did himself. The Japanese, while they approach drinking with gusto, just can`t keep up. We played darts, again, and Erico popped in after work to say hello. She is clearly George`s first love and it`s no wonder. I may be second, so will try to meet her elsewhere from now on.

Yesterday I made myself some instant seaweed and clam soup: it tastes of rockpools and listened to `Funky Friday` on the radio. In the evening Karen came round to finish off the last of our winnings and I received my first cockroach as a visitor. Fortunately, she was there to deal with it (somewhat excitedly, I must say). She prefers then to spiders, she says, as they don`t jump on your face. A settling thought before bedtime.

Today I had to pop into the office and hoped to meet my new colleague, Dan the Sex Offender`s replacement. Sadly, Stephen was a no-show, so I will have an array of colleagues on cover until a new one does. I did meet Rebecca, a new teacher who taught in England of the summer, but is experiencing her first time abroad too. She seems sweet and was beaming at meeting her first female teacher. Now Sarah has left, there are only around four of us in Omiya. She seems very nice though, and I am sure me and Karen will be more than up to the challenge of giving her a girl`s eye view of Omiya.

I found my thrills on Love Hotel Hill...

I wasn`t going to mention this sort of thing on here (seems a bit indecent and all), but recounting the story to a friend I realised it`s a quintessential Japanese experience that I just have to share with you. So, Roppongi Hills 0.2: The Love Hotel.

It was an hilarious evening. Myself and John, a fellow gaijin friend of a friend on holiday from Highgate, left Yellow, the seedy club we`d been in most of the night (stealing champagne and buying beers from vending machines), and headed back to Shibuya, home of the feted Love Hotel Hill, picking up a drunken, hungry Sarah on the way, dropping her off `just anywhere, as long as it does food`. We spent an unfathomable amount of time running around the streets with John asking people if they knew where one was, and me squirming with embarrassment and trying to get him to realise that, though it`s a big thing in Tokyo, you can`t just walk up to an old lady in the street and shout `love hotel?`. We had just reached the point when it almost wasn`t worth trying any more (I had, at least) when we finally found a couple of young Japanese guys prepared to tell us that we were surrounded - we were chasing around central Love Hotel Hill, a district packed with these sordid establishments. The blokes kept saying `ah, lovely couple` over and over, while I stood growing redder and redder and hoping John would hurry up and shut up.

We then found they were generally all full, which amused me to think of all those rutting Japanese (or, more likely, gaijin), but we managed to find one eventually. John had an overly long and awkward conversation with the woman working there and, quite nastily, she had to clear out the room from the previous occupants before we could go in. In the meantime, she sat us behind and small curtain to wait and do whatever we needed to do while it was cleaned, only the small curtain reached our knees and we had to sit on two hard-backed chairs separated by a table full of magazines (I didn`t want to check the content, although the room had a stack of Manga comics, should anyone get bored). The room itself was possibly the best hotel room I`ve been in and far from seedy - I am tempted to go back alone for a decent night`s sleep: very plush; with a jet spa bath; an enormous TV (showing, of course, karaoke shows, endurance programmes and bored-looking girls feigning excitement in uber-degrading porn - had to check...); an amazingly soft bed; and, just what you`d need, a Sega Megadrive. You have to pay until either 10am or 4pm, although it`s the same price, you just wake up in semi-darkness if you go for the earlier option and oversleep.

So, within two weeks of being in Japan, I got myself into a love hotel, several izukayas, seen some temples and been in a couple of Japanese homes. Fairly good going, I like to think.

Teaching is still going well, although I am going to have to brush up on my grammar as the adult classes become slightly more challenging and they feel more confident asking harder questions. The kids are starting to feel far more at ease with me now, which isn`t always a good thing. The climb under the table and openly mock me, although I try to be `genki` enough to win them back into behaving themselves and have scared one or two small boys with my sternness. Yesterday, I spent almost an entire lesson wearing Chihiro`s green frog hood, although I was quite scared that Martin, the other teacher, would peek through the door and catch me. Chihiro loved it though, as did the others to a lesser degree (it was her hood). The lesson was on adjectives and the initially started by saying sensai was pretty, but soon felt comfortable enough laughing and saying I was big, fat and old. I took it on the chin as a concept check and accused the ring-leader, Marina, of being ugly.

You have to lose all sense of self-consciousness to do this job, which I haven`t yet achieved. After class, Chihiro and the others hung around outside the school and pointed and laughed as I had to dance and sing `Hello` with a young boy called Takumasa. He is incredibly cute and not quite sure of what to do, so I just have to get on and show him, jeers or not. He has almost grasped how to say my name. The others tend to just use sensai (which I quite like, but am not allowed to permit), or sow-eee. Zoe is quite difficult for them, the idiots.

I had my telling off from my boss. It wasn`t anything like the earthshattering blast I was expecting, just a `don`t do it again, mate`. Karen was amused that he literally said `mate`, but obviously the darts played off. He won`t be doing my next observation, which I am pleased and disappointed about. I like Matt DoS and I think he knows this. Being possibly the only teacher in Omiya district of this opinion goes in my favour - so far...

My plan to forcibly befriend my cool young advanced student has been hampered slightly by his impending trip to Osaka and Kyoto. I`m here a while yet, so maybe next time, and there`a always tomorrow`s trip to the ice cream parlour to keep me going. Would he really have enjoyed the Scottish Highland Games, I wonder..?

Class act

Last night I got myself in George the Publican`s bed. Being a gentleman, he was on a mattress in the living room. It`s another nice apartment. I may be tempted to look into getting myself a place of my own once I learn to control my spending. I am currently embracing the rabid consumerism of Japan with an ardent fervour I never believed myself capable of.

Teaching is going OK, although I was late for the second Saturday running and so my ADoS called to warn me I was in for a telling off from the DoS. I don`t think flukily beating him at darts in the George last night has helped my cause, nor did yelping with glee when Tottenham scored against his team last night. Oh well. I`ll just have to take it on the chin and use my insomnia to get me to school on time (I seriously could have been there yesterday, I woke up at 5am and was dancing around my apartment thinking I needed to get there for 10.30, when that was actually the time the lesson started and I had to do my prep while I had my girls drilling their names and ages with a beachball!

Here is a picture of one of my classes. I would tell you their names, but I don`t really remember there. There`s a Minaka, I think (the girl next to the boys, she`s already getting into the swing of things) and the girl on the end is Saki. She`s incredibly shy, but adorable. There might be a Ryosuke in there and a Mako or two. I teach lots of Makos.

Today Karen and I are going to Kawagoe to see Steven`s apartment and maybe see some temples. I don`t feel I`ve done much culturally yet, which blunts the feeling of being away from home. I don`t really feel like I live in Japan, particularly as I spend way too much time in the gaijin pub, which is shameful, but I have my small crush on George and his music is amazing. I also managed to get slaughtered last night, even though the money had run out.

The beautiful thing about the Japanese is that they take a kamikaze approach to drinking (much like myself), but can`t handle it. So last night they were stacking up shots, then unable to finish them, so passing them to the dustbin to deal with. I ended up quite a mess, but would have been more embarrassing than it was (being led to George`s by the hand as I couldn`t be trusted to find my own way home, then passing out and probably keeping him awake all night snoring - the walls are far too thin here and it makes me shudder to just think about it!) had I not met a sweet, drunk girl called Erico who was challenging George to drink tequila, then threw up and passed out in the toilet. She`s my first real Japanese friend. I can see us having lots of fun together. I must call her today to check she`s still alive.

Wednesday I have a date with an American called Uriah. I don`t fancy him at all, so we`ll have to deal with that on the day, but I like the idea of being taken out for ice cream and he`s going to show me around some decent clubs.

It`s raining yen

I made a serious fauz pas at one of my welcome parties: referring to the Sex Offender as a sex pest. Apparently, he`s generally well liked, although the ADoS did admit that, as a man, he was an unlikely target for the Sex Offender`s unwelcome advances. The party was quite nice, in an odd little bar in Ageo which played soul and hip hop called Kiyoe. It was empty aside from our group, but was pasted with posters, photos of the owner and various celebrities and other soul and hip hop memorabilia and hosted by an ageing Japanese Rasta. I befriended an American Junior High School Teacher called Uriah, who has offered to show me Tokyo and Saitama`s hip hop scene.

I picked up the Sex Offender`s TV on Tuesday and he put on an hilariously pathetic show of machismo in trying to lug the thing from his apartment to mine. He refused to let me order a cab, initially claiming to not know how to order one, then saying we wouldn`t need one when I acquired a taxi number. After changing with his sliding doors left slightly ajar so I could see his short, podgy body pushed into fashionless jeans, his tubby physique took 30 seconds carrying it before he had to admit defeat and I had to flag down a taxi. He then took charge again and claimed his three years would get us to my flat, before he repeated, loudly and slowly, `Straight. On.` The man is a joke. However, he did have a very nice TV and now I do.

I was wrong about the rainy season, the weather is fine again, although still notably cooler. It does seem to be tremor season, with 5 or so since Friday, although I missed two apparently very big ones in the midst of Omiya station. One was 4 on the Richter Scale, but quite passed me by. Now I`ve finished dragging myself through that chore of a book Melvyn Bragg inflicted on the world, I am devouring Obasan, by a Canadian Japanese author. I blame her for my inattentiveness.

My advance is burning a hole in my pocket and I`ve spent my day off trying to restrain myself in chemists and supermarkets. They hold a magnetic power over me. The possibilities for discovery are endless, although so is the threat of poison as I haven`t sorted out any Japanese lessons yet. The chemists in particular are exciting. They shun the linear order of Boots and the like, instead offering a shambolic Aladdin`s cave of cosmetics and products. The also stock washing powder and bleach, so I do have to be quite careful.

My kids are starting to get a bit bored of me. I am no longer a novelty, but a bore to be ignored and talked over. One of my students is transferring to a different school, which is upsetting, he`s my absolute favourite. I will miss Sora, even though he`s become an absolute terror since he`s got used to me. I guess I just don`t have the genki appeal of Raju, my predecessor. Thursday is my worst day as it`s the last day of the week. It is an uphill struggle trying to engage my brain, let alone eight disruptive kids. To make up for Sora`s absence, I will still have Kota and Rei. Rei is my biggest fan and Kota incredibly cute, but very naughty. Rei keeps him and the others in line by punching anyone daring disobedience, then looking at me adoringly, which I unfortunately always have to quash by telling him off!

Today I sorted out my bank account. I am expecting a bank card with the character of Saitama on it:Koboto (I think!), a lilac duck. Nothing in Japan is grown up.

Shaking all over

Rainy season has started, it`s already noticeably cooler in three weeks. When I arrived, Saitama`s weather rivalled the best of British summers and I found myself yearning to get into a bikini when I should have been concentrating on my training (although I still think this was a token gesture to get us out of our jetlag and into a routine - my memory of that week is similar to that of my leaving do, virtually non-existant). It rains perpetually, which explains why umbrellas are available at a throwaway ￥5oo. There`s still a more bearable humidity, but the sky has shifted from uplifting bright blues to an overcast nothingness. I await December, when I am told I will be able to see Mount Fuji clearly from the platform of Shin-Sharaoka, home of one of my worst schools and possibly just a lie to get me through the first couple of months.

I await the typhoons which will soon be upon us, but can already tick earthquakes off my Japanese experiences list. Friday night I was lying in bed and felt rattled by a speeding freight train, only after 2o or so seconds of rocking did I realise it was not a train (I`m five minutes from the tracks, so it would have had to have been a very big, very fast one!), but a tremor. It was an odd sensation, I could feel gravity pulling me to either side. Fortunately, it was a very small one. Sunday, I went to Koshigaya to watch a Shane five-a-side game (laughably ruined by a local kid I encouraged onto one of the teams who scored an own golden goal within 30 seconds of extra time) and experienced a slightly bigger tremor. This time the quake was clearly visible, puddles rippled and splashed and trees and posts swayed. It was quite an enjoyable way to experience it though - being outside and in the company of others felt far safer than being tucked up in my futon, under a heavy air conditioning unit. I have since moved my mattress, although that is more to do with the draft than sense and safety.

School is going well, although it really isn`t like the CELTA. After having it drummed into me that I should always set the tape counter to make it easier to rewind during lessons, Shane have just not bothered buying tape players with counters, so a considerable part of my efforts are spent trying to disguise locating the next transcript. It is generally easier, although today I have my first observation and it`s with a group of young kids, so I should theoretically be leaping about. I am not sure I am quite capable of doing that with an adult audience just yet...

I have been given a dairy from one of my afternoon ladies, Yukiko, which she wants me to check in English. It feels like prying, but is quite amusing (aside from several months referring to a bicycle accident and wound that would not heal). It refers to her previous teacher mentioning when he met me and also the class not wanting him to leave them - he is just transferring schools, so the students (jokingly, I hope!) considered switching days to stay with him - he`s been here for seven years, so I guess it`s reasonable for them to be so attached. The class were apparently very nervous about meeting me, which isn`t surprising given some of the humourless losers they could have landed, but were pleasantly taken with the `tall and smart` lady who `seemed as if she was a fairy` to them! I felt quite bad correcting that sentence...

I picked up my gaijin card and now have a fantastic new phone - it`s enormous, but has a 1.92 pixel camera and does all sorts of magic that I have no idea about yet. I am still playing and discovering. On Friday I have to tackle the bank to set up an account. I may suggest Karen and I do this together so we can mime it out together somehow. Getting the phone wasn`t easy and I had to have someone who looked like a security guard translate, which took some doing - I asked if anyone spoke English and was just told no, so had to mime `does anyone else` for a few minutes before he arrived. I still wonder if it was the success of my gestures or their urge to get rid of the weird gaijin that led to them getting him for me. Either way, it was better than Karen, who had to converse through a superior model phone with a Japanese-English translater on it.

Saturday I had a Make Up lesson with a bear cub, so I had two three years old to play with. Maica was beautiful and I hope her mother thinks I`m such a good teacher that I get her again and again. She was so adorable. Hijiri, who I normally have at that time, is also very cute, but just not quite as cute! She charges around and leaps on things and has really taken to the Slap game! Maica did cry when she slipped on the play mate, but then picked herself up and threw herself at the walls just as hard as before, yelping with glee. I had never imagined a politics degree would lead to me singing `Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes` for a living.

I am coming to terms with Japanese `recycling`. Everything has a particular bin and all bins need to be emptied on a particular day. This is facistically enforced, which was initially quite warming, but the categories rubbish needs to be sorted into are burnable and unburnable... I occasionally slip something burnable into the unburnable and hope that I don`t contaminate the landfill site.

It`s election time and on Sunday I was awoken at 7.55 by a candidate electioneering. They drive around with megaphones begging for votes. I don`t care who he is, he is not having mine. He did get me up and give me plenty of time to see Steve and the Koshigaya teachers playing five-a-side, although I was apparently also supposed to play. I couldn`t, alas, as my PE kit is sailing over the ocean. I will definitely play next time, and not wear perishable shoes... On the way back, rather heading back to my empty box, I popped into the George for a lime and soda. The richest man in Omiya was celebrating a family birthday there and his wife came to the bar to get drinks and pointed me out to George, telling him I was `very beautiful`. He politely agreed, so she suggested marriage. Match-making is a national pasttime. My afternoon ladies all want me to date their unpaired sons and every student I have is obsessed with my marital status. Drilling `single` is becoming quite pitiful.

Last night Karen and I entered the George quiz and, although it was a fairly disappointing turnout (four teams), we won! A crate of beer for ￥500, bargainous!　It was a logistical struggle getting it from the George, through Omiya station and home, but we managed somehow, often egged on by drunken Salarymen.

Radies what runch

Today I`m in one of the internet cafes executive porn booths. The extra cool air conditioning and low-slung soft leathered seat are perfect for many things, but typing isn`t included. There is rhythmic moaning coming from the booth next door, but I am telling myself that it is just an exhausted Salaryman catching up on some sleep - they`ll do it anywhere and here is better than the floor of Omiya station.

I`ve just come from lunch with one of my classes, or the Menopause Sisters, as they have wackily titled themselves. It was an amazing feast. Although I`d invited myself into Hirako`s home, we first went to an old style izukaya where we got our own booth (the politeness of the Japanese does not stop them from moaning to get the waitress to close the shutters then still insisting on another booth) with a small pit under the table for your feet, so you are still sat at a table in the English way, but much lower down. I may have a very weak sense of humour, but that tickled me whenever the waitress came in and crouched down to take or deliver our order.

My hostesses checked that I ate everything (I made a terrible faux pas, again, by saying everything but tofu and miso, when Hirako had painstakingly - perhaps - prepared it as a special Japanese treat for when we went on to her place later. I don`t even mind it, it just seems pointless drinking dish water when there are better things to put in your mouth) and ordered plate after plate after plate. Sachiki asked if I`d eat horse sashimi and I revealed myself to be a cannibal before she revealed herself as a joker.

The vastness of the feast was astounding. First we had sashimi, which never fails to be meltingly soft and so tasty, then various other Japanese specialities that I can`t even remember. We got through tempura, then had to make way for sausages and I had to restrain myself when asked if we had weeners in England. After those came a plate of something between omelette and pizza which was lovely, but I still don`t know the name of. Then came around seven kinds of yakitori and I had a brief moment to pause for breath to answer questions on whether I had left a boyfriend in England and how I feel about Japanese men. Then (you should have been there!) came out bigger platefuls, we even had pizza and wedges, followed by soba noodles and finally two enormous dishes of sushi which we just couldn`t finish (thankfully, if I`d tried, more plates would have been ordered) and I was given those as takeout. Only once did the meal falter, at the reprisal of the Menopause Sisters gag as I was shovelling soba into my mouth. It took my back to my old market research days when I`d have to listen to withered old hags drone on about IBS and dream of a job with the young uns in McDonalds.

I was then ushered back into Sachiko`s car and given a further tour of the area and driven to Hirako`s villa. It looked quite shabby from outside and her protestations that it wasn`t very big or clean seemed real until she opened the door. The misleadingly small and grubby exterior masked an enormous, palatial home. The wooden floors shone with fresh wax and she had a room the size of my entire apartment for almost every purpose. Unfortunately, as I knew I would have to take my shoes off when going into her home, and also perhaps the restaurant, I had carefully considered my footwear, but not well enough; now poor Hirako has enormous footprints all through her polished house.

Hirako was in her element and took us all on a tour of her house, which was amazing, but also showed that the others hadn`t even been there before and they have known each other for almost a year. During the feast, I had tried to apologise if it had been impolite of me to invite myself to her house, but she was pleased I had as they wanted me to go, but were too shy to ask. This is the Japanese way, so it is occasionally handy to have a blundering Western idiot break the ice.

The house was a bizarre blend of class and kitsch, from the classic minimalism of her decor to the Hello Kitty slippers in the toilet. Every wooden floor had a sheen of glass, the living room was quite small and turned into a bedroom at night when the screens were pulled, holing Hirako and her husband up in a little den with the biggest flat screen TV I have ever seen. Her conservatory was the size of my apartment and there was a piano in the area between the two. Her kitchen was in a hallway to the side and ran further than the length of my 1LDK (living room/dining room/kitchen). Actually, mine is a DK as I have no living room aside from where I sit when I pack up my bed. It would have been stunning and very elegant, if it weren`t for the bucketloads of cuddly toys cluttering up every surface. I was told last night by the gaijin landlord, George, that Disney denotes mafia connections, so I won`t be marking Hirako`s homework too harshly.

We were seated around a low table and Hirako waited on us, challenging Sachiko and Takako to name some Japanese specialities that I hadn`t tried in the restuarant. Unfortunately, almost everything that wasn`t available in the restaurant was vile. I was given natto, a nasty bean dish that smells repugnant and has slime hanging off each morsel making it more like larvae than food. Then came the pickled apricots, which weren`t so bad, but vinegared fruit shouldn`t be forced on guests. Out of politeness I said I preferred the pickles to the natto, and so more pickles were brought out, this time small, sweetly pickled onions not dissimilar to silverskins, which made it feeling quite festive. I was then offered une, sea urchin eggs, which I thought I should try just once at least. It was a salty paste that tasted of the sea and, though not the most offensive thing I`d been forced to eat today, I had finished my tea and was left with that taste for a good hour and Takako`s sympathetic face whenever I had to eat something made me question their motivations. I also had two types of nori (seaweed): Japanese and Korean. I was told it was healthy (as is the natto - a diet food, but only because it is a bulimic aid), but my idea of health does not involve frying and matching the weight of food with salt. Japanese nori is slightly better as it just tastes a bit like une. I was finally given cherry blossom tea and a sweet potato and red bean cake, which sucked any saliva out of my mouth and left me faint and panting to come home. A bell chimed, I was ushered into the bathroom and then into Sachiko`s car, more full than I`ve ever been before.

It was exhausting.　They have basically managed to get me to give them a four and a half hour free conversation lesson for the price of a meal. I had to tell them what I thought about salarymen, whether gaijin is an offensive term and planned my mum`s pending visit. They want to meet her and also are plotting ways of getting me to give more free lessons, like taking me to the antiques market in Kawagoe. I am more than happy to go and have them explain the temples to me, but I am going to have to barter to make sure these don`t happen too regularly. I am quite tempted to accept Hirako`s offer to befriend her belly-dancing daughter as she has studied in America and is my age. She and Takako also want me to meet their single sons, so I may invent a boyfriend soon.

I think I will base him on George, the landlord, as I do have a small crush on him anyway. He has Trans-Siberianed and also been to RADA and is most definitely the best-looking gaijin in Omiya, although I was forced to admit this to him when I was describing my boss as the second most good-looking to Karen and she asked who was the first.　George was listening and said `me` and I had to agree. He also lets me use his CD player as my personal jukebox and even played Crowded House without my having to request it last night. He tried to avoid Like A Prayed but Karen and I bullied a salaryman into requesting it too, so it had to go on. I also got to pour my very first pint last night, for myself as George was busy, so you could say I`ve established my local fairly quickly - I didn`t actually have one in England, so am a bit ashamed of the ex-Patness of it all, but not enough to stop.

Japtastic national holiday

Japan is ace! This weekend I made it out to Shibuya and Roppongi Hills in central Tokyo and my horizons were broadened in terms of finding decent friends. 95% of the people in Shibuya look amazing. The rest are fat Americans wearing baseball caps and ill-fitting shorts with matching bum-bags.

I went out with Steven and Karen Saturday and met up with some of Steven`s friends. We went to an izukaya in Shibuya which told us it was kicking out at midnight. At 12.03 we were shuffling out of our slippers and into our outdoor shoes, heading to Roppongi for some more excitement. We went to a bar that played hip hop and was packed with sturdy Americans dancing badly and natives trying to catch the eye of female gaijin. I felt like Miss Wickhambrook in there.

We then went to a club, although I had carelessly forgotten to take my passport out with me, so without ID we got refused. The boys I was with were kind enough to pretend it was a dress code issue, but once drunk, let slip that it was entirely my fault. Inside we bumped into some of the better Shane teachers; Sarah and Pamela and met more gaijin-crazy Japs. I also met an ex-Shane teacher who was sacked for persistent lateness and now works for the Japan Times. Apparently, they will employ anybody, so I am to give him a call once I am more settled and have the energy to pitch ideas (not yet - my head is racing, so I`ve had a total of seven minutes sleep since I`ve arrived - I expect to pass out in class some time this week).

Sunday Rachel came to visit. As her sports day interfered with our plans, I just took her to the local English pub to meet the wonky freaks I work with. Sadly, due to a Shane event, most of the teachers out were all very `genki` and she ended up being jealous of my colleagues. Fortunately, the sex offender was on hand to demonstrate the worst element of my job. Rachel tried to rescue a young Japanese woman from his grasp, but she stupidly ran straight back to him, before her mate finally got her out of the door. We stayed too late drinking with George the landlord (he`s commissioned a portrait of himself in royal garb and full ermin to match the pub`s moniker: the King George) and singing the Smiths. I harassed a Nova teacher and his far-too attractive girlfriend couldn`t stop hugging me and Rachel for being mouthy to boys.

This weekend was a small national holiday, so I got Monday off and we went to Asakusa to get some temples and history and make amends for spending the previous evening in the ex-pats pub. We saw possibly the best-looking man in Japan on the train and squealed about whether he was famous as he ought to be. We then realised, as he and his girlfriend laughed as they got off the train, that they understood English.

Two minutes out of the station we walked into a packed bazaar and had to contend with bouncing off badly dressed tourists (Japan is such an uncool destination!) and quickly ducked out onto an open street. I misread a map (north and south are the wrong way round here so everything is, to me, upside-down) and took us on a tour of the business district before we found the temples 20 paces from where we`d left the bazaar. It was twilight and far less busy, so much more enjoyable as a result. We got massively over-excited at seeing three `good-looking` gaijin in close capacity before heading to an izukaya and having to point at the plastic food in the window to order. Waiting on the train platform to head home, seeing the high-rises cutting into the crepuscular sky made it dawn on us how surreal being there together was. Then we ate crisps and chocolate and pointed at sleeping salarymen on the train.

Now sat in the internet cafe before work. Just seen a salaryman heading for a private booth. It`s all very dodgy. This particular one is in the seedy area of Omiya - there are lots of hostess bars (which I, somewhat naively, thought were strip clubs) and love hotels. You can pay about GBP15 to spend a few hours with your beloved before they have to head off to their parents` house. Rooms even offer games consoles apparently...

Would you like fish stock with that?

I`m settling into my apartment and it`s a shower curtain away from being a proper home. It`s small, but I`ve just spent two years in a box in Streatham, so it`s an upgrade for me.

Teaching is going really well and, although I may not be doing it perfectly, the job is so much easier than the CELTA! I`ve now had two taiken lessons, so that`s a whole fiver rolling in at the end of the month. The ramen are on me! One of my afternoon classes of housewives brought me some fabulous coffee buns yesterday and another `famous` Hokkaido white chocolate, which I am saving (the cakes didn`t stand a chance...). I then had another group of housewives who were much livier and cheekier (one reminded me a lot of my Auntie Poppy). They were elementary level and they were trying to stutter out an invitation to lunch when I, trying to find a suitable time to go, inadvertantly switched it from the supermarket restuarant to her house. Quite rude of me, perhaps, but I`m really looking forward to home made Japanese food. I think I`ll get another invite as another of the class wants me to go to her house for conversation lessons (not that I am allowed, of course).

I`m missing intelligent and enjoyable conversation considerably at the moment. The Japanese are lovely, but the other teachers can be freakish. One vile dumpy sex offender type made a pass at me on Wednesday and tried to tell me he was a playa (although Karen and I doubt he has ever had sex for free). The experienced teachers are finding my pining quite odd as they are used to just getting on with the natives and it really is the only thing to be done. On Monday, I am going to miss my fashion design student, but the following week will try to trick him into taking me out somewhere. Apparently the thing to do is just invite yourself, which I`ve already been practicing.

I`ve been listening to Japanese radio stations to get used to the language, but I just phase out until Brownstone and R Kelly come on. Fortunately, as it`s Japanese, you miss the Chris Moylesness and just have some background noise. Should be buying the sex offender`s TV soon, which will help. It`s biligual, so I can watch the news: huzzah! I`m also missing Monster Box and watching karaoke contestents get drenched. Chris Tarrant would wet himself.

Today is my day off after quite a long week. I`m generally relaxing and shopping like crazy. The 100 yen stores are to die for! I`m also off to the supermarket to stock up on gaijin (alien) food. As much as I love Noodle Noodle in London, the ever-present fish stock clings to your tongue. I am in need of a new and interesting taste, like pasta...

Biruson-san is visiting on Sunday, so hopefully we`ll get to see some temples or Tokyo proper. Either that or raid the alcohol and cigarette vending machines and find an Asian gutter to fall into.

Sorry for anyone who has posted a message (Matt!). I can`t reply on the comments bit. It`s all in Japanese and as I can`t even say "I`d like a beer" yet; understanding e-instructions is years off.

Saitama sights

I can`t remember where I left off, but I`ve now spent two days as a teacher. It`s brilliant and quite easy, even though the previous teacher has not helped by providing me with completely inaccurate notes. I`ve been shoddily prepared for each of my lessons only to find that the work he has said they should cover has already been done. I initially thought this was my gormlessness, but no, it was his. Quite a shock, probably the biggest Japan has had to offer so far.

Teaching is great though. I just play games with children all day and chat about home with the adults. I`ve got a 22 year-old fashion designer who has spent time in London who wants me to turn to him should I have any `stressed or problems` as he feels he can help. He also offered to find me an internet cafe, but I`ve had to rely on one of the creepy veteran teachers (and possible sex offender) instead. He is just about tolerable, which is good as I have to work with him twice a week, but amazingly dull and also quite stupid. For someone to spend three years in Japan and not grasp the difference between sashimi and sushi is special. He is also very creepy and to have to have dinner with him as a gesture to thank him for showing me and Karen where the internet cafe was seems beyond the call of duty. I also think I would get him registered on Japan`s List 99, if only it had one.

Japan is entertaining, none of the girls can walk in their heels and there are men with brightly coloured hair trying to pass it off as natural. I`m out of my hotel now and into my apartment. It`s like an oriental halls of residence, small, but functional (drains excluded) and I do seem to have two of the better people of Omiya in my block. Being welcomed by the Arsenal kit on someone`s washing line was reassuring.

After moving in, I took a walk around Omiya. There was so much more to it than the seedy hostess area we`d spent most of our time in up until now, although I`d mistaken them for strip joints and laughed at strippers in ballgowns. Oh、foolish gaijin! Omiya has expanded about seventeen times just by me walking out the other side of the station. It`s real and vast and has more in common with Nshi Tokyo than the eastern side: massive buildings, intricate walkways and huge splashes of neon. I live in Maison de Mone, near Lautrec Cafe, so have convinced myself I am in the French Quarter. There is also a tricolour drapped from my building, which has cemented the idea for me.

Sunday night our Directors of Studies took us to an izukaya where we had Japanese chicken in a basket, potato wedges and some random Japanese dishes (the squid, for once, was poor). I should have guessed I would have to take my shoes off and sit on the floor, but didn`t and so revealed to the whole new teaching contingent, and some veterans, that I had a whole in my tights. I like to imagine the short skirt revealed nothing. I failed to convince Steve and Henry to pitch in for a third jug and they sensibly headed for their train and I managed to make it in for my first day at work.

Teaching is an incredibly buzz. My first student was a dentist. He was quite a low level and was somewhat annoyed with me for not introducing myself as a complete beginner until the end of the lesson as he would have behaved differently, apparently. Hopefully next time he will make it up to me - or whenever I next need a check-up on the cheap. I then had some brilliant kids classes. We`d been told they definitely would cry when they saw the weird need foreign teacher, but mine seemed overjoyed at the novelty (something I probably owe to the previous teacher for being quite rubbish: I never imagined hopping around a classroom would be something I`d excel at, but it seems I`m quite a dab hand). My main problem with the children is restraining myself from scoping them up or stroking their heads! I`d been told one particular boy was hellish and he was a gem and kept the others in order for me, so really wanted to grab him! Another boy told the receptionist I was beautiful when she was checking up how his lesson had gone! It`s all quite overwhelming and the tiredness of my second day nearly made me tearful when I heard that.

My first day was an amazing start and I feel incredibly privileged that it went so well. I don`t know if I`d last if it hadn`t gone so well (the people, in general, are wonky leonards here to exploit the Japanese girls` enthusiasm for Western men in any form). The kids were amazing, I managed to earn myself $2.50 by being tricked into a taiken lesson (a demonstration lesson) with an incredibly endearing young boy who signed up afterwards and I had an advanced student come in without a book and had to take a 30 minute free conversation lesson with him, which we`d been told we should never do, but fortunately, he`d lived in Elephant and Castle so we discussed the general merits of south London (that didn`t take 30 minutes) and he offered me a shoulder to cry on should I have `stresses or worries` as he felt he would be able to understand. He wants to be a fashion designer so I intend to forcibly befriend him.

Marmite for breakfast is keeping me sane, although it is less of a treat now I know I bought it in the Harvey Nichols of Omiya and it won`t generally cost that much. I might still shop there though. I`ve developed a phobia of cockroaches and don`t sleep until every plughole has been blocked as Steve was greeted by a scurrying mass and an unclean stench when he opened the door to his apartment. This aside, he still says the guy who left him that mess is OK. Men are so undiscerning.

My apartment is near an English-speaking hospital, which I hope won`t be useful and has Gotham-esque beams shooting up from a pachinko kingdom (amusement arcade for those more familiar with Great Yarmouth) marking it out in the city.

Last night Karen and I got pulled over by the fuzz for our gaijin cards. I didn`t have mine or my passport on me, a fineable offence, but the confusion of trying to explain what I`d have to pay and watching me mime that I`d forgotten it meant we got let out without so much as a warning (at least that`s what I think happened). It felt like a warning though - we were taken into a room that had padded walls patched up with masking tape and looked like it had seen more than enough cavity searches.

I`d better go now. It`s midnight and I`ve a long way to go home. It`s generally quite safe here, but I`m knackered and have to be up at 11 to teach...