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...