Kurisumasu Ebe

I'm sat in Rachel's living room, watching Japanese daytime TV and lounging around in my pyjamas. A blissful rest after a tiring journey. It was a fairly pleasant one, with the train ride to the coach station eased by the entertaining slogans emblazoned on fellow passengers. One sensibly, yet cool-looking boy turned his head to reveal his trucker cap's full slogan; under a picture of Hitler, were the words 'The Door For Next'. Its intended meaning is infathomable. In spite of being told I would need an hour to find the coach at Tokyo station, I walked straight to it so sat on the floor and waited. It's not such a povvy thing to do here, although I didn't see many ladies joining in, mainly students and drunks. Salarymen often lay themselves down in stations and sleep - they are generally slaughtered after some work drinking party or other, but no one even glances at this, it's so common (except, of course, me who finds it enthralling). I did queue for a couple of minutes in the wrong Osaka coach queue, but it was no problem getting into the right one when this was pointed out to me. As I was handing in my ticket, the helpful man gave an extensive explanation about something in Japanese, though the only English he could offer was 'snow'. I had guessed we might be delayed because of the weather - it is much colder here than it is where I live and traffic delays due to snow had been all over the news. It didn't take us much longer than I had expected - nine and a half hours instead of eight and a half, so not too bad, especially as I had thought it would take nine hours anyway.

The coach was fairly luxurious - three independent seats in a row, which fully reclined and had a pocket for books, etc, and another for your drink. As I had the middle seat, I also got twice as much luggage space, something to remember for next time. Unfortunately, as the weather was expected to be bad, the heating had been set to counter this, as had my wardrobe, and I had to near-strip to contend with the sweltering heat. It was impossibly hot - I was sweating in a t-shirt, denim skirt and tights and considering how my neighbours would react if I whipped off my tights then and there until I eventually passed out from heat stroke. That and the incessant and loud snores from sleeping salarymen meant I didn't spend the most restful night, but I slept far more than I expected to and am now enjoying the luxury of lazing in Rachel's flat, she having gone to the supermarket for wine, cheese and thermals.

I haven't seen anything of Osaka yet, but Rachel and some of her friends are going out to eat tonight. Our Christmas meal is cajun chicken - which I am looking forward to, though I will miss the gravy option. Should Ryu-san stay on the scene, I may raid his kitchen to prepare us an English-style roast. I wonder what he will make of my Yorkshire puddings...