The importance of being girlish

George opened the doors to his new bar on Saturday night. The lure of free champagne and chicken nuggets was irresistable so I took advantage of being in Ikebukero to meet up with my brand new friend, Yoriko, who works in the area. She`s a bit of a muso so I might finally get a real introduction to the Japanese music scene (`shit` according to her). I tried to prise some bad Japanese out of her, then regretted using the word `manko` in Ken`s earshot as he pointed to demonstrate what it is (not something a nice young lady wants highlighted in any circumstances). It served me right for showing off my already extensive `bad Japanese` vocabulary, I suppose. Yoriko did teach me `special needs`, which I intend to mutter into the ear of the next ojiisan that shoves me out of a queue for being young, female and foreign. Yoriko and Mayumi had to head home early (Tokyo`s last trains are laughable - they stop long before the bars do, along with ATMs, which have opening hours). We all got the last train back to Omiya and continued into the small hours there drinking shot-sized concoctions of worrying colours and bullying Jerry into moonwalking and trotting around the bar.

Last night I had to drag the resulting hangover to Kate`s leaving do. She`ll most definitely be missed, being an utter diamond in this desolate rough. The other Nova teachers tried to bully me into drinking and dancing, both of which I refused, nursing my head and an orange and lemonade, and holding back from the dancefloor close to a very kakkoii Japanese boy. I never quite managed to speak to him properly (we started three interrupted conversations, but never got so far as introductions), but whilst lurking in his vicinity I got speaking to a refreshingly normal Mancunian girl. She has offered to drive me to a retail outlet not too far from Omiya (I never dreamed Clarks and Next could be so desirable) and is looking for someone to hang around with on a Sunday every now and again. I had been seriously worried what I would do without Kate, so this is an enormous relief. It won`t make her any less missed, but it might keep me slightly more sane. Lisa is also friends with the kakkoii Japanese boy, it seems, who headed off with her and her boyfriend for the last train with a deeply, cornily, meaningful `mata ne`. Until next time...

It made me realise just how valuable, not only female, but British female company is, something I took for granted to the point of almost shunning it in England. In a brief and fairly superficial chat (centring around our acceptance of Japanese hankies as things of great use and wonder and how close we have come to beating our ADHD-suffering students), it was immediately obvious that she had a wonderfully British view on things. It was undefineably different from everyone else`s and very familiar: homely. I now have a good group of party girls from Nova, but they`re all from Commonwealth countries and still not quite what I`m used to. I`ve been desperate to meet some girls to go on the lash with, but Lisa has that incredibly rare quality of being someone I would happily associate with at home. There aren`t many of those around.

Being a woman landed so far from home and having to build an almost instanteous circle of friends, you find yourself either lowering your standards, spending much of your time alone or wanting to cling on desperately to anyone who appears half-normal. Some of the guys out here may experience it too, but less so as they have that ever-ready back-up of an eager Japanese girlfriend to act as guide, companion, teacher and emotional prop. What this situation does to girls is make meeting new friends as politically-charged as meeting a potential date (though that is far less intimidating as there are so many more of those). You don`t want to act like a mad loner, but being too casual could mean you miss the opportunity of meeting a decent friend. And it`s so weird asking a girl for her phone number. When I did ask Lisa for hers, I was almost as nervous as if I was fishing for a date, though this was slightly more important. What made me feel considerably better about the whole thing was her reaction and, later, a very drunk Lauren chasing me out of the pub door asking if I wouldn`t mind terribly if she got my number from Chantal, if that was OK, if I didn`t mind, could she, if that was OK...