Hungry Horse

It`s been an eventful week, though perhaps not in a good way.

It started well. I finally got round to visiting Raju at home on Sunday. I also got to meet his cats. One has recently had an operation, so is having to maneouvre with a big cone around her neck. Her head and food bowl disappear underneath it at mealtime, so dinnertime is showtime. It was the highlight of my visit, though playing frisbee eratically in the park, learning `spastic` in Japanese (I have sadly forgotten `I throw like a...` and none of my friends will teach me), playing with Mame, his very smelly dog, and eating a cheese and Branston sandwich were all very enjoyable too.

Afterwards, I met Lisa and her boyfriend and had yakitori in a working man`s izakaya. It was as close to spit and sawdust as you get in Japan, everything very basic and full of workmen, always a good sign of cheap authentic food. We were limited with what we could eat as the menu had no pictures, but we muddled through with our collective Japanese. I am very glad that I made the effort to learn the names of my favourite yakitori. I managed to get the same drink as a customer on another table, though I asked for `his drink` rather than one like his, which the waiter politely ignored. I am quite used to be corrected by waiting staff - they love to contradict, even when I know I am right.

Having my eye on a move to Tokyo, I`ve been taking my camera everywhere recently. On Monday, Kota and Megumi were singing a very popular song and doing little dances, so I tried to snap them, but they suddenly seized up. I did finally managed to convince Kota to go for it by offering the whole class the chance to win extra points for their teams if they performed the SMAP routine while I took photos. I did also teach them a bit of English (only because I knew the receptionist could hear us singing a Japanese song), but not much and it`s usually not very useful. Hironobu, Masahiro and Yusuke were amazed this week when I taught them `I`m bored` as a response to `how are you?`. Far more useful than `it`s a green bag`.

Tuesday night, I met up with Yukako and Yoko and went to what we thought was a yakiniku restaurant, but it turned out to be a nikuashi restaurant - raw meat. Somehow it is a little harder to stomach than raw fish. I let the girls order for me and a dish of nikusashi arrived along with a far more sensible crab and tomato salad that I had drooled at on another table. The heart was tolerable, the tongue tough and the venison `horse`. Yukako had made a mistake and got her doubutsu (animals) confused. I`d already eaten it at this point, it was fine, not particularly special and not distinguishable from beef. It was fine, you wouldn`t have to be overly hungry to stomach it. Still, somehow, what with my trip with Jerry pony-trekking up a mountain cresting the horizon, and cows not being quite so nice to look at or staring in overly-sentimental TV fables, I feel a bit bad about tucking into Beauty.

After the horse supper, we headed to a different restaurant for some Nihonshu and Yukako mentioned her drive home, so Yoko and I badgered and badgered her about drink-driving, me getting as melodramatic and insistant as I feel comfortable being with a Japanese friend, but Yukako just laughed and tried to lie about getting a taxi and walking to her boyfriend`s house. She lies like a ten-year-old boy, so it was very easy to catch her out, but not so easy to stop her getting into her car. I should have rugby tackled her. Although she is fun and in many ways a very kind friend, she is also deeply, unpleasantly selfish and thinks nothing of risking other people`s lives or cheating on her boyfriend. This week, she is considering dumping him because he is going to Canada for three weeks at Christmas and she believes this is too long for her to be left. After dating him for four months, she still is undecided about whether she likes him, but I guess she just needs an average seeing to more than most. Fortunately, the decision of whether to call off our friendship is out of our hands as I`m off home soon. I have to go back to England in a couple of weeks, so it`s sayonara Yukako, Shane and Japan.

I`m not too bothered. It was starting to do my head in again. I know my way around Omiya and my planned move to Tokyo was making me feel a bit sentimental about it, but I don`t feel much affection for the people who live here so it`s not going to be much of a wrench, my better friends have either deserted me for their new-found girlfriends or started compulsive teaching, spewing out boring and patronising daitribes at the slightest provocation. This is the peril of being a teacher, particularly in Japan and especially with a meek Japanese girlfriend hanging on your every word. It will be nice to be able to associate with normal people again. I will miss two people. One, of course, is George. Last night, he set up my tab and gave me all the gin and tonic I could ask for then shut up early to go to karaoke. There`s nothing like a blast of Dolly Parton to take the blues away.

I`m not sure if I`ll miss Mike. Sadly, I got the after shot, he`s had a haircut. Before he was far more Def Leppard.