Sayonara Saitama

I'm writing this (possibly last entry) from England. I've finally made it back home. So far the jetlag has been negligable and the Stilton plentiful. I feel constantly full, but it's all good so far.

In some ways it's a shame to come back just as I've finally made some good friend. Lisa, Yoriko, Shozo, Pat and various others are possibly people who will drift now I've finally fled Omiya. I'll also miss the others, who I had more time to get to know and therefore will miss even more: Raju, George, Jerry... They have been true friends and extremely kind to me. Accordingly, I've put all my efforts into making some good memories with everyone and have, as a consequence, begun to experience true Japanese life - sleeping for only four hours a day and arranging appointments at midnight after I've spent time with various groups of friends.

I didn't manage to say goodbye to my new fan at Lawsons. Recently, I popped in for some bread and gave her some change to avoid getting too much shrapnel back. She was stunned and explained, with extravagant gestures, that she`s a bit thick and wouldn`t have thought to do that. I laughed and said she wasn`t and she then gasped at the proficiency of my Japanese and asked how long I`d been here. I told her a year, but explained that I didn`t understand much at all. To prove this to her, I confused `understand` with `forget` so either sounded massively stupid or very cocky, but she was too busy scuttling off to tell her mate to listen.

Last weekend seems so long ago. On Friday, I finally managed to get to Kamakura, after a year of unfulfilled pledges. Stupidly, I got off the train at the right place, but panicked, got back on and went back to Kita Kamakura, so missed Daibuttsu, the enormous Buddha everyone goes there to see. I did try to take the trekking path up the mountain, but chickened out one temple and a few metres up some crumbling stone steps at the bottom of the trail. Instead, I loafed around Kita Kamakura and saw more than enough to satiate my small appetite for temples and the like. When you've see one temple...

I was too lazy to ask if I was on the right train home and so shot off towards the airport a week early and almost missed my own leaving do. The whole misadventure justified itself when I spotted a sumo wrestler on the train and was able to tick off another sight from my list. The leaving do itself was eventually fun. We bickered over where to go for food, too many people dropping out to go to the izakaya I'd booked, then enough stragglers making up the original numbers. The second place wasn't too bad, a bit too 'theme restaurant' for my liking, but probably more appropriate for a party mood than the traditional izakaya I'd planned. Afterwards, we went to the obligatory karaoke until the small hours got big again and staggered home under misty grey skies.

On Saturday, having turned down a sudden invitation to camp in the mountains with 20 Australians, I headed to Kichijoji to meet up with Natalie who is refreshed and single having come back from teaching in Hokkaido in the summer. It's a shame she didn't get around to the separation sooner. It was coming for a while and we could have both done with someone to go on the pull with.

Jerry and I headed off into the mountains for a spot of horse-riding on Sunday. Only a spot, mind. We drove for almost three hours to reach Ogose, in northern Saitama, to ride for less than an hour. It was in a stunning spot though and, having a paralysing fear of heights, I was glad not to gallop up the mountain. It was lovely. The weather was perfect, the view stunning and Jerry's sense of direction reliably bad. It was just missing his cowboy hat.

That night, I met up with Shozo and attempted a monolingual date. It was a bit of an intimidating washout at first. I couldn't even bring myself to ask what he did for work, already vaguely knowing and appreciating that it would be impossible to explain to me in baby Japanese. We passed some time flicking through my handwritten phrasebook (him correcting my Japanese, until I asked about his level of English), then I let slip that I like an izakaya, we drank up, left the bistro and headed off somewhere more earthy for some sake and a chat about why so many Japanese girls pair off with gaijin men, but so rarely gaijin women and Japanese men. My favourite topic. I became immediately fluent.

The last week at work was full of goodbyes, some harder than others. I know I won't see any of these people again and some of them were real favourites of mine. After my last day with Yoshiko, I headed into Tokyo to meet up with Shozo and some his friends. I was tired and resenting the journey, thinking he just wanted to spend time with his mates and have a girl at hand to show off, but his 'mates' were his friends sister and mother and we spent the night at a yatai, an outside izakaya, practising Japanese and eating all sorts of yakitori (lots and lots of offal, which I had to try to explain was something we would ordinarily throw in the bin in Britain). On Tuesday, I met Jerry for yakiniku, but couldn't drag myself from the George so made do with a roast beef sandwich and explained the finer points of seagulling to George's customers in pigeon Japanese. I now know the word for 'spunk' so this is easier than you might think.

I said goodbye to Lisa and Andy the following night and the night after that, Shozo took me to his friend's bistro. Arriving as 'special guest' again, his friend opened us a bottle of Don Perignon as Shozo explained that, in Japan, it's usual to go to high school for three years, but he and his friends had gone for four.

I met up with George on Friday afternoon and found a wonderful French bar I already miss in Ginza. I wish I'd found it before. We were both excited by the small amount of beauty it possesses and which eclipses any glimmer of scenery in Saitama. Sadly, we couldn't go on an all-day bender as I was meeting my old ladies for gay kabuki. First we had a coach ride through nighttime Tokyo, then sukiyaki in an old restaurant in Asakusa before taking in the New Half Show (new halves being newly surgeried transexuals that you have to spot from the real women in the show). My god, what an experience. I was stung with guilt when, in the first dance routine, a gay dancer simulated oral sex on the transvestite, Jennifer, before she then dropped to her knees and mimed a blow job. It did start rude and get better, but I felt for Takako when I thought she'd have to sit through an hour of it. I shouldn't have babied her. Afterwards, they all seemed like it was the best night of their lives.

Japan has been quite a challenge and an experience. I can`t say I`ve enjoyed it, but I`ve laughed too much to say I hate it too. I`ve been out and seen more in the past few weeks than I had before and it`s been great. I am sad that I am coming home before I get to live in Tokyo proper, but I am also quite relieved to be heading back to a far more normal country. Japan has serious issues.