Gorged at the George

The past week has been a fairly uneventful one. No more tests for the kids, so this week I`ve had to attempt to teach again. Monday was difficult as I`d ended up staying in the George until way too late fag-hagging with my new friend Joe. He is hilarious and was just too hard to leave, so I found myself there at chucking out time on a schoolnight. A bad idea. Monday`s lessons were not the smoothest, though I did enjoy making my kindergarten class try to say `fork`. It always sounds like fuck and it always makes me laugh. This week I`ve also had to teach seven-year-olds `office workers` which comes out as `office wankers` and sounds far more apt...

Tuesday was relatively boring, although I did encounter possibly the two most difficult lessons I`ve ever had to teach. Two kids who have both lived overseas for some years and so allegedly have a reasonable standard of English their parents want them to maintain. This in itself shouldn`t be difficult, but these two didn`t have books so I had to struggle through two 30-minute free conversation classes with a six- and an eight-year-old. I don`t generally know what to say to children who speak the same language as me, let alone those who barely understand me. The girl was sweet enough and I had her draw me a picture of her favourite swimming pool in New York and describe why it was so good (it`s big). The boy was more of a challenge. When asked any question, he didn`t know. Do you like computer games? `Yes`. Which ones? `Don`t know`. What`s your favourite sport? `Don`t know` What`s your favourite food...? Anything. It was hellish. In the end, I had to go through his Japanese text book for something to say.

On Thursday, I went for dinner with Atsuko, a very lovely receptionist I work with on Thursdays. Her English is quite poor, so the conversation is always a bit of a struggle, but she has inspired me to take up tennis (well, she will have when I actually do) so we can do that together instead of having to talk. Having a typically Japanese appetite, she ate like an anorexic bird and got drunk very quickly. From the off, she made slightly disparaging remarks about her husband before she finally admitted that she would leave him in a second if she didn`t have children and showed me pictures of an Australian boyfriend from 20 years ago she is still in contact (and perhaps also in love) with. She was hilarious though and warned me to steer clear of Japanese men. She then stumbled off home and went to the George for `one`. I ended up staying for almost eight hours, stealing shots of a vile liquor that George carelessly left on the bar and sharing them with a DJ I was trying to coax into becoming a private student. He didn`t go for it.

Consequently, Friday was pretty much a write-off, although I may have arranged a horse-riding date with Jery, a lothario salaryman I know from the George, in April. I may not have though as half-way through the conversation it became apparent that horse-riding was just a crude euphimism in his mind. George has said he might be interested in going too, so I would at least have a `responsible` chaperone to escort me and Jery can translate the Japanese for `canter` for me.

I was still suffering on Saturday, although mainly fatigue from sleeping all of Friday afternoon and very little on Friday night, so my classes were, again, a bit of a mess. In this job, it pays to stay on good form. Hijiri and Taisei ran rings around me. This week`s game, along with trying to rip the wallpaper off the classroom, was to run out of the classroom whenever I wasn`t looking - so their mothers could see me not really paying attention to their young babes. The class of seven seven-year-olds was by far the worst. I felt they had already grasped the language point fairly early on (it was easy to pick up and boring to drill) so I let them have a little free time. A couple of the fat ones climbed under the tables and the girls drew `kawaii` animals on the board, while I leafed through Slaughterhouse Five.

Last night Karen and I went for dinner and then headed to the George to watch Arsenal`s glorious victory over paltry Fulham (sorry, Assaf!). It was an open mic night, so Jery serenaded us with an appalling version of Hotel California before two strange brothers came in with a transvestite and an electric guitar and played the worst musical accompaniment I`ve ever experienced (if anyone has seen The Weekenders, a pilot done by Vic and Bob, just think Electric Russell).

The picture is of George, possibly when he realised I was stealing his alcohol and handing it out to other customers. In his defense, his hair is not usually yellow (this was an excuse to check out a hairdresser he fancies, but it seems she is dating the colour technician) and he rarely wears fishermen`s jumpers. I figured as him and his bar feature so heavily in this, people might want to know what he looks like. Generally, much better than this!

Hinomatsi

This week has been quite up and down. After a night ruined by too much gin and not enough dinner, Monday started off in misery - everything emotional seems to be heightened here, so the Booze Blues are monumentally miserable. In a way it`s good though, it means I can treat myself to all sorts of nice food and feel I `deserve` it so I have been eating my way to happiness for the rest of the week. Aki and I had roast beef sandwiches on Tuesday and ogled the handsome barman in the Suraj bar and on Wednesday Sean and I overate at Wara-Wara`s, a budget izakaya chain that does the best pizza and deep-fried squid I`ve ever tasted. Sean wasn`t so taken with the lemon steak, but that left more for great big, greedy me!

Wednesday night was also Ito`s birthday - he`s a Japanese salaryman with a penchant for the Eagles and more than enough gins. He helped get me over my depression by telling me I didn`t need to feel embarrassed about my behaviour on Saturday, I am a `great boozer`. That, and a phonecall to Jo, were surprisingly therapeutic.

All week I`ve been giving the kids tests, which basically involves handing out papers and coloured pencils and pressing play on a cassette player (Shane is not at the forefront of Japanese technology), which has given me plenty of time for attempting to revise Japanese. I can now request a room for two people with a Japanese bath. Useful, and quite roomy as it would only be for me.

I finally managed to get some pictures of Ayano, although she was shy because she`s just recovered from Chicken Pox and her face still has the scars to prove it. She`s so cute and we spent 30 minutes throwing a ball around pretending that I was teaching her `catch` and `throw`. She already knows everything, so I don`t have to teach her until next month, when she starts a new book, so it`s all play at the moment.

Wednesday, I had two cancellations, so got out of work at six - a wonderfully rare thing, and only taught around five minutes in the whole day. I had three lessons, one of which was Ayano`s, another was a 40 minute test followed by dodgeball and I had a chat with an old lady about the Olympics. Sometimes this job is a killer...

On Friday I did cover at a different school, more tests and very little teaching, although three eight-year-old boys made sure I earned my money. Last week, they were mildly naughty and one of them said `bugger` which endeared me to them, but this week they gave me a better insight into what the previous teacher had had to cope with. They were still relatively well-behaved and are very good at English, so finished their tests early. To fill in the time, I had them doing run and draw, but it quickly descended into bedlam and the board was covered with monkeys, boys and elephants with chinchins (penises) of all sizes.

Last night I went over to Pamela`s to pick up her rice cooker and say goodbye, we ended up getting drunk on fizzy wine and taking lots of awful pictures of ourselves (this one is the best one...). We had to take her rubbish to the convenience store, but on the way, Pamela dropped the sack at the top of the stairs and all her gomi bounced down in front of us. I couldn`t stand for laughing. I eventually left, insisting I could direct a taxi without help, rice cooker-less and making it home purely by chance. Shouting `near the byouin` didn`t really help much, but the driver got me there.

Unfortunately, I had Cafe Lamp this morning, which meant an early start, but Pamela had to get up and clean her flat, finish packing and get to Omiya train station by 7am so I can hardly complain. Cafe Lamp was actually less effort today than it has been the last couple of times, people are obviously opening up a bit more. I also chanced to have a real `wacky` student on my first table who led most of the discussions, including a short round of Bohemian Rhapsody, which he claimed not to know when we were discussing people`s favourite music. A very dubious man gave me some gifts, potentially in exchange for free English lessons, which I am loathe to give him. Perhaps I should return the guide book, scarf and mobile - although I am told this would be rude and he has apparently had them in his bag for a month, in case he should bump into me unexpectedly. I may have my first stalker.

I`ve been showed with lots of gifts this week. A student on my cover day brought in some cherry blossom sweets, but no one else wanted to eat them, so I was sent home with the box and an African necklace. She had just got back from Tanzinia and brought a sackful of the things as gifts for everyone. I was made to choose, but really, really didn`t want to have one so just opted for the one she had most of, then some poor, young student was advised to have the same one as the teacher so now two of us have these ungainly things. One of my old ladies made the hino dolls for Hinomatsi, the Girl`s Festival. I must take them down before March 3rd or I will never marry.

Pamela`s swan song

Valentine`s passed typically uneventfully, although this year I have an excuse. Japanese Valentine`s traditions revolve around giving men chocolate, so the absence of attention was not so remarklable. I did have to make Valentine`s cards with some six-year-old girls, which seemed dubious to me, but I used the opportunity to cobble one together for Sean. Quite possibly only the second or third card I have ever given. I treat my faux boyfriend well. Roll on White Day when the chocolates are all mine. I also enjoyed lots of students` clumsy questions about giving men my chocolates, which reminded me of Adam and Alex`s old euphimism for sex and made me smile more than the students expected me to.

Last night was Pamela`s leaving do - another night in the George, although after too much gin and no dinner, I was smashed and ended up in the Suraj Bar with Ryu-san and his friends, with Suraj trying to push me onto every man in the place. I was quite happy as his attempt to pair me off with the incredibly handsome, but possibly too young, barman - I am not sure the barman felt the same. I will try to go in there when I am sober for once and see how things progress. It did mean I missed out on karaoke, which may have been for the best as there were around 30 people in there and, as drunk as I was, I would have definitely outed myself as a karaoke nazi, switching off other people`s songs and lining up 47 for myself.

It was quite a good night, according to Pamela, although some idiot ruined it by popping Mattius`s blow-up doll (a birthday present) and then running off without paying. There are some complete pricks out here. Pamela was very pragmatic about it though and generally had a very good time. I`ll miss her loads. She is a very nice, very normal girl - fairly special at home and an incredible rarity here. We have already arranged to meet up when we both get back home - she is going via Germany, so we might both get back at the same time.

I only managed to drag myself out of bed at 4pm today and am going for fabulous yaki niku with Irish Steve in a bit - we trained together and it`s the first time I`ve seen him for ages, but I`m really looking forward to it. Yet another normal in this land of wonky losers. Teachers really are geeks. Regent was incredibly misleading in recruiting lots of very nice people. They aren`t like that here.

Mr Loverman and Shabu (Shabu)

Karen and I shabu-shabued in Shinkuku last night. I do like to dunk fresh meat in boiling water, but last night, not being able to read the menu, we ordered the spiced cauldron and so some of the slightly over-done vegetables were inedibly spicy. Of course, Karen patronisingly nodded as I choked on a fiery green leaf, then got her comeuppance in the form of a cabbage leaf. However, the briefest dunk was more than enough to get the beef cooked and smothering it with the sweet sesame sauce took the edge off the heat. It really is a brilliant way to eat, but incredibly filling. My stomach felt like a medicine ball on the way out.

We strolled around Shinjuku for a little while, but kept finding empty roads and ugly gaijins clinging on to overly pretty girls. The bright lights dazzled us only briefly before we headed back to Omiya for speed-dating at the George (spectating only). Sadly, we must have spent too long ogling the Palace Karaoke (complete with resplendent faux palace on the roof) and the speed-dating had just finished as we arrived.

Still, the night was quite a productive one. Some random Californian with an incredibly cute, but young-looking Japanese friend, took my phone number. It was all rather odd. and not at all dateish. He left the pub, then came back 20 minutes later wearing ear muffs and one glove and then decided to ask for my number. We had barely spoken - I hadn`t even had time to point out that his name is the same as my teddy bear`s (Jeremy), though if he calls it will come up. Karen left after one, but I stayed round. A friend of Cherry Boy`s, Akiko came into the George so I went and said hello.

While I was chatting to Akiko and laughing at her brother`s dancing, Ryu-san strolled in. We had a really nice evening chatting together. More of his mates came in and I was introduced as though they would all know me (I guess the gaijin he was seeing would have been discussed, but most people disguise such things). They were all really, really drunk and did this weird and terrible Japanese `funny` dance from a 20 year-old comedy programme (and eventually made me do it - it is incredible what you can find yourself doing just because it is harder to explain why you shouldn`t). Ryu-san was far more relaxed than I`d seen him before, and not taking himself anywhere near as seriously. So relaxed that he passed out on one of the benches - first being shoved out of his friend`s lap for dribbling. I`ve since emailed him saying it was nice to see him and requesting some assistance with my Japanese (in Japanese, though my spelling is appaling apparently). Hopefully I can rope him into helping me find a laptop. He seems like someone who would be good at that.

Fish and bicycles

Life, unfortunately, seems quite directionless without a man to stalk. I never imagined I would say I needed a man, but it seems I do. At least as a target. I`ve got used to Japanese life now, I can do most of my classes with my eyes closed (though my phonemes look more and more like hiragana) and I finally know some decent people (though not many and, selfishly, they aren`t at my constant beck and call) so I need something to concentrate on. Studying Japanese is all well and good, but it is frustrating with no one to practise on. A man would solve all of these problems, and pay for me to go to the cinema.

Although I have decided I don`t actually fancy him, Suzuki-san is my current target. Today I staked out the hairdressers, popping into a convenience store across the road so I could see if he was there (as a sign of my boredom and the ridiculousness of my current pursuit, I already knew he was in London training at Vidal Sassoon). In the convenience store, I found two `customers` grubbying up the magazines in a way that would prompt `this is not a library` from a British proprietor. Here it is a fine way to while away time. The teenage girl was looking at hairstyles, the man porn. This, too, does not cause outrage. Men openly browse through titty mags without a crease of embarrassment on their `polite` faces.

From what I have seen of it, Japanese porn is incredibly soft. Some shots are not even topless and the girls all feign youthful innocence in an unsettlingly paedophilic way. I imagine there is some more depraved stuff out there - there just has to be - but your common garden (well, convenience store) porn barely lives up to the name, which is fortunate given how pervasive it is. Men sit on trains flicking through magazines, which sit next to manga comics in shops. It`s even advertised on billboards. Weirdly, I have only seen one Japanese breast on TV - somehow, telly is clean, but everywhere else there`s sex.

Well, except Sean`s apartment (sorry Sean!!). Last night I went round to watch DVDs and enjoy my first Pizza Hut. I watched Shaun of the Dead for the first time and longed for north London. Shaun`s girlfriend lives on the same estate I used to on Hornsey Lane. I have had a lock-in at the Winchester (though don`t remember either of the names it has had in my north London lifetime). I am fairly sure I have bought orange juice from Sean`s local shop. Japanese urban landscapes just do not compare with Tufnell Park. Central Tokyo is all well and good, but the suburbs are ugly. Houses are built to last an earthquake, not to look good.

We also watched two Batman films: Begins with the luscious Christian Bale (although I prefer him in American Psycho and, though early Genesis might be considered torture enough, I would happily go back to his flat and let him do what he liked with me) and the first Burton film with Jack Nicholson. Sean asked me to rate my Top 5 celebrities, but I got stuck after Mr Bale. Eventually, the other Christian, Slater, came to mind, although with the obvious and adulterous Pitt. I have, however, gone off him since this whole philandering thing and am firmly in the Aniston camp.

I woke up this morning to find I had passed out, mid-Family Guy, on Sean`s sofa. He had kindly laid out the spare futon set, which I climbed into for a couple more hours, although a student from my Japanese class called unsociably early to discuss a possible private student for me. As it was cash, I could forgive her and next Friday I`m off to Ageo at 10am to teach Miguel, a Brazilian who claims to have no English, but had enough to discuss times and places, which is way more than I can do in Japanese. Hopefully I can convince him to change his lesson to later in the day as I am already dreading getting up so early on my day off, but we will see. He is the customer, though in this instance I am always right.

The good, the bad and Ryusuke

Shane has gracefully granted us a holiday today and tomorrow. Unfortunately, pay day is on Monday, so there`s not a great deal I can do at the moment. I`m currently looking at underwear on the internet. If someone peeked into my unmanned booth, they wouldn`t be able to tell if it was a gaijin woman`s, a teenage boy`s or a Salaryman`s.

This week has been quite ordinary in comparison to dunking shabu shabu (you dunk meat in boiling water at your table and then in a flavouring of choice - Japanese meals are so much more interesting than any other country`s - they are an activity as well as a feast) with Lizzy at the weekend. Unfortunately, Ryusuke, my student from Hell (well, Shin-Shiraoka, but I am sure they are similar), has upped his campaign. After a fairly successful lesson last week on winning, losing and tying baseball games (he is mad on sports, so perked up), this week he decided to try to leave the classroom at every opportunity to tell the receptionist he doesn`t understand me.

This can`t be true. His English is good enough to rebuke me with `Why? You know` whenever I ask him a question and we have drilled win and won and lose and lost a thousand times - if anything, it was boring, but no, his accusation is that I am not a good teacher and the receptionist seems to be on his side. I have now had to report it to my DoS. I am not overly confident in my teaching abilities, but I have just recruited four new students to this school, which has been haemorraging students up until recently, so cannot be appalling. JeDoS, who used to be in the Army, was grateful that I told him and said we need to `cover my back`. I was not concerned until he insinuated there was a need for military back-up...

I was told yesterday I will be changing Japanese teachers next week, after I finally got to grips with Hosoya-san`s sink or swim teaching method. I am quite sad to see her go. She gave me an incentive to learn no other teacher could or, hopefully, will. Apparently, I will get a better teacher - though she said this out of considerable false modesty and habit. The insincerity and superficiality of the Japanese was just starting to bite at the beginning of the week, but I have been confounded with considerable generosity since. Not least, finally encountering two blind people using the yellow tracks laid across the country to help them find their way around (one, sadly, before I realised what the tracks are for, and so he bashed right into me - I apologised in Japanese and hoped my accent wouldn`t reveal my foreign stupidity). The tracks run everywhere and are bobbled to warn of trains, roads and gentle inclines. When no medical abortions are available, I guess you must provide for those less fortunate.

Special, but not in the Sunshine Bus way

I should clarify, when I wrote nothing special as the heading to my last entry it had nothing to do with Lizzy! Seeing her really was very special indeed! I have just spent a whole week listening to all my adult students telling me this is how they pass their time. It is either this or trying to tell me they did nothing - not eat, sleep or watch TV apparently. Of course, they have all been shopping, but this really is `nothing special`.

I saw Lizzy again last night and again it was almost perfectly normal to be catching up in Japan and not the Bullfrog. This time we made it to Shinjuku, the hub of Tokyo. Unfortunately, for nostalgic reasons, we also went to the Hub - a British chain pub where you have to queue in an orderly fashion for jumbo gin and tonics - and were accosted by some boring Japanese drunks asking us if we could eat natto and what surprised us most about Japan. I, not expecting it to get through to them, said how rude everyone was and Lizzy obligingly translated. I also told them I loved natto, though they found this almost impossible to believe. This was strangely perceptive of them, though it does look and taste like something you would scrape off the back of a plant to stop greenfly spreading.

In the excitement, I missed my unfeasibly early last train (why, oh why is there no nightbus?!) and had to stay on the floor of the apartment Lizzy was borrowing. It was incredibly plush and in the `Hampstead` of Tokyo - where Suzuki-san and I will probably end up living, no doubt. The apartment was amazing and had a heated floor - a nice touch, although the glass of water I took to bed with me was warm before my dehydration had climaxed. Unfortunately, not being gargantuanly drunk, I couldn`t sleep very well and so upped and left at 7am to make the journey back to Omiya. Something that would have been fine, had it not been so incredibly cold. The whole of the Kanto region seems to be trapped in a wind tunnel and the past three or four days, while very clear and bright, have been bitterly cold.

Nothing special

This week has been far more relaxing, simply because I knew I had today off work. Wednesday I was desperately wishing it was Thursday so I could get drunk, but strangely, last night it just wasn`t happening. It`s quite nice being semi-sentient on my day off. I might even do some studying later... Actually, I will force myself. I am now almost level with a backward seven-year-old`s grasp of English. I passed the week enjoying the in-jokes old teachers write into textbooks (a character called Mrs Labia, a woman being given a pearl necklace, small children being asked if they like boys...).

I can`t get too excited as I still have an early start tomorrow - these non-consecutive weekends are killers for people who generally suffer two-day hangovers. Tomorrow is one of my least favourite days and becoming less welcome after I found one of the more pleasant students had drawn a skeletal Death wielding a scythe marked `kill` on the white board last week. There are more goths in Japan than you`d realise, what with the pervasiveness of over-cute costumes, even on the adults. Everything is branded with a cartoon character or some bizarre slogan (the best, so far, being a child of seven wearing a sweatshirt bearing a strange sentiment about frontiers David Gray has yet to conquer).

I have decided to forego romance with the hairdresser. He is a bit too cool for schoolteachers and also I don`t want to have to risk finding a new hairdresser. He`s the best I`ve encountered outside Vidal Sassoon so far.

Last night Lizzy came for a brief look around Omiya. She was dazzled by the red light district and well fed in a small izakaya before going for the obligatory `one` in the George. She sensibly stuck to this (hence my lucid state today), but tomorrow we`re meeting in Shinuku where I hope to ogle trendy boys and perhaps scare one into taking my phone number. The most unexpected part of our reunion was that is just wasn`t at all bizarre seeing her here. Maybe tomorrow, when we`re both in the shadow of glittering high-rises, things will seem a little more strange.

Love is in the hair...

This week my duties as teacher to dear little Takashi-san have extended to life coach and love counsellor (how sweet, naive and misguided he is). He has an enormous crush on a JET language assistant from Oxford (the university, I can`t remember the middling town she used to live in) and has asked me how to go about wooing her. I have insisted I am not the best person to ask, but as an English girl who can translate `xxx` in text messages, he sees me as fully qualified. Fortunately, being a horrible gossip and having taken to the Japanese hobby of match-making with real gusto, I am more than happy to assist and have already hinted to Lara that she has a fan. I have not yet let Takashi-san know about my horrible indiscretion, but I am sure the truth will out.

In return, Takashi-san has offered to help me out with the wonderful hairdresser. I think this may be a lost cause before it has started, but we shall see. He is incredible. He seems to have modelled himself on the one that`s not Jet Li or old in Hero. I never have thought long hair could be so desirable.

I am also contemplating putting together some rules on dating over here. Every teacher I know wants me to so they can then throw themselves into the game, fully clued-up, it would also mean I could potentially submit something to a paper, but I am not sure I can be arsed...

I`m feeling very lazy this week. I skipped Japanese today, which feels like such a treat. Last night, Sean, Karen, Takashi-san and I all went to the last night at the China Tea House; a small and fabulous bar shamefully close to my flat that I had never visited before. We were welcomed with enormous platters of `Chinese` food (most seemed either Japanese or Western - unless crinkle-cut chips originated in the Orient). The table was constantly being topped up with more and more, but we weren`t sure if it was free or not. We took a few tentative first bites, then dived in. After worrying about the food bill, which was cancelled, Sean and I ended up staying way past midnight and clocking up a hefty bar bill. I had to borrow from the Bank of O`leary, a fine establishment I am slowly getting further and further into the red with.