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...

Showing me the way to get home

Recently, I`ve been reconsidering my move into Tokyo. Omiya seems more like home than Dullsville, so my laziness had me pondering a happy, suburban future in Saitama. Not for long though, I didn`t come to Japan to live in the suburbs. I`ve decided to investigate moving into the Big City a bit more, spurred on by my increasing boredom and frustration at having a nihilist for a boss. His unquestioning acceptance that life and Lipscombe are shit doesn`t hold with my own world view (though parts overlap).

Before I can completely let go of the security of the Japanese Croydon, I thought I`d check out what was available for what price, so today I met Kenji and went to an apartment letting agency in Sasazuka to do just that. I feared cockroach-ridden shoeboxes with mould-spattered bathrooms and the pervasive scent of dead tenant. Overall, everything was fairly clean, presentable and considerably bigger than the company accommodation I`m currently paying over the odds for. The idea of having my own little home ten minutes` walk from Shinjuku is massively exciting and, unlike flat-hunting in London, every apartment had a certain appeal and it was only my unyielding fickleness that swiped a couple of the wish list. They are only marginally more expensive than my current apartment and considerably larger, though the key money is a huge obstacle.

Japanese landlords have somehow devised a wonderously beneficial system to line their pockets. Tenants usually provide one or two months` deposit up front, along with your first month`s rent and this crippling, non-refundable gift - usually two months` rent again, dubbed key money. Money you will never see again, it`s just a gift to your new landlord. It is this which puts most gaijin in guesthouses (which I am now loathe to do, having seen one amazing apartment in Sasazuka that I just fell in love with) and some salarymen on benches while they save up their spare yen for key money. The apartment I fell for was around ten minutes from Sasazuka station, had a huge kitchen (my current kitchen is a sink and plastic hob in the hallway, so as soon as I slipped my shoes off in the genkan I just knew), a separate tatami bedroom, a huge loft space that could double as a spare room and a small private balcony. (Kenji is standing near the genkan of the first place we saw, which I dismissed over its bedsitness - I do not want a stove in my bedroom.) All I need to do now is cobble together the ¥485,800 for the first month and its mine.

Kenji has vowed to look for places online that only need one month up front. Without him, I would most definitely be Omiya-ridden. He and David are very new friends and I was initially cynical of their exceeding niceness. They most definitely aren`t trying to get me in the sack, so I was confused about what they might be up to. Why would anyone go out of their way to be so incredibly kind to someone they barely know? We`ve met a handful of times, but they have double-handedly restored my ever-decreasing faith in human nature. They have taken me under their wing completely. David quickly recommended a good letting agency for me to use (some are a little gaijin-phobic, to say the least) and readily offered Kenji`s assistance in dealing them, something that only threatened a small squabble because Kenji didn`t have the chance to do it himself. They have slyly denied the genuine cost of bills, refused my money when I catch them out at this and turned a blind eye to my greed to insist I only pay a small portion of what I genuinely owe in a wonderfully Marxist levelling of wealth and are generally being good in ways I haven`t experienced from men who aren`t after getting their hands on my chocolates. Hideously, while writing this, I am still pondering what the catch is. Maybe they want me to harvest their baby.

Feeling hot, hot, hot

I`ve just read the most absurd story of the summer on BBC Online. If it were April, I`d dismiss it as a joke. Tokyo Metro, which advertises soft porn and hostess bars with wanton disregard for its female passengers, has finally overturned its decision to show nude pictures of a pregnant and allegedly `over-stimulating` Britney Spears. This in a country that has men flicking through titty shots between stations and posters dangling from train carriages touting scantily clad women and their costings. Japan either has a wicked eye for irony or is utterly blind.

Maybe I will finally be chickaned after all.

Nothing much has happened since Kingsley`s departure. I imagine he is basking in the relative cool of Thailand`s tropical heat, while Japan sweats into the concrete. If you have a choice, DO NOT come to Japan in the summer, it is a hideous place right now (though better than winter, when I felt like I was living in a squat). The water I boiled for breakfast is still hot. It`s 2am. I don`t understand how people don`t die. Given the topical over-awareness of the type of people teaching attracts (if he didn`t get Jon Bennet, I definitely wanted her), it is wrong to say I am sweating like a a paedophile in a playground, but it`s not far off. I lose my own body weight in fluids every night and wake up feeling hung over, my dehydration is so severe.

And teaching does attract some weirdoes. I`ve been told that on my birthday I dubbed a colleague `Peter the Paedophile` (disappointingly unoriginal, but oh so tempting) and started a spate of name-calling amongst my invited guests, but `Peter the Paedophile` couldn`t have a better job, was that his preferred target. I think his is actually closer to childlike, blind-drunk Japanese wives, who are downtrodden and grateful. I do often worry when my little Ayano demands that I pick her up so she can draw on the board, or insists that she sit in my lap, or just lunges into a hug because she hasn`t seen me for a while just what rich pickings there could be for the wrong-minded (am I one to even consider this?!).

Thought I`d stick in a picture of me and Jery celebrating England`s long forgotten victory over a team I can no longer remember. If it wasn`t Portugal, does it even matter?

Kingsley in Kanto

I had to say goodbye to my favourite student on Friday. Yuka is jetting off to study fashion in New York. Brilliantly and coincidentally, our last few lessons were on future plans, so we spent the hour discussing what she wanted to do when she arrived, with me occasionally remembering to correct her `wills` and `going tos`. Without really looking, I spotted an appointment on her itinerary and asked what she`d be doing at that time, only to have to retract it as she went rouged and spluttered. At lunchtime on Wednesday, she is watching a mock trial, entitled `Drunk Sex or Date Rape`. She is going to learn so much more than good hemming.

My apartment has been like Shinjuku station this week, so many visitors. This fellow popped round on Thursday morning, eerily turning his over-sized head and watching me through the mosquito screen while I waited and hoped he would move onto someone else`s clothes pegs. I don`t believe he was more scared of me than I was of him. I do not slowly tilt my head in a threatening way or rub my legs together like I am about to pounce at the slightest uwelcome movement.

Kingsley was rather more welcome, though didn`t make it to Omiya or anywhere near my laundry. We exchanged Asian experiences over yakitori and soba in Gonpachi (the same place Mike took me and Koizumi took Bush not so long ago). He`s been in China learning martial arts from Shaolin Monks, a bit more impressive than me teaching Taisei `cow` (which he ignored, far more interested in shouting `chinpo` - penis - at the cow`s udders) and Yumiko the `L for Loser` sign (though vitally important for undermining smug gaijin). Again, the strangest thing from having a visitor from home was that it was not in the least bit strange, not even for having not seen each other for three years, getting mixed up on our meeting points and not knowing if it would happen at all was a good technique to distract any strangeness.

We strolled around Ginza on Friday, while I offloaded my many anti-Japanese prejudices and Kingsley sized them up against the Chinese. As a mistreated minority here, I sympathise and side with the Chinese in an unnecessary `all foreigners together` seige mentality, but as a man on the inside, Kingsley sees as them differently. When you`ve seen enough people in one country shitting by the side of the road, I guess it can colour your opinions of them. When my students have described the Chinese as being dirty, I have been sceptical - the Chinese are viewed much like the Germans or French are in Britain (or worse, the Welsh). Hearing Kingsley, who has less reason to be prejudiced beyond imagining they would be much the same as the Japanese or the Koreans, say much the same and give more gross examples of their behaviour, I have to give it more credence. A few students have sneerily complained of the Chinese spitting, but I have seen so many Japanese men clearing their sinuses in the gutter that I needed Kingsley`s additional explanation that the Chinese do this in restaurants for people to then come behind and mop up.

Before we even had time for the yakitori to settle, we headed back to Kingsley`s hotel for him to change and us to head to a sushi restaurant recommended in an Anthony Bourdain book. Kingsley had the hotel concierge write down the restaurant`s address in Japanese, a stroke of unintended genius as I put us on the wrong tube line (why did he tell us to go to the furthest station when we can just use this one?!) and we popped up in the wrong part of Ginza and spent longer strolling around trying to find it, building up the courage to ask locals for directions, running in and out of shops and hotels that might not consider it a business rival and even getting a cab before finally asking a young boy drumming up custom in the street for a competitor who passed us on to a young girl who led us up to a door we would never have found alone. All in all, it took us longer to locate the place than we spent inside.

Not being the flashest restaurant, the staff seemed a little amused at our having made a reservation and lavished us with unnecessary amounts of attention. Muted by greed and indecisiveness, we asked the waiter to recommend something for us - we got wonderfully refreshing cups of iced sake and a spread of the freshest cuts of sashimi from nearby Tsukiji fish market, octopus, some unidentified white fish, something sardiney thiat Kingsley fell in love with and some amazingly succulent, meaty scallops. It was all just an apetiser though, as we headed off to Wara Wara`s in Shibuya for some bright lights and a more familiar menu. We tried out some more sake, but I had to worry about the last train and my early start with Saburo, a new intimidatingly academic student, in the morning.

We had to skip our Saturday night shabu shabu in Shinjuku, which would have been a greater shame had I not squeezed a small tour of the host and hostess bars on Friday. We stood in the street gazing up at billboards of rank Japanese men who are paid to spend evenings wtih the onely singles of Toyko. An array of wonky Duran Duran wannabes fill bar after bar in Shinjuku and command enormous fees just to save Tokyoites too busy to date the shame of a dateless night. Hostess bars function in much the same way, and my awareness of the Great British Hen Night convinces me these men are just as goosed as their female counterparts. At what point hosting becomes whoring, I don`t know.

He`s Shinkansenning to Kyoto this evening, so we could only meet for lunch today. We tried to get something nice in the plushest department store in Ginza, but sat down in the tea shop rather than the restaurant so enjoyed some Jasmine Earl Grey and split a mango dessert before heading up the road for yakiniku, my favourite food ever, though Korean, not Japanese. One of the best things about having Kingsley to visit was his shared enthusiasm for anything and everything edible. Japan is a wonderfully rewarding country for the culinary adventurous. It can cater for those who are more timid in their tastes, but if you aren`t prepared to at least try, you are missing out on some seriously special experiences. Friday`s sashimi was proof. Yakiniku is hardly a problem for the squeamish, it`s a table-top barbeque. A meal and an activity all rolled into one. The best part of today`s meal was the beef, but some might skip the super-spicy kimchi and tongue and squid are not to everyone`s liking, but you start with the tongue and build up, with every taste bursting with richer and more wonderful flavours. It was amazing. I could eat it forever.

After Kingsley headed off for Kyoto, I got the Metro to Harajuku and checked out the shrine and the freaks. The Meiji Shrine is a rich one, you can judge its wealth from the barrels of sake that have been donated to the monks. I had wanted to look at the flower garden, but couldn`t be bothered to walk, then found myself doing a huge lap around the aesthetically displeasing woods just to end up where I started. I did get some snaps of the goths and Lolitas who congregate there at weekends and are happy, if you don`t mind asking, posing for photos. As, by asking for a photo, you are at a more basic level, telling these people they are freaks, I always feel awkward asking, but am more than happy to snap away. I also, with a worse sense of bullying voyeurism, got sight of a Lolita tranny strolling up Takeshita Dorii with a parasoll and black lace gloves and spent more time and energy than is pleasant or healthy trying to stealthily take a snap, before feeling grossly disappointed in myself when I spotted him scuttling up the train platform away from the gasping open mouths of the other travellers.

Now I am boxed into my apartment, boarded up against the enormous cockroach I confronted on my way to put the gomi out (trying to swack it off the building with a pathetic swing of my little rubbish bag, I just sent him cantering up the bricks towards my floor) and sitting through some shocking Japanese `comedy` (never has the term been used more loosely) while waiting for Superman to start. A host of comedians have been dressed in skin-tight blue body suits (a la Superman, though I am not sure how much of a coincidence this is) and given a table of props to amuse a group of young boys. The measure of their success is not how heartily the stern-faced boys laugh, but whether they spit the ping-pong balls which are wedged into their mouths as they laugh. These are then picked up from the floor, counted and replaced. Something of a surprise in this OCD suffer`s paradise. So far the comedy has been weak. A young man, most likely from Osaka, sang about the city and interspersed his act with regular chants of `baka` (stupid), as the ping-pongs stayed put, the baka rate increased and teh incidental language eventually vanished. There has also been a small man sporting a Hitlerian moustache and a child`s school rucksack sitting on a chair flailing his legs in a dry breaststroke. He also shouted baka a lot. A tall Elvis has sung nonsense into a red plastic cone with huge levels of success even after laughing at his own `joke`. Hitler has just been blasted with dry ice. From Elvis`s sympathetic hand on his shoulder, the swimming demonstration didn`t go down too well.

God rained on our Parade

I got back into a bit of marching this week, attending Tokyo`s Gay Parade with a couple of gay boys from Nagoya. I won`t name them. Tokyo doesn`t host Pride and it is appropriate and telling that they`ve chosen to change the name to something less challenging and more shame-faced. It was a ludicrously Japanese experience. The parade was due to start at 2pm, at which time a bell chimed, thunder struck and the heavens opened. I had soltaned all over, but soon it was washed off and glistening in oily puddles around Shibuya koen. Because we were forced to shelter until Allah`s disapproval passed over, we were slightly late for the kick-off, though being Japanese, this still had us arriving a good 45 minutes before anything actually happened. However, we were barred entry to the actual march because we needed to register at 2pm. I was sullenly muttering about no one understanding what a march actually was, when a Japan`s Big Gay Al came over to explain the situation an unnecessary second time, before passing his queenly decree and letting us join in the back of the march (perhaps only to spite us as my friends and I snapped at each other `we don`t like him`.

We were given brown ribbons - another source of discontent - and placed at the back (too much irony for me). I was kept in line by my friend taking fatherly control as I continued to grumble through the rain at the unnatural levels of organisation taking place, until we were shuffled around so each row had approximately four people in it, with two randoms allowed to straggle at the back and clearly irking the boy whose sums didn`t leave us in a respectably militaristic group. It was then explained that we were not allowed to take photos of the parade as some people felt uncomfortable being seen there. I was nearly kicked in the shin for whisperingly wondering what they had bothered coming for, before we finally, slowly, moved off. A huge pink parade bringing the safari to Tokyo`s drop-jawed shoppers, all keeping clear of the barriers and not attempting to feed the gays. With no cameras or videos allowed, it is pretty much a non-event to those outside the gay community (except the fag-haggers, nicely named Omamasans) so people stopped dead in the street trying to get a look at these weird creatures plodding behind rainbow-bannered floats blasting cheesy house that no one dared dance to (I forgot myself and had a go, but it didn`t last long).

It was a very muted demand for acceptance. That even my friends, who have been more brutalised by homophobes in Britain, should not want to be seen while demanding their place in society was quite a shock to me. Japan has a long, long way to go before it can claim in any way to be a developed nation. Socially, it is further behind Victorian Britain. Because of this, I spent most of the parade feeling like I had wasted my time. No one would hold their hand up to attending, no media would cover and force the straight-acting community to face the fact that Japan is not only a playground for philandering straight Salarymen, so very little was achieved. The two young kids being encouraged to greet us was a small, but positive step, but my friends were terrified that somehow, though they had travelled miles from their homes, that they would be seen and instantly lose their jobs and social circles. Whatever the laws against discrimination (I doubt such things exist), students and parents would not accept them and it would not be good business to employ them, so the more nervous of the two, huddled between me and the other, a borrowed baseball cap tugged down to his brow, where sunglasses took over the camouflage, and maintained a nervous silence, constantly watchful of cameras and video equipment that somehow might wind up on his Vice Principle`s desk. Here Japan`s notorious non-confrontationalism causes yet more problems (I don`t know of many instances where it helps) as no one is prepared to ask to be accepted. The parade meekly presented itself, almost apologetically, and barely made a millimetre`s progress as a result. In the 60s, black and women`s rights activists regularly faced brutal assault for their beliefs, and slowly made progress. They achieved a lot, but more still has to be done. At the rate Japan is moving, it will be 2106 before it is level with 1920`s Britain.

It is clearly not something society is ready to accept here. One very angry man - his hair scraped into a Bickleish mohican and a Smirnoff Ice bottle full of fireworks poking from his army fatigues, my friend from Nagoya swore that he was gay, but he seemed to be swearing that every man in Japan was - shouted at the parade to get out of the way and stalked us down the road until the police asked him, ever so politely, to move on. Of course, he didn`t and the only reason we could figure for his not being arrested was the police`s tacit agreement with his ideas. He badgered the back of the parade, frothing cheap sparkling wine at us a la Formula 7 and then coming back to harass a young Japanese boy who was so thrilled to be part of the parade and not at all upset at having to shoulder a banner all alone (and the only person, aside from me, visibly enjoying being there) that not even acts of aggression could dampen his spirits. Finally, when they spotted the fireworks, the police stepped up and the man was removed, but not as swiftly as you would have expected at home. I was just losing any faith left in Japan as a potentially progressive nation, when I spotted a woman and her mother encouraging her young daughters to wave at all the foreign gays. Clearly enjoy the safari park sensibilities, but also perhaps planting at least two seeds that not all gays are filthy perverts who need to be sacked from their jobs for fear of spreading their germs. And before anyone else asks, no, I am not `one`.

Friday night was Kate`s birthday and so I trundled off down the George. A few mod DJs were playing, but I was too sober to dance, although the Nova teachers tried to make me. I tried to join in, but a foolish (though aesthetically pleasing) choice of footwear and stark sobriety stopped me, so I downed a Sambuca and hoped to quickly join in with the party. I kicked off my sandals and was just getting going when everyone made a dash for the last train, so I latched on to the DJs and their friends and won them over by announcing, in painful Japanese, that 1968 was the best year. I was so caught up in this conversation, I didn`t notice what Ardir was up to with my camera and woke up the next day with all sorts of weird shots, mainly featuring Ken`s facial comments on the night (and me) and this woeful attempt to impress (it is sort of impressive - go to a Japanese swimming pool and you won`t find that much hair around the communal shower plughole). I tried to woo a Japanese mod and got so far, but while we were chatting he rounded off every sentence with `Zoe wakkaru?` (do you understand?) to which I had to reply in the negative and so we would potter over to his more fluent friend in the Pepsi Cola dress for assistance - I think the expense of having to fork out for her, as well as me, to come along on dates was the final, unsurmountable hurdle.

It justified my sudden spurt of Nihongo study recently. I use the term study loosely. I have bought a new book, which I showcased in front of my newly-permed and suddenly less attractive hairdresser (which is just as well, he saw me unwashed in my PE kit on my way to play tennis with Sean when I mistook him for a woman and thought it safe to go in and book an appointment) and haven`t touched since, as well as buying some kanji flashcards, which I flicked through and put down before I got out of the numbers, which I already know, for fear of being disheartened. I did arrange some language exchanges, unaware that this a euphemism for `study date`. My first date was clearly uninterested, we skipped through the `te` form of Japanese verbs without a pause for thought (it makes it much harder, believe me) and then he had me record some sentences. He claimed these were for the TOEIC exam, but then said he didn`t study for TOEIC. He took me to a karaoke booth so he could record in quiet surroundings, but did jokingly offer me a microphone for one song before we left. A sudden and unexpected show of humour. My first attempt hadn`t even gone that well, the man in question suddenly vanishing when I put my foot down about meeting on home turf. The third was not so bad; unattractive but we did have a genuine and useful language exchange. He did send a dubious email after suggesting we make our meetings `meaningful`, and there has been radio silence since I replied in perfunctory gratitude. My next `date` is with a 23-year-old that I don`t have the energy to even bother with now I have accepted this has nothing to do with studying.

I had a disappointingly giftless birthday party with the Menopause Sisters. This time, Sachiko showed off her house, where we startled her husband into a thousand bows when he stumbled across us in the living room before scuttling off to hide in the office across the path. Sachiko piled plates of homecooked food in front of us, the low table sagging with the weight, and my knees buckling from all the kneeling, while she fried up pork and chicken because I have somehow tagged myself as a vegetable-loathing carnivore. Takako and Hideko tried to broach corn on the cob with ladylike pickings at each kernel, before I picked mine up in my hands and they copied. Afterwards Sachiko dragged us to an empty karaoke bar (owned by Mamasan, who looked a lot like my own mother), where she forced everyone to sing. She was leafing through the book trying to coax me into Mariah Carey numbers and demanding to hear my `Yesterday` and bluffing offense when I said I didn`t like `Yesterday`. I felt her bullying and buffering everyone into something only she enjoyed negated any rudeness of an outright refusal on my part. The other two spotted long before that I was not keen on singing (karaoke is really only a means of getting and enjoying being drunk, singing sober is a vile thing to do), but Sachiko kept on like a pitbull on a baby`s face. Eventually, I had to buckle and attempt to sing a `popular Japanese song` after my protests that not knowing the tune or the words or even being able to read the words on the screen made it practically impossible were either incomprehensible or conveniently ignored.

Still no wiser

So far, I`m quite enjoying 29. I feel a bit like a real grown up, although this might be because I am living out of context and spending day after day with eight-year-olds who find it hilarious that foreigners could ever be the same age as their mothers and repeatedly check their understanding of newly-taught adjectives on me ("old teacher" and "ugly teacher" are favourites, the smarter kids go for the double-blow of "handsome teacher", smartarses). Somehow it really is a big joke that I might be the same age as their parents. Maybe because their mothers are cloaked in ageless skin, while I sport wrinkles that put the old obaasans to shame.

After suffering hideously all day Friday, Saturday night I found it surprisingly easy to get back on the horse. I met an assortment of teachers, students, receptionists and randoms in Omiya station before heading off for a plush and perhaps over-priced izakaya for the party. David and Kenji brought me ten bottles of five kinds of Nihonshu and I committed myself to drinking it for the rest of the evening, though not from their stash. It was a very thoughtful, if slightly weighty gift, as was Rob`s bottle of Bailey`s; `because all ladies love Bailey`s, don`t they?`. Not entirely accurate, but nicely thought out.

Sadly karaoke was off the menu, so we missed Takeshi`s Queen medley. Next time perhaps. He and Raku hit it off very well comparing tattoos. It was like a yakuza initiation. Because the group was split across three tables, I had to flit between the three for the majority of the night, stealing the best food from each before moving on for my next helping. It kept me relatively sober for the majority of the night, but once everyone was nicely settled and the latecomers had been seen to I hit the sake with Sachiko and my memory fades there. I have vague recollections of haranging Shozu in broken Japanese for smoking, but sober I can`t even remember the verb for that, so I suspect he had no idea what I was going on about. As I`ve re-caught my cold for a third time, I have found I have accidentally stopped smoking. It has been over a month now, Thursday and Saturday being my biggest tests, and I have turned into one of those overtly puritantical quitters. Just what I always wanted to be.

On Sunday morning, I managed to get to Cafe Lamp almost on time (it was before the start time, but the organiser was already calling to check where I was). I almost regretted not letting on to everyone that it was my birthday when another teacher was handed an envelop of cash, but then he had to stand and endure `Happy Birthday`, which no amount of money could make fun for a second time in a week.

After the session, I ran off to meet Yuka, but decided to take her to lunch with everyone for some English practise, but I got caught up in a conversation with a demanding Japanese boy who accused all gaijin males preying on Japanese girls of being paedophiles. I couldn`t possibly comment. Yuka and I then went for her lesson, which she hadn`t been expecting - the poor girl needs to learn to question things more assertively if she`s ever going to survive in New York. She had thought I had, without any warning or checking if it was OK, had bumped her lesson for a get-together with some of my mates. Afterwards, I met Darrell for a few drinks, which stretched way past the last trains and I put him on the spare futon. Perhaps a little too cosy for non-blood relatives.

Monday was a struggle, but on Tuesday I got to meet the long-lost and long-missed Takumasa, who came into my lesson for a make-up class. He still gabbles away in Japanese, but this time I understood slightly more of it. His new teacher is OK, but makes him sing karaoke if he misses two lots of homework. Sadly, he had done his this week as I was hoping to get a chance to be a bit sterner and make him sing. He enjoyed the alpha-twister and almost wet himself when he found out that dodgeball was still in the lesson plan.

Last night, Yoshiko (with me) and Miyoko (with Mike) took us out for another birthday meal and my favourite, quietest student, Fumitake came along. He was a bit drunk when he arrived, and 15 minutes late, which had the ladies in a flap, but still as quiet as ever. He has told me before he doesn`t like his job as it involves communicating, so I was flattered that he came and am still confused that he ever chose to study.

To make my toils with hiragana worthwhile, I`ve decided to take the Japanese profficiency test in December, so have been trying to increase my levels of study (which had reached nil). As well as buying a kanji book for 7-yeaar-olds, I have applied for a tonne of language exchanges, but I very quickly realised this was just a euphimism for dating. Many long-established mixed race couples now blush at their naivety at coming together in such a way. I had previously considered and ruled this out as the magazine I used also had a dating personal ads column, so assumed the weirdoes would use that. I am going ahead anyway, but with caution and an open mind. Who knows. Apparently most mixed couples in Japan owe their inception to these exchanges, but most involve girls who want a foreigner and little else. I am overly, and probably unjustifiably, fussy and know exactly what is good-looking, a quality Japanese girls cannot discern.

I`m enjoying being connected to the internet at home for the first time but can`t use my computer very well. I know it has somewhere a facility for voice recordings as it has an internal microphone, but I have no idea how to access it. None of the help pages seem to offer any insight, but I am persisting. I have offered to record a speech for one of my students to learn intonation so I must. I also don`t know what my password is for my email account, so can`t use the iChat facility, which is hindering me. The shop set up my laptop with no password to access it, but the mail account is demanding one and I can`t find anything anywhere - it could be there, but be signposted in Jap.

I`ve had another unwelcome guest. Shortly after finishing my last blog entry, this casual intruder strode into my room, swanking like a championship boxer. Cockroaches know they will fuck over the meek and steal their inherited Earth. This one wasn`t so awkward or quick as his predecessor and almost felt like a pet. He casually checked out a pile of clean underwear as a possible den, before meandering within range of my plastic tub. While telling a friend about his capture, the friend let slip that Japanese cockroaches (and maybe others, I am no mushi expert) can fly. If I`d been countering his flight into my face, like the other one`s dash for my feet, I would have invested in a less environmental way to deal with him and his friends. Japan is much like Britain in one respect. I have had to stop talking about these unpleasant experiences as people here can`t help bu add unsettling information to that I already have. Apparently, for each cockroach you see, there are another 50 hidden close by, which means my flat is host to around 100. In an apartment already overcrowded by my solitary presence, this is bad news indeed.

The other ailing fellow is a Cicada, a huge flyer incompetent. They never live long enough to learn how to steer their own bodies so you often feel them bouncing off your head before hitting the dirt and waiting to die. This one was two steps from Heaven and an inch from my cash card (note Saitama`s local cartoon character adorning the card). Everything is vastly bigger to what we`re used to in England, but Yoshiko put my paltry fear of spiders into perspective when she explained that she isn`t scared of insects as, when a child working in her parent`s rice paddies, snakes would often swim past and her brother would pull them out of the water and whip her with them!