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.

Tokyo nights, Omiya daze

The keyboard is mightier than the sword. In my hands, at least, because I couldn`t lift a sword. It seems my little missives have been upsetting a friend of mine (and perhaps more!) who thought I was writing about him when complaining about the low-grade male compatriots blighting our country`s image in Japan (this one is about you, but those ones weren`t). I`ve been desperate for company in my time in Japan, but never to the point to actually stooping to spending time with these losers. People who have seen me when I`ve not been paid to be there can generally assume they make the grade and have a Zoe-approved kite mark. Sorry for any confusion or upset. Still, it is hardly the time to be complaining and the kite mark can always be withdrawn.

Rachel came to enjoy my penultimate weekend in Tokyo and we did a fair bit of sight-seeing, perhaps more than I have managed in the past few months alone. On Saturday night, we went into Shibuya to go to a hip hop club and met up with Riaz, Sean and some others, although we only met briefly and stared across a crowded Hub as we couldn`t get a table to fit everyone in. Edwin then somehow convinced everyone to traipse over to Roppongi to meet him to drink JD and coke in the street, although everyone had initially planned to go out in Shibuya. Edwin is silently obstinate and no one so far (aside from, of course, me) has crossed him. I do hope his time comes. He`s a smug little shit. I then forced everyone to go into quite an awful bar which claimed to have a Russian theme, but only had a couple of Eastern European hookers holed up in a corner. It also had a group of young indie lads to whom a pair of Japanese groupies had attached themselves, imagining they were in a bad. One of them tried to tell Yoriko they were in a band too, of course she believed them, but their mate dropped them in it not too much later. She was still smitted with the neckkerchiefs and shaggy hair. I thought they looked like a pack of terriers.

After a couple of hours on Costa del Roppongi watching girls with no brains rump-shake to the death over one fairly kakkoii Japanese boy, before flicking their hair in our faces to warn us off the terriers, we decided to head off to Shibuya. I just couldn`t bear to waste another minute on a low-grade Greek island holiday, so off we went to Shibuya for a night of hip hop in Harlem. Sadly, I had to hand my camera over when we arrived, so I couldn`t snap any of the wide boys on display. I necked with a young judo student who wants to be a PE teacher when he grows up (he was VERY young, though he can legally drink) and he pointed out one of Japan`s best K1 fighters in the club. I tried to surrepticiously take a snap on my camera phone, but just blinded him with the flash and chickened out. I succeded in scaring him downstairs to the dancefloor, so I took the small boy downstairs and introduced him to his hero. We had to wait in the club for the first train, so loafed out at 5am and headed to the convenience store for some sustinence. I also managed to pick up an enormous cardboard box outside the store, the binmen taking it away refusing to let me have the dirty one and giving me a far cleaner one to cart back to Omiya. Yoriko was a bit bemused by me making a spectacle of myself, but it paid off. I can now pack almost all my worldly goods into one box. I can also fit a nice Japanese umbrella in there, which I was hoping for. They are far nicer than British ones.

On Sunday, we flitted between Shibuya and Shinjuku, where I dragged my laptop only to be told that I didn`t have a virus, I just didn`t know how to use the thing. Fortunately, my little beauty is very light, so it didn`t matter too much. We passed a street festival in Shibuya, which was a bit random as it`s usually one of the liveliest places in Tokyo. In the midst of the throng, we spotted some boys in thongs, very common at Japanese festivals and something that no one has yet been able to explain. I can understand the desire to throw off every item that decency allows in the Japanese summer heat, but why keep on your jacket? Rachel also got to lift the cart, a kind man who looked very much like a Dr Suess baddie ushering her in and pushing his friends out to make way.

On Monday, I broke the news to Yoshiko that I was leaving, which sparked tears. She was a bit emotional already as last week she`d been home to mark the anniversary of her father`s death. She travelled back to her home town to pray and visit his grave, something she generally can`t do as her family live so far away. I also told Mina, who was lovely about it and is trying to take the day off work to drive me to the airport. I have only met her a handful of times, but she was insisting on playing some part of my exit strategy. She also treated me to a fantastic meal at my favourite izakaya and told me a story about her friend from Okinawa who blames her move into Tokyo`s polluted atmosphere for the sudden sprouts of nasal hair she`s suffering! I`ll miss Mina, I think she and Yoriko could have been great friends and it`s a shame didn`t have longer to get to know them - though they might have ended up getting on my nerves, most people out here have at some point.

One of the teachers I work with has spent every available minute in the past week boring me until my ears bleed, boasting about all manner of insignificant things, from how lucky he was to go to a grammar school, to describing how he teaches every class. I was vaguely interested when he first told me these things, but he has yet to add anything new to his loop and it is driving me mad. Teaching seriously exaggerates a person`s sense of their own importance. It could be an act of kindness. I wonder if he is patronising me so painfully so I don`t miss Japan when I get home. I can`t see that I will. A few people seem to be conspiring to make my last few days as annoying as possible.

Not Jerry though. Last night I popped into the George to say hello and ended up staying until too late, drinking pink champagne and lamenting the state of Brits abroad woth George. The night was fairly hazy as the gin and champagne mixed, but I vaguely remember me and George teasing him about wearing his cowboy hat for riding on Sunday. If you`re reading this, Jerry, you have to.

Today was obviously quite difficult workwise, but the kids have tests all week. I`ve been threatening to deduct points for talking and been sitting down writing letters. There are so many ways to skive in teaching, it`s genius.

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.

Yukata be kidding

South Park - Crocodile Hunter
Video sent by PigLips

Saitama and the world has been rocked by debate this week. Was Steve Irwin a genius who brought conservationism to the common man or just a git who dangled his kids over crocs` mouths in juvenile stunts? Undecided, I thought I should still pay him a small tribute.

Yesterday, JeDoS visited me in Ageo so I could sign my second year contract, so now I have another 12 months of work and a three year visa. I also have a decreasing enthusiasm for work for the man who delivered the paper. This Sunday, I was hoping to go on a yukata cruise with Lisa, Chantal and a few others, along with some Shane staff and a few more random strangers. We would have toured Tokyo bar in our yukata, enjoying a subsidised trip and Japan`s finest invention, nomihodai (all you can drink) for ¥2500. As it is now, my boss claims to have not seen either of my emails about the trip and so didn`t reserve me any places and we`re not going. Lisa`s boyfriend had re-arranged a shift so he could come and we had variously been plotting how to coax our Japanese friends into helping us dress. All for nothing.

As small as the problem may be, it is the last in a long line of disappoint-
ments and cock-ups by my boss at my expense; the most serious being him not explaining that `compass-
ionate leave` to Shane is set out in the same way as sick pay, in that we have to pay for the privilege, so I`m down by about ¥68,000 this month because of my recent trip home. The company line is clearly more out of line here, but when you have things on your mind, you are not going to be checking small print and I know every boss I`ve had previously would have explained this to me, whether to benefit me or to take a swipe at the policy. He either assumed I would know or forgot. He hasn`t apologised for this - I think a litigiously-aware silence - but that would have cooled my fury immediately. We all make mistakes, after all...

It is a peril of the EFL world that your bosses are little more than reluctant, over-promoted teachers (a workshy breed in themselves), most of whom have been forced to rise up through the ranks because of their spouses and mortgages and not because of any desire or ability to manage. My own boss allegedly resisted rising any further than his previous post as best he could, but the sudden departure of the previous DoS forced his hand, and the salary was kind of handy too. I have requested a change of districts, partly to experiment with some new management (I still hold a torch for the previous DoS, as neurotic and unpopular as he was, mainly because He Got Things Done - sadly, not always things that were welcomed by the teachers beneath him), but my mind is racing with all sorts of procrastinational cliches: better the devil you know; the grass is always greener; out of the frying pan...

It has made me realise how spoiled I was working in Britain with people who were vaguely interested in being decent managers. This wasn`t a skill that blessed everyone I`ve worked for. One line manager was so absent from my working life it was only in my second job that I realised that she should have been someone I knew from places other than the pub, where I generally avoided her bloated, whining mass as best I could anyway. I`ve also had a job where my main responsibility was keeping my manager`s pending breakdown at bay. It doesn`t seem to matter so much in the comfort of an office environment, where you can moan and grumble to other staff before distracting yourself with more interesting and pending matters, like regular updates on reality TV from workshy colleagues who spent all their time surfing entertainment sites for gossip. (Better and worse than it sounds).

The TTA most definitely raised my expectations to an unmanageable level This morning I couldn`t keep my frustration at yet another let-down to myself and so spouted to the ADoS. My second attempt at using him as a sympethic ear. Instead of being led into a small office for a serious listening to, I was rushed off the phone and thanked, with arid sarcasm, for my candour. In EFL, there is no problem, as long as the students are paying up and my students most definitely are. To give the ADoS his due, he did then try to firefight by calling the cruise company to book my mates some places, but they`re all booked up. Lisa and are probably going to go to an izakaya instead, which could be just as good and won`t involve Raju`s mother-in-law dressing me.

After work, I went to meet Jerry for a beef sandwich and a Japanese for horse-riding lesson at the George. Among other things, I learned the Japanese for walk, trot, canter, gallop, stop, turn, jump and help. Jerry learned a few Japanese riding words too. I don`t know if he`s ever been on a horse. His previous allusions to being an experienced rider are quickly being revealed as weak attempts to impress. He had to finally admit last night that he had ridden for around two hours in the past few years and hasn`t gone much faster than a walk. This was brilliant for me and George, who spent yet another evening Jerry-baiting. It`s a lot like bullying and perhaps something I should stop, but oh so tempting when he gets caught out so easily. I ought to be nicer to him though, he`s found an amazing and quite affordable stable. We have a 40 minute lesson `to relax on a horse`, according to the brochure, then ride out around a mountain. I`m a bit scared of this bit, as it does look quite high, but I`ll hopefully be able to secrete my camera somewhere in my jodphurs without attracting too much attention.

George pulled out his Darth Vader mask, which we all tried on, but no one wore it as well as Ken. Vader should wear bonnets more. We practised some more `bad` Japanese and I impressed everyone with Yoriko`s `special needs`. I like it best as it uses `desu` and not `arimasu`, so it`s `he is special needs`, not `he has...`. Later, Pat danced.

The girl on the train is wearing a t-shirt that said `I`m built like a brick shithouse`. I don`t think anyone else could wear it so well.

Japan`s underberry

I started this entry when I was in a worse mood, now I`m quite keen on Japan as I`m in an izakaya mood and have just had a lovely Japanese lesson with Marikosan, the undervalued receptionist (all Shane receptionists are, but Mariko seems very special) at Koga. For one, she is teaching me for free, claiming it is good practise for her future career as a Japanese teacher, but having been through a similar process myself, I know two minutes in front of a class of real students will far outweigh anything she could learn by practising on me. I haven`t told her yet. Along with this, I got home to find a package of internet shopping perched by my door, unstolen by human hands. I know Britain is not awash with thieving vermin, and will berate any guide-quoting Japanese tourist who claims otherwise, but it`s nice that this happens because postmen know that this is safe and are not just being lazy and shirking off taking it back to the depot. I`ve also had a few emails about apartments, so hopefully the stress of potentially being homeless by the end of the month will be alleviated enough for me to sleep tonight and the black bags under my eyes will go out with the gomi in the morning.

My home viewing for this evening has not been quite so pleasurable. I saw the same drama last week, and its plot centres around a man`s boss raping the man`s wife. However, the `drama` unfolds not from the ensuing court case, but from the resulting domestics as the wife disapproves of her husband accepting the sly boss`s backhanders. The boss performs the deed and heads off to a hostess bar, then the disrupted family are left bereft of trust as the wife tries to work out how the husband got hold of that very expensive new briefcase... Rape fantasies are big business here. Many of my male friends have complained of `friends of theirs` watching Japanese porn only to find the important bits pixellated (childlike breasts and any flesh that isn`t revealed by a school uniform, which is not much) or that through the pixellation the very clear outline of a man violently attacking an unwilling, childlike victim can be seen. Sex on TV rarely gets beyond some samurais peeping into a women`s onsen, though the women are still unwilling (and pure and worth attacking, I assume).

On Monday, I was speaking to Yoshiko about the prevalence of infidelity in Japan, possibly not a sensitive conversation, given that she is a Japanese wife whose husband is most likely out at every opportunity spending his pocket money on hostesses. She explained that men`s attitudes to infidelity, and the period samurai dramas depiction of onsen perving, stem from long ago, when the Shogun would spot a young lovely he fancied, and whether she was up for it or married or whatever, he`d have her dragged into his harem. Later, he`d stroll in wearing white kimono and point at the lucky woman and she`d be prepared for him.

This has been adjusted more recently to companies providing prostitutes for men on company away days. A colleague`s wife went on a team-bonder and, while getting into her PE kit, heard from the men`s changing rooms the unmistakable grunts of four or five prostitutes servicing the 20 or 30 male staff. She decided to quit her company, though she would have to be of a certain age to hope to find re-employment elsewhere. The saying here is that women are like Christmas cake, no good after the 25th.

These days, modern Japan offers women a lot for tolerating this gross objectification, like their husband`s whole salary. He hands it over on pay day and is given back an allowance, which he will promptly squander on other women. The wives must have some inkling of this, it is so widespread (think everyone, everywhere, and with no shame), but they give the men a budget that allows for hostessing. I`d give mine sandwiches, yoghurt and bus fare.

In the midst of all this, Princess Kiko has given the Imperial Palace the male heir it has been longing for, allowing the Government to pause the debate over legislation changing the line of succession to perhaps allow the Crown Prince and Princess Masako`s daughter to ascend the throne. Kiko`s son has leap-frogged over her depressive sister-in-law`s offspring, Aiko, who had prompted the debate. Though only for now, as some see this as a perfect opportunity to have the debate in a less personal way discussing whether Aiko, Mako or Kako will make a better leader.

Most of these discussions have been fuelled, not only by the ruling elite`s preference for a male leader, but the country`s dislike for Masako. Her critics demanding she and the Crown Prince divorce. Princess Masako was initially a very successul diplomat and was reluctant to marry the Prince as she didn`t want to give up her career. Eventually he asked too many times for her to refuse him politely again and they married and, according to my Daily Mailian students, fell in love. He was already a bit stalkerish long before then from what I can work out. She then, disappointingly, gave birth to a girl and developed serious depression as the country turned against her. At the end of last year, she braved her first public appointment in a couple of years, having been locked away dealing with her issues or leaning very closely to her husband if she ever did leave the Imperial Palace. Yukiko, the student who no longer thinks George Michael is cool, severely disapproves of Masako`s inability to face the public whilst apparently frolicking (in Japanese terms, this is a muted, pained smile) with her friends. Web forums have flourished with disdain for the poor woman who had tried to avoid this lifestyle as best she could and been calling for their divorce so a real woman can produce a real heir. For now, her sister-in-law has taken a little of the heat off her.

It`s hard to say in the same passage that I enjoy Japan again. You do need to experience it for a long time to see it objectively. I suspect my own positive spin comes from these elements slowly becoming less shocking and allowing me to focus again on the nicer bits. However, the position of women in Japan is grossly inferior to lesser, older men and it has made me fall completely in love with Britain. Many people here say they could never go back home, but I just don`t understand why. On a material level, life can be very enjoyable here, but you have to be blind and dumb to not find the values at work beneath Japanese society chokingly offensive. I eat out more times a week than I used to in a month, and for ugly or unfortunate men, there are other benefits, but there is far more respect for others in Britain. Even counting the bullies, racists, louts and thugs, there is a widespread belief in society that this type of behaviour is wrong. There are rules to stop it, even if people choose to flout them.

This is why I have spates of absolutely HATING the British men who come here and exploit it. Married women are not allowed to work (they are taxed at an exceptionally high rate if they try), are brought up to feel they amount to whatever their Estee Lauder makes them and they (and, to be fair, the men too) should never, ever complain. British men who come here know how wrong this is, it`s far worse for them to milk it than the men who were brought up with it as their normality. Our lot should know better.

You should also know that Stitch is fashionable and Chicken Little is not. As told to me by Miyu today. She is 15, bless her.

Where did you get that hat?

I had a small eureka moment this week when a very small earthquake gave one of my classes a little jiggle: I`m a responsible adult and have to take care of small Japanese children, including calmly ushering them under a table should the Great Kanto Earthquake repeat itself, as it has been due to for the past decade. They know far more about how to handle them than I do so I might take advantage of some of the earthquake training events that are taking place to mark the earthquake`s anniversary. They have them every September and October, and you can go in an earthquake simulator.

This ludicrous chancer has volunteered to language exchange with me. His pose annahilates any doubts about language exchange being a euphimism for blind dating. I had applied to around 10 exchanges in a panic when my Japanese classes closed for summer, and he is one of the five (men only) replies I received. I`ve met one of them a couple of times and he seems to give a passable attempt at language exchange, the first time I managed to ask why the Beatles are bigger here than in Britai, but he couldn`t answer in either language. There`s still a sniff of unwelcome potential romance; Friday night he insisted on paying for dinner (not exactly a problem, but a strong hint of a date in a country where men are very accustomed to paying for female company) and we generally spoke in English because I was too tired to bother. He has also mentioned a girlfriend, but fidelity is literally an alien concept here. Itsuma, who gives his job as `guard man` looks like quite a playa and probably has three girlfriends already, and could be fishing for a fourth. He was after a photo of me from the off, but maybe he just wanted to show off his hat.

Last night Jerry and I discussed horse-riding over some very good yakitori. We had to traipse around a bit to find somewhere to eat as everywhere was booked for wedding parties, but I think it was for the best. The place we went to was great. We`re off to the mountains for a trail lesson at the end of the month. Horse-riding is an even more expensive pursuit in Japan than it is in Britain as you have to join clubs and then pay a nominal fee for each ride. The joining fee can be anything from ¥10,000 up, though this wouldn`t be out of the question. Clubs in Tokyo proper charge far, far more. We then headed to the George as I wanted a bit of impartial employment advice, but neither of us can remember getting home. I just got an email from Jerry asking `how did I get to my home`. I had been hoping to ask him the same question. I guess we both fell out of the same taxi, but what happened before we got into it is anyone`s guess.

Today I had an extremely tiring session at Cafe Lamp. Why these people come to `conversation time` with no intention of speaking, I don`t know. I was too tired to think of a topic, so turned the tables on the students and asked them to come up with some questions. This went quite well, and very interestingly, on the more advanced table, with one wacky boy asking why it is only in Britain that we have the insult `sheepshagger` and who also asked another student his opinion of necrophilia, but the beginner`s table was stumped and too shy to venture anything. I tried a new angle, by asking why they wanted to learn English, but in spite of claiming to want to use it to make friends, none of them dared ask another a question, until a `maverick` from Osaka asked the table if they had attended any horse-races and finally they warmed up and got going.

Afterwards, there was the usual faffing over lunch arrangements, before we headed off for Thai and Lisa came to meet us. I was so pleased as she got to see Graeme the JET Kaori has been stalking for the past year. I had warned Lisa before that he was a bit ridiculous and she spotted it immediately. The Japanese just think he`s cool, but he clearly isn`t. This is him with me and Aki last November. He has since let the bleach grow out and only spikes his hair on special occasions, but his general demeanour is much the same. Ultimately, he`s a decent, well brought-up boy, but seems ashamed of this and retardedly desperate to shock (as is Aki, much to her mother`s despair).

Lisa and I finally managed to shake Graeme off (being a JET he gets less time with other gaijin than us and bursts with English when he has a chance to speak at his usual pace) and did a lot of very depressing window shopping. I couldn`t resist a brooch from the second-hand shop of my friend in the Pepsi Cola dress from the George`s mod night. I still don`t know her name, but hopefully we`re going to a mod night in Tokyo together next month. Lisa and mooched around, tried checking out boys using Loft`s music studio, stalked my hairdresser a little bit, looked in shops we couldn`t afford and tried on glasses.

It was lovely. So, so easy. No slowing my speech or downgrading my diction, no need to explain reference points or politely deny my dislikes. I hadn`t realised how much hard work it can be spending time without real friends. She`s someone I would most definitely get on with back home (suddenly the world`s biggest compliment), but I like her all the more here as she is such a rarity here. Most gaijin here are men, and most of those are losers, and I don`t enjoy spending time with them so much. It`s not because I feel I am better than them (I`m a bit of a geek myself, though some here do epitomise the term `loser`), but they do have a tiresome perspective on life and an essence of bitterness that no number of up-dated Japanese shags can quite extinguish.

The girls are generally Australian or Canadian, and brilliant fun, but they don`t provide a full friendship service. Partying is an ever-ready attribute, you dance and drink until the sun comes up and they will never tire, but if you want a quiet chat about something boring and sensible, don`t go to an Australian. Canadians bridge the gap between Britain and Australia, so are generally better (some openly admit to studying Japanese), but most Australians think it is soft to show any signs of intellectuality or to think and not do. This is why sport is such a national treasure there. I was told off recently by Mike for referring to them as half-people, but congratulated by Roisin for the same thing, which is worth a little more in my eyes. Kate, as I have said before, is a lovely (and still sport-loving) exception. Having had almost a year`s drought of mindless girl`s chat out here (aside from the occasional oasis from Rachel breezing in from Osaka), talking nothingy rubbish with Lisa today was so utterly normal and enjoyable.

After loafing around we headed towards the station to find this trio busking with considerably more style than you could expect in Leicester Square tube. They had brought their own generator, mics and amps, but had to mill around and blend into the crowd as the police ran over to move them on. The started packing up slowly, let the police get back to the koban and started up again, their groupies blowing bubbles at them as they sang. The were very boy-bandy and I could feel the air palpitating with teenage hormones as the girls swooned along with them. The guy in the middle could easily have gone solo, but his nerves gave him worse shakes than Parkinsons.

I`ve just finished watching the first X-Men movie on TV, which was immediately followed by a programme about a very small Chinese girl with a home-cut pudding basin haircut. At the moment, she is eating chicken from the whole leg, the claw scratchingly close to her face as she tucked into the anaemic-skinned boiled thigh. I think I might have nightmares tonight.

For all my unexpected enthusiasm for Japanese boys, my heart belongs to a Banksy.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article1325440.ece