August 2001

Sunday 5th August 2001

It's four thirty in the afternoon, and I'm travelling back to Tokyo with Yuki, her mother and her auntie. We're on a shinkansen and just as I write this, two uniformed girls have just walked by pushing a rubbish trolley - it's the first time I've seen that. Maybe it's unique to this particular line. Anyway, we're on our way back from a weekend in Nasu. Nasu is a resort area about one and a half hours north of Tokyo. It's famous for its onsens (natural hot springs). Yuki and I spent yesterday afternoon at the pool and trying various onsens and saunas. Among the stranger of these was the salt sauna where people rub salt into their skin, and the coffee onsen which, as its name suggests was like sitting in a bath of weak, black coffee. The milk onsen wasn't far off, but not close enough tomake a decentdrink! If you are the typeof person who often mistakes the sugar for the salt, you could imagine you are wandering half naked in a giant Starbucks! If so, please try not to get drunk! ...Think about it.

On Saturday evening, after an excellent “all you can eat and drink“ dinner, we went on a night safari trip. From inside the fortified bus I got the closest I've ever been to lions, a giraffe and an elephant - a few inches. The passengers were, at a price, allowed to feed the animals (not the lions) through the barred windows. I didn't feed the animals, and in general I was not in approval of this safari park. There were too many animals locked in too small cages for my liking - not something you expect at a safari park. Today we checked out and took a bus to Chausudake, a nearby volcano. We took the cable-car most of the way up, then walked the last two hundred metres in altitude. It was a much more enjoyable experience than Mount Fuji - less than an hour to the top. It had a strong smell of exuding sulphur near the top. After descending we had a late lunch and took a bus to the train station. That brings us just about up to date as we pull in to Tokyo Station with Yuki still asleep on my shoulder.

Thursday 9th August 2001

Miscellaneous Observation No.5

Unwrap It!

I’m in my office writing this when I should rightly be doing something else, but I wanted to strike while the frustration is hot!

Why is it the Japanese do not unwrap things? They almost always leave the plastic shrink-wrap on their umbrellas and even leave the protective plastic patch on the windows of their mobile phones. The insides of taxis have a clear plastic layer added to make them wipe-clean, and aerosol cans, such as hair spray have a layer of plastic applied outside the tin!

I would be surprised if anybody has ever taken the plastic off of their VCR display. Why!!!??? They don’t sell these things on later. They don’t even keep the article clean in most cases. The plastic gets dirty, and the edges start to peel and get ragged, but still they don’t remove it! If I do one thing to improve Japan before I leave, it will be to remove as many plastic protective layers as possible, thereby revealing the beauty of the natural oak, the clarity of deep red acrylic and releasing the bloody magnetic bars which are currently holding posters on the office wall – still wrapped in PLASTIC BLEEDIN' BAGS!

Back to work - promise to make the time up!

Monday 27th August 2001

The week before last I went to Finland on a business trip. I was fortunate enough to have a spare evening in Helsinki on the fifteenth, which gave me the opportunity to watch Finnish football team beat Belgium four goals to one in the Finnair Stadium. Later the same evening England were less fortunate, losing two nil to Holland - luckily the game was a friendly.

After a few day's business in Finland, I flew back to the UK, where I spent a day in my old office. I then had a short break to see my friends and family. I was a little sad to discover by chance, that the office where my engineering career all started had closed. It appeared to be set for redevelopment. It's always good to see the dog hasn't forgotten me. She (Daisy) always gets a fuss when I visit. My mum had taken yet another poor baby into her care. She has been fostering children, including myself, for longer than I can remember (literally). My friends and I enjoyed the Saturday evening in the "Big Easy" restaurant in the Kings Road, London, celebrating Keith's thirty-sixth birthday (he's catching me up).It seems quite strange, but towards the end of my stay in the UK I was actually looking forward to getting back to Tokyo. Obviously I wanted to see my wife, but not only that, I have very little to do in England once I have seen everybody. One thing I do have to do though, is start considering my plans for returning home (to England). I have to decide whether to move back into my flat, or buy something bigger before returning, in order that we can move straight into that. Incidentally, my tenant defaulted on his rent for the first time last month. The managing agency said he'd had a car crash and couldn't work for a month. I resisted threatening him with the Yakuza, in favour of giving him time to come to some arrangement with the agent!

Thursday 31st August 2001

I'm standing on the train on my way home. It's about 10:15pm - I've been working late. The air smells flamable, there's so much alcahol in it! This is the time when the salarymen roll out of the izakayas, and either go home, or fall asleep in the street! The best thing about it is, that's normal. If you don't do it at least once in a while, you're considered "Billy-no-mates"! Luckily, I fit in quite nicely with this trait of Japanese society - not so sure about going home so early though! As I sit on the subway now, I think it's just worth a mention that the average Japanese would rather stand than suffer sitting next to a gaijin! An excuse commonly used is they are affraid they won't understand you! Since nobody ever talks to each other, that's not too convincing. In Japan the discrimination is almost always passive. I guess that's not so bad if it has to exist at all.