Hello, and welcome to the third in a series of blogs chronicling the grand adventures of student-turned-teacher-plus-internet-superstar Swanner Peek. When we last left our intrepid hero, he was graduating from Edinburgh University with his MA in Japanese and Linguistics, and now we see him putting those hard-earnt letters to use in a job out in Japan. As we speak I am on board a coach heading to Shinjuku from Narita Airport, and everything around me is Japanese. Like, everything. It shouldn't surprise me, but I think the past eleven and a half hours on the plane blurred together to make a strange, dreamlike state in which I didn't go anywhere at all. Needless to say this is all a little shocking.
The flight was bearable, I suppose. My head hurts and my poor suit is a little crumpled (they have irons at the hotel, apparently) and my feet are twice the size they should be and I seem to have lost and then refound every last item in my inventory over the last half hour. First I had everything, then I was told that having money in the luggage being sent off to Kobe City (did I mention that's specifically where I'm heading?) wasn't clever and I had to pull it all out and shove it into my hand luggage. Then, having sent everything off, I found I no longer had my passport nor my boarding card for the bus and, fearing the worst, spent a few panic-stricken minutes pulling out every last of my million pockets (I'm wearing a raincoat over this suit, not that I need one) in search of it, before realising I'd foolishly shoved it into the main compartment of my handluggage with my money. So, all that found, I went to board the bus, only to find that AGAIN my boarding card had escaped my clutches. Were it not for a helpful coach driver finding it on the floor, I'd have been forced to take the walk of shame. Now I'm on the bus, and everything's gonna be alright.
Rest of today's free, operating out of Shinjuku's Keio Plaza Hotel, right in the thick of it. We've been heartily instructed to make the most of this free tourist time (particularly those of us newcomers to this crazy culture), and I fully intend to do that. Steph's flight gets in at 5.30pm, and until then I'm on my own. Do you know what I'm gonna do first?
I'm gonna change, go down the street to the first convenience store I can find, and I'm gonna buy a tuna mayo onigiri, a bar of Big Thunder and a carton of coffee milk (and maybe even something else, like a melon bread). The lunch of gaijin kings. Hey, maybe they'll even have those instant kitsune udons... nah, sounds like too much bother all of a sudden. Dinner'll be sorted when Steph gets here, so it'll be up to me to hunt down some romantic spots ahead of time. And for dinner on Tuesday, for that matter, the only other meal before departure on Wednesday morning that we'll have to get for ourselves.
Suddenly I find myself wondering what Hanayama neighbourhood's gonna be like. I think it'll be strikingly similar to Steph's Mukaijima from third year, all homes and farmland with one supermarket to cover a good many homesteads, and big roads and bigger thunderstorms. And y'know, I think I'd quite like that. I've done the suburbia thing, I think I know enough about the... uh, urbia thing to know I'd rather not try it, so it makes sense to have a few years of country life to complete the experience.
Ah, one of the customs guys I was talking to was looking through my passport and suddenly splurted out 'Nihon-go, daijoubu desu ne.' Scary stuff. Fortunately he didn't go on to test my 'nihon-go' very much, just asking if I had any liquids or medicine I needed to declare. But it struck a chord: this was what I was gonna have to do fairly regularly for the next few years.
I just saw a Pokemon Center!! Do you think the driver'll be angry if I ask him to pull o- Ah, now it's gone. There'll be time, oh yes there will. I have my Ash hat ready and waiting.
I hope he doesn't realise I'm typing about him, but the guy across from me just opened his luggage and found a 'Safe travels' card from, I'd imagine, the girl I saw mournfully clutching his arm back in Heathrow. Now his reaction lenses have darkened over, and maybe he's happier that way. Maybe if I ask he'll do a Roy Mustang from Fullmetal Alchemist.
"No... it's raining..."
Think the flight drove me a little crazy, to be honest. I got about an hour and half of sleep, but boy was it not enough. But fear not, readers, Swanner will ride out the day so as not to get hit by jet-lag tomorrow morning. But boy, when I get into that hotel room my body's gonna be screaming for a lie down. After I've lunched up, maybe, but no sleep! Oh right, I was gonna talk about the flight. There were 65 films on offer, sixty-five! Can you even imagine how many hours I could have wasted watching Battle:LA, Friendship With Benefits, Bollywood films about robots and the like. In the end I only ended up watching a single hour of The Adjustment Bureau (that's right, isn't it?) before being ejected from the plane. Seems interesting, in a sort of pop supernatural conspiracy way, and I'll have to finish it later. Also watched two very good episodes of Modern Family, two very good episodes of Family Guy, and then one episode of Family Guy that had me giving up ten minutes in due to the sheer vileness of it. Those who are curious about that sort of thing, it was the 'notorious' (Virgin Air prided themselves in telling me) 150th episode where Stewie and Brian get locked in a bank vault. Oh, also watched one of the Inbetweeners, which was pretty good.
Just passed Disneyland, everyone's very excited. The massive ferris wheel is getting less attention, despite it reminding me warmly of previous Japan travels.
Seriously, EVERYTHING is Japanese! It's a real mind-bender. I mean, I'm in a coach full of Brits, and our guide is a San Franciscan, but when I look out the window it's all Japanese. Like a portal into another world, or one of those amusement park rides where it tries to make you think you're in a marine APC gunning down Aliens by shaking the seat around. Maybe when we get off we'll all be in London again... I'm not sure that'll happen.
This bridge is apparently called the Rainbow Bridge. Looks pretty dreary to me, and to be fair that's exactly how I'd like it right now. No sun in sight, just a lot of overcast, cooling goodness. Coor, there's a nice-looking bridge further towards the sea. Skyscraper heaven, here; reminds me of Godzilla: Save the Earth on the Xbox where spotting chuckable skyscrapers became a favourite pasttime. Baseball, there. Let's expect some more of that.
Think I'll stop talking about the stuff I pass on the way to the hotel and sign off. More updates to come, rest assured. Until next time.
Thanks for reading.
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