Sometimes I really hate Japan.
Now, before you start heeding those 'bad internationalisation' alarms, let me tell you that this is just some dumb thing that could be changed at any time and may well have already been implemented somewhere in the country.
I'm talking about low ceilings.
Low. Flipping. Ceilings.
Like, I haven't even been home three days yet and already I've bashed my head on four occasions. The last two happened within a few seconds of each other. I have no shame in telling you I have since shed tears for my damaged cranium and pride.
Now, you can tell me all those lovely statistics about overpopulation, soaring house prices and engineering efficiency, but I don't care! In Edinburgh you can barely SEE the ceiling, how high it is! It's a major step down to have to duck any time I'm on my feet in this place. I can feel my already not brilliant posture breaking down before me. By the time I get home in some 3 years time (fingers crossed) I will likely need regular appointments with a chiropractor and neurologist.
So that's my rant for this entry. Ask me nicely and next week I'll let you in on my rant for the animated atrocity that was High School of the Dead.
Winter break, then. It all started on the Thursday before the end of term. The 22nd, that'd be. Steph and I took the first train outta Kobe after work, heading for Osaka. Though we'd have liked to have checked in our bags for the next day's flight, it was apparently a bit late for that, so we then carted them off on the local train to some backwater village right near the airport and the hostel we would be spending our last night in Japan in. It was a nice place, owned by an eccentric, kimono-loving elderly Japanese man who took great pride in showing us his array of pictures of previous foreign residents. In traditional Japanese dress. Did I mention he LOVED kimonos? A quiet, comfortable night's sleep that was over all too soon to head to the airport and catch our flight.
Let me tell you about China Eastern Airlines. It's one thing to say that you can tell a budget airline by its few amenities and poor quality of food, but China Eastern was so budget my armrest fell off my seat and into the aisle at one point, much to the horror of the passengers around me. May God have mercy on me, and never deliver me to an airline so budget again.
Anyway, we arrived in Vancouver early on Friday morning, having travelled back in time during the flight. Although customs and train rides took up some time, we arrived at the St. Regis Hotel at about 10am, five hours before check-in began. To kill some time we went to a bagel place for breakfast, which was nice, followed by some Canadian coffee shop chain called Tim Horton's, where I fell asleep. Then, having exhausted the patience of the barristers, we returned to the hotel's computer room two hours ahead of time where I once again fell asleep. The staff must have taken pity on us ('tis the season, after all), as they let us into our room a full hour ahead of their arranged time.
The St. Regis hotel is super-nice. The beds were comfy, and the whole thing looked like it should have cost us much more than it actually had. We were out again (after more sleep) to the Old Spaghetti Factory, which is a bit like Frankie and Benny's in the UK. Great food, decent price. I also got told by a passing homeless man that I have good taste in girls. God bless Canada.
The next morning we were off to Vancouver Aquarium, after a healthy sleep-in to recoup our energies. This also gave us a good chance to scout out the Amtrak station that would take us south of the border later that day. I found out that day that I'm not very keen on North American bus drivers. The Aquarium was very nice, though, everything you'd expect from a city that prides itself on marine conservation. I don't think I'd ever seen a beluga before, but if I had I'd never seen one splash water all over a seven-year-old boy with the audacity to stand in the marked 'splash zone'. No pictures, sadly. Honestly, I couldn't be bothered. You try taking a thirteen hour flight and then care about things like photo lighting. The sea otters were especially cute, for all their bum-licking, though Steph and I agreed that rehabilitating a creature that has learnt that food magically falls from the sky every day at 11 o'clock is going to be a tough challenge. Quick, light dinner and then off on the train.
Urgh, US border guard are easily as scary on a train as they are in an airport, a fact not at all helped by the family of morons along the carriage from us who insisted on asking inane questions. You know, those questions your loved ones tell you not to ask around US border guard, even to each other. Things like "Does that say 'Detonator'?" Morons. And let us not forget that on more than one occasion the poutier members of the family would move from their allotted seats to those in front of ours and sit down with so much force they were clearly TRYING to dislodge Giganoss from the seat tray behind them. Yeah, that was the thing that elevated train travel above aero for me, the fact that they provided electricity and internet for the use of computers for the whole three hours. I have never played Saints Row at such velocities before, and perhaps I never will again.
We arrived in Everett, sleepy and dehydrated, not long later. Marsha and Jess were awaiting us at the station, and we promptly returned home. On Christmas Eve we went to a candlelight service, but for the most part the early days in Washington were spent trying to gather the energy for Christmas Day. I awoke around 11am on the big day, far, far later than I have ever awoken before on such a momentous occasion. We opened presents slowly, savouring each one, before spending some time with our new gadgets, games and whatnot. Steph failed horrendously at concealing a plushy turret from Portal 2 from me, when she was attempting to wrap it in the next room and I heard a sudden burst of machine gun fire followed by "Critical error". It was a plot also foiled a little later when she hid it under the tree beneath all the presents, only to have it call out "Are you still there?" when we didn't get to it fast enough.
I'm going to be completely honest here and say that the following days all sort of blended together into a series of tourist events surrounded by the adhesive mush of Mass Effect. Yeah, you heard me. That game is SO darn good. I had expected it to be the sort of game where the fans love it, and the real thing doesn't quite live up to expectations, but oh no. The story-telling is sublime and the action, marred slightly by the odd bug where Wrex decides to shove his head into the side of the Mako tank, and when we get back inside it the self-righting kicks in endlessly to the thing spins up into space, is top-notch. Sniper rifles rock.
But yeah, things that happened during our time in Washington. One day we went out to see the Woodland Park Zoo, which was a lot of fun despite not quite making it all the way round before closing. The reptile house and insect enclosures were ace. We saw a vine snake eat a goldfish, and those guys are stick-thin. The poor kid next to us didn't think it was so cool. "I hate you, stupid snake!" Seriously, we got there at a perfect moment. It was like everybody was getting fed all at once. We even got a chance to feed the penguins ourselves, which was super-cute.
We also went to another aquarium, which was pretty cool but not quite on par with Vancouver. They clean the glass really well at the Seattle Aquarium, though, clean enough that I nearly bumped into it on a number of occasions. It was pretty amazing how close you felt to all the fish with glass that clean, and how close they came to you. It was one of those aquariums that really got the whole 'aren't fish crazy-amazing' thing dead on. We saw all kinds of crazy critters we'd never even heard of before. That was the same day we explored the 'Seattle Underground'. Turns out back in the 1800s there was a big ol' fire that wiped out most of the city, and rather than rebuild the whole thing the merchants decided to save some precious time and just build right on top of the rubble. This meant there was a small labyrinth of 1800s Seattle just under the pavement, which for a fee you can get toured around. The tour guides were all really funny, they knew what sort of facts to focus on, but honestly that Underground isn't as cool as you'd think. Not many skeletons in the closet, so the only people I think would really be wowed by the tour would be historical anthropologists and civil engineers. The closest I got to historical anthropology was Civilization 4.
But really, I enjoyed just spending time in a family for Christmas, resting up and playing video games. There was even those two days of blackout to enjoy. We rolled up Traveller characters. And now here I am again, writing to you on this penultimate day of holiday. Tuesday's my first day back, Monday being a national holiday. In the meantime, Steph and I have been trying to string out our time as best we can with films 'n stuff. Last night was a double bill of Dogma (dumb, but infinitely likable) and Attack the Block. I really liked that second one, the characters were all spot-on and the quality of writing was undeniably genius. Still, it'd take a bit more than a bit of life-risking bravado and local loyalty for me to change my opinion of those young yobs by the end. Call me prejudiced, 'cos that's probably true. Tonight will probably be Toy Story 2 which, can you believe it, Steph has never seen!
I'm out. Thanks for reading, and happy new year.
