UCL Lost Boys

No. really. I am. I thought I might well seeing as I’m here and all.

I live in Kanagawa prefecture, in Kawasaki city, but having only done kendo here through introduction it takes me about an hour or so to get to practise.

(on a side note I live between Musashi Shinjo Station and Musashi Mizo no Kuchi station. Musashi, this can only be a good sign!)

So, there is no big change at the moment to the amount that I am travelling to keiko compared to britain. And that, my dear reader, is precisely where this comparision finishes, because pretty much everything is different.

The Floor
At the moment I practise in Koubukan in Nakano ku, and Shinjuku Kendo Club, funnily enough, in Shinjuku ku. Both of these places have floors basically designed to allow kendo nice and comfortably. No more painful knees, no more painful heels, and a lovely booming fumikomi like the fist of an angry god. Glorious.

The F-king heat
On the flip side, neither of these places is even vaguely air conditioned. “Turn on the air conditioning” results in the windows being opened. And thats it. Its worse at Koubukan, where I can guarantee losing a litre of sweat just changing into my dougi. With my men on it feels like I’ve got a little Calor Gas heater installed inside my mengane, on “blast furnace”.

The level of people
This is crazy. Last night I practised with 2 hachidan and 3 nanadans inside of one hour. In britain I would have to pay silly bucks for some seminar and que infront of idiots like farmer giles (speshul praktiss!)while watching some pedestrian plum try to tsuki the hachidan off his feet after gyaku do-ing him in the crown jewels. Here I wait for 5 minutes then get stuck in for a few of my own, then go and wait around 5 minutes for the next guy.

Then of course there are the “normal” members, who seem sto comprise young godan and rokudan, who also seem intent on ripping me a new arsehole. And its great. If I want a pagger, I go to these guys and get my lumps.

Basically each practise I go to is like the Belgian Referee seminar without the long ques and the population of gumps. I am loving it.

I can do my own thing and get taught
Its great, these guys are interested in teaching me and give me very simple stuff to work on that has very real effects, from how I take centre to why I should, amongst other things. Its brilliant. Its like practising with Yanai Sensei 5 times every day. And even then, if I don’t feel like anything like that, I can simple find a young bloke with a chip on his shoulder and get knocked about a bit instead. Either way, I already realise how much this is going to level me up. I’m gonna batter the living piss out of the lot of you when I get back…

Plus, I’ve met some funny guys already. George introduced me to Mr Itai, who is cool, and loves a good pagger and doesn’t seem to give a hoot about the desu -masu of meeting someone for the first time, which is such a relief bearing in mind that I’m on attention and being watched from all other directions because I’m the white guy who is 5feet taller than everyone else in the room.

Then there is Tachiishi, who thought that after the first time I practised with him that he should use a 38 to force him to enter more. After I pasted the bejeezus out of the top of his head, he told me he thought this was a rubbish idea and a bit stupid, and next time he’ll use a mans shinai. Good lad. What was best was hearing the old guys behind us talking to each other going “Tachiishi is getting the shit knocked out of him…”.

Plus, some drunk salary man struck up a random conversation on the train last night which resulted in him saying “I really respect you!” just before I got off the train. He did kendo until he broke his achilles, and then (whilst cradling his beer gut) explained how he drank too much beer. Nice.

Now, all I need to do is enter the All Japan Taikai and get to the quarter final so that I’m on telly…..
No bloody chance!

No, I’m not talking about the fact that I see girls dressed as maids on the undergournd (though I must admit I DO like seeing that) nor am I talking about the fact that nobody in this country is a natural blonde (How the hell do they identify the stupid women then?! I am yet to figure this one out.)

I am in fact talking abut everyday objects that you will find in the supermarket and around the home. Now, everybody is aware of the general cheapness and superiority of japanese electrical consumer goods. I am after I spunked all my money in Yodobashi Camera buying everything except a camera. But its not just that, even things like water filters are different. Completely different….

On this page, every time I see something fucking stupid or strange that would get stared at and blinked at for 5 solid minutes with no visible movement in Britain, I’ll put it here.
And without further ado, let me kick off with my japanese arch nemesis, the wafuu toilet….:

A Japanese water filter. I haven’t actually seen a jug filter since getting here:

A washing machine. Note the vague similarity to a space ship contrl on the top, and its confusing top loading nature. Odd:

A Jar of Nescafe. Aaaaaahh, the taste of London. This particular part of london however is small enough to fit into the palm of my hand and cost nearly a fucking quid. WHAT?! A Real jar is nearly 500 yen….:

Now this thing totally stumped me when I found out that it was a toaster….you put the toast in then CLOSE THE DOOR! Its like a gas chamber for midgets. And Toast:

More soon! If I remember to take a picture of the t-shirt with the lyrics for Popeye the Sailor Man on it I’ll be sure to put it here.

From my first week or so here, but got lost in the transfer to WordPress:

If at all possible, have a look at some internet weather page and just have a look at HOW GOD DAM HOT JAPANESE SUMMERS ARE. Its not even funny.

When I left good old blighty (sniff!) there was some quality british weather to be had. Low temperatures in July, loads of rain, and plenty of stupid northerners seeing their home getting its first clean in years as part of the flooding. Lovely. I want that weather here, right now!

As I sit here and write this, the temperature is what might be described as balmy. BY SOMEONE WHO DOESN’T F-CKING LIVE HERE. 35 degrees c. I went to practise in Saitama last saturday and it was 38! Thats a good 10 degrees higher than central london at it’s hottest last year. I can now quite happily look back at standing on the northern line all the way back to civilised Finchley and sweating my balls off as a “fond memory”. When I leave the flat here I have to have a hat on to stop me getting sun stroke (and with ears rivalling Pob, or them little aussie creatures with the massive eyes and suckers for fingers, it aint a pretty sight. I look like something that should fertively skirt around the entrance to the laides changing room at the local swimming baths), a towel round my neck so that I can spend all my time wiping away the 40 days and 40 nights of sweat that waterfalls from my brow, and if I’m wearing a suit (which in this temperature is a whole world of pain in itself) and extra t-shirt on underneath my shirt so that I don’t need to wring myself dry when I arrive at my destination.

Now, if this were Blighty (sniff again!) there would be car loads full of dead dogs and toddlers, or if it was France (pah! Merde!) there would be dead pensioners everywhere. As it is, the only child deaths occur when idiotic thick heads leave their kids to go and play Pachinko, a ridiculous japanese pinball with no flippers where you put the balls in at the top and try and win more back. The balls are worth money. For some reason this is the country’s biggest gambling vice. (I walked past a pachinko parlour a week ago and the female staff were all dressed as maids. Made me seriously consider walking straight in and blowing all the money I had with me). The reason no-one dies immediately in this heat is the air conditioning. This is air-con land.?The land land of the rising (and spinning) fan. And its great. You just close all the doors and windows, slam the f-cker onto “arctic” and freeze your balls off instead. The japanese are quick to praise the virtues of the humble air conditioner, and I will admit, when I’m playing Wii Sports Golf on my shiny new Ninetendo, I apprecaite the stiff breeze around my garbage keeping me at a reasonble british degree of celcius. What they don’t warn you about is the polar blast that you experience in trains. Imagine the scene: you’re standing outside, in 36 degree tokyo, waiting for the train to come. You’re relatively well soaked in your own sweat, and slightly uncomfortable for it, and also fearing the fact you are stinking like a beer-soaked hobo. Then you step onto the train, into the vacuum-like cold that the air-con on max is currently inducing, and immediately start shivering as it starts to properly cool down all the water stored in your t-shirt. And then you catch a cold. In the MIDDLE OF F-CKING SUMMER!

I can’t win. The only saving grace (and its a biggy) is the stupidly small clothing that almost every single woman wears in this heat. But given the de-hydration I’m fearful of the blood loss to the rest of my body that popping a stiffy will bring. I think I actually might die.

Either way, I’m buggered.

WTF is that….

SO I’ve been here for about 5 days, and am settling into the routine of unemployed foreigner nicely (ie I mostly spend money and drink beer), but intermitently I actually do things like shopping. The shop that we use is just past a pachinko parlour where the female members of staff appear to be dressed like maids (score) so shopping is now a vaguely pleasing experience…..
Anywaaaaaaaay, there I was at the shop, looking at the chunks of frozen fish and super fine sliced beef packets, when this monstrosity caught my eye:

So I bought it. I couldn’t not. Its not like you will EVER see a spaghetti sandwich on sale in Tesco for God’s sake, I haven’t, and the idea of it was far too much to resist. Which ended in this:

Now, the fact that it was a *@&%ing sandwich with spaghettie bolognese in it was bad enough, but this bad boy was made with SLIGHTLY SWEET BREAD, which only confused me further.
Anyway, I ate the whole thing.

Gibbo