What is the collective noun for a group of monks?

With my newly-shaved head, I increasingly resemble a monk. A Jewish monk. Which made last week’s trip to Koya-san even more appropriate. It’s a beautiful place-all forests, hills and impressive temples.

But the most impressive part was the Okunoin graveyard. Now, I know it’s a Smiths-fan cliché, but I do enjoy a good graveyard wander. Even though I’m acknowledging the indie affectation, writing that does make me wince slightly. It’s true though-one of my favourite sites in Paris is the Pere-Lachaise cemetry (sic-get me, I can even spell in an irritatingly referential way) where I spent a delightfully pretentious afternoon back in 2002. The graveyard at Koya-san was huge, mossy, varied and had a whiff of Indiana Jones about it. We spent much of our time wandering off the path and being unsure if that was allowed. But it felt great to walk inbetween the graves and let them surround you. As with Fushimi Inari in Kyoto, it was surprisingly easy to escape the crowds and find a bit of solitude amongst the grave stones.

Man, I’m so wet sometimes.

I loved all the moss.

We stayed in a temple at one end of the graveyard. The temple itself was amazing-absolutely massive with beautiful gardens, a friendly band of monks (what is the collective noun for a group of monks?) and a really serene feel to the rooms with a pretty view. My main memory will be the constant chorus of frogs that provided the background to our stay. The frogs are so noisy in Japan this week! Seriously, last night they kept me awake in my apartment!

My nemesis.

One reason to stay in the temple lodgings is that you can eat shojin ryori food. This is a type of vegan cuisine. No meat, fish or anything meat/fish related. There were a few highlights. I really liked the main piece of tofu, which was well flavoured. Tofu is great at taking on other tastes and although I sometimes dislike the consistency of it, this time it was excellent. There was also some especially tasty tempura that I’d have liked more of. But on the whole, I wasn’t a fan. There were too many bland components, overcooked veg, foamy textures and a lack of satisfaction about the whole thing. Still, it was great to try something new.

In separate news, I’ve continued to be a bit under the weather these past few days. In fact, it’s been almost a fortnight since I last felt genuinely okay. I don’t get sick very often but I have had an increasing number of minor medical complaints this past year or two, which is one of the reasons I’ve been attempting to be a bit healthier. But my current problem (a recurring shortness of breath and occasional stomach pains) is really irritating as it saps your energy. When it started it would only last for twenty minutes or so at a time, but recently it’s been lasting whole days. Very annoying, especially at a time when my general health is improving. I’ve been running 3 times a week, doing taiko once a week, cycling and eating better food. I’ve cut down on alcohol since Christmas and I’ve also barely smoked in the last few months. I suspect that all the above symptoms are related to the nicotine withdrawal, but still. It’s actually started to stop me doing things and that’s a major headache. Getting treated properly here is hard work without good Japanese skills and my doctor here seemed pretty clueless about what was going on. Though that didn’t stop him from prescribing me tranquilizers that I’m almost certainly not going to take. I’m hoping that it will go away on its own as it’s starting to majorly piss me off.

Would you like fries with that?

Most recent Sunday mornings have begun with me packing up my possessions in a rush so that I can vacate my lodging by its 10am check out time. One aspect of my life in Japan over the past year has been that I’ve stayed in more hotels and hostels than at any other time in my life. Thank goodness, then, that Japanese hostels have been of such a ludicrously high standard. I remember travelling around Spain and Italy for a month when I was 21 and a large number of the hostels were awful. This was particularly true in Italy where many of the hostels were run by religious groups. They would often have a 10pm curfew, be based in the drug-dealing centre of the city and chuck you out all day so that the rooms could be cleaned. Which was ironic, because the rooms were usually quite dirty when you returned.

In Japan, on the other hand, almost every place I’ve stayed has had something going for it. Staff have tended to be overwhelmingly helpful. And even though some of the rooms have been on the small side, I’ve not stayed anywhere that wasn’t reasonably clean.

One aspect of living in Japan is that your expectations as a customer change significantly. I noticed this immediately when I visited the UK in March. There are definitely bad sides to the Japanese way. God knows-the overly servile and clone-like impressions of some Japanese service personnel can grate and I sometimes do wish that people would just shut the f*** up and stop greeting me every time I turn a corner in a shop. But on the whole, it has been hugely refreshing to be treated so well here. There seems to be a much lower tolerance of shoddy service and expectations are just a lot higher than in the UK. I’ve really appreciated this during my time here. It’s always nice to be treated well. I rarely have to worry that the cheapest hostel will be a dive.

Euro 2012 starts today and I feel a bit weird to be so disconnected from it all. The current England team are both rubbish and totally unsympathetic. But if I were in the UK, it would be a really big deal and I’d be making all sorts of preparations about where to watch the games. I do enjoy the big tournaments but I will probably not see a single match of this one. England play on Monday at 5am local time and I will most likely be asleep.

In other news, I’ve booked my flight home. I return to the UK on 2^nd August. I may have a few days in Tokyo beforehand to say goodbye to Japan and get set for departure. After that, my lifestyle is going to change dramatically.

A Trip Round The Islands - Naoshima

The island trips continue. Naoshima is a very special place and it was great to spend the night there, without the pressure of a 5pm ferry on our minds. We camped out in yurts by the sea, had a BBQ for dinner and drank prosecco on the beach (champagne is beyond our budget).

This time we got to see all of the Art House Project buildings. It was interesting to see traditional spaces converted into something altogether different. There was a great variation in quality though. One or two of the buildings made you wonder why they had bothered at all. Nonetheless, I enjoyed wandering the streets and not knowing what to expect each time I walked through the door.

We also finally made it to the sento, which is really unusual and almost a work of art in itself. The bath had a mosaic floor that was pieced together from photographs, drawings and other oddities. Above the bath stood a life-size model of an elephant. It was a strange atmosphere but it did feel relaxing which is the point I guess.

The James Bond Museum was a real oddity. They’ve centered the museum around a post-Fleming Bond novel in which the climax is set on Naoshima. It has lines like ““Japanese women are the most beautiful in the world” thought Bond, as he sipped his Martini”. They’d made their own Bond film/documentary which involved some unusual “acting”. Still, it made me laugh and I enjoyed browsing through the Bond tat that they had collected over the years.

I’m sorry this entry reads as a bit of a list of stuff that I did. I’ve had a funny week, really. I got a bill from Softbank that was as much as a shinkansen ticket. It floored me. The lesson is to never, ever use your Japanese-contract phone abroad. Even for a minute. Feeling totally screwed, I handed over my not especially hard-earned money at the combini and muttered to myself in a crazy person fashion.

Crazy person muttering is not a good look for me.

To the art island...

Last time we went to Naoshima it was freezing cold.

 

Naoshima has a special place in my heart. Pumpkins, beaches, galleries, cool art oddities scattered all over the place and a laid back vibe. It’s one of my favourite places in Japan. K and I will be visiting for an overnight stay this weekend. We’ll be camping in a yurt next to the beach. If it remains dry, then it should be a beautiful, relaxed weekend. If it rains then…well let’s just hope it doesn’t rain.

I’ve been quite health-focused recently. I’ve done a lot of exercise and am keeping an eye on what I’m eating and drinking. I’ve also barely (with a couple of exceptions) smoked since coming back from Tokyo. To be honest, I love smoking to the extent that it almost feels like a hobby. But it’s not quite as awesome as it used to be. I really hate giving up and the side-effects that go with it-that’s as good an incentive as any not to lapse. I have very weak willpower and I do like chocolate an awful lot (particularly when it’s covering Macadamia Nuts or involves green tea), so I slip into bad habits sometimes. I also find it difficult to eat food in sensible quantities. Even when I eat stuff that’s healthy, I tend to eat too much of it.

In possibly-related news, I’m going to (for complicated reasons) be getting a free, sporty car when I get back to the UK. When you put all of the above together-exercise, weight gain, practical wearing of tights in winter, shaving of head and driving of a silly car I suppose it does sound a bit like a mid-life crisis. But they’re meant to happen when you’re 40, right? Seriously though, I think it is just a coincidence, but it does feel like a lot of grown-up things are all happening at once right now. I’ve even started to get a thrill from gardening recently. Maybe I should just do a Mark Oaten and get it over with? Probably best not to.

A Trip Round The Islands - Shiraishi

Shiraishi Island is one of those places that’s great not for any intrinsic qualities, but because of the fun times you have there. The beach isn’t especially pretty and the hikes, whilst enjoyable enough, are not particularly spectacular in my opinion. There’s only one bar. The beach isn’t all that clean.

But this was the second time we’d visited the island and we had a supremely awesome weekend. The first occasion that we came to Shiraishi was last August for a “group bonding” day. It was fun to hang out with the other JETs and we did a pretty but painfully hot walk up to the island’s observatory. This time, we decided to take it easy and spend as much time as possible on the beach.

I’m not really a beach person-I enjoy reading in the sun for about an hour, but anything more tends to get a little dull. However, Shiraishi has a friendly bar on the beach run by a Japan Times journalist and her husband. The bar keeps things moving along nicely with reasonably priced cocktails, offers of food and by making a bonfire to keep people out there until late at night.

I really wanted to swim but there were loads of jellyfish on the first day. I’d never seen jellyfish in the wild before, so it was pretty cool. I did get to jetski for the first time which was amazing, though I had my eyes shut for most of it and almost crushed the chest cavity of the guy who took me out. Never take me out on a fast moving vehicle. I will crush your chest by mistake.

Back at the International Villa, we bumped into the other guests and one couple offered to cook dinner for everyone else staying there. We were incredibly grateful for this and had one of the most delicious, enjoyable meals since arriving in Japan. They wouldn’t even let me wash up, no matter how much I insisted. Gyoza, duck, salad, crackers and all sorts of nice things. The guy next to me kept trying to get me drunk on shochu and semi-succeeded. If this kind of thing didn’t happen so often I’d have been blown away by it. This type of kindness is one of the main reasons why I’d recommend Japan so enthusiastically as a place to live.

School feels like a slog at the moment. There are 2 months left and I’m not sure I want to be teaching my (increasingly rowdy) students for the rest of my time in Japan. But I do usually enjoy the lessons once they get going.

I also completed my first week of running and found some beautiful Okayama countryside. I just need to cut out the huge slabs of cheese that I’ve been consuming and I’ll be fine. Mmm. Cheese.

A Quiet Thursday Night

I like going to see movies in Japan. It’s comforting to do something that is such a regular part of my routine back in the UK. I’m a member of the British Film Institute and will usually see at least one movie a week if I can, either at the National Film Theatre or the Soho Curzon (depending on how much money I have at the time). Since coming to Japan, my visits have become much less frequent. We have an arthouse cinema in Okayama which shows the occasional offbeat foreign film. Meanwhile, the larger cinema chains will show major US films, particularly the action/superhero ones. At the same time, we don’t get everything. Many of my friends in Okayama are annoyed that our prefecture will not be showing The Muppets movie. Having seen and enjoyed it, I think they’re right to be disappointed.

So last night I headed to the local shopping centre/mall with some friends to see The Descendants. Now I’m a great fan of the film Sideways, which is by the same director. I love Paul Giamatti, the California countryside looked beautiful, I felt great empathy with the characters and it was very funny indeed.

The Descendants has many of the same ingredients, a similar style and some strong performances. But it isn’t quite as good. At times it’s quite affecting as it shows people’s imperfections and a family dealing with the grief process. At times it’s also lightly funny in a small smile rather than David Cameron-Rebekka Brooks LOL TORIES=NUMBER 1!!! way. Great soundtrack too.

But it’s not really smart enough or funny enough to really make it for me. For a start, the plot is quite predictable, especially if you’ve seen any of Alexander Payne’s other movies. Then there’s the family dynamic which starts off chaotic but then has everything seemingly resolved a couple of scenes later. The older daughter appears to become a responsible adult over a time period of about three days.

As for George Clooney-as always he’s charming and competent. I didn’t believe in his character for a moment because he was, after all, George Clooney, but he did a decent job. I think they might have been better going with somebody less good-looking and maybe even less sympathetic. Jack Nicholson would have been great (Yeah-I know I’m not exactly sticking my neck out here as Jack Nicholson is almost always great), or even Bill Murray.

It reminded me very strongly of A Serious Man, one of the Coen Brothers’ greatest films and maybe the one that deals best with disappointment and family breakdown. Unfortunately, Clooney isn’t really in the same league as Michael Stuhlbarg, but nobody is, really. Clooney’s actually made a whole series of so-so films now. I really disliked Up In The Air and this is a much better movie, but that’s not a fair comparison maybe. All in all, one for a Sunday night on DVD maybe. But hey, we have limited opportunities here and it was fun to invade the multiplex and practice Japanese with the subtitles.

Afterwards we wandered to Ario Mall for churros and were then predictably chucked out by the security guard. So we sat outside the mall, feeling a bit like teenagers. I enjoyed that.

I'm Gonna Miss This Place

Yesterday I received a letter from my BoE that made me tremble slightly. “Dear ALTs, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to all of you for your contribution to the promotion of English education and international understanding in our prefecture…you should decide the date of your departure…obtain an estimate for your plane ticket home…to your departure airport….”

Yes. It’s time to book my flight home. I’m getting out of Okayama on the first or second of August. I will be flying back to Heathrow Airport where I will laugh at my home country’s woefully inadequate immigration procedures for the Olympics. I will then have a few days to get my affairs in order, pick up the Daisycat from our friend and get my things out of storage. On 7^th August, I will return to my UK job working 9 to 5 for the British government.

The new JETs are now starting to get their placement information. I remember when I received my letter this time last year-“Okayama Prefecture”. I had absolutely no idea where it was and went on a google-blitz, dragging up amusing youtube videos and unreliable Wikipedia pages saying that it was famous for its rural character and sunshine. “Famous” being a word that is greatly over-used in Japan when describing tourist destinations.

I have been so lucky to live in this beautiful part of Japan. To get Okayama City was a lucky break. I’ve had access to the city life that I can’t do without, whilst being surrounded by rice fields and some of the most beautiful countryside I’ve seen. Meanwhile, the shinkansen station is a 5 minute journey away, making travel around Japan straightforward and easy. It’s possible that I would have been delighted with any placement, but I still feel like this is a very special place. I’d love to live in Tokyo for a year or two. But if I were to stay in Japan long term, I’d be content to live somewhere as friendly, relaxed and pretty as Okayama. I am madly jealous of all the people who will come here for the first time. Flying into Okayama Airport, drifting and rising over the lush, green hills below us was an experience I will never forget.

K Chan and I are agonizing over where to go for our final Big Trip In Japan. At the moment it’s between Tokyo and Okinawa. We haven’t been to the latter before, but it’s more expensive and there’s a lot that I still want to do in Tokyo. On the other hand, the idea of a few days at the end on a tropical island is very tempting.