Welcome to the Land of the Rising Sun

So, the next journey begins. If you haven’t been clued in by the title already, I’ve since packed up my life once more and moved to Tokyo, Japan. I don’t know if there are any other Tokyo’s in the world but I felt that added ‘Japan’ was necessary for some reason. I made this decision with a little more trepidation than the last one. Despite the fact I never actually wanted to go to China, to cut a long story short, I basically packed a bag and left and never really thought twice about it. The experience was great and despite the many problems, there were many more positives than negatives. Again, for any potential new readers, don’t take this blog as the be all and end all of my life, I tend to focus on the differences in culture of living abroad than the overwhelming number of positives which come out of it. And trust me, there are many. However, this time, I knew I would encounter a lot of similar problems to those which I despised the first time around and I thought to myself, can I really be fucked with this again? No prizes for guessing the answer to that question – sorry. So here I am, ready to take on potential earthquakes, Japan’s appalling standard of English and hopefully not sumo wrestlers, as I would most certainly melt into a pile of wax before living to tell that tale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I visited Japan last year, so I wasn’t going in blind this time. Think less Stevie Wonder, more jumbo jet pilot. After two flights, long-haul resulting constipation and a monster ten hour lay-over in Dehli, I made it to Tokyo, struggling like a burger in a vegan beauty contest, craving nothing but a good afternoon’s sleep. My second, first impressions of Tokyo were, ‘Why is it so quiet?’ and ‘Can I get off this train without accidentally killing someone with my magnitude of luggage?’ I don’t know if it’s because I came, indirectly, via China but Japan is always so quiet and people seem constantly on edge. It’s like if someone were to drop a loaf of bread; the impact noise alone could result in someone having a heart attack, only to be proceeded by someone giving deathly silent but massively efficient CPR in the corner. Then out of sheer duty and significance of honour, if they’re not already dead, the recovering patient would most likely go and pick up the loaf of bread, returning it to it’s owner, apologising in the process for having a heart attack in the corner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another adjustment I had to make since coming to Japan was the introduction of bowing. Until the date of my entry into Japan, I think I had bowed a grand total of three times in my life – all delivered during an horrific portrayal of Uncle Henry in a primary seven, school production of the Wizard of Oz. Honestly, I’m still not totally sure when I really should bow to people so I’ve found, if in doubt, just bow like it’s the king in the north. As a result I’m walking about like a 32-bit video game character, making tiny bows towards every Tom, Dick and Harry. I witnessed a hairdresser and his customer exchanging this custom about a week ago and it was both fascinating and enraging. It was wonderful to see the respect that these two people had towards each other but as the girl was leaving, she obviously bowed in thanks, before the hairdresser bowed lower. The girl then bowed lower again and this continued for what felt like an eternity. I was wondering what would happen first; either one of them would get stuck mid-bow or we would all die waiting for the process to end. I was quietly ecstatic, even, to receive a bow from a local security guard one morning as I was merely passing by. To say that my experience with security/bouncers in the UK was less than favourable would be an understatement. I had a friend – a good bloke I should add – who was qualified in security and he admitted to me that he and many others often do it to wind people up. I guess the less said about the that class of people, the better.

My plan for this year is to inform you about weird and wonderful things every week so keep your eyes open on a Sunday night/Monday morning for wacky shit. I was actually planning on going to a penis festival next weekend out of sheer, journalistic purposes and to smash the boundaries of my comfort zone but it turns out that was this weekend. I guess you’ll have to wait until next year to see all those dicks…

Ulsterman x