Thursday 31 January 2008

January was

another volte-face and another and another future dreamt up and slung into the slush with all the rest.

Tommy the tank has finally met with an end. The mechanic actually chuckled to me when he explained, on top of everything else, there was a something in the muffler, which I guessed to be a hole in the exhaust, and which was a hole in the exhaust.

I've never cycled on a more challenging surface than that of winter. Wet slush takes power, morning frozen slush shudders from f i n gerpoin t to sho ul der you r body, and early evening it all melts on the roads to a greasy black that freezes to an inviting sparkly black that dares just dares you to take a corner sharp or ride a little like the usual speed should be.

We all shuffle on- Shinsukes, Akiyoshis, Kats birthdays.

Cutting out Japanese study is like cutting off your pinkie toes. They give you all kinds of stability you never knew you ever had.

And today,1-4 Kensuke said I was his dreams last night! I was in my car (alive!) and stopped to talk to him. I tried to tell him maybe he is a seer, or at least a vessel for those beyond the realm of the living, but I don't think the message got through.

Tuesday 29 January 2008

一月二十三日 (水)

前からよく考えていたこと何けど。。。やっぱり夏にジェットプログラムを辞めることに決めました。 それで、教頭先生と市役所の上役に伝えました。とても申しわけなく感じました。でも時間がたすにつれて気持ちがだんだんおちついてきました。享年だったら簡単に辞めることできたのですが、私にとって山形とても好きになって、辞めたくないんですが、未来のために辞めざるおえない!

Wednesday 23 January 2008

IF YOU REALLY WANT, GET THE CHANCE. NOW IT'S TIME TO MOVE

One of the 三年生 had that written on one of her books in class today- it mightn' even have been an English book. There's a novelty about English for the Japanese, in much the same way as old Latin proverbs for some, or grammatically bastard German for my mate Max's dj name, 'Das Maxx'. The 三年生 have got exams coming up next week, you see, to get into High School. Tensions high.

The day before yesterday I told the Kyoto Sensei at school and the City Hall folk that I'm going to quit Jet this summer. It wasn't a very nice process. I had planned to take a moment with the Kyoto, Komatani Sensei, and explain I'm having a whale...everything is steady...but..And that would be that. I thought it only right to tell him in private, like that, given the amount of trouble he has taken for my sake in the past.

In the end, he aught me off-guard and asked me as I got up to get off to an elementary school for a lesson. I answered. A few other teachers were standing around, there was nothing beside the utterance and I thought, 'No! No! It wasn't supposed to be like this!!'

The paperwork I took to the City Hall wasn't good enough. So I had to sign exactly the same piece of paper in front of my supervisor, Noriko. Japanese to the last. That felt all bad inside too.

A year and a half or so ago, I wandered about Yamagata with the strangest feeling. I couldn't help but look at everything like someone about to leave, although in truth I had only just arrived. I picked the big トンビ birds out of the sky, I'd miss them. The little narrow alleys spidering off from my apartment. An izakaye here, a building there. And now there's an actual countdown set, I can't help but think ahead to farewell speeches and last, longing looks, six months early.

Tuesday 22 January 2008

Plus and Minus

Minus 5. It was Minus 5 degrees when I cycled to school this morning.

But that pales in comparison with last last weekend. Risa came up from Kyoto to stay, to sample the delights of Yamagata, jewel of the north, home to the famous 樹氷('Jyuhyou' or 'Snow Monsters') and rack of expectations. I like to think it stands up well beside Risa'a home-town.

樹氷 form when droplets or clouds or some such moisture cuts across from the Japan Sea and collect on a particular type of pine tree and freeze and grow in clumps and strange directions, resembling monsters. The important bit is, they're unique to Yamagata. Except, they're not, I heard a day or so ago they have them somewhere in Germany too.

樹氷 we wanted, so 樹氷 we went in search of. Along with a semi-permanent bank of icy thick cloud, the 樹氷 like to call the top of Mount Zao home. On skis, coming down from there is like a trip into nothingness. Everything is blank, white, numbing.

We walked down in trainers, hoping to catch the lift down Paradise slope to a hotel at the bottom in which my mate Shinsuke is working. 'No, no, hahaha, nono, no!', or words to that effect was the lift operator's reply when we asked him if we could ride the lift down as planned. So we walked down Paradise slope too, until it got too steep to walk and we ran down, as best you can in deep snow with trainers on and deep snow lodged in your trainers. So perhaps that was the silliest descent I've yet done on Zao. But then, there's a whole season ahead of us to beat that.

Risa and I had a lot of fun, mostly away from the snow from there on out. thanks for another top weekend Risa!

Thursday 10 January 2008

Notes on a trip overseas

The holiday entry!

Axe pillows and hippies and beach bungalows and self-flush toilets squat beside all of these resorts. One had four elephant statues pouring water into a swimming pool with trunks arced to the sky. I could probably afford a night or two in one. Instead, I found myself in the Sunflower Bungalows, Koh Chang.

Cambodia was a feast for the eyes and ears and nose and right down to the fingertips. Those monks in dutch orange robes walking narrow like maybe the robes were a little too tight round the waist and hips.

The most vast temple complex on the planet. Seen from hot air, high up.

Garbage cart ladies swaddled in scraps and sounding off their little red duck-trumpets ahead of their passing.

People just hanging out, everywhere. Sat on old Coca Cola plastic picnic seats yb the road or in the dust or the rubble.

Circles of guys playing hackey-sack. Tighter circles, cards.

Football on the box in the guesthouse, on repeat.

Cambo six and Chippie's winning bet...Cambo Six and Chippie's losing bet. Streak wasn't too long.

Coffee in a can with far too much bad sweetness. Tea-tree tooth picks and mints in a tin like olden days.

Tukduk transport and diesel folds in the cities, the Phnom Penh bounce.

Tiger balm on bites.

Chippie, prepared...toilet and kitchen roll and zip lock bas, penknife and ideas and stories. SO many playboys and cut-throats he met in Peru.

A stare broke into a smile as easily as any other way.

'We're vacationing in the slums!'

Christmas Presents

are still arriving.

It's a tough call between the hot water bottle and the jacket....but I think the jacket just pips it.

A wet-weather jacket, actually not a present at all, but just padding for something else (a Christmas pudding!! A Christmas pudding sent all the way from Blighty to Japan!! How fucking marvellous is that?! Thank you so much Beverley!!).

A Peter Storm green mac, all the way from Blighty padding the pudding. A jacket that smelt of Mayflower Close, a home all the way over there.

Tuesday 8 January 2008

Uddam Serey of Phnom Penh, One Bayon smile, Rooves near Wat Arun

 
 
 
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The Gazebo Bar,

Bangkok.

I had a few hours between me and a plane flight home and daybreak on Monday, yesterday, so the Gazebo it was. I'd been flyered for it three times, so I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and a little of my money.

I ended up spending a little more than I had planned to. I met Gyo (like 'G' g, not me 'Guy' hard g) there. Better, she met me. She came right up from nowhere and draped on me a little at an empty bar and started talking. She was there with a bunch of international students. They were having the time of their lives. I'd only bargained for a couple of gin and tonics and Gyo met me.

She was an outrageous flirt, pinching a half dozen fags from a Dutch man's packet and stuffing them in her empty packet for the cost of a few well placed words. I still can't really remember his name nor read his e-mail, scribbled on a bar napkin, but hers is clear and bold, right above 'GYo' and 'Lol'. The flirt.

She was bi, from Shanghai, recently split from a boyfriend, and recently split from a girlfriend. She had a rough cut bob and the skimpiest skirt and was flitting all over the bar.

I had been looking forward to getting back to work, in a weird, Japanese way. But after the Gazebo bar and Gyo, I didn't really want to go anywhere. Tokyo outside from the KeiSei line back in was grey, and cold like I'd forgot it would be. All the Japanese people were guarded and quiet, all the foreigners had the same look of, 'You here too?' and all inside I felt a bit of a mess like Bubble and squeak.

A BRAND NEW YEAR

One year later. Where do you go now? Think I'll just carry on here until something better strikes me.