23rd June
Dear Guy,
Good to hear from you this afternoon and you will be pleased to hear that the doctor is happy with my blood pressure and all the tests I have had (middle-aged man's regular check to make sure that I am still here) except cholesterol which I have to 'resit'. I am supposed to fast for 12-14 hours beforehand and didn't, so that the test was useless.
Should I suggest that your school football team enters Euro 2008? They could almost certainly beat some of the teams who got through. I have Spain in the Office Sweepstake and we are through to the semi-final so I may win the £32-00 at stake (whoopee). I have done a profit sharing deal with three other teams so that at least there will be a drink in it.
Grandma's 94th birthday is on July 2nd if you are near a phone (0044 1--2 ------) otherwise I will pass on an e-mail. We have a gathering planned for 6th July although mostly my age group rather than yours.
The village fete went well: I was the Book Stall this year and pulled in about £80-00 selling at 50p a throw (less for kids on pocket money). Good time had by all, but some dog came and crapped on my hat which I had left on the ground. Gross! Still it will wash off.
The vegetable garden is causing concern. Black fly has ravaged my broad beans but the tomatoes, lettuces, courgettes, potatoes, artichokes (Jerusalem) and herbs seem alright and I have also planted sweetcorn and beetroot. We'll see- speak soon and let me have contact details in Tokyo and beyond.
love, Dad.
Monday 30 June 2008
Sunday 29 June 2008
Mud, blood and cherry stones
I'd figured it might be the death of my bike to take it down the slopes of Mt. Zao through tall grass and plants where before I'd only known snow and a landscape a good giant taller. So really, I shouldn't be annoyed or surprised at the outcome. The front brake is now held in place with a plastic tie, both wheels are bent and rub against the brakes, brake cables have splintered, the tyres run down right through beautifully even track to a smooth evenness marked by gristly patches where something under the rubber shows through...
Rainy season starting to live up to it's name, Hiroshi came round and picked up our bikes right to the top of his car and attached them to the roof rack. Oba-kun came over too and one stop more at Omi's place and 5 people 5 upside strapped in bikes were on our way to Zao. Max had bags of cherries, just one from the cute next-door neighbour with just the one small razor blade hidden inside. We ate and spat stones out of the car window, and as far as we could from a manhole cover in as straight and true a line as we could when a little bored as Hiroshi strapped the fifth bike in.
Not hiking nor biking but more hike-biking we slid and crashed through mud over rocks along a trail that wasn't perhaps meant for bikes, after we'd passed through the clouds in a ski gondola with only a pair of tourists aside braving the rain for god knows what. Moments when enthusiasm wilted with the leaves under the weight of the rain nicely countered with the sheer joy of sliding down a muddy bank on arse, the hilarity of watching someone else slip on the mud.
Whimpers from the bushed, bugs and mozzies, old cuts not yet healed shredded back to life, brakes pinging out mid-ride, a horrific moment listening to a rock crash down the undergrowth and the hill with awful volume and a numb terror we might have bitten off more than we could chew or spit without choking when it looked we mightn't get off the trail for a while.
All of that washed off with the mud at the bottom, in Zao village. An open onsen spot in the ground with pipes worming between rocks and over the sulphurous, pale green onsen water. Some glances from out-of-towners wandering about with brollies.
Saturday 28 June 2008
Time spent Complaining
When Air China and Heathrow combine!
Amongst what I can salvage from last night, Max and I sat on his balcony a short while before everyone else came and the meat was bbqd and the man upstairs called Yamagata South High School who called Max to tell him we were all being too noisy while the cute next door neighbour popped her head round with a bag of cherries then came over and joined us later in rough roll where again there was too much noise and this time a policeman came in telling the master, Daisuke, to turn that bloody racket down as the complaints flew left right.
Max taught a private class how to complain in English, 'Now listen here' and '-was a disgrace' and the ladies all loved it but I can't help feeling Japanese people already know how to complain, if at least not face to face.
A complaint of my own has winged it's way into a deep dark e-mail box from which it might never be retrieved, rather like the hours spent in transit from London Heathrow to Tokyo and Narita.
All smiles and hugs with Dad and glad I didn't decide to fight through London to get to the airport after all.
20.25 came and went but the plane just arrived and idled. Something wrong with the cargo door, someone with a tour booked in Beijing said.
23.00 rolled around and we were all shuffled on to the plane but the 23.30 cut-off got the jump on us and we all shuffled off. Noise pollution.
01.30 and the first coach left for Heathrow Holiday Inn. I lay down on an airport seat and got on the fourth or fifth coach at 02.00 or so. 02.30 and I got a room that smelt of still stale smoke and might have had a view.
10.00 the next day and finally the plane leaves. 03.00 China time Air China gets us into Beijing, China, and my connecting flight left all those lost hours ago left in between time differences and the cracks between the cargo door and the hold. In China, in the wrong place, officially with no visa to enter the airport. Lucky for me China are so good at overlooking the official parts.
05.55 and the guy at the Air China desk I'd been sitting opposite for 25 minutes lets 5 minutes slide and oh oks me to check-in and even puts me in the exit seat I later discover- the second lucky break I had over the course of one long day smeared across three.
09.30 and the first lucky break, out for the count on another airport seat with my suit bag lain across my me and a strange dream barely aware somewhere back there at the back of someone near me and a cleaning lady pokes me awake with a vacuum nozzle and gabbles something in Chinese and points to the gate and no queue and a plane outside with a cargo door firmly in place all revved and ready to go and just me left to float on and take the last seat, the exit seat and collapse opposite a very attractive air hostess. The third lucky break.
Which just left Monday afternoon to breeze away til night in Tokyo and a night bus back to Yamagata.
I think I should try complaining to Air China again now this time listen here and really give them what for.
Amongst what I can salvage from last night, Max and I sat on his balcony a short while before everyone else came and the meat was bbqd and the man upstairs called Yamagata South High School who called Max to tell him we were all being too noisy while the cute next door neighbour popped her head round with a bag of cherries then came over and joined us later in rough roll where again there was too much noise and this time a policeman came in telling the master, Daisuke, to turn that bloody racket down as the complaints flew left right.
Max taught a private class how to complain in English, 'Now listen here' and '-was a disgrace' and the ladies all loved it but I can't help feeling Japanese people already know how to complain, if at least not face to face.
A complaint of my own has winged it's way into a deep dark e-mail box from which it might never be retrieved, rather like the hours spent in transit from London Heathrow to Tokyo and Narita.
All smiles and hugs with Dad and glad I didn't decide to fight through London to get to the airport after all.
20.25 came and went but the plane just arrived and idled. Something wrong with the cargo door, someone with a tour booked in Beijing said.
23.00 rolled around and we were all shuffled on to the plane but the 23.30 cut-off got the jump on us and we all shuffled off. Noise pollution.
01.30 and the first coach left for Heathrow Holiday Inn. I lay down on an airport seat and got on the fourth or fifth coach at 02.00 or so. 02.30 and I got a room that smelt of still stale smoke and might have had a view.
10.00 the next day and finally the plane leaves. 03.00 China time Air China gets us into Beijing, China, and my connecting flight left all those lost hours ago left in between time differences and the cracks between the cargo door and the hold. In China, in the wrong place, officially with no visa to enter the airport. Lucky for me China are so good at overlooking the official parts.
05.55 and the guy at the Air China desk I'd been sitting opposite for 25 minutes lets 5 minutes slide and oh oks me to check-in and even puts me in the exit seat I later discover- the second lucky break I had over the course of one long day smeared across three.
09.30 and the first lucky break, out for the count on another airport seat with my suit bag lain across my me and a strange dream barely aware somewhere back there at the back of someone near me and a cleaning lady pokes me awake with a vacuum nozzle and gabbles something in Chinese and points to the gate and no queue and a plane outside with a cargo door firmly in place all revved and ready to go and just me left to float on and take the last seat, the exit seat and collapse opposite a very attractive air hostess. The third lucky break.
Which just left Monday afternoon to breeze away til night in Tokyo and a night bus back to Yamagata.
I think I should try complaining to Air China again now this time listen here and really give them what for.
Tuesday 10 June 2008
Home
Back in England and everything is cut in more vivid colours shapes and noises than ever before it was, or at least it seemed to me to be back then. The buttercups more yellow than yellow itself, in plain or in translation, from whatever pallette you take it. The fields stretch further, the wind blows familiar and strange all at once. Honeysuckle froths like babies do, at the knuckles of the stem. All kinds of things I'd never noticed before, or paid attention to.
A week or two ago I sat in a room next to the computer room, with broken desks and old pcs pushed up against the wall. I called in '!Next' and when that failed, I slid the door open and motioned in the next first year student. As part of the speaking test, Kikuchi Sensei had them memorise and sing to me the chorus
Country roads, take me home
To the place, I belong,
West Virginia, Mountain Mama,
Country roads, take me home.
Mangled would not do justice their performance. Another few days along and the school anniversary, 'じゃがいも' (JagaImo- Potato) and their full compliment of young old older from all around the community centre who'd gather there and prepare songs of their own and songs of others and deliver them a whole lot better than any first year kid could a chorus in another tongue. One of which (another and not their own) was Swing Low, Sweet Chariot...... Coming for to carry me home.
I had another strange moment entertaining the first year kids, tykes, in Meiji Elementary school around about the same time. They'd never seen me before. I introduced myself, my family, my country of birth. I pinned up pictures of them all. I drew a blue chalk line between a two blobs of the U.K. and four blobs of Japan and a little fat round plane in between. I did it all like I did two years ago, when I had to introduce myself to every class in three elementary schools and one junior high school. Everything the same, except when it came to guessing my brother and my sister's age and realised they'd moved on two years along with everything else.
And now I find myself back for my grandfather's funeral on Friday and a reading from Philippians not Filipinos.
A week or two ago I sat in a room next to the computer room, with broken desks and old pcs pushed up against the wall. I called in '!Next' and when that failed, I slid the door open and motioned in the next first year student. As part of the speaking test, Kikuchi Sensei had them memorise and sing to me the chorus
Country roads, take me home
To the place, I belong,
West Virginia, Mountain Mama,
Country roads, take me home.
Mangled would not do justice their performance. Another few days along and the school anniversary, 'じゃがいも' (JagaImo- Potato) and their full compliment of young old older from all around the community centre who'd gather there and prepare songs of their own and songs of others and deliver them a whole lot better than any first year kid could a chorus in another tongue. One of which (another and not their own) was Swing Low, Sweet Chariot...... Coming for to carry me home.
I had another strange moment entertaining the first year kids, tykes, in Meiji Elementary school around about the same time. They'd never seen me before. I introduced myself, my family, my country of birth. I pinned up pictures of them all. I drew a blue chalk line between a two blobs of the U.K. and four blobs of Japan and a little fat round plane in between. I did it all like I did two years ago, when I had to introduce myself to every class in three elementary schools and one junior high school. Everything the same, except when it came to guessing my brother and my sister's age and realised they'd moved on two years along with everything else.
And now I find myself back for my grandfather's funeral on Friday and a reading from Philippians not Filipinos.
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