Friends: week 1

January 1st-

Bad start to the friends project. Can't remember meeting anybody new, but then, aren't New Year's Resolutions and their challenge spin-offs meant to come undone on Day 1?

However, last night I did befriend Laura, Sion's girlfriend, both now living in Yamagata, my old home. A carry-over friend to fill today's quota? From Wales, they had plenty of stories about the weird and wonderful characters of their hometowns: ragged, drunk ferrymen and sailors of the seven seas. Cemented the friendship shrine hopping at midnight and watching Japanese people burn old fortunes and tokens of luck.

January 2nd-

Friend! Lee from Mogami, just back from a trip to Tokyo to meet his boyfriend. I met him at my friend Nicole's place for a mini dinner party also with Sion and Laura. Mad for Mac and Apple, Lee let me use his iPhone to check my e-mails, he must be my friend.

January 3rd-

Out for drinks and dinner with Nicole and Laura, later joined by Makiko and Yuta. We started in a place called 招き豚 (ManekiButa, The The Inviting Pig?!). It used to be a stand-up bar and skewered meat kind of place but they've lashed beers crates together and put cushions on top along one side of the bar. Sitting next to me was Yasu, and next to him were two girls, one of which was very probably his girlfriend. It's always difficult to tell. Dressed in technicolour hip-hop and bucket cap, he had a swagger about him that didn't really ring true, like a 5 year old in a Superman costume. But he was very friendly. The 2 girls got coy when I asked them which hospital they work at once they'd said they are nurses. I said, 'I'm not a pervert, it's ok' but of course you always look like a pervert when you say something like that. Yasu, like Lee, also lives in Mogami, or he used to. Now he works in Yakitori (skewered meat) place himself, in Saitama Prefecture. Friend.

January 4th-

Minus points. I don't think I can call Makiko a friend any more. Got drunk and tried to kiss her at the end of the night, but she didn't seem to want to kiss me. She was all, 'Let's hang out again!' texting later but I think I burnt a bridge there. Unfinished business finished!

On the up side, I met a fireman from Sendai on the chairlift on Mt. Zao. I'd come back to Yamagata for my winter holiday to ski and that's what I did for 5 days straight, 2 of them solo ski days. The chairlift was the perfect friend vehicle- a finite conversation (you have to get off at some point) so no awkwardness, just enough time to get to know the particulars of a person and no escape for them, unless they want to jump the lift and risk losing their ski pass or the ability to walk.

Over the 2 solo ski days I also met a salaryman from Osaka, another business man from Yokohama, a recently graduated young guy from nearby Yonezawa who I didn't really understand because he talked like he had a mouthful of marbles and a mother and son. Son turned out to be one of the kids I used to teach occasionally at Elementary school in Yamagata but the little s$*@ couldn't remember my name! It's only been 5 months since I left! Later bumped into Sakamoto Sensei from the City Hall and couldn't remember his name at the time. He knew I didn't know and he knew my name. Bit awkward.

January 5th-

Suddenly it seems there are potential friends everywhere. I spent 7 hours on a bus back down to Tokyo sitting next to someone. HE could have been a friend! But I was too hungover to inhale properly, let alone talk.

Saved by the pub, a shoe-in for friends every Monday night with me stuck there another 7 hours on the wrong side of the bar. I met Mine, pronounced Mee-nay, a jazz singer and in pub owner Garth's own words, 'a bit of hard work'. He's just very difficult to understand and appears to be as deaf as a hammer, which doesn't really make for such a good conversation. Still, we shook hands and he just about got my name, so we must be friends.

January 6th-

First day back at school but no kids, just office stuff and getting ready. Evening I went to Hiroo Junior High School sports field (well, dirt field) for weekly night frisbee practice. Loads of new people, although apparently many are just in transit through Tokyo. However I did meet Rob, shoeless, web programmer for a nightclub website I've heard about before. He was marking me for a bit and we had a chat in a pause in play.

January 7th-

I meet a kindred spirit. Yoshii really wanted to meet people. Went to a launch party for an exhibition of Dr Sketchy's art collective in the Pink Cow in Shibuya to meet my friend Martine and hopefully make some more. Yoshii was standing in front of the door when I walked in and pounced on me. Unemployed, a former trainspotter and speaking excellent English, Yoshii was waiting for me outside the toilet once I'd finished in there too. I asked him if there was one train he always wanted to shoot but never did, the one that got away. I also asked him if there were fights between trainspotters over the prime locations on the station platforms. Yoshii stopped a lot to mop the sweat from his brow and had a real intensity when he talked. To be honest, Yoshii scared me a little, but in the spirit of things I carried on talking with him until Martine's friend Paul, excellent facial hair and man with circus contacts rescued me and abducted the conversation.

Thereafter met some of Martine's other friends, notably, fellow Brit Sarah, who it happens worked with a girl called Vernon I knew that lived in Tokyo last year.

Earlier on in the day I met Rina, 2 and half, new student at school. I'd like to call her friend, but she was crying when I talked to her so I might just call her an acquaintance for the time being. I think she wanted her mum or something.