Simply told

The other day the giant kerosene heaters were blasting like jet engines and the air in the gymnasium was filled with that heady smell. All of the students were arranged in class groups, sat on chairs, for the rehearsal of Fridays graduation ceremony. The rehearsal was mostly singing, although they also practised standing, sitting and bowing deeply in unison.

I grew bored quickly. Kasuya-sensei was nearby and we talked. I told her about Mondays exploits.

Max and I had driven up to Zao and near the car park got trapped behind a JCB that ploughed snow from the road to the side of the road. Big boulders of packed snow flaked off the bank at the side and tumbled back into the road as the JCB ploughed on. Just as we approached a T-junction (where the JCB would turn left and we would right), one of the passengers in the cabin turned and looked back at us across his shoulders. We recognized the car park attendant that we deal with each weekend, who sometimes crouches watching the car park entrance when he's not directing vehicles. He smiled at us a little strangely.

We parked, exchanged season tickets for lift passes and climbed aboard the first gondola. It'd carried down about a dozen passengers. At the gondola station half-way up the mountain, we encountered more skiiers and snow-boarders queuing for the very same gondola we'd taken up to ferry them down. We took a chairlift up further, that ran along a corridor of trees. Nobody else was on the chairlift. The seats in front swung from side to side before disappearing into the white gloom two pillars ahead and the wind howled and whistled on the other side of the corridor of trees.

These are the particulars of How We Faced Zao on Zao's Terms.

At the top of the chair, the wind hit us. Although it scoured snow from from the sloping bank ahead of us, it replaced snow in dunes on the path that would usually lead to the piste. Instead of skating leisurely along this path, we stepped like scuba divers on dry land. With each step we raised our legs high and with each footfall our skis plunged deep into the dunes of snow. The wind bracketed our ears and thoughts and the loneliness of the arctic explorer rushed into relief.
A little way ahead we discerned a figure in the white gloom. His steps were measured, consistent, efficient to our clumsy, stuttering and laboured progress. As we approached nearer we read 'Zao Ski Patrol' on the rear of his backpack, written in English. Eventually we drew level and shouted greetings at one another, above the roar of the wind. He asked a question to which Max replied, 'ENGLAND!', in Japanese. Soon after, the ski patrol man disappeared into a log cabin that'd lurched suddenly out of the gloom. In my mind I rolled over the question he'd asked Max again and again, as you would a boiled sweet in your mouth. Finally, I cracked it. 'Doko made iku'n desu ka' he'd asked. 'ENGLAND!', Max had replied. The ski patrol man didn't ask where we were from.

'WHERE ARE YOU GOING?' the ski patrol man had asked.
'ENGLAND!'

Kauya-sensei burst out laughing.

Orga-ganized

What on earth was I thinking? I, after all, once put truth to the phrase 'Can't organise a piss-up in a brewery'. I actually couldn't. It was back at school and a charity auction, at which three dads (one of them mine) pooled their money and put up a hefty bid for the brewery tour lot. I was charged with organisation. Logistics (for what should have been enticing enough trip) tangled. So and so (I forget who) couldn't make such a day. But such and such had a driving lesson that afternoon. And whatshisface was dithering and hadn't gotten back to me. Whatshisface. Always dithering. The brewery tour conductor, more facial hair than man, grew impatient.

So why did I pick me myself to organise a night out with our Brand New Friends Reona and Kei and co.? (One of whom, when I bumped into her on the street last week, asked me if I remembered her- which led me to believe she wasn`t too inclined to commit me to memory. But that`s beside the point. They`re our New Friends and they`re Japanese).

I can`t speak Japanese, let alone write Japanese text messages. Each mail I get I forward to Sean for translation, who bounces it back Englished to me and then I reply in my broken Japanese to Reona or Kei. I`ve been tryin to arrange this night out for four days, intermittently. At what point does the effort strangle the incentive? About now it seems. The process continues...

Hair Piece

A comb-over is called a barcode-a in Japan.

Replacement

Kimura-san walked in with a sigh and a smile today. She's a secretary to the tea. She's been there forever. She gossips, she cackles, she does errands and she couldn't care for the authority (the Kocho-sensei), because without her it wouldn't function (without his green tea). She even sneaks off early when the teachers are all in a meeting in another room, late in the afternoon.

There was a visitor early today, earlier than Kimura-san, and K-T showed her into the secretary's office where she waited. K-T announced the visitor to Kimura-san when she bumbled through the door at her usual sort of time, which was when she gave that sigh while smiling.

There's a farewell party on Friday for Kimura-san because she has to retire, though she doesn't want to, or something. Didn't really understand that. And it was only after half the day had passed that I put two and two together and realised why this visitor was shuffling around behind Kimura-san everywhere she went, paying attention to everything she said and why Kimura-san sighed with that smile this morning.

For Mum

Conbeeny Man

He's just the kind of guy you want to take for a nice cup of tea and a game of chess. He's got some real thick metal parts in his teeth and a pair of square lens spectacles and every time I go in to the conbeeny he'll always reach for a plastic bag and every time I'll always stumble through one of my few stock Japanese phrases and wave away the need for a plastic bag. That's service for you. He's ready for the day I change my mind.

Recently, I've been ducking in late at night, craving something sweet. Lately I've even taken to trying some Japanese sweet things, dango sticks being my current squeeze (angko dango in particular). Conbeeny Man chuckles and says 'Amaimono' to me and I nod and we go through the plastic bag charade and I walk away with a smile. Tonight however, he went one step further and we actually talked, until another customer wandered in and walked up to the counter.

Conbeeny Man has travelled. He's once been to London with four friends (got that bit) and they couldn't find their hotel (here he gesticulated and looked around the ceiling perimeter in mock lost) and there was something about his heart he said but I'm pretty sure it wasn't any condition or trouble.

I want to record this guy. I want to take a picture of him at his counter with the cigarettes and the microwave in the background. I have more contact with him than I do some teachers at school. But maybe that would freak him out and then it'd be awkward and he'd never talk again except to offer a plastic bag and I'd eventually have to stop going there to avoid the embarrassment. Probably best left then.

thursday night drinking: it's the new weekend. why can't everyone here be as warm as sean's li'l lady's mates? end of school year, spring, hanami, it's all round the corner.