Cocktail anyone?

It’s time for another splurge of blogging, courtesy of your favourite foreigner living in Japan! (Or maybe favourite Englishman living in a foreign country、depending how you look at it!)

Let me tell you about the weekend before last. To celebrate the purchase of my new keyboard - I wanted to throw a party. Rather than it be one of those two-a-penny house parties you can probably find everywhere I wanted it to be something different and a little funny. Taking a walk around the supermarket you soon realise that alchohol is a very important part of Japanese culture and life. They have a wider selection of alchohol than you could shake your leg at, and not have it ache from the amount of times you’d have to shake it at all the different alchoholic drinks and brands. The most colourful of these are the ‘cans in a cocktail’ - the most popular brand is ‘Cocktail Partner’ and they come in a variety of cocktail variations and bright colours. You could have a Fuzzy navel in a can, a Gin and Tonic in a can, a Cosmopolitan in a can - alsorts. So I thought the theme could be a ’cocktail soriée’, and to compliment (or contrast) against the not-terribly-classy canned cocktails, I made smart dress compulsory!

Not being the most organised of people at the best of times, I was little bit nervous and doubted my ability to be able to organise and host a good party. My anxiety was unfounded though, because I successfully dealt with the invitations, tidied the house very nicely and decorated the place. Arranged food and drink (with the help of Kaitlin from the nearby town Kawanishi who made a very impressive SPREAD and the centrepiece of the table - a fantastic cocktail pyramid!). Overall twenty one people came and fit comfortably into my little house!

The amazing spread and cocktail pyramid!

The party was fantastic and everybody loved it. There was the main lounge with my piano where every now and then I would play some jazz standards and sing (a lot of Gershwin and Cole Porter etc and occaisionally music akin to Antonio Carlos Jobim or Lionel Richie!). The spare room became ‘the Poker room’ (I’d happened to come across a plethora of playing cards and a decent amount of poker chips which I stylishly placed on my low table - a bit of dim lighting and a giant soft toy dice and viola!).

The party in full swing

The majority of people were my JET friends from around Yamagata, but I invited Koji and Yutaka my Japanese friends from Nanyo and a Japanese husband of one of the English teachers’ and a Japanese boyfriend of another. Everybody got on great - and at one point I remember trying to play ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’ having the rules explained in a mix of Japanese and English - interesting to say the least!



Oh, and I might add, ITV or BBC - if you’re reading this - I think I’m more than capable of having my own ‘An evening with….’ special programme at a prime-time slot. Being the true entertainer I was, I did all those impressive and funny things you find the big time musicians doing on programmes like that. As I was performing, a few of the guests on their way to the party rang me up. Naturally I continued playing ‘Fly Me To The Moon’ one handed whilst talking on the phone and singing directions to them. It was a highlight on the night!

Everybody enjoyed my piano playing!

Owing to the success of that night - I shall certainly look forward to hosting another one sometime in the future. The only horrendous part about the party was clearing up afterwards! Only because of the stupid Japanese rubbish sorting system, you can’t just shove everything in a black bin bag and turn your back on it - in future I’ll display the Yellow bag, Red bag and Green bag in a more obvious place with clear instructions on what type of rubbish goes where!

...It all got a bit too much for some people towards 3am!

Did I mention Matthew McConnaughy came to my soirée? Siobhan brought along her ‘boyfriend’ Carlos - who was actually a ‘Guy Fawkes’ that her school had made to learn about Bonfire night with Matthew McConnaughy’s face stuck on. She’s a little bit crazy bless her….he was a great guy though!

Wow! Matthew McConnaughy...at my house...in Japan!

The crazy night out in Shinjo!

Feeling completely refreshed (not quite!) we got ready to have a fun night out in Shinjo, the nearest big city to where Siobhan and Emily live. We managed to find an Italian, which had no pictures in its menu, sold what could probably be the world’s smallest pizza, and when I ordered pizza and then some pasta, the waitress obviously thought I couldn’t possibly eat a portion of pasta plus an incredibly small pizza, and so cancelled the pizza (or just plain forgot about it - so I promptly prompted her to remember it!).

After the Italian, we wanted to find a pub, which is obviously hard because all the signs are in Japanese - and Japanese pubs don’t look like English pubs - my how we take for granted the good old hanging signs with rustic names like ‘The Foxglove’ and ‘The Shepherds Arms’ outside British pubs. We stumble across one of the many neon signs - the one that says ‘Vanilla pub’ in a garish pink glow. We should have known. I suspected something was a little funny about the place - having to get to it by an elevator up to the second floor. The small size of the place, the curtains closed, but Siobhan just had to barge in there!

We had entered a ‘Snack bar’ or, if you like, a hostess bar. They seem to have these a lot in Japan, and its our own fault in hindsight for entering it. They are places where working men can go for a drink and a bit of attention from a beautiful Japanese lady who will listen to their every word and make them feel special for a their stay. We shouldn’t have been fooled by the word ‘pub’! Anyway, we enter - it’s pretty quiet, there is a gentleman at the bar, and the workers behind the bar are all women in glamorous costumes. They stare at us then at each other thinking ‘Foreigners? In Japan? In Shinjo? And what are they doing here?’ especially considering it was me and two girls. But nevertheless we sat down and got some drinks. Soon after the drinks, Ai and Koyuki came along to chat with us! I don’t think they were quite sure what to do with us, but it was quite funny really, using a mix of broken English and broken Japanese they probably quite enjoyed a change of scene.

We spoke about Hobbies, introduced ourselves - it wasn’t so bad! It turned out that it was Koyuki’s third day on the job so she was a little nervous! Me and Emily were only slightly freaked out by what we had entered into - surprisingly it was Siobhan who was most uncomfortable - which is quite unlike her, and especially considering she was the one who boldly barged through the threshold through to the bar.

The memorable 'Pub Vanilla'

My poor Japanese managed to get us out of the place within 30/40 minutes or so, saying we had to meet a friend at a certain time. Our short visit wasn’t cheap. It cost us about ￥5000 for 2 drinks each and a chinwag with the lovely ladies! We got our photo taken with them too for that much money! It was an experience, but we shan’t be reliving it anytime soon!

After our close escape, we quickly saw a karaoke bar. Siobhan had been to the same place with her work collegues so it was tried and tested - and safe! The place was quite quiet so we had a chance to sing a bit of Karaoke (a beautiful quintet of Disney’s ‘A Whole New World’ was the highlight, featuring myself, Emily, Siobhan and the two Japanese girls who were the only other people in the bar that Siobhan started talking to). We had a drink or two their and then continued on our way to actually find a proper Japanese pub.

I'm not drunk...just enjoying the Karaoke!

We tried to ask somebody where we could find a ‘pub’ pub (Izakaya is the Japanese term), luckily we bumped into a group of merry-sounding young Japanese guys who were on their way to an Izakaya. ‘Great!’ We all thought - ‘How exciting! We’ve founds some friends who want to have a drink with us!’…..we arrived at the venue and they told us to sit down to wait to be seated…..and they left us! They got their own booth and left us to get our own! We weren’t expecting to be ditched like that, especially when they were being so nice and friendly to us(…well, a few appeared to be a little scared of us) - but the Japanese are typically polite, but sometimes the friendliness can end there! It was quite funny, we laughed it off and got our own booth. After buying some drinks we invited ourselves into another booth with a group full of young Japanese girls and had a chat and a few photos with them, and then finally invited ourselves into the booth of the Japanese guys, chatted and had a few photos with them! It was fun, but we wanted to move on, so we left them.

Us and the guys who abandoned us!

Back out on the streets of Shinjo, we bumped into a group of slightly older guys - again a little merry - who were on their way to an Izakaya and invited us along….it turned out to be the same Izakaya we’d just left, so we told them and they went and found another one! They were much more friendly - probably because they were quite drunk before they’d met us - they bought us Beer, Sake, Sushi and we had a lot of fun laughing and chatting with them! It turned out they all lived in Kaneyama, where Siobhan lives.

The Kaneyama guys

By this time it was about 3am in the morning and we were all quite merry. The pub was shutting and we ordered a special kind of taxi. I think the Japanese word is ‘daiiso’ but I can’t quite remember. Instead the of the taxi having just one driver, it has two. One person picks up your car, and the other follows behind. It’s a great service and not too pricey! What was quite impressive was that the guy managed to find my car in a busy car park at the Hospital in a very short space of time, and in the meantime we chatted to a bunch of merry young Japanese people outside the bar! It was a crazy great night - so much seemed to happen in what was quite a short space of time!

Our Taxi driver, who I shall call 'Jimmy', driving my car back to Siobhan's place!

The day after we woke up at 1pm - considering that me and Siobhan had had about 3/4 hours sleep within the space of two days, we slept very deeply! For a late breakfast we had Mister Donuts (one of the things we should also import from the US) and then bought some ingredients for tea! We had a real craving for a proper British dinner. Emily had a Microwave/Oven, so I volunteered to try making Yorkshire puddings and also craved to make Chicken wrapped in Bacon stuffed with Brie! (Probably my all-time favourite dish!) Emily made cheesy mashed potatoes and we had some broccolli too! (Siobhan was useless….I think she laid the table….I THINK) It was so delicious! We just chilled out at Emily’s and had a lovely meal together! I must say my Yorkshire puddings worked out quite well, unfortunately I couldn’t find shallow enough trays for the batter, so they were probably more Yorkshire cakes - but they still had the same great taste! Given the size of Japanese kitchens and the small size of the Microwave ovens (which I must say are sufficiently effective when they play the role of ‘oven’), it was tricky keeping everything hot and ready at the same time. But we managed OK!

(Congratulations! You made it to the end of the most recent two part epic!)

How can I live without you?

A few weekends ago, after we went to Tokyo, we went for a trip up to a big superstore (on a par with Debenhams etc.) - quite a trek from where I live, say one hour - in a place called Higashine, a bit above Yamagata City. There, I saw a keyboard. Lots actually, and I’m not talking about the ones you plug into your computer. These were Clavinova style full size things! One in particular caught my eye - it was a Casio - 88 key piano w/ some sort of weighted key feel selling for ¥50,000 - roughly £200. Considering all the other were double that price and more, that one looked like a bargain. I left it then, but the next weekend - I just couldn’t resist - it was a quiet weekend and I thought why not! So off I went back up to Higashine on my own. I successfully dealt with the salesman, who seemed a little surprised that I wanted to buy it, and try ot fit it in my car ( had a little difficulty explaining that bit) - it turned out that it was the last one, which explained its good price - but true to Japanese professionalism they spent a great deal of time cleaning it, and all the bits and pieces for it were all there (not quite how it typically would be in England!) and I was on my way! Luckily my big car could just about fit my new buy - and now! Now, I have a music room in my house! I can play piano to my hearts content - and it is almost as good as the real thing! At least I don’t have to worry about my piano playing getting rusty anymore (and there is no excuse anymore if it does get rusty!) Obviously, its not the real deal as the piano, but its a great deal easier than trying to deal with the incredibly busy extra-curricular filled Japanese schools!

I just managed to fit it in my car! Lucky I have such a big car!

And voila! The 'Music Room'

ANOTHER long weekend (the last one for a while!)

Are you ready for another packed weekend? In true Japanese fashion we try to cram as much stuff as we can in, and we still get quality with quantity too!

Originally I was planning to go back down to Tokyo to see a concert by the world renowned Bach Collegium Choir Japan singing Bach’s B Minor Mass. It would have been amazing but unfortunately all the tickets had been sold out and I wasn’t prepared going all the way down to see if I could get a return. So after that initial initial disappointment it was looking like a quiet long weekend, I was thinking of a trip to some traditional historical Japanese heritage site but was encouraged by the mass of JET friends to make my way up to Sakata, a city on the North west of Yamagata, by the sea, for a ‘Rave’ on a beach.

It also turned out that the Yamagata Film Documentary Festival was happening that weekend and I it had been highly recommended by my predecessor, so I didn’t want to miss that. I met up with Siobhan and Rebecca to see a film called ‘Bashir Blues’ - it was quite a complex subject matter about Muslims that don’t believe and follow the Sharia law, instead they bypass the Ko’ran and have a more songful and spiritual search for God and way of living. It was very interesting and most of the films were subtitled in English and Japanese, quite a cosmopolitan atmosphere around the place.

After that we were walking back to the car when we spotted a British style pub - called London! We were looking for somewhere to eat and this was perfect! The owner spoke pretty good English, although she had an American accent! I had Fish and Chips! They weren’t quite Fish and Chips, but when you come to Japan - they always manage to put their own twist on any kind of food that grabs their attention! This was more like battered large scampi, but it was still delicious! Of course, one had to eat it with chopsticks! They even served it on a piece of English newspaper! Very funny - I’m thinking of going back to that place for my birthday!

Fish and Chips - Japan style!

Afterwards, we finally made it back to the car, and with a bit of difficulty trying to get out of the car park, we were finally on our way to Sakata. It was about 8.30pm when we set off and took about an hour and a half - we made a stop at a supermarket for some food and drink and spent a considerably long time messing about in the car park taking stupid photographs and scaring the Japanese! Once we’d finally made it to Sakata, we found out from other people that the Rave had finished….at 10.30! Not much of a ‘rave’ not that I’m a big fan of them anyway, but I suspect Japanese would have some tough noise laws at a certain time of night, something like that.

So what did everybody do once the rave had finished? What does anyone do in Japan? They do Karaoke! There were probably about 20 or so of us, and we all managed to fit into a smallish Karaoke booth and sing our hearts out. I performed a varied bag of tunes ranging from Elephant Man’s ‘Pon di River, Pon di Bank’, which successfully made the gang speechless with my energetic performance and convincing impression of a Jamaican Dancehall artist, to Frank Sinatra’s ‘New York New York’. It was about 3.30am till we finally finished. I think the staff were glad because we could well have depleted their entire drinks selection! (We had a nomihoudi, a ‘drink all you want’ until 5am!)

Crazy times in a small karaoke booth!

Now Siobhan, my good friend over in Kaneyama, had to be at a festival in the morning to feature for the first time in her Taiko group. We’d made sketchy plans to sleep over and wake up early, but Karaoke had somewhat disrupted them. So, we dropped some people off and Siobhan drove back in my car to Kaneyama at about 4.30 in the morning. We got back at about 6am, had about one hour sleep and then we had to get off to Sakagawa-mura (where my other good friend Emily lives) for the ‘Sakagawa-mura Mushroom Festival’. Yes, I was a little perplexed at first, but really it was a great little festival! Lots of different and delicious mushrooms, cooked in alsorts of ways! We had fried mushrooms that we really meaty, tempura style battered mushroom, and mushroom imoni (stew). Siobhan got to play the symbals at the festival! She rocked! We had a good time although we were so tired!

Me and Siobhan taking a break at 4.30am in the morning!

Then we had to go to another festival in Siobhan’s town, just to make an appearance - but it turned out to be pretty cool! We got given random wooden stirring sticks as presents, and then as we were leaving the festival, this random guy escorted us around some museums and galleries in Kaneyama and to some beautiful parts of the town that Siobhan didn’t know about - we went to an amazing Japanese Tea House with such a beautiful garden and some hella large Koi! Sugoi (as Siobhan would say!)

A friend of mine, Guy, likes his teddy 'Roosevelt' to join in on his Japan adventure. Here is Roosevelt doing an impression of Siobhan in her Taiko costume!

The beautiful tea-house. I don't think the photo really does it justice.

So we finally managed to leave in the hope of getting a few more hours sleep, but as we walk up the stairs to Siobhan’s house, one of her next door neighbours who is in the process of building an extension, was having a break with his friend and invited us round for a drink and a chat! We spent an hour talking to them and then made an excuse to leave! We managed to get a 2/3 hours sleep before…our next crazy adventure!!!!!

The story of my phone...

I didn’t talk about my phone during the TOKYO blog posts, because I felt it deserved a special mention in its own entry.

Typically, Japanese phones are quite different to UK phones. Many people before I came to Japan told me they were from the future - a lot more advanced than the UK phones. I don’t believe that to be true - they just have different features, and the Japanese want to use them for different things.

Japanese phones are often a little thicker and bigger than the phones we like in the UK - gadgets and features take priority over size and design. Most of the JETs had to wait for a mobile phone until they got their foreign registration card, then they could choose any fancy phone they wanted. I however was lucky in a sense. My Japanese office helpers and supervisor wanted me to have a phone as soon as possible so I had a means of contact. I was able to get a Pay as you Go, basic mobile.

It’s quite a nice mobile don’t get me wrong - it has these cool little glowing images that flash when I get a call or receive an email, but it does look a little basic and big. There are slimmer and cooler phones, the style of which I typically hunger for back in the UK.

Once my phone was upgraded to a contract, the phone wasn’t - and I was a little annoyed when people started getting incredibly cool phones that could watch TV, take excellent photos, make coffee, recite Pi to 436 figures etc. etc.

Now I am a little grateful for such basic features. In all the rush and panic from missing the train on the Sunday, I ‘accidently’ left my phone on the train we took to Fukushima, which then departed to Sendai - a big city about 1-2 hours away from where I live.

I rang Japan Railways to see if they could find my phone. The following day I rang again and they told me that it was being kept at Sendai station! It hadn’t been stolen or anything! It was sent to me and I now have it back! Japan is typically a very honest country. I have heard stories of laptops being left on trains and then being returned to their owners safe and sound!

Another similiar story involved David(JoeyD) who left his phone on the night bus on the way down to Tokyo. He has a much fancier phone. We rang the night bus company up the day after and sure enough his phone was still there and was promptly returned to him when he got back on to go back to Yamagata! This is certainly one of Japan’s finer points! Old phone or new, cheap or expensive, a phone would be nicked as soon as you left it in the England!