Coming home for Christmas!

I write this to you brimming with excitement as I sit waiting for my connecting flight to Manchester in the new Heathrow Terminal 5. I just landed about an hour ago and I must say, personally, it is such a weird experience returning back after a considerable period of time. Not to mention in that time you have experienced so many new things, such a different culture, and a different language. It's hard to realise if you return a slightly altered person. But I can definately say I'm making the most of being back in my home country, where the national language is the one I speak fluently. Even the little things like saying 'Hello' and 'Thank You' and really meaning it and having a nice fluent response back!

You appreciate all these little things. On my way through the security checks, one of the staff who was checking all creams and liquids were in the required plastic bags, started up a little cheeky conversation with me, as I put my stuff in one of the bags. 'I'm just waiting for a celebrity to come along. And when they don't do what's required, I'm going to sell the story to all the papers!' - wishing him good luck on his mission, I strained to think of any similar banter I had been part of back in Japan. Of course, sometimes it happens, and culturally speaking its bound to be a little different in tone and context, but for example, the last thing a staff employee said to me as I boarded the night bus was 'nihongo de daijobu desu ka' (actually addressed to my friend Mr Hosokawa who was seeing me off) - basically he was asking 'Is he OK with Japanese?' with a slight tone of concern in his voice, as though it was really essential I could understand the language in order to make sure I knew how to get on and get off the bus OK! Of course I replied to him with a 'Yeah, 'course no probs mate! What do you think I am, not-Japanese like innnit?' and swaggered on the bus. In Japan, you're constantly torn between the feel-good feelings of making Japanese people have confidence in your Japanese abilities and being able to cope with a pretty normal Japanese conversation, and the blow-to-your-confidence feelings when people have little to no faith in your Japanese abilities.

The fact is, who should really have to deal with such feelings at all? Once I arrived in Heathrow, I felt like I was on some kind of drugs. Still am actually. Maybe its the severe lack of sleep I've had, traveling for about 25 hours straight in restricted places, or the fact that when I'm in Japan, I think I realize now that my auditory and visual senses are heightened in order to try and make sure I understand everything. But now I'm in England, where I understand EVERYTHING I read and everything I hear - everything seems so vivid, everything seems so familiar and yet so foreign all at once. Shops have all changed their images slightly, people are people and yet they're not Japanese and they're speaking English - I might happen to eavesdrop on a conversation and I can understand what they're talking about. It's BIZARRE?! So, is this what living in a foreign country and learning a foreign language is all about? So that we can become more humble and more grateful for having the potential to enjoy communication and interaction so easily?... I'm sorry, I went all contemplative and philosophical, blame it on the lack of sleep and the fact I'M IN ENGLAND!

This is exactly what Heathrow Airport looked like from me eyes when I first arrived there......well, actually, it looked a little bit nothing like this to be honest...

Dear Blog...

I haven't forgotten about you! You've always been squashed in a little corner of my mind amongst all the Japanese swimming around there and the things I've been doing, and the work I've HAD to do, the food I've eaten, the drink I've drunk.

I do keep meaning to update you - but finding time just seems to be an impossible challenge at the moment. So briefly here is what I want to write about in a nutshell (and hopefully I shall expand upon it all at some point....a wedding, the invisible Mt Fuji, paella by the river, the rather strange weather, karate, all night dance parties, project runway and pub quizes...) 

In the meantime, enjoy by proxy the beautiful sunsets that Nanyo gave me throughout the Autumn time!

Get me to the temple on time

My friend who lives across the road from me got married at the end of November, and he invited me to come! It was a fantastic opportunity to see what a traditional Japanese wedding is like, and I was so lucky to see it all. The traditional Japanese ceremony was held in beautiful Buddhist temple in Nanyo. I was planning on watching what happened at the ceremony from the outside, seen as the service is usually just attended by family and relatives, but one of my friends was on hand to style and dress the bride, and let me into the wedding to get a better view! I felt really uncomfortable intruding into such a solemn and intimate service, but my friend only seemed to think I was really lucky and was happy that I got to see the service so well.

It was a calm and quiet service. A bit of chanting by monks and drinking of special wedding sake to celebrate the union of the bride and groom. The thing that captivated me most was the dance in the middle of the service. A group of about four monks played traditional Japanese instruments that resulted in a kind of droning atonal chant-like music while one of the priestess entered the hall with a leaf. She performed a calm and flowing dance accompanied by the traditional avant-garde-sounding music which combined with the location was a very powerful and moving thing to watch and experience. Afterwards I managed to take some photos of the amazing traditional Japanese costumes worn during the ceremony.

After the ceremony the next big event was the reception, attended by extended family, friends and work colleagues. The experience was amazing. From the moving and sophisticated experience of the traditional wedding ceremony, the reception was something that could have rivaled the cheesiness of a Walt Disney theme park, had it perhaps only had some fireworks to round it off!

It was a lovely reception, but used loud speakers blasting out cheesy power-ballad style music while the bride and groom processed around the room. There was a Candle service (during which when the last big candle was lit Whitney Houston's (AND IIIIIII WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU came blasting out), the groom's students from the elementary school he teaches at came along to sing, they even asked me to play the piano for them (which I happily obliged to do!) It was probably one of the most Japanese experiences I'd ever been involved with - infact, I ruined how Japanese it potentially could have been with my foreign-ness invading the event!