The truth about living in Japan

A warning to hard workers

2007-08-09T20:05:00.000+09:00

Please do not make the same mistake that I made. By default I opened an ING Superannuation account, via my old employer, and I recently tried to transfer my accrued super to my Virgin Super account.

I filled out all the forms, crossed my Ts, dotted my Is - Signed, sealed and delivered. For those who haven't transferred money between super funds before, the forms require the membership number of your old fund. This is relevant (see below).

My other superannuation accounts all transferred the money with no argument. ING, however, sent me a letter stating they were waiting on confirmation from my old employer that they weren't going to make any more contributions. OK, fair enough (thought I, oh so naively).

Well today I got another letter:

Dear Ms [my name],
Just because you have left your previous employer ... does not mean you need to change your superannuation fund.
[blah blah blah]
We are pleased to advise you that we have transferred [enter substantial amount of money here] to Integra Super Personal. Your new member number is xxxx1234567890xxxx. Please quote this number on all future correspondence. Etc.

So not only did they blatantly ignore my request to transfer my money to Virgin, but they sabotaged my entire request by giving me a new member number.

The worst part is yet to come. They actually CHARGED me a transfer fee plus management fees for their completely criminal act.

So my warning is quite significant. Whatever you do, do not put your money anywhere near ING or you'll never see it again, minus all their fees. They have stolen my super and I'm not sure what approach to take, but I'm not going to bend over and make it easy for them to [you know what].

Ok, this isn't about Japan. I'm just trying to get the word out there, because ING deserve to lose as many potential customers as I can manage.

The truth about Hiroshima

2005-09-19T12:47:00.000+09:00

I had terrible nightmares of Atomic weapons growing up as a child of the cold war and I avoided studying World War 2 in high school history as it troubled me. As a result, I never understood how or why Japan came to be an enemy in a war that was against the Nazis in Germany.

I learned, in visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, that before the Atomic bombing, Japan was at war with China and was spending 80% of its national economy on military spending. The people of Japan were forced into working to support the war. Children as young as 13 (boys and girls) worked in manufacturing, school children were given military training disguised as exercise, to have them ready for deployment. Clothing and Food items were rationed severely, with families given coupons and dressed in uniforms. The people of Japan were suffering under the control of their own government, who was even trying to enforce Mind Control to curb any anti-war intentions.

Hiroshima was a city populated by workers. Before the bomb destroyed the city, the government released an air raid warning and school children, those too young to work in the manufacturing plants, were evacuated. Those 13 or older stayed behind to continue working to support the war.

Before visiting the museum, I knew only the rhetoric that Japan was out of control during World War 2 in their bid for world domination. They wouldn’t listen to reason, nothing could be done and there was nothing left to do, someone had to take action and the US dropped the bomb on Hiroshima that ended the war.

While it can be argued that no one knew what the effects of the atomic bomb on a populated city would be, I’ve never felt satisfied with the arguments for killing so many people. As described in the peace museum, there had never before been such a mass slaughter of people in one moment, and I wonder if there has been anything like it since, other than in Nagasaki, the recipient of the other A-bomb dropped three days after.

The museum in Hiroshima contains letters, diary entries and documents from the US side, clearly showing that the bombs were dropped precisely because the effects were not known. In fact, the 2 bombs dropped on Japan were not even the same type of A-bomb. One was Uranium and the other Plutonium. Japan and the innocent people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were used as Guinea Pigs. The US claimed there were no choices, but from reading the correspondences between various US officials, it’s obvious there were other choices. Also evident is the written declaration that no warning was issued. Many US officials felt that a warning, and a demonstration of the effects of the A-bomb before one was deployed, would give the Japanese government the chance to make an informed decision, but regarding the use of the A-bomb, Japan never had that chance.

The people of Japan had no idea what they were facing. So when the radiation-filled black rain began to fall in the days following the destruction of Hiroshima, those still living in the devastation, living with coarse, dry throats, dying of thirst and severe burns, opened their mouths to the rain and lapped up paddles of black water, only to become violently ill and if the burns didn’t kill them slowly the ensuing cancer surely did.

White wall stained by black rain

Hiroshima was chosen as a candidate because it was populated by workers, and plenty of them. Plenty, that is, of children aged 13 and 14 working in the manufacturing plants. A list of potential targets had Hiroshima at number 1 position. Kyoto, a potentially more politically strategic target had been wiped from the list because the US wanted to occupy Japan immediately following the bombings, and they knew that bombing Kyoto would be too nationally sensitive and might stop the Japanese government from submitting to the US. Worse, they might have surrendered to the Russians, instead.

The bombs were dropped hastily, in fact the US government was concerned the Japanese might surrender before the US had a chance to test their weapons. Globally, there was a race for supremacy. I’m amazed, now I think about it, that all at the same time every one wanted the grand title of number 1. The Nazis wanted it, Japan wanted it, the Russians wanted it and the US wanted it too. It looks like the US won, but only because they gave Einstein sanctuary from the Germans. There are so many ways World War 2 could have played out, if only small details had been different, or timelines hadn’t intersected each other so exactly. Regardless, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the race in a shocking climax.

Victims of terrible burning in makeshift hospitals

We now know, because those two bombs were dropped and we have seen what happened, how destructive and horrifying Atomic warfare is. Despite it, following World War 2, Russia and the US raced to dominate the world through a steady build-up of Nuclear Weapons they could use to threaten each other and this led to that Cold War and the nightmare visions I had as a child of Reagan and the little red-button that I imagined would destroy us all. The Cold War ended in the 80s and yet, still, these countries and now Britain, India, Pakistan, France and China (and possibly others) have joined the fray.

Every time a nuclear weapon is tested, the Mayor of Hiroshima writes a letter in protest trying to remind the leaders of these countries of the atrocities of the weapons that they continue to build. Why can’t we just take it from those who know, it’s NEVER going to be justifiable to use that kind of weapon again, it certainly wasn’t justifiable the first 2 times. So much for weapons of Mass Destruction, those in glass houses etc. The US remains the only country to have used nuclear weapons in warfare, I hope the mistake is never repeated, but how can we ever be sure when the technology and the weapons continue to be developed?

The last of Sadako's paper cranes, and the ones that will never be folded

Where to vent frustrations

2005-09-12T11:03:00.000+09:00

We went to the "karibean riso-to" in Expoland, Osaka yesterday. It's a big pool area, I wouldn't say a "water park" because there aren't any real water slides, except for some small slides in the "rainforest" area. The main pool consists mainly of the "Cari River" current pool, a donut of flowing water that circles a small inner pool and sunbaking area. This river is great for floating around on your back, and you could float all day if it weren't for those pesky floating tubes that fill every available square-inch of space.

Unfortunately, the Caribbean Resort is now closed. Even though the heat of the day still soars up in the high 30s, apparently the end of the summer holidays for children means that all beaches and pools in Japan must immediately close, and not even open on weekends.

There's a lot of things in Japan that make little or no sense to me, this closing of all water-related sports while summer is still bearing down is just one of them. My stress in Japan is unreasonably high, which ironically makes the closing of the water park even worse. It was at the park that I experienced the highest frustration of 2 years and found the best means for dealing with my anger and venting on ... anyone within easy reach.

The park has 10 minutes of downtime, every hour or so. 10 minutes where everyone has to leave the pools and stand around, while absolutely nothing happens. No one cleans the pools, no one fixes anything. Every one, including all the staff, just stand around and wait. Why? I don't know, seems the Japanese just have to do stuff like that, probably some ritual dating back to the Samurai.

So, every hour my frustrations would boil, but then the bell would ring and I had the chance to vent. The Rainforest area is a mechanised and interactive construction of small slides and spouting, spraying water, some of which can be controlled. Jeremy and I discovered the joy of the well placed hoses, which could be fine-tuned into a far-reaching jet. We occupied the rainforest like it was our fort, and no one was safe.

Of course, it was all in good fun and part of the purpose of the rainforest area is this ability to declare war on someone climbing up from a lower level. However, it could be said that we abused the chance to get some retribution. It was most satisfying and well worth the $2000 entry fee we had to cough up for the privellage.

It just gets worse

2005-07-11T23:34:00.000+09:00

As if living here isn't punishment enough, especially as summer strikes with it's repulsive stench and the dripping humidity they call the rainy season.

There's some lie being circulated that Japan is a safe country with a low crime rate. I think there's just a low reported crime rate because the Japanese police are largely useless and there's just too many people, so crimes become impossible to investigate. But honestly, in all my years of life I've never been so exposed to theft as I have in Japan.

It's very normal for umbrellas to be stolen in Japan. It's so common that I have to wonder why people spend any money on umbrellas in the first place since it appears to me that there's a cultural umbrella trade that is most active on any rainy day. I, personally, have only had three umbrellas stolen. That's not many compared with the average loss.

Today I headed off to work only to discover my bicycle was stolen during the night, or even in the morning. Jeremy's bicycle too. Our bikes were parked on our property, behind the fence that borders our apartment building. This is the first bicycle I've had stolen, but I have had one vandalised by the psychotic old bitch who lived down the way from me in Kyoto.

Of course, Japanese people love to blame the crimes on "foreigners", with Koreans being their favoured target and all other non-Japanese nationalities close behind, but I have strong doubts that "gaijins" are responsible for my losses.

It's like the Japanese people forget about their own personal mafia, the Yakuza, who are seriously involved in criminal activity that has roots in almost all industries and even the government. Not that I think my bicycle has been stolen by Yakuza, it's not nearly a serious enough crime. In fact, in Japan it's just a daily occurence, when I report it to the police, they'll probably laugh at me.

This is NOT the crime-free country that it's depicted as being, not even close. I lived in Australia for 26 years and I've only ever had one thing stolen, my wallet. I've lived in Japan for less than 2 years. So there it is, the truth about living in Japan.

rain rain go away

2005-07-11T00:06:00.000+09:00

The rainy season has hit Japan, seemingly a month late. I think Osaka hasn't been suffering too badly from what I hear, there were floods in Tokyo and so far I've hardly been caught in any severe downpours. Anyway, rain is rain and it's still annoying.

Jeremy and I were wondering what to do with ourselves today, we checked out 'the best of Kansai', a book I bought about a year ago, and it suggested the best thing to do on a rainy day is visit Panasonic Square, which shows how outdated the book is because we tried to go there once before and the security guard laughed and informed us it closed 6 years ago. So we weren't going to try that again.

Feeling stuck, we consulted our Kyoto 'Lonely Planet' which had lots of information on visiting temples and eating expensive cuisine, but nothing to do for entertainment on a rainy day.

There's always JJ Club, the multi-story arcade parlour with cheap rates and an abundance of games and other activities, if you don't mind getting very sweaty, but we were too tired for that.

Lucky for us a friend suggested we meet for a late lunch at one of the few Mexican restaurants, El Pancho in Shinsaibashi, so we jumped at the opportunity to do something on this overcast, but ultimately pretty dry day. I got my new glasses adjusted and Jeremy picked up his glasses. That's another story about a 25 minute optical dispenser (aLook in Shinsaibashi), honestly the fastest glasses I've ever bought. My eyesight is shit, and I usually need special lenses cut and polished, it usually takes about 2 weeks, but mine were ready in the promised 25 minutes. Jeremy's glasses took a few days for some reason, even though his eyesight is better than mine, maybe most Japanese people have crappy vision like me so the stronger lenses are more readily available.

Then we went shopping, looked at expensive sunglasses for Jeremy, baulked and didn't buy, and then saw 'Batman Begins'. So there you have it, we found something to do during rainy season. The same boring crap we would have done in our own countries.

Japan is eating our whales

2005-06-23T11:05:00.000+09:00

The Japanese government wants to increase its whale consumption, hidden under the thin and pathetic guise of "research" (does counting whales need to involve killing and eating them?) to include endangered species of whales, and now seals, living in Australian territorities in Antarctica. What's next, Dolphins???

The Japanese believe it is their right to eat everything that moves. They won't stop until they're all fucking sumo-size.

How can anyone even contemplate eating endangered animals? How dare they use science as an excuse to rape Australian territories and our beautiful creatures.

In Sydney we celebrate the joyous return of wildlife to our harbour, we are thrilled to see whales dancing with ferries and dolphins entertaining guests in Darling Harbour, populated almost entirely by (you guessed it) Japanese tourists who come to Australia to take wedding photos in big frilly white pavlova-cake dresses infront our our beautiful waters because they're too lazy and dirty to clean up their own waterways.

The countdown is on to the day I leave. I'd leave right now if I didn't have my fiance and impending marriage to consider. I shouldn't be here when I so adamantly disagree with what they're doing.

Maybe I should start wearing my shoes in temples and doing everything I know to be culturally rude, after all I find their attitude towards Australia's protected whales to be outragiously offensive.

The gaining of fat

2005-06-21T13:17:00.000+09:00

I haven't really been gaining huge amounts of weight, as such, but my girth has expanded somewhat or at least become quite floppy. I decided to journal my eating habits for this week and I've found that my diet can't really be blamed, as I'm eating the same as usual.

As Jeremy pointed out, the problem may be that we're forced, by our strange working hours, to eat dinner really late at night, around 10:30pm or sometimes later. Of course, this being Japan, dinner consists of rice or pasta (which is cheaper than rice). After eating these heavy doses of carbohydrates late at night, we might watch a little TV and then go to bed, so that we're completely dormant for the 12 hours or so following dinner. More dormant than is normal after dinner, which is probably doing hell with our metabolisms.

So what can we do? If I was in Australia I'd eat a big juicy steak for dinner with vegetables and little carbohyrdate, but a big, juicy steak in Japan costs a month's wages. I can buy a little bit of very thinly sliced steak, but this form of steak is designed to be eaten with, you guessed it, a big bowl of rice.

I don't eat chicken, which is cheaper. Jeremy doesn't eat fish, which is also cheaper. Both turkey and lamb are largely out of the question due to their inavailability in this country.

So what can we do?

Ask me about my hometown ...

2005-06-12T13:05:00.000+09:00

I found this photo from my hometown newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, showing the beauty of our industrial working Harbour and the diversity of Marine life that lives there. After living in Japan I was surprised by this photo, it looks to me like a tropical holiday destination. I guess I took it for granted when I lived there, but I'll see it in a whole new light when I move back in October.

See for yourself:

The whole truth

2005-06-10T13:24:00.000+09:00

The truth about Japan is that the best time to be here is in summer when the veil is lifted and the face of Japan is revealed.

When the cicadas rise up from the soil and scream for the survival of their species during their 3-day mating ritual that is their life on the surface. The noise invades your eardrums as it makes the relentless soundtrack to summer.

Then there is the heat, the all-pervading beat of summer trapped below a layer of pollution that rests between mountain ranges and caps every city. Even the coastal cities like Osaka can't escape the dripping, toxic humidity of summer, there are no ocean breezes blowing on Japan.

The sun beats through a permanent shield of haze and dries up the rivers, exposing the layer of sunken rubbish that accumulates continuously and is never cleaned. Nature, it seems, is exempt from Japan's obsession with cleanliness.

With the heat comes the stench. The odour of raw sewage flowing just below the street seeps up through vents and open drains that in winter serve only as an obstacle for bicycles. Now as summer reers its honest head, we can smell Japan for what it really is.

This is an Asian country. Bicycles rule the streets and old men urinate by the side of road. Spitting is common and toothless mouths drown cheap alcohol in small, local drinking-holes on every street. Women are second-rate citizens and the edlerly rely on the contributions of their grandchildren for their daily needs.

When winter's cool chill is lifted and the faux christmas scenes come down, Japan emerges and screams with the cicadas "hello honey, I'm home."

It may not match your image of Japan, it may not be the most pleasant time to visit, but if you want to know what's real in this country of contradictions, if you want to seperate the myth from the reality and get below the Geisha's kimono, come to Japan in summer and you can't miss it.

The wedding

2005-05-10T14:32:00.000+09:00

Jeremy and I got married in Japan. We didn't have a ceremony, we essentially eloped but not on a whim. First we had to get "permission" from our consulates to say that we are not breaking any laws in our home countries. That took out two days and cost a wad of cash.

The, on Monday during Golden Week, we went to the ward office wearing neat summer casuals (it was a beautiful day) and waited in line to then try and explain what we were doing there using Jeremy's servicable Japanese.

We had to fill out a form and then go away and find two witnesses to sign the form. The moron at ECC refused, she said "this is serious in Japan." as if getting married in Australia or the US is a big joke. We just needed two people to confirm we are who we say we are. We returned home and asked our very kind neighbour and also had a friend who lives somewhere close by sign as well.

We returned and submitted the form. We got the small, official, unimpressive certificate, but we had to wait a week for the large, beautiful, frameable certificate. It is written in Kanji in the traditional right-to-left and vertical style, with even our names in Katakana. It's seriously the coolest wedding certificate I've ever seen. Actually, it's the only wedding certificate I've ever seen, but I think it's very cool anyway.

All in all, it took us 3 days of labour to get the certificate, but if we had known what we were doing and had a tendency to get out of bed before midday, we could have done it in a day.

Cogs in the machine

2005-05-08T20:45:00.000+09:00

What a strong country it must be that rides on the back of a united community, where each member sees themselves as a small part of a greater whole, a cog in a well-oiled machine, with everyone working together for the good of their office, their community and their country.

How poor is the society of individuals, where everyone stands on their own and takes as much as they can for themselves, even at the expense of their brother, their workmates and their neighbour.

This is the image that has been planted in my mind of the way Japanese society is seen, compared with countries like America. The great Japanese community, ah yes everyone working together.

I’ve witnessed two road accidents caused by drivers on the busy Japanese road that passes near my house. I am willing to assume that there was no contact made between the vehicles involved, because that thought is too horrifying to consider, but both times a large, family-sized car has forced a smaller vehicle off the road and toppled the rider as a result. The obvious guilty party has then proceeded to drive away without stopping to help the victim.

The first time this event was witnessed, the driver stopped long enough to watch the old man she had pushed off his bicycle fall down backwards over a near cliff. As she started to drive away I thought “Surely she’ll just turn the corner and stop her car and make sure the old man is ok!” But she accelerated and drove away. Jeremy and I ran to the aid of the old man who seemed to be in a state of shock and tried to climb back up the cliff only to fall again. I clambered down some steps and helped him to his feet. By this stage a couple of people stopped, moved his bicycle off the road and offered me the bag I’d left at the top of the slope. We tried to communicate with the old man, but language was a barrier, then finally someone stepped in and took over in Japanese.

Just a few weeks later we witnessed another accident in almost the exact same location. A driver of a car got too close to a scooter and pushed the young female driver over. She had trouble picking up her scooter and it was obvious that she hurt her knee in the fall, as well as being visibly shaken AND it was starting to rain. The car drove away and nobody went to her aid. Again we went to help her and see if she was ok, she insisted she was. Her friend came to her rescue and we left her in his hands.

How is this possible? How can I process what I’ve seen with the information that has been fed to me regarding the communal spirit of Japan? I’ve looked at this from all angles and I think I’ve figured it out. The car involved in the accident must move away from the scene as quickly as possible to keep the traffic flowing on the busy road. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the individual. This is the sacrifice made to keep the machine going.

Ok, so I disagree with the system on an ethical level, but there it is, that’s why the guilty party drove away. But now I need to try to understand why no one stopped until after we (2 Gaijins existing outside the system) did.

Is it because the cogs of a machine can only follow the grooved patterns of the wheels that turn? If there is no other pattern to follow, the cogs keep going. But Jeremy and I are not cogs in this wheel, we embrace our individuality and that of the people around us. We see an old man fall backwards down a cliff, we see a young woman thrown off her scooter in the rain and hurt her knee, we don’t see kinks in the chain, we see people in need. So we break out of the pattern and in doing so we form a new one, NOW the cogs can move behind us, but it truly seems that they can’t move before us, we’re always the first on the scene even though we’re not the closest and through our difficulties with the Japanese language we’re the furthest from being actually useful.

These are two instances that happened recently and fired my mind to consider the big question “Why?” However, these are far from stand-alone events. Every day it seems that I experience something as a by-product of the Japanese machine. I don’t want to be a part of this system. Maybe it works, in a soulless economical way, but it saddens me deeply to see the effect it has on the people of Japan. I don’t think its right and NO! I won’t be a part of it in the community, at home or at work.

Thunder and sun

2005-04-26T14:36:00.000+09:00

The weather here is truely strange. It was raining when I woke up, it continued raining all morning, then I poked my head out the window and saw bright sunlight, so I walked around to the door to go outside and it was raining again.

Then came a strong crazy wind and a whole lot of thunder, and then BAM sunny again. The weather forecast on my phone jumped from 70% chance of rain, and an unbrella icon, to 0% chance of rain and a big bright orange sun icon in the space of a minute.

I guess low pressure cells move damn fast across this country.

New Nephew, New Harddrive

2005-04-22T11:53:00.000+09:00

First up, the less important news. My once trusty laptop died gloriously and I had to hunt far and wide to find a computer service centre in Osaka that is willing and able to fix computers bought in other countries. Even though it's a Toshiba (Japanese brand) I was told by shops that they couldn't fix a computer brand not sold in their shops. Didn't make any sense, but I did find a repair shop, so a big SO to tnt-pc.com for fixing my computer and doing it in English.

That said, the important news is that my sister had a baby boy by C-section, which made me an instant Auntie at about 7am yesterday, my time.

I'm very far away and I really want to see Heidi as a new mother and meet my tiny nephew, the newest family family in 27 years. I can imagine the rest of my family all gathered around gafawing at how adorable he is and how minute his fingers are. I wonder if anyone knitted him some booties.

His name's Xavier ("zay-vi-a" in Australian-English) and he was sleeping on Heidi's lap when she called me yesterday and left a message on my mobile phone. She sounded so excited, I can't imagine how she feels with her own child. I havemn't had a chance to talk to her, when I called her she was probably asleep after her big operation.

Something that struck me as interesting is, she underwent the C-section with just an epidural (sp?) which meant she was conscious throughout the operation. Makes sense to me, but I hadn't ever thought of that before.

Actually, nothing to do with Japan

2005-04-20T12:03:00.000+09:00

I have to keep myself entertained and I find this photo very entertaining.

Something online about ECC

2005-04-18T23:18:00.000+09:00

ECC is the Eikawa (English Language School) I work for in Japan. They're a really big chain of schools, especially here in the Kansai region.

However, before I moved to Japan I did a lot of extensive research online to find out the juice about the prospective companies I could work for. I found an online debate regarding NOVA and plenty of info on AEON and GEOS, but nothing at all about ECC. I took the general silence as a good thing, apparently no one had anything to complain about and they DO offer 7 weeks holiday a year and only 29.5 hours a week.

Well anyway, from what I can tell as far as the big 4 go, ECC is really the best company. But it's going down hill. This year they handed out random pay increases, which ranged from nothing to basically nothing, but there were so many good teachers completely overlooked and plenty of average and very new teachers who were rewarded for doing very little. It was offensive, in fact it seems that all the good teachers I have spoken to received less than the teachers I know who drink beer before their shifts and are screwing the students.

On top of that, they failed to meet teacher's requests regarding the classes they want to teach and have forced every teacher to take kids classes on board, even those with medical reasons against teaching kids who will push and pull and punch and turn the classroom into a sumo playground.

Don't get me wrong, I love teaching kids so I requested heaps of classes, so how did they reward me? By squeezing every last drop of blood out of my body and taking away my preparation time before my first class, so they could squish in more classes and really work me right down to the last nanosecond of my schedule. I complained. I told them it was going to adversely affect my willingness to take on the responsibility of a high number of kids classes next year, so I think that made them take note since I'm of a very rare breed of teachers, they said they'd change it next year, well next year will be too late because I'm not staying that long.

I've been here a year and a half, and I just can't keep up the energy it takes to teach 15 different classes filled with insane kids high on sugar and suffering undiagnosed ADD.

So there you go, anyone searching for something about ECC online, I hope this helps. Maybe I'm the first to have a rant, but I seriously suspect I won't be the last.

The recovery.

2005-04-07T19:22:00.000+09:00

After 4 days in bed, without leaving the house, I woke up yesterday feeling well enough to climb on my bicycle and peddle to work.

What a surprise! All of a sudden the cherry blossoms and magnolia flowers have sprung, they are so beautiful. It's a pity they only last about 2 weeks.

I'm seasonally defective

2005-04-02T18:29:00.000+09:00

At this exact time last year I developed acute bronchitis which had me bed-bound for a week. Oh I remember well how that one came on. Jeremy was living in Showacho at the time in a tiny, one-room gaijin apartment. I woke up in his dingy hole choking on the dryness of my throat and started to feel a little off-colour.

I had to get back to my house in the nether regions of North-East Kyoto, a long trek to say the least, by the time I got off the train I could barely walk I was so weak. After the longest, short walk of my lifetime I managed to crawl in to bed and spent the next week barely able to move because I couldn't breath.

A year later and where did I spend today? In my bed, all day, coughing and feeling weak and sick. I'm not sure it's the same thing, but it seems likely as the population around me seems to suffering from cedar fever. Coming from Australia I have limited exposure to cedars, so I think my lungs are full of foreign things I just can't cope with. I'm not as bad as last year, thank god, but since my immune system really had to battle hard then just to keep me alive, I probably have a few anitbodies floating around that are keeping me atleast sane.

I want to enjoy Spring, is that too much to ask?

It's winter again

2005-03-13T11:44:00.000+09:00

So here I was, sitting around in my flimsys finally feeling glad about the state of the weather when suddenly it turned on me. The temperature dived from 14°C to 3°C in the space of a day, and I was caught out in the elements in my thin coat, thin trousers and no earmuffs!!

I talked to my neighbour. She told me the Japanese have a saying "4 days warm, 3 days cold, then spring". If that's the case, it looks like I just have to stay inside for the next few days and then I can enjoy the new season.

At the moment, I plan on never seeing winter again.

Spring is a springing.

2005-03-10T01:48:00.000+09:00

It's finally warming up. I'm not used to seasons and so I've been getting tired of the cold. Then, on the weekend I lost my earmuffs and this upset me greatly and reminded me of how I've never needed earmuffs before, unless I was skiing.

However, as it turns out, I haven't needed my earmuffs since I lost them. They were getting pretty old and battered anyway. I guess they just reached the end of their lifespan.

The grass is turning green again and the mountains are changing colour. The blossoms are, well, blossoming and there is a distinct warmth in the air. Today I didn't wear stockings under my work pants, just socks, and my big jacket has been hung up and replaced by my white coat (which was once a very warm down-filled parker, but it lost half its down when I washed it).

I hope this warm turn lasts. I can't wait for the return of the beach weather.

Burberry Baby

2005-03-02T21:00:00.000+09:00

I can't stand my student's mum. He is about 1 year old, she's maybe 30. She dressed him in Burberry. Head to toe, he came to school today in a Burberry jump-suit and when he took it off he revealed underneath Burberry overalls, a Burberry blouse and Burberry socks in his Burberry shoes.

He's a baby! He's going to wet himself and get dirty crawling around under the TV in my classroom, why does his mum waste so much money on her Burberry baby?

Gotta wear the Burberry or you're just a big baby failure.

Giffys giffys everywhere ...

2005-02-28T13:15:00.000+09:00

... yet not what I'm looking for.

When I was a kiddy in the 80s I had some Giffys, little flexible gym shoes with a thin but well-gripping sole. Now I need them. I've taken up lounge-room exercise but my feet slip on the tatami mats. I can't wear sneakers because they'll destroy the delicate tatami, so now my memory takes me back to Giffys.

Which look a hellovalot like the standard cheap, yet highly fashionable, Japanese shoe for women.

However, I don't fancy doing aerobics in heels. Oh if only I could travel back to the 80s and grab me a pair of Giffys, all my problems would be solved at once.

Time for a new job.

2005-02-26T10:34:00.000+09:00

Well, I didn't get the job. Which wasn't a big surprise, but it made me think seriously about where I want to be this year and what I want to be doing.

I'm staying in Japan, but I'm tired of working for soulless robots who think I am their Aibo to command. I want to be able to take holidays when my family and friends visit instead of being forced to take holidays during peak holiday seasons when airfares and hotel prices trebble.

So, I've decided to start teaching privately. Private lessons at Eikawas are outragiously expensive so there is a demand for private teachers. I've been doing this job for a year and a half and I need a change. I need to get control over my life and do it MY way instead of trying to conform to the image of a corporate monkey.

One bad day in Kansai

2005-02-16T21:56:00.000+09:00

I bought Jeremy a 50cc scooter for his birthday that had to be delivered on Tuesday between 1-2pm. I tried to organise a different delivery time and date, but the dodgy second-hand bike-dealer was not willing to budge on the subject.

I thought Tuesday between 1-2pm would be ok because I always start work at 3:50pm on Tuesdays. However, when Tuesday rolled around it all fell to pieces.

Personnel called me on Monday night and asked me to start at 12:15 on Tuesday. I explained the situation and they found someone else to teach the shift.

Then on Tuesday morning they called me again and asked me to start work at 2:10. This was also impossible, and I explained again that I had to be home between 1-2pm. They didn't seem to understand, but eventually they agreed to let me start at 3:20pm.

I was on my way to work, aiming to be 20 minutes early for good measure, sitting on the train listening to mp3s with my head down. It's the same train I catch every week and I know the route well, so I couldn't believe it when I looked up and saw snow-capped mountains speeding towards me and Lake Biwa perched on the right-hand side of the train. It was supposed to be on the left-hand side and the mountains were supposed to be very far away. The route had changed!

I had to call personnel and tell them I was going to be late to my shift. I was nearly crying because I couldn't believe how terrible my day was. Personnel didn't understand why I couldn't start early and then I was 32 minutes late to my shift after all the drama.

The worst part is, I have an interview tomorrow at personnel, which is obviously going to be a complete waste of time. Up until yesterday I had never set a foot out of line, but just two days before my interview everything that could have gone wrong did.

Monkeys don't lie!

2005-02-14T13:29:00.000+09:00

While my sister and her boyfriend were visiting we went to Arashiyama to ride the boat down the rapids and see some monkeys. It's so damn cold here that the monkeys were all sitting around in groups hugging each other to try and stay warm. The poor little things.

Rain rain go away

2005-02-08T14:29:00.000+09:00

Why does it always rain when my family comes to visit?

It poured in great sheets of cascading water when mum and dad came last May, so that every where they went they were splashing around in shoes like buckets. Now it may only be sprinkling, but it's freezing cold and sprinkling, which adds a whole new element of awfulness to the rain.

it's hard enough to find motivation to get out of bed in the middle of winter, but when you wake up and can hear the drip dripping of rain outside the bedroom window, getting out of bed suddenly becomes impossible.

I hope my Josie and Nat have an OK day in Kyoto. It can sometimes be very beautiful.