Rainy Day

It was pouring with rain when I got up this morning, it lasted well into the afternoon (the rain). On the walk to the station I felt like the only person in the country who didn’t have an umbrella, everyone has one. With only my coat for defence I have to duck and weave through other people’s umbrellas to avoid impalement.

The train this morning looked different - even from a distance. Its windows were misted up with condensation and it looked strangely black inside. When the train stopped and the doors opened it all became clear. Inside were more people than I have ever seen packed into such a small space, all in their dark suits clustered together.

You remember in March of The Penguins when the females leave the males to babysit the eggs, while they go back for food. The expectant fathers all huddle together in a massive circle. Well, being inside that train was a similar situation, but opposite. For the penguins being in the middle was the best place to be because it was warmest there. As a human on a train being in the middle is the worse place for the same reason, it is really hot, people are all around you and there’s barely room to breathe.

When the train stopped and more people got on I felt like I was a piece of rubbish in a kitchen bin with someone pushing down on top to fit more in. Humans are squashy, you can squeeze them together to fit more into a space. You feel the push of other people’s bodies against yours grow and you’re forced to shuffle your feet further towards the epicentre of the crowd where one poor soul must be utterly trapped.

When I got on I was pushed forward by the people behind me until I was standing right up against this man who was facing me. I was facing him through no mistake of my own, I tend to face forwards when getting on a train. His face was in mine and vice versa, not completely but near enough for me to hear and feel the sighs he kept letting off. They were deep and deliberate; he wanted them to mean something. Once I realised this I turned slightly so that my shoulder was in front of him more than my face. That seemed to do the trick.

Anyway, feeling slightly ill I got to my station with about 10 minutes before my lesson. However, before I could go to my lesson I had to find out where it was. The notice boards containing this vital information were outside the offices I had been the day before and I would either have lessons in that building or one just down the road. When I got to the right floor there were quite a few lost people like me trying to find themselves on the board. In a slight panic because it was nearly 9:10 and I might need to go to the other building I found my name and looked at the numbers next to it. They were 0402 and 0525. With these in mind I looked around for the classroom numbers, they ranged from 101 to 109. Deciding that my lessons must be in the other building I bolted down the stairs and started down the street. 0525 I thought, that number seems familiar, umm my birthday is may 25th and May is the fifth month. I stopped walking. 0402 then would be April the second which was yesterday, the day I first started going to GEOS School! I ran back into the building, up to the noticeboard and found the part I hadn’t noticed; the top of the page I was on said classroom 108 and in brackets "You are a fool."

I sat next to Ian again and our sensei entered the room. She is a Japanese day who seems fairly young, maybe late twenties, hard to tell. She took the register, which was quite a struggle because we couldn’t understand her pronounciation of our names. The first thing she taught us was how to ask each other’s name and reply, we went around the classroom doing this. Then we learnt how to ask and say where we are from and so went around asking each other for names and where we are from. Then she made us go around again asking each other our names, where we are from and our nationalities, so saying that you are French, or English etc. It went on and on like this and we now all know each other’s names, where we are from and also that bored look you get when you have done something 10 times before.

So, there is:

Steve from America
Henrik from Sweden
Sebastian from Switzerland
Mathild from Switzerland
Ian from America/Scotland
Lee from Korea
Oo from Taiwan
Pichta from Thailand
Stephanie from America
Angela from America
Sydney from UK/America
Deborah from France
Sandip from London

Our sensei does not know a whole lot of English but she is good. In fact, she is brilliant at exaggerated gestures and today when she was explaining the word for pain she acted out a fight and someone holding their face in agony, then someone skiing, falling over and walking with a limp. She put so much energy into her actions it was more like melodrama.

The lessons themselves are ok, we go at a steady pace and have been given grammar books to learn to write Japanese kana. One with a CD which is more exciting than it should be.

On the way home I decided to try some exploring so I walked to Gyotoku which is about 15 minutes walk from home. I'd heard that there were lots of shops there, and there are, but it seems quite a miserable place. I found a 100yen shop, which was something slightly different to the 99yen shops of Minami Gyotoku, and there was a big supermarket where I bought myself a frying pan, then a bread knife and ironcally some sliced bread.
When I was wlking around Gyotoku I felt like I was holding my breath. I feel like that when I am on my own and somewhere new in this city. If I was more relaxed about exploring by myself then there are loads of places I could visit, I have a whole guidebook to Tokyo, but I am just too nervous about it at the moment, hopefully this will change. Anna, a Canadian who moved in this week has already been to see the statue of Godzilla, though aparently it is only about a metre high. Got to see that though.