More about Moomins

It appears that the Moomin cookies I found and blogged about before were just the tip of the Moomin iceberg. In other words, I’ve found way more Moomin stuff.

First off, this is the tin from some Moomin sweets kindly given to me by my friend Deborah.

Next up Evian are currently giving away Moomin figures with 2 litre bottles of water. There are eight of them and I have managed to collect four so far.

If you happen to visit Tokyo and are interested in acquiring Moomin shaped goods then I can recommend two places. Firstly outside Shibuya station on the ground floor of the Tokyu mall there is a shop with a big array of Moomin stuff and on a good day they even show the Moomins on a TV at the front of the shop.

The other shop worth going to is in the mall next to Tokyo Dome, where there is a large store selling all kinds of memorabilia and useless objects to clutter up your home with. In the Moomin section they sell huggable Moomin soft toys, inflatable Hattifatteners, mugs, plates, pens, bags etc etc.

But your number one Moomin destination in Tokyo has to be Moomin Café (also at Tokyo Dome).

Here you can eat Moomin food with a Moomin knife and fork, then wash it down with a Moomin drink all whilst sitting next to one of the large cuddly Moomins that occupy many of the chairs. Then next door there is a Moomin bakery and Moomin gift shop all run by staff who probably, by now, loathe Moomins to the point where if they ever met a real one they would want to teach them the meaning of homicide.

So obviously I had to go and try out Moomin café. I went with my good friend Ricky, this is a picture of him eyeing Moomin suspiciously.

This is me getting more intimate with Moomin.

It actually got too intimate when I realised that his stuffing was coming out. This is me showing Moomin some of his stuffing and is it just me or does he look slightly shocked.

The food is rather on the expensive side, true that it is one of the only places where you can get an omelette with a picture of Moomin drawn on top with tomato sauce, but really I’ve never wanted to eat Moomin. We settled for cake, which was still expensive at 500 yen a slice (£2).

So that was Moomin café.

On the way out I sneaked a look behind the scenes in the bakery section where the staff constantly come in and out of the kitchen with fresh cakes and suchlike. Disappointingly I didn’t see Moomin Mama slaving away rolling pastry in her apron and carrying her ever-faithful handbag. Instead I saw stressed looking people in white chefs outfits. I can only conclude that Moomin Mama works upstairs masterminding the operation, yes, that must be it.

The Future

Who knows which way the future will turn, or as my little man statue from Tokyo Museum shop would have it.

I have now finished my Japanese language course, and got a certificate for keeping up 90% attendance, it looks like this.

Towards the end of my course I heard about an English teaching job in a place called Urayasu, which is the next subway station from where I live so very close by. To cut a long story short I applied for the job and got an interview. It was on a very hot but potentially rainy day in Shibuya. I had a really big umbrella with me and was wearing a suit, tie and uncomfortable shoes and I quickly got fed up of the umbrella so decided to leave it under a bench in the busy area outside the station. This was like the time I left home one evening with a chapstick/lipsyll in my pocket, but on the way to the station when I tried to use it I realised that it was actually the other small cylindrical white object I owned, my gluestick. Anyway, I decided to leave it under a bush rather than carry it with me and then retrieve it later. Later, I managed to identify the particular bush and retrieve my gluestick, but when I returned for my umbrella it was gone. Mysterious, either cleaned away or stolen I guess I will never know. Gosh none of that was really relevant, woops.

The interview was fine apart from the bit were I had to come up with a lesson plan and then explain it in Japanese. My interviewer’s feedback for that part was “nice try.”

But I got the job.

It starts in September and is in a normal elementary school, so not a language school like NOVA or GEOS. I will be an assistant language teacher (ALT) working alongside the Japanese English teacher. My school is the biggest elementary school in the area, there are 1000 students all aged from six to twelve years old. I will be earning around 250,000 yen a month, which is just over £1000.

My company is called W5ss and they get hired to find ALTs like me. For the Urayasu area my company has not managed to find enough ALTs and so they asked me to accompany the boss of the company and my manager Minori San to meet the man in charge of the Board of Education (BOE) for Urayasu.

This was a scary affair. It mainly involved me sitting in a large room between my boss and my manager. On the other side of the table were two Japanese men, one who seemed very friendly and another who was entirely the opposite. The meeting began with lots of apologising from my boss and manager, I tried to look apologetic too although at that point I had no idea what was going on. This went on for some time without me having been introduced. The turning point came when my boss handed over pieces of paper that, rather disturbingly, had pictures of me on them. I sat upright in preparation and smiled. The friendly man left the room.

The person in charge of the BOE turned out to be the less friendly man. He began by asking me lots of questions in Japanese which I tried my best to respond to in the same language. First about my hobbies, which now include sports though not because I have ever liked sports but because my company decided for me that I do. I went along with this enthusiastically and he nodded and told me how much I would have to play sports with the kids between lessons, “it is very important to play with the children,” he said miserably.

Then it got more difficult, “Nicholas San, are you a serious person?” That question was hard to answer for three reasons: 1) he had just told me how important it is to be playful with children 2) the Japanese love modesty 3) I don’t know how to answer it even in my own language. As I spoke he watched me unmoved, his face flickered no expression, I don’t think he even blinked.

Other questions flowed and it was worse than my original interview. He asked me why I had decided to come to Japan etc etc. He was so unimpressed that I switched to English, used hand gestures, props, dramatic pauses and looked deep into his eyes like I was begging for my life. Finally it was over, I asked Minori how it went and she said “he likes you.” “Ha” I thought. “You are seeing him again on Thursday,” she told me. That day was a Tuesday.

On the Wednesday I went into the company’s office to watch DVDs of ALTs teaching and to prepare a lesson plan for the next day where I was going to go to my school with the BOE man and Minori to meet the principal. (Gosh Mum, there are three acronyms in that sentence, you can tell I am going into education can’t you.)

So Thursday came along and I discovered that my school was not near Urayasu station at all but nearer to Shin Urayasu station which is much further away from where I live. This rather destroyed the reason why I applied for the job in the first place, I will have to travel for 30 minutes on the subway rather than three.

As we were standing outside the school waiting for the BOE man Minori told me that I had to appear very “genki” – healthy and enthusiastic, it was very important for me to make a good impression. I should greet all the teachers I see with a polite Japanese “good morning.” The school had been waiting for six months for an ALT and I had to prove that I was worth waiting for.

The BOE man arrived, but on a bicycle. This was a shock to me; unpleasant people in powerful positions don’t ride bikes in my opinion, and so I warmed to him more. He got off his bike, greeted us solemnly and then gave me a pep talk: “Nicholas San, you must appear very genki, greet all the teachers you meet but say “hello” in English to any of the students.” The pressure was on.

We went inside the school taking our shoes off and leaving them in the guests’ shoe boxes. We padded down the pleasant seeming corridors where sunlight lit the children’s drawings plasted over the walls. Pupils passed us staring at me unashamedly like I have never seen in Japan before. There were people watering plants outside and I heard laughter from the classrooms. The atmosphere in the school was so friendly and peaceful, it was unlike any school in the UK I have ever been to.

The staff room had two Japanese men sitting inside and I didn’t know which was the principal. I kept panicking and forgetting to greet people, but formal introductions were had, both men shook my hand but the man on the right really squeezed it so I knew he was the principal. We sat down, had tea brought to us and then it began.

The principal sat with his blue tie resting on the small hill of his stomach like a river flowing downwards. He looked at me through silver rimmed round glasses but his eyes were jovial, he smiled and he laughed and I was so relieved. The other man seemed more prim but echoed the same friendliness. I showed them my lesson plan, they said it was clear and thankfully didn’t ask me any questions about it. They asked me my hobbies and why I came to Japan so I gave them my standard answers. They pushed me further so I hit them with praising Japan by talking about how it was like England; I said we are both island countries with strong histories and a unique culture. They liked that, I could tell.

Outside again, Minori and Mr BOE said I did well. Mr BOE though wanted to part with some solemn speculation: “Nicholas San, Urayasu is a rich area and many of the parents of students here can speak good English. They will be watching how you teach, bear that in mind.” He cycled away.

So right now I am waiting for my job to start at the beginning of September, though apparently I will have to go in during this month to meet the teachers and begin making lesson plans. As I write this I am starting to feel nervous, when I tell other English teachers about my job they say, “oh that will be so exhausting,” they see my look of fear and quickly add, “but you’ll love it.”

We’ll see.

Hong Kong Part 2

It was Sunday the second of June. This was the day that I went to Hong Kong University, which I will refer to from here on as HKU, except for one time where I will call it Dave.

Nelly lives just ten minutes walk from HKU and her father works there as a lecturer in Law, like a sister in law but different. Since they do not have the Internet in their apartment Nelly goes to HKU library to use the Internet and borrow DVDs – which they incidentally have a big collection of, including Danger 50,000 volts with Nick Frost.

Nelly has a library card because of her dad, but it took some effort to get me inside too. I presented the people at the front desk with my International Youth Travel Card, which implies, without specifying anything, that I am a student. Nelly introduced me as her friend who is living in Japan. The woman at the desk eyed the card suspiciously and my face even more suspiciously. “Are you studying in Japan?” she asked. “Yes,” I replied, which was sort of true as I was on a Japanese course. “Where?” she asked, “Tokyo University” I replied lying through my teeth. “Ok,” she said, “just for today you can use the library but you cannot borrow anything or use the Internet.” In other words, “Ok you can get in without being arrested but while inside you can’t do anything that you came here to do.”

To get my way I abused HKU library by sneaking up to the second floor with Nelly’s account details and logging in as her, their system let two different computers log in using the same account so I could use the Internet after all. Ha.

Nelly was looking for jobs that day; I messed around sending emails and then decided to do something on my own. So, I left Nelly with Dave and got on a bus to go to a big famous market for souvenirs – Stanley Market.

The bus ride there was simply beautiful; it took me along the coast so I got my first proper glimpse of all the small green islands rising up out of the blue sea around Hong Kong. There are some amazing beaches there and interesting hotels standing at the foot of the green hills that follow the coast. One that everybody seems to know is very wide and tall but with a huge rectangular hole in the middle that seems like it can only exist because the architect’s mischievous son rubbed out part of the original sketch. However, it is apparently to let dragons fly through, and is a feng shui thing.

So Stanley Market, it was hot, large and full of tourists so I explored around it for a time instead. The market is right next to the sea and you can walk along the promenade quite far, passing shops and restaurants and then a big Victorian house. I didn’t have my camera with me but I got this picture from Google.

So this is Murray House, a beautiful old building that used to be in central HK but was taken apart and reconstructed in Stanley. It is one of those designs that might only really work in hot countries because it is so open. Where there would normally be external walls there are open corridors with pillars and the whole building feels very airy and special.

Just beyond it was a path leading into the trees which I followed. It was really hot and I didn’t know where I was going but I suspected that if this were Enid Blyton the path would lead me to a secret cave, a tunnel, treasure and a sense of Christian morality. But instead, it led me to a small water temple that I was too scared to go into. On the way back I found another path which led steeply up the hillside, I climbed its many steps and the sounds of the undergrowth got louder as I got higher. A few times I heard a noise so unusual I stopped and looked up into the trees for its source, and then saw the giant ants running around below me or felt a mosquito land on my arm so kept moving. That interesting path led to an uninteresting road, so I walked back the now less interesting path and bought some water.

In Hong Kong markets you should banter, bargain, haggle – everybody knows that, but I am awful at this. The last time I tried was when I bought a Mr Homepride flour dredger for my mum for Christmas, it was from a big antiques shop/warehouse back in Stroud. Once I found it among the old chairs and broken cupids I asked the shop person how much it was, she told me the price and I made a “that’s expensive” face and pointed out that the dredger was old and a bit grubby. I mentioned the adjective old first and she replied with “everything here is old,” which was such an astute a thing to say when somebody complains about the age of an item whilst standing in an antiques shop that it stopped me in my tracks. Anyway, afterwards we talked numbers and I got it down to a good price that I shall not name in case my mum is reading this having just taken it down to the Oxfam shop.

Anyway, there was one thing, and one thing only that I wanted from Stanley Market. This:

It's a wooden Chinese children’s toy that is like a ping-pong bat with chickens on the top that are connected by string to a ball hanging beneath the bat. When you hold the bat and make the ball swing in a circle the chickens peck the bat because the ball pulls their strings as it swings. As the chickens all peck together there is a nice clicking noise, perfect for annoying any parent or stressed person.

I first saw these toys in Malaysia when I went to stay with my friend Hannah and her family (hello, sorry if it takes away the pleasure of blog stalking when I mention you directly). We both bought one when we went to the historic town of Malacca but I gave mine away to a close friend, whose cat then destroyed it so now I wanted one for myself.

I found slightly ugly versions of them in one shop in Stanley Market for 25 dollars each, I tried to haggle with the shop people there but they wouldn’t have any of it. So I said I would look around. I did, I looked everywhere, I asked lots of people but nobody knew what I was talking about. Most of the toy shops were selling the big ugly plastic kinds of toys you find everywhere in the world, but only this one shop was selling anything wooden and chicken related. When I returned and again tried to bring the price down, they said no and seemed almost offended, I don’t know whether at Stanley Market you are not supposed to haggle or whether it was just their tactic – because it worked. However, I got what I wanted so walked away happy if slightly confused.

That's it for Hong Kong Part 2. Next time on Nick's Blog, learn how I survived social awkwardness in the lift at a nudist convention plus the truth about flying moles - can they really play Scrabble?

Hong Kong Part 1

From the end of May to the start of June I went to Hong Kong (HK) for a week to see my friend Nelly. To introduce Nelly, here is a picture of her trying to eat a jellyfish.

I met Nelly in the kitchen during my third year of university, where we happened to live in the same corridor. During that year we spent a lot of time having long conversations in the kitchen and watching films in my room where, through the darkness, I would gaze across at her mournfully. This was to check if she had fallen asleep, which was invariably the case. I think the only film we watched where she didn’t fall asleep was Blazing Saddles and the worst offender was The Deer Hunter, which we both slept through and so equilibrium was gained.

But until we met outside the airport express train in HK at the end of May 2007 we had not seen each other since the previous July.

But how did I actually get to HK? Well, I took a flight from Tokyo which I booked through a company that specifically helps foreigners living in Japan who want to get away. Finding the office of the company was a big challenge, I had a map and a guidebook but still had to ask a policeman and wander around for a long time before I found it. The office was on the 7^th floor of the Don Quixote building in Shinjuku, here in Japan Don Quixote is a chain of shops that sells everything from nurses’ outfits to Ferero Rocher. I eventually found the building only because I heard the name “Don Quixote” being sung across the street, by what turned out to be the music from the shop. I’ve never had a musical clue before.

Once on the 7^th floor of the Don Quixote building a nice Japanese woman with good English booked my flight for me and then tactically only commented on how incredibly hot and unpleasant Hong Kong is at this time of year after I had paid for my flight in full.

The plane ride there was fairly uneventful, I sat next to two Chinese girls who I didn’t talk to, but one of them had a Little My (from the Moomins) Doll so I was sorely tempted to try and strike up conversation. Oh I did get to see Mt Fuji from the plane, it was late at night but the moon was full enough that I could see the flat snow topped summit (it’s an extinct volcano) rising above the clouds likes a massive beautiful blister. It really was both beautiful and like a blister.

So at 11:30 HK time Nelly walked back into my life and I waddled sleepily back into hers. We took a taxi to her dad’s apartment and got over the awkwardness that nearly a year apart brings, but that between some friends just a few minutes can dispel. Nelly lives on the 52^nd floor of a huge apartment complex called the Bellveders, right next to HK University. The one thing my sister had told me about Nelly’s apartment, because she had visited the year before, was that the view was scary. And she was right; as Nelly was in the kitchen getting some water I opened the curtains and had to take a step back. Not only is the apartment really high up but the window has no ledge outside, so if you push your nose up against the glass you can nearly see right down the wall below to the ground, the angle is so steep. On my last day I tried to take a picture to capture the scariness and this is it. I should say that both Nelly’s view and my feet are scary things so the final picture is doubly so.

After getting to her apartment and meeting her kindly father we got into another taxi and went out for some food. We ate at an Indian restaurant which was really really good, I can’t quite remember what we ate but it involved Halumi cheese and houmous.

Que the next day. Nelly’s mum lives in Tanzania and wants to open a salon there, and one of her friends in HK used to run a salon but recently closed it. This is why my first day in HK began with carrying sinks and chairs and listening to Nelly phone lots of small van companies.

This is a picture of us waiting for the van after Nelly, the lift and I had lugged all the stuff from the third floor.

The van company was really good, if you too need to move small but heavy items around Hong Kong, this is his card. Judging from the order my pictures were taken in I’d have to say that we went to the riverside next. Here are some pictures.

I think she was faking it.

We took the old Star Ferry accross to the other side, whilst taking some pensive boat pictures.

On the other side we went up this building.

They wouldn’t let us go up without making us name cards, in the queue for which I was drawn towards this plant. Maybe I’ve been a vegetarian for too long.

In the lift.

The view from the top was much like this.

The floor we were on was divided into a large viewing room and then a library area. Outside the library area was a small foyer where you weren’t allowed to take pictures, which was just taking the piss as this was the only part of the floor with a view towards the sea. There were hundreds of boats sailing between the islands; it was a spectacular view. Nelly and me sat for some time on a convenient red sofa gazing out of the window peacefully.

I figured that since the wall between the foyer and the main viewing room was glass, I could stand outside the foyer but legally take pictures of the sea view through the glass wall. Then I became distracted by how nice the actual room looked, or maybe it was just more pot plant attraction.

This was my name badge, I was sad to give it back to the woman downstairs and see her throwing it away so mindlessly.

Outside the building, Kragorn the evil fire demon who inhabits my soul, because in a past life I once killed his 18 brothers with a single wish and a birthday cake, started playing up. He was making my hand itchy; the kind of tingling that you know can only result in casting a fireball. Here are some pictures.

Ok that’s enough of that.

Some abstract pictures now of this and that.

I know that HK is an ex colony and everything, but I was still shocked by the buses.

But HK came into its own the next day when I saw a double-decker tram for the first time.

Nelly was having a driving lesson that day, we were in Causeway Bay, so I wandered around by myself for a while. I found a World Trade Centre, Gloucester Road and some obligatory bamboo scaffolding to take pictures of.

Once me and Nelly were reunited we began our long quest to find Cat Store, the restaurant with cats. My friend Long Ting (Hello to you) had told me about this place many years ago; he even had some of their merchandise to prove he wasn’t making it up. When I told him I was going to HK he gave me the address, and when I showed it to Nelly she said “Ok,” which was encouraging at the time.

We had to get to Kingston Street, so we asked a policeman who walked us back to the map we had just looked at. He too could not see Kingston Street on the map and so he just shrugged ashamedly. We asked at the subway station and within ten seconds the lady on the counter had given us a map, crossed where we were, where we wanted to go and given us verbal directions accompanied by hand-gestures. It was amazing.

So we found Kingston Street and next had to locate the Kingston building. There seemed to be two buildings called the Kingston Building. One of them looked like an apartment, the other was like a mall but the Cat Store was not listed as being within. We rang the bell for the concierge of the apartment building and he buzzed us in. As we entered a man was walking out and Nelly, who has no qualms about asking for directions, quizzed him about Cat Store. He said, “Ninth floor,” so up we went.

The ninth floor was a drab empty corridor of identical doors and dust. If there were any restaurants there they were probably the kind that only open late at night and all the neighbours pretend not to know about. This is a blurry picture of Nelly on that corridor.

As we were waiting for the lift to get back down a lady came out of her apartment. After some explanation she understood what we were after and told us it was on a street beginning with C (I forgot the name), which was opposite. But the street beginning with C had no cats. By then the sweltering heat, which for some reason I haven’t mentioned yet, was getting to us and we were losing hope. We went back to the Kingston Building and this time spoke to the concierge himself, “moved away,” he said.

So the Cat Store is no more, I never got the pleasure of eating food whilst surrounded by cats. You may think the idea incredibly unhygienic; I just hope that the number of stray cats on Kingston Street hasn’t gone up in the past six months.

So the Cat Store is no more, I never got the pleasure of eating food whilst surrounded by cats. You may think the idea incredibly unhygienic; I just hope that the number of stray cats on Kingston Street hasn’t gone up in the past six months.

Facing my fear

There was something I had to do which I was dreading. Something I have done a hundred times before but that I knew I would have to do again when I was in Japan. In preparation for such a certainty I did it a few days before I left for Japan in order to give myself as much time as possible to prepare for the next time.

You are going to be disappointed, it was a haircut. I needed a haircut and so did Anna, the Canadian girl who is very tomboyish. On Sunday the 6^th of May we set out into the pouring rain in search of haircuts. I had been worrying about this moment for weeks, but as my hair was growing into my eyes it was definitely time to bite the bullet. The thing that worried me the most was the language barrier. When I get a haircut in the UK it is all done with numbers, so I am very out of practice with knowing how to describe hair in real words. For my part I was hoping that gestures and maybe some sample pictures in the hairdresser’s would do the job for me. Actually, I did have a picture of just what I wanted my hair to look like, but I couldn’t use it because it was in my passport and I would look like I was trying to steal someone’s identity.

Anna’s plan to get around the language problem was to point at my head because by a staggering coincidence my hair was just the length she wanted hers to be.

Japan is full of salons and barbers to choose from. Our search criteria was: cheap, but not too cheap, and that there be more than one hairdresser available at the time. The cheapest place we found was 990 yen, £4.15, incidentally in the UK a haircut costs me £10. Opposite the station we saw a place on the first floor of a shopping area. Further investigation revealed it was called, “Freak Hair.” We walked passed the window gazing in and it was empty apart from two female hairdressers standing idle. Anna and I huddled around the corner to discuss what we thought.

We went for it. Sliding our umbrellas into the rack outside the door we entered and asked how much for a cut. 3900 yen they said in a friendly manner. £16, pricey but not too bad. We both asked our wallets if this was all right, they both said yes. We nodded our acceptance and suddenly we were customers.

They took our coats and then led us to comfy leather chairs. The woman who was cutting my hair draped a plastic cover over me and then clipped something around my neck for extra protection from falling hair. Then the unexpected began, she span my chair around so that I was no longer facing the mirror and pushed a switch causing the chair to tilt backwards and my head to rest in a previously unnoticed sink. “Ok,” I thought, “so it’s not just a cut.”

I haven’t had my hair washed like that for years. When I was young and had no control over my own hair I sported a bowl cut and would go with my mum to her salon. I remember the smell of banana shampoo and not knowing where to look, oh and the view of the woman’s armpit hair above me. Actually, I think those last two points are probably related.

As I felt the cold porcelain around my neck and looked up the nose of my Japanese hairdresser I remembered those days. She asked me a question that I had never been asked before. I managed to figure it out as, “do you want me to shave you?” I quickly said no, then tried to say it more politely as “no thankyou.” Her response was to drape a piece of white material over my face and eyes so that the world turned white. This was so unexpected that I found it hilarious, and it solved the problem of where to look.

Once I was washed she tilted my head forward and wrapped my hair up in a towel. She spun me around again so I was back in front of the mirror. Then she walked away and from a secret door came a slightly chubby Japanese man who I wondered whether they had called in especially. He asked me what I wanted and thus came the hard part.

These are the words I used: “Front, back, short, left, right (because I didn’t know the word for sides)” I gestured forwards and flat. I held up some of my hair and indicated to cut half of it, I said “half cuto” and looked hopeful. He kind of grunted and it began.

I am rather biased against salons because of my bowl cut, which I loathed. Discovering barber’s was an important part of my life. I think that salons run on the principle of trying to keep as much hair on your head as possible so that you come back sooner. Barber’s, on the other hand, try to be as efficient as possible by taking off a lot of hair very quickly. This was painfully obvious to me as my hairdresser danced around my hair with a pair of scissors as if thinking “Oh where shall I snip next? ummm, over here. Oh yes, now where? Umm, how about that hair there.”

He made conversation by asking how old I am, where I am from and what I am doing in Japan. When he had finished he showed me the mirror and I asked him to cut it shorter. He looked shocked and I tried to look innocent and pleading. He said “OK” and walked away. There was another male customer at that point, he was sitting behind me and I could see him in the mirror. My male hairdresser went over to this customer and they had a laugh about something. When he came back he started cutting my hair again but I could see the reflection of the other guy looking at me. I felt kind of uncomfortable.

When he’d finished for the second time he showed me what the back of my head now looked like. It looked better, and so did the front. I thanked him and he walked off. The female hairdresser came back and spun me around again. She was re-washing my hair, getting rid of all the loose hair I guess. When that was done she sat me up and brought out a pestle and mortar with steam rising from it. “Ok,” I thought. She lifted out whichever one of a pestle and mortar is the crushing tool and started rubbing it against my face. I could feel a hot thick moisture covering my skin and what followed was a long sharp piece of metal, a traditional barbershop razor.

It was too late to complain. She started to slide the razor against the side of my head and I tried to keep my head still. Unhelpful thoughts of her cutting me and blood crossed my mind. Then I thought about how awful it would be if I found it ticklish - but surely that can’t happen. By now we must have evolved a means whereby things that can kill us can’t tickle us too.

Once that was over she started putting wax on my hair and styling it up. This must be the best part of being a hairdresser, you get to play with people’s hair as much as you like; your own lifesized doll that you don’t have to look after.

Finally the haircuts were complete and me and Anna stood up ready to leave. But there was yet another surprise to our 3900 yen, a free drink. Either, hot coffee, cold coffee, ice tea or orange juice. I went for cold coffee, which came with a little tub of milk and a tiny tiny pot of syrup. We sat down at a small counter in front of the television and more surprises revealed themselves. For example there was a small set of perfumes we could help ourselves too, a tray of free cigarettes, magazines and around the television shelves of manga comicbooks. We sat for some time and then made our escape, they brought out our coats, we paid them, they showed us to the door, bowed and said thank you very much.

It was over.

Interestingly in Japan they don’t let any hair fall on the floor, the chairs have special rods that the plastic cover gets attached to. Together they form a hair trap on your lap and at the end of the cut they collect it all together in the plastic. Of course, I had to learn this the hard way when I moved too much and the rod on my chair detached so the hair fell off. Woopsy.

A trip to animal prison

I was dreaming again. It was a boring dream, something about a long school assembly. The head teacher was being called to the stage, there was a knock on the door and I opened my eyes, to see this:

I think millions of people must wake up to the same sight, their ceiling and an air conditioning unit.

It was 11:00AM and Anna was at my door. Anna is a Canadian girl who moved in about a week after me. The last time I had seen her she was ill but now she was up eager to go somewhere. She was standing fully attired even down to a baseball cap on her head and a bag over her shoulder packed ready for the day, I was in my pyjamas with hair pointing threateningly in all directions. She asked me if I wanted to do something today, I did but thought it a bit unfair that she had waited for the point of maximum difference in our readiness before asking me.

We decided to go to Ueno Zoo which is in Ueno Park, a very large and famous park in Tokyo, if you haven’t heard of it then it’s your own fault. What follows is a dilemma because I took about a million pictures but since you all lead far more busy and important lives than I do you won’t have time to look through a million photographs. So here is a whistle stop tour through Ueno Zoo and its animals.

It begins with fish kites over the door. Well no it begins with the ticket, it was 600yen, about £2.50. Now for the fish kites.

I really should find out what they are called, you do see them around quite often, they are very beautiful in the wind.


There were lots of birds, here are a few:

There was also one solitary squirrel in captivity and at the time it was asleep inside its little squirrel house. When we had seen all the animals, Anna said “Let’s see if the squirrel is awake yet,” it still wasn’t. I had never seen a sleeping squirrel before, it was extremely cute but unfortunately the picture is not that good because of pesky reflections in the glass.

Unless it is an obvious species like an ostrich or elephant I forget the names of the animals, so I am going to make them up instead.

This is John sitting having a rest.

Larry wished everyone would go away.

Mervin’s narcolepsy struck again.

Some of the birds in the park are free to fly around wherever they like. Some of the little ones are even small enough to get into the cages of other animals, so you end up with weird combinations of animals like a little harmless bird pecking around the feet of a golden eagle. Here is another strange combination.

Surely that’s never happened before.

Anna wanted to buy some animal ears so we spent some time seeing what we looked like with giraffe ears etc. She chose some red panda ears, by the way red pandas look nothing like pandas, and she bought me some regular panda ears. After that she insisted we wear them around the park, which was fine because I quickly forgot I was wearing them until I caught sight of my own shadow and had to stop and think about why something seemed to be wrong.

This is a picture of Anna in her ears (she is wearing a facemask too because she has a bad cold and it is what people do here).

And a self-portrait of me in mine.

At one point in the zoo you are greeted by a sign saying, “welcome to the world of darkness” which is the kind of thing you’d only expect to read on the escalator to Hell. There were all sorts of nocturnal animals living confused lives in there, including this creature, a Pallas’s Cat.

And this, a Lesser Mouse Deer.

I don’t know why they had meerkats in the dark but they did. Their enclosure was underneath a square opening in the roof and there was a small patch of sunlight shining down to them from above. One meerkat was standing above all the others staring up into the light as if it were having a religious experience. I guess it was actually performing its version of surveying the plains for predators.

Nick’s interesting facts: You may think that turtles and tortoises would get bored with their heads curled up inside their shells. Well, scientists have recently discovered that what stops most shelled creatures from getting bored is a widescreen television embedded into the inside wall of their shell. This tortoise is currently gripped by Diagnosis Murder and only comes out of its shell for an hour a day, to eat, excrete and during repeats of Open All Hours.

This is the line for the pandas. As well as the metal railing note also how the pandas have their own security guards, they are that endangered.

Finally, on the day I was there Ueno Zoo was also visited by a family of megaphones.

After the zoo we walked around Ueno Park a bit. There was a stall selling chocolate-coated bananas on sticks, but alas in my haste to eat one I forgot to take a picture.

I did take a picture of one of the lakes at the park, which contrasts somewhat with the high-rise buildings at its shores.

For possibly the first time in my life I saw the sun and the moon in the same sky. Anna refuses to be impressed by anything as it all reminds her of Canada anyway, she said she has seen the sun and moon together hundreds of times before. Maybe this is why Brits have such a history of travelling, our country is just so small. What do you think?