Tokyo: the National Museum of Science-mumblemumble

The Museum of Science and Nature

The big event of my trip today was 国立科学博物館, the National Museum of Science and Nature. Or the National Science Museum, as it appears to be literally named. I like natural history, a lot, and also science, so the opportunity to do those things in Japanese was obviously tempting.

Here it is called the National Museum of Nature and Science. But who am I to quibble at a little inconsistency?

There is a big statue of a whale outside the museum. I honestly couldn't decide whether I thought this was a valiant attempt to alter public perception of whales and inspire the desire for conservation, or a hypocritical celebration of endangered creatures which the government persists in killing under a blatantly false pretence of scientific research when Japanese people rarely touch the stuff, or a purely random event. On the whole I'm inclined to think the museum is probably pro-whale.

Whalefie! I have developed a tragic fondness for ironic selfies, especially where a silly name can be coined.

Moderately interesting building; I found the proportions of the blocks, and the accidental colour contrasts with the green bronze, quite pleasing.

Just to warn you in advance, this post is mostly going to be pictures of cool things and not much musing. If you unaccountably come here looking for stuff I wrote, you'll probably be disappointed.

Inside the museum

Before I got into the museum proper, I found an exhibition of futuristic art by local schoolchildren. Some fun ideas here.

Weather control antigrav vehicle doing something to a stork I think?

The entrance to the 360-degree cinema. No photos allowed inside! I watched a film on the evolution of humans. It was kind of cool but also weird.

This display is discussing the Japanese Deer Dance, which I'd never heard of but would now like to see. You can find some cool photos at Shishiodori.com and

I found a video. Watch it in high definition, it's much nicer.

This is a model of an early hut. Very similar to ones I've seen in old Celtic sites - probably not suprising, there's a limited set of good ways to solve the same survival problems.

This cabinet contained a selection of skulls dated to different periods of human development, and reconstructions of possible faces. Here we have a Yayoi People skull, dated around 300BC-300AD, the Iron Age in Japan.

I didn't catch the names of these skulls in my photo; they were later examples, though.

The staircase is quite fine.

The windows of the staircase are very nice. Relatively simple, but stylish. I couldn't capture the look of the light through them, though.

A bat! Noble creature.

A classic, depressingly common tale of poor ecology. The residents of Oshojima were fed up of the danger of poisonous snakes - which, let's be clear, had as much right as the people to live there - and decided to introduce the Indian mongoose to wipe them out. Good job, guys! The mongoose proceeded to turn its nose up at the prospect of a snake diet, instead plumping for the delicious endemic Amami rabbit and other rare rodents. Due to the extensive spread of the mongoose, these species are now in serious danger of extinction.

Various skeletons, particularly a whale (I don't remember what kind).

A vulture replica.

This is a model of the entire digestive apparatus of a cow.

Cow digestion illustrated.

Boars and skulls

Yay, pigs. I have always liked pigs.

A skeleton of Paleoparadoxia tabatai

which looks really cute and I want one as a pet.

See? Isn't it adorable?

A model of a fungal colony, with the visible mushrooms above and a complex web of hyphae below. I think. I don't have the description to hand.

A giant salamander - well, a model of one.

This is not, as I thought, a vampire squid, but a flapjack squid. This species is sufficiently obscure that Wikipedia doesn't even have an entry for the species, which is only found near Japan.

An array of exciting sealife

A cheerful, welcoming crocodile (you can tell because there's a notch in the upper jaw where the fourth lower tooth will stick up).

Elephant. They look so odd without basically all of their distinctive features (except being big, of course).

A giraffe skeleton

This array of ungulates is mildly intimidating, to be honest.

See what I mean? This buffalo is well up in your face.

This antelope knows your dark secret, and regards you with weary but silent scorn.

Escape Pod

There were still several floors of the museum left, but by this point I was pretty worn out. I feel like, especially after a morning of walking around, doing a whole museum in a day is usually neither a good idea nor very practical. Instead I headed off to get something to eat.

I normally aim to have something vaguely interesting or insightful to say, but I... don't, really. It's a museum, not greatly different (in the sections I saw) from what you might find in another city in another country. There were no striking cultural aspects I noticed to comment on, and nothing entertaining happened to me. And quite honestly, I'm pretty tired right now so not in a state to really work at coming up with something. So... this is all you're getting. Sorry.

Afterthoughts

If you like this sort of thing, the Museum is definitely worth a visit. You will need a reasonable level of Japanese to appreciate a large proportion of the exhibits, though in fairness models and skeletons of cool animals are a universal language. There are audio guides available, which I didn't bother with, partly out of laziness and partly because I felt it wasn't necessary for what I'd be looking at. It also has a cafe, which I didn't feel like visiting at the time; like most museum cafes it looked a bit fancy and a bit pricey, but otherwise good.

Tokyo: arrivals and decisions

Due to the shinkansen timings, I arrive rather early in Tokyo. Basically I had to check out of the hotel by 10am, and I'd already exhausted the very limited nearby delights of Hamamatsu, so there wasn't much reason to hang around for long. It looked like waiting for the 11am shinkansen would get me there at late lunchtime, which sounded like I could easily end up very hungry. There's typically a certain amount of faff before you can really set about finding a meal; I wouldn't want to do it with all my luggage (especially given how cramped restaurants tend to be in big cities, and Japan in particular), and I wasn't sure there'd be much near my hotel.

So I decide to rock up before 10am and get the first train possible. In fact, this turns out to be an extra-express train with only a handful of stops, so I'm in Tokyo by 11.40 and a bit stuck. Previous hotels have let me check in early, but I suspect this one (which seems more modest) probably won't. On the other hand, I can't see anywhere tempting to eat in the station, and I don't want to leave because I'll lose the ability to use my shinkansen ticket to reach the hotel if I exit the barriers. Plus, I'd have to pay to store my luggage, if I could even find an empty coin locker, which seems frankly unlikely.

I'm staying in the Grand House Chang Tee Hotel, which at least sounds impressive, even though it's a modest building on a narrow side street in a suburb (Ikebukuro).

Hamamatsu: everything there is to do in Hamamatsu

And so, having determined to make the most of my brief stay in Hamamatsu, I proceeded to boldly do, if not everything, at least a significant proportion of the things you can do in Hamamatsu proper when your Japanese is only tolerable.

Quite a large proportion of these, it turns out, are going to Hamamatsu Castle.

Meanderings

It was a pleasantly cool morning, though it would get hotter, and the sky was a gorgeous blue. I decided to begin by wandering gently towards the castle, but having no particular rush to get there, I looked around and tried to soak in the city a bit.

Now I must confess that, in general, I'm well past the stage of finding Japanese cities generically interesting. They're not novel to me any more - at least, I've got used to both the generic suburbs and the generic city centres, as well as common types of building. The excitement of seeing them that existed when I first arrived has long worn off.

On the other hand, I don't have the same interest in them as I might in a British city. Ironically I think there's an uncanny valley here. When a city is new and foreign and fresh, it's interesting because of its novelty - all the things you aren't familiar with. At the other extreme, when you've lived amongst a particular style of building for decades, you've so much experience of so many thousands of exemplars (whether that's individual buildings, street layouts, city organisations etc.) that you can draw comparisons, spot local variation, and generally evaluate as part of a rich context you've built up. You also build up knowlege of how those things relate to history and technological development, social factors, and other interesting points to consider.

When you've spent a mere few months in small parts of a small number of cities, the gloss of novelty is gone, but you haven't yet built up the context that makes differences meaningful. Now the tall tiled apartment block just looks like a manshon and they all look pretty much the same, don't they? Oh look, there's some sort of traditionalish restaurant with wooden facing. Hey, a temple.

Which is to say that I think Hamamatsu probably has a slightly unfair deal here. However, I did stop to appreciate some specific buildings and views that I'd like to share with you. Just things that tickled my personal fancy.

If you want to play along at home, here's my route for the day!

Hamamatsu: the arrival

We hear First Nation commanded to beat the rug - not definitely

Enthusiastic thespian Roman is enjoying endless legal action

I feel like I should feel guilty that the first thing this city brings to mind is terrible cryptic crossword clues, but I don't. I feel vaguely guilty for that, if it's any help.

Osaka: desultory wanderings

Long time, no blog! This post will go up in the past, as though I hadn't failed to write anything for two months. Sorry, I've been busy with, you know, life stuff.

So on arriving in Osaka, and between checking out of my hotel and getting the train on Sunday, I kind of wandered around in that area not doing much. You know those awkward blocks of time - not really enough to go anywhere else and do things, yet too long to do nothing?

So here for your delectation are just some generic photos of Osaka. Luckily, the area I was in is a relatively interesting one where lots of tourists like to go - largely because it's full of shops.

By popular request, here is the map and here is the Google Drive!

Osaka: Castles

After our owly adventure, M-san sadly had to leave me and fly back to her home planet native country.

At her recommendation, I wandered over to look at Osaka Castle. It was a surprisingly long way compared to how it seemed on the map, so I did start wondering if I'd just completely missed it. Thank goodness for mapping apps (props to Laura for pointing me at Maps.Me, since Google Maps refused to let me download any Japan maps for offline use).

This is just some kind of bar, but I liked the aesthetic.

I took a couple of panoramic shots from atop this walkway. I think they're pretty cool. Click on them to get a better idea.

This photo makes everything look quite grey, but it didn't feel it at the time. This is crossing the river towards the castle.

This stone is called Higaishi and is apparently the second largest used in the castle. It's pretty massive.

First glimpse of the castle from afar! At this distance you can't see all the tourists...

Ah, there they are.

This is actually a panoramic shot designed to show off the curvature of the walls.

About this time in my holiday I was getting overexcited by the panoramic function, as you can see. In fairness, this really is the only way to capture some of the feeling of looking around these places.

View from inside the walls.

Two views of the castle walls from the grounds.

There's a nice peaceful garden of... some kind of trees... which I spent a little time wandering through. They had gold labels that glinted in the sun. I believe they're Japanese apricot, Prunus mume.

You know I like my close-ups of nature.

A cat lurks amidst the bushes.

There's a temple near the castle, and a couple were getting married in one part of it (not shown) although at the time I think it was still early stages.

Side temple.

A nice flower.

The biggest building in the castle; it's the Osaka City Museum now, although I don't know what it originally was.

Castle restoration

The castle was badly damaged in 1868 during the Meiji Restoration, and partly repaired in the late 1920s, before being badly damaged again in WW2 when it was targeted for its use as an armoury. The restoration was completed in 1997 and is largely concrete - not very authentic, but apparently acceptable. The following maps display some of the archaeological work and restoration.

More castle

Back of the museum. I quite liked it for some reason.

The museum looked pretty striking, and much older, as the sun faded behind it.

It was quite hard to photograph the castle courtyard because of all the crowds. I think this gives a reasonable impression, though.

In the end, I decided against going inside. I'd been inside castles before, and I was a bit footsore after a complete circuit of the grounds and walking quite a lot around Osaka as well. So I just headed back to the hotel and started thinking about food.

This area on the way back from the castle was the largest single expanse of grass I have seen in Japan. I was compelled to walk on it as far as possible, enjoying the faint springiness of the grass under my feet. Since I now live in a city even at home, with very few opportunities to walk on grass, this sort of thing is precious.

I actually ended up buying some healthy ingredients from a shop on the way home, and assembling a loose picnicy sort of meal to eat rather than dining out. It was a nice change, to be honest.

Overview

It's worth pointing out that getting to Osaka Castle from central Osaka is a reasonable but lengthy walk. Osaka Castle itself is also large and walking around the walls, while pleasant, takes a long time and is relatively tiring. Combining the two, as I did, is probably suboptimal, and I'd recommend looking for a public transport option to get to the Castle.

I also regretted not having brought a meal with me, as it would have been a nice location to sit down for lunch. It'd also be a good opportunity to take a break and so enjoy the walking around more. I'd recommend doing that, and giving yourself longer than I did.

I do find it striking how different the castle grounds are in Japan compared to anywhere in the UK. I'm used to castles and country houses alike being surrounded by lush fields or rolling lawns, but in Japan, as the courtyard photo shows pretty well, it's mostly a case of bare earth with patches of grass here and there. I suppose it's just the climate. And of course, a lot of them are in city centres or thereabouts, so it turns into city quite quickly.

I for one welcome our new cerasic overlords

You thought I was going to go to Osaka and Hamamatsu, and you'd get away without any pictures of sakura?

For shame.

Osaka: owls

So since I was in Osaka with M-san, and there was an owl cafe, of course we wanted to visit.

The remainder of the post will consist of adorable owls.

Osaka: Non-okonomiyaki reunion

So, why Osaka? Well, the main reason is that while I was studying hard in Fukuoka, M-san has been holidaying with relatives and friends there. Our holidays overlap just enough that it's feasible for me to rush up to Osaka (skipping my last day of class, sadly) and meet her there!

Even better, A-san still works relatively nearby and is able to catch a train over, which means we could get together for a reunion.

The test that is not a test

Another old post I didn't get round to finishing! This all still appears to be true, so I decided to finish and post it.

One of the things that comes up in class regularly is short tests. I was initially quite perplexed by them, and have eventually, I think, worked out what's going on.

Strolling in Hakata

I've actually had very little free time this visit. My class schedule is up from 4 hours last time to 6 per day this time, which with the lunch break has meant 9.30-4pm every day, essentially. Because it's only three weeks in Fukuoka, I've also been socialising pretty frantically, so a lot of days I've been meeting friends for another 4 hours or so. The handful remaining I've done a lot of shopping, cooking and so on.

Anyway, I did end up with a chunk of time one day after school, and decided to wander down south of Hakata. I didn't really visit this district when I was here last time. I'm not sure it's especially interesting, but my time wasn't long enough that it was worth researching and then taking a trip out somewhere more distant - especially when it's getting dark at about 6pm.

From the station I headed south to Minoshima (美野島), which is an area I'd vaguely heard about. It's got various little shops and stalls - not touristy ones like in Hita, but perfectly ordinary shops for actual residents. Nothing too special, but a nice change from conbinis and twenty-storey company headquarters.

Sa- and pi- kuras

My last weekend in Fukuoka got a little complicated. I was lucky enough to have several friends suggest meeting up, but then ran into complications trying to actually schedule things. I suppose the trouble is that you can easily schedule one uncertain thing into a known schedule, but trying to juggle several things without any idea when they might happen is tricky.

What I did manage was to meet KT-san again. This time we didn't arrange anything as ambitious as going to another town (possibly a shame in retrospect, but the weather had been iffy) but just went for a walk around town. Obviously, we started in Maizuru Park.

The GenkiJACS school at Hakata

One of the major changes (or sets of changes, I suppose) since my first visit is the move of the GenkiJACS school.

Location, location, you know the other one

Previously, the school was very near Tenjin, the city's main shopping district, with a fair number of offices and homes as well (because Japan seems to do much better than the UK at mixed town planning). This is an extremely lively place: within easy reach are just about every kind of shop the average person needs for personal purchases*; all the restaurants and cafes and bars you'd expect to service a hugely popular area where hordes of people work and shop until about 9pm in a culture where after-work eating and drinking with colleagues is a big deal; and assorted other stuff that has to be somewhere.

All this makes it generally an interesting, if sometimes exhausting, place to be. You could nip out from school and easily get food in several dozen nearby cheap restaurants, as well as picking up goods ranging from cutlery to stationery to clothes to electronics to obscure second-hand manga. Apparently it's also a good place to go on a night out (I didn't really). There's also a very large park nearby, several smaller ones, museums, art galleries, karaoke places, and so on. A useful point are the large underground shopping mall and several large overground malls, which provide relatively quiet pedestrianised areas where you can wander or stand around more freely, without immediate danger from traffic.

*I'm pretty sure most wholesale shopping goes on elsewhere; I didn't really see any shops selling plumbing supplies or bulk foods.

At that time, I was (unlike most students, I think) living in a completely different quarter of town. Befu is a sedate residential district, mostly notable for its improbable concentration of dental and medical clinics. It still has a fair number of small restaurants, but its shops are much fewer and mostly aimed at everyday needs: foodstuffs, pharmacy goods, and dry cleaning, mostly. As I was going to Tenjin every day, this wasn't really a problem.

Hakata is very different. It's the central business district of the city, which means it's busy too, but in a very different way. The focal point of the busyness is Hakata station, which is at most times a place you need to almost fight your way across, and where you cannot stop for a single minute without being in someone's way. The streets nearby are crammed with businesses, and the shops are much more limited: the ones nearest the school are convenience stores, while the station has a relatively expensive selection of everyday goods and clothes, but is mostly devoted to fashion and souvenirs. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of entertainment.

The station is the only pedestrianised area, and its shops are so tightly packed that there's really nowhere you can stand without being in the way. The streets are relatively narrow, with lots of crossings and waits of several minutes at most of them. At key times (like on the way to school, or lunchtime) they're packed with besuited people heading intently to work. There's a very small parklet nearby which, while it does provide enough space for a few dozen people to sit down, contains less grass than the average university lecture theatre.**

**This is a drugs reference.

Nakahie Park, which is mostly a sports pitch with a little bit of seating

This was a pretty good udon restaurant between the school and the park

On the whole, I think this makes the Hakata area mostly less interesting to be around. There's less scope for wandering round nosing at shops, because most of them are concentrated in a small area (the station) and there are just far fewer of them. You can head off in various directions, but other than Canal City (a big mall area) most of them are a bit nondescript for quite some distance, and Canal City seems to be a fairly limited subset of high street shops. Tenjin was made interesting because the range of stuff seemed very broad and sometimes unexpected; it had room for niche stuff.

It's not a bad location at all, and it's got all the essentials, while students here for a short time will probably find enough to do just exploring the Hakata area.

Premises

So how about that school?

On the whole, and in most of the specifics, it feels like a substantial improvement on what was already a pretty good environment.

Most notably, the classrooms are now massively more spacious, which really is a huge help. You can get into a seat without asking every single other person to stand up and breathe in because they're pressed against the walls, as was previously the case. You can pick things up off the floor without doing some kind of contortionist act. You can shift around, lean back, stretch out, and generally be of average height without suffering physical pain.

This also helps with the classroom environment. As well as just making everyone more comfortable, there's a lot more desk space, so you can spread stuff out more easily. Even better, the teachers can move around the classroom, talking more easily to different people, forming different pairs for conversation practice, and so on.

The building is no longer shared with several other businesses. That wasn't a particular problem, but it does mean it feels more private, which is probably a nice touch. Particularly for the younger students I can see that being reassuring. It also means there aren't random office workers smoking in the shared toilets in defiance of the signs (I confess, at this juncture, to occasionally banging on the doors and telling them to stop, because that is disgusting, people).

The building was previously on a level; it's now split over five floors. It's not a particular problem for me, being a fit person who likes exercise, although I have to say that unless I've managed to find a uniquely well-fitting pair of slippers that day, walking up to the fourth floor carrying a cup of green (milkless, and therefore boiling) tea remains a tense experience. It's also slightly regrettable that as best I can tell, the only place to refill drinks is the ground floor.

I should highlight that there is a lift, but it's reserved for staff use only. I imagine (but cannot guarantee) that students with mobility issues would be allowed to use it. If anyone's reading this and does have mobility issues but is thinking of going to the school... I think the journey from Hakata Station (which would be your arrival point from any of the underground stations, and most buses) would be fairly simple, with slopes on all the curbs and plenty of crossings. There's a couple of crossings with no lights and relatively poor visibility at times, where you'd be relying on polite drivers giving way.

In terms of facilities, the lounge has probably got smaller since the move, although I think there are now more students (there's certainly scope for more). This time of year (spring) is relatively quiet, but I imagine this is a bigger problem come summer. In particular, access to the hot water and microwave may be an issue, as will carrying hot drinks safely from the far end of the lounge to the stairs, and then up the stairs. If I'm right in thinking there's only two hot water dispensers and one microwave, this is probably also going to create a substantial bottleneck at lunchtimes and breaktimes.

There are two sets of toilets, one on the ground floor and one further up, which is handy. There's still wi-fi everywhere, and there are benches on the upper floors, which provides a bit of extra spillover sitting/internetting/chatting space if the lounge is full or just too far away.

The welcome desk is now on the 1st (2nd for Americans etc.) floor, which may be a bit disconcerting. You can't immediately ask questions or get any reassurance, you need to follow the directions upstairs. I can absolutely see why - there simply isn't space for it alongside the lounge, and the 1st floor is both the reception and the teachers' area. I already knew what I was doing, what to do about shoes and slippers, and most of the staff I'd expect to meet, but for new students it might be slightly intimidating. That being said, new students are meant to arrive at fairly designated times when staff will be expecting it.

On the whole I was impressed with the new school, and I think it's an improvement in the most important area, which is the actual classroom experience.

The Tooth Event Horizon

This is a pretty old post that I didn't get round to finishing at the time - it actually refers to my first stay in Japan, in 2014!

Any location, in any town, has its quirks. My hometown is deeply peculiar (one might say dysfunctional, and be entirely accurate) and, though Fukuoka is a very different sort of place, I quickly discovered one of its (undoubtedly numerous) charming eccentricies: it appears to be the dentistry capital of the region, if not of all Japan. If I were antisocial enough to start slinging bricks around, a fair proportion would undoubtedly land on dentists. I started to feel hunted. Whenever I turned a corner, there, again, a dental clinic! Was I going round in circles (or, indeed, the bend)? Entirely misunderstanding some laughably-simple Japanese phrase that happened to appear on a wide range of businesses that were in no way dental clinics?

No.

More sakura and I'm not sorry

This week, KM-san suggested we go out for tempura. It's been eighteen months since we last went, so I was glad to go with her (via a quick trip to a certain otaku shop to buy a nerdy present for a delightfully nerdy friend).

We went to Hirao tempura near Tenjin. The way this works is that there's a vending machine-style order system. You insert money, choose a meal option and buy a voucher. You then go inside and work your way through the (seated) queue. When you get a seat at the bar (and they're bar seats, so I tend to find them a bit less reassuring than something firmly on ground level) you hand over your voucher. The staff are in the middle of the restaurant, with people seated all around them.

An outing to Hita for Hinamatsuri

Following my trip to the Sakuramatsuri, on Sunday I got up early for a 9am outing with KT-san to the town of Hita, in Ōita prefecture (next door to Fukuoka). It's about thirty miles away, so we had to take two trains. We could have opted for the shinkansen, but that would have roughly quintupled the cost!

Plans developed a slight hitch when we were too deeply engrossed in conversation to notice we'd reached and then left the city of Kurume (remember that one?) where we should have changed train.

About half an hour later, we realised what was up, hopped off the train, managed to catch a return train by the skin of our teeth, and eventually made our way successfully to Hita.

Sakuramatsuri begins

With the cherry blossom season opening, the Fukuoka Sakura Festival began at the weekend.

I met up with J-san to stroll around the festival a bit. The blossom wasn't really out at this point, so it's not quite the best day for it, but it was relatively peaceful and the place was pretty lively.

Kyushu Olle, the tourism board (or one fo them?) for Kyushu, which is naturally represented by an anthropomorphic sheep thing with a banana on its head. Or something.

Okonomiyaki II: revenge of Okonomiyaki

So I've been wanting to eat okonomiyaki again for about eighteen months, in fact, and KM-san kindly offered to go with me.

My schedule this year is much more consistent; I start at 9.30am and have classes until either 3pm or 4pm, with an hour for lunch and brief breaks between classes. There's more hours because this year (not being a long-term student) I'm on the conversation course track, not the generic track.

Unexpected Cuisine

We met fairly early, so we had time for a coffee and a walk before we went for food. I needed them too, as I'd inadvertantly eaten too much lunch and was very full!

I'm staying in Hakata, so we wandered north a bit in search of Higashi Park (東公園).

Akizuki bank holiday excursion

So after arriving in Japan on Sunday night, buying a small amount of food and heading to bed, I slept pretty well and woke up in good time for the first day of school. Except it wasn't school, due to a bank holiday; instead, there was an excursion arranged with some locals.

We were going to Akizuki, a castle town about 25 miles (by road, less as the crow flies) from Fukuoka.

A Shimmin Returns

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

The Manchester flight was fine; I sat next to a very pleasant bloke heading to Bali, and we chatted about spending time in Asia (he used to work in China), our mutual interest in other cultures, and various other things. Hope he's having a nice time at his daughter's wedding.

I reached Schiphol, and was immediately confused. My plan was to find out what I'd need to do and make sure I was in roughly the right part of a huge airport, then try to nap for a while. It was about 3pm, which made it midnight in Japan. Getting at least some sleep during the core sleeping hours for a new timezone is apparently important for adjusting quickly.

There were two problems facing me. One was that I had no idea where I should be going, specifically - direct to departures? Presumably, in which case... where was it?

Off to Japan!

So, Saturday. Today I fly to Japan, via Amsterdam and Seoul.

The sleep-adjusting thing doesn't seem to have worked. I was more or less back on track for being 4 hours ahead. Unfortunately, on Friday night I carefully wound down, had a shower, turned off screens, avoided bright light all evening, went to bed... and was as completely and utterly unable to sleep as I've ever been.

I've had long-term insomnia before, so it's possible that I'm just not able to cope with fluctuations in my sleep schedule. The fact that I tend to go to bed late probably doesn't help; if I normally went to bed early it would at least give me a headstart on Japan.

As it is, sticking to my normal about-midnight bedtime would leave me wanting to sleep in Japan just when I should be getting to school. Not ideal.

Time travelling III

So my efforts to pre-adjust towards Japan time crashed and burned last night. Although I'd been up since 4.30am and had eaten several hours early, and was really quite tired by the evening, it didn't quite work out somehow.

One issue is that I almost feel like I was too tired; the combination of lack of sleep and waking early maybe meant that my rhythms were way off. Another is that, I suspect mostly because of lack of sleep, I was unusually anxious all day and struggling with mood. This, coupled with the feeling that it was important to get to sleep (partly because of adjusting time, partly simply because I really wanted to shake off the damned anxiety) meant I was quite stressed as I tried to get to sleep.

It also doesn't help that I live on a main road, in an area apparently full of boy racers, in a set of flats with iron steps that resonate gongishly whenever anyone walks up and down outside, with interior and exterior walls apparently made of tissue paper. At the best of times I can hear my neighbours snoring when I go to bed. When most people aren't even thinking of going to sleep, well... that's a lot of background noise. And I'm not good with background noise, even with my white noise on in the background.

So what happened was, I lay in bed for two hours, drifting repeatedly towards sleep and then bouncing back again. Eventually I got up, read for half an hour, had some water and went back to bed. I eventually got to sleep around midnight and slept until 6am. Not an absolutely and total loss, but it wiped out my gains for the week. Getting up one hour early I can do any time!

I'm sticking to early mealtimes, and trying to stay in low light from the earliest point in the evening. Unfortunately that's about 6pm rather than about 2pm, which would be better. And I'll try to gently drift towards bedtime.

We'll see if things go any better tonight. So far this plan isn't looking so great.

More Time Travelling

My attempt to adjust to Japan Time continues, this time by getting up at 4.30am. Unfortunately I stayed up until nearly midnight, which means very little sleep, but apparently (according to SleepCycle, anyway) I woke from shallow sleep. Whatever happened, I've been pretty much completely functional all day, just rather tired.

However, I have found myself being quite negative and really quite anxious. I'm sure some of this comes just from the effort of preparing for a one-month holiday abroad and all the stuff that needs doing. On the other hand, there's good evidence that lack of sleep genuinely triggers anxiety, and that "naturally anxious" people (which would tend to include me and my stress/depression issues) are worse affected. So I'm really, really hoping that an early night tonight will beat off the worst of that.

One problem with this strategy is that it plays havoc with mealtimes. The working day is really not set up for people to want two meals during working hours, but unfortunately that's kind of what I need. Today I took half an hour for lunch at 10.30 and another half at 4pm for tea. The big problem here is really that you don't get a midday break, which means the day is extremely long and tiring. Tomorrow I'm aiming to have lunch just before work starts, and then have my tea as a late lunchbreak.

I basically have no idea whether this is a sensible plan. It's somewhat inconvenient, it makes mealtimes complicated, all my colleagues think I'm loony, and I don't know whether it'll make any difference to the jetlag. We can but try. I suppose I'll know for next time...

On the plus side, I've now done almost all my packing - just need to tuck that computer and phone away before I go.

Time Travelling

So I'm due to fly out to Fukuoka on Saturday. Annoyingly this will involve stopping in both the Netherlands and Korea, which adds about eight hours to the whole journey, since I'm supposed to spend at least five in Schiphol. I've heard it's one of the better airports to wait around in, which presumably means it is merely a soulless corporate void of pointless duty-free chocolates and watches aimed at the sort of people who should probably be in prison, where people with enormous amounts of money can occupy themselves buying things they don't need to stave off boredom, rather than actively hostile to your existence.

Also I heard they offer half an hour of free wi-fi, which in a situation like this is equivalent to offering half an hour of free seating. Apparently they have upgraded to offer unlimited free low-fi internet, which should be fine.

Annoyingly my stopover is just less than the length everyone agrees is the minimum needed to go into town and explore, so I get to spend the maximum possible time stuck in an airport.

Anyway! In preparation, I've started adjusting my body clock to Japan time, which means losing nine hours. In principle, this is much harder than the alternative - staying up late and sleeping in every day is way easier. In practice, I have a job and am obliged to start work at 9am, so actually getting up increasingly early is easier in the sense that it's actually physically possible.

Today wasn't so bad; I was up at 5am and am now enjoying the soft light of just after dawn. It'll get increasingly difficult over the week as I wait until the equivalent of noon for the sun to rise.

I'm also looking forward to confusing my colleagues as I start having lunch mid-morning and then switch to instead having a break for tea in mid-afternoon (only one meal break, after all).

Buying ebooks (not) in Japan, part 3

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart a long discussion of my attempts to buy ebooks while in Japan. To be brief, it was an abject failure.

Recently, largely due to having hit the end of some translated manga series (at least, as available from UK ebook sellers... I suspect Americans have it easier) I was browsing Rakuten again to see how things stood. I also received a brand new Kobo for Christmas, and had the bright idea of trying it out. No harm, after all.

Coming Soon... in March 2016...

So, in July 2014 I headed out to Fukuoka for 6 months of solid Japanese study.

In September 2014, I said:

Would I do this again, knowing what I do now?

Hmm. Umm. Sorry, but not.

In January 2015, freshly-returned, I said:

It was a valuable experience, and I definitely think a worthwhile one.

I can definitely recommend GenkiJACS for anyone looking for long-term study in Japan.

Do not arrive in summer.

Fukuoka is distinguished for me only by the many nice people I met there, and the experiences I had.

If I do return to Japan, I'll definitely aim to avoid the summer, or at the very least, come early in the year so I can slowly adjust to it.

So, 2016 having rolled around and 2015 having been chiefly distinguished by being deeply unpleasant, obviously I decided to blow my entire year's leave allowance booking a trip back to Fukuoka to see my friends again, work on my Japanese, and maybe even create some more blog fodder.

In the spring this time. I'm not completely insane, y'know.

The plan is to spend three weeks back at GenkiJACS (in their new mysterious secret headquarters), and hopefully meeting up with my old friends in the evenings. Then - having, I hope, got over my jetlag - hop around a couple of interesting cities on my way to Tokyo, from whence I'll fly back to the UK.

I've been mulling it over for a while, but I've now booked my leave, my flights and my stay at GenkiJACS, so I feel safe putting this on the blog.