I’ve complained on here a lot in the past about my inability to read things. I know it’s nobody’s fault but my own but it always leaves me with the strange feeling in the pit of my stomach that I don’t really know what is going on around me.

Anyone who lives in or around Tokyo will soon end up on the Ginza Line subway and when I first had to take a trip on it I found myself staring at the writing in the picture to the left. I rather vividly remember wondering quite why this sign on the station map over the door kept on turning on and off, I couldn’t read it so I had no idea what message it was trying to impart. Fast forward to the present day and on a recent trip into Tokyo I had to nip onto the Ginza Line again and while on that train I looked up at that flashing sign again.

Only this time I could work out what it said….

Yes! I was so ecstatically happy! This was probably the first full sentence I’d ever been able to read in Japanese and completely comprehend the meaning! Woo hoo! On that dull dull commuter train filled with grey business men with sullen faces, a Jean Michel Jarresque light show was going on in my head! I can read Japanese! I’m sure I was never quite as excited as this when I was a young lad and I could finally decipher the books about Roger Red Hat and friends.

It’s little victories such as this which make learning a new language so pleasing sometimes. I’m a pretty lazy individual and such events are what keep me motivated to put the effort in. Although I still need to sort out proper classes with a proper teacher if I am going to get anywhere. Currently I am just relying on textbooks and asking friends “What’s this?”, “What’s that?”, etc.
But that would require me to get out of bed just that little bit earlier!

I’m sure that by now you are on tenterhooks to find out what I had read on that sign that could have excited me so much.

Well, it said: “This door will open”. Such a mundane message and one that I could easily have worked out for myself without having to put in the effort of learning to read Japanese if I had just bothered to look at my surroundings and engage my brain rather than just stare at the silly light turning on and off.

Remember the good old 1980s?
When things were so uncomplicated?
I wish I could go back there again
And everything could be the same.
ELO – Ticket to the Moon

Every time I listen to Ticket to the Moon by the Electric Light Orchestra I am reminded of Macross. Macross was an animé series made over 20 years ago that was very much a product of it’s time. The basic plot is shallow at best but the main appeal of the series was with the great characters. In fact, the series concentrates on the relationship of a pilot named Hikaru Ichijyo, military officer Misa Hayase and an idol singer named Minmay Lynn. The show basically boils down to a love triangle and the show’s message is that love (and cheesy 80′s Jpop) CAN change the world.

This kind of thing would never get made today, everyone is far too cynical for them to get away with such a fanciful story. It would never survive in today’s embittered world. However every time I have shown this series to anyone it has charmed the pants off them. Be it the characters or the music or the silly innocence of it all it has just grabbed them in some way.

Seeing four grown men shouting “No, she’s not the girl for you!” at the television screen was a sight I never thought I’ll see, but see it I did, all thanks to Macross. Another of my mates currently uses one the songs from the show (the brilliantly named “My Boyfriend is a Pilot”) as his mobile phone ringtone. He hasn’t changed it in like eight months and once he left his phone ringing just to sing along, despite not knowing a lick of Japanese.

That is the Macross magic.

The reason I am talking (typing?) about Macross now isn’t only because ELO came up on my iTunes party shuffle but a whole new Macross spin-off is currently being shown on telly here. Entitled Macross Frontier this latest show is another of a fairly long line of Macross spin-offs, most of which have all been fairly disappointing.

I can only comment on the first 2 episodes but at the moment I am not so sure about it. The good news is that the main Macross ingredients of rookie pilot, love triangle and music are in there but the first thing that struck me about the show was how much I dislike the character designs. The main character looks like a girl, the main love interest looks about 12 and the idol singer seems to have no redeeming features. Saying that though the animation is top notch and the battle scenes are aces. Also the music has been written but Yoko Kanno, so if it isn’t amazing it will be a disappointment, while the character’s designs don’t exactly turn me on the story set up seems to be quite interesting and I am genuinely intrigued to see where it goes. So here’s hoping that this story is worthy of Macross’ 25th anniversary.

I will leave you with one of the legendary Minmay’s classic songs.

*SNIFF* Sing it how it is Minmay.

Way back when, just before I went to Japan, I did a google search for Higashi Rinkan to find out what kind of place I would be living in for the next year. Results were thin on the ground, as you would expect, but one result was repeated over and over: Mike’s Tex Mex Restaurant.

Now Mike’s is quite nice and all but it is not the only eatery located in Higashi Rinkan (restaurants are just about all there is here). There is, for example, the Hickory House pizza place. Disappointingly, its best characteristic is that it almost shares my last name because the pizza is so damn forgettable. Also there are loads of other nameless places that only have their signs written in kanji. There is a Mc Donald’s here too but as there seems to be a Mc Donald’s on every street corner in this country so that’s no big surprise.

My favourite place to eat out in HR is called Dan Dining, it is a cosy little bar that I mainly go to just for a drink due to my inability to read the menu. The drink is always nice and chilled and the food (when I bother to order some) is nice and tasty. The best thing about Dan’s is that the owners are the nicest and friendliest bar staff in the entire world. They will always do their darnedest to make you feel comfortable and at home. It feels like some sort of Japanese version of Cheers, it even has its own Norm.

So if you ever happen to be in HR drop into Dan’s because sometimes you’ve got to go where everybody knows your name.

Oh, and could you please google “Higashi Rinkan” and click on the link to this post (if it even shows up), together we can get info on Dan’s to be the top result. Where, quite frankly, it deserves to be.

People always seem to pick up the habits of those around them. Back when I was at university, words that had never previously been in my lexicon suddenly became common usage. I began saying words like lol, noob and owned. This was mainly because I was hearing them all the time from the people I lived with. When I finally moved away from Bournemouth I gradually stopped using these words until they only became distant memories of simpler times.

Fast forward to today and here in Japan I have been noticing some interesting habits appearing in myself and others. I’ve noticed other teachers have started pointing at their noses rather than their hearts when referring to themselves, the words genki and gaijin are cropping up with alarming regularity in conversation and everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, has started crossing their arms when they want to say “no” or “stop that”.

My favourite little habit that I’ve picked up is exclaiming (and I hope I spell this correctly):

”ええええええええええええええええええええええ?！”

I reckon this cry, written “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh?!” in English (possibly), is perhaps the best interjection I have ever heard. Very different in usage to the English “eh?”, it’s sound is a long drawn out breath and it perfectly captures the sense of amazed wonder, confusion or disbelief that the speaker uttering it has.

Walk down any Japanese street or sit in any Japanese resturant or bar and you hear this phase sooner or latter and to be honest, my stay here in Japan has been all the more enjoyable for it.

When I first came to this country it felt very much like I was on some sort of bizarre holiday. Walking around with my camera constantly taking photos of everything and anything, which I found to be quite an odd roll reversal from the stereotypical view of a Japanese tourist. Since then, things have kind of settled into normality, or a least the kind of normality where you can’t really have a half decent conversation with 90% of the people you meet.

This week, the feeling of normality has well and truly been shattered and I’m back into holiday mode. It all started last week when a friend from home moved here to teach as well, so I finally had someone to play Metal Slug with again. Which is something I’ve missed. Then, on Saturday, I did a karaoke all nighter without having to worry about going to work the next day, a feeling that frequently ruins my Saturday nights.

I didn’t need to worry because I was having an (unpaid!) day off. It was a very special day indeed, not only did I get to look at the famous Japanese cherry blossoms which really are a sight to behold this time of year but I attended a youtube hanami party! It was a party organised by Kevin Cooney, at bit of a legend around these parts for his great vlogs. So, I got to say hello to him and a few other Japan vlogger types, which was nice. I even got a chance to sample (COLD) Taco Bell. It certainly had that genuine Mexican pinto bean flavour but I’m not sure if I would recommend it over Mike’s Tex Mex here in quaint Higashi Rinkan.

That wasn’t the best of it though, that evening I experienced something that I thought would never happen, I got to see X Japan live! X Japan broke up about ten years ago and in the following years their lead guitarist died, their lead singer joined a cult and their drummer became manically depressed. Well, by some miracle they have now reunited and played 3 gigs over the weekend. It was a quite sensational experience. The 50,000 strong crowd gave it their all, as did the band and I haven’t been to or will ever go to a better gig.

Highlights of the show included the way they appeared to be walking on the crowds shoulders when they walked along the stage ramps, their performance of X and being able to do the X jump in public without feeling silly, a version of Weekend that didn’t suck, seeing Sting in the crowd, the entire bloody stadium singing when Toshi lost it, the looks of awe on the western journalists in front of me who obviously didn’t realise quite what they were letting themselves in for and just as you thought it had all ended, the piano solo from Art of Life kicked in and they played their half hour epic with the image of Hide projected on the stage.

Not even the fact that the next day I had to get up at 6.30 a.m for a monumentally long day at work kicked me out of holiday mode. That was because I was going to Tokyo Disneyland that Wednesday. Being a veteran of two previous Disneylands I was interested to see how different it was from the American one. It turned out that, like the French one, it wasn’t different at all. Maybe I’m doing a disservice to Euro Disney, at least the signs there are in French, here I may as well have been in Orlando. Only the fact that there were separate bins for burnables and non-burnables gave it away. Safe, traditional, family fun was had by all though.

So as I sit here typing this I’m still in the holiday mood. I want to strap my camera to my belt and go on an adventure. I wonder how many days of teaching it will take until I’ve have this feeling ground out of me?