This isnt really a blog, but my good friend Mike sent me an email, which had me in stiches! For those of you who don't know who Billy Connolly is, he is a Scottish comedian, very funny (like most comedians are!) and if you get a chance, I recommend you watch some of his stuff.

Billy Connolly

Things I hate about everybody.... 

1. People who point at their wrist while asking for the time....I know where my watch is pal, where the f*ck is yours? Do I point at my crotch when I ask where the toilet is? 

2. People who are willing to get off their arse to search the entire room for the TV remote because they refuse to walk to the TV and change the channel manually.

3. When people say "Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too". F*cking right! What good is a cake if you can't eat it?

4. When people say "it's always the last place you look". Of course it is. Why the f*ck would you keep looking after you've found it? Do people do this? Who and where are they?

5. When people say while watching a film "did you see that?". No tosser, I paid 10 quid to come to the cinema and stare at the f*cking floor.

6. People who ask "Can I ask you a question?". Didn't really give me a choice there, did you sunshine?

7. When something is 'new and improved!'. Which is it? If it's new, then there has never been anything before it. If it's an improvement, then there must have been something before it. 

8. When people say "life is short". What the f*ck?? Life is the longest damn thing anyone ever f*cking does!! What can you do that's longer?

9. When you are waiting for the bus and someone asks, "Has the bus come yet?". If the bus came would I be standing here, Knobhead?

10. People who say things like 'My eyes aren't what they used to be'. So what did they used to be? ears, Wellington boots?

11. When you're eating something and someone asks 'Is that nice?' No it's really revolting - I always eat stuff I hate.

12. People who announce they are going to the toilet. Thanks that's an image I really didn't need.

13. McDonalds staff who pretend they don't understand you unless you insert the 'Mc' before the item you are ordering.....It's has to be a McChicken Burger, just a Chicken Burger get blank looks. Well I'll
have a McStraw and jam it in your McEyes you f*cking McTosser. 
 
14. When you involved in a accident and someone asks 'are you alright?' Yes fine thanks, I'll just pick up my limbs and be off.

Well I have started to write this blog about 10 times now. This last month I have been busy like the proverbial bee. I planned to continue writing about my time in Nagasaki but I have so much to tell I think I'll just do the shortened version.

Nagasaki

First of all if you are in Japan or planning to come to Japan, Nagasaki should be on your list as a must visit. Nagasaki, although being rich in history is actually a pretty small city. Built between a harbour and the nearby mountains it is one of the few cities in Japan to have a real character about it. Too many places in Japan are the same. You go to one city, youfve seen them all kind of thing. OK Nagasaki is still flooded with brightly lit 24hr convenience stores, electrical appliance shops and Starbucks, but there is so much more to Nagasaki. The city has had quite a western influence first with the Portuguese and then with the Dutch and feels like a city freed from Japanfs 20th Century monotonous building techniques. Japan is a beautiful country but architecture is certainly not their strong point. True, Japan has some of the most impressive temples in the world (although the majority of them are replicas) but local buildings are an eyesore, a monstrosity, a blemish of all blemishes to surrounding landscapes.

Nagasaki is perhaps most famous to westerners as one of the A Bomb sights in the Second World War. Not having lived through such an era, I was looking forward to learning about how the war with Japan came to a close. Nagasaki actually was not a planned bombsite, but due to bad weather causing the bombers to divert, cloud cover broke over the city and at the touch of the button was flattened by a radioactive explosion. I visited the museum first; newly rebuilt, I entered to the sound of a ticking clock. To the left of me was a clock that managed to survive the blast. There the hands were pointing to 11:02am, the time the bomb exploded. I wonft go into too much detail but the museum was probably the most interesting and well balanced I have ever been too. The Hiroshima museum, which I havenft visited, is often criticised by foreign visitors as being too graphic and over done, with mannequinfs flesh hanging off representing the burnt victims. Nagasaki did have some of this, and although the truth may be difficult to accept, itfs surely just expressing what really happened. Yes the Japanese were brutal in the war but none of our countries have halo like histories. I walked out truly moved and well educated about how brutal our world can be. The nuclear bombs we have created now are 1000s of times stronger than the ones dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I dread to think what devastation they can cause.

I then visited ground zero, a very simple park with the marble column declaring the point of impact. Surrounding it, life seemed so normal. Cars were flying down the street, birds were searching for food and I was standing there, on my own, in the rain, next to one of the worldfs most famous explosion sites. 60 years before, this was radioactive hell. Now, flowers were in full bloom.

After Nagasaki, my job hunting got seriousc

Job Hunting

Well after many failed attempts to apply for random jobs, I decided that perhaps if I really tried to look for a job, rather than just wait for something to magically pop up, I may well be successful. I found two jobs, both as Headhunters in Tokyo. I read up on Headhunting, found it interesting and applied for both of them. And what do you know. A week later I was patiently sitting in my room for my first phone interview. The hours passed, palms wet and I started pacing round my room. The plan was that I would receive a phone call at 6pm. The companyfs website was printed out and spread strategically around the phone, ready for all possibilities.

One hour passed

Two hours passed

By 10pm I realised that the phone call may not come, and in fact it didnft!

I contacted the company through email saying something like it was shame no phone call came but I look forward to rearranging the time.

One week later I received an email saying. gMr Byra was very impressed with the phone interview and one of our other managers would like to conduct another phone interview sometime this week.h

Wow Ifm good! I havenft spoken to anyone yet but they seem to like me! The next phone interview came and I ironed out the communication break down. I had 2 long phone interviews and finally they invited me to Tokyo for a face-to-face number. The other company also invited me up, and before I knew it, I was in Tokyo, suited up, nervous, going to the toilet 10 times before the interview, praying that I didnft make any mistakes. At that time the only thing that came into my head was a story a mate told me about his interview to get on the JET Programme. Phil lives in Kobayashi and is 'Mr Linguistics'. He speaks English, German, French and Italian fluently and his Japanese has come on leaps and bounds in the last year. A graduate of Durham University he entered his JET interview, confident he could impress. Well that was true until they asked why he didnft think about studying Japanese at University. His response was, and I quote, gWell studying 3 languages at the same time is difficult enough and I thought that studying Japanese aswell would be a bit of a head fuck.h Shocked faces surrounded the room and Phil was on his knees apologising for such a slip of the tongue. Luckily they werenft too offended and he was offered a placement.

But what if I did something similar. I have a particularly foul mouth at the best of times and have been know to speak before thinking on many occasions. The first interview was on a Monday afternoon where I met the Director. I sat there for an hour and a half trying my best to impress and all he seemed to say was that the job was all about money and if that wasnft my first and only motivation in life then I was applying for the wrong job. Slightly dismayed I walked away from the interview thinking that perhaps this wasnft for me. The next day I had an interview for another company, the one I was more interested in and had had most contact with. I sat and talked for about 5 hours! Met 3 different managers, vice presidents etcc was seriously impressed and at the end of the interview, they asked me to sign the contract there and then!! Yes Ladies and Gents I got a job, a good job and I am well chuffed. I was given an office tour, this is where you will work kind of thing, and people came up to me welcoming me to the company. Wow what a rush. I then went to catch my plane back to Miyazaki, slightly disorientated trying to work out what had just happened.

So from September 1^st I will be joining the many millions who cram themselves onto Tokyo trains, fighting for the last bit of fresh air, sardinesm sardines, sardines.

A week later I had found an apartment, everything was going so quickly. Back in Kobayashi work was piling up with events galore, an international camp up in the local mountains with elementary school kids (it rained!!) and the big annual event of the year, the trip to Australia with 9 Junior High School kids coming up in July. One of my friends got married and oh yeah I took a holiday to the Maldives!!!!!

Nagasaki

This last weekend I went up to the North West of Kyushu to Nagasaki. The city of peace, and what a peaceful city it is. After much personal moaning and groaning about whether to do anything for this long weekend now past, I decided that staying in Kobayashi relaxing would be do me more harm than good. I have always wanted to go to Nagasaki for two reasons. The first being to visit the peace park and the A-Bomb museum and the second because of the influence the Dutch and Portuguese sailors had on introducing Christianity to Japan. Although having Dutch blood in me, I have never really learnt much about the country my Grandmother came from. We have still are in contact with our relations over the channel (although not as much as we should) but to be honest I would have liked to have been taught more about Holland and its history. I feel somewhat ashamed that my knowledge is so limited about such a great country. But this was a chance to turn over a new leaf and to educate myself about our Orange neighbours.

Now Nagasaki boasts its International background (funny this, considering they executed the majority of them when Japan decide to close its doors to the outside world in the 1600s) and one of its major tourist attractions was Hausten Baus (this could be incredibly miss spelt but I only have the Japanese in front of me). A group of Miyazaki Jets (Jet Programme participants) were off to a beach party in Goto Island, a three-hour ferry journey west of Nagasaki, so I jumped on the bandwagon. Friday night was a 5-hour drive from Kobayashi across Kyushu to Nagasaki city. Being the Golden Week holiday season, we thought all the hotels would be booked out, but found a wonderful Japanese style hotel still with rooms available. We just had to find it.

Japanese style hotels (ryokans) are fantastic. Sleeping on tatami flooring and sleeping on futons, I have never had a bad night's sleep. There is something about the futons they have there that are just so incredibly comfortable. You sink into the futon as soon as you climb into it, and within seconds it is morning and you feel totally refreshed.

The ryokan we had booked was situated near china town in Nagasaki City centre. China town here, although not anything really spectacular to look at, has a long history and in actual fact it was Nagasaki where noodles were introduced into the Japanese diet from Chinese traders. Although our ryokan was an old creaky building it was situated up this steep narrow path, away from the hustle and bustle of nearby streets and was truly elegant. With elegant I mean, it was pure, natural, traditional. So many hotels in Japan are boring structures, westernised so that when you are inside, you could be anywhere in the world. That's the boring thing about hotels though. The majority of them are the same. Same layout, same shit room, same lighting, same bed, same view. Every room in this hotel was different and although everything was squashed in to make space for as many quarters as possible, it was a break from the monotonous mass production of hotels like Holiday Inn and the like. Yukiko had sent me some pineapples from Okinawa and although they were delicious, I was never going to be able to eat them all. That's the thing about living on your own. There is no fun around the dinner table. You can buy nice fruit and vegetables, make lovely meals but after a while, when it's just you eating it, it seems just such a waste and not particularly cheap either to scoff it down all by yourself.

A wonderful lady who couldn't do enough to welcome us to her hotel greeted us. I gave her the pineapple and immediately we found ourselves upgraded to a better room with en-suite, free breakfast and then more compliments about how good our Japanese was. What benefits a pineapple can do. Yukiko, I salute you!

I was reading Bill Bryson's 'Notes from a small island' Actually I have been reading it since last summer but being the world's laziest reader finished it last night. He writes about his travels around the UK and makes interesting points about us quirky Brits. Near the end of the book he commentated on our manners.

"I bring this up here to make a point that if there is one golden quality that characterizes the British it is an innate sense of good manners and you defy it at your peril. Deference and a quiet consideration for others are such a fundamental part of British life, in fact, that few conversations could even start without them. Almost any encounter with a stranger begins with the words 'I'm terribly sorry but' followed by a request of some sort 'could you tell me the way to Brighton,' 'help me find a shirt in my size,' 'get your steamer trunk off my foot' And when you've fulfilled their request, they invariably offer a hesitant, apologetic smile and say sorry again, begging forgiveness for taking up you time or carelessly leaving their foot where your steamer trunk clearly need to go. I just loved that..."

Although this maybe a slight exaggeration, it is so true in Japan, especially with Japanese women. Most elderly Japanese men on the other hand are too full and proud of themselves to really thank you for anything, but Japanese women thank you and help you to the point where it actually becomes rather uncomfortable and annoying.

"As if to illustrate my point, when I checked out of the Caledonian late the next morning, I arrived to find a women ahead of me wearing a helpless look and saying to the receptionist: 'I'm terribly sorry but I can't seem to get the television in my room to work.' She had come all the way downstairs, you understand, to apologise to them for their TV not working. My heart swelled with feelings of warmth and fondness for this strange and unfathomable country..."

This again so true of Japanese culture, but the Japanese will apologise for anything and everything even when there is nothing to apologise about. Although 6000km apart, maybe the UK and Japan are not that different.

So checked in we wondered out into town and although about 10pm the city was busy and restaurants were still open. We visited a yakitori (Japanese style grilled chicken) restaurant and decided to get a relatively early night after a tiring journey.

To be continued...

Golden Week, Camping and money worriesc

The month of May is good for one thing, and thatfs Golden Week. Golden Week, a group of Public Holidays put together to give the hard working citizens of Japan some time off from their daily occupation. Itfs also the time that Japanfs transport network puts up its prices to the ridiculous because they know that this is one of the few times that Japanese people will take a break and go somewhere. I thought about going to Hokkaido to see my friends in Sapporo and visit my girlfriendfs family, but after realising that it was 47f000 yen (about 250 pounds) one way, I decided that this year I would spend golden week doing nothing.

This is where the problem started. Ifm in Japan, Ifm young, I should do as much as I can, while I can, before itfs too late and I stuck in a full-time job, family and all that. I suppose stuck is the wrong word as a lot of that can be the best part of your life. I donft knowcstuck.

Anyway, Ifve been having weird mood swings recently and my mouth has been speaking before thinking on several occasions. I have 3 months left before I leave Kyushu and there is still so much I want to do. I want to go to Nagasaki, which I still havenft been to. I want to go to India with my mate Phil, but I havenft sorted my life out about that yet. But there are financial problems starting to arise. I have to go to Tokyo twice this month for interviews, I will be moving to Tokyo so I need enough money to put down on a deposit for a flat. Even though I am only renting a place, I have to pay around 5 months rent up front (Key money, estate agency fee and one months rent up front) which will set me back around 500f000 yen (2f500 pounds). I have to send everything up to Tokyo. I have buy things like fridge, bed if I canft find an apartment already with them. The price just seems to go up and up.

I went camping last weekend up in the nearby mountains. We rented a little cabin, had a barbeque, and drank until the early hours. It was great fun except that I was in such a strange mood. Too much stuff to think about, worry about (Ifm a great worrier). The next morning we went to a nearby hot spring. It was a beautiful day; the view into the valley was breathtaking and to soak in a nice hot bath was just the medicine needed to unwind. Although bathing away, the conversation of travel and money came up. My friend was going on about travelling here and travelling there and not worrying about money, and in a state of envy, jealousy and frustration my mouth went a little wild and said something like gwell not all of us can rely on daddyfs credit card!h Now my friend being the good man he is brushed it off and it was left there. But how unfair was that. What did he do to deserve that? Nothing. I was just being the archetypical penis I am so good at being. It may not seem like much to you, but I became even angrier and rather embarrassed. I wanted to be on my own and have some personal time, so when they went to the sauna, I sat in the outside bath and gathered my thoughts. He was right, I shouldnft worry so much about money and go and do the things I want to do. Above all if I do get a job in Tokyo, I can almost kiss goodbye to the laid back life of the countryside and any immediate time off. But as I motivate myself to enjoy the next 3 months as much as possible, the pounds signs start flashing and my mood suddenly changes.