Lilly's Birthday and a Close Encounter of the Snake Kind

Yesterday Lilly, a few Kobe friends and I returned to the restaurant in the harbour area of town where Basim, Duncan, Joss and I had gone back in January. The place is a all you can eat salad/sides/meat/pineapple place and its rather fair in terms of quality and price with an awesome view of the city which my camera couldn't capture as it struggles at night. Still, the night was good if not a bit tame - due to the absence of a certain Basim.


After putting my foot in it we all headed for Time Trip, the Japanese bar with cheap drinks and reptiles which I do believe I have talked about before. It wasn't long till someone got the snake out, although not the one I have a good understanding with.


Things were going well, with the snake making a good accessory to my predominately brown outfit...


But as soon as he escaped, he started climbing the window, where my friend Tsismari stroked it. It did not look pleased, so I thought it would be best to try and kiss him. About 5 seconds after the photo above was taken, it went for me, mouth wide open and fangs a blazin' it shot for my eyes. Thankfully, due to my matrix like goalkeeper reactions I was able to dodge, and then run away.

Only in Japan.

In other news uni is almost over, with a report and one class to go. The report is 3 pages, around 1,000 characters, on "International Marriage and Divorce". Its ever so frustrating when a topic hinders the quality of the essay over your ability with Japanese. I'll stick it up when I'm done.

Climbing Rokko San (The Mountain, Not the Frenchman...)

After a good 75% of exams are over party on Friday night, and an intoxicated and all round ill advised Skype call to Mummy on her birthday (Happy Birthday!), I was awoken at 3pm by my phones optimistic jingle informing me I had a text. Deciding against throwing the phone out the window, I read the text from Duncan, my course mate in Cardiff - based in Kyoto but living here for 2 months on work placement, which informed me I was to be ready for 4. Assuming this was for the gym I got up and tried to think of an excuse. It turned out he had something else in mind.

Along with my soon to be housemate Lilly, we climbed the mountain aiming for a lookout post about 3/4 of the way up. Overshooting, we arrived at the very peak next to the famous array of lights used to beam an image of an anchor over the city at night. I was very dizzy at the top, a hangover plus the sheer height and speed of our accent left me feeling quite faint. We watched the sunset, unspectacularly on the other side of the mountains before heading back to Sannomiya for food. I'm already going to pass on a Japanese version of this article, I'm to tired... maybe later. This all leaves me now in the company of Duncan, ready to watch England add to their victory over Cymru at the weekend. Swing low......

Exams and a Change of Plans

In further explanation to the lack of updates is the exam period. I'm currently halfway through, with Management, Listening, and Technical down and Kanji, Writing and Speaking to go. Not looking forward to writing, 3 pages on the problems of intercultural marriage in Nihongonese? Fun. Still, maybe easier then explaining a graph without understanding the title, contents and context as it was in my Technical exam.

Also the 2nd of my 2 course works from Cardiff, the 1st being an already submitted translation and summary, has been uploaded. It's a book review in preparation for my dissertation next year, so that's my birthday present decided. Speaking of my birthday, and the month of March, my travel plans were in question due to financial strain, and have since been cancelled. I'll see a few local sights instead of the planned Nagasaki, Fukouka, Kita Kyushu, Hiroshima etc in order to save money. However without travelling the money I do have can be reinvested and clothes, gym membership and more Whiskey is the order of the day.

In unrelated news my flatmate will, from the 1st of March, not be the forementioned German but an equally exciting prospect in the form of an attractive French lady, Lilly. Combined with gym, revision and general Japan-ing, local trips with her and her friends from home make up the itinerary for the rest of February's and March.

Anyway I thought it was high time I took some pictures of my neighbourhood, so I'll leave this update here with said pictures. Also from next post onwards I will be posting in both English, then a simplified Japanese version in order to get a bit of practice. For those unable to see the inevitable vocab and grammar errors, it will also serve as a bit of showing off. Harmless.

My local "Conbini", Lawson. Millions of these all over Japan and are somewhere between British supermarkets and corner shops. Sign reads "Alcohol - Cigarettes".

Some of the microwavable meals I feast on daily. Mainly rice based with some sort of meat or fish. Reasonably priced and much better then any microwavable alternatives in Britain.

Junction at the end of my road

View from my bedroom.

Same junction as before.

One of the central nightlife, and well, daylife streets in central Sannomiya, my part of Kobe. Mainly Karaoke bars and small restaurants and drinking holes.


Some of the buildings around the infamous Paiyama, seen in the bottom left hand corner.

"Trust me Tommy, It will only run in Japan" Advertisement for BOSS Coffee on one of the many local vending machines.

My front door. Sign reads "Yodoya Building"

My bedroom and Japanese style bed

Ticket machines in my local station, Y180 a pop (£1.20) one way to uni.

A Chikatestu, underground, station entrance with the impressive Japan Rail terminal building in the background. I use the Hankyu line just opposite.

And finally a reverse view of the previous Paiyama shot. My house is just up the middle road between the buildings and to the right, in case your in town.

The Month the Earth Stood Still

Long time no blog. This is due to a cocktail of no Internet (still!), exams, frankly not being arsed and a distinct lack of highlights. Since uni has resumed I have somehow kept myself busy by doing nothing. I have finished both business modules, and my Japanese classes are coming to an end soon enough, giving me 2 months to catch up, travel and sort my head out.

Recent developments are few and far between but it does look like Tony, my flatmate, is moving out but will swiftly be replaced by Marcus who is possibly the coolest German alive. I wonder if my Grandad could even imagine, on the plane home back from peace-keeping in North Africa in the late 1940s, that his Grandson would be living in Japan with Austrian, Russian and German friends. Its a brave new world.

The only other highlight was last Friday when Hada Sensei took his class of 20-30 students out for all you can eat/drink to celebrate the end of term. Worth blogging about just to get the photo up really... The night ended in the normal song and dance of me dragging Basim`s arse home. Mainly to ensure his safety, but also to exploit his PS3, Internet and Western style bed.

Whiskey Betrayed Me

Turns out that me and Whiskey don`t mix that well and that my brief flirtation with the stuff will be ending sooner rather then later. Iv`e apologized to the respective parties, but at least I could get into bed properly, hey Basim? Anyway, fo-pars aside the evening began with a few drinks with a very cool Mr Harrison, a teacher from Kobe, and his Manchurian friend in Motomachi, It was a real pleasure to talk about Football for a good hour with people who actually know what they are talking about. After this was concluded we headed to Berber to celebrate my flatmates birthday, and lets just say its a good thing this was the last of my planned evenings out this month.

Universal Studios Osaka

As promised, a blog about our little visit to USJ in Osaka. It was new years eve and the weather was fine, if you ignore the disgustingly cold wind that chilled us to the bone the whole day and put the main roller coaster out of order. The park was wonderfully tacky in a Japanese kind of way as you might expect and the rides were inferior to those of Thorpe Park but it was still an awesome day out.


Rides of note were Spiderman 3D and the Jurassic Park log flume, which we went on despite the freezing cold and the high chance of hypothermia, hence the lame ass raincoat. A lot of the highlights of the day were have-to-be-there moments so I guess I will just let the pictures do the talking. Its my flatmates Tony`s birthday tomorrow so expect some pictures of Basim doing something stupid on my next blog. Although prehaps not as stupid as shouting "Suck my nipples!" to me when I was on Skype with Mummy dearest...

D-Day + 118

So its nearly 4 months since I took off from Heathrow and into the relative unknown. The temperature has plummeted here in Kobe and I`ve forgotten what its like to be warm... why did i choose the bedroom without air con! As for my Japanese ability I feel like I`m making progress. The more formal and complex grammar and vocab from the syllabus last year has abandoned me but my writing, speaking and listening has improved, although a lot of that is simple down to feeling more comfortable with the language.

In a couple of weeks I have my first round of exams although apart from the social sciences class I feel relatively confident I will be ready. The business modules are no-brainers and one is 100% course-work based, and my ability to talk rubbish seems to be a much more rewarding practice in that format.

Been meeting up with people from Kyoto more and more so visits there at the weekends is becoming an attractive option, whilst the scene in Kobe dies down a little. Money is holding up but there is still a large question mark over my travel plans for March.

Anyway I will just stick a few more good photos up and leave it there, once Basim gets round to it I will have some good pictures from Universal Studios Japan to stick up. Laters x