kyonoki

Eely Eels

My grandparents came from the East End, around Custom House in London. One thing that always sticks out about their funerals, apart from meeting people I had never seen before, was white boxes delivered to the small wake afterwards. I suppose that the get together after the service was always quite a kees up, as it was the only time that family really got together. The older people would always be gulping down strange things from the white boxes filled with ice in the kitchen. I could have only been 10 or so at a great aunts funeral, when I peered inside one of the boxes and found a slimy grey something. It was my first and last encounter with jellied eels. I could not ever imagine why someone would eat something like that. A delicacy in the East End. HOW?

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26 07 05 - 01:44 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Windswept

Like clockwork, the weather switches from cloudless sunshine to wind-driven rain. Why does it always seem to rain on the weekend, yet by the time you wake up on a monday it is the most perfect weather for going on a picnic or sunbathing. Somewhere there is a chuckling Mother Nature, playing tricks on us mere humans. Murphy's Law that sunny days should be work and rainy days free. So it was pretty much guaranteed at the start of the Summer Break that a typhoon was going to hit Japan. Imprisoned in the claustrophobic heat of our apartment, I am going stir crazy. Outside the dark grey clouds whisk by dizzingly fast, driving rain horizontally against the balcony doors. The day has an unnatural dusk about it and the wind causes the insect screen to chatter in it's frame. Typhoon season has officially opened. (more)

26 07 05 - 01:31 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

The Soon to be Mrs Bagshaw

Dear Louisa, in less than a week you are going to have the most Hobbit-like name of anyone I know. Gone will be the shy, retiring girl I once knew, and in her place will be a married, political high-flying business woman.

The saddest thing is not to be there. Well ok not sad, but downright bloody annoying. Cannot believe that while you strut yourself up the aisle, that I will be sweating uncontrollably, giving lectures about teaching. Something that I have no passion about whatsoever, especially as they have kept me here against my will. I will be having five or twelve drinks for you on the day…hopefully before my lecture begins.

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25 07 05 - 03:18 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Karate Kid

Woke up in the burning heat of a Kyoto Sunday. Streets empty, people dashing from airconditioned shop to shadow to airconditioned shop. Then I realised that I was out of breath, filled with sudden realisation of my dream. In the dream I am dating the Karate Kid, watching him paint fences. Only then, bored out of my mind I tell him I will be off to watch more Buffy. Except I call him Rhodri. Yep. It is true. I have finally answered that age old question. What did happen to the Karate Kid? Well, he switched his name to Rhodri, started making computer games and moved to Kyoto. I swear I can't tell the difference.

23 07 05 - 23:47 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

The Jinxed Bag

My great big sports bag is a good old friend. I bought it the same day that I met Rhod and it has seen me through my new job and heavy journies with books. It treats me well and if ever I got stranded far from home, I am sure it is big enough to use as a tent. In a way the bag is like a good luck charm, protecting me from people around me. Three times it has attacked men and women who have been rude to me. There was the time a woman on her bike came careering across the zebra crossing, seeing me but waving her hair and choosing to run me over. My bag snagged on her handlebar and because of the weight literally pulled her off her bike, throwing her back onto the road to my utter shock. Then there was the businessman who kicked my bag out of the way, only to have the bag spurt leaking juice all on his nice crisp trousers. Today another young woman decided to push me aside in her scramble to be the first one off the train, despite the fact that I was struggling with the bag. She knocked it off my shoulder and onto her stilletoed feet, bringing down 6 text books, 100 flash cards, a book, a magazine, and a litre bottle of water onto her. She yelped, buckled and staggered back against the seat. Hoisting it I was the first off the train. I love my bag, but sometimes I am a little scared of it.

20 07 05 - 03:31 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Nagoshi No Harai

Visiting Heian-Jingu with Alex and Becci last month, I noticed that giant rings made of reed were hung up around the place. Taller than me they were bound with white rope, smelling musty like the river. I saw them at other shrines, some stored behind buildings. I asked one of my friends what they were for. She smiled and said that I had missed my chance to purify my sins for the summer. At the very end of June people wipe away their sins by walking through rings made from weed. By doing so it is said that you will have a clean slate for the summer months, a trouble-free July and August. Eating minazuki (a sweet of rice and red beans) is traditional on June 30th. Well too late now, but could easily bike down to Arashiyama to pick clutches of reed and make my own giant ring. Would need quite a few. Guess it is better to start off as you mean to go on. Get fit, get rid of my temper, and get creative. Summer is here!

20 07 05 - 03:22 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Cicada Boy

School is out for the summer. Sort of. Days of lectures and seminars to attend, but by 11 had packed up my things and made an escape worthy of a German POW camp, rolling out of sight and diving down empty corridors. After scooting underneath the school radar I whipped any respectable clothing off and whooped my way to the station. Dragging my amazingly heavy bag up the hill I saw nursery school children breaking up for the day, flooding out into the street. A group of them were screaming hysterically, zigzagging away from a tiny boy who was giggling and chasing after his classmates. As I got closer he stopped, looked at me, holding out his arms zombie like, a manic look in his eyes. Attached to his stripey sweater were dozens of cicada shells. He had stuck them to himself and scared his classmates...mostly girls. The shells are quite amazing. As the cicadas grow wings and mutate into adulthood, they burst out of their old shells and leave them discarded. The sun hardens them and picking them up you see they are left in the shape of the young creepy crawly...empty and light and seriously disturbing.

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19 07 05 - 20:17 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Louisa's Column (Wedding: 10 Days)

Hungover Hen...
Well, it was all go for me at the weekend as it was my hen night on Saturday and I had an absolutely fab time!  Was really excited about it, then right at the last minute got quite nervous, worried about all my friends getting on, etc.  Anyway, I needn't have worried!  7 of us met at Sutton Station at 12:30 for an early lunch nearby (good old filling pasta to line the stomach - very wise even though I wasn't really hungry!)  That was also when the drinking started!  Mind you, I did go reasonably carefully at that point and just had the one glass of wine and lots of water.  Would soon regret the water! (more)

19 07 05 - 04:24 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

A Country Lunch

Two years since my last real pub lunch. Sitting down with a pile of vegetables, stuffing, gravy and a golden brown chicken. Japan is lacking in ovens. You can buy them, but you have to pay a lot. Too much for me. In a way I suppose not having an oven is good thing...no manic scone cooking like at college when I would spend a morning producing two or three hundred. No cakes, cookies, pies or any such thing. So it is best to find a friend with an oven. I was shocked when Tomi asked us over for a roast dinner yesterday. Having lived in England, she is aware of the merits of a good old pub lunch. We sat down to real ROAST DINNER. ROAST CHICKEN. And most importantly, spuds. Roast potatos. Woooohoooo. It has been far too long. Forget sushi, French food, spaghetti, Chinese noodles....can't beat a good old English sunday meal. Thank you Tomi. I gobbled up far too much and slept for the rest of the day. My mouth is still watering just thinking about the food. One thing for sure. It won't be two years till my next Roast. Hint hint...

18 07 05 - 05:47 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Bond Villains

As traffic was halted outside the centre of the city, food stalls set up, floats lit up for photos, houses opened, heirlooms dusted off, five hundred thousand people descended on Kyoto, flooding the trains, buses and taxis to breaking point. Bicycles were the vehicle of choice, left parked in every space. Notes were posted at most parking spaces warning you that during the matsuri, theft is at its highest. As the sun died away the street party began. Like a mass exodus, something like the destruction of London in H.G.Wells War of the Worlds, the main thoroughfares were squeezed with tides of bodies, moving so slowly that any martians crashlanding in Kyoto would have an easy job of exterminating human-kind. Rhod and I were a little late, parking our bikes in the garage of his workplace and walking towards the very hub of the festival. We had planned to meet Tomi, Jol, Misako and James, but it became clear a few streets on that we were going to be very late indeed.

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18 07 05 - 05:34 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

A Home Not Found

White cliffs, verdant hills, patchwork farmland, country lanes, steepled churches, village pubs, swans and ponds. England as it was, woven into the minds of millions. Fiction twisted about the past. These things are still there, hidden from view, caught in paintings, in the verses of poems, the lyrics of songs, the timeless voices of tales. It is an England I know, an England I so desperately wanted to escape, felt suffocated by the smallness of it all, frowned that no matter how often I returned to my home it never changed. Why did I want it to change? I am not sure I know the answer to that. But there is an Englishness that buried deep inside, and the longer I remain away the harder it is to feel home anywhere but there. It is strange to dislike England so much, yet to feel a subtle and constant tug pulling me back. As an Englishman I feel the need to apologise, to accept that trains cannot run on time, that the weather can turn a thousand times in a single day, that we assume defeat will be ours. We almost like to lose, like to criticise those who are successful. But beneath all this is a pride that is strong and burns. It is ok for me to criticise England, but if anyone else does so then I am defensive. The Terror Attacks proved just this. England is my home, and I feel a smoldering hatred for anyone that would wish us harm.

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15 07 05 - 06:43 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Decoded

Just put down Robert Harris' Enigma, steaming through the book in two days after re-reading Fatherland. Both kept me awake during my morning and afternoon commutes. The book was a fast read, engrossing, fiction woven tightly around factual details. Both concern World War II but are a mile apart. I would never recommend books to anyone, but these two I would say are well worth picking up. Just because they are paced so quickly, you can get through them in a day. As summer is coming I will have a lot of time for reading.

Fatherland is set in an alternate 1950s in which Germany has won a resounding victory over Europe and made peace with a suspicious, yet defeated America. The discovery of a body in the affluent suburbs of Berlin leads an officer of the military police to delve too deeply into the past, uncovering the truth about the Holocaust on the eve of the signing of a peace treaty between Roosevelt and Hitler.
Enigma concerns the attempts of Bletchley Park to solve the German's U-boat code, which has mysteriously been changed, threatening the entire supply line between a starving Britain and America. A young mathematician and brilliant codebreaker must struggle to find a way to re-read the code before the balance of war tips against the Allies. Suspicions begin to arise that there may be a spy in Bletchley, then the unthinkable, Jericho's old girlfriend suddenly vanishes. (more)

15 07 05 - 03:31 - kieren - kyonoki| two comments - § ¶

Gion is Coming

Gion Matsuri is one of the largest festivals in Japan. The month long celebration starts on July 1st. Throughout July there are street fairs with games and Japanese festival food like takoyaki (balls of egg battered octopus) and tomorokoshi (grilled ears of corn brushed with soy sauce). The parade floats are constructed on the city streets and some can be toured. Many festival goers dress in yukata (light summer kimonos) and geta (high wooden shoes)...

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14 07 05 - 01:16 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

King Prankster

Seya Takamura creeps into the teacher's room, making sure the coast is clear. He walks up to my desk and gently pats my shoulder, making me jump out of my skin. I put my book down and look up at his tanned and smiling face. 'Do you want this? I don't need it anymore'. I take the plastic cage from him. It is the kind you see elementary school children running around with in the summer, nets draped over their shoulders. 'Aren't you a little too old for this?' The cage has remnants of grass-blades stuck to the side. I can't quite see him scowering the long grass behind the school for stag beetles and cicadas. Seya pulls up a chair and shrugs. At 180 cm he is a lot taller than me, thin and athletic, though he has never belonged to a school club and has no intention of ever joining. His philosophy is that his vacation should be for him to waste as he pleases. Seya's English is remarkable, and he has never stepped outside of Japan or attended any private English schools. He always surprises me with choice phrases and words that he has learnt. As he told me, he studies English because he loves it. He is one of those students who has an immediate prescence, truly individual in the way he thinks and acts. 'What was in here?' I ask, not sure that I want to know the answer. It surprises me that for all his outsider status, that the school has not yet chewed him up and spat him out. His good grades and pleasant attitude seem to make people forgive him most things.

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13 07 05 - 23:38 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Wolf Whistle

Who is the stunning lady in this picture? It is the beautiful and rather fantastic Louisa. Ahhhh, 16 days to your wedding. Looking really amazing, love you lots and am wishing I was there.

13 07 05 - 03:31 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Battle On The Beach

From the first apartment I lived in in Kobe, a tiny cupboard on the foothills of Takatori Mountain, I could walk to Suma beach in under twenty minutes. The good thing about Kobe is that you are never more than a small hike from either the mountainside of the coast. I would often walk to Suma, through the jumble of houses, under the railway tracks and out onto the beach. A little way down from the aquarium, the beach is sand rather than crushed up pieces of shells, and although the water is not amazingly clean, it is still ok to swim there. The view of across the Bay of Osaka to the shadowy mountains of Wakayama on the horizon and the hazy form of Awaji, green and relatively untouched, is beautiful, even if you have to ignore the trash on the beach. Not many big cities in the world can stake a claim to lying next to the sea and having such an accessible coastline. In the blazing sunburning heat of summer, or the bitter winds of winter, I would walk the few miles along the coast from Suma station to Takumi.

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13 07 05 - 01:51 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Season of Pranks

School slowly winds down in the throbbing heat and whir of cicadas, each oven hot classroom more and more lethargic as the week drags on. Yet for all the sweat-soaked napping, in between chimes the students come alive for the short break times. There is a reason for this. It is the season of pranking. With less than a week to Summer vacation, students are increasing the number of pranks, with each class trying to out-do the others in outrageousness and panache. While the third years are old hands at this kind of thing, the first years seem determined to better their sempais. The teachers see the funny side in most things, although the practical joking has become an epidemic and no sooner do I start most classes than all the students are called away for a discipline meeting in the gym. Half the time I sit about, trying not to fall asleep, waiting for the wayward classes to return so we can resume doing as little as possible. It is a school tradition, that I am learning is more about causing disruption than general merriment. (more)

12 07 05 - 23:08 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

The Indestructable World of the Keitai

Cycling West towards the mountains is like an obstacle course, weaving in and out of bollards, avoiding the strange flux of traffic and skimming trough barriers, all erected in the centre of the main throughfare as the subway progresses hundreds of metres below the tarmac. Taking this route, in spite of the roadworks, saves time, but as my bike has bad suspension it rattles my teeth and shakes my bones. Huge trucks and maintenance vans career down the narrowed access lanes, paying little heed to the speed restrictions or traffic codes. As this area of town is full of Industrial sized buildings, the flow of traffic is heavy all through the day.
As I shot down a ramp and twisted around a lamp post, the temporary road surfaces caught me at unawares and my bike leapt up and down the incline towards the tram lines at the bottom of a subtle hill. The change jangled in my pockets and all at once I heard something clatter behind my wheels. Turning, I saw my keitai bouncing into the middle of the road. Before it could stop, a truck roared down the road, sucking it up and under the wheels, body, and spitting it onto the rest of the following traffic. I parked my bike and could only watch until the cars passed. Quickly I jogged into the road and reclaimed my poor phone.

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12 07 05 - 04:56 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

The Buddha And The Deers

This is what the Lonely Planet has to say about Nara. Nara is an inland prefecture, surrounded by the four prefectures of Osaka to the west, Kyoto to the north, Wakayama to the south and Mie to the east. Nara has only 1.4 million people, clustered around the Northern Plain. To the South is the Kii Mountain Range, the 'roof of Kinki'. 60% of Nara is covered in forests. The small city occupies an important position in the history of Japan; it is said that the first state was located in Nara. Nara is home to various World Heritage sites such as Todaiji Temple, Horyuji Temple, and others including numerous Buddhist art and architecture. The ancient capital, Nara Heijokyo, was established in 710 AD and modeled on Changan, Capital of Tang Dynasty in China.
Disembarking from the Nara Kintetsu Station, it is only a few minutes walk through Nara National Park to Todaiji Temple. Groups of deer (messengers of the gods) walk freely through the park, sniffing out food or else warily keeping to themselves, protecting their young and trotting about as if they own the city. Well they pretty much do. During wartime the deer population was decimated, though of late the numbers are thriving again. Although they are revered, I get the sneaky suspicion that one or two ended up on the dinner table during the food shortages of the war. The males have their horns cut and blunted, and most are generally timid, tame enough be fed oat cakes, though they do push and shove you if they think you might have food hidden on yourself. In the centre of the park is Todaiji Temple, home of the popular 'Great Buddha of Nara'. The Daibutsuden Hall is the world's largest structure, the gigantic statue itself 15 metres tall and weighing 25 tonnes. Apart from the Buddha of Kamakura, Nara's own Big Buddha is the largest bronze statue of anywhere.
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10 07 05 - 04:30 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Onokoro

In the beginning, heaven and earth were not divided. Then, from the ocean of chaos, a reed arose, and that was the eternal land ruler, Kunitokotatchi.
Then came the female god, Izanami, and the male, Izanagi. They stood on the floating bridge of heaven and stirred the ocean with a jewelled spear until it curdled, and so created the first island, Onokoro. They built a house on this island, with a central stone pillar that is the backbone of the world. Izanami walked one way around the pillar, and Izanagi walked the other. When they met face to face, they united in marriage.
Their first child was name Hiruko, but he did not thrive, so when he was three, they placed him in a reed boat and set him adrift. He became Ebisu, god of fisherman...

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10 07 05 - 04:29 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

They Can Fly?

Dreaming about the rainy Eastern hills of Kyoto again, wandering through the deserted shrines speckling the mountainsides. Lately the same dream. I am covered in mud and cuts, soaked to the bone and looking for someone. The city is silent, and there is a deep rooted knowledge that the silence is unnatural, that many people are dead. It is a frightening dream, while not really a nightmare. The dream is reoccuring, each time a replay of before, except little by little it gets a further, the story unfurling more and more. I sweat a lot whilst dreaming and it puts me on edge when I wake up. So it was when Rhod flung the sliding door open, crashing about the room, grabbing my duvet and yelling at me to get up, get up, get up. I don't think I have ever been so wide awake so quickly, so scared to my core, and so unsure whether I was still dreaming. After deciding that I was not wet, not muddy and very much indoors, I wondered what the commotion was about. Worriedly I looked as Rhod thrashed around, rolled about on the floor and looked like he was having some kind of fit. Then he spun saying 'don't look, don't look, i don't want you to see'. Silence. My heart thrummed in my throat and I feared for the worse. Then movement, Rhod animated himself again. Shit, fuck, fuck! Then horrible realisation sunk in and I grabbed him. COCKROACH!!!!!!!!!! (more)

09 07 05 - 20:19 - kieren - kyonoki| one comment - § ¶

Fire Fire Everywhere

As the sun sets and darkness settles, Kyoto hums with that strange silence of a city at rest. Evenings are calm and free of mad whirring of the cicadas in August. Cycling to meet Rhod yesterday, I swirved out of a sidestreet and narrowly avoided a group of men wearing white bandannas on their heads. I screeched to a halt, wondering what they were doing. Currently I am reading about the Boxer Rebellion in 1900s China. Foreign-hating, animistic, bandanna wearing peasant-rebels. And the thought crossed my mind that this strange group of men were marching to burn down the nearest GAP. Looking closer I was surprised by the beating sound they were making whilst walking along. Whilst chattering away, one of them was knocking to pieces of wood together. Much like a glockenspiel. In the middle of Winter they trek along the streets in their neighbourhood, alerting people to be careful when using their stoves, heaters and kotatsu. Likewise they do so in the height of Summer, telling people to take care in the brittle heat, to be wary of overloading plugs, of barbeques and cigarettes. Since ancient times and the abundance of wooden homes, annually suffering conflagrations, the neighbourhoods have sent out men to strike their wooden blocks and remind families of the dangers of fire. If you sit indoors, watching TV or reading or taking a bath, sometimes you can hear the wooden knocks coming and going street by street, a sound that makes you realise you are not in England anymore.

09 07 05 - 04:27 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Starfox and Fushimi-Inari

Whilst working for Nintendo in the early '90s, Giles Goddard and Dylan Cuthbert had created a spectacular new 3D shooting game set in space, but had no inspiration for the characters who would fill up the world they had created. Meeting with executives from the House of Mario, they were taken on a few tourist trips around Nintendo's town of Kyoto. As it was their first time in Japan, they were excited to see some of the country. Travelling a little south of Kyoto they went to Fushimi shrine, and walking amonst the statues dedicated to the fox deity, inspiration finally came. How about if the main character was fox. A fox, fighter pilot, with his own spaceship, careening across the galaxy. A fox, adventuring amongst the stars. A Star Fox. Starfox...

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08 07 05 - 23:44 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Countdown To Wedding Bells

Twenty day to Louisa's wedding. Hen night finished, still in one piece.

08 07 05 - 21:32 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

London 2012

Oh no, poor Paris. Hee hee.

08 07 05 - 03:16 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

The Battle Of The Komainu

Bleedin' rain has not stopped. Spent most of the week stuck up at Chion-in, squeezed under the foundations of the main hall, watching the pouring torrents day in, day out. Quite cosy, if a bit stuffy and damp, full of spiders and creepy-crawlies. Had a lot of time for dozing and contemplation. I remember when all these hills were aflame, the city just a grey landscape of smoldering ash and broken homes. That must be going back a bit, when Ashikaga Yoshimasa was planning to build Ginkakuji, poring over his poetry, indifferent as Kyoto burnt below his villa. The Onin War was a terrible time. 80,000 Yamana soldiers camped out in the leafy suburbs and another 85,000 Hosokawa guards tramping to meet them. Was an awesome sight, frightening to see the camp fires burning throughout the night, the calm before the storm. Thousands of armed soldiers just sitting and waiting.
Gert was still alive then. But you had better not read on. This story does not have a happy end. (more)

07 07 05 - 03:47 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Orihime and Hikoboshi

A long long time ago, Ten-kou, god of the sky, had a daughter called Orihime. Every day she busied herself, weaving special cloth for the gods. Tenk-kou worried that Orihime (Vega) was lonely, spending each working hour weaving and doing little else for herself. He devised a plan in which his daughter, while running an errand beyond the Amanogawa (Milky Way), would stumble upon a simple cowherd. Hikoboshi (Altair) was startled by the beautiful young girl, but as his life was consumed by taking care of cows he was glad for company out in his fields. Slowly a friendship formed, which turned to love and happiness that they were no longer alone. Obsessed by their new love for one another Orihime forgot to weave more cloth and Hikoboshi began to neglect his cattle.

Ten-kou was enraged by the lovers carelessness and snatched up Orihime, carrying her back across the Amanogawa. In punishment he flooded the river so that the young couple could no longer meet, but were each imprisoned upon opposite sides of the waterway. Orihime was beside herself and Hikoboshi devastated. Ten-kou knew that he had been too rash and despaired that he had hurt his little girl. In compromise he relinquished a small part of the punishment, allowing the waters to flow and ebb to little more than a trickle on a single day of the year. Another version says that a magpie called Kasagi came across the weeping princess and contrived a bridge for her using magpies, wing to wing. Again, if it rains the bridge cannot be formed and so the lovers cannot meet.

So on the 7th July the lovers met for one fateful day, then were forced to part to resume their duties for the rest of the time. We call this festival Tanabata. Small children write down their hopes and wishes on small pieces of coloured paper and tie them to branches of bamboo that are displayed in public places. People wish for clear skies, for if it rains then the Amanogawa will swell with water and be unpassable, condemning the lovers to another year without each other. Today was clear all afternoon until thunderstorms and a huge deluge of rain just after I had left work. As thunder battered the skies and lightening flashed across the city-scape, I smiled that maybe Orihime had been trapped on the opposite bank with Hikoboshi, and perhaps the booming storm was Ten-kou's anger at their elopement.

07 07 05 - 02:35 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Love Thy Neighbour

To get a good impression of what our apartment building is like, you should go out right now and rent the Japanese horror movie Dark Water. There is no elevator, but the grey, drab buildings are in a state of decay, well past their heyday, and the twin concrete blocks are capped by huge water tanks, completely out of place on the third floor. Inside our apartment is quite homely and snug, it is just outside that I try to blank my memory before it seizes on a block of flats in the East End of London as a comparison. There are 18 flats in all between the two buildings, three on each floor. It is a mixture of foreigners, Japanese students, some elderly people who may have moved in when these buildings were first put up, and a huge extended family squeezed into one apartment. For me and Rhod it is the perfect size, with enough space to have guests and get some peace and quiet to read or be by myself, but for the family at the end of our hallway I cannot imagine what it is like. So far as we can guess there are four children from high school age down to a toddler, a mother, two grandparents, a father occassionally and one whiny dog. All for two rooms, a kitchen and tiny bathroom. Trying to be kind, but although they always say hello, they are about a white trash as you can get...or rather the Japanese equivalent. If in fact they are Japanese. Answers on a postcard for that conundrum. (more)

06 07 05 - 03:27 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Deep Deep Heated Kazuo

Kazuo, he of the feathery prank that backfired, was in the teachers room again today, laid out on a couch and moaning away. I feel partly responsible, but that doesn't make it any easier not to laugh.

For some reason I always get muscle-ache in my right forearm. Usually after heavy lifting or a lot of writing. Because it happens every couple of months I carry around Deep Heat with me. I keep a small medical pack at school, with paracetamol and the like, which I carry around with me in case of emergencies. This morning Kazuo came to say hello and after a while he asked me why my arm smelt. I told him that it hurt so I rubbed in an ointment that made it hot and so relaxed the muscle. After a while he drifted away to bother another teacher. I went to a few classes and after a couple of hours came back downstairs for my coffee break. I starting cleaning all the papers off my desk when I saw that the tube of Deep Heat was almost empty. Alarm bells rang in my head, but I was too angry to care much.

I should have known. After some wild screams, a group of students and a teacher dragged a boy from his swimming lesson into the nurse's lounge. Their swimming class had been cut short but Kazuo's howling yelps as he jumped into the pool. His friends thought he had broken something in the dive. Little did they know that as they changed into their swimming trucks, Kazuo was fully smeared in Deep Heat and bounding away from the teacher's room. As his whole body began to burn he decided that the pool would cool him down. For anyone who has ever eaten a mint and taken a swig of water, immediately after your mouth seems to burn before cooling down. So it was with Kazuo.

Bright pink skin and throbbing muscles, he lay moaning like he was the survivor of some massive tragedy, giving off an incredible amount of heat so that people had to take a step back from him.

06 07 05 - 02:17 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

Disco Kids

Now that Alex and Becky have safely crossed the pacific to live up a month in New Zealand, the rain has stopped, the sun has come blazing out and my life at school is pretty miserable without airconditioning. This week I am at elementary school and so have been busy going from class to class, introducing myself to new classes and teachers. Today I was a little late after photocopying and so ran upstairs to help out the Supporting Teacher. Bit of a strange situation. I am the Native English Teacher at the school, so over three months I have to visit every class in the school to play games and get them used to trying to speak what English they know. Also there is a Supporter, who as far as I can see does a lot of photocopying and reminds me of an uptight English Nanny in the Victorian era. Prudish, severe and strict she is my nightmare teammate in teaching the upper grades. If I was late, she completely forgot we had a class. Likely practising how to look condescending and haughty in one raise of her eyebrows. So the class was unattended. As I ran up the final flight of stairs I heard music blaring out and thumping...I realised the singing was in English and so my heart sank. More dumb ass singing. I opened the sliding door and was greeted with a bizarre sight. Thirty line dancing students, getting down and boogying to a video. (more)

06 07 05 - 02:07 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

She's Not There

Summer's coming. Students are restless, teachers are trying to care, pranks are exploding all over the school, the rains are dragging on pumping the air with humidity, Gion is prepping for its month-long festival and I have thrown out lesson plans for a more hands on, fun time. Stickers are the coveted prize, like cat-nip for kids. I have seen riots, kicking, scratching, screaming and all out war just for the sake of a smiley face sticker. They will do pretty much anything to get their hands on one. Once on student has one stuck on his notebook, the whole classroom wants one. Well if stickers are incentives, then candy is the holy grail of student life, that rare and much fought over prize. Acting as if they have been starved over the previous week, students wake up with their manic gleam in their eyes and you know they would wring their neighbours neck to get their hands on the sweets... (more)

05 07 05 - 02:59 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶

The Last Samurai

Every new class I go and teach, after short introductions and the usual robotic 'How are you?' 'I'm fine thank you, and you?' there is a brief question and answer session. Depending on the cheekiness of the students it can be a lot of fun. Today I was asked how I have such thick eye brows, if I was hairy all over, why I like pineapple and why do English students play Conkers. I have heard that a lot of foreigners get asked about specific sizes (one of my friends was so annoyed by this that he told the students to open their mouths, told them to keep going, to keep going, then said it was a lot thicker than that...a little extreme I guess), which you have to get used to just like the strange obssession with students slapping my ass and demanding to be carried around. Luckier than being posted in the countryside where the students are a little more aggressive and more vivacious. My friend Chris was often ambushed in the corridors of his school and literally taken out by students bundling on him, stripping off his clothes. Other times they turned up at his apartment (in the school grounds), hunting for porn. This is the same Chris stalked by the only foreigner within cycling distance, the same Chris who called me in the middle of the night from inside his closet desperate as the frightening American was drunk and coming on to him. Thinking back, Chris was pretty weak and probably would not have been to stave off any propositions. Ok getting away from the point...

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05 07 05 - 02:22 - kieren - kyonoki| one comment - § ¶

The Return

Bit cheeky to post this, but since Rhod grabbed me and pulled me aside on Oike I have been grinning. Martin and Rach are being catapulted back across the Pacific to Osaka for temporary work placements. Pretty messy for them considering their massive move a few months ago, but fantastic news for me. Yep am totally selfish, but cannot wait to see them again. See you soon guys. Thank God some normal people are coming back to Japan.

04 07 05 - 03:25 - kieren - kyonoki| one comment - § ¶

A Strange Case Of Rain

Englishmen seem capable of taking their weather with them, or rather seem to conjure up rain at the drop of a hat. Alex and Becci touched down a little before the end of Rainy Season, twisted their way around Tokyo and up to Kyoto through sunny mountains and along a fairly drought-prone coastland. As soon as they stepped onto the platform the blue skies washed to grey and the heavens opened up. Six days on and the clouds have parted for only a few hours and they rain has been constant and draining. I think we have been wet for more time than we have been dry. Rainy Season has come late and just in time to drown out Alex and Becks big adventure. That said, I have had a great few days getting to play tour guide and getting to know Rhod's friends. In between showers we have been scooting to shrines, shopping for kitsch and eating at some fantastic new restaurants. On Wednesday Becky found 40,000 yen just lying in cash on the street. With noone around and after a discussion about what to do we hung around and eventually decided to give it up as a lost cause. We funded numerous temple trips, cinnamon ice-creams and a rather pretentious restaurant (yep, I am a cheap sushi type of guy).  Photos here.

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04 07 05 - 03:22 - kieren - kyonoki| No comments - § ¶