Day 28: let the Enkais begin (first of 6 in 2 weeks)

Ok, so this is a bit of a quick one. Here is the lowdown (yeah I don't think anyone uses that term any more) of my day. 

Wake up

2 classes

Organise how to cancel my utilities

Drive home

Drive Kelsey and I to another friends place

3 of us drive to the prefectural government

Go to the practice for the leavers ceremony

Actually do the leavers ceremony

Go back to friends for a shower and going out prep

Go out for a leavers enkai (leavers party)

Seriously, I had no time between those! But let me tell you about a certainty of Japan. There are many things that will happen to everyone in Japan, especially if you are a gaijin. You will always be asked if you eat sushi, people will always be amazed if you can use chopsticks and there will always be an opening/welcome ceremony and a closing/goodbye ceremony for everything! Like seriously EVERYTHING!

Today was our leavers ceremony, because of the perfectionism of Japan you of course practice how to bow first (Heaven forbid after a year in Japan you don't know how to do that!) then they run through the itinerary and then you actually do the ceremony.

Because I'm busy and have no photos let me tell you about lunch

  I don't know how to write a caption on mobile, hope this works! (EDIT: In case you can't tell It didn't work)

It was delicious summer ramen, you dip the cold noodles into the hot broth and it's great, not too hot not to cold, amazing! The meat was crazy tender too, like melt on your mouth tender. I am going to miss this like mad.

Sorry for the short post, gotta go celebrate my first goodbye of many. 

Day 29: Häagen-Dazs I have a great new reviewing style for you! Freebies???

Have you ever had to grammar check a speech about yourself? How about be asked to add some nice adjectives to it? What about be told that they really want adjectives that show off how kind, polite, intelligent and basically down right awesome you are? 

No? Well neither had I until today. Now at first this may sound like a humble brag, and in a way I suppose it is (Jesus this is my blog, you would think I was allowed one or two). This may also sound awesome, but to an Englishman, even one as immodest as I have been known to occasionally be, I found this to be one of the most awkward moments ever. And, if you know anything about british TV or movies it is a British persons worst nightmare. Not to mention our comedies bread and butter!

Pretty much all of The Office and Extras is how I Felt this morning

While being asked to do this i just sort of nodded, smiled then looked off into the distance pretending to think but instead just hoping the moment would end and that the teacher asking would come up with anything i could give a very sincere sounding "hmmmmmm.... yes, i think that sounds ok"when in reality had she suggested "Steve is an insufferable waste of space and we shall be glad to see the back of his ugly head." I still would have agreed to it. Not if she called me fat though, thats the line!

Can't argue with that!

So, moving on, I promised to answer the question "Why am I leaving?" Let me tell you now, the stuff such as the weird ice creams and 1 month of ramens etc., that actually has a little to do with it, but maybe not in the way you might think.

I love that stuff, I live for the weird stuff in Japan, the new and exciting foods, places or moments. However, they are now coming fewer and further between. Having been here for 3 years I now recognise the seasonal drinks, look forward to the summer pineapple alcohol, the mikan (tangerine) season and so much more. I am not surprised when I see strange and weird things. The things that used to be weird to me, brushing your teeth at work, not turning on the AC until it is over 30 degrees, shouting IRASHAIMASE whenever someone enters a shop and so on, are no longer strange to me. I still don't get any of them, but they don't have they air of wonder any more.

But I totally got the Slurping thing DOWN, in fact that is going to be hard to stop when I'm in the UK

In short my life here has sort of become exactly that, a life. It feels less and less like an exciting adventure and more like a regular everyday life. And I feel that at that point I have to make the decision: If I am starting to make a life, what do I want from that. Unfortunately, Japan is not what I want for my future life. I'll explain more about what I do want another time, but for now, I know Japan isn't it.

Now don't get me wrong, there are many upsides to it not feeling like an adventure, I feel at home here, I have a Japanese mother, and I feel like Japan very much is a second home to me. Much like my real home country, I can say anything I like about it, but if you, an outsider were to be in any way disparaging about it I would defend it to the hilt.

I like the etymology of "to the hilt" and wanted to eloquently show it to you with my sweet drawing skills

I have concluded that this must be where the term "mother country" comes from from, cause I can call my own mother fat all day long, but if you once call her fat I'm going to punch you in the face. (Mum, you aren't fat, I never called you fat! Sorry!) And now I have 2 mothers and 2 mother countries and if you call any of them fat I'm going to be mighty upset. Or if you call me fat for that matter. Remember the line!

Well, with all those real thoughts and feelings and stuff boring you lets jump straight back to this crazy ice cream I mentioned.

There is a joke somewhere here about it looking like vomit and carrots always being in vomit, just imagine I made it and laugh

Yup thats right, some of you guessed it (by some i mean one, and she was the only person to guess, but shhhhhh), its's carrot and orange ice cream. Sorry did I call it ice cream, what i want to call it is an abomination, but that would be unfair to this guy:

For those who don't recognise him, he is one of The Hulks enemy's called Abomination (The best jokes are the ones you explain!)

Lets just call it Häagen-Dazs's affront to humanity. Now I have eaten a LOT of weird food, I ate insects in Thailand, I have eaten jelly fish, I'm working my way through as many edible mammals as I can, pepsi flavour crisps (remember those) the list could go on. Suffice to say I rarely won't finish something even if it tastes bad, and I firmly believe if you don't like something you should keep trying it every so often and in different situations just to affirm that you don't like it. But this little monster I couldn't even eat 10% of.

And I shan't ever be eating it again!

(Häagen-Dazs please feel free to send me free samples of your other ice creams to review with such class as comparing them to obscure comic book characters. Who knows I may compare your Green Tea flavour to The Watcher or your Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough to X-23)

((Hope any of you comic book people liked those references or anyone else liked having to google them to get what I'm talking about))

Day 30: I promise that despite being about ice cream this is interesting

I realised (Thanks to someone mentioning) that I never explained why I'm leaving Japan. I could do that now...or I could tell you about the ice cream! Lets go with the ice cream first.

So, there I was, last night, in my local convenience store looking for a second dinner. My first dinner of sushi was at 6 and it was now 9, I needed more food! I went to their food aisle. In the UK you will find that your local corner shop has all kinds of food for a quick eat, usually quite the variety. Japan is a little less about the variety of kinds of foods, more about variety within the same genre. So your options are a small variety of microwavable meals, onigiri (I explained the "rice balls "in a previous post)  and ramen, basically pot noodles. but oh boy do they have every kind of pot noodle you could ask for!

"Hungry sir? We can help you with that, we have ramen, or ramen oh and over here more ramen"

I really wasn't in the mood for instant ramen, despite how every Japanese person ever tells me they can taste just like the real thing i just cannot get it out of my head that it's pot noodle. That was until Kelsey noticed this very special one:

How could you not choose this one, so much colour!

That is, of course, instant ramen from the same restaurant chain that I did my month of ramen with. If I believed in fate I would think it was fated that I would eat this ramen on the night that I resurrected my blog about ramen. However, I don't, so it is pure coincidence, a nice one, but nothing more.

Some of you may remember the kanji 旨辛麺 or remember the fact that the red one is spicy, this meant that I would have to buy something to cool down my mouth after I finished. This is where the mysterious ice cream comes in. I saw it, thought "What the bloody hell is that? Who would buy an ice cream of that flavour?" and I immediately decided to buy it.

It was either a small pot, or i have very large hands. You decide

Thats right, that is tomato flavour ice cream, but don't worry its also cherry flavour. Sorry, I mean "cherry flavour" because believe me it didn't even have a hint of cherry about it. It wasn't disgusting but I wouldn't advise anyone to eat it for any reason other than "Hey, try this weird as hell ice cream!"

This is how I feel the decision to make this went down at the Japanese Hagen-Dazs HQ between the Head of Flavours  (Is that a real thing) and his Deputy Head of Flavours (or that?):

"We need something new and exciting, what fruits haven't we tried yet?"

"None sir we have had a flavour for every fruit there is"

"Are you sure, what about Tomato? Isn't that a fruit?"

"Well, yes sir, it is.. technically"

"Good enough for me, make it so"

"But.."

"Make. it. so."

Well with that clearly explained and no further explanation needed let us proceed..... actually no, there was also one other flavour that I saw. I haven't tried it yet, but you just try to think what weird thing could they possibly think would go well with orange flavour ice cream. You keep guessing and I'll let you know tomorrow.

I was going to explain why I'm leaving, then I realised that it's a little more than an be tagged onto the end of a post so I will have to make you wait one more day to understand. But if we are honest with ourselves the ramen and ice cream was far more interesting. WAIT, I mean, the next post will be unbelievably interesting too, maybe there will be lions and dragons and kittens....maybe there won't. Only one way to find out.

Day 31: The beginning of the blog about the beginning of the the end begins

Let me start with an apology, it has come to my attention that I just sort of stopped writing this blog. Don't worry, i have not died, nor been kidnapped nor even had I had any kind of mishap, unless being forgetful and lazy is a mishap (Googling "Define mishap" reveals it is not ). I  just got all caught up in the excitement of going home, and got all busy and stuff. Sorry about that and if you didn't care or are unhappy that I'm back on the blog, I guess I'm sorry about that too (Sorry, not sorry).

Why have I returned, was it the endless number of requests for me to blog more? No

Was it the fact that you have died and this is a very shallow level of hell? Maybe....

However, it is much more likely that I simply felt that another interesting month was ahead of me and I thought that it would be worth a writing about. 

In exactly one months time I shall be leaving Japan to end my 3 year life here. 

Yeah, check that photoshopping out, I did that all my self!

That's right, it's the final countdown DUH DUH DUH DU..... nope, doing that anytime the words "final countdown" has been pretty much put to death. Let's try something a little more obscure, one for just the British to get.

It's the final countdown ....duduh duduh dududuh dummmm... nope? lost ya? OK this is what I'm referencing (maybe I should stick to the classic):

I won't lie, I spent way to long thinking this was the conundrum (When it definitely makes a 9 letter word)

So in the upcoming month I shall be taking you on a journey in time and space. The journey in time will be much like the one you have been on since you were born and the one in space is purely metaphysical as I'm sure you won't actually be following me to the places i write this (I hope not as i mostly write this in my flat....)

I'm going to be rather busy, stressed and generally up to stuff, and if you fancy it I will bring you along (again, not physically)

So to keep you excited for what is to come I will leave you with this conundrum. No, not like the one above. This is an ice cream I bought tonight, can you guess it's weird and wonderful flavour? All will be revealed.... 

If you are correct you may reward yourself with 10 points, this is after all what you get in the TV show countdown if you get the conundrum.

Day 20: Someone Forgot to Publish This After They Wrote it

So, as the title suggests, I may (Or may not, but most likely may) have finished typing this and then forgot to publish or post it to Facebook cause i was super sleepy. Oh well, whats life without a little uncertainty? (Predictable, thats what it is. predictable)

Today was thrilling, well actually, no, no it wasn't. Not for the most part. I didn't run this morning, I saved it for this evening. I spent the full day at work, same old, same old. Some planning of my exciting long awaited return home.

(I warn you, I am going to be annoyingly secretive in this next sentence)

My day then picked up a bit after school and I headed to pick up a gift for someone special, something that I got made, it is brilliant, and beautiful and now I just wish Christmas would hurry up and come so i can give it to the person if is for. (See, lots of words but no real substance, you know nothing!)

Mystery box, mystery box, how exciting

If you wanna know the secret, check back after christmas day.

Following my collection I came home and grabbed some food from the supermarket.

I have a question for you. It's Christmas, your friend comes over, you hand them a present you got them, maybe a bottle of wine or.... a bottle of some alcohol that isn't wine (As adults we know that a bottle of something alcoholic rarely goes down badly as a present). It's your turn, you have quite a large box. You are excited, you know it can't just be a boring bottle of wine, "people who give wine as presents are the worst" you think to yourself. You unwrap it and this is what you see:

At least it is in a nice box, I think you get a lid too!

"What's that?" you ask. That is 15 cans of tuna, 5 varieties, 3 cans of each, all made by the same company. How would you feel about that?

What about if it was this?

Ohhh, different colour lids! But let's be honest, the gold lids are the best

How's that? 6 different types of instant coffee, is that better?

The can top, second from the right really upsets me!

There we go, that hit the spot, 27 cans of fruit juice. None of these items are particularly specialised, they are all items you could pick up from from the supermarket yourself if you so wished. Now, I don't want to insult any part of Japanese culture, but I find these as gifts rather unusual.

Being totally honest if someone bought me a present I could have easily picked up myself on my weekly shop I would feel a bit put out. I think many westerners would be (And you would make a note to ensure you bought that person some toilet cleaner or cans of beans next year. 2 can play at this game!). And this is something I have noticed about Japanese present culture. It is much more modest than in the west.

This links to what I have said before about the price of fruit in Japan. Fruit is a common gift, I have seen grapes, mangos and apples all packaged as gifts. It is not just food either, I had a teacher tell me once that the present she got from her son for her birthday was a mechanical pencil, that was it (I am not knocking mechanical pencils, they are the kings of pencils, as long as you have enough lead that is).

Something that flies in the face of my modest gift thing however is melons, yes thats right melons. This is how much I am used to paying for a galia melon, £2/$3/¥300. However, I have seen melons in Japan costing as much as £300/$500/¥50,000. There is something about the pattern on it's skin that Japan just loves and if the pattern is just right they are willing to pay unbelievable amounts of money for it.

All this being said, if i received this, I would be very happy:

For those who don't know, this is beer! Delicious, delicious beer

After the supermarket I went home, marinated some chicken and went on a run. As my leg was still hurting I ran slower than I wanted to, but I still ran 6km instead of 5km, I had extra energy that wasn't being used up.

Something I have noticed is that even though I was running at a slow, I have hurt my leg pace I was running at about the same speed, if not a little faster than when I started all this.

After, I cooked the chicken. Soon I will soon be off to bed, it is much later than I intended to stay up to, especially as I have to get up for a morning run and I always find running in the morning after 2 days not running in the morning hard.

I didn't want to leave you with not ever seeing my chicken meal, I know that would just eat you up inside. Get it? Eat you up

Day 19: I Would Have Made a Terrible Danial-San

Right so, here I am, doing my 5km walk as it is my rest day, just like my first Wednesday I thought I would kill 2 birds with 1 stone. Then after that, I will walk and write my blog.

Not really in the mood for walking, don't want to run though, so I am in a pickle aren't I? But after all, part of the reason I decided to do this blog after the ramen adventure was to ensure I had a reason not to be a lazy arse. So walk I shall. 

This morning I got my lie in. It was great. Well, actually I barely noticed it, that's the problem with sleep eh? You know you appreciate the extra time but at the moment you are having it there is no appreciation or even awareness.

Anyway, standard day of school, nothing much to report, then off to the gym.

I went a little early today and still came out at the same time, I was rather tired and the dead lift is proving difficult to get used to, it's a movement I am not used to. 

Despite the book suggesting I try to add weight every workout I decided that I wouldn't because of my injury, so I just squatted the same weight and then ensured I worked harder on the other things.

Now I hurt!

Ok, not the best looking meal, but the meat is on the bottom, remember that

Then I had dinner, the rest of the sirloin from on Monday with pumpkin and sweet potato mash with some French mustard. おいしいでした。(o-I-shi-I de-shi-ta, oishii deahita) meaning it was very delicious! 

After I stuffed my face (yes like a hamster does) I had karate, I didn't want to go, and felt my injury was a legitimate excuse but as I only have 2 classes left before the 3 week hiatus of home, I felt I had to go. 

This resulted in some rather comical kicks. "Low kick" I kick low, "middle kick" I kick low, "high kick" I kick low. You get the idea. I was even asked if I was ok, I tried explaining, not sure if I explained it right but the Sensei smiled and nodded.

Not sure if you can tell but I was super hot and sweaty after. No I am not in a dressing gown.

I am coming to the end of my walk and it is lovely, kinda. I just want to go to bed, let my body heal and my mind rest but when I'm not looking at my phone it is very pretty. Not a cloud in the sky. I tried taking a picture with my phone but it turns out iPhone cameras were not meant for star gazing

I modified one of these to be a little more starry, it's so subtle I bet you cant work out which one it is

Nearly home, tomorrow is just running, no other working out. Normally I like to get it out of the way and give myself the evening, but tomorrow I will rest more in the hopes of healing and also I can have no time pressure if I run after school.  Here's hoping this heals up soon or how will I prepare my body for the inevitable gluttony and laziness of being home for 3 weeks? 

Day 18: It's cold and it Hurts

I have been bitching a lot about the cold, I do know that, but it is bloody cold to be out in shorts, a t-shirt and under armour (the sportswear, not something to go under my chain-mail. Unrelated; chain-mail is always overlooked in a zombocolypse, it would always stop a bite). I don't know the exact temperature, my iPhone app said 7°C but judging by the ice all around I would say it was colder. This is what the morning looked like out on my balcony. 

Pretty yeah? Pretty Cold!

I got dressed, headed out and away I went. Same old, same old. I listened to the audiobook (That is probably why I talked about the zombocolypse up there), and managed to focus on it while I ran. I have realised that in the mornings my first kilometre is alway fast, I guess because I want to warm up, but it was a little painful. 

You can see I have changed my language to Japanese, hope fully it will help. Maybe it will be to little of a gesture

It's painful because I have a slight injury on my right leg, it is on the inside of my upper leg, might be called the adductor. I think it must be a strain, it caused me a fair amount of pain when I took longer strides and squat with heavy weights. I will have to take it easy from now on for a few day. I wont stop but I wont strain it either.

I feel a photo of my inner thigh might be appreciated more, but this is more informative

Do you like my diagram? The red stuff is muscle, the area that hurts. I drew both sides as I think that it would have looked rather inappropriate had I just drawn the muscle that hurts. As you can see, running with smaller strides is less painful, and bigger strides with a tiny head is more painful. More jogging than running. There is also the squat, I must keep my weights low and ensure I don't strain the muscle. I know my form isn't good, but take it easy on me, that is more to do with my artistic skills than my actual form. Maybe.

Before my evening class it was time for sushi, once again, same old sushi. Delicious

It can be all too easy to just keep grabbing plate after plate

One thing I love about the sushi restaurants is how easy it is to take stuff home. You just take what you want off the conveyer belt and put it into these plastic containers and away you go. I took a couple of pieces for a post class snack and away I went.

So, off to bed with me. With my flight home a week on friday I only have 11 days, 7 runs and 4 training sessions left till I get to rediscover the delights of the UK. Very excited I am.

Tomorrow is my running rest day, that means I get to stay in bed an extra hour tomorrow morning, YAY.