The Isle of Faff

The things I will miss following my year abroad without a doubt entirely outweigh the things to which I will be glad to bid a long overdue sayonara.

But it is these soon-to be-a-distant traumatic memories which, more often than not, make for the best writing material.

The years of postcards from loved-ones abroad plays constant reminder that no-one is interested in the stately homes, castles, beach parties, shrines, temples and glorious mountains of Japan or anywhere else in the world for that matter.

Sat on your sofa at home the fact that I saw a big Buddah with nostrils the size of Harvey Price is about as interesting as being locked in a dungeon with James Blunt and a guitar.

“Yubara Einstein" who spends his life cutting insects from fliers to present to the village idiot - namely me - while pulling faces like a remedial trout at the end of the bar in my local. Paper thin too hot in summer and too fucking cold in winter houses, outdoor washing machines with pipes that freeze with the first snowflake of winter.

Holes in the floor covered with the faeces of the thousands that have gone before next to futuristic toilets sent from the Gods. Noisy bugs, noisy frogs, chanting woman, 5am sirens, Internet modem and drive-by announcements at unearthly hours of the morning.

As irritating as all these things are (asides for Fish-face Einstein) they all add to the oddity that is Japan.

My latest and long overdue rant comes from a recurring theme which has long tested my patience.

Faffing.

From a family made up of half doers and half faffers, I did not think anyone could score higher than my mother, brother and one cousin in-particular in the "what the fuck have you been doing for the past hour?" stakes.

But someone, or rather something does.

Japan.

Lunchtime today, the dinner lady trundles in with her trolley carrying too many trays and dishes for the staffroom. They talk, as always for a good 10 minutes, with concerned expressions. I can only gather from my limited Japanese that they are counting up how many diners there will be this lunchtime, as our vats of slop grow colder and colder.

The usual slow dishing up rigmarole ensues. Ravenous, we all "Itadakimasu" and tuck in. Lo and behold a latecomer arrives, with who comes a sense of impending doom as every single person, sombre-faced, looks around in stunned disbelief.

Despite the fact that this happens EVERY FUCKING DAY.

Being a major faux pas to eat from the plate of another, chopsticks clatter, the multitude stands, staring hopelessly as nothing proactive is done to salvage some untouched fodder for the teacher, unlucky enough to have drawn the short straw of hunger on this particular occasion.

A gaijin experiencing this daily happening for the first time could be forgiven for thinking someone had just announced the Land of the Rising Sun's latest Emperor’s had just been discovered, beheaded and ass raped in a gutter.

But if they are anything like me, not one of them actually gives a shit. They all know that eventually the person who has fucked up will salvage a meal from somewhere.

Yet they continue to stand, gormlessly, wishing someone would set the ball in motion and sit down before our appetising dinner trays comprising a bowl of sticky rice, cabbage salad as bland as the James Blunt dungeon scenario, and a scrap of miscellaneous fish, are colder than their dead Emperor.

The epic conversation to come up with a solution to this frequent problem brings me onto another point.

The language.

You don't need to speak Japanese to get by in Japan.

Once you realise that nothing is actually being said, except an amalgamation of meaningless expressions, it becomes clear that Japanese proficiency is far from a necessity.

Japanese people talk a lot. But time has told me everything they say is merely a running commentary of their surroundings.

Supermarket shopping was once a daunting experience, the checkout lady's lips a blur as she muttered away faster than the speed of sound. Once it was brought to my attention that she is doing nothing more than naming every single package, its content and price, I was able to relax and offer the occasional supportive nod.

A typical and mandatory conversation, when arriving home late for a meal goes a little something like this:

"I'm back"

"You're back"

"I started eating before you"

"I am starting eating now, after you"

"I've finished eating."

"I've finished eating."

A prime example of the most pointless of foreign languages arose at a recent snowboarding excursion.

Opting to spend the afternoon in a two-hour "snowboard school," the instructor spoke for more than half an hour to explain two key points relating to the popular winter sport.

1. How to attach your feet to the board.

2. How to attach the pull rope to your trousers.

Japanese people refer to this as thorough. English would opt for something more along the lines of "time-wasting" and demand their cash back from the "fucking money grabbing whores."

Impatient and desperate to hit the slopes, after 90 minutes we finally mounted the ski lift, making our ascent to the summit of the bunny run. Here we were abandoned by our instructor, who had taught us nothing, yet claimed that "time was up" as she glided away until she was nothing but a spot in the distance.

Once can only hope she ploughed head first into a very big tree.

Two hours later and 3,500 yen lighter, I seemed to have taken a backward step back
from my debut outing on the slopes. Rather like the toilet situation, snowboarding experiences range from one extreme to the other.

My previous instructor, having explained nothing, dragged me, snowboard attached to one foot, to the ski-lift. I fell off at the top, twisted my knee and got twatted around the head by the next approaching chair. Every time.

But at least I could board by the end of the day.

Another example of a language reflecting this nation of procrastinating faffers, comes following a visit to the immigration office to obtain a nursery teacher certificate.

Taking good friend and translator Trevor along for moral support, he spoke with the man behind the counter for what felt like hours.

The general gist of the conversation?

Office worker: "Japanese instrumental - 15 minutes,"

Trevor (to me): - "so stick this in your passport yeah?"

Me: "okay, cheers."

Office worker: (translation) - "Wow you said that so quickly in English (which also took considerably longer to spit out in Japanese."

To cut a long story short, I have discovered that by saying "hai (yes)" during the odd pause when a speaker pauses for breath, the end result will be what was originally intended.

Except with food.

With food it can bring some nasty surprises.

Children of Japan, Part Three - Let Them Eat Cake

As my year abroad draws to an end I feel it only right to contribute one more document to the main reason I am even in Japan at all – the children.

To teach in Japan the key rule you must remember is that having fun of any sort can be, and more often than not is, very dangerous.

The most recent example of good times turned ugly came on Tuesday during a fun game of build and destroy, with a points system whereby a team must build a house made up of 12 chalk lines. A saw is worth three lines, a hammer two and a bomb destroys three from an opposing team.

Things went nasty when a board-rubber brandishing girl on team rabbit erased three lines from team frog. One member of the competition got angry, took off his name tag, throwing it at the demolition worker's head while simultaneously bursting into tears.

Next the injured party turned on the taps, instigating a Mexican cry until I was confronted with a classroom full of tantrum throwing tots, helplessly drowning in a sea of snot-infested tears.

One girl remained dry eyed and stared at me with a knowing smirk, far beyond her seven-year-old self.

Teenagers are more resilient, my few lessons providing comic relief in the otherwise desk-bound world that is the days spent in Junior High School.

When instructed to "say like Ellie Sensei says," the classroom is filled with a mix of high pitched wails and Dick Van Dyke’s circa Mary Poppins.

Prone to the giggles I have been forced to stand at the back of the classroom as every lesson, without fail, first graders deliberately attempt to get themselves into trouble with the Home Room Teacher so that she will shout. At which point they will deliberately ignore her in favour of pulling all manner of faces in attempt to make me laugh. As Akaiwa sensei grows angrier I laugh more, undermining the authority's authority entirely.

I have walked into classrooms before to find a child locked in the broom cupboard, boys being stripped to their underclothes by male peers, which they worryingly seem to be enjoying. Once during class, a recently stripped boy asked for his socks back, the thief threw them across the room where they bounced off the owner's head and out of the window into the thick snow lying one storey beneath.

According to the homeroom teacher, none of this is in the least bit funny.

Teachers snack and graze, warding off the hunger pangs throughout the day. In one school I even have my very own treat drawer and every time the teachers share chocolates, fruit or cake, they hide one in my special place. Not always good when mouldy oranges are only discovered weeks after the Christmas holidays.

Yet it is forbidden for children to bring anything edible into school whatsoever. Discovery of sweet wrappers causes scandal levels similar to Ian Brady’s killing spree on the Moors.

Considering this to be an urban legend, or rural legend as the case may be, a friend relayed the sequence of recent events in one of her schools to me over a bowl of ramen.

One solitary sweet wrapper had been found concealed behind the sink in the girl's toilets. Meetings were held, assemblies called, the culprit urged to turn themselves in.

The general gist of why this is such a major faux pas?

"School is a place for learning, not eating."

By fourth period, the one before lunch, I cannot concentrate in class, my students are keeling over and dying of starvation and concentration and patience levels are dangerously low all round.

Nothing is learnt and the clock is watched ticking by slowly by all concerned.

Maybe the Japanese educational system needs to review its concentration camp-esque policy, make like Mary Antoinette and LET THEM EAT CAKE, chocolate, sweets, anything to make them more prone to listening.

And then there's those that hold a grudge.

The sole example being three children, likened to the Midwich Cuckoos, recounted in Children of Japan Part Two.

After forming an alliance against me when I inadvertently caused one of them to cry over a game of rock scissors paper in the morbid heat of summer more than six months ago, they are STILL not talking to me.

Instead they attempt to make my life as difficult as possible for the 45 minutes per month that they are graced with my presence.

While I struggle to remember that fateful, the summer of 2011 will play heavy on my 11-year-old victim’s mind until the day he dies.

I have been told by a good friend that I must tell the main perpetrator of recent trouble, and victim’s girlfriend, in broad Lancastrian, to "shove a cabbage up her cunt."

With one day remaining at the school comes my final chance to action this challenge. I may even try to slip "evil bitch troll from hell" into the mix.

Moving on to coughs and sniffles.

After a weekend of uncontrollable debauchery, I was one of the lucky few to be given a "working day" and instructed to stay at home when more than 50 per cent, and some 75 students were taken down with the flu. School was cancelled and I, the healthy Westerner, spent the day watching films and catching up on sleep.

It is mandatory for sick Japanese people, young and old to wear masks to protect others from their death bugs. In extreme epidemics such as this recent spate of so-called "influenza", pretty much everyone voluntarily opts to sport the Darth Vader look, inhaling their own spit and carbon monoxide all day long.

Every Japanese person I have spoken to has had the flu this time round while their non-mask wearing colleagues from abroad have magically survived unscathed by the 24-hour superbug which, like everything else, has been blown out of all proportion.

Yet another unfathomable oriental survival tactic.

No wonder they lost the war.

Satanic possession and a web of "sweet" deceit

For the best part of the last year a demon has lurked beneath.
A chanting, curtain-twitching monster monitoring my every move.
With an early morning habitual chanting ritual, reaching decibels illegal on English soil and audible from the moon, accompanied by continuous window sliding, I have been rudely awoken from blissful slumber on uncountable occasions.
For a long time this anonymous beast was presumed male, ignorant to my desperate banging to mute his anti-social behaviour.
Several Facebook status rants later, it is brought to my attention by my predecessor that the lovingly named "Chanting Man" is actually a woman, and a formidable one, who continues to murmur in foreign tongues until this day.
The one occasion that anything of significance happens in my village, the annual piss up, cunningly disguised as a Hanzaki Matsuri (Giant Salamander Festival), and the entire village is inebriated.
As the clock strikes midnight no one knows their own name, how they got home, or if they are even in the right home.
Everyone except chanting woman, who lurks indoors, surreptitiously watching people carry futons up stairs and into my apartment.
The morning after the night before, I receive a call from my company informing me that, and I quote; the “sweet little old lady” downstairs was "traumatised" by such vast quantities of bedding.
And a scary prospect it is.
Over the following weeks she continues to slide, bang and chant her “holy” ritual at unholy hours.
With the New Year comes my second encounter with the bitch troll from hell, resulting from a faulty faucet and a flooded floor.
Paper thin, Japanese apartments are designed for short-term practicality. However one toilet flush seeping through the ceiling and into the apartment below still comes as some surprise.
My 10,000 Yen water damage deposit has literally been washed down the toilet.
Yet the greater surprise is the way I am alerted to this expensive mishap.
As the clock approaches midnight, there is an irate hammering and bell ringing at my front door, along with several failed attempts to open it.
Terrified of what beast is lurking on the other side so late at night, my life flashes before my eyes, imagination running wild, earthquakes, fires, rapists, murderers……
Who could it be?
Plucking up courage I unlock the door to be presented with a very angry, very fat, very ugly midget hobbit.
Yellowing crooked teeth glisten in the moonlight as its mouth moves in a blur of angry gibberish. All I can decipher is "toilet" and "I live on the first floor".
I have come face to face with the beast who has tormenting me, confronted by my own worst nightmare.
Opening the bathroom door there is a flood of water, which I mop up, apologising profusely and shouting "Nihongo wakarimasen" (I don't understand Japanese).
She sees this as her cue to shout faster and louder as if this will make me understand.
Some ten minutes later, during which my door remains open, Siberian wind and snow blowing in, all my hard earned heat running out, she too finally runs out of heat, about turns and shuffles back through the ice back into the cesspit below.
I pray to his Lord Jesus Christ to send the Grim Reaper to give this abhorrent juggernaut a sharp push on her descent, straight into eternal damnation and the fiery pits of hell.
Prayers unanswered, it lives on.
My too close encounter with this "sweet little old traumatised old lady" puts the dogs under my childhood bed on a par with Elmo. I dread the day I come into contact with bona fide angry Japanese person.
In the meantime I will combat her satanic ranting with heavy metal devil music until the day I return to England while she slowly rots in her own, shrivelled pink shell.

Onions make your blood healthy and smothy

Forget Taeko drumming, calligraphy and origami, the most appealing, creative and exclusively Japanese art form is, beyond all reasonable debate, the medium of Jinglish.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, Jinglish is the direct translation of Japanese into Britain’s mother tongue.

My love of these absurd misinterpretations was ignited during training week, when hours were whiled away reading menus, shop signs and miscellaneous products with our cameras poised waiting for that money shot.

Twelve months later and my all-time favourite remains the a disabled toilet sign reading “Deformed man toilet.”

School attire always provides some light entertainment and, if I spent more time teaching the children and less reading their clothing, they may actually learn a thing or two.

But as an Engish speaker I have greater difficulty in averting my eyes from these abominable clothing choices than I do pooing more than once a fortnight when living on a diet consisting solely of sticky rice. And I have firsthand experience of both.

Mothers blissfully drop their offspring off at elementary schools Japan-wide, unaware that they have unwittingly transformed them into walking advertisements for the sex industry.

“I want to be a slow and happy lover,”

“Every man’s girl” and other such provocative slurs are proudly sported by the majority of girls and, more worryingly, an increasing ratio of boys.

Only last week a Kindergarten student turned up dressed in a T-shirt carrying, in bold capitals, the following disclaimer:

“WARNING – JUNK PACKAGE IS HOT.”

Needless to say my gay in Japan demanded I steal the offending item.

Sadly even if he starved himself to the proportions of an emaciated Barbie doll, it would still be a more than snug fit.

And this is where we detect a major flaw. These must have accessories are majorly tailor made for children.

Another venue, proving fruitful for the typical “Jinglish Spotter,” is the Hyaku En store.

Japan’s answer to PoundStretcher stocks realms of useless crap, slapped with highly important information.

For example: “She is a cat. Her name is Stella. She is very popular with the boys though very stylish and selfish.”

And "Poodle, I’ll covey straight love,” hints that the iconic gay canine is shirking its liberal roots to promote heterosexuality.

A sweet treat, served up in school today, urged me to “enjoy ecstatic time with this confectionary.”

Unless it can give me multiple orgasms or the same high as the countless buckets of aromatic bush circa the university halls of residence days, I am doubtful it does exactly what it says on the packet.

While holidaying in Okinawa, we spied toddler-sized T-shirts carrying provocative slogans including:

“TITS. More than a handful is a waste,” accompanied by a hand-sketched bosom.

Convenience shops and pharmacies are also popular haunts for the snap-happy spotter with products including; “Clean Puff” tissues, “Crunky Ball Nude” chocolate snacks and “Tuche” tights.



Additionally are those openly promoting cruelty to birds.



And now we move on to products which make absolutely no sense whatsoever. The oriental equivalent of walking into a tattoo parlour and opting to have a word in foreign tongues inscribed on your left buttock because it “looks pretty”. Unaware that you have branded yourself with the Kanji for “cunt” for the remainder of your existence on this mortal rock.

Another student recently came to school wearing a shocking pink long sleeve with the intuitive words:

“I like,
“Mouse is,
“Whatever,
“Candy time.” An argument too well grounded to even consider opening up to debate.

And now I leave you with one last photograph, which I think you will agree sees the floodgates flying wide open on all manner of existential questionings.

We wish you naked baths, earthquakes and a Happy New Year

With every Christmas comes an unexpected and tragic celebrity death to dampen our festive cheer. With the ghost of Christmas present taking Martin from us on Big J’s birthday, the countdown to 2012 was no exception.

At the age of 14, equating to 88 in canine years, some may say that the Chihuahua, to use a trite expression, "had a bloody good innings".

Those some do not include owner Kelly Osbourne, who was reportedly devastated upon discovering the stone-cold rigamortis ridden pooch.

All this aside our Oriental Christmas was full of the usual oddities which have long since become eyelid batless moments, starting with the winter equinox’s Yubara Lemon Onsen.

Invited to appear on local news television stations, we agreed to bear all in the natural outdoor hot spring, amid 626 lemons at an event which promised to eradicate any coughs, sniffles and untimely deaths for the entirety of the coming year.

With post-apocalyptic threats looming over our heads as we enter 2012's “end is nigh” dawn of Aquarius, we must do everything in our power to prevent ourselves falling foul to this prophecy to which the weakest links of modern society are doomed.

Getting naked in a hot tub seeming like a perfectly legitimate way to ensure salvation, we arrived ahead of schedule to soak in every possible molecule of Vitamin C excreted from the citrusy life savers.

Having already soared to fame during an earlier TV appearance during a local noodle eating contest, I was aware than many people were depending on me.

So arriving at the location to discover a bath full of geriatric males, flannels on their heads, snow falling and full frontals of wrinkly genitalia in every direction, we were more than a little perturbed.

Two floor length towel dresses later, we found ourselves sat in the middle of the water, surrounded by old men, one Gaijin and a baby. The scene around the perimeter of the bath can only be described as the naturist equivalent of a red carpet Hollywood film premiere.

As the cameras flashed and filming tape rolled, men wafted their manhood metres from our faces as they stood to cool off and reposition.

We made the news, and the papers and my celebrity status has been brought back to the forefront of Yubaran minds.

The same evening we were welcomed to my local Karaoke bar with a bag of new items, adding to their already brimming dressing up box, consisting of one horse head and two plastic masks which would have been better suited to serve as cunning disguises during an armed robbery.

Trussed in fancy dress, giving Lady Gaga everything we had, the teachers from one of my elementary schools came into the pub for a pint and a sing song.

Beer fuelled elation ensued and, upon returning from the toilet, I was informed by my nearest and dearest friend, the lovely Lucy;

“I’ve managed to get a reindeer head one that one and rabbit ears and a mask on that other one.”

The two unwitting victims?

My principal and vice principal.

Good effort Lucy. Good effort.

As last orders came and went we sang our finale, paid up and set off through the thick snow for a late night, drunken onsen, which has since become the normal run of events at one o’clock in the morning whenever anyone visits me in my sparsely populated town.

During daylight hours, locals adhere to the strict rules surrounding these little spots of sacred tranquillity, which include removing all clothing and keeping edible substances far from the water’s edge.

After dark rules are redundant and standing up in the water, with an umbrella to keep the snow off your naked body, while taking long, slow drags on a cigarette, is seemingly acceptable.

So too is stroking the bare legs of drunken gaijin females as they relentlessly attempt to simultaneously balance and drag on sodden clothing.

Yes Japan’s answer to Mr Motivator’s attempts to woo failed miserably and he was left sitting forlornly, the thick snow slowly burying him, and his garish get-up, to a disputably timely end.

Next to Hakone.

An hour’s train ride from Tokyo, like Yubara, Hakone is a traditional onsen town. Except with stunning views of Mt Fuji and Lake Ashii, it is a holiday hotspot for both natives and foreigners.

Our costly hotel promised Fuji would be in full view from our bedroom window.
Needless to say we were stunned to see not a snowy sniff of the eponymous mountain upon our arrival.

Asking the porter where the mountain had gone, he pointed in the general direction of sky.

We had been conned.

Our second observation – “where the fuck is the shower?”

There was no shower.

Or was there?

When I arrived in Japan I never envisaged myself sat alongside a friend, on a plastic stool, in the buff, looking into a long mirror and hosing myself down.

While old women took a communal and very hot bath in our peripheral vision.

But needs must.

It does beg the question – what happens when you’re bleeding? Something I hope I never need to find out.

Next morning opening the curtains, Lucy screamed with joy, dragging me over to the window.

And there he was.

Fuji-san.

Back from his Christmas holiday and snowier than ever.

My first reaction?

“Fucking glad I didn’t take on that beast in the unholy heat of the Japanese summer.“

Despite appearing in all his morning glory for us to ogle as we ate our breakfast, less than an hour later, when we boarded a pirate ship on Lake Ashi, he had gone back into hiding and the stunning pictures we had hoped to take were left as images we will only ever see in the travel guides.

Sitting in the onsen at sunset, gazing out at Mt Fuji who had again reared his beautiful white head, was a slightly more pleasant sight to behold than the atrocious wrinkly range of twin peaks polluting our vision the previous night.

Hakone locals are similar to those in other regions of Japan, they go beyond the call of duty.

Ask for bus timetable information, get a free lift to your destination.

Bear this in mind if you ever visit - it could save you a fortune.

Following an impromptu taxi ride, we arrived at an outdoor art gallery.

Convoluted airborne exhibits, displaying crassly disturbing images of rotting and mutilated corpses, were made beautiful by the stunning mountainous backdrop. Even a man sticking his fingers in a woman's chuff while fondling her pert breasts became completely inoffensive.

Next a cable car ride up to the boiling sulphur pits of Owakudanai, emitting odours reminiscent of the Banks residence post-Sunday lunch when my father clears the room with one of his “chicken farts”.

Being engulfed in this eggy bad is not the most appealing way to spend your holiday.
Yet again, worldly wise Japanese people passed on their words encouragement as we left our local areas to embark on this latest adventure.

"You're going Haknone? You must try the black eggs."

Dubious, but adopting the “when in Rome” philosophy, we bought a bag of the “famous” oval-shaped fodder.

Expecting rotting, underdeveloped chicken corpses, we were surprised to discover the innards were run of the mill hard boiled eggs.

With all the beauty Hakone has to offer, once again the Japanese favour the mundane flavour of a convenience store sandwich over a land steeped with history.

We did discover a benefit to the eggs - that if eaten the yolks will increase the consumer's lifespan by a three-year minimum. Descending the slopes of Owakudanai, we stopped off for a pint and a cigarette to celebrate our new lease of life.

After a heavy night of karaoke with the locals, we awoke up thick headed and light-hearted as we said sayonara to Hakone and set off on a direct train sexed up as a “Romance Car” to the bright lights of Tokyo.

We had considered asking which train to get on the pre-empt of a free lift all the way but decided the train was most probably a speedier option.

Having received glowing reports of Tokyo Maid Cafes, which are, according to our friend Johnny, classy family establishments with great, over attentive service from cutesy maids, we trusted his judgement and agreed to accompany him for a repeat visit.

Hauled off the street by a not so cute but very lively maid, we followed her through a rabbit warren of back streets and up the stairs to possibly one of the most uncomfortable meals I have ever endured. And this includes the array of failed dates with the waifs and strays of London - including the guy wearing the undersized lime green tiger jumper as well as the man who laughed like a blocked drain mentioned in an earlier blog.

Maids dressed like school girls, and no older than college age, served beer after beer to a range of solitary sex offenders occupying the dingy haunt.

It was akin to all the serial killers from every cult horror film ever produced being scooped up and dumped into one room. The guy next to us was a carbon copy of the retarded brother in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

There is no such thing as walking out of a restaurant once you are seated in Japan and so beer was our only remedy to endure the long wait for our food.

New Year's Eve is the biggest night on Monabeaker's social calendar, which I have long since loved, and Tokyo did not let me down.

With our pidgin Japanese we were able to find an underground all you can drink haunt.
Two hours for 2,000 Yen on New Year's Eve.

Bargain.

The so-called Nomihodi works very well when serving Japanese punters, who are scientifically programmed and proven to be able to hold much less alcohol than their drinking buddies from across land and sea.

Throw a group of Westerners into the mix and this fail safe profit making business enterprise suddenly finds it very difficult to come even close to breaking even.

While becoming well and truly inebriated for the equivalent of £15 might have tainted the bar's New Year joy, it certainly accelerated ours as we headed to Shibuya crossing, Japan's busiest pedestrian walkway to start the countdown along with thousands of other well-wishers.

Only the Japanese can run across the road each time the lights change, screaming "Happy New Year".

For more than an hour.

Without getting bored.

And only the Japanese can make it so entertaining for all involved.

Despite no visible signs of crime and disorder, streams of police were on guard to keep the jovial mob jovial.

One man, who was wafting his manhood around on a rooftop, was carted off by a six strong force. Asides this minor blip, there was no threat of any misdemeanour.

Ironically the sight was more than marginally less offensive than the gaggle of geriatrics who sat in the bath with us back in Yubara.

Entering the Year of the Dragon, green beasts were out in force, offering free piggyback races to Lucy and myself.

The night was long, drink fuelled and when we eventually arrived back at the hotel, crouched outside eating takeaway, a very kind young chap went into the local shop, reappearing with two hot coffees, which he handed to the white chicks he had mistaken for tramps.

Drunken gaijin tramps, dressed up the nines, slumped outside a hotel on New Year's Eve?

The mind boggles.

With New Year’s Day came a compelling urge to shop. Leaving my comatose friends to sleep off the hedonism of the night before, I set off to Shibuya once more, stopping along the way for breakfast in a roadside cafe.

As I sat down, eagerly anticipating the bath of tea before me, my brain took a turn for the worse, sending me into a dizzy spiral. Feeling very unsteady on my rested feet, it soon became apparent that this wasn't the aftershock of a night on the tiles but rather an earthquake, measuring four on the Richter scale.

Given the atrocities of March last year, I was understandably a little on edge.

However, as my life flashed before my eyes those around me carried on with theirs.

Inevitably it was nothing to worry about but, as the years go on, my "survival of Tokyo’s New Year's Day Earthquake of 2012" will be exaggerated to astronomical levels as my grandchildren look on in awe at the incomprehensible travels of Granny Gay Wanks.

Turning Japanese? I really think not..

As the months I stay in Japan draw on and I grow more and more acclimatized to the country’s cultural and behavioural differences, the thought of returning to the UK fills me with dread ever more.

I have developed a tendency to make strange noises for no particular reason, curtsey in the corner shop and cheer over enthusiastically at the simplest of conquests, like button bashing my way to success with a photocopier. What have come to be involuntary responses to daily situations would see me lose the respect of family, friends and colleagues back in Blighty.

While on the orient, it is perfectly acceptable for grown men to attend weekend cooking events kitted out in homemade, personalized Hello Kitty aprons and maintain excitement levels telling of borderline retardation at all times - in England even the Queens of Soho would disown them.

Yet as they jump up and down, cheering emphatically as I dice an apple, I find their enthusiasm utterly endearing.

The situation intensifies as we move on to the gymnasium for a spot of ping pong. No matter how bad our serves and how many points are scored against us, they cheer like monkeys on ecstasy, shouting phrases of encouragement such as; “you are magic serve” and “bat job good.”

The excitement of exploring new cities is accelerated by the very fact that, being white, everyone wants to be your friend. Children point at us in shops while adults openly stare for extended periods of time.

Unaware of their subliminal racism, no matter how unnerving it may be, it is difficult to be offended. Especially when nipping into a bar for a swift pint turns into an evening of free drinks and banter with locals who want to know everything about you and a conversation cobbled together through a pocketsize phrasebook.

Many westerners miss out on these experiences. In true American style, why stray from what you know? Arriving in new cities, their immediate reaction is to seek out the Western bar for a burger and a pint, passing up a whole array of culturally superior venues where strangers remain friends they will never meet.

These so-called Gaijin bars are the equivalent of scooping up all those waifs and strays still lingering as the day-glo lights rise at 3am in the seediest clubs along Blackpool seafront in the vain hope of finding a someone to take home to riddle with every venereal disease known to man – as well as some that aren’t – and dumping them together in one sticky, smoke stained room.

Musical preference in these venues is similar to what blared from the blacked out windows of souped up Pergeouts owned by 18 –year-old motorists who frequented the kerbsides outside English high schools circa 1992.

This bargain bin meat market is not as appealing as fraternizing with the locals, which is the reason I wrongly assumed people came to Japan in the first place.

It pains me that such a wonderfully diverse and patriotic culture, paved with traditionality and pride can be totally wasted on the stereotypical lager swilling Westerner abroad.

Slugs and snails and pregnant fish

Considered one of the most highly acclaimed cuisines globally, Japanese fodder had a lot to live up to if it was going to rank anywhere close to the extravagantly lavish concoctions conjured up by my own mother – who is capable of recreating any meal she’s ever enjoyed worldwide by the memory of taste alone.

An overrunning habit from a misspent youth, surviving solely on beer and anything vaguely edible to provide sustenance (including kebab meat salvaged from biffa bins and freeze dried milk by the spoonful), during the Withanail and I-esque student days means I can stomach most things.

And after eight months living in this country, I can vouch that there is nothing wrong with the food. It’s perfectly palatable, even the pregnant fish served up at lunchtime, eyeballs and all, are actually not that bad.

But slapping a whole fish on a plate does not exert any degree of effort. And here we unearth a running theme.

Slicing up a live squid or a fillet of raw fish and assembling it in a pretty(ish) formation on a polystyrene tray does not constitute cooking and, therefore, cannot put the country’s “chefs” in the same league as our very own pig faced Jamie Oliver’s three page guide to making the perfect fish finger sandwich.

Invited to a cookery class in my Junior High School, a student was to teach me a traditional, and very old, recipe using sweet potatoes. Honoured to be let into a culinary secret of a land so far from home, my disappointment upon discovering that the entire process involved boiling the potato whole, slicing it into discs and leaving it on a baking tray over the weekend to dry in the sunlit bug fuelled air, was difficult to mask.

Asking if any seasoning was involved I was told, in no uncertain terms; “No Ellie-sensei, we like to eat natural.”

Which is fine, but don’t label this feral practice a recipe. In the same vein, I cook every morning when I peel my banana.

In preparation for a family party, one of my colleagues explained the foods she would prepare – rice, rice, more rice, and – the piece de resistance - gyoza dumplings.

By the Japanese standards I had encountered so far, I was impressed, until she continued to explain that she would be buying premade Gyoza, because it is “very difficult” to extract a ready-made dumpling sheet from a packet, spoon on lumps of minced meat and fold it over into little pasties.

From a generation hell bent against waste, my grandmother would overcome this great barrier of difficulty to do similar with left over pastry and a bag of raisins.

Attending a cooking class this weekend, we were the entertainment, as the unsung Japanese masterchefs observed us cubing apples to stew before spooning into circles of packet-bought puff pastry. Rightly they were flabbergasted at our outstanding proficiency with a knife and a chopping board, which saw their enthusiasm soaring to unforeseen heights.

We also made chocolate fondue, with dipping products including dried squid, fishy cheese, carrots and cherry tomatoes, which were annihilated by the locals like a pack of sugar addicted rabbits.

Most weekends, as I’m off for visits to various towns and prefectures across the country, fellow teachers will religiously, and without fail, pipe up – “You must try the udon.”

Kagawa, Okayama, Kobe, Kochi, pretty much everywhere is allegedly “very famous for its udon,” possibly one of the most used phrases in the Japanese vocabulary.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, udon is an oriental artform, and a lengthy and difficult process to master.

Take a bowl of water, add a stock cube and some thick noodles, simmer for two minutes and pour into a bowl. If you’re lucky you get a raw egg to crack over the top.

Another highly regarded dish is tempura. We treated ourselves to a pricey and lavish tempura meal in Hiroshima at a top end restaurant to celebrate the forming of new friendships during training week.

There’s not much scope to make a clear differentiation between cheap and expensively deep-fried microscopic slithers of vegetable, doused in enough batter to encapsulate a small child.

Needless to say we were left both lighter in the purse and terribly disappointed.

It is also frowned upon to err from what is expected when eating the poor man’s fish and chips. There is a strict regimental technique to devouring this delicacy. Rumour has it that dipping your food into condiments in the wrong order was once punishable by death.

Raw fish, pregnant fish, fly ridden spuds, I would choose a British Fry Up every time.