Report from Greater Tokyo

So I went to Nagoya yesterday. In the bar, I met up with a couple of Brits on a 2 week exchange courtesy of their Japanese car company. Somehow, I ended up as their host and translator for the night, which was no big deal, as they were reasonably entertaining in their own right.

One of them wanted me to translate as he was pulling this Japanese girl. At one point, he showed the girl his mobile phone and asked her to explain what the email he had received meant. Let's just say that if you want to pull a girl, showing her spam mail from sex websites is probably not the best way to go about it.

And the other one wanted me to tell the girl he was chatting to that he is a ladies' boy, not a lady boy. I must confess that what I did next was utterly mean and uncalled for, and though he will probably not read this, I'd like to apologise nonetheless.

So Osaka was fun, but expensive. I lost my wallet there, complete with an amount of money that bears a stunning resemblance to a telephone number and my bank book. The police and the bank have already been contacted, so no worries there, but barring a miracle, the cash is a write off.

I'm about to go to Osaka for a big get-together with some online friends, and it's snowing again. At least this little trip means I don't have to worry about heating for a day or two.

Bush in 30 seconds is a website listing the finalists of an online competition held to promote the dethrone Bush campaign for the coming US election. Good both for the political message and the entertainment value.

Enjoy.

So yesterday, kouchou-sensei at one of my schools had arranged to take me to this shrine in Ise at the southern tip of this prefecture. Going to visit shrines is a typical new year activity, and this is the local big one. So I was both disappointed and surprised to find that, although he wasn't working that day, I was. I ended up spending the morning at the town hall listening to the mayor give a New Year speech, then doing the rounds of wishing all and sundry akemete omedetou gozaimasu. Interesting in its own way, but I'd rather have been doing the tourist thing.

Just to make it even more disappointing, also in Ise that day, visiting the same shrine, and in fact on the same train as kouchou-sensei, was the Prime Minister of Japan, Koizumi. That would have been someone worth seeing, even if I couldn't get close enough to speak to him.

Oh, and we also had an earthquake today. Only 4 on the Japanese earthquake scale, nothing major. But, like everything else this week, it was centred in Ise.

If you've been wondering what the Beckhams, Britain's other royal family, have been up to, it is all documented here, along with all the other western stars who appear in Japanese TV adverts. Who'd've thought Harrison Ford would be reduced to selling ki-rin beer? Or Madonna for a particularly nasty spirit called shochu? Sylvester Stallone apparently sells ham round here. Arnold Schwarzenegger's page is particularly bizarre. Of course, I can't confirm any of this - I don't have decent TV reception where I am, so I don't bother watching it. This may be the excuse I need to get cable.