I Came Here To Gloat, But Then I Forgot

So I started having another go at a book of cryptic crosswords today.

In the history of this medium I've managed in the order of five solutions.  Five solutions over hundreds of questions and dozens of years.  Not exactly making myself seem intelligent here.

But today I nailed one.  I intuited a question without any adjoining letters helping me.  I was on top of the world (yes, I really am that sad) and then I forgot my briefcase.

Now, before you say anything, it's not really a briefcase.  It's just an A4 wallet that happens to have a lid and a carrying handle.  It's not posh and definitely not leather bound.

What it is, however, is a recepticle for every vital piece of paper and or information that I own.  It used to hold (after today, I will ensure it no longer holds this information.  Not because having your stuff in one place is inherently bad, but this folder is now tainted with bad juju and must be replaced.) postcards for those back home, letters for the same, bank books and myriad other things that identify me.

I was uncontrollably angry with myself when I arrived home without my case.  I don't think I've ever felt the same sense of self-loathing at any other point in my life.  It doesn't help that the case also holds other personal items, stuff that represents a ton of work and other items that represent the irreplaceable personal items we all hold.  What an absolute idiot.

So today I'll go back to that place and try not to forget my own goddamned feet or something.  There will, even in safe old Japan, be some loss.  If it were England it would have disappeared never to be seen again, so at least it turned up at all.  But I'd be foolish to think there won't be any repercussions for my negligence.



Acquires vases, it's said:

Urns

In case you were wondering what the cryptic was.

The Trip from Minamisenju to Yokohama

So this particular post covers the night before I left minamisenju, to the day after I arrived in Yokohama.

It's worth noting that drawing money out here is really difficult!  If you have a visa card it's fine, but if you have a debit card like mine, it's nigh on impossible.  I have to go to the big post offices and draw money from their machines because the banks don't accept my card, and none of the normal atm's here do either.

Also, they only use cash here.  Unless you're buying a  car or some expensive tech, they use  cash.  Essentially drawing money out at atm's is important here, and I can't do it easily!  It's quite the pain in the backside.

On the plus side it means I don't tend to keep drawing money  out, and I think this helps me keep track of my finances.  I'll draw a certain amount out and say to myself, ok this has to last x number of days.  Quite handy in that respect I suppose.

So I arrived here desperately needing to pay for the rent in my new hostel, and it took me two hours to find an atm that accepted my card!  Really annoying.

So having found the atm I went and ate dinner with my university language exchange buddy, who came to hull for a month between her normal degree study, and her masters.  She's a biologist studying seaweed and algae and wahtnot.  It's all very clever stuff.

Ok so the pictures start with the night before I left minamisenju, and me and the girl who works behind the Aizuya bar in minamisenju went to eat some dinner, that took about four hours...  Taking your time is important to me apparently, I never realised this before.

Ok so we had 'western' foods tonight.  Pizza, pasta, that kind of thing.  I remarked that even the pizza is tiny and cute, then couldn't resist making a little face out of it.

Don't play with your food children!

Yeah we got some strange looks from the staff...

Then we added a nose...

I don't know why...


But it's fun I guess?

Ok so this is the Aizuya bar.  The woman working behind the bar also works in the adjoining hairdressers.

The people that work here are the best I've met so far on my trip; amazing and friendly!

I'm pretty sure the bar makes no money, it's just something to do for fun, and it shows with the way the staff talk to customers, and how easy it is to strike up a conversation with them.

Really nice people.

The woman on the right owns the hostel/bar with her husband, and they have the cutest baby ever.  It's this devious and cunning little blob thing that already knows how to break things and spend peoples money, in the coin machines they have around the place.

It's a shame about the picture really, but the lighting didn't allow for a very good photo.  If only I had a good camera!

Ok so I forced her to do the bunny rabbit ear/peace/v sign thing.  She works behind the counter in the new koyo hostel and is an amazing help.  She showed me how to get all around the place, and is just generally awesome.

She also bought me lunch!  Thank you very much!

I'll definitely head back to that hostel on the way back to the airport.

Ok so now we're in Yokohama.  My bags weighed too much to take photographs while travelling, but there really wasn't much to see anyway.

This tall, cool looking tower is on the coast of Yokohama overlooking the sea.  The cool thing is that this isn't particularly tall, there are buildings nearing 100 storeys that have obsvervation towers at the top, but this is probably only fifty or so, if that.

So many unbelievably tall buildings in Tokyo and Yokohama.

So I like this picture, even though it doesn't really have a story behind it.  All the birds are facing the same way, because the wind is blowing directly in the faces and when they want to take off, they simply hop off the edge and use the headwind to fly off.  Literally zero effort required!

Another view of the same boat.  Nothing more to say here really...

Moped modification...

You know you've taken it too far when you put a massive fin on the back of a moped to make it look like some kind of shark...

Big bikes are few and far between here, even on the motorways you'll see more harleys than sportsbikes, which again makes no sense.  Harleys work on american roads, but Japanese road are like English ones.

There are side-streets that have turns a harley would literally not fit around.  Bizarre.

Speak of the devil...

I've seen a few R1's parked around the place, and a few more 600cc bikes about the place, always parked.  Never ridden.

This cool looking structure is a hotel/apartment building overlooking the bay area.  It's gargantuan in all dimensions.  Most tall buildings are quite slender, but this thing is broad as much as tall, so you recognise it all over yokohama.

The distinctive curve reminds me of the gherkin, only this building is pleasing to the eye.

I really struggled  to get a good photo of this wheel.  It's substantially smaller than the London eye, but it's still a skyline dominating lightshow.  It's called the clock, and each spoke lights up like a second hand.  It also has a digital display in the middle showing the current 24hr time.  It's impressive.

Inside there's a log flume, as you do, and running around the area is a small roller coaster.  No I didn't go on any of them, my companion is quite timid.

Ok so now we're going to play a little game.

Guess what this shop is...

A little more will be revealed in the next picture...

Ok so there's no name yet, but the little figurines should give it away...

That's right!  It's a pokemon shop!

It's actually styled to look like a shop in the game, and has places to meet other pokemon players and trade junk!

It's a whole shop dedicated to a game franchise, frankly that's incredible and well worthy of a few pictures!


That's everything for this portion of the blog!

Time to Leave

So I leave on the 8th of next month, that's roughly (thinking...) a short time away.  But it's only a holiday, nothing particularly life changing or interesting for that matter.  I'll stay for however long my money lasts, or 90 days, whichever comes first.  Hopefully I'll find a job teaching while I'm out there, but obviously that's unlikely.

Two weeks and counting.

I've tried keeping blogs before, but my life is so boring that I never have anything worthwhile to write on them, so hopefully this will be worth checking out!  I wonder if I can add photographs and whatnot...