I am gaijin!

The control panel next to one of the loos in our apartment

I've never written a blog before so this is all rather exciting. It's now Thursday 8th September at 10am Japan-time and it's my second full day in this marvelous and strange country. Here's how it all began...


A few weeks ago I got a text message from Simon early one morning, which read "If I got sent to Japan for a year, could you come with me?" Didn't have to think too hard about the answer. I've been fascinated by Japan for many years now and have even been trying to teach myself the language (thus far with limited success, but there's nothing like a year's total immersion to speed up the learning process...). It was a dream come true to be offered the opportunity to live here and of course we both jumped at the chance. There followed several weeks of prevarication by Simon's company over various administrative points, meaning that our flights weren't actually booked until Thursday 1st September to fly out on Monday 5th...our challenge (which we chose to accept) was to pack up the flat and say goodbye to everyone, ready to move to the other side of the world, in 4 days. We did it, and arrived here bleary-eyed at 9.30 on Tuesday morning.

The fun really started after passing through immigration when I stopped to go to the loo. I was very excited to see my cubicle of choice was equipped with one of Japan's legendary robotic toilets so I started to press buttons on the control panel. Even though I had read about the many functions of these fascinating appliances, there's nothing quite like the actual experience of an impromptu colonic irrigation while sitting on the loo. I had also managed to get the control panel to conjure up electronic flushing noises, just in case I was doing something I didn't want anyone else to hear. I wasn't, unless you count trying to stifle a violent fit of the giggles. So violent in fact that I that I was unable to find the stop button for the squirter. A vicious circle (ring?!) indeed. Of course I couldn't just get off the loo because I had horrible images of the water jet hitting the ceiling, so just had to writhe around there for a while until I eventually managed to turn it off. I emerged somewhat red and breathless. Imagine therefore my delight when we got to our apartment and I discovered that our loos here also have many settings for squirting and rinsing, front and back directionality, powerful deodoriser, as well as an oscillating option and heated seats. The mind boggles, and exciting possibilities abound!

Our apartment is fantastic. It's on the main road in Shinagawa, about 5 minutes' walk from the station, from which it appears you can get a train to most of Japan. For some reason we've been put in a giant and beautiful palace. Sadly it's only temporary while Simon's company waits for someone very much more important to come out here. I'm going to be flat-hunting very soon to find us something a bit less pricey so we'll probably end up further away from Tokyo centre and nearer Yokohama. A harbour view would be nice... In the meantime, I think I've managed to use the space here rather well - there's a suitcase of mine in pretty much every room!

The rest of day one was taken up with finding lunch, and then a supermarket for essentials such as beer, coffee and gyoza. By the time 5pm came around we couldn't stay awake any longer so gave in to the jetlag and turned in. Of course this meant wide-awakeness at 2am so we had dinner and went back to sleep for a couple of hours.

Yesterday was my first proper day of ex-pat WAGgery. And it was fun. In the morning I mastered the supermarket where I bought, among other things, poccy chocolate, poccari sweat, giant tiger prawns, sake, and squirty butter from a tube! Very successful. Super-tasty ramen in a station-side restaurant for lunch, and then I set off to walk to Shibuya and have an explore in the afternoon. I'm not sure I'd really taken in the fact that Shibuya is about 6km from Shinagawa and, once I'd walked there (or thereabouts), I would have to walk back again. Added to this, the map I was using turned out to be less of a map and more of a very rough approximation of where the streets may or (as it turned out) may not be. And north on my map was in fact actually east in real life. I got somewhere near Shibuya...at least there were road signs for Shibuya at the point where I decided to turn around and come home again. In my 3.5 hour round trip I saw some amazing things - lots of lovely looking bars and restaurants, some scaffolding decorated with lanterns, a dog pushchair housing a very large bulldog who looked not at all in need of the mobility assistance he was being afforded. My favourite thing of the day was the t-shirt sported by an elderly gentleman outside a grocery shop that announced to the world "It's a kitten hittin' day". I haven't seen any cats since I've been here.

I love this country. It's hot, sunny, humid, smells wonderful, and is full of friendly people. My faltering attempts to speak Japanese have been greeted with interest, amusement, and general receptiveness. I think I've managed to navigate the etiquette chasms in an orderly fashion, so far at least. I've done a lot of smiling, nodding and bowing (all of which are also greeted with interest, amusement and general receptiveness).

Now it's time to get out in the sunshine and equip myself with the Tokyo equivalent of an oyster card. Once I have card, I will travel. Frequently and far.

Until the next time.....