Stationery

I’ve always had a thing for pens.

When I was 16 I used to work at WHSmiths and spend my Saturdays listening to the inane ramblings of the Essex masses. It was the late 90s and they were inevitably dressed in the ubiquitous checked Fred Perry shirt or Juicy tracksuit, which was only halfway zipped up in order to expose as much cleavage as possible.  And most of the clientele that frequented the Lakeside branch were not that bright.

My finest moment came after listening to some woman of limited IQ rant for a full 12 minutes on how the Parker pen refill she was trying to ram into her pen was not fitting, and how she wanted a full refund because it said Parker on the packaging and this was a Parker pen, and obviously we were selling faulty stock, I decided to put her out of her misery. After she had drawn quite a crowd to the pen department with her flailing hand gestures and booming voice, I decided to clear the matter up as succintly as possible.

“I’m sorry madam but the reason it doesn’t fit is because you are trying to insert a ballpen refill into a cartridge pen”.

She stormed out, clearly embarrassed. I nodded at the remaining members of the public, who had formed a small crowd, to disperse. There was nothing left to see here. As you were Ladies and Gents.

I still get excited when I walk into a stationery shop in Japan, partly because a wave of nostalgia from the good old days sweeps over me as soon as I smell that combination of paper and plastic packaging but mainly because it reminds me of the sport we used to have winding up the intelligence impaired British public. And I still love shopping for the perfect ballpen. Of course the very nature of living in Japan means that choices in stationery stores are light years ahead of the UK. Which is very lucky really considering what happened at work last week.

In a move consistent with the redistribution of wealth in Communist Germany, my company in its infinite wisdom has decreed that any one employee is only to have one red pen, one black pen, one highlighter and one whiteout in their desk at any one time. I obviously thought I had misheard the Japanese, let’s face it my language skills are pretty lacking. But no. I realised that the pen police were on to me as soon as the “pen amnesty bucket” made it’s way to my desk as the first offender.

What can I say I like a lot of pens. And over the years I have accumulated a lot of company pens. And you know what I think I am entitled. It’s not like they feel it necessary to give me a bloody PC….but that’s another blog post.

The instigators of this ridiculous cost cutting exercise were however flumoxed when I decided to have a little fun with them. Much like I used to with the insane British customers who used to come to my till on a Saturday morning.

“So, this pen I have had since I was in Sapporo, and the cap is in Sapporo, so does this count as a Sapporo pen? Can I give this up here? Or do I need to send it back to Sapporo? Or shall I retrieve the lid from Sapporo and then give it in here? Yes, I know the end is all chewed and mangled but you did say we had to give up all of our pens for inspection…”

They didn’t know what to say, but quite frankly, neither did I. I mean honestly, I have to start BUYING stationery for work now?  How the tables have turned. I’ll probably be the woman ranting in the local store that I can’t get the rollerball refill to fit in the ballpen in a fit of hysteria because my company are, quite frankly, insane.

I’m back…for real

Fast forward three months and things have changed a lot. The dickhead has dropped the legal wrangle over the extensive damage caused to his bonnet due to my Japanese boss calling his bluff and pretending to know what she was talking about after having spent 45 minutes with a lawyer. You can hardly see the bruises on my side anymore. And I have finally got rid of the mangled wreck of a bike which stood outside my apartment for 4 months as a daily reminder that I had got hit by a car, and had to fight hard to avoid a completely unfair insurance judgement.

So I really am back. And maybe ready to blog about why the car hit me in the first place.

As usual when I behave recklessly, stupidly, and completely unlike myself, it often has something to do with a man. And this case is no different. I had just finished a hectic time at work and reached a deadline, and was riding my bike to an izakaya when it dawned on me that I had just let the best guy I had ever really met get on a plane back to Canada, forever, without really telling him how I felt.

And as I have told the dickhead cop who was screaming at me in the back of the ambulance, as he obviously thought that was a good way to get an answer as to the colour of the traffic out of someone with head trauma, I have no bloody idea what colour that traffic light was. It could have been purple for all I know. Or pink. I have no idea, because I wasn’t looking at it. I was thinking about someone entirely different.

So the dickhead backed down due to a very impressive fight from my Japanese boss and The Canadian came back to Japan, and I’m very happy. And apart from some minor issues involving jumping 5 foot when I hear car brakes screech, everything is great.

The whack to the head obviously put my priorities in order.

So now that’s out of the way I’ll be back shortly with a hilarious story about Japanese offices.

Crash- and very badly burnt.

I’m back. I hope you didn’t miss me.

 The reason for the extended hiatus of non Brit blogging has been due to the legal wrangle I have been in due to being knocked off of my bike by some 29 year old boy racer last December- who will henceforth be referred to as Dickhead for the reminder of this and all subsequent blog posts- at ridiculously fast miles per hour. After being flung in the air and cracking my head on fucking concrete, a shoulder that will I fear be slightly achy whenever it rains, and several CT scans it seems that I have to now pay for the pleasure. That’s right. I have to pay for dickhead’s car as well as my own medical bills and everything else.

 Technically I could just…not. But it’s safe to say that knowing my luck and knowing what a racist country I reside in, if it went to court I would end up with some judge so completely against foreigners and so racist that I would probably just lose out a lot more and probably be thrown into jail for time wasting.

Insurance is a horrible business in Japan- especially when you were on a bike and don’t have any because supposedly there is no fucking liability for bicycles in this country, however are being treated like you were in a car.

But obviously in this country a person’s CAR is more important than someone’s head. Luckily for dickhead there are lots of nice pictures of his car that detail the exact amount of damage caused to his bonnet and windscreen where he drove into me. I unfortunately don’t have any pictures of the extensive bruising down my left side or the massive bruise and bump that was on my shoulder.  And no one cares that dealing with this fucking insurance company has made me so ill through stress that I can’t eat and seem to have developed IBS.

I’m screwed completely. Because I’m foreign. This certainly wouldn’t happen in The UK and I know this would not be happening to me if I were Japanese.

Still. At least if I just pay this extremely large bill and give this total dickhead what he wants I might stop having nightmares about being hit by a car and might actually be able to get a good night’s sleep.

Classy

“So, where would you like to go for lunch?”, my best friend, who is unfortunately not gay, asked me on the phone.

“Well, um, you er, probably won’t er really want to but I….”

“Just spit it out Brit”, he said.

“Well. I could murder fish and chips”.

I didn’t see his reaction as we were on the phone, but I could sense he was simultaneosly rolling his eyes and wondering how to research fish and chip shop eateries in the vicinity of the Tate Modern, which is where I want to catch up with the bloke, who after meeting him on the first day of University, has been my best friend for 10 years despite the fact that we are as different as night and day. Or lunch at The Ivy as opposed to lunch at a chippy on Waterloo road… 

“Right”, he replied, muttering something about checking Time Out and how you could take the girl out of Essex, but you couldn’t take Essex out of the girl.

It’s great to be home. So great, that I woke up yesterday with the dawning realisation that 2008 is probably going to be my last year in Japan. As a good Australian friend of mine once said, “You’ll know when you are done”. And I think I am most definitely done if I am craving fish and chips to that extent.

Home

Well. I managed to make it back into the country relatively unscathed and in quite good spirits due to the excellent pain medication I am on. And mixing the tablets with copious amounts of inflight vodka.

It appears that due to the propsed BAA strikes, leaving the country won’t prove to be easy or fun on January 7th, but I guess getting stressed about that now is not helping me. Things can change in 2 weeks, but I am super pissed because it is affecting my vacation and I do have to get back to work after all. Ho hum. And who said Britain isn’t a great holiday destination. The best bit will be explaining the delay in getting back to work to my boss, I don’t think the concept of a strike will come across in a country where striking is illegal and transportation works efficiently and is always on time; acts of God aside that is. Fun fun fun.

The UK seems much the same as when I left it; a complete shambles (see above) and apart from the introduction of a pretty dodgy looking new 20 pound note that looks decidedly like monopoly money to me, not much has changed. My parents and friends have seemingly stoppped enquiring as to whether I am ever coming home, and people have actually asked to see some pictures of Japan. That generally never happens and I never foist it upon people as I dislike coming across as the expat that everyone hates, who makes their friends and loved ones sit through 500 odd pictures on rice planting in the Kyoto region. Not that I have ever been rice planting in the Kyoto region, but I aim to one day.

The best bit, of course, was reading the Christmas Round Robins, which my Mother saved as a way of cheering me up after I learnt of the planned strike action which will soon have me sleeping for days on end outside Heathrow.  I cannot understand why anyone feels it necessary to type up family news and stick it inside their Christmas cards. Surely if people don’t know this stuff it’s for one of the following reasons;

1) It isn’t bloody appropriate to tell the neighbours all about your sodding hysterectomy and they do not need a yearly round up of your medical appointments in a month by month, blow by blow, synopsis style bulletin.

2)The story about how you moved to Paris to become an artist after a brief but boring stint as a roofer in the Bedfordshire area is not interesting. To anyone. At all. Even if you do try to make it more interesting by writing it in the third person.

3) Really you might think that your kids are amazing, but let me tell you they aren’t. They are pretty average. I don’t care if you think that attaining all of the Brownie badges in her first three months as a Brownie is unheard of and she has been entered in the Guiness Boook of World Records as a result. No one cares but you. Get over it.

Still. In my Simon Hoggart way I use these excellent pieces of ammunition for a little games that traditionally we term “Guess that Saddo”, which involves me reading certain unintentionally hilarious snippets from the Round Robin updates, carefully removing all place and people names, and the teams have to guess the author. We then have an excellent tie- break round in the Blankety Blank vein if necessary to decide a winner.  Unfortunately word has spread that I do this every year, so we only received three pieces of comedy gold this year in with our Christmas cards, nevertheless I am positive there is a lot of scope for fun and frolics after Christmas dinner and before Christmas pudding.

It’s a shame you can’t be there because some of them are really funny. However, I will give you a sneak Blankety Blank preview;

“While he lay flat out in bed with a broken back I…………………………………………………..”

Answers in the comment box. Closest answer wins obscure and weird present from Japan. If I ever make it back.

Merry Christmas x

Crash

Well. I can look at the events of yesterday in one of two ways- there’s the pessimist’s version of the state of play of my life or the the optimist’s.

 I cannot be arsed thinking about it because my whole body hurts- even my hair, and lying as still as possible is still the most exertion I can put my body through.

I will however say that if I had to be hit by a car, it’s generally better to have that happen in a fucking country with decent pain relief. The pain relief here is non existent and I only have 6 Nurofen left, and whilst I am still planning to crawl onto the plane on Thursday if they let me fly, I think I may be in a bit of pain until then.

It’s just so fucking random in this country- the police were yelling at me as the ambulance pulled in to take me to hospital and I have absolutely no recollection of what happened other than I stopped at a light, went on green and bang the next minute was on the floor. With my bike to the side, and apparently I did a 360 degree turn in the air. The police I think were under the impression that I was drunk but obviously I wasn’t and I thought it was green. It’s not like I’m suicidal.

 Anyway, I guess I am lucky that I don’t have any broken bones, and that my biggest  problem is that I have no pain relief and have to talk to the police. Let’s hope that they don’t throw me in jail.

 That really would screw up plans for going home for Christmas.

Sapporo

For the past three years in Hokkaido, I dreaded impending snow. I don’t know why. The city certainly always looked better covered with the white stuff, yet the couple of weeks before it started always used to make me nervous. Once it began however, and the anticipation was over, I used to like it. Yeah, the slush stage towards the end was a royal pain in the arse, and I didn’t enjoy freezing my tits off walking back from the subway station at night, yet the thick fluffy white flakes falling outside formed a perfect backdrop to knitting inside in the warm and drinking coffee with one of my best friends. Cheese toast optional, but more often than not we ordered it.

 And now, well now I just cannot get my head round the fact that it is December 2nd, and still ridiculousy-I-do-not-need-a-jacket-much-less-a-scarf-warm. It’s retarded. I dread to think how hot summer will be if this is winter. Pass me the resignation form someone.

 This is not the only problem though.

I really, really, really miss Sapporo. I don’t hate Nagoya. I just never thought I would be this homesick for Northern Japan. I miss having the option of going to a familiar bar after a killer day. I miss my friends.  I miss having a life outside of bloody work. I miss having access to a fabric store.

 I hate to sound so negative, and that’s why I can’t blog at the moment, but honestly, if I could turn the clock back; I wouldn’t have come. I really wouldn’t have.

Insecure

I don’t have many female friends. Mainly because I work with far more men than women, but also because I’m apparently a bit of a bitch so most women hate me before they even really know me. I’m not going to change at nearly 28, I’m just going to have more male friends than female.

 And that’s fine because I like getting hammered with them and not having to talk about stuff like make up and pilates ad nauseum over beers. I’m just not a girly girl. I’ve tried- but I just can’t pull it off.

The only disadvantage to the multitude of platonic male friends I have, is that unfortunately they all have girlfriends who hate me. The Japanese amongst them are overly paranoid that I am in some way ready to pounce on their man and have my wicked way with them, and the foreign girlfriends of my male friends just inexplicably detest me.  I can understand that Japanese females are just pyschotic with little to no concept of “no really, I do not find your boyfriend in the slightest bit attractive and I’d rather shag Tony Blair than him, but I do enjoy talking to him about football over a pint”, but the foreign ones really should just understand that just because we go out and get wasted, does not mean I like them.

Case in point tonight when I met the girlfriend of one of my best friends for the first time. I have been feeling sick for the past two days, worrying that this chick is going to take an instant dislike to me. I was as nice as bloody pie and introduced myself to her, smiling sweetly all the time and saying that it was nice to meet her because I had heard a lot about her. The answer came back a cool “I’ve heard soooo much about you too”. Complete with huge frown and general look of pissed-off-ness.

Great. Another one who hates me because she thinks that I’m after her bloody boyfriend.

And she doesn’t even have the excuse that she’s Japanese so fully entitled to be a possessive psycho when it comes to her boyfriend hanging out with female friends. 

Women are so annoying aren’t they.

Over It

This post was intended to be a very lighthearted look into the practice of omiyage in Japanese culture and the significance of this tradition in the workplace- as I returned from my business trip recently to find my desk buried under a pile of gifts- I have however had too random a day to blog about anything else but the happenings of today so omiyage will have to be put on the to blog list for a later date.

To sum it up; endoscopy.

It’s always a bad day for me when I have to do anything medical, and by that I mean having anything done to me, or worse still having to sit and watch a medical procedure be performed on someone else.

I have been in both some weird translating and medical related situations during my time in Japan- having my wisdom teeth out, having a mole removed, splitting my head open and needing stitches- but nothing as random and weird as today, when my boss asked me to take someone to the doctors to translate an endoscopy.

That’s right. My boss thought I would be the best person to send for moral support and reassurance when someone is having a bloody huge tube with a camera attached onto the end of it shoved down their throat all the way to their intestine.

I faint at the mere sight of my own blood. I don’t even want to think about internal organs.

And so there I was suddenly in the midst of an endoscopy at 1pm this afternoon, trying my best to translate the complex instructions that the nurse was barking rapid fire at the poor colleague of mine who had just arrived in Japan and was probably wishing she was back in Brisbane.

Disgustingly, during this procedure you can see the inside of every part of the oesophogus and stomach, after which the doctor took the next left into the intestine.  I thought I was going to be sick myself when he fed the tube into her mouth- I think I was gagging more than the patient.

The doctor- who apparently thought I should be translating every single utterance down to the fact that the camera was “now entering the colon”-, kept pausing so that I could rephrase in English. He was concentrating on the screen, so was not aware of the fact that I was a deathly shade of pale and probably about to be sick at any stage. The nurse however could see that I wasn’t really down with the whole watching invasive surgery on the big screen, and was holding the patient’s hand yet staring resolutely out of the window, whilst saying soothing things that I really didn’t believe, like “it’s nearly over”, “you’re doing great” and “just a little bit longer”.

What can I say. I’m a big wimp. A traumatised big wimp.

Just blogging about it has made my knees go weak. I think I need a lie down.

Lost in Transit

It never rains but it pours.  Or in my case torrential downpours with intermittent intervals of sunshine, so just when you think that things are looking up and cautiously take down that umbrella, you get bloody soaked again.

 So just a quick recap on the events leading up and surrounding my life changing move to Nagoya, a place in Japan that has a lot in common with Communist Germany in that the tower blocks are grey and probably filled with asbestos, and which for blogging purposes will be affectionately termed henceforth “the shithole”.

I should have known that it was not going to be an easy ride the morning of my move. The night before had been my sayonara party, from which I had rolled in at 6am. I believe we finished drinking at 4, and in my absolutely hammered state it had taken me hours to ride a distance that normally takes 20 minutes tops. So I had had precisely 30 minutes sleep. Yet even by 8.00am there was a distinct lack of moving men action. My keitai rang and after a heated debate in Japanese, in which the moving company told me they were outside my place and I assured they weren’t as I was standing outside my flat and the only thing I could see was  my geriatric neighbour weeding his garden,  came the realisation that head office had sent the movers to my old place, 42k down the road….and so the comedy began.

And basically it has got more ridiculous ever since.

Even if I gloss over the fact that our General Manager is somehow under the misguided impression that I am fluent in Japanese and asked me to stand up and give an introduction speech in Japanese at a morning meeting in front of EVERYONE- to which I incidentally stood up, gave a big smile and bowed after saying “yoroshiku oneigaishimasu”, because if he wants a speech I need time to prep- and the unfortunate issue of having a sex crazed couple who are louder and more annoying than OCD boy cleaning on a Sunday morning, as my new neighbours; this week takes the biscuit for things just going wrong. Of course the universe is conspiring against me. Someone clearly has it in for me…because quite obviously none of this is linked to the fact that I am a complete muppet at times who clearly should not be let out alone.

So I went on a little business trip to Osaka this week. It wasn’t much fun but the takoyaki was bloody brilliant and I got to go to a branch of Next and get a pair of jeans that actually fit my huge foreigner-sized arse. So I was quite happy. Until it came to boarding the Shinkansen back to Nagoya that is. I was queuing up at the car 10 sign when my phone went off. My colleague who was still at work, had had some trouble locating some keys and was worried that I had mistakenly swept them up into all of my things and what’s more was just about to board a Shinkansen back to Nagoya with them. I was absolutely positive I didn’t have them and had put them back, but thought I should check. So. Out came everything from my handbag in a complete state of disorganised panic. No keys to be found. So something possessed me to root around in my suitcase. God only knows why seeing as I hadn’t opened it that day since I had checked out of the hotel at 7am. Somehow in the general rooting around, my shoes ended up out of the case and on the platform. And then the Shinkansen pulled in, and I was swept forward in a tide of Friday night commuters

This was about the same time as my colleague phoned to say that the keys were exactly where I was professing to have left them all along, and sorry for any inconvienience caused.

I of course only realised the shoes were on the platform as we were leaving the station, and informed the Lost and Found at the other end. The station attendants assured me that should they turn up, they’ll be put on a Shinkansen to Nagoya and I can pick them up there.

This doesn’t help the fact that I have no other suitable shoes for work. 

What’s the betting I’ll get them back?!