Raw Horse Meat

January is flying by, and as I prepare to enter my fourth month here, the days are getting brighter, bringing with them a cold northerly wind that chills to the bone, even through the thickest of coats. Japan, like most countries in the grip of winter, is at its least attractive right now, however the ever-lengthening days give hope that the optimism of spring may not be that far off. Anyhow I suppose I shouldn't complain, I'm warmer now after finally being forced into working out how to use the heating system in my apartment, having woken up one morning in horror, to find that a glass of coke beside my bed was starting to freeze! That said, I'm much better off than my students, who still have to wear shorts and a t-shirt all day long. It builds strength, or so they say.

A lot has happened since I last wrote to you all. Christmas and New Year for a start, and although overshadowed by the terrible events in south-central Asia, things carried on as normal here, with few people commenting on, or even seeming interested in the tragedy that had unfolded just a few thousand miles away; one that you could reasonably expect should resonate in the hearts and minds of all Japanese, given the number of earthquakes experienced here with alarming regularity. I guess they have become emotionally detached. It is very interesting however, to observe the impact that the media has on how people view the world here, especially when I compare it to the way our media and also our viewpoints, tend to be much more internationally focused. I guess it is one of the many differences between the world I am from and the one that I am living in right now.

Our quest for Christmas lunch was a little more difficult than I had hoped. Indeed there were so many advertisements for Christmas lunch, I was quietly confident of finding a delicious roast dinner. It depends apparently, on how you define Christmas lunch though, in Japan it seems the meaning is literal, i.e. it is what you have for lunch on December 25th. So, you could have "Christmas Salmon", "Christmas Prawns", "Christmas Sushi" and even"Christmas Cat" should you be so inclined. I was tempted to file a lawsuit on the grounds that all of these delicacies clearly breached any form of a global trade descriptions act. How could these dishes be called Christmas lunch? It was merely leading me on, lulling me into the false sense of security that a nice restaurant in Tokyo had been slowly roasting turkey, potatoes and vegetables for Claire and I to feast on come lunch time. Alas, outraged, hungry and disappointed, it was not to be, (and anyway I was worried that if I protested too hard, they might be serving "Christmas Dean"next year, so decided against said lawsuit.) We went to TGI Friday's instead and actually, the food was delicious. I had chicken cooked in a Jack Daniel's sauce served with chips, and for the first time in two months I was eating with a knife and fork again. Heaven! Christmas Day was strange though. The high streets and shopping malls were buzzing, people were everywhere and almost every shopkeeper was dressed as Santa Claus. The subway was bustling and believe it or not we couldn't find a seat on the train on the way home. Very different from turkey and all the trimmings followed by Christmas pudding, too many beers and an afternoon in front of the telly watching The Queen's Speech unable to move due to the enormous weight in your stomach. None the less it was an interesting change, and a lovely day in the end.

The New Year period in Japan was the complete reverse. A very quiet affair in which Japanese women are expected to cook enough food for the three day holiday period, prior to it beginning, and then serve it over the duration. Every Japanese woman I know was complaining that they had too much work to do and loathed the holidays as a result. I guess I felt kind of sorry for them. Determined to "fit in" however, and live the culture as much as possible, I suggested to Claire that she should get started. I got a toasted sandwich, a look of contempt, told we were going out for dinner and that I was paying. Well, it was probably for the best that I agreed because Claire had been brandishing a rather large kitchen knife at the time. All in all the holidays were great. We visited Shibuya again, the trendy area of Tokyo I wrote about in my first update. The hustle and bustle remained, and for those of you have seen "Lost in Translation" I got a photo of the giant neon giraffe that can be seen walking across the full height of a skyscraper outside the station. Additionally we visited the Toshiba museum, which was much more interesting than it sounds. On show was a 3-D cinema, a driving simulator, a machine that could send 10,000 volts of electricity through you without causing a quick, painful death and an exhibit on the next generation of trains they are building in Japan. This was actually fascinating and they did a demonstration of how they will use magnets to levitate a train about 30 cm above the ground and send it flashing across the country at over 500 miles per hour. Imagine, London to Aberdeen in 1 hour! The benefits of the system are that the only friction is air resistance and it uses liquid nitrogen as a power source, so is cheap and totally environmentally friendly. Furthermore, it is a bit of a dream of the Japanese to build a tunnel under the Pacific Ocean to run this train on. The idea is, if they created a vacuum inside the tunnel, one of these trains could travel so fast that a trip from Japan to the USA would take around 3 hours. The only problem with it is they can't work out how to get the train to stop at the other end, without crashing. Like most people, I would say that is a pretty major problem and probably should have suggested they contact South West Trains in England for advice on how they get their trains to stop; I guess the only difficulty would be getting it to start again. Fascinating anyhow, to see what they are trying to use this innovative new technology for.

There were many other adventures over the Christmas period, a trip to a sashimi (raw fish, on it's own with no rice or seaweed) restaurant and also some great sushi. The sashimi adventure was the best however. Basically we ordered this big fish and they set it out on the table totally raw. Then the waiter got a blowtorch and ran it over the top of the fish, uttering some scary Japanese words and making the outside crispy. Finally as soon as the "blowtorching" stopped, than fully having not been set on fire, we proceeded by squirting lemon over the sashimi and then eating. It was delicious, once I got over the fact that I was actually eating a raw fish. So as January ends, things are going well. I am adapting to the variety of weird and wonderful food on offer and McDonald's visits are now down to just two per week. I have mastered hiragana, one of the three Japanese alphabets,so can read, write and speak a little; I have successfully berated my mobile phone company to negotiate a 50% discount when they charged me an obscene amount last month, and my kids are getting better at English everyday. I have seven weeks left teaching in Japan, and I'm going to make the most of it, my adult class are going out drinking with me next week, and quite a few of them are interesting characters so I am sure I will have plenty more stories for you come my next installment and maybe, you never know, I may even have completed my New Year's Resolution by then - by trying something I would never have considered eating a few months ago, the Japanese delicacy of raw horse meat. We'll see.