Genghis Kong vs. Rikkyo University

The more astute among you may have noticed that haven't blogged for a while. I would cite the usual excuses, but I think we can probably skip that part and move on, okay?

It is June already - a fact which has taken me very much by surprise. I think by the time June has come around no one can pretend it's late Spring any more; it is most emphatically Summer now. In England, of course, Summer and June are synonymous with sunshine, barbecues, afternoons in beer gardens, bumblebees in the garden and all such idyllic scenes of British summer. Not so in Tokyo, I'm afraid, where Summer is a by-word for sweltering heat and humidity and June signals not the start of the barbecue season, but of the rainy season.

No, Summer is not Tokyo's finest season. The weather in Spring was extremely fine, but it's more-or-less downhill from here until September now. Nothing but rain, steam and heatstroke to look forward too for the next 8 weeks.

That's right, in only 8 weeks (actually, slightly less than 8 weeks) I shall be returned to England and celebrating a Birthday in the garden/park/pub/gutter (probably in that order). It seems extraordinarily soon now, although I must admit my feelings about that are mixed. I shan't deny that I am extremely keen to get home - I miss my family, my friends, my home and just being with my own people. My own sarcastic, cynical, bitter, alcohol-dependent countrymen with whom I have so much in common.

But despite my desire to be back on Her Majesty's soil, I can't help but feel that I have not yet achieved all that I set to in Japan. Indeed, I have achieved virtually nothing that I set out to, and i can't shake the feeling that my return home to England will be tinged with regret at having (as I see it) wasted a year of my life, not to mention a great opportunity to improve myself (and, of course, my Japanese). I don't quite know where it all went awry... When I first got to Japan I spent a lot of time with Japanese people - you may remember the IFL from earlier blog posts - but rapidly came to the conclusion that I didn't like them, so I basically stopped socialising with any Japanese people. Now, I'm not saying that I don't like any Japanese people, just that I don't much like the IFLs and I failed to find any better Japanese with which to replace them.

And so I came to socialise almost exclusively with Americans, which really does defeat the purpose of spending a year in Japan.

I went to Yokohama National University last weekend to drink with my mate James, and there I got a glimpse of what could have been. My university, Rikkyo, is an elite Tokyo private university with a very small student body. It owns an elementary school, a middle school and a high school which feed directly into it, and creates a student populace of incredibly sheltered, unworldly, small-minded, posh, rich Tokyoites with whom I can't find any common ground. They have such a sheltered, simplistic view of the world that conversing with them is really more akin to talking to children than university students, and in general I just find them infantile, shallow and uninteresting. Clearly, there are a few who are aberrations in this society of wide-eyed but tiny-minded children, and as far as possible I try to hang out with them, but overall my attempts to socialise with Rikkyo students have been largely unsuccessful.

Yokohama National University, by contrast, is a large state-funded university - neither elite nor Tokyo-based - and as far as I can tell is populated by a throng of rowdy drunkards, musicians, dance crews, bums and (presumably) a few serious students. In short, roughly what a student body ought to be. I can't help but feel that had I gone to Yoko Uni instead, I might have made more of myself this year. But there's nothing to be done about it now, and no sense in regretting a decision which was almost entirely out of my control. Besides, if I had gone to Yokohama I know for ceratin that I would have had no money and would have been living in the grottiest dormitories imaginable.

This is a picture of Yokohama University. Those signs say 'Tequila'. I think these men were associated with the Rock Music Society or something, and that's why they were selling me tequila. Or something. Either way, they were selling tequila with no shirts on.

You see what I mean? This university is clearly made for me! Alcohol and shirtless men? It's perfect!

Aside from my trip to Yokohama, my life has taken on a fairly mundane rhythm. It involves mostly going to school, going to the gym and going to karaoke. And eating. That's pretty much it. However, I have replaced variety of activities in my life with sheer quantity of the only four things I do. Except school - I still just do the bare minimum of school. But I go to the gym 2-3 hours a day, 6 days a week, I go to karaoke 2-3 times a week, for 5-7 hours at a time, and I aim to eat between 5 and 7 meals a day. By the time I get back to England I am going to be weirdly muscular and incredibly good at singing karaoke. I'm a little bit concerned about my rapid musculation - I find the idea of me being all ripped and muscley and what-not to be really quite disturbing. Check out my muscular back:


Sorry about the weird angle - taking a photo of your own back is rather tricky.

But anyway, if I keep working out at this rate for the next 2 months, there's a definite risk that I'll be getting rather buff by the time I come home. I don't think I'm mentally prepared for that.

Here's a picture of my 2 most stalwart karaoke companions. We've got some seriously deep three-part harmonies going on. You've never heard Kiss From a Rose or Can You Feel the Love Tonight sound so good.


Ummm... No homo, okay?

And here's a photo of my balls in a dude's face. Again, no homo.


And essentially that is what I've been doing recently.

Hope you all are well.
Write soon,
love

Genghis Kong xx.

Genghis Kong vs. 2008

Merry Christmas all, and Happy New Year!

*lots to catch up on: long post alert!*

I hope the start of 2009 finds all you lovely people healthy, happy and optimistic for the year ahead. As for myself, this year promises to be one of many challenges and opportunities, to put it as optimistically as I can. I will be going back to Japan in two days time and from then on, I will not see England's green and pleasant land until August: 7 solid months of hardcore Japtasticness. I have exams starting on the 9th of January, but once I finish my exams and hand in my final projects for the year on the 15th I'll have no more classes until some time in March/April time. During the intervening Spring Break I have a little skiing holiday planned, followed by extended visits from both my older brother and my parents. With a bit of luck I might injure myself horrifically during the skiing, so that when my family come to visit they will have to spend their entire time nursing a cripple.

I am back in lovely, lovely England - that most wonderful of countries where everything is bloody amazing and I am deliriously happy every single day. Nothing makes you appreciate home like spending 3 months in a different country. Well, spending 7 months in a different country will probably have the same effect, but 3 months was quite enough. It's the little things that you come to miss: pubs where people don't look at you strangely if you just want a pint with no food; saying "thank you" to the man in the shop when you buy a paper (in Japan this is considered very strange behaviour); holding the door open for someone (also considered somewhat deviant in Japan); reasonably priced beer, taxis and pub grub; Wi-Fi. All these simple, everyday things which we take for granted in England are either incredibly rare or considered strange and freakish in Japan. Returning to England every little thing is a new and exciting treat for me.

Of course, you also miss your home, family and friends when you are spending a long time abroad, probably more than you miss wireless internet, but that's to be expected really.

Oh, and cheese.

So, what do I miss about Japan when I'm in England? Well, I'm not sure if I really 'miss' much, but I suppose there are things in Japan which I will be glad of when I have them again. For example, my daily Fibe Mini - a fibre supplement drink that looks and tastes a bit like Irn Bru, without which, and thanks to the sudden dietary shift from brown rice and vegetables to meat and cheese, my daily motions have become increasingly traumatic. There's also the gym - the gym at my Uni in Japan is actually remarkably crap, low-tech and badly equipped, but it is on-campus and, most importantly, completely free so I actually manage to go pretty regularly. This will hopefully be a great help with my New Year's resolutions.

Speaking of which, it would probably be appropriate for me to put forth some New Year's resolutions. Usually they just float around my head vaguely and I can conveniently forget/ignore them as I fail them one by one, so I'll put them in writing this year. This way everyone will know exactly how I fail to live up to my own expectations.

This year's resolution, I suppose, is probably going to be the same one which I have failed at each year for the past 5 years: sort my life out. When I told this to Jethro, he told me that, as far as he could tell, my life seems pretty well in order and doesn't need too much sorting out. Upon further consideration I had to concede that this was probably true, and I do in fact worry too much about the state of my life. Nonetheless, there are a few key points about which I have long wanted to make some changes, so I suppose 'sort my life out' can be divided into the following sub-resolutions:

1. Study more, work harder, be less lazy
2. Drink less booze, less often and be less drunk all the time
3. Exercise more, eat properly, lose loads of weight

*Parents and family members: look away now*

4. Have more sex (perhaps a slightly strange New Year's resolution and not directly linked to 'sorting my life out', but hey, there it is)

So those are my New Year's resolutions, and they have been my New Year's resolutions pretty much every year for the last three or four years. Every year I make these promises to myself and, virtually without exception, fail at them all to varying degrees. This is probably because none of them are particularly easy, they are all very vague, and they pretty much require sweeping changes to all aspects of my lifestyle, so perhaps I ought to go for a single, simpler, more attainable and measurable resolution, for example:

5. Read a Japanese newspaper every day (while I'm in Japan)

Which is something I can actually conceivably achieve to some reasonable degree. So, actually, while I have certainly considered lots of New year's resolutions I don't actually seem to have settled on a single one to actually stick to. Oh well, I guess I'll just do my best. Or at least がんばります, which is almost the same as doing my best, but it actually just means 'persevere' with no implication that I will do well; just that I will continue struggling along even with no hope of success.

Right, now I'm going to try to tell you about all the stuff I've done since my last post, but my last post was 3 and a half weeks ago so this is going to take a long time. Also, as I can scarcely remember what happened 3 weeks ago, it might be a little hazy.

3 weeks ago I was still in Japan. Apart from a History exam for which I didn't study properly, but still expect to get at least 80%, the only events of note, as far as I can remember, were a couple of Birthday parties and a Christmas party. The first birthday party went along the usual formula - we went for a meal with 2 hours all-you-can-eat-and-drink followed by going to Hub, the English Pub (as usual). This party was pretty fun, but only really notable because of the fact that I actually succeeded at catching the last train home and finding my way successfully to my own bed without mishap.

The Christmas party was good fun too. There was a formal dress code at the restaurant (all-you-can-eat-and-drink for 2 hours) so I got to get all nicely dressed up in my smarts.

Here is a nice(ish) picture of me and my friend Kaleb


We both own pink phones and we work out together a lot. If I didn't know I wasn't gay, I would probably think we were gay together, but I know I'm not gay, so I guess we're probably not gay together after all. All the Japs think he's gay, and he gets very pissed off at them. His catchphrase is "I hate this frickin' country", so we have a lot in common. (Not gay).

My catchphrase, incidentally, is "God, what a dreadful country populated by awful, awful people."

The following day it was Byeolyi's birthday (one of the cool Koreans at my school). We went for Thai food (2 hours all-you-can-eat again, although this time only one drink was included), and I actually abstained from drinking altogether. Aren't I just the very model of temperance and moderation?

The next day was my last day of school. I had my history final in the afternoon, after which Kaleb and I went to the Centre for International Studies to check for the fourth time that we definitely didn't need to get a re-entry permit before we left the country for Christmas. We had each independently come to the office to inform them that we were going home for Christmas and ask them about re-entry permits on more than one occasion, and we had both been assured that no, we didn't need to do anything else or get a permit, it was fine, just come and let them know when we got back to the country. However on this occasion, the day before Kaleb was flying home and 2 days before I was to, they suddenly realised that, oh shit, actually we do need to get a re-entry permit before we leave the country, otherwise we invalidate our visas and won't be allowed back in.

Actually they weren't even as helpful as that. They just looked panicky and confused and said "Yes you definitely do need re-entry permit. Very important. What? You fly tomorrow? Oh, maybe you don't need one. Hmmm... It's okay, you don't need one. Should be okay. You be okay." Which was actually entirely not true. We very much did need re-entry permits, but the Japanese compulsion not to be confrontational or tell someone they have done something wrong obliged them to simply lie to us and say that we'd be fine. An entirely unhelpful way to deal with problems.

So, stressed and anxious about our re-entry permits, Kaleb and I proceeded to Hub, the English Pub for some conciliatory Gs&Ts (happy hour G&T still a pretty good price, despite the exchange rate). The more astute among you may be noticing a certain theme of Hub, the English Pub developing in this blog. I don't actually like the place all that much, and their beer is unfeasibly expensive (actually about normal by Tokyo standards, but extortionate by UK prices), but somehow we end up going there almost every time someone wants a drink, largely because their happy hour last for 3 hours and offers £1.50 cocktails.

At the Hub we rendezvoused with Haneul (Korean girl), Alex (American gay) and Alex's brother and friend of brother (American young people) and decided, after happy hour, to go do PuriKura which is basically fancy photo booths which take 'amusing' pictures of you and your friends. I might go into more detail on the subject at a later date but for now I'll just show you the finished product:


Believe it or not, only one person in this picture is gay. (It's not me).


Anyway after purikura we shook off the Alex and his harem, acquired an Australian girl, Tessa, and spent an amazingly pointless hour or two wandering around trying to find somewhere to drink, by which time Kaleb had sobered up enough to realise that he couldn't afford to drink any more, so we ended up just going to Wendy's for a burger. For some reason I felt compelled to order the Super Mega Wendy's Monster Burger or whatever it was called (basically a triple bacon cheeseburger type thing) which, to make it even worse, comes with a free upgrade to large-size fries and soda. I quickly realised that I did not want to eat this much burger and chips, but a misplaced sense of pride/honour/frugality/greed forced me to consume the entire meal, leaving me feeling extremely unwell.

*parents and family members: skip the next part*

It was at this point Tessa, who incidentally is the girl I asked out a couple months ago and was rejected by, asked me if I wanted to go round to her room to watch Love Actually, share a bottle of white wine and, quite possibly, spend the night. Presumably she had some kind of amorous advances in mind (or just thinks I'm gay), but I had literally eaten so much that I couldn't face it. I had somehow eaten my way out of pulling.

This is just another example of my extraordinary talent for not having sex. There have been a surprisingly large number of occasions when a woman I fancy has been trying to get me into their bed and I have somehow ended up accidentally talking my way out of it. It's like some kind of strange affliction. I think I might be under some kind of malignant curse, although I can't specifically remember pissing off any evil witches recently.

So I went home clutching my stomach and sat around thinking about how I could have got laid.

2 days later it was Christmas Eve and I was on my way home.

I realise that I haven't even got as far as me leaving Japan yet, and I've at least another two week's festive frivolities to fill you all in on, but I feel as though this post has been going on for an awfully long time, and as my tale seems to have reached a natural break, I felt I might just take a little break as well - It's hard work this blogging malarkey, you know. I started writing this at half five and it's now about ten o'clock, so I think I deserve a little bit of a rest, don't you?

I'll try to do another one tomorrow or, failing that, soon after getting back to Japan, to let you know what I did over Christmas (even though most of you, being my friends and family, will already know what I did over Christmas, as you were probably there. Still, it might be amusing for you to read about things you personally witnessed or even participated in from someone else's point of view).

But before I go, I shall deal with a question which a few people have asked me regarding the Japanese children's television program Pitagora Suicchi.

Hopefully some of you will remember the video I posted a while ago of various opening sequences for Pitagora Suicchi with the amazing marble rolling aparatus. Here's a brief reminder for those of you who missed it (sorry for the horrible sound quality):



Well, a couple of my friends asked me what the actual content of the TV show was: was it just half an hour of improbable marble rolling? Well, no. The show is made up of various short sequences which are very diverse and as far as I can tell the only thing they have in common is that they are all works of utter genius. Here is one of my favourites: The Algorithm March. I watch this almost every morning before school and I think it is the sole thing which enables me to cope with life in Japan.



I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.

Farewell all, and I'll hopefully be updating this again very soon.

Season's greetings and much love,
Genghis Claus

Genghis Kong vs. Gachapin

Lordies and Gentleforks,

I noticed today that it has been exactly two weeks since last I updated my blog, and that last post was not even a real update: just an amusing video of Japanese people being silly (they are so very silly), so I felt that I really ought to write something. More than that, I feel I owe you all an apology for keeping you waiting so long. I will try to make sure this little post is all you could wish for and more.

I have of late been somewhat troubled by two things in particular. The first is insomnia, or some kind of problem with my sleep pattern, and the second is the plummetting value of the Pound. I think I may have mentioned my sleeping problems before, possibly at great length, so I'll try not to go into too much wearysome detail, but in short I can't sleep. I lie down, I close my eyes, I even count sheep, but nothing happens. I seem to have forgotten some vital step in the going-to-sleep process, but I can't for the life of me work out what it was. I'll eventually drift off around 2 or 3am, then wake up several times, usually at 5, 5.30 and 6.30, each time thinking "hmmm, I'm pretty awake now, maybe I should just get up", but when my alarm clock goes off at 6.50 my only thoughts are "Bleeaaarggh. Mrrrrfffff? Hrmrmrmrmr fuck offfff..." and I wake up groggy, woozy, headachey and pissed off, which is not a great way to start the day.

No - that's not just a hangover. I know what I hangover feels like, and this is much worse.

In fact, my difficulty sleeping is driving me to the drink. Now, those of you who know me well will be aware that I was not a teatotaller before i came to Japan. I have been known to enjoy a drop of bubbly at Christmas, and sometimes even a shandy or two at the end of a long week. But recently I've been thinking "God I can't be bothered with another sleepless night and feeling shitty all day tomorrow. I'll just get drunk" which is not a healthy lifestyle or frame of mind. The fact is though, I feel better with a hangover but having slept well than I do when I haven't slept properly.

I've been thinking perhaps I ought to go and buy another mattress; my bed is spectacularly uncomfortable. I've bruises on my hips just from rolling over in the night. I think my futon might be stuffed with granite or iron filings.

And then there's the money issue. It's almost like there was some kind of global economic crisis going on or something... Basically, the value of the Pound is unimaginably low, especially when compared to the Yen which has remained relatively strong throughout the turmoil. 5 months ago £1 was worth 215 Yen. 2 months ago it was 185. Now it's around 140. That's a fall of 25% over 2 months, or 35% since July.

To put this in context for those of you not particularly familiar with Japanese currency, as long as I've been paying attention to Japan it has always been around 200 Yen to the pound, give or take. Sometimes it was a little more, sometimes a little less, but it was close enough. This made the calculations pretty convenient: 1000 Yen (the smallest note) was worth a fiver (our smallest note), so it all made sense and was pretty easy. 10,000 was £50. A 600 Yen pint was a £3 pint - pretty much average. Now a 600 Yen pint costs £4.28. Whenever I want to take out fifty quid, it costs me £71.50, not including the £1.50 my bank charges me for the privilege of using my card abroad!

Needless to say, this has caused me much fiscal consternation. Fortunately I have some money in Yen format, so I haven't actually had to use my Pounds too much, but I've not got many Yen left so I'm going to start feeling the rub pretty soon.

On the other hand, as my Father pointed out, this would be a very good time to start earning some Yen - exploiting the credit crunch to my own advantage - so I'm going to look into some English teaching work or something.

Aside from these two minor worries, however, the sun is shining, I only have one more lecture left this week, and all is pretty much well with me. I've been doing a fair amount of work, although I'm falling wa-a-ay behind with my Kanji - it turns out 60 kanji per week is rather more than i can realistically keep up with. My mid-term exams are all behind me, I've no major deadlines for 2 weeks, and I'm making progress with my Year-Abroad research project.

Also, possibly more significantly, I've recently been starting to feel like I can speak Japanese. Not especially well, mind you, but on the whole I understand when people speak to me, and they seem to understand what I say in response, so I guess I can speak Japanese... There's no other explanation for it.

I think that's all the 'serious' bit dealt with. No more real 'news' to tell you, except that I'll be back in 5 weeks and my cheese cravings are almost unbearable. Every day on my way home I detour to walk past a bakery where they are always giving out free samples of cheese bread - the typical sweet, spongey Japanese bread with a few meagre pieces of yellow and orange generic-factory-cheese in the middle. I also, once or twice a week, go to the food court underneath the Seibu department store and eat all the free samples at their cheese stall. Sometimes when I'm a bit drunk I buy a little pack of salami and smoked cheese, but apart from those three indulgences, there is no cheese in my life. They do have cheese in this country; in fact, at the fancy department stores they even have some pretty good cheese, but it's so gosh darn expensive that I can't bring myself to buy it. 150g of Stilton at the supermarket is 1,680 Yen, which is £12 at today's exchange rate, and there's no way I'm going to pay that much for a piece of cheese. Even the cheap crappy Japanese cheese is 400+ Yen (£2-3) for 100g.

Now, on to the important stuff. Let me start with the Shelf of Tat. You will be excited to know that the Shelf is positively groaning under the weight of Tat arrayed upon it. In fact, some of the older Tat has been pushed back slightly to make room for the newer Tat.

So, to introduce the new ones, and refresh your memory on the older ones, let's do a quick roll-call, left to right.

1. Battleship Yamato beer mug
2. Daruma
3. Talks-just-like-your-father SoftBank Dog
4. *NEW* White dog with your Father's voice
5. Sexy Dr Pepper can
6. *NEW* Minnie Mouse ears
7. *NEW* Bag of Yen
8. *NEW* Mickie and Minnie shot glass
9. *NEW* Singing employment mouse
10. Gachapin

That's right: there are 5 - count them - 5 new additions to the shelf of tat. Lets take a closer look at this motley bunch.

You all remember the talks-just-like-your-father SoftBank dog, right? With classic one-liners like "You are too young for that!" who could forget? Well, I am proud to introduce to you one of the finest pieces of tat I have found so far: a really naff plastic rip-off of the SoftBank dog! That's right, this isn't just a smaller version of the talks-just-like-your-father SoftBank dog, this the 'white dog with your father's voice', made by the White Dog Company. I won it in a 100 Yen UFO-catcher machine (took me about 6 tries, so the little bastard cost me about £4). It even comes complete with naff crappy rip-off pieces of fatherly advice. (Look back to September's post, 'Genghis Kong vs. the SoftBank Dog' to remind yourself of the nuggets of unfiltered fatherly wisdom that the original SoftBank Dog dispensed).

White dog says:
ボイズ・ビー・アンビシャスだ！
Boys be amitious! (he just says this in English but with a Japanese accent, so it comes out as boizu bii anbishasu)
コラ！
Look!
意思が弱い！
Your intention is weak!

And other crappy bits of nonsense. Well, he used to say those things. His battery is already dead.

SoftBank Dog says: "That's quite enough of that!" and I think he's right.

The Minnie ears are from DisneySea (like DisneyLand, but wetter), which I went to a couple of weeks ago. They were lent to me by Lisa (one of the Japs), so I wore them all day with everyone laughing at me. Here's a picture of me modelling them with Yumiko (Dude! Chick! Hot! Bang! Totally!!!)
I believe this is what the Japanese call 'kawaii'.

Lisa says she wants the ears back.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

No.

The bag of Yen came free with a bottle of tea I bought. Well, the bag came free. I had to provide the Yen, unfortunately. A bottle of tea had a strange small item attached to it, so I bought it out of curiosity. The small soft 'free gift' turned out to be a tiny (about 3" square), see-through yellow drawstring bag with a picture of Rilakkuma (Relax Bear. Rilakkusu means relax, kuma means bear. Rilakkusu + Kuma = Rilakkuma. Genius) on it. How utterly pointless, I thought at first, but then I realised that my pockets, desk and floor were overflowing with another achingly pointless item: 1 Yen coins. So I put my 1 Yen coins in the bag. Problem solved.

Minnie and Micky shot glass. Another souvenir from DisneySea. For those dark, dark times, when the only thing that can cheer me up is shots of gin and a picture of Mickey Mouse.

Finally there's the singing employment mouse. I can't quite remember where I got him, but if you squeeze his belly he tells you to go get a job.

Well, not exactly, but it sounds better if I tell it that way. If you squeeze his belly he sings a little jingle which goes "If you're looking for part-time work, go to Baitoru.com". It's very irritating, and mind-numbingly catchy, and just thinking about it has got it stuck in my head again. Oh... God... Make... It... Stop...

So those are the new contestants in the international Tat parade. I'd like to make a brief mention of Gachapin though. Gachapin, if you remember, is the one who says that giggling is good for your balls. It turns out he's some kind of Tom Cruise-esque action man super hero. And he has a friend who is a red yeti called Mukku. Here's proof.



How fucking cool/ridiculous is that? I particularly enjoyed the bit at the end where he's burying a corpse... and then the freaky magnet people?

*sigh* Somehow I can't help feeling that I'm more of a Mukku than a Gachapin...

So what kind of fun stuff have I been doing for the last few weeks? Well, briefly (because I've been at this post for about 2 hours now), Simon (coursemate from Sheffield) came up to Tokyo for the weekend, which we used as an excuse for a larger Sheff-crew gathering. All told Me, Simon, Jimmy, Morrell, Lisa, Rachel, Katherine, Evie, Ildze, Morito and a couple of Catherine's friends whose names I sadly can't remember met up (apologies if I missed anyone out there). Food and booze was had with much merriment. There was also Karaoke and a Curry, I can't quite remember in what order these events occurred.

Simon stayed with me the first night, and we had a day of doing some low-paced sightseeing which was nice. We had Okonomiyaki for lunch.

The one on the right is the one I made. The one on the left was Simon's...

In his defence, mine was an okonomiyaki, ans his was a monjayaki, so we were working from rather different recipes, but I'm still not entirely convinced monjayaki is supposed to look like that...

We then went up the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building,

Which offers a very fine view of Tokyo,

Although it was a little too hazy to see Mt. Fuji.

Then there was DisneySea. A really fun day out, but the rides were all rather tame (well, it is for kids after all) and it was pretty expensive. There are tons of photos of it, but I can't quite be bothered to upload them here. If you've ever been to a Disney resort before it looked just like that. If you've never been to a Disney resort before, just imagine a 3D Disney film with me in it. The photos should make it on to Facebook eventually.

At some stage later that week I went out to the English Pub. The Fish and Chips are pretty rubbish and the beer is very expensive, but cocktails are cheap and it looks like a pub, so it makes me feel at home. This started out as a pretty low-key, low-drunkenness event, just me and three Japanese girls (dudechickhotbang? Totally!), but more and more people turned up later on and I ended up in a fairly disgraceful state of inebriation. Happy hour is 4pm until 7pm, and all cocktails are half price. That makes it about £2 for a pint or so of G&T. Not good G&T (no ice, no slice), but a pint of it.

Here's me earlier on in the night (don't let the blurriness of the photo or the droopiness of my eyes fool you - I was pretty sober).



Then the other Gaijin turned up, and the Japanese people questioned my abililty to drink a litre of beer.

(Wilko, I drank this and thought of you)


Then I was quite drunk.


Then... well... I don't know to be honest. I like to think I was playing peek-a-boo with a child under the table. Or demonstrating the brace position for a plane crash. Hopefully not crying.

Actually, I think I might have just hit my head. That seems the most plausible explanation. That would also explain the headache I had the next day...

Onwards and onwards and I've been at school, studying hard. I've started going to the Gym (I've lost about a stone, I think, which is nice). Yada yada yada.

Believe it or not Ive been writing this thing for about 3 hours now, so you'll forgive me if my patience is starting to run out.

I've also written an article for Article (my friend Dunmore's magazine that he prints in Sheffield). Keep your eyes peeled for it in paper format if you live in the Steel City, otherwise there will be an online edition at some stage too.

I have to go now - my vision is starting to blur and I'm starting to suffer from typist's headache, not to mention diarist's ear and blogger's ballbag - but before I do, I would like to leave you with a few more words from Gachapin. In fact, a whole song from Gachapin. It's called Tabechauzo (Eat it up!), and I find there's something amazingly creepy about it.

Lyrics in Japanese:

たべちゃうぞたべちゃうぞ　いたずらする子はたべちゃうぞ　　

バターたっぷりぬりつけて　お砂糖ぱらぱらふりかけて　　

大きな大きな口あけて　食べる子どの子　どの子にしようか　　

じゃんけんぽんよ勝ったら食べろ　負けたら逃げろ

　

たべちゃうぞたべちゃうぞ　おなべにゆでてたべちゃうぞ　　

頭の方からなげこんで　まだまだぐらぐらぐつぐつ　　

おいしいスープのできあがり　食べる子どの子　どの子にしようか　　

じゃんけんぽんよ勝ったら食べろ　負けたら逃げろ

　　

たべちゃうぞたべちゃうぞ　眠ってる間にたべちゃうぞ　　

おもちゃ大事にしない子は　壊れた自動車汽車怪獣　　

仕返しやってくる夢の中　食べる子どの子　どの子にしようか　　

じゃんけんぽんよ勝ったら食べろ　負けたら逃げろ　　

じゃんけんぽんよ勝ったら食べろ　負けたら逃げろ

Lyrics in English (I can only be bothered to translate the first verse):

Eat it up! Eat it up! Naughty children eat it up!
With butter spread thickly on it and sugar sprinkled on top,
Open your big big mouth - which child will eat it, which will it be?
We'll rock, paper, scissors for it: if you win, you eat, if you lose, run away!



God that was creepy.

I've got some other stuff I might like to write, but I can't be bothered right now, so hopefully you won't have to wait quite so long for the next post.

Let's making happy! You are number one biggest friend and always filling your love!
Genghis xxx

Genghis Kong vs. Tokyo University Baseball Team

Go team!

Everybody ready now? Sing it loud!

St. Paul's will shine tonight,
St. Paul's will shine!
St. Paul's will shine tonight,
St. Paul's will shine!
The sun will go down
and the moon will come up
and tonight St. Paul's will Shine!

Go-o-o-o-o-o-o RIKKYO!

I went to a baseball game on Saturday, to support my university's team (Rikkyo University, also known as St. Paul's University) against Tokyo University. It was absolutely awesome. Aside from the actual baseball (which was pretty good, actually. It's not such a bad sport after all) the cheerleading squad was absolutely berserk. I mean, of course, there were pretty girls in little shorts waving pompoms, but it was the cheerboys which made the most lasting impression on me. Now before you all go off thinking I've turned gay, let me show you a little of what I'm talking about - this was a relatively sedate moment in the cheerleading proceedings:



As I say, this is not them at their most crazy - this was pretty early in the match, nothing had really happened yet. You should have seen them when we scored!

So it was a truly fascinating experience - at first the cheerleaders were just so loud and crazy that I was scarcely aware of any baseball going on. Also, all the cheers are in Japanese, and everyone is expected to join in, but of course I don't know any of the cheers or songs so at first it was deeply confusing and, honestly, quite terrifying. Not to mention slightly embarassing - the only bits of what they were shouting that I understood were "Okay everybody, let's really make some noise! 1, 2, 3..." and then they'd shout something I had no idea what, and look at us (all Gaijin where we were sat) expectantly, as if to say "why aren't you cheering?".

Gradually though, I worked out what *most* of the cheers were (still no clue about the songs though), and once I had worked out what they were saying I also realised that they were actually cheering in response to events happening in the game, so i was able to follow the cheers and the baseball simultaneously. I don't mind admitting that I possibly got slightly too into it - jumping up and down, screaming and hollering. They gave us all purple megaphone/noisy cone things when we went in, and by the time I came out mine was hopelessly mangled from over-vigorous clapping, waving and punching the air. I probably should have kept it for the shelf of tat.

I think I might have to start going to these things regularly. All I need now is to pick a professional team to support, then I can go to baseball all the time! Also, this has given me a new ambition for my time in Japan (I'll add it to my mission statement later): to become a cheerleader! I think it would take rather a lot of training though - those crazy bastards didn't stop for 2 1/2 hours - screaming, running around, shouting, waving their arms, shouting, waving flags, shouting... It was mad, and more than little bit frightening.

On a totally unrelated topic - I just ate one of the finest beer snacks I've ever encountered in all my days. I had a stick of spicy salami with little pieces of cheese inside the salami! They've combined 2 of the finest foods available (I combined that with the finest beverage available) to create something truly awe-inspiring. Verily, my friends, this is indeed the land of the future.

Ah... cheese... how I miss thee. Sweet yellow maiden of the curds, how richly and tangily you play across my beer-soaked tongue... Oh, but that I had the money I should dine upon your delights daily, but no. It cannot be. For your prices here are grossly inflated beyond even those of The Fine Cheese Co. and I shall have to content myself by listlessly wandering the food courts of high-class department stores, subsisting on nought but the meagre morsels proffered me on cocktail sticks by nubile young Japanese cheese-maidens. *sigh*

Yes, cheese here is obscenely expensive - £8-£15 for about 100-150g of decent cheese? I think not. Why would you spend so frivolously on cheese when you can buy packets of dried squid strings or pig's ear cartilage for less than a pound?

Damn this country and it's freaky beer snacks.

Okay - what else have I got for you...

Ooh! Shelf of tat! I've got a new addition!

I won it from a UFO catcher machine (one of those robotic-crane grab-a-stuffed-toy machines) at the bowling alley on Saturday. I didn't know what it was. I didn't even want it, particularly, but it was really close to the edge and loads of my friends were trying to get it. I finally knocked it off, so I get to keep it. Ha!

(The Battleship Yamato beer mug isn't in the picture because I'm drinking from it, I'm afraid)

This is its little label, which says that it's called Devi Gachapin, it's a Super Deluxe Lazy-Style Soft Toy. The red thing is presumably his friend, and is called Devi Mukku. Devi Gachapin has a little speach bubble which says うふふ、たまにはいいな～.This means "it's good to giggle once in a while", but I think it can also be read as "giggling is good for your balls". Perhaps that's just my dirty mind, but I like it better that way.

I'm kind of sleepy, so I'll run through the rest of my news as swiftly as I can be bothered. On Thursday night I went out for conveyor-belt sushi. They had some whale on the menu, so how could I possibly not have ordered it? Whale meat is very definitely meat. Not Fish. It's dark red and fibrous, and looks like well-hung steak. The texture is soft but slightly stringy and the taste, well, to be honest, it came with a big heap of grated raw ginger on top of it, so i couldn't really tell, but it was good. I will order it again.

Friday was also pretty fun. I went and caught a Kabuki play with Lars (Danish guy). Photography was forbidden in the theatre, but here's a photo of the theatre itself, which is nonetheless pretty cool, and a poster outside which tells you which actors are playing there.


Kabuki was cool, but I was too stingy/though too much of my own Japanese ability to bother buying one of the English language commentary earpieces, so i had very little idea of what was going on. Fortunately Lars did buy one, so he was able to fill me in on the plot details. I won't bore you with all of them, but, of course, like any good Japanese love story it had a happy ending - He was executed, She killed herself.

After Kabuki we went to one of my favourite places in all of Tokyo - しょんべん横町　(Piss Alley). Piss Alley is a couple of tiny sidestreets just 3 minutes walk from the busiest train station in Tokyo in within sight of dozens of enormous skyscrapers and business districts. Everything nearby is glass and steel and massive and worth billions, and yet Piss Alley persists; 2 tiny sidestreets lined on both sides by nothing but incredibly small Yakitori shops. Yakitori is essentially little bits of chicken on a stick, grilled over an open charcoal fire. It's among the finest foods the world has ever produced. It also goes extremely well with beer, so what's not to love?

Me and Lars had some chicken, and lots of beer. Then we each had a bowl of the shop's "speciality" stew. It was a very spicy broth which had floating in it lots of Konnyaku (a kind of grey jelly made out of the heads of bullrushes), chicken kidneys (I think) and something which was either tripe or just big pieces of chicken skin. It was a disreputable looking agglomeration of off-cuts and flotsam, but somehow it was actually really good. Here are some photos.

Me enjoying yakitori.


This was literally the entire shop.


And this is Piss Alley itself.


I think Friday ended up with us going into some bar near where we live only to find it was populated entirely by old Japanese women singing Karaoke. Undaunted, we stayed for a beer and sang some karaoke with them. I was awesome. I mean, seriously, I was absolutely fucking awesome. I think I'm so good at karaoke it actually takes the fun out of it sometimes.

Saturday was baseball, upon which I have already spoken at length. That evening we went for a drinking party with the Japanese members of the college of business. It was cool, but I'm still (still) struggling with this whole chatting-with-Japs thing. They're just a little difficult to approach. It's awkward. I've come to the conclusion that my Japanese isn't actually that bad (I have this bar I go to when I'm really drunk to practice my Japanese - I'm so good at it when I'm drunk!), but I still find it a bit awkward to talk to them. I think they're just not very good conversationalists. Whatever - it's definitely their fault and not mine. Definitely.

Now this is the bit I really don't understand. We had a drinking party and a meal. We had all-you-can-drink for 2 hours and lots of food all for £15 (pretty good, no?) but that finished at 9, and then we went bowling and everyone stopped drinking! I don't get it. Surely you would bowl first (while sober) and then get drunk. And if you're at a drinking party where you can drink all you want for 2 hours, why would you then go to do a sport (not a real sport) which requires you to be sober and not to drink? I don't get it. People here are crazy.

Everyone went clubbing after, but clubs in Japan are really sleazy and expensive, so I wandered off to my friendly bar on my own where I got into a discussion (in Japanese) about the nature of race and prejudice and how the old-fashioned white/black/yellow division is really very outdated and inaccurate. I guess i must secretly be able to speak Japanese, but it doesn't come out until I'm really drunk. Incidentally, it wasn't me that described Japanese people as yellow, it was the Japanese guy I was talking to. It took me a moment to work out what he was saying, because Yellow in Japanese is the same word, but it comes out as "ieroo". Damn Japs with their crazy moonspeak.

Gah. That's just about all the bloggery I can manage right now. I think it's a pretty decent offering though. Should keep you all happy for a little while.

I'll leave you with this: There is a children's TV program in Japan called Pythagoras Switch (or Pitagora Suicchi, in Japanese) and this is a compilation of its intro sequences, which are amongst the best things ever. All of them are made for real, with no digital trickery whatsoever. If you YouTube "Pythagoras Switch" you'll probably find loads more, many of them made by tiny Japanese children. Enjoy.



Hot hot sex,
GengaGenghis

PS. I'm sure I was going to write a PS. but I've forgotten what it was going to be.

PPS. Oh yeah. Thank you all for your concern - my eye seems to be better now. I think possibly spending too much time at my computer was the trigger of this attack of twitchiness.

PPPS. Keep commenting! I can't tell you how much it means to me. I die a little inside every time I log to on and there's no new comments.

PPPPS. GOOD BYEB!

Genghis Kong vs. Bodhidharma

I went to Sensouji temple in Asakusa the other day (classes haven't started yet so I've got quite a bit of free time for sightseeing/drinking). Sensouji is one of the oldest temples in Tokyo (it's probably not actually old - everthing old in Tokyo was destroyed during the War - but it's a recontruction of a very old temple) and it is famous for the long avenue leading up to it which is lined on both sides by small stalls and vendors selling tat to tourists and idiots.

This is actually very traditional. We all know the Japanese love being tourists and love buying tat, and apparently this has been the case for centuries and there has always been a market for selling naff little souvenirs to happy Jappy tourists.

So I bought myself a Daruma doll. <history lesson> Daruma is the Japanese name for Bodhidharma, the Bodhisattva who founded the school of Zen. He is often (falsely) credited with introducing tea to China. Daruma dolls are popular lucky charms in Japan to help people achieve targets, goals or wishes. </history lesson>
Here he is, looking all grumpy on my shelf, staring at me disapprovingly.



The more astute among you will observe that he has only one eye. This is how Daruma dolls work - when you buy them their eyes are white. When you make a wish/set yourself a target, you colour in one eye and when you achiece that target you colour in the other. Mine is a boring wish - that of learning 1325 Kanji by February (63 Kanji a week!) - but I like his silly face so I decided to show him to you all anyway.

While at Sensouji temple I decided, upon further reflection, that in fact my phone was not nearly gay enough at all, so I decided to invest in some small dangly things to hang from the back of it (this is what japanese school girls do, I believe).



From left to right you have a large red lantern, a small pink thunder god and a small blue wind god (these three guard the Tenmon Thunder Gate at Sensouji Temple), followed by a glass of beer and some yakitori (chicken on a stick). If you look closely, you can also see a can of Asahi reflected in the shiny shiny pink of my shiny gay phone.

In terms of what I've actually been up to since I got here, there's been a lot of orientation meetings, registration meetings, filling out of forms, applications for insurance and other fun things. These have, of course, been interspersed with the violent outbursts of drunken rage and uncensored eroticism for which I have become so famous (and loved).

I've decided that most of the internationals aren't actually that bad (a couple of them really are that bad), but I think I definitely need to go and find myself some Japs to hang out with. This weekend I'm planning to go down to Yokohama to visit my friend Lora who I met when I was in Japan 2 years ago, and hopefully there'll be lots of friendly Japs down there for me to befriend/intimidate/interfere with.

Classes start on Monday, which I'm actually quite looking forward to, but until then I've got most of the week off. I don't quite know what I'm going to do with myself for a week. I can't get drunk (all the Internationals frown on excessive drinking outside of the weekend, so I've no one to get drunk with), so i might have to do some sightseeing or something. Or maybe even studying, although that doesn't seem likely.

Actually this brings me on to another point, and an opportunity to get some audience participation into the blog: I now have a pretty good idea of my timetable for the next 5 months, and it features 9am lectures 5 days a week, but not a lot of other lessons. This means I'm going to be awake with nothing much to do a lot of the time so I'd like to open up the floor to suggestions of good hobbies i could take up. Some suggestions I have come up with so far:

• Become a really bad otaku (Japanese for geek - it involves reading a lot of manga, watching a lot of anime, watching a lot of hentai, socialising very little etc.)
• Become an intensely self-destructive alcoholic
• Become a pachinko addict (pachinko is very confusing Japanese gambling game-thing, a little like pinball crossed with slot machines crossed with epilepsy)
• Take up a sport (PAH!)

Any further suggestions would be welcome, as I'm not convinced I like the sound of any of these.

I guess i ought to show you some pictures of Tokyo, rather than boring pictures of crap in my bedroom so here you are:

Sensouji Temple (and the boulevard of Tourist Tat leading up to it)







My School



Some views of Tokyo at night (Shinjuku and Ikebukuro East)










There you are: photos. I hope you're happy now.

I've also been practicing for karaoke a lot. Somehow I've managed to be in Japan for pretty much a whole week and I still haven't done any karaoke. I need to sort that out. But anyway, I decided it would be a good idea to learn some Japanese songs for karaoke in Japan. The first is a very old Japanese song, and the only Japanese language song to make it to number 1 in America. The second is some recent J-pop tosh, but out of all the recent J-pop tosh i could be bothered to listen to, this was among the best. It's dead hard to sing though.





Unfortunately I'm not really allowed to sing in my room because the walls are so thin and someone might be trying to sleep next door, so I've been practicing karaoke-whispering. We'll have to see how it goes down when i try it out at full volume.

Right. I'm getting bored of writing, and no doubt you're getting bored of reading, so i'll call it a night.

Many thanks to Jimmy here for finding me a seriously awesome theme tune to sign off with:

Dsching-, Dsching-, Dschinghis Khan
He Reiter - Ho Reiter - He Reiter - Immer weiter!
Dsching-, Dsching-, Dschinghis Khan
Auf Brüder! - Sauft Brüder! - Rauft Brüder! - Immer wieder!

(Geng-, Geng-, Genghis Khan
Hey rider - Ho rider - Hey rider - ever further!
Geng-, Geng-, Genghis Khan
On brothers! - Drink brothers! - Fight brothers! - Again and again!)



Love and love,
Genghis

Genghis Kong vs. Rob da Bank's Underwater Army

I have just got back from my weekend at Bestival on the Isle of Wight. I have come home a day early for a number of reasons, first among which is that I need to sort my life out before I go to Japan. Also, by coming home a day early I get out of having to clean out, put down and pack up the tent. Ha.

Bestival
Festival: 9/10
Weather: 2.5/10
Overall: 7/10

As you can see, the weather was a significant factor in reducing my enjoyment of the weekend. Having said that, I really ought to be grateful that it wasn't raining when we were putting up the tent, and also that our new massive 8-man behemoth tent was really pretty good, and I managed to keep my bed dry-ish. It really did piss it down though, for at least the first couple of days.

We got there on Thursday after a pretty long bit of travelling (longer for the Liverpool and Sheffield contingents than for me) at a moment when it wasn't raining, and just as they opened the new campsite right next to the festival entrance, so our timing was perfect and we managed to get a spot at the top of the hill and get our tent up before any rain fell. The first night, as far as I can tell, was spent mostly having a bit of a drinky drunky game, although I don't remember it too well. We definitely went off to the Big Top for a bit of a dance, until we realised that there weren't any acts on and we were just dancing to a CD which was repeating itself every 8 tracks or so.

After a pretty damn soggy start, Friday was my real grand evening of excess and wild abandon (for which I suffered dearly the following day) and we went to see Layo and Bushwacka! (I'm pretty sure the exclamation mark is officially part of his name, and not just added by me out of enthusiasm) and Erol Alkan. Layo and Bushwacka! played some really good deep, deep rolling techno and Erol was pretty good but didn't particularly blow my mind. Later there was an extended after-party at our tent because it's massive. (This is the main downside of having a massive, sturdy, dry tent - everyone uses it as a lounge, bar, emergency bunker, meeting place, refuge and general flophouse, so within a day the endless stream of drunkards and wreck-heads had turned the communal area at the centre into the most depressing array of muddy beer cans, muddy clothing, muddy wellies, muddy footprints and mud.) I got chatting to this really cool girl and we spent hours lying in my bed just giggling, chatting and shouting at my friends. No sexy times went on, I can assure you; just shit-chatting and laughing, but it was cool.

The next morning my misery began in earnest. I was feeling really unwell for some reason and was totally unable to sleep so I just lay awake for hours, watching the ceiling of my tent bow and shake in the wind, listening to the rain lashing against the canopy. It eventually dawned on me that I really, really needed a poo in the most urgent terms. I must have lain there for at least an hour just going over and over the horror of it all in my head.
"I need a poo. This requires me to:
get up
put on my horrible muddy trousers
climb over my muddy friend
find loo roll
get to the door of the tent without muddying my feet in the endless sea of filth, mess and mud
find a matching pair of wellies (my own wellies had been borrowed for the night, so I was without)
put on said wellies
find a rain poncho
go out into the rain
squelch my way amidst the guy-ropes in the dark down to the toilet
lock myself in a tiny plastic cubicle which is filled with other people's shit and doesn't even keep the rain out
squeeze out a sad, uncomfortable slug of poo into the stained plastic bowl of a chemical toilet
walk back
take off wellies (without getting feet muddy)
cross tent (without getting feet muddy)
get into bed (without getting bed muddy)
take off muddy trousers (without getting bed muddy)
lie in bed, unable to sleep, shivering with despair whilst watching the ceiling of my tent bow and shake with the wind, listening to the rain lashing against the canopy.
Oh, woe upon woe! Oh, tragedy upon tragedy! Surely no person's misery has ever been more complete."
I might also point out that I was equal parts very drunk, very hungover and very tired, which makes none of the above tasks any easier. I ended up going through this process 4 times that day. Woe upon woe indeed, and even tragedy upon tragedy. My sorrow could not be described with words, nor even reckoned by the acre, so complete was my misery.

Thus Friday brightened into a Saturday which was marked by my discomfort and sadness. On Saturday it rained a lot, and I felt very ill. I didn't get to sleep until 3.30 Saturday afternoon.

Before I managed to sleep though, I did manage to drag myself down to the Big Top to watch the Human League They were awesome, but I was so tired, sad and unwell that I could scarcely force myself to sing along with 'Don't You Want Me Baby', so my enjoyment was severely hindered by my depleted mental state. Not to worry, says I, they are playing a another, longer set later on, so I must just make sure I am well enough for that.

And thus I went to bed, and successfully slept until the Human League played again later that evening. Fortunately, this time round I was able to fully appreciate the fact that they are seriously good and I really did enjoy them. Many thanks to Jonny and Kirsty for dragging me out of the tent for that. Under my own power I fear I would have probably just spent the next 48 hours in bed complaining about my poo.

Then DJ Yoda and Shlomo did a short set which was pretty cool, but I still don't quite see the point of turntablism or beatboxing. I mean, they're both pretty impressive, but even when it's done really well the end product isn't really music at all. Some interesting noises, certainly, and I couldn't do it any better, but it's still not really real music, y'know what I mean?

Hot Chip followed the Yoda/Shlomo duet and were extremely good, as ever. They also all came out in fancy dress, which I liked, and covered Sinead O'Connor at the end of their set which I also liked. However, the sound on the main stage just wasn't loud enough, so none of these shows was quite enough to blow me away. It was good though. We then went to see Hercules And Love Affair who made me question myself (the lead singer is a really really sexy tranny. Seriously, I totally would. Really good band too), but I could not be bothered at all with Aphex Twin, who played a really boring set of nerdy techtronica which didn't go anywhere or build up to anything at all. He did have 2 professional gurners on stage pulling ugly faces at the crowd though, which is nice. Aphex Twin was boring, so I got drunk and went to bed while everyone stayed around and partied.

Sunday. Got up early. Not raining. Bought coffee. Saw comedy (Phil Jupitus, Marcus Brigstocke and 2 other guys doing"The Early Edition" ie. reading the newspapers and making me laugh about it). Ate hog roast. Built Titanic. Watched Sebastian Tellier. Went Home. Had a poo (best poo ever). Done.

The official fancy dress parade was actually on Saturday (the theme was 30,000 freaks under the sea), but we were held back by the weather and everyone's general grumpiness on Saturday, so we finally put our costume together on Sunday. Our Titanic consisted of 7 people wearing wire and fabric sections of the Titanic with tall cardboard funnel hats on. It didn't quite have all the bells and whistles we had discussed/planned (including lights on the inside, built-in beer holders, drowning lego men) but I think the overall effect when it was fully assembled was pretty impressive - several people stopped us to take photos so I reckon we must have looked pretty amazing. I didn't take my camera to Bestival with me, but I believe there will be photos at some stage so I will keep you posted.

Best Act: The Human League
Worst Act: Aphex Twin
Wish-I'd-Seen: The Specials played a surprise set on Saturday. They were listed as "Special Guests", and someone told me the Specials were gonna be there but i didn't believe them, so I missed it.
Quote of the Weekend: Tough to call, but I like "Look, we're all talking shit, but our shit shits all over your shit!"
Would Go Again?: Yes. The weather can't really be helped, but the Festival was really well run and had a great atmosphere as well as some awesome music.

So that was Bestival for me. All my friends are still there having a massive last-night-of-tour blowout party without me, but I felt I ought to get home to make sure everything's in place for going to Japan.

2 days to go now until I fly, so very soon my blog about my trip to Japan will actually start to feature my trip to Japan in it! Yay!

I know you're all going to miss me dearly as I galavant around the concrete jungle of Tokyo, so if you find your self pining for some hot Woody lovin', just remember this:

We'll always be together,
how ever far it seems.
We'll always be together,
together in electric dreams.



Kisses,
Genghis

PS. Comment! It makes me feel loved. There's a little tiny button just below this post.

Genghis Kong's Mission Statement

Yo.

As you all should be aware, I am shortly to depart for Japan, where I will be studying in Tokyo for a whole year. Because of this I have taken the decision to start a blog, so as to keep all my lovely friends (and anyone else who, for whichever reason, ends up reading this) up-to-date with my adventures, travels and rampages across the Land of the Rising Sun.

I still have a couple of weeks left before I fly to Japan, (2 weeks exactly, come to think of it. Shit me that's soon) so I am currently sitting in my room surrounded by a decade's worth of accumulated shit, despairing as to how I should get it all organised, tidied and packed and generally sort my life out. Just to add to the general hubbub, excitement and stress I also have to plan for my trip to Bestival (it's the best festival, geddit?), which is going to be awesome fun, but the timing is far from ideal; I get back from Bestival next Monday evening and have to fly to Japan Tuesday morning. It's not gonna be pretty.

So, faced with these long lists of important things I need to do, and with time rapidly ticking down to zero-hour, I decided that the best use of my time would be to start writing my blog. Woo!

I have set myself a few objectives to try and achieve whilst I am in Japan.

Genghis Kong's Mission Statement:

1. Join a band and get into the Japanese pop charts
2. Become an actor and get on Japanese TV
3. Become a model and advertise Japanese haemorrhoid cream
4. Become supreme overlord of all Japan and be worshipped as a god; or, if this fails,
5. Achieve the total destruction of the Japanese nation and people

I've been told that 1, 2 and 3 might actually be surprisingly easy, purely by merit of my being white - Japs think white people are amazingly cool, and being white is practically enough in itself to make you a minor celebrity. I haven't quite worked out how I'm going to manage 4 or 5, but I'll think of something - it can't be that difficult.

Oh, I suppose I ought to have on mission statement something along the lines of

• Don't fail my degree, don't get arrested, don't get deported

but where's the fun in that, eh? Besides, I'm going to be too busy conquering to worry about studying.

Well, I guess that's just about sufficient for my first ever blog ever, so I'll leave you with these words of wisdom:

We can dance,
We can dance,
Everybody look at your hands.



Kisses,
Genghis.