本当にありがとう！

小さいポストがある。私の日本語の学校にたくさん素晴らしい先生がいるよ。先生はブログを見た後でいいヒントにくれた。

ありがとう！

今仕事はちょっと大変だから、ブログの時間がない。でもまだここにチェックをしてくださいね。

難しい。。。

私の問題はいつも正しい文を使えたいです。でも、まだ上手になりません。ええ、日本語を少し知っています。でも、すべての文はとても難しいですよ！たくさん面白いトピックを話したいです。まだ頑張っています。

さて。。。このブログには。。。丁寧形を使用すればよいですか。おそらく良いですね。

みんなさん、教えてください！

美味しい物

昨日の晩、私とダニーくんとエロルくんは「Cafe Japan」へ食べに行きました。グルダーズグリーンにあります。料理は和食です（寿司とか刺身とか）。雰囲気はとても賑やかでした。寿司もとても美味しかったですよ。たぶん１８人前を食べました。。。お腹が凄く一杯でした！

仕事。。。

みんなさん、こんにちは！

これから、私の練習のためにこのブログを使うつもりです。ちょっと難しいですが日本語を使えば使うほど上手になります。頑張ります！

日本から帰った後で仕事がありません。でも、新しい仕事を見つけました。よかった！月曜日に始める予定です。もう一度「Barclays Capitaｌ」で働きます。休みが好きですがもとの仕事を楽しみにしでますよ！

じゃ、また今度！

New beginnings

Since Julie and I have returned from our trip to Japan, I've no reason to continue posting to the blog about our travels. However since I'm still learning Japanese, I thought it a good idea to use this site to practise my writing skills, meagre as they are.

So for my English reading friends, this is the end of the road for now. From this post forwards I'll be using this as a Japanese only diary of day to day activities and thoughts. Probably not terribly exciting anyway :)

For my Japanese reading friends, I encourage you to continue reading and either leave comments or send me e-mails when you spot horrible mistakes or if you just want to say こんにちは.

さあ、始めましょう！

Reflections on Japan

Twelve hours and thirty five minutes of flying later, we are back home in the UK. It is a little strange for me to call the UK home, since technically Australia should still be my home. Despite that, I still feel more comfortable and relaxed here in the UK than I do anywhere else in the world.

Funny how things like that turn out.

So anyway, thus ends my journey to Japan. My overall impressions? Well, that's a very interesting question, especially when you start digging a little deeper.

So I'll break it up into some categories:

Architecture

I'm not sure where Japan went wrong with buildings. I'm certainly no expert on matters relating to construction and building design, but Japan seems to abandoned any sense of aesthetics in architecture. The older (pre-1900s) buildings were and still are, beautiful to my eyes. Everything else looks, well, cheap and shoddy to be honest. Most cities have a slapped together feel, stemming from drab looking concrete buildings dominating everything. Some people have tried to make their homes prettier by putting up brick wallpaper on the outside of their houses, but as you can expect, it simply doesn't work.

All said, not a huge fan of the general look and feel of modern Japanese buildings.

People

Now here is an area where Japan meets and exceeds expectations. Most people are by and large, the most friendly, helpful and nice people you are likely to meet anywhere on the planet. There are the odd exceptions, nearly all very angry seeming middle aged men, who are the exceptions to the rule, but they are by far in the minority.

Love the people.

Food

I get the feeling that Japanese people love Japanese food. I can understand why too. The variety can be tremendous and the quality is usually excellent. From the Japanese banquets we had at the hotels to the 650 yen (£3.25) meals from quaint little restaurants, everything is prepared with the look as well as the taste in mind. If you don't like fish or rice you will be severely limited in what you can eat, but assuming you don't mind these ingredients, you won't be disappointed.

Big fan of the food.

Transport

I've covered this, so you know my views, but I left out some crucial information. The intercity travel is world leading, no doubts there. However the infamous peak hour press on Tokyo is absolutely dire beyond belief. "Packed in like sardines" doesn't do it justice, since I'm sure sardines have more wriggle room than the average commuter. For me, standing at 6 foot tall, it was less than pleasant, but for Julie it was a bit of a nightmare.

Off-peak and intercity travel is brilliant, just don't jump on a subway at 8:30am and expect to be able to breathe.

Language

I've been studying Japanese seriously for 18 months or so now. With my level of skill I was able to get my point across at nearly all times, even if it does involve some pointing, waving and confused looks. Things get complicated since there are varying levels of polite speech in Japan and since I've been taught mostly "polite" form, it was annoying to discover that people nearly always used "casual" form. The times they didn't use "casual" form was when they were using an extra polite form used when serving customers. Needless to say my greatest level of success came from using phrases and words from anime than the ones learnt in class. D'oh!

For anyone without Japanese language skills, I'd highly recommend not getting off the main tourist route where most staff are comfortable with English. None of the hotels we stayed at outside of a major city had any command of English.

The huge barrier is the Japanese kanji, which meant that even someone like myself who has studied Japanese still couldn't read more than the most basic signs. Descriptions or maps? No chance! Maybe next year I'll know enough...

Overall

On the whole I really enjoyed the trip. Great food and great people meant we had a great time!

Oh, the figure on the right? That's Mikuru from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, a deservedly popular Japanese anime show. I picked her and Haruhi up while in Akihabara.

I really do love Japan :)

Homeward Bound

We are back in Tokyo now, the very last installment before flying home.

To finish up our tour we first popped over to Harajuku to see what this "youth fashion" stuff was about. I know I'm not really "youth" any more, but Julie is still "youth" sized, so what the hell. The famed alley/street with all the young people's clothes (get off my lawn I say!!) was great purely from entertainment standpoint. I spotted a girl with so much metal jewelry around her mouth I could have mistaken her for a James Bond villain (hint). God forbid she try to get through an airport metal detector. On the clothes side of things, they ranged from fairly standard Japanese fashion to what can only really be described as cosplay. As I said, entertaining!

A short way from the street-o-weird, Julie bought a nice top in a store called "Brownie Bee". Apparently a lot of the clothes only come in one size, which happens to fit Julie really well. Not sure what larger women are supposed to do - probably stay away from Harajuku would be my guess.

Still undaunted, we took the train one stop over to Shibuya for further shopping craziness. After getting hopelessly lost trying to get out of the damn station, we eventually found our way outside through more luck than skill. After walking around a while we found a building called "Shibuya 109" which had signs proclaiming to have 109 restaurants inside. We thought this a little odd and popped in for a look. Well, I discovered that to the hip and fashionable people in Shibuya, restaurant actually means "women's clothing stores". Must be some sort of code or such.

Anyway, inside there are a zillion (yes, I counted) levels of boutique clothing stores centred around a never ending escalator. The styles here were once again varied, but sadly we didn't find anything international enough to capture Julie's heart. Not through lack of trying I might add.

So thus wraps up our little journey. The next task it is get to the airport and take a flight home. It has been a fun trip with lots of ups (parfait) and downs (rain) along the way.

See you in the UK!