Language crumbling and movie books.

I never seem to find time to update my blog, but I thought I'd post an update today because some interesting things have been happening recently.

This one is about Japanese fluency or perhaps, it's about fluency in languages per-se.

First, a bit of background. I started learning Japanese around the spring of 2011. However, for the first year, I didn't really learn very much at all. In fact, the first time I spoke Japanese with native wasn't until the middle of 2012. That's when I realised how pitiful my speaking skills were!

Since then, I've learned a lot about "how to learn to learn languages" and tried to put what I've learned into effect. As many well regarded polyglots will tell you, there really isn't a "one size fits all" approach to learning a language. You have to try things out and see what works for you ... and whether you enjoy doing it.

I took part in five of the Add1Challenges and each time, I definitely made a lot more progress than if I'd have gone it alone.  In fact, on the second Add1Challenge, I spent a month immersed in Japanese and came out of it speaking Japanese pretty fluently. When I say, "fluently", I don't mean anything like speaking like a native - what I mean is, that when I talked about a familiar topic, even with my very limited vocabulary, I could maintain a pretty good conversation that to someone who spoke no Japanese would sound as if I was fluent.

Then, in September 2014, I moved to Japan and got a real buzz from being able to converse pretty well from the get go. All said and done, if the conversation was a typical "getting to know you" conversation, I'd be able to handle that pretty well. As soon as the topic changed to anything else, I'd be completely lost. Added to which, I would always find myself lost for words over seemingly basic things.

About two months ago, I started reading Star Wars in Japanese. That's been really good for keeping me consistent in language learning.  I know the story so well that if you show me a scene with the sound off, I can pretty much guarantee I'd be able to recall the dialogue word for word.  So when I started reading Star Wars in Japanese, given that there's a lot of katakana words (English words / names written in a Japanese script) I'd get a lot of reference points to fill in / guess the missing information.

 For example: ハ/Ha ン/N ソ/So ロ/Ro = Han Solo  or レーザービーム = laser beam. If those words are written in the same sentence, I at least know that it's got something to do with Han Solo and a laser beam. When I replay the movie in my mind, nine times out of ten, I'll guess what the verb means even when I've never encountered it before.  With a passive vocabulary (words I know if I encounter them, but perhaps not be able to recall when I'm talking) of about 1,700 words, I found that I can happily sit on a train and read Star Wars without a dictionary. I don't have mobile internet, so I was kind of forced into having to not stop and look up every new word I encountered. That seems to have been an absolute blessing in disguise. I circle the unknown word and write what I guess the word means on the page. Then when I next study Japanese at home, I go through the pages and look up the words and see whether I was right or not. It really helps that the kanji has furigana, because whilst I know some kanji radicals, I'm not really at the stage where I can look up kanji in a dictionary yet.

Pretty often I'm not right .... but the word I thought it was is usually synonymous with my guess. That in itself seems to help me make a mental connection between the word and it's meaning. If you think about it, I understood the gist meaning, but then the surprise of not having guessed accurately seems to make the connection that bit stronger.

Typical page of Star Wars - A New Hope. 

I've also noticed lots of grammatical structure that gets repeated again and again ... and whilst I haven't been too focused on grammar, I've noticed that when I'm speaking Japanese, I'm more likely to try saying something that instinctively sounds right ... again, I often make whopping great mistakes that I then subsequently backtrack and rephrase shortly afterwards. Now, that's another awesome gain in my opinion too ... because, before I was doing so much reading, I was definitely more restrained about what I would attempt to say. To anyone else learning a language, I'm sure you've experienced not being able to say what you want to say ... so you mentally try and figure out what is the nearest thing you CAN say that conveys the same meaning.  Still, all said and done, there's a massive difference between knowing lots of words, understanding the grammatical constructs etc etc and being able to converse!

Which brings me to my second point in this blog post. I went out for a drink last week and was sitting with a couple of guys who've lived in Japan for fourteen and eight years respectively. They were talking to some Japanese folk throughout the evening and were talking, from my perspective, pretty damn fluently. Occasionally, they'd break out of the conversation and ask me if I was following what they were talking about ... 50% of the time, I'd have understood the gist ... the rest of the time, I'd be completely lost. Interestingly, I noticed that anytime I'd engage in the discussion, the group seemed really interested in what I had to say. In hindsight, I'd define this as "the man of few words" syndrome ... we've all been there in our native language haven't we ... it's the person who chips into the conversation occasionally that we're automatically more interested in hearing than the people who are blaa blaa blaaing away all evening!

That was quite a good evening on three counts. Firstly, it was great for my listening skills. Secondly, it was pretty encouraging that I was able to express my opinions well enough to feel the evening was getting closer to having an evening in the pub back in the UK.  Rather than the conversations I'd have had when I first arrived in Japan, they'd be about where I've travelled, what music I'm into etc etc ... topics that I'd become pretty proficient at talking about. Now, I wasn't in control of the topic, but could just about manage to understand enough of what was being spoken about to chip in with my own thoughts. And even if I wasn't completely sure what was being said, my new trump card was just to say, 同意するけど、どう思いますか。 (I agree, but what do you think?). That way, I stayed in the game ... ha ha!!!

The third thing might well be the most important lesson in language learning I've had this year. I came away from the night in the pub thinking, "hmmm ... I wish I could keep talking the way those guys were able to" ... you know, instead of only being able to dish out occasional comment and then quickly retreat into listening again before the next opportunity to chip in arrived. But then, actually ... I can .... and think that's the most amazing thing ... I can ... simples!!!

When I started thinking about that more, I realised that actually, in my italki sessions over the last couple of weeks, I've spent a good ten to fifteen minutes of the session just babbling away in Japanese. I've pretty much split my half hour sessions into fifteen minutes of catching up on telling the tutor what I've been doing since our last session and then fifteen minutes working on a language function.

Last week was all about using "______必要がある" instead of trying to remember how to conjugate verbs. For example, I'm fine with conjugating verbs that I use all the time: 行かなきゃ = gotta go but let's say a verb I might not use very often .... um ... 諦める (to give up) ... how do I conjugate that verb ... errrr ... 諦めなきゃ probably ... but I'm not very sure or confident ... and that makes all the difference when you're talking. So, using ステーキを食べるのを諦める必要がある  to say, "there is a need to give up eating steak"  is a lot easier to output because I'm not doing any conjugating at all ... both verbs stay in their dictionary form ... YAY!!!  That's really important because by not conjugating verbs, you don't have so many of those long pauses in a conversation when you're scrambling away to figure out how to transform the verb. So then, because you're not slowed down by that, the conversation flows much more easily.

In the last week, I've talked with members of my favourite Japanese band, Broken Doll, people I met while walking around Yoyogi Park, the lady that I always talk to in the convenience store, the old lady that lives across the road from me ... and instead of keeping the conversation short, I've actually kept the conversation going ... sure I'm making lots of mistakes etc ... but it doesn't matter ... its like I've overcome another obstacle to my progress.  That's where I'm at right now ... I'm really excited about the next few weeks because it feels like I'm on the cusp of where I've always wanted to be ... able to just keep a conversation going and really start using verbs that I don't often use because I always struggle with how to conjugate them. That can wait ... it's more important to just keep talking than anything else.

明けましておめでとうございます。(akemashite omedetougozaimasu : happy new year!)

The neon lit streets of Shinjuku 

So it's now 2015 and I'm plotting out a language learning journey. For Japanese, that's fairly easy because I know exactly what I need to do ... talk Japanese a lot ... simples! I'm also thinking about learning Swahili, although to be realistic, Japanese is firmly in the hot seat.

A couple of things have happened recently that I want to write about. I met an Australian guy in a bar who has lived in Japan for some fourteen years. We sat talking with a Japanese guy and at one point, the Australian guy asserted that he thought it was great that, “you talk so much terrible Japanese ... it's brilliant ... and the Japanese love hearing you clomp around messing up the grammar and switching from formal to casual.” It's great because many Japanese people think their ability in English is terrible (and yes, that may often be true) ... but it's never going to improve if you sit there waiting for the day to arrive when all of a sudden you'll be able to talk fluently, so seeing someone who is perfectly happy to crash around in another language is thought of very highly, even if people take the piss at the time. I sort of know that people walk away from me and then if I bump them again will often tell me they're really impressed by what I'm doing.

Anyway, back to that story - I smiled, on the one hand knowing that his assertion was pretty accurate; but on the other, knowing that I need to raise my game ... up my level ... push onwards and upwards ... yet, also, know that it's going to take a lot of effort and if I'm absolutely honest, when I'm so often praised for my existing ability in the language, it becomes more difficult to find the motivation.

Going to gigs is always a great motivation for me to speak more Japanese!

Saying that, I met a girl who took the piss out of me speaking Japanese throughout the evening. She wasn't a native Japanese speaker, but her level of fluency seemed from what I could tell, pretty native sounding. She wasn't taking the piss in a horrible way for the most part, but occasionally I thought that if she was talking to a younger, more impressionable me, I would have probably taken her criticism to heart and been so easily crushed.

But that's not the now me. I think my best reaction was to speak in the most kawaii (cute) Japanese because that seemed to get the crowd on my side. For example, brilliantly, at one point she said, 「おなかがすいて」(I'm hungry) and then ask me if I'd understood ... and genuinely, it's a phrase I vaguely remember from an italki session a year ago, but one I seldom use myself ... so my delayed acknowledgement that I knew what she'd said was met with, “... derrrrr, that's like one of the most basic things you should know in Japanese!!!” And then just as quickly, I said, “but if I'm hungry, I never say, 「おなかがすいて」, I'd say, 「ペコぺこになる」- to which she retorted, “but you sound like a baby saying that!” Oooh, I exclaimed, “we've obviously learned a different Japanese from each other ... did your book have cute baby ducks on the cover?” Game, set and match to me.

If it's got cute ducks, I'll be interested!

Now, in reflection, here are some thoughts. Sometimes I go out and get lavished with praise for my ability to converse in Japanese; either by Japanese people who are amazed that I speak any Japanese at all, or by non-native's amazed that I've only been living in Japan for three months and can hold a reasonable conversation in Japanese. Just like anyone else, I love praise ... can't get enough of it, so please, if you have any to spare, shower me in your praises because it's always welcome here! However, I'm resilient enough to push on regardless and I know that I'm fuelled up with a lot of Japanese language that sits dormant awaiting conversation. So that's what I'm going to do now.

I also know that whenever I need to make progress, the trick is consistency. To achieve that, the thing I do which I wasn't doing before is joining the Add1Challenge.  I can't emphasise it's importance enough; honestly, I would have plodded along at a snails pace with language evaporating almost as quickly as I was acquiring it! Eventually,  unable to level up from the first of many barren plateaus you'll come across, it's all to easy to teleport yourself back to easy street with even more idolising of those who can actually become fluent in other languages. But here's some news, they're reluctant messiah's who's message is always the same one ... "I'm not special, anyone can learn a language ... it's hard, but not difficult etc etc." You've heard it all before haven't you? I'm trying to sell sand to the Arabs here ... but if you want to learn a language to fluency (which let's face it, you can set yourself whatever goal you want, but I always think, in for a penny!) then you can. It is possible but you'll have to fortify yourself against many nay-sayers. There are plenty of them out there, when people give up a language they often become naysayers and need to spread their negativity. Don't be fooled by that, tis sour grapes! That's the other really important thing about the Add1Challenge; I've done four of them and was always encouraged and supported ... in fight club,the first rule is, "you don't talk about fight club", but in the Add1Challenge, it's kind of unsaid rule ... but you're in it to be part of a community that supports each other ... not happy clappy support, but like 'hey, you're not alone" support which is much underrated in my opinion. So it's counter-intuitive to be a tosser because all you'll ever achieve is looking like a tosser that nobody want's to support and paying for privilege!

Yes, I learned how I learn a language best (everyone's different and you need to know what works best for you), but most important thing isn't how, but how often. This one is the most important aspect of language learning - you need to put the hours in and by that I don't mean surfing around the web trying to find an easy way to magically absorb language through digital osmosis. No, I mean, don't beat yourself up, but just be absolutely honest with yourself. It's very easy to set half hearted goals or make New Years resolutions ... it's much harder to stick to them.

Life will do everything it can to derail your aspirations. In some language learning communities, I've often found that my peers secretly enjoy watching me fail ... maybe you've found this too? There are those who raise themselves up by pushing you down. That was how things were when I tried to learn computer languages in the 1980's. There was always one geeky kid who would know more than me and jump on me saying, "Oh, didn't you know _______ ... derrr, that's one of the first things you should learn ... oh, you're such a beginner" ... all the time you've actually put a lot of time in to learning stuff and it's upsetting to hear someone saying you've hardly broken the surface. Truth is, these people have often spent plenty of time, learning inefficiently and resent the fact that you've come into a domain that they've inhabited longer than you ... that sometimes turns them into psudo-language bullies ... sometimes not, but you meet all sorts of people whenever you go on a journey. It's a personal journey, but you'll meet your fair share of utter tossers whilst also meeting the most delightful people you can imagine! One has to take the rough with the smooth! Anyway, back to what I'm planning to do ...

One of my work colleagues suggested I visit a language exchange in Chiba. I went there a couple of days ago, but it was closed for the New Year holidays. But I now know where it is and will go back there soon and get the ball rolling. Meanwhile, I'm also planning to learn Swahili on either the next Add1Challenge. I'm a bit torn over whether to start learning Swahili now, or begin after another three month Japanese challenge. The pros of learning Swahili now, is that I absolutely intrigued by the idea of seeing what I can achieve over three months from scratch. On the list of cons, Japanese has my primary focus and the difference between my Japanese speaking ability today and what it could be in three months could be amazing. At least if I do a three months Japanese challenge, I get the additional wow factor of having even more interesting conversations in Japan.

When I spent a month immersed in Japanese, I came away speaking Japanese with a greater level of fluency than I currently have. I had roughly half the vocabulary, and maybe a little less of a feel for how the grammar works ... but that really hasn't got a lot to do with fluency. Fluency has everything to do with being able to produce the language and make utterances with relative ease. How does one achieve such a thing? Yep, you guessed it ... speak speak speak speak! So with the language exchange in Chiba, that's what I'll be doing. So, the question is, shall I set forth an learn Swahili now or later. That's one for me to think about over the next few days.   

Suddenly it's December!

Hello Blog,

I've not really been very faithful to blogging lately and November seems to have disappeared rather quickly!

Well, first things first. I'm still loving life in Japan and feeling very much settled into a routine. I've fallen behind with my OU studies, but as yet, not waved the little white flag of defeat. I was just about keeping up with it for the first month, but then I had five days without access to the course website. Then I changed my schedule which mean't that I worked eight days without a day off and when I did have a day off, I had to catch up with other things.

I've finally had a couple of days off and thought I'd catch up with things, but yesterday I felt like I needed a day to recover from working eleven days out of the last fourteen days. Today was supposed to be the day I'd give myself a kick up the backside and get cracking again; but I found plenty of other things that needed doing - doing my another online training activity (I had to do some online study before I go into Tokyo next week), getting my haircut, shopping etc. Anyway, when I finally bit the bullet and logged into the website; it was down for maintenance!

Anyway, other than the OU course, life is good. I went out for a meal with some friends in Tokyo earlier in November. One of the dishes was roasted lily bulbs (see photo below). They tasted just like roasted sweet chestnuts. Utterly delicious; or 'oishii' as they say in Japan.

Roasted Lily Bulbs

The autumn leaves have been stunningly beautiful in Chiba Park. I went out with my camera last week and took a few photographs. Rather than upload lots of photographs though, I've put them together as a slideshow video.

In summary, after two months in Japan, I'm happy here.  On the one hand, yes I'd love to have more time off to do my OU studies, see more of the country etc etc; but then on the other hand; I keep feeling like I may be here for the long-term and so why burn myself out by taking on too much. The more I think about things, whenever I read about people's experiences of Japan, I think, "Yeah, when I was younger I would probably also be in a hurry; but now I'm a bit older, I'm much more content to let things happen in their own timescale." The most important thing is, I'm having fun!

One Month in Chiba

Now that it's been a month since I moved to Japan, I thought I'd take a little time to reflect on things. It's been a very busy time; getting settled in to my apartment, starting a new job and also starting a new course with the Open University.

I love my apartment, it feels slightly bigger than I'd imagined it would. This is probably because many 'life in Japan' bloggers are from the USA and talk about how small apartments in Japan are by comparison. Sure, my apartment in the UK was quite a lot bigger than my apartment in Japan, but my apartment has, a kitchen/diner, a bathroom, a toilet and a bed/living room. I've also got a loft that I slept in during the first week, but decided to move my futon onto the western style bed instead. Chairs are not the normal thing in Japanese apartments and sitting cross legged on a cushion wasn't really ideal for me ... so I decided my bed  would act as a sofa during the day.

I'm doing fine with my teaching job. You get rated by the students and from time to time your lessons are observed by the manager. So far so good; I've taught about a hundred 40 minute lessons now and only had one negative evaluation by a student. That one taught me to write new vocabulary in a different colour so the student can identify where the new vocabulary is much more easily. Since then, I've had almost all my student evaluations scoring the top score. Anyway, my evaluation average is above the required standard and as I teach more, I'm getting into the swing of things.

I'm just about managing to stay on top of my OU studies. The course is interesting (at the moment) but with a busy work schedule, living in a country where I really want to explore and enjoy the culture ... plus learning the language ... I've almost got to push myself to get the study out of the way before I allow myself to enjoy living here. If I was to let up on my studies, I could see myself quickly being swamped by having to catch up with it. So far so good, but it's really stretching me to keep afloat.

Anyway, this is just a short post because I made a couple of videos yesterday.

Wandering Around Chiba

Pachinko

Inai Inai baa (Peek-a-boo)

Rainy day in Tokyo.

I've been wanting to write a blog post for a while, but have been doing so many things that it would take me the best part of a week to sit and write about it all. So, this is going to be more of a highlights post.

Tokyo, Shibuya Crossing

Just over a week ago I went to see Broken Doll at the JPU Records Party in Shimokitazawa. I was delayed slightly and walked in just as Broken Doll were finishing their set. It was still great to see them and meet lots of other great people.

I also went to an office Halloween party a couple of days later which was also a lot of fun. I got to hang out with my students and speak Japanese with them - as much to practice my Japanese  as to show my students that I make lots of mistakes when I'm speaking Japanese but will just keep talking away regardless. I'm trying to encourage my students to speak English without fear of being grammatically correct. Easier said than done, but by blabbering away in Japanese and missing a particle here, buggering up the sentence structure there ... but still managing to be understood and have a jolly good laugh ... I think I made a very good point to my students!

Sunset from my office on my first day at work.

On the whole, I've made a good start teaching English in my first couple of weeks. I've now taught 70 lessons (40 minutes each) with a five minute break between students. I'm changing my schedule in November because there is a technology company that are sending a lot of engineers to the studio and with my background, I'm able to provide a lot of technical IT language that gives me a good USP (oh dear, I'm using marketing lingo!!!!)

Other than work and parties, I've been getting to grips with day-to-day doing things in Japanese. One of the things I couldn't figure out initially was my washing machine. I could read a couple of the instructions, but not wanting to convert my clothes to action man costumes, I harnessed the power of Skype and my language partner to work out where to put the detergent and where to put the conditioner.

Chiba Monorail - Outside my Office

I seem to be doing OK with most things, but my microwaving skills are somewhat lacking. Yes, indeed, I recently managed to set fire to a pan-o-chocolat and set the smoke alarm off in my apartment. In the midst of a frantic dash to air the kitchen of billowing choco-smoke, I opened to my kitchen window, saw a Japanese lady staring at me and the smoke coming from my kitchen window ... said, "konnichiwa" glanced over to see that she'd put her washing out on her balcony (and thus probably not appreciating the choco-smoke venting from my kitchen window ... apologised in Japanese and promptly shut my window.

But it hasn't all been high octane chocolate fires. I've actually been out for a walk around Yoyogi Park and Harajuku.

Candy Girl in Harajuku

Kazaridaru - decorated sake barrels wrapped in straw at shinto shrines.
These are outside Meji Shingu, Yoyogi Park, Tokyo.

Today,  I went to get my haircut. Walking into the barbers was fun, the barber looked terribly anxious about a 'gaijin' (foreigner) walking in ... but the moment that I started speaking to him in Japanese, the air of anxiety completely transformed and I chatted away the whole time I was there. I'm very impressed at the service; not only do they give you a haircut, but you also get your neckhair trimmed and a head massage. Then after my haircut, the trainee introduced me to her baby. So I had my first conversation with a Japanese baby today. It was so funny thinking, "oh wow, I wonder if this baby is learning Japanese words from me" ... she definitely understood the word, 'kawaii' (cute); I suspect many-a-doting-Japanese-genki-girl has approached her before shreiking, 'kawaiiiiiiiiiiii'; so that's probably a word she knows ... she gurgled and smiled knowingly in reply.  

We also played 'inai inai baa' (Peek-a-boo) ... which I learned from Japanese Pod 101 in the first few months of learning Japanese. At the time, I thought, 'yeah, great; I now know how to play peek-a-boo ... that's not exactly very practical is it'; yet as it turns out, when you're in a barbers shop and you've been introduced to a baby, the fact that you know how to play peek-a-boo impresses the hell out of everyone! 

Taking the 'L' Plates off and using language to get things done!

This is where I came out of Chiba JR Station - this is far less crowded
than when I arrived on a Saturday night.

I came here briefly in ’98, but coming back with a basic grasp of the language is giving me so much more pleasure. In the last couple of days, I’ve got my residence card registered at the city municipal office, started a health care account, opened a bank account, moved into an apartment and had the gasman come and connect my utilities. Also, I managed to get my internet connection set up; that was quite an achievement because my Macbook Pro doesn’t have an ethernet port or CD/DVD drive; so had to buy an adaptor … knowing the kara/made (from/to) sentence structure allowed me to articulate that I needed an adapter (which I figured would be like most modern words spelled out in katakana アダプター… adaputaa) thus said, アダプターはUSBからLANまでがありますか。/ adaputaa wa USB kara LAN made ga arimasuka … do you have an adapter from USB to LAN? And of course, got lead around the shop looking at all sorts of USB adapters, but no LAN connection.

So one guy went off to get another guy and I explained again … but they both looked a little confused … and each time I explained with more and more detail and they went off and got the more senior staff member to come along. In the end, the top tech guy came along and to my astonishment, he just asked one question; “Macbook Air ga arimasuka” … and immediately led me to where there was a whole shelf of USB to LAN adapters! Of course he then wanted me to buy the fastest one, so because it was my birthday I thought, “fine - treat myself to a birthday present.” Got home, but couldn’t get it to work because it needed a driver installed … oh dear … now I had to go back to the shop and explain that the driver was on the CD-ROM and my Macbook doesn’t have a CD-ROM drive. So today’s morning challenge was that; but managed to tell the whole story (which was now becoming like ‘the little old lady who swallowed a fly” song) in great detail and with a few questions about had I tried this … that … oh OK … and so I said I’d like to buy an older adapter because the operating system ought to support it … so once again, found myself having a technical debate about which vendor was most likely to have their adapter supported by OSX 10.9.

There was a happy ending. I came home today with the replacement adapter and ta-daa; I was all setup with broadband internet access! Sat there for a good few minutes just smiling because when I thought about it; I would more than likely have had just as many problems if this had happened in England if I'd gone to Curry’s or PC World. That was, for me, a super very YAY moment in my language learning adventure.

Then when I got home from my afternoon wander around Chiba park, there was a note from the post-office that I couldn’t read (didn’t understand a lot of the kanji) - but given the context and the information I could read, it seemed to be one of those notes that the post-office leave when they can’t deliver something. So I went off to the nearest post office to ask what I needed to do. It turned out to be that I hadn't written a name plate by my letter box and so they couldn't deliver in case I didn't live there. So we went through a form and apparently they'll attempt to deliver my mail tomorrow.

But just as important as getting that issue resolved; I ended up chatting away with most of the staff in the local post-office … and found that my local postman is a Liverpool supporter … so I said that I was a Chelsea fan, but please don’t burn my mail!!! Anyway, once more, loads of praise on my ability to speak Japanese (which, of course, you get if you can say the most basic things anyway, but for me it’s always encourages me to learn more, become more articulate, be able to have deeper, more interesting conversations) and I left the post-office feeling yet another buzz from the experience.

Arriving in Japan

I'm mooving away from England!!!

I arrived in Narita Tokyo at 8:02pm on Saturday 27^th September. Having pre-booked a rental mobile phone in advance, I had 58 minutes to clear immigration and customs before the mobile phone rental office shut. At both immigration and customs, the officials were all very official until I responded to their questions in Japanese – suddenly they were very welcoming and wishing me an excellent time in Japan. Thankfully, I got to the mobile phone rental office two minutes before it shut! Thinking about it, I reckon that if I hadn't spoken any Japanese whilst clearing immigration and customs; the process might have taken a few more minutes; so in my mind, picking up the mobile phone at Narita saved me from having to take two 40 minute train journeys the following day. Getting from Narita to Chiba was pretty straight forward, again, by speaking a little Japanese it was just that little bit more reassuring to know I was heading in the right direction (also reminded me of walking around googlemaps on the Add1Challenge) ... or at least, smiled to myself thinking, 'yep, that practice is paying me back with interest!'

So I got to Chiba, came up the escalator and for just a few moments, I felt like I was in the film Blade Runner. It was literally overwhelming to the senses; neon kanji in every direction, an ocean of busy Japanese salarymen and waves of fashionable teens cheerily giggling and chatting simultaneously on their mobile phones and their peers. And there I was, dripping with sweat on account of wearing my heaviest winter clothes to save a couple of kilos on my baggage allowance. I somehow managed to be about 3kg's overweight on my main suitcase, slightly overweight on my cabin case and I was carrying enough electronics in my 'laptop case' to shutdown Heathrow security for a bank holiday weekend! I couldn't get my bearings at all; so for a couple of minutes I sat down and hunted around for my map. In two minutes, I must have had a dozen Japanese glances of “should I help this poor gaijin (foreigner) out, or would be an insult? ... oh I don't know, I will help if he asks ... even if he speaks English ... but he has to ask ... oh, but maybe he doesn't want to be a nuisance ... only he shouldn't think that, I want to help him out ... oh what a dilemma ...” I kept smiling and saying, “daijoubu da” (I'm fine).

Eventually, having studied the map for a few minutes, I was still perplexed. So I fired my flare gun expression, “sumimasen ...” (excuse me) ... and rather than just pointing me in the right direction, this Japanese guy (Yoshi) walked and talked with me, popping into a Family Mart to ask the shop assistant if he knew where this mysterious hotel was located! That made me feel slightly less of a nuisance; because hey, I'm a lost little foreign Johnny and here was a native Chiba-ian equally confused as to where the hotel was. Mind you, apart from 'love hotels', why would a local know the location of all the hotels in a city!!?

Anyway, the Family Mart assistant pointed us towards the hotel and suddenly, it was glaring out of the street saying, “Yeah, don't you feel like a pair of idiots ... I was here all the time and you've basically walked a big circle around me!” So, I thanked my rescuer and was soon in a lovely hotel bedroom. That lasted for about two minutes as I was hungry and thirsty; so off to the Family Mart I went to buy familiar Japanese snacks; Strawberry flavoured Koara Machi! (for those uninitiated with such things; these are little Koala shaped biscuits filled with a sort of strawberry angel delight-ish filling). I sat outside the Family Mart thinking; “I could probably live quite happily on Koala March”; but that wouldn't be very adventurous now would it!