すし Sushi

I have never understood how some people can say 'I don't like Chinese food' or 'I don't like Indian food'. What, all food from that country you dislike? Every single dish? How can the cuisine of an entire nation be ruled out like that?! What I do understand is that some people hear the words 'raw' and 'fish' and immediately think that sushi will taste awful. 'Raw fish' doesn't exactly have the most pleasant connotations. Personally, I used to think of my cat's breath straight after she'd eaten tuna – mmm, salty. But I am a complete convert to sushi. It sounds dreadful in theory but tastes awesome in practice, and don't knock it until you've tried it. Even if you do try it and then decide you don't like it, Japanese cuisine includes so many interesting foods besides sushi – blue lotus demonstrates this very well – you're bound to find something you like. I highly recommend YO! Sushi, where you can watch highly-skilled chefs making your food in front of you, which is a treat in itself.

The only Japanese food I can easily get my hands on at the moment is Morrisons supermarket's sushi boxes. These are... how can I put this nicely... not something a sushi chef would be proud of. You'll barely find a single grain of rice out of place with quality sushi, but this... It tastes okay, I suppose. Not bad. Not particularly great either. My only problem with supermarkets like Morrisons selling sushi as part of their expansion in foreign cuisine, is that people who have never tasted authentic sushi are going to try this and think, 'Yep, tastes like raw fish', without knowing how wonderful the real deal tastes in comparison. Then they'll avoid trying sushi again and that's a shame. It is good, however, for sushi addicts like my brother and I to have a reliable supplier.

日本語 Japanese Language

People seem surprised when I tell them that I am teaching myself to speak Japanese. I know it's not your average language to learn but it's really not as difficult as it seems. Now, reading and writing, that is a different story. I normally have the opposite problem when learning a new language – I can read it perfectly well, but when it comes to actually saying something the desire to run in the opposite direction overwhelms me. In that sense it is refreshing to be learning Japanese, which is so much easier to speak than to read. Here are my main reading and writing goals:

Reading:
1.street signs
2.food labels
3.price labels

Writing:
1.my name
2.the date

That's it. If I get those sorted, then we'll see about moving on to something more difficult. I'm not holding my breath though, especially since the main focus will be to learn how to hold a conversation in Japanese, as well as developing a vocabulary that includes any medical terms that I am required to know for my voluntary work.

Having said all that, the language studies are on hold at the moment, but once I finish my exams I can start buckling down again. I'm going on a five-day intensive Japanese course at Lancaster University in July and I've got an array of Podcasts, Pimsleur (audio) lessons and books to help me get my language skills up to scratch before I go. I've heard that although foreigners always receive a warm welcome in Japan, they find it difficult to be seen as anything other than exactly that - a foreigner. I am hoping that by making a decent effort to learn how to converse in the native tongue, that won't prove to be such a problem.

The Land of the Rising Sun

I should probably start somewhere near the beginning. I am currently an A-level student, although in a matter of weeks that will no longer be true. After I finish my exams at the end of June I will be taking a year out before embarking on a gruelling five-year course studying Medicine at the University of Manchester. I thought I deserved a break after fourteen years of education, so I decided to go Japan. I got in touch with Gap Activity Projects and, to cut a long story short, they have organised a six-month placement for me volunteering in a hospital in Nagasaki. I will be sleeping, eating and working within walking distance of the Red Cross Nagasaki Genbaku Hospital from the 7th September 2007 to the 7th March 2008. I still don't have all of the details on my placement – that will be sorted out in due time – but one thing I do know is that I will not be alone. A girl called Hye will be with me. I haven't met her yet - she lives in Canada, I live in England – but it will definitely be nice to have someone in the same boat as me.

There will be plenty of time for me to explain everything, like why I chose to go to Japan for instance, but for now I'll leave you with this: One of the A-level subjects I have almost finished studying is Modern History and I can honestly say that I enjoy it greatly, despite being a scientist at heart. I know what you're thinking – how boring, right? Hey, even I think 'modern history' sounds boring at first, but when you start looking at the way people lived and in what circumstances, it's humbling to discover what people can survive. Anyway, the reason I bring it up is that Nagasaki has a rather noteworthy history. I was slightly overwhelmed when I found out that I would be living there for half a year, and in a building in which 1,400 people died in the bomb blast back in 1945. But this in fact is the perfect place for me to spend my year out. I'll have science, medicine and history all in one city.