クリスマス と おしょうがつ - Christmas and New Year

It seems like an age since I last posted anything here. A lot has happened. I have spent my second Christmas abroad and 2007 has come to an end. Being as we are now in January, I have the delight of being able to say that next month I am going home. There are what feels like a million crucial and complicated things that I need to do before then, but no matter how stressed I get with all of that I just have to remember that in a little over two months none of this will be important.

So, Japanese Christmas. May summed it up perfectly in one sentence: they don't celebrate it religiously or culturally, they just think it looks pretty. It is very true that Christmas can transform even the drabbest train station or department store into a fantasy land of lights and decorations, but this rather superficial celebration of Christmas is rather lacking in the spirit of the season that we love in the West. With no family or close friends here in Nagasaki, Christmas passed May and I by without really changing our moods much. We did have a very pleasant time, it was just missing that something special that makes Christmas Christmas.

On Friday 21st December we were taken out to Bagdad Café (that's 'Bagdad' as opposed to 'Baghdad', according to their sign) by Kumiko-san, along with Oka-san and Goto-sensei to enjoy their Christmas menu. It wasn't what I would call a traditional Christmas dinner, as it featured spaghetti, pizza and seafood salad, but it was very delicious none the less.
May and I were working on Christmas day so we moved our own Christmas celebration to the day before. We basically spent the whole day baking, eating (the food we'd baked, the cake we bought, anything else we could get our hands on) and watching rented DVD's. So not much change there from a regular Christmas, apart from maybe the baking and you would probably watch all the new DVD's you received as presents rather than rented ones. On the 25th, I was working with the home nurse while May was still working on 4F. This meant that while she was bed-making and sorting through patient files, I was visiting ordinary Japanese people in their homes. It was a wonderful and unique way to spend Christmas day actually, even more so because it seems to be standard for the patient to give cake and tea to their guests. May and I spent our lunchtime handing out sweets and cookies to some of the hospital staff and we received a few presents in return. In the evening, we were invited over to Oka-san's house, where we were surprised with another Christmas meal that her daughter had cooked. All in all, a very nice Christmas but, if I'm honest, not even close to the one I missed over in England.

Custom-made keyrings from Oka-san and her daughter:
New Year is a much bigger occasion in Japan than Christmas. We were given four days off from work (combined with the weekend, six days) which is the longest break we have had since coming here. We could have done loads of amazing things, travelled, made the absolute most of our little holiday, but we instead decided to spend most of it shopping and relaxing at home. Don't judge us, we needed the break. We had been waiting for January before we started seriously shopping (which we succeeded in doing, bar a few minor lapses in concentration) because we had heard that Japan has some major New Year sales. It even has it's own special name, hatsuri, or first sale of the year. AND they have special lucky bags (fukubukuro) just for this occasion. You don't know what is inside when you buy them, but they're only about half the price of the contents' value. You're not completely in the dark though, since there are sample bags that you can open and there are different sizes for the bags containing clothes. As interesting as it would have been to buy one, I decided against it. Besides, I had already seen exactly what I wanted to buy:

A blue skirt (¥9555, normal price ¥13,5000) – This is the perfect skirt for me, so I think it was worth spending the equivalent of 2 weeks food money on it, don't you think?
A new pair of jeans (¥3990) - I needed to replace my old ones which are starting to fall apart a little. This style is called 'Boyfriend Baggy, but I am quietly ignoring the claim that they are baggy. I was lucky to find jeans that fit me at all in a country where most girls have a 21” waist and weigh under 100lbs;
A black top (¥2048, reduced from ¥4096) - It didn't photograph well unfortunately, but you can take my word for it that it is cute and looks great with a red top I bought during one of my “lapses in concentration” last month;
A pair of earrings (¥1260) – These were too unusual and too pretty to miss.
Now, the people who know me will know I am not a big shopping person and that I am normally plagued with guilt for days after buying myself anything. Japan has changed me though. Japan is shopping country and I am in need of retail therapy. I wasn't completely selfish however– I bought some omiyage (souvenirs) for people too, which, for obvious reasons, I can't tell you much more about.

May and I had anticipated a lot of people at the department store for the sale on January 1st, so we decided to get there for 10am when it opened. We were shocked: there were hundreds of people ordering themselves into nice, neat queues outside every door into the store. I had heard that everyone goes to the shrine on New Years' morning but apparently shopping is really the priority here. Then came the second shock of 2008: when the doors were opened, people started running! I mean literally running... all over the shot. And the store clerks were yelling for people please not to run, but it was already too late by then. All sense of propriety had been thrown out of the window. Incredible.

New Year mochi (rice cake):
Throughout this whole holiday period the weather has been going crazy. On December 23rd it was 17ºc and 68% humidity; On January 1st it was 7ºc and snowing and hailing. It seems to be stabilizing again now, but I don't know how long that will last. I'm used to it always being 12ºc and drizzling in England – I just can't take this kind of sudden change.

I have no idea how to finish such a long, rambling post so I will just do it with a random picture. This was taken on January 1st near Hamanomachi:
Owari desu!

たべもの と かいもの - Food and Shopping

May and I have become suddenly very popular indeed. I think maybe it was our joining the sports teams in Kumamoto and our pathetic attempt at playing volleyball last week that has brought us closer to certain members of the hospital staff. They just seem a little more comfortable around us and, apparently, more open to inviting us out. I am writing this on Saturday morning (24th November) and yesterday we had lunch out with Oka-san, the assistant nurse on 5W, and her daughter. We had this (it's a type of bento):

Today, we are meeting Kumiko-san again for lunch, and on Wednesday we are having – drum roll, please - fugu(!) with Nakashima-sensei and another of the senior doctors, who's name I don't know yet.

I'll just quickly explain about the Japanese naming system, since I have now mentioned three different addresses in this blog. Putting -sanafter the name is the equivalent of calling somebody Mr, Mrs, or Miss. You generally use the surname only; first names are only used by very close friends or between members of the same family. Also, I have noticed at work that if more than one person has the same surname, people might call them by their first name. If you called out for Yamaguchi-san about ten nurses and three doctors would answer. -Chan, as I think I have mentioned previously, is less formal than '-san' and is usually used when referring to children. Children, and me. Finally, -sensei means teacher as a word on it's own, but after a name it means doctor. So Nakashima-sensei is Dr Nakashima. Oh, actually, like in English, you could just say 'Sensei' when speaking to a doctor, as in, “Tell me the truth, Doctor” or “Thank you, Doctor”.

Back to all the dinner engagements. So yeah, I am having fugu on Wednesday! You all will know what fugu is, even if you don't recognise the word. Fugu is that infamous Japanese fish that can kill you if you eat certain parts of it. It looks like this:

If I am not mistaken, it is the toxins in it's liver that can turn your dinner into your funeral. It is usually served as sashimi (thin slices of the raw fish) or boiled in a soup, I believe. It is a winter delicacy and an expensive one at that, so May and I are very lucky that Nakashima-sensei offered to treat us to some. I understand that a good fugu chef can prepare the fish so that there is still enough toxin in it that it makes your lips go numb – that is the optimum fugu experience. If there's a little bit more of the poison present than that, you will end up in a coma, and a little more on top of that and you'll end up six feet under. I read somewhere that back in the olden days, to distinguish between coma and death in someone who had eaten fugu, they would leave the body next to the coffin for three days before they buried it: A comatose body won't rot. So that is all for me to look forward to on Wednesday. If you don't hear from me after that, you will know what happened.

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After lunch with Kumiko-san today, May and I are going shopping. Yay! We have been very good and have resisted doing this until now since our last spree in September. But believe me, my urges to buy things are so pent up, there will be no resistance this afternoon. There will be no holding me back. Ha ha ha ha! There is a decent excuse for shopping today though. Firstly, it is a long-weekend so there are a few sales on. Secondly, May and I have a party to go to and therefore, a new outfit to buy. More on this later, hee hee.

Landed

Okay. I'm in Japan. It was quite a journey getting here but I won't go into that until after I arrive at my final destination, Nagasaki. Tokyo is great, although quite overwhelming at times. I have already come across some great Engrish and some of their product names are just absurd. Here's a few photographs to keep you occupied until I can be bothered to write something a bit more detailed.





















This is a street in Akihabara - the electronics centre of the world.

















Hmmm... these are different types of diet pills. My favourite has to be FAT MAGNET. Surely you would want the opposite from a diet pill...?

















Ah, yes, the Japanese vending machine - sells everything from green tea to groceries. And they are everywhere.

















Believe it or not, there is a whole line of X-Girl clothing. This one was totally my favourite though... going my wave...LOL, that's great. The shop I found this t-shirt in sold both men's and women's clothing, but I'm not sure if there is a men's x-girl range - that would be the ultimate.

I'll just leave you with one more thing before I go: One of the first things I bought in Japan was a box of green tea and chocolate flavour Pocky (a kind of sweet/biscuit if you don't know) but it was only a few minutes ago that I noticed a great logo on the back that said, A wonderful life in the best of taste. Yep, that's Pocky. The logo had a little dancing man on it too, the relevance of which I haven't figured out yet.