MIA - Missing in Autumn
I did not get round to writing a post during October and November - who knew being on a career break could be so busy. But here are the highlights of what we have been up to during the autumn.
Land of the Rising Scrum
Yes, that’s right, I know what a scrum is. But, no, I cannot take credit for the epic pun. I may not seem like a rugby fan and I’ll come clean... I’m not really. But for the month and a half that Japan was hosting the Rugby World Cup, from September to November, you’d easily have believed otherwise. For those of you who are not rugby fans, don’t be put off by reading the rest of this section as very little is actually to do with rugby.
The fact that Japan was hosting the Rugby World Cup had been on my radar even before we moved to Japan. I had marked the various dates for ticket ballots and sales on my calendar and we had planned which games we’d bid for - yes, we were prepared. We were lucky and got tickets for one England game and one Wales game so both of us were happy.
On 5 October we went to watch England play Argentina in a stadium in Tokyo - I went all out and wore a skirt with roses on it to show my support for England. Wil grunted something about begrudgingly supporting England in the match. We took our inflatable Union Jack dinosaur to show that we were a house united in our support of the British teams. Other than a pathetic tiny flag I made, I didn’t have an English flag to take with me even if I had wanted to! It prompted me to start a discussion with Wil about the perception of the England flag and how it is generally perceived negatively as nationalistic rather than positively as patriotic. I am sure a lot has been written on the subject but earlier this year I found it interesting to listen to a podcast on this issue - Reasons to be Cheerful with Ed Miliband and Geoff Lloyd and episode 82 is called Full English: forging a progressive identity.
Going back to the match, England won and all in all attending my first ever rugby match was a fun experience even though there were fewer hunks than expected.
On 12 October we went to watch Wales vs Uruguay in Kumamoto; it is a city quite far away in western Japan so we decided to turn it into a mini holiday to the region and spent a day exploring Kumamoto city, a day in Fukuoka city and a few spots in Saga prefecture. By heading west we got incredibly lucky and avoided a massive typhoon that hit large swathes of the rest of the country, including Tokyo. The match itself was not as exciting as the England one, but we had second row seats and it was a good experience nonetheless. Wales won. Japan won their game against Scotland later that day and also qualified for the quarter finals so everyone was pretty jolly on the streets that night. I high-fived a lot of Japanese and Welsh men that night, including some hunks.
For those of you who do follow rugby, you are probably wondering if we went to any matches in the 2015 Rugby World Cup that was hosted in England. Well, here’s some news for you...I had no clue that England hosted the previous Rugby World Cup and definitely made no attempt whatsoever to attend a match!
We don’t have a TV here so our other weekends during the Rugby World Cup were spent at fan zones watching the matches on big screens or restaurants or bars showing the matches. For the final (England vs South Africa), I queued outside a British pub to ensure we got a spot to watch the match when the pub opened its doors. I was fourth in line and making small talk with a Japanese man (who actually knew about rugby) and American and Canadian men (who really had no clue about rugby and I am not sure what they were doing there).
Other thoughts and observations from my few weeks of rugby mania:
When a player scores, why is it called a “try”?! Surely it should be called something else that indicates that the team has been successful in attempting to score rather than merely trying? Yes, I am more interested in the etymology of the sport rather than the sport itself.
I like the maths involved in rugby scores and figuring out the possible combinations of who could win and how in matches that were close. And that was even before you added in the points a team could get in the overall points table for how many tries they scored or the margin of defeat.
I like rugby shirts. But do players actually play rugby in rugby shirts, you know the ones with the collar and long sleeves that pretentious students wear? I obviously had one.
All three teams I was supporting lost to South Africa so they will be my rugby nemesis for now: South Africa defeated Japan in the quarter-finals, Wales in the semi-finals and then England in the final. Gah.
47 Prefecture Mission
You may be aware that Wil and I are trying to visit all 47 prefectures in Japan. Over the autumn we took our tally to 45 out of 47 (!) by visiting the following prefectures:
Fukuoka
Saga
Iwate
Aomori
Aomori was probably my favourite out of the four so I’ll tell you about my two favourite places in Aomori. The first is Mount Osore, which is one of the top three holiest Buddhist sites in Japan. The mountain area is the site of Bodaiji Temple which is in an extraordinary volcanic setting on the shores of a stunning lake. It was incredibly beautiful and dystopian at the same time and is described as Buddhist afterlife because of this. The second is Towada Art Museum (full of modern art installations). Japan has a knack for creating art museums in off the beaten track locations and it seems to be working by attracting tourism to these areas.
Here are a few photos from Mount Osore.
OK, I actually have three favourite places in Aomori. The third was a cafe that served delicious bagels and pancakes which are two of my favourite forms of carbs, or actually two of my favourite foods.
For those of you wondering, the two prefectures we are yet to visit are Shimane and Yamaguchi. We are hoping to visit them by the early spring!
Tourist boom
From the beginning of November to the beginning of December we had guests either staying with us or staying in the city for 22 days! I feel incredibly lucky that we live in a place that people want to come and visit and it has been brilliant to guide them around the city and show them why I love Tokyo so much.
It has also meant that I have been on three consecutive Tokyo holidays in the past month with the three sets of visitors. This was fantastic because I planned their itineraries and took them to the places I really like and over indulged on food as if I was on holiday with them too - it would have been rude not to. But my legs are very glad that I’m no longer hitting 20,000 steps most days!
What’s next?
We are taking it easy in December and enjoying having some weekends in Tokyo. We won’t be popping back to the UK over Christmas this year and haven’t quite decided how to spend Christmas Day itself. It is kind of sad that Japan is shockingly into Christmas commercially and Christmas merchandise and trees are EVERYWHERE. Christmas is not a holiday here and everyone goes to work and schools are open etc. Only a teeny tiny proportion of the population here celebrates Christmas so I personally don’t understand the fuss around Chri$tma$. I didn’t move to the other side of the world to be blinded by Christmas lights - sorry for sounding bah humbuggy. But, at least this year it is a reminder of home as we will be in Japan over Christmas.
Setting the scene for as I wrote this blog:
Location: In a cafe called Blikje Button in Shimokitazawa.
Weather: Sunny winter afternoon with the temperature around 10°C.
Soundtrack: The cafe was playing Christmas tunes.
Bonus fact: Today I created anarchy by accidentally opening the wrong window on my advent calendar.
