One of those "Why can't they?" moments

I am teaching an intensive writing course. Every day for two weeks. Before the course, I requested that an OHP be put in the classroom and so I didn't have to bugger about signing one out and setting it up every day.

Every day so far, I've had to go to the offfice and tell them that I need an OHP. A bevy of office ladies then scuttles into my classroom wheeling trolleys of equipment and proceeds to bugger about in the centre of the horseshoe of desks, flashing lights on and off, untwisting great coils of wire, whispering in panicky voices and generally disrupting the lesson.

My classroom sits empty next door to their office until I go in there, yet every time I go in and remind them, they wave and smile as if to say, "There you are! We've been waiting for you." So my question is this: why can't they take the initiative and set it up before my class starts without me having to remind them every time?

Oenophilia

Beast and I decided to rekindle the tradition, started by a colleague when we lived in Prague, of Saturday afternoon wine tasting parties. Everyone brings a bottle, wraps it up so we don't know what it is, then we all guess the grape, country, etc. and rate each one. The winner gets something nice. The loser gets a bottle of Polish wine.

Unfortunately, Beast and I have become buffier (?) about wine since moving to Japan, and we wanted to inflict our personal faves on our guests. Thus, the number of bottles far exceeded the number of guests, and I was bumbling incoherently by the time we got to the reds. At least my incompetence was exceeded by Kiwi Chris, who, proud of his nation's wine heritage, exclaimed with great confidence that the white wine he was drinking was a French pinot noir. He escaped (pursued by hoots of derision) before we could give him his prize. Lovely Scot redeemed the educational value of the day, however, by declaring the most expensive merlot the taste she'd been looking for all her life.

My eyeballs and tongue have only just stopped hurting, but we'll definitely be doing it again.

Chance encounter

We said our goodbyes, Beast went off to work in his corner of Tokyo, and I (several hours later) went off to mine. After finishing said work, I was drifting along the platform of one of the busiest metro stations in the centre of the city, on my way home engrossed in thoughts of work, life and what to buy for dinner, when who should I spot, squished into the corner of the train, but my Beast! I hopped on and we enjoyed a wee kiss among the crowds before parting again as he returned to the office and I headed home.

Snow in August

The Beastie family have been on holiday. To get there, we got a train, then another train, then a bus, then a trolley bus through a mountain, then a funicular. After that, we walked across a dam, then got a cable car, then another bus through another mountain, then a flight on the back of a unicorn and finally, we arrived here. Wearing these. And saw this.

Human nature

Beast and I are planning to climb Mount Fuji this September, by which I mean Beast is planning to climb Mount Fuji this September and I am waiting for an opportune moment to sprain my ankle or otherwise incapacitate myself so that I don’t have to climb Mount Fuji this September. But in the meantime, I am playing along with our “training programme”, part of which took place yesterday.

First, we set off too late and realised when we were on the train that we would not have time to get up the intended mountain before nightfall. Not to worry, a quick change of plans and trains put us on the right course for mountain B. As we neared it, we realised that Beast’s bag was still on the train to mountain A. When Beast finally stopped shaking his head in disbelief and calling himself a “stupid fucking cunt”, we called various Japan Rail offices to report the loss of the bag and went about our business, Beast wearing a newly purchased hat and my sunglasses, and occasionally grumbling about some “fucking twat” under his breath.

After a while, Mother Nature worked her magic on Beast’s troubled soul and he forgot about his inner twat and began chuntering away about leaves instead. We dipped our tootsies in a bubbling stream, scrambled across ancient tree roots and inhaled the scent of pine and cedar. At the top, we were rewarded with a lovely view of the slippery customer herself and a message from the efficient people at Japan Rail, who had not only located Beast’s bag, but also taken it to the station he would be passing through the next morning so he could pick it up.

The longest two hours...

An ex-colleague of mine is lonely, bored and wondering if hubby really loves her. So she’s been sleeping with ex-colleague no. 2. All manner of intrigue has followed and she is now looking for distractions/succour. To this end, she organised a party for her birthday. A two-hour cruise round Tokyo Bay, complete with nomihodai. For those unfamiliar with Japan, nomihodai means “all you can drink for a set price”.

I pictured a smallish boat decorated with lanterns, clutches of people sitting around chatting, sipping cocktails and enjoying a refreshing sea breeze. The first inkling that I was going to be disappointed came when we arrived at the pier and saw a queue of several hundred people snaking across the plaza. As they raised the gangplank of what resembled a cross-channel ferry, I quickly realised that we had in fact just joined the Pinky and Perky Booze Cruise from Hell. Staff dressed in baseball caps and Hawaiian shirts were thrusting polystyrene cups of warm beer at the mass of outstretched arms. Equipped with two beers per hand, the customers then pushed their way through the crowds to the main deck, where a stage had been set up. Several female comperes were yelling into the mic in their squeakiest voices in an attempt to whip the crowd into a frenzy. And the Japanese being the Japanese, were happy to comply.

Within 10 minutes, the Ronco 80’s J-pop compilation was blasting from every speaker, and the crowd were jumping on top of each other, waving their arms in the air and yelling at the tops of their voices. Empty beer cups were cast by the wind into bystanders’ facers, paper plates and plastic forks littered every available surface and upturned bowls of noodles and half-eaten sausages were sliding fore and aft with the sickening swaying of the ship. Small children were screaming, young women in yukata were screeching and falling over (in that order), men of all ages were grabbing each other by the shoulders, swinging from the rafters and howling to the tune of Hey Mickey! I clutched my orange pop tightly, and arranged my face into what I fancied was an indulgent smile, but probably looked, to an objective eye, more like a rictus of horror. I managed to stand there for about 20 minutes before I seriously considered leaping overboard.