Autumn

I don't have time to blog, so here's a picture of autumnal Tokyo by way of apology.

Big brother

Japan is more like a communist country than some communist countries. People are herded back and forth and mollycoddled by a patriarchal state that looms over ever aspect of their lives. To give just one example, there is a network of public loudspeakers all over Tokyo from which, at a set time each morning, usually 9.00 am, a song blasts out telling the obedient public it's time to be at their desks. Another is played at 12.00 and again at 13.00 to inform hungry workers when to go to lunch and when to get back to work (yes, the vast majority do all go for lunch at the same time). In the Kanda business district in central Tokyo, a jingle is played at 15.00, summoning office workers to their tai chi practice, and in the early evening, another tells them to go home.

Homosexuality

One of my students was wearing a sweatshirt in class bearing the words,

Unbalanced person

Homosexuality

Bisexuality

I raised an eyebrow and quipped, "Interesting sweatshirt, Eriko". When I told her what it meant, she gasped and cried, "No, no, no!!! I am not homosexuality!"

Passive aggressive

I'm returning from Russia and have been in Tokyo for 10 minutes when my murderous tendencies resurface. An old woman with a walking stick gets on the train. All the seats are taken. She stands, trembling with infirmity in front of a girl of around 20, who ignores her and remains seated. I stare at the girl, but she keeps her eyes down. Then she gets her make up out and starts prissing around with her eyelashes. I give her my "May your mascara turn into a barbarous spike" followed by my "May your face fall off" look, but she is impervious. The old woman is still standing when I get off the train 7 stops later, fissing with anger.

Heads in the sand

I don't know if this is xenophobia or just plain laziness, but either way it doesn't bode well for Japan's so-called tourism industry. What I do know is that such an attitude is not unusual. For example, the belief that only the Japanese can grasp such concepts as removing one's shoes indoors or washing before getting in a communal bath is commonplace. Unsurprising perhaps, given that so many Japanese are happily ignorant about life beyond their own blessed shores. Harrumph. 

Promised pictures of Loket

The hunter and the bear

As night fell in Siberia, I would be rocked to sleep by the motion of the train and, more often than not, woken again by bangings and shuntings in the middle of the night. Upon waking, I'd lie in my bunk and stare up at the sky pulsating with stars. Orion blazed larger than life and Ursa Major seemed to shift and sway like a jewelled curtain. Once this coincided with Eno and Cale's Spinning Away on my ipod....as though it were written in the stars. And since my camera can't handle the night sky from a speeding train, here's a picture of Siberia by day.

Ostrich

Wanting to be fresh for our arrival in Vladivostok the next morning, Mr Mullet and I shared the last of our bottle of port and retired early. At 4.00 am, we were woken by someone rapping on our door. It was our provodnitsa, or carriage attendant.

"Ostrich" she said. Mr Mullet and I looked at each other blankly and said nothing. "Ostrich" she repeated, pointing at me.

"Ostrich?"

"You. Ostrich. Your stop"

"I'm not going to Ostrich. I'm going to Vladivostok"

"No. Ostrich"

"No. Vladivostok"

She switched on the overhead lights and showed me my ticket, which did indeed say "Moscow - Ussurisk". However, I had two tickets, one to Ussurisk and one from there to Vladivostok. Or at least I was supposed to. On closer inspection, the second ticket turned out to be from Ussurisk to Bumfucknowhere on a local train, and not, as I had requested and paid for, to Vladivostok on the Transsiberian. 

The provodnitsa agreed that it was strange that a tourist would want to go to Bumfucknowhere, but that without a ticket to Vladivostok, I had to get off. I begged to pay extra for the privilege of not being thrown off the train in deepest Siberia at 4 o'clock in the morning, and she grunted that she'd see what she could do. The light was switched off and the compartment door closed, but the train remained stationary. Footsteps thudded back and forth in the corridor. I huddled on my bunk in my underwear. "They won't throw me off in my undies" I reasoned. And indeed they did not.

For a small backsheesh, I was permitted to stay on board. Just before we arrived, the provodnitsa beckoned me into her cabin closed the door and, with a series of throat-slitting and noose-making motions, indicated that she'd be in big trouble if anyone found out that she'd let me stay on the train without a ticket. So I can't complain to the travel agency that sold me the ticket, but here I am publishing it on the world wide web. Just as well I only have 3 readers. 

Ige

I was standing in the corridor watching the sunset when Ige sidled up beside me. He was, like many Russian men, so large that upon turning to talk to him, I found myself staring at his chest. He smelled of garlic and had gold teeth, but he also had a delicately curved nose, beautiful chocolate-brown eyes and a rather dashing silk shirt. He loomed over me, shimmering like a god in the evening sun. I started to sweat, which is not attractive at the best of times, but after 7 days without a shower, could become a serious turn off. Declining his invitation to the restaurant car, I sashayed back to my compartment, pretending not to be flustered. 

Sergei and Alexei

Mr Mullet, bless him, befriended people wherever he found them. He was particularly fond of children, into whose unsuspecting path he would pounce, throwing his palm up for a high five and yelling "G'day!!" Sometimes they'd run away in tears and sometimes they'd pose for a photograph in exchange for a koala bear badge. 

One day he gave badges to two Russian kids, and later that night their fathers came bouncing along the train looking for him. They burst into our compartment bearing six bottles of vodka, thrust out their meaty paws in greeting and made themselves at home, shooing us up to make room.  

The vodka was passed around and conversation made with the help of the similarities between Czech and Russian and Mr Mullet's helpful mimes. He showed the Russians his photos of Australia, making engine sounds and wild steering motions whenever a photo of his car appeared on screen. Sergei and Alexei showed us pictures of themselves dressed in combat gear, posing with rifles and cigarettes.  

The vodka did not boost our linguistic skills, but it did make the photos, car noises and testosterone levels more bearable. When it was exhausted, they staggered off again, flushed and giggling like children. 

Mr Mullet

Boarding the train at Moscow, I was assigned to a compartment containing the arse of an elderly man. I supposed that there was a whole man present, but could only see his arse. He was on all fours facing the window, his elbows on the ground and butt in the air like a dog eager to play. Upon my "Good evening!", he leapt up and introduced himself.

His name was Mr Mullet (Yes, I'm serious), and he was an Australian ex-schoolteacher halfway through his grand retirement tour. He was the kind of person who'd spent a lifetime accumulating factiods and wanted to spend his retirement passing them on to others. We'd pass a power line and he'd say, "That's 3000 volts on that one. Must be for the hydroelectric dam up the road." He'd spot a policeman on the platform and exclaim, "Oh, a steel-handled truncheon! Usually they're fiberglass and plastic." After a walk along the platform at our longer stops, he'd announce, "It's a 232 locomotive they've got on now, which is surprising, because the bogies are 448s and normally you'd want a 233 with those." Sometimes his factiods were less compelling. As the compartment went completely dark, he'd say "That's us going through a tunnel." and as we approached built up areas, "We're coming up to a town now." Although he denied it, he was obviously missing Australia. "This landscape" he'd muse, gazing out at the Siberian taiga, "is just like the countryside back home." or "See those gravel mounds at the side of the track there? They're just like the gravel mounds in South Australia, but ours are a little higher."

He was going all the way to Vladivostok. 

The sleeping car

I read and watch the Polish, then the Belarusian countryside slide by under a leaden sky. An old woman in wellies and a headscarf cycles past a field of cabbages; a man trudges, head down, along the side of the tracks carrying a plastic bag; forests; forests; grey Stalinist blocks of flats; muddy, potholed roads; forests. Eventually, it lulls me to sleep and I wake, red-faced and bewildered as we approach Minsk.