Jerusalem

It's a done deal. I'm moving to England in six weeks. Utopia turned out to be none of the cities you suggested, but somewhere rather pleasant nonetheless. It's oop north; a city of dark satanic mills, Victorian terraced houses and large quantities of lard.  

Return of the Beast

Timorous Beast has returned from the UK bearing giant boxes of shredded wheat, Thornton's truffles and an Easter egg bearing a funny message in icing. I'm very happy to have his big warm shape back snuffling around the flat again. He's at work now, but the smell of him lingers still. 

How to use a toilet

The Japanese do tend to function best when someone tells them what to do, but this is taking it a bit far.

Someone pinch me

Both of the universities I applied to offered me a PhD place. I was pleased about that. Then one of them offered me a studentship. If you don't know just how lucky that makes me, here's the gist of it: they're not only going to pay my fees, but they're also going to give me money to study. They are going to pay me to spend three years up to my eyeballs in books. And as if that weren't enough, they also gave me a job coordinating their pre-sessional programme. Nothing like this has ever happened to me and I still can't quite believe it's true.

Miscommunications

I went to several companies in Tokyo this week to interview staff regarding their English training needs. Each time, a contact person from the company was nominated to meet me and let me in. And each time I arrived at the appointed hour, the contact person claimed to be in a meeting, hid under their desk, or was utterly baffled as to who I was and what I wanted. 

One poor guy had outlined, in nervous, breathy tones, his entire schedule for the week before I managed to explain that I was in the lobby and just wanted to be let in. A moment later he appeared, red-faced and cringing in shame. He scuttled along the corridor in front of me, indicating on the way where the vending machines stood: beyond a glass door that I couldn't open without a security pass. I looked at the door and looked at him. "Can I open this door?"

"No" he replied, "it is security door." That seemed to be the end of the matter. 

"Well, could I have a glass of water, please?" 

"No water," he said pointing to the vending machines, "Only soft drinks."

"Um....that's OK."

Without further niceties, he whisked me onward to my meeting room, depositing me there before backing out of the room with a series of bowing and flapping motions, bumping into chairs on the way. 

A moment later he returned. "Do you want coffee? Water?"

Ambassador

Che is in Tokyo and my life is filled with the grave responsibility of being a host. I've had to instruct her on the foibles of the coffee maker, show her ticket machines, and take her to hot spring resorts. I've become the sage and source of knowledge on all matters cultural and gastronomic, including the correct way to eat deep-fried weeds, what sumimasen means when yelled loudly at the waiter, and why we were presented with two bananas when we paid for our meal. 

What you see...

I tend to be direct, frank, rude. Call it what you will; I won't win any prizes for diplomacy. Japan is the opposite. It's capricious, indirect, and sometimes downright dishonest. In support of my thesis, I present three pieces of evidence:

1. On our street, a new apartment block is being built. A large sign on the fence shows how the finished product will look: the building, shiny and grand, standing by itself surrounded by trees. The reality, however, is that no matter how attractive the building itself will be, it is surrounded by other less attractive buildings, with the nearest tree several blocks away. 

2. Gifts are given frequently in Japan. A typical one will be encased in layers of tissue paper, and then placed inside an expensive box, which is wrapped in hand-made washi paper, and bedecked with colour co-ordinated silk ribbons and painstaking arrangements of dried flowers before being put in its own specially embossed carrier bag with rope handles. This luxuriant package often conceals within such wonders as a single dry cake or, say, an apple.

3. Maps in Japan bear little relation to reality. Firstly, buildings appear and disappear so fast, that any map more than six months old is bound to be inaccurate. Secondly, street maps are routinely rotated so that north is actually at the bottom of the map, where any normal person would expect south to be. Thirdly, maps that businesses put on their websites are "simplified" by removing those inconvenient small streets that might confuse customers, with the result that what looks like a five minute walk often turns out to take a frustrating half hour.