Day 1 in Japan...30th June 2008

OK, so its a bit late i admit.　But i have been very busy over the past two weeks in Japan...

30th June saw me, Amy and Mikey driving down to Birmingham airport. Of course, me being the control freak that i am, i insisted on driving. Problem was, we didn't actually set off until just after midnight 29th/30th June. So, i managed to get about 3/4 of the way there, and i had to sleep so that meant Amy had to drive the rest of the way. The original plan was for Mikey to drive my car all the way there and back again so that we could sleep, but, their was a slight problem with that. I er, forgot to get Mikey insured on my car before the insurance company went to sleep on the Sunday afternoon - doh! Anyway, it wasn't too much of a problem, a quick phone call to the insurance company on the Monday morning and Mikey was good to go home.

We had a stupidly long wait at the airport because we were informed by our carrier that we had to be at the airport 3 hours before the flight, why? so we can do some shopping obviously. Because the check in desk didn't open until about an hour before the flight took off!

As usual when i go anywhere, there was some drama before we actually got through check in. We had a huge challenge of trying to get our luggage weight down to the allowance of 20kg, the only way i could achieve this was to fill my hand luggage with the rest. This meant that my hand luggage weighed in at 15kg. Now, usually this wouldn't have been a problem because the airlines never bother weighing hand luggage. Until today...

The jobsworth at the desk insisted that we left things behind so we had to recall Amy's main hold bag back so we could fill that up with more stuff. Also, i ended up leaving some of my books etc... behind with Mikey.

After this little drama, we had to rush through customs, get everything scanned and my hand luggage had to be manually checked (i think because of all the books i was carrying). This slowed us down even more, so when we finally found our plane, we were two of the last to get on.

The actual flight to Zurich was straightforward, until we arrived over the airport ready to land. We had to circle for ages waiting for our landing slot.

When we eventually landed, we had to dash through customs etc... get my hand luggage manually checked again, and get taken to a small cubicle with this security guy (!), thankfully i didn't get a strip search, he just ran his hand-held metal detector thing over me and i was off.

The flight to Tokyo from Zurich was to take 12 hours, the longest flight id ever endured. Despite this, it went by pretty quickly. About a 3rd of the way through, we realised (after watching the Japanese guy next to us) that we had our own personal TV screens. The same guy helped me get my TV setup and then i was away... It was like having your own media centre, it was well cool. Their was 100s of movies to watch, games, music etc... I ended up watching 10,000BC, Jumper and something else which I've forgotten the name of, by this time the flight was about done.

In between all the movie watching, the cute air hostesses insisting on bringing us loads of lovely snacks & meals, all were lovely.

We finally arrived at Tokyo Narita airport, and we were through customs (after getting our finger prints & photos taken!) ready to go. All we had to do was find Arakawa sensei, someone who we`d never met before, and weren't too sure of what he looked like. I spent the next hour wandering around the airport looking for someone looking for us, if that makes sense...

After a while, i decided that either he wasn't here yet, or this whole Japan trip thing was actually a huge practical joke, and we were being secretly filmed. Not wanting to improve any imaginary TV ratings, i decided to sit down and chill out. About 2 minutes into my chilling out, Arakawa Sensei walks into the airport, and straight over to us. We have a very basic introduction, Sensei doesn't speak a lot of English and we speak zero Japanese.

First impressions of Sensei are that of a very nice guy, genuinely interested in us. Sensei kindly had two starbucks coffee milkshake things for us, they were very nice, we also had a bit of chat.

We had a 2 hour drive to Sugito by car, Sensei was pointing out the sights and important landmarks along the way.

We were took past our new apartment and Lawrence’s place. (about a 5 min walk from our place) Then onto Sensei’s house, which is pretty cool with the Dojo as the full ground floor. There is also a portacabin thing outside the main building which is the venue for the Shiramizu English classes.
We were given a quick tour of the dojo and introduced to Sensei’s wife, Keiko. I was surprised to hear that Keiko-San doesn't train in Martial Arts, however their two sons aged 7 & 10 do.

We were left on our own for a short while until Lawrence-san (the current intern) arrived from work.
We introduced ourselves; it was great to finally meet in person after months of talking to each other via email. Btw Lawrence-san is very good at Japanese, despite arriving here a year ago and knowing nothing – its got to be a good sign for us!

We were taken by car to see our new apartment and introduced to the landlords husband, his wife is a Yoga master, with over 500 students! We were also driven past their home which doubles up as their yoga studio too, a very nice place!

We (Arakawa; Amy; Lawrence; me) then went out for a particularly American meal, which had nothing at all vegetarian on, except maybe salad. So, it seems that i will NOT be a vegetarian in Japan. The meal was particularly tasty, which sensei insisted on paying for – something, it would seem that is a bit of an established custom. At the meal it was decided that Amy would train to become a Yoga Instructor whilst in Japan.

Afterwards we were dropped off with our luggage at Lawrence place, were we could check our emails and get showered etc... we were also introduced to the land lady who is also a yoga master.
Once chilled out and clean, we then went back to the Dojo to watch a Junior Kyu grading. There were 36 kids grading with a 90% pass rate. Btw, all the kids were very lively and fantastic at Karate. All of whom were between 7 – 9 years old. I was totally shattered, and the hall was very warm so i kept nodding off. The parts i saw, in particular the young brown belts were totally ace. The grades seemed to consist of basics, combinations, which were done one after the other, as though fighting someone and Pinan Kata. One kid in particular (turns out to be arakawa Sensei’s Youngest son, Masatoshi who is only 7 yrs old) was very good.
I was surprised afterwards to learn that two out of 5 brown belt kids didn't pass, they were all brill!

Part way through the grade Richard-san turned up from work, we went into a small room and talked. He let us know of the expectations of the intern etc... how Amy will fit in etc... he seemed to be very driven and a very nice guy.

We were interrupted and paraded in front of the now full dojo, we were given a short intro by sensei which Richard kindly translated for us. Then we were asked to give a short introduction in simple English, which Richard translated for the crowd. It wasn’t a great performance –but i’m gonna blame that on the jet lag! Anyway, we were both sufficiently embarrassed so the Japanese loved it.
We bowed out and escaped back to our room, were our brain was filled with more random stuff by Richard-san.

After our talk, i gave them some gifts, including a cuddly monkey for Ema, Richard & Rei’s baby girl, who also happens to be the Shirimizu mascot!

Afterwards, we went for a very nice meal. This time an Italian restaurant. We had a good chat, and again sensei insisted in paying for it! We were escorted outside were Lawrence kindly taught us how to thank sensei in Japanese. Domo arigato gosaimasu! = thank you very much...
We said our goodbyes and went back to Lawrence’ place for sleep.


NOTE - i will put some related photos on as soon as i find my memory stick, i had it here a moment ago...