On April

April is the turning point in the Japanese calendar. Specifically, the point where the air turns warm overnight and we begin the doomish march to summer, with its 100% humidity. But before then we might have at least a few scant weeks of spring - balmy skirt weather, cakes in the park, cherry-blossoms. I got to see the very earliest blossoms in March, actually - by coincidence I booked an appointment at a hairdresser's on a street in Nagoya which, for some reason, gets the sakura about two weeks before anywhere else in the city. It was completely unexpected and I threw my cardigan off in delight.

Sadly, the rest of the all-too-brief cherry-blossom season was disappointing. There were a lot of rainy days, and I was too busy with the new school year and a visit from my family to attend any proper hanami parties (read: outdoor drinking, picnic blankets, ordering pizza delivered to your local park to be eaten under falling petals). While I was with my parents, however, I did get to see some great blossoms in Hikone, a town well-known for its castle. To be honest, with the hanami season the blossoms aren't always as impressive as you might hope, but I think it's its role as the harbinger of spring which makes it so lovely - the gooey air mellowed by breezes, the food stalls, the skies. All will be well for the next couple of months, apart from all the MASSIVE BUGS EVERYWHERE. (Today I saw an ant the size of a dachshund, and accidentally crushed a bug that left a bright orange mess all over my hands, all in the space of five minutes.)

April was generally a bit chaotic, with the new school year and introduction to a load of new kids, classes and schools, as well as my family visiting, so there's not a lot to report. I do have one other highlight of the month: the fire festival at Tejikara in Gifu Prefecture, which is wonderful and definitely really, really dangerous.

I'm not competent enough to explain the historical significance of this festival, and I suspect there really isn't any, apart from 'we like to show how good we are at running through fireworks shirtless', so I'll link you to Gifu's tourist board website here, but basically a lot of shirtless men carry portable shrines filled with gunpowder, a bunch of fireworks are set off, and the men walk through cascades of firework sparks carrying the shrines with seemingly little trouble. Also, some of the shrines featured Jibanyan, a character from the popular kids' anime Yo-Kai Watch, for whatever reason. It was difficult to get pictures due to the lighting, general chaos and the fact that I'd been playing on my phone all day and had 4% battery left. We also had to stand very far away, because of all the fire and fireworks and fire, so it was pretty hard to see the men themselves with my own eyes, let alone through a crappy phone camera at night, and none of my pictures of them carrying the shrines through the fireworks really came out right. But I hope I can get a bit of the spirit across here.

That last picture is the most important one.

On The Inadequacy of the Silkworm: my trip to Takayama

Spring! It's actually warm here in Nagoya and my coat is nestled away with the spiders. After a chaotic few weeks I'm settling into part-time work and starting to plan all the things I want to do with my newfound free time. First on the list is conquering my backlog of blog posts I want to write. Theoretically there are things I want to write about that happened as far back as last January, but realistically I'm not sure I ever will. Instead, I'll tell you about the trip I took back in February, so take off all your clothes and stand in front of an open fridge so you can better imagine the scene.

A couple of hours north of Nagoya lie the mountains of Gifu Prefecture. Whilst my home prefecture, Aichi, is mostly known for car manufacturing and rudeness, Gifu is known for its skiing, hiking and hot springs; think of it as the clean-living aunt to Aichi's quietly angry uncle. Nestled obscurely in the mountains you'll find historical villages which are famous for their gassho houses, with their trademark steep triangular rooves. You might have seen them on some Buzzfeed list or other, looking like the Frosty Village track from Diddy Kong Racing:

Nick and I had wanted to visit for a long time, especially during the snowy season (which, to be fair, lasts about eight months of the year in north Gifu). Finally, towards the end of winter, we had four days off in a row, and were able to book a hotel to spend a couple of days in Takayama, the biggest town in the area, and Shirakawa-go, a famous traditional village where the houses have been preserved for visitors.

From Nagoya, you can get to Takayama via a special train called the 'Wide View', which funnily enough gives you a wide view. The windows are floor-to-ceiling length so you can best admire the scenic route through the mountains. Above you can see the incredible teal colour of the rivers that pass through Gifu (and maybe, if you look closely, my scrunched-up little face in the reflection of the window).

Takayama itself was bigger than I expected; I'd imagined a village but it's actually quite a large town. It was fairly quiet when we went - peak season was over - but there were a few restaurants and shops that were used to catering for tourists, and a fair amount of English around.

Although I would argue they haven't really understood what 'a lot of pizza' is supposed to look like.

After lunch at a burger place that had been highly recommended, we traipsed up to our ryokan (Japanese traditional-style inn), trampling our way through perfectly white, crisp snow. By coincidence, there was a lovely folk village/museum just five minutes' walk from the ryokan so we decided to have a look round before check-in.

The first thing we noticed in the folk village was a massive lake, completely frozen over, with a suspicious trail of footprints circling aimlessly about the fresh layer of snow that topped it. Specifically, bird prints. We were visiting out-of-season and our only fellow guest was a swan, who seemed uninterested in the local history. We learned a few things at the village, mostly about the local silk industry and how completely useless silkworms are at surviving without human help.

A resolution to carve "about 120,000 statues". I didn't know lifelong goals both so bold and so vague.

The answer is: laaaaaame.

Back in the ryokan, I spoke a handful of Japanese to our hostess, who responded by explaining all the ryokan's rules to me in fluid native-level Japanese. Somehow I understood the majority of it and grinned proudly at my beloved, like a toddler that's managed to use the toilet for the first time. Unfortunately it turned out that after (correctly) taking my shoes off in the lobby, I'd (incorrectly) put on some wooden clogs that were only supposed to be worn in the bathroom, and was traipsing around all the lovely rooms getting poo germs everywhere. The hostess was very nice about it.

We ended our evening with a delicious dinner at a nearby noodle bar. It was the kind solely inhabited by elderly locals with voices like Rizlas, who consider the patron at the end of the bar of fifteen years' standing to be suspicious because he's too new. Happily, they weren't unkind to the two young foreigners suddenly in their midst, just a bit shocked that we'd managed to appear there. A few of the typical questions came up and we gave typical answers - we're from the UK, yes we can eat noodles, yes we can use chopsticks. (There was all-round amazement at the fact we could eat noodles, but seemingly no concern that we wouldn't be able to understand all the Japanese that was being spoken.) Our fellow customers even took our side against the proprietor when she got our order wrong - the proprietor being part of that eccentric breed of elderly Japanese restaurant owners that take your order by barking questions at you repeatedly, disappearing halfway through the order and coming back with a dish chosen at random. The random dish was very tasty.

The following day we took a bus to Shirakawa-go, the village famous for its wintry beauty and perfect gabled houses. The main thing I can tell you about Shirakawa-go is that it's really bloody cold. The next, perhaps less obvious thing I can tell you, is that it's really bloody difficult to see because the bright sunlight reflects off the snow and directly into your bloody eyeballs. Usually I carry my sunglasses in my handbag all year round, but I'd just emptied it recently in an attempt to ease my constant shoulder pain. So I can't tell you much more about Shirakawa-go, except that it's extremely beautiful and looks like the northern end of the universe - when you actually brave snow-blindness and dare yourself to look at it.

The Last Express Could Have Been Amazing So Why Didn't I Enjoy It As Much As I Should Have

Unedited, vaguely stream-of-conscious-ish review today. The Last Express is an adventure game published in 1997 and played by me, your blogatrix, in 2015. In some corners of the internet it is still much-loved, with many people even calling it one of the best adventure games of all time, and I'd heard about it from a few people before I decided to purchase and play it myself. I have a bit of a weakness for point-and-click adventures, despite lacking the unique brain-wiring which allows me to successfully work out that you need to hit the sandwich with the balloon to open the fourteen-sided codex, so I usually need a walkthrough and a fair bit of patience to get through them. I'm also a sucker for anything that seems to have a compelling or unique setting, so this game seemed perfectly positioned to charm me. So why did find myself getting so angry at it? Why did I have to drag myself through it over a period of about a month when it shouldn't have taken half as long?

I really, really, really wanted to enjoy this game. I hate doing all the background info because I struggle to write about it without sounding clunky, but essentially the game is set on the Orient Express just prior to the outbreak of the First World War. Tensions are high among the guests, and within the first few minutes your character, a mysterious American who boarded the train without a ticket, discovers his friend murdered in his compartment. What follows is the gradual unfolding of a mystery, featuring romance, gold and anarchists. (I'm sure saying this will get my blog put on a list somewhere, but I think there should be a lot more anarchists in things. I like any time period where there's lots of anarchists hanging about.) The most notable thing about the game is that all the train's passengers and staff live their lives in real-time, wandering about the carriages and hanging out in their compartments, having dinner and chatting. Your job is to solve the murder and work out what strange things are taking place on the train, by exploring, eavesdropping and interacting with guests. All in all, it's a brilliant concept.

First of all, I want to say that despite coming away from it with some negative feelings, the game is a pretty impressive feat and I feel quite bad for being harsh on it. It's easy to pick on the flaws of a twenty-year-old game, especially one which aims so high and therefore has a long way to fall if it misses. My knowledge of game design is pretty basic but the real-time mechanic must have been difficult to handle, and anyone who at least tries something interesting and new gets an eager thumbs-up from me. The art is beautiful and the setting enchanting. The voice acting is pretty decent for videogame voice acting. When I wasn't getting frustrated at the various issues I'll talk about in a second, it was really nice just being there. Sitting in a train car and watching a Russian noble sit down for a cigarette with an uninterested French lesbian. Listening to a chef and his apprentice bicker in the kitchen. Finding the attendant's secret drawings of all the passengers whilst he nips off to check the compartments. There's also a couple of newspapers you can find with full stories you can read, which gives an insight into the complicated political situation you are perhaps unwisely wading into. Some have complained that if you solve the train's puzzles quickly, you are left with a lot of downtime where you just have to wait for stuff to happen, but I liked having this breathing space. I liked knowing that I didn't have to rush, and that there was no problem with me just leaving my character in the smoking car and hearing the chit-chat of the characters around me. For its flaws, it is truly beautiful.

The flaws though. Grnnn.

The most immediate thing that strikes you is that the controls are like using your nose to guide a slice of wet bread through lumpy custard. You play from a first-person perspective, and the point-and-click mechanics feel especially clunky when you have to use them to turn yourself around or look up or down, which you often have to do when sneaking into people's carriages and looking through their baggage and whatnot (all in a day's work for a totally legit amateur detective). There can end up being a lot of "no SHIT no I didn't want that door I wanted the other door no oh wait what wall is this do I go this way NO I WANTED THE OTHER WAY". There are also a couple of fight scenes, which feel equally awkward. I initially bought The Last Express on my phone so I could play it on my commute, but had to switch to playing it on PC because the controls were so bumworm.

There are also a lot - a lot - of dead ends. If you don't do things right, your character will be killed or arrested and you will have to rewind, taking you back to the last time the train stopped at a station. This could mean you lose up to an hour's worth of playtime because of something you did, or didn't do, that you have no idea about. Fair enough, you need a bit of trial and error to work out what you need to do, and it is sometimes nice to get to replay bits so you can discover new things happening that you didn't catch last time around. However, the deaths feel a bit too random and caught up in adventure-game logic and these restarts just feel infuriating as a result. At one point a woman ended up clobbering me to death about five different times for reasons I had no idea of; furthermore there weren't any obvious connections between her and what I'd been doing so I didn't know how to get out of that dead-end. Using a walkthrough I didn't have to waste too much time on these mistakes, but without help I think I would probably have given up. One time I found an object which was then taken off me by another passenger; the game doesn't end when it happens, but apparently if you continue the game there is just no way of winning and you would have no idea. In order to actually finish the game you also need to do something small and seemingly insignificant halfway through the game, and again there is no way of knowing this. I don't need to have my hand held all the way through a game, but I think there's a certain level of obscurity where it's unfair to let someone play all the way through to the end of a game without letting them know they've prevented themselves from actually finishing it, due to not giving the whistle to the balloon vendor between 3.15 and 3.30. Maybe it's just the nature of adventure games but the things you have to do often seem artificial and like you're just trying to get the game to progress rather than actually solving a mystery.

I really wanted to at least enjoy the ending, but unfortunately the ending is awful and for me almost ruined the story. I won't spoil it, but basically it adds in a bizarre psuedo-magic element that was totally unexplained and completely unnecessary, and introduced it in the context of a stupid quick-time event. (The most radically world-changing, brutal war to ever take place on the face of the Earth is about to start! You don't need wizardry to add drama!) Still, now that I've had a little bit of distance from it, I look back on it with more fondness. I prefer to remember those bits in the middle, just idling up and down corridors and chatting with chubby true-neutral arms dealers.

So, should you play it? Erm...yes. I think so. For a bit. With a walkthrough. Maybe. Sorry, I really still don't know. Leave me alone.

Welcome to my exciting new year of part-time work!

First day of part-time: it rained. We went to a friend's house and annoyed another friend via text, messaging them pictures to show how much we were enjoying not being at work. It got elaborate - there were shadow puppets and handicraft involved - and then it all got a bit exhausting and we went home. 

I wore some very blue eyeshadow, and realised that if I now have the freedom to wear whatever makeup I want four days a week, I'm going to have to wash my brushes a lot more frequently. 

I also just remembered I have to do laundry.

See you tomorrow.

Toga, toga, toga 2000!

Slight update to the previous update. I've never really bothered to do anything in terms of technical details or nice design or whatever with this blog, which I essentially see as a word-hole. However it was recently pointed out to me that people might want to actually subscribe to this thing. So, you can now subscribe via email or RSS feed in the right-hand corner. Hooray.

I'd also like to mention that last night, my friends and boyfriend threw me a surprise birthday party. It was toga-themed, I guess in celebration of my love of classics and not at all because people like to get shitfaced while wearing bedsheets. It was lovely and thoughtful and fun and it turns out I am totally dumb because I did not suspect anything at all. I won't get smushy but it made me really happy and I want to thank anyone who's reading this who had a part in it. And also find out who had a part in it but doesn't read my blog. And guilt those people into subscribing to my crap.

またね

Update

A new month, a new disease! For the last couple of weeks I've been plagued by some kind of child-related virus AND hay fever. Headaches, bad nose, blocked ears, achey jaw, sore throat. Everything from the neck up is out of order (especially my hair, which just never looks right). A lot of my coworkers have told me I look 'tired', which is Japanese for terrible. I've mainly soldiered through, and only took one day off work at the height of the virus' evil, but I've felt like pretty much all my energy is spent on work and once I'm home I can't really do much of anything. I haven't been practicing Japanese, writing or even getting through my backlog of podcasts. I went for a weekend away a month ago and I still haven't written about it, and I know no-one's desperate to read it but I sitll feel guilty all the same.

It's partly the illness, but I think also to do with the big upcoming change in my life - from April I will be working three days a week instead of five. It's almost a shame to be working a three-day week after successfully being a Proper Human for over a year - something I never thought I could do - but the opportunity has arisen for me to work lighter hours without losing too much financially, and the chance to make more use of my time in Japan (and take a lot more naps) was something I jumped at. So I think with only a few weeks to go until I switch to part-time work, my body and brain has just decided to give up for now and wait it out until I have more free time to be useful and productive. However, once I start my part-time contract, I don't want all this magical new free time to be wasted. I've spent time unemployed in the past, curled up in bedsheets at four in the afternoon and counting a trip to the postbox as an eventful day, and if I'm going to do that I may as well just go home and do it in a country that has Walkers crisps. Instead of lounging around all day, I want to schedule things for myself, make my time count for something. So I'll be updating the blog more regularly, whether anyone reads it or not, and working on my Japanese, whether anyone speaks to me or not. I also want to read more books, learn new things, all that stuff. I'm not sure exactly what my new existence will look like, but I picture myself sitting by a river and painting an old man fishing whilst listening to jazz, which I will have learned to appreciate. Whether this picture's realistic I don't know. But I know I'm looking forward to spending more time in Japan.

Oni Matsuri; Or, I am a Cookie Now

Have you ever wanted to know what it's like to be a cookie? Yes, obviously. Through this blog, if you've been watching closely, I've already showed you that Japan has taught me what it's like to be a poo:

Never give up.

But when I went to a nearby festival last Wednesday, I did not expect to end up looking like human cookie dough ready to be rolled out on a kitchen surface. But what would life be if you always got what you expected?

This festival was in Toyohashi, where the local mascot is apparently a grumpy sewer worker:

Or he's holding...exploding corn?

As far as I understand, the festival follows the story of an oni (demon), who invades the local shrine, gets up to some mischief, is defeated by Tengu (god of martial arts) and shows his contrition by throwing sweets and flour. If you get hit by the flour, you will have a healthy and happy year, so everyone does their best to ensure you get covered in flour. I'd sort of forgotten that part.

The festival began pretty normally. There was some waiting around, nibbling at street food, getting elbowed by old women and watching various rituals you have no idea of the meaning of. So far, so futsuu. There was a moment where a string of men brought down some boxes on a rope, which I thought might have oni hidden inside, but they were never opened so I guess not. Or at least, that's what they want you to think.

Classic distraction technique.

Suddenly, there was a wave of cries washing towards me, and the oni rushed forward. There was some confusion in the midst and my memories aren't quite clear, but at some point soon afterwards the oni, priests and various others were up on the pedestal above the crowd, throwing bags of sweets out. I didn't quite have the dexterity to catch one, but one did knock me on the head before being swept away by a greedy child. I'm hoping that means my head will stay healthy this year. 

After the oni did some mockful dancing and threw a couple of handfuls of pre-main-event flour, he pissed off for a bit and there was basically a lunch break. We wandered off for more street food and sat in a nearby car park watching children chase each other, fall straight onto gravel, and then get back up immediately as if the impact had only fuelled them further.

One small gripe I have with Japanese festivals is that there's often quite a bit of waiting around in between the fun bits. Call me a tourist (and I am) but my feet would feel much happier at the end of the day if they could just be condensed a little. We returned to the shrine and waited for an hour before the oni returned to continue his reign of terror. This time, he was met by long-nosed Tengu, who engaged him in a heavily-stylised fight (i.e. they don't actually touch at all) and was defeated. You think he'd have learned, having done this every year since 940 A.D.

To apologise for his sins, the oni throws more sweets and more flour. A lot more flour.

Most people got at least lightly coated at this point. The festival seemed to finish here and we all felt thoroughly satisfied and ready to walk back to the station. We did not know that the festival had not ended.

After leaving the shrine, the oni runs around the city centre, visiting all the local businesses that donated money to the shrine and gives them his blessing. He is not wordy by nature, so his blessing consists of running around waving a stick and shouting "aaaargh!". Moreover, everyone needs a little help sometimes, so he has a crew of assistants who crowd round him and help him throw flour and shout "aaaargh!".

Also, you know how before there was flour, and then a lot more flour? Well, then there was a lot lot more flour. All pretense of general dusting flies out the window; at this point the assistants will literally grab you and gleefully rub flour into your hair like an infuriating older brother. Immediately afterwards they will turn super-polite though, and actually hand you your own bag of flour, as if inviting you to get your own back. (I didn't though. I'm far too hampered by niceness. The little bags all ended up nesting in the bottom of my handbag, where no doubt they will be forgotten and get me arrested a few months down the line.)

Happily or unhappily, I actually came out relatively unfloured (though still the most floured I've ever been in my life. Ready to roll, cut and be baked at 180 degrees for 15-20 minutes). Some of my friends ended up looking like they'd walked out of some horrible accident at a Mr. Kipling factory. Pretty much everyone ended up with pure white hair (except maybe me, the owner of hair so thin and fine in texture even powder particles can't get stuck in it). As a mostly foreign group who were even whiter-looking than usual, we attracted a lot of attention on the way back from the station and a TV crew even interviewed us. Fortunately we were able to scrape off the excess before we got on the train and the station staff didn't seem to mind that we were flaking everywhere.

I can't recommend this festival highly enough. Combines culture with ridiculous, childlike fun. A+. Aaaaaarghhhhhh.