BETAMAXNOMATES

Today, that is. Just pissing down all day. The weather forecast here is scarily accurate. At least the one on the TV is. They show another Coke-sponsored one on the trains that makes very little sense and grades the temperature on a scale of 'refreshingness'. There's another weird (and constantly replayed) ad where a dog appears to take out a mortgage. Initially his owners are bemused but eventually they (and the estate agent/broker person) collapse into laughter and all live happily ever after. Whether they're now the dog's tenants or what, I don't know. I mean, that hardly seems like a sustainable living arrangement, does it? The ad ends with a close-up of the dog - with some CGI assistance - appearing to wink at the camera suggesting He Knows Something We Don't. Like maybe how the whole thing's a scam and his owners are landed with a dud property. Or maybe there's a follow-up ad that posits some kind of nightmarish Pacific Heights-type scenario where the innocent couple become prisoners in their own home, terrorised by this malevolent dog tycoon. This is all speculation, of course: when you don't speak the language (at least not with any degree of fluency) you kind of have to make up your own stories.

I am getting a bit better at speaking Japanese though. Still, problems arise (as Tre from The Apprentice pointed out a few weeks ago when he had to sell stuff in France) as soon as people start speaking back to you. And Japanese people do tend to talk a lot. And talk very quickly. Most of the time you just have to smile and nod or occasionally say 'hai'. The odd time people approach me in the street and just smile and say 'basketball' or 'velly tall' which is actually quite endearing. Beats being called a lanky streak of piss anyway. I've had my picture taken a few times too, once with a group of Japanese schoolgirls in Harajuku where I probably look like some kind of appalling sex tourist. Anyway, before I go here's a short video (no embedding allowed) shot from the POV of the conveyor belt in a Tokyo sushi restaurant. Really clever, really simple idea - a fascinating comment on the sport of people-watching. The sushi bars here are cool places to hang out at night, as are the noodle joints though, I have to say, the constant slurping is actually really off-putting. I know it's polite and everything but Jesus. It reminds of when I was kid and there was a neighbour of mine who was plagued by various asthmatic and adenoidal problems. I remember one day being in his house and listening to him eat: the monstrous gasping and gurgling noises he used to make still make me shudder in disgust today. Absolutely ghastly. After that I told my parents I never wanted to play with him ever again.
He's dead now.

So yeah, anyway, Tokyo etc. It's alright, I suppose. Here's the view from my bedroom window:


Only joking. That's the view from Starbuck's window in Shibuya centre. You might remember it featured prominently in a scene from that uproarious culture-clash comedy Lost In Translation? You know the one where Scarlett Johannson is just sort of sitting there, silently watching the world go by? No, not that one. Or that one. No, the other one. The other one again. Never mind. (Dig #1 there. I've written about how much I hated Lost In Translation before but I expect I'll be giving it a more thorough and sustained kicking - the level of abuse it, quite frankly, deserves - over the coming year). Anyway, Shibuya's about ten minutes from my house; the actual view from my bedroom window is of my next-door neighbour's wall. Apart from the lack of any natural light and the neck-strainingly low ceiling (requiring me to backwards crab walk Exorcist-style to and from the bathroom) my accommodation's OK. There is a 24-hour Sushi Bar on my doorstep. Which is nice. I've yet to meet any of my housemates though I'm sure they exist (I've seen their shoes. In my mind I'm already friends with the girl who wears the graffitied Vans and we go out for tea and browse second-hand shops for kitsch celebrity collectibles).
Speaking of celebrities, the whole movie stars shilling for yen is totally true. Cameron Diaz is selling phones, Brad Pitt advertises - I think - watches (the ad is pretty confusing) and Avril Lavigne appears to be the most famous person on the planet. I haven't really seen any Japanese TV yet, except for bits of the news I saw at the airport. To say it was a bit hard to follow is an understatement. The editing appears to be almost completely random, jump-cutting between scenes of armed gangs fighting in the street, some government official eating a hamburger, and a bunch of ostriches. At the end of each item the newsreader chuckles to himself then suddenly deadpans and begins the next item. Also the weather report appears to be presented by a twelve year old girl who bounces around giggling manically and pointing to graphics that look more like Pokemon characters than meteorological phenomena.

Apart from all that though - and a whole lot of other stuff I didn't mention - Japan's not that different from the rest of the world. It's going to take a lot of getting used to, for sure - simply trying to buy a bath towel this morning became a baffling six-hour ordeal involving numerous train journeys around the city and a brief sojourn in a police station (where the cop on duty gave me a bottle of sake and told me how much he loved U2. Seriously). And, as no doubt tedious as this will be for everyone to read, this blog is probably where I'll be recounting most of my madcap adventures, since nobody here speak-a de Enga-rish-ah. Either that or I'll become some sort of raving drunk, eating bits of dead fish off the street and singing Irish rebel songs to terrified salarymen. Or maybe the Yakuza will eat me alive. Life's full of surprises.
Here's the warning from under the seat of a Japanese toilet: