Well, I’m sitting here in the Ikuta guest house in Kawasaki city – a suburb of Tokyo where Meiji University has one of its three campuses. Unfortunately, I’m not working at the nearby Ikuta campus, but at the central Tokyo one. My host is collecting me at lunchtime tomorrow and showing me where to go. The University is closed until Tuesday (the university observes a long Christmas/New Year holiday and then Monday is a public holiday in Japan) but he’s going to show me where things are and introduce me to the head of his unit and a few of the grad students who’ll be in as well.

I didn’t get much sleep the night before flying out. I hate morning flights. My Mother took me to Heathrow. We had been planning on grabbing a coffee together after I checked in but there was a horrendous-looking line to get into the security checkpoint area (after which there’s another long line for the scanning itself) so we joined the back of the line straightaway after checking in. There was no problem with the luggage I’d brought (despite it being 70% more than the luggage allowance). The queue wasn’t too bad, as it turned out. It kept moving and we were only waiting in it for fifteen minutes. So I said goodbye to Mum at that point and headed into the departure lounge with plenty of time. There were no delays or problems with the flights and I managed to buy an upgrade with frequent flier points from Copenhagen to Narita. I still didn’t get much sleep on the plane despite this, but at least
it was more comfortable and better food. So, I arrived pretty much on time at Narita and waited an age for my luggage, but it came through OK.

I was met by both my host at Meiji University, Professor Kiyoshi MURATA, and by the chair of Nippon 2007 Hiroaki INOUE and his wife Tamie INOUE. I’d been told they wanted to come and greet me, but I did say that I was being met by my academic host who was going to take me tot he place I’m staying. So, I gave Inoue-san the first of the 20 packets of “traditional cherry drops” I’d brought over for him (he’s a nut for anything cherry flavoured) – my intent is to give him a packet every time I see him – or at least until they run out :-). I also gave a copy of “Watching the English” to Murata-sensei.

Murata-sensei then drove me to the guest house which took over two hours. Tokyo is huge and Narita is quite awkwardly placed in that you have to come off a peninsula first to get anywhere else. Anyway, we arrived here at about one o’clock and sorted out the room. It’s really a lot bigger than I was expecting. Over 12.5 square metres according to the brochure about the guest house. The bathroom is very compact and has a strange bathtub in it, with the shower above. There’s a “mixer-tap” on the sink which has a movable outlet on it which also twists over the bathtub. The same one has a switch valve to direct the water to the shower head as well. The bathtub is about three and a half foot long and almost as deep. (I had a long bath this morning to help with the jetlag. Not ideal for soaking but usable.) It takes so long to fill though that I figure I’ll be taking a shower most days and save the baths for weekends.

Once we’d sorted out the room and I knew everything immediately necessary, Murata-sensei and I went out for lunch and to find the shops. As it’s still the New Year holiday here most of the restaurants are closed, but there was what is called a “family-style” restaurant that was open so we had lunch in there. I had a nice grilled chicken dish while Murata-sensei had something Italian :-). He complimented me that I use chopsticks better than his daughter. I pointed out that while I don’t use chopsticks at every meal I have been using them for over twenty years :-). All the stories about Tokyo being incredibly expensive for everything were decried by the cost of the lunch – less than six pounds for the two of us, albeit for two “light lunch” dishes.

We went to a supermarket on the way back from the restaurant. It was a high street one, so quite small compared to the huge out-of-town stores in the UK. However, it had the things I needed immediately. The room has a very small kitchenette area with a single hotplate but also an electric rice-cooker (a necessity for the Japanese) and an electric hot water heater-cum-thermos flask – also a standard Japanese home item I believe. It’s also got a microwave (which appears to be a combination affair actually) and a sink. Just about enough, though I won’t be doing any complicated recipes here :-). So, I got some basics – noodles, yoghurt, juice, toilet paper. Murata-sensei then left me to my own devices about three o’clock. I did a bit of basic unpacking and putting some stuff away then had to take a rest. The jetlag really started to kick in and i was swaying on my feet by half four. so I ended up taking a nap for a few hours. I didn’t let myself sleep through, though. I got up at about 8pm and forced myself to stay awake until after 10:30pm then let myself go back to sleep. I was awake in the middle of the night, about 2 or 3am and was not doing more than dozing for a few hours, but I got back to sleep for a few hours later and got up about 7:30. After that long bath I mentioned earlier, I’ve unpacked just about everything (Andrew Patterson gave me some “vaccum pack” travel bags and as well as keeping both the weight and volume of clothing down for travel, they make unpacking really easy, just pull the bags out of the suitcase and plonk them on a shelf.

I finally noticed there was a “data point” next to the telephone point and was greatly relieved to find it worked with no problems. So, I was able to collect emails, and start to send them out. It’s amazing how such a thing relieves me. I’m definitely somewhat addicted to communication capabilities :-).