JAPANEXILE

Last weekend Craig and I managed to get up to Sapporo for a very much needed night out. As great as Toya is, I was pining for contact with some people our own age. We were extremely lucky in that Taiki (Nursery School teacher) was going up to Sapporo the same weekend for a friend’s wedding so we were able to get a lift both ways, saving 5000Yen on the bus fare. Which is of course 5000Yen more which could spend on entertainment!

The journey up there took a good 2hours, but the route is at least a scenic one, with the highway winding its way iup mpressively through the mountains. I’ll be interested to how this route fairs in high Winter when everything else is Snowed under. Once we had parked the car in the very creatively namely ‘Parking District’ we went to the nearby capsule Hotel to see if there were any vacancies, no luck unfortunately, and my backup plan had fallen through already. So at this point all three of us were sleeping in the car, which didn’t seem to bother Taiki so much, although I was less keen. It was a problem that could wait tho, so off we went shopping, did all the usual things, game and Manga stores (usual for us) etc. Sapporo has a particularly cool arrangement for the shops, in addition to the major department stores and the various mall style places, underneath the main central road is another shopping district literally several miles long. Its an amazing sight - if a little claustrophibic for me. Taiki managed to find out that there was a Manga Kisa we could stay in nearby. “What’s a Manga Kisa” you ask? A Manga Kisa is basically an ultra deluxe internet cafe, open 24hours, drinks included in the price, food available, beds, massage chairs, Playstations, Anime, and unsurprisingly given the name, lots of Manga. Apparently its quite normal for someone to spend all night in an internet cafe gaming and reading Manga. And as we saw later on that night, some people quite literally fall asleep mid-game, hand still on the mouse, then randomly wake up and continue playing as if nothing happened. Its quite a strange to see really. For somewhere to stay after a night out tho I don’t think there could be something more ideal, its warm, comfortable, drinks included, its cheap (1800Yen just under £10) and it doesn’t matter what time you come in. The bedrooms were fully booked so Craig and I reserved a very large Massage chair for the night before heading off to Yodobashi Camera in indulge the geek in me looking at lots and lots and lots of electronics and computer components.

Yodobashi is a heavenly place for me. I did have an actual reason for wanting to go there, needed to get a case for my already quite scratched camera, which I did, whilst Craig enjoyed trying to access the many WiFi networks with his iPod and playing around with big speakers. A Fun time for all.

After we had our fill of electronics (not possible really, but we needed to do something else) we went to find our fill of food and alcohol. A friend had recommended to me an all you can eat buffet for 2000Yen in the building next to the Train Station, which appealed both to my wallet and stomach. And the deal was only sweetened further when we got there and learnt that it was all you could drink for 1000Yen extra. It seems that l a lot of of other people had the same idea, and amazingly 40mins before opening time there was a queue 50people long. Well worth the wait tho, Japanese, Chinese, Sushi, Italian, Grill, Dessert, and a couple of other things all for the taking. Between us we must have managed 10 courses. And 4 beers and 7 cocktails later the drinks deal was definitely worth the money.

After a brief half hour detour in the wrong direction we got back to the Manga Kisa to drop off our stuff and get changed, we were ready to hit the town Gaijin style. And hit it we did. Such a good night. Initially we went to King Xhmu and perhaps stupidly payed the exorbitant 3000Yen entry without asking why it was so expensive. There was a big dance show on that night which later turned out to be boring as hell. The place wasn’t even open yet, literally not a soul inside at 9pm. So we went to RAD brothers, renowned for being friendly to foriegners and with quite an amusing catchphrase “Come in and get fucked up” The “get fucked up” theme continued inside with the RAD brothers rules “Rule 1: Get fucked up” In fact that was the only rule. We were in RAD for a while before we were invited along to go to Booti (a club) with some girls we had met, in our inebriated state we then thought we had far more money than we do and bought all the girls a drink - perhaps foolish as they soon went off with some Sailors. And in a completely unrelated thought I now dislike the American military even more. Back to RAD brothers we went, a couple of shots and a lot of banging on the tables in a silly game later, we were heading out to Xhmu again, and again it was a waste of time, I mainly only went to get the drinks that came with the ticket. The rest of the night is blurry, back to RAD brothers, met some more random people, ended up in a Ramen Bar at 4am - walked out without paying accidently, kindly the woman next to us picked up the bill. Time for bed so I blindly followed Craig, who admittedly has a very good sense of direction, back to the Manga Kisa where the massage chair pummeled me to sleep.

Next day was shopping for the Halloween party. Taiki and Craig convinced me to wear the worst costume ever, why I do these things I will never know. But I can talk about that in the Halloween party post coming soon. After a fantastic Curry Soup lunch it was back to Toya thankfully - I was exhausted. All in all tho an awesome first time in Sapporo, the only problem now being that I want to go back as soon as possible, but work and financial commitments are making that difficult. Not many photos, I decided it was too risky taking the camera out with me. Even so, enough for an album.

I knew before I came to Japan that I would be spending at least one day a week working at the local hospital. It was an on running joke on training and prior to that with my friends that I would have to sponge bath old ladies. No amount of joking could have possibly prepared me for the task.

But before I divulge too many details about said task however, a little about the slightly less off putting work I do up there. I’m so far behind for this post that I don’t actually remember when I started at the Hospital; I think it was the first week in October. But irregardless, the first morning was spent being introduced to every single department in the Hospital. Despite having had to introduce myself many a time since I’ve been here, I still couldn’t think of anything more interesting to say other that “My name is Tom, I’m 18, pleased to meet you” Which really must have got boring for Fumi (our translator/receptionist) and the Hospital director. Although come to think of he he cracked the same joke 4 times as well. After all the introductions we were shown the staff room and forced small talk together for 20minutes, after which Fumi and the director left Craig and I to have a well earned nap for an hour.

An hour later the chief nurse came to collect us and explain our first task. Of course not knowing English the actual explaining was left for Fumi to do. So first up, lunchtime - for the patients, not us. Our job was to feed those who currently aren’t in a fit state to do so. My first customer was a grumpy old sod, who decided to prove to me he could eat himself by downing his bowl of soup in one. Next went the jelly - downed in one. Thankfully someone reprimanded him then so he behaved a little. Craig seemed to be having a whale of a time with the woman he was helping. Thankfully the next woman was a nice old lady, who (like many people out here I might add) commented that I look like Tom Cruise. After she had thanked me for the 10th time it was our turn for lunch. Thank god, that 30mins of work really took it out of me. After lunch it was down to the rehab clinic.

I honestly don’t think there are many things funnier than watching 20 paraplegics play wheelchair volleyball. The patients are split into two teams and line up either side of a low hanging rope two or three rows deep. The volleyball in this case is a large balloon. Our job, along with the other staff is to keep the balloon ‘in play’ at all costs. We’re given a little stool on wheels to get around on and can only use out left hand. The patients on the other hand (see the pun) can use use both hands, and any appendage for that matter. But to be honest it doesn’t really matter what they are allowed to use, at least half of them cannot physically move by themselves, so the balloon rather comically just bounces slowly off them. The few patients who do still have mobility in their arms batter it as hard as the can toward the other team, or into the back of the head of the aforementioned patients who can’t move. Some may say you shouldn’t laugh at such a thing, I say no human would be able to resist laughing. The rest of the staff do anyway, and I’m sure, inside, the patients are smiling

And the last bit of work we’ve done at the hospital so far (apart from the bathing etc, which I’ll get onto soon) is of course as entertainers extraudinaire, we were asked(told?) to do some Karaoke for the Hospital bash. We were the opening act, either meaning they wanted to start strong or get us out of the way quickly. Who knows. Craig and I performed a stunning duet of James Blunt’s “You’re beautiful” followed by “Wisemen” By no coincidence those two tracks are one after another each other on a CD I had lying around. That’s how prepared we were. I thought one of the old dears was trying to dance during our performance, although I now know its more of a habit she has than actual dancing. I think one of the main reasons for this little performance of ours was so NHK had something interesting to film.

And now, onto the fun job. Changing and bathing. We haven’t actually done the bathing part yet, but somehow I doubt it’ll be any worse than the changing. What can I say about it really? We go in, close the curtain, wrestle them out of their clothes, take off the diaper, cover them with a blanket. Get out of there as fast as possible and recollect my thoughts. Once they’ve been taken away for a bath we go back in, straighten the bed, lay out a new diaper, and eagerly await their return so we can get them into said diaper. Its mostly bearable, by no means pleasant. But by continually reminding myself it’ll soon be over and by looking at the ceiling a whole lot I can get through it. Craig was rather unnervingly calm during the whole thing, perhaps even enjoying it. Which either says he’s a person able to deal with rather odd situations very well, or he has some serious grandmother issues. Perhaps I’ll ask him after he reads this!

This part of the job is sort of optional, if we really want we can say no, and be put on bed making duty. Which I am considering, tho I decided I’d give it a little more time to see if things improve and I become desensitized. Either that or Ill lose my mind. Honestly, its enough to put you off sex for life. And the smell of some of them…dear lord. Their bodies are covered in what I assume is a mix of embalming fluid/moisturiser so they’re really slippy, meaning you have to hold on to them far tighter than I want to when changing them. I’ll do another short update on how the washing goes when I can. I don’t have many pictures for the hospital unfortunately (fortunately perhaps?) despite this, I managed to find a few.