Day 7
Another day of anaesthetics passed rather nicely, I sat through a presentation on peri-operative asthma treatments given by some of the Japanese students, from a paper written in English that they had to present in English. We really have it so easy us English-speakers, and England is a rather pathetic country at language-learning as a whole.
Hmm.
The last operation finished about 3, then it was hometime, yay!
We were due to meet the ESS at 1930, time for a half hour power shower and some pre-drinking methinks.
Turns out we were going to an all-you-can-drink place for 3,000円 (about £24), not bad for dinner and copious amounts of alcohol.
I donned the white suit again because, let's be honest, I looked the business.
Several beers, glasses of shochu and jugs of sake later, we may have disgraced ourselves and the reputation of England somewhat.
Japan, a country famed for its quiet dignity and reluctance to accept the individual (it's all about blending in to the group), was faced with Sam-san pouring beer down his face, banging on the table and shouting faggot as loud as he could. In a restaurant.
Yugo (from the ESS) was trying to keep up with us alcohol dehydrogenase-possessing Westeners and was looking a little worse for wear when it was time to leave, more on him later.
Back to the party pad it was, via Halow's where we bought some more alcohol (and discounted burgers), Yugo finally joined us after having to turn back twice, firstly for his phone, then his bike; the lash rash was in full bloom.
More drinking, explaining of drinking chants and new words such as 'chunder' (conjugate the te form of that, Tom-san) rounded off the night before the ESS departed and we hit the hay, agreeing to meet at 1300, or was it 1330 on Sunday?
The last we saw of Yugo was him staggering off into the night.
During the night, Tom-san chundered.
ろる！
Monday, 27 June 2011
Sunday, 26 June 2011
The joy of AKB48 bottoms a-jiggling
Days 4-6
So Tuesday kicked off with a 0730 start (wtf?!) and me being introduced to Hino-sensei (Tomoko) "the best English speaker in the department", she speaks bloody good English.
I actually enjoyed a day in hospital for the first time in about two years.
Saw loads of ops in the day and got taken for lunch in the fancy restaurant in the hospial, none of this school dinner nonsense.
In the afternoon, I got shown possibly the greatest thing in the world ever: AKB48. Japan's answer to the X-Factor and my goodness, they are absolutely amazing.
I implore you, watch and re-watch. It will be the greatest thing you ever do.
(All girls aged over 16)
We found out that a welcome party was being thrown for us on the Thursday night, this caused much worry and concern for the next few days, which, I am sad to say, passed rather unevenfully. Lots more ops, top Japanese banter and struggling to order food in restaurants. Thank god for Halow's.
The Welcome Party
We'd already met Mr. Fukunaga (The Dean) on Monday so we figured there would be no big cheeses appearing on Thursday night, right? Wrong. Mr. Kawasaki himself (and his interpreter) were coming, oh my.
We had a bit of a debate re: wardrobe - jeans? suit? tie? who knows.
I went for the white linen suit, blue stripey shirt and blue espadrills, teamed with aviators. I looked the shit.
So we walk into the room for this party, there are three chairs in the corner with a microphone in front of them, tables full of food line the walls and numerous bottles of Asahi (beer) can be seen. What the hell is going on.
So we sit down, and our professors and legends from our departments walk in (anaesthetics, cardiology, hepatology and a guy from orthopaedics) followed by Mr. Kawasaki, looking like an absolute legend.
A brief introduction from Otsuki-sensei and then Kawasaki-san starts his speech (in Japanese), thankfully/weirdly we had his interpreter stood behind us saying everything in English. It was like we were royalty or something.
The speech finishes, i mop the copious amount of sweat from my brow and start mingling.
The anaesthetic department:
Professor Fujita, Professor Nakatsuka, Dr Hino & Dr Ikemura came to drink and partake in banter (the names mean nothing to you readers, I know). It was well nice to see them.
After several beers, we were called upon to do a speech, scary times, but I think i pulled it off.
I got told I looked very handsome and that my hair looked good, that's gotta be a win, right?
Lovely Ms. Takemasa packed some food up into boxes for us to take home for breakfast/lunch/food for the next month then it was time to sink a few more beers and head back to the party pad.
Sam decided it would be a good idea to attend an evening cardiology meeting until 2100 however.
Meanwhile, Tom-san & I drank the majority of the Stoli (mixed with grape soda of course) to try and comprehend what had just happened.
Oh yeah, it turned out that Mr. Kawasaki had brought a personal supply of Shochu (a bit like gin I guess) to the shindig and had given Tom-san a fair bit to drink. Legend.
Roll on Friday!
So Tuesday kicked off with a 0730 start (wtf?!) and me being introduced to Hino-sensei (Tomoko) "the best English speaker in the department", she speaks bloody good English.
I actually enjoyed a day in hospital for the first time in about two years.
Saw loads of ops in the day and got taken for lunch in the fancy restaurant in the hospial, none of this school dinner nonsense.
In the afternoon, I got shown possibly the greatest thing in the world ever: AKB48. Japan's answer to the X-Factor and my goodness, they are absolutely amazing.
(All girls aged over 16)
We found out that a welcome party was being thrown for us on the Thursday night, this caused much worry and concern for the next few days, which, I am sad to say, passed rather unevenfully. Lots more ops, top Japanese banter and struggling to order food in restaurants. Thank god for Halow's.
The Welcome Party
We'd already met Mr. Fukunaga (The Dean) on Monday so we figured there would be no big cheeses appearing on Thursday night, right? Wrong. Mr. Kawasaki himself (and his interpreter) were coming, oh my.
We had a bit of a debate re: wardrobe - jeans? suit? tie? who knows.
I went for the white linen suit, blue stripey shirt and blue espadrills, teamed with aviators. I looked the shit.
So we walk into the room for this party, there are three chairs in the corner with a microphone in front of them, tables full of food line the walls and numerous bottles of Asahi (beer) can be seen. What the hell is going on.
So we sit down, and our professors and legends from our departments walk in (anaesthetics, cardiology, hepatology and a guy from orthopaedics) followed by Mr. Kawasaki, looking like an absolute legend.
A brief introduction from Otsuki-sensei and then Kawasaki-san starts his speech (in Japanese), thankfully/weirdly we had his interpreter stood behind us saying everything in English. It was like we were royalty or something.
The speech finishes, i mop the copious amount of sweat from my brow and start mingling.
The anaesthetic department:
After several beers, we were called upon to do a speech, scary times, but I think i pulled it off.
I got told I looked very handsome and that my hair looked good, that's gotta be a win, right?
Lovely Ms. Takemasa packed some food up into boxes for us to take home for breakfast/lunch/food for the next month then it was time to sink a few more beers and head back to the party pad.
Sam decided it would be a good idea to attend an evening cardiology meeting until 2100 however.
Meanwhile, Tom-san & I drank the majority of the Stoli (mixed with grape soda of course) to try and comprehend what had just happened.
Oh yeah, it turned out that Mr. Kawasaki had brought a personal supply of Shochu (a bit like gin I guess) to the shindig and had given Tom-san a fair bit to drink. Legend.
Roll on Friday!
Saturday, 25 June 2011
わたしわ タコ が すき でわ ありません
Day three
OK, so I'm blogging from like 2 weeks ago, hence the tiles have nothing to do with the content of the posts, ohg well, nimind.
So day three, the first monday, the start of work *shudder*
We were to meet Otsuki-sensei at 0840 at the party pad (our digs), he then got us to run in the horrible heat as we twirled out umbrellas on every third step, because we are that damn cool.
We had to buy umbrellas on the Sunday, the ESS told us to since it turns out we're here in the rainy season (duh!).
So yeah, made it to the med school with Takemi, then he introduced us to lovely Ms. Takemasa who gave us shoes, coats, phones and money (even to do laundry with, on top of the £80 meal card we got given, winning!).
Then we had to meet the Dean, Dr. Fukunaga, a bit of a legend with his nervoud hands.
But woah, really? Meeting the Dean? Us? Lowly foreigners with limited medical skillz and poor Japanese at best? Still, there was a guy taking our photos for the hospital newspaper. Apparently those photos are on their way to me, hmmm.
Then what happened? Oh yeah, we had lunch with all the hygiene people (Otsuki-sensei's department) and honestly, the food was pretty good, I'm still not convinced about miso soup though, and the pickled are absolutely awful. But nevermind.
After lunch, we got introduced to our various professors, Sam & Tom went off to their gay specialties and I got sent to Fujita-sensei in anaesthetics and got to wear the awesome blue scrubs.
Words cannot describe how amazing all the anaesthetic department are, I have to fight off a bit of a man-cry when I think about how nice everybody is. All will make sense when I catch up with this thing.
After meeting a fair few anaesthetists and seeing some shizzle go down, it was back home, buzz Sam & Tom's doors and head to Harow's for some discount burgers and whatever else we could find.
Then bed, in all honesty I was still completely knackered from the previous however many days of travel
And I was in at 0730 the next day.
Boo.
OK, so I'm blogging from like 2 weeks ago, hence the tiles have nothing to do with the content of the posts, ohg well, nimind.
So day three, the first monday, the start of work *shudder*
We were to meet Otsuki-sensei at 0840 at the party pad (our digs), he then got us to run in the horrible heat as we twirled out umbrellas on every third step, because we are that damn cool.
We had to buy umbrellas on the Sunday, the ESS told us to since it turns out we're here in the rainy season (duh!).
So yeah, made it to the med school with Takemi, then he introduced us to lovely Ms. Takemasa who gave us shoes, coats, phones and money (even to do laundry with, on top of the £80 meal card we got given, winning!).
Then we had to meet the Dean, Dr. Fukunaga, a bit of a legend with his nervoud hands.
But woah, really? Meeting the Dean? Us? Lowly foreigners with limited medical skillz and poor Japanese at best? Still, there was a guy taking our photos for the hospital newspaper. Apparently those photos are on their way to me, hmmm.
Then what happened? Oh yeah, we had lunch with all the hygiene people (Otsuki-sensei's department) and honestly, the food was pretty good, I'm still not convinced about miso soup though, and the pickled are absolutely awful. But nevermind.
After lunch, we got introduced to our various professors, Sam & Tom went off to their gay specialties and I got sent to Fujita-sensei in anaesthetics and got to wear the awesome blue scrubs.
Words cannot describe how amazing all the anaesthetic department are, I have to fight off a bit of a man-cry when I think about how nice everybody is. All will make sense when I catch up with this thing.
After meeting a fair few anaesthetists and seeing some shizzle go down, it was back home, buzz Sam & Tom's doors and head to Harow's for some discount burgers and whatever else we could find.
Then bed, in all honesty I was still completely knackered from the previous however many days of travel
And I was in at 0730 the next day.
Boo.
Friday, 24 June 2011
うどん ＆ わくわく
Day two
Right, so I can't be arsed Japanifying names anymore and the novelty has pretty much worn off, since I'm doing all this from memory for the time being.
So yeah, after an amazing sleep, Kyoko, Yoko & Toshihiro from the ESS (dunno where Yugo went) showed us around Nakasho, we had udon, which was pretty good (Sam's had cocks in it apparently).
Then we navigated the ticket machine and got on the train to Kurashiki 「倉敷」then a bus (no idea how we would have managed this without the ESS) to the depato (I think it was called waku waku).
There I bought underpants, and we had fun not knowing what anything was or possibly could be, followed by wasting several thousand yen in the arcade (You's Land). I say wasting, but it was actually amazing; we had to throw balls at things, that's about as good a job I can do of describing one of the games.
We got some amazing photos with the ESS in a weird photo booth thing, very Japanese. I'll try and get them up on here when I can.
A quick bus & train back to Nakasho followed.
Then we had a burger in some obscure restaurant that was "famous". I've found out that 'famous' is used very liberally in Japan, the burger was still good though.
A quick tour of ハロウス (Halow's) followed, then another super sleep before meeting the legendary Takemi Otsuki at 0840 Monday morning (we'd been told he's a famous rockstar).
Right, so I can't be arsed Japanifying names anymore and the novelty has pretty much worn off, since I'm doing all this from memory for the time being.
So yeah, after an amazing sleep, Kyoko, Yoko & Toshihiro from the ESS (dunno where Yugo went) showed us around Nakasho, we had udon, which was pretty good (Sam's had cocks in it apparently).
Then we navigated the ticket machine and got on the train to Kurashiki 「倉敷」then a bus (no idea how we would have managed this without the ESS) to the depato (I think it was called waku waku).
There I bought underpants, and we had fun not knowing what anything was or possibly could be, followed by wasting several thousand yen in the arcade (You's Land). I say wasting, but it was actually amazing; we had to throw balls at things, that's about as good a job I can do of describing one of the games.
We got some amazing photos with the ESS in a weird photo booth thing, very Japanese. I'll try and get them up on here when I can.
A quick bus & train back to Nakasho followed.
Then we had a burger in some obscure restaurant that was "famous". I've found out that 'famous' is used very liberally in Japan, the burger was still good though.
A quick tour of ハロウス (Halow's) followed, then another super sleep before meeting the legendary Takemi Otsuki at 0840 Monday morning (we'd been told he's a famous rockstar).
Thursday, 23 June 2011
インターネット : ヘビーローテーション [2]
Day 1.5
Onboard VS900, surrounded by Japanese people, saying 男根 「だんこん」at every oppurtunity, the slow realisation that we were going.to.Japan started to hit, it was all very exciting.
Because I'm an absolute legend, I got given a first-class meal, サムーさん ＆ トムーさん had to make-do with the peasant food.
Big smiles.
Then we started to sleep, トムーさん watched Black Swan, サムーさん got to level 81 on tetris and I beat the whole plane at the trivia game.
Winning!
The lights came on, we roused our bleary-eyed, greasy-haired selves and began to land at Tokyo Narita, local time 0930 on Saturday June 11th.
After a somewhat sweaty trip through Narita, being fingerprinted and photographed, it was onto the bus to Tokyo Haneda, after our first purchase, mine had the vitamin C of 70 lemons, always nice to know.
The bus to Tokyo Haneda was rather uneventful, but we did see Disney Land and many baseball stadia.
Then we arrived at Tokyo Haneda.
During lengthy sweaty queueing, we saw a sumo wrestler. An actual sumo wrestler! Sadly I do not have a photo of him as he was rather large and may have hit me or shoved me enthusiastically, whatever it is they do.
There was also a fat woman crying because her dogs had to go in the hold. It was funny because she was so fat.
We met a very happy man in a shop where we saw our first weird Japanese food: green tea and white chocolate bagel. Little did we know that this would be just the tip of the iceberg.
After watching the same advert of a sweaty old person on the phone for a few hours, we boarded JAL1685 to Okayama.
Not too much to say about this flight, we slept for its entirity, but we did get all the announcements in Engligh purely for our ignorant selves.
After landing in Okayama, just a quick baggage collection separated us from our taxi to Kawasaki Medical University, or so we thought. Then we met rockstar-sensei and gaylord-sensei who would be accompanying us for the journey, so very nice of them.
About an hour in the taxi, feeling just a teeny bit exhausted, sweaty and generally quite nasty was all it took to get us to our accomodation. Turns out we're living where the doctors live, but they've been kicked out of our floor so we can tear up the joint.
More people came to greet us: the ESS [English Speaking Society], does what it says on the tin - ゆご、よこ ＆ きょこ, who showed us such technicalities as how to turn the gas off and operate the air conditioning.
However, they neglected to explain the kettle (explanation/rant coming soon).
Not much time passed, then the one&only おつきーsensei arrived in his passion wagon to take us out for dinner. Turned out it was at a place called Da Bra, funny name #1 of the trip.
He then took us to the supermarket and bought us milk and whatnot out of his own cash, what a lovely man. He also gave トムーさん his microwave from home, awww.
Then followed the best and most-deserved sleep of my life, total awake time: 40hours, screw you timezones!
Onboard VS900, surrounded by Japanese people, saying 男根 「だんこん」at every oppurtunity, the slow realisation that we were going.to.Japan started to hit, it was all very exciting.
Because I'm an absolute legend, I got given a first-class meal, サムーさん ＆ トムーさん had to make-do with the peasant food.
Big smiles.
Then we started to sleep, トムーさん watched Black Swan, サムーさん got to level 81 on tetris and I beat the whole plane at the trivia game.
Winning!
The lights came on, we roused our bleary-eyed, greasy-haired selves and began to land at Tokyo Narita, local time 0930 on Saturday June 11th.
After a somewhat sweaty trip through Narita, being fingerprinted and photographed, it was onto the bus to Tokyo Haneda, after our first purchase, mine had the vitamin C of 70 lemons, always nice to know.
The bus to Tokyo Haneda was rather uneventful, but we did see Disney Land and many baseball stadia.
Then we arrived at Tokyo Haneda.
During lengthy sweaty queueing, we saw a sumo wrestler. An actual sumo wrestler! Sadly I do not have a photo of him as he was rather large and may have hit me or shoved me enthusiastically, whatever it is they do.
There was also a fat woman crying because her dogs had to go in the hold. It was funny because she was so fat.
We met a very happy man in a shop where we saw our first weird Japanese food: green tea and white chocolate bagel. Little did we know that this would be just the tip of the iceberg.
After watching the same advert of a sweaty old person on the phone for a few hours, we boarded JAL1685 to Okayama.
Not too much to say about this flight, we slept for its entirity, but we did get all the announcements in Engligh purely for our ignorant selves.
After landing in Okayama, just a quick baggage collection separated us from our taxi to Kawasaki Medical University, or so we thought. Then we met rockstar-sensei and gaylord-sensei who would be accompanying us for the journey, so very nice of them.
About an hour in the taxi, feeling just a teeny bit exhausted, sweaty and generally quite nasty was all it took to get us to our accomodation. Turns out we're living where the doctors live, but they've been kicked out of our floor so we can tear up the joint.
More people came to greet us: the ESS [English Speaking Society], does what it says on the tin - ゆご、よこ ＆ きょこ, who showed us such technicalities as how to turn the gas off and operate the air conditioning.
However, they neglected to explain the kettle (explanation/rant coming soon).
Not much time passed, then the one&only おつきーsensei arrived in his passion wagon to take us out for dinner. Turned out it was at a place called Da Bra, funny name #1 of the trip.
He then took us to the supermarket and bought us milk and whatnot out of his own cash, what a lovely man. He also gave トムーさん his microwave from home, awww.
Then followed the best and most-deserved sleep of my life, total awake time: 40hours, screw you timezones!
インターネット : ヘビーローテーション [1]
So we finally got internet
And I can post on this thing now, so let's get cracking.
Day one
トムーさん turned up at 4am on Friday morning, bleary-eyed and stubbly to be greeted by my bright-eyed and bushy-tailed self with something of a collection of luggage all ready for the off to Newcastle airport.
Off in the taxi we went and through the usual bore of check-in, security checks and concealment of crisps about our person to hurry up and wait. Our time was brightened by spotting Ms. Emma Aveyard across the way and it turned out she would be accompanying us to London Heathrow, a pleasant surprise.
After a brief look around the lego shop and donning our Japan shirts, a short trip to the arcade improved things more than words could ever describe:
That's right ladies & gentlemen, say hello to アレクスーさん, the official mascot of Japan 2011.
So onboard BA1321 we went, トムーさん thought we were getting something lovely and bacon-y, alas, he had mis-read BA.COM and we had to make do with potato and tomato.
Sad face.
After landing at Heathrow and being reunited with our luggage (and my passport after I left it on the plane, oops), we navigated the gargantuan mess that is the Heathrow underground system.
We made it to T3.
Then we found サムーさん, who had lost his voice, hilarity ensued.
More luggage checking, moving metal into different bags and confirming identity followed, then we had oh, only about 6 hours to kill. In a terminal in the process of being refurbished, surrounded by Chanel, Bulgari & Paul Smith.
After many crosswords, a Boots meal deal, countless aimless wanderings of duty free and some more crosswords, passengers of VS900 finally got called to their gate. Win.
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