Bye Bye Japan Part 2: Hong Kong

First up:

Dear the 2 random Japanese girls sitting next to me on the flight to Hong Kong: I thought it was very nice of you to do nothing except giggle at my funny accent or whatever when I translated what the Chinese flight attendant was trying to explain to you. I was particularly impressed by the gratitude you showed me by not even saying thank you when I tried to help you out of a situation your own ignorance created. I would also like to thank you for following this up with that "Shit, what do we do now we know that the foreigner next to us understands our entirely unremarkable conversation" act I grew to love so much. It was particularly nice of you to remind me of the thing I liked least about Japan while I was rather upset about having to leave.

I hope you have a lovely holiday in Hong Kong.

Oh, come on, did you really think I was going to let this blog go without a last rant :-)

So, Hong Kong! It was of course my luck that there was a typhoon on the one day I was there :-) And Tony was in America :-( sob sob...

It's pretty jam-packed and completely different from Japan. This was made clear to me pretty quickly when I got my ticket for the Airport Express into Central from the Airport:

Me: Hi, can I get a day return to Central please?

Station attendant: "Buy your ticket in Central. AND GET ON THE TRAIN NOW DAMNIT!!!!!

Hong Kong Dollars are pretty cool, although the coins are way too big.

I thought Central was a bit boring to be honest... Although if I happened to have loads and loads of money...

Went over to Mong Kok at Christina's suggestion, which was much more interesting. The Goldfish market really is something to see... about 4 solid blocks of fish stores... They like to stare there as well. Not like Japanese "I wasn't looking, honest" staring though... as in "walk right up to you and look you right in the eyes and then up and down for as long as it takes for the traffic lights to change" staring... They have Yoshinoya and 7/11 (complete with Pocari Sweat!!!! I'm gonna miss that stuff...) over there at well!

The Star Ferry was really cool as well. Perhaps best not to do that when it's blowing a Typhoon on the other hand. Oh, and I think I saw the SDU raiding the boat in front of ours in the middle of the harbour...

Overall I thought the place was pretty interesting, thought I'm not sure I'd want to live there... it's a bit like a dirtier version of Japan minus the politeness... On the other hand that does come with plus-points. Probably a good idea to visit on a day when there's no Typhoon as well.

Oh, and even though there was a typhoon chucking it down, it was something like 32C and humidity of 7 bazillion (worse than Japan!)

Oh, and they put my passport stamps on the same page as my Japanese ones (Just under my now cancelled Student visa) :-( Now it just looks like I have tons of Japanese stamps :-(

It was kinda strange to be back among so many westerners as well... Central seemed to be about 50/50 Chinese/western... Maybe that's why I liked Mong Kok more... Guess I'll have to get used to this again. Also, it was kinda hard to make sure I didn't speak Japanese to the Chinese people :-X

Oh, and I made the obligatory Starbucks visit... Final results: Japanese > UK = Hong Kong > Philippines.

Asia, I'll miss you X

Last few days in Japan. Part 1

So, I'm here in Hong Kong Airport again (Ironically about 2 gates down from where I wrote that post almost a year ago to the day last time I was here...), and as I promised here's the beginning of the "dignified" ending to my blog.... sob sob.

So I had a lot of goodbyes... the fun ones; Tanaka Sensei, who told me some HILARIOUS stories but swore me to secrecy about them (By the way, she still loves you Mark). All I'll say is apparently she went to Korea. And seems to have G-Dragon bought a Bentley... Pei, who is better at choosing cake than I am. Nanami and Yuusuke and the sheep up at Mount Rokko Farm (which is pretty much exactly like Nara-Park except with Sheep instead of deer...),

Yuuko. There aren't many people I will voluntarily got to Himeji for... Next time: Seoul! (with Eunbee)

The goodbyes I didn't actually get to properly make: Ryoko, Mikuru and a couple of others.

And the really really hard ones :-( Tsukasa, Ryota, Mayuko, Yoo and Takeo...

Oh, and special thanks to Ga and Ryuuka for helping me pack and taking all my stuff so I didn't need to throw ABSOLUTELY everything out :-) And particularly Ryota and Reiko for coming all the way out to Kansai Airport at 7am to see me off :-)

Rather ironically while I was on the phone arranging to have my electricity disconnected I had a final "I have absolutely NO idea what you just said" moment...

I've been in Japan almost exactly one year to the day, and I have to say staying on this extra month and a half was a great decision, these last few weeks really have been amazing.

I seem to be leaving :-(

First things first, the good news. I sort of thought that I'd only just passed the JLPT test but turns out I'd got the pass mark wrong and I actually did pretty respectably :-)

So yea, it kinda hit me the other night somewhat predictably while I was picking out onigiri in a Konbini (Convinience Store). I'm leaving next week... as in like, leaving leaving. As in end of year abroad...

On an unrelated note I feel the need for a disclaimer:

Mayuko and Ryota's recent English-vocabulary additions have absolutely nothing to do with me. I have absolutely not been teaching them naughty words. 100% True. And by true, I mean false. To be fair they asked. Sort of.

Anyway, to be honest, I've sort of been (fairly justifiably) more concerned with enjoying these last few days here to the max rather than writing about it here... I'll write something while I'm sitting around Hong Kong airport on the way back...

Oh, and packing is a bitch.

合格！

I passed JLPT 2 :-) Yaaaaaay

So, we had a rather nasty Typhoon the other day... ended up missing Kobe/Osaka (as usual) and smashed up Tokyo instead. Kanagawa-prefecture (southern Tokyo) got hit pretty badly actually. What was most shocking though was that THEY SHUT DOWN THE SHINKANSEN (Bullet-trains)!!!!!! :-O What the hell? This is Japan, this sort of stuff just doesn't happen!

On the other hand, rain! And not-unbelievably-sweaty-scorching hot weather for a change! Thomas likes.

So, we're at the less than 2 weeks mark here... Don't really want to talk much more about that.

I've been doing a lot of wandering around my neighbourhood recently, kinda doing a bit exploring. I'd always assumed I lived in the middle of nowhere up a mountain with absolutely nothing of interest. Turns out I live in the middle of nowhere up a mountain with absolutely nothing of interest.

Fair chance we'll get some more Typhoons coming through before I leave. Kinda want to see a big one... I live up a hill, I can just sit here and watch Osaka get flattened... It'll be like 日本沈没。。。