Three Days… Slightly rushed

Apologies for the lack of detail and general rush. I haven’t had time to blog in the past few days really, and I need to be at the lab for 7.45am tomorrow and so I can’t realistically write a lot tonight either.

Monday 25th July 2011:

Monday was pretty rough. I woke up, went onto campus bright and early (we had been told to arrive for 9am to start practical work) and then received an email from Soeda-san re: my mosquito bites. I was getting so concerned about them. She told me she would try to get me an appointment for the dermatologist, and so to come to the OIP office in the morning. I spoke to Kubota-sensee and then headed down straight away. When I arrived, she told me that the dermatologist didn’t open until 10.30 so I had to come back later. No biggie. I went back to the lab.

However, Davis didn’t arrive until 10.30, which made it completely pointless me coming in on time. When I asked him about it, he just said “I think it’s not necessary”. So yeah, there was my morning wasted. Unless you haven’t picked up on the vibe already… we fell out on Monday a bit.

At 11am, he decided it was time for lunch. I wasn’t hungry, but he kept pushing it so we had to go to the canteen. While there, he pretty much insulted my intelligence continuously explaining how I just “didn’t understand” and how it is much harder and more worthwhile being a Chinese student in a Chinese university. So I got a bit pissed off. We then left, and he continued insulting my intelligence and started insulting my appearance to a degree. Great start to the day.

We then had a Japanese class. It was the first of the intermediary classes, and I found it much to advanced for me. The class itself was taught in Japanese and so I couldn’t understand some of the instructions, which made me feel very lost and useless. After the session, I kind of decided not to go back because the level was completely inappropriate for me. The teacher was very nice, and I’m sure she was a great teacher… I just really wasn’t at that standard yet.

After Japanese, we went back to the lab. I hung around reading for around an hour, and then had my appointment with the dermatologist. I walked to Science Building 1 to meet Soeda-san, and she walked me to the appointment. The service was very quick and efficient, and the whole appointment was over very fast: I returned to campus within the hour. While at the doctor’s, I was told that it was just mosquito bites (as I already knew, but I guess it was reassuring to be told I didn’t have some kind of horrific skin disease, after what Davis has been trying to tell me for the past week and a half) and was prescribed some strong steroid cream. I was a bit skeptical, as the stuff Rachel had lent me hadn’t done much to help. The appointment was really expensive actually, and with the prescription came to around £50. Soeda-san paid for my appointment up front as they didn’t accept cards and I didn’t have enough cash… On the condition that I paid her back later. She is a very kind lady, and I’m really glad that she is organising the program.

When I got back, I had some practical practice. We were in the labs until around 6pm working. After labs, Davis started walking to the train station with me, and despite being rude all day, asked me ‘why I was sad’. I explained that it was James’ funeral happening right that moment, and so I got a little upset. He then told me to stop being sad because it was pathetic. I got really angry at him because I felt that was completely inappropriate, and told him to go ahead without me because he’d upset me. I don’t know whether it was a language barrier thing, or whether he is just inconsiderate and as rude as hell, but I wasn’t standing for it anymore.

I was pretty fuming at this point, and on the verge of tears again. I walked to the Akamon to meet up with Kyle, who’d said that he would take me for a drink because I didn’t want to be on my own during James’ funeral. We took the train from Hongo-Sanchome back to Suitengumae and then headed through the Suitengu area to try to find somewhere to have a drink. We were both starving, and so stopped off at a Japanese restaurant. The food was really good actually, and the service was fast. It was (I guess) the equivalant of Pizza Hut in the UK. It looked like a chain, but was pretty good value for money. I had kebab sticks with fish and vegetables that had been deepfried, Edamame beans, and a Highball. I said a toast to James while there.

After the meal, we headed to the park. We sat in the park for about 2 hours drinking whiskey (It’s apparantly legal to drink in public in Japan, and pretty common, so don’t worry!) and juice, and talking. I got really upset again about missing the funeral, and talked about James a lot to Kyle. I felt a bit bad actually because it was just us so I was probably really crappy company, and I really appreciate him coming out with me for a bit to take my mind off it. At about 10 I went back to my room because the mosquitoes were biting me again.

In all, it’d been a really shitty day Really really rubbish. I’m glad it is over. But most of all, I’m just glad I didn’t have to be on my own during the funeral.

Tuesday 26th July:

Tuesday was marginally better than Monday.

I accidentally missed the morning lecture because I fell asleep again after my alarm and woke up 20 minutes late. By that point, I could have just shoved on some clothes and run to the station, but I still would have been late and then would have spent the whole day feeling rough and exhausted. It’s too hot in Tokyo to rush. I had also been to all the other lectures (except for the one Soeda-san wouldn’t let me go to) and I knew that a lot of people had missed a lot of lectures, so I didn’t stress too much.

I got dressed and headed into campus in time for the end of the lecture. I then met up with the UTRIP folk when they came out of it (it turned out only around 6 people made the lecture).  They told me that the lecturer kept heaving and was nearly sick a few times in the lecture. It sounded terrible! I hope he was okay!

We went to lunch together in 2nd Refectory and afterwards I went to Soeda-san’s office to pay her back the money for the appointment. She was still on her lunch break though so I gave up and went back to Kuroda lab. When I got back, we started our practical work for the day. It was much better than before as they had set up a separate clean bench for me and so we didn’t have to keep swapping back and forth. It was also set up for a left-hander, so I was really happy!

The practical work was a little more complicated, and took quite a long time from start to finish. We began the serum starvation process for our experiments, which involved aspirating all medium from our cell culture plates, washing repeatedly with serum-free media, and then returning to the incubator. We had to do around 26 plates each. It became much easier with practice, and although the first few plates were slow, we got into the rhythm of it, and time flew by. Because of this, I missed the fireworks that some people were planning on going to as we finished around 6.30. Instead, I met up with some people outside Science Building 1 and we went to a Ramen restaurant that Sungi liked.

The restaurant was in Ueno. It was kind of strange… instead of ordering conventionally, you paid your money into a vending machine type thing, pressed a button, and it gave you a token. Then, when seats became available in the restaurant, you handed the ticket to a waiter, and they processed the order and sent you the food.

I ordered the cheapest thing on the menu. My logic was… if it is cheap, it probably doesn’t contain meat. It’d worked well so far. However, what I ordered turned out to have pork or beef in it – It’s been so long since I’ve eaten meat that I really couldn’t tell from sight alone. But… I’d paid 850 yen for it, didn’t have time to cook dinner when I got in, or the money to buy something else, and so just ate the noodles anyway, eating around the meat. I guess I accidentally lost my beef/pork virginity again in that sense! I didn’t eat the meat, but the noodles still tasted of it. Blegh.  Not a fan.

The ramen was very salty, and I didn’t like it very much at all. As a rule, I’ve enjoyed Japanese food a lot, but that was just not good. Yucky yuck.

After the meal, I walked to the train station, while the rest of the guys walked home. I would have walked but I’m so paranoid about mosquitoes now and was wearing shorts and a strappy top.

I got home at around 9pm, had a shower, and went on facebook for a bit, and read my emails. I had a few messages from people from Book Group who went to the funeral the day before, and they had all told me similar things: It was a beautiful service, and James would have loved it, and been so proud of his family and friends’ bravery. Later, I went to bed.

Davis didn’t speak to me all day. I am annoyed that he didn’t bother apologising to me after he knew that he made me feel so rubbish, but I tried to behave like an adult and not let it get to me. I just hoped that he would remain civil.

Wednesday 27th July 2011:

I had to be in the lab for 9am today to start the practicals. I got up early, and went straight to the station. I arrived with around 15 miutes to spare, but we decided to start work a little early. We went to the cell culture room, and began the process. Today’s work involved stimulation of the cell cultures prepared yesterday, using EGF of various concentrations and incubation periods. We first tried stimulating the cells for 1 minute at a time: We pipetted the growth factor into the plates, swirled the media to ensure that it was well mixed, and then aspirated all media, before fixing using our lysis buffer that we prepared yesterday evening.

We then repeated the process but increased the time to 2 minutes. Because of the extended time period, we were able to return the plates to the incubator inbetween the treatments.

Once we felt comfortable with the process, we began to get a little more complicated. We then had to try stimulating the cells for longer time periods. Because some of the cells required 1 hour stimulation, and others required as little as 10 minutes, we organised the stimulations so that they overlapped and finished at a similar time, but so that we didn’t need to actively deal with more than one plate at once. It was a little confusing, but once I got into the rhythm of it, I experienced no problems.

It was really interesting: As soon as the cells were lysed with our buffer, the mixture became instantly sticky and gooey. Kubota-sensee explained that this was due to the the DNA being released.

We placed all the treated cells in the refrigerator, and finished up just in time for lunch.

Davis had the intermediary Japanese class, but I didn’t go as the previous one was so advanced. Instead, Kubota-sensee invited me out to lunch, and so we went along with Uda-san and Toyoshima-san. We went to a Japanese restaurant nearby, and I had the dish of the day which was a Japanese fish meal cooked in soy sauce, served with rice, miso soup and a sidedish that had tofu, vegetables, and a thick sauce. The food was really good! The restaurant was playing the weirdest music in the background though… It was a Disney theme tune CD (“Under the Sea”, “Winnie the Pooh”, “A Whole New World” etc) … played on the Xylophone. Perhaps the most surreal soundtrack to my life – ever.

After lunch, I went back to the lab, bought a coffee from the machine, and started reading for the afternoon’s practical.

When Davis arrived from his Japanese class, he needed to take a 20 minute break (it’s starting to annoy me a little that I can’t work until he’s ready), but then we started the afternoon practical. Urakubo-san was showing us how to prepare and pour a gel for SDS-PAGE, so that we could later do a Western blot. I hadn’t done this before and really enjoyed learning the process. It was a lot of fun actually, because at Uni the technicians always do this bit for us to save time. We had to mix up the solution, prepare the glass, clamp it, and pour in the mixture. Once it had set, we washed the gel, and preserved it in distilled water and saran wrap for tomorrow.

By this point, it was around 6pm. I went back to my desk, packed up, and then headed to Soeda-san’s office to pay her the money back for the appointment. This time she was available, and so I gave her 5000 yen, and had a bit of a chat. I spoke to her about the master’s program here, because I’ve started to consider it again. I’m really enjoying my time here, and although I can’t wait to see my family and friends again, and Matt especially, I am sad that I am half way through my program, and feel nowhere near ready to leave yet! However, if I came here I’d really need to work on my Japanese!

On that note, Soeda-san has been trying to arrange one-on-one lessons for me with a Japanese teacher because the intermediary class is too hard, but I have so little free time at the moment with the practicals. I’m not sure if it’s going to be possible!

After that, I went to Starbucks on campus and bought myself a Matcha Frappuccino, and a cinnamon roll. Piggy. I sat in the cafe and watched it get dark. Then I headed to Hongo-Sanchome to take the train home. On the way back, I had a bit of a piggish moment and bought myself some French Fries from McDonald’s. They were pretty rank actually, especially after unnecessary Starbucks. I’m definitely more of a fan of Japanese food than Western food at the moment… especially fast food. Blergh. Giving up on the junk food now. And not having dinner after that. Too full.

When I got back to my room, I went next door to give Rachel her mosquito bite cream back, and then started blogging and working on my presentation.

Oh yeah… Davis decided he wanted to give a presentation on himself, and so now I need to do one too. I don’t have a clue what to say really, because I have only done two years at University and so don’t have a speciality yet, and nothing to really speak about! Regardless, I’m going to try my best, and hopefully it’ll be interesting. I’m not sure if I need to make slides or anything.

I spoke to Davis a few times today, and so hopefully we will be able to be civil, but he still hasn’t apologised for his comments on Monday and so I’m finding it a bit difficult to treat him like a friend. However, I can treat him like a colleague and so I shall.

And… I think that’s everything now!

It is Sungi’s leaving party tonight but I won’t be able to go. I have too much to do and can’t stay up late, so I feel a little guilty.

Time for a bath and bed. I need to be on campus so early tomorrow and so an early night won’t go amiss.

 

 

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Sat in my room… Crying.

I miss you James 😦

I am so sorry that I couldn’t come to your funeral today. I wish I could have said goodbye properly but it just wasn’t possible. 😦

There will not be a single day that goes by when I don’t think of you and miss you.

I know that Matt, Emma, Agnes and David were attending, and I just wish so much that I could have been there with them. And you.

I am sure that it was an amazing celebration of your life. A ceremony worthy of Kings. Even the Vikings themselves.

Tonight I have raised a drink in your honour, and as soon as I return to York I will go to the Golden Fleece and drink some proper mead, as you’d always tried to convince me I should.

Book Group, and indeed life in York, will never be the same without you.

I miss you James. I hope that you are in peace.

Always.

 

“Oh, wast thou with me, dearest, then,
While I rose up against my doom,
And yearn’d to burst the folded gloom,
To bare the eternal Heavens again,

To feel once more, in placid awe,
The strong imagination roll
A sphere of stars about my soul,
In all her motion one with law;

If thou wert with me, and the grave
Divide us not, be with me now,
And enter in at breast and brow,
Till all my blood, a fuller wave,

Be quicken’d with a livelier breath,
And like an inconsiderate boy,
As in the former flash of joy,
I slip the thoughts of life and death;

And all the breeze of Fancy blows,
And every dew-drop paints a bow,
The wizard lightnings deeply glow,
And every thought breaks out a rose.”

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Tuesday 19th July and Wednesday 20th July

Separated from the last post due to length, even though I have got a bit behind, and have written both of these today…

Tuesday 19th July 2011:

This was such a difficult day. Soeda-san rang me this morning to let me know she had got my email, and was very sympathetic. She asked me to come see her at some point today. I wanted to maintain some level of normality, and decided to attend my morning lecture. I skipped breakfast as I didn’t feel hungry, and went straight there. However, I ran into her on the staircase, and I broke down in tears.

I feel like this blog is getting very depressing. I will try not to write so much about the sad things from tomorrow onwards, because I don’t wish to remember feeling so down when I reread this years from now. But I must mention it with regards to Tuesday because it impacted my day so severely.

I went to her office, and ran into Deborah. She was waiting to see a doctor because she’d not been feeling well. I texted Maria to let her know I was upset: I had avoided telling her because I didn’t want her to worry, but thought it was best that she knew. Maria told me that she would come visit me after her exam that afternoon. I had a bit of a cry in the office, and then Soeda-san rang her daughter who then came to campus to help take my mind off it. She was really lovely, and took me to Ueno park so that I could relax and try to enjoy the day. Deborah came too after her appointment. We saw a man feeding the fish, and I’ve never seen so many in my life! It was crazy! It’s amazing how full of life the park is. I’d be surprised if more than 10 fish live in the York campus lake.

We then went to Ueno zoo which was nice because I hadn’t been before. I saw the pandas, and they were insanely cute. They looked exhausted though, poor buggars. The baby monkeys were my favourites. The zoo was almost empty because of the weather. It was raining most of the day, and I was a little worried because I had my laptop in my bag, so I was using the umbrella to protect that, more than myself. We didn’t stay long, because I had a phonecall from Soeda-san asking me to come back when I was free as she’d booked me to speak to the counselor. By the time we left, we had seen around half of the zoo: Pandas, elephants, monkeys, birds, tiger, lions, gorillas, bear, etc. But nowhere near all of it. It was still a lot of fun.

When I got back, I spoke to the international student centre, and then to a counselor about how I was feeling. They asked me a few times if I wished to go home, but I decided that it would be best to stay. I feel as though this placement is a massive opportunity, and something that I have worked so hard to achieve, and so it would not benefit anybody if I gave up and went home. Then I would be sat in my room, alone, getting more upset.

I went back to the lab afterwards. I arrived very late and so I felt like a lot of people were judging me for being lazy or unreliable, which isn’t the case. Regardless, I went back to work and started reading papers. I had a paper discussion with Urakubo-san that evening, but  it was brought forward which was quite lucky, as it meant that I could go home earlier in time for Maria’s arrival.

I managed to get the wrong train. Well, technically, the right train but going in the wrong direction. Which was a pain. I got home much later than intended. Fortunately, Maria didn’t arrive until around 7.20 because her train was delayed because of weather.

It was so lovely to see her, and she was really supportive. She brought dinner with her too, which was good, because I keep forgetting to eat since I’ve been here. We talked for a while, and then went on Skype to mum. Mum was happy to see her too!

We walked down by the river for a little while to get some air, and then headed back to my room. In the end, Maria stayed the night because the trains don’t run very late here, and it was easier. So we chatted for a bit, and then went to bed.

It was a really rough day overall, but hopefully things will pick up soon.

 

Wednesday 20th July:

Today was a much better day. I feel as though I am returning to my normal self a little. Maybe it has something to do with getting a good night’s sleep?

We woke up quite early, and headed onto campus together. Maria has never been to TODAI before and so she wanted to come with me to see the Uni. We got the train, and then walked in from Hongo-Sanchome station. On the way, we stopped for a Starbucks because my appetite has started to come back a bit. We had a frappuccino each, and I also had a cinnamon roll. I realised as we walked there that I had left my umbrella in the hotel room. Nice start, when a massive typhoon has been predicted!

I left Maria by the Science building, and headed to my lecture. We hugged and said goodbye, and then she went to look around campus some more before getting the train home.

My lecture today was kind of dull. It wasn’t a bad lecturer, or even a dull concept, it is just that physics is not my strongest area, and as I am still not 100% myself, I couldn’t really concentrate the whole way through. 3 people fell asleep in the lecture, and so I wasn’t as bad as them! Haha.

After the lecture, we went to the second refectory to get lunch. I had the same teriyaki fish again. I’m really starting to consider eating chicken because it is so difficult to eat here. Everything seems to contain chicken or pork, and so there’s not much variety in my diet right now. It’s not healthy.

I went to the lab after lunch, and began reading a paper for another discussion later in the week. It was really good: All about neural differentiation and the temporal signalling involved in the process. It is an area that I feel I am becoming more familiar with, and better able to understand.

I also wrote a letter to James’ family to send with the Book Group letters that Emma is arranging. Everyone from Book Group is so sad and so we all want to do whatever we can to help 😦 I got pretty emotional in the lab again and so went to the bathroom to calm down.

I am finding it slightly easier though: especially if I stay busy and keep my mind active. It is just especially hard since I only found out about Ali in February too, so a lot of things seem to come at once.

Urakubo-san then helped me to install a program onto my laptop for the analysis of Western blots. I am really looking forward to beginning my project properly now. I want to start getting some real practical lab experience, and so it is starting to get a bit more fast-paced.

The typhoon hit late afternoon, and I watched from the lab window. I have never seen so much rain in all my life! It was kind of nice, and afterwards, the weather was much cooler. It will become very humid later though.

I left the lab at 5pm and went to visit Soeda-san. She was happy to hear that I am feeling a bit better, and I also asked her for some advice regarding my mosquito bites. I now have at least 45 of them, ranging from my lower legs, to my back, to my arms. They are massive, and itch like hell. She said that there’s a chance it may be fleas from my bedding. That is absolutely disgusting, and I was really quite angry to hear that. She phoned the accommodation office, and they arranged for my betting to be sprayed. However, when I arrived back, I had the exact same bedding, and nothing seemed to be moved, expect I had a note on the bed saying they’d done it. Sketchy. I just hope they clear up soon, and really hope it’s only mosquito bites. *Shudders*.

I cooked some dinner when I got in, but the top shelf in my kitchen fell down, and both of my glasses smashed. There was glass everywhere. I rang the hotline about it, but the woman was not enormously helpful, and couldn’t tell me whether I would be charged for the damage, even though it clearly (at least in my opinion, clearly) wasnt my fault, and it’s lucky I wasn’t hurt! Grrr.

Then I wrote this. I will try to keep on top of this a little better so I don’t end up having to write 4000 words worth of twaddle in one sitting, every few days.

 

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Since the weekend…

Sorry I haven’t blogged much. I’ve had a lot on my plate.

As mentioned, I decided to go to Fuji despite being very depressed. I didn’t want to lie in my room and cry. Also, I had promised myself back in April that I would do it in memory of Ali Manir, so I didn’t want to back out of that.

I won’t distinguish between Sunday and Monday for the sake of convenience as I was trekking during this time and so the two days merged together a lot.

 

Sunday 17th July – Monday 18th July 2011:

After my brief post on Sunday afternoon, I went for lunch with Kyle. I told him what happened and so he asked if I wanted to go for a coffee to cheer up. Considering we had the trek that night, it made more sense to go and eat something more substantial. We went to a noodle place in the end, and I had udon with tempura. I didn’t eat it all because I wasn’t that hungry, but it was good.

I then went back to the apartment to get changed for the trek. I decided that I wanted to write a letter to James since I couldn’t say goodbye properly and was really upset, so I wrote that and put it in my backpack.

We (i.e. Meenal, Kyle, Justin and myself) met at Suitengumae station later in the evening, and got the subway to Shinjuku station. There, we met up with Tiffany and her friend Chika. We then went to collect our tickets and get the bus. I don’t think people realised how late it was at this point, as there was no sense of urgency and the bus was due to leave in under 5 minutes. Nevertheless, we managed to get our tickets, and get the bus on time.

The bus journey was long. In actual fact, it wasn’t that long (2 hours) but it felt long, because I was unable to sleep and knew I had a massive walk ahead of me.

When we arrived at the 5th station, we got off the bus and into the cool mountain air. I loved the weather, as it was much more like English autumn, and for the first time since I’ve been in Tokyo, I felt like I could breathe properly. It was around 13 degrees celcius there.

We acclimated, and then began the ascent.

The walk was hard. Much harder than I’d anticipated actually. It was around 11pm when we started, and so we were walking purely by moonlight and the crappy torches that were in our hotel rooms. The pace was also much too fast. I have climbed several mountains before, and although I don’t claim to be an expert by a long shot, I have some idea what I’m doing. Meenal and I were lagging behind, and despite repeatedly asking for the guys at the front to slow down, we were pretty much ignored. That was a frustrating start to the evening.

We reached the 6th station in half the expected time. By this point, the views of the city below were stunning though, and so we were still in good spirits. Unfortunately, my camera wouldn’t take decent photos of the view.

We carried on (still, much too fast) up the mountain. Because of the speed, we ended up taking at least 10 minute breaks, every time we made a zig-zag up the hill. This caused us to waste a lot of time being unnecessarily stationary, and I was a bit concerned about it because it’s not good on your heart to keep stopping and starting.

This went on for several hours, until we reached the 8.3 station. By now, my legs and lungs were in agony. There was a lovely elderly local man who we kept crossing on the path who was sat at the station. He must have been at least 75 years old; possibly older than that. I couldn’t understand what he was saying to me, but when he saw how much my legs were hurting, he sat down on the floor in front of me and started to stretch out the muscles around my knee and ankle. I was a bit shocked at first, but he was harmless enough, and genuinely trying to help.

It was absolutely freezing here. Even with all my layers on, I was shaking like crazy and had to buy a (ridiculously overpriced) hot chocolate just to warm my hands. Chika lent me a pair of socks to wear as gloves as i hadn’t brought any with me.

We decided to wait at this station for sunrise, as a lot of time had passed already and we wouldn’t make the summit in time. A lot of other walkers seemed to have had the same idea and it got quite busy.

The sunrise was really beautiful. My camera didn’t do it justice. Once again, I’m wishing that I brought my nice camera that grandad bought me, but I was too worried about it getting damaged.

As per, there are more photos on my facebook.

We began the next ascent soon after sunrise, and fortunately, it started getting warmer. We got to station 8.4, but then had another very long rest. Meenal and I decided to go on ahead but at a slower pace while the others rested. It was light by this point, and the mountain was full of climbers so it wasn’t particularly risky or dangerous. We kept climbing, and made really good progress.

After less than an hour, we were at station 9, and we then managed to make the summit with only one minor rest point. The final stretch was like a never ending queue. There were so many people, and it was really unpleasant. It had started to get very dry and dusty from the sun too, so the remaining walk was hell. I really didn’t enjoy it at all.

I was also quite tearful by this point. Grief, lack of sleep, exhaustion, and dehydration left me in a pretty rotten state. I felt sorry for Meenal because she had to put up with me and I wasn’t talking much.

We finally got to the summit, and I felt so proud. There were a lot of points on the way up when I really felt like my legs wouldn’t take me any further.

I went to the shrine, said a long prayer by the alter, and made a donation. I then took the letter I had written to James and tied it to the post. I was pretty tearful, and ran into Meenal when I came back out again.

We went to the hut at the top, and rested for a while. I tried to have a brief nap, and Meenal ate some noodles. We didn’t stay long – maybe 30 minutes – as it was absolutely freezing up there. Justin arrived soon after, and we all started the descent together. On the way back down, we ran into the other guys as they headed up. One of them (I won’t mention names) actually looked pretty damn pissed off that we beat them to the top. But never mind. The way they were walking was dangerous.

On the way down, it was horribly dusty. The descent was almost as hard as the ascent because of the slippy surface, dusty air, and aching, cramping legs. I didn’ feel like I could make it down, and kept wanting to rest, but we needed to make sure we were back in time for a bus.

It then started to rain. A lot. We knew a typhoon was due over the next week, so I got a little scared. I had my phone and wallet in my bag, and although they were wrapped in a plastic bag, I was a bit worried about damage so we moved as quickly as we could to the next station. Unfortunately, this meant that we took a wrong turn. We ended up at a hut that was significantly off the route. One of the men who worked there spoke amazing English, and was luckily able to guide us about the best way to go. We could either climb back the way we had came by 2 stations (which would take at least 2 hours, perhaps more with our exhaustion) or we could contiue on the path that we were on towards a different bus stop. We decided on the latter. We hadn’t paid for tickets for the other bus anyway, so it made little difference to us.

We started down what seemed like a never ending dusty path. The earth was loose and the gradient was steep. We estimated that we would be at the station in an hour and a half. It took almost double that.

I found that the best way to get down was essentially to ski with my feet. It was really hard work, and my hips were knackered. I went on ahead of Meenal because I was exhausted and wanted to get back, and also, I kept getting very tearful and I didn’t really want her to see it. The road went on and on. Eventually I came to a wooded area, and thought that I had nearly arrived, but then it went back to the dusty track and I had to wade through it all again.

We arrived at the bus stop by 1.30pm. It was such a long day. We sat in a cafe and waited for the bus. I had my first full-sugar Coke in about 7 years. After walking solidly for 15 hours, who wants diet?

We had to catch two buses to get home. It was a bit of a nightmare actually. The first one was fine, but we missed the second bus by around 20 seconds, and had to wait another half an hour for the next one. It then arrived late, and we were almost kicked off the bus because some silly woman couldn’t read her ticket properly and got onto the wrong bus. The bus itself was hot, had no air con, and there was a baby crying the whole way. I had a terrible headache from dehydration, heat, and the pressure as we descended. Not a good combination. The traffic was awful too, and so we didn’t get back to Shinjuku until around 7pm. I texted Kyle to let them know that we were on another bus, but he misunderstood my text, and they hung around anyway. We did let them know though, so I maintain that was not our fault.

I got back to the apartment, had a long soak in the bath, and then went to bed. It was a massively difficult day, both physically and emotionally. Although I did not enjoy myself at all, I am glad that I went. I feel like in a weird way, it allowed me to pay tribute to James by sending him a letter, since I can’t attend the funeral. It also gave me an amazing opportunity to see the sun rise from a beautiful place.

However, it is something I never wish to repeat. Ever.

 

[Right… this post covered two days and so was pretty long. I’ll cover the next two in a new post.]

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Updates from Tokyo

I feel like I want to carry on with my blog, even though I am so upset 😦 James would want me to live my life and not grind to a halt. So I will do an update for the last two days, but not in as much detail as usual. I can’t face writing all that.

Yesterday: Friday 16th July 2011:

The day itself was pretty typical. We had a lecture in the morning by Professor Kuroda (but a whole UTRIP lecture, not just a lab lecture). It was interesting, but was on the exact same topic as what Davis and I covered in the lecture last week. Except in slightly less detail to fit into an hour. It was useful going over it again as it meant I was able to relearn some of the more difficult concepts.

Then, in the afternoon I went for lunch with some of the UTRIP people, and headed to my Japanese class. As it was the last in the series, it was in less detail and we were not given homework. I’ve really enjoyed these sessions so I was sad to see the end of them.

After the lesson, I went back to the lab. I didn’t have any formal lectures or anything and so I finished quite early. I hung around campus though because I was originally planning on going to dinner with Rachel and people. I went to the campus pond with Davis and we took some photos. It was really pretty there: Infinitely nicer than the campus lake in York. I didn’t stay very long though, because there were a lot of mosquitoes.

I went to the library, and rented out a Japanese-English dictionary, and also a phrasebook. My legs had been eaten by mosquitoes though so after a while, I couldn’t bear it anymore and went to the pharmacy to buy some cream. I then realised I didn’t have enough money left for dinner, so headed home, making the whole wait a little pointless.

When I got back, I had a quick shower, and then met up with Stas, Lin and Till to go to a bar for a Friday night drink.

We looked down by the river for a while, but couldn’t find any decent bars, so went towards Suitengumae station. We found an absolute goldmine in the end, and went to a really nice Japanese sake bar. We had a couple of drinks there, before moving on. We found a Karaoke bar and tried in there. The first Karaoke bar was full and so we couldn’t go, but we found a second place with private booths and went there instead. It was a lot of fun, and was really hilarious! We spent the first 20 minutes trying to work out how to use the machine, and after that it got better and better.

We then went to a basement bar which looked worryingly like the bar in “The Shining” and even the barman was a bit of a Japanese Lloyd! The bar was extortionately expensive, and I ended up spending 1,200 yen on just one drink!

Finally we went to MacDonalds for chips. Just because.

It was a really nice night, and I enjoyed it a lot. It was nice to spend some time with the UTRIP guys, and I’m really glad we went. Hopefully we’ll do the same at least one more time before the end of the trip.

 

 

Today: Saturday 17th July 2011:

Until I heard the news this evening, today had been really nice. I now don’t know how to feel though. 😦

Because of the bars last night, we decided to wake up a little later today than was originally planned. We skipped Tsukiji fish market, and instead met at 11am to begin sightseeing. The group for the day consisted of me, Till, Lin and Kyle. We first went to the Imperial Palace Gardens. This was really nice, and the landscape was beautiful. It’s surprising how serene it was in the centre of Tokyo. I took quite a lot of pictures here.

After the Imperial Palace Gardens, we headed towards the Meiji shrine. It was beautiful, and the architecture was really powerful and moving. I really liked it here. Unfortunately though, at this point my camera battery began to flash as low (and actually, typing this has only just reminded me to put it on charge now!) so I toned down the photography binge. Luckily, the guys had their professional cameras on them and have promised to let me have some copies of their photos anyway.

The shrine was in a nice wooded garden area which was great as it meant there was lots of shade. We joked at one point that afternoon that our day consisted of nothing more than a “hunt for shade”!

We saw what was either a wedding or a funeral at the shrine. It was very difficult to tell from the ceremony.

I said a prayer at the shrine. I wish, now, that I had known earlier what had happened and then I could have made the prayer for James’ family and friends 😦

After the Meiji shrine, we headed into Harajuku. It was pretty hard to find initially, but is definitely one of those places where “when you are there, you know it”. We were suddenly surrounded in Japanese girls wearing bizarre outfits and numerous funny shops. They even had a pokemon doughnut shop. That’s a combination I had never imagined, even in my wildest dreams! There was a shop with a plane in it, and a few goth shops dotted in amongst the girly ones. We saw a few full-on Harajuku girls but didn’t take photos as it seemed rude.

We then walked into Shibuya. The shops quickly became much more upmarket and expensive. We didn’t spend a great deal of time there, and quickly headed to the train station again to move to the next place.

Till and Kyle wanted to go to listen to some classical music in the evening, so we headed to Roppongi so they could buy their tickets. Lin left shortly as he had arrangements with his lab. While the guys were buying their tickets, I had a look at the restaurants nearby. We eventually decided on an Italian restaurant (randomly) and I had a spicey tomato pizza. The food was okay, but kinda pricey (1,450 yen) and not as good as some of the Japanese food I’ve eaten. After dinner, I said goodbye to the guys and then went back to the train station.

 

I briefly considered going to the government building to see the view, but I didn’t have a proper map on my, and by this point my feet hurt a lot and my shoulders were quite sunburned, so I went home instead.

When I got back, I heard the news.

And my day fell apart.

I have felt sick, and tearful, and depressed ever since. I still can’t believe it. I spoke to mum and Matt on Skype quite a lot to try to talk it out, but It was so hard being here, without having anyone to hug or cry with. I was on my own for a few hours, and didn’t know what to do. No one in Hakozaki seemed to be in: I checked Facebook to see if anyone was online (i.e. in their apartments) but no. I texted Till because I had his number and when they got back from the concert, he came round to see if I was okay which was really nice. We talked for a while, and then went for a walk down by the river because it’s not healthy to stay in my room and cry.

And now I am back here, in my room, upset again. It just doesn’t feel real at all. There are some people who you just assume will be there forever, and James was totally one of them.

Tomorrow I am still planning on going up Mt. Fuji. If I don’t, I will sit in my room and cry, and so I want to go and get out of the house. It’s now 1am, and so I’m going to get going and try to sleep. It will help.

Sorry for the crappy writing today, I know it’s even less coherent than usual, but it’s been a hard day. I will try to upload sightseeing photos tomorrow.

Good night.

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In loving memory of James Jarvis

Today, I have found out that a very good friend of mine, James Jarvis, has passed away. I am devastated. Absolutely crushed. I can’t believe it.

James was one of the loveliest people I’ve ever met. He was so kind, genuine, funny, unique and gentle. A true gentleman, and a true friend. I will miss him so much. So so so much.

I have been crying for most of the evening. It just doesn’t feel real. I desperately want to be able to attend his funeral but I just can’t afford the flights home. It’s just not possible.

I last spoke to James under a week ago on Facebook, and I wish I had a better chance to say goodbye, but of course, nobody sees these things coming. 😦

I just can’t believe this is real. James was the most vibrant and full-of-life guy. I keep remembering all the funny stories he’s told me, and all the great advice. His recommendations for mead, his absolute conviction that ‘crossbow’ is the answer to all of life’s questions. His honesty.

I will miss him. I can’t even begin to imagine how much.

I am praying for his family and friends, and hope that they can find peace in these awful times.

Rest in peace James. I love you. And I will miss you.

 

 

 

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