In my line of work, Christmas preparations begin early. This means I've spent the past week being rushed off my feet and doing overtime, which has left me little time to keep up my Japanese lessons. I'm still finding time to play the odd game on my trusty DS so I don't forget what I've already learned, But still, I feel as though I've ground oddly to a halt. Similarly, my progress on the language-based mobile phone adventure Survive Japanese has stalled, as I've reached a point where I need to know kanji for the colours to move to the next level. And kanji and me don't seem to be getting on... Is there a trick to learning kanji of which I'm not aware?

However, having nothing new to report gives me the chance to do one of the things I've wanted to do since beginning my blog - a trip down memory lane to my Japan holiday last year. I quite like the idea of occasionally revisiting that holiday, a day at a time, here.


Back in October 2008, me and Louise (my decidedly better half) finally got the chance to go on our dream trip to Tokyo. It would be the first time that I'd ever set foot on a plane, and so I was slightly nervous - after all, if I didn't like it, a 15 hour flight was not the time to discover the fact! I think Louise was a bit worried I'd turn out to be scared of flying or airsick, too. Although we needn't have worried - as soon as our little 'City Hopper' to Amsterdam took off, I was enraptured by the whole experience. Yeah, it was kinda cramped (ok - really cramped! I'm well over six foot...), but the vistas and the feeling thrilled me. Louise still laughs at how, even after changing at Amsterdam and spending the best part of a day in the air, I was still beaming out of the window at the views of clouds...

Arriving at Narita was something of a blur. Never having been on a plane before means never having been through customs before either. To be honest I still don't know what really happened and why, I just sleepily allowed myself to be herded about until eventually it felt like we were free to explore the country. We got the limousine bus to Shinjuku, and enjoyed the scenery on the way. As we got closer, we could see Tokyo growing and growing on the horizon, but nothing prepared us for the sheer scale of the place when we actually got there.

Finding the hotel proved tricky. I realised that reading how to say, for instance, "where is the hotel?" in a foreign language is one thing; actually trusting my pronunciation, and understanding the response, was quite another. I think it was these early difficulties that made me all the more determined to keep up my studies.

When we got there, we were immediately blown away by the view. Then, we were blown away by the room itself. And then by the futuristic toilet (it doesn't take much to impress a hick like me)... And then by the view again!

We slept fitfully for a while. Jetlag won over excitement, but only just. Every time I woke up, I just wanted to look out of the window some more. We were both really excited about getting out there after a rest and exploring. And explore we did - but that will wait 'til another blog...

Thanks for reading!

I've been thinking today about our trip last year to Ueno Zoo in Tokyo. Asides from being a brilliant day out, and a great zoo with well looked-after animals, it also holds a special place in my memory because it was the first time I successfully ordered something in Japanese without relying on pointing, gesturing, and speaking English. I'm sure my grammar was poor, and pronunciation a bit off, but I got what I wanted without flailing about or speaking in that irritating slloooww, LOOUUD English that English people think makes foreigners understand them.

Another big milestone for me came some time later - I was at home, watching something (probably The Simpsons!) on Channel 4, when their Tokyo-set ident came on. For the past few weeks I had been trying to drum Hiragana into my thick skull and thought I was getting nowhere, when I suddenly realised I could read one of the signs! There, on the right, in big bold Hiragana and clear as day - Tonkatsu!

It's great to have moments like these two; they really show you you're on the right track. I doubt either one is particularly impressive in the grand scheme of things, but they demonstrate that inspiration, and motivation, can come up on you from nowhere.