Evening everyone!! It is ten to twelve in Tokyo and I have just finished a very long day at work. This week has been full-on as I have completed my first full week of teaching. I am teaching one-to-one English lessons in a booth, so I have a variety of students who come and go throughout the day. Last Wednesday was my first full day and I was in the “studio”, as it’s called, from 10am to 10pm. I only had a few students book my sessions during the first day so I had a lot of empty time slots. Luckily this gave me a lot of time to walk around Shinjuku, the district where I work, so I have plenty of Japannabel content to report on this week.

On my three-hour long lunch break that I found myself with on day 1, I walked to the Golden Gai bars. The Golden Gai bars are a collection of mismatched bars in the red light district of Tokyo–just a five minute walk from my work. Unfortunately, at 3 o’clock in the afternoon there was not much happening and I later found out that the Golden Gai bars don’t actually open until 9pm so it was not a very successful excursion. Anyway, it was starting to get cold outside so I went into a nearby 24-hour noodle restaurant called Nagi, for a bowl of ramen.

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The days are already merging into one because I can’t really remember what I did on Thursday or Friday to be honest but I probably worked late and then ate supermarket sushi for dinner, which has turned into quite a recurring theme already. Two and a half weeks in and I am still yet to cook anything more complicated than putting a mini pizza in the oven but Japanese food is so cheap and delicious that it’s easier to avoid cooking altogether.

On Saturday night, I was invited to the 30th birthday celebrations of a Canadian man called Andrew who I didn’t actually know. I met a really nice Japanese girl called Akina at the Leeds alumni event a few weeks ago who invited me to Andrew’s all-you-can-eat/all-you-can-drink birthday meal. There were 15 of us (about half were Japanese and the other half Canadian) in a small private room back in Shinjuku again. By the time I got there at 8:30pm, I was starving and in need of a large G&T to mark my first day off in 8 days. The all-you-can-eat aspect was a bit lacking because we could only eat what was put in front of us and between 15, the food went quite quickly. The G&T’s were heavily watered down – I know this because I had quite a few but I was not inebriated in the slightest. The meal was so much fun though and I sat next to Akina, her English boyfriend and her Japanese friends, who were so lovely. We went to a very crowded English pub afterwards and then we got the last train home at about half twelve.

On Sunday, I made plans to meet up with another Japanese girl that I met at the alumni event. This girl was called Mari and she was at Leeds at the same time as me. Although we were in the same halls at the same time, she was an Astrophysics Masters student so we didn’t actually cross paths. Mari and I made plans to meet in Kichijoji at 1pm where she said she would show me around. We met outside the station and Mari took me to her favourite department store in Kichijoji, which had an entire floor dedicated to Japanese stationery. We then went and had a ramen lunch in the basement of the building. The menu was fully in Japanese, including the prices, so I had absolutely no idea what I was ordering. I was a bit disheartened when the bill came and my bowl of tempura prawn was double the price of Mari’s tofu, but you live and learn. Anyway, then we walked around the park and along the river to Mari’s grandparents’ house. We knocked on their door but they weren’t home and so we walked back into central Kichijoji.

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Mari suggested we take the train to her house where she lives with her younger sister and her parents. She told me that her sister was really excited to meet me because she wanted to practice her English. When we arrived at her parents’ house, I sat down at the table and her mother brought us some snacks and then she made matcha tea the traditional Japanese way, which was really cool. Her sister, who is 26 by the way, didn’t actually come into the room because she was too shy but I could hear her giggling outside the door with Mari, who was trying to convince her to say hello.

Mari’s mother was so kind. She didn’t speak English but she sat at the table with us, asking me a lot of questions, which Mari translated. She has invited me back in a few weeks’ time for a traditional Japanese lunch, which I am very excited for. She also told me that Monday was going to be Setsubun, which marks the first day of spring. It is custom in Japan to visit a temple on Setsubun, toss roasted beans and shout “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!” (Devil out! Fortune in!). She very kindly decanted some spare beans that they had into a sacred box for me so first thing Monday morning (aka 11am when I woke up), I went to the nearest temple. Even in residential Tokyo, you are never more than a 15 minute walk to a temple/shrine so I went to my local shrine in Koenji and threw the beans and did the shout. As I am writing this, I am realising that there is a difference between a shrine and a temple and I definitely went to the wrong one but hopefully I will be fine.

As I walked home from the shrine, I explored a bit more of Koenji’s backstreets and I had a mosey in a few of Koenji’s second-hand bookshops and vintage stores. Pics are below!

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Anyway that brings me back round to Tuesday, which is today. Today I had a training day at work from 10am till 4pm then I walked to the studio because I had five back-to-back sessions in the evening. Now I am exhausted and I just ate my last two dairy milk bars so I am feeling ready for some visitors to come and bring me some more Cadbury chocolate please.

Oyasumi! / おやすみ! / Good night!