Phew! I was beginning to wonder if this was Miami

The oppression of Japan

Yes Japan is an oppressive country. But I aint talking about a kind of pans Facist-communist regime that crushes and defeats through the hardship of minorities. I’m talking about this oppressive bloody heat. And I’ve heard it isn’t even that bad at the moment.

Within 3 days of summer you can expect to have had at least 17 conversations with Gaijin and Nihon-Jin alike; “Japan is so hot – but it’s the humidity that is the worst.” The sentiment is thrown about endlessly.

But why the complaints? The heat is good innit? Yeah to a degree (excuse the pun) - but there’s a point at which sweating 2 litres of salt water a minute and consuming a gallon of Pocari Sweat to combat it becomes annoying.

So how do you combat the sweat? I used to be a pretty sweaty lad in Welly-Boh. “Hey Bren open this jar for me?” *Sweat pours from me like the mighty Huka Falls* So I’ve been thinking – and these are the actions I’ve taken thus far and are working nicely – I don’t sweat so much at all. Go me.

And don't call me Shirley

1 - Attitude

Winona Ryder! (expletive)

First of all - As we all know our attitude shapes our reality - so bitching and moaning about how much you hate the heat will not help you. Be positive – even neutral - it’ll make it that little bit less horrific. When people say to me: “Oh my gosh I hate this heat. It’s awful.” I simply say: “I love it.” Quite often I will have a short reminisce about Wellington winters to help it seem more genuine. Shiz you’re in Tokyo, it’s hot – complaining helps? No? Then shut up.

2.0 - Hey relax chill out guy!

Sometime it’s simply the stress of activity that brings me into uber sweat mode. Instead of walking swiftly down the road on your way to work – stroll like you have nowhere else to be. Focus on being relaxed. If you’re running late to work and can’t afford the meander – sort your life out and give yourself time to mozy slowly to work each day. I’m telling you a good slow walk like that of a 90 year old is brilliant for stalling the sweat beast.

2.1 - Fake it until you make it

A lot of it is simply a mind game – don’t bow down to stress. Pretend you’re relaxed. I’m just walking down the street – no rush. I notice I barely sweat at all when walking amongst the oppression on my days off. Pop a shirt and tie on me though and I’m a human waterfall.

3 - Clothes

Like wearing a hat at a jaunty angle

Yeah obviously if your state of mind is important then by extension so is your comfort. Wear comfortable clothes – even if it’s to work. Try to wear the most comfortable clothes you have. Don’t put your tie on until work. We you do keep that top button undone even though you're wearing a tie. Wear jandals into the office – change em out at the door. The rule: Keep your state of mind relaxed.

4 - This undershirt business

Some Gaijin have said that wearing a t-shirt under your shirt is the way to go. To be honest I see the logic but haven’t experienced the results. The shirt soaks it up and thus you don’t sweat or feel like you’re sweating so much. When I tried it, it just made me hotter than buggery - way to hot. I’ve found wearing loose clothing that allows your skin to breath to be better. This also means that when cool zephyrs do jet by it gets through the one layer and chills your skin. Avoid buying or wearing heavy shirts they are like sitting in a mini sauna. This also leads into the next sneaky tip too.

5 - Yamanote hack

On the Tokyo Yamanote line just inside each carriage you will see a big aircon on the roof. The fan swings a cool breeze downward left to right. A. Situate your self directly below it! B. Arch you back slightly so it creates a gap by your collar for the cool breeze to shoot down your back. Oh my goodness it’s good. Stops the dreaded back trickle too.

6 - Become a lazy bastard

Escalators and conveyers are there for a reason – use em. Back in Kiwi-Land I used to walk up stairs and hills instead of escalators. My thinking? It’s exercise – it all adds up and stops me from being a fat bastard. Here in Japan – if you’ve got to mount some stairs and there is an escalator – use it. Tiny pockets of exertion add up and make you sweat. Stand there and say to yourself: “I may be a lazy bastard – but at least I’m not a sweaty lazy bastard.”

7 - Food

A not so obvious one. Avoid spicy food, chilli, garlic, onions and so on - these raise your body temp and cause you to sweat. Lunchtime curry? No thanks sorry champ.

8 - Avoid exercise

Not all together – there’s nothing quite like a good ole jog through the smog of Tokyo. But I strongly advise that you avoid exercise within two hours of getting ready and heading to work. With the shower temperature changes and getting dressed and all the other little chores that are required of when getting ready you may sweat continuously. It’s like your body gets confused. “Oh your making lunch – that’s exertion - I had better continue sweating.”

9 - Sweat rag

Carry at sweat rag on your person. It’s like a human chamois. They’re good for keeping the brow dry and help to keep you cooler than if you let the sweat gather. Also if you forget it take those paper napkins they hand out at the train stations. All this shiz adds up.

10 - Sweat inducing facilities

Since I arrived here I have made regular visits to a sweat inducing facility (sento, onsen, sauna spa etc). I don’t know if this helps with sweating so much but I do know it assists in reducing BO and detoxifying the shiz out of my muscles. It takes years off me every Monday night when I go hang and thang with the 70 years Japanese men in the nud.

11 - Botox

Yeah um apparently botox stops you from sweating. So ah just botokulate your entire body…

Not a drop of sweat on set

For Keeley-Poodle and Charlotte-poos

I thought I'd do a little video for my nieces Keeley and Chalotte and for the folks back home if they're intertested.


Love you all.


XB XH

Burger Crawl Nihon style

Ahoy there readers.

Teaching: So we're both teachers and that's quite funny really. It's funny because although I'm obviously fluent in English, my technical prowess is a tad... foresaken. So it's been kind of fun relearning the technical aspects of the Queen's English. There are so many rules that I use and take for granted - but never really acknowledge. Likewise there are a myriad of rules I break regularly (and quite often on purpose). I guess the cool thing about teaching English is you're the boss. The Japanese in general want to learn the natural way to say things which gives you license to teach them all kinds of phrases and expressions. Just the other day I made a small ode to my friend Steve Bennett during a lesson. After explaining the expression "half-assed" to my student, I encouraged him to "use your whole ass when learning English". One for the books. 

Americano: Whilst on the subject of words and what not. It's interesting. The Japanese - in general - find the British accent a lot harder to understand than the American. But they have no problems understanding my thick NuZullind aksent. I guess with all the American movies and tv shows the general population are more familiar with the dialect of the yanks. I have even met J-people with accents so strong I thought they were from the states.

Burger crawl: So a few of my good chums instigated a "Burger Crawl" in Wellington. A Burger Crawl involves consecutive visits to a series (five) of burger joints with systematic rating of the burgers. From what they report it's a lot of fun - if not a little heavy on the wallet and the tum tum. So I have been doing a kind of part-time Burger Crawl here in Tokyo. I loved BurgerFuel in Welly and I guess this is my longing for a replacement. So far we've been to: Blacow, J S Burgers Cafe,  Freshness burger, combini burgers and The Great Burger (yeah yeah I know - they all totally make sense name wise). Here are the results thus far:

Blacow is pretty decent. Hannah and I went there last night. It is hands down the best burger I've tried here - however it is the most expensive. It is made from 100% wagyu beef. The chips were pretty decent too. 2 burgers, 2 fries, a ceasar salad and a Moscow Mule cost us ~5000 yen, which is a smidgen expensive. But good for a treat. Oh and there was a token pickle on the plate too. Burger: 4.2   Chips: 3.8   Price: 3.4

J S Burgers Cafe: Despite it's confusing name this is actually my favourite place. The burgers although not quite as perfect as Blacow's are a great size and well priced. A burger and fries is about 1100 yen. The fries are delicious - I love em - Hannah hates em. They've got some kind of delicious beer battery seasoning on them. The style and lay out of the place is Americana - strangely enough you can buy Tim Tams there. It's about 5 minutes from our "mansion". Burger: 4.0  Chips: 4.2   Price: 4.1 

The Great Burger: Yeah wasn't so happy with this one. The burger was a little too perky for my liking... Okay okay I'm a greedy westerner - it was just too small! Plus the serving of chips was minging 8 or 9* chips! Forget about it. Burger: 3.8   Chips: 2.9   Price: 3.8

Freshness Burger: A big chain. Very big. Quite cheap burgers and this is reflected by the size. Not bad if you want a petit little snack - but not ideal for a full dinner option. And if you thought I was disappointed with the 8 or 9 chips from Great Burger you should've seen my face drop when I saw the 7 or 8* chips served up here. Burger: 3.2   Chips: 2.8   Price: 4.3

Combini burgers: This one time I was a little hungry, so I nabbed myself a burger from the convenience store. I would advise you don't try these. It was awful - but then again what did I expect for 105 yen? Next time I'll try the corn and mayonnaise on a hotdog bun....  Burger: Gack   Chips: n/a  Price: 5

(Note: I still need to try Mos Burger. But at a glance I'd say it'll sit somewhere between Freshness burger and J S Burgers cafe)

* In 1991 my dad and I visited Tokyo on the way to the U.K. We went to Tokyo Disney Land. Whilst in WesternLand  we got chicken and chips. I got six chips - dad got seven. N.B. When visiting Japan lower you chip expectations!

Spot the dog competition

Things Japan would say if she were capable of sentient thought...

"Oh hey let’s all live in Tokyo…"

"We dress our school kids up like 

Donald Duck just for laughs"

"Yeah, of course hotdogs are 

a breakfast food"

"The closest 24 hour convenience 

store is only 15 metres away… 

better install a new one"

"The train is late... Some people 

are sooooo inconsiderate"

"You foreigners will love the 

fashion here – pity it's all three 

sizes too small for you"

"Town... belt?"

"Ninjas - you won't see em"

"We don't have crowds of people. Try 

maelstroms of people"

"Reactor? Meltdown? When? Pish posh"


-

We did it!

We did it: So Hannah and I have been celebrating as we are now sustaining life here in Tokyo.

We've had our paydays and thus we feel: "We made it! We moved successfully to another country!"

Thus we went out the other day and celebrated the fact by having a traditional meal of .... Chinese food.  It was very fresh and tasty. Gouza, chicken and chilli prawns. Lighter than the Chinese you get in NZ thats fo sho. It was certainly a step up from dirty old J and M's on Courtenay Place. I did have a small MSG headache though.

Role reversal: In NZ I was often sick and felt a little "unflash" - whilst Hannah would be healthy as the proverbial Oxen. It seems that the roles have been reversed and since we've been here I haven't had any sickness really. Hannah seems to be getting a cold periodically so we're a little worried and trying to ascertain why. We think it may be the daily exposure to the nippers. 

Rock climbing: A good freind of mine Mr D Bunting popped over recently and it was good to see a chum from home (now Melbourne). He assisted me greatly in capturing the vaunted Quintus Maximus for my collection. We also went rock climbing in Shibuya - much to the displeasure of my forearms. He got a Koi tattoo - I can't remember where but it was probably a tramp stamp. Next on the visit list is Mr Nick Wilson. Looking forward to catching up with that guy.

Rainy McSeason: So apparently in the summer here it rains for month - almost non-stop. I had a bunch of my students say that it had come early this year. But the rain stopped after 5 days which was nice. In general the Japanese hate rainy season. It makes them sad. I personally don't mind it - any time it rains without wind is just a gentle reminder of the forgotten horror of Wellington's wind.  Strangely after maybe a month or so of mid to high twenties heat - it has dropped back to a cool - almost autumnal 15 degrees. Winters last stand.

Yum Yum: Hannah and I missioned over to Ueno for some sightseeing and shopping. We stumbled across a little food market. With some omoshiroi food. Some kind of giant deep fried chip spiral thing you dip in powder flavour. A ramen burger and corn on the cobb. It seems there are three kinds of quick quick quick food/meals here. Udon, Ramen and Soba. Everyone has their preference. most people seem to dig the ramen. It's an institution here. You can go to ramen houses with private cubicles so as you're not disturbed by other diners or even staff. My preference so far is  udon. Big fat udon noodles! Ramen leaves me feeling heavy and sickly where as udon is lighter and you can ofter pick and choose various tempura to eat with it. Soba is okay.

5AM: Inspired by Mr Andrew Thom(p)son I decide to make a video of an early morning bike ride through my neighborhood. It was good fun. Check it out! And yes it is bloody light at 5am!