The Sticks

Well, this almost died before it really began, didn’t it? There’s nothing like a new year beginning to remind you of all the things that you haven’t been doing. My list of neglected things is pretty long and currently includes eating healthily, moving once and for all out of my suitcase and generally being a successful, adult human being. If this continues much longer I’ll be able to provide concrete evidence for the devolution of species.

After the uncertainty of my last blog post I was hit with an avalanche of things to do, which I’m only just climbing out of. Since then I have travelled halfway across Japan, moved into my new apartment and started my new job. Those have all been largely fine. It’s the little things that really destroy my sanity. I have to reschedule a delivery for a parcel, which is an interesting experience when you can’t remember your address and all the post offices are closed for the holidays. After three days of charging around Saga, notice held valiantly aloft, I took a moment to actually look at the thing and saw an English helpline printed in tiny letters across the bottom. I’ve left convenience store workers across the city trembling in my wake for this. Dark moments.

The apartment I have so catastrophically failed to make homely in the last few weeks is in the centre of Saga city, the capital of Saga prefecture. It’s all about the scenery here. My balcony opens out onto a stunning vista that includes a car park. That’s it. There are some office buildings behind, but mostly it’s the car park. The inside is pretty economical with space and reminds me a little of an IKEA showroom. Either way, I’m pretty happy with it and by Japanese standards I have quite a large apartment. It also seems to be pretty central. Once I figure out where the centre is.

This is actually much more difficult than it sounds. Around 200,000 people live in Saga city, but the prefecture in general is known for being the middle of nowhere. Even the residents seem surprised to find that other people actually live here. This means that when I’ve asked people about places to go, things to see or restaurant recommendations, I’ve been met with a slight tilt of the head and a puzzled expression. This appears to be Japanese for “do you have any idea where you are or are you genuinely mad?” Despite this, there do seem to be a few things to do around town, which I’ve spent the holiday period investigating. I’ve probably taken far more photos than these things deserved. If all else fails, the train lines to Fukuoka, Nagasaki and the connections to the bullet train are pretty decent, so I’m holding out hope that I won’t struggle for material!

The holidays have been generally pretty quiet. Most Japanese people don’t really do Christmas and then go home for their New Year celebrations. This seems to be the only country in the world where New Year’s Eve is not an event at all. The fact that I managed to find an open bar to sit in with a friend suggests that I might have some level of alcohol dependency. There’s only one thing that gets remotely busy this time of year, which is the local shrine. Today, Saga shrine was filled with queues of people waiting to pray and buy fortunes. You can buy all sorts of charms, arrows and scrolls to try to ensure an auspicious year, but the only people guaranteed it are the food stall owners dotted around the temple. I’ve never seen them before, so they must have to work just the one day a year. I went along to watch the melee unfold and remind myself what humans look like. It also allowed me to do a bit of grumbling about queues. You can take the man out of Britain…

I appreciate that this blog post has taken a bit of a shotgun approach, but I hope it paints some sort of picture of where I am and what my life is like at the moment. If you can make any sense of it, please call me. As you can probably guess, I’m still finding my bearings and haven’t managed to achieve any sense of normality just yet, particularly with the abrupt arrival of the holidays. This is never an easy time to be away from home and I’m only just starting to establish friendships, so I’d be lying if I said things were rosy all the time. Switching cultures takes time and effort, but I am definitely making progress. Thanks for all your messages; any contact from home encourages me and keeps me grounded. Please be assured that I haven’t forgotten how to eat or breathe and intend to continue doing that for the foreseeable future.

So, before I can hear the cries for mercy from nine time zones away, I think that’s all for now. Have a happy new year and stay tuned for more adventures in small town Japan, coming much faster than this blog post did. Just as soon as I’ve found them.

A regular schedule for this site is being developed and will be announced soon. I have several ideas in the works, but I’d be interested to know what sort of content you’d like to see here. Whether you want focused posts about day trips, everyday life in Japan, explanations of Japanese culture or just more posts about ramen, let me know any ideas you have either in the comments below or on social media. Let me be your disgruntled blog genie!