1st August 2010 Keio Plaza Hotel
Local time: 19.47
UK time: 11.47
Status: Knackered.
Unfortunately even though I’m writing this blog whilst it’s relevant, it may be a while before I can track down an internet connection to upload it, so there may be a surge of posts from time to time. I did spot a starbucks earlier with a wi-fi connection so if I can get time to go there during the orientation then I will do.. But it may be hard :(
This won’t be a long post anyway as I will probably crash out in bed soon. I got on the plane at 19.15 UK time on Saturday and arrived in Japan somewhere around 14.45 local time.. I still can’t get my head around the time difference but I suspect I have been robbed of an entire night of my life. The injustice! I don’t expect to recover it on the return home next year either, the world doesn’t work that way. Ah, the ramblings of the sleep deprived.
I have now truly, truly experienced jet-lag. It feels remarkably like the day I handed in my dissertation.
At Narita airport, Tokyo, I experienced the infamous Japanese toilets for the first time ever. There was a control panel next to the bowl with various pictures of things (bidets, bums, etc) and symbols in Kanji with English ‘translations’. Whilst searching for the flush I found a button labelled ‘flushing sound’. Ah! Thought I. Surely a mistranslation, probably just a warning that the flush is loud. So I pressed it, only to hear a recorded flushing sound (no actual flushing) and buttons flashed, encouraging me to increase and decrease volume. As it turns out, the Japanese like to muffle the sounds of their bowel movements with various different noises, from the less obvious (toilet flush) to the more obvious (bird tweets, so my room mate told me this evening.) Consider this your first strange fact about Japan from my voyage of discovery!
To compliment this blog, see below for a photo of the toilet in our hotel room. Considerably less high tech, but the drawings on the panel are most enjoyable. Note also the possibility of electronically controlling the water pressure of the bidet or ‘spray’ (I have not managed to work out the difference, but I’m sure as heck not trying!)
Local time: 19.47
UK time: 11.47
Status: Knackered.
Unfortunately even though I’m writing this blog whilst it’s relevant, it may be a while before I can track down an internet connection to upload it, so there may be a surge of posts from time to time. I did spot a starbucks earlier with a wi-fi connection so if I can get time to go there during the orientation then I will do.. But it may be hard :(
This won’t be a long post anyway as I will probably crash out in bed soon. I got on the plane at 19.15 UK time on Saturday and arrived in Japan somewhere around 14.45 local time.. I still can’t get my head around the time difference but I suspect I have been robbed of an entire night of my life. The injustice! I don’t expect to recover it on the return home next year either, the world doesn’t work that way. Ah, the ramblings of the sleep deprived.
I have now truly, truly experienced jet-lag. It feels remarkably like the day I handed in my dissertation.
At Narita airport, Tokyo, I experienced the infamous Japanese toilets for the first time ever. There was a control panel next to the bowl with various pictures of things (bidets, bums, etc) and symbols in Kanji with English ‘translations’. Whilst searching for the flush I found a button labelled ‘flushing sound’. Ah! Thought I. Surely a mistranslation, probably just a warning that the flush is loud. So I pressed it, only to hear a recorded flushing sound (no actual flushing) and buttons flashed, encouraging me to increase and decrease volume. As it turns out, the Japanese like to muffle the sounds of their bowel movements with various different noises, from the less obvious (toilet flush) to the more obvious (bird tweets, so my room mate told me this evening.) Consider this your first strange fact about Japan from my voyage of discovery!
To compliment this blog, see below for a photo of the toilet in our hotel room. Considerably less high tech, but the drawings on the panel are most enjoyable. Note also the possibility of electronically controlling the water pressure of the bidet or ‘spray’ (I have not managed to work out the difference, but I’m sure as heck not trying!)
Actually here are some more photos of Japan so far. My in-flight vegetarian meal:
And the plush bathroom of the hotel:
That’s all for now folks. More updates soon! First day of training tomorrow!
