So we have another 3 day weekend in the wonderful land of the rising but not so warm sun. It’s now Monday afternoon and for the first time in a while I’ve felt like I’ve made good use of the weekend. I spent Saturday playing tennis for the second time since moving here, but we can discuss that later.

First, I want to talk about the holiday feeling.

The Holiday Feeling

I spent today and yesterday at my grandparents place out in the sticks. On the train there I still felt that my whole life changing move to Tokyo has yet to blast into life; it still felt like a temporary move and that there was this end date in the not so distant future, when I’d “wake up”. I have no idea when that moment of realisation will hit and I guess I’m never believed I would stay long term, but it was still a strange feeling to experience.

The Other Holiday Feeling

I also had the other holiday feeling this weekend – you know, the one to do with the festive season? Being born so close to a major holiday has always given me mixed feelings about Christmas. I don’t dislike it but I can’t say I go hyper when the bells start jingling. I’m finding it even difficult to comprehend this year as in Japan it is a totally overly commercialised season starting from the day after Halloween up to Christmas day. However, Christmas day is a normal working day making it the most anti-climactic holiday in the year.

I guess there’s also this confusion about how to spend the holiday this year. In any other country it would be a family day but in Japan, New Year’s has been set aside for that purpose making Christmas day pretty much a “couples day”. Ah well… I’m just bitter that my birthday is no longer a recognised national holiday :p

The Alternative Holiday

So the alternative holiday. It looks like this year I’ll be spending the festive season in Japan as travelling abroad is far too expensive! I’ll probably do some sort of domestic trip but popping outside of Japan will most likely be saved til early next year. Cheaper, plus something to look forward to beyond the festivities!

Tennis

So, Tennis. The second tennis session since the resurrection (of my tennis playing), we played a solid 3 hours. It actually did not feel that long. Maybe playing for a shorter time adds to the pressure of making the most of it, plus restricts the time for warming up and thus doesn’t feel so satisfactory.

During the session we played a round robin set each – there were 3 of us. Thankfully I managed to win a match 6-4. However, despite my so called tennis lesson years back in my younger days, my backhand and serving was and still remains beyond amateur. You might think that the game was one by a single break of serve…. you’d be wrong. The game was one by a single holding of serve (I think). Either way, it was a dire performance and the comparison of my technique to John McEnroe was somewhat bizarre and unmerited. The only similarity between myself and the legendary McEnroe is that I was holding a tennis racket and that I shouted profanities a lot.

Yesterday I played tennis for the first time in nearly a decade; I honestly can’t remember the last time I played but I’m sure it’s over 6 years ago so that rounds up to a decade! Anyway, the theme of the day was travel as I had to wake up super-early, 6am, to get to my friend’s place.

The Long and Winding Road

So, it was probably my first time experiencing the winding expressways of Tokyo properly; I think the only other times were in the Limousine Bus or possibly asleep in the back of the car. We talked about how London really cannot compare with Tokyo roads – there’s really no cross-city highway or complex raised junctions of spaghetti roads… hmm, that English didn’t make sense!

Anyway, the experience gave me a reason to sort out my driving licence – not to get stuck in traffic, but just to drive around, see the city and the area around Tokyo on the weekends. Obviously, I won’t be buying a car anytime soon but renting should be pretty simple… but first, the long road to actually getting the licence!

Tennis

So, tennis. I suck at it now… well, I sucked at it before, but I really want to get back to a decent level again. I’m writing off my serve but backhand etc, def needs more work! My right shoulder slightly aches today – I do enjoy that feeling of having done exercise though.

Rails

Anyway, I went to see my grandparents in the evening, which meant another long trip, this time in to the countryside. I ended up staying the night and here we sit on Sunday evening…. I don’t know where the afternoon went.

Air

I’m off back to London next weekend so I need to get some plans sorted. First thing is to find out when people are free. Actually, the first thing is to find out if people want anything from Japan. I did go slightly overboard this morning with the omiyage shopping though. I have to pack my suitcase to see how much more stuff I can take. I’m taking a big suitcase there but only a little one back meaning omiyage will make a big part of my luggage!

p.s. the map shows my journey over the last two days back and forth across Tokyo. The line to the south should stretch to my grandparents place. The central line-break is roughly where my house is.

This week has been an intense week. So much has happened since my last entry.

The Presentation

First of all, I had my final presentation for my project on Tuesday. I had run through it a number of times before the real thing and I tried to psyche myself up for it. It didn’t start off great with me spending a few minutes attempting to set up the projector correctly. Stupid thing didn’t want to display my whole screen so I spent a few minutes fiddling about with that.

Once I got started, I think it went well. I’m not entirely sure how the assessors viewed my project but I think I answered the questions pretty well. The demo was not the most spectacular but I think it showed off enough of what I had achieved.

It did actually crash though Ah well…