my life

I’ve been here for 5 days now and thought it was about time I posted something on this here interweb.

The first thing I noticed about New Zealand is that people just seem to have more time for you; they’re not rushing around wanting to be somewhere else all the time. So far, they seem a lot more chilled out than back home.

Still being a bit jet-lagged I’ve been having some pretty erratic sleeping patterns, but the other morning I decided it was about time I got into the swing of things a bit and woke up at 6.30 am, ready for what would be the most productive day since I have been here.

I had a web meeting with Simon regarding Simple CMS at 7am so I went to the coffee shop around the corner and logged on for that – an hour later we were done and I had to get ready for a job interview I had arranged for 12 noon.

It’s not that I want a job working for anyone else, as I don’t think I’m able to anymore, it’s been too long; it’s just that if I want to stay here for any length of time I have to get sponsored by an employer. My interview was at the other side of town and after enquiring as to how much a taxi would be (and being told about $50-$60 one way!) I decided it was probably a good idea to get a car. I went on to Trade Me (the Kiwi equivalent of Ebay) and found a big one with four wheels and gave the bloke a call. In broken English he said that the car was still available and I said I’d be around within the hour.

My big car with 4 wheels (and new tyres!)

One $50 taxi ride later (it was further away than I had thought) and I was at the guy’s house. Turns out he was Philippino and had lived here for 30 years, but still spoke with a very strong accent. He told me it was his birthday and invited me around for dinner with him and his wife on the evening; I accepted his kind invitation. More about that later.

He didn’t seem to know much about the car as he was selling it for his son who had disappeared to Australia and he didn’t know when he’d be coming back so had decided to sell his car. Fair deal. All he kept saying was “New tyres, look! New tyres!”. Judging by the size of these tyres, they must have cost a bob or two so I could see why he kept banging on about them.

Anyway, I had a quick look under the bonnet, making those noises as if I knew what I was looking for… I did that thing that my Dad does to make the engine rev without getting inside (it’s a little silver thing you pull on) and put my ear to the engine. He must have thought that I had a clue! I took a ride around the block, offered him $3,100 ( that’s about £1,200 – he had it for sale for $3,500 ). He took the cash and the car was mine.

Oooh, lovely new tyres!

Now I’m no mechanic but I’ve had my fair share of shit cars and I have a good feeling about what not to buy. It wasn’t ticking and banging so I think it’ll be okay. It also had 6 months’ more WOF (their version of MOT) and 6 months’ REGO (road tax equivalent) so I’ve got at least until October before I start having to worry about any official stuff. We Brits can drive for up to a year on our UK licenses, and New Zealand law doesn’t require you to have car insurance… yes you did read that right, New Zealand law does not require you to have any car insurance… so all I had to do was drive away. Bonza!

( Being the assiduous chap I am, I chose to take out some insurance, just in case I bump a Ferrari or the likes. Annual cover cost me £63… yep, for the whole year! I’ve got this awful feeling that someone is going to wake me up at any minute, and I’ll be back in the UK )

If you haven’t already guessed, my new car is the one in the pictures – do you like it? I know, I know, I bet it’s a right gas guzzler but seeing as a litre of petrol is 61p and diesel is only 37p I don’t mind too much. I always switch the taps off when I brush my teeth now, so I feel this keeps my carbon footprint in a nice balance.

So now I had my car but I was lost; I went and bought a Tom Tom and found my way back to the hotel. Had a shower, ironed my best shirt and I was ready for off… and still only 11:00am. I arrived at Green Bay at 11:45. Seeing as I had time to spare before I had to meet the dude, I had lunch of Sushi and made my meeting at 12. Phew… all before I had even got up the day before.

He offered me a job as a consultant designer, which means I can concentrate on setting up the business here, whilst still getting sponsored. So all in all, a very productive half day!

The afternoon was spent recovering from my massive amount of productivity by driving my new car over to the beach and taking the photos of the car you see on the right. There was a man fishing in a little boat so I watched him for a while, and took some photos of the City from the North Shore.

My new friends! Junn is the birthday boy in the middle, the lady on his left is Ruby, his wife. They were very friendly.

On the way back I bought my new friend, Junn, a book for his birthday and drove back to his house. When I got there the place was full of Philippino folk of all ages. They all greeted me enthusiastically and led me through to the kitchen where there was so much food on the table.

Ruby, Junn’s wife, sat me down and piled my plate high with different things I’d never seen the likes of before – and sausages. It felt a bit weird being there as I’d only met them that day when buying the car, and didn’t know anyone there. I couldn’t exactly blend in to the background either as I sort of stuck out like a sore thumb – I think it was the pink shirt.

They all made me feel very welcome though and when the food was over, the karaoke machine came out. Junn started singing and when he was finished hinted that I should go next. That was my cue to leave… but not before I did a little rendition of La Bamba by Los Lobos! Oh yeh!

After the Friday night of debauchery and the Sunday spent in bed, I felt very guilty about not making the most of my time here in Tokyo. So I went onto Google and did a search for ‘traditional japanese breakfast’… I was adamant that I would consume at least a little of their traditional cuisine before I departed. (I had already tried the local version of sushi and chicken teriyaki and all the nice and normal Japanese food). There were a few results for this term, most of which involved raw eggs. Not the type that I had didn’t have the other day, which was just very undercooked. No, I mean raw.

Raw egg mixed with soy sauce is something I never want to experience in my life again

I asked the nice (but incredibly thin!) lady on reception where I could buy said brekky and she recommended a place to go which was a block away. An old man walked in just before me so I ordered what he ordered and decided to copy what he did.

There was a fish on a plate. Some miso soup. Pink pickled ginger. Some white rice. Oh yeh, and a raw egg had been lovingly cracked into a bowl. I didn’t really know what to do with this egg, so I spied the man out of the corner of my eye, not wanting to make it too obvious that I was copying his every move. If I’m ever anywhere in England, minding my own business and eating a bowl of Shreddies or something, and some Japanese bloke starts to watch me, I will not get paranoid, I will lead him through the process step-by-step. It’s only fair.

Anyway, Old Man (which he will now be known as), proceeded to pour a little soy sauce into the raw egg before spooning it over his rice. I copied. He started to eat the rice. I copied him. I nearly vomited.

Have you ever eaten something which has the consistency of raw egg, and the saltiness of soy sauce? Actually, let me rephrase that… Guys, have you ever eaten something which has the consistency of raw egg, and the saltiness of soy sauce? It’s not nice at all.

Without wanting to appear rude at all, I finished off the rest of my food and left with an odd feeling in my throat. Having grown up on a diet of Edwina Curry* I know the last thing I want to be doing is eating raw eggs, and this only added to the general feeling of nausea. I’m writing this now though, and I feel okay. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing after all; I won’t be doing it again though.

*For all of my friends who were born in the mid 80s, Edwina Curry isn’t a type of curry.

So I’ll get straight to it, I’m flaky. The night of the last post was a messy one and I never got to meet the nice charity lady in the end. It went a little like this…

Nightlife in Tokyo; it was there all the time, I was just looking in the wrong places

I’d heard that Tokyo had an amazing nightlife but had hitherto experienced any of it. I went in search for the Tokyo you see on the TV, the one with the lights and the glitz. Bear in mind that Tokyo isn’t really just one city, it’s a multitude of cites all parked at various distances from each other and so when I went to the ‘Tokyo’ district thinking that must be the place where it all happens, I was wrong… that place is called Roppongi.

Until now, I’d not really seen anything in the way of sleaze and had this idyllic opinion of what Tokyo was all about; a visit to Roppongi changed my mind.

I was on my way back home for the night (as it’s miles and miles from my hotel and I needed to catch the last Metro at 12.30am), when I bumped into 3 German blokes who asked me where the exit to the station was. We got chatting and they told me about this place of myth and legend. We decided to go together and split the £40 taxi fare. When we [finally] got there the place was heaving. This was where all the other nationalities were hanging about!

To make a long story a lot shorter, we were there until about 6am and I spent the whole of Saturday in bed nursing the mother of all hangovers. I had previoulsy promised myself that I wouldn’t ever get drunk again. In true flaky fashion, I never met up with Kowakami to teach her to dance English style – she is a very lucky lady.