"We Must Do What We Must Do"

With a five-line email and three weeks' notice my holidays changed completely. The Thursday and Friday I thought I had off in the middle of November have been tacked on to the 'in-service days' at the end of my contract, leaving me with a useless fifty quid ticket to Kyoto and a hostel booking to cancel. Tomorrow morning I'm taking the train to Matsumoto, a small castle town in Nagano Prefecture, on the edge of the Japanese Alps. I guess I'd better make the most of it.

To A Coy Mountain

It was nothing more than a few snatched glimpses, peeping in and out of the trees and the approach to the station, but the snow-streaked cone was unmistakeably Mount Fuji. We scrambled out of our seats, craned our necks to the window, jabbered excitedly. The Japanese slept, or looked on impassively. Just another bunch of weird foreigners.

Fuji's appearances are as rare as a Sunderland derby win: other than the time I actually climbed it, I'd only seen the mountain twice before this morning. Once on a dawn Shinkansen ride to the airport, the other from my classroom window, hanging above the Tokyo skyline. Typically - maddeningly! - both times my camera was at home.

Late October, Tokyo

Autumn's here and the temperature's falling as fast as the leaves. Only twenty-one degrees today, and the sun was down by five o'clock. If it gets much worse I might even have to put a jacket on. That or move my scarf to the front of the wardrobe.

Back home it's raining. The daytime high is six above freezing.

'Tis The Season

Now the life's been sucked out of Halloween, and with shopping a close third to getting excessive amounts of sleep and visiting Disneyland in the average Japanese teenager's list of must-do everyday activities, Tokyo's department stores are already gearing up for their next big event.

That's right, Christmas.

Derby Day

I might be eight time zones and almost six thousand miles away from home, but these things still matter. Kick-off's 8.45 in Tokyo. I'm feeling dangerously confident.

Howay lads!

UPDATE: Every dog has its day, eventually. It's pathetic, but for the Mackems this is about as good as life ever gets.

Yesterday's Man

Talking of stereotypes, bad news for David Beckham who, in the three years since I was last in Japan, has gone from demi-god to half forgotten has-been.

A bit like his role in the England team, really.

Stereotypes

Generally speaking, living abroad has taught me that a lot of our ideas about other nationalities have more than a grain of truth to them. The Chinese really can be rude, abrupt and money-obsessed; Czechs rarely smile until they've sunk at least five beers (and don't ever get them started on the Roma); the Korean temper is as hot as their food; Italians flirt with every woman except their mother and still think it's cool to wear sunglasses indoors (I swear in five months in Sicily I never once saw my landlady's eyes).

My current hosts, like our own island race, can be insufferably clannish and chauvanistic about their culture, and while they don't like sumo all that much, they do lap up karaoke, fall asleep on overcrowded trains (sometimes while they're standing), get pissed on two beers and will only when backed into the very tightest of tight corners ever say the dreaded word no.

The Japanese stereotype of us? I got my students to shout out some words: bowler hat, English gentleman, afternoon tea, checked clothes, Peter Rabbit, pickpockets, tall, good at football, and (with the aid of an electronic dictionary) reserved women.

Clearly, they've never been to the Bigg Market on a Saturday. Or St James' Park.

Stealing A Country: Our National Shame

We are cursed with a government that sees personal freedoms as a cumbersome liability, exploits fear for its own ends, and would rather pander to prejudice than tackle it head on. It's evident in everything from ID cards and 42-days to the treatment of the Gurkha veterans, but most of all in the case of the Chagossians, a thirty-year scandal which makes me ashamed to be British.

The government's position is nothing short of contemptible, as is the US state department's claim that terrorists could make use of a bunch of rocks in the middle of the ocean. Although, saying that, there are many who would argue they already are.

Suntory Beer Tour

With some difficulty I managed to rouse myself from bed early enough on Saturday to do the hour long tour of Suntory's Musashino Brewery. It was an unsurprisingly surreal experience, conducted entirely in Japanese by a woman in a Butlin's jacket with a megaphone round her neck. The building was more like a nuclear power station than a place to brew beer, only marginally less interesting.

Much to my (continued) disappointment, the tour ended with a packet of salted rice crackers and three halves of lager (soft drinks if you come by bike!) rather than an unlimited supply of free beer. Even worse, we spent so long complaining I'd only just downed my second when we were kicked out.

Other than that, it was great.

Lazy Life

Although the days are way too long one thing I really like about this job is how little preparation it takes. I usually spend about 10-15 minutes each day planning, sometimes half as much again if I need to make materials. As for paperwork, all I've had to do so far is take a paper copy of the register and input it by computer once a week. Compared to my last job, it's a breeze.