Where I Live- Dot by Dot

Its a map shamelessly stolen from Google Earth. Hopefully saying that will avoid them destroying me with their immense copyright power.

Anyway, not being able to work out numbers, I live at orange dot, by the sea and the Seto-Ohashi bridge (straight line going south to Shikoku). Pink dot is Shonan school. Red dot is Okayama City, the capital of our beautiful prefecture. Its about 30mins by train from me, orange dot. Blue dot is Seishi school, in Kurashiki (marked). Kurashiki is about 20mins from Okayama. Green dot to the west is where Carrie lives, who I occasionally stay with when I work at Seishi (blue dot). On the map below, you can see where I live in Japan as a whole...

Weekend Fun and Games

This weekend was once again fairly laid back. On Friday I raced out after a day doing the presentation lessons at the Junior High, first to Okayama for drinky-drinkies then to Kurashiki for more drinky-drinkies. I missed my last train home, so had to stay at Carrie's place (thanks to Carrie and Phil for that).

Saturday I did shopping in Okayama- I attempted to buy a throw for my white sofa (to hide the tomato and chocolate stains), but failed. Instead I bought a book on an English traveller who came to Japan in the 1870s. Much more useful. I ended the day eating tacos and listening to The Blues beat the Baggies 2-0; back of the net!

On Sunday me, Miwa-chan and Yumi-chan went to a music festival in Tamashima, at Sami Beach. It was cool- we could hear the music from the beach itself, so stayed there most of the day. We drove back in the evening.

The picture is some of the gifts a Japanese kid gave to us. Although I'd like to say it was my "gaijin"-ness that got us the gifts, I think it was more down to Yumi-chan. Anyway this is, as you can tell, a brief post, and I'd better get back to watching my newly arrived DVDs, hurrah!

Coming soon... Shonan/Seishi Festivals and Finally:A Trip To Kyoto!

Three Tales

I can't help feeling that my friend Philip, from Way-yels, is putting a great deal more effort into his blog that I have. Yet, much like an arms race, we're both developing greater and greater 'arsenals' of material for your consumption. You being about four people (one of which is Phil).

Anyway, being unable to provide you with a step by step walk around my house and neighborhood (although if you wish to see such a post, visit a site not too far from here), I thought I'd share three tales from my topsy-turvy week at Shonan. Be warned, these tales didn't so much spring to my attention, as have to be dug out of relatively minor events and made into what are not-so-fascinating stories. But also remember you have interesting polls, fascinating features on Japanese women and turtles, and pictures of me as a Vampire, to amuse you.

Also let me say that, much like Crimewatch, I'm using initials for peoples names from now on, as sometimes people get arsy about blogs.

1. Y-Sensei and His Great Sense of Humour

Y-sensei is one of my favourite colleagues at Shonan. As the title suggests, he has a great sense of humour. He held a random meeting today, cackles a lot, and in the middle of otherwise quiet meetings answers his keitai in what can only be described as a Trigger Happy TV style. When asked if we had a meeting today he responded to me "Meeting!! Yes!!! I come to school for the meetings! Teaching is no fun but I love the meetings!", followed by a spell of ironic cackling. He also declared the other day that "Japanese Love Rice". Which is true, of course, but the line was delivered in such a way that it felt like he was imparting great wisdom to me. He also speaks to himself a fair bit, though quite a few teachers do that.

2. Festival Preparation

At the moment everyone is preparing for next weeks festival, which I can only assume will be a feast for the eyes and ears. M-sensei's class are preparing some mysterious treat, Y-sensei's class are making Udon, and a group of female students are practising a dance by a Japanese transexual band. These girls demonstrated some of the dance to me, as well as offering to paint my phone. It seems the fashion amongst 'youngsters' is to get a shiny, nice cellphone and cover it in acryllic paint and nail varnish, as well as stickers and any other tack they can get their hands on. I saw the monstrous results on a phone that was originally the same as mine the other day. Anyway, I have two days of Seishi festival (weds, thurs) and two of Shonan (fri, sat) next week, before a three day trip to Kyoto (sun, mon tues).

3. The TV Cameras Finally Track Me Down

On Friday I had to give two demonstration lessons at a local Junior High. Different Senior Highs were trying to persuade students to come to them next year, and Shonan had chosen me and O-sensei to showcase our school. I couldn't help feeling that Shonan were pimping me out- the sight of a 'gaijin' in their school made our particular lesson an instant attraction, and a group of students assembled at the end of the day to say goodbye to me specially! The lessons went really well, and apparently we were even on cable TV news briefly. It made me think it'd be way more fun teaching in a Junior High- for one I could actually play sports and have an outside chance of matching some of the 13-year olds!

Halloween at the Kindergarten

Ok well this post is mostly for the photos and not the words! This week has been a bit 'mnerrr', with lots of frustrating lesson planning on Monday and Tuesday, and a bit of overtime. Wednesday was a lot better though- I had two great classes at Shonan koko, where I'm being able to communicate with the students in Japanese a lot more (and they seem to be able to communicate more in English). Also I had a Halloween lesson at the local kindergarten!

Here are photos of me and the other five trainee teachers, who take the lessons. They were kindly taken by the Education and Development Sensei at Kurashiki City College, which is right next to Shonan koko. The kids are so cute! かわい　です　ね!

Is That Boris Johnson? No, It's Just Another Floating Torii!

Ok it may not be the best joke, but me and Carrie had been looking forward (for some time) to the moment when our Conservative Party jape could be unleashed on the unsuspecting Phil. Phil (the cheeky welshman, if you haven't already gathered), barely reacted, much to our dissapointment. Still, the best Phil can come up with is 'I've had the shrine of my life'- I'll let you, the reader, decide how good that particular effort is.

Having got our joke out the way, we were free to enjoy what is officially one of the top three views in Japan, - the famous 'Floating Torii' on Miyajima. Bright and (far too) early that morning, I'd arisen, and half asleep made my way to Okayama where we set out on our 2 and a half our journey to Hiroshima. Trips to Korea and the Philippines, and too much wine and chocolate, mean I need to cut costs. Others do too, so we slummed it on the JR instead of getting the magical Shinkansen like last time.

Miyajima is very beautiful- there are deer wandering about, just like Nara, and the shrine complex was is striking, jutting out into the sea. As the back of our ticket-stubs declres, 'the contrast of the blue sea, green hills and the vivid vermillion-lacquered shrine is breathtakingly beautiful'.

After wandering around the torii for a while, we decided to set off on what Carrie's guidebook declared was an 'easy' walk. It wasn't. Still, we had the dulcit tones of the welshman to inspire us, as well as two classics stored on my phone- Amarillo, and Ring of Fire. Although there were 6 of us in total, the Brits (me, Carrie, Phil) were entranced and inspired by Tony Christie, and were soon marching off up the mountain. It was a very satisfying walk, and reminded me of the mountains in China. However we didn't have any water, which was very annoying. At the top was a fine view out across Hiroshima bay, and some big rocks that stopped directly above a precipice- again reminding me of Huang Shan and Tai Shan in China. Phil was a bit wary of going too close to the edge- I imagine the hills and valleys of Wales are tough for him too- but I, seasoned explorer that I am, had no problem with moving to the edge and hopping up and down on one foot.

Sunday was a chilled out day. I did some shopping in Okayama, and spent way too much money on such essential items as Lindt, tacos and European lagers. I joined the library too. Next weekend should be similarly laid back- a night out on Friday, a vegetarian feast on Saturday, and a beach festival on Sunday. Then the week after I'm off to Kyoto for three days to visit a friend. The major stress during the weeks at the moment is preparing for my JLPT Test; I was losing motivation, but Phil's irritatingly comprehensive knowledge of Japanese verbs has given me a boost.



Steve's Official 'Top Three' Views in Japan

1) Sunrise over a sea of clouds at Yataka-yama, Okayama-ken

2) The Inland Sea...probably my first view of it, from the Washuzan Highlands, overlooking the sea and the Seto-Ohashi Bridge.

3) The beautiful sunset from a temple in Nara-koen


Like Frodo and Sam, me and Phil stared out across the mountains at our eventual destination...

...before Frodo felt like moaning after still not finding a Vending Machine. If Lord of the Rings had been set in Japan, Frodo and Sam would've had no problem.

Chickpeas!

Hello there.

Its been a slow week at Seishi, with me finally mastering my 103 Kanji for the Japanese Language Test, but staring dumbfoundedly at the 700 words I need to learn. Grrrrr. Teaching has also been slow, though apparently I made a girl smile for the first time in weeks by making her my 'assistant' in class, drawing pictures of animals for a lesson on 'Favourite Things'. She's amazing at drawing, and works part-time in a kimono shop, even though shes only 17. I asked her to commission me a special kimono. We'll see what happens. Its good though, she hates English and isn't that good at it but at least this way she's enjoying lessons. Without wanting to sound too sickly, it makes the whole thing worthwhile.

In other news I finally managed to procure a can of chickpeas, so my making humous master-plan is close to fruition. I have sesame paste, and all the other requisite ingredients apart from a mixer. I also found a fascinating website, www.sleepinginairports.net, which may help me cut costs on my trip to Seoul. Also I have booked a tour of the DMZ- hurrah! Let's see if I can sort out the whole mess, eh. For some reason I'm not allowed to wear jeans though- I can only assume the sight of 'capitalist garmnets' will prompt the North Korean guards into some sort of rage at the imperialist aggressors, and lead to 'an incident'. To reassure anyone with fears for me (or for the poor South Korean and US guards who'll be looking after me), the last incident was 25 years ago, and involved an axe. Don't know why I mentioned the axe, but surely its better than it involving a machine gun or something.

This weekend I'm off to Miyajima, to see a very famous shrine, and stare out at (officially) one of the three best views in Japan. Then on Sunday I'm spending quality time with my turtles.

A Chilled Out Weekend

For quite possibly the first time since getting to Japan, this weekend felt like a chilled out weekend, just doing weekend things, rather than it feeling like exploring an unknown land or whatever. Having said that, I did manage to get to Kompira-san on Shikoku on saturday, see a live football match for the first time (hurrah!), plus, most importantly of all, I now have two turtles!

So first let me introduce my new pets- the brown guy's called Atsu, he thinks he's a bit of a smart-ass, and has already been a bit rude to my green guy, Kitabeppu. Kitabeppu's a bit quieter, and more thoughtful. He's named after a Hiroshima Carps player, who is apparently 'slow but accurate' in his pitching; Kagawa-sensei thus thought it would be a good name for my turtle. He spends his time sitting on the bottom of the tank, thinking. Though at the moment, theyre both asleep by the water purifier.

On Saturday me Meghan and Carrie went to Kompira-san in Kotohira, on Shikoku. It's a really nice place- a beautiful climb and fine views from the top over the flatlands of inner Shikoku. I think we'd have got the Shikoku 'feel' of being less developed, if it wasn't for the throngs of tourists that come to Kotohira. I found a cute cat on the way down, which made my day. That evening we went for a meal then I watched Man U beat Wigan 3-1, before getting home just in time to listen to the Blues lose 3-2 to some crap team we should have beaten. Grrrrr.

Sunday I spent getting the turtles, then me, Kagawa-sensei and his two year old son went for udon, and went to a beach between Kojima and Uno. His son is really sweet, and helped choose my turtles. The beach was absolutely beautiful, and there was a geat view of the Seto-Ohashi bridge. It reminded me again of how lucky I am to live on the Inland Sea, I never get tired of staring out at it. In fact the day I get tired of that view, I think, is the day I should come home

So that's what Steve does...

It's come to my attention that I don't really talk about what I do in Japan; I write about weekend fun, and occasionally mention funny stories that happen, or bitch about Kim Jung-Il and Steve McLaren (if the two switched jobs I'm sure both the international community and the England football team would be better off).

That's largely because I don't really do that much. Mostly I try to learn Japanese, although my efforts are becoming increasingly half-hearted, worrying as my Japanese Exam is drawing closer and closer. I enjoy my days most of the time, and the worst thing that happens to me is boredom on a large scale. Although a total lack of responsibility in my daily affairs is both good for me and my fellow co-workers, it does mean my job lacks fulfillment a lot of the time. But the students are ok; the guys seems pretty uninterested in me overall, and as we can't really communicate with each other anyway this suits me just fine. The girls giggle a lot and shout 'hello' before hiding behind their friends, and often just come into the staffroom and stare at me. At first this was flattering, now its rather annoying. I'm becoming more determined to get some students to learn something- its tough as both my schools aren't academic at all, and many students can't even write in english letters! So I want to focus more on practical skills (money, shopping, etc) and fun things (hobbies, opinions, descriptions). As a teacher at Seishi told me when drunk, talking about political opinions and personal things is far more interesting than 'where do you come from?', 'what are your hobbies', but I'm obviously never going to get to this level with my students.

So anyway, at Shonan I mostly:

1. pester Ono-sensei and Manabe-sensei, teachers who are usually far more busy than me
2. go and pester Mori-san, our jimu (secretary), who is a unique lady who seems to be able to find out about anything i need to know
3. pester Kagawa-sensei about turtles and other such things
4. attempt to learn Japanese before going off to pester someone
5. teach the occasional lesson
6. talk to Yoden-sensei about Salvador Dali (this is a new one)

At Seishi my day is even less productive, I usually:

1. chat with Chisato (Hirota-sensei) all day
2. have an occassional 'debate' with Sugihara-sensei over something which we usually disagree on (Murakami, politics, how Japanese girls are apprently 'un-Japanese')
3. pop to the post office or combini for a change of scenery
4. attempt to learn Japanese before asking Chisato a question about something random
5. check on how the 'Steve Fan Club' is going (this is a small but dedicated group of female students who follow me around...sadly their leader has left school, which truly is sad as she was a great student and a really nice person- who had exactly the same bday as my sister)
6. teach the occasional lesson, although this experience varies dramatically depending on whether I'm teaching with Chisato or Sugihara-sensei.

So that's my daily-ish life. Overall Seishi is more chilled, but Shonan is more fulfilling. I like the mix- it's fun staying with Carrie every other week, as her apartment is always well-stocked with sake. Next time I bother to comment on something meaningful, I want to talk about the weird phenomenon that is being a 'gaijin' (foreigner) in Japan.

A Few Thoughts on England and Fat Frank

Despite not seeing the entire game, I feel compelled to compile a few thoughts on England and Steve Mclaren. Please tell me if I'm wrong about any of the following:

1. steve mclaren is a joker...i blame the nationalistic press and loony fans tho for making the FA appoint an england manager

2. downing is clearly not good enough to play for England. I wouldn't even let him into the Blues team.

3. becks was only dropped to show mclaren is 'new and original', and it was a mistake. anyone who saw hiim relinquishing the capitaincy, in tears, after the world cup, and the press corps ovation he received, will know that his heart is in the right place. Plus it really is true that his crossing alone justifies him a place in the current England team.

4. this is in sharp contrast to Fat Frank Lampard, who couldn't hit a barn door unless he got a lucky deflection (even penalties aren't going in these days for Fat Frank)

5. if McLaren has any sense, he'll restore Stevie G and Owen Hargreaves to the centre of a 4-4-2, and drop the aforementioned Fat Frank. when we play 3-5-2, or 5-3-2, or whatever that joke of a formation was meant to be, we're basically orienting the ENTIRE team around Lamps.

Here endeth my thoughts on the farce that is Mclaren and England. Sven wasn't perfect, but at least we qualified for all the major tournaments. Eventual dissapointment is inevitable with England, but its nice to join the rollercoaster ride for a while at least. And its testament to my distaste for Frankie Lamps and Downing that I haven't mocked Ashley Cole once in this post.

Preemptive Strikes and Nuclear Winters

After realising that intellectual posts on the nature of the North Korean state dont go well with 'This Month I Want to Marry' features, I've decided to trim my last post into the form of the rest of this blog. So here is the updated post. If you want a more in depth look at North Korea, visit the links below.













" We hope the situation will be resolved before an unfortunate incident of us firing a nuclear missile comes" North Korean Official

Kim Jung-Il- he's a bit of a nutter really isn't he?

Read:

http://www.slate.com/id/2117846

http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/printables/050627roco03a?print=true

More Weekend Pics

Enkais and Unkais

This weekend was groooit; I got to do a bit of good ol' binge drinking, see one of the most beautiful sights ever ever ever, meet more Nihonjin, and avoid watching England draw with a team they should have thrashed easily. Plus you all get to learn a bit of Nihongo (日本語)...

えんかい (enkai) is a Japanese drinking party
雲海 (unkai) is a "Sea of Clouds"

Kojima Festival Day

On Saturday and Sunday it was Kojima's local festival; que floats parading up and down the roads round where I live, and 16 year olds failing dismally to direct traffic with orange sticks. The simple task of going to DeoDeo (the king of electrical retailers in Japan) to buy a lightbulb was transformed into what felt like a samurai battle; well, several hundred Japanese people with sticks versus me on my bike! As I was cycling past everyone shouted out 'Hello, hello!', and suddenly it felt like I was the parade instead. I saw one of my students from Shonan koko though, which was nice. Sadly I didn't have time to join in the festival, or watch the climax on Sunday evening; I was off for nomikai drinking party fun!








Nomikai Fun

A nomikai is a Japanese drinking party, where everyone gets completely wasted and anything said is forgiven and forgotten when you return to work! Its the main way that work-obssessed salarymen blow off steam, and is normally 2 hours of all you can eat and drink, followed by more hours of drinking. I explained that this wouldnt really work in England as people would just get completely trashed; but afterwards I realised this is exactly why it would work in England, and this is exactly how and why it works in Japan! In the tradition of nomikai's I probably shouldn't talk about the teachers and how funny everyone was once they were really drunk- but one sensei in particular got absolutely wasted- and just kept drinking and drinking and drinking (though she laid off the booze at the party the next day :) )! It was so funny...another fell asleep, and others slowly flaked away as we headed to more bars. It was really fun. I started drinking shochu at the end of the night, which is like spirit-strength sake, and its really nice mixed with different stuff as cocktails- the best one I had was 'Umeji Rocku', which I think has plums or something in. Anyway its nice, and really strong.

Party in the Mountains

I somehow overcame the bad hangover that struck me down on Sunday morning, and replaced it by an even worse one in honour of 'Health and Sports Day' on Monday morning. The party on Sunday was at a cottage in the moutains in northern Okayama-ken, that my Japanese friend Yumiko, and her friend Miwa, had rented. It was so much fun, and the dawn sunrise over the 'sea of clouds' is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, even though I was drunk/hungover and hadn't slept at all. Me, Miwa and Yumiko, Chisato (friend/teacher from Seishi koko), a Nigerian guy called Dami, a Canadian couple called Christopher and Sarah, and Noriyaki, a Japanese guy who likes car chases and speeding, drove up in the afternoon on sunday. It was so much fun, though the next day there was serious pain, and I couldn't convince anyone to adopt a me/Dan/Steve Brazil cure to hangovers....

Kim Jung-Il, Inukai Tsuyoshi and Humous

This week I've been whiling away the hours at Seishi plotting grand schemes and master plans. I'm trying to book flights to South Korea for a long weekend in late November- Pyongyang has announced new nuclear tests, so I thought I might as well go to the DMZ and say hi to all the North Korean guards before we all get obliterated.

Also this week I went to the house and grave of former Japanese PM Inukai Tsuyoshi. Inukai was shot by a military officer in 1932, and his death marked the end of party political cabinets in pre-war Japan, and was an important step in the consolidation of military control over Japanese politics and society. He's one of 2 PMs who were born in Okayama-ken, and his old house is now right next to the Shinkansen tracks, north of Niwase, which is between Kurashiki and Okayama. Its a lovely spot, and two old guys who worked at the museum next door were delighted that I'd took the trouble to search the place out! After looking round, they walked me to Inukai's grave, where they seemed to expect me to observe a moments thought and contemplation- so I did.

On Wednesday me and Chisa Hirota, English teacher at Seishi koko, went to the pet shop to look at all the animals; I hate to bring up an issue I'd apparently killed off, but I'm still toying with the idea of getting a couple of turtles! Then we met Yumiko and her friend Miwa for lunch at a Turkish restaurant run by some of their friends- it was great! It had humous, but not with the lunch deals that day so I'll have to go back to satisfy my cravings. I met my friend Megs in the evening for ginitoniku.

Today was 'teachers day out' at Seishi; theres a prefectural speech contest on Saturday, and this year it was our turn to set up the hall etc. So we went in a convoy of cars, put out chairs, rehearsed, and returned to school. It was quite funny; some of the teachers are a real laugh, and the kyoto-sensei was wandering around in a t-shirt, with a towel round his neck, grinning all the time- he's really cool! Fewer teachers speak English at Seishi, but they all mess around and have a laugh more; probably because we work 1-9pm and theres a lot less to do than at Shonan! Tonight I dragged myself back to Kaminocho, really tired.

This weekend I'm going to a nomikai on Saturday, and a party at a cottage in the moutains on Sunday. Monday is a national holiday- its Health and Sports Day, so I'm going to spend it hungover, tired and inactive.

A Nara Trip Away...Oh Deer

It's a new month! And apart from coming up with truly terrible puns for post titles, and suggesting I should marry both Ami and Yumi, I've also been on a magical trip to Nara and Osaka in Kansai! There's lots of photos this time, it was very hard to cut them down...

I got the magical Shinkansen to Osaka on friday night, straight from work. A mere 40 minutes later I arrived in the bewildering Shin-Osaka station, from where I got a succession of even more bewildering, jam-packed trains to my friend Laura's stop, between Osaka and Nara. Osaka is even more full of mayhem than Tokyo; it's Japan's second-largest city, and unlike Tokyo all of its shiny nightlife is concentrated in one area, Minami (Osaka's two clearly defined areas of activity are imaginatively called 'Kita', north, and 'Minami', south). Adding to the confusion is the fact that there are three train company's operating in Kansai; this means that Minami has three main stations, all with very similar names- JR Namba, Kintetsu Namba and Nankai Namba- and all are obscenely busy. Anyway (moving on from the train talk), the next day we went to beautiful Nara, Japan's no.2 cultural place after Kyoto. Nara really is a treasure; jam-packed with pagoda's and Buddhist temples. The best part of all however is the large park to the north of the city, which really reminded me of National Trust sites; large areas of grass where people could have picnics (in most of Japan's 'gardens' you can't sit on the grass), and deer wandering around. The deer even wait and only cross the road when there's a green light! They also bow to you when you feed them biscuits if you bow to them first- it's so cool!

We wandered around the main area, then had lunch back in Nara at a decent place that did teriyaki burgers, Korean hotpots and all sorts of other stuff. The highlight in terms of tourist attractions in Nara is Tódai-ji Daibatsu-den, the largest wooden building in the world. It's a massive structure, which was rebuilt in the Edo period and is only 2/3 of the original buildings size! Inside are all sorts of Buddhist-related things, including statues of scary people and a big buddha. It lacked the mysticism of the big buddhist temple I went to in Beijing, but was pretty impressive. There was also a hole in one of the wooden pillars that's meant to be the exact size of Buddha's nostril. If you can squeeze through you are apparently ensured of enlightenment; que lots of parents pushing their young children through the hole! Feeling pretty enlightened already, I decided to give it a miss.

The best thing about Nara, as far as I was concerned, was simply wandering around the large park where there were friendly deer everywhere; however we also took time-out to doze in Isui-en Koen (garden), where I experienced the Japanese 'wabi-sabi', which Michiko Manabe has been trying to explain to me! It's an apparently untranslatable term relating to the combination of artificial order and natural beauty in Japanese and Chinese gardens. It was a beautiful place, where (without wanting to sound too Zen) you could really feel at peace; if I lived close-by I'd like to think I'd try and relax and read books there as often as possible.

Luckily for us it was a really sunny day, perhaps one of the last days of summer. As we headed back to the north of the park, we found that there was a junior high choir playing in front of the Daibatsu-den. They were so sweet! They played a song about how much they loved Osaka, then all did silly dances; you could almost hear the crowd collectively going 'awww!'. Towards the end of the day we headed to the north of the park, where there are two temples. Nigatsu-dó was the nicest, and probably my favourite
of the whole place. Built into the hillside, it had ornate wooden carvings all around it, and as we arrive in the late afternoon the sun was setting at a perfect time; it was one of the most beautiful views I've seen so far in Japan.

We had a few drinks in Osaka that evening, but lacking a big crowd I couldn't really go crazy like I wanted to! It certainly brought back the 'Tokyo buzz' though; I really can't wait to get back to Tokyo, it's so full of energy!

On Sunday we shopped in Osaka, around Minami and then around Kita, where my regular, slow train back to Okayama went from. I got some bargainous deals in some clothes shops, while we found a couple of food halls that reminded me of Selfridges and Rackhams! There was some pretty tasty-looking stuff, though I must say I'm missing humous more than anything else; I can't find it anywhere!

The train-ride back was slow and boring; Kobe is really close to Osaka though, and having seen the two now I'd really love to live in Kobe. Its a city, with shiny city things, yet also relaxed and pleasant. It's close to the mayhem of Osaka, and not too far from the cultural centres of Kyoto and Nara. Not that Okayama is bad though; as my good friend Pip says, you can't spell Okayama without Okay! Plus where I live is close to the glorious Inland Sea, a beautiful area that's already close to my heart.