Arrival!

So, i've arrived in Japan, flying into Fukuoka city from London Gatwick and changing at Beijing. A funny thing happened in customs, as I was going through the bit where they ask about drugs, criminal convictions etc. I showed the customs inspector my passport, the moment he saw my immigration status was "professor" I was waved straight through, strange. So, my host researcher met me at the airport and saw me to my hotel, where I totally crashed out on the bed for a few hours, understandable given that I had been awake for around 26 hours at this point. So far, everything seems surprisingly familiar, the restaraunt we went to was a buffet type thing, and I recognised most of the food, much of it was western staple foods, and they even had knives and forks, so not much of a culture shock so far, although I expect much of this will change. on a more unfamiliar note, on the way back to the hotel, my host researcher took me through a part of town that seemed to be the "sleazy businessman's drinking area" although it was saturday night it seemed pretty quiet, apparently because most drinkers go after work and not weekends. I also saw at least 10 "hostess" bars, where basically you pay stupid amounts of money (like say 50,000 yen) for an hour of simply talking and drinking with the hostess (a pretty young woman, although hosts are also available!), although apparently talking is all that occurrs in these places, so I am told. It's now early Sunday morning, I will be heading to my long term accomodation later today. Hopefully more stories to follow soon.

Hello!

Dear all

Welcome to my new blog, which I shall call Stranger in a strange land. I'm currently sitting in a flat in rural England, however, 2 days from now I shall be embarking on the biggest adventure of my life. For one year I will be living and working in Kyushu, Japan. With limited knowledge of the country, it's language, customs and culture, there are bound to be adventures, amusing mishaps, frustrations, good times, and bad times. I figured the best place to document, record and vent this information would be here, the world wide web. I hope to be able to update this blog as often as possible, probably a couple of times a week. If there are any questions, feel free to ask.