Oh, To Be In England

Right then, first off England and my visit to thereof. (Note my adoption of the irritating Japanese habit of failing to recognize the national entity variously known as Britain, Great Britain, the United Kingdom, British Isles, etc.) After a satisfactory flight via Phuket and Bangkok courtesy of Thai Aiways (no back-of-seat monitors for the inflight movies in economy class, boo!) I touched down in Heathrow, got hopelessly confused while attempting to find a coach bound for the prearranged pick up point of Stansted Airport and noticed with a shock how BLOODY COLD it was. Within minutes, my leather jacket was out of the suitcase and around my trembling shoulders, as I marvelled at the assorted Brits milling about in shorts and T-shirts in the British summertime like it was normal or something. Wierdos.

So, aside from the fact that I can navigate far easier in an airport where the signs are all in Japanese and that the abrupt change of climate wasn’t doing much for my body, from this point on I was able to enjoy an extremely pleasant stay at ‘home,’ in reliably bland Colchester (see, up there’s a photo of the High Street – fascinating to the teachers out here but, alas, not to the students it would seem). The grandparents were down from Scotland too, which was nice, having not seen either of them for at least three years or so. My folks’ house, cradle of my adolescence (pictured above), was much the same as it ever was and Vashti the cat (see accompanying illustration) was just as slothful and dismissive as she’s always been, all of which was quite encouraging.

One or two observations on England and the English. Number one, lots of large people – I’m trying to be nice here, when I suppose what I really mean is plain ‘fat.’ This is not to say that there aren’t any porkers in Japan, there are a fair few, but FAR less than I saw on my frequent wanderings around town. Bearing in mind that I’ve only got Colchester and Wimbledon to use as benchmarks, it may not be the case everywhere, but I somehow suspect it might be. Why? Diet? Probably. Lack of exercise? Possibly. I don’t know, all I do know is that I saw a hell of a lot of bellies and that surprised me. Then again, perhaps I’ve just become so used to the sight of beanstalk physiques here in the Far East that anything else seems to be the extreme opposite.

Second, what is it with the number of teenagers pushing prams? I realize this comment is probably pushing me rather uncomfortably towards ideological ground shared by the likes of Norman Tebbit, but really, I saw LOADS. Alright, so maybe all or most of the young mothers I saw weren’t teenagers at all but actually in their twenties, or else were much older siblings, maybe even childminders. Aunts or cousins perhaps. Again, I’m probably making wide-ranging value judgements with nothing to back them up, but what I will say is that in my frequent trips out here to get groceries, visit major cities and travel to other schools, I have yet to see any mother appear visibly younger than twenty five. And the Japanese look young for their age. Honest! That last line’s not racism I can assure you, my Japanese work colleagues and friends have told me so themselves, so could it be the mothers I see are maybe even 35? Maybe I should start asking.

So, besides noticing broad trends of what I took to be a rise in incidents of obesity and teenage pregnancy, what else did I see? Well, not much to tell you the truth. It was still highly aggravating being forced to vacate the cosy confines of a pub at a little after 11pm (not as of November this year though, eh?), and someone really needs to sort out the litter problem on Britain’s streets. Oh yeah, and more Brits should cycle, because bikes are great, but I’m getting preachy now, so I’ll stop this and round off the rest of my time there.

Over the following week and a half, I managed to catch up with buddies Luke, Al, Jarrad and Tom, witness the latter’s drumming involvement with up and coming band Kev and the Mazins at a rehearsal (sure to be setting things off in chamber-folk alt-rock kind of way very soon, I’m sure), journey to London for a meeting with erstwhile housemate and now frighteningly capable public sector co-ordinator Sophie, and meet up with eternal beacon of loveliness Alex. All of which no doubt makes for scintillating reading for all those with no personal knowledge of the above. Except for the fact that the aforementioned are pretty much the only ones who’d ever bother to read these ramblings…duh, duh, duh…

...yes, sorry, where was I? Well, I saw them, and did a number of other pretty banal things involving shopping, curries and time indulging in certain practices that I’m not at liberty to expand upon in a public forum such as this. Basically, what I’m getting at is that going home was really good, and something I’m very glad to have done, as I suspect it will serve to cushion the blow for when I leave JET, most likely in July next year, and get myself a proper job. One final thing though, Marks and Sparks’ sushi is some way short of being authentic. The actual fish is fine, but the rice used to fill the ‘maki zushi’ rolls is terrible. I’d happily grit the path with it in winter, but would have slight reservations in terms of actually eating the stuff again…