Taking a bow

Wow, what a hectic week it's been. I'm starting to write this at my seat waiting for the aeroplane to begin taxiing it's way to the runway. In just over twelve hours we will be back at Heathrow after a fascinating, whirlwind five days in Japan. Here are just some of the highlights.

Perhaps my overriding memory will be the amazing politeness, good manners and hospitality of the Japanese. Their culture is much more formal than any I have experienced before, and took a while to get used to but everything is done so cheerfully and with a level of humour that took me by surprise that it was impossible not to fall in love with them. There is a lot that we in the UK could learn from the Japanese about respect, humility and good service. I found the custom of bowing to greet, say thank you or to bid farewell particularly charming, but after meeting so many people in such a short space of time, my neck felt as though it had extended to giraffe proportions.

Professor Hideo Nakata organised our schedule in Japan and accompanied us throughout. He  has spent much of his academic career fostering cooperation between Universities in different countries. One of his recent collaborations has been to support teacher trainers in Afghanistan to write their own training manual for special educational needs. Hideo loves british detective and spy novels and we spent a lot of time discussing Ian Rankin, Len Deighton and John le Carre amongst others.

In total we visited five mainstream schools, two special schools and the Board of Education at Tsukuba City Hall and ran a worksop at Tsukuba University. Everywhere we were treated almost like royalty. In addition to the already outstanding Japanese hospitality, we hadn't realised just how much of a big thing it was for them to receive two lecturers from England. They really considered it an honour to have been chosen, and wanted to give us the very best possible impression of their schools. Beautifully presented food and drink awaited wherever we went.

Two types of persimmon, beautifully presented

We were subjected to paparazzi levels of photography wherever we went, and soon found ourselves being featured on the schools' websites. Click here to catch us in action. Shoes worn outside are not permitted inside the school buildings, and on arrival we would be presented with a pair of slippers to wear indoors. Again, a lovely custom, but unfortunately even the largest pair I was offered was at least 3 sizes too small causing me to hobble around the schools like a penguin with corns. The children we met were delightful, ever ready with a "konnichiwa" (hello) and a beaming smile. My favourite was the nine year old who with a mischievous grin asked via our translator "How is Prince William doing?"

At one school, a Kindergarten, the outdoor area was set up to provide a place where the children could play and explore in natural surroundings. This school was towards the north of Japan, and although still some distance away from Fukushima, site of the nuclear reactor disaster, between 30 and 90cm of the topsoil had had to be removed from the outside area due to contamination from radiation. Another reminder of the environmental dangers ever-present in Japan was the slight but clearly felt rumble  during one of our interviews with a teacher. Hideo immediately identified it as a tiny earthquake. Sobering.

Skyscrapers in Ginza

Although we were fortunate to have such a wonderful introduction to the Japanese people and their culture, there was very little time for sightseeing. We did manage to squeeze in a couple of hours in the Ginza area of central Tokyo en route to a school visit. Ginza is Tokyo's upmarket shopping, eating and entertainment district, and looks spectacular with a very similar feel to midtown Manhattan. I would love to return to see it all lit up at night. It's certain a very cool and buzzy place, and my desire to come back was stoked further by the rather dreamlike experience of watching "Lost in Translation" at 2:00am one morning after downloading it in response to my jet lag induced insomnia. There is some absolutely stunning cityscape photography in that film.

Street signs in Ginza

An older part of town.

Tsukuba, on the other hand has the relaxed feel of a University city with plenty of green empty space and many people travelling by bicycle.

The area around the University guesthouse felt especially peaceful. The guesthouse didn't do breakfast so we would buy ours from a local store and eat it sitting by the small lake on the campus. The temperature, reportedly milder than than usual for the time of year, made this a very pleasant experience in a tranquil setting. We were joined for each of our five mornings by a beautiful stripy spider, whose web remained undisturbed and able to accumulate a growing horde of food as the week progressed.

Our stripy breakfast companion

We were treated to a wide range of traditional Japanese food during our visit. I was surprised to find how much I enjoyed the raw fish and the tuna was especially exquisite. I was less keen on the horse meat we were served one evening. It would have been rude not to try the raw horse kidney in particular, and although it didn't actually taste too bad it just didn't feel right and I won't be rushing to repeat the experience in the near future. All of the food was freshly prepared and felt healthy. For our Sayonara (farewell) dinner we sat around a low table and were treated to Shabu Shabu, wafer thin slices of beef that are boiled very briefly in a bubbling pot in the middle of the table and served with dipping sources and fresh vegetables, which are also boiled in the pot. Accompanied by copious amounts of beer, sake and another delicious drink distilled from sweet potato (I'm not sure of its name), this meal gave us a wonderful send off, albeit making getting up early for the journey to the airport the following morning far from straightforward.

Fresh looking accompaniment to our Shabu Shabu

What a week! I loved what I was able to experience of Japan, and it has left me desperate to return with more time to explore all of the country and Tokyo in particular. For now, though, the really hard work begins - we've got to write up the research.

(Please note that this is an edited version of my original post)

Happy Birthday Hannah

It's exciting being in Japan, but nevertheless I'm feeling a little sad this morning. For the first time since Hannah was born on 25th October 1999, I won't be there to celebrate her birthday with her. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology we should be able to link up by video, whcih will be great but it's just not the same.

20 minutes old - she hasn't changed much, has she?

I'm sure you'll have a lovely day Hannah, even without your Dad there to share it with you; just make sure you still have some energy left to enjoy it after your sleepover with the girls tonight. You were a gorgeous baby, and you're even more gorgeous now that you're (nearly) 12. Have a fantastic day!

Loads and loads of love,

Dad xxx

七五三

After a long but relaxing 12 hour flight flight, we landed at Tokyo Narita International Airport at 9:15 am (1:15 am UK time) on a muggy Sunday morning. Instead of trying to get some sleep and becoming fidgety and frustrated by failing to do so, I kept myself entertained by reading, watching a movie and partaking of the regular food and drink provided by Virgin Atlantic, some of which was almost edible and the red wine positively zen-like in its effect. At one point, when the cabin was at its darkest, I closed my eyes and may have even nodded off for twenty minutes or so. I would guess that around 70% of the passengers were Japanese, and they seemed to be very quiet and calm travellers resulting in a much more serene on board atmosphere than I have experienced before.

Minutes after touching down in the Land of the Rising Sun my phone pinged courtesy of Charton Casual with the fantastic news that whilst I was airborne, Charlton had beaten Carlisle 4-0 at home. A great result, and in line with what usually happens when I'm unable to make it to the Valley. I always seem to miss the most enjoyable games!

We were met at arrivals by our hosts from Tsukuba University, Hideo and Jun, and enjoyed the unexpected bonus en route to Tsukuba of a visit to the Narita Shinshoji Temple. Shinshoji is a branch of Buddhism that came to Japan from China, and this temple was built in 940 AD, later becoming a popular destination for pilgrims. As well as the original temple, the site houses many other pagodas and similar traditional looking Japanese buildings. Following on from the aura on the flight, there was a very serene feel to the place and it felt great to be enjoying such a rich cultural experience little more than an hour after arriving in the country.

A 7 year old in festival attire

Our visit coincided with the Seven-five-three festival (七五三), a lovely event that takes part in Japan at this time of year when parents celebrate their children's growth and offer prayers for their continuing health and well-being. Children aged three, five or seven are dress up in beautifully colourful kimonos and jackets. It's a lovely, happy family occasion. Unfortunately my photograph doesn't do justice to the girl's costume, as I had handed the camera over to Hideo on the wrong setting. However, it does give a flavour of the colour of the event, which also has enabled me to learn my first Japanese character, the numeral three: 三.

 

Kieron, Hideo and me!

Whist at Narita, we also had our first experience at sitting on the floor beside a short table to enjoy some fish and seaweed themed food together with some Sake, the clear Japanese alcoholic drink brewed from rice. And when I say seaweed, I'm not talking about the shredded cabbage that goes by the name in Chinese takeaways in the UK. This was the tough and rubbery looking stuff that I remember so well from the Worthing beach of  my childhood, and was correspondingly chewy but tasty nevertheless. The Sake was smooth and delicious, but with a relatively high alcohol content of 17% it was probably a good that it was served in small cups, as by now I was starting to wilt a little due to lack of sleep and the muggy weather conditions.

A fishy and rubbery introduction to Japanese food

The journey by road to Tsukuba passed through flat and green farmland, looking a lot like England in places. Tsukuba is a new city and a real hub for scientific research. It's about a 45 minute journey by express train from Tokyo, and to the north. The city has built up around the University, and with its wide thoroughfares, extensive green spaces and sense of openness, it has the feel of a larger version of Milton Keynes.

After a late working lunch and a tour around the campus following which Jun headed back home to Tokyo, Kieron and I were ready to collapse into our beds in the spartan but clean University guesthouse. At £25 per night, it's proving very popular with our research projects' purse-holders! Hideo is such a gracious and accommodating host that we felt a little uneasy saying we needed to forsake dinner to get some much needed sleep before our 7:15 am pick up in the morning, having by now been up for over 30 hours.

After about five hours of very heavy slumber, my confused body clock caterpulted me into full awakeness at about 1:30 am local time (6:30 pm UK time). Unable to return to the land of nod, I've used the time profitably to write this post, but now I'm starting to feel very tired again, so hopefully I'll manage another couple of hours sleep before the alarm bursts into life.

Turning Japanese

"I'm turning Japanese I think I'm turning Japanese I really think so....."

OK, so the rather dubious lyrics of this 1980 song from Guildford based band, the Vapors, may have very little to do with Japan and Japanese people, but as soon as I knew about my imminent trip to Japan, I felt duty bound to add it to my "running" playlist in on my ipod shuffle.

My flight to Japan leaves Heathrow at 1:45pm today, and so with the Great South Run in Portsmouth just over a week away I had to bring my weekend training run forward from its normal Sunday slot to 6:00 am this morning. I always have my ipod in shuffle mode, so that the tracks play in a random order, and my "running" playlist includes over two hundred songs, so I was absolutely amazed when I stepped out of the front door into the darkness to be greeted by the opening chords of "Turning Japanese". To say I belted it out as I headed out towards the bypass doesn't do justice to the gusto with which I joined in the singing.

Anyway, 8 miles, a refreshing shower, and the completion of packing later, I'm shortly going to be heading to the airport. Juliet and Hannah are coming to see me off, and we are picking up my work colleague, Kieron, on the way.

Essential reading for the journey

The purpose of the visit is to carry out research into special educational needs provision in Japan as part of a larger research project. It's the first time I've been involved in anything like this, so as well as being very excited about the opportunity to experience a culture that is very different to anything I have experienced before, I'm quite nervous about the work side of it. However, Kieron has a lot of experience in this kind of work, so I'm sure I will learn a lot and everything will go fine.

Well, that's going to have to be it for now. Kieron's just called to say that he's arrived at St Albans Station earlier than expected. So I'm off. Stand by for hopefully a number of updates during the coming week, wifi availability permitting.

さようなら 

(Sayōnara)

To My Herts Content

This morning I took part in my final 10k of Project Five O, the Herts 10k. After a very encouraging time of 1:04:26 at Newham back in March, my subsequent three 10k attempts have plateaued out around the much slower 1:09 mark, and even with an increase of intensity in my training in the two weeks since the Windsor half marathon, I was not expecting today to get anywhere near my sub one hour 10k PB from 2005. Instead my hope was simply for an encouraging performance as I start to build up in earnest for the year's piece de resistance, the Florence Marathon at the end of November.

The Herts 10k starts and finishes in Harpenden, and leaving Juliet and Hannah behind in the agreeable surroundings of Caffe Nero, I walked the half mile or so to the start on what was a mild October morning following some heavy overnight rain. A trainer from Nuffield Health and Fitness led an excellent warm up that got me feeling in fine fettle for the start, even though the complete lack of coordination in my attempts at some of the aerobics style exercises could come back to haunt me if they survive the cutting room for the video that was being made about the event. The camera seemed to be pointing at me for an awfully long time.

The first (and last) km of the race was through a damp and heavy grassy field, which was easy on the knees but very hard work for the muscles. The rest of the route passed along bridle paths and narrow country lanes, except for a short meander past some very desirable Harpenden houses, for which you'd be lucky to get much change out of a couple of million. There was one moderately challenging hill around the 4km mark, but otherwise the course was not too taxing except for the opening and closing sections.

I ran smoothly and comfortably through most of the race, only beginning to struggle a little between 8 and 9km. My legs seemed to have settled on a steady pace, and whenever I tried to speed up they would not respond. It was almost as if they were saying "look make, you're not exactly Mo Farah and what's more, you're 50 now so be realistic, we can cope at this speed without too much difficulty, but don't push your luck!"

Feeling good as I approach the finish line.

And so it unfolded. I was finally able to pick up my speed for a pleasingly strong finish cheered on by Juliet and Hannah, who had by now emerged from Caffe Nero, donned their wellies and made their way to the finishing straight. My time was 1:08:38, my second best of the year, although it somehow felt quicker than this. As such I do feel it was an encouraging step along the way to Florence. However, following Windsor that's now two distances I won't achieve a PB for during Project PB. That's a  disappointment on one level but when I consider that all 5 of my 10k times this year have been faster than any I recorded during the preceding three years, that makes my efforts feel more than worthwhile. I'm fitter at 50 than I was at 49, and therefore there's no reason I can't be fitter still when I'm 51. On top of which I have thoroughly enjoyed having a go at all of the races so far. 

Bring on the final three!