“Are you supposed to eat that?” A Week in Japan

“Are you supposed to eat that?” We’re peering at something poking out of something else covered in delicious tempura batter. My dining companion shrugs and it’s gone. Five minutes earlier, he broke a chopstick vigorously attacking aubergine. Consider this a warning. In Japan, you will turn into a voracious eating machine - only a downside depending on your point of view.

We’re in Kyoto, having first visited Japan two years ago with a packed itinerary. This time, we’ve scaled back to two cities – Kyoto and Tokyo – to sweep up that food and drink we may have missed. We head to Sake Bar Yoramu.

Some Things I Learnt in China

DO buy industrial strength mosquito repellent
DON’T squeeze a mosquito bite. No good will come of this

DO try all the many and varied snacks in your local shop, even if you can’t read the packaging
DON’T expect them to be anything other than some kind of tofu

 

DO brace yourself for the experiences of a new culture

DON’T ever assume you’ve smelled all the smells

There was the time when PENIS

There was the time a bloke hissed “stuck up bitch” in my face because I told his friend I wasn’t single. The time when a man followed me from the tube station to my road, hassling me for my address the whole way. The time a train journey ended with a guy pinging my bra strap and kissing me on the lips. All the times I’m told to smile, assured that someone would happily do me (thanks!) or generally feel uncomfortable for being female and in someone’s eyeline.

I spoke about times like these in 2011, here – the relatively low-level, everyday harassment countless people put up with. But up until now, I’d managed to go through life without going through one particular, extremely common experience.

It happened to my grandma when she was a teenager walking by a field with her friend. It happened to my mum on a hospital ward when she was training to be a nurse. I thought I’d got away with it. Ladies and gentlefolk, I made it to the grand old age of 31 before I got wanked at in a public place. Last night, I looked public masturbation in its one, weepy eye and ticked off another square on my OhForFuckSake bingo card.

"You are living the good life right now!"

Rum and Raisin. A small, innocuous-looking white tub with a plastic spoon. It's the colour of rum and raisin ice-cream. It's as cold as ice-cream. I can see little things that look like raisins, and when I scoop a spoonful, the texture feels like ice-cream. I know it should simply be rum and raisin ice-cream.

But you always think you know. You think you are in safe waters, that you know what a biscuit tastes like from the look of it and the fact it is offered on a small plate with a doily and comes with your coffee. You think you have found blessed bread, with its bready colour and shape and name. But the bread is brioche or made of corn or has sugar in the middle and your biscuit tastes of soup. A chocolate filling is red bean paste and, if in doubt, most things are probably tofu. Looks can be deceiving.

Air Pollution: The Upsides!

You are probably not surprised to hear that the air in Beijing is totally not very. While it's not yet reached the record-breaking levels of early last year, it's one of the longest stretches of particularly bad pollution I've experienced since I've been here. I have a near-constant headache. My skin has had a teenage tantrum, no doubt to spite my earlier joy at how it had cleared up. My chest is tight. I regularly fight an urge to run outside and punch the air in its stupid, soupy face.

I went out to celebrate my birthday the other night, and the official plan to drink and do a pub quiz and drink some more then slur songs into a microphone fell by the wayside a short time after a triumphant bronze finish in said quiz. I am sure this was partly because the air gave everyone a headache, a cough and a bleak outlook, quite aside from the fact that one or more of us may have collapsed a lung had we attempted to belt out Dog Days Are Over.

It was then, dear reader, that I realised this smog had gone beyond being merely unhealthy - it had bloody well stopped me from doing karaoke. I will not let this happen on my watch. With at least another week of this blank, grey canvas ahead, I need a bright side.* So without further ado, may I present six reasons to be cheerful. About smog.

Smog Resistance: Activate

I've never had brilliant skin. By the word 'skin' I mean my complexion in terms of blemishes and grease content - my skin as a means of generally holding my blood and stuff inside my body is doing a sterling job of course. I don't want to overstate it as it's not the bane of my life and I know people for whom it’s a way more serious issue, I just seem to get a fair few spots compared to other 30-year-olds (from my non-scientific study of looking at people's faces), I scar easily and have some pigmentation issues. I wear a lot of makeup, which you might think is a chicken and egg scenario, except the spots definitely came first during adolescence and only then did I become trapped in a vicious cycle. Also, I really enjoy putting makeup on so I don't mind that part of the cycle I guess. Erm, anyway, I've become pretty good at concealing and these days, it's rarely so bad I don't want to leave the house. However, when I got to China, my skin (I can only presume in some kind of fit of solidarity) reacted precisely the way the rest of me did: with panic.

Knowing who to kick in the balls

Consider this advice, should you fancy moving to China: say what you actually mean. It sounds simple enough, I think. We’re not liars, are we? We don’t mutter ‘Not!’ under our breath when we compliment someone, or reply ‘NASA’s biscuit-testing laboratory’ when people ask us where we work. We don’t go around telling big fibs about anything and everything, our noses growing longer by the second, do we? I was born with this nose by the way, smart arse.

However, I’ve realised I say things like, ‘Let’s go for a drink sometime’ or ‘We should go out for dinner soon,’ which, while not exactly lies, aren’t always straightforward. Sometimes I really mean it, sometimes it’s a vague notion that spending more time with that person isn’t the worst idea in the world, sometimes it’s kneejerk politeness. Say one of those things in China and, in our experience, people reply, ‘When? Now? Tomorrow?’