So it begins...

I survived the recent typhoon thankfully - it was a pretty nasty one as it turns out. Luckily in Fukui we managed to avoid the worst of it, but in Hiroshima they recorded record winds of 216 kph, and five ships were sunk, along with lots of other damage.

I'm more worried about the insects though. The grasshoppers are more terrifying than the bird-like moths. Thing is, they look exactly like twigs until you walk up to them, when they suddenly leap across your path making the most terrible racket. Scared the shit out of me the first time.

Anyway, I've just had my first lesson, so now I'm officially a teacher, along with everyone else from the sounds of your emails. It was a good laugh - I had to do a self-introduction, so I explained to them about the United Kingdom and how it's made up of four countries. They were mystified. Here they just call Britain "Igirisu", which means England, and they're amazed by the existence of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Much to the annoyance of Paul and Kate, our two resident Scottish JETs.

I think I lost the class a bit when I started banging on about London, but then I got my guitar out and sang them a bit of Green Day, which went down well. Then I put on my fantastic spangly navy jacket (as seen at the goodbye party) and explained how I bought it in Covent Garden, along with postcards and diagrams. The jacket went down a treat, as did "Can't stand me now" by The Libertines - I can't wait to educate them all about English music!

I bought the new Libertines album on Wednesday - get in. I also found a fantastic second hand shop and spent a joyous afternoon buying all the CDs I never quite got round to buying when I was 16, for dirt cheap prices. Anyone remember Geneva? Silver Sun? Dubstar? Gene? Bis? The Wannadies? All classic bands lost in the midst of time. Or the bowels of Japanese second hand shops anyway. I also discovered that Shampoo released four albums here. Those crazy Japanese...

I've got my first office party (or enkai) tonight. Everyone automatically pays about 20 quid from their pay packets into the enkai fund every month, and then it gets spent on massive nights out for the whole office. Could be a bit dangerous... I'll let you know if I embarrass myself.

PS. I managed to get away with not wearing a tracksuit on sports day, but I ended up getting horribly sunburnt and now I have a mark across my forehead where I was wearing a bandana in my team colours. Highly embarrassing I can assure you.