Sons of Loki

Being a Japanese holiday yesterday, I resolved to take a trip to my old stomping grounds of Uguisudani, Taito-ku.
It seemed awfully like it used to. Had the ATOS pronunciation of Uguisudani on the train station announcement changed? Was that Doutor Coffee always there? Had those lockers been electronic for long?
I realised that for the first time in my life, I was returning to somewhere I used to live.

Old Sakura House Uguisudani-A remained, but I didn’t have much of a desire to see my old cockroach-ridden room, not that I’d even know if any of my old flatmates still lived there.

In a grim sign of the times, my beloved Shop 99 had ballooned to a Lawson 100. Nevertheless, I bought a few things for old times sake.
When I mention I used to live in Uguisudani to Tokyoites, they either nod in vague recognition or burst out laughing. I suspect it’s something to do with Uguisudani’s ridiculously large love hotel district, which went on for further than I remembered.

I stopped by a temple to light some incense. Louis Theroux was there, for some reason (or, uh, it may have just been a guy in glasses). The Ueno area is so peaceful.
I wandered down to Ueno station via the park, past Rodin:

and wandered down to a local Book Off, intending to see if I could get our kanji textbook, but instead I found a copy of Bar Lemon Hart, an obscure manga about the regulars at a Japanese bar and the sage-like barkeep.

Then a brief browse in Akihabara, where I was bemused to find that you can buy a Xbox 360 for the same price as a Wii, and that the PSP is cheaper than the DS.

Today, lessons began in earnest. Dan, Hattie and I started off in level 200, but it was reassuringly obvious that it wouldn’t be for us – we were studying stuff we’d covered back in January. So after the first period (a gruelling 90 minutes – have to get used to that) we upgraded to level 300, which was more challenging but definitely a good fit.
It’s good, because we now have an incentive to do well – having been given this opportunity, I’m determined not to show myself up, and I have to keep up with the others.
After lunch with my tutor, I wandered along to one of our ISEP modules (in these first couple of weeks, we can try out a few of the non-language modules before making a decision on which to take) – Topics of Contemporary Japan. The lecturer, Mir Monzurul Huq, stressed that the recent victory for the Democratic Party in the elections has meant he’s had to radically alter parts of the module, which sounded good – I’d rather learn cutting edge developments rather than stuff that’s out of date.
So, here it all begins. Hope it goes well.