Audiobooks are fascinating little works. One voice actor has to do a dozen voices – male, female, old, young – and read it and pace it in a way that resembles a radioplay, but which doesn’t take away from the flow of the book. And some books work better than others. I tried listening to Catch-22, but for all it may be a classic work of literature, it doesn’t work as well read out as a thriller.

I went home for Easter and picked up a few books, including the Writers and Artists Yearbook which is proving to be worth its weight in gold. Struggling as I am to be a freelance writer, it’s remarkably useful to have a thick book filled with tips and advice and the people you need to be talking to. I wound up writing some stuff for submission – we shall see where it gets me.

I rattled this out on the train home. I quite like it.

My office is a seat on a Class 156 Sprinter from Norwich to Manchester. Coffee quivers in my cup from the dee-dum-dee-dum of the sleepers. Diesel-electric motor whine and grumble. Past the window float volcano-shaped mounds of gravel and dirt; float little houses owned by people with names like Pat and Geoff; float giant-like pylons stalking the land. We arc round a corner and pick up a little speed to make the straight towards Crown Point where hairless men in orange tabards hose down banana-yellow HST125s. Then bursting into open country, the flicker-flicker of tree branches.
The people on this train have a hundred different destinations. For some, this is the Ely train, to their homes and families in Cambridgeshire. No, insist others, this is the Sheffield train, the distant North. Sheffield? others cry in alarm. We’re going to Manchester.
For me, though, this is just a step in a journey; from Norwich to Peterborough, from Peterborough to Leeds, then a bus journey back to my front door and – home.

The antenna was the easy part.
Maria’d found it, a rusted metal Christmas tree, in the wastelands next to the Walled City. It was a couple of metres long, bent down the middle, but otherwise looked like it was in good condition.
Maria scrambled up a pile of junk to reach the antenna, lying on its side. She hopped on the central trunk and ran along it to the end, then shimmied up one of the branches that was sticking up into the air. From the top she could see her brother sifting through some old engine parts by the gate.
“I found something big!” she shouted down at him.
Warren came hobbling over, struggling in shoes that were a size too big for him. He surveyed the scene, chewing on a bit of nicotine gum.
“S’radio aerial, or summat.”
“What’s radio mean?”
Maria stared down from her perch at her older brother, the font of all knowledge on matters like these. He was a tinkerer. There was nothing about the various junk that found its way to the wastelands that Warren didn’t know. “Tram supercapas’ter,” he’d say, pointing at a unidentifiable hunk of metal. “Citinet relay. N’that’s a plasma manifold.”
“Radio’s like … s’like what they had before t’internet.”
“What’s tinternet?”
“S’what they had ‘fore Citinet.”
Maria hmmed appreciatively at her brother’s knowledge, then shifted her weight on the aerial so that the metal branch she clung to wobbled slightly. The antenna was mostly a rust-brown, but was covered in flecks of white and red paint that had come off over the years. Various jagged spikes stuck out along the branch. She shimmied down the branch carefully so as to not cut herself on the broken-off bits of rust, then jumped down in front of her brother.
“I wanna use it.”
Warren clucked his tongue dismissively. “Y’can’t just use it,” he said. “You’d need power. An’, like, a mixer and transmitter and cables and stuff. And something to play.”
“You can find that stuff, right, Warren?”

Another tongue cluck. “Dunno. An’ I’d need to get the antenna up’t roof.”
“Huh.” Maria took a few steps towards the expanse of the wasteland and the distant suburbs, a hazy orange in the pre-sunset dusk, the scene the colour of weak vegetable soup. She turned around, faced the uncompromising face of the Walled City; a hodgepodge of tower blocks, a hundred stories high, connected by myriad walkways – some put up by the council and secured by steel beams, some cobbled together by the residents and secured by much less. The face of the city was covered in windows, balconies, doors to nowhere; enormous advertisements for payday loans and off-brand cola and Chinese food were slowly peeling off the concrete walls. Here and there were little terraces with a splash of colour – sometimes from laundry drying in the sun, sometimes from hanging baskets of red and white flowers that seemed to bloom ever more vibrant against the cold beige of the concrete walls. You could see a few figures on the balconies, reading in the failing light of the sun, or putting out linen to dry, or just staring towards the distant skyscrapers of the City proper.
“I really wanna use it,” she repeated.
Warren stared down at her, kicked the dirt with his trainers, and finally sighed. “Yeah. Alright. I’ll try.”

Maria raced alone through the alleys of the City. She scurried up urine-stained stairwells, hopped over wheelbarrows full of sixpacks of Bombardier beer, and ducked between the legs of old women carrying groceries in blue plastic bags; entered through the exit of the 24/7 Chaoshi-Mart, ran through aisles of boxed cereal and no-brand milk and cans of Korean silkworms, and snuck through the PVC curtain to the supermarket’s warehouse and loading dock; squeezed through the shortcut that took her past the block air conditioning plant and row after row of grey humming HVAC units, ran across the rickety skyway from Fox Block B1 to the council-owned Scott Ganatra Block, turned the corner down the corridor that led to her front door and ran headlong into her father’s legs.
“Duffah- oh, Maria!”
He was wearing his black Keter Military fatigues, brown holdall slung over his shoulder. He swooped down to pick her up from the ground and squeezed her in his arms. She squirmed, struggling to free herself.
“I’ve missed you so much,” he said. “I brought you presents. From Bihar! Where’s your brother?”
“Dunno. Probably hanging out with Sadiq or something.”
“Oh.”
“Put me down.”
He frowned, opened his mouth to protest, but Maria was not in a welcoming mood. He gently lowered her to the ground.
“Laila?” he called, back into their flat. “Maria’s home.”
Her mother appeared at the door, beaming, wearing a yellow jumpsuit stained a pale brown with years of coffee and cigs. She held one of either in each hand.
“Look, Maria! Daddy’s home,” she said.
“Hi, daddy,” Maria said, pushing past her mother’s legs and skipping into the flat. It was a mess; the floor cluttered with discarded clothing, packets for instant meals which her brother had ripped open and discarded, half-eaten meals left to fester. Slipping into the kitchen nook, she poured a glass of orange squash, switched on the tube, and flicked through the channels. Static; static; a trickle of jerky, corrupted images; finally the one channel that always came through clear, the Home Service. It was a documentary about the work of a pharmaceutical company in the Midlands. They had, an excited spokesperson was announcing, invented a new compound that improved the strength of their cough syrup. The content was as dull as the flat’s cheap screen it was playing on. But out in the Walled City, the signal was too weak to watch anything else.

Changing of the guard at Deoksu-gung.

The last ten years have seen a surge of interest in Korean culture in the Far East and the wave spreading across Asia is starting to hit the shores of Europe. Films such as Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy have won critical acclaim; Korean cuisine has been increasingly popular in the US; and Korean brands like LG and Samsung are found in homes worldwide.

The source of this wave? The city of Seoul: home to over ten million Koreans, heart of the Korean peninsula, and destination for six million foreign tourists in 2006. A city steeped in history, Seoul is home to the newly-constructed National Museum of Korea, the largest museum in Asia with over 150,000 articles in its collection covering Korean history, culture, and art, as well as a expansive collection of Chinese and Japanese art.

Seoul boasts an expansive palace district in the north of the city, home to a long line of Korean kings. Built in 1405, the dazzling Changdeok-gung has been recently restored and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Meanwhile, at Deoksu-gung, Korean architecture blends with Western design in a serene palace complex. Be sure not to miss the daily changing of the guard, held three times a day at 10:30am, 2:00pm and 3:30pm, where dozens of guards parade in eye-catching traditional uniforms to ceremonial music.

Cheonggye stream, an oasis in the midst of skyscrapers.

A unique sight in Seoul is Cheonggye stream, an oasis of greenery and flowing water amongst the skyscrapers of the downtown area. Prior to 2005, Cheonggye was buried beneath concrete, but with the demolition of an overhead highway and fervent restoration work it became a favoured spot for families and couples to relax along the below-street-level banks, a respite from the inner-city traffic. Nearby, the famous Dongdaemun street market offers an amazing selection of products, from Korean traditional clothing to live octopus. For more general shopping, try Myeongdong, Seoul’s very own Oxford Street, with a host of top Western and Korean brands.

Opened in 1984, the Yeongdeungpo branch of the long-established Shinsegae chain of department stores features ten floors for fashion-lovers looking to browse to their heart’s content. Elsewhere in Yeongdeungpo stands the brand new Courtyard by Marriott Seoul Times Square complex, opened to great fanfare in September, with over fifty restaurants and a host of the world’s top fashion brands in residence – Gucci, Prada, Bulgari, Cartier, and Louis Vuitton, to name a few. And a 15,000 square metre rooftop garden ensures a haven of tranquillity above the bustling streets.

A beautiful sunset lights up downtown Seoul.

With a long history of Buddhism, Korea caters for more spiritual concerns through temples such as the Hwa Gye Sa International Zen Center, which offers free meditation sessions and organises month-long Zen retreats for the truly dedicated. And there’s no better place to experience the serenity of nature than at Bukhansan National Park, 80 square kilometres of mountainous forests and burbling creeks on the outskirts of Seoul. The immense 836m granite peak of Baekundae is a achievable if strenuous hike, and the soaring vistas of the park and distant Seoul are well worth the climb.

After a strenuous afternoon of mountain-climbing, what better place to unwind than at the 24-hour Dragon Hill Spa in Yongsan, a perfect example of the Korean jjimjilbang? A relaxation mecca spread across six floors, the Dragon Hill Spa boasts enough hot and cold baths, steam rooms and saunas to satisfy even the most weary and aching traveller. After partaking in the separate men’s and women’s baths, treat yourself to a meal at the rooftop restaurant, enjoy a swim in the heated outdoor swimming pool, or unwind in the communal unisex area with drinks, snacks, and different areas ranging from ice cold to scorchingly hot. A full range of massages and spa treatments are on hand, too.

Then relax at the W Seoul Walkerhill, in Gwanjang-dong, which offers rooms graded from “Wonderful” – which is anything but “standard”, with minimalist décor in elegant red and white and a unique foot-massaging “pebble rug” – to “Extreme Wow”: a 13^th-floor suite overlooking the Han River and featuring a LED-illuminated dining room floor, a fully stocked wine cellar, four-person Jacuzzi with stunning mountain views and your very own personal waterfall.

In its 1,400 year history, the Japanese capital of Tokyo has faced catastrophic earthquakes, annihilation by numerous great fires, and massive Allied bombardment
in WW2; surviving these to rebuild as the biggest city in the world.

Over 30 million people, a quarter of the entire population of Japan, live in the Chiba-Tokyo-Yokohama conurbation, a sprawl of architecture which stretches as far as the eye can see. Every year, millions of tourists from around the world flock to this unique Asian gem, an exotic, blazing and ever-exciting fusion of East and West. It has been more than 150 years since American Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay with his fleet of US Navy steamships, forcing the isolationist Tokugawa government to open up trade with the west. These days, there’s no need to make as dramatic an entrance: and not even a lack of funds need stop you from experiencing the best that Japan’s dazzling capital city has to offer.

The skyline of Shinjuku and beyond.

The best place to immerse yourself in the hustle and bustle of modern Tokyo – without spending a single yen – is the area around Shinjuku Station. The station sees a whopping 3.6 million passengers every day, making it the busiest station in the world. At rush hour, it certainly feels like it.

A raucous and motley swarm of Tokyoites hurry to-and-fro between platforms: grey-suited, stern-faced “salarymen”; impeccably made-up “OLs”, or “office ladies”; the occasional older figure in a kimono; schoolchildren in immaculate uniforms; and, if you’re lucky like I was on my first day, the unmistakable sight of a rikishi , or sumo wrestler, in traditional dress. Outside, enormous crowds surge to work or play across one of Tokyo’s hectic six-way pedestrian crossings.

Shinjuku lies on the west side of Tokyo’s 23 core divisions, or wards. The western districts of Shinjuku, Shibuya, and Ikebukuro, previously the upper-class area of Yamanote, today comprise a contiguous series of huge commercial and entertainment hubs, whereas Taito and Bunkyo, the quieter areas east of the Imperial Palace (Shitamachi, or “low city”) enshrine a great deal of Tokyo’s historic areas, including ancient Buddhist temples and beautiful areas of parkland.

West of Shinjuku, the major Tokyo business district of Nishi-Shinjuku features wide-open and airy streets surrounding the slender, elegant skyscrapers of the biggest Japanese companies and exclusive Western-style luxury hotels. The angular twin towers of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, opened in 1991, feature twin observation decks on the 45^th floor and offer breathtaking views of Shinjuku, Tokyo and beyond: on exceptionally clear days, you may be lucky enough to glimpse the white dome of Mount Fuji, 60 miles distant.

Uniqlo offer modern fashion at a good price.

Be sure to go at dusk and enjoy a coffee while the sun sets and Tokyo lights up, notably around the lavishly-illuminated Tokyo Tower, a 332m tourist trap built in 1958. Tokyo’s enormous sprawl, glittering from horizon to horizon with the light of 30 million inhabitants, is a spectacle difficult to forget.

From there, you can continue for a drink at the New York Bar, located on the 52^nd floor of the Park Hyatt Tokyo hotel. Prominently featured in Sofia Coppola’s 2003 Lost in Translation , the bar’s sumptuous atmosphere of high-class luxury complements the equally stunning views from the enormous two-story windows and the nightly live music from accomplished jazz acts. While the cover charge of 2,000 yen after 8pm (7pm on Sundays) may seem rather steep especially considering the pricey drinks, it’s worth it to enjoy a hour or two of the jet-setting lifestyle of Tokyo’s elite without shelling out a whopping 60,000 yen for a single night in the hotel.

Unfortunately, for the most part, Tokyo’s nightlife can do a very good job of separating foreigners from their money. The Roppongi district, a hotbed of bars and clubs popular with the ex-pat community, has a great deal of perfectly respectable and popular drinking establishments; but stories abound of hapless tourists coerced by hustlers into seedy Yakuza-run bars where the bill can quickly run into the tens of thousands of yen and where things can get very ugly if you try to dispute the cost.Even the more respectable clubs have exorbitant cover charges and are generally quite small and cramped. Instead, for a club that really lives up to Tokyo’s reputation of ultra-hip nightlife, try WOMB in fashionable Shibuya. A low-key exterior conceals the enormous dance hall inside, a cavernous hangar-like space three stories high. On the dance floor, hundreds of sweaty Tokyo youths gyrate to house and techno served up by a host of international DJs.

After a night of Tokyo’s charms, free entertainment can be found in Harajuku. A district between Shibuya and Shinjuku in western Tokyo, this is where flamboyant Japanese youth culture reigns supreme. The clothing in Harajuku is not so much fashion as fancy-dress: elaborate frilly dresses are the hallmark of Gothic Lolitas, while for other Tokyo youngsters it’s like punk rock never died. Take a deep breath and dive into the crush of Takeshita Street directly across from Harajuku Station, where shops with names like Sexy Dynamite are the
norm. If you’re lucky, you might catch a busker or two on the road outside the station, eager to be noticed.

The amazing Kaminarimon.

For a more sedate experience, visiting Tokyo’s parks is an inspired way to unwind. Ueno Park is a great way to waste an afternoon strolling along the wide paths, mingling with the crowds, and watching performers near the towering fountains of water. For a different experience, visit the beautiful Japanese-style gardens at Rikugien. For a paltry 300 yen, you can visit quaint little teahouses hidden under towering trees, marvel at meticulously manicured lawns, and enjoy 88 scenes from famous poems recreated in miniature around a serene central pond.

While Tokyo may not be able to beat the sheer number of temples and shrines in Japan’s historic capital Kyoto, the ancient Senso-ji temple in Asakusa is a fine example of Buddhist grandeur, having been around as long as Tokyo itself – and it’s free. Beyond the enormous Kaminarimon(“Thunder Gate”) with its giant red paper lantern, a crowded avenue of souvenir shops bustles with tourists in the daytime and early evening. Return late at night, however, and you’ll find a very different experience. In an empty courtyard, under the bleached night sky, the temple buildings loom ominously, yet serenely.

For more materialistic concerns, head to the Ginza shopping district: the home of upmarket department stores like Wako and Matsuya, as well as big name fashion boutiques. The high prices, however, mean Ginza has little to offer except window shopping for those on a budget.

A tower of karaoke in Shinjuku.

For electronics, Akihabara is the undisputed capital. Though
the big name stores like Laox offer duty-free shopping for foreigners, the real bargains are to be had in the smaller, messier shops hidden down back alleys and up dimly-lit stairwells, offering dirt-cheap state-of-the-art equipment made in Japan.

Tokyo has no shortage of hotels. Pleasant, if rather mundane business hotels offer single rooms from around 10,000 yen and doubles from 15,000 yen. I stayed with Sakura Hotel, a backpacker-orientated company who offer bargain singles from 6,090 yen and doubles from 8,200 yen in a central location with friendly, bilingual staff. The hotel’s sister organisations are worth checking out too: the clean and professional Sakura Hostel, located very close to the Senso-ji temple in Asakusa, has dorm beds at 2,940 yen; and for stays longer than a month Sakura House have 185 long-stay guesthouses across Tokyo starting from 39,000 yen (£190) per month for a dormitory and 48,000 yen for your own room with a shared kitchen. For a room of your own, you can’t beat the cheap and cheerful The Koenji, well located, clean, and just 2,500 yen a night.

Vending machines everywhere sell drinks, hot and cold, for 100-180 yen. You can eat well and in true Japanese style at fast food restaurants like Yoshinoya, where a big plate of rice and Japanese-style curry will set you back only 400-500 yen, with a cup of miso soup and a glass of water thrown in for free. In a pinch, combini (convenience stores) offer ready-to-eat sushi, sandwiches, and microwavable meals for a low price, and the ubiquitous 99 yen shops can feed you on the cheap.

The quiet backstreets of Shitamachi.

Japan’s rail network is internationally renowned for its efficiency and the trains in Tokyo are exceptionally clean, safe, and reliable. JR (Japan Rail)’s Yamanote loop line circles the core of Tokyo, with trains every two minutes and clear English displays in every carriage. As well as JR’s numerous train lines, Toei Subway and Tokyo Metro lines criss-cross the city. Tickets can be purchased from English-speaking machines and are priced by distance, costing around 110 to 270 yen for short hops around Tokyo. For those perplexed by often-confusing network maps, the best option might be an Oyster-style prepaid smart card: the competing Suica and PASMO cards can be charged up with up to 20,000 yen after an initial 500 yen charge. They work on all subway, bus, and most train lines in Tokyo: they can even be used to pay at vending machines.

If you’re planning to travel throughout Japan, an absolute bargain can be had with JR (Japan Rail)’s Rail Pass, which offers free travel on all JR lines throughout Japan except the Nozomi Shinkansen (the fastest of Japan’s famed bullet train services). A seven-day Rail Pass costs 28,300 yen, which compares favourably with the 26,440 yen fare for a return ticket between Tokyo and Kyoto. Bear in mind, however, that if you’re planning to stay in Tokyo the Rail Pass will probably cost you more than you save.

How to get there

Almost all international flights touch down in Narita Airport, located 70km from Tokyo, but you can catch JR’s Narita Express service from the airport’s two stations to Tokyo Station, which takes 55 minutes and costs 2,940 yen (free with the JR rail pass). Alternatively, the rival Keisei line offers the Skyliner for 2400 yen (36 minutes) or the bog-standard Limited Express service for 1000 yen (80 minutes). Avoid taxis, which will set you back 30,000 yen.

So, yeah. It’s a story about a hipster douchebag, but you might enjoy it.

Eventually he found a café in Ashrafieh which was just opening as he arrived. He read the day’s newspaper over a cup of black coffee and a chocolate-filled pastry, trying to gather his thoughts. He was supposed to move into his new apartment today. Gabriel left the café and walked back to his current, soon-to-be former apartment: it was past eight, and the traffic on the roads was steadily increasing. He let himself in to his little one-bedroom place and finished the rest of his packing, stuffing toiletries and a few unwashed clothes into his suitcase and backpack, checking under tables and behind the sofa for anything he’d forgotten. He slung the backpack over his shoulder and stuck the suitcase next to his little 15 watt practice amp: his guitar was still at Alex’s. Then he toured his home for the last time. It was a sweet deal, but nevertheless too expensive to afford on the money he got from his parents.

In the words of Beck, please enjoy! You don’t necessarily need a Kindle, because you can download Kindle for PC, iPhone and Android.

I mean to write a post on here about my experiences from my first few articles and tips for newbies like myself, so keep eyes peeled.

It’s 2011, the first year of the 10s if you don’t believe 2010 is in the 10s (which it is, as any sensible non-pedantic person agrees). Resolution time!

• Write a radio script! I realised that while writing a play requires you to get a director and a stage and actors, you can write a radio script and submit it to the Beeb and you might get feedback, if they like it enough, and if they really like it they’ll buy it from you for megabucks and make it into a radio play. How ace would that be?
• Join the theatre society! I wouldn’t really say I’ve always wanted to be an actor, but I do kinda feel like I need to do acting at some point in my life, when I think about it. I didn’t go to no fancy acting schools and I have only seen about three plays and my only experience with Drama is a term of Drama enrichment in sixth form, but someone’s got to be the extras.
• Have a shower! No, wait, that’s my plan for today.
• Start jogging (again)! I’ve been running on-and-off for three years now? I used to use the treadmills at TUFS, which was really convenient, but there’s no sense paying silly money to use the gym at Leeds when I have the beautiful wood near my house to run through.

I discovered an amazing app called RunKeeper (currently free for the pro version) which – get this – you set up a route, like run 0.5 miles then walk 0.25 miles and repeat three times, and then you pop in your headphones and listen to some banging tunes and a synthesised voice tells you when to start running and when to stop running and how far you’ve run and your pace and speed and stuff all in your ears automatically. And it tracks you by GPS so you can see exactly how far you ran, how high you climbed, and then overlays it on Google Maps.

It’s so weird. You know your forefather William Gibson told us how technology would revolutionise the world. And while we don’t have nanomachines in our bloodstream or skull-guns or brain-cyberspace interfaces yet, I honestly think the age of better living through technology is here. My phone tells me when to run for optimum fitness. My PC makes the screen warmer in the evening so I can sleep better. Then my phone monitors me while I sleep so it can wake me up at the right time. I know it seems like iPhones and smartphones and app ecosystems are overhyped, but it really is a revolution in the way we use technology. The future is now, people!!

Instead I narrowed it down to the future of youth in Japan – the big question being whether freeterism (flitting from temporary job to temporary job in your 20s and 30s, not settling into a career path) and NEETism (basically giving up on life and living in your parents’ house) has a viable future. But then I kinda got lost on that, so it changed again to the causes of this crisis in Youth Employment. This is important, because it’s what’s gonna happen here in a year when all the jobs are gone and I can’t get on the career ladder, although thankfully the UK is a little different to Japan.

Anyway, stick a conclusion on that, get it ring-bound, and that’s that done. In the meantime, I’ve been doing a few articles on HubPages to get my writing out there and hopefully earn a few bob from advertising. It would probably make more sense to write on this blog more, but I’ll try this in the meantime and linking here helps with the old SEO:

Best of Seoul: top places to go in the heart of Korea
Top places to go in sunny Seville
Hangover from hell: Climbing Mt Fuji
Malaga: Where to go in the Andalusian City of Culture
Top European spas: three of the best
Buying a title: can anyone become a Baron or Lady?
Tokyo on a Budget: Top tips to survive in Tokyo on the cheap

Anyway, Christmas is coming and I’m back at home. I’m writing my first play, although I don’t know anything about drama beyond a couple of Alan Bennett plays I’ve been reading. My plan is to join the theatre soc in the new year, become an accomplished AC-TOR! and then move on to playwright. Also, to keep on with this Beatles tribute band I’m in. And get a job. And pass third year.

Carter. I can't wait for the day he's throwing me out of a thirtieth-story window.

So what’s my day job gonna be? It’s slightly embarrassing because I know nothing is like the movies, but I think I can trace my interests in magazine journalism back to How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (Vanity Fair) and The Devil Wears Prada (Vogue). And I read an interview with Graydon Carter where he came across as … an interesting guy, and then I bought two issues of GQ and decided that I was definitely going to write for them some day, falling in love with the exciting cardigan-wearing jet-setting New York restaurant-dining world of the moderately wealthy. (“I always keep an overnight bag with me at all times in case I have to leave for New York unexpectedly” kind of people.) Unfortunately I have no fashion sense and no money, but I guess I can work a keyboard, and surely that’s good enough?

The Media panel was mostly about news and TV journalism, from which I brought away that in this madass age it’s important to be multiskilled – a writer one minute, a cameraman the next, then a presenter and an editor. I guess I could be good at that. My other dream is to work for the BBC in Japan or something, or Kyodo News, so it might be important to get involved with the student TV network here at Leeds if I can.

Excitedly, I asked John Sutton from the Liverpool Echo how I should get into magazine journalism, and there was an embarrassing silence when he asked me what sort of magazines I wanted to write for, and I realised I had no idea. But then he suggested lifestyle, and I decided yes, that was what I wanted to do, and he said just find out names, find a specialism, shadow editors and writers and relentlessly badger people until you get an internship and an ‘in’. Ins are important, I gathered. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know, which is a shame because I’m shit at networking. But who knows? I might just email every single magazine in the UK next spring and see if I can do an internship over the summer. Top goal would be something like Wired UK – if nothing else, I guess I know about tech, and there’s always room for ‘weird shit from Japan’ in geek mags, right?

Meanwhile, life continues unabated. I’ve started research for my dissertation, and I’m starting to think I might actually write it after all. I’ve got not one but two language partners and I can feel my Japanese speaking confidence slowly building. Everything in my life feels just barely under control, like a clown juggling chainsaws on a tightrope, but for the time being he’s catching the chainsaws the right way up. Which I guess is all he can ask for, right?

We land on a cloud and I hop off his back, realising in mid-air that I’m jumping onto something entirely insubstantial, and yet I land on a soft, solid surface. I run through it, and it’s like running through fallen autumn leaves, a sense of wonderful, childish joy. He sits catching his breath, watching me run. I feel a little silly, but it’s absolutely incredible. I run and scream my head off, jumping without fear into the soft white fluff, spinning around with abandon in sheer awe at the unscaleable dome of blue sky that hangs in every direction. I run back to him, grab his hand, and we stand on top of the world, on a white meadow, in a perfectly silent world.

NaNoWriMo is back! I’ve come to look forward to November – first my birthday, then NaNoWriMo (3rd time this year), and finally my first Movember (feel free to donate to my ‘tache here).

Back at home for the weekend. Regular readers of my blog will know I very seriously considered giving up Japanese last spring, but somehow I pulled through the exams and started back at Leeds for the third year of this degree. But it feels like a Pyrrhic victory; sure, I passed, but I didn’t pass very well, and it may have been better to just bite the bullet back then and come to terms with the fact that I’m not really that into Japanese.

It occurred to me, the week before last, when I had to write this English essay. It was pretty complex and I didn’t really have any idea of what I was doing, but I happily hunkered down in the library for ten hours with a stack of books and crafted a deeply imperfect, but ultimately finished essay. I realised I really enjoy that kind of work – essay writing and such – because it’s creative work. I find creating something – a story, an essay, something in a computer game, a piece of art, a blog post – to be a wonderfully rewarding experience.

The thing is, I get none of that buzz from learning Japanese because it’s mainly passive learning. I know you create conversations and write compositions, but it’s really not the same thing at all, for me.

Anyway, my real point is, I really don’t think I necessarily need to be doing Japanese any more. The big problem is that I can’t drop it. I investigated, and was a little taken aback on Thursday to be told that I’m two weeks too late to drop the necessary credits to have room to take up English modules for next semester.

So I’m stuck. But! There is a plan C: abort this year entirely, get a job until August 2011, then start again at Level 2 next academic year doing Single Honours English. This would mean I graduate in 2013, not 2012. The job would earn me a nice bit of extra cash (and I certainly need all I can get) and I believe that since I’d still be registered as a student, I wouldn’t have to pay council tax.

This is kind of scary and exciting all at the same time. But then, it might be just what I need to do. There’s that great Talking Heads song, “Found a Job”¹, with the line “if work isn’t what you love / Then something isn’t right” and I’ve always thought I’ll never be one of those people trapped in a boring job they hate just because they’re too scared of things changing. But, to shamelessly quote another song, for me I’m more afraid of things staying the same². So I guess I should perhaps go for this. It certainly beats being bored and miserable in Japanese class all day.

¹: Byrne, David. “Found a Job” in More Songs About Buildings and Food. Talking Heads, CD, Sire Records (1978).
²: Cave, Nick, et al, “Jesus of the Moon” in Dig Lazarus Dig. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, CD, Mute Records (2009).

I am broke, and then some. I sent off an article to a magazine that hasn’t got back to me yet, and in the meantime applied for a few jobs. The only place that got back to me is Sainsbury’s in Leeds, but as I’m not up there yet I couldn’t go to one of their interviews. I suppose I’ll just have to try next month. In the meantime, I have pretty much nowhere to turn, unless I follow millionaire David Willett’s advice and do some volunteering. Thanks, Education Minister. That’s really useful.

Yesterday I spent the last of my money catching the coach (most cheap option, and not bloody National Express rail, but it’s National Express coach so it’s ultimately a futile gesture, but then isn’t everything in our brutish lives) to London to see my “homeslices” and many of them there were: Rob, Kanako (in London for a few weeks only so I won’t see her again until I get back to Japan, which is sad), Jameses E and B, Hugo and Emily, Kazuya (now at Sheffield for the year! fantastic) and even Ed. We went to Mitsukoshi, a Japanese department store in the heart of London, which provided the surreal experience of being a thousand miles away in Tokyo and a month ago in July as we were welcomed with いっらしゃいませぇぇぇ～～～ and browsed their bookstore. It was full of Japanese tourists – imagine coming all the way to London and then visiting a Japanese department store! – but then that’s what we did. We ate at a really expensive (by our standards) Japanese restaurant, which served up some tasty-looking katsu kare, but then I had the shoyu ramen which was … disappointing. Really, disappointing. I thought a bad bowl of ramen was impossible, but this was just … not at all what I’m used to.

“What I’m used to.” Pfft. Anyway, most of my money went on day travelcards, because the tube is ridiculously expensive if you don’t have Oyster. I kept seeing adverts on the tube for the next big novel – marketed fiction, fiction which says “You’ve read Stieg Larsson, now read this!” as if mentioning a popular novellist you may have enjoyed is enough to convince you that this other entirely unrelated novel might be a decent read. You may as well have adverts that say “You’ve enjoyed foie gras, now try cat food!”

I hesitate to take the piss out of published authors and of books I haven’t read, but there was a ad for a book so unrelentingly generic that I had trouble finding it on the web. The ad reads: “THEY STOLE MY LIFE. I WANT IT BACK. I WON’T GET MAD, I’LL GET” and then in red letters, separated from that seeming non sequiter, “EVEN” which is the title of the book, by Andrew Grant. Like I say, I haven’t read the book so I can’t comment on a novel which is about a secret agent racing against time and which has 3.5 stars on Amazon. All I’m saying is, read that strapline over again and decide if you really want to read that book. Is that the best a copywriter could come up with? They stole his life. He wants it back. I’ll hazard a guess and say that it’s rogue elements in the government or secret services that stole his life, and that he had a perfect wife and a perfect son (it’s never a daughter, is it?) and now they’re dead, I’ll postulate, and there will be a shootout and a car chase, I humbly hypothesise, and that there will be tender moments when he picks through the fragments that remain of his old life, I’ll put forward, and finally there won’t be closure, just a set-up for the next novel, but there will be a satisfying death of a minor villain, I will cautiously submit.

Like I say, I don’t like to snark, and I know airport fiction will always be this way, but I think I might have heard this plot two or three or sixty times before.

Anyway, we had a wander around Camden Town, then went back up to Rob’s where we a) ate lots of Chinese food b) played Super Street Fighter IV and Tekken 6 and Soul Calibur 4 c) watched Family Guy d) slept. We woke up. I had a scotch egg. Uh, that’s about it.

So yeah, London! It Wasn’t As Bad As Last Time. How’s that for a strapline?