London

Last week, I took a week off from school, and Yuka and I went to London to visit her brother, Kaz. We stayed at his apartment, and I found staying with someone gives you a completely different perspective of a place than staying at a hotel. Yuka only wanted to shop, and I had already visited most of the tourist stops the last time I was there. So we basically spent a week walking around, hanging out with Kaz's friends, and eating lots and lots of food. It felt like I was lived there and it was a lot of fun.

Here are some of my observations:

-There is a huge diversity of people in London. Walking down the street, you would see Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Polish, American, French, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and many other types of restaurant. Riding the tube or bus, you would also hear all of these languages. This may come as no surprise to people, but it did catch me off guard after spending a year and a half in a country with no diversity.

- The number of people speaking English as a second language is amazing. This is a bit of a tangent from the first point, but as someone who is trying to master a second language, and as an English teacher, I was a lot more aware of the people around me. I hung out with a lot of Kaz's friends, and all of them were near fluent. So to the people who complain in Japan about how Japanese people can't speak English, I would say you're looking in the wrong country.

-London felt safe. The last time I stayed in a large non-Japanese city was when I accidently booked a hostel in Harlem during Christmas 2 years ago. I enjoyed my vacation then, but knew that I could never ever live in New York City. I could easily live in London. The only complaint is that it's a bit dirty. After riding the subway for the day, I would wipe my nose out with a tissue and it would be black. Gross.

-Heathrow sucks. It's big, dirty, and ugly.

-The Heathrow electronics shop is awesome. Bought a 16 GB iPod touch for about 8,000 yen cheaper ($80) than if I had bought it in Japan. However, since it's 2nd generation, I can't jailbreak it.

-Sad that I left before I could see J. K. Rowling. I was standing in line at Borders, and an employee says to another, "So, are you seeing Rowling on Wednesday?" I interrupt with them with an "Excuse me? Did you say R-R-R-Rowling?" Turns out she's visiting that very store, and I left 2 days before she arrived.

-Oxford lives up to the hype. We took a half-day trip to Oxford and Yuka humored me as I marveled at architecture. I will definitely be sending a grad school application here, even if my chance of acceptance is low.

All in all, a very fun trip. I did not have jet lag there, and I did not get jet lag coming back. I arrived in my apartment Monday night at midnight, and I woke up at 7 Tuesday morning to go to work. That's how hardcore I am.