El Andalous - Settling In

My Cleaned Balcony

My return is now almost a predictable routine, but somehow the same things still surprise me at this stage.

I entered my flat and was pleased to see it was clean. Like last time, they’d put things back in different places, and they’d obviously not been able to fit all my bathroom stuff back into the cupboard, because they left a basket-full of stuff sitting on top of the cabinet.

Interestingly, in the kitchen, they’d put my knives, forks and spoons in that order but from right-to-left (ie, in the direction of their writing) rather than left-to-right, as I usually have them. I left them all in their new Arabic order. After all, when in Egypt…

There are always a few problems. Again, my washing machine didn’t work properly on its first use but was fixed fairly easily.

To my horror, I had mites, or maybe ants, crawling in my sugar, so I had to throw that away. We seem to be overrun by ants this year – I’ve not had that before. As soon as I leave anything out on the counter, ants are swarming all over it. Ants also raided my replacement bag of sugar almost immediately, so I had to buy a new airtight container (my original airtight container was evidently not airtight enough!).

I’ve had the occasional cockroach before, but this time I seem to be getting around 3-4 a week (they are gradually getting fewer now). They’ve visited me frequently enough for me to buy some spray. I feel a bit guilty about this environmentally-unfriendly approach, but I’ve heard treading on them can spread their eggs and they won’t cooperate when I try to usher them out of the flat. Still, at least I don’t have rodents of any description (touch wood), so it’s not too bad.

The wall in my bedroom was looking quite bad as it still hasn’t been repaired. It was never fully resolved (see blogs of 21/22 Dec 2013) and about a year later they decided it was a leak after having protested for 12 months that there was no leak. They were supposed to start work on it in January while I was away, but forgot. And then in the mean time another flat above me had a leak, so now they claim they need my wall to dry out again from that. There are huge cracks and bubbles in the paint and some of the paint has even peeled away to reveal the bare brick.

I arrived back to a bit of a heatwave and I needed my fans on at night. At first, I thought I could smell the paint peeling off the wall and drifting into the air with the breeze of the fan as I lay there in bed. As I inhaled the bad air, I fretted that it wasn’t healthy to sleep in a room with decaying walls. But the next day, when I turned on my ceiling fan on the balcony, clouds of dirt exploded onto my newly-cleaned furniture; it was my very own localized sandstorm. Obviously, although they’d cleaned the flat, they hadn’t cleaned the top of the ceiling fans. So, what I could smell at night was the dust from the fan above my head and not my decaying wall after all.

I never seem to learn about the internet. I’d gone to Senzo Mall on my way back from the airport and bought some top-up cards so that I could get my internet working as soon as I got back. However, as on previous occasions (see, I don’t learn), I couldn’t work out how to get it to accept the cards. So, I had to go all the way back to Senzo the next day to ask how to do it, and I discovered that it wasn’t possible because my internet SIM had expired. The SIM shouldn’t really have expired because it’s supposed to be able to be dormant for 4 months and I was last there in December, but it always does expire (but I insist on remaining optimistic and am always let down). Weirdly, my personal mobile SIM card was still working even after one year, but it may be because I don’t have a package on that but just credit.

I also stocked up with some wine; I order this online as it’s the easiest way to get alcohol in this country that is predominantly Muslim. I knew they usually delivered your order pretty quickly (within 2 hours of ordering online, usually), and I was pleased to see they’d got a new size of wine box that complied with the minimum order amount. This meant I didn’t have to order a rogue bottle of wine or two on top of the box of wine just to make up the minimum order. I ordered at about 9.30pm and by 11pm it hadn’t arrived.

I assumed they would deliver the next day at this time of night and also reasoned that due to lack of tourists these days, they may not be working such long hours any more. I was feeling tired, so went to bed. At midnight, my doorbell rang, and it was my wine order, so I had to scramble out of bed and receive the mysterious item in the black bag giving them the payment in return. It always feels as if you are doing some underhand deal like in the films.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned before that the Egyptians are a night-time people, so Spinneys, for example, stays open until 2am. I like this aspect of Egypt, but I’d completely forgotten about it.

And they still haven’t really quite got the right idea about wine boxes. The bag inside the box is never packed with the tap facing the hole for the tap; the bag is always packed in the box upside down. Consequently, you have to rip the box open, shift the bag round in the box, put the box back together, then pull the tap out of the allocated hole. It’s a right fiasco!

So, I was back in Egypt, warts and all.

El Andalous - Arriving Back

Back in El Andalous - Everything Just Waiting for Me!

It turned out that a business class flight with the extra baggage allowance was cheaper than going economy and paying for excess luggage, so I ended up flying away from Zurich in style.

Denise very kindly picked me up in her car at 5.15am (!!) to take me to the airport. As usual, I’d fretted about this early morning start, but my nerves about oversleeping ensured I was fully awake at the allotted time.

When I checked in (they tried to stop me going in the business queue!), my first suitcase actually turned out to be overweight, but they didn’t charge me since my second suitcase was quite a bit lighter. I felt sure that being in business class helped (it probably didn’t, but it felt good to think that!).

I wasn’t expecting much of business on a relatively short flight, so I dashed into the lounge to grab some coffee and cereal on the principle that you should always try to get your money’s worth. The woman at the reception informed me that I didn’t have much time, but agreed that I could certainly grab a coffee. It wasn’t the most relaxing breakfast I’d ever had, but at least I got one!

We boarded the plane and I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t offer champagne. Admittedly, the idea of champagne at 6.20am wasn’t actually that appealing. They offered fresh grapefruit juice which filled the spot surprisingly well. The champagne came later, so I guess that’s from experience about what people can stomach at what point in the flight. The drinks were flowing, the food was good, so it was an enjoyable journey. Also someone told their child I was sitting in first class, which made me feel like I’d just been promoted, so that was also a little boost!

On arrival, I was completely surprised to find that I had to queue for a visa. I spent a moment feeling disgruntled that I didn’t have a re-entry visa and was now just like any normal tourist, but also remembered that when I do have a re-entry visa, I just worry that they won’t recognize it. I’m dooming myself to feeling edgy whatever happens. However, the queue was very quick and when the guy saw all my past Egyptian visas, he yelled over to a colleague of his that I was returning home and then turned to me and said he was so pleased to meet me and he wanted to welcome me back! Ahhh, and people wonder why I like living here! Egypt can be very bizarre but sometimes in the nicest of ways.

And then it was the return to reality. I arrived and my taxi driver wasn’t there. Esmat had told me there would be someone standing with “Esmat Limos” on a sign, so I knew it wouldn’t be Esmat, but nobody was in sight. I waited about half an hour with it suddenly dawning on me why people think it’s hilarious that I pack my mobile phone in my luggage.

Finally, and much to my relief, the taxi driver appeared. He wasn’t bad, but he did ask me to go out for a coffee with him, which is not something I expect from one of Esmat’s drivers (I informed Esmat of this later). He wasn’t forcing me to go and have a coffee with him at some point, but it was just a hassle I didn’t want to contend with when I’d just arrived. I’m so used to Esmat being reliable, kind, and trustworthy, that it was a bit of a jolt to the system.

Arriving back at El Andalous was also a bit weird. Quite a lot of staff have been fired or let go due to the downturn in tourism, so I had staff who were complete strangers greeting me with “welcome back!”  They’d apparently been told to treat me well by Kathryn! It was nice but a bit odd – a bit like seeing your old furniture in a new flat. Nevertheless, I had finally made it back.

Switzerland - Packing to Go

Zurich - All Packed Up!

Theoretically, my return back to Egypt should have been quite easy – I had only brought three suitcases over with me, so that was all I could bring back. How hard can it be?

However, I was living in Switzerland.

On the positive side, unlike when I first moved to Egypt from Switzerland, my deposit this time was relatively modest and since I was sub-renting the flat, the whole handover procedure was less fussy. Denise wasn’t going to be moving back into the flat. On top of that, the owner of the flat (from whom Denise was renting) planned to combine my flat with the one next door, so she wasn’t too particular about its state of cleanliness because it was going to descend into chaos anyway with the building works. In addition, Denise had kindly provided me the phone number of a cleaner. So, really, it was relatively easy. The fates were smiling down on me yet again.

However, it took me some courage to ring the cleaner as I don’t like phoning and especially when it’s not in my own language. The first few times, I couldn’t get through. Then, when I did, I ended up speaking to a stranger who was going to relay the message on for me. She sounded Chinese and was speaking Swiss German. I felt less than confident that I had made myself understood in my English-accented High German and was vaguely worried that maybe I shouldn’t have spoken about the cleaning to this stranger.

Nevertheless, the cleaner’s husband visited my flat, nodded, and said “same as last time?”, so I just said “yes”. He asked the date I wanted it and left. After that, I didn’t get any further confirmation. I was a little worried. So worried, in fact, that I phoned again (they hadn’t asked my name, they hadn’t asked for my phone number). She confirmed she would be there the following week like I was some crazy neurotic person. I had to trust to the gods.

The cleaners were good, but I always find cleaners in Switzerland quite stressful to deal with. I walked past the kitchen and one of the cleaners was drawing air between her teeth and muttering “dirty, dirty!” I went into an instant internal panic. Was I expecting too much of them to do it for the same money as Denise had suggested? Was I really a very dirty person? Was it now going to go horribly wrong?

To add to the stress, Denise had told me that the owner of the flat had expressed great displeasure at seeing a black mark in the bathroom and that this black mark had to go. Of course, this was the only thing that the cleaners could not remove. To my credit, I then became very determined somehow to remove the black mark, even though the cleaners had told me it was impossible. I managed it with vinegar in the end (and a wire scrubber) and felt suitably proud of myself, even though it meant I was behind on my packing.

I’d booked a day for washing my clothes and bed linen, etc. However, when I went down to the basement, someone was using the machines. I had booked the machines for the wrong week. Disaster! My timetabling of all the cleaning left no room for error. In the end, I carted a load of washing over to a friend’s place. It was like my student days all over again where I had no washing machine and had to walk to the university launderette and back with all my laundry. I bet that university accommodation is more sophisticated these days!

The other major problem I had was to get rid of my microwave. Since I’d been in Japan just before, I hadn’t had enough time to put it up for sale. In the end, I did the opposite of theft (but still felt suitably guilty). I trundled down the streets of Zurich at midnight with my microwave on a set of wheels, getting on and off trams, and sneaked into my office building at the dead of night and dumped it in the kitchen as a freebie. I hear that someone did take it, so all’s well that ends well.

Finally, I thought I had three suitcases, but I’d totally forgotten that I’d taken one suitcase back with me at Christmas and left it in Egypt, rationalizing that I’d never be able to take all three suitcases back at once (the three suitcases originally came over to Switzerland in two journeys as well). So, I’d been happily calculating that everything would fit into three cases and then discovered I had a third less space than I thought. Eek. But I managed better than I imagined.

Oh, and then there was the whole fiasco of remaining registered in Switzerland in the hope of still having employment in Switzerland after September. I got somewhere in the end, but it was more difficult than I had originally anticipated.

With all this to think about, I’d hardly had a moment to consider what it would be like to be finally back in Egypt again.

Japan - Some Sightseeing

Kamakura - Gardens (Seasonal Only)

I stayed over a weekend, so I managed to do some sightseeing. Again, my Japanese colleagues took care of me.

Well, that’s apart from the Saturday, when I’d arranged to go out with Julia, who was over there for a three-month placement from the US (she was one month in). We went to the Emperor’s Gardens – I’d been there at night-time with Sayako to see the cherry blossom a few nights earlier.

It might sound a bit weird to have gone there at night, but the trees are actually lit up in the evening and crowds of people go to see them – you shuffle along in a huge line and gaze at the trees. In fact, every time you see a cherry blossom anywhere, it’s almost obligatory to point it out; if the way you are walking could possibly pass by a cherry blossom tree, that’s the way you go.

They were beautiful and the trees were right by a river or a moat, so you had the water reflecting them as well and some of the trees arched over the water. The emperor’s gardens were on the other side and the hillside was also covered in cherry blossom.

As I went to meet Julia on Saturday, wearing my bright pink rain jacket (as in the photo of me and some of the Japanese team in my earlier blog), it struck me that everyone in the metro, indeed everyone in general, was wearing black or beige. I stuck out like a beacon even without my white skin. The more I started to look, the more this impression was confirmed.

Anyway, from the emperor’s gardens, we went on to Meije temple. Given how little space there is in Tokyo, the temples are in expansive grounds. There are structures that look like open-air mini-temples with a large rectangular trough of fresh water and ladles, where you have to wash your hands and face before entry. The various temples differ from each other but probably have in common a generally square design with sloping roofs as you would expect. We were fortunate in that there appeared to be a wedding or something happening while we were there and we saw a procession walking through the grounds.

After lunch we went to Ueno. Here, again, people clamoured to see the cherry blossom. The area under the trees was cordoned off and the ground was covered with individual plastic sheets where people sat all day eating and drinking. It was obviously the thing to do, but to be honest, it looked uncomfortable and crowded. I was happy just to nudge along in the crowds walking down the avenue of trees.

Ueno was where a lot of the museums were, so I went to the National Museum and a special art exhibition that was on. I had only 1.5 hours before closing, which helped me to focus my mind on the items I found most interesting – which were mostly the art and calligraphy, which have always fascinated me since I was young.

The next day, in a shop, I asked my Japanese colleagues why some books appeared to be read back-to-front (from the Western perspective) and others from front-to-back. To my surprise, this engendered a lot of discussion and it turned out that sometimes Japanese is written up and down and sometimes from left to right and, depending on this, you start the book either at the back or at the front. How confusing! On top of that, I learned that Japanese is interspersed with Chinese characters which are used as punctuation because Japanese doesn’t have any commas or anything. Weird, but interesting!

On Sunday, my colleagues took me to Kamakura, which is a tourist town fairly near Tokyo with a lot of historic buildings; it’s by the sea and set by the mountains. It was full of lovely little roads packed with shops selling what seemed to me to be unusual items. My colleagues kindly bought me a konyakku soap, which is a wobbly soap made out of yam. It’s really great. Sayako had bought me earlier a face towel made out of paper – it looks very decorative and is quite coarse so serves as a scrub as well.

We visited one of the many temples; this one was set in the hillside. Some Samurai warriors were wandering about in their attire; a lady in a fancy kimono and a smart gentleman were posing. We also watched some traditional Japanese dancing (it reminded me of Thai Chi). Apparently the singing was in old Japanese, so even my colleagues couldn’t understand it!

There was, of course, also the obligatory Japanese garden and the cherry blossoms. The garden was only open for maybe 6 weeks a year, so I was lucky to be able to look round. There were beautiful flowers and the cherry blossoms were, of course, also impressive.

After lunch, we progressed on to see the second largest Buddha in Japan. It was stunning because you turned a corner and could then see it there in the backdrop of the hills. After a short queue and a minimal entrance fee, we could enter inside the Buddha via some dark and narrow steps and see him from the inside. I don’t think there are too many people who can say they’ve been inside a Buddha.

Our final stop was to see the sea. The weather wasn’t great, but I was surprised to see a lot of people out surfing.

We managed to fit in a lot over the weekend, so I came away from Japan feeling that I had at least made the most of my time. I would definitely like to return some day.

Japan - The Food

Starter - Japanese Style

I had worried a bit about the food before going to Japan. I’m not a big sushi fan and nor am I too fond of noodles in soup.

When I arrived, I was a bit baffled by the restaurants. There were loads and they all showed pictures of the food they offered. However, I still couldn’t really work out what the pictures were (the food was mostly fairly unfamiliar) and everything was in Japanese. Every now and then I’d spot a restaurant with an English name – there was a lovely place advertising organic food, but then there were no pictures and the entire menu was in Japanese. I ended up going for an Indian curry in a place where everything was in English.

I had to get used to the currency as well – I’m just not used to dealing with money where the denominations are in the 1000s and it all seems quite scary (even though work was paying!).

Breakfast – with the obligatory hand towel as with every meal – was very Japanese. There were boiled vegetables, fish, miso soup or something similar… fortunately, they also offered bread rolls and jam, plus warm croissant, so I just kept to that and the coffee and orange juice!

After that, I was pretty much looked after. On my first day at work, we had sandwiches for lunch, so that was safe; subsequently we went to the work canteen each day. There were forks available, but mostly people ate with chopsticks. I played safe with a curry again on the first day (fortunately they had a curry on the menu each day, so there was always a fail-safe!); after that I was more adventurous, although I can’t really say what I ate.

I had tempura and noodles in a soup (this has a special name); I think another day I ate something that looked like spaghetti, but it was actually noodles, and then there was a bowl with liquid (miso soup?). I struggled with the chopsticks for the noodles (I was trying to twist the noodles round the chopsticks, but I’m not sure that was the right technique). In the end, my colleagues brought me a fork and watched with fascination as I twirled the noodles on the fork and laughed that I was treating it like spaghetti.

At the weekend I ended up in an Italian restaurant and ordered Japanese beef (yes, weird, I know). In my head this was going to be how I imagine Teriaki beef to be – little slithers of beef in a sauce. However, it turned out to be an almost-raw steak. To my surprise, since I normally eat my steak medium-well done, it was actually delicious and very tender. The starter salad was exquisitely presented (see photo).

One night Sayako took me out to a chicken place (I’d told her that I love chicken). It only sits around 20 people and you all sit round the counter by the kitchen and you are served directly from the kitchen. It’s not anywhere I could possibly have gone on my own. To my befuddlement, I was handed a picture of a chicken with about 20 different cuts shown on it (eg, the bit just above the tail was the option that drew my attention as I wondered if we [Westerners] ever even ate this part) and you were supposed to choose which bit of the chicken you would like to eat. This was totally beyond me! I asked for skin-on and moist meat in the end and was served with something a bit weird that was verging on gristly. It’s probably best that I don’t know!

My welcome meal was at a lovely restaurant where we had our own section of the restaurant and they brought in meats for us to cook directly at the grill in front of us. There was as much to drink as you liked (introducing me to the concept that the Japanese like to drink). Again, the meat wasn’t quite what I was expecting – not sure what some of it was, but the first serving was tongue. Although I don’t eat tongue (in the UK, it’s a common filling for sandwiches; not sure we really eat it as a main course meat much), it was actually delicious.

Weirdly, the restaurants don’t really do Diet Coke (or Cola Light, depending on which country you come from!); only full-sugar Coke. I thought I’d try a Japanese alcoholic drink (they all drink beer, so I wasn’t actually being very Japanese!) which I thought would be saki. Instead it turned out to be more like a schnapps or grappa (you can get them in different flavours apparently), but instead of being served in a small schnapps glass, it was served like a glass of orange juice. It took me the whole evening to get through it.

I had been scared of starving while I was away, but actually I did pretty well – in fact, I ate way too much in the end!

Tokyo - Getting There

Cherry Blossom, Temple (Ueno), Crowds

[Apologies - very busy so a bit late this week!]

I arrived in Japan for my work trip at around 8am after a 12-hour flight. I was a little alarmed that you had to walk through a temperature check barrier to ensure that you weren’t ill (I assume). I could feel myself starting to sweat, but no alarms went off. The airport was well-organised though and you were directed to the right queues for passport control. I felt secure.

Before I left, I’d been a bit freaked out by the recommendation from the Japanese team that I get a train to Tokyo from the airport – I had visions of my face being squashed against a window, my arm stuck in between the doors, and my luggage hanging out and getting whacked out of my hand by an oncoming train. I got agreement from management that I could get a taxi instead.

However, when I arrived, the counters for the train at the airport were very prominent. I was feeling brave (and suggestible due to my tiredness) and decided to go for it. I queued in the wrong place for a little while, but really it wasn’t too bad and I was served fairly quickly.

I’d forgotten that platforms in Japan are a bit tricky. I was told that the train departed from Platform 1, which sounded simple enough, but they forgot to tell me that there were two platform 1s. There were two different train companies, each with their own Platform 1. Needless to say, I ended up on the wrong one, but did notice that the destination was not the one I desired and so got someone to help me.

The Narita Express train is actually very civilized with reserved seats only and comfortable ones at that with plenty of room. The platform is marked out so that you know where your carriage will be. The train arrives and all doors are blocked while you wait for the train to be cleaned. The seats swiveled, so the cleaners also swiveled all the seats round so that they were now facing the direction of travel rather than having their backs to it. That’s what I mean by organized!

There were big notices up saying that if you locked your baggage in the luggage racks and forgot your code, you could collect it at the terminal station. That was enough to scare me off even trying to lock my baggage, but it was still all just fine.

Arriving at Tokyo was confusing. Tokyo station is huge and there were also loads of shops. I was almost tempted to buy something to eat because some of the stalls smelled so good. Somehow, I got to the main exit. I stared at the local map for probably an hour trying to work out if I could walk to my hotel from the station. In the end, I couldn’t even find the taxi rank when it was just behind me. I guess I was tired.

I’d been warned that the taxi drivers don’t speak English, but unfortunately, I’d got the Japanese instructions too late to be able to print them out. I tried providing the address in English, but after the driver drove round for a while and dropped me off at the ASA hotel (which looked as if it housed rats) instead of the APA hotel, I decided that only Japanese would do. I yanked out my laptop and found the Japanese file. This seemed to enlighten him and after a bit of a detour, I was deposited at the correct place.

I spent the rest of the day trying to fathom out where the work building was but to no avail. I never did find out how to walk there. Fortunately, Sayako picked me up in the morning and showed me how to get there using the metro. I was petrified, but actually it was pretty similar to London (we were probably a bit late – around 8.45am). She seemed to think I’d know how to do it after that and, much to my surprise, I did indeed manage. I had finally become a proper Japanese commuter!

Japan - Working Trip

 

Me and some of the Japanese Team in front of cherry blossom, Kumakura

 

 

Well, I’m busy here in Japan and don’t really have time to write my blog, but I’ll just jot down the things that surprise me about Japan, or at least things I’d forgotten about Japan:

1. Lots of people wear masks
2. The toilets are sophisticated – seats are heated, you can play music (on some), there’s a bidet function and a splash function; however, they still also have the crouch toilets (you don’t see these at all in the UK, Switzerland, or Germany, as far as I know).
3. The Japanese like to drink! I thought that because they are so rule-driven, they would not ever drink more than the number of recommended units. However, they are a party people!
4. You get a hand towel with every meal, even on a visit to Starbucks.
5. The air in Tokyo was much cleaner than I was expecting it to be.
6. They all eat with chopsticks (yes, I’d forgotten!)
7. They laugh a lot and are extremely hospitable
8. Linked to the above, they watch your reactions and react accordingly – I’ve realized that my face gives more away than I realise!
9. Maybe I’ve been lucky, but the metro hasn’t been as busy as I expected. Maybe it’s because I’m a little late by Japanese standards and so miss the worst
10. Despite hierarchy, the entire office was open plan; it all looked a bit crowded to me!
11. Gift-giving is part of the culture and I had forgotten, much to my embarrassment.

Hopefully a more extensive blog next week!