ok this offendimeter thing is sounding a bit weird to me now. but anyway its on 2. you shall see later on if you stick around and read.

so i cant quite remember where i last left you but ill just talk a bit about what i remember ive done.

we met the directors of the hospital on monday. very formal, lots of awkward silences but i think we did well. we also had our medical checkup japanese style. basically the style just involves in and out in under 3 seconds. waiting times are about 3 minutes on a bad day. i had a blood test, hearing test, ecg, physical, xray, eye test.... it was all given by japanese speaking doctors which made it very difficult. especially during the hearing test when i didnt realise you had to push the button on hearing the beeps. i just sat there with the beeps just in my ear not knowing what to do. in my defence they didnt point to the button or anything, just told me to sit...well i think thats what she said.

then we got...the uniforms. new gallery here for some pictures...

http://www.bubbleshare.com/album/64412.3785f215a97

or heres a photo you can look at straight away
http://www.blog.co.uk/srv/media/media_item.php?item_ID=813070

basically bright blue and white things. not good.

then later that day nami tojo asjed us if we wanted to go out with the nurses tonight. so basically we were invited and so we had to go. japanese culture in a nut shell...dont refuse them. then she said it would cost 2000 yen roughly. an amount we're supposed to make last for roughly 1 and a half days.

not being able to speak japanese we really didnt want to go.

anyway we met at this conference hall at the right time. only to find that first we had to sit through a presentation. which was an hour long and in japanese. this leads me onto the offendimeter being at two....i fell asleep. nami tojo was not impressed. not sure what she thought i was supposed to do. even japanese people were nodding off.

so then we caught the bus for two stops and me and luke sat there surrounded by japanese nurses talking to each other. not knowing what the hell we we're supposed to do.

but we got to the restaurant and a couple of people spoke reasonable english. we had a few beers along with the women??? tried explaining women western culture with drinks. they were happy enough on the pints though. then came the food. there are some new videos up hopefully and pictures...

http://www.bubbleshare.com/album/64412.3785f215a97
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=jamesrharper

so we ate squid, octupus leg including suckers, okonomiyaki, harimashi, sashimi, raw tunu, raw scollop, raw salmon, spaghetti with fish eggs, chicken wings, prawn pizza, sake pizza and more.

octpus leg was like...i dont know...maybe you've eaten rubber before. anyway nothing like chicken. squid was extremely slimey but also rubbery.

anyway it was good fun. one poignant memory was when one nurse suddenly said "im a little teapot short and stout". me and luke looked at each other and then gave the full rendition. bizarre but we got applause anyway. even though lukes spout looked anything but straight. we're working on it.

we talked to the nurses quite a lot. about japanese food and english alcohol, culture, learning languages etc. they werent too impressed on our driking knowledge. since the drinking age in japan is 21. but we explained tequila slammers to them along with after shock and burning sambuca shots with coffee beans. you should have seen their faces.
kinda like ours when we saw our dinner with an octopus leg sticking out of it.

then we talked about food. me and luke had to give our best impression of a yorkshire pudding. so in the end they were nice people. a bit more talkative than nami tojo which was good. she is a nice lady but very quiet.

so it was a good night and made even better by this random Doctor paying for most of our meal. his name is dr ishikawa and he will get a present.

today we had a good loong tour of the hospital given to us by no other than the generous dr.ishikawa. we saw the helipad which had great views. we saw all the specialty units among other things. i saw where ill start work next week: the scu or stroke care unit.
they all got really excited seeing us. one lady put her hand out to shake mine only to throw her pen across the room. so i look forward to working there.

we also had our first japanese lesson which was pretty slow going to be honest. and then i pretty much came here to write this.

dont have too much time now. watch this space...

ja ne
james