We're staying in the outskirts of Osaka, I think, and so far, we haven't seen the centre. But here's what it's like:

Barber shops with European barber poles (they live on!), special rubbish disposal trucks with loudspeakers churning out bad J-pop; housewives dropping everything and running their trash down to the truck, extraordinarily well dressed youth (hair coiffed and coloured, jeans really, really distressed, light leather jackets on men, a startling array of stockings), bakeries which force the use of trays and tongs, open-air fish shops giving the lie to this supposed obsession with hygiene, many men, women and children wearing Michael Jackson masks (SARS? Colds? Pollution?), wel-dressed kids, very, very few white faces, sideways glances from schoolgirls, a veritable explosion of arigato gazhaimas's from a 60+ woman whom I hold the door open for, motorbike gangs, old-style bicycles, very narrow streets, purple and yellow cabbages growing outside seemingly every house, the utilisation of every possible space for shrubbery, impeccably trimmed show-pines, rice paddies in backyards, cars parked atop each other by means of a lift, square box cars, thin vans, three-wheeled scooters able to bend around corners, faces empty of emotion, and the supermarkets... god, the supermarkets. Strawberries gleaming as if they'd been airbrushed; fifty dollar melons in boxes for gifts, three dollars an apple, an amazing range of riceballs, noodles, vast quantities of fish sliced expertly, giant fugu - deadly blowfish - baby octopi, fantastic mushrooms - long and slender, bulbous and brown, cakes I'd sell my cousin for (probably not my mother though), the bizarre love child of a eggplant and a cucumber, eighty dollar salmon steaks and fifty dollar fat-mottled cow steaks, and juice made from what look like large nettles. Rowan and I dallied for half an hour on our inaugral shop, hazarding guesses as to what sauce would taste nice.

So far, we haven't really got to know anyone in our gaijin house. The Japanese students seem nice, but our fellow whites seem either unnaturally friendly or horribly geeky, in an anime-watching, I-fantasised-about-Japan-since-high-school kinda way. Hopefully, that assessment is too harsh. Otherwise, I'll drive my brother nuts inside of a week.

I really, really need survival Japanese. I am not going to survive otherwise; Rowan's gone through high school Japanese, but the real version is much, much harder. Even counting is hard: sure, ichi ni sun chi sounds easy, but then you add a suffix if you are counting in long, straight objects (ichi-mi = one loaf of bread)

None of the Japanese girls who work retail or hospitality walk; they all half-walk, half-run, a kind of trot, which I suspect reflects their lower position.

I've never been truly poor until now. 80 yen to the dollar sounds good, but we're going to be living very, very cheaply in terms of food. The one positive is that supermarkets have plenty of sampler bits of food, so we'll be "sampling" quite often for lunch. Otherwise, dumpster diving is in. Our room is a thousand a month. It's about the same size as a medium bathroom back home. We have bunks. The communal toilets combine a cistern with a washbasin, to save space. There are special toilet slippers as well. Train travel is hideously expensive. We'll get bikes, I think. That is, supposing we get jobs. It doesn't sound as easy as it did back home. Wish us luck. Tomorrow, we try the Christian pastor job. Then red-hair modelling work. Then English teaching for adults. Then, expectations suitably lowered, English teaching for kids. Then bar work. Then handing out flyers. Then renting out my body. Then home. The idea was to be valued for things I was born with: red hair, white, English speaking. I'll tell you how that goes.

Also, it's bloody freezing. It reminds me of Ireland; crisp, bright, brutal. There's a homeless man who lives not far from me on the side of a canal: a shack, a barrel with a fire, a fruit tree.

But I'm glad to be here, even though I miss you all.

Oh: I'll try to avoid mass-produced emails (the blog will do) but if you write to me, I'll definitely write to you.