On The Mental Health Job Hunt

Read it as you will:

Candidates with a first degree in Psychology and ideally some experience working with older people or those with dementia are encouraged to apply.

Mar-whoops-ana!

Straight from the TimesOnline's Most Curious section (by Philippe Naughton):

An unsuspecting passenger who flew through Tokyo's Narita airport left with $10,000 worth of free cannabis thanks to a forgetful customs officer and a sniffer dog with an unreliable nose.

The officer stuffed 142g (five ounces) of the drug into the side pocket of a randomly selected black suitcase coming off an overseas flight into Narita yesterday so that the dog could get some practice at detecting drugs.

"The dog couldn’t find it and the officer also forgot which bag he put it in," a customs office spokeswoman said. "If by some chance passengers find it in their suitcase, we’re asking them to return it."

The spokeswoman quoted the unnamed 38-year-old officer as saying: "I knew that using passengers’ bags is prohibited, but I did it because I wanted to improve the sniffer dog’s ability."

He was reprimanded by the head of customs at Narita, Manpei Tanaka, who said: "This case was extremely regrettable. I would like to deeply apologise."

The cannabis, which has a street value of one million yen ($9,680), was in a metal box wrapped with newspapers. Japan strictly prohibits both hard and soft drugs, with people imprisoned for possession of even small amounts of cannabis.

Hokkaido - Hakodate

The last day in Hokkaido, and an exploration of Hakodate, starting with an early morning onsen. We checked out the early morning fish market, fresh with squid. There was a squid-fishing game, where they cooked your catch straight away. I didn't realise, but squid grab on from the other end of their body than I expected.


Past the red brick warehouses to the former residences of foreign traders from the 1850s.


At the foot of Mt Hakodate, the mansions spread out like a miniature San Francisco; including the Russian Orthodox Church, the Old British Consulate, the Chinese Memorial Hall, the prefectural government's former branch office building and the old Hakodate Public Hall.


Gents and Ladies Olde Toilets:


After that we took a very long walk (longer than we realised, and came to regret!) to the other side of town. Past an interesting taxi, and sewer panel.


Goryokaku is a 5-pointed star fortress, with the 107 metre observation tower next door. "In 1868, when the Meiji Restoration led to the overthrow of the Edo Shogunate, loyalist rebels fled to Hokkaido instead of surrendering and used Hakodate's Goryokaku as their headquarters in the resulting civil war against the Imperial forces. The loyalists surrendered in 1869." (Japan-Guide.com)


A quick lunch of curry ramen (excellent) and we hopped on a tram to the final destination of the whole trip. Yunokawa is a famous hot spring resort, a little far out of the city but built next to the beach so worthy of a walk around. We went to the hot-house which had a monkey park inside. These monkeys - about 100 of them - were pretty grim and scratched constantly. Some sat in their own onsen, turning round to enter the pool, while others picked fleas, like a group massage parlour.


They were also incredibly horny, and humped profusely.


One poor little guy looked scared and lonely:


There was a also a semi-blind raccoon and an overflowing onsen seat. Even if you could close enough, it was so hot you couldn't have sat down for the following week!


Back to the train station and onto the airport, for a short flight back to Tokyo.


Hokkaido's a beautiful place and I'd like to revisit one Winter.

--
A few with me included in various places (Motomachi, Hot House):

Time For A Catch-Up

My time in the East is sadly drawing to a close. It's been so much more than I expected, and if only it didn't have to end. Still, a possible dream is to live here again in the future, but first I need to move forward (if moving back to England is a step in the right direction).

I've always wanted to return to academia and I agree I may have taken longer than planned to get there, but I'm glad I took the time out after my BSc for a bit of life experience. The final year and dissertation exhausted me, and I wanted to make sure I had the passion to do it all over. Besides, I knew that an undergrad Uni-lifestyle is much more play than work and I wanted to go into further education with a different attitude. I want to do the extra reading, start the essays with plenty of time, and not deliberate between going out drinking or preparing for the seminar the next morning.

So I finally found the course that made me passionate. It was a toss-up between a psychologist or anthropologist route. Where I could read Darwin and Dawkins et al and learn about evolution forever and a day, where this topic is actually my first choice, I know that a) there is no career on the other side and b) I can read for pleasure in my free time. The other route then is a more analysis and counselling style and that which I think is more difficult to grasp in personal reading and possible as a career.

I applied for one course (risky - but, just as with Warwick, I knew it was the only one I wanted) at UCL (University College London) for an MSc in Theoretical Psychoanalytic Studies. Not exactly the modern psychology as seen through contemporary NHS but focusing on unconscious disorders of anxiety, depression and other Freudian despairs.

Actually, the thing that sealed the deal was a section I read in one of my favourite books on cognitive neuropsychology (Ramachandran's Phantoms in the Brain - recommended!) which discussed the 'three great discontinuities' of man's ego. Basically, humans have placed themselves on a pedestal as a) centre of the universe, b) higher than animals, c) in control of body and mind. This megalomania has been deflated through scientific revolutions - respectively, the Copernican revolution which displaced the Earth into a heliocentric Universe; the Darwinian evolution which taxonomically adjoined humans to other animals. The first two are quite easy to follow, with plenty of proof and not much to debate. The third is the most interesting: Freud's assertion that we cannnot control the unconscious and that 'the ego is not master in its own house'.

Understanding the mind, and helping those in psychological distress seems both fascinating and worthwhile. Where Freudian studies may not be the most conventional route to being a Clinical Psychologist (although there is the opportunity to train as a psychoanalyst instead), it is possible with some experience as an Assistant Psychologist, to move onto a D.Clin.Psy (Doctorate in Clinical Psychology - a three year NHS-funded PhD) as a qualified Clinical Psychologist on the other side. This is an extremely difficult course to gain acceptance onto (about 5% of applications are successful every year), but it's something I'm interested to try. Clinical Psychologists are slowly popping up around Tokyo and I'm investigating the opportunity to return afterwards. It's not surprising; more foreigners moving to Tokyo for business and facing culture shock, as well as the huge increase in bi-culture children and families etc. It's a possibility anyway.

So, I had a phone interview with the UCL course coordinator last Friday. She was extremely pleasant, interesting and motivating, and offered me a place then and there (the course was full but she offered me a spot anyway). It's a great motivator to come back to England as well as a first step in the right direction of a career.

I'm apprehensive about living in London - the price of trains alone is enough to deter anyone, not forgetting the stabbings that pop up in the newspapers everyday - but it's also an exciting city and one I've never lived in, so some more good experiences I'm sure.

I'm currently applying for jobs through the NHS (assistant psychologists etc) but again these have heavy competition. Maybe I'll have to take some voluntary work experience instead and hope that's enough for a D.Clin.Psy. The MSc is all day on Fridays and Saturdays (rather than the typical undergrad one hour here and one hour there timetable) to allow people careers. I wonder what the average age will be? It allows me to work almost full-time (Sun-Thurs, without much of a social life). We'll see.

So when do I return? I'm buying my ticket this weekend. Probably straight after Keiko (27th June) and my (3rd July) birthdays, unless something comes up this week and there's job interviews or the like earlier. The humidity's killing me, so for that reason, I'm not sad to leave. But I'm going to miss this place too much.

It's home.

I'm happy.

But it's time to push on with a career I want. And if that means sacrificing some things for the time being, so be it.

At the moment I've started on the preliminary reading list (it's long - aaagh!). For those critical of Freud, he started as a neurologist with a purely scientific background. I agree there's some strangeness in his theories, but a lot of it is groundbreaking. Still, I'm not sure about all of his attempts to sexualise dreams. My favourite line in The Interpretation of Dreams so far is (loosely): "There cannot be the faintest doubt what is meant by apples or an apple-tree... lovely breasts."

So that's my catch-up. There's more to mention of course, namely Keiko and I. Briefly, the plan is for her to come over on a student visa around January after I'm settled and we've saved a bit of money, but that's for another time.

Stars In The City

Last night I joined a Gotanda community centre event, looking up at the stars (run through the planetarium group). It was limited to only 30 or so people and I was looking forward to finding out how we could star-gaze in the middle of a city. The roof of the centre was lower than other buildings around it, with a bright supermarket light beaming at us. I could only see two stars! Light pollution is a necessary evil.

The organiser had set up two telescopes and was darting between them refocusing their aim. I couldn't use a flash (it would be a bit rude) but this is what it would like like if you were drunk:




The view through the telescopes were impressive. Mars, the red (blurred) dot.



But it was this shape that wowed me - Saturn!

Times They Are A Changin'

Last weekend, I went back to Tsunashima to have a look around, as I haven't been there for about a year. It's only 30 minutes by train but worlds apart; the green banks with families picnic-ing along the river are a sharp contrast to the metropolis I now live in. It's a lovely place, at the heart of suburban Japan and I would advise it for a prospective English teacher. I even went down to my old house in Bell Wistaria - all the Nova apartments are empty. I tried to 'break in' to #202 but failed miserably. So many bills piled up in the mailbox - unpaid taxes, phone bills... Sadly, but luckily for me, the 99 yen shop nearby is now a standard supermarket.

Nostalgia over, I headed back to the train station and noticed the red bean-filled pancake man was setting up his stall. He even remembered me!

Not my hand

Good times.

Speaking Of Buildings

Shinjuku's very own 'Gherkin' is almost completed. It's a bit of an eyesore, but the 50-storey Tokyo Mode Gakuen Coccoon Tower, which will be a school for design, is causing a buzz.

New Tokyo Tower

It's going to be a problem the world over. With digital on the way in and analog out, higher constructions are needed for satellite broadcasting. The current Tokyo Tower (at 333m) is not adequate, so a new plot of land in North-East Tokyo has been set out for the second coming. At nearly double the height (610m) it's going to be a beast, and will probably revolutionise the otherwise low-key area.


According to the report: "The New Tower is designed to have graceful curves similar to samurai swords and traditional Japanese buildings so that it does not detract from the surrounding scenery." Riiight...

There is a current vote on the name. The final choices are:
1.Tokyo Edo Tower
2. Tokyo Sky Tree
3. Mirai Tree (Mirai meaning Future)
4. Yume Miyagura (roughly, real-ising dreams)
5. Rising East Tower
6. Rising Tower

Considering this has all been overseen by the Rising East Project, it's not going to be a huge surprise which name comes out the eventual winner.

Image Of The Week #83

So confusing to decide what's meat-free; I'm glad it's all behind me.

(taken in Ebisu - 17th May, 2008)

I'm Setting A Curfew

The killer has struck again:


The other end of my road this time. Keiko tells me it's common for deranged youth in Japan to do this. I'm sticking with a vengeful crow.

Hokkaido - Onuma and Hakodate

A big day, and my favourite of the four. We checked-out early and jumped on a train South towards the base of Hokkaido. Our destination was about three hours away so luckily the flight ticket meant we could depart from a closer airport, instead of trekking back to Sapporo.

We stopped at Onuma, a quiet station two-thirds of the way there to stretch our legs. Onuma is hardly famous, but after some research, it was a local favourite nature spot. The frozen lakes surrounding the dotted islands were unbelievable - a winter wonderland - with the dormant volcano Mt Komagatake in the background.


I stepped onto the ice with caution. The layer was thick and held my weight but only took a few steps out as some rock-throwing tests concluded that the more central areas were thin.


The train didn't come for another hour or so, so we dropped our bags in the train station and took a short walk towards the onsen. I didn't have my camera at this point but take my word that the hotel the onsen was located in was the inspiration for not only the design but the atmosphere of the hotel in The Shining!

The baths were decent, with a nice view of the snowy mountain, and there were even heated black marble stone beds to lie on, which was another peculiar experience. There were three baths at different temperatures. The signs must've been wrong because the first one I tried was freezing and the next which I foolishly plopped into (which said one degree hotter) was boiling. Ouch. The third was muddy with brown bits floating around - apparently it was natural minerals, but dirt is dirt. I had the men's baths to myself which was a bonus.

Back on the train, for a short drop to Hakodate, the last stop of the holiday. Hakodate (pronounce each consonant-vowel pair separately; makes the place sound less Disney-esque and more Japanese) is the third largest town, trapped between old laid-back life and architecture, and modern impacts of Western civilisation. Much like the rest of Hokkaido, the streets are quiet yet there is a whiff of abundant tourists in the air. We walked towards the hotel parallel to the tram route along the 'high street' which, as we found out when looking for food that night, "doesn't even have a McDonald's". Finding food was a bit of a pain, we didn't even see a supermarket in the two days we walked around. The hotel was overlooking the coast, Hakodate built on a small strip of land so that its two sides are beach lined, with Mt Hakodate at the very base. The area's delicacy is squid, and the water is off-bounds because there are so many.


The town was easily walkable, about 30 minutes width wise and an hour across, so just before the sun started setting, we walked towards the Mt Hakodate Ropeway, for a view over the town; the main pulling point for tourists.


Hakodate has been 'officially' recognised as one of the three world night views, alongside Naples and Hong Kong, itself called the 'million dollar night view'. I read that on the tourist information website so I'm not sure the claim is entirely impartial. Still, as the sun set, the view was spectacular. (Could never do it justice in a photograph.)


A short walk back to the hotel, which had an onsen! Even though the name was the Hakodate Onsen Hotel, we were told by the travel agent it was just a name and didn't have an onsen; hence why we paid up and went to one earlier that day. I'm not complaining - twice in one day (and once the next morning before check-out) only made the trip better.

Image Of The Week #82

Close to the last Image of the Week, I found this sign in Sapporo, so it's suitable here:

(taken in Sapporo - 21st March, 2008)