What I know about Japan:

What I know about Japan:

- It's full of small people.
- They don't wear shoes inside their houses.
- They don't have bricks for walls so they use paper instead. They can make water bombs out of paper.
- They don't have knives and forks so they use chopsticks.
- They all know martial arts and grow little Bonsai trees. The killer move is the Crane kick.- They go swimming naked in separate pools for men and women.
- They take a long time to say something which when translated into English takes seconds to explain.
- They have lots of gadgets.
- There are Samurai people their who have wicked arse swords. As I know from the Bodyguard these swords are so sharp they can cut a falling silk.
- They have lots of earthquakes.
- Men grope women and read porn on the bullet train which always arrives on time.

Sources:
- Karate Kid 1 to 4.
- A Blue Peter special. I have a distinct memory of John Lesley showing his bum to a nation of child tv viewers jumping into a Japanese swimming pool.
- Another kids TV influence was "It'll never work" Japanese gadget special. I remember a kind of cycle helmet being distracted which had suckers and hooks on it, thus allowing you to fall asleep whilst on a train without getting a sore neck.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja/Hero Turtles who were Japanese I think.
- 8 months of Aikido - a powerful martial art where if you're really good you get to wear a skirt.
- A terrible french film called Wasabi with Jean Reno in it (Leon).
- A very good film, Lost in Translation.

What am I going to do there:

1) Learn Japanese. Currently I know a little:
- Hello = kunichi wa
- Thank you = arigato
- sensei = teacher
- ow! (as in pain) = aiii!
- hocoki jenai desu da busu des - That's not a plane; it's a bus!-
- Honda origami kamikaze bazooka = I like to imagine this could mean anything I want it to

The scholarship pays for our tuition so I will have about 20 hours a week plus homework.

2) Teach English. I am very happy about this as I never got to do this in my gap year, which is what it seems every other middle class child did.

3) Be a model. Apparently they need pictures of western people because Japanese people are ugly. Thin eyes.(I'm trying to get all my xenophobia out of my system before I arrive.)

4) Turn my body into a lethal weapon through study of Samurai. Just like Batman.