Due to lack of internet access I have been unable to update the blog until now, but have tried to maintain this diary to give a fair reflection of our movements since my last posting.
Following our fantastic first night swimming in saki, there were some interesting creatures that arrived for breakfast the following morning. This was served in a very bright, 17th floor restaurant on the roof of the hotel overlooking Saitama city. Unprecedented views, but not for the faint hearted who do not like heights, especially if already not too steady on our feet. Playing it safe with bacon and eggs rather than raw fish that could have tipped the balance. As we met in the lobby before our first public meeting of Rotarians, some interesting revelations came to light as a result of the following night. Our glorious cheema reeda setting the pace by deciding that he needed to go to the toilet during the night but being slightly groggy (due to jet lag) and without his glasses (very short sighted) missed the toilet door and ended up in the corridor with his room door shutting behind him. Stranded on the 13th floor there was no option David had no other than to make the journey down to reception in his underwear to ask to be let back into his room. A brave man indeed. Fortunately, there was no one to see his predicament but I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when he was trying to explain himself. I have woken many nights since laughing uncontrollably as I have thought of this. It has to be said Joe looked the worse I have seen him, but in true GSE spirit he came through. If anything these experiences have bonded the team, and gave us the strength to do a impromptu presentation completely in Japanese to 130 Rotarians and business men which went down very well.
Following the national anthems, presentations and delightful meal, we ventured out into Saitama and spent some time looking around the John Lennon museum. There is a strong connection between this area and the 1180 district due to The Beatles.
Then the time came to leave the relative safety and comfort of one anothers company and venture out to meet our host families. I was hosted by the Okemoto family. An elderly couple whose grasp of English is limited but that is not to say that we have not tried to communicate to each other. I have since found out that in this area Mr Okemoto is an extremely influential person, a very successful businessman and one of the nicest people you could ever wish to meet. He is known locally amongst the Rotary community as “The King”.
I was introduced to his son’s family, including his grandson Yoshiki who had spent some time in a English school and was fortunately able to speak a little more English. We all went out for a meal. This was no ordinary meal, but a “Ryotei”. Held in a private room of a restaurant overlooking the Saitama skyline, I was treated to the most amazing Japanese cuisine, “Kaseiki” normally only reserved for politicians and the business elite. Following a selection of sashimi and other delicacies including a whole baby octopus (mind over matter), the star of the show came in. There were special hot plates in the table which we used to heat a pan. You then selected your meat of vegetables, cooked them in this pan for about 15 seconds and then ate them with a selection of dipping sauces. Delicious.
A miscommunication in a conversation held during this meal was to be my demise when coming down for breakfast the following day. I thought they asked, “What do you eat in England?”. How surprised was I when along with rice, eggs and fish for breakfast, I was given potatoes, carrots, broccoli and 6 sausages! Not wanting to appear rude, I ploughed in. This was the first but not the last miscommunication.
Following breakfast, I left and picked up Angela en route for our first vocational day. First stop, Saitama Prefecture Headquarters where we were met by the Deputy Chief of the force, and exchanged gifts. An interesting statement from this important police figure head. “We do not tape record interviews of suspects as we do not believe that they will tell the truth if it is being recorded!” Amazing. Something that we in England stopped doing in 1984, much to the disgust of the old timers whose interviewing techniques were similar to those used on Life on Mars and not suited to this method of interviewing. I went on to tell him the benefits to their investigations if this was introduced. He also stated that in the most technological country in the world, CCTV was not very widespread due to human rights legislation, and stated that the UK was leading the way in the use of CCTV in investigations and that the Japanese police should look to the UK to develop this.
From here we went to Urawa police station, where we were met by the Chief of the Police Station and given a tour of the station, seeing the interview rooms, CID offices, control room and the patrol cars. One great gadget they had was a button in the patrol car that when deployed to an emergency, it will work out the best way to get to the incident and turn all of the traffic lights to green to make their route faster. We were then photographed and had our fingerprints taken so no chance of getting up to mischief now in Japan.
The tour was brisk as we had a tight schedule which had to be adhered to, so we were whisked off to Saitama police academy. Here we enjoyed the students doing practicing judo and kendo as part of their training. They even let us have a go, which wasn’t a good idea given Angela’s state of mind and was waving the sword around. She almost took the poor lads head off. It was interesting to see that there is no dedicated CSI department in Japan, and that all of the police officers are trained in CSI skills and evidence recovery. I think we benefit from having a dedicated unit. Before we left we had a Q & A session with heads of the leading departments, sharing ideas on how to improve the service we deliver. We weren’t sure on all of the answers we gave, but were very convincing in our responses.
Following our tour around police academy, we were taken away by car to Mr Okemotos summer house, a 2 hour drive away from Saitama, near the Nikon country park. Some miscommunication that left Angela without any change of clothing or necessities. We salvaged the situation by persuading them to stop off at her hist family’s house to collect some things. Fortunately for once, I had got the right end of the stick and had packed an overnight bag. We were told that that evening we were to have a bbq, so for 2 hours I dreamt of a burger. Don’t get me wrong, I love fish but just for a bit of home comforts that is what I imagined. On arriving at the summer house in the middle of nowhere, we were taken into the kitchen, to find a bbq in the middle of the room. But no, there were no burgers, but a load of roasting fish on sticks, around an open fire. The meal was wonderful, with a few challenges along the way, but once you had got over the fact that most of what you were eating you were eating was looking at you, and a few saki’s to wash it down we thoroughly enjoyed the meal. To cap it off, they even found a karaoke machine in this desserted place and we killed the famous Beatles song “Yesterday’. The problem we have now is that they think we love karaoke. They don’t realize that you have to be sloshed to actually even consider having a go in the UK. I don’t even think John & Edward would have been concerned at our efforts.
Following our fantastic first night swimming in saki, there were some interesting creatures that arrived for breakfast the following morning. This was served in a very bright, 17th floor restaurant on the roof of the hotel overlooking Saitama city. Unprecedented views, but not for the faint hearted who do not like heights, especially if already not too steady on our feet. Playing it safe with bacon and eggs rather than raw fish that could have tipped the balance. As we met in the lobby before our first public meeting of Rotarians, some interesting revelations came to light as a result of the following night. Our glorious cheema reeda setting the pace by deciding that he needed to go to the toilet during the night but being slightly groggy (due to jet lag) and without his glasses (very short sighted) missed the toilet door and ended up in the corridor with his room door shutting behind him. Stranded on the 13th floor there was no option David had no other than to make the journey down to reception in his underwear to ask to be let back into his room. A brave man indeed. Fortunately, there was no one to see his predicament but I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when he was trying to explain himself. I have woken many nights since laughing uncontrollably as I have thought of this. It has to be said Joe looked the worse I have seen him, but in true GSE spirit he came through. If anything these experiences have bonded the team, and gave us the strength to do a impromptu presentation completely in Japanese to 130 Rotarians and business men which went down very well.
Following the national anthems, presentations and delightful meal, we ventured out into Saitama and spent some time looking around the John Lennon museum. There is a strong connection between this area and the 1180 district due to The Beatles.
Then the time came to leave the relative safety and comfort of one anothers company and venture out to meet our host families. I was hosted by the Okemoto family. An elderly couple whose grasp of English is limited but that is not to say that we have not tried to communicate to each other. I have since found out that in this area Mr Okemoto is an extremely influential person, a very successful businessman and one of the nicest people you could ever wish to meet. He is known locally amongst the Rotary community as “The King”.
I was introduced to his son’s family, including his grandson Yoshiki who had spent some time in a English school and was fortunately able to speak a little more English. We all went out for a meal. This was no ordinary meal, but a “Ryotei”. Held in a private room of a restaurant overlooking the Saitama skyline, I was treated to the most amazing Japanese cuisine, “Kaseiki” normally only reserved for politicians and the business elite. Following a selection of sashimi and other delicacies including a whole baby octopus (mind over matter), the star of the show came in. There were special hot plates in the table which we used to heat a pan. You then selected your meat of vegetables, cooked them in this pan for about 15 seconds and then ate them with a selection of dipping sauces. Delicious.
A miscommunication in a conversation held during this meal was to be my demise when coming down for breakfast the following day. I thought they asked, “What do you eat in England?”. How surprised was I when along with rice, eggs and fish for breakfast, I was given potatoes, carrots, broccoli and 6 sausages! Not wanting to appear rude, I ploughed in. This was the first but not the last miscommunication.
Following breakfast, I left and picked up Angela en route for our first vocational day. First stop, Saitama Prefecture Headquarters where we were met by the Deputy Chief of the force, and exchanged gifts. An interesting statement from this important police figure head. “We do not tape record interviews of suspects as we do not believe that they will tell the truth if it is being recorded!” Amazing. Something that we in England stopped doing in 1984, much to the disgust of the old timers whose interviewing techniques were similar to those used on Life on Mars and not suited to this method of interviewing. I went on to tell him the benefits to their investigations if this was introduced. He also stated that in the most technological country in the world, CCTV was not very widespread due to human rights legislation, and stated that the UK was leading the way in the use of CCTV in investigations and that the Japanese police should look to the UK to develop this.
From here we went to Urawa police station, where we were met by the Chief of the Police Station and given a tour of the station, seeing the interview rooms, CID offices, control room and the patrol cars. One great gadget they had was a button in the patrol car that when deployed to an emergency, it will work out the best way to get to the incident and turn all of the traffic lights to green to make their route faster. We were then photographed and had our fingerprints taken so no chance of getting up to mischief now in Japan.
The tour was brisk as we had a tight schedule which had to be adhered to, so we were whisked off to Saitama police academy. Here we enjoyed the students doing practicing judo and kendo as part of their training. They even let us have a go, which wasn’t a good idea given Angela’s state of mind and was waving the sword around. She almost took the poor lads head off. It was interesting to see that there is no dedicated CSI department in Japan, and that all of the police officers are trained in CSI skills and evidence recovery. I think we benefit from having a dedicated unit. Before we left we had a Q & A session with heads of the leading departments, sharing ideas on how to improve the service we deliver. We weren’t sure on all of the answers we gave, but were very convincing in our responses.
Following our tour around police academy, we were taken away by car to Mr Okemotos summer house, a 2 hour drive away from Saitama, near the Nikon country park. Some miscommunication that left Angela without any change of clothing or necessities. We salvaged the situation by persuading them to stop off at her hist family’s house to collect some things. Fortunately for once, I had got the right end of the stick and had packed an overnight bag. We were told that that evening we were to have a bbq, so for 2 hours I dreamt of a burger. Don’t get me wrong, I love fish but just for a bit of home comforts that is what I imagined. On arriving at the summer house in the middle of nowhere, we were taken into the kitchen, to find a bbq in the middle of the room. But no, there were no burgers, but a load of roasting fish on sticks, around an open fire. The meal was wonderful, with a few challenges along the way, but once you had got over the fact that most of what you were eating you were eating was looking at you, and a few saki’s to wash it down we thoroughly enjoyed the meal. To cap it off, they even found a karaoke machine in this desserted place and we killed the famous Beatles song “Yesterday’. The problem we have now is that they think we love karaoke. They don’t realize that you have to be sloshed to actually even consider having a go in the UK. I don’t even think John & Edward would have been concerned at our efforts.
