On the upside, the costs of student halls in Japan were confusingly printed by the department; the costs were placed in cells that represented everything else on a week-by-week basis - so accommodation in Tokyo is £400-£560 a month, not a week as I had previously thought.
While this brings me one small step closer to actually getting to study in Japan, I still have to somehow get £10,000 on a bank statement for the end of January. On top of that, I apparently will still have to find at least £300 of air fare to Japan, plus it seems that I actually receive less student financing for studying in one of the world's most expensive countries than I do for London. What is this I don't even...
A friend of mine with considerably more experience of Japan was telling me about his girlfriend, who works in a hostess bar; the Japanese concept of a 'host' or 'hostess' in this context is somewhat less sleazy than the European mind might imagine - sex doesn't enter the equation. Rather, they're employed by specialized bars to keep otherwise lonely or socially-awkward members of the opposite sex company for the evening, to laugh at their jokes, be friendly and self-effacing and ensure that their client spends the entire contents of the their wallet at the bar. This became relevant to my interests when I discovered that men do this as well - and earn about 13,000 yen an hour for their troubles. I would gladly keep a lonely housewife/widow company for an evening for £104 an hour. Maybe all that weightlifting and general peacockery I indulge in will finally be useful for something...
