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I’m back in Mumbai for my third and hopefully final trip. I’ve only got about 2 double pages left in my passport after all those visas. Now it’s the monsoon season in India. I haven’t seen so much rain in my life! This is the view from my hotel room today but on the first morning I was here, it was just completely grey and cloudy outside and absolutely chucking it down! I was soaked during the 2 minute walk from the hotel to the office.

Mumbai is an interesting place. My facebook status just after I arrived was: “In Mumbai again. The taxi from the airport was fun. No seatbelt. Red lights seem to mean go. Traffic crosses in front of you from nowhere. Oncoming traffic in YOUR lane. I think the car with loudest horn has right of way.” Having driven in the UK and Japan, I found driving in Thailand to be somewhat hair-raising, with U-turns on motorways and all. But visiting Mumbai, Thai drivers are actually very safe in comparison because they have respect for each other and rarely do sudden movements, even in central Bangkok. In India, it seems either the bigger car or the loudest horn has right of way! I’ve only been in a taxi to/from the airport but the driver’s had to slam on the brakes more than once on each occasion! Add to that motorcycles, pot-holes, road works, people, dogs and cows, you can imagine how it is.

Should be flying to Thailand on Tuesday but no plans for the weekend yet! Maybe somewhere away from civilisation

Despite the curfew imposed by the Thai government, my colleagues didn’t disappoint in showing me a nice time in Thailand. OK, the office is 2 hours from Bangkok but we were able to have a nice party and also go bowling on my last night in Thailand. Here’s some photos:

I survived a week long business trip in Mumbai. I had mixed feelings about going there. Partly because of the climate (hot or monsoon), food hygiene or lack of and the general environment. Also because of work as I was the face for a new client. It turned out to be alright in the end.

I found Indians to be very friendly and approachable, they would just come up to you and ask where you’re from, for example. The food was also alright, despite having a couple of days of stomach pains; my supply of Imodium seemed to have worked. The food from the hotel was lovely but on the expensive side. It’s surprising how few shops/restaurants there were in Nariman Point. When I read my guide book, I expected this area to be like any developed city. Perhaps I didn’t wonder far enough or expected too much?

I stayed at Trident, Nariman Point. I only found out after arrival that it was one of the hotels attacked by terrorists in 2008. It explains the tight security around the hotel now, having to go through vehicle searches, body searches and X-ray machines. I do wonder though is that if someone wanted to cause mayhem, all these “security searches” do nothing as I never saw any armed guards. Very nice hotel, classed as a 5* but still missing some features in my opinion, especially compared to some cheaper but higher quality places in Bangkok.

Sightseeing wise, I didn’t do much for a 7 night stay! It was simply too hot to wonder around and we only managed about 1 hour of walking about to see the Gateway of India. Here I am with my Thai colleague, Max.

Traffic is just crazy in Mumbai. No lane discipline, lights not switched on at night and it seems the person with the bigger car and loudest horn gets right of way. That’s my take on it anyway.

It would definitely be interesting to just explore more of India. Visiting on business doesn’t really do the country justice I think. I’m visiting again in a few weeks but perhaps in the future, should I ever dare, to spend a few weeks travelling India and trying real Indian food!

I’m writing from Mumbai, India. Travelled to Thailand last week and just flew into Mumbai 2 days ago. Visiting on business but have Sunday free so might do some sightseeing today if it’s not too hot. Forgot my USB cable though so I can’t copy my photos easily unless I borrow one from my colleague. I’ll have to upload my photos later if I have time.

I hope to be back home in a week or two! Too hot out here. The Indian people seem to be very friendly however. There’s also very tight security around my hotel and departments stores.

It’ll be a long week ahead but I think it will go very quickly as does all business trips.

On the train back to Cambridge now. Just had dinner with a friend at St Pancras.

The Japanese exam was alright overall. The first paper, reading and vocabulary was the hardest for me. I never spent much time learning any vocabulary, so if I didn’t know it I could only make a random guess. I probably guessed 60% of this paper. Was also quite annoyed that I changed a correct answer to a wrong one just before time was up. I checked the kanji in my text book during the break and found I lost 1 mark because of that last minute change. Listening wasn’t bad. I think I understood the dialogues at least. The grammer paper wasn’t difficult either. I was expecting there to be harder questions than they gave but I had completed it within 30 out of the allocated 70 minutes. Still, it’s a tough call to say whether I passed or not as there were several questions where I wasn’t sure between two answers. I’ll just have to wait until March 2010 to see if I got more than 60% correct.

It’s the 2009 JLPT tests tomorrow. Really not feeling ready for level 3 yet. The pass mark is 60% and my practice runs are really borderline. So depending on the difficulty of the questions tomorrow I may or may not pass.

I’ve done the best I could with the kanji – I’ve probably only memorised half of what I need to know so I’ll just have to guess any that I don’t! I think I’ve got a handle on all the grammer, I just need to remember to use the correct form. Anyway, I’ll just give it a go. Good luck to all those also taking the exam!

The JLPT exam is exactly 1 month away now. I registered for the JLPT 3 exam a while ago, scheduled for Sunday 6th December 2009 globally! I’ll be taking mine at SOAS, University of London. It’s a once a year thing, so hoping I won’t miss it!

I got in contact with a few possible tutors when I left Japan but things didn’t really fit (schedules and location etc) so I took the self study route. I’ve been at it since September and have an idea what I need to know to pass. As it stands, exactly one month before my JLPT 3 exam, I’ve yet to start learning the Kanji! I’ve just covered the grammer points and I’m hoping I’ll have time to go over all of them again as well as do some past papers! Now that sounds like a challenge.

I did surprisingly well in last year’s JLPT 4 but I did have about one and a half year’s worth of tuition by the time I took that exam. This time I have about 3 months for double the difficulty. Anyway, I’ll try my best as always.

I’ve used various sets of text books in the past including Minna no Nihongo but my favourite is the Genki series from Japan Times:

If you’re just starting out in Japanese, I highly recommend starting with Genki I. There is a sufficient amount of English explanation for all grammer points as well as plenty of exercises. If you have a lot of money to spare or a Japanese friend who can buy these for you in Japan (much cheaper over there), I’d recommend getting the CDs, workbooks and answers too! If you’re attending a class, your teacher will probably have all the audio tracks and make copies of the workbook exercises as homework, so in that case you don’t need to get it. But for me, doing self-study, I feel they’ve helped me a lot.

CDs and workbooks:

Answers to the workbook exercises don’t seem to be available in the UK but they are on www.amazon.co.jp, so you’ll need to know someone in Japan to get that.

After the exam is over, I’ll be looking to move on from “elementary” Japanese to intermediate. Any suggestions for a good text book?

My poor little car died on me on the way to work this morning. Garage is fixing it now – something wrong with the alternator so battery went flat

I just realised that student loan interest rates have dropped to 0% – that’s an interest free loan from 1st Sept 2009 – 31st Aug 2010; though I guess they could change rapidly if interest rates were to suddenly rise again. Interestingly, those with student loans before 1998 have a negative interest rate! Which means that their loan amount is reducing even if they don’t pay anything back! That’s some relief considering saving rates are so low these days.

So it’s September already, weather’s cooled down and I’ve finally (more or less) been able to settle back down to life in Cambridge. I’ve decided to apply for the JLPT level 3 exam this December. I’ve not done a single hour of study since late April but I’m hoping I can put in one or two hours a day of self-study between now and December 6th. There’s a LOT to do but I think I have a chance of passing it if I put the effort in. I had a look around for Japanese classes but they didn’t really suit my Japanese level – I’ve been doing private one-to-one lessons for the past couple of years and I guess I’m in the middle ground now. I’ve not had much success finding Japanese teachers that fit my schedule/budget so if there are any Japanese speakers in the area, please get in touch!

Other news, I’ve booked a consultation with Ultralase for laser eye surgery. It’s not until next month and I could easily change my mind beforehand but I’ll definitely blog about that should I go ahead with it. Contact lenses just don’t work well with me when I stare at computer screens all day and glasses are sometimes uncomfortable. It would be nice just to be able to see clearly again, wouldn’t it?