A year on

I've updated the photo link on my last post so it should work now, there were problems of having to register/log in etc. so if someone can try it then send me a message letting me know if it works or not that would be nice. If it does I'll go back and sort the others out, if it doesn't then its back to the proverbial internet drawing board.

I've just passed my 1 year mark in Tokyo, which should probably lead me to summarize my time in some sort of clever analysis of Japanese society and people and perhaps my plan for the next year. I have neither to hand though so you'll have to make do with my usual shallow post but with much more rambling.

• I got a new work visa and was quite surprised that I got a 3 year one (used to be quite common but getting more rare I've been told, much more likely to get a 1 year) not sure I'll actually use it to its full extent but its nice to have the flexibility of a long visa and not having to traipse to the immigration centre each year.
  
  
• Following that I booked a flight to the UK for Christmas. I'll be back on the 23rd December and will leave on the 2nd January if I remember rightly. I'll then pop to Thailand for 4 days or so before I return to Japan. This little jaunt has used about half of the money I've saved in my year here so I'd like a warm welcome please! :-)

Today is bullet point day, so I'll continue the theme with two new pieces of information about Japan I learnt this week.

• In japan you pay to go to a wedding then receive a gift from the couple getting married, this also applies for funerals....although I guess its the deceased's family rather than the deceased themselves who give you a present. (lots of potential grammatical errors there, can 'deceased' be used with an 's' to indicate possession? and if its a deceased person whose gender is unknown do I use themself/theirself/themselves?)

• Lots of families who have a bit of money or are a bit posh hire private investigators to check out their childrens' partners before it gets serious to see if their suitable for marriage.

Despite the lack of a coherent plan for the future I'll share spew the contents of my mind today, be glad that you don't have to put up with this in all of my blog posts!!

When I first came to Japan and to this day students often asked me why I chose Japan to come and teach, unlike most people who come here after a lifetime of being fascinated by the country, have an unhealthy interest in Japanese anime and manga, or are socially inept and so come to a society where the westerner is seen as an interesting, cool, or just different creature and in turn making the standard geek seem more interesting and exotic seen in the 'Charisma Man' cartoon) I didn't have a solid reason. It just seemed to be closer to Western society than most Asian countries so an easier to adjust to and in part due to this offered more money for travelling so made a good base for the area. In return I tended to ask what they liked about Tokyo, after a moment or two of deliberation most said that it's 'convenient'. Convenience does not really sound like a good base for choosing a place to base your life but as the year has progressed this reason for living in the city has slowly crept into my life.

A couple of friends who came out here and worked for a few years really liked the city but I don't think I share their feelings. There's nothing I love about Tokyo, but similarly I don't think there's much I hate or even don't like. Here come the bullet points again...

• On the negative side there's the difficult language, the general anonymity of the city (think of a big city anywhere in the world then x2 for the fact it's in Japan and people aren't very forthcoming, then x2 again because you're a 'gaijin' or foreigner), the long hours of work, the high cost of living, a lack of labour regulation and security in an industry that pays less every year and seems to be getting more volatile (in Japan anyway - recent news about Nova the biggest school in the country with sponsorship deals coming out of its big rabbit ears and a school in ever town with more than 20 people being fined for misleading students, not paying teachers on time and closing a number of schools)
  

• On the plus side despite my relatively low wages and the high cost of living I earn more than most Japanese workers in mundane jobs like shop work, waitressing, and receptionists. I enjoy my work (the first time i've ever said that in my life, not that i've had that many jobs), on a good day I teach a few points of grammar, chat about the last week, and discuss politics/history etc., on a bad day I have to teach some boisterous kids for an hour or two who are still ridiculously well behaved compare to the majority in the UK and then I don't see them again for a week. The anonymity can be a blessing, outside of work If I'm not in the mood to talk to anyone I can spend all day surrounded by people but never utter a word. Similarly my basic understanding of Japanese means that whilst I imagine there are inane conversations around me all the time unless I concentrate really hard to pick out the words I know I can block it all out as background noise. If you don't like your own company then its a nightmare but I don't fall into that category.
  

Everything is here if you want it - parties, international food and culture, the latest technology - or not if you want to ignore it. It's an easy city to live in when you don't know what you're doing next and dangerous for the same reason, too many people stay here for 5-6 years or longer just thinking about the next week and not realising how much time has passed. I'm aware of the dangers of this thinking but I'm yet to find a solution. Maybe the occasional pondering of TEFL job websites will give me inspiration for my next move, or perhaps the time at home at Christmas will give my thoughts some clarity.

Festival season

The Shane system of 'standby' reared its ugly head again this week. Not sure if I've explained this before but it will help me vent my spleen so here goes anyway - My contract has 13 extra days of work written into it, some are used in training and the others are to support the standby and cover systems. This is to cover days that teachers take as holidays, take off sick, or to cover days when teachers decide they've had enough and leave with little or no notice. If the head office know someone won't be able to teach then another teacher is informed in advance that they'll need to teach that day (cover). This doesn't solve the sick absences and runaways though, so each month a list of teachers and days is put on display in the schools, if you're on the list then on your specified day you have to phone at 10am and check if you're needed to cover a teachers shift for that day.

So you can't really plan anything for that day just in case you've got to work, you can't have a lie in, and you don't get paid any extra whether you're needed or not. Questions have been raised over the legality of having people on call by their employer and not being paid for the service but nothing has really been done about it. The worst case scenario is that a number of people are sick in a different area and you're sent there rather than within the normal district you teach in. This is what happened to me, I was sent to the middle of nowhere which took me just over an hour each way and consequently had to cancel a couple of plans I had for the day. GRRRRRRRR.

Anyway, that aside, the last month has been pretty good. I've been to a few festivals involving dancing (Koenji Awadori festival), fireworks (Seibu Yuenji hanabi festival), and religious shrines (Hatanodi Matsuri festival). I even took part in the Matsuri, helping to carry a Mikoshi. I've renewed my work visa and against the odds got a 3 year one (not as common as they used to be, most teachers just get 1 year) which means i don't have to pay again each year if i do stay that long, and can travel around and come back and get a job with no problems - just more flexibility all round. And I've changed my contract from five to four days a week, obviously less money but I think they've made a mistake and agreed to give me more than I should get, which is nice!

The website I use for my photos is closing, I've transfered them all to another site and updated the old posts, however I have a feeling its not working too well so I might have to switch to another site if you can't see them. Here's a short video!

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaOHDls3cN2LjQ

The Wanderer Returneth

I'm back from my holiday, and very tired!
So in the end I didn't really plan much. I Just booked a night bus and bought some cheap train tickets. I was initially thinking of going to Hokkaido, the northernmost Japanese island. Flights were expensive though and the overnight train was fully booked. So instead I got an overnight bus to Sendai (about 6 hours) and bought a 十八きっぷ, or 'jyuhachi kippu' which basically means 18 ticket. Its a ticket that's only available in school/university holidays aimed at students but which can be used by anyone.

Basically you can use any local train you want to using 5 x 1 day tickets. It's a lot cheaper than using the bullet train or even express trains but obviously has the downside that its pretty slow and also needs more planning to co-ordinate catching the right trains.

So anyway, overnight bus to Sendai (about 6 hours). The initial impression was that there wasn't much there so just went onto Matsushima, looked around there then got a train to Morioka. Stayed in Morioka for two nights and used it as a base to visit Hachimantai (a mountain) and jodo-ga-hama (a beach). Then went onto Aomori stayed there for 3 nights and visited Hakkoda-san (mountain) and went hiking in nearby mountains. Finally had a quick visit to Akita before getting another night bus home (8 hours this time).

Link to the pictures below...

http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Northern%20Honshu/

*Cough, Cough*

Took my first day off sick today (not bad in 10 months considering my silly workload most weeks), picked up a nasty cold this week and suffering as a result. Perhaps due to the warmth and humidity outside and cold air conditioning inside, Japanese summers are not much fun. However as what I see as a disproportionate amount of pay is lost for sick days I doubt I'll be missing tomorrow as well. Students will have to make do with my husky voice, sniffing, and coughing spells in the lessons.
I lay under a duvet and watched 3 episodes of Peep Show, and two films - Talladega Nights, and The Simpsons Movie all on the Internet. Now I'm planning on eating shumai (Chinese pastry parcel things) and watching another film.

My holidays start next week so hopefully i'll be back to full health by Wednesday. I've got about 8 days off work so i'm gonna go and see a bit more of Japan. The exact destination hasn't been decided yet, so i'll keep you all in suspenders for now.

Just pictures

Me holding a big Japanese Calligraphy brush.





















Foods and drugs... hmmmmm yummy.















Is it just me or does this sound a bit rude?













I never studied French but surely they're not sandwishes are they?

Sausages

Despite having learnt quite a bit of Japanese and getting into the habit of guessing what things are, I still make the occasional mistake. Today is a perfect example of what can happen.

Take the pictures on the left. A packet of what appears to be sausages. On the outside of the pack you can clearly see ソーセージ which is 'so-se-ji' in Katakana the alphabet used for foreign words - ie. its a sausage.

Case closed eh? I've used what little Japanese I know, there's a picture confirming the presence of sausage type structures made of what appears to be cheap processed meat so I'm safe buying these hotdog things right? WRONG!

You see that other bit above sausage is pretty important and I neglected to translate it. フィッシュ in Katakana again is　fu-i-shi-yu.......or 'fish' to me and you.......fish sausages!

Needless to say I wasn't impressed when this morning I thought rather than cooking an omelette I'd have a nibble on a sausage for breakfast. Took half a carton of juice, a bar of chocolate and a coffee to take away the taste.

Sausages are meat....not fish....don't mess with traditional food forms.

Holiday

Another holiday, and this time I ventured further than the area around Tokyo. I booked a last minute flight last week to Naha on the main island of Okinawa, around 1,000 miles south of Tokyo.

Following a few days of frantic buying - shorts, sun cream, sandals that don't fit and give me blisters - I arrived in Naha on Monday after a 3 hour or so flight. A few other people I've met had mentioned that Naha wasn't up to much and I'd be better heading to a nearby island. I hadn't booked anywhere to stay in attempt to wean myself off planning travelling too much but the woman at tourist info at the airport convinced me that not many people speak English on the island and I might have some problems finding accommodation - lies! well, my basic Japanese and other people's basic English was enough to communicate throughout my whole trip, and there is lots of accommodation on the island which is easy to find. To be fair though she only dealt with the main island and didn't know much about Zamami which is where I went. I found the details of a guesthouse on the Internet at the airport and booked 2 nights there but still had an element of flexibility in my plans.

I can sum up my holiday in a few words really - walking, beaches, books - that's all I did! There are a few touristy things around Okinawa main island including a rebuilt temple that's a UNESCO World Heritage site (not quite sure how that happens when it's been rebuilt fairly recently), some underground tunnels and cliffs where a lot of Japanese soldiers and civilians committed suicide towards the end of WWII and a big aquarium - but I didn't go and see any of it! Didn't look too thrilling and the temptation of 3 days doing absolutely nothing was too big. Okinawa trivia - It's subtropical with a temperature of around 20C for most of the year, Zamami itself is small (I'd guess at about 30 miles squared but cant find the figures anywhere), and the group of islands has the highest life expectancy in the world at an average of 90.1 years for men and 93.2 years for women.

The fruits of my relaxation can be seen in my expanding book list! >>

More pics - http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Okinawa/

Sumo

Long gap again, but you should be getting used to it by now. Busy as ever plus I've had a nasty cold for a while and just coming out of the other side of it. Also had my boss observe one of my lessons which is never a nice experience. Parents can watch their kids lessons in the next couple of weeks too which should be interesting!

This month I've spent a large amount of money. It was Akane's birthday, I watched Sumo, I got a new passport, and I bought a Nintendo D.S.

Akanes birthday - surprise party with 8-9 friends, I being the only 外人 (foreigner) was strangely given the task of taking her to the venue under false pretenses. Finding somewhere new in Tokyo is not an easy task even for Japanese people, asking me to do it with only a roughly drawn map and a name written in katakana is not the best plan of action. Consequently I told Akane I was taking her to a bar I'd seen in a magazine but this meant I had to look vague every time she asked what it looked like and 'is this it?' as I had no idea. Finally found it 'auru' apparently was 'owl'.

D.S. - nice little handheld games machine with a touchscreen for those who don't know. I've been drawing kanji on it, like 子、雨、犬、母、父、(child, rain, dog, mother, father) and getting marks out of 100. My writing has improved somewhat but my memory is still bad. In a vain attempt to improve this I got a 'brain training' game which does exactly what it says on the tin.

Sumo - Pretty interesting but far too short for my liking, each individual fight is about 3-4 seconds! Watched for about 4 hours and saw the big fellas grapple a bit then went and saw them in the town outside getting food from the local convenience store! Got my picture taken with one of them, not a famous fella though. More pics below and should get some others online too maybe a video as well.

http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Sumo/

Nikko

Another Day trip, this time to Nikko - home of lots of famous temples and some monkeys. Maybe i'll add more information later, but its 12:40am now so for now you can just look through the pictures and make up your own history.

pictures here...
http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Nikko/

P.S. There's a new poll! >>>>

Hiking

Wait a minute...that picture's green!...surely that can't be Tokyo?! well yes Dave you guessed right in your little conversation with yourself, that isn't Tokyo. I ventured away from the bright lights into the countryside! yes it does exist in Japan despite Tokyo being the centre of most people's attention (a little like London, all you travellers note other places do exist in the country you know - 'Go to London, I guarantee you'll be mugged or not appreciated').

On the first day of my holidays I pulled myself out of my comfortable bed at 'silly o'clock' in the morning and caught a train with 6 Japanese people and an American fluent in Japanese (one of the many times in this holiday that I realised just how little Japanese I actually know), after the sparkling conversation on the train for a couple of hours, we hiked along a river up to an Onsen (hot spring). Where we split into two groups (no bathing suits in these baths so the boys and girls are in different pools).

I'd been to an Onsen before but those two occasions were in a very quiet hotel where I had the pool to myself, and in a private Onsen with my girlfriend who (cover your ears mother this may shock you) has seen my rude bits before! So this was my first time to expose myself to a group of 20-30 men.....yes it was, don't be silly!, no jokes here please. To make it more interesting of the 7 people I was with there were 3 ladies and 4 gay men.

Surprisingly everyone resisted throwing themselves onto me and I emerged both physically and mentally unscathed from my experience!

More pictures here....
http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Hiking/

Poll results are in

Slow updating again eh! I worked on my birthday, all day in fact as I had a Spring School, and then I worked at 9am the next morning so I didn't do anything! Had a meal out but nothing out of the ordinary.

On the Thursday before (5th April) I went to Yokohama with Akane. Had a wander around China town, looked around the city and some of the sights, strolled through a park on the seafront and did a bit of shopping. It was a little quiter than the middle of Tokyo, nice to be in a more relaxed surrounding, but didn't see anything too spectacular there.

Since then I've been working a lot. April is the start of a new school term here and similarly a new school term in Shane. This means students leaving and new classes being formed. As such a number of my quieter days have beefed up a bit. I now regularly teach over 5 hours of lessons on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Including two intensive courses which are 3 hours 30 mins each!!

Also been looking into an alternative apartment. I pay a little over the odds at the moment as the apartment is owned by Shane so they add extra rent on for the fact that they provide a fridge, microwave, and some basic furniture. If I move i'll have to pay out a deposit, some 'key money' (ridiculous Japanese concept of giving someone a gift of usually a months rent for them letting you have the apartment), insurance, and also pay for a guarantor (basically a company to vouch for me because i'm a foreigner and could run off and not complete my lease). All this means the first month will cost a huge amount of money, but if I stay longer than 8 months or so I'll save money as the rent will be £100 or so cheaper. So decision time !!?! What's Dave gonna do? stay or go? how long? where? when?....watch this space!!!

On a more serious note, the results of my first poll are in and its a predictable win for chocolate ice-cream. The new kids on the block came a respectable second and the reliable vanilla props up the top three.

Chocolate 50 %
A silly Hagen Arse or Jen and Terry concoction 33.33 %
Vanilla 16.67 %

Birthday!

It was my birthday on Friday 6th, I've reached the ripe old age of 26. Thankyou to those who remembered!

Cherry Blossom

The Cherry Blossom or 'Sakura' season is upon us. The pretty little flowers only last for a week or two and in that period masses of people travel to see them in the parks around Tokyo or further afield. I spent part of Thursday looking around Shinjuku Goen in Shinjuku (strangely enough). Felt a bit weird being in this reasonably tranquil park knowing that one of the busiest areas of the city surrounded it.

I've also added a neat little voting system onto my webpage on the right. Ignore the advertising bit which I have to endure as its a free service, and instead just take part in the first of many deep and meaningful questions which will have you debating for hours.

More pictures here - http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Sakura/

Say Cheese

A few pictures emailed to me, hopefully get more soon. Exhibition opens tomorrow so will be down there after work on maybe on Wednesday.

Teaching and posing....not at the same time though, well not very often.

Lots of extra shifts again this month, I worked 17 of the first 20 days of March.
The extra days themselves were OK but their culminating effect meant that on the few days off I did have I spent a lot of the time sleeping!

Other news...

I quit my kickboxing gym as I was paying about £45 a month to go as many times as I wanted but only getting there once a week on average because the hours I work and the hours the gym is open are pretty similar. I've been to look at another slightly different gym with more Jujitsu/grappling type things mixed in, but not been there to try training as yet....hopefully next week so i don't start getting fat.

My bicycle has a puncture.

I got very drunk last night and spent today being sick and lying around in bed feeling sorry for myself, I'm blaming warm sake and I may never succumb to its temptations ever again.

I have two 'language exchange students' (wink, wink, nudge, nudge), of course they're not private students who pay me money as that would be frowned upon by my superiors as potentially taking money from their coffers. If I could charge for those lessons then it would be a valuable extra income and quite enjoyable as both my students are very nice people....but that's not happening....see, I used a conditional sentence ('if....then')....i'm very careful about things like that! :-)

I missed phoning home for Mother's Day (sorry mum!) and didn't get my girlfriend anything for White Day (only in Japan/South Korea, bit like Valentines day). Luckily neither were outraged. My girlfriend said I get her presents anyway, I think my mum was surprised I even knew it was mothers day.

And perhaps my most exciting news is that I was a model yesterday. A friend of a friend is holding an exhibition of photos next week and consequently asked me and Akane to pose for some photos (not those type of photos! all above board I can assure you). I'm getting copies of the digital photos sent to me so I'll post a couple of them. I can't go to the opening night as I'm working but probably pop down next week at some point and wallow in the fact that people are looking at photos of me.

Kickboxing event

I've written a long post three times and it hasn't worked each time GRRRRRRRRRRR!, so i'm doing a number of small posts instead. Heres a link to a kickboxing vs shootfighting event I went to a week or so ago. Note the inconsiderate person who stands in the way for an important part of the fight.

If you're wondering what 'shootfighting' or 'shooto' is then join the club, it seems to be kickboxing with chokes and throws added - all standing up though, no wrestling on the floor like pancrase, UFC and pride type events.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXZ3Uvj_SqM

Another long gap!

I'm slacking again, almost three weeks since my last post.

I got given a fish by a friend of mine who I hadn't seen for a couple of months, it died after about two weeks.

I'm sampled the delights of Pachinko - pinball type machine that requires less skill, very popular here. Have dabbled once or twice then tried fruit machines too. Finally won something last night, about £40, I've pretty much broken even over the last 3 weeks though...the usual story with gambling! There isn't really a trick to it but you can select the right machines by checking figures which tell you how many people have played on the them and how much has been paid out on that and the previous couple of days. Needless to say I dont know enough about it to take those factors into account. Some people play them instead of working though and queue up outside at 9am then spend all day in there smoking and drinking coffee top keep them going!

Been running a bit, been going 2-3 times a week, about 1.5-2 miles each time followed by a bit of skipping. Not so much in the last two weeks but I did go kickboxing twice last week and biked 5 miles or so on Mondaywith a passenger! Oh yeah, I now have a bike too. Thinking of biking to some of my schools.

I had 4 days off this week, Wednesday and Thursday as normal, then Friday and Sarturday as they were school holidays. I went to Kunigawa on Thursday and stayed there overnight to sample the delights of an onsen (like a hot spring spa). Basically you get naked, go in a hot bath to get your body temperature adjusted a bit, then wash yourself thoroughly, rinse, and get into a big hot spring bath with lots of other naked people. I went in the onsen attaced to the hotel once, which was empty at the time, and also went to a private onsen owned by the hotel out in the woods. The one in the hotel wasn't too impressive but the smaller private one was really nice, very relaxing!

Here's the hotel I stayed in...
http://www.kinugawa.co.jp/plaza/index.html

...and here are some more pictures...
http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Kinugawa/

Videos

One or two videos. Recorded 2 on my camera and 2 on my phone, pretty obvious which is which as the camera ones are significantly worse in the quality stakes! Don't get too excited, Steven Spielberg I aint!....hehe, check out my English usage, wouldn't fink I wuz a techa wuld ya?

I can't really explain how much better the van one was in real life. I was walking through Shinjuku yesterday and this van pulls up to the traffic lights with music playing from speakers on the top of the van. The guy driving then proceeded to play a tiny keyboard on his dashboard. Could actually hear it coming through the speakers too...not just some sort of miming.

Shibuya - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFBdM0CQvXg
Roadworks - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yygzeLXespQ
Horse - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vtMia99bmo
Van - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_9RTmI-4po

(originally did the last link incorrectly but it works now!)

I also had my 0.5 seconds of fame this week, got a quick mention on Mark Radcliffes radio show on Monday after I emailed him......again its not that exciting but still, I got mentioned on national radio - first step to world domination! Catch it while you can, it'll be erased by next monday.
9:41pm on the listen again section...well actually 9:41pm 10-10.5 seconds to be exact.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod
Radio 2 > Mark Radcliffe Monday show

Quick Update

Nothing groundbreaking in the last few weeks, but heres a very quick rundown.

Did my two 6 day working weeks and as such didn't have much time to do anything else, I've had another week of work and am now back to my two days off a week for at least the next 6 weeks , YAY!

I finally got my hair cut after 3 or so months of avoiding trying to explain what I wanted done to a Japanese hairdresser. I got one of my school managers to come down with me and explain as it was in the same building. One benefit is that you don't get the usual hairdresser chat. It was limited to him asking if I was American (in japanese of course 'Americajin des ka') and then later telling me that he was giving me a Jenson Button haircut! I'm not sure what one of those is, but I think that most Japanese people must go to the hairdressers with a picture in their hand or a a famous person in mind as a lot of people suggested I do that. Anyway, I'm pretty sure Jenson has a better hairdresser than this guy, I won't be going back...bit uneven and I had to get someone to tidy it up a bit for me...aight now though.

The intensive course I did last year isn't on this year as nobody signed up and as such I have a 3 hour gap in my timetable on a Sunday. Occasionally this will get filled up but quite often I get to finish a bit earlier. One such day I went to watch some professional kickboxing. Nice small venue so very close to the action. Few of the fighters came down in strange stuff, one in a cape and a mask, one guy was a typical Shibuya boy (area of Tokyo where lots of these late teen/early 20 year olds gather with long 80s hair, too much tan and what look like ladies clutch bags) but the best was a guy who came out dressed head to toe in a spiderman outfit! to the spiderman theme...the old one...not from the newish film. He won too, then did spiderman shooting webs type poses for the camera men around the ring.

Been out a few times too, spent too much money :-(.

Budda

Happy New Year! Back to work this week and I start the year with two 6 day weeks! Nothing too exciting to tell as yet, but I'll post the last of my holiday pictures.

Went to Kamakura to visit some of the umpteen shrines and temples there. I'll probably edit this entry and add a bit more info but in the meantime heres the link to the pictures...

http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Kamakura/