Nani!?!?

4 awesomely useful Japanese words...

2008-02-04T08:00:00.001-08:00

One of the useful aspects of the Japanese language is the fact that sometimes, less is more. That is, often adjectives on their own can be used to convey a whole sentences worth of meaning. If you want to comment on how cold you are, or how cold the weather is you can just say "samuii" which means "cold". Similarly, when it's hot you can just say "hot" (atsuii). The upshot of this means that there are some words you can learn which means you can then contribute to any conversations in Japanese, with great effect. Below are a couple you can bandy about which - if employed with enough head nodding - should convince any Japanese person that you have the faintest idea what they're on about (hmm...I hope Anna doesn't read this)

1) Uso - false
If you suspect someone is telling porky pies, then "uso" is the word for you. You can say it with scorn for a "bollocks is it" type effect, or in a shocked voice for a "I don't believe it!" scenario. For the latter, preferred pronunciation is to fire it out of the mouth as quickly as possible so it sounds more a violent cough than a word. For the former, you can drag it out for maximum aggravation thanks to the handy "oh" phoneme at the end. A similar word is "honto" - true; this a bit milder though (like saying "oh really") and therefore is exponentially less fun.

2) Yappari - as I thought, just as I expected
What better way to withering deride someone's failure that you fully anticipated before hand than to simply utter a single word of contempt? Use after anyone says anything and you can pretty much guarantee impotent futile rage. Imagine someone saying "but of course you did" after you mention an error and you're pretty much there. I say and hear this word probably more than any other on this list

3) Sugoi - cool, excellent, high quality
If you watch anyJapanese TV, this is the word you'll come away with. Whereas English speakers might choose several different superlatives to describe something (e.g. "wow Chris that blog entry was amazing, stupendous, fantastical!"), Japanese people tend to say the same word over and over again, getting more and more excited each time. So when anything cool is demonstated on TV, anyone witnessing it is bound to express "sugoi! sugoi! su-goi!" If they're girls, best cover your ears - it can occasionally reach dog-bothering frequencies.

4) Daijobu - everything ok (?)
This is such an incredibly useful word that it probably deserves it's own blog entry It's the Japanese equivalent of "ok" or "it's ok" so you can use it for EVERYTHING. Someone falls over in front of you? Ask them "daijobu?". Someone offers you a flyer in the street? Shake your head and say "daijobu". What to know if you allowed to wear your shoes in a building? Point at your feet and say "daijobu?". Just accidentally backhanded your child in a lesson whilst flailing to the Hello Song? Well, actually don't ask them "daijobu" because then every other student will go apeshit crazy bonkers when they realise you can speak Japanese and you'll end up having to call in the staff to give them some tranquilisers. Probably a good idea to ask their fuming mother though, or the paramedics once they've cleared up the worst of the mess.

New year in Tokyo (part 2)

2008-01-09T08:58:00.000-08:00

For new years eve itself, we decided to go to Shibuya as it's always crowded at the best of times, plus it's famous for it's massive TV screens which we assumed would have something countdowny on them. On the way there, we met up with two of Kari's friends and another teachers - Sorrell - who had an entire rugby team of Aussies with him. The logistics of manoeuvring all those antipodeans seemed insurmountable though, so we trotted off by ourselves to get some food and booze.

Around half past 11, crowds were starting to build at the Shibuya crosswalk, and we started to think it might be a good idea to have some alcohol to throw about once midnight hit. On a mission, me and Kari dashed off to find a kombini - it was all very 24, with the timer counting down and us yelling instructions at each other about which direction a store might be in. What was less Jack Bauer though was when Kari suddenly started tugging at her shirt and screaming "I've lost my support!". Turns out strapless bras don't hold out too good on beer runs. My shoelaces came undone too and were flapping about threateningly, so we both must have looked like we had some kind of musculo-skeletal disorder when we lopsidedly shambled into the store.

With minutes (about 15) to spare, we arrived back at the rendezvous which was now rammed with people (mostly annoying white folks) and pointed ourselves at the screens in anticipation of the countdown which we were sure would appear. Ten to.......five to......still nothing.......at about 11:58 by my watch, it became apparent that NOTHING was going to happen, and that we'd have not even a whiff of when 2008 officially started. With 20 seconds to go, a coach advertising a new Japanese band surreally went by with a digital display on the side counting down, but it drove off into the distance leaving us and the rest of the crowd counting down at our own pace until everyone just shouted happy new year and went mental. Meanwhile Team ECC looked bewildered at each other and asked "was that it?!"

Not to be stymied by this awesome anticlimax, we made our way to the Shibuya branch of our favourite karaoke parlour, stopping on the way to stock up on drink (again). Two hours of belting out the hits later (including the newest addition to the repertoire, a song entirely in Japanese) we went back to Kari's plush hotel room in Shinjuku with twin beds, unwilling as we were to go back to our hostel and the loud South-African girl contained within. Long story short, I ended up sleeping next to Thom, but we kept all our clothes on and it was above the covers so it's only a little bit gay - about as much as much as using the word "chilly" to describe cold weather by my count.

On our final day, we found out that the Emperor was doing an extremely rare personal appearance at the Imperial Palace, and that was well as seeing him, you'd get to see a little bit more the area than you normal can (which by all accounts is one tiny corner of the vast buidling). So we wandered along, and after a couple of pat-downs by the security guards (mine was female - score) we stood outside the viewing area, me clutching my Japanese flag that I was handed. Thom and I had a brief discussion about exactly what you should do when the Emperor comes out - do you cheer, or just look on in hushed awe? Any indecision we had was then laid to rest by the shout of "banzai!!" from several ardent royalists when he appeared. There was also some serious flag waving. As well as the Emperor, there was his wife, and I think his son and daughter. He did a little speech, but the only thing I caught was "everyone" and "happy new year". Then they all did a little bit of waving and went back inside.

And that was Tokyo! I was going to try and write a bit more, but it's already far too far in January to be writing a new year post, so I'm going to stop!

New year in Tokyo (part 1)

2008-01-07T07:39:00.000-08:00

For new years 2007, me, Thom, and Kari (ECC teachers all) decided to vamoose to Tokyo for some fun and frolics. We didn't really have any particular plan, other than that we would have a bit of a wander around, and then try and do something moderately spectacular for the big countdown moment.

To get there, me and Thom took the night bus from Nagoya which takes about 6 hours (boo) but is kitted out like the first class cabins of planes, with reclining seats, and blankets and little slippers to wear (yay). We got to Tokyo about 6am and met up with Kari, then needed somewhere to go to refresh ourselves and get ready for the day. After some self-justification (the argument goes like this: we work in Japan, speak Japanese [kinda] and know Japanese people so we've accrued enough collateral to completely cop out and go to a franchised American coffee chain when we want. This kind of thinking holds a lot of water at 6am) we decided to go to Starbucks which wasn't even open so we had to wander around for a bit. It was quite fun to see all the wackily dresses Tokyo-ites coming back from their night out when we'd just got there. Eventually Starbucks opened and we could get some sweet sweet caffeine.

Our hostel was in Asakusa which has a very nice temple and a big red lantern which I keep forgetting the name off. Pause for Google......it's the Kaminarimon.

Then we went for a quick stop in Shibuya to see the famous Hachiko statue (I'd seen it before - tchah, get yesterday Thom and Kari) and the also famous crosswalk which has about a billion people wander across it a day (well, not a billion, but it is a ludicrously high number).

After that, it was off to Meiji shrine which is in Harajuku - devastatingly, there were NO cosplay people there! Suck! The temple was nice, but then it started to rain and we took the wrong exit out (something we seemed to repeat a lot) so it took us AGES to get back the station. We did manage to make the rain stop though by buying some umbrellas - cue instant nice weather. The store we bought them from also had this charmingly enthusiastic towel on offer.

Our big exciting event was going up to the bar in the Park Hyatt which is featured in Lost in Translation - initially there were some nerves about getting in as Kari had been turned away before for wearing flip flops. Accordingly, she dressed up for the return visit and looked all nice and pretty - by contrast me and Thom just wore out normal togs and looked rrrather casual. We tried to look confident when we got up to the 52nd floor, although our savoir faire was shaken slightly by the very opulent and swanky surroundings. Turns out we needn't have worried though - we got shown straight to a table no probs. The drinks were a little pricey, but it was so cool to be in the Bill Murray bar, we didn't care.

The next day, we decided to go to Tokyo Tower which is like the Eiffel tower, but with all the French elegance sucked out of it. It is bright orange and white - I quite like the colour scheme, but it's not exactly pretty. In fact...isn't that the same colours as Thunderbird 3?

The cool thing about the observatory is that it has sections of glass flooring which you can stand on and freak yourself out. I say cool, I mean a wee bit nerve wracking. The glass flooring does at least have a lattice of steel underneath it so it's easier to convince yourself that it won't suddenly give way and leave you to plummet 150 metres to the earth.

The cheeky thing is, only once you get in do they tell you that you have to queue up and pay again to get to the super high observation deck! It's another 600yen, and the place was rammed with people so we didn't really feel like doing that. The views from the normal deck were nice anyway.

(There's a few more photos to go, but it's late so I'll finish them off tomorrow)

Christmas tomfoolery Chez Morgan and Kernich

2007-12-26T20:04:00.000-08:00

On Christmas Eve Eve, Thom and Sally had a small gathering of alcoholics at their house for the much vaunted Power Hour - i.e. a shot of beer every minute for an hour, beginning and ending with a shot tequila. Music maestro Kari Panaccione even created a special CD for this momentous event, with one minute slices of 60 karaoke classics to keep us going.

Actually, as it turned out, it was pretty easy as we only used 20ml shots. But still, it was pretty satisfying to have done it. Maybe it lulled us into a false sense of security about our alchohol consumption abilities though, because then we all proceeded to get completely wasted

My memory of the night is a little dim, but I remember having an awesome time playing on the Wii, Thom biting me and then passing out, and Anna being "poorly" in the bathroom for the last hour or so of the night. I also vaguely remember us doing a "speak nothing but Japanese for 3 minutes" challenge to help the native Japanese speakers who were there - this consisted of us awkwardly saying "um.....do you want to drink this? No, I don't want to drink that. I want to eat those" in broken Japanese until the timer finally went off.

Christmas decorations in Nagoya...

2007-12-26T19:53:00.001-08:00

Some of the Christmas lights at the Takashimaya building

Masumi's leaving do..

2007-12-26T19:36:00.000-08:00

My last day of work before the Christmas holidays was also the last day of work EVER for one of the staff at that school, Masumi who is in charge of all the kids stuff (and has been a massive help to me since I've been working there, as well as being very friendly and all that). So after work there was a little party to bid her farewell.

There is some serious efficiency when it comes to these parties - we all set off to the supermarket and everyone quickly dashed round getting all the ingredients we needed for food. And we're not talking party snacks here - we're talking proper dishes, mainly nabe which is like a casserole and some oden which is....also like casserole, but with some different stuff. As I couldn't read any of the packets or readily identify any of the food, I was in charge of looking after one of my students who came along with his Mum. He's only 2, so we had a great time wandering round the supermarket, occasionally stopping to poke stuff and stare at the delicious sweeties on theconfectionary aisle. Then whenever he sat down he would pat the seat next to him and say "Chris....sit" - very sweet. I watched him like a hawk the whole time , but unfortunately I let my guard down for one second when we were getting the groceries out of the car in the rain, and he fell into a gutter about 40cms deep and got soaked up to his waist. Whoops! He was fine though.

Merry Clistmas*

2007-12-13T03:26:00.000-08:00

Christmas is fast approaching the land of the rising sun, and Nagoya is definitely entering into the spirit of it. Well kind of - because Japan isn't a Christian country, the religious aspect of Christmas is totally absent in from all the assembled regalia in shops and such. So all the pretty lights are stars and Santa Claus (never Father Christmas) is flippin' everywhere, but there's no angels, or any mention of mangers and whatnot. Now, I'm not a religious man, but it does feel a little sterile to not have just a little tiny baby Jesus somewhere in decorations - in fact, I walked past what I thought was a nativity scene the other day; as I got closer, it turned out to be Santa Claus dancing round a Christmas tree. But then that's all Christmas is in Japan so it's not a bad thing - even though it does partially represent the commercialised hinterland always alluded to by tabloid rags like the Daily Mail back in England. Everything's very pretty, and feeling very festive - come on some snow!

Along with the pretty decorations, Christmas also brings with it a more sinister component - Muzak. In England, virtually every shop - Clinton's Cards probably being the worst offender - has some whiny facsimile of a Christmas carol playing in the background over the festive season. By and large though, they're fairly inoffensive. Contrast that with Japan, where recently I have been subjected to some ear-bumming travesties or music. Today in the supermarket, there was some kind of dance remix of Jingle Bells which included several "orchestra HITS!" which you used to get on old Yamaha keyboards. After that, there was Oh Come All Yea Faithful, but as a full on rock guitar solo, at high speed. It seems that in most shops, if it's not rock guitar, it's a wrong guitar.

By far the strangest was in the library though - I ran in just before closing time and the "ending theme" was playing which is actually Auld Lang Syne. Most places in Japan play this to let people know they're closing, although usually they don't realise it's a new year's song in England. Anyway, either this was some alternative arrangement or someone had put the CD in a microwave, because it contained the strangest ululations I've ever heard - it was like the sound effects you might hear before you black out. If possible, I'm going to try and record it sometime, because something like that should really be shared with the world.

*Yes, yes, cheap I know.

The Crying Game....

2007-11-28T06:30:00.001-08:00

This week, I've taught a couple of model lessons for some new students. This can be a fraught process, because usually the younger the kids are, the longer it takes for them to get used to the tall, shouty foreign who's trying to bedazzle them with flashcards and tuneless songs. On Tuesday, it was three year olds and with five in the class, I knew there'd be at least ONE cryer. Generally, it seems the best tactic when this happens is to not pay too much attention to it and play some awesome games so they get bored with their sobbing and come and join in. (Only if they're crying for no reason of course. If they've trapped their head in a table, it's probably a good idea to step in). In the past, the Mum's have employed some of their Japanese ninja heritage (probably) by coming in the class with their sobbing kin, and they g-r-a-d-u-a-l-l-y moving closer to the door, and eventually slipping out all stealthy.

The pattern when meeting these new kids is generally the same - their first reaction is to just silently gape. You can see the inner cogs working: "shall I cry, or shall I try wander over and see if I get eaten?". On Tuesday, four decided on on the latter, but one plumped resolutely for the former. She clung to her Mum like a newborn koala, and although she briefly joined in with a craft activity (making snakes - rock!), she sooned return to her default mode of wailing and getting snotty. I don't know if she was scared or nervous or what, but its pretty heart rending to have a little mite sobbing through your whole lesson. The others were fantastic though so that's some consolation!

Today I had two even younger kids - both about 2, and they seemed absolutely TINY. Not just in size, but in presence - both of them seemed really frail and delicate. Again, there was a brief moment of teetering on the edge of crying or laughing, but thankfully they wandered over and we played catch with a ball. Now, I'm all for kids enjoying themselve, but I have never heard such loud squeals of joy when I threw the ball to them - it was earpiercing! I actually winced a couple of times, but it was nice to see them happy. The lesson was actually pretty crazy because the kids rooms are so full of stimuli the students just wander around trying stuff out rather than pay attention. But I was sweating by the end, and the mums were exhausted, and that's what counts.

Soba and pretty leaves....

2007-11-25T03:50:00.000-08:00

On my days off last week, I went to Anna's parents's house in Takenami - way way in the Japanese countryside. To put it into context - so far every single Japanese person I've told about my trip didn't have a clue where it was. Anna had been raving about relaxing under her kotatsu which - if you've never heard of one - is a low square table with a blanket attached to it that reaches the floor, and a heater underneath. So you can snuggle under the blanket all nice and snug while the wintery weather rages outside. Or - if you're a gangly foreinger like me - you can sort of get your shins under, and then give up and sit on the sofa with a blanket.

Anyway, whilst in Takenami we decided to have a go at making soba noodles at a nearby restaurant which does a little class in it. There's only three ingredients - none of which I could identify and all of which look like flour - plus some water. The process was marginally complicated by the instructor speaking only in Japanese, including when she came round to correct me (despite being told I don't speak it). Actually, this happens alot - the traditional view of the English man abroad is shouting "WHERE-IS-THE-TOILET?!?!" at uncomprehending Turkish waiter, and I think the corresponding view over here is for the Japanese man to patiently explain in fluent Japanese what he wants, rephrasing it over and over without any kind of gestures, simplification or a single word of English. Still, we managed to sort the whole process out, and then eat the soba noodles that we made afterwards. They were pretty tasty, although I didn't realise you actually ate them cold. Rolling with the punches when it comes to food is one of the first skills you develop in Japan though, so I wasn't too fussed.

In the evening, we went to view a koryo or leaf colour changing site (or こりょ now I've managed to work out how to type in Japanese on this computer :) ). Autumn and Winter have kind of mixed together this year here, but all the leaves are now turning an amazing shade of red. I have to admit I was initially skeptical about this - after all, we have Autumn in England too right? It's when all the trains stop running (ooh, political satire). But actually it looked really impressive - there's a particular type of leaf called momiji （もみじ　he he he ) which looks very cool when they've changed colour. Although it was night time, the place had been set up with all spotlights and stuff, and the place was packed with people, most of whom were equipped with a vast array of photographic equipment. I had to make do with a couple of shots from my little camera.

You can always get cuter....

2007-10-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

I think that no matter how long you spend in Japan, you never get fully inured to the cuteness that purveys the country so intensely. I've been here for 7 months, and teach the little tinkers everyday including at the moment when they're all wearing little Halloween costumes. But still today, I was bowled over with cuteness. Going through the subway barried were about 30 little kids, probably about 5 years old, all wearing matching school uniforms and in pairs, holding hands. As they went past the guys on the barrier collecting tickets, they said in unison "arigato gozaimashita!" in incredibly perky little voices. Then, just when it seemed the cuteness was reaching a peak, two of them gave little salutes to the barrier guys as they said thank you! KAWAIIII!!!

Nara, giant Buddhas, and violent deers...

2007-10-20T06:10:00.000-07:00

I've been very slack with my updates recently so apologies if you've been awaiting the next thrilling instalment of the nonsense I've been up to. The most interesting thing of late is my friend Catherine visiting - while she was here, we visited Nara together, which is a fairly rural part of Japan with a famous Daibutsu, or giant Buddha (but only the second largest in Japan - Kamakura has the largest, giant Buddha fact fans).

Many many photos of Nara can be found here

Part 1: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?
aid=63550&l=2f8a5&id=697195509

Part 2: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?
aid=63552&l=bfc51&id=697195509

- the Daibutus itself is inside a gigantic temple, and it's pretty impressive but because everything in the temple is huge too, all the photographs I took make it look a bit titchy. Annoying.

The most memorable part of the trip was probably the deer though. Nara has about 1000 sacred deer wandering about, and they have absolutely no fear of anyone. They wander into traffic, and come right up to people to try and get food. Actually you can buy deer food at vendors, and they've obviously learnt that because they hang around near them. I bought some and a nearby buck immediately came up to me and started affectionately rubbing his head on leg to get some. It took a little time to get the wrapper off, and during this time the rubbing got more insisted, and started to become butting. Then when I tried to feed another deer instead, he butted me HARD in the leg. And then again! The little bastard! I was halfway between being a little scared and monumentally pissed off - they actually remove their antlers so it's not quite as bad as it could be, but those stumps are pretty solid. I was pretty glad when I'd got rid of the last of my deer biscuits I can tell you.

Anyway, I'll try and be more regular with my updates from now on - it's Halloween lessons coming up so they'll be costumes galore including mine which I bought the other day......

Expect the unexpected...

2007-10-03T10:07:00.000-07:00

After 7 months in Japan, you start to fall into a routine with your kids lessons - you know pretty much what you're kids will like and understand, and what will have them looking perplexed and on the verge of rebellion. But there's still a few surprises that can grab you.

For example today, my classroom is on the 1st floor of the school in Tajimi, and the kids went up ahead of me while I got some stuff together. When I joined them, I noticed the - what's the polite term? - more errant child in the class had gone in the classroom, shut the door, and was holding it closed with his feeble child strength. Kazumi - helpful and friendly staff member - was playing along with him and pretending that she couldn't get in, but she doesn't know the kid quite as well as I do, and before I could say "actually, he might lock the door in a second"....well, guess what happened?

Entreaties to open the door were met with a grin and a shake of the head, so in the end I had to lean through the window next to the door (which luckily was ajar) and unlock the door.
Crisis averted! If that window hadn't been open, I don't know what would have happened - possibly I'd have had to shoulder barge down the door?! Which would have been more fun than singing the ABC Song, but probably wouldn't look to good on my reference.

Not content with one spanner in my well oiled English teaching machine, once the lesson started I noticed a spider climbing up the wall. Not a biggy, but a pretty ugly looking brute which I wasn't keen to get near. Once the kids noticed it they were entranced, and I was deeply deeply concerned that they might get frightened by it which would mean I'd have to touch it with my actual hands to get ride of it. But, after freaking me out for a bit, it buggered of into a crack in the wall. Phew.

I'd also like to mention that I'm feeling a bit smug today because this same class had a craft activity today where the kids were meant to cut out some shapes from coloured paper and glue them together to make a picture of a house. Now, these kids are lovely little mites, but they can't cut out FOR SHIT. Previous lessons involving the use of scissors have seen a flurry of confetti blanket the floor as they shear off bits of the paper, seemingly at random. So today before the lesson I cut out all the bits beforehand, meaning they only had to glue them onto a piece of A4. One of them still managed to cover the opposite side of the paper with prittstick and almost adhere it to the table, but overall they made some nice little houses which I was very pleased with. Hurrah.

Things I learnt this week....

2007-09-25T22:09:00.000-07:00

1. Jiggering your leg up and down in a distracted way is considered rather rude in Japan
Especially if you're eating, apparently. To put it in the words of the lady who told me "it means you have NO MANNERS!!"

2. If you have bags trailing behind you when you go through a subway barrier, it thinks someone's trying to sneak through without paying the fare, and the barrier slams shut
unintentionally tried and tested twice. TWICE.

3. Burma is also called Myanmar
Is this an international thing? Or just in Japan? I've never had cause to pay much attention it before.

4. There are some bloody massive spiders in Japan
Honestly, they could take your head off with one swing of their mighty spider-legs. Probably.

Mount Fuji....

2007-09-20T22:40:00.000-07:00

There are two sayings in Japan about climbing Mount Fuji. One says, "you're a fool if you don't climb Fuji, but you're a fool if you climb it more than once". The other says "Fuji is for looking, not for climbing". Combine this with the numerous Japanese people that looked at me as if I was mad when I told then I was going to climb up Japan's biggest mound of dirt, and the numerous articles written by previous climbers who said what a miserable, miserable experience it was and frankly I was feeling a little jittery about making the run. But climbing season was coming to and end, my friends from England were here and raring to go, so basically it was unavoidable.

Mount Fuji has 10 climbing stations, with 1 at the bottom and 10 at the top. Usually you start from station 5 halfway up, and climb from there. Me, Jackie, Jen, and Sinead arrived there at around 4pm on Thursday after a fun cab ride with a very jolly guy who could speak no English. I think he was giving me lots of interesting information and tips about the climb, but really for most of the time I was just nodding my head and say "so so so so". We began out ascent full of cheer and laughter, and it wasn't long before we got to the 6th station, where we had a quick drink, then we carried on up. At this point we started to notice that no one else seemed to be going UP, just down. Then a few of the people descending started asking us what we planned do to when we got near the top. We said that we were going to stay in one of the huts up there, and then head off to the top to catch sunrise. First problem: all the huts were shut! When the first person told us, we shrugged them off, but then a couple more people said the same thing, and finally a very concerned looking guy bounded up the mountain to tell us that everything was DEFINITELY shut. So, slightly deflated we went back down to the 6th station, and decided to try and sleep till midnight and set off then.

Sleeping proved very difficult, mainly because it was about 8pm, but also because we all kept giggling. I haven't been to a sleepover for a while, but it made me want to have one again - if we'd had a video player and a copy of Mannequin it would have been my childhood all over again.

So at midnight, we set off AGAIN. Trudging up the mountain was fairly tiring, but not too debilitating, and the night view as we looked back at Fujinomiya was pretty breathtaking (although it defied any attempts to photograph it - damn scenery). Altitude sickness if one of things that stops most people from getting to the top, so we took our time and went fairly slowly. Weatherwise, we were pretty lucky - although it was cold, it wasn't unbearable and climbing kept us nice and warm.

Things started to get a little more tricky when we got to around the 7th or 8th station. Although we were all tired, Jackie seemed to be getting noticeably more fatigued than the rest of us, and when I offered her a Snickers bar to reengergise her and she seemed to tired to put it in her mouth, alarm bells started to ring. We tried to press on up to the summit, but it became obvious after a while that she's got a nasty case of altitude sickness and that she wasn't going to make it to the top. So in the end she and I stayed at 9th station while Jen and Sinead pressed on to meet the sunrise at 5:30am. I went on afterwards to check out the summit too - it's not too exciting once the sun's risen to be honest! There was fog everywhere, so you couldn't see much, and it was pretty windy and chilly. But we were all chuffed that we'd made it, and the view as we looked down, although cloudy, was pretty cool.

Then we started out descent which was MUCH more tiring and painful than I expected. My knees were groaning as we neared the bottom, and Jen and I also had to deal with a soul-sapping error: we though we were coming to the 6th station (and were thus almost home), but then realised it was actually the 7th (and that home was another hour away). But by this time we felt like veterans, and pressed on, showing true British pluck :)

Once we got back to the 5th station, we hauled ourselves into the cab (the same driver - he seemed very amused by the whole thing) and headed for home, absolutely exhausted. It may make me a fool, but I'd certainly like to climb it again, although not in the next couple of years. Since getting back, I've suddenly been inundated with useful information about the climb (where was this BEFORE we went?!): which routes are best to go up and down etc. Furthermore, I think going slap bang in the middle of climbing season when all the huts are open so you can rest for a few hours would be a good idea - going up and down without stopping (a 10 hour hike basically) was knackering. But I'm glad I did it, and can happily tick it off my list of things to do in Japan. Next........pufferfish sashimi!

(Pretty pictures of the whole endeavour can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=54966&l=e726f&id=697195509 )

Funky Japanese arcade...

2007-09-10T20:14:00.000-07:00

In the news recently there were reports than an arm wrestling game in some Japanese arcades had broken three people's arms (that's three separate people -not one person with three arms). So when Thom said he'd found a similar machine in a nearby arcade, OF COURSE we had to go and try it out.

Here's the machine, looking innocent:

And here's me, choosing my opponent. On the screen you can see the selection of racial and sexual stereotypes than comprise the potential foes you can battle. My favourite was the black guy with the enormous red lips - I think it might be where Herge got his ideas for Tin-Tin.

Despite bracing myself to hear a snap in my humerus, the machine was actually pretty weak - me and Thom both completed it with little strain. So what I suspect actually happened was a Japanese salaryman fell over whilst peeping into a girls' purikura photo both, but needed a better excuse to give his wife when he rang her from casualty.

Sally (Thom's girlfriend) also had a go on this train simulator:
It's difficult to gauge her success - on the one hand, her punctuality was second to none; however, this was mainly because she didn't stop at any stations and just powered through while the little simulated Japanese commuters shook their tiny fists. Still better than Virgin Trains though (satire).

Thom also had a go on this boxing game where as well as smacking the hell out of your opponents, you also sometimes had to dodge. Sadly, the menacing looking thing at head height didn't shoot out and smack you if you didn't, your character onscreen just got a punching.

Birthday!!

2007-09-10T19:59:00.000-07:00

On September the 5th, I celebrated my 28th Birthday - cue everyone under 28 saying "wow, you're really old now" and everyone over 28 saying "ah, but you're not 30 yet at least". On my actually Birthday, I was working so I celebrated properly the following night with some food and karaoke (of course).

The local karaoke place charges a single fee if you go after 11, however long you stay up until 6am, so that's the one we normally go for. This only includes one drink though, and as ordering drinks via telephone can be a little hit and miss in these places, not to mention s-l-o-w, we always take in our own from the local convenience store. I think technically you're not meant to do this, but they don't seem to enforce this rule to rigidly. In fact, at one point late in the night one of the staff came in to check how many people were left and there were cans and bottle all over the place. I was going to try and surreptitiously cover some of them up, but with the amount of drinking debris on show this would just have patronised the guy's intelligence - it looked like a recycling plant. He didn't say anything about it anyway (or if he did, it was in Japanese an thus I could safely plead ignorance).

Gradually the numbers thinned out until the just a hardcore four of us were left at 5am - we stopped in the end because our tracheas were starting to close up and making our renditions even more torturous than normal. I finally got to bed at 6:30, after some food at a nearby 24 hour place. Not bad for an old guy :)

Some photos of the night can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=53219&l=ed5d5&id=697195509

Also, thanks very much to everyone who wished me happy Birthday, it was very much appreciated! It always feels a bit funny to be away from home for special occasions, and nothings more special than my bloody Birthday so little messages from people back home always give me a warm and fuzzy :)

Japanese lessons the hard way...

2007-09-03T09:33:00.001-07:00

The Japanese language - being completely different to our European, Latin based languages and thus not resembling English in the slightest - is fraught with surprises and pitfalls to screw over the unwary foreigner. For example, if you at the suffix -so to the end of an adjective in Japanese, it means "it appears" or "it looks" whatever. Oishii = delicious; oishii-so = it looks delicious. Muzukashii = difficult; muzukashi-so = it looks difficult etc. Now, due to its ubiquity, "kawaii" is one of the first words you learn in Japanese. It basically translates as"cute" and if you go one day without hearing it said about something.....well, I don't know, because that's never happened to me.

Based on these two premises, you can construct the phrase "kawaii-so" = it looks cute. Seems obvious right? And indeed I've said that many times over the last few months since I've been getting to grips with Japanese, including to students when they got new clothes or dyed their hair. And now - AND NOW - I find out that kawaiso is in fact a word completely in itself and means pitiful. SO I'VE BEEN TELLING PEOPLE THEIR NEW HAIRCUTS LOOK PITIFUL!! And no-one though to point this out to me?! Gah!!

Domatsuri

2007-08-28T09:01:00.000-07:00

The festival season is coming to an end at the moment, but there was a cracking one in the city centre the other night which I wandered around. During it, a big dance competition takes place - big dance troupes of about 40 or 50 engage in these amazing routines with drums and singing, all while wearing outlandish costumes in 30C+ heat. Impressive stuff. Here's a couple of videos of the dancing - the seats were all full up so the only way to get a decent gander was to keep scooting up and down the walkways. Hence the slightly Blair Witch-esque footage.

(NB - there's sound so watch out if you're at work!)

Free food and tears....

2007-08-28T08:29:00.000-07:00

Today was a proud day indeed - not only did I manage to have a little conversation in Japanese with the guy in the Lawson near the school I was working in, but we bonded so well that he gave me some free food!! Result!
When I walked in he walked past me and exclaimed "wow, big!" which made me laugh. Then at the counter he asked me how old I was and how long I'd been in Japan. I told him and asked if he spoke English; he said "no, only Japanese" but in English - I decided not to try and explain the logical inconsistency in that. Then he asked me how old I thought the lady working there was - I said I didn't know and that it was dangerous to say; this was the clincher which made him chuckle and give me a free tasty snack. And very tasty it was too. The secret ingredient was free-ness.

I had my favourite and smartest class today - 8 kids all about 6 or 7 who are really well behaved and proper clever. One of them had been on holiday the previous week and when that happens you have to send them a little postcard saying what they missed and a little message. She came in this week with a postcard for me saying thank you - aah, so cute!

Anyway, one of the kids had been getting a little too energetic in previous lesson - he's probably the smartest kid in the class and not badly behaved; just needed to chill a bit so I asked the staff to tell him if he didn't calm down, I'd send him out. Of course, they can't really take one kid aside and say that, so she just spoke to all the kids very nicely reminding them of the rules while I smiled in a friendly way to reassure them they hadn't done anything wrong.
After she left they were all a bit quite like they'd been told off, so I felt a little guilty. This was compounded when I asked them for their homework books and one of them had forgotten hers - she started crying! Aiee!! Normally she's the life and soul, but I guess maybe she thought she'd been naughty - her and her two friends usually sneak up on me before the lesson and shout silly things at me - usually "monkey", but sometimes it's "monster" and today "ghost" was inexplicably added into the mix. It's tricky to know in these situations whether to grab a staff member and let the little 'un have a time out, or just throw them back into it - I decided to start a game and soon enough she was laughing away and having fun - relief!

Today is also the one week in four that we have to teach teenagers - maintaining discipline in these classes is an interesting experience as I always feel like I'm slightly skirting the precipice of keeping them under control and that a moment's hesitation will make them realise "actually, this lanky guy can't understand anything we say - let's call him a dickhead and talk amongst ourselves". So far though, I've kept disorder to a minimum through a combination of a) running them ragged with some games; b) shouting; c) ridiculing the ones that get cocky. Oh, and occasionally resorting to mild physical violence by bonking them on the head with my teacher's manual. So far so good - but maybe next time the revolution will begin....

Japanese weather....

2007-08-25T02:32:00.000-07:00

The summer in Japan is unbelievably hot - and apparently this year it's especially so. All the veteran staff warn you that it's going to be bad, but I don't think anything can prepare you for just how sweltering it is. In Tajimi, the city nearby which I work in on Wednesday (lucky me!), the temperature got up to 40C while I was away. This is a record, one of the hottest summers ever. There are two main problems with Japanese summers. 1) They're incredibly humid; the feeling of oppression as you dash from one air conditioned building to the next is quite formidable and often it's only when you sit down and the negligible breeze made by your walking disappears that you realise how thick the air around you is. 2) Even though we're dashing about teaching kids, we still have to wear some semblance of a suit, which means trousers and a shirt are mandatory (but not a tie, at least not for kids' classes). So traipsing to the station with your trousers sticking to your legs is another fun part of the season - yay!

I'm not sure if there's any physiological basis for this, but it does seem that Japanese people don't sweat quite as much as us gaijin. Usually when it gets hot they have a little towel, like a flannel which they use to delicately dab the beads of sweat forming on their foreheads. Meanwhile, I'm literally dripping with perspiration like I've just passed a house brick or something - every once in a while you'll see some chubby Japanese guy (a rarity in itself outside of the sumo ring) with a damp patch on his chest, but by and large they seem to cope with the temperature pretty well. The hot weather does however provide an easy topic of conversation when in the local convenience store; the Japanese, like us Brits love to talk about the weather. Just using single words though - usually either "samuii" (cold) or "atsuii" (hot). I also looked up humid: "mushiatsuii" - check it out, one quick peek in the dictionary and I increased my vocabulary by a third!

Toyota Fireworks party...

2007-07-29T20:13:00.000-07:00

There's tons of summer festivals going on in Japan at the moment, and that means tons of fireworks going off. On Sunday, Toyota City had one of the biggest ones, with 15000 fireworks going off over two hours! I headed down there with Mari, one of the school directors - the train down was absolutely rammed with people, most of whom were wearing yukatas or jimbeis and looking very cool (not literally though - apparently it gets pretty toasty in them). It's not surprisingly, but Japanese people really pull of these traditional clothes well - the women look stunning in their yukatas, and the guys look pretty snazzy too.

Here's Mari in hers:

I wanted to get a few photos of random people in their yukatas too, but I only managed to get one in the end as everyone was watching the fireworks!

Aah, cute (and younger than I realised from the back - they probably thought I was a dirty gaijin perv. Which of course I'm not)

The streets were packed as you can see:

But there fireworks were amazing! Whereas in England we just say "oooh" and "aaah" to fireworks, the Japanese let out this constant exclamations of "pretty!" or "cool!" or "big!" (when it's a huge flash type one). Each time they do, it's like the first time they've seen fireworks; they sound completely surprised by each one even though the show was going on for two hours. If the firework goes off once, then has lots of smaller explosions after, the exclamations stack up: "Cool! Ah, coolcool coolcoolcoolcoolcoolcool!!!!". It's all very charming.

The firework show was also a notable cultural contrast to the UK in how people behaved there - despite it being really crowded, everyone was very considerate and didn't stand in other people's way or sit down in stupid places so you couldn't walk. Getting to the trains afterwards was also very organised and easy - the police had it all sorted and controlled the massive flow of people into the station, then onto the platforms and into the trains so we got home very quickly. I think it's going to be a shock for me to get back on the Tube in London....!

All you can drink...

2007-07-29T19:19:00.000-07:00

On Saturday two of the schools here joined forces to throw a big all-you-can-drink party at a nearby Izakaya. For two hours, you could knock back as much booze as you liked for a measly 3000 yen. And let me tell you, the Japanese do NOT mess about at these things - beer was flying left right and centre and the air was filled with Japanese drinking songs and chat.

Needless to say, everyone got completely plastered. There was also a kid of one of the students there called Yukito who was hilarious - he was a little shy to start with but he gamely tried to speak a little English and by the end of the night he was the centre of attention, pretending to throw fireballs at people ala DragonBall and playing Rock Scissors Paper (and winning - damn his mad janken skills). I managed to have a conversation with him in Japanese which makes sense seeing as we both have the interests and vocabulary of a seven year old (actually, I think I'm doing him down there): what his favourite Pokemon was, did he want to see Transformers etc. Here's a couple of photos:

What was also really cute is that however much Anna (school staff, in the purple t-shirt) tried to get Yukito to say rude things about us in Japanese (e.g. "Chris and Thom are old men"), he wouldn't do it! He kept shouting "no they aren't!!" - yay.

And a couple more of other people:

There's an inexplicable disparity between the Japanese social scene and it's municipal transport system, so whereas most of the izakayas are open till at least 3am , the trains stop running at 12. So after the mass exodus of people dashing for the last tube, a few of us decided to go to a nearby karaoke. I don't remember this too well, but I do remember that you were allowed to take your own booze in - normally we have to sneak it in people's bags.

I should also mentioned that after this on Sunday I had a NASTY hangover which even lovely Starbucks couldn't shift. Bleugh.

Aloha month...

2007-07-26T02:31:00.000-07:00

Every school seems to be having Alohoa shirt month at the moment, but actually it's really great because in return for wearing a psychedelic nightmare of a shirt, you can also wear jeans and trainers. Here's a charming photo of me in mine:

I'm holding fans because that's what we're giving out at the moment as flyers to pimp ECC, and I went to the station to give some out. It was pretty fun - most of the punters thought it was hilarious that a gaijin in a terrible shirt was chucking fans at them, and some even tried a bit of English out. I also ended up giving a load out to a gang of troublemaking youths hanging around the local fast food joint ("troublemaking" in Japan being "wearing outlandish clothes and talking quite loudly"). The police eventually turned up to have a word with them - not sure how good a publicity that was, them chatting to the local constabulary while twirling our fans.

Here's a nice photo of the Japanese teacher Eri and me:

Behind the scenes info - Eri is actually quite tiny and is balanced precariously on a tiny stool. She also taught one of my students that day who said to her "Chris is my teacher, he's really fun" - which chuffed me up until she told me he added "and he's got a big nose!". Whaaaatt???!!! Where did that come from?!

Finally, here's a couple of my students getting into the Aloha spirit - maybe not entirely willingly.

Summer Intensive Course...

2007-07-26T02:21:00.000-07:00

This week all normal kids classes are off and the kids have a Summer holiday. However, work doesn't stop for the teachers - oh no - as we get to teach Summer Intensive Courses to 2-3 year olds and 4-5 year olds. The students come every day for three days and have a different teacher each day. It's a nice chance for the kids to mess around with a new person and for us to play around with some new kids. HOWEVER, I was a little nervous as past experience dictates that kids that age have one of 4 reactions to me:

1) Shyness
2) Curiosity
3) Enthusiasm/amazement
4) Fear/crying/telling their mum they want their old teacher

In fairness, I'd be freaked out by a gangly foreigner with big starey eyes and - as it happens - a loud Hawaiian shirt on (it was Aloha week at that school), but that's little comfort when children all around you are sobbing and forming massive snot bubbles out of their little noses.

Thankfully, all the kids were great - a little bit of shyness, but generally hugely excitable and very very cute. One kid in particular was full of beans and kind of roared before every answer - "what're these?" "rrrrrrRRRRRRROAR BANANAS!!". I have more of these classes on Saturday so it could still go tits up, but at the moment they're not the cry-fest I feared they might be.

Nagashima Spa Land...

2007-07-20T06:23:00.000-07:00

Monday 16th July was a national holiday in Japan, which means pretty much everyone gets the day off and can recover from the exhaustion garnered by copious amounts of work, and going "ehhhhh?!?!?!?" 40 times in every conversation. I was just going to sit about in my pants, but the Japanese teacher at one of my schools - Chieko - suggested that we check out Nagashima Spaland which she had some discount tickets for. After great consideration, I decided that my pants could wait, and the trip was ON.

It was as we were driving there that Japan experienced a pretty nasty earthquake - actually, Chieko was demonstrating how cool her satnav was but showing me it could pick up tv too, and we saw a news program with pictures of destroyed buildings and wrecked motorways.

Me: "Oh, is this from a while ago?"
Chieko: "No, this is today".
Me: "What!?!? You mean this morning?!"
Chieko: "No, now. Right now. This just happened".
Me: "........um.........shit".

Nagoya was untouched, and most people didn't even feel it outside the epicentre, but still - nasty.

Anyway, on a more cheery note - Nagashima Spaland is a big amusement park with loads of rides and roller coasters. Here are some photos:

This is the Steel Dragon - 3rd highest rollercoaster in the world, longest roller coaster in the world, and quite frankly one scary looking bastard. You can see how high it is from these other photos:

Aieee! So before we went on that, we went on some slightly smaller rides:

The White Cyclone - actually made of wooden struts which creak and shudder a bit. Worrying that the tracks your zooming around on might suddenly collapse into a pile of matchsticks nicely heightens the tension.

There was also a cool log flume which I didn't take a picture of (doh). The neat thing was, there was a bridge over the main splashdown zone with a plastic shield so you could stand there watching the wall of water shooting towards you like the Poiseidon Adventure (or Titanic for you young'uns). You could also stand next to the shield and get soaked, thusly:

Chieko also took a rather well timed photo of me about to get shat on:
Here's another ride which was fairly tame by the park's standards - one loop-the-loop? Piece of piss.

If it looks a bit grey and miserable in these photos, that's because it was - it started out as a gloriously sunny day and slowly got darker and darker and began to rain. The upshot of which was....they had to close the Steel Dragon! Apparently one of the cars derailed a few years ago (!!!!!) so they're very cautious about the weather conditions.
On the one hand I was pleased that I didn't have to worry about losing control of my bowels on a terrifying rollercoaster AND having a legitimate reason for passing, but on the other I felt a bit defeated, so me and Chieko resolved to go back again soon and conquer the beast.

Nagashima also has an amazing hotspring place near it with proper hot water coming out of the ground so we decided to check that out too. No photos of that as everyone wanders around nekkid (segregated by sex of course), and frankly you wouldn't want to see aged Japanese winkies bobbing about on your computer screen. But, in the main spa bit you have to take your shoes off, and you can also change into a yukata. This gives the whole place a weirdly serene Star-Trek feel, everyone wandering around chatting a weird language in their eccentric uniforms. I half expected Commander Riker to strike up on his trombone and ruin my day.

Here's me and Chieko in our yukatas lookin' cool:

Nagashima Spa Land ROCKS, and I can't wait to go back and try the waterpark....

Yukata Week at Kasugai....

2007-07-14T08:34:00.000-07:00

The school I teach at on Saturdays - Kasugai - is having yukata week this week. A yukata is kind of like a kimono, except much less time consuming to put on and less restrictive once you have. The staff all wear them, and so do the teachers, except me because I forgot to look for one on my day off (although the chances of getting one in my size are slim).

So here's a picture of the wonderful and radiant Masumi Hiyama, staff member and all round superstar :)

The kids where them too! There's sweeties as bribes, but it's still cute:

The kid on orange is the brother of the kid on the far left, and has moved through through several stages in knowing me - beginning at abject terror, onto shyness, familiarity, and now friendliness and maybe a little unchecked aggression. This can be a problem as small children such as him tend to have their heads at groin height meaning any high speed charge towards me can mean I sound like I've been inhaling helium for the rest of the day.

Also, the girl on my knee always fights to get on for photos, then looks downcast when they're taken! She's there voluntarily, honest!

Neighbourhood tour part 2 - Robot Museum!!

2007-07-14T07:32:00.000-07:00

If you ask people to name some things Japan is famous for, they'll no doubt say "robots". Actually first, they'll probably say "sushi", then "those weird comics with the schoolgirls showing their pants", and then many many other things - but if you punch them a couple of times and tell them to stop ruining the introduction to your blog entry, they'll probably say "robots".

With that in mind - Nagoya has a robot museum! Now, don't get too excited - it's actually more of a shop that sells robot related toys and gadgets rather than a place you can buy a second hand Johnny-5, but still it's pretty cool, especially with the Transformers movie coming out here soon.

This is what is looks like:

Here's a couple of close ups of the various robots they sell:

If you know your robots, you can pick out some Gundams, and also a couple of Angels from Neon Genesis Evangelion I think. If you're not interested in such geeky information - well, you've probably already stopped reading.

Some more, older fashioned robots. Oh yeah, it's not ageist the robot museum - all robots of every age, creed and colour are welcome. Except Chinese ones of course .

This is Paro, the World's Most Therapeutic Robot (fact!). It's really really cute and cooes and looks at you with it's big eyes when you stroke it - kawaiiiii!

I wonder if when Josef Capek (thanks Wikipedia) first coined the word "robot" in 1920, he ever imagine in his wildest dreams that one day such a thing as this would exist, and that Japanese people would pay a frickin' bundle to own one.

While we're dealing with all things kawaii, check out super deformed Darth Vader!

The only thing he uses the Dark Side of the Force for is making sure his enormous head doesn't cause him to topple over like a chump. "Apology accepted, Captain Nee-oof, I've done taken a spill, so I have". [Wow, this is the turning into an extraordinarily geeky post].

Strangely, whilst the most powerful Sith Lord in the galaxy looks pretty cute here, the renowned bundle of fur that is Hello Kitty looks rather sinister as a robot:

Look at it's blank, dead eyes - almost certainly plotting the destruction of the human race. Creepy.

I liked this big silver one, even though he didn't do anything except look a bit gay:

This one is also cool - I'm not sure if it's from Astro-Boy or another Osamu Tezuka manga, but with his steel companion above, he ups the gayness of the Robot Museum by a considerable degree. I think it's the wrist bands.

Here's some more Gundmans - at first, there's not much that catches the eye.
But look closer.....who's that in the back....?

Wow, it's a sexy girl Gundman. Phwoar! Actually, because it's very hard to fully emasculate what is essentially a hundred foot tall killing machine, this looks more like a cross dressing Gundam. What a diverse shop this is.

This is my friend Jacqui who I went to the Robot Museum with. Now, I know she might be a bit annoyed at me for saying this, but I think if you squint a little she looks just like Optimus Prime. I know I shouldn't say it, but it's true:

And finally, and not very interestingly, I had to take a photo of this:

OFFICIAL yo-yo strings. Wouldn't want to unofficial strings on our yoyos now would we? It's probably make them explode into a fiery ball of death if we tried to do a Round-the-world.

That's all for now, but just in case you were dying of curiosity - the shop in England that's name is "selfish" in Japanese is.....Wagamama! Cool huh?

Neighbourhood tour - part 1....

2007-07-10T09:18:00.000-07:00

Japan is full of stuff that's cute, quirky, or just plain weird, so I thought it might be nice to show you a little of what's near where I live in Nagoya. One of the main places that's fun to wander down is Osu Kannon Arcade- this is basically a covered market full of Japanese cuisine, Engrish covered clothes, and shonky looking toys from China and other dubious Far Eastern origins.

This is it from the outside - I went awandering in the day this time, but at night it's lit up with neon like almost every other building in Japan. If you squint, you can see a Big Issue salesman on the left - I don't know why, but I was surprised to see that here.

This is the inside of Osu Kannon - this is a fairly quite day, so not too many people bustling about. What you can't tell from the picture is the noise of the place - pretty much every stall has people yelling "irrashimasae" to passersby which is "welcome" in Japanese. With that vowel in the last syllable, you can really drag it out, which they do until it almost becomes unintelligible - "irrashimasaaweeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEAaaaeeeeeEEEEE!". Also, you look on the right, you can see a Pikachu suit that's for sale.

Have you ever eaten octopus balls? Stop sniggering at the back - bits of octopus tentacle in batter - takoyaki - are tasty Japanese treat which you can get at this stall.
The guy running it was awesome, singing welcome to people and some other stuff I couldn't understand, probably about how ace his balls were. So I took his photo:

This is what takoyaki looks like btw

Further into the marketplace, there's this rather nice shrine. Or temple - there is a distinction, but I'm buggered if I can remember what it is. The main shriney bit of it is behind, but I wanted to take a photo of this to show you the white bits of paper tied to the washing lines - these are wishes that people have made when they've prayed to the deity that inhabits that shrine. The Japanese are more superstitious than religious, so it's kind of like crossing your fingers or touching wood for us.

I had to quickly include this poor sod, dressed as Japanese here Ultraman. He's advertising a pachinko parlour and had to just stand there waving his forlorn flag back and forth. I was boiling hot that day in shorts and a t-shirt so I don't know how he felt in that fetching body suit.

This is a shop on the outskirts of Osu Cannon and it is geek central - so as you can imagine I felt quite at home there.

It's about 5 floors of comics and various paraphernalia, but it's actually a very frustrating place for me as a foreigner because every bloody thing's in Japanese. Gah - all those lovely comics and I can't read any of them. This shop also follows the general Japanese comic shop rule of making little distinction in the organisation of comic genres - the upshot of which is you can be browsing some fairly tame stuff and suddenly find yourself looking into the pair of bare school girl breasts on the same shelf. Zoinks.

A few floors up in this shop, there's this section:
This is the cosplay section which, if you don't know, is a contraction of costume play. You can hire and buy various outfits here from famous manga and anime series. I haven't seen anyone wearing this on the street so I assume they either only wear them in private, or there's some kind of club you can go to.

Here's another pretty shrine in the middle of the shopping arcade:
If you don't know how these work: inside the main wooden hut is usually some kind of object which is endowed with a kami - a kind of deity or god - which you can pray to to ask for something. You throw in 5 yen as an offering, clap your hands twice (or in this case, pull that bellrope) to "wake" the kami, then put your hands together and pray. Some of the famous shrines have supposedly ancient and powerful items which only the head priests are allowed to see - one of which is Atsuta-Jingu. There's a link to some pictures of that on the right.

While we're on shrines, there's yet ANOTHER in another part of the arcade - the area's not really that big, so three shrines is somewhat excessive in my opinion. And this one is a biggy:

Most of it is off limits unless you're a priest though. There's some nice incense burners outside at the top which some people were congregating around. Although temples and shrines in Japan are sacrosanct, they don't have quite the holy gravitas that churches have in England - people waiting outside were chatting away and smoking cigarettes, there's no impetus to keep your head bowed or worry about being smited (smitten?). It's a pretty nice peaceful atmosphere, even for a heathen foreigner like me.

Finally, I thought it was worth showing this shop off:

it has a rather comical name as you can see. But - interesting fact - did you know that there is a famous chain of outlets in England with the SAME name, but in Japanese? Answer in the next blog entry....

Late night karaoke....

2007-07-02T07:17:00.000-07:00

Saturday was Thom - a fellow ECC teacher - 's Birthday, so he organised a night of cavorting and carousing in the main social area of Nagoya, Sakae. After dinner, we went to a rather posh looking bar for some drinks - I ended up sitting opposite a Japanese girl who didn't speak any English, so I thought it might be a good opportunity to practice my Japanese. Aaah, hubris.....my skills were in fact stretched to breaking point, as although I can order food and sort out train tickets without getting too stressed, my conversational abilities are next to nothing. So after asking her if she was studying English at the moment (she understood that at least), it kind of ground to a halt. She could only stay for half an hour though so the seat opposite me was soon empty. This meant I could see the group of people on the next table, some of whom were foreigners (i.e. Westerners) and some of whom were Japanese.
Now, there's kind of an unwritten rule that when you see other Westerners in Japan, you don't acknowledge them. Certainly, the temptation is to give a little nod or say "hi" (or in your first week, to throw your arms around them and sob "thank god, someone that I can speak to!! Where are some toilets that I can sit on instead of squat over for the love of god?!?!"). but we don't - we're strangers after all so it'd be a bit weird. Wouldn't it?

Anyway, a few of the Japanese guys looked round, chatted amongst themselves, and then two of them bounded over and launched themselves facefirst into a big friendly conversation with me and Jacqui (another ECC teacher who was next to me). I was a bit taken aback initially - the guy's face who was talking to me lit up as he gabbled English a mile a minute; I was half expecting him to whip out a pamphlet and ask if I'd considered letting Jesus into my life.
Turns out they were social event organisers for people who didn't know anyone in Nagoya - Japanese and foreigners - so they took my number and said they'd give me a call if they have one again. Watch this space....
Afterwards, we went to karaoke which was awesome fun, although I was banned from playing with the tambourine just because some people developed chronic tinnitus last time we went. *sulk* I don't think Thom will mind me saying that by the end of the night he was out of his tree and ranting about philosophy and how great Japan is to anyone in his vicinity (including random Japanese people and his own reflection a couple of times).

When you're in the karaoke booth, you order your drinks by picking up a little intercom/phone, and it was a timely reminder of the fact I've been in Japan for a while now that not only did I not mind speaking to the waiters, but that I could understand when they said they were out of certain drinks and apologise when some of the guys changed their mind about what they wanted. Time was when we'd all draw straws to make the dreaded order, bellow "FOUR. BEERS. PLEASE!!!" in English down the phone, and then sit back with fingers crossed to see what we ended up with (one time - ordered:four beers and a whiskey and soda. Received:one glass of plum wine. Baffling). I mean yes, we didn't get the coke that I asked for, but still it was nice to see that all the time I've been spending bent over textbooks mumbling "everyone should just bloody speak bloody English" hasn't been for nothing.

Anyway, karaoke was great fun, but we rather over-enthusiastically stayed till 4:30am which means I got home at 5am. And then got up at half 9 for work. Thank the great monkey god for Starbucks and his bounteous mocha frappuncinos which got me through Sunday lessons. Lo, they were good.

The sub-shift....

2007-06-25T09:18:00.000-07:00

At least once a week, all ECC teachers have to work as emergency substitutes, covering anyone who's ill or on holiday that day. If no-one's away, you do what's called a base shift, where you go to your base-school and act as the office monkey doing whatever admin they need doing. The standard thing to do is stuff tissues with flyers - if you don't know, the standard Japanese advertising practice is to give out little packets of tissues (about the size of a cassette tape) with a flyer whatever you're hawking in. It's always good to have one about your person, because a fair few of the toilets here don't have toilet paper. Nothing quite like the sweet sweet irony of grumpily waving your hand "no" at half a dozen people handing out tissues and then finding yourself 15 minutes later wondering how absorbent your Starbucks receipt is. Anyway, to keep things interesting, you can also pile up the packets of tissues into different shaped towers and stacks. I'm sure you're already getting a picture of how fun this type of day is, but just to further enlighten you here's a detailed breakdown:

1530 - Arrive at school bright eyed and ready to go, full of baseless and wholly misguided optimism about the tissue sculptures that exist in potentia and what magnificent edifices you'll construct that day.

1535 - Begin stuffing flyers into tissues. Realise that actually, there's not much you can do with them except stack them, or place them next to each other. Enthusiasm runs down a notch.

1600 - Try and combat rising tide of boredom by engaging in conversation with Japanese staff. Achieve moderate success - although very friendly, they are also very busy and often break off mid chat to answer the phone or deal with customers at the front desk. Decide to focus all energies on construction of a wonderful tissue palace.

1630 - First tissue sculpture finished. It is crap. Enthusiasm takes a major slump. Decide to go for toilet break to raise spirits.

1645 - Stuff some more tissues. Consciousness begins to dim and extremities become numb. A second tower takes shape, but it's half hearted at best.

1647 - Despite several hours passing, a look at my watch indicates that only two minutes have gone by. First feelings of anger manifest.

1830 - Utterly bewildered in a sea of effusive Japanese as the efficient ECC machine hits full tilt and staff run around dealing with phone calls, shouting "welcome!!" at students coming in, and generally being very busy. No-one wants to talk to me about the hilarious poo sculptures I saw no matter how loudly I yell. Toilet breaks become a tired necessity rather than the thrilling excursion they once were.

1900 - Sanity is restored when given two lessons to teach of 40 minutes each. Teach the hell out of buying a train ticket, and terrify students with wide eyed zealotry about how trains are late all the time in England. Try and run over by as much as I can, but eventually have to unlock classroom door and allow my weeping charges to leave.

2020 - With only an hour to go, suddenly all energy is restored and shift becomes a joyous and happy time. Stacks of flyer-stuffed tissues are wracked up at a rate of knots. Questions regarding English grammar from Japanese staff are answered fervently and - it's fairly certain - incorrectly. Smiles all round from the sub-teacher!!

2045 - Still forty-five minutes to go!? Bollocks.

2130 - Shift ends. Clock out, walk to the station with the other teachers, discussing day and expounding how - all things considered - it wasn't that bad........

And that, is a subshift. Also, July is hawaiian shirt day, so I have to get some in to wear. You can bet they'll be some pictures of that.....

Delightful sculpture...

2007-06-25T08:56:00.000-07:00

I went for a meal last night a Japanese friend of mine who works as the director of one of the schools - she suggested going to a Spanish restaurant that she knows as there was "something interesting to see there". Well, my mind was alive with possibilities - would it be something run-of-the-mill like a set of antique castanets? Or some eccentric Mediterranean-Asian fusion cuisine: sushi covered in sangria? It turned out to be these small sculptures - check out the front view:

If you look closely, you might be able to see the detail that makes this more than just a quaint oddity - here's the back view:

Yes, they're having a poo! In fact, the one second into the picture looks like he's been eating a little too much fibre - he'll end up in A&E if he keeps that up. Anyway, not quite what I was expecting but certainly interesting and it made me laugh.

While I'm messing about with photos, this is where I work on Sunday. It's in a swanky shopping mall in the city centre called La Chic (all trace of a French pronunciation is removed when Japanese people say it - "Lashick"). This is the entrance:

and here's the inside where the staff beaver away arranging lessons and such. Also pictured is nice friendly staff person Mia - that's not her real name, it's a nickname she uses because her Japanese name is tricky to pronounce for gaijin (I don't know what is it, she just told me it's difficult). This is pretty common, although it's still odd to have a Japanese guy introduce himself as Barry.

Not the most exciting photos, but more interesting ones are to come!

Look out!!

2007-06-23T06:38:00.000-07:00

Japanese people have a terrible sense of spatial awareness. There, I've said it. Political correctness be damned - they do not looked where they're bloody going. I'm not exactly a small guy, but the number of times I've been walking behind someone and just as I've moved to overtake them they've swerved into my lane.....well, it's a lot. Perhaps the most infuriating is on the train - Japanese folk don't seem to filter down into the carriages, they just get on and stand in the entrance. It seems to be accepted that if you want to get past someone, you just gently push in a way that would get you a sharp dig in the ribs back in Blighty. Which is fair enough, but there should be signs or something for us gaijin. Actually, the other day I got on and the guy on front of stopped RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE DOOR so I couldn't even get on. So I shoved his rucksack out of the way and pushed past him, grumpy style. He lost his balance a bit, but that's what you get for existing at 9am on a Saturday - I'm not a morning person.

My classes were good today - I had one very young kid who has the class to himself first, and normally he's very energetic especially if we get to do stuff about animals. But today he seemed a little out of sorts and uncooperative. I don't think there's many things more humiliating in life than yelling out "wave your arms" and gooning about like a prize plonker while a 2 year old looks pityingly at you. He actually threw a proper temper tantrum at one point and was inexplicably shouting "rain!" in Japanese - I later found out that the word for rain "ame" is the same as the word for "candy" or "sweets". Me and his Mum managed to talk him down and get him to do some stuff but most of the lesson was spent cheering him up. I found out afterwards that before coming to class...he'd had diarrhea!! So, I'm torn between feeling sympathy for the little guy and thinking maybe some kind of warning label was in order.
Second class was really fun - the kids are really bright and cheerful so teaching them is lots of fun. There is a small classroom management issue though that two of them vie for the top spot, and if either of them lose a game they get proper stroppy. I tried making it so in the end "everyone's a winner yay!" but then they all just look witheringly at me, so now I just fix it so they win one each. We'd tried to play snap today actually which you think would be simple to explain, but they could not get that you turn over the top card of your pile blind and have to shout snap if it's the same as the card face up - everytime I turned over my card they just hunted through their decks for the same card, threw it on top and shouted snap. And everytime I tried to explain to one of them "no, look, turn this card over...." the other three would hunt through their decks for the same card, throw it on top, and shout snap.　　So I abandoned that fairly rapidly.

I think it's also worth mentioning that my private lesson student - who's a really nice guy - told me during our discussion that he wouldn't be happy if his daughter wanted to marry a foreigner. Um....you know I'm a foreigner right? He doesn't actually have a daughter anyway so it's all hypotheticals.

First post! First post!

2007-06-23T06:33:00.000-07:00

Inspired by fellow teacher and Antipodean ambassador Thom Morgan, I decided that it might be fun to do a blog rather than fill up people's inboxes with emails that might not be that interesting. That way, people that want to know what I'm up to can check in every now and again and see the updates, and those that don't can just push me into a tiny box in their consciousness and forget about me. The bastards.

That said - seeing as this is in the public domain I may have to tone down some of my tales, particular those that relate to my students. To pluck an entirely fictitious example from the air - say I had a young charge who seemed to display an unhealthy fascination with certain orifices about my person and in placing his fingers in them. Well, I probably couldn't mention him too much. If such a child existed of course. Hmm. So you'll probably get some emails from time to time too.

I'm going to try and sort out some photos for this page too so you can see a bit of where I work and also of Nagoya which has lots of strange/cute/cool Japanese type stuff to gawk at.