Waking up late

Today was some day. Ok, first of all, I normally wake up at 9, leave the house at 9:30, and get to work by 9:40 to prepare for work at 10:00. Today, I woke up at 9:45!! Having slept again after turning my alarm off. I looked at the clock and just straight up panicked. The ramifications for being late in Japan are somewhat more dire than in Australia. I basically threw on my clothes, grabbed my tie and bag, and ran out of the house. I ran all the way to my branch office, which normally takes about 10 minutes to walk to. In total, from the time I ran there to the time I clocked in was 7 minutes! A pretty serious effort, if I do say so myself. Except I was so out of breath that my first lesson I couldn't breathe properly, and couldn't teach properly. For the first 4 hours, I was so thirsty but I couldn't really get in a proper drink because it was so busy today with so many students in the morning. A teacher on their break bought me a drink, and saved the day. I will NEVER do that again. I've gotta start setting more alarms.

Anyway, work was pretty cool today, some highlights. For one, I figured out what that Koi...thing was...its called Koinobori, which are the paper carp on flags that Japanese people put out on Children's Day, May 5th. And I also found out how to order (say) my favourite dish at the Japanese equivalent of McDonalds, Yoshinoya. They have really cheap meals, and you can eat 'em quick so it was good. Anyway the dish I like is called yakinikudon, the last part meaning meat bowl. Its quite a nice dish, I'll take a photo sometime.

This was the highlight of my day. I decided to pick the lesson "Calming Down Angry People". To get them into the context of the lesson, I asked them, "Have you ever encountered angry people?" They all kinda said "Not in Japan." So I guessed that they hadn't really got an answer. So I started talking about someone I'd seen in Japan that was a customer, getting really angry at a sales clerk. I said further that I think people in Australia and western countries probably show emotion more than in Japan. So I asked them again, "Have you encountered angry people before?" And this lady jumped in and said, "In Australia!" I couldn't help but laugh! She gave us this story about her seeing two men throw punches over a pool table reservation. It was so funny.

I also learnt another cultural thing about Japan, when I was teaching a lesson about seasonal activities. July 7th, there is a special day called tanabata, which refers to a day when in the Milky Way, two Japanese gods dated...and for some reason, on this day people tend to wear yukata (which is like a cheap kimono). Later on in the day, I forgot what tanabata was all about, so I asked in my voice lesson what it was. When we came to the subject of kimonos and yukatas, I asked what's the difference. Because I thought they were the same thing. Apparently, kimonos are really really really really expensive, and yukata are cheap things, which look a little bit like kimonos. Kimonos are made of silk, yukata out of cotton. One of the students had just been married four months ago and she was carrying a small book of some photos that were taken at the wedding. Now, its every girl's dream to wear a kimono at their wedding. And they're not cheap, so that's why its so highly regarded. This student of mine showed us a picture of the kimono she wore, and told us it cost her...get this...400,000Y to HIRE! for one day. The payment includes the helping wear it because a kimono is made up of around 12 different sheets. Now 400,000Y is about $5,000. I think you can buy a quite nice wedding dress for that amount...but to hire a kimono!? Crazy... I later found out that standard kimonos that people might hire cost about 50,000Y, so around $625. This student had worn a very special kimono so that's why it cost so much. Unbelewable. I swear, I think I learn more than my students in voice class.

I really had to tell you all about this...its very informative, don't you think? Hehehe, sorry its so long.

OH! I also had my first kids class, Man-to-Man. Cute little girl, her photo in her file, she looked mega cute. Kawaii!!

Another day in the life

6:39pm, just came back from work and had a shower. Had a DECENT day at work today. Crap that I'm working overtime and had to wake up so early. Good that I had two no-shows today (meaning the students didn't come for their lessons, so I just get to sit around). No-shows generally only happen when I have a scheduled Man-to-Man. If there's two or more students scheduled, its almost certain that at least one will show up. And its different for different branches as well. In Tsunashima, most students seem to come when they book a class. But recently I've had a few no-shows per week, which is pretty decent. The start of the day didn't really fly unfortunately because I picked hard lessons to teach, and its generally more frustrating for both teacher and student. And then I went stupid and got McDonalds on my break. I figured since I haven't eaten it in a while I should just get it. Anyway, the coolest thing in Japan (I'm sorry if I've said this before) is that you can upgrade your fries and not your drink!!! :):):) That's key for me.

It was a stupid idea. I was so tired for the last half, as if I wasn't tired enough for the first half of the day. I had a voice lesson straight after my lunch break; basically I went into the voice room and waited for some students to show because there wasn't anybody there. I slept in the voice room for 15 minutes before one student showed up and we talked for about 30 minutes. The rest of the day was pretty cruisy. I had another no-show for my second last lesson which was good. Last voice was pretty good too. Talked about Kawashimochi, which is the name of the sweet that is traditionally eaten on Children's day (Kodomonohi, May 5th). One of the students works at a sweet company so he says he's quite busy and probably will have to work through Golden Week. Then those paper fish (carp) on poles that they stick up are called Koi...dang I can't remember, but Koi means carp, so the special asian fish that you might have heard of before.

Anyway on the way back from work, I smelt something AWESOME!!! It smelt like someone was cooking char kuay teow in their house...oh how much I miss Chinese food. I really do. I can't wait to go to Singapore. Joel, have food ready for me when I get there!! Hehehe :)

I was just thinking last night how much I like working instead of studying. Except I don't really like it that much, but the whole earning my own keep is certainly a fulfilling experience. But studying...I was just done with it at the end of 5 years, so this is a somewhat welcome holiday. I think that will wear off though, maybe in a couple of weeks or months when I finally realise I don't want to be doing this forever...so why the heck am I here anyway? I'll deal with that question when the time arises. For now I'm going to try and have a little bit of fun.

Earthquake...

Just had another small earthquake (2:52am, Friday). I was lying in my bed, waiting to go to sleep when I felt the apartment start moving. I thought Simon was doing something in the living room, but I suddenly realised the whole room was moving. Crazy...2nd earthquake! And lasted a little bit longer than the previous one. My ceiling lamp has just stopped moving.

Akihabara, or maybe not...

Today was Thursday, and my one day off for this week. I thought I'd spend it by going to Akihabara. When I woke up at around 12:00, it was pouring down like mad. So I decided to watch some anime and if it didn't clear up, I'd just stay in the whole day. In around 30 minutes, it cleared up amazingly, and the sun was shining. So I left the house at around 1:00.

I wanted Geoff to come along today, but he had plans to go next week so I will probably go with him next week if I can. When I got to the station at Tsunashima, I suddenly realised I had forgotten to bring along my camera! So stupid of me...so I had to take a couple of shots with my phone, which really look quite sad in comparison to camera shots. Anyway, it took around 20-30 minutes to get there, and around $5 for the train trip. I stopped off at Naka-Meguro station and transferred onto the Hibiya line (only for my information, hehehe :) ) and went on to Akihabara, passing Ginza and Roppongi on the way there. Ginza is the possibly the most expensive place in Japan, and possibly the world, except for New York. Apparently, 1.8mx1.8m costs about 6million yen. That's just land. Then it costs extra to build some stuff on it. So its pretty ridiculous. And Roppongi is the club bar foreigner hang out. Simon likes to go there every now and then, and if you do, you gotta plan to stay the night out; that means not catching the last train back home (coz they stop at around 12:00-1:00) and having to wait until they start up the next day at 6:00am. Since I'm not the clubber type, I don't think I'll be hangig around there too much. Ok, onto Akihabara.

Except, I didn't really see Akihabara. When I got out of the train, there were a couple of exits, namely exit 3, 4 and 5. I went for Exit 4 just randomly but it turned out to be a bad choice. I ended up on one of the main streets with the train tracks running over it. There were many buildings, but most of them were not shopping things, just company buildings or little eating establishments here and there. The photos MAY help explain. Anyway, I walked around a bit to try and find these electronic shops which I'm sure were around somewhere. Look what I stumbled upon: Yodobashi! It could be one of the most extensive Yodobashi's in Japan since it is in the electronic district. I paid a visit and bought a couple of things, including a cool little, trendy mouse pad. Anyway, I spent some time in Yodobashi just because its all electronics. Then I decided to see if I could find more shops. But I couldn't. I tried not to stray too far away from the main road, but at some point I just said to myself "Stuff it. If you get lost, you get lost. You've still got plenty of time." So I just kept walking in one direction and gradually found myself in narrow market streets. I thought, "This is pretty cool...except its not electronics." I kept walking around in amongst the market and suddenly I was out of the market street. As an entrance, there was a huge stand above saying Ameyokocho, meaning Ameyoko market, which my students had told me about a couple of days earlier. They said it was a good place to find a bargain for things. I remembered it was close to Akihabara, but I didn't really know I was there. What was even more uncanny was that when I got out, I suddenly recognised I'd been here before. WHEN I WENT TO UENO!!!! About 2 weeks ago, and we'd actually walked through the market. I was kinda happy because I had found a familiar place, not to mention I was really close to this toy shop that we had visited two weeks ago, but I didn't spend too much time in there exploring. This time I went in and stayed for about 1 and a half hours just browsing. There are quite a few things I wanna buy, but I can't buy all of them at once otherwise I'll go bankrupt. So I figured I will buy one thing each payday (so each month). Today I bought this Berserk figurine of a guy named Gatts. Pictures down there. Don't ask me how much it cost...coz I ...er...can't remember...

Anyway, after that I knew where I was so I headed into Ueno station to make my way back home. Had dinner in Tsunashima at this cool place with crispy noodles and lots of vegies; I don't know whether I've mentioned it before, because a student told me to go there and order katayakisoba, so now I'm hooked. Headed home after that.

Just not long ago, Bruce (teacher at Tsunashima, lives in Bell Wistaria) came over to drop something. He's been to Akihabara, and quickly explained to me that I'd missed the whole electric town. I kinda figured that...except now its confirmed. I really have to make another trip back there. Anyway enjoy the photos, I'm putting up some randoms that I should have posted earlier.


Pictures of Gatts figurine, a kinda huge Stitch toy Jody helped win in an arcade. The entrance to my workplace, right next to some gambling establishments (VERY LOUD!!!). I gotta walk up the pink stairs and take an elevator to the 4th floor.









Some great food at Yokohama station, noodles, meat and capsicum. Then Relakkuma (Or Relax Bear), Doraemon - the gadget cat from the future, and Tristan (teacher in the Nash) on the right, Simon in the middle and a random from the izekaya. Oh, here's another video for you, if you can be bothered: My Apartment

Blog update

Firstly, its Wednesday, even though its Thursday. As in 3:36am, but its still Wednesday. Now that that's cleared up...I blogged today. That's why my blog is finally up to date. I'm still waiting on the internet. If I didn't mention it before, I bought a table and chair thing for 2000Y, which is awesome, I should take some photos of my room and show you guys. Um, today was a nice quiet day, also the last day for one of the teachers working at Tsunashima. She finished today and heads back to the States soon, but not sure when. Angela, all the best. I didn't see you today unfortunately, otherwise I would have gotten to say goodbye.

I finished work at 2:00, and was going to meet up with some friends in Yokohama's China Town, called Motomachi-Chukagai, but it didn't work out, so instead I stayed in the whole day. I kinda need that after having arranged for myself three 6-day working weeks. So I've got another overtime this Friday, and one next Thursday I think. And my kids training last Friday was my first overtime. Hopefully I'll see a difference when payday rolls round in May.

I'm also thinking of taking Japanese lessons...I think I might, it seems worth the money to be able to speak, read and write another language, and I won't get a better opportunity actually living here for a year at least.

Mum, you're in Malaysia eating the good food. Well I wouldn't say I'm eating lousy food, but its not as good. And rice is soo expensive!! How much did we normally get 10-15kg bags back home for? All I know is it didn't cost over $20. I might resign to cooking, except for eggs (I eat eggs almost every day, bcoz they're easy to make :) ) because its pretty expensive. Anyway, this is the first post I've written that is actually written at the time of posting. All the other ones were like diary entries that I wrote on the day, but now I've made the effort sitting here half outside my apartment hooking up to some free internet...

Hope everyone is well.

P.S. I'm now reading Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. I recently read Deception Point. Both are solid books that could definitely be translated into movies. Both are better than The Da Vinci Code, in my opinion.

Great lessons

Today was pretty good for a Tuesday. Everyone had a quiet day with mainly one student in each class, what we call man-to-mans. Most of the teachers enjoy having more than one student; they can then sit back and let the students do para-work (parallel conversation, teacher not involved). But I don't mind man-to-mans, particularly if I have an enthusiastic student. Sometimes it can be pretty difficult, because the student is having a hard time learning (the lesson might be a bit difficult for them at this stage), or they're just not into it. But I had a pretty good run.

I was GOING to have my first kids lesson today, a man-to-man with some wild girl, my kids coordinator told me. In the end, she didn't come so I didn't have to do it, to my relief somewhat. There's heaps of activities in one kids lesson, so remembering them all is pretty tough. I wouldn't actually get through all the activities but just remembering what to do is kinda hard. Anyway my best lesson today was my 3rd last lesson. I had two students who were both pretty enthusiastic, and one of them, a girl, was pretty funny. She's that kind of energetic, always smiling type. I've only had her once in my class, but it was a voice lesson. The other student was a guy, except I was expecting three students, so one was missing. Now you generally carry files into the class with the students' information on them. So I looked at the name and asked, "Are you Takae?", and he said no. I made a show of it, saying I'm sorry that I guessed the wrong name and all. Then I introduced myself and then asked him to introduce himself. I said "Takae, can you introduce yourself?" IDIOT! He started by saying "My name is T...." (different name, but I don't want to reveal students' names) and I realised I had said the wrong name AGAIN! We laughed about it, especially after he told me that Takae is a girl's name...I was pretty embarrassed.

Anyway, the lesson was about sharing news about your friends. So there were general phrases like "Did you know that...", "Do you know about (name)", stuff like that. So eventually I asked them to make up a story to tell the other person. This girl is creative...too creative! The story went like this:

Girl (A): Do you know what happened to Andrew (teacher at Nova)?
Guy (B): No, what happened?
A: He was arrested. (Laughter by everyone, it was pretty absurd)
B: W..Why was he..arrested?
A: He murdered elderly people. (Followed by more intense laughter, because it was just so shocking that she could have thought of that)

We had been talking about marriages, travelling, accidents, new jobs as sharing news. And out of nowhere she pulled this shocking situation. What's even funnier is that when she first said murdered, I thought she said 'mother'. Then she showed me a stabbing motion and I finally understood. So strange.
Then later in the lesson we made up more stories, in practicing sharing news with friends. This girl is so cheeky, she made up a story about two Nova teachers getting married! And her fluency is far above the level that she's in, its just her grammar that is holding her back. I think she's been to Australia once before. Cool.

Anyway it was a great lesson, had a lot of fun. The highlight of my so-called worst day of the working week.

Easter & Fishing! not

Easter Sunday! And it sucks that I didn't go to church, instead worked from 10-5:30 on 5 hours sleep (which, seriously, is very hard for me). Thankfully this turned out to be a good day like Saturday. Had pretty full classes early in the morning (3 or 4 students each class) but they were chatty which always helps.

Only thing worth mentioning today is I went with Jody (neighbour), Joash (roommate) and Jody's parents (who are visiting) to a restaurant about 15-20 minutes walk from our place. The restaurant was unique in that you could fish for a fish, and get them to cook it for you. Unfortunately, it was exceedingly difficult to get a fish to bite your line. They're so frickin' smart by now, they don't touch anything. I managed to pull one about halfway out of the water because it did bite, but I didn't have a net ready so it fell back in. That was quite disappointing. Ended up just blindly ordering from the Japanese menu; the food turned out ok. The coolest thing was that (ARGH!!!! I really wanted to take a photo...) they served fish up to you still live. Basically I saw a chef preparing a dish. They'd sliced the sides of the fish off the fish, then bent the fish and rammed a chopstick from its end to its neck, so it was bent like a "C". Then they sliced the flesh and arranged it on the plate. The fish was still blinking in shock and trembling. A little bit sickening, but the novelty of the cruelty was appealing, maybe because it was so unique. That's some fresh fish for ya.

Oh ya, for you anime fans, I'm watching Hajime no Ippo right now (Joel, its pretty funny, and awesome too). Haven't encountered a lot of anime here, but I just probably haven't been to the right places.

P.S. My last class today, I had a spider descend from the ceiling onto the table we were sitting around. A nice distraction for my student :)












Sorry some of these photos don't look good, the lighting wasn't the greatest in this place. Because it they're not great, here's a present: Kid Playing Drum. Unfortunately, when I took out the camera, the boy and sister had stopped arguing about who was allowed to play the drum!