Japanese TV, Yamaha, and mountains
Ok, today was a decent day. And it felt pretty good because I've been working 6 days a week, and this is the last one for a while, I think. I'm not gonna do anymore overtime if they offer, I just feel I really need 2 days off a week. So this is the last Friday of three that I've done, and this isn't overtime. I'm shift swapping with another teacher, so I'm going to get July 7th off. It'll be a nice break when it arrives :)
Today I learnt a couple of interesting things from my student. But before that, I'll tell you what happened last night. Simon has a Japanese friend (a girl) who came over last night. I was talking to her about my Japanese lesson, and saying I learnt some new words like yama, which means mountain. She then told me that her surname was Yamaguchi, which means yama-mountain, guchi-mouth. Basically her surname was Mountain Mouth. I thought that was hilarious. She didn't see the humour as much, because its a pretty common Japanese surname. I also saw something on TV that was pretty funny. In Japan, they have variety shows which just shows comedians, famous people, singers, idols, etc. doing weird and funny things. Last night, I saw one where a bunch of celebrities were blindfolded (this is one by one) and then led to a rollercoaster. The blindfold was taken off once they were secured in. They were given a microphone, and as the rollercoaster took off, music to some familiar Japanese song started to play. They had to sing while they were on the rollercoaster...it was seriously one of the funniest things I've ever seen. For one, some of them can't sing...and then when they started plummeting down the slopes (seriously steep), their singing turned into screaming! So like "Arewa shimode kaheAAAAAHHHHHHHhhiHHHHHAAHHHHHAHHH!!!!!!!!!!" By the end of the ride, they had saliva on the sides of their mouths and their hair was blown back like they were in a wind tunnel! Funniest thing ever! I should record some of these things.
Ok, my last lesson today was a voice lesson, so we ended up on the topic of cars, and famous Japanese companies and famous Australian companies. Australian companies are really not internationally famous. Well, the only ones I could think of are BHP Billiton and Telstra, neither of which my students heard of. I told them I had a Honda Accord, which amused them greatly for some reason... Then we talked about how much cars cost. Now get this. A new Honda Accord model here costs around 2.5mil Y. That translates to around $31,000-32,000AUD. In Australia, I'm pretty sure a new model Honda Accord costs at least $40,000AUD. The savings are massive! But the import tax for cars into Australia is pretty high I was told, so I dunno whether its a viable option, buying a car and then exporting it to Australia. Keeping a car in Japan is frickin' expensive, though. There's no such thing as free parking, so if you do drive it, parking alone will cost about $400/month. Crazy, huh?
We also talked about motorbike brands in Japan, since one of the students drives a motorbike. Basically, its Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki and Yamaha. I then said Yamaha's a weird company, it makes motorbikes, and pianos! Then what one of the students said next really shocked me. He said Yamaha makes golf clubs...AND....furniture! FURNITURE!?
First Japanese lesson
Today I had my first Japanese lesson. I think paying for lessons is going to motivate me to learn efficiently, otherwise I can see myself saying "I'll learn Japanese...soon" and actually never learn while I'm here. So paying for lessons is good.
Anyway, met my teacher (Seiko, but not the same as the watch) at Kikuna in McDonalds, how convenient :). We'll probably be doing our lessons there every Thursday morning. Today she just taught me the hiragana, and I'm trying to put it to memory now. Gotten through most of it in one day, just gotta hope I remember it tomorrow. Anyway, she seems really nice so learning Japanese should be a snap!
The rest of the day has been a veg-out. This is probably the first day that I haven't really gone out to see stuff on my days off. I need the veg day to relax, this whole 'working' thing is kinda tiring, hehehe. Anyway, if you are an anime fan, or a CG fan, or just like watching REALLY REALLY cool things, download Karas. It's a 6 episode anime OVA of...something.
Go here: http://baka-updates.com/releases.php and search for Karas, subbed by Ani-Kraze. The CG in the anime is ridiculously awesome, probably one of the best I've seen since Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. Ok! Hope that last bit didn't bore all the girls!
P.S. Thanks for the comments, I do read them :)
Chinatown and Ishikawacho
Today was a great day.
First, had a pretty easy day at work, 10-2. Had a scheduled free lesson on top of that, and my last lesson was with one of my favourite students. Also my first lesson was with two students, one of whom I know really well (obsessed with exercise). She told us a story at the start of the lesson, saying yesterday she heard her neighbour scream. She went over to investigate and found there was a snake in her neighbour's yard. They call it a shima-hebi (shima: striped, hebi: snake). Apparently its not poisonous so my student just picked up the snake, petted it and let it go free. She said "I like snakes, they're cute," or something to that effect. The other student and I just kinda looked in shock at her before we started laughing in disbelief. Pretty weird... Also, kinda cool :):), I taught this student who hasn't come to Nova for 2 months. No wonder I didn't hear anything about her, she was unbelievably hot! Just graduated, and is going to be flight stewardess for Japan Airlines. Wish she came more. Oh and in case you didn't know, there are two or three other very good looking students at Tsunashima...hehehe.
After work, I headed towards Ishikawacho station, which is a little ways past Yokohama station, and is very near Yokohama Stadium and Chinatown (Motomachi, in Japanese). I met with a guy named Ray Mercer; he's an old friend of Ps. Dennis and is a pastor at Yokohama Grace Bible Church in Ishikawacho. Unfortunately for me, their services are on Sundays 10:30-12:00, and 4:00-5:30, and Wednesdays 10:30-12:00, all of which I'm working on, so I can't attend the normal services. But I did meet some great people who were working and 'hanging out' at the church office. So I had a pretty good time there.
Hung around for a while there before Ray had to get going, so I decided to leave as well and explore Chinatown. I hadn't really eaten anything so I was hoping to get a good meal there too. I basically just got myself lost in Chinatown and wandered the streets. The photos you can see are just some of the streets and buildings. One of them is the place I ate dinner at, and the dish that I ate, which tasted great...but is probably just a tad expensive for the amount, at 840Y. But I haven't had some good Chinese in a while, so it was alright anyway. Chinatown would have been better if I knew exactly where I was, but it was alright anyway. There are stalls everywhere selling these derivatives of pow, like char siew pow, except they looked kinda weird, were a lot larger, had different kinds of meat in it (even prawns (ebi)) and were quite expensive (1 pow for like 300-500Y).
I then TRIED to find my way back to Ishikawacho, and eventually walked into a convenience store to ask for directions. In the end, I found the JR rail (which is quite visible, continuing over the streets) and followed it to the next station, Kannai. Finally headed back for home.
Was a good day all in all. Nice to spend some time around other Christians and in a church as well, after not having been for over a month.
Oh, two of the last pictures are of Yokohama Stadium (not that tall), and the last one is a view across from the river in Tsunashima; that's a driving school around my area.
