Tales from the Land of the Rising Sun

That's a little inappropriate don't you think?

2008-04-10T20:43:00.003+09:00

So here's a few things that have made me go "WTF?!?" For dangerousness, offensiveness, or sheer WTFness.

1. Where's the socket?

I assume this was supposed to be plugged in, but no, they decided to leave it out in the snow. Electricity's not dangerous in Japan - the next time I saw this sign, it was turned on. Also, I have noticed that it tends to start snowing only when I've just shaved my head and left my beanie at home. Not much fun.

2. Whale Chips

Yum Yum. Cheap too, I think these were only about 200 yen.

3. Africa works

So I didn't take this picture, my friend Tim did. I wish I had though, it's brilliant. "Africa Works". It sure does. This is a clothing outlet, but I didn't see any waders there.

4. How Cheap?

This one's my favourite. It was outside a sex shop in Shibuya. I have little experience with sex paraphernalia or the price thereof, but I assume this place probably gave a good deal. Otherwise they'd be lying!

Hanami!!

2008-04-10T18:34:00.004+09:00

Last weekend was hanami weekend for Utsunomiya. On Saturday, I met up with Danielle, self proclaimed “best Canadian ever” (she actually is pretty cool), Aussie Brooke, and English Matt, and headed to the park in the centre of town with the hope of finding other ALTs. After a tedious three or four minute search, we gave up and started drinking, eventually finding them four or five hours later, and hung out with them for a few hours. Then it was off to “yakitoridori” (chicken alley) for dinner, where I’m relatively certain no-one ate any chicken… And then, yet again, karaoke, for maybe the sixth time that week? Grand old times, karaoke is. Then, it was Sunday morning, and time to head back to the park to break Brooke’s bike lock – she lost her key, then off to another park for some more hanami with some more friends, this time alcohol free, for me anyway. Here, we played ultimate Frisbee, although, to be fair, there was nothing ultimate about what we were playing, it was quite pathetic really. Then we met some new foreigners and played Charades while doing some night hanami, which is the same as day hanami, only in the dark (for those who may be easily confused). Provided this week’s rain hasn’t destroyed all of the blossoms, I may do some more hanami this weekend, and will definitely be doing so next weekend up in Fukushima.

An American wedding in Japan

2008-04-10T18:33:00.000+09:00

On Friday night, my friend Nate got married to his fiancé Ai. The wedding party was pretty cool, it was at a modern bar, which had a couch/bed thing (I know it has a fancy name, but I can’t for the life of me think what it is), and a stream that ran both inside and outside, as well as the good old Japanese all you can drink for 3 hours? I think. After that, we headed to another place for another three or four hours before heading home. All in all, it was definitely a western wedding, with nothing standing out as Japanese except for the announcements by bar staff.

Finally... Getting up to date!

2008-04-10T18:32:00.001+09:00

Last week now, not much farther to go! Yay! So, Sarah headed off on her way to Hirosaki on Wednesday morning, and that evening was the farewell for Jen, who has gone back to Canada. First we went to a Chinese restaurant, because that’s what we eat in Japan, Chinese food. After a couple of hours there, it was time for karaoke, but not before I spent half an hour trying to find an open petrol station! Karaoke was great, and quite affordable really. We were there for 5 hours, and it only cost 1,350 yen. After this, we headed to another restaurant, and eventually got home at about 6am, the first time I’d been up that long since I was about 16!

A visit from an old flattie

2008-04-10T18:26:00.003+09:00

The other person to visit me was Sarah, who’s now up in Hirosaki on exchange. Sarah arrived about 5 days before Spring Vacation started. She came to school for a day on a Friday, and joined me in two classes. The kids were so excited that I’m pretty sure a couple of them at least wet themselves. It had been a big week for some of them. I forced a few to talk to my sister on the phone, and then meeting another living, breathing foreigner. Oh the excitement! Then it was time to introduce Sarah to the friends, and what better way to do so that all you can drink at an izakaya (Japanese bar) for a few hours, then all you can drink karaoke for a few more? That’s right, nothing’s better. Well, almost nothing anyways. I finished school on the Monday, then we did a few things around town, including visiting Oya, a nearby town which has the oldest remains of civilisation or something in Japan. It was pretty cool, even though I don’t remember what it was famous for. There were many Buddhist statues carved into cave walls, and an 11,000 year old skeleton, and frogs! So many frogs! Sarah and I stopped counting after 7,216,318, and decided that we were nearly half way there. Big ones, small ones, yellow ones, green, orange, they were everywhere.

We also drove up to Nikko, hoping to see the lake the way I had back in autumn, but the chair lift was out of order, it was snowing, and we didn’t feel like hiking up to the top. So we went to see Kegon falls and the shrines before heading home. The next weekend, we went to Tokyo. We met Sarah’s friend Juri, who took us around Harajuku, Shinjuku, and Shibuya, then met Jen, a Canadian from Utsunomiya, with friends of hers from all over at a very upmarket nineteenth century styled bar called Elephant. After a few hours at the bar, we headed to “Womb” a club, were we would meet up with Liz and her friends. The club wasn’t bad I guess… It wasn’t amazing either though. It had a 4000 yen entry fee, there were at least 3.5 million people packed into it, and 175ml bottles of water started out at 500 yen a piece, so I’m pretty sure that it’s the kind of club I only needed to visit once. We were supposed to go and do hanami (cherry blossom viewing) on the Sunday, but the weather wasn’t the best, so we just came back to Utsunomiya.

A visit from an old friend

2008-04-10T18:19:00.006+09:00

During my time at Kunimoto, I was visited by two people that came to Japan with me in 2001. Kelvin arrived in Japan in December, and worked near Nagano for a couple of months, before coming to Utsunomiya for two weeks in February. It was awesome to catch up with him, as we both recognised the same changes around the city, most notably the name of the main shrine in the centre of town that we used to use as a meeting point. When we were here before, it was called “Futaarasan”, but has since changed to “Futaarayama”. It’s still spelt the same with the Chinese characters, but is said differently. Apparently this happens every now and again. Also, while Kelvin was here, we went on a trip to Mt Fuji. We left Utsunomiya at 5am, and stopped first at a cherry blossom festival in Izu, near where Liz lives. There were maybe five trees in bloom, as we were about a month early. Mt Fuji looked cool though, we stayed at a Japanese lodge for the night, and got up and watched the sunrise over Fuji. I, being the genius that I am, left my camera locked in the bus, so missed out on a couple of awesome photos. But it was great fun. There was a lot of snow, and I even saw my first frozen lake.

Speaking of Snow
We had a fair amount of the white stuff this year, but sadly, unlike Dunedin, everyone keeps working when it snows here. People don’t like driving, but they are still expected at work and school. Both times we had particularly heavy snowfalls, it lingered around for about a week afterwards, and made it a challenge to bring my scooter into it’s parking pace. It has finally started to warm up here though, which is always good.

The Good School

2008-04-10T18:18:00.000+09:00

A while has passed since I updated this thing. A whole school term, in fact. I had spend the last term at Kunimoto JHS, and am now back at Takaragi, the “bad” school. Takaragi really isn’t that bad, as I have mentioned before, but Kunimoto was absolute perfection. The children sat quietly and listened to me. When I asked them to speak, they spoke, to write, they wrote, and to stop, they stopped. Most of them actually understood the instructions I gave them too, which was good, and at least three students were able to have a conversation with me that extended past the day, date and weather. Teachers were also great, I made friends with not only the English teachers, but others too, particularly with one of the Japanese teachers, who helped me out a lot when I was studying.

I saw several festivals there too, including a job fair, where students went out and did all sorts of odd jobs – at the sports park, convenience stores, police, hospital, even the zoo. Also the graduation ceremony, the last ceremony for the third graders. At least eighty percent of the school was in tears at the end of the ceremony, and not all were students. When I came here in 2002, I met an ALT who said he couldn’t believe the relationships students had with their teachers, and now I see what he meant. At Kunimoto, they had a system where a teacher would start with the first year students one year, and teach them right through until they were in third year, so the students didn’t have to deal with different teaching methods. This worked quite well, and also created really good relationships between student and teacher. Also, another thing that’s different here, is that if any child gets in trouble for something outside of school, and is in trouble with the police, they often call the student’s homeroom teacher before they call the parents, and teachers try to deal with it. Kunimoto, of course, doesn’t have any problems like this.

The only problem was it’s distance from my house, but this was only temporary. I fixed this problem by buying a scooter, thinking that this was a brilliant idea. It was a good idea, in that it reduced my trip to school to 15 minutes, but since it was smack bang in the middle of winter, I would often arrive at school near frost-bitten, despite wearing thick gloves every day. Also, I was surprised to learn, and a bit slow to learn, too, that the speed limit for scooters isn’t 50km/h like it is with everyone else, but 30km/h, and that scooters aren’t much fun to drive through snow, so I eventually upgraded to a car, much better, and slightly less scary. Tochigi is renowned for being the most dangerous prefecture to drive in, with the most road fatalities in Japan. Couple that with the fact that Utsunomiya has like the highest ratio of cars to people in the world. So not only am I driving amongst the worst drivers in the country, but there are also more of them.

Scary thought that.

Corrections and apologies

2008-01-07T15:00:00.000+09:00

So, in the post about Tokyo, where I posted the picture of the sign advertising a musical called "How to Suck Shit", I was mistaken. I recently had it pointed out to me, and it is now blatantly obvious to me, that it is, in fact, "How to Succeed". I don't know how I missed it, and it makes a lot more sense, but a lot less interesting than "How to Suck Shit". Oh well...

Winter, New Years, and Christmas in a place that doesn't do Christmas

2008-01-06T16:14:00.000+09:00

The start of December saw the final game for the Tochigi SC soccer team, also the first game of theirs that I had seen. It was a mission to get out there, we all cycled, and it was probably a good 15km each way, with a surprise giant hill just before we arrived. The game was pretty cool, Tochigi won, which was cause for much cheering amongst the fans, of which, there were at least a few thousand. Each time a goal was scored, fans would disappear behind humongous banners that seemed to appear from nowhere. I don't have any photos of the banners at the soccer, but there are some below, that were used for the same reasons at the hockey game. After the game, we were about to head off back to town, when it was noted that Chris's bike tyre was rooted. Fortunately, Juhani (who had just left town) had left his pump in Tawny's car, so Chris took this, and stopping after short intervals, would keep it relatively full of air. At one point, he caused a 10 minute delay though, when he somehow got the pump stuck between the spokes of his front tire (see photo), after he "dropped" it, and it "fell" into the tyre. Yeah
right, Chris!

I want to just write a quick little ditty on karaoke. As everyone knows, it was invented here, and is extremely popular. At least it's popular amongst the foreigners here it is. In the three and a half months I have been here, I must have been to karaoke at least 15 times, probably more. The first time, two days after I arrived here, and most recently yesterday afternoon. No doubt I'll end up doing it tonight after dinner with friends. Karaoke here is far better than back in NZ. Karaoke in bars is almost unheard of here, you go to karaoke places to do karaoke, and are put in your own room, the size of which is decided by how many people you have. There are rooms for as few as 2-3 people, or up to as many as 30+. Prices are also often fantastic. The place we went to on Christmas eve was 600 yen (about NZ$7), and this was for any amount of time between midday and 7pm, and included all the soft drink you want (simply add some store bought vodka or other alcohol, and voilà, good times for everyone!), and you can also have, for about 1000 yen (NZ$11) a nomihoudai, or all you can drink, so it's pretty good. Particularly when alcohol is involved, karaoke can be great fun, and nearly everyone gets involved, and up and dancing around.

Ok, so enough of that, as December drew on, it was getting closer and closer to Christmas , my last day at Takaragi JHS for 2007. The Friday before Christmas was our bonenkai, the end of year party. This was great fun. Almost all of the teachers attended, and it was my first real introduction to the real Japanese drinking culture. When we arrived, there were two beer bottles in front of each person's setting. The only rules seemed to be that you were not allowed to pour your own drink, and your glass was never to be less than three quarters full. Each time you'd take a drink, someone would be there ready to top you back up. Good times, and after this, we went to an izakaya (Japanese bar) where many a traditional song was sung, until I interrupted , and made them do the only Japanese song I really know, quite rocky and untraditional.

On Christmas Eve, Liz came arrived to spend a few days in Utsunomiya. First we did karaoke, then dinner, then came back home for a couple of Baileys before bed. I remembered seeing a tiny Christmas tree in a cupboard here, so set that up, and we laid out our presents. On Christmas, we were up at 6.30, to open presents, and prepare a breakfast of fruit salad, croissants, and camembert cheese. Then it was time for school. Yes, school on Christmas. Christmas Eve was a celebration of the Emperor's birthday here, not actually his birthday, but celebrated very close to Christmas every year. It is my strong belief that in a country like Japan, as westernised as it is, if they are going to have a holiday this close to Christmas, they may as well hold it on the day, which I'm sure would be appreciated by the many foreigners living and working here. Instead, it is almost always the last day of school for the year. I had three classes, all of which were Christmas themed, where we talked about both the religious and commercial sides of the holiday. All of the students knew that Christians celebrate it as the birth of Christ, but they no idea where he was born. "America, Sweden, Norway, New Zealand, Australia" were a few of the suggestions I had, so I told them the country started with an "I", and was bombarded with "India, Iraq, Indonesia, England (which starts with an "I" here, igirisu)", and in each of the classes I wound up telling them the correct answer. I decided that I was going to have a half day, and approached the vice principal at lunch time. All I had to say was "It's Christmas, and..." and he told me I could go. So then, it was lunch time with Liz, at some restaurant here. Nothing had traditional Christmas meals (which in Japan is chicken, KFC almost always gets booked out on this day each year), but managed to find a place that did steak, then it was back home to talk to the family and get ready for the evening, where we met up with other teachers and friends. We had booked a place for 15 people, having invited 20, and not thinking they'd all turn up, and we wound up having 28. Secret Santa gifts were exchanged, and then we drank, and ate, and drank, and then went to karaoke, and sung and drank.

On Boxing Day (Americans, click the link and you''ll see, it's not just some crazy Kiwi thing), I went to get my Japanese drivers license. This was an easy task to complete, but at an inconvenient place. I had to take a bus, that dropped me at the license centre at 11.50, just before lunchtime for the employees, wait till 1.00, and then fill in all sorts of forms. When I was finished, at 2.25, I had just missed the bus back to town, and would have had to wait until 3.30 for the next one. So instead, I caught a Taxi with a Brazilian guy, who also didn't have to do a test, but has to put up learner driver signs for the first year he drives here (as do most who drive on the right hand side of the road), so now, I can legally drive here, even completely unaware of driving rules, when to give way, etc. which doesn't seem to be a problem, as it doesn't look like Japanese people know what they are supposed to do either.

On December 30, we went to Nikko to see the local ice hockey team play some team from Hokkaido. Well, technically, according to the programme, we actually went to an ice hochey game, one of the many mistakes here on lots of signage. It was the first time I had seen a full ice hockey game (I'd watched 10 minutes of one before, but then my glasses broke), and I loved it. The Nikko Ice Bucks won, which was again greatly appreciated by the home crowd, who waved many of their banners again that blocked many people from view (can't be seen too clearly here, but the ones at the soccer were even bigger than these). Then, it was back to Utsunomiya for okonomiyaki (literally fried things that you like, or Japanese pancakes that you cook yourself on a hotplate in the middle of your table), and home to an early night before my trip to Mishima for the New Year.

I arrived in Mishima after a little confusion in Tokyo, at aboout 1.30 on New Year's Eve, and was met by Liz. We headed back to her place after lunch, and did almost nothing for the afternoon, which was great! Then, after dinner, we headed to the Mishima train station, and went to Numazu, where we were met by Mr Hida, a teacher at Liz's school, and a Buddhist priest. We went to a big temple with him in Numazu, where we were shown around the grounds, which were amazingly well presented (unfortunately no photos as proof though), and introduced to other priests.

Japanese people have a very different view towards suicide than Westerners, and this is relevant to note here. The priests, upon learning we were from New Zealand, mentioned the two Japanese men, who died during a fishing trip in the Urawera ranges. They then started joking that it was suicide. This was not at all predictable, and was, to my Western mind, obviously something not to joke about. They also started talking about whaling, complaining that countries like Australia were against it (fortunately they didn't ask us for our input on this). We were then given transcripts, led to the front of all of the priests, just as people began to enter the temple, and we chanted, or at least attempted to chant, sutras with them. Then, it was time to ring the bell 108 times, which signifies the 108 sins of humanity (this is done at all Buddhist temples across Japan), and then were put in a car and driven to Mr Hida's son's juku
where we were given soba noodles, tempura, and then led to the Mishima Taisha (big shrine).

At the shrine, which had literally of thousands of people at it, we proceeded to the main altar (I guess that's what you'd call it), for hatsumoude, the first prayer of the New Year. After this, we bought our luck charms and predictions for the year to come. What happens here with the luck charms, is that you buy them at the start of the year, and then at the end of the year, you throw them on a bonfire, and buy new ones. With the fortune papers, if they are good, like mine was, you keep them, but if not, like Liz's, you tie them to a line at the shrine, and they are burnt by the priests.

After the shrine, we made our way home, to have a short sleep, before we woke up and went to Mr Hida's temple, to have breakfast with his family. The traditional breakfast consists of sake (Japanese rice wine), then a meal of miso soup, with potatoes and mochi (rice cake), and a platter of egg rolls, fish rolls, egg and fish rolls, whole small fish, chicken, fruit, and fish eggs. I passed on the fish eggs, and a couple of fish rolls, but tried everything else. After the breakfast, with his extremely hospitable family, we had a short tour of his temple, and noticed that Mt Fuji (affectionately known as Mr Fuji by Liz and many others here) was looking splendid in the distance, so we decided to go in for a closer look.

We went down the Izu peninsula, to the town of Izunagaoka, and went up the gondola to Katsuragi-san, another mountain, to get a good view of Mr Fuji. Unfortunately for us, during our trip down there, the clouds decided to cover him up, and we were unable to get a clear view of the peak. It was good fun anyway, and we did get a decent look at the Pacific coast, as well as surrounding towns on the peninsula. And, while up there, when we stopped for lunch, we were approached by four elderly men, who gave us some more sake, wishing us a Happy New Year. Unfortunately, the sake was quite displeasing, and I struggled through mine, and had to politely decline when they offered more.

The following day, we headed in to Tokyo, to meet Chris, another of our Japanese class, who is living in Hokkaido, but was down for the break. Mr Fuji was displaying his peak in all it's glory, and unfortunately the photo above is the only one I have that shows it. It's not the best photo, but from any other nearby location, the view was hindered by intrusive factories. Tokyo was good fun. We went for lunch at a Japanese curry restaurant, and then went looking for the Yasukuni Shrine, which caused much uproar when visited by former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi during his time as head of the nation. Unfortunately we were unable to find it, but we did find another shrine, and then headed to the Starbucks at Shibuya. Not because we all love Starbucks or anything, but because it overlooks the busiest foot-traffic intersection in the world. Stupidly, I forgot to take a photo of it at it's busiest, and the video I took turned out to be of very crappy quality, but I guarantee it was insanely busy, apparently with at least 2000 people crossing each time the lights allow.

After this, it was back to Utsunomiya, where not much has been happening really. Next weekend, I'm taking part in an English camp, helping students who are going to go to NZ or the US this year. Should be interesting... But before then, all I have to do today is get ready for my first day at a new school, Kunimoto JHS, where I start tomorrow.

Bits and Pieces

2007-12-01T18:54:00.000+09:00

So I've also decided that I'm going to add a collection of odd things that I find in this place, just knick-knacks and things that I either find amusing or interesting, it may be something that's a great idea, or an example of Engrish that I find on a sign somwhere.
On the train on the way to Nikko.

Not only are these all labeled as rule no. 1, but now I find I'm not allowed to take my goldfish with me.
This is sheer brilliance, great ingenuity. In fact, I have invented this myself in my head many a time. It's a drink, as well as a holder for your chips, and I found one for real yesterday at Mos Burger, a joint over here that is an exquisite eatery.

Trains, Temples, and Harajuku Girls

2007-12-01T16:34:00.000+09:00

Last weekend I had perhaps the most eventful weekend I've had since I've been here. Friday was a public holiday, so there was no school. I went to an international festival, and helped out making mochi - I've mentioned mochi before - making rice cakes by pulverising the living daylights out of rice that has done nothing to deserve it. It was pretty cool, and I wound up meeting a few Peruvians, so I'll probably get some Spanish practice in the future too.

On Friday evening, my friend Liz arrived. We did Japanese at uni together, and now she's over here teaching at a high school in Mishima, about an hour south of Tokyo. On Saturday, we visited Nikko, this time, spending the day around Toshogu Shrine. It's a collection of temples and shrines that has been around since about 1650.

Just before the entrance to the shrine, stands the "oldest" bridge in Japan. Originally erected in the eighth century, the bridge has been reconstructed several times, most recently in 2005. Then at the entrance to the main shrine stands the gate. These gates are found at all shrines in Japan, and vary in size and grandeur. After proceeding through the main gate is another, smaller one, with two statues guarding the building itself. Most look incredibly aggressive, and not very representative of the peace loving Buddhists they protect.

Of the at least ten statue guards around the shrine, there was only one that didn't look aggressive. He just looked ready with a sword across his knees, waiting for someone to do wrong. Aside from most of the threatening looking guards they had there, everything else about Toshogu was very peaceful. A nice collection of Temples, and a five-storeyed peculiarly built pagoda. It was built in 1650, reconstructed in 1818. The reason it is peculiar is that it was built with no foundations, at all. Instead, it apparently has a long pole, suspended from the top, which balances everything out after an earthquake. We had chosen a good time to visit, as the kouyou (autumn colours) were still about. Very nice indeed.

Not only was it the kouyou that made last Saturday as wonderful as it was, but also, we stumbled across the only non-Japanese shop/restaurant in the whole of Nikko. It wasn't that we don't like Japanese food or anything, Japanese food is delicious. But so is the Lamb we had at the New Zealand Fair! A perfect meal, a little pricey at 2250 yen (about NZ$25), but totally worth it!

After lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon learning about different things around Toshogu. It is, for example, home to the three monkeys, you know hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil? Also, there is a carving of an elephant, which represents it quite well, and the interesting thing about it is that the artist never saw an elephant, or an image of an elephant in his life. Pretty good, right? Also, we found out what the priests do with their spare time (I'm surprised that they have any spare time, the place is always packed!!!) - they make whisky, and I like to imagine that they drink it there too, I think it would make the service a lot more interesting, and would probably also explain why we only saw two priests the whole time we were there...

So after the day at Nikko, we headed back to Utsunomiya to eat some gyoza, this fair city's claim to fame in Japan. After this we headed out to meet up with some friends at Round 1 Stadium, the most incredible place on the face of the planet*. It hosts a bowling alley, pachinko parlour (not like the 'pachinko' that Elliot says on Scrubs, the Japanese form isn't a word used to describe someone's unmentionables, it's a gambling game), and the most incredible part. For about NZ$20, you get three hours access to an arcade parlour, a roller skating/mini-motorbike rink, shooting range, karaoke, an open-roof sports practice area (baseball, basketball, volleyball, badminton, tennis, golf, archery, etc), a mechanical bull, and, although disturbing (I didn't try it), fishing, with live fish, that you catch and release back into the pond. The fishing aside, this place was fanfreakingtastic.

On Sunday, we were up nice and early, well, 9am, and ready to set out for Tokyo. I find it very hard to believe that, living in a city like Utsunomiya, with a population roughly comparable to Wellington, a place that doesn't seem as big as Wellington, that I am only 45 minutes away from a metropolis of near 13 million people! We took the "shink" or shinkansen (bullet train) into Tokyo, with no specific schedule for the day. First of all, we had a look around the Akihabara, Tokyo's electric town. It wasn't as impressive at day as it is at night, but it was still busy enough for the main road to have been shut off to cars to be made more accessible for the thousands of tourists who made their way through the area. After Akihabara, we made our way to Ikebukuro, because Liz and I had both heard of it in Japanese class, and couldn't remember for what. The most interesting things we found there were an extremely long escalator in a concert hall, and the fact that the concert hall was showing an Austin Powers-esque musical, that we agreed after much discussion is called "How to Suck Shit" (for those that can't read Japanese, that's the closest we've been able to figure from what the title says, it's the alphabet they use for foreign words, and literally says "Hau Tuu Saku Shiito"). If anyone can make a less offensive and more meaningful title, please let me know!

After Ikebukuro, it was time for us to visit Harajuku, and yes, there were Harajuku girls, just like in Gwen Stefani's songs. Also, there were Harajuku guys, and almost everything about the Harajuku fashion sense was scary. They had black goth kimono (Japanese traditional-wear), as well as "western" styled "clothing". Several of the people in Harajuku looked as though they had just stepped out of an American diner in the 1950s, and were about to break into chorus, you know, like Westside Story or something. Also, the main shopping street of Harajuku was insanely congested. There were literally tens of thousands of people manoeuvring down a road no more than 3 metres wide. It's enough to make anyone claustrophobic really. At the end of the street, we crossed the road. I wasn't going to take a picture of the building on the other side, until the pink Cadillac drove past it. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get them both in the same shot. What's he talking about, you're probably thinking. What kind of shop could possibly be made more interesting with a pink Cadillac in front of it? or Any shop would be more interesting with a pink Cadillac in front of it, you moron! But, this shop was particiularly interesting. It's called Condomania, and doesn't really need to advertise it's products, the name is sufficient for that. It's there with it's mascot, a personified image of a condom, out for people of all ages to see. And I thought that I just had to take a photo of it with a cool pink Cadillac next to it, even if I do have to use two photos to be able to display it.

That was pretty much all of the excitement we had for the day, and so it was ended by a nice early dinner at the Sensouji shrine in Asakusa (I don't know how they manage to fit so many of these shrines and temples in a city this big!), before we parted ways and returned home, a busy yet brilliant weekend had by all. Dinner was not eaten on this boat restaurant, but I thought it looked nice enough to have a show here.

*It is possible, but yet to be proven, that Round 1 Stadium is in fact, not the most incredible place on the face of the planet. More news will come if a better place is ever discovered.

Intro - a short insight to the first eight weeks

2007-11-17T21:51:00.000+09:00

So I've finally decided to start a blog. It's only taken eight weeks, not bad really I think. I could've waited a year.

So anyways, I've been in Utsunomiya, Japan for about eight weeks now, and it's going really well. I arrived after about 13.5 hours of travel - 8,841km by plane from Auckland to Tokyo (10.5 hours), and then 95km by car (it took 3 hours - insane, right?) from Tokyo to my apartment.

I was greeted by two friends from here, as well as one of the other English teachers, Matt. Had a few drinks, and was then left to fend for myself in a foreign land for the first time in my life.

I only had one day before I started work, so I thought I would use it productively, and familiarise myself with my surroundings. Unfortunately, this meant spending about two hours trying to find the way back from the convenience store not five minutes away from home. Eventually I found my way, and relearnt (I guess I had kind of forgotten) that you have to rely on landmarks here, because most roads don't have names in this country. You learn to deal with it quite fast.

The next day it was time for work. My base school until January is Takaragi Junior High, about a ten minute bike ride from here. According to the teachers there, it's the worst school in the city, and "if you can teach here, you can teach anywhere". Personally, I don't believe them, the school doesn't seem to be as bad as they portray it to be. The first day, luckily for me, I didn't have to teach, and was just introduced to teachers and other staff. My first teaching day was saved for the next day, and was at an elementary school.

These precious little treats from Kamitomatsuri Elementary were the first kids I have ever taught in my life, and it was a great place to start. The kids at elementary schools are all energetic, and enthusiastic about English, and just the fact that there is a non-Japanese person in front of them. The lessons are extremely simple, but also very informative. For me. I have learned, for example, that Japanese people believe I am a talented artist. I doubt this. I draw a simple map of New Zealand, and another of Japan, neither of which even somewhat begin to depict any realistic image of either country, and they all applaud, and congratulate me. Although I know the truth, it does feel pretty cool to be applauded for a simple drawing.

The following week I began working at the Junior High, planning and taking lessons, and learning that being a teacher takes a lot more effort than I had given any of my teachers credit for. I'm still learning, and it will be a long and slow process. That said, it's still fun, and there are a lot of activities that kids do here that we don't do back home.

One of these activities is the annual rice harvest. Every year, the students plant rice, and then harvest it, on a rice field just out the front of the school. One point that I observed while watching/helping with the harvest was that there are at least as many frogs in the rice fields as there are grains of rice. They are full of them, I must have seen at least 200 of them in this one field alone.

Another activity that the kids do is called mochi-tsuki, where they make Japanese rice-cakes. Half cooked rice is put into a hollowed out tree stump, and is pulverised with large wooden mallets until it forms a soft, sticky dough. It is quite a fun activity, and a great way to vent any stress or frustration you have.

A few weeks after I arrived, and thanks to Facebook
(yes, there's a link, because everyone who's not on it should be), I met up with some other foreigners who teach English over here - Americans Chris, Tawny and Tim, Canericans Anthony and Sarah (so called because he's Canadian and She's American and they're married), fellow Kiwi Lisa, and Irish/Finnish Juhani. Most weekends we find something to do together, whether it be karaoke, a visit to a local izakaya (Japanese pub), or just drinks at someone's house. It's definitely handy to know other English speakers, as I frequently go days without having a "proper" English conversation.

One of the things I was happy to have done one weekend was to visit Nikko and see the Autumn Colours in full swing. Along the way we saw some Monkeys, and had plenty of time to photograph them, as what we thought would be a 20-25 minute bus trip, turned into a four hour crawl up to our final destination of Akechidaira. This was because we had not been informed that the entire Japanese population was descending on Nikko on the same day as us. It was ridiculous!

Since Nikko, nothing particularly special has happened, and this first post is already long enough, so I'll update more later on.