these three things

1) i moved yesterday...finally. except that i havent yet set up or unpacked anything, as everything is still in suitcases and bags. so is life. i started around 1 in the afternoon and after two trips back and forth finally brought everything over. truth be told if i hadnt had loads of help from amanda with the move then id probably still be doing it now, as lets just say im not ever going to win any house moving/cleaning races in the near future. im glad ive got golden week to set things up and buy what i need because no matter how you cut it the actual act of moving sucks. but i figure by the end of the week it should be fine.

2) ive made my first baby steps towards beginning to tackle learning japanese by working on hiragana. for those of you unfamiliar with written japanese, they use 4 alphabets: hiragana (used for japanese words), katakana (used for foreign words), kanji (borrowed from chinese to represent all sorts of stuff), and romaji (basically how japanese looks/sounds in english). so im starting to learn hiragana and i feel like im trying to decode some puzzle thats right before my eyes and have no clue how to unlock. that said i think im picking up on it fairly quickly and its exciting to look at something and know that it says udon or sushi or whatever it says. it also helps with my pronunciation which up until last night was absolutely horrid...now i at least have some clue about how japanese is supposed to sound like. ive generally failed at learning languages in the past (ie: french, czech) so im determined for the same not to happen to japanese.

3) a bunch of us took a day trip today to inuyama, a town about 30 minutes north of nagoya thats known more for its castle (oldest in japan) than anything else. highlights:
i) seeing actual trees, water, and mountains (more like hills)
ii) the castle itself, complete with samurai gear, great views, and the steepest steps ever
iii) lunch at an udon joint complete with 2 old ladys singing enka kareoke (cheesy japanese pop)
iv) knowing i dont have to work tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day, ect...
v) did i mention the udon?

more later.

in da club

nothing of major importance to say right now...except that its 2am and im in some random club on the night that golden week begins. i do the big move tomorrow into higashi betsuin, so i guess tonight is my last night that im in fukiage...if i ever get to sleep there tonight that is.

on an unrelated note, classes have been going really well so far, and theres only one class ive had a problem with so far on wednesday...and even then the staff have been very supportive and have explained the classroom rules with me after class in japanese. based on some horror stories ive heard about non supportive staff and complaining parents from friends of mine i consider myself lucky.

so yeah...nothing left to do but move tomorrow and then relax for the rest of golden week. maybe a day trip to inuyama, mie prefecture, gifu, possibly check out the expo, and if i feel really really ambitious, then maybe take the shinkansen to tokyo or osaka. who knows. thats the beauty of vacations in japan or any foreign place - you never know where or who youre going to end up with.

Ramblings 1 - response from defence counsel

hello hello -
Im Amanda, steves friend from Australia,
In response to young steves latest post, true - the garbage system is complicated but steve is lazy and i think therein lies the basis of his sanitation issues! The servings are small here but the foods nice and its lovely to have people scream at you when walk in and out a restaurant! or a shop for that matter, or the bank, or the post office....

Other wonderful things about the orient -
-The people are lovely and will say hello if they can - steve and i have had some great people say hello to us, and im sure youve heard his yarn about him being mistaken for tom cruise.
Just quitely, i think that in that moment Steves trip to japan paid for itself.

-The people get really excited about you and your experiences over here. They really love hearing what you think about Japan and why you are here. They are more than willing to recommend things they think you should do or see here.

-It is a beautiful place, Ive never been anywhere where they have a countdown on the news to the peak day for cherry blossom veiwing. When we were at the park i could understand why the japanese get so excited about it. It really was absolutey beautiful.

-The possibilities for cultural exchange are infinite - From your Steve playing with the Allieds in a soccor match on Sunday against a side of people from various countries to him explaining the intricacies of american football ( and how it isnt soft compared to aussie rules) to an ignorant australian.

-Personally, i now say [Sidenote} and {FYI} more than id like to, but all in all the intercultural exchange has been mutually beneficial. Accent workshops are common at social gatherings and im sure we will never tire of continually exchanging australian and canadian expressions.

So in closing i agree with Steve - Crazy crazy Japan, but beautiful and a lot of fun.

ramblings 1

random thoughts...

- japanese packaging is ridiculous. for a country that is so conscious of its environmental well being (ie: the kyoto accord), they sure have some mixed messages on keeping the earth healthy. consider this: if you buy anything from a convenience store it will usually come heavily packaged...once you finally find a way to open the thing your efforts will reveal more wrapped packages. its impossible to refuse a bag, even if youre just buying a coke from circle k. theres hardly any trash cans anywhere. but their garbage disposal system...you have to buy 3 different types of garbage bags and separate your trash into burnable, non-burnable, and recyclable, all of which go out on a different day of the week. dont ask me the difference between burnable and non-burnable because i havent a clue (sidenote: mostly because i have not yet received a said "welcome package" from the housing agent and probably never will). i had severe sanitation issues until yesterday when i finally decided to get on with it and separate everything properly.

- japanese currency is also ridiculous. why a beer costs 300 yen instead of 3 yen ill never know.

- japanese billing is ridiculous. you get stuff in the mail and go pay at the convenience store...that is if you know what it is (as i have not yet received the "welcome package" from said housing agent to pay said bills). i got a landline phone bill and a tv bill and i dont own a landline or a tv. i even had a guy from nhk visit my apartment one time to try to tell me to pay for nhk (the free public broadcaster)...i had to prove to him that i didnt own a tv so that hed leave me alone.

- japanese food portions are ridiculous. youre never full. ever. for that reason it feels like im wasting away...its clear ive lost weight but i dont know how much yet. would it really hurt them to add a bit more rice to that bowl? another piece of sushi to that plate? a few more helpings of udon to that dish?

- japanese convenience stores are ridiculous. not in that theyre different from what id get back home, ridiculous in that theyre so many of them. its like the 2 starbucks on the corner on robson street in vancouver competing with each other. circle k, 7-11, lawsons, family mart, sunkist, ect...theres too many of them and i have no idea how they all stay in business. ie: near where i live in fukiage theres one family mart, you walk 1 minute down the street and theres another family mart. no joke.

sorry about the negative posting here...its minor stuff really, less than minor in some cases. must be in a foul mood today or something.

on the positive side, 3 days until golden week!

um...

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/04/24/japan-train-050424.html

really thankful i wasnt on that train.

golden slumbers

so golden week is coming up. i work tomorrow, wednesday, and thursday and then i get a week off. oh yeah.

im trying to decide whether to go somewhere local like tsu, inuyama, and kanazawa or take a few days to visit a crazy metropolis like osaka or tokyo. i think the local option is going to take precedent because ill be busy with the move and alot of people right now dont have alot of money to spare.

sidenote: im bored right now so ill introduce a feature that is blatantly ripped off from my favourite movie, high fidelity...its basically a top five of whatever i feel like on a certain day...since this is plagurism (or a homage if you will), ill do "top five movies everybody under 25 should see" first:

5) the godfather
4) eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
3) office space/the big lebowski (tie)
2) lost in translation
1) high fidelity

dr. phil's words of wisdom

i think i got this one from karsten but i think its great advice for anybody, especially myself:

insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result

nightly top ten list

top ten ways im becoming japanese in the month that ive been here:

10) i say "okay" the way japanese people say it (ie: ooo kayyy!), much like the way i used to (and still do) say "super" the way czechs say it

9) i have a japanese alien card, bank account, mailing address, and national health insurance

8) i sleep on the subway

7) when i dont sleep on the subway i create text messages and send them off

6) im obsessed with all things relating to my cell phone

5) i stop in at ramen/soba/udon joints for 10 minutes and have a bowl of noodles all the time

4) i wear more black than i used to

3) im beginning to look at certain things as cute instead of stupid

2) im always punctual and havent been late for anything so far

1) i respond to anything by saying an extended "hai" (yes) in a japanese voice

japan and china

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/04/17/japan-china-050417.html

i have no idea if this story is getting any play overseas but tensions between japan and china have come to a boil recently. for the past two or three weeks theres been a bunch of protests in china with violence directed towards japanese people in china.

the chinese have 2 beefs:

a) japan should be denied a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. They cite atrocities committed by Japanese troops against the Chinese during the Second World War, including massacres that killed between 50,000 and 300,000 people

b) they're also enraged by new Japanese textbooks that appear to downplay the atrocities

when the japanese government demanded that the chinese government apologize for the violence, beijing refused, which has sparked a furor here in the japanese press.

im sorry, but this is china at its worst. regarding point b, alot of the texts are meant for japanese high school kids and arent meant to give the whole story. i remember canadian texts glossed over tons of events, and dont even start to mention what goes on in american texts.

regarding point a, japanese leaders have apologized repeatedly for the past 20 years about ww2 atrocities (fyi: if you want to know how bad those were, and they were horrific, read "the rape of nanking: the forgotten holocaust of ww2" by iris chang...shocking stuff). theyve paid compensation, every leader has apologized, even the current pm koizumi. theres not much more they can do. and to be honest, when dealing with a regime as corrupt and oppressive as chinas, maybe theres not much more they should do until theres some actual reform over there.

so you wanna be a rock n roll star

today while buying lunch in osu kannon i had a japanese man starting pointing to me and yelling something. i thought he was saying "bruce, bruce" and im all like "bruce who?" and hes all like "bruce! bruce!" and again im all like "bruce who?"

turns out thanks to my australian companion who was with me that the man was actually yelling out tom cruise and that he thought i was tom cruise.

yes, we are rock and roll stars over here. its embarrasing but true.

off he goes

so ive decided to move. shocker.

my place in fukiage isnt that bad, its just that its a private and im paying an awful lot for a cozy place. its also a little out of the way of the city center...just enough out that i have to take the subway into sakae.

the place ill be moving into is in higashi betsuin, worthless info for those not informed about nagoyan geography but its in the south end of the city, while fukiage is in the east. its also closer to the city center and more importantly closer to kanayama, which is where the a main train station is and where ecc headquarters are.

the arrangements are such: 4 canadian guys living in a 2 ldk. basically that means my current neighbour and i will share one bedroom and the 2 guys living there now will share the other. with everything split 4 ways, ie: rent, utilities, furnishings, food, ect... it should save a load of cash. itll also be nice after coming home from work in some place liek obu city at 11pm to have some people to talk to and have dinner with.

whats also cool is that 3 girls we hang out with will also be moving into the same apartment complex in the same style of arrangement. which means that well have a bachelor pad on one floor and a bachelorette pad on another. should make for some good times, especially on days like sunday that everybody has off.

more later.

example #1: mini kids lyrics

so this is now what i do for a living...i sing songs to 2 year old japanese children.

ie: lets have fun (with accompanying gestures...visualize it if you will)

jump, jump, jump, jump, turn around
walk, walk, walk, walk, run, run, run
sit down, stand up, jump up high
look around around and swim, swim, swim

great, great, we are great
lets have fun at
ecc!

and then there was one

final day of training was today...now i have my schedule and everything. turns out my days off are going to be sunday and monday, which means that im one of the few that gets 2 days off in a row. on the negative side, alot of japanese public holidays fall on a monday which means that ill get screwed out of a few paid days off, but oh well. im going all over nagoya, 4 different schools in 5 days, with about 5 kids classes (and by kids i mean anywhere from 3-6 years old) and other regular lessons. mostly 330-930 shifts. should be fun. tomorrow is just a general meeting of all the teachers in the nagoya area at headquarters where we get a pep talk or something. then we start the next day. exciting stuff...

on other matters, i finally have the apartment looking like somebody actually lives there rather than somebody simply filling a void. ive actually got food, cleaning supplies, drinks, containers, ect...if only i could get a cd player instead of walking around with a discman, id be set.

finally, the cherry blossoms are just about over. i was in tsurami park for alot of the weekend where theres a bunch of cherry blossom parties. people literally get there in the morning, put down tarps under the blossoms and japanese lanterns, and wait for friends to arrive for all-night parties. on friday we were in the park and played a bunch of 15 year old japanese kids at soccer and lost; on sunday we went and joined the party. that was the first time i realized how many english teachers are here and how you could get by a year and learn absolutely no japanese or meet any japanese people...i hope that by the end of the year im not like that.

lost in translation

ive tried my best to learn some japanese greetings and theyre working okay so far. except for eigo ga hanase mas ka (do you speak english). i say this to someone, they say hai (yes) and then go on talking in japanese.

ie: today at the bank i had to get my name changed to a shorter version because apparently my full name is too long when written in katakana in order to receive direct deposit payments for work. then i tried to ask about when im going to receive my bank card in the mail and just got lots of blank stares. i know a few people that speak japanese so i guess im going to have to take them with me to the bank to get a bank card. smart, though - make the gaijin do a large deposit to open the account and then without the bank card so that he cant get the money until he leaves the country.

on a different note, i just have two more days of training to go until i start working on wednesday. im still waiting for my schedule but from the sound of things ill probably get quite a few kids classes and then regular and adult conversation classes. sounds good.

more later.

ob-la-di, ob-la-da

heres some random nonsense about a county thats all about random nonsense:

- they have these restaurants here called izakayas that im confident were set up to suck up money from english teachers. its not that they cater to foreigners or anything...its just that theyre so good. you go with about 10 or so people and just start pointing at pictures of what looks good on the menu. theres a buzzer in your private room that calls the waitress over and then the table goes crazy...5 of those gyoza dishes, 6 of those sushi dishes, 2 japanese pizzas, 2 etamomes, ect. not to mention they just keep bringing beer after beer, and until you know it youre spending over 3000 yen per person. on the positive side, the food is the best japanese food ever (id hope so...it is japan after all) and the beer is surprisingly good. by good i mean that its so light it goes down like water, but im a big fan of the fact that its always served in a frosted mug here.

- when you walk down the main streets in sakae, osu kannon, and fushimi (main shopping districts) the lamposts have speakers that give each street a soundtrack. you think youre in a movie walking down the street or something like that. on a related note, some retail stores have this wierd thing of playing oddly placed music on a loop...ie: this one electronic store kept playing the theme from rocky over and over and over and over again...if i was the staff id go crazy.

- never stop bowing. NEVER.

- everybody here wears black. men wear black business suits; women wear black business suits. you go on the subway and you dont feel out of place because youre white. you feel out of place because you have a green shirt on with a gold tie.

- artists that are more popular here than i thought: simple plan, posh spice, weezer.

- it seems that its typical for a japanese driver to drive while text messaging on their cell phone and watching a dvd movie on the player at the same time. and yes, they do drive on the wrong side of the road.

- everybody is about punctuality. if you start work at 9pm, you start work at 9pm. no exceptions. if the subway was late, the staff at the subway will give you a note that basically explains to your boss why you were late. if work ends at 6pm, you leave at 6pm. no earlier. and for that time you must look busy even if youre not doing anything productive at all. so far, there hasnt been one train, class, bus, whatever....thats been over a minute late. im not sure how they pull it all off, but their standards of professionalism are extremely high.

more later.

japanese idol

yesterday i had my first experience with japanese kareoke, lost in translation style. now i "get" it.

basically about 10 of us ecc teachers stumbled downtown without much ambition or forethought, so the one guy that actually speaks japanese decided that we should try kareoke. basically you pay for one hour time slots and then you get your own room. the room has your standard kareoke equipment and some sofas, but like everything in japan, its really undersized (ie: its not supposed to hold 10 western people). then you get some catalogues and remotes, and everybody picks songs and dials them in and it gets queued up. theres 2 mikes in the room and usually everybody passes it around. we sang everything from the clash to the ramones to pearl jam to the beatles to 50 cent. we signed up for 1 hour originally but ended up staying for 3.

oh yeah, and theyre all you can drink establishments, which is dangerous for some people (not me this night). you get a phone in your room and when you want drinks you call downstairs, tell them what you want, and somebody comes up with them. very convenient and cool.

more later.