fyi 2

did i mention how much i love my bike?

nara days, nara nights

i went to nara on sunday with amanda and it was amazing/fun. its what i imagined japan to be like before i came. for example:

- the 4 x 4 km park that was filled with hundreds of shameless deer who go up to you looking for food...a few even started to eat my shirt

- theres more shrines in temples there than in all of nagoya and the surrounding areas and they were impressive

- one temple was the oldest wooden structure in the world with the largest gold buddha in japan inside, but apparently theres one in gifu thats more impressive ive been told

- hiked up mt. wakakusa and got an outstanding view of the city

- you feel more of a foreigner there because people stare at you, say friendly hellos, and go up to you to practice their english...in nagoya youre one gaijin amongst many, especially now during expo

- theres udon shops on every corner and i love udon

- the 2 hour kintetsu train trip up there passed through some beautiful countryside

but if i may make a quick editorial...im not sure if this is cultural bias coming through or not, but so far ive visited the most revered shrine (ise) and most revered buddha (nara) in japan and i must say the feeling you get there isnt close to being as overwhelming as it would be to step into st. peters in rome or st. pauls in london or notre dame in paris. maybe because im much more well versed in european history than asian history, but i enjoyed the cathedrals in europe more than im enjoying visiting the shrines and temples of japan thus far. not to complain, because japan is wonderful and alot of parts of japan are far superior to europe. its just that i got more of a kick out of seeing a giant picture of jesus than a giant statue of buddha.

kids in the hall 2

another note on working here: its probably both the easiest and most rewarding job ill have at once. a quick elaboration on both points...

easiest - i only really work 30 hours a week and still get paid for full time hours. sure, i have to get to school an hour early on tuesdays and wednesdays to prepare for kids classes, and theres some prep time involved, but its all very minor stuff really. they called me today to work some overtime but i was at the gym and never called back. and while half of the kids classes are tough, the other half are a breeze, and even the bad kids classes have really cute kids in them. on saturday on the subway i saw one, a 7 year old named ryuu, with his mom...his mom was really nice and tried to tell me in broken english how all of the moms in the class liked what i was doing with their kids. that was nice. names of japanese kids in my class that are cute: haruka, tomoka, mayu, akane, mitsuki, taishi, hirotaka, reishi, sayaka.

rewarding - its nice to see some of the kids improve every week. the moms and staff are all very polite and appreciative of what you do even when in north american standards its not much at all, ie: collecting name tags at the end of class, cleaning up the classroom when finished, telling the moms whats for homework, ect... and some of the kids just make you laugh. i have this one kids class on thursday with 4 students that are all about 3 years old, each of them have their guardian in the class with them. theres mitsuki whos dead serious about everything until you say hello and then goes into a crazy face; reishi who gets up and hugs me during class every five minutes when hes not running away from his mom; yuki whos either sleeping, crying, or laughing; and akane who gives me a gaudy stare/smile throughout the whole class and is basically the classroom leader among the students.

ticket to ride

after getting my first real paycheck on wednesday, i went out and bought a sweet bike yesterday. not to sound too excited but im really excited about it. its got smaller than usual wheels (its just small in general, japanese style), a real low chasse, silver/blackish color...basically i think its uber-stylish. plus it handles like a dream so it makes darting inbetween people really easy...very helpful in downtown sakae.

i think the best part about it is not thinking about how long it takes to get places. a previous guest poster had noted something about me being lazy. while this quite observant and correct, now that i have my bike, i no longer have to say to myself "well, i really dont feel like walking 10 minutes here and back to the shop 99 to buy that carton of milk with dinner". i just hop on the bike and there i am in 2 minutes. i can get downtown faster by bike than subway now. i figure the saved subway fare will pay for the bike itself several times over anyways.

on an unrelated note, i have plans to go to nara on sunday with amanda and anybody else who wants to tag along...if anybody has been there or has suggestions on what to do/see there, please let me know!

kids in the hall

a quick rundown on what my classes are like:

basically i have 2 types of classes. the first and easiest is whats called "free time lessons." basically these are lessons with 1-4 students and they have various levels. they are 40 minutes long. the first 5-10 minutes are usually intro games or questions i make up on the spot (unless i know the students, then its usually conversation about what we did this week) followed by a lesson for 30 minutes. before i start my shift i look at a schedule that says what students/levels i have in my free time slots.

example: lets say i look at the 18:00-18:40 time slot and notice i have three students for a f3 level. so i grab the explorer book (the text book for that level) and go into the room. i collect their ecc passports that show what lessons theyve done/havent done so far and choose one for them that they havent done yet. alot of the lessons are pretty lame (ie: q - what do you think about land prices in japan?...a - i think theyre crazy. houses and apartments are too expensive) but theyre really easy to teach. usually ill have 10 minutes inbetween free time lessons.

the second and more difficult type are the kids lessons. i usually have 2 per day to start off the shift. ages of the kids ranges from 2-4 (for an "al" class) to 4-6 (for an "am" class) to 6-9 (for a "bz" class). the easiest to manage are the 2-4 year olds because their guardians are in the classroom with them and if they run into the cushions or start crying then the guardians can deal with it. the toughest are the 4-6 year olds because alot of them either a: arent used to being without their parents, b: have had no previous exposure to english, or c: are spoiled rotten children who arent used to being told no. some are all 3 which amounts to a headache for yours truly.

the kids classes are 40-60 minutes long depending on the age. theres songs to sing, flashcards to chorus, games to play, attendance to take, homework to check, workbooks to write in, games to play, and activities to do (ie: last week in "bz" we had to make a kaleidoscope...having never made one before in my life i had some trouble). most of the kids are good and if theres problems my staff at my schools are generally very helpful.

on an unrelated note, i started group japanese lessons last week (every wednesday morning) and i will be fluent by next week.

dr. phils words of wisdom 2

"in life, you are either a warning or an example...you consciously become an example of whats possible...you unconsciously become a warning of what could happen"

ponder that.

on internet cafes

so if you read todays post you may notice a bunch of stuff on there, which may include parts or all of these pertinent bits of information:

1) ive moved into higashi betsuin with the 3 canadian guys permanently
2) i have a girlfriend, amanda from perth australia, who is great and lives with 2 canadian girls on the floor below us
3) work is going fine now that golden week is over and things are settling in for the year
4) im no longer sick, infact i joined golds gym this week
5) im sorry about a lack of emails/phone calls recently but this is the first time ive used a computer in almost 2 weeks

and a quick fyi on this internet cafe: you can either get public or private booths, but the private booths seem rather dodgy based on what some people have seen/heard from them so far. im not going into specifics but lets say theres a bunch of stuff that the internet is used for and theres a bunch of japanese businessmen that are using it for that purpose here.

on video killed the radio star

i think if you do a search for ecc cell phone free time lessons on the net sometime soon, you might see my profile in an advertisement.

on friday for the first hour of my shift they called me and a few other teachers in for a meeting basically saying they wanted to use us as advertisements for a new service theyre providing: english lessons by cell phones. so they needed us to write a quick little profile and then videotape us introducing ourselves with it. mine went something like this:

hi, im steve, and im from vancouver canada
i work at ecc in the nagoya area
i like music, ice hockey, and trying food from all over japan
i hope to see you soon at ecc
bye!

before i did this i had to sign a waiver/disclaimer saying it was okay with me, including a clause that mentioned if i had a contract with a modeling agency that this tape would not be shared with them. so much for going to milan.

on hot dates

so i had a hot date scheduled with my new australian girlfriend amanda a week ago...lets just say that things didnt exactly go as planned. first, she lost her wallet on the way home from work. we stayed at ecc hq for about an hour cancelling bank cards, and then a nice lady from ecc escorted us to the police station where a friendly and hilarious police officer kept raising our hopes that the wallet was found and then kept crushing them (sidenote: she dound the wallet the next day, sans 12000 yen). second, our plans of some yummy korean barbecue were squashed and me being the gentleman that i am led us down to wendys for a double bacon cheeseburger meal and some frosties. at least i paid for the frosties. good times.

we were able to salvage some lost pride the next day by visiting an awesome izakaya that i maintain has the best sushi and gyoza that ive ever tasted. we actually ended up having yet another great week and its been all gravy from there...

on massages

today at a big department store called jingu i decided to try out a massage chair since there was a bunch on display and it seems to be a japanese pasttime to go to the mall and sit on the massage chair for an hour. those things really work. amanda kept reving up the cycling until it got to ridiculous proportions where any normal person would just have to stand up.

whenever i think of this i think of the simpsons episode where homer gets the massage chair from herb his brother after the baby talker made him rich again. herb: maggie, you can have anything you want...maggie (through baby talker): i want what the dogs eating...homer: doh!

on home construction

so ive been helping amanda move to her new place for the past day or so and i must say that im rather proud of my ability to construct bookshelves and clothing racks using only my bare hands and a screwdriver. the japanese are all about the space savers in homes so the shelving is dirt cheap and of good quality.

on a related note, the girls had a housewarming party at their new place last night, and while the attendance was quite good and good times were had by all, apparently the police were called in at the end of the night. that happened about a month ago at my place (before i actually lived there of course). it seems that the japanese are willing to take a certain amount of noise and disturbance until they get fed up. and when they get fed up they are too polite/shy to knock on the door; instead they just call the police. i dont even think we were being that noisy.

on circle k

so ive visited enough convenience stores to rank them now, so here it goes:

1) circle k
2) daily yamazaki
3) coco
4) lawsons
5) 7-11
6) sunkist
7) family mart

circle k gets the nod mainly because of castella, a vanilla sponge cake speciality thats really filling, really good late at night, really soft, and really cheap at only 100 yen. that at night, pancakes in the morning, and constant coke are all i really need from that store and yet it never disappoints me, probably because it never closes.

on traffic men

theres two types of japanese employees that ive come to love.

the first (and not the topic of this post) are the shopkeepers (especially the guys at the shoe stores and ramen joints) that yell "irashimasen" at you as you enter. even if youre right in front of their face. often its shortened to a "shimasen", "masen", or just a yell, but its still both startling and hilarious at the same time.

the second (and the topic of this particular post) are the traffic men at intersections near shopping malls and parkades that are always attentive even if theres nobody around. they wear really cool professional uniforms and are usually short old men that are always friendly to you and always willing to give a "doozo" to you as you walk past with some elaborate gesturing. its people like these guys that make this country so safe, i say.

on food

i think that the combination of ramen and gyoza for dinner should be exported to the world at large as exhibit a of how much quality goodness can come from 700 yen.

seriously, this stuff is really good. ive had the combo for 2 of the last 3 nights and if i update in a week then it could easily be 7 of the last 9. theres ramen shops all over the place, and while i still rank my japanese noodles as 1) udon, 2) ramen, and 3) soba, the abundance of ramen and dearth of udon makes number 2 a more fortuitous choice.

fyi

if i have any anonymous fans out in cyberspace, send me donations, cash preferably.

and to be clear, the picture on this site is not me. i am not 6 foot 9 nor did i ever play pro basketball for the cleveland cavaliers from 1971-1976. dont know why im revealing this as id like to be known as the guy that 8.14 rebounds per game for the cavs in the 1973-1974 campaign.

closing time

so golden week is coming to a close. its been a terrific week in every respect (ie: moving complete, day trips to inuyama and ise, cementing life in japan) and i really dont feel like going to work tomorrow. once i get there it wont be so bad because the work is generally enjoyable anyways.

on the negative side...ive been sick for the past 4-5 days with a cold...mostly coughing and a runny nose. whats really annoying is that the japanese have this taboo against blowing your nose in public; apparently its really rude to do so. since i want badly to be a good gaijin and avoid offending the natives as much as possible, ive got to sniff for like an hour before finding a bathroom and blowing my nose privately. its pretty disgusting but so is sniffing for a long time when youve really got to blow your nose. my voice has been out of commission for the most part too so it sounds like im going through puberty all over again.

one more thing thats come to my attention...it seems that im obsessing about the food here a little too much. seriously, its that good and much cheaper than i thought it was going to be. i dream about udon. i get really excited when i find a great sushi plate from a supermarket for 300 yen. when somebody asks me to rank the best parts about my day trip to ise, i start with "well, the restaurant we went to had this rare presentation of sushi that you cant get anywhere else in japan and i ended up having a 7 course meal" or something like that. i know i should be cooking and eating in more but its hard when eating out is so ridiculously awesome here and not that expensive either.

more later.

rumblin bumblin stumblin

so theres 2 more days left in golden week until i go back to work for 2 days...immediately followed by 2 more days off. not half bad. id expect this sort of time off in europe but here it seems quite unusual yet still appreciated. way to go japan.

my move to higashi betsuin is complete. 2 of my roomates headed to the city of niigata in northern honshu until wednesday so its been mike and i by ourselves in the said pad...today i went and bought a clothes rack and bookshelf (as i have no formal closet) and i must say that ive done quite well for myself in the amount of space provided, thank you very much. quite happy with that. only negative is that i was supposed to go to my old apartment on sunday and wait for an inspector to come...waited there 3 hours on the hardwood floor with nothing to do and they never showed. idiots. just happy that any relationship with the housing agent is now severed and i can forget about it. still havent got that welcome package...

holidays have been awesome so far. aforesaid inuyama was a great day trip, went to nagoya castle with the group yesterday and had alot of fun, going tomorrow to the town of ise in mie prefecture for a day trip (about 2 hours away by train), weather has been great for the most part. basically its been really laid back and has let me settle in to life in japan for the rest of the year. lovin it.

learning japanese is coming along very well apparently and ive learned almost all of the hiragana characters...which means ive learned correct pronunciation for almost all japanese sounds. starting with some basic grammar structures and rules too. only problem is my lack of aptitude to learn anything thats not written down...somebody could tell me the correct way to say something 20 times and i probably wouldnt get it until i saw it on paper. visual learner, what can i say.

more later.

ps - if you actually read this and have time inbetween paying money out to asian blackjack kings, happy birthday dave.