Book Blog

So some notable books that I read in 2003 are:

Pattern Recognition

Oryx & Crake

Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix

The Blind Assassin

Lady Oracle

Snow Crash

Diamond Age

Haroun and the Sea of Stories

I think Pattern Recognition and Oryx & Crake are easily my favorites, but Oryx & Crake was probably the best.

5299 words

Thanks to Chris and Apis for being host to a very relaxing and enjoyable few days. It was interesting to see a part of the Japan outside of the Tokyo area. Yokkaichi is a city of 300,000 people--tiny by Japanese standards, I suppose.

Kate's pretty much covered the trip already. I'll just add that I found it very refreshing to geek out for a few days.

Seeing as we've just developed a roll of film, I thought I'd delve a little into the photo backlog.

First, from the freaky Japan files:

1. The aforementioned Skinhead shop, positioned in one of the busiest pedestrian walkways in Shibuya:



2. The kimochiwarui podpeople on display in a clothing store in Shinjuku (the one on the right it is the creepiest):



3. On the train, headless housewives hawking "the new black circle", whatever the heck that is:



Next, a picture that has a story attached. We were in Shibuya, at my favorite intersection, when an ambulance started driving up... and toward the station entrance. Apparently someone needed immediate medical attention in the station, but between the street and the station was a crowd of several hundred people, which promptly parted (Red Sea-like) before the ambulance, and then swallowed it up as soon as it was past. It was a bit surreal. Unfortunately it took us too long to come to our senses and get the camera up. Here's a photo of the aftermath; the ambulance is visible (barely) in the middle of a sea of people, in the very center of the picture, between the heads of two of the people in the foreground. If nothing else, it's a taste of how busy Shibuya is:



And last, here's one from the warm and fuzzy files:



That would be my Grandma in Japan.

Our Trip to Yokkaichi

That's in Mie Prefecture, for those who want to know. :)

We had an awesome time staying with Chris and Apis over the last 4 days. Initial highlights of the trip included taking the Shinkansen (Bullet Train). It goes really, really fast. Here is a picture (note how ambitious the train is):



On the first day we got there kind of late, but we got some food and then basically went to bed. On the second day, we went out for Brazillian food for lunch! Mmmm...beef....and crocodile. Yes, crocodile does taste mysteriously like chicken. After the lunch, we went to a Manga store to look at arty stuff.

That night Toby (and I, kind of :)) made Hokkaido stew for Chris and Apis. We made so much we also had it for lunch on the third day. After that dinner, we watched Finding Nemo and the Two Towers, Extended Edition. Glad I saw the latter, it is totally different from the theater version! Anyone ticked off by the theatre version should definitely watch the extended edition.

On the third day, after a delicious lunch of Hokkaido stew, we decided to be touristy and take a trip to Ueno, which is about an hour/hour and a half from their apartment. Luckily Chris has a car. :D Ueno is famous for being the home of the first ninjas. There are lots of cute little ninja statues along the roads, but sadly I didn't get any pictures. I'm sure they are available on the internet. However, we did visit the home of Basho, a famous haiku poet. Here are two pictures:





At the same park where Basho's house stands, there also exists a huge castle, complete with moat. Really kewl. Here is a picture of the castle:



We went for some delicious deserts after that, notably with Mochi and fresh fruit and ice cream. Upon returning to the house, Chris made his famous spaghetti, which was huge and delicious. Mushrooms. We should eat more of those.

We watched Shaolin Soccer in japanese, which was strange but very funny. Today we came home on the Shinkansen and now I'm writing this.

For those who worry about what happened to the rest of the roll of film - it would be horrible to have to download a page of pictures, especially for those of you archaics with dial up internet. Thus, for those who would like to view all the pictures, I am working on a gallery at DeviantArt. It will take a while, so please be patient.

Movie Blog

So I'm cleaning out the movies list (at right). Here are some notable movies we saw this year (in no particular order, except perhaps viewed):

Veronica Guerin

Heaven

Dirty Pretty Things

Amandla!

The Dancer Upstairs

Spellbound

Nowhere in Africa

Winged Migration

Raising Victor Vargas

Y Tu Mama Tambien

Ikiru

Bowling for Columbine

The Legend of Suriyothai

I've probably forgotten a load of good ones, so I'll keep adding as I remember them. You can click on the link at right to access the list.

Christmas Plans

We just got a call from Toby's uncle Teruo this morning, which is exciting because it turns out we are going to the onsen at Nikko! Yay! That is all.

Of Elephant Men...and Women

So Christmas Eve was nice - we made Green Thai Curry for dinner, went shopping in Shibuya (Don Quixote) and went to the library. I want to take a picture of Toby with his library card - it has a cute little bunny on it! Come to think of it, that bunny looks suspiciously similar to the Nova bunny....hm.....

We also made our travel plans - we are going to visit Chris and Apis for a few days before New Year's, then come back to visit Toby's relatives on New Year's eve and day. It should be nice :DDD.

After dinner we decided to watch the first episode of the first season of 24. We have never watched 24 before. It is addictive. We ended up watching two episodes separated by an interlude of Faulty Towers.

About half way through the second episode, the people who live above us (who I have not-so-affectionately termed the Elephant Men) started to make noise. Now, they always make noise, which is annoying, living in a wooden building and all, but they really started yelling etc. I think actually it was the Elephant Men's girlfriends, the Elephant Women, who were making all the noise. Then, they (kind of) shut up for a while, and there was more yelling. It turned out to be some Japanese people coming home late at night...so I guess we don't have to worry so much.

Oh ya, Merry Christmas everybody! ;)

Quadrophonic sermonizing

Thanks to Kate's intervention, we actually left the Xmas party festivities in time to return home at a reasonable hour. I became rather thankful of this the following morning, upon seeing some of my fellow workers who had a) drunk way more than I had and b) not returned home until well after midnight.

Christmas season in Tokyo is, I gather, prime time for proselytizing. I thought my encounter with Santas for Jesus was pretty damn cool, but that was nothing compared to the ambitious presentation outside Shibuya station a couple of days ago. At each of the four corners of one of my favorite intersections in the world was positioned a determined man or woman holding up a 10-foot pole. Besides signs displaying the usual messages ("Christ is our saviour", etc.), each of the poles supported a set of loudspeakers. Blaring from these loudspeakers, in perfect unison (they were receiving a transmission from a nearby van), was an impassioned sermon--and based on the snippets I caught of (to translate roughly) "We're all awful sinners" and "Jesus is coming Real Soon Now", I gather it was One Of Those Churches.

Given that this location is in the very heartland of godless commercialism, I doubt they won any converts. Still, they get an A+ for effort.

Today we made our first visit to the Shibuya library. The Central Branch contains (apparently) 7000 foreign language books, and of course English is fairly well represented. I picked up Atwood's Blind Assassin, a volume of Nietzsche in English translation (whoever's in charge of the philosophy section seems to like Nietzsche), and a book on Japanese grammar. Kate got a couple of SF books. And all at a reasonable price, that being free.

We'd planned to visit the Christon Cafe (which features an enormous statue of the Devil looming over the main room), but aborted the operation due to overcrowding, and perhaps a touch of swankiness angst. Maybe another time.

In the interim, we've got a Christmas turkey dinner scheduled for tomorrow, thanks to one of my coworkers, The President's Assistant. And plans have been made to spend New Years with the rellies, following an excursion down the island to visit Chris and Apis. Sweet as.

We Wish You A Merry Xmas!

My branch had a Xmas party today. Kate came with, and so she dropped by the school beforehand (the party proper was to be at a bar). Once the Japanese staff figured out she was my fiancee, all hell broke loose. The secretaries (all women, of course) started cooing about how pretty she is; one of them (the sassy one) remarked "Mottainai!" (what a waste!). Then we got a standing ovation from all the staffers, including the always-professional office manager--this was a little strange.

The party was all good fun, plus or minus some stifling smoke.

Lovely new discovery: The Calpis Sour, a Calpis*-based drink that apparently contains a fair bit of alcohol, although one would never know from the taste.

I was a little curious as to how the overflowing table of gaijin would play in the Japanese bar, but it went off without a hitch. At one point we broke out into a rousing rendition of We Wish You a Merry Christmas, and the nearby tables were quick to join in. One of our neighbours jumped up and started shouting "Merry Christmas!" and toasting us all. Later on he came over and had a conversation that went roughly like this:

"Where are you from?"
"America."
"Yeahhh! America!!! Yeah!!! And where are you from?"
"Australia."
"AUSTRALIA!!!! Yeah!!!!"
etc.

Later on Kate told me she thought they were playing a drinking game, based on people yelling at our table. That would have been one helluva drinking game.

Well, let's leave it at that. I've got the early shift tomorrow. (Yay.)

* What's Calpis? The first step on the path to wisdom is saying the name out loud. "I love Calpis. I can't get enough of Calpis." That done, here's a helpful website. They sure know how to sell their product, I'll give 'em that.

Anyone ever mention...

This country can be kinda weird.

During my break today I wandered over to the nearby SMBC branch to take out some money. This path took me past a trio of hand-out-free-stuff people--except this group was kinda special, cuz it comprised three white guys dressed up in rather unamibitious Santa Claus outfits, crying out in their native English: "Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas!" They were handing out cute little red and white envelopes, and everyone who took one was thanked with a word, which I can only render as, presento.

This might need some explanation. You are of course familiar with the English word present. From this we may derive the katakana-ized Japanese version of the word, purezento. Make an average English-speaker--without a particularly good grasp of Japanese pronunciation--try to say this word, and that yields presento, a word as bastardized as any word can be. In essence: the phonetic equivalent of running a text back and forth through Babelfish.

(Essential: The audio equal amount of the thing which moves the text back and forth due to Babelfish.)

So anyway, I took one of these cute little red and white envelopes. (And when I ask, in my perfect English, "Thanks, what is this?" I get back an automated "Presento!") Back to the staff room, open it up--and it's yet another pamphlet about the Bible. (We've already had JWs twice at home.)

God works in messed up ways, especially in Japan.

(God works without the Japanese stand with the method of being done, especially.)

Later on, after work, a bunch of us head over to this small bar that's run (in part) by the girlfriend of one of our coworkers. Inside is a cramped crowd of Japanese hipsters (mostly young women; at one point I relayed a message from one of the servers that any single guys should hurry on in), watching.... Well, it's like this. There's an electronica DJ with a drumpad, grooving along. There's a small projector screen playing some video involving lots of artsy naked boobie shots, accompanied by Japanese subtitles. Then there's what seems to be the centerpiece: a young woman, doing flower arrangements while half-sorta-dancing to the electronica music. No, you wouldn't call this ikebana, that's like, you know, traditional. By the end she was painting a bunch of the leaves red, again whilst kinda-sorta-dancing. She stopped painting after making it about a third of the way up, and then everyone clapped. And the whole thing was recorded for posterity on a handheld digicam that I could probably fit through one of my belthoops.

Pure awesome radness.

Anime Hair!

OK, well not quite. But I got my hair done today. I was very lucky they spoke English - some friends at work have been telling me horror stories of narrowly avoiding mulletdom. The hair salon I went to, Ash Hair Make (thankfully it didn't), was really nice and they have really kewl comfy chairs where they wash your hair. Also, you get a warm blanket over you which is very nice. Oh ya, and a locker to put your stuff in so you don't have to carry it with you. Very kewl. An added bonus was the coupon I got from the hand-out-free-stuff people in front of the station a few weeks ago.

Also, got our present from mom and dad (thanks!). Haven't decided what to do with it yet though.

Last but not least, on my way home, a few blocks from my house they were making mochi! If you've never seen it done, here is a picture (I didn't have my camera with me, as usual):

The person kneeling next to the bucket uses their hands to rearrange the rice dough stuff while the mallot is coming down. They must quickly move their hands to prevent them from being smooshed by the mallot.

Anyways, I bought some and it was really yummy. Peanut and brown sugar. Mmmmm.

Poor Toby has the flu. Only one week 'til holidays! Gambatte!

Ding Dong the Week is Dead

Yippee!

Today I had a student named Mika. One of the students I get semi-regularly is named Naomi. And although I've never seen her, there's also a student named Tobita--that's the family name, of course.

No sign of a Kumi. (Kate says she's met one, though.)

Another one of my students is in university studying computing, and in his 4th year he has to choose some sort of specialization. He wants to specialize in programming, but there are only a handful of spaces in that program for his year. And guess how the profs choose who gets to go into what specialization?

The students are gathered into a big room. They fill out forms listing their preferences. The profs figure out who wants what, and if too many students want into too small of a program, they gather that group of students together and...

Jan - Ken - Poi !

Otherwise known as rock-scissors-paper.

Helluvaway to decide your academic fate.

Friday!

Ok, so it's only my Friday, no one else's...ha ha!

Today turned out to be better than expected. Not only were my 7C's better than I could have possibly hoped, but I also got a christmas card from Mrs. O and money from the bank. Yes, the latter is a big deal because unlike the train ticket machines, Japanese bank machines do not speak or write english. After about 5 steps of pressing buttons I hope didn't do anything to my account, I eventually succeeded in taking money from the machine. Woohoo! Added to these momentous events, I picked up around 30 potatoes for 120 yen. I thought that was a pretty good deal (5 yen each).

You will also notice there is now a "shoutbox" thingy in the right-hand side bar. Please leave us messages! We like hearing from you, even if you don't feel like commenting. :) Well, at least I like hearing from you...hee hee ;)

Other than that nothing much else is new. I just had to share. I'm off to write e-cards. :D

The Day That Would Not Die

I think this may have been my first Bad Day in this country.

I have some sort of sinus bug. When I woke up, I had difficulty swallowing. Thankfully that passed. Now it's mostly just the mucus I have problems with. By now, I figure just about my entire head must be packed full of mucus. I keep trying to empty my head of the stuff, but my mucus is not very cooperative. It never comes out when I want it to. It does leak out of random orifices every now and then, but that doesn't really help. That said, it's not completely inconsiderate--it only blocks one nostril at a time, even though it's switched between them a few times during the day.

Eh, you get the picture.

Anyway, for this, and other reasons (let's just say I was not the only one at work today in a less than ideal mood), pretty much every lesson took, for all intents and purposes, an eternity, plus or minus an eon. No, really: I can say without any hyperbole whatsoever that Sisyphus had nothing on me today.

In other news, I have just discovered that there is an academic journal entitled Death Studies. That is too cool. Someone needs to tell Paisley.

(Speaking of which, today I found myself wholeheartedly reciting: I hate everything, because everything sucks.)

Even Kewler...

Here's Toby's...He's cooking me dinner right now so I'm posting for him ;).


Morpheus


?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??
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Awesome!

Athena


?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??
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WOOHOO I rock! And I didn't put that my ideal night out is at the library either.

More Free Stuff

I love Tokyo! I've mentioned before the free stuff that gets handed out at the train stations - cleanex, coupons, etc. BUT, today I got free SHAMPOO and CONDITIONER! Pantene no less. WHOLE bottles! (Well, about half of a normal sized bottle) Still, they are very kewl and a far cry from those little sample packs you get in the mail in Canada.

Sigh. Just thought I'd share.

Best. Christmas. Decoration. Ever.

So, the Japanese are great at a lot of things. Commercials, and really small cars, for example. Understanding Christian traditions, not so much.

Apparently a few years ago, some station-front mall or another featured a rather interesting display for Christmas.

It involved Santa Claus.

A really big statue of Santa Claus.

All decked out in red and white, standing tall, with his arms open, wide and inviting.

Except he wasn't exactly standing. And maybe his arms weren't open in exactly an inviting way.

They were spread out mostly because they were being held there. By nails. What with this big statue of Santy being crucified on a giant cross and all.

Yep.

Ho ho ho! Merii Kurisumasu!

Two Days with Teruo

Yesterday we decided to visit Teruo. A planned visit to the Imperial Gardens was put off until the next day, but never happened to to unusually bitter weather and fatigue.

We brought Dango, a gooey-rice-thing treat, smothered with red bean, to Teruo's. They had some similar small treats when we got there - I think I've had enough sugar for the rest of the month ;). Later, Teruo took us out to conveyer-belt sushi. It was delicious. We ate so much we thought we would literally blow up if one more bite was swallowed. We had: uni, tuna, mackerel, raw oyster sushi, scallop sushi, some kind of mollusc-on-the-half-shell, salmon (mushier than Vancouver's, but still delicious), ebi, and a few more (didn't know their English names). We also had Kirin beer and we picked up some ice cream for desert (at the 7-11 where Kyou-hei, Toby's cousin, works). The ice cream was chosen for the unique name: Le Chocolat des Chocolat. No, I didn't forget the plural on the end of that. :) Anyways, it was delicious.

Toby's relatives really wanted us to take a 10 kg bag of rice, but it was just about as big as I am and there was no way we could carry it. They wanted us to take even a little rice but we didn't. Instead, they gave us some souvenirs from Okinawa - including rice crackers, a book, and some place mats for our table. They also provided us with some more towels - it's raining a lot here and stuff takes a few days to dry.

We had a Japanese bath before bed and sat at the kotatsu table and watched t.v. We also got to wear hanten, which are very warm. I want one. :D

In the morning everyone had gone to work (except for Grandma), but our breakfasts were on the table covered with celophane with our names on it (just like last time!). Mitsue, Toby's aunt, had made them. They were delicious. We had sandwiches with bacon, cucumber, and tomato, and a salad with cooked brocolli, fresh tomato, and bean sprouts, onigiri (rice balls), and red bean buns (of course, I had to eat Toby's because they had egg. hee hee ;)). There was also hot chocolate. We hung out with Grandma for a while, who was delighted to have her picture taken with Toby. As soon as I finish the roll I'll post it.

As I mentioned earlier, we didn't go to the Imperial Gardens in Harujuku. The weather was miserable. We did try to go to the Central Library, but unfortunately it was closed :(. We took the train to Shibuya, walked around for a while and tried the all-you-can eat Indian restaurant. It was pretty good. Nothing compared to back home, but not bad either and the naan was very good. Tomorrow we have more training and so have a late shift.

I have finally downloaded the entire "City of God" with English subtitles (a difficult find) and perhaps we will watch that later. I will definitely post about it - it's supposed to be excellent.

Other than that we'll keep watching the many enterprise episodes we still have to catch up on - and I even have an L&O episode downloading. Hoping I haven't seen it.

Enterprise is excellent right now - especially the third season. They are easy to download if you don't get the channel on t.v., and I highly recommend it.

That's all for now I think. For xmas we are checking out the PS2...they are cheaper here and come with a DVD-RW. I haven't been able to find out if you can hook your computer up to it to burn stuff onto DVD's yet though. If anyone knows about this, please comment!

Doppelgangers!

I was asked to translate "too cool for school" the other day. That was difficult.

W., one of the instructors at Jiyugaoka (Kate's home base) is a dead-ringer for one Christine G. Seeing as how W. is of Cantonese descent (which Christine, to the best of my knowledge, is not), they don't look the least bit alike, but when W. gets (or pretends to get) stressed she sounds exactly like Christine when she gets (or pretends to get) stressed. It's bizarre.

Meanwhile, Kate has had a student that she claims to be the Japanese clone of one Mr. Lewis from back home. She said the face, the mannerisms, and the manner of speech (he was a high level student) were all identical. Of course, ever since I heard Mr. Lewis swear chikusho I've always figured he was part Japanese.

We're off to see my uncle again today. Might see the imperial wuzzit on the way.

JesusDressUp.com

JesusDressUp.com

Ha ha ha! I am ruthlessly ripping off another person's find! Very very funny. Enjoy.

Drinkblog

Since my best food/home-cooked meal idea has been taken right out from under me, I will follow up with a best drinks review:

Best drinks, bottled:

Calpis

Calpis Natural (it has peach or something)

Blendy

Kirin Beer

Dakara

Best drinks, names:

Pocari Sweat

Drinks, home:

Mugicha

Calpis

no fat milk

Crappy drinks:

milk - it sucks here, except for no-fat milk

Best desserts:

Pocky! (duh!)

Anman (red bean buns)

Dango

Youkan (red bean cakes)

Umakabo (yummy ice cream sticks - with chocolate and peanut)

Maple syrup candies from the dry cleaners

Anthey's candies & chocolates from the plane

Foodblog

Best food, restaurant:

udon-man's udon

yakiniku

Thai curry, made by real Thais

anything with a "Drink Bar"

Best food, home:

green Thai curry

yakisoba

mao pao tofu

eggplant "hotpot"

zaru soba

sapporo ichiban ramen

nori wraps (rice + nori + soy sauce)

my own improv dish: onions, spinach, eggplant, and other veggies, plus thinly sliced pork, seasoned with garlic and yakiniku sauce

Apart from the green curry, all the food we eat at home is super cheap, and it's all pretty easy to make. Those of our fellow gaijin who eat out all the time should give this eating-at-home thing a serious look.

A taste of India

One thing that was kinda entertaining about the trip to Taj Mahal was the (what would you call it) musical languages. The guy at the restaurant was obviously Indian, but he greeted us in Japanese, so of course I answered him in Japanese. At one point he asked if we wanted rice or naan with our lunches, and I turn to Kate and ask her, in English, "You want rice or naan?" And we discuss it, and I turn back and before I can put it into Japanese he says, in English, "So, both with rice?" So I say in English, "Uh, yeah."

I mean, I kinda figured he would speak English, but you never know. You don't want to assume that foreigners speak English just because they're not Japanese.

Who'd a thunk it?

Toby got to do a help shift at my branch today, and it just so happened that our lunch breaks coincided, so we decided to try out the (newly reopened) Taj Mahal Indian Restaurant. OK, so it doesn't hold a candle to Sitar, but it was still enjoyable. The curries were a bit greasy and I'm not sure what specific 'seafood' mine contained (besides squid, which was obviously present); however, the naan was excellent - warm and puffy and very yummy.

We decided not to go to the party tomorrow night. On a more positive note, we will be making an encore visit to Toby's uncle Teruo's house next week in Nagareyama. Yay! His grandma will be out of the hospital so it should be extra good. (one more time please?)

hee hee ;)

kate (who's trying not to employ teaching techniques in her off-time) ;)

yay!

goddammit, the whole post i had up just went *poof!*. argh! anyways, as i was saying...

ok, i finally changed the time so it's more appropriate - it was still set to vancouver.

also, my evaluation went well, despite the two old stupid women in my class. hee ;)

third, there is still green curry for me to eat for dinner!

fourthly, i can watch STIII: TSFS until toby gets home. when he gets home we can watch City of God. I hope it's good.

lastly, and the only point i'm a little annoyed about, i found out the work xmas party is 3550 yen, so i probably won't be going. i think $40 cdn/pp is ridiculous especially since it's only for 2 hours, and it's not all you can eat, it's all you can drink. i'd rather go to a bar to drink - especially since i have to work the next day - and early! what are they thinking?! also, if toby and i went it would make about a $100 night, which i think is way to much to ask. just had to get that off my chest.

Wrath of Khan rocks, it's what will get me through this day ;). Enterprise was good too. I also have Thai curry to look forward to for lunch.

One other thing about yesterday, we did get a very nice picture of a battery vending machine. As soon as I get the CD developed, I will share it with you all.

The best thing about Noborito (where the ward office is) is that you can get 88 yen snacks at the Diaie store. Kinda makes up for the expensive curry, hee hee ;).

Today is my 3 week evaluation. Wish me luck.

It's life, Jim, but not as we know it

When I got up today, I was happy to discover that yesterday's microwave escapade had not impaired my ability to walk. Yay me!

We went to the ward office and picked up our Alien Registration Cards--yep, that's what they're called, at least in the official translation. To celebrate, we watched a whack of shows about real aliens: some Enterprise episodes we had backlogged from last season, plus STII:WoK for good measure.

In between I cooked up a lovely Thai dinner of green curry. Thai curry paste and coconut milk are damn expensive here, much more so than in Vancouver--which only makes sense, considering that Thailand is so much closer to Vancouver than it is to Japan.

PS: We forgot to mention this before, but the 23rd was actually our 4th "anniversary". We both forgot all about it, although we did coincidentally eat out at Shibuya that day (at a Thai restaurant, as it happens--with food made by cooks who were actually Thai). Had a good laugh about it a few days ago. I'm just glad I'm not the only one who forgot.

Groan

So we just bought a second-hand microwave. Cheap, 2000 yen, cheaper even than anything we found at Akihabara. Saw an ad, called the guy, got on a train to Shibuya. We had some time to kill when we got there, so we went into that building with the aforementioned translucent display--nothing too special; it looks like the display is a bunch of rods set across the windows, which is why you can sorta see through them. Somewhat more exciting was the discovery of a number of Indian curry restaurants, one of which has an enticing deal: all you can eat for one hour for 1000 yen. We may have to return to that place later.

Anyway, back to the microwave. Met the seller of the microwave outside the Shibuya Hachiko exit, and he related to us the remarkable story of the dog after which the exit was named. Also found out he's heading to Calgary for training: he's a skeleton racer, possibly the craziest event in the Winter Olympics (it's the luge, head-first). Went to his place, got the microwave, paid the 2K, and we were off.

And we quickly discovered a problem. The box we got with the microwave was the wrong size. It had handles, but one of them was broken. The thing was not easy to carry, and we had a long walk back to the station to look forward to, as well as a number of predictably crowded trains.

I soldiered on, though, stopping periodically to lean the damn thing on a convenient post or rail. Got to the station, got on the first train (Kate having to feed my ticket through for me), lugging the microwave along. The train got to the stop, we got off, me lugging the microwave along, and then thinking that something didn't feel right....

The microwave was falling through the bottom of the box. I figured out what was happening a split second before it really fell, so, being the quick thinker that I am, I stuck out a foot to catch it.

Ouch. Or as they say in Japan, itai. Fucking itai.

As people stare in wonder and confusion, I, limping, drag the microwave aside. The question now, of course, is whether the contraption still works or not. You must understand this poses quite the dilemma. For one would not want to carry this thing the rest of the long way home, braving dislocating shoulders and crowded trains full of exasperated salarymen, only to find that it doesn't bloody well work. On the other hand, we have already invested 2000 yen and a substantial amount of effort into this enterprise.

So on we went. A nice surprise: the thing was actually easier to carry without the stupid fucking box. The rest of the ride home went OK. The normally crowded Nambu train was not quite as crowded as it sometimes is, so we managed to take the microwave aboard without being squished into it. The walk from Kuji station home never seemed so long. But we made it. Lowered it to the floor, plugged it in, stuck in a cup of water, turned it on.

It made a microwave-like noise. Just checked the water. It had indeed been heated. Hallelujah.

Catch-up

So, yeah, ADSL is up and running. I think we got 12M, as I recall. You can get up to 100M, but good luck finding a source that can upload at that rate, I figure.

Work is cool. I'm getting into the hang of it, my coworkers are by and large good-humoured (very necessary), and the interesting, enjoyable students outnumber the ones who provoke hair-pulling.

Life in Japan is just peachy.

Favorite exerpts thus far:

This is a recurring episode: every once in a while I drop by Shibuya (it's along my train route to work) and cross the street with several hundred other pedestrians across a large intersection in these massive converging waves of people. (I love Shibuya. Here's a decent picture, which gives a bit--but just a bit--of an indication of how busy it is. That display to the left is, as far as I can tell, an enormous LCD display. That big one on the windows in the right is a wonder--you can see through it into the building inside. I haven't gone in yet to see how it looks from the inside.)

As mentioned on the Last Time, in one of my lessons I met a French-speaking Japanese woman who worked with Julie Dreyfus, the actress who played Sophie Fatale in Kill Bill. Sweet!

In another one of my lessons, I had a student who said he was very tired. Why, I asked. Because he'd been in a 5 hour meeting, he said. Wow, said I, what was it about? About a 160 billion yen deal between Fuji (his company) and Xerox. Whoa.

Few days ago, I answered the door to be greeting by a pair of English-speaking Japanese JWs who wanted to proselytise. They're softer sell than in Canada, I think. I said I was getting ready for work and they let it go at that.

Comment written in a student's file by another teacher: "Positive: knows some English words. Negative: can't use them in a sentence." (It's true)

Another comment: "Positive: excellent comprehension. Negative: called the other student a homosexual." (Also true)

An interestingly named pair of shops in Shibuya: first, Skin Head, which sells silver jewelry and other decorative odds and ends; second, Tora Tora Tora--that being the go signal for the bombing of Pearl Harbor (of course that's not the only time it's been used in the history of the Japanese language, although it is the most well-known--not that they probably learn that in the schools here).

Well, that's all I can think of right now. TTFN.

This looks kewl...

Apparently there is a group in Tokyo. Maybe they won't be as pretentious as the ones back home ;).

First Impressions of Japan

Ok, yes, these posts are almost a month old. I couldn't find anywhere to upload them from.

Day 1: Flight and Arrival

Today was a very, very long day. We got to the airport around 10:30, and checked in. Then we went with my parents, Toby’s sister, and his grandma to get some food. Pretty good food, but airport fare is expensive. We went through security at about 12:30, and got on the plane around 1:25. The flight was about 10.5 hours long. It was a pleasant surprise to get two meals instead of the advertised one, and they weren’t bad, but quite salty. There were three movies, but I didn’t really watch them (Pirates of the Carribean, Fried Green Tomatoes, and Bruce Almighty). Toby slept most of the way. I managed to get through the Time magazine someone left behind, the horse illustrated, a bunch of puzzles from the book Anthey gave me, and a bit of the SciAm she also gave me.

We (finally) arrived in Tokyo around 5:30 here time, which is about midnight Pacific. The next bit was brutal, because our carry-ons were quite heavy, and there is now an ‘anti-terrorist’ line up you have to stand in. We made the mistake of taking a bathroom break as soon as we got off the plane, so when we got to the line up there were two plane-loads in front of us. They started off with only one attendant processing people through. It took about an hour of standing in this line up to get through, and we hadn’t even gone through customs yet! Did I mention it was very, very hot? I had on a sweater set and was carrying my wool coat…Toby had a sweatshirt on and was carrying his lined overcoat. HOT. Anyways, we finally got through that, picked up our luggage, and got through customs to meet the Nova people. There was one person there to pick us up, as well as a couple from Victoria and a girl from Ontario. Once we got on the train and could put our stuff down, things were better. After about an hour on the train to Shinjuku, we got off and onto another train, but we then found out that our apartment wasn’t ready so we went to the Sunroute Hotel. It was a very nice hotel; the room was very small but clean and pleasant – the bathroom was like the head on a boat! By the time we got settled, phoned Toby’s uncle Teruo (and I had to speak Japanese at 3 am Pacific ), got something to eat, and phoned both our families back in Canada, it was about 5:30 am Pacific (10:30 pm our time).

Day 2

Shinjuku is a very kewl place. I will try to post some of the pictures I took soon. The buildings are huge! One of the kewlest buildings was the “Times Square Building”. Another one I enjoyed was the TokyuHands building – it’s a shopping mall with 20 or so floors. We walked around a bit, picked up an adaptor for the computer and got some lunch. Lunch was in the bottom of a building off the entrance to the underground train station near our hotel. There were lots of restaurants in there, including, surprisingly, a Subway. We didn’t eat there. At the place we did eat at, we got the best service I think I’ve ever received in a restaurant anywhere. Very nice people. I’m trying my best to use my Japanese – it’s very hard not to revert to English.

The televisions in Japan are also very kewl. They have a setting, so that if you’re watching a program that was originally in a language other than Japanese, you can switch to that language. No subtitles or anything, just voiceover. I like that feature a lot. It’s really good for watching the news, because I can’t pick up much of what is going on in Japanese, but I can switch to the English if I want. The television in our hotel had that capability so I watched BBC in English and a scientific show too, which had Brian Greene the physicist on it.

At about noon our time we checked out of the hotel, and then we walked around for about 45 minutes or so while we waited for our Nova person to take us to our apartment. After a few trains and (what seemed like) a very, very long walk, we finally got to our apartment. It has two rooms, a living room/dining room/kitchen, plus an alcove for the sink and washing machine. This alcove has two tiny rooms sticking out of its sides, a shower room and a toilet room. Yes, they are separate. Our television also has the multiple language capability. There are also two airconditioners, one for each room.

After unpacking most of our clothes, we decided to wander around a bit. We needed some towels (not provided?!) and we wanted to do some grocery shopping. We discovered several produce shops about a block or two away from our apartment, and happily the prices are quite reasonable. But we headed to Noborito (two stops away on the train) to pick up towels, which was quite an adventure. We went to several stores and eventually asked where we could pick up bath towels. The lady told us “Daiei”, but we couldn’t find it – it turned out it was one block to the left but we could only see it from the next train station, which was quite a few blocks from there. So finally we got the towels, got a snack, and then headed back to Kuji, which is our train station. At the grocery store we got milk, a bit of meat, some jam and noodles. At the produce shop very close to our house, we got oranges, mushrooms, onions, and some other stuff for 600 yen. Maybe tomorrow we will get some more stuff there – it’s pretty cheap. They have gigantic lettuces for 50 yen each, and cabbages for the same. The green onions are huge and they also have leeks, grapefruits, and garlic.

Toby made a yummy dinner, which was good because at around 6 or 7 our time (12 or 1 am Pacific) I am getting really tired. I can’t seem to get up any later than 5 am our time either, but hopefully by Monday I will be better. After that I washed the dishes (not many cuz there are only two of us!) and we tidied up a bit.

Tomorrow’s goal is to get some spices, maybe some bread, go to the Ward Office to get our foreigner’s registration cards, and possibly see the Matrix. I am also planning to study my Japanese hard, because on the weekend we are going to visit Toby’s uncle and I want to do better than I did on the phone ;).

Monday is orientation in Shinjuku. We are really looking forward to going back there and exploring a bit more.

Observation of the Day: The train system is awesome. I will post a picture of the map of it so you can see. Sometimes there are train lines upon train lines upon train lines, all stacked upon each other. They all go different places but with a little effort it’s not difficult to figure out which one to get on.

Day 3

Today we decided to go and meet the other Nova people in our building. They are mostly from Ireland and I think maybe from Australia or England. There is a nice couple who told us all about working for Nova and some of the ins and outs. We learned from them about the rent situation – it is more expensive than we first supposed. However, we also learned from them and Toby’s mom that getting our own apartment could require up to 6 months rent up front, which is ‘key’ money – a gift to the landlord – and not all of it actually counts towards rent. It is quite possible as well that once we replaced all the stuff that came with our current apartment, we would be no better off. We have air conditioner/heaters in two rooms, which is apparently surprising to Toby’s mom. As well, not all apartments come with dishwasher and fridge. We also think that the second room could come in quite handy if and when we get private tutoring. We’ll just have to see how it goes and what we can do about it.

After meeting the Nova teachers from upstairs we went to Mukogaokayuen Station. We went to the ward office and got our alien registration certificates, and Toby got his NHI health insurance. If it’s way cheaper than JMA, I will switch too.

After going to the ward office, we had planned to get to the Canadian Embassy. However, like most Canadian businesses/government offices, it has silly hours (9:30 to 11:30 am). I am glad that we called before making the rather lengthy train ride.

After the aborted Canadian Embassy mission, we decided to go to the Daie store to get some more household items. We picked up some washing machine soap, rubber gloves for dishwashing, two hand-towels, chopsticks, a pitcher, and two sided wall-safe tape. It turns out that things are pretty cheap there in comparison to the little grocery stores like “Family Life” – the washing machine detergent was 88 yen, while at Family Life it was around 400 yen. (?)

We walked all the way to Kuji from the Daie store. It was far. Our feet hurt. A lot. I made dinner for Toby while he went out to get our film developed and pick up some food incidentals.

I keep falling asleep around 7, which is really bad. But I’m writing this at around 10:30 (I woke up) so I hope I can sleep a bit later tonight.

It turns out that someone has wireless internet around here – the signal is week but I’m definitely connected. We need to figure out where it’s coming from and get the access key. That would be really great.

Tomorrow we are traveling to Nagareyama to see Toby’s uncle Teruo. I didn’t get to study my Japanese but hopefully with a little rest I will be better prepared. Hopefully it will be a good trip and we will get to see the Matrix.

Day 4/5: Kate and Toby’s Weekend Adventure

I got up at quarter to 5. When will I ever get onto Japan time?!! This is frustrating. I spent the time doing a budget and I think we are going to be fine – if we’re careful we can even save more than I suspected. It’s six now; I just did some washing up and maybe I will go back to bed.

We left for Nagareyama at around 9:45, and after a few train mix-ups and some long rides, we got off the train and met Toby’s uncle Teruo. We then went to meet Toby’s grandma in the hospital. After that we went to a restaurant for some lunch – and many, many drinks. Apparently drink bars are popular in Japan; you pay a small amount and can get as many drinks as you want – and unlike the ‘bottomless’ drinks in north America, you can switch drinks and have as many different kinds of drink as you want. Also included in this deal is soup.

After going to lunch, we went to Teruo’s house, which is very nice. Items of note are the fancy toilet with spray/bidet/heated seat, and the Japanese bath tub – very relaxing and deeper than it looks. After lighting incense for Toby’s grandfather, we spent some time looking through the stack of pictures I brought and giving the omiyage (presents) we brought for the family. Toby’s cousin Shuhei and his daughter Amane (whom we had been told was a boy, but luckily the present I got was uni-sex) came and visited as well. Looking through the pictures was hilarious – they really got a kick out of the pictures of my parents and informed me that my dad looks like a) Alexander the Great (ok, I can understand this given that they are both Greek), b) Sean Connery as James Bond (must be the beard), and c) Stephen Spielberg (no clue on this one). Anyways, they seemed to be impressed with his beard. :D

After this, we all went back to the hospital to see grandma again. Amane made quite the impression with everyone there – all the patients and nurses kept giving her lots of attention and saying “wakana-ii” (she’s cute). I hope to get some pictures of all of us at some later date.

After heading back home so Teruo could go for his run (6 km – wow!), we went for Kaiten Sushi – where the sushi travels around and you grab it when you see what you want. Yummy items of note: raw oysters in the shell and raw oyster sushi. Once again, Amane stole the show with the people in the next booth, as well as eating a whole melon. Very cute.

Unfortunately after dinner, I’m not sure why but I had a really really bad allergy attack, and of course I didn’t have any medication at all – but luckily Teruo had some anti-hystemine. That was lucky. Never again will I be caught without my inhalers (me dumb).

The next day, we ate a gigantic breakfast that Toby’s aunt Mitsue had made for everyone – we all had a plate with a little note on top. There were scrambled eggs (except for Toby), a kind of salad with tomatoes, lettuce, and sprouts, rice, miso soup, bacon, and for those who wanted, ‘natto’, or fermented beans. You put mustard on top and mix them around, then eat them with the rice. Yummy. There was also coffee and sweet potato buns all the way from Okinawa. We were extremely full.

After breakfast, we went for a walk to get some fresh air (and try to clear up the breathing issues from the allergies). Then we went to watch Mitsue play softball. I’ve been watching lots of Japanese baseball on t.v. and it’s way more exciting than American professional baseball – lots more stolen bases and sneaky hitting. It’s more brains than braun. The softball game was no different, and in the first inning alone Mitsue’s team had 9 runs batted in! She herself managed to steal a base. It was very exciting and lots of fun. Also, it was on the floodplain of the Edogawa (river), which has a large dyke (and by large I mean about 3 times the height of those in Richmond). The river was very calm, although I did see one fish jump. I also saw a large heron-kind of bird and a jetski with two people on it (looked very cold).

Next we went to a shopping mall where we picked up some things for the apartment (hangers and lunchboxes) which Teruo insisted on paying for :). It is definitely an advantage to have family here, not only for the obvious reason but because we have learned where all the cheap places are – otherwise we’d have gotten the stuff from the Daie store. Daie is not bad, but this place was way cheaper. It is also three or four floors and they seemed to have a lot of wholesale stuff there. I am finding most of the things I read in the newsletters provided by Nova are not really true – for example I am absolutely certain one can find patterned stockings in Japan and in other shades than black and beige, since I have seen them on about 90% of the Japanese women here. Don’t get me wrong, the newsletters are helpful, but perhaps the info is a little outdated.

Once we finished shopping, we went for Chinese food and had gyoza. Then we went back to the house to pick up our things, and Teruo provided us with some more towels and a bag of rice (yay!). He took us to the station and insisted on paying for our tickets. By this time the guiltmeter was at maximum. ;) Toby and I wanted to go to Harajuku, which we had been told was the happening place to be on Sundays (basically to see the goth kids and other such entertainment). It’s basically like Robson street, and it has the largest concentration of white people I’ve seen in Japan to date. Items of note: lots of white guys with Japanese girls in tow. Just about every major store we have on Robson is there: Gap, Zara, and Body Shop to name a few. The prices there seem quite inflated. We did eventually see the goth kids, who both Toby and I think spend more time on their get-ups than the goth kids from Vancouver – the costumes and makeup are far more intricate and thoughtful. We also saw a group of dancing Elvises (Elvi?), complete with gelled black hairdos and shiny black pvc or leather jackets. They were hilarious – especially with their coordinated knee-twisty can-can-like moves. Toby says it’s a cross between the jitterbug and the twist. I guess you had to be there ;). Another really kewl place in Harajuku is the gymnasium – what an awesome building (insert picture here).

After this we went home, which is where I am writing this from as we speak. There are some interesting programs on about today’s election for the lower parliament of Japan. Now we are listening to music.

The last thing I have to say about this weekend is that Toby’s relatives speak next to no English. Teruo can get by, but the rest have none. I think it’s safe to say that I’m picking up around 60% of what is said, sometimes more and sometimes less, but I definitely think my speaking improved by the end of the weekend – at least I hope so. At any rate, I learned a lot and will hopefully be better by the next time we see them.

Day 6: Orientation in Shinjuku

Yay! We were very excited to be going back to Shinjuku. Orientation didn’t start until 12:30, so we left lots of time beforehand to go back to the Tokyu Hands/Times Square place and check out cell phones and digital cameras. There are always people handing out free stuff and we managed to get a flyer for ADSL – and we are going to try to get it. It is the same sort of deal as the cable/home phone package, except it costs way less. We may get one cell phone as well but we are going to wait until our bank accounts come through (about 10 working days from now) to get one.

Orientation was fine – mostly stuff we already knew but it gave us a chance to meet some interesting people. I thought most of the people coming over here to work would be kids out of highschool or going through college/university, but almost all of the people I met have graduated from post-secondary and one even has a PhD. They seem to be a fairly well educated and intelligent bunch. :) I would say that the majority of the instructors are from the U.K., but there are lots of Aussies as well, with the occasional American thrown into the mix.

After the orientation, we headed over to the Virgin Records store – they have an internet café there, and if you buy a coffee you can surf for free for as long as you like. Unfortunately they had macs with weird formatting, and I didn’t bring all my blog entries so this will probably be posted weeks after it actually occurred ;). I couldn’t even check my email because it’s being forwarded to my SFU alumni account, which for some reason I can’t access from the webmail page. ??? I was however able to fire off an email from my old SFU account to my dad, and perhaps today (Day 7/Tuesday Nov 11) we will order the ADSL thing. I am suffering from internet withdrawal and am dying to get back online.

To cap off the day we tried to find the eigakan (movie theatre) in Shinjuku, which was quite difficult. However, we made it just in time and were overjoyed to see the Matrix Revolutions. I’m not sure what to say about it – except that Toby and I both thought it was very weird at the time…and I’m not sure I like what they did with it. I guess I’ll have to think about it some more. However, I can say that it was a great piece of eye-candy and I really enjoyed it. Some of the scenes were very gory and there should have been a warning about the movie causing seizures…hee hee ;).

By the way, the theatre just had the one screen I think – but it was massive! It was like stadium seating! I think you could have at least fit the Vancouver Playhouse inside this one theatre.

We saw trailers for The Last Samurai (eh) and more of note, Troy. It will be interesting to find out more about that – but I’m not sure what I think of Brad Pitt as a Greek. At any rate, I think the number of Greek ships they showed traveling to Troy was a bit overkill. We also saw the Return of the King trailer – WOOHOO! – which doesn’t come out til February 2004 here :(. However, I plan to download it as soon as it is released and watch it on the laptop. So there! Nyah!

It was kind of a late night and today (Day 7) is training. More on that in later.

Shinjuku Photos

Shinjuku Buildings
and
More Pictures

OK, so I have taken my own photos, but they are only on film as we didn't think to get a cd made the first time. So I found this site which has some nice pictures of Shinjuku buildings. Pictures don't do it justice, but you can get the general idea. I also decided those pictures didn't convey the excitement of Shinjuku, so here are a few more:

Shinjuku at Night
Shinjuku Again at Night