Sorry this blogs been delayed so long, but at first I had nothing to write about so didn’t bother, then I had too many things to do so didn’t have any time, and as such you have a long and late blog. Apologies, but lets get on with it.
These past weeks brought with them more excessive expenses as last Friday (well, 2 Fridays ago) I had further injections in preparation for Thailand, whilst on Saturday I had to buy a new pair of glasses, all in all meaning I had spent pretty much all my wages 2 weeks before my next pay day.
Moaning about money aside, this week was pretty cool. On Friday I went to my friend Raul`s party to celebrate his school getting a new teacher. There was loads of lush food as per usual, and I got to see my mates Tomomi, Mochi, Rich and Min as well as loads of new people who were really cool.
After the party I managed to drag about 8 of the guests including my hairdresser Mayumi (although she doesn’t really like me to refer to her like that. I guess because it sounds like she`s my subordinate. Either that or she`s not too proud of the job she`s done on me) to a club where an ex-ACC teacher would be DJing. The club was in Imaike which is near to Sakae, and was called “The Plastic Factory”. It was pretty small, but kind of average for Nagoya and was owned by a Swiss bloke called Hans who was really cool. Also in the club were a few other ex-ACC teachers including my good friend Rob.
The music was unsurprisingly House/Techno and was fairly decent throughout and particularly the ex-ACC teacher who I briefly met, I think his name was Koichiro. At one point a violinist came out in front of the DJ booth along with another guy with a Tabla like drum. The violinists instrument was plugged into some effects pedals and featured flashing neon all over it including the bow which looked like a lightsaber. Over the next few songs he played some cool electric violin melodies including some renditions of famous classical tunes (none of which I could name).
As the night went on I ended up bumping into Kumi, one of my Anjo students who I had taken over from Rob when he left ACC. He had invited her although I didn’t know, so was a bit shocked to bump into her.
A couple hours later and I felt like leaving so took a considerably unwise decision to walk home as the trains wouldn’t start for another 3 hours. I figured it wasn’t that far and that I could do it in just over an hour, but 2 and a half hours later I collapsed on my bed, my legs unable to move. Throughout the entire walk it was really heavily pouring with rain and despite having my umbrella it was a real b
itch to do. Needless to say I have learned my lesson since.
I did however manage to get home an hour earlier than usual, meaning I could get some sleep in preparation for Sunday. When I woke up I headed to Anjo where ACC teachers Tracey and Rob would be having their leaving party. When I arrived at the ACC school I saw loads of my mates who I hadn’t seen in ages which was cool. After about half an hour the party moved to a bowling alley 10 minutes down the road, where we engaged in the classic American pastime.
I have to say I don’t really have anything new to say about Japanese bowling alleys and how they are different to the UK, as this one was pretty much exactly the same. It even had the same animations on the screen when you got a strike (although I managed to avoid that in the 2 games we played).
The rest of the next week was spent chilling and working as well as planning my goodbye party in 2 weeks, although a midweek highlight was a nearby café called Aladdins which had an awesome traditional Japanese style. Me and Ayae went there for breakfast one morning feeling too lazy to make anything. Their breakfast consisted of a piece of thickly sliced toast with scrambled eggs baked on, along with ketchup and a small pot of yoghurt. This was well nice although far too small. Still the décor alone made it worth the trip.
The next weeken
d was pretty quiet, being that I was in desperate need of saving money. On Sunday I went round my friends Rich and Mins house for a day of DVDs and pizza which was really cool. They also showed me an awesome Udon place which served a bowl of Kitsune (tofuey stuff) Udon, and some random deep fried vegetables Domburi for a really cheap price which was awesome.
The following weekend was however stacked up with various parties. On Saturday we had a Takoyaki party at work with the staff, my Saturday students, and some other people. This was really cool, and once again there was a huge amount of food on display. As well as various salads and fruit dishes from Tomoko`s (one of the Japanese teachers) grandmas garden there was also loads of crisps, sweets and various alcoholic drinks.
Once most of the people had arrived, we started on some yakisoba which was made on a big hotplate heating a pot thing. This featured lots of cabbage, carrots, beansprouts and pork. This was well tasty, and whilst that was cooking Yumiko and Yukiko (two of my Saturday students) got started on the takoyaki. For those who don’t remember one of my earlier blogs, takoyaki are balls of cooked batter with chunks of octopus inside.
Anyway, the takoyaki were well tasty, and after knocking back a fair few we made “dessert takoyaki” which was made from pancake batter instead of the normal stuff. The chunks of octopus were replaced by chocolate, marshmallows and sweet aduki beans. This was then served with vanilla ice cream which was really really tasty.
Altho quite full, a decision was made to use all the remaining batter, and so we made “Italian Takoyaki” which some of the other guests had found from experimentation at a previous party. This was done with tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, edamame beans (alright, not really Italian) as well as the usual staples of Octopus, ginger, rice crispie things and chopped leek.
These were properly tasty unsurprisingly, and we capped the evening off with so
me melon from Irago which Ayae had donated to us. Irago is famous for its high quality melon and I found out later that they are actually quite expensive. Im not really a melon person, but this melon was absolutely gorgeous.
All in all the party was awesome and at the end Tomoko and Yoko (my boss) gave me a goodbye present which was 2 special mosquito repellent things, which will no doubt be very useful for Thailand.
After the party I headed to Fujigaoka near where I live to go to another party, this time my friend Stevens. There were a few people there who won`t be able to come to my goodbye party this Saturday, so it was a good chance to say goodbye to them. When I got there the party was pretty much winding down, but I spent an hour or 2 there which was really good fun.
After that me, Min and my friend Koshi started to walk home although Koshi was absolutely wasted. He had his bike but after severa
l attempts to ride it ending in him falling over, he eventually gave up and decided to walk alongside us. After a good hours walk I was eventually home and went to bed.
The next day I met my friends Neal and Mariko for lunch in Nagoya. We went to the Nagoya TV tower which is a big Eiffel tower lookalike thing that broadcasts certain TV stations around the area. Anyway it’s a Nagoya landmark which I still hadn’t done so thought it would be a decent place to start the day. After taking an elevator to the top and seeing some awesome views of various Nagoya sights, such as the Oasis 21 building and Nagoya castl
e, we went to the area beneath the tower to get some food.
Whilst we were sitting there, there was live music from an acoustic guitarist and drummer which was actually really good. The relaxed and classy atmosphere was however slightly ruined by a drunk old man trying to talk to us, and a guy in the front row who had a habit of rubbing his bare feet with his fingers then sniffing with his fingers. But hey, each to his own.
After lunch Mariko had to go so me and Neal went shopping for a bit and ended up at an arcade playing Tekken 6 as well as the Action Decker game (which by the way is awesome. It has these hand sensor things like the Wii and you cant shoot stuff and punch people, and erm yeh. Its well good).
We then went to Oasis 21 to meet my friends Callie, Min, Naho
and Justin for dinner. On the way there was some sort of festival going on so there was loads of mascots hanging round which was kind of weird, but kind of cool.
Once the others had arrived we went to a nearby Chinese restaurant to get some pretty lush food. After that a few of the group went home, while me, Callie, Naho and Justin went on to club Looop to see the one and only Texas perform with his group Long Castle Million Street.
Looop is always impossible to find but somehow we managed to find it first time despite it not being marked. Once the lift doors opened on the 4th floor where the club is located I was greeted with a “Jack! Long time no see!” from the ticket guys behind the table, who I vaguely remembered talking to one night.
Also once in the club it was full of people who I recognized from Texas` birthday and other Long Castle Million Str
eet gigs, and I think because Texas had told them I was leaving the following week, I got lots of messages of good luck and people saying they would miss me, which was really sweet. I was also impressed I could negotiate all these people in my Japanese which, has good days and bad days, but recently has had a spate of bad days.
After a few minutes LCMS took to the stage complete with live drummer and bassist, and performed another awesome set. Afterwards we hung out with Texas, Dimbar and the others, as well as meeting some random people at the bar. Also as Ive said many times Looop has the randomest of all selections of music, and this week highlights included Mouse T`s “Horny” and The Offsprings “All I Want”.
A few minutes later and it was time for me to go. I had work the next day so I had to get the last train home. Unfortunately I managed to miss this by about 5 minutes although I could get a train as far as Hoshigaoka which is about an hour and a halfs walk from my apartment. Deciding I couldn’t be bothered with this I decided to get a taxi.
Taxis in Japan are infamous for not knowing where they are going so I was not surprised when the driver didn’t know about the University of Foreign Studies, which I always use as my nearest landmark. I gave him directions as best I could but at one point realized we`d missed the turning. There wasn’t another turning for a good 5 minutes which made me a bit nervous as the fare crept above 2000 yen. Eventually we could turn right and get me home but by now the fare was 3000 yen (about 15 quid), which I guess I shouldn’t complain about although it felt like a bit of a rip off.
Anyway the next day I went to work which was kind of cool as the mums of the students from one of my long time classes had clubbed together to get me a leaving present. This was a Japanese style card game which Im pretty sure Ill never be able to play, but was a really sweet souvenir, although I did suddenly felt a bit guilty for shouting at their kids for the past hour.
After work I headed to an Izakaya for yet another party, this time to say goodbye t
o my friend Kawai-San who also couldn’t make my party on Saturday. This was a pretty small party of about 6 people, but it was still good fun eating some awesome food and drinking.
After a couple of hours we went on to The Hub, although this was a new Hub that had just opened in Fushimi. It was pretty much the same as the other one in Sakae although this one featured signed shirts from the infamous Nagoya Grampus 8 football team, and banners of support everywhere. After about another hour of that it was time to go though, and I managed to be home by half 11 which I thought was pretty impressive.
The next day and I had my final day of Tuesday lessons (Im actually working until next Monday), which was kind of sad as lots of my Tuesday students are really cool. It was however a 6 hour day with practically no breaks though, so that is one thing I wont miss.
On Wednesday I went to get my haircut as well as get my ticket from the Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium for Sumo the next day. More on that in the next blog but yes it is the time of year when the Grand Sumo tournament hits Nagoya, so I cant wait for that.
Speaking of the next blog it will be my final post on this blog, as I do leave the country in one week. I thought about doing a blog in Thailand but as that doesn’t really come under the Jacks Japan Blog bracket, I decided it would be better to leave it alone. Theres also the fact that as much as I love writing these, I do rather feel like I need a break, so a month in South East Asia with no commitments sounds fine to me. I do intend to do some sort of epilogue about my return to Japan from Thailand at the end of August and am also toying with the idea of doing some sort of best of selection as well, but more on that next week.
So yeh, make sure you tune in next week for the finale where Ill be Sumoing it up, having a goodbye party and reflecting on my awesome year here.
Til then
Peace out
Jack
These past weeks brought with them more excessive expenses as last Friday (well, 2 Fridays ago) I had further injections in preparation for Thailand, whilst on Saturday I had to buy a new pair of glasses, all in all meaning I had spent pretty much all my wages 2 weeks before my next pay day.
Moaning about money aside, this week was pretty cool. On Friday I went to my friend Raul`s party to celebrate his school getting a new teacher. There was loads of lush food as per usual, and I got to see my mates Tomomi, Mochi, Rich and Min as well as loads of new people who were really cool.
After the party I managed to drag about 8 of the guests including my hairdresser Mayumi (although she doesn’t really like me to refer to her like that. I guess because it sounds like she`s my subordinate. Either that or she`s not too proud of the job she`s done on me) to a club where an ex-ACC teacher would be DJing. The club was in Imaike which is near to Sakae, and was called “The Plastic Factory”. It was pretty small, but kind of average for Nagoya and was owned by a Swiss bloke called Hans who was really cool. Also in the club were a few other ex-ACC teachers including my good friend Rob.
The music was unsurprisingly House/Techno and was fairly decent throughout and particularly the ex-ACC teacher who I briefly met, I think his name was Koichiro. At one point a violinist came out in front of the DJ booth along with another guy with a Tabla like drum. The violinists instrument was plugged into some effects pedals and featured flashing neon all over it including the bow which looked like a lightsaber. Over the next few songs he played some cool electric violin melodies including some renditions of famous classical tunes (none of which I could name).
As the night went on I ended up bumping into Kumi, one of my Anjo students who I had taken over from Rob when he left ACC. He had invited her although I didn’t know, so was a bit shocked to bump into her.
A couple hours later and I felt like leaving so took a considerably unwise decision to walk home as the trains wouldn’t start for another 3 hours. I figured it wasn’t that far and that I could do it in just over an hour, but 2 and a half hours later I collapsed on my bed, my legs unable to move. Throughout the entire walk it was really heavily pouring with rain and despite having my umbrella it was a real b
itch to do. Needless to say I have learned my lesson since.I did however manage to get home an hour earlier than usual, meaning I could get some sleep in preparation for Sunday. When I woke up I headed to Anjo where ACC teachers Tracey and Rob would be having their leaving party. When I arrived at the ACC school I saw loads of my mates who I hadn’t seen in ages which was cool. After about half an hour the party moved to a bowling alley 10 minutes down the road, where we engaged in the classic American pastime.
I have to say I don’t really have anything new to say about Japanese bowling alleys and how they are different to the UK, as this one was pretty much exactly the same. It even had the same animations on the screen when you got a strike (although I managed to avoid that in the 2 games we played).
The rest of the next week was spent chilling and working as well as planning my goodbye party in 2 weeks, although a midweek highlight was a nearby café called Aladdins which had an awesome traditional Japanese style. Me and Ayae went there for breakfast one morning feeling too lazy to make anything. Their breakfast consisted of a piece of thickly sliced toast with scrambled eggs baked on, along with ketchup and a small pot of yoghurt. This was well nice although far too small. Still the décor alone made it worth the trip.
The next weeken
d was pretty quiet, being that I was in desperate need of saving money. On Sunday I went round my friends Rich and Mins house for a day of DVDs and pizza which was really cool. They also showed me an awesome Udon place which served a bowl of Kitsune (tofuey stuff) Udon, and some random deep fried vegetables Domburi for a really cheap price which was awesome.The following weekend was however stacked up with various parties. On Saturday we had a Takoyaki party at work with the staff, my Saturday students, and some other people. This was really cool, and once again there was a huge amount of food on display. As well as various salads and fruit dishes from Tomoko`s (one of the Japanese teachers) grandmas garden there was also loads of crisps, sweets and various alcoholic drinks.
Once most of the people had arrived, we started on some yakisoba which was made on a big hotplate heating a pot thing. This featured lots of cabbage, carrots, beansprouts and pork. This was well tasty, and whilst that was cooking Yumiko and Yukiko (two of my Saturday students) got started on the takoyaki. For those who don’t remember one of my earlier blogs, takoyaki are balls of cooked batter with chunks of octopus inside.
Anyway, the takoyaki were well tasty, and after knocking back a fair few we made “dessert takoyaki” which was made from pancake batter instead of the normal stuff. The chunks of octopus were replaced by chocolate, marshmallows and sweet aduki beans. This was then served with vanilla ice cream which was really really tasty.
Altho quite full, a decision was made to use all the remaining batter, and so we made “Italian Takoyaki” which some of the other guests had found from experimentation at a previous party. This was done with tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, edamame beans (alright, not really Italian) as well as the usual staples of Octopus, ginger, rice crispie things and chopped leek.
These were properly tasty unsurprisingly, and we capped the evening off with so
me melon from Irago which Ayae had donated to us. Irago is famous for its high quality melon and I found out later that they are actually quite expensive. Im not really a melon person, but this melon was absolutely gorgeous.All in all the party was awesome and at the end Tomoko and Yoko (my boss) gave me a goodbye present which was 2 special mosquito repellent things, which will no doubt be very useful for Thailand.
After the party I headed to Fujigaoka near where I live to go to another party, this time my friend Stevens. There were a few people there who won`t be able to come to my goodbye party this Saturday, so it was a good chance to say goodbye to them. When I got there the party was pretty much winding down, but I spent an hour or 2 there which was really good fun.After that me, Min and my friend Koshi started to walk home although Koshi was absolutely wasted. He had his bike but after severa
l attempts to ride it ending in him falling over, he eventually gave up and decided to walk alongside us. After a good hours walk I was eventually home and went to bed.The next day I met my friends Neal and Mariko for lunch in Nagoya. We went to the Nagoya TV tower which is a big Eiffel tower lookalike thing that broadcasts certain TV stations around the area. Anyway it’s a Nagoya landmark which I still hadn’t done so thought it would be a decent place to start the day. After taking an elevator to the top and seeing some awesome views of various Nagoya sights, such as the Oasis 21 building and Nagoya castl
e, we went to the area beneath the tower to get some food.Whilst we were sitting there, there was live music from an acoustic guitarist and drummer which was actually really good. The relaxed and classy atmosphere was however slightly ruined by a drunk old man trying to talk to us, and a guy in the front row who had a habit of rubbing his bare feet with his fingers then sniffing with his fingers. But hey, each to his own.
After lunch Mariko had to go so me and Neal went shopping for a bit and ended up at an arcade playing Tekken 6 as well as the Action Decker game (which by the way is awesome. It has these hand sensor things like the Wii and you cant shoot stuff and punch people, and erm yeh. Its well good).
We then went to Oasis 21 to meet my friends Callie, Min, Naho
and Justin for dinner. On the way there was some sort of festival going on so there was loads of mascots hanging round which was kind of weird, but kind of cool.Once the others had arrived we went to a nearby Chinese restaurant to get some pretty lush food. After that a few of the group went home, while me, Callie, Naho and Justin went on to club Looop to see the one and only Texas perform with his group Long Castle Million Street.
Looop is always impossible to find but somehow we managed to find it first time despite it not being marked. Once the lift doors opened on the 4th floor where the club is located I was greeted with a “Jack! Long time no see!” from the ticket guys behind the table, who I vaguely remembered talking to one night.
Also once in the club it was full of people who I recognized from Texas` birthday and other Long Castle Million Str
eet gigs, and I think because Texas had told them I was leaving the following week, I got lots of messages of good luck and people saying they would miss me, which was really sweet. I was also impressed I could negotiate all these people in my Japanese which, has good days and bad days, but recently has had a spate of bad days.After a few minutes LCMS took to the stage complete with live drummer and bassist, and performed another awesome set. Afterwards we hung out with Texas, Dimbar and the others, as well as meeting some random people at the bar. Also as Ive said many times Looop has the randomest of all selections of music, and this week highlights included Mouse T`s “Horny” and The Offsprings “All I Want”.
A few minutes later and it was time for me to go. I had work the next day so I had to get the last train home. Unfortunately I managed to miss this by about 5 minutes although I could get a train as far as Hoshigaoka which is about an hour and a halfs walk from my apartment. Deciding I couldn’t be bothered with this I decided to get a taxi.
Taxis in Japan are infamous for not knowing where they are going so I was not surprised when the driver didn’t know about the University of Foreign Studies, which I always use as my nearest landmark. I gave him directions as best I could but at one point realized we`d missed the turning. There wasn’t another turning for a good 5 minutes which made me a bit nervous as the fare crept above 2000 yen. Eventually we could turn right and get me home but by now the fare was 3000 yen (about 15 quid), which I guess I shouldn’t complain about although it felt like a bit of a rip off.
Anyway the next day I went to work which was kind of cool as the mums of the students from one of my long time classes had clubbed together to get me a leaving present. This was a Japanese style card game which Im pretty sure Ill never be able to play, but was a really sweet souvenir, although I did suddenly felt a bit guilty for shouting at their kids for the past hour.
After work I headed to an Izakaya for yet another party, this time to say goodbye t
o my friend Kawai-San who also couldn’t make my party on Saturday. This was a pretty small party of about 6 people, but it was still good fun eating some awesome food and drinking.After a couple of hours we went on to The Hub, although this was a new Hub that had just opened in Fushimi. It was pretty much the same as the other one in Sakae although this one featured signed shirts from the infamous Nagoya Grampus 8 football team, and banners of support everywhere. After about another hour of that it was time to go though, and I managed to be home by half 11 which I thought was pretty impressive.
The next day and I had my final day of Tuesday lessons (Im actually working until next Monday), which was kind of sad as lots of my Tuesday students are really cool. It was however a 6 hour day with practically no breaks though, so that is one thing I wont miss.
On Wednesday I went to get my haircut as well as get my ticket from the Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium for Sumo the next day. More on that in the next blog but yes it is the time of year when the Grand Sumo tournament hits Nagoya, so I cant wait for that.
Speaking of the next blog it will be my final post on this blog, as I do leave the country in one week. I thought about doing a blog in Thailand but as that doesn’t really come under the Jacks Japan Blog bracket, I decided it would be better to leave it alone. Theres also the fact that as much as I love writing these, I do rather feel like I need a break, so a month in South East Asia with no commitments sounds fine to me. I do intend to do some sort of epilogue about my return to Japan from Thailand at the end of August and am also toying with the idea of doing some sort of best of selection as well, but more on that next week.
So yeh, make sure you tune in next week for the finale where Ill be Sumoing it up, having a goodbye party and reflecting on my awesome year here.
Til then
Peace out
Jack
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