Jacks Japan Blog

The End?

2008-07-23T02:28:00.013+01:00

OK, as expected my final week of Japan has been a busy one, so one more time, lets go!

On Thursday I fulfilled one of my number one Japanese cultural experiences and went to the July Grand Sumo Tournament in Nagoya. The tournament had been running since Sunday and since this was one of the few days I would be free this week, I decided it would be ideal.

Although the first fights started around 8:30am, I decided to get there around half 1 to be able to get a feel for the place and see the main fights which would wrap up around 6. Once I was in the Meijo Koen area where the tournament was taking place, I could already see some wrestlers walking round in their decorated Yukatas, which was cool.

Once I was in, I proceeded to take a look at the souvenir shops which were selling various Sumo related goods including towels, posters, snacks, and of course fans. One of the things one of my students had warned me about watching sumo was how hot it was and how fans were necessary, so I bought an overpriced paper one in preparation. Once I found my reserved seat, which was also really expensive, I realized that there was actually superb air conditioning which rather negated the need for a fan but still I guess it makes a decent souvenir.

The arena was beautifully decorated with a shrine like roof above the ring, and instead of regular benches, there were purple cushions for people to sit on. The ring itself was a raised sandy surface made of packed clay, and a circle outline made of straw bales, within which the two wrestlers would grapple. As well as the gargantuan wrestlers looking spectacular, the referees also dressed up for the event, complete with a pointy hat and a small sword. Apparently this used to be so that if they made a bad refereeing decision they could commit instant seppuku (suicide). And you thought Premiership refs were under pressure!

The first few fights were between fairly weak wrestlers but still entertaining, and gave me a good feel for how the day was gonna go. After about an hour I decided to get some snacks to get me through, buying some manju which were obviously meant to be presents with their decorative wrapping, but I had a craving for them so bought them anyway.

When I returned to my seat the Juryo fights were just about to begin. This is like the 3rd best division or something, and they had this ceremony where they bring all the wrestlers out in their ceremonial gear and parade them round the ring which was cool.

There were some decent fights and the arena started to fill up over the next hour. At 4 o`clock the Makuuchi wrestlers came out and had a slightly longer ceremony as these are the top ranked wrestlers in the country. These fights lasted longer than the earlier ones as they had a well long ritual before commencing battle. They each entered the ring, bowed, then went to the corner and did the raising each leg and bringing it down thing (apparently to ward off evil spirits), before grabbing some salt and throwing it into the ring to purify it.

They then took their positions, stared at each other for a bit, then did the raising leg thing again, then went back to the corner and psyched themselves up, then threw some more salt into the ring, before returning to their positions and staring each other down for a bit longer.

They then went to the corner and repeated the ritual AGAIN, before finally starting the pushing match which usually lasted about 10-20 seconds. By this time the fuller arena meant there was a pretty good atmosphere, and lots of the drunk old men were cheering their favorite wrestlers on. Incidentally the average age of the crowd was probably about 60 proving why its Japans “Traditional” national sport.

The fights themselves were actually really enjoyable, and exciting especially when a wrestler was at the edge of the ring and then somehow managed to pull a win out of nowhere. Another highlight was when the wrestlers would be thrown off the stage and into the ridiculously near crowd. This happened about 5 times throughout the day and luckily I caught one of them on tape (see below, although youll have to go through a couple of minutes of ritual, even though I started recording about half way through!).

The last 30 minutes were the best as by this time the crowd had drunk loads of Sake and were pumped up to see some Yokozuna (champion) fights. The final match was awesome as it lasted a good minute before the famous Mongolian Yokozuna Asashoryu was thrown out of the ring in spectacular fashion. Apparently when a Yokozuna loses, its traditional for everyone to throw the cushions they are sitting on into the ring so all mayhem broke loose as soon as this happened.

After that, the guy who had won was given a bow like thing, with no string and he performed a special ceremonial dance with it to the cheers of the crowd. That was pretty much the end of the day, and I was proper glad I managed to see it before I leave.

On Friday I had my last day of school in Anjo and managed to get pictures of some of my students including the 2 year old Keisuke, who is one of my favorites. I also was taken for a meal in my dinner break by some of my favorite adult students at the Monjya yaki restaurant where I had made such a mess a few weeks ago.

Akemi, Kumi, Michyo and Kyoko are housewives who I have been teaching for the past 3 months and have got on with them very well. Anyway the monjya yaki was awesome. Its kind of like okonomiyaki except the mixture is a lot thinner and you`re kind of meant to burn it on the hot plate. Its then well crispy and lush (despite its similarity in appearance to fried vomit). Anyway we had a few of those with some Nagoya style fried Chicken and some mushrooms which we also cooked on the hotplate. It was an awesome meal and way better than the last monjya yaki I tried to make, but after an hour I had to go back to work as my break was up.

Saturday was kind of sad as my Saturday students are students who have been with me since the start, but again I got some good shots of my students, including my morning kids class . This was really difficult as each has an attention span of about 3 seconds so every time I got them together one would run off, but after about 5 minutes of running after them I finally managed to get a shot at them although I should say 3 of them aren’t actually in my class, but they were hanging around so I thought I should include them. I also got a shot with my favorite adult class which was cool.

The evening was something I`d been looking forward to for a while as I had my goodbye party. I met about 24 people at Sakae station and we headed to the Izakaya where we had a reservation. The room we had was nice and big, and we had a nomihodai system which meant that over the next 2 hours we could drink as much as we wanted. There was also a 9 course meal which was pretty good.

Over the next couple of hours more people turned up, and it was really cool to be with all the people Id met over the past year drinking, as well as my workmates, my boss, and even my Saturday adult students.

I also got shedloads of presents including a really gorgeous Yukata, sandals, and fan from Bob which was really nice. In addition to that I also got some clothes, towels, doll festival things (don’t ask), bandanas, and some sweet cards which was really nice. I managed to get pictures with everyone who came including one huge picture of everyone at the same time which was awesome.

After the Izakaya loads of people left and loads of people joined so we were about 20 people strong. I had booked the “Party room” at the Big Echo Karaoke which could seat 35 people. Within a few minutes we were up there singing, dancing and drinking excessively. At one point Texas had to meet our friend Kana so he invited me to come with. Instead of taking the lift however (we were on the 9th floor) he thought it would be a good idea to break into the fire escape area. We then had to climb down some ladders and on the 7th floor Texas feeling crazy as usual, hung out of the building on the Big Echo sign which was ludicrously dangerous but well funny.

We stayed at the Karaoke place for about 4 and a half hours singing classics like Monty Pythons “Always look on the bright side”, Becks “Loser”, and my personal specialty “Fake Tales of San Francisco” by the Arctic Monkeys which I ended up performing standing on the table. That was awesome.

Other highlights included the usually quiet Koshi exploding into life by performing Frankie goes to Hollywoods “Relax”, me and my friend Will belting out Oasis` “Morning Glory”, and Texas constantly squirting everyone with the 2 waterpistols he`d smuggled in.

After that and we lost some more people and gained some others so we were now about 10 strong. We headed to Café Domina although stopped off at Lawson Station first for some snacks. On the way we randomly saw some of Texas` band mates which was cool as I got to say goodbye to them again.

When we got into Domina the music was really good house music, and the DJ booth was accompanied by another table with loads of samplers and synths on as well as some other decks. We met some really cool ravers in there all of which said they were sad to see me go (even though Id just met them). One of them had on 2 pairs of raver glasses and a bike helmet which was proper random.

The night went on, and as I was talking to someone I suddenly felt someone put the bike helmet on my head then got pushed onto the stage. The MC wasn’t surprised to see me and gave me a mic. At this point I lost it and started talking about how much I loved Japan. The crowd were eating this up and after saying “Nihon daisuki!!!” (I love Japan) about 20 times, I started a call and response with the crowd saying “When I say Nihon, you say Daisuki”, “NIHON”-“DAISUKI” , “NIHON”-“DAISUKI”, “NIHON”- “DAISUKI” which went on for about 16 bars. As I was doing it the DJ was turning the mixer down in time with the crowd chanting, and it felt properly awesome. Only in Japan.

As I left the stage, I felt a hundred hands slapping me on the bike helmet as hard as they could and cheering which was really cool. My friends were in disbelief but were loving it anyway.

Later on some other guys took to the stage on the samplers and synths, and after hooking a mic into the synth asked me to come back and talk into it. Anyway despite it being fast house music I gave a freestyle a go which wasn’t great but due to the synthed sounds my voice came out in and the fact that it was English, no one seemed to mind that much.

The night carried on in that random fashion including the fact that in the corner of the club was a skate ramp which my friend Will attempted to utilize using a skateboard that he “borrowed”. Pretty much everyone except me, Bob, Callie and my friends Ali, Rob and Yoko fell asleep in the club as well which was well funny. Once 5am hit, we got out of there and headed to Dennys for a classic breakfast. I got a 3 course deal of salad, steak, eggs, and some Tarako spaghetti which properly hit the spot. More people fell asleep in Dennys including Texas who must have passed out about 10 times throughout the night.

We stayed there for a couple of hours and then eventually headed out into the beautiful sunshine and blue sky of Nagoya in the am. At Sakae station I said an emotional goodbye to Callie and Bob who have probably been my best friends throughout this year, and who have led me through some awesome experiences that I almost certainly wouldn’t have experienced without them. It was one of the best night outs of my life and was the perfect way to say goodbye to my friends and Japan.

Anyway I headed home, and on Monday had another emotional day as I had my last day of work. I got a present from my pianist student Hiroto which was really cool, and thanked my boss Yoko for everything she had done for me. And with that my adventure had pretty much come to an end.

There were a couple of things I wanted to do in Japan before I left including climb Mount Fuji, see Dragon Ash live and visit Hokkaido, but given the quantity and quality of things I did do, I don’t feel too hard done by. I`ve seen another side of Japan than most tourists see, through my connections and through the time Ive had to explore a little deeper. I`ve met some amazing people, and in fact I don’t think a week went by when I didn’t meet anyone interesting, which I cant imagine happening anywhere else.

I`ve been to gigs, parties, festivals, temples, museums, aquariums, onsens, arcades, stadiums, cinemas, weddings, parks, zoos, sumo tournaments, bowling alleys, restaurants, bars and clubs.
Ive been drinking, snowboarding, teaching, learning, dancing, singing, camping and of course eating! And then I`ve done it all again through writing about it on this blog.

I want to thank everyone who`s read or commented here as you’ve kept me going the whole year. Producing this blog has given me a way to revisit this incredible year any time I like, and without sounding too cheesy (which isn’t really possible) I owe that to you all.

Thanks again people! And for perhaps the final time,

Peace out

Jack Woodcock

P.S Heres a few videos of a typical sumo match, the izakaya party, and "Loser" by Beck, Karaoke style.

P.P.S Look out for an epilogue and a greatest hits blog a month from now!

The Parties

2008-07-16T15:55:00.005+01:00

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 bitch 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 weekend 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 some 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 several 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 castle, 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 Street 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 to 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

The Big Japanese Person*

2008-06-25T11:12:00.006+01:00

The week this week started with me watching a Japanese Cult comedy on DVD which Japanese Bob had lent me. “Dai Nihon-Jin” which literally translates as “Big Japanese Person” is a fly on the wall mockumentary about a man who is turned into a giant whenever a huge monster attacks Japan. The DVD featured no subtitles or dubbing track unfortunately, so 95% of the dialogue got past me, but as I`ve mentioned before the majority of Japanese comedy is physical, so it was still awesome to watch.

The highlight of the movie was a fight scene between the “Dai Nihon-Jin” and another giant monster with a human head and a hand for a body in downtown Sakae, Nagoya. Lots of the places I go every week were featured in the fight scene (including one scene where the Sunshine Sakae Ferris wheel was used like a hamster wheel by the hand body thing) so it was really cool to see.

On the Saturday night I went out to Kanayama, just outside Sakae to meet my friend Tomomi for an international party thing at a local Izakaya. Bob came along as well as Justin the Canadian. I met some really cool people there including one Italian who used to work at the “Italia Village” (a sort of Italian theme park at Nagoya port which featured loads of Italian restaurants, shops and Gondolier rides. It closed down a couple of months ago however, leaving a large number of unemployed Italians in Nagoya). He used to be a Gondolier driver but was now without a job. He didn’t seem too down about it though, and was a proper winner.

I also met loads of Chinese people and some other Americans. The food was pretty awesome, starting with a massive salad, and moving onto Nabe`s, Gratins, Spaghetti`s, Fried Chicken, Chips, Tofu, and ending with some lush cakes. After this most of the people went their separate ways, but me, Bob and Justin went onto The Hub in Sakae to neck a few more.

After a couple of hours Justin went home as he had to be up for work, but me and Bob decided we wanted to keep the night going.

So we went onto Lush, a hip hop club. The place was expensive and a bit too packed, so after about half an hour we decided to leave. With nowhere else to go, Bob suggested a bar a friend of his owned called “Goat”.

This was a good 10 minutes walk into another red light districty area, but eventually we happened upon the building. The bar was on the 5th floor, and along the same corridor were a variety of hostess bars with girls waiting outside to welcome you in. We went into “Goat” however, and Bob was given a really warm welcome by both of the barmen, one of which was the owner.

This bar also had a no foreigner policy due to the vast Brazilian and Phillipino population in this slightly dodgy corner of Sakae. Although this blatant racism upsets me, over time I have come to understand it. The majority of crimes/anti-social behavior is committed by non-Japanese in my experience, and indeed everyone else I have approached on the subject, has said the same. Whilst I don’t support these anti-foreigner policies, I understand why many Japanese feel like this. It is not necessarily a hatred of other cultures or a fear of loss of national identity so much as it is a simple mathematical security issue. If you don’t let foreigners in then you wont have as many stabbings or robberies in the place. A simple comparison of the security measures employed for “Gaijin clubs”, and Japanese only clubs enforces this idea.

That being said I think the Japanese in general do go way overboard with their representations in the media, and the way they often treat foreigners. I have experienced racism on a fairly minor scale a few times, although it has usually been laughable more than offensive (the idea of anyone being racist to a white Englishman is so alien to me that it does become a joke), but some of my friends have had really upsetting experiences which is totally uncalled for.

So my conclusion on this subject is to respect the Japanese who want to have these views, but to keep my own mind open. After all its not my country so why should they comply with what I consider to be fair.

Anyway the bar staff were really nice to me despite my racial inferiority, and me and Bob sat at the bar. The room was very small, but for a Japanese style 1 room bar it was kind of big, with 2 sofas and about 8 seats at the bar. There were about 3 other people sitting at the bar and people came and left as the night went on. On the TV screens dotted around the bar, “The Shawshank Redemption” was being played muted, with Japanese subtitles. We were given free drinks due to the fact that Bob knew the owner which was cool, and we sat and talked with them for hours.

By this stage I had the rubbish combination of having sobered up enough to be self conscious about speaking Japanese, and felt rough enough to be unable to get my brain thinking clear enough to understand what everyone was talking about. Time and again I had to get people to repeat stuff slowly so I could join in the conversation which was really frustrating, but for the most part I had a good time here.

The bar also had a Karaoke machine which myself and some of the other drinkers indulged, myself doing classics which I hoped would appeal to the other clientele including The Beatles “Let It Be”, and Monty Python`s “Always Look on the Bright Side” (well actually that was just for Bob who is a huge Monty Python fan).

At one point some guy came in and sat at one of the sofas and ordered a bottle of wine, which he drank with one of the barmen who joined him to indulge in conversation etc. In fact there were a couple of other people who had gone drinking on their own, and this coupled with my experience in Hiroshima enlightened me to this part of Japanese culture which doesn’t really exist in the UK (or as far as I know), that of the lone drinker. The barstaff really looked after them, and I was well impressed with the service shown. At one point they ordered food from a Chinese takeaway for him, and the 2 guys who had loads of energy took it in turns to sit with him.

After meeting and chatting with people for ages, The Shawshank Redemption began for the third time, and I decided I should get home ASAP. I had to be up the next day, so needed all the sleep I could get. Whilst I hadn’t spent a penny at the bar, and Bob had already settled our bill, the barstaff still didn’t want to see us go and kept talking to us. Even after we left, the owner guy (called Daisuke) came down in the lift with us and stood outside talking to us for another 15 or 20 minutes.

I eventually got home around 8 and went to sleep. When I woke up I got on a train to get to the ACC school in Anjo where my friend Tracey was holding a fundraiser for a Peruvian charity where she was going to volunteer in a few weeks. This was in the shape of a photographic exhibition as she was a keen photographer. When I got there it was pouring with rain (its currently the rainy season in Japan which sucks, its like a monsoon sometimes!), and there were about 10 people in the Anjo school where I work on Fridays.

The exhibition was going to be running for 4 hours but because I had gotten up late due to the previous nights events, I just got there for the last hour when most of the people had been and gone although there were 2 Peruvians who Tracey had met at a language exchange program, and had lots of interesting stories about Peru which was really cool. After looking around for a bit I bought one of Traceys photos of a Japanese shrine which was really awesome and came with a free frame which was cool. After an hour we all helped to clean up which took a while, but was quite good fun.

After that the 2 Peruvians (I forgot their names) gave me a lift to the station which was really nice of them, and I embarked on my epic journey back to Nisshin. I got back around 10 and tried to get a regular nights sleep.

Ok that’s about it for this week. Sorry about the lack of pictures but despite bringing my camera on the night out I completely forgot to use it except on that one photo of the salad in the Izakaya. Still, to try and make up for it Ill leave you with a trailer for the one and only “Dai Nihon-Jin”.

Peace out

Jack

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=XF0lAX0LPlM&feature=related

The Skyboat

2008-06-18T04:07:00.009+01:00

These past 2 weeks unfolded relatively slow, as I spent a great deal of time working or chilling at home. On Sunday however, me and Ayae ventured into Sakae. Our first stop was the Sunshine Sakae building. This is known to all Nagoyans as the building in the centre of town with a huge ferris wheel stuck to it. Ive often looked upon the “skyboat” as they call it but have never actually ridden it.

When we got on, it gradually got higher giving a pretty awesome view of Nagoya as it went. Inside our “boat” there was a TV screen (as there is in and on almost everything in Japan) which had a control panel. Using this we could select from a variety of styles of music and tracks to be the soundtrack to our ride.

After reaching the peak and seeing familiar Nagoya sights from afar (such as the castle, the Oasis 21 Centre, and the crazy spiral building near Nagoya station), we eventually descended and got off.

After exiting the Sunshine Sakae building we went to the “Big Echo” Karaoke box to spend an hour singing our hearts out, and I was pleasantly surprised to find some rarities including 2 Asian Dub Foundation songs.

Following this we went to find some food. I had a craving for something which I first (and last) tried about 8 months ago. The Pizza Cone. For those that don’t remember or didn’t read that blog, this is basically a cone made of pizza dough with a pizza filling which is then baked, and its proper lush.

After finishing that off we walked around until we were hungry again (which didn’t take long as the pizza cone is probably the equivalent to like 2 slices), and then we went to an Okinawan style restaurant. I had Taco Rice which is Taco meat on a mound of rice together with salsa, and shredded cabbage, and Ayae had Chanpuru which is a bitter vegetable thing mixed with egg and pork.

Ｏn Friday I had to go to the doctors to get vaccinations (Hepatitus A and B and Japanese B Encephalitus for those wondering) and malaria tablets for Thailand, which was fairly easy but cost a fortune. I decided on the expensive Maleria tablets which surprised the doctor who said most Foreigners go for the cheap option.

On Saturday I met my friends Callie, Rich, Min, Tomomi, Mochi, Raul and more at the Hub for drinks. Whilst there I also saw my work mates Lauren and Melody and adding everyone to the group in the already packed Hub meant that the group stayed together for about 10 minutes before the claustrophobia sent people there separate ways.

My group all headed to Club Domina where there was a house techno night. Within minutes of being there I had blagged a free flashing neon ring thing being given out by some raver at the bar. Also at the bar was a DJ called “Loki” who had an awesome haircut featuring blue streamer things, and was promoting his club night next week, snappily titled “Funeral” (cos that sounds like an awesome party!).

As time wore on I got hungry so left the club to go to the Lawson Station convenience store round the corner (all combinis are 24 hours), to nab some food (a Teriyaki burger in a muffin by the way). Outside I saw an Aussie and a New Zealander I knew, who didn’t want to pay to get into the club, but still seemed to be living it up outside the Lawson Station. In fact when I returned 2 hours later around 5, they were still there. They seemed to just be trying to pull girls but no matter how cheap loitering outside a combini is, there must be easier ways. Well, each to his own I guess.

As the night wore on more people left and by around half 4 it was just me Callie, Tomomi and Mochi. Whilst taking a break from raving, I met a bloke called Tomoya who was a Japanese language teacher for Junior high students. Anyway he was properly loving it and after chatting for about 10 minutes he invited me to an illegal rave in Gifu (a couple hours outside Nagoya) in a couple of weeks.

An hour later and the club was still going strong. Me, Tomomi and Mochi were knackered though and I had to meet Ayae in an hour, so we left and went to Dennys to get some breakfast. After a satisfying “Big Cobb Salad”, I went to Nagoya station to meet Ayae, who had woken up in Nisshin an hour ago and had come to meet me.

When we met I was obviously knackered but we had a day planned so I decided to honor it. People reading this might wonder why I went out the night before I had to wake up at 6, and the only way I can explain it is that I really felt like a night out. So I did.

The day we had planned was to go to Ise, in Mie a couple hours out of Nagoya. When we got there we went to the Gegu temple which was apparently an intensely spiritual place. Allegedly it holds the stones the 10 commandments were written on (Moses came to Japan all those years ago and actually finished out his life here). Like I said, each to his own.

After that we had lunch at a diner and got some pastries from a French bakery nearby. After that we took a 40 minute train to a place in the middle of nowhere called Izanomiya which was apparently even more spiritual. This place was really lush and had loads of beautiful trees.

After this we took a load of trains (including one wrong one), and eventually ended up at home around 7pm. By this time I was passed being tired so stayed up a bit longer.

On TV I managed to catch this awesome Japanese game show where people with strange pets (including a Penguin, a giant Turtle, a Sheep and a Pig) had to test their pets love for them. This was done by the animals watching their owners being attacked by these men dressed up as giant bananas, then seeing if they would try and rescue them. Most of them didn’t seem to mind that much, although the sheep did head butt the banana men over when they tried to chase him. This was just another awesome example of Japanese TV.

After this I got some much needed sleep (13 hours worth), and this concluded the last 2 weeks.

Thanks for reading everyone, tune in next week for more adventures as I begin my final month in Japan!

Peace

Jack

The Sounds Of The Asian Dub Foundation

2008-06-04T09:07:00.009+01:00

Ok this week was a pretty fun one. After working my way through the week it was eventually Thursday and me and Callie had tickets to an Asian Dub Foundation gig at Club Quattro. For those that don’t know, ADF are a British punk/drum n bass/bhangra/hip hop/reggae/dub band and when I found out they would be playing Nagoya a couple of months ago I immediately bought some tickets.

Having looking forwarded (surely that’s terrible grammar for an English teacher?) to this gig for a while, I was well excited and when I arrived at the venue at 7 there was lots of energy in the air. Incidentally Club Quattro is on the 8th floor of the Parco designer shopping mall, and is where most of the big acts play in Nagoya. I don’t know how many 8th floor gig venues there are in Britain but I cant think of any. Anyway its not huge but not too small, pretty much the perfect size for a good gig.

After a short wait Callie met me there and we went in to get some drinks and watch the support act. They were a Hokkaido based hip hop group called “Tha Blue Herb” which I like to think is a Resident Evil reference but Im not really sure. They consisted of a DJ and a MC and were actually really good, playing a more experimental brand of hip hop and with lots of energy. They played an hours set and then the floor swapped Blue Herb fans for Asian Dub Foundation fans, and we managed to get near to the front.

A few minutes later and ADF took to the stage. Whilst the lineup for the band has changed over the years, on this occasion they had a DJ, a Bassist, a Guitarist, a Dhol/bongo drummer, and 2 MCs/singers. They opened with “Rise to the Challenge”, and the place went nuts with mosh pits left right and center, and everyone jumping.

Throughout the night they played loads of stuff off Punkara, their most recent album including “Burning Fence”, “S.O.C.A”, “Awake/Asleep” and “Target Practice”, as well as older tracks like “Oil” and “Flyover”. For an encore they did the classic “Buzzin” and finished with “Fortress Europe” which had an insane amount of energy, and was probably the highlight of the gig. After that they came back for one more track, which was the Iggy Pop collaboration/cover “No Fun” again from their most recent album.

After the gig I was sweating buckets, but was proper happy. On the way out I saw Chandrasonic, the lead guitarist and had a bit of a chat with him which was awesome, and also managed to get my picture taken with him. He was a really safe guy and after talking to me for a few minutes went outside to meet some of the fans who were outside the venue.

We got a lift down and then went home, and I got in around 1130. Absolutely knackered, of course.

On Saturday after work me and Ayae went to Irago to visit her parents. Since I had been there last time Yusuke, her brother, had graduated from the Tokyo sushi academy and was looking for guinea pigs to practice on. Obviously I was a willing participant.

When we arrived, Yusuke had prepared a huge array of sushi for the family (who had been eating sushi pretty much every day since he graduated) and of course me. There were also some crabs and some miso soup. The sushi featured loads of different fish, including turbot, tuna, shrimp, and loads that I couldn’t name. There was also a bowl of sliced bonito sashimi with leek which is apparently ludicrously expensive and I was told that pretty much all of the fish had been alive up until a few hours ago meaning the freshness could not be beaten.

The crabs were well good and I was taught how to eat Kani-miso (crab brains). This is done by cracking the shell around its head (its skull?), and sucking the green squidgy stuff out. In Japan this is a delicacy which people pay a lot of money for, but personally it didn’t really float my boat.

After eating loads, Yusuke brought out some Anago (eel) which is my personal favorite sushi, which was awesome. In addition to that there was also some okonomiyaki which Ayaes mum had made, and for dessert there was some melon. Anyway I ate too much as expected and fell asleep in front of the TV.

The next day it was really sunny so I sunbathed in the garden and read a book for a bit, before me and Ayae went for a walk on the beach. All of this was proper lush until I realised later on that Id got myself sunburned, which sucked.

The following morning we went back to Nagoya, and it was back to business as usual.

Ok that’s about it for this week, I know it’s a bit short but I figure after the last few blogs we all deserve a break. Maybe next week will be immense. Who knows?

Peace out yo!

Jack

P.S This is a video I took at the ADF gig of them performing "Free Satpal Ram". Its a bit shaky due to the jumping, but still it shows how awesome it was. Enjoy (if u can make it out!).

The Brothers of Bob

2008-05-25T15:58:00.013+01:00

Ok after last weeks beast of a blog Ill try to keep this (relatively) short.

After the fun and frolics of golden week, I went back to work on the Friday and the Saturday.

Saturday night was to be another leaving party, this time of Claire and Sari, 2 fellow ACC teachers who I didn’t know that well, but well enough to see them off. They would be celebrating it in Nisshio which is about an hour outside Nagoya, such is the habit of ACC to put their schools in the remotest of places.

We were going to start at an organic restaurant (which motivated Ayae to join us), and then go to a bar and some Karaoke afterwards. To get to Nisshio we managed to hitch a ride with Yumiko (one of my Saturday students who used to be taught by Claire), and we were joined in the car by my manager Yoko and Thomas who also used to teach Yumiko.

The journey was a little over an hour, and after sitting down at our reserved table, the rest of the party arrived comprising mainly of ACC teachers, and students. The restaurant, like the one near our apartment featured all you can eat fruit parfait complete with ice cream. Actually I swapped the glass they normally give you for the epic orange juice glasses they give, meaning I could get twice as much fruit and ice cream as everyone else (all credit to Alan Partridge).

After eating a ridiculous amount we went to Dojin Bar which was really awesome. The bar was big for Japan, and the décor was in an African style, complete with bongos that you could drum when you wanted the attention of a waiter. The party lost a few people when we went here but gained a few more, and so still was about 30 strong. After drinking and chatting for a bit we left and there was a mad dash to the people who had brought their cars to try to blag a lift. Altho me and Ayae left it a bit late we managed to get a lift with fellow Brit, Rob, who conveniently had a 6 seater.

After getting lost and driving round Nisshio for what seemed like hours we eventually found ourselves at the Karaoke box which really had to be seen to be believed. Although we had driven past countless Karaoke boxes, I wondered why they had chosen one so out of the way and when we got their I realized. This place was an absolute dive; the interior was about as ugly and cheap as could be, there were countless holes in the walls boarded up with MDF, and instead of subdued lighting and comfy sofas they had lighting with all the subtlety of a 24 hour supermarket, and some cushions on the floor.

Anyway we managed to get a room which could fit in the remaining 15 odd people we had left. The room, in fitting with the “style” of the rest of the bar featured a picture of a city skyline which was peeling off the wall, and of course a karaoke machine (which was in all fairness fairly up to date). Because of the ridiculous amount of people, it was at first only possible to get in about one song every 90 minutes, but after a while people started leaving. In the end there was about 5 people left, everyone else had either gone home or was sleeping so we could sing loads of songs.

Around 6 there was a train to Nagoya so me and Ayae said our goodbyes and after getting lost in Nisshio for a bit found ourselves at the train station. When we got into Nagoya we went to a bakery for some breakfast befpre heading home and getting some sleep.

The next week I worked 5 days (like a real human being!) and on the following Saturday went out to meet Bob. Our friendly neighborhood hip hop superstar Texas was going to be performing live with his “Long Castle Million Street” band mates and so this was an occasion I didn’t want to miss. I also managed to bring out a few people I hadn’t seen in a while including my friend Ian, a brummie English teacher (of course) who had been in Japan a few years.

After the drinks had been flowing (including some “Stairway to Heavens”; an absinth cocktail which is 68% proof), Ian revealed to me in secret (so don’t tell anyone, right?) that he was a “Bokshin”. I had read about these before but never thought Id meet one, or that one of my friends would actually be one. A “Bokshin” is a gaijin priest hired for weddings to give couples a western feel for their special day, except the thing is they`re not real Priests, in fact most of them aren’t even Christians. Ian gave me the low down on what it involves anyway.

Apparently you turn up to the restaurant or wherever the reception is, in your robes and dog collar (provided by the agency), spend about an hour and a half giving a sermon in Japanese and get paid about 4 times what you get for teaching English.

Anyway its another one of those bizarre Japanese cultural aspects which somehow makes me love this place even more. It was well funny when Ian rejected the offer to come to the club because he had to be up to give a sermon. He did also offer to put in a word for me to his agency if I was interested, but I figured with only 2 months more here it probably wouldn’t be worth it but still, its good to know I can be a fake priest if I want to.

After an hour or so my friend Tomomi turned up with a couple of her friends, and after a couple more drinks, we headed out. While we were outside discussing how we were going to get a taxi there with 7 people, my friend Rob Lowe (yes, that’s his real name!) spotted me. Rob is the Brit who gave us a lift to the Karaoke bar the week before. Anyway its pretty random that he happened to see me, especially since he had just lost all the mates he had been out with. With little persuasion needed, Rob agreed to join us to see Texas live.

After a bit of Taxiing and walking we somehow found ourselves in a slightly dodgy area of Sakae where there were countless shady men offering us topless bars. Eventually we found ourselves at “Loop”, where we had met Texas and Bob the first time. While we were waiting outside to gather our crew, Texas and his band (including the legendary Dimbar) came outside and said hello. Dimbar welcomed me with a massive hug and repeatedly shouting my name which was a good as welcome as any.

After a bit everyone arrived and we went inside just as Long Castle Million Street were starting their set. Whilst the last time I saw them they just had their DJ, on this occasion they were complete with a live bassist and drummer, and they totally smashed it. I always think proper live hip hop sounds well good and these guys were no different with Texas and Dimbar making the perfect frontmen. After an immense set, some DJs came on and we shared some drinks with the band.

The music was well random (as Loop always seems to be) with House, Trance, RnB and pop and even some random 80s tunes. And through the dancefloor we met loads of people including Yuji and Yuji, 2 friends who sounded and acted like a comedy duo. Anyway they were well safe and before long, me, Rob and the 2 Yujis were the only ones on the dancefloor (Bob had fallen asleep on the sofas bless him). The club closed at 3 but we had to wait around til the first train at 6 so me and Rob went to a Dennys to get a huge breakfast, mine comprising of a steak, some chips, a big salad, and a bigger bowl of rice. After dossing there for a couple of hours with the rest of the post-club people it was eventually time to go home.

I managed to get about 4 hours kip but had to be up as me and Ayae had a day out planned. We went to the Nagoya-Ko (Nagoya port) area to see the aquarium they had there. When we arrived the sun had come out in force and we headed towards the aquarium building. On the way we saw this inflatable model thing which had air being rapidly blown in and out causing it to flap about at high speed like a mad man. Its difficult to describe, but anyway it was proper funny.

After making our way into the aquarium and seeing some dolphins and other exhibits we headed to the stadium to catch the dolphin show which was about to start. When the dolphins were released into the main tank, I heard some kid shout at the top of his lungs “KAWAII!” which means “cute”. I don’t think its possible to hear a more Japanese heckle.

When the show started, it was absolutely awesome, Ive never been to a dolphin show before so I don’t have much to compare it with, but the animals were proper smart and were pulling loads of awesome tricks including jumping on cue as well as doing that thing where they try to stand up in the water and move backwards.

One of the most impressive things they did was when they dived into the water at the same time as a trainer threw a Frisbee, and while the Frisbee was still in mid air, leapt out of the water and caught it in their mouth. Also at one point these contraptions on a zip line were transferred over the middle of the tanks. They then lowered a ball on a string, although it was still proper high. One of the dolphins dived under water and then leapt a good 20 feet into the air and hit the ball with its nose.

At the end of the show the dolphins swam onto an area on the side of the tank out of the water, and arched their backs. Then, simultaneously with the trainer took a bow to the cheers of the audience.

5 minutes later they had the Killer Whale show who would be accompanied by some dolphins. When the giant Orca came into the tank the crowd started salivating (not really!). Anyway the killer whale did similar things to the dolphin, albeit at a much slower pace. It even did the jumping out of the water and hitting a ball thing, although the ball was obviously lower. Still, the Killer Whale was proper impressive whenever it leapt out of the water and landed with a huge splash. In fact we had to move back from our 3rd row seats as we started getting wet every time he landed.

This show also featured the whale and 2 dolphins landing on the “shore” on the side of the tank. When the whale tried to get back into the water, it took a few seconds of it flapping its huge body about and in the process pushed one of the dolphins back into the water. They finished the show with the Killer Whale and 2 dolphins diving underwater and “waving” with their tails, which was pretty awesome.

After that epic show we got some Churros and some Takoyaki, and still being hungry went to an Italian restaurant. I had a clam chowder soup with a baked pie crust on top which was awesome. After that we went back into the aquarium and saw loads of awesome fish with awesome faces and also saw a Beluga show which was cool as it made these weird noises and caught a ball in its mouth. O yeh and we also saw some penguins which were awesome as always.

After that we headed back to Nagoya for a few bits and pieces before returning home. The next week I worked 6 days as I had been covering for my workmate Lauren who had taken a week off. The classes were all pretty good and in fact many of the students I`d taught before as I had a different schedule up until last month. The new students were mostly good and being a substitute teacher I could pretty much just mess about and play games in most of the lessons. One of the lessons was a private class with a 12 year old who was possibly the most mature 12 year old (or person for that matter) Ive met in Japan. Not in a way that he wasn’t like a kid or fun but in the way he addressed people and interacted with them. Its really difficult to describe but I was proper taken aback by his extreme confidence and friendly manner, especially since the class preceeding it was with a 15 year old girl who said about 2 words the whole lesson.

Another class I covered for Lauren on the previous Friday was also of note actually as it featured 4 year olds, one of which was a girl who spent the first 15 minutes crying and literally screaming at the top of her lungs (I guess freaked out by the fact that there was a new teacher). After giving up trying to console her (this just made her scream more) I left her to it, although myself and the other 2 students couldn’t really say or hear anything such was the volume of this girls screams. Anyway after about 15 minutes the manager of Handa (where this school was located) took pity on me and removed her from the class.

After a busy week of non stop work, I figured I deserved a night out so went out to meet Bob to celebrate his birthday. We met at our “local”, The Hub, where I also met Bobs older brother Kohe who had actually studied at Ayaes university and so spoke quite good English. Regardless of this I managed to keep the conversation mainly in Japanese. After a few drinks in the Hub we went onto the Shanari Shanari Izakaya which was run by one of Bobs high school friends.

We ate some awesome food including Sashimi, edamame, meatballs, chicken, and these awesome slices of Ray which were dipped in chili mayonnaise (really delicious!). After a while, our friends Callie and Min showed up, and after a few more minutes Bobs younger brother Tomoya. It seemed the craziness travelled in reverse age order in Bobs family, as Tomoya was nuts especially compared to Kohe who was quite reserved (Bob is a nice even mix). Tomoya, like Dimbar had great fun in shouting my name at high volumes mid conversation to get my attention. Tomoya spoke no English whatsoever, and so every joke me, Callie and Min made he demanded a translation which I usually couldn’t give.

After drinking til about midnight we left and went to Club Buddha where they were having some sort of a funky house night. It was the tenth anniversary of some record shop so the place was absolutely packed to the rafters. The music was awesome and we met loads of random people mainly due to Tomoya who tried to talk to pretty much everyone there. At one point we were outside the club chilling out and everyone who came out or came in he would shout out in English (usually about 2 inches from their face) “Hey Boy!!” or “Hey Girl!!” which did lead us to think he was going to get punched at one point.

One bloke had a farmers hat on and upon us subtly discussing this, Tomoya decided to repeatedly shout out “Hey Farmer!” , leading to a “He`s-not-with-us” moment. After an hour or so we left the club and tried to find a taxi. It was absolutely pouring with rain, but we managed to get a taxi. Callie went home, but me, Min, Bob and his brothers went back to Bob and Kohe`s house deep into the suburbs of Nagoya. Tomoya had gotten married a couple of months ago but Bob and Kohe were still living with their parents (common in Japan I think).

Anyway we sat around talking for a while and at one point their dad came down and saw us. Needless to say he was a bit shocked to see 2 gaijin chilling out in his living room at 4am. After a while Bob and his brothers went to sleep, and they provided me with a futon to sleep on the floor in the living room.

The next morning we got up and met Bobs mum, and then Kohe gave us a lift back as Bob was still too smashed to drive. I got a pretty good nights (or days) sleep when I got in as I woke up around 5.

Ok that’s about it for this week, unfortunately I broke my rule about keeping it short, but o well I don’t really care.

Much love.

Jack

P.S Heres a video of Long Castle Million Street`s set. Awesome.

The Golden Week - Part 2

2008-05-09T04:53:00.011+01:00

Previously on Jacks Japan Blog…

So Ive gone to Kyushu, had an awesome first day of seeing the sights of Fukuoka, tried some awesome ramen, and met some awesome people in the bars and clubs of Fukuoka. After an insanely busy first day, I finally got to sleep in my capsule hotel around 6 am…..

2 and a half hours later my alarm went off and I had to wake up for another day of sightseeing. I skipped taking a bath for the morning as there would be plenty of water at the place I was going to.

Beppu is a mid size town on the Eastern coast of Kyushu, and is famous in Japan for being home to a ridiculous amount of onsen (natural hot springs). Anyway, being a fan of onsen meant Beppu was a big draw for me.

The bus left around half 9 and we arrived about an hour late due to traffic (bloody golden week!). I was dropped at the bus station and figured out a way to get a bus to try and see one of the Jigoku`s. Jigokus, (which translate as “Hells”) are hot springs which are so hot that its impossible to bathe in them. Because of the extreme heat of the water however, there are sometimes strange effects (such as bubbling or belching jigoku). Anyway with the late arrival of the bus I decided it would be for the best to stick to just one jigoku and had decided which to prioritize far in advance.

The “Chi-no-ike Jigoku” (Blood pond hell) was famous for having red water, caused by the clay it bubbled on dissolving under the 78C heat. Anyway after a 20 minute bus ride, I got to an area far north of the town where the Jigoku was located. Upon entering I went straight to the hell to check it out.

It looked proper awesome, the red water had loads of steam coming off it and this coupled with the nature and stuff around made it look really cool. There was loads of people there unsurprisingly, and I managed to persuade someone to take a picture of me. After about 5 minutes I figured I had done the Jigoku justice and went off to find an onsen, having not had a bath yet despite being hungover and having had practically no sleep.

I had read in my book about an onsen nearby to the jigoku so headed straight there. It was about 5 or 10 minutes walk and was called Shibaseki Onsen. I had remembered to bring a towel but due to lack of time was unable to buy any soap in advance. Luckily the onsen counter sold some so I could buy some. At most posh onsen, towels and soap are provided, but in Beppu there are loads of small cheap ones which just offer showers and baths. Anyway this one was a bit more upmarket than some and luckily had some lockers I could put my stuff in. After changing into my birthday suit I headed into the onsen main building which featured 3 showers and 2 baths.

The onsen was fairly crowded, but not unpleasantly so. After a shower I finally got into the first bath and relaxed after an unbelievably hectic first day and a half. After chilling for a bit I got out and got into the adjacent bath. Unfortunately having not yet mastered Kanji, I was unable to read that this bath was a scoldingly hot bath. According to Japanese etiquette, you are meant to enter the bath slowly and gracefully, “like a cherry blossom petal slipping into a moonlit temple pond”. Unfortunately as soon as my foot hit the bottom of this lava like substance my immediate reaction was to run into it as fast as I could (I think inspired by those people who walk on hot coals). Eventually I hit the wall the other side and finally came to my senses that I should actually probably leave the bath before my legs boiled. I tried to gracefully walk back to where I came in and when that failed, ran like a headless chicken out of there. The hardcore bathers lying in the bath like they were in a luke warm swimming pool, were not impressed.

Anyway after that I went to the outside area where there was one more onsen and a sauna hut. I got into the outside onsen and was able to relax with the hot water combining with the not so hot air. After a few minutes I went into the sauna and lasted about 2 minutes before I had to come out (as you can probably tell Im a bit rubbish at the whole withstanding heat thing). I then got back in the bath and an Oji-san (the Japanese word for Grandpa or non descript old man), said in Japanese that my 3 minute sauna experience was not impressive.

He was a very chatty Oji san and I talked to him for a good half hour. The other bathers joined in the conversation as well and on the rare occasion I could understand something I managed to add my 2 cents. I asked Oji-san where he was from and he said he was from Beppu and that he visits this onsen everyday. He said something about the bath in his house and I think he said it was too small or something. Anyway having an onsen everyday seems like a pretty good way to spend your retirement to me.

After another half an hour or so of bathing I said my goodbyes, took a shower and left the onsen. One of the main areas for Onsen and Hells, Kannawa was just down the road according to my map so I set off towards them. After walking for a while on a ludicrously narrow non-pavemented busy road I realized it was a bit further than I realized, but soldiered on anyway. By the time I got there it was around 5 and I still hadn’t had any lunch. To my surprise, unlike the rest of Japan, restaurants seemed to be few and far between. Anyway I eventually found a fairly cheap place and had some “Katsu-don” which is kind of like a fried chicken steak with egg and stuff on a bowl of rice. This was pretty tasty although just as the food was given to me the owner of the restaurant gave me a load of maps and brochures and explained in Japanese where all the best onsen and stuff were. He also said I could get a hundred yen discount if I mentioned his name which was really nice but by this stage I just wanted to eat.

After a satisfying dinner I headed up toward the hells and discovered they had all closed by now which I expected. Not wanting to make the trip to Kannawa a total waste I decided to visit the “Beppu Sex Museum”. Beppu is often referred to as the Las Vegas of Japan with a penchant for the sleazy and the tacky. Anyway it looked quite funny from the outside so I decided to go in. The ticket lady was a 70 year old woman who had about 10 cats in her ticket booth. The cats were jumping up to the screen and the old woman had this big, slightly crazed smile on her face, making the situation all the more bizarre.

When I got in the entire museum was bathed in a red light. The exhibits started off as a variety of wooden phallouses and proceeded into models of couples in various sexual positions. There was one section which I think featured Buddha (well he was gold and a bit chubby) replicating some of the more bizarre positions from the Kama Sutra. In fact some of them looked more like wrestling submission moves than erotic poses.

Anyway after that there was a section of mannequins made up to look like famous Hollywood sex symbols, including Raquel Welch, and after that there was a movie theatre showing some 70s Japanese erotica (which was as funny as it sounds). The next section was about animals having sex and there was an awesome picture of 2 Giraffes doing it which proper cracked me up despite being on my own.

After having had my fill of Giraffe sex for the day I figured I should try and get another bath in. There was an onsen near Beppu station which I had read about so I decided to head there immediately. On the way there night crept in and suddenly there was loads of hostess bars, brothels and sex shops which made the likeness to Las Vegas suddenly all the more clearer.

I headed to Takegawara Onsen which I had decided upon because they do sand baths. Never having tried this before motivated me to go for it, and after a short walk I found the place. I tried to negotiate one sand bath and one regular onsen ticket which proved harder than expected. Anyway after a while I ended up in the changing room. The changing room had one other bather in it showering himself after his sand bath. I asked him if I should shower first and he said no but that I should wear the Yukata (gown thingy) provided. I put this on and headed into the sand area. This was like 2 huge sand pits, and there were 4 old women working there. Shocked at the way I had tied my Yukata, one of them untied it and put it back together on me. I was then told I was ready for my sand bath.

In the sand pit there were 2 people already in the sand, and empty “baths” for 4 more, although they looked less like baths and more like shallow graves. I was invited to lie down in one of the graves and did so. One of the old women then took a spade and shoveled hot sand on top of me. After a few minutes I was covered up to the neck and all of my bukkake fears suddenly surfaced.

The sand was hot, thick and dark and the idea was that you relaxed under the weight and the heat. The sand initially felt quite comfy, like a natural heated duvet, and I was able to sort of relax. After a while though I just felt a bit weird and wasn’t sure if I was relaxed or not. I stuck with it tho, until I had sweat dripping all over my face, and then requested to be let out. They told me I just had to stand up, which I made the most of doing in true zombie-rising-from-the-grave fashion.

After that I was covered in sand and so took a long shower. Afterwards I felt there was still some on me so I got into the bath as well. This onsen was a bit of a disappointment after the last one as it was a bit too hot, and the décor was nowhere near as nice. Anyway after about 10 minutes of chilling I left, satisfied in having achieved my goal of trying a sand bath. Whilst I would recommend it to those wanting to try something different, personally it wasn’t for me although maybe that’s just because I was doing it on my own and so had no one to chat to whilst lying there. I dunno, maybe then itd be more fun.

I still had half an hour or so before my bus so explored the streets of Beppu a bit. I bought some Onigiri from a stall which was pretty tasty and before long was back on the bus, and back in my capsule hotel.

I still felt a bit too sandy so decided to indulge in one final luxury hotel bath. As well as the baths, the hotel also had 2 saunas. One of them was called the Royal Sauna and featured a pool of warm water on the floor, and a TV on the wall. This felt proper cool and I enjoyed relaxing here. After this I headed to the rooftop bath outside which was made all the more awesome by the fact it was raining, giving a sensation of hot mixed with cool. After chilling a bit more I decided I should try and get a decent nights sleep for once (in the last 72 hours I had had a total of about 5 hours sleep, and had been ridiculously active during that time).

When I got into my capsule I suddenly didn’t feel that tired so watched a bit of TV (my capsule was complete with TV and a radio, how cool is that?). After seeing that there was some Dragons Gate wrestling on TV I watched an awesome match before deciding I really should get some sleep (I had to be up in another 5 hours).

At 7 the next morning I woke up and had yet another shower/bath/sauna to wake me up. I followed that with a decent enough breakfast from the hotel restaurant and then went to the bus station to get a bus to my next destination.

Hiroshima was a place that everyone had recommended as a place I just had to go, and all the guide books and websites rated it as an absolute must see. The bus took about 4 hours from Fukuoka and I was dropped in the city centre. Fortunately this was near the first sight on my list so I could walk to it.

“The A-Bomb Dome” is a building formerly known as the Industrial Promotional Hall, until the bomb dropped in 1945. Hiroshima was decimated but because the bomb exploded just above the dome, it was left in a ruined state but still standing. The city of Hiroshima decided to preserve it the way it was left as a reminder of the tragedy.

Anyway seeing it was pretty amazing, and gave a good indication of how the rest of the peace park would go. The Hiroshima Peace Park is also dedicated to the memory of those who lost their lives to the bomb as well as having a really strong anti-nuke message. The “Flame of Peace” is a flame burning in the middle of a pond which will keep burning and will only be extinguished when every nuclear bomb in the world has been dismantled.

Anyway this was framed by an arch through which you could also see the A Bomb Dome in the background, and the cenotaph in which all the known victims of the bomb have their names written, in the foreground.

The Peace Park also had a childrens memorial dedicated to all the children who lost their lives to the bomb. The main draw of the park however is the Peace Memorial Museum. This is a museum all about the day the bomb dropped in Hiroshima and nuclear war in general. The museum left nothing to subtlety and was extremely moving, with accounts from survivors and pictures of the city before and after the bomb.

Its difficult to do the museum justice just by writing about it, but if you ever get the chance to go I strongly recommend it. The museum also strongly pushes for world nuclear disarmament and after seeing the effects through the exhibits, its difficult to disagree.

Thinking the museum would only take an hour, I had another excursion planned for the day, but even through skipping some of the parts of the museum it still took me 2 hours (partly due to the Golden Week factor). When I got outside the museum, the somber tone was disjointed slightly by the fact that there was a huge festival going on. There were about 4 stages around the peace park and each one had some dancers or musicians on, and the whole place was absolutely packed.

I was in a major rush now though so had to leg it to a tram stop, and on the way bought some Ikayaki (barbequed squid on a skewer). Luckily as I arrived at the stop a tram arrived. Hiroshima unlike most major cities in Japan has a tram network instead of a subway system which made it all the more quaint. I had bought a day pass for the trams as I figured Id be using them quite a lot.

My destination was Itsukushima-jinja which is a famous shrine on an island just off the coast of Hiroshima. To get there I had to take an hours tram followed by a ferry, followed by a bit of a walk. The shrine closed at 6 and not wanting to miss this famous sight meant that I needed all the luck I could get.

When the tram pulled up in the port for the ferry a ferry was just leaving, so I was actually able to get to the island by half 4. The islands name was Miyajima and the port town was pretty much dedicated to tourists with loads of Yatai with some really weird looking food. I had seen Hashimaki in Fukuoka but had not got round to trying it so I thought I`d give it a go.

Hashimaki is basically like a pancake thing filled with cheese that is wrapped round a pair of disposable chopsticks, then covered in sauce and ginger and stuff. This was well tasty and much needed after my pitiful lunch of just Ikayaki.

Throughout the port area and town there were loads of wild deer trying to hassle people for food. Unlike Nara these weren’t so immaculately groomed, but were still pretty cute. Having said that, on the ferry ride over there was a warning on the loud speaker that you shouldn’t feed them because they were dangerous. Anyway luckily they stayed away from me and my hashimaki.

After looking in a few shops I eventually found myself at the shrine. Itsukushima is one of the most photographed tourist attractions in Japan and is classified as one of Japans “three best views”. The shrine and Torii (gate) are built on the seabed of the island which, when the tide is high, gives the impression that they are floating.

Before going to a shrine you have to purify yourself by going through a gate, but in ancient times the island itself was considered a God so people were not allowed to set foot on it. This is why the Torii was built on the bay, so that people could approach by boat, and still purify themselves before they worshipped.

Because of my strict schedule I was unfortunately unable to see them “floating”, but it still looked awesome. Anyway the low tide meant I could go out and get a close up of the gate which was really cool as it was absolutely massive.

After taking a stupid amount of pictures I found that I had a bit of time left so went to explore the rest of the island. I saw another cool temple, and a 5 storied pagoda which also looked awesome and also managed to try some more Yatai food, this time an eel filled fried rice cake type thing (not a literal translation) . After that I decided I should head back to Hiroshima.

After a long journey I eventually found myself at Hiroshima station and finally had a chance to put my bag and all my stuff in a locker (I had been carrying it around all day). After that I took a tram back into the city centre to check out some shops. After some window shopping I decided it was about time I tried the food which Hiroshima is famous for.

Hiroshima-yaki is a version of the popular Osaka dish Okonomiyaki. I had heard that this was different to traditional Okonomiyaki and set out to check it out. Thinking in the same vein as in Hakata I decided to go to “Okonomi mura” which, like Ramen stadium was a theme park dedicated to the local cuisine. The building in was in central Hiroshima and was 3 floors comprising of 25 Okonomiyaki restaurants!

I walked through all the floors and checked them all out before eventually settling on one which was not too empty and not too full. The restaurants were all counter based with a huge hotplate stretching out on which the Okonomiyaki was cooked and served.

I took my seat and didn’t really know what or how to order so just said “Hiroshima- yaki” to the chef who laughed and said something I didn’t understand. The 4 people to the left of me didn’t have any Okonomi in front of them when I sat down, but shortly afterwards the chef came and put a flower and water based mixture in 5 pools in front of me and the rest of the diners.

With regular Okonomiyaki, the mixture features egg and cabbage already in it (well that’s how I make it), but this was Hiroshima-yaki so it was all a bit different. After the mixture had cooked for a bit the chef put some shredded cabbage onto the bases and then some green things which looked a bit like grass. After that he put some chopped leek on and this was followed with some squid on some and some shrimp on others. I realized the one on front of me had none, so I asked for some shrimp. The chef then put some bacon on and pushed the mixture down so that it became flatter, before flipping it over so the base was now on top. His assistant then put out some soba noodles in front of each mixture, and the chef fried these turning them into yakisoba.

After these were fried he then lifted the mixture and placed it on top of the yakisoba. While that was frying, he cracked an egg in front of each mixture, and spread it out to make it the same surface area as the mixtures. After a short moment he then picked the mixture and placed it on top of the fried egg before flipping the whole thing over and covering it in “Soosu” which is the traditional sauce for okonomiyaki, takoyaki and anything else yaki.

He then pushed the okonomis toward us and gave us instructions on how to eat them. We were given a minature shovel like implement and we were supposed to use that to cut them into small pieces and eat. Thankfully everyone else at the counter was having their first try (presumably they were all tourists like me), so I didn’t feel too nervous.

I wasn’t really sure if I was doing it the exact way I was meant to, but it seemed to be working, and unsurprisingly it was well lush. The addition of the yakisoba and fried egg was well good, and I was thoroughly impressed with this innovative way of cooking. After that it was about half 9 but I had to wait until 12 when I would take another nightbus, this time home to Nagoya.

Because I had a spare couple of hours I decided to explore the “entertainment” district, and found that there were absolutely loads of bars, pachinko parlors and video game arcades. Despite the melancholy tone of the Peace Park, Hiroshima still has an awesome party side, which I think is really cool. Anyway I decided to go to a bar that was recommended in my LP book and found a music bar called Mac which sounded right up my street.

It took me a while to find as it was on the side of a building where there wasn’t much else except for a car park, but when I got inside it was really cool. The bar was bigger than the average Japanese bar and had a ridiculous collection of CDs. They were playing Jazz when I went in and there were a few others who had come to the bar alone who were sitting at the bar smoking and drinking and generally looking very cool.

I sat down next to them, ordered a drink and after a while got chatting to the owner, and a couple of the customers who had gone there by themselves. The owner was a woman who was very passionate about music, and throughout the night put on some awesome tunes by Earth, Wind and Fire and also some Marvin Gaye. Everyone was really cool, and I got to speak some good Japanese which was different to the usual chit chat which I have pretty much memorized how to say by now.

After I had finished my drink and talked for a while I had to leave to get the last tram. I arrived back at Hiroshima station around half 11, and waited around for my nightbus to arrive which was about 10 minutes late. I got on the bus and tried to get some sleep for the journey back to Nagoya. On the way I reflected on all the things Id done and all the people Id met, and despite the shocking amount of money Id spent (lets just say I could have spent 3 days in Korea with the same amount), I felt very fulfilled although very much in need of a decent nights sleep.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully next weeks wont be so ludicrously long!

Peace out

Jack

The Golden Week - Part 1

2008-05-08T03:31:00.012+01:00

Ok after writing a 16 page, 8000 word epic blog about my Golden week escapades I decided no one would want to read all that in one go and as a result have split this blog into 2 parts. Part 2 will be released a week from today so please check that out when its up. Ok, here we go…

This week was awesome as I set off on my first proper epic trip completely on my own. On Friday night I went to Nagoya station to begin my adventure, although I first stopped off at The Hub in Sakae to meet some friends for a quick drink.

When I got tho the station I looked around for the bus going to Fukuoka, Kyushu (my first destination) and eventually found a guy with a sign for the time my bus was leaving. After introducing myself I was instructed to wait a second. A few seconds later a Japanese couple introduced themselves to him, and he gave them instructions on how to find the bus, before asking them if they could guide me as well.

The bus was round the corner and on the way I made chitchat with the couple about their lives and why they were going to Kyushu etc. When we found the bus I got on and was seated next to another fellow gaijin named Thomas who was a German student studying Japanese language and regional science. The bus was going to be a 12 hour journey, travelling through the night to get to Fukuoka, so it was good to have someone to chat to, and Thomas was a pretty interesting guy.

The journey was ok although I found it impossible to sleep, and due to traffic we arrived an hour later than planned. When we got to Fukuoka it was about 9am on a beautiful sunny day, and I first found a restaurant to have some breakfast in. Before long I was chowing down on some lush Udon tempura and after that I went to find my hotel to check in.

Because Golden Week is a ridiculously busy time, finding accommodation in Fukuoka was next to impossible but eventually Ayae had found me a Capsule Hotel that had some availability. I had never stayed in a Capsule Hotel before so was looking forward to an original experience. The idea behind a Capsule Hotel is that each person sleeps in a space a bit bigger than a coffin, and because of this economic use of space you can sometimes get a hundred or so people in each room.

After checking in (which had to be done entirely in Japanese), I was given a key to a locker to put all my stuff in. After putting my stuff away, I headed upstairs to take a shower. The Capsule Hotel I had been booked into was somewhat of a luxury hotel (except for the fact that everyone sleeps in matchboxes) and had services like massages, restaurants and various health thingys. Anyway there was 11 floors, and the top one was for the showers and baths (completely public of course).

After a shower, I decided to have a relax in the baths to get myself ready for a hectic day of sightseeing. The baths were well lush with loads of varieties. There was one which had these balls in the ceiling that sprayed warm water on you while you soaked. Also there was one called “Blue Silk” and which had really cloudy blue water. Another one had underwater chairs which you could sit on while a fountain sprayed water up from underneath you, and as well as these there was a variety of baths at different temperatures, some of them ludicrously hot.

After getting suitably relaxed, I got dressed into some shorts and T shirt and set off to explore Fukuoka.

Fukuoka is the capital of Kyushu and actually used to be 2 cities, one called Hakata, and the other called Fukuoka. Anyway after deciding I wanted to visit Kyushu I decided to go to Fukuoka as had read that it was a cool cheap city with good nightlife.

Using the Lonely Planet Japan book as my guide, I started with Tocho-ji which boasted the largest wooden Buddha statue in Japan. This was a well lush temple and the statue was proper epic. I was told that I wasn’t allowed to take photos although luckily this was after I had already taken one.

I saw a tunnel under the statue which was marked entrance in Kanji, so decided to head towards it. Inside there was a dark gallery of paintings of Buddhist hell which were lit up. After seeing those I continued through the tunnel and the lighting suddenly finished. I wondered if I should turn back as I thought I might be going into the monks private quarters or something. Anyway I continued a bit into this pitch black, then turned around only to find that the route behind me was completely dark and I could literally not see anything.

I decided that I had to keep going although I was a bit scared that I would walk into a wall or something. I outstretched my hand and eventually found a wall. This curved round and round so I had no idea if I was going towards or away from the Hell gallery. Anyway after about 30 seconds of walking I got a bit nervous as it was still completely pitch black, I literally couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I figured I had no choice and so continued. After a while I saw a faint light a few feet in front of me and so walked towards it. The tunnel curved round and there was a lit up painting of Buddha with loads of light around him.

I continued into the tunnel and eventually it curved round back into the temple area. This seemed well bright after the perpetual darkness I had just experienced, but was slightly relieving.

After seeing the rest of the temple I continued toward central Fukuoka and after walking for a few minutes came across Canal City. This is an epic shopping mall that was built next to one of the many canals of Fukuoka. The mall was basically about 5 shopping malls together that were joined by balconys. In fact the shop fronts were all on lush balconys that overlooked the canal. Anyway there was a good 5 floors to Canal City which meant it was like a city unto itself (thus the name presumably).

After doing a spot of clothes shopping, I continued round Canal city and found a Sega Land arcade on the top floor where I indulged in some video gaming action. After that I decided it was about time I found some lunch and had decided a long time ago where to have my lunch. Throughout Japan, Fukuoka/Hakata is famous for Ramen noodles and more specifically Tonkotsu Ramen which is where the soup is made from pork bones. Everyone I had told that I was going to Fukuoka had said that I had to try some Hakata ramen and I had found out about a place in Canal City called “Raumen Stadium” (they had spelt it wrong!) which sounded very appropriate.

Ramen Stadium was basically a floor of Canal city that had about 15 Ramen restaurants all next to each other, as well as Ramen based gift shops and displays. In the middle there were TV screens showing a documentary about Ramen. In this theme park like atmosphere, I decided I had made a wise decision on where to try Hakata ramen.

The “Stadium” was packed with people, presumably mainly tourists on their Golden Week vacation. After finding the restaurant with the smallest queue outside, I ordered some Tonkotsu ramen from the vending machine and collected my ticket. When I got inside I handed my ticket to a waitress and she asked me something in Japanese which I didn’t understand. After several attempts I eventually heard her say the word “Katai” meaning “hard”, and put 2 and 2 together. She was asking me how I wanted my noodles, hard or soft. I ordered them nice and al dente and sat down at the packed counter to wait.

After a few minutes my ramen came, and Im not sure if it was the Ramen infused atmosphere or just the intense build up of expectation, but this ramen was the nicest I had ever tasted. Its difficult to describe how nice, but basically it was delicious.

After leaving the restaurant I checked out the rest of Canal city and found some awesome escalators that had no stairs (instead they were like the walkway things in airports, but at an angle so that you got up to the next floor), as well as finding some really cool things going on on the ground floor. There were clowns, Shamisen (3 stringed Okinawa guitar thingys) players, as well as some awesome statues of animals made from like plants and stuff. In addition to this the Canal itself had loads of awesome fountains that performed at regular intervals.

When I left Canal City I headed to find central Fukuoka. On the way the streets were absolutely packed with people, some of them groups of dancers wearing matching costumes. I had actually arrived on the day of the Hakata Dontaku Matsuri (festival) which was a parade thing which traditionally featured dancers banging rice paddles together accompanied by some Shamisen players.

After walking for a while I took a right into “Tenjin chuo Koen”, a massive park featuring the ACROS Fukuoka building. This was some sort of international cultural centre, and looked awesome. There was this massive central dome within an artificial hill like structure. The sides featured a “Step Garden” which was flight after flight of steps to the top featuring a variety of different plants and trees.

To get to the ACROS building I had to walk across the central green of the park which was packed with people including loads of dance groups practicing, including some capoeira dancers and some absolutely awesome breakdancers. I also checked out some of the “Yatai” (food stalls) which is another thing Fukuoka is famous for. Following the Yatai, I ended up on one of the main high streets where the parade itself was going on.

The streets were packed with people watching the parade of various floats and dance troupes go by. At one point this huge lion thing came by with a guy standing on top of it screaming stuff in Japanese. The “lion” routinely breathed out steam as well which was awesome. There was also some rice paddle bangers doing their thing which was pretty cool.

After watching for a while I headed to find some more shops and found a good English language bookstore where I bought a book, and a sunglasses stall where I bought some new shades. After that I headed back to the ACROS building and decided to make an attempt at climbing this thing. After what seemed like forever I eventually made it to the top and got some awesome views of the city. I could see the dancers practicing in the park, the parade going by on the main road, and another stage where some other random thing was going on.

After taking a breather, I went back down the other side and admired some of the plants on the way. When I got to the bottom, I bought an ice cream and sat on the main green to relax for a bit. There was one more thing I wanted to see although it was already getting late and I had a strict timetable to stick to that evening.

Hawks Town was kind of like Canal City although it was on the sea instead. It got its name from the Fukuoka Sea Hawks baseball team, whose stadium was located there. There was also a resort called the Sea Hawk Hotel which was a really tall building that apparently gave awesome views of the city. I travelled there by subway and after about a 20 minute walk managed to locate the stadium and the hotel. I headed into the ridiculously posh hotel, and a smartly dressed doormen opened the door for me, not so smartly dressed in shorts and a T shirt and sweating profusely.

I took the glass lift up which was awesome although it did make me feel a bit sick. On the top floor all the windows looking out seemed to be in restaurants, and as I couldn’t possibly afford even a starter at these kinds of places, I turned down all the door people offering me a table. Eventually I found a restaurant with an unmanned door, and subtly crept in to take a few pictures before slipping out. The view was awesome and I got a great view of the baseball stadium where a Sea Hawks game had just finished, meaning there was also an awesome view of the crowds.

After I left it took me a while to get to the subway as there was huge crowds of people. Many of these were taking the subway which meant it was well cramped when I eventually got on a train. After a few stops I realized I was on the wrong line. Nagoyas subway system is something I deal with every day but even so I consider it the best I have ever used, better even than Tokyo. Fukuokas however is properly confusing with a really bizarre color coding system (not really a system, more like a random color for each station regardless of which line it is), and in addition to this the trains aren’t that regular. Anyway after a while I managed to get back to my capsule at about 730pm.

I had decided that I really wanted to experience the Fukuoka nightlife but first required some sleep having not had any on the way from Nagoya. I got inside my capsule and slept for a couple of hours before my alarm went off. I then had a shower, got dressed and went out.

The main nightlife district was called Tenjin, and there was a series of bars that I had read about in my LP book that sounded pretty good. Before that though I wanted to get some food and decided to go where there were supposed to be a load of food stalls. On the way I saw a man dressed like a frog surrounded by loads of guys dressed like tadpoles and one woman. Which was weird.

After getting lost a few times I eventually stumbled upon a few Yatai, and sat at one where there was a space. As I said before, Fukuoka is famous for Yatai, and a student of mine recommended it as a highlight of visiting as the owners were so friendly. Whilst most of the usual Takoyaki, Fried chicken and other fried foods stalls were there I decided to stick with the tradition and go to a ramen Yatai, where they had a proper counter and chairs.

I sat down and ordered some Kim Chi Ramen and relaxed. Whilst he was cooking, the owner was talking to all the diners and eventually I managed to engage in the conversation. There was a couple next to me named Nobu and Kumiko and when I asked where they were from, I was surprised to hear them say Nagoya. In fact they live in a suburb a few miles from Nisshin where I live. After talking for a few minutes my food arrived and it was pretty tasty although after I had finished I was still a little hungry. I had overhead some other customers order some Gyoza (Chinese dumplings) and so ordered some of those as well.

Whilst I waited Nobu and Kumiko asked me how you say certain Japanese words in English and I suddenly got a flashback to the first time I came to Japan, when me and some friends hassled a Japanese barman on how to say certain English words in Japanese. I felt a minor sense of accomplishment in how far my Japanese skills had come as I had crossed to the other side of the fence of being better at Japanese than the average Japanese is at English.

Whilst I was relishing my achievement my Gyoza arrived and I proceeded to cover them in a ridiculous amount of hot sauce which Nobu kindly suggested might make them taste horrible. After a load of soy sauce was added into the mix, I was good to go though and thoroughly enjoyed them.

After talking for a few minutes more I figured I should start drinking and after getting a picture with Nobu and Kumiko I got up to leave. I was about 20 metres down the road when I heard someone shouting. I turned round and walked back to the Yatai. The woman who also worked there alongside the male chef said something to me in Japanese which I didn’t understand. She bowed though, so I bowed back said thank you and left. She continued to talk though, and eventually someone walking by came up to me and said in English “You haven’t paid yet”. After all the ego building of the previous hour of Japanese conversation, and feeling like my skills were awesome, it all suddenly came crashing down as masses of embarrassment washed over me. I paid the bill and left, tail firmly between my legs.

After a few minutes of convincing myself to appreciate my successes rather than my failures, I found myself outside a bar that I had read about in my book. There were a few others that sounded cooler but upon visiting them found that they were either closed, had an entrance fee, or were impossible to find.

The bar I eventually settled on was a rock bar called The Dark Room and was on the 8th floor of a building on Oyafuko-dori which is the road with all the bars and clubs on it. When I got in I ordered a cocktail and sat down at the bar. The drink was considerably cheaper than drinks usually are in Japan , and in fact another thing Kyushu in general is popular for is being cheaper than the other islands.

I made chit chat with the bar staff for a while before striking up a conversation with a German guy who had only been in Fukuoka a week or so himself. When asked what he did I expected to hear either “English teacher” or “Student”, so I was a bit surprised when he said he worked for the Circus. He was a scenery director and had been working for Canadian company Cirque de Soleil for the past 2 years, which had taken him all round Japan. I met some of his friends who also worked for the circus and after talking for a while they left, and I started talking to another random. This guy was an American called Moses who it turned out, was the owner.

I talked to him about what its like to own a bar in Japan, and he was really safe although he was proper wasted, and went off on a tangent about a story about REM which I didn’t really understand. Anyway, what I didn’t know is that the Dark Room is often frequented by rockstars when they do tours of Japan. There was a few screens on the walls which Moses directed my attention to, and they had a slideshow of pictures playing. On occasion a picture would pop up of Moses with The Offspring, or Slash, or Sum 41, and even Keanu Reeves.

Anyway after a few minutes, Moses disappeared (probably to part the red sea or something; Sorry!, Couldn’t resist), and I started talking to an American called Tyler. Tyler had originally come to Fukuoka with the Navy a few years ago and was now studying Japanese here. Anyway he was a nice enough bloke until I asked him which clubs he recommended and he said this club called Infinity “used to be good but now its full of Blacks”. After that I made my excuses and left.
After walking down Oyafuko-dori for a while I came across a club called “Sam and Daves” which was a chain of nightclubs that ran all over Japan. I had visited 2 of these establishments in Osaka and had had maybe the best night out of my life in one of them, so I figured the Fukuoka branch would be a good bet. I was still on my own at this stage despite having set out at the start of the night to make some “friends for the night”. Anyway, undeterred I headed into Sam and Daves and started drinking. The club was absolutely packed with both Japanese and gaijin and the music was vaguely hip hoppy.

After chatting with a few gaijin, I eventually happened on a group featuring some English and Australian people, and found that they were actually really safe. I drunk, chatted and danced with these guys for a while and decided I had found my “friends for the night”. As the night wore on I spent a silly amount of money, but the night was proper awesome. We left the club around 5 and after saying my goodbyes I headed back to my Capsule Hotel. This was a fair distance, and the trains still hadn’t started, so I had to walk for about 30 minutes. Eventually I ended up in my capsule around 6, and tried to get some much needed sleep.

Ok thats the end of day one. Next week Ill go into what happened on days 2 and 3 of my Golden week excursion. Til then yo!!!

Peace out

Jack

P.S Heres a couple of videos, one of Ramen stadium, and one of the dancers and parade and general mayhem of Fukuoka from the top of the ACROS building.

The Shironowaru

2008-05-01T02:15:00.008+01:00

Ok, sorry this blogs been a bit slow coming but o well, its here now.

So last Thursday me and Ayae went to the infamous Komeda Coffee. This is a chain of coffee shops around Aichi prefecture, which pretty much everyone (or everyone in Aichi prefecture) knows about.

One of my adult students had been repeatedly telling me that I had to go there to try the mighty Shironowaru, which was a dessert which they invented that they are famous for.

Anyway we have a Komeda about 20 metres down the road from us so I decided it was about time we checked it out. We ordered some tea and coffee and of course the shironowaru, and after a few minutes it arrived. The shironowaru is basically a huge Danish pastry (like, bigger than my face) with a mountain of soft cream (Ice cream from the whippy machine) on top, which is covered in maple syrup. O yeh and a cherry on top.

This was well sweet, but obviously well lush, and well worth the visit. In the size ranks it didn’t really rate next to “Gigantor”, but still, it was proper tasty.

On the Saturday, Me, Ayae, Callie and Naho went to my friend Stevens wedding reception. Steven is an American who had married a Japanese woman called Noriko in his hometown of Norwich, New York the week before, and the reception was to be held in Nagoya.

It was going to be held at a posh venue called “The Eat” in Sakae. There was an entrance fee, but that did include all u can eat and drink. When we got in there it was already pretty busy, with some Gaijin but mainly Japanese. There was some food out, but no one was helping themselves so I figured I should wait.

It was an awesome spread I have to say and was one of the things I had been looking forward to all day. They had these little creamy mash potato things, a big mixed salad, a burdock salad, loads of sausages and loads of chips, and also some things which I didn’t know.

We got a seat next to where the food was situated, and I noticed that I was not the only one eyeballing the chow. Loads of the other guests obviously were thinking the same as me, but showed respectable restraint. Anyway I figured it was safe to leave my seat for a few minutes.

After saying hello to a few people I knew, everyone took their seat and the happy couple made their entrance to the sound of the Sex Pistols version of “I Did It My Way”. After that the MC, a Japanese woman, made a toast in Japanese and then translated it into English which was followed with a free glass of champagne for everyone.

Steve and Noriko then cut the cake and said a few things themselves. We were then informed we could start on the food which prompted a mad dash for the buffet. There was about 70 odd people there, and a good 40 of them rushed to the table at the same time. Within about 2 minutes it was all gone although the waiters continually replaced the plates.

After I was about half way through my first plate, they brought out some new dishes starting with some deep fried octopus with some tartare sauce. I immediately left my seat, as did many others to get a big plate for myself and the others at my table. This too went well fast as did all the replacements. Throughout the night there was lots of different dishes, including rice dorias, fried chicken, and some other deep fried fish thing, For dessert there was some huge fruit salads with whipped cream, and also of course some wedding cake.

Needless to say everything was well tasty, and that coupled with all the wine I drank meant I got my moneys worth. During the party there was a Japanese DJ who was playing reggae all night. At one point he dropped Damian Marleys “Welcome to Jamrock” and said “Waa, big choon!!!” which was quite funny as no one was really paying attention. Still, he seemed to be enjoying himself, and the music was all well good to be fair.

Along with the party poppers we were provided with when we entered, we were also given bingo cards (a staple of most English teachers kids lessons!) for a bingo game later on. I did pretty hopeless at this, although various other people won some good cash prizes. At the end there was a big Janken (rock, scissors, paper contest – also a staple of any good kids class) competition between all of the guests with one number left on their cards. Koji, who was sitting at our table, managed to defeat all of them and won 150 quids worth of Visa vouchers which was well impressive.

After eating, drinking and chatting loads it was time to go home, although I made sure I got a picture with Steve and Noriko beforehand. They had spent almost the whole party having people get pictures with them and so were well tired of it, but I made sure I got one anyway.

We were awarded with loads of lollipops and candy when we left as well which was awesome.

The next day we went to a nearby organic restaurant for lunch which was surprisingly cheap. We then went into the city for a walk around Meijo park, and also did a spot of shopping. When we were running low on energy we popped into the Mode Gakuen Spiral Towers (the crazy twisty building near Nagoya station), which despite being a design school also had a couple of basement floors of restaurants (well it is a Japanese skyscraper so I guess this is to be expected).

We found a Hawain café which specialized in pancakes. We ordered one called “Berry and Berry” and when it arrived it was proper immense. It was 2 Hawaian style pancakes topped with some whipped cream which was then topped with another pancake, and more whipped cream, plus loads of different berrys including Blackberrys, Blueberrys, and even 1 big Strawberry.

This was a pretty big job even for 2 people, but I was more than up for it. After that intense sugar rush we did a bit more shopping, before returning home.

The following Wednesday Ayae had a job interview for ECC, one of the biggest chains of English schools, which was offering home teacher jobs, where you can teach from your own home, and they provide support with training, students, advertising, equipment etc. Anyway, after she had been to that we returned to the Hawaiian café at Nagoya station to try some of their savory dishes which looked quite tempting from the menu.

It was all pretty overpriced, but I ordered a Taco variation of a Loco Moco which was a traditional rice dish of Hawaii . This was a heated metal bowl, with a load of Taco meat, cheese, lettuce and of course rice. This was pretty tasty although it was well small considering the price. After the meal we decided that despite having awesome pancakes, they were not to be trusted with a good all round savory dish (this particular restaurant, not the Hawaiians in general).

The next few days were spent planning my Golden week trip. Golden week is a week in the Japanese calendar which features like 5 national holidays. My school had decided that this was reason enough to take the whole week off, which meant I was going to have 8 consecutive days off.

Because nearly all Japanese have these days off, the touristy locations are ridiculously busy during this period, and also have intense price hikes. Despite this, I decided I wanted to get away during this time as my timetable these days means I don’t really get the chance to go away anywhere for more than 2 days these days. There are still a few places I have never been to in Japan so I figured I`d tick a few of these off the list.

I wanted to go to Kyushu which is Japans 3rd largest island, and is south of Honshu (the island where Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and I live). While Im here I want to visit all of Japans 4 main islands, which left Shikoku, Kyushu and Hokkaido. Theres not much to see in Shikoku, and Hokkaido is in the North and ridiculously cold, so I want to go there in July.

So I settled on Kyushu, although I also wanted to tick off Hiroshima as well, as everybody recommends it. After 2 full days of checking websites for travel agents, bus companies, airlines, train companies, hostels, hotels, as well as the numerous guidebooks and guide websites I finally came up with a plan.

Because trains and planes are ludicrously expensive (not just during golden week, but generally), I decided I`d do the whole thing by bus. By the way Im using the subject “I” because Ayae cannot join me. As previously mentioned Golden week is ludicrously busy for touristy areas, which means she has to go home and help out at her parents minshuku while Im gallivanting round Japan on my own.

Anyway after checking, booking, cancelling, booking again, changing my booking and doing this with various different companies and spending a ridiculous amount of money Im now just about planned up for my trip. My money situation has been looking pretty dire recently although rereading this blog leaves no mystery as to why. For some reason I have been eating out a ridiculous amount the last couple of weeks. I guess because its cheaper in Japan, but still, Im guessing averaging 4 restaurants a week is not very good for my bank account no matter what the country. Anyway this did put me off going on this Kyushu trip, especially with my Thailand holiday in a couple of months coming up, but hey I need something to blog about so Kyushu it is!

But enough for now, more on that next week.

The rest of the week passed pretty much without incident, although I did go for a drink with my friend Kawai-san at a gaijin bar in Imaike after work on Monday. I was celebrating my last day of work before Golden week as it was to start the next day. The bar was called Misfits and was on the 3rd floor of a building, and a little out of the way to say the least.

The bar was owned by a sleazy but friendly American named Dave who was like a shorter, rounder version of Bill Bailey. Anyway as soon as I entered he introduced himself and gave me some tips for “Tapping that ass”, which whilst not shocking me, did leave me with some unneeded images in my mind. Despite this he was quite funny, and it was pretty interesting talking to someone who did something other than teach English (although that was his day job as well!).

He had no staff on Mondays which meant that he served all the drinks and cooked all the food people ordered himself. The bar was in the Japanese style of being one very small room, but still there was a good like, 10 people there. Anyway I met some pretty interesting people in the bar including people from Holland, Bangladesh, and even Okinawa (seriously everyone who`s from Okinawa seems to stay there forever, so its well rare to actually meet someone in Nagoya who`s from there, although it is well lush so I don’t blame them).

Mondays meant half price cocktails at Misfits which was a welcome change to the usual financial rinse out of other Japanese bars. Anyway after a few cocktails and a BLT courtesy of Dave, I made my way home in time for the last bus.

On Wednesday I went to Hekinan for my friend Pascale`s going away party. Shes returning to Canada on Friday and so decided to have a barbeque party to celebrate. This was to be in Suigen Park Hekinan, which is about an hour and 20 minutes from Nagoya (so it took me about 2 hours to get there!).

Most of the teachers from ACC turned up so it was really cool to see them. Being as I live well far from the schools outside Nagoya I don’t get to see those guys much, so it was a great opportunity to see everyone.

The barbeque was pretty awesome with pork, beef, sausage things, pumpkin, asparagus, shrimps and loads of other snacky food as well. After eating and drinking loads we went to a Hekinan bar called Five to eat and drink more. This was a pretty cool establishment, and was a nice place to hang out for a few hours.

Unfortunately, because I live so far away I had to leave at like 10 to be in Nagoya in time for the last train. Still, by that stage I had already drunk too much, so it was probably a blessing in disguise.

Ok that’s about it for this week, next week there`ll be a Golden Week/ Kyushu special which I cant wait for! See u then!!

Peace

Jack

The Texas Barbeque

2008-04-17T10:15:00.008+01:00

This week was highlighted by the birthday of Texas the rapper on Saturday night. He was going to be celebrating it by having a big camp out and barbeque in Mie ken which is the next prefecture over. Having never been to a Japanese rappers camping party, I didn’t really know what to expect, but I was well excited.

I met with Callie and Bob in Nagoya, and we took Bobs car into Mie ken. Im not sure where in Mie Ken exactly, but anyway it was well beautiful. After about an hour and a halfs drive, we met Texas and followed his car (pimped up to the 9s of course!!) to the camp site. The camp site was well remote and the journey took us down loads of dirtroads. It had a load of worn down flags lining the road, and being as it was pitch black by the time we arrived, it had a well “Silent Hill” feel about it which, when Bob left the car to chat to Texas did lead us to believe that we might end up getting eaten.

After a while though Bob came back, and we drove to the lodge. Japanese “Camping” it seems is more often than not done in lodges that u rent, and not in tents. Still, given that it was well cold, I had no problem with this.

We were the first guests to arrive, and as such had to help get the barbeque started. As time wore on more and more people arrived and after a while there was about 15 people there, including members from Texas` rap group “Long Castle Million Street”.

There were 2 barbeques going so the food came pretty thick and fast. There was all these Yakiniku style, tiny slices of beef in a barbeque sauce that we started with, and they were awesome. After that we had sausages, and the food continued to flow (does food flow?) throughout the night, including onigiri, chicken breasts, shrimp, yakisoba, and various other meats.

The other people at the party were all pretty safe although 1 person in particular was rather special. Calling himself “Dimbar”, he was a big guy who wore ludicrously baggy jeans (as did most of the hip hop crew there, but still his were immense). Anyway from the moment he got there he was shouting obscenities and doing impressions of comedians which apparently was really funny. I had no idea what he was on about but everyone else was laughing.

He took an instant shine to me and midsentence with someone else he would often scream “JACK! JACK!”, which always caught me offguard. When he was screaming loud Japanese in my face, and everyone was laughing, I did start to get the impression that he was taking the piss a little too much, Whilst Im sure he was just messing about, after I had been drinking heavily I started to take his jokes at my expense well personally and stupidly started to kick off with him (starting on someone is stupid enough, but trying to do it in Japanese was just ridiculous!!). Anyway luckily Bob calmed me down, and we made up although Im not sure Dimbar ever actually knew that I was offended. It seems fighting talk does not translate literally in Japanese, although I suspect this is for the best, as he was a pretty hefty guy!

The party went on, and after an hour or two of especially heavy drinking I went round the back of the lodge to throw up. I felt well better, and went back to the party although after another hour had to throw up again. Anyways after I had gotten that out of my system, I rejoined the party and continued to try and speak bad Japanese. I met some pretty interesting people, including some university students who go to a University in Nisshin (my hood).

As the evening had worn on more and more people had gone into the lodge to sleep. I hadn’t really noticed this though until there was 4 of us left round the barbeque at about 4am. We continued to talk (well they talked, I listened and occasionally put in the odd word. Usually “Ehhhh??!!” which is the only word you really need to convince someone you can understand Japanese).

Most of the food was gone by this point although we still had some crab legs which we barbequed, and also some cans of these meatball things which we also cooked on the barbeque. After that we resorted to barbequing anything we could including Nori (seaweed), and Potato Chips (crisps- my vocabulary has been well Americanized since I got here!).

By the time it was 5:30 and the sun had risen I decided it was best I got some kip and went into the lodge with my sleeping bag. Inside was about 10 sleeping bodies occupying every space on every mattress that was on the floor. With no resort, I put my sleeping bag on the hardwood floor and was asleep within a minute.

I was woken up an hour and a half later by Callie and Bob saying they wanted to go. I think they had been asleep on mattresses since 2 so they were ok, but I was in a bit of a trance. In any case, we got in Bobs car and headed back to Nagoya, although before that I took a picture of Texas` pimpmobile. Bob generously went half an hour out of his way to drop me off at my apartment, and I said my goodbyes and went home.

The next day was spent sleeping. Ayae had gone to her parents for the weekend so I had the house to myself, and the peace and quiet I deserved.

On Monday it was Callies birthday and she was going to celebrate it at an Izakaya run by Bobs friend. We had met him at the Sakura party last week, and he had offered Callie a discount rate. Being as it was Monday, I had work til 830 and so didn’t get there til well after 9. Also because I went straight from work I was still in my suit.

Before heading there though, I had arranged to meet up with Pon (who you might remember from the blog last month entitled “The Pon”). I had gotten his number that night, and Callie had asked me to invite him. When we got to the Izakaya (where Bobs friend had reserved Callie an entire floor!), it was like a trip down memory lane. Pretty much all the random people from the nights out we`d had were there, and it was kind of bizarre to see them all in the same place at the same time. Texas, Toru, Bob, Kana, Pon, Naho and many more who weren’t written about in these blogs were there, and it was proper awesome to see them all.

Most people had been there since 7 and so had already eaten loads. I however was starving so promptly ordered a load of Teppansaki (fried chicken), and some Caesar salad. In addition to that I ordered a load of Chu Hai which is like a shochu based alcopop. For the first hour or so of the party I stayed in the corner with a Canadian called Justin, who also hadn’t eaten before coming, and just stuffed my face with food. When some Sashimi arrived and no one else was touching it I dove in and took the plate back to our corner. After stealing and ordering (but mainly stealing) other peoples food, I socialized, and it was really great talking to so many awesome people. I had some pretty good conversations with Pon, as his Japanese, like Bobs is well easy to understand.

After a couple of hours the other guests demanded that me and Texas give Callie a birthday freestyle. I had given Texas a copy of my album for his birthday, so Callie knew that I rapped. Anyway I gave it my best but my lack of practice meant that unfortunately it was a sub-par Jack Dub freestyle. Texas flat out refused to rap despite the demands of the crowd, but luckily MC Pon was there to fill in. He started his performance by saying “Gomennasai. Boku wa chotto okashi”. Which basically means “Forgive me, I`m a little strange”. Having witnessed a Pon performance before I did not need to be told this, although it was well funny to hear him say that. Pon did his usual act of high pitched screaming coupled with “When I say MC, you say Pon” call and response bits, and the party was loving it.

Later on there was a cake, and people continued to order food. Because the ordering system of Izakaya parties is a bit all over the place, I helped myself to some Domburi and some meatballs, which were delivered to our table but which no one was eating. Before long, it was time to stop the drinking and eating and get the heck out of there as the last train was leaving. Somehow I had lost track of time, and all of a sudden I had 2 minutes to get to the subway station. Luckily it was right next to the Izakaya, and through sprinting my ass off, managed to make it.

Ok, that’s about it for this week. Next week Im going to my friend Steven`s wedding party which Im well excited about as theres an 11 course dinner included!! Til next time guys….

Take it easy

Jack

The Sakura

2008-04-10T13:22:00.009+01:00

Ok I realize its been a ridiculously long time since my last blog but luckily that’s been due largely to me being too busy as opposed to not busy enough. So here goes with what I believe to be my longest blog so far….

The Monday after my last blog, I went to see a student of mine in concert. Hiroto is a 19 year old music university student who I have been teaching for the past 5 or so months. Recently he won a competition between the best pianists in Aichi prefecture, and went on to compete in the national championships in Tokyo last week. (Unfortunately he didn’t win that, but still Aichi Prefecture is pretty damn huge, making that an impressive achievement).

Anyway his old high school was having a choral concert to celebrate the high school students graduations and they needed a pianist so he stepped up. I got to the concert late, as I had to go straight from work, and as usual finished late in the evening. The concert was being held at the Aichi arts centre in Sakae which was actually fricking huge. Because I got there late, there were a lot of instructions on how to enter the hall given to me which I couldn’t make heads or tail of. I saw another couple of people though and decided to follow them. We went up 4 flights of stairs, and I did start to wonder what I would do if they weren’t going to the same concert. There were about a hundred doors we went past on the way up and pretty much all of them were probably the ones you`re NOT meant to go in.

Anyway eventually we came to a door and could hear the muffled sound of a choir behind it. The couple didn’t go in however, so I decided to wait as well, without looking too much like I was some weirdo that was following their every move. Eventually the song ended and a woman came round the corner informing us that we could now go in. As I walked into the hall I was shocked to see how ridiculously huge it was. I was right at the top and right at the back, which meant that my view was pretty bad. However I was glad the couple were there to unknowingly guide me. Obviously the instructions that the staff were giving to me were for latecomers to go to the top at the back and to not enter until there was a break between songs.

The hall was not only huge but it was packed to the rafters as well (approx 1600 I found out later). Eventually I found a seat and sat down to listen to the rest of the concert. The music was a choir (sometimes all boys, sometimes all girls, sometimes a mix) of high school age accompanied of course by a piano. Whilst I had talked about his piano playing with Hiroto many times before, this was the first time I had actually seen him and was not surprised to see that he was proper immense. I cant say I have many choral pianist gigs to compare this to but I can say that he sounded awesome, and the choir weren’t bad either. All the songs were in Japanese, and a few of them were composed by the teacher/conductor and the students themselves. These were mostly comedic songs, and every line in the song was followed by a roar of laughter from the audience of parents and friends. Obviously I felt a little bit left out by this although I managed to translate one line of a song about scary things. They mentioned something about running into the Yakuza so I felt a little bit pleased with myself and could justifiably laugh.

After a couple of hours of singing and stuff they got to the final tune which was a big mixed number with all the choral group on stage. Toward the end of the song, the teacher stepped forward and said a speech which I didn’t really understand but I gathered was about the kids leaving high school. Then a representative from the girls choir stepped forward and read a speech of her own which again I couldn’t understand although I don’t think the rest of the audience were too sure of what she was saying, she was crying so much. Looking at the rest of the girls choir, I saw they too were all in tears though trying to provide a backing for the speeches. Then a representative from the boys choir stepped up and he too was choking back the tears. Looking round I saw that most of the audience too were crying and I suddenly felt a bit awkward. In any case it was an interesting cultural experience that most don’t get to see, so I was glad I could see it.

After the concert I briefly saw Hiroto and congratulated him on playing well. I then went home to see Ayae who had returned from her trip in Tokyo.

The rest of the week pretty much passed without incidence until Saturday night which was a Korean styler dinner party at my friend Rauls school. I don’t usually get much opportunity to eat Korean food being as it relies heavily on meat and spices, neither of which sit well with Ayae, so I was grateful for this opportunity.

When I arrived, the starters were just being handed out, and this consisted of some okonomi style pancakey thing called Chijimi with a lush sesame sauce. This was accompanied by some vegetables which I don’t know the name of.

This was followed by a huge salad of lettuce, tomato, sashimi, onion, shrimp and loads of other stuff as well as a really tasty dressing.

After this they served up some “Jaganiku” which literally translates as “Potatoes and Meat”, and was a soupy type thing consisting of some vegetables and stuff as well as the obviously necessary ingredients of Potatoes and Meat.

We then had this other thing called Chap Chae which was like stir fried noodles and vegetables with beef and some kind of egg thing as well. There was also a side dish of Kimchi which is a spicy cabbage dish that is very famous in Korea.

After this there was some soup thing with soba noodles which was again really lush. This was then followed by Chiffon cake with strawberries and cream. Despite the sheer quantity of food, I was still hungry after all this because the sheer quantity of guests meant that the dishes went well fast.

Once people started to leave, me and some of the crew went to Sakae to go to the Hub, although we first stopped off at a combini to get a bread based snack. After several drinks in the Hub I had to go to catch the last train home. The rest of the guys were going to stay out, but this months incessant partying has left me extremely short of cash so I had to go home early.

The next morning Ayae was going to meet her friend in Nagoya so I tagged along to hang out in Sakae. Whilst Ayae was having lunch with her friend I went into Yaba-cho (an area of Sakae), to see the teenage punk bands that play there every week. The music this week was actually really good, although I felt a bit out of place being not only the only gaijin, but the only person over the age of 18 as well. Still I got to nod my head and after a couple of hours Ayae called and asked if I wanted to go see the Sakura in Meijo park.

For those that don’t know, Sakura is a very important time in Japanese culture. It is when the cherry blossom trees come out, and there are loads in Japan. It`s only really in full bloom for about a week as well which means everybody usually tries to see it the same weekend. In addition to this it is also the time when school and business years end, so it also marks various graduation ceremonies (such as the one I saw Hiroto play at), or a promotion or a relocation.

Anyway the place people usually go “Hanami” (flower viewing) is a park which features lots of cherry blossom trees. In Nagoya this means either Higashiyama Koen, Tsurumai Koen or Meijo Koen. I had already been invited to 2 hanami parties the following weekend, one at Tsurumai park and one at Meijo park, but for fear that the Sakura might not be there the next weekend, I decided to go to Meijo Koen anyway.

Unfortunately it had started to rain and there was nothing but dark clouds in the sky, so the impact was rather reduced. I had been told time and again about how beautiful a time of year this was but to be honest I was rather disappointed. There was loads of pretty trees, but the rain coupled with the clouds and the fact that I was a bit hungover from the previous night meant that I was tired, bumped out and just wanted to go home.

After we dropped off Ayaes friend at Nagoya station we went to the food department and had a Sakura flavoured mont bran which is a kind of cakey thing popular here. This was well tasty and although I don’t eat flowers much these days, I have to say Sakura has a well nice flavor. We also had a Sakura flavoured Mochi (rice cake) which was also delicious.

The next day the sun came out in force so me and Ayae went for a walk to our nearby shrine situated beautifully on the mountain (technically we would call it a hill, but mountain shrine sounds better in Japanese I guess). This was absolutely beautiful and really showed how gorgeous the Sakura could be. The flowers together with the shrine setting were well nice, and it was awesome that all this was on our doorstep.

On Wednesday I went snowboarding in Gifu with Yusuke again, as it was the last week the slopes were open so he wanted to get one more trip in. We stayed at the same “Shining” hotel as last time as they had a cheap deal on. The snow this time was not so lush though, and a lot of the slope was just ice, or slushy snow (although to be fair it is April so I guess it should be expected).

We decided to try some different routes down the slope, and tried the snow park. There we saw loads of people doing jumps and getting big airs, so we sat and watched for a while. After a few minutes of seeing kids and amateurs trying I decided to give it a go. I got in line for the smallest kicker, and waited patiently as everyone took their chance to pull some crazy ass trick.

There was a fair line behind me by the time I reached the front of the queue. I had noticed that the last two people in front of me had looked behind them just before they took off, so I did the same. There was a guy in a yellow jump suit near the top of the slope who held his hand up when I looked round and I didn’t know if this meant “Stop theres someone lying prone on the other side of the jump” or “Hurry up and go!” so I just went.

I had also noticed people didn’t really carve, and hit the kicker head on to get enough speed so I tried that. Unfortunately Im not really very good at controlling the snowboard head on, and took a tumble before I even got to the jump. I looked behind me to see a massive queue waiting for me to get out the way, but because I was at a point on the slope just before the jump, I couldn’t get enough speed up to get out the way.

I unclipped one foot and skated out of the way til I was onto the slopey bit again, then tried to clip my foot back in. Unfortunately it wouldn’t go despite my best efforts as loads of snow had built up from the fall, so I had to fall over, clean it out, and clip it back in all while the other pro snowboarders watched and waited.

Once I got to the bottom Yusuke (who had not only jumped but also landed, the bastard), asked if I wanted to do it again, and determined to not be put off, said alright then. This time I carved slightly to give myself more control, but this also slowed me down. In fact it slowed me down to the point where I got to the edge of the kicker, then stopped and went back down it in reverse. Not wanting a repeat of last time I unclipped one foot and skated to the edge of the jump area and then threw myself down the hill, hoping to get out of the way faster than last time.

The next day I decided I wasn’t going to be defeated by this minute kicker, and that I was going to at least get to the end of the jump if it was the last thing I did. Luckily on my first attempt that day I managed to take off, although my landing was a total mess. Another couple of attempts later and I actually managed to land a tiny air, which properly made my day although I couldn’t repeat it no matter how many more times I tried. I even tried the big kicker later on although I couldn’t get enough speed to clear it. My next try I did though, although a landing was obviously out of the question.

We left the slopes around 4 and got properly lost on the drive home. What should have been an hour and a half drive took 3 hours due largely to the Japanese highway system which makes it very difficult to get back on the high(motor)way if you get off at the wrong exit (they need some roundabouts!).

Eventually we got back to my Nisshin apartment and because there was very little food in the house we went to our nearby sushi restaurant which was awesome, although well expensive (and I wonder where my money went this month!).

On Friday I had my first official day at Anjo school. I`ve recently had my working hours increased to 4 days a week, and have taken over my friend Robs shift on Friday at Anjo. I had actually filled in this day for Rob before so I knew most of the students although there was one new addition.

Keisuke, a 2 year old who can barely speak Japanese, let alone English was to be my first student for this day. I`ve never taught a kid this young so was a bit lost as to how to plan for him. I had the notes from Rob, as well as previous teachers to hand, but they didn’t give much clues, suggesting 30 minutes of pretty much just games. Anyway when the lesson came about I went through my plan focusing mainly on fun games involving the alphabet and numbers. His mum was in the lesson at the same time so she helped him, although most of the things I had planned he couldn’t really understand which meant I had to do a lot of improvising. I noticed there was a lot of songs mentioned in the notes, so I ended up turning into a kids TV presenter and singing “If your happy and you know it” acapella. I then found some coloured balls, and managed to spin a game out of that, but there was still 15 minutes left. With nowhere else to turn, I returned to singing, belting out The ABC song, as well as “Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes”. It was kind of fun, but also a bit embarrassing knowing that my colleagues and friends were just meters away hearing me.

After realizing I couldn’t think of enough songs to fill out the last 10 minutes (well I could, but I don’t know how the mum would feel with me rapping out “Fuck Tha Police” to her pride and joy), I looked around the room for inspiration. I saw some animal puppets, so I got them out, put them on my hands and elicited the names of the animals putting on a funny voice for each animal. As I was doing this I was simultaneously looking at myself and thinking “What on earth are you doing?”, and so my act was broken up by me trying not to burst into hysterics. Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity it was finally over, and I could get out of there. Hmm Ill have to think of some appropriate songs for next week…..

On the Saturday it was the first of my 2 Hanami (Sakura viewing) parties. This one was at Tsurumai park, and was set up by my Saturday ladies class, and my manager Yoko. Some other ACC staff were going to come including a new American teacher who has taken over from Erica, another American teacher who left last week. After meeting with Ayae, I headed to Tsurumai Koen, and when we got there we saw the beautiful Sakura together with absolutely loads of drunk people larking about on tarpauling. Hanami parties are basically an excuse for friends to get together and get drunk in the park, and Tsurumai Koen was packed. It was an interesting contrast of loads of drunk people and the gorgeous Sakura.

Because we went after work, it was the early evening before we started. As the sun set, the Chochin lanterns around the trees lit up, and the Sakura looked even more awesome. Yoko and the other female students had taken the liberty of buying lots of food, and there was lots of fried chicken, salad, sausages, potatoes, sushi, Yakisoba, Nimono, inarizushi as well as numerous alcoholic beverages. I had brought a bottle of cheap horrible wine, but Yumiko, one of my students, had bought beer and shochu as well as Umeshu which is a plum liquer. This was well tech, and the bottle actually had whole plums inside.

Another of my students, Yukiko had brought some warm water which apparently went well with Umeshu, and she was definitely right. The combination made an excellent drink, especially when it got late and a bit cold.

After eating and drinking for a while, Thomas, (the teacher who you might or might not remember from one of my first blogs. You know, the gay Canadian?), was coaxed into showing us “Nihonbuyo”, a style of Japanese dance performed with fans that he had been learning for the past few years. I have to say, I was a bit skeptical but when he started moving it was well good. He was doing all these flips and shit with the fans and was proper impressive. Because there was loads of people gathered in the same spot as us, they all started watching and cheering which was really cool.

A few minutes later and we opened another bottle of wine, although it wasn’t that simple. Earlier on Yoko had asked me to help her open this wine, but she only had an old school pull as hard as you can and jimmy it a bit corkscrew. I had tried on and off for the better part of an hour to open it, but it was really jammed in there tight. After finally admitting defeat I asked a nearby group of “Hanamiers” (as I like to call them), if they had a better corkscrew. When they said they didn’t I asked if they`d have a go at the wine.

One by one they tried and failed, and in the end there was a huge group gathered round this bottle trying to open it. Eventually this stocky guy (Im not just saying that because I couldn’t open it!) together with his friend managed to get the damn cork out which was met with a huge cheer from the watching crowd. As a reward Yumiko gave him 2 cans of beer.

As the late night approached me and Ayae had to head back to get the last bus, because the next day we had another party to go to.

This one was organized by my Izakaya party organizing friend Kawai-San, which meant there would be a huge gaijin contingent present. In addition to Kawai San, Japanese Bob had also organized a party at the same place at the same time which was kind of good although it meant I would have to be travelling between parties back and forth.

Meijo Koen was packed with other groups of people having hanami parties of their own. As far as the eye could see there was Tarpauling, food and people. Most were pretty basic affairs of picnics, but some had gone all out with barbequeus and crates and crates of beer. I even saw someone have a pizza delivered to them from Dominoes.

Anyway me and Ayae met my friend Callie who was in the Bob party. Bobs friends were all couples married with children, and the kids were all there. They had loads of lush food with fried chicken, hamburgers, salad, pasta, noodles as well as the usual bento kind of things.

Kawai-sans party was just next to them and was about twice the size, with loads of older gaijin men and younger Japanese girls, and a slight whiff of sleaze about it. Actually that’s not really true, there was loads of really safe people at Kawai Sans, but the contrast between the 2 parties amplified the atmosphere.

At Bobs, I chatted bad but polite Japanese to really nice people and played with their cute kids, whilst at Kawai Sans I got drunk and chatted bad English about nothing. All the while both parties were about 5 metres away from each other. Both parties were fun, but very, very different.

After finishing a bottle of wine and eating a ridiculous amount (I ate food from both parties despite only contributing to one), me and Ayae went for a walk around the park to see the rest of the Sakura. Today was not only a celebration of the Hanami, but also mine and Ayaes 2 year anniversary.

The sun was out in full force this time with not a cloud in the sky, and the Sakura were in fuller bloom. This coupled with the beautiful view of Nagoya castle in the background, and the fountains in the foreground made the site of the lake at Meijo Koen really gorgeous. All the dissapointment from last sunday had dissappeared and I could finally truly appreciate the Sakura in all their glory.

After walking around for a while, me and Ayae said our goodbyes to Bob and his crew and set off to Sakae. There was an all you can eat sweets restaurant called Sweets Paradise there that had seemed like a good anniversary spot before but not so much now. I had consumed an insane amount of food and alcohol and couldn’t eat another bite.

Still, what the hey I thought.

There was loads of varieties of spaghetti and pasta on offer as well, but the sweets were really the main attraction. There was loads of cakes I don’t know the name of as well as familiars like shortcake, cheesecake and Apple pie. I have to say the emphasis was on quantity more than quality, as the cakes were way too sweet and overall a bit so-so. Then again I had eaten a ridiculous amount so maybe I wasn’t the best judge of a satisfying desert at the time. Anyway we both left, slightly regretting having gone there.

Determined not to be downhearted, we continued our celebration at the “Jazz Inn Lovely”, which was a live Jazz club in Sakae. The last Jazz club I went to was The Bottom Line in Imaike, which was a huge place featuring a 17 piece orchestra, and a variety of female vocalists, many of which couldn’t actually sing.

This Jazz club however was completely different. The band were a 3 piece, featuring drums, bass, and sax and were doing well more skibidyboobop Jazz. In fact at one point the drummer was actually scatting which I`ve never seen done live. In any case, the place was a bit pricey but oozed class. The venue was small and intimate and there was only about 5 other people there, one of whom had a little dog on his lap. In all the clubs Ive ever been to that’s the first time Ive ever seen a dog in one.

Anyway the music was really awesome, and we stayed as late as we could before we had to get the last bus home.

So that’s basically been the last few weeks. Thanks for reading and sorry if its been a bit long winded but Ive been busy yo. Ill try to get in another blog soon but then again, who knows what will crop up.

Sweet dreams everybody.

Jack

The Pon

2008-03-26T11:10:00.004Z

This week brought with it my friend Sam to visit me in Nagoya. Sam has featured in a couple of blogs so I wont bother with an introduction. He arrived Wednesday night and we went to a sushi place in Sakae to meet my friends Callie and Eri. After some lush sushi we headed to our favorite bar the Hub to get some drinking going.

After a few we headed to Club Wall in Sakae to see my friend Kana doing some hip hop dancing. Kana was the chick me and Callie met a few months ago dancing outside a skyscraper. Tonight she was going to be dancing with her mate on stage and I had been looking forward to this for quite a while as shes well good.

After getting lost for a few minutes we eventually found the place. It was an underground hip hop club, and on the stairs was a couple of Japanese guys, one of whom was a singer who went by the awesome name of “Sly Dog”. After chatting to him for a while we went inside. There was a DJ playing decent hip hop and after about 30 minutes the acts came on. First there was an MC, then Sly Dog took to the stage and sang a few songs which were well Boyz 2 Men esque, and after that there was another MC, this one by the name of Pon.

This guy was fricking nuts! Imagine if you will a 30 year old slightly overweight Japanese man wearing an outfit which looked like someone had vertically cut a red suit and a white suit in half, and put the 2 halfs together. Not only that but his act involved him half rapping, half randomly screaming at a high pitch. One of his songs involved him rapping over the YMCA song although for the chorus he tried to get everyone to sing “Y-M-C-Pon” (which I don’t need to tell you didn’t really work). Also when he got really hyped up, he stood on this stool on stage and after about 3 seconds went face first into the floor.

Needless to say after this spectacle Kana had to follow up with something pretty special. After Kana`s act was up (which was well good by the way), the club went back to the standard hip hop DJ and dancefloor mode. This gave me the chance to meet Pon and find out a bit more about his life. I found out he is a 30 year old salaryman by day and an MC by night. I still couldn’t really tell if his act was meant to be funny, but it was well worth the price of admission, that’s for sure.

The club closed at 3 but the first train was at 6, so me, Sam and Callie headed to Karaoke to sing our time away. After warbling our way through masses of quality songs including the 1979 German Eurovision entry “Moskau”;(http://www.youtube.com/watchv=jH8gtrD4_C4&feature=related) we said our goodbyes to Callie and headed back to my apartment.

The next couple of days were not particularly interesting although I did show Sam my favorite café, the Yeast Paradise and of course Osu.

On Saturday I had to go to work but left Sam to his own devices, so he could go to all the touristy places without me having to tag along. This included the castle, Atsuta Shrine and downtown Sakae.

After work I headed back to meet Sam. We were going to be meeting up with some of my friends and he was already an hour late so I decided to go without him and leave the apartment door open and my keys inside. This was a great plan until I remembered the downstairs door which requires a key to get inside, but not to get outside. Unfortunately I remembered this just as the door closed behind me, meaning I was locked out.

Being the only gaijin in my apartment block means Im regarded with suspicion anyway but now I had to skulk around in the lobby waiting for someone to come in so I could tail gate them in. I didn’t have to wait long and around 10 minutes later a middle aged woman came into the lobby. I made a faux attempt to look for my keys and she eyed me carefully. She wasn’t going to open it for the likes of me.

After what must have been a full minute it was obviously getting awkward for her as well, so she just got her own keys and opened the door. The door is an automatic sliding one which closes about 5 seconds after the person using the key opens it. I waited about 4 seconds (hoping she would be round the corner and halfway up the stairs by then), then I quickly jumped through the sliding door straight into her disapproving and slightly scared looking eyeline. I wished her a good evening then calmly walked up the stairs trying to not look too suspicious. She most probably then called the police, but I haven’t heard anything yet.

Anyway I got my key and got out of there. I met Sam, gave him my key and then headed into Sakae to meet Callie and her friends Emi and Sayaka. After meeting up with Sam a few minutes later we headed to a Yakitori restaurant nearby. Yakitori is a restaurant specializing in a kind of barbecued chicken, and is typically served with beer. We had some awesome food, including Yakitori sticks (kind of like a shish kebab), pork shish kebab, this barbecued chicken skin stuff, this fried pregnant fish thing (so its kind of like the taste of fish, together with the taste of fish eggs). This was quite tasty although I felt a bit weird eating a pregnant anything. Its just somehow….wrong.

Anyway we also got loads of Unagi dons, salads, Nabes, fried burdock, and more variations of fried or barbecued chicken. After the meal we headed to the Hub to meet some other people including my friend Neal, Japanese Bob, and Texas the MC. In addition to that we also met a few more of Callies friends. After a few drinks we eventually left and headed to the infamous ID café. ID is a place full of gaijin and the sleaziest kind at that. Whilst its not a regular for me, I do think it should be experienced at least once so I decided to give Sam that opportunity. The entrance for ID is 3000 yen but this brings with it 4 drink tickets.

At the door all the gaijin got padded down for knives while our Japanese compadres walked through freely. Once in we headed to the top floor which was a hip hop floor. ID has five floors although despite this it does tend to get ridiculously crowded. The hip hop floor was almost impossible to move on and the group quickly got separated. After thinking about trying to look through 5 floors of ridiculousness I decided it would be quicker to use mobiles. Altho no one can hear phones, text messaging is always an option. Eventually I managed to find Bob, and we set off to find the rest of the group. Slowly but surely we gathered them whilst drinking and dancing. By the time we had everyone back together there was only about 5 minutes of the club left (it opens at 11 and closes at 2).

On the dancefloor and later in the locker room, we met a load of other gaijin (some from Britain, France, Australia and America) who tagged along with us when we left the club. They were all kind of safe although we all went our separate ways when our crew decided to head to club Domina for some House/Techno. Domina wasn’t too packed, and the music was pretty good. After about an hour Neal realized he`d lost his keys so we ended up going on an epic journey round everywhere we had been that night to find them.

Having no luck, we headed back to Domina for the last 15 or so minutes. When it got to 5 we headed to Dennys to get some breakfast. Unfortunately it was too early for the breakfast menu to have started but Dennys being 24 hours meant that it wasn’t a huge problem. I got this massive salad with some fried shrimps which was an awesome end to the evening.

After that we went home and slept most of Sunday.

Ok that’s about it for this week. Next week Im going to a Korean style dinner party so expect a load of food pictures as usual. See you next time!

Peace out

Jack

The Domina

2008-03-16T07:08:00.007Z

Ok the past 2 weeks have been relatively quiet although there were a few parties which were pretty cool. The first was at my school at ACC. The female students from one of my Saturday class along with Yoko, my boss had been organizing a nabe party (again with the nabe!) for most of last month. There would be all the teachers plus the women from my Saturday class, and a couple of other guests. All in all the party numbered around 12, and was about half Japanese, half gaijin.

The sheer amount of food was again astounding and there was far too much to go around. There were 2 Nabes, some sushi, some Octopus and tomato salad, some edamame, some tamago yaki, as well as an immense amount of cookies and sweet stuff for dessert. Oh yeah and cheese and crackers. Sweet!

Anyway I once again ate a ridiculous amount before rolling home in time for the last train.

The next night it was my friend Nahos birthday so we went to an Izakaya.　There I had some awesome fried chicken, salads, pizza, pasta and loads of other gourmet stuff which was really delicious.

After the conversation was flowing for a while I asked my friend Steven where he was from in New York and to my surprise said “Norwich” (although he pronounced it with 2 syllables instead of one vowel filled noise). Random, guess it must be fate or something…

The following Wednesday I went to Irago to see Ayae for a couple of days. Whilst there we visited a flower park, which actually only had one type of flower which was “Nanohana” (Rape). Anyway it was totally full of them and on a nice sunny day looked really beautiful.

The next day we went to neighboring Fukue to see the town halls exhibition of “Hina” (slightly creepy Japanese dolls). As I`ve mentioned before, it was dolls day recently and this exhibition was in celebration of that. There were lots of dolls (what did I expect?) and most were set up on small steps. Im not really sure what the significance of this is, but apparently its traditional to have them set up like this. The level of detail on some of them was immense with the princess dolls each wearing 12 kimonos. On the Friday I headed back to Nagoya.

This weekend was eventless, although I should mention that the sun came out and the wind died down a bit. This is awesome as it seems winter is finally coming to an end. Hopefully this will make me more motivated to go out and do blogworthy things!

The following week I headed to Irago to visit Ayae again. On the Thursday myself and Yusuke went to a nearby Karaoke box which was really awesome. Yusuke has a powerful voice which together with my rapping skills means we can execute formidable versions of Linkin Park songs. In addition to that I also got some Guns n Roses, Oasis and Arctic Monkeys tunes in which was sweet. I love Karaoke.

On Friday I came back to Nagoya to go to my friend Kawai`s Izakaya party. You may remember (but probably dont) him from a few months back. He`s the salaryman who organizes international get-togethers at Izakayas every 3 months or so. Anyway at the last one I met loads of cool people so I figured I`d go again.

We went to Yama-Chans which is a popular chain of Izakaya in Nagoya. The number in our party must have numbered around 30 and we got a huge room which was cool. As usual there was loads of dishes brought to our table as standard (Chicken wings, Chicken balls, and other varieties of fried Chicken). There was also a load of Sahimi, salads, Tofu dishes, and in addition to that I ordered some miso katsu (miso sauce covered fried pork) which is a Nagoyan specialty. After eating and drinking and chatting to loads of random people, we eventually left and went to an English pub, where I met my friend Michyo. After an hour or so more of drinking I had to leg it to the subway to get the last train home. I then had to walk 40 minutes to my home from the subway station as the buses had stopped running. I eventually got in around 1 and had to go straight to bed as I had to be up for work at 7 the next day.

After blagging my way through the next day of work I got home in time to get an hours sleep before having to head out again for my friends Rich`s and Steven`s birthdays. We started at the Bottom Line Jazz club where one of my friends students was going to be singing with a 14 piece band. The band was really awesome and over the next 3 hours there was a variety of singers coming on stage to sing with them. Most of the singers were fairly mediocre, but there were a couple with really awesome voices who had no Japanese accent at all when singing. In the intermission we met the singer that my friend Raul was teaching and she was well diva which was pretty funny.

They played a variety of Blues, Jazz, Funk and Motown, highlights being Average White Bands Pick Up the Pieces and Randy Crawfords Street Life. The venue was pretty big and had 2 tiers. We were standing on the top floor looking down, and it was pretty interesting seeing how a Japanese Jazz crowd reacts. They were pretty much inanimate just sitting at their tables and occasionally clapping along. Jazz is absolutely huge in Japan but apparently dancing to it isn`t. On the top tier though there were enough of us gaijin to get a bit of a party going which was cool.

After the Jazz club we met with a few more friends and were numbering around 11 now. We went to the overpriced and sleazy gaijin bar “Mybar” which was ok although overpriced and errr sleazy.

After that we headed to a club called Domina where there was a drum n bass night on. For the past 6 months Ive been trying to find drum n bass in Nagoya, and so was well pleased when my friend Callie said she found one. After stopping off at a combini for some naan based snacks we headed to the club. When we got in there, we were given a free glowstick and CD and the first few people managed to blag a free T shirt as well. The club was small (although average for Japanese standards) and underground. The music was pretty overpowering and initially quite jungley and breakcorey. Also in places they were playing Gabba which was a bit weird. The club wasn`t empty but it certainly wasn`t packed although the total lack of any apparent advertising is possibly the reason for this.

After dancing for a few hours, pretty much all my friends went home via taxis although I decided to stay as I liked the music and also I couldn’t really afford a taxi all the way out to Nisshin. Callie`s housemate Carl was still there so I hung out with him the rest of the night. Around 3 this female DJ named Ayumi came on and totally smashed it playing some really heavy tunes. As the hours rolled on people started to disappear from the dancefloor although most didn’t leave. At the back there were some tables and chairs and loads of people were just sleeping there, in spite of the ridiculously aggressive beats in the background.

At 4 another DJ came on although by this time it was just me and Carl on the dancefloor. To my surprise he was actually playing some really good quality drum and bass so it was a bit of a shame there was just us 2 to dance to it. Eventually the clock struck 5 and we left to head to the subway (via a combini of course). On the way we met DJ Ayumi so had a bit of a chat with her, and she was really safe.

I got home around 7 and despite my best efforts could not sleep. I had necked a couple of red bulls back at the club to keep my legs from collapsing beneath me which seemed like a good idea at the time but I now regret. As I am writing this now I have only had an hours sleep and after that hectic night still feel pretty wired. Tonight may have to be an early one. Hmmm…

Ok that’s about it for these 2 weeks. Sorry Ive been a bit slack in writing this but I figured I should wait until I actually did something before I put anything online. This week my friend Sam is going to visit Nagoya so Im thinking that should be cool.

That’s it for now, See Yall!!!

Jack

The Mimed Screams of Joy

2008-02-29T06:35:00.005Z

Ok this weeks been pretty awesome so Ill get straight to it.

When I got back to work on Saturday one of my kid students asked me if I could come to his house that night. I was a little confused but I said if its ok with ur mum then cool. I later found out that his parents were having a “Nabe” (Japanese stew) party and the other teachers had all been invited. Never being one to turn down a free meal, I agreed of course.

I had also agreed to meet some friends in the pub later, so had to go home to get changed after work. Unfortunately the party started at 5 and I finished work at about 10 past 3. It usually takes between 45 minutes and an hour for me to get to work, but because it was a Saturday the buses were well irregular. Anyway I eventually got back to the school (they lived next door to the school) well late but no one seemed particularly annoyed so it was all good.

When we got to their apartment Naoto (my 6 year old student) opened the door to us, and we met the rest of the family, (although they all come to ACC for their English lessons so some teachers knew the other family members). Naoto had a kid brother Shun which made 4 in their family, and there were 4 of us teachers making it an 8 person party (although as I`ve mentioned in previous blogs it is not unusual to have a fairly low number at a “food party”).

Their apartment was proper nice and had a corridor and everything making it at least 10 times the size of mine. When I got in there the women (the other teachers are all female) were given aprons and asked if they wanted to help make the nabe. This left me pretty empty handed so to avoid sitting awkwardly in the corner of the room I decided to play with the kids. This proved to be more fun than expected as Naoto had a bitching train set. As it was Japanese, he had a load of remote controlled shinkansens with flashing lights and sirens and all that stuff.

I found playing with Naoto was A LOT easier than teaching him. Whilst he`s a really sweet kid, every Saturday he causes a lot of trouble and doesn`t pay much attention. Still he always says “Sorry Jack sensei” so I end up thinking “He`s not so bad”. Anyway he`s nothing compared to my Monday hellraiser who I`ve mentioned in the past, so it`s ok.

After Naoto showed me all his toys (and hes a fairly well off Japanese kid so there was a lot of toys), we were invited to the table on the floor to start on the Nabe. There was a gas cooker on the table to keep it hot and bubbling and also there was still loads of food that hadn’t been cooked which would be added later. I wont bore you with a list of fish vegetables and meat that was put in but there was a lot.

Every time the amount of food in the pot diminished, more was added, and since I have the bad habit of not being able to leave food behind ended up eating a ridiculous amount. Despite my stomach complaining occasionally I figured I was ok, until they brought out the dessert which was cakes, followed by strawberries, followed by tea and biscuits. I stupidly ate everything and by this time my stomach was not happy. In addition to the colossal amount of food I had ingested I had also been drinking beer throughout the meal which doesn’t agree with my stomach at the best of times. Somehow I managed to keep it together, and after an hour or so watching Japanese TV (which was awesome by the way, they had this monkey gameshow where they set challenges for monkeys using bananas as incentives. Then they started dressing them up in schoolboy uniforms and as a farmer and it all got a bit weird but hey that’s Japanese TV for you) I headed out to the pub to meet my friends. When I got there there was a massive group together, most of whom I knew. In fact I would go as far to say they`re my “crew” in Nagoya.

After drinking heavily (screw you stomach!) me, my friend Callie and my new friend Michyo headed out to find a Ska night which was apparently happening. It was ridiculously cold outside so we hurried. On the way it started snowing really heavy and then it got really difficult. We stopped at a combini to get some food and some charge for Callies phone. In Japan at all combinis you can buy portable battery chargers for your phone so if you do run out of battery you`re never far from anywhere to get some juice (as combinis are EVERYWHERE!).

After a while we got to “Club Buddha” which was on the 4th floor of a Sakae building. When we got there we found it was not ska but actually “Rocksteady and Reggae” which I thought was really cool. However the ridiculous amount of cigarette smoke together with the ridiculously laid back vibe together with the fact I had eaten a ridiculous amount meant I started to get well sleepy.

Anyway we got some drinks and chatted to this random bloke called Toru who was an optometrist (a bad one by his own admission), but a funny and interesting guy. After an hour or so we decided to leave being as things weren`t hectic enough. We said our goodbyes to Toru and headed out. On the way we saw someone lying down on the floor fully asleep. I found out that in Japan its ok to sleep in clubs. Anyone who`s nodded off in a British club will testify to the fact that bouncers have no mercy in throwing someone out who`s trying to catch a quick kip. In Japan its ok though, and people do it regularly. I guess if its ok to sleep in Manga cafes and the subway then why not nightclubs? In the UK I understand the idea is to keep out people who have drunk so much that they can no longer retain consciousness. But in Japan sleeping in public is so normal that its not frowned upon. I suppose its assumed that its more down to exhaustion from the intense working hours than from drinking too much (although in reality its probably a combination of both). In any case it was another reminder of Japans superiority over Britain.

When we left the club the snowing had gotten worse. We decided to try to find a House club to wake us up. After tracking back and forth between pretty much every club in Sakae and finding there were no House nights tonight we decided to go back to the pub to get some warmth and ideas. By this stage it was around 2. After a short drink we headed to find a club whos location Michyo wasn’t sure about. Throughout the night she had been the one ferrying us between clubs being as she had lived in Nagoya a lot longer than me and Callie and actually knew where she was going. She had a sense of direction which I found astounding. I have lived in Nagoya nearly 6 months now and still can only negotiate about 20% of Sakae, and being as all the clubs are pretty tucked away, someone like Michyo was essential.

She once again managed to find the club although they were pushing hip hop. After chatting to someone hanging round outside we had 2 more leads, and went to check them out. Both times we found they were not what we were after. In the end we decided to head back to one of the hip hop clubs we had been to earlier. At this stage Michyo said she was too tired and so would go home.

Me and Callie went into “Lush” and paid the 2500 yen (around 11 quid) entrance fee despite having already paid the same entrance fee at the reggae club earlier (Nights out in Japan are so expensive!). When we got in there things had degenerated into a sleazefest replicating Roppongis notorious “Gaspanic” bar (No Tits, No Ass, No Service). There were some extremely scantily clad girls, totally wasted dancing on the bar, stage and even the DJ booth. The barman, DJ and some of the male punters had all decided to take their shirts off. Still we had taken a leap of faith and there was no going back. At least we were out of the snow.

After a couple of overpriced drinks the music changed from hip hop to Ubergay Eurohouse with the odd gem thrown in (Daft Punk). It ended up being quite a good night, and at the end when the lights came on and the music switched off I was a bit surprised to see nobody leaving. Then I realized it was another 30 minutes before the trains started and I guess nobody wanted to be out in the snow at this time waiting around.

Me and Callie sat down and started chatting to the DJ. After a while the other staff came and joined us. It turns out that they`re pretty much all DJs and took great pleasure in telling us when their sets would be and where. After saying goodbye to our new found friends me and Callie went our separate ways and when I got home went straight to bed.

The next day had an event at the end of it which I had been anticipating for sometime which was the Carling cup final between Spurs and Chelsea. After finding out that my TVU internet thingy would not be showing the game live I settled for the fact that my friend Raul would be taping it off cable (No sports bars are open late enough on a Sunday to show it and even if they were train times make it impossible). However around 1130pm, half an hour before the game started I decided actually that I really wanted to watch it live and so trawled the internet for some legitimate coverage. Eventually I found this site which offered pretty much every soccer game in the world live for 8 quid. I was extremely skeptical but decided to take a risk. The site requires that you download a load of different software packages to watch international channels which show English soccer games live. By the time Id downloaded the first piece of software it was about 30 minutes through the first half. I found that it didn’t work so tried the next one, and the next one, and the next one. After downloading about 8 different useless applications there was one left and my hopes were pretty low. However after trying it and toying with it a while I managed to watch Guangdong TV which was showing the game live. It was 60 minutes through the game and we were a goal down. I was still happy however with my victory over the software, even if I did have to watch it in Chinese.

A few minutes after I tuned in Tottenham were awarded a penalty and while the world watched with baited breath the commentators talked like they were chatting about their shopping list or something with absolutely no flair or charisma. I didn’t even know we had a penalty until I saw Berbatov lining the ball up.

Anyway I don’t want this to turn into a match report of a game that happened a week ago but being as this was a major event of this week for me, it makes the blog. After we equalized it went to extra time, where we then scored again. After a tense 25 minutes of defending we held on to win the Carling cup. Since I have been a fan of Tottenham this is the first time we`ve won anything (well, we won it in 99 but I was off football then) so this was a feeling I had never had before.

However by the time the game ended it was nearly 3am here and being as I live in an apartment building my going mental had to be restrained. Having said that there was still a lot of jumping round the room and mimed screams of joy. After about half an hour I managed to calm down a bit although sleeping was out of the question, meaning much of my Monday morning was spent catching up on sleep.

Monday and Tuesday I had work which went relatively smooth although on both days I had parents observing some of the classes and my performances weren’t particularly impressive. Still hopefully I wont lose any of the students because of it although I suspect it is a possibility from one of the parents reactions. Anyway negativity aside, I went on another trip on Wednesday.

Yusuke, Ayaes brother got into snowboarding when he was in Canada and had offered me the chance to spend a couple of days up in the mountains of Gifu which is about 2 hours away. Obviously I accepted.

He picked me up on Wednesday afternoon and after driving along the highways and the stupid number of tunnels (there`s a lot of mountains in Japan) we eventually arrived at the hotel we would be staying at.

The first thing that struck me about this hotel was that it was extremely similar to the hotel in The Shining. Not just the snowy setting, but also the lobby and corridors beared a really striking resemblance. Anyway as far as I know it wasn’t built on any ancient Indian burial ground so I figured I should be alright.

After settling in we could help ourselves to the “Bai Kingu” (Buy king) which is Japanese for an all you can eat buffet. This was a pretty good buffet with Oden and Nimono being represented as well as Western classics like Spaghetti Carbonara and Chips (Not Spaghetti Carbonara and Chips but as separate dishes. Obviously). The conversation flowed fairly easily thanks to the fact that Yusuke wants to improve his English and I want to improve my “Japanese”.

After a huge meal we returned to our room to watch some Japanese TV. It was around this time I realized there was no shower or bath in our room, just a toilet and a sink. This meant that the public bath downstairs was the only way option if you wanted to stay clean. I had no problem with this except that I had to go down 3 flights of steps to have my morning shower (the lift was really cold for some reason. Maybe there was an angry spirit in there….).

Anyway early the next day after taking my morning bath and having a Bai Kingu breakfast, we headed for the slopes. Yusuke had his own board and equipment (and luckily a spare pair of almost everything for me). After renting some boots and a board I was ready to go. I hadn’t snowboarded in about 5 years so I did wonder if Id still be able to do it. Luckily I could.

We tried some basic slopes first to get our confidence up, then went on to the intermediate ones. Yusuke only started about a month ago but is a total natural, and seems completely at home on a snowboard. In fact he beat me to the bottom every time. He also only fell over about 3 times the whole day. The bastard.

I however have a different style which involves a lot of falling over and stopping just before I go over the edge of the mountain. After getting into my style a bit more we took a chairlift to the top of the mountain. There I had an absolutely awesome view of the gorgeous snow covered Japanese mountains. If that wasn’t inspiring enough the ski resort had its own radio station which pumped out music through loud speakers located throughout the mountain. Whilst I`ve snowboarded to music before, its never been to the sounds of Dragon Ash, Yui and The Offspring.

After doing a few more beginner and intermediate slopes we had lunch at the overpriced restaurant. (Tempura Udon for those keeping note). We then headed back to the slopes and tried some of the same courses and a few new ones even venturing into some of the “Pro” courses, which led to me face planting the snow and falling on my face down the mountain for about 10 metres. This left me with what they call a snow bath- snow in every gap of clothing on my body, I was literally spitting snow and blowing it out of my nose. Nice. Oh well I guess that’s why they call it the Pro course. If it was meant for me they would call it the stupid beginner course. Although in all fairness it was Yusuke`s idea in the first place. He has a real taste for danger and a lot of confidence which I guess makes him a great snowboarder. Anyway he had a 2 week intensive course in snowboarding which I keep telling myself is the real reason why he is better than me.

After a tea break and then some more snowboarding it was time for the slope to close so we headed back. When we got back to the hotel I was disappointed to find that I had a massive blister on my right foot. I suspected that this was the case as towards the end of the day I had real trouble carving without being in a serious amount of pain. The boots I had rented were the perfect size but the tightening mechanism was very badly designed meaning that my heel was slipping about a bit. This was really annoying as not only did it mean my foot was gonna be in pain for the next few days every time I put my shoes on, but also I would be out of action for tomorrows snowboarding. After cursing and asking “Why me??!!”, for a bit I settled on the fact that it was a vengeful ancient ghost and was thankful that instead of butchering my family I had just got a blister. Japans so much nicer than the rest of the world.

Anyway following this realization I headed to the Bai Kingu with Yusuke for some serious comfort eating. This worked although my muscles were also aching intensely. I had done some warming up, but apparently not enough. Yusuke was the same and we both lay in bed for hours watching Japanese TV after dinner. At this point it struck me that every show we`d watched the 2 nights we had been there had been basically the same, that is a bunch of Japanese celebrities answering questions on the subject of “Really interesting things from Japan and the rest of the world”. This was pretty good for someone who couldn’t understand Japanese as I just got to see some really cool stuff (like the laser that cuts up gas stations, and what Manchu is like in Hokkaido (kind of like a rolled up pancake with sweet beans in!!)). In fact every night a show, no pretty much all of the shows on certain channels will be on this subject of interesting/ crazy things, and celebrities going “Ehhhhhhhhhhh???!!!”.

Anyway Ive covered Japanese TV in previous blogs so I`ll leave the subject for the moment. After an intensely long soak in the public bath, my muscles felt better and I headed to sleep. The next morning I got up bright and early to have my morning shower (The bath was only open from 6 til 8 in the morning), and I had breakfast with Yusuke. After that we checked out and headed back to the slopes so Yusuke could do a bit more snowboarding. I chilled in the café and read my book which I probably enjoyed way more than I should`ve (although obviously I wished I was snowboarding, especially since the fee came with the Hotel so I`d basically already paid for my lift pass).

However the time went fast and after Yusuke had finished and we had lunch (I had a "Special Omrice" which had a tomato and bacon sauce one side, and a creamy white mushroom sauce the other. Lush.) we got back on the road and managed to make it back to Nagoya in an hour and a half which was pretty good.

That about takes me up to now and writing this blog, so I`ll leave it there. I`ve got no plans for March so I don’t know what I`ll be doing, but I`ll be sure to let you know when I`ve done it.

Thanks for reading!!

Peace Yo

Jack

The Bekuhamu

2008-02-24T12:46:00.004Z

This week has been dominated by me in bed sleeping trying to get rid of this heinous flu Ive got. Unfortunately my presence at work has still been required, so I have had to teach with this evil cough. It hasn’t been too bad, but bad enough that I want to be well again ASAP.

On Wednesday I went down to Ayes parents to visit her. She has been staying their ever since the trip to Osaka and has no plans to come back, which means for the moment Im having to look after myself in the Nagoya flat.

Going to visit Ayae was cool, I got to eat some fresh fresh sushi as usual, and got some fresh country air. Also as it was valentines day I got a present from Ayae which was an English Japanese dictionary for thr Nintendo DS. Whilst I got rid of my last one last month, this one has a kanji converter so I figured it would be better. I was right and it delivers pretty well. Theres still no good English to Japanese converter, but the kanji thing works very well although sometimes I have to write it a couple of times.

On Friday I went home, and attempted to make a “Nabe” which Ayae had told me we had in a ready made packet at home. Whilst looking through the food cupboards, I thought I found it but was unsure of the kanji on the packet. After entering it into my DS though I confirmed it was the correct packet and felt rather smug.

After my half working week was over I headed to Himeji to meet Ayae. Ayae and her Dad had decided on the spot to travel round Japan for a few days and offered me the chance to hang with them for a couple of the days. I got to Himeji (near Kobe, just past Osaka) on Wednesday morning after a short shinkansen ride.

First on the agenda was Himeji castle which is famous for being one of the most beautiful of all of Japans castles. When we got there it was proper lush. Very similar to Osaka and Nagoyas castles, except the roof had this special design which made it look even nicer. We looked round and saw all the usual exhibits from 400 years ago. It was a pretty typical castle but the weather was really sunny which made it much nicer. Also I got to see the Seppuku stage where disgraced Lords would commit ritual suicide on a special stage. Pretty nasty but kinda cool.

After the castle we had a nice lunch at a local restaurant and then went on to Mount Shosha. This is a mountain containing a massive temple complex called the Engyoji. We took a bus and then a cable car to get to the top of the mountain. When we got there it was absolutely beautiful.

As it was a weekday it was pretty much empty except for the monks that look after the buildings. The buildings were all slightly hidden amongst the heavy forest that covered most of the mountain which gave it a very peaceful atmosphere. There were lots of temple buildings but being as we were pretty strapped for time we stuck to the main ones.

They were all elaborately designed but more so than the average shrine, and looked truly astounding. In fact the temple complex was used in a couple of scenes in The Last Samurai. When we got off the bus stop I heard the person on the PA say in Japanese, “Change here for the cable car to Engyoji etc” as you do with most tourist attractions but in the middle of the next sentence randomly heard “Tomu Kuruzu” which was funny. No idea what they were saying, probably something along the lines of “Change here for the place that Tom Cruise was at this one time”.

After looking around and seeing pretty much everything we left and headed back down the mountain. The plan for that night was to make our way to Awaji-shima which is an island fairly near Himeji. We took a train to the suspension bridge connecting the island with mainland Japan (the longest suspension bridge in the world for those who are interested). We then took a bus to Awaji shima and then got a taxi to our accommodation for the night which was to be a log house. Log houses have become quite popular in Japan both for rental and living. We got very lost on the way, although the taxi driver was very nice and chatty. After going from log house to log house we eventually found the one which was to be ours.

It had a wood fire inside which was really nice and warm, and the whole place was very un-Japanese with big open rooms, and a pretty big garden. We ate some sushi we had bought from a food market in Himeji earlier and went to bed.

The next day we got up bright and early and went to a log café next to our house, for some breakfast. This consisted of a salad, a boiled egg, some bacon and some toast which was well lush.

After that we got in a taxi and headed into town. We had booked a taxi for the day to take us to all of Awaji-shimas tourist spots. The taxi driver was the same chatty one from the night before, and we started off going to see a beautiful shrine. Apparently it’s the oldest in Japan although I heard the same thing about Ise-jingu. The taxi driver said they were about the same age. Anyway I`ve seen both so I guess Im covered.

After the shrine we went to an incense shop where you could make your own incense. We participated in this and made our own incense things. We did this using a powder mixture thing then rolling it out and cutting shapes. I now have a box of air freshener things which Ill probably never use, but it was pretty fun.

After that we went to a gold museum which holds in it a gold bar worth 100 million yen. You can go in it and touch it which we did. Next to the gold bar was a huge picture of David Beckham touching the gold bar during the 2002 Japan world cup. Beckham is like a God here, and the picture of him was bigger than the display of the gold bar itself. On the wall nearby were some smaller pictures of Michael Owen and David Seaman, and another huge photo of Beckham.

On the way out I noticed a large cage which contained a monkey and a dog. The taxi driver said that dogs and monkeys never get on which is why the cage is such an attraction. OK.

After this we went to an awesome Italian restaurant. The chef came out to greet us and told us he had studied cooking in Italy. The restaurant had a very European feel which I have never really felt in Japan yet. For a starter we had fried mushrooms with a squeeze of orange. Following that we had a pumpkin soup with croutons, and after that we had a cabbage spaghetti which was a little strange but really delicious. The meal was served with Italian style bread and olive oil which was really cool. After that I had a Cassata (kind of an ice cream thing) for dessert. The whole meal was really delicious, and the chef served each course and chatted to us throughout. An awesome restaurant.

After lunch we got back into the Taxi and went to Awaji castle which was similar to other Japanese castles but about a tenth the size. Despite its shortcomings we did get a pretty good view of the Islands port which was cool.

We then headed to a museum commemorating a famous Japanese sailor called Kage, who made peace with the Russians during their war. We watched a short film about his life which I couldn’t really understand but Ayae translated the basic concept. We then saw some exhibits most of which I didn’t find that interesting but the old style Japanese drawings of the Russians were quite funny, drawing them with ridiculously oversized noses and eyes.

After that we headed home. The restaurant next door delivered to us a huge plate of cut up vegetables (such as cabbage, mushrooms, beansprouts, carrots), fresh shrimp, crab, and scallops, as well as a meat ball mixture, some rice, and some eggs. As well as this we were also given some Udon noodles and mochi. We were then given a huge pot with a nabe sauce in, and a gas cooker. I don’t know if this came as part of the deal with renting the house or whatever, but it was an absolutely epic amount of food especially for 3 people.

We cooked the nabe sauce and gradually put some of the fish and vegetables in. We then cracked the eggs into our bowls and when the Nabe was ready we helped ourselves, eating the nabe with raw egg. After we put a dent in the first lot of food we could put some of the other stuff in. After some of that was gone we could finally put the last lot in. We had no chance of finishing it although we could save it for tomorrow. The next day we all had a huge breakfast of nabe but still couldn’t finish it and had to throw quite a lot away which sucked!

Early in the morning we got a taxi to a bus terminal, and each went our separate ways. Ayae and her Dad would be heading to Shikoku to continue their trip, whilst I would be getting a bus back to Nagoya, to get back in time for work.

Ok that’s just about all for this week. Next week is wide open so I have no idea what Ill do. Until then….Peace out.

Jack

The Rage

2008-02-11T08:23:00.000Z

Ok, Ive actually been really busy this week so Ill get right to it.

On Sunday Feb 3rd it was the “Osu Kannon Setsubon Ship Parade”. Setsubon is a festival to celebrate the start of Spring (although it seems a bit early to me?), in which people pray for good health for the year, and scatter parched soybeans.

We got to Osu Kannon in time to see the “Takarabune” to arrive. This is a giant model ship that is dragged from Sakae containing the “Shichifukujin” (Seven Gods of Fortune), which are 7 people dressed up as Gods. I have to say actually that their costumes were awesome, with this one guy who had a really massive forehead. Apparently to get the privilege of wearing this costume at this time of year you have to be very rich or important, so here was Nagoya`s most elite VIPs dressed up like it was Halloween. I love Japan.

There was a lot of people dressed up in traditional Japanese samurai dress, and after the Gods arrived, they started scattering soybeans from atop this massive stage set up specifically for this purpose. The people below had containers (usually upturned hats) to catch the beans and the idea is that the more you catch the more wealthy you`ll be. After that the people who had paid for the right to do so, themselves climbed the stage and threw beans to the rest of the mame adoring public.

Meanwhile the “Gods” had entered the temple and were involved in a Shinto ceremony with some monks. Me and Ayae paid for some candles and also a big roll of incense sticks. We lit the candle and put it with the rest, then threw the roll of incense sticks into a big fire. We then had to try and catch the smoke that came from them and put it to the parts of our body we wanted to be healthy.

After that the Gods left the temple and themselves chucked beans to the public. I should mention there was also a few Onnii wondering round during all this. These are demons, and I thought the idea was that we threw the beans at him, but unfortunately this was wrong. I didn’t do this but I thought about it, especially when he had his mask up, you know take him by surprise like. Oh well.

Anyway they went round scaring kids and hugging people, so I got this pretty bad ass picture of him. After this we went back into Nagoya and to a chocolate festival. In Japan Valentines day is a really big commercial festival and chocolates are the typical gifts. On the 9th floor of Nagoya stations department store, this festival thing was going on. They had live shows showing how they make chocolates and interviewed various chocolatiers from around the world through translaters. In addition to this they had a ludicrous amount of chocolate stalls, and most were offering free samples. Obviously this attracted me!

As well as the novelty chocolates in the shape of animals there was also this one stall which did chocolates in the shape of various tools including a horseshoe and a monkey wrench.

After eating too much chocolate we decided to go home although first stopping off to get a Maki roll. This is a huge sushi roll and apparently it is tradition to eat it on Setsubon. Anyway it was late by the time we started looking so I couldn’t find a humongous one like I sometimes see, but the one I got was still pretty epic. This was as I suspected really tasty.

On Monday I went to work despite getting a nasty cold. In one of the lessons I was informed that I would have an observer which I was fine with until I was also told to teach infinitives and gerunds. I had never taught these before (and to be honest didn’t really know what they were), and had about 10 minutes to look them up in my grammar book and try and make something up.

When I got in the class I realized I not only had an extra student observing the class but also her mum. I tried to go with my original idea of sentence gap fills on the board but none of them really made much sense even to an English person. I don’t know how I got through that one.

On Tuesday I went to work again although my cold had gotten a lot worse. I couldn’t wait for the day to finish and when it finally did I went home and went straight to bed. Ayae hadn’t moved from bed since I left for work, as she had the same cold (although by this time I had decided it must be flu). When I woke up on Wednesday I was meant to go to Osaka but felt absoloutely hideous. Ayae had already decided she wasn’t going to go anymore, and her brother came and picked her up from our apartment to take her back to her parents.

After she had gone I wrapped up as warm as I could and headed out to go to Osaka. Whilst this flu was certainly one of the worst things I had experienced in recent times I had decided nothing on Gods earth would stop me from probably my only chance to see Rage Against The Machine live. I arrived around 5 and checked into my hotel. Originally Ayae was going to be with me and she had chosen a hotel which was designed mainly for Japanese guests. However they were very happy to have a foreign guest and the little Japanese I spoke got buckets of appreciation which was nice.

After unpacking I checked the Lonely Planet book for good nearby restaurants, and it described the Doutombori area I was staying in as “Full of terrible restaurants”, although it did say there were a few that were less terrible. One of these was Chibo, an Okonomiyaki restaurant. Since this was an Osakan specialty I thought itd be a good place to check out. This was actually really really good Okonomiyaki and they made it on a big Teppanyaki grill in front of me which was cool.

After this I went home and after watching the Japan Thailand World cup qualifier, I got a bit bored so decided to go out and buy some Takoyaki, which were real Osakan specialties. These were being sold everywhere but I went to the first one I went to. The woman didn’t have any change for my large bill so I had to go get change. When I came back she was so happy to see me that she gave me an extra Takoyaki. Bargain.

When I woke up the next morning I met my friend Sam and we explored Osaka. We went to Amerika-Mura which is a shopping district full of garish American memorabilia, and also walked to the Osaka dome just because there wasn’t really anything else nearby. This proved to be a lot further than expected and we were absolutely knackered by the time we got back to the hotel.

After a short powernap, we went out to the gig. The venue was Osaka Jo Hall which is a big stadium in the grounds of the Osaka castle. There was loads of people hanging round outside, with quite a large gaijin turnout as well unsurprisingly.

After getting some food we headed in and to our surprise we were directed to the seating area. I said our tickets were standing but they assured me they were not, which was weird cos when Ayae bought the tickets she definitely selected standing. Anyway we were both pretty narked off by this and tried to blag our way into the standing area but to no avail. The standing area itself was the most bizarre Ive ever seen, every 3 or 4 rows of people there was a separate guard rail, to stop large groups moshing or whatever I guess. It reminded me of what gigs would be like if the Nazis won the war.

So the venue pretty much sucked, but I decided to not get too down about it and that it could still be really awesome. An hour after the doors opened with no support band or warning, a large black flag with a red star began to be raised behind the stage while the Cuban (or something similar) national anthem played, everyone went frickin nuts at this point and went even more when Rage took to the stage. After a short drum roll and guitar effects they Exploded into Testify, knocking me back with how loud it was. Even the seating area had everyone on their feet going mental.

Rage played an awesome set containing most of their best loved tracks including (from memory), “Calm Like a Bomb”, “Bulls on Parade”, “Sleep Now in this Fire”, “Down Rodeo”, “Guerilla Radio”, “War Within a Breath”, “People of the Sun”, “Vietnow”, “Bullet in the Head”, “Tire Me”, “Bombtrack”, and “Renegades of Funk”.

They closed their encore with “Killing in the Name Of”, which left me an awesome memory of 16,000 people screaming “FUCK YOU I WONT DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!!”. Unfortunately they didn’t play “Wake Up” and also neglected a couple of others, but it was still a really sweet gig. We were both pretty bumped out about the seating area tickets, but Rage are so good that they can even make that not so bad.

After the gig we headed back to the Doutombori area around our hotel to find a bar. Osaka and in particular Doutombori are famous for the massive selection of bars on offer. However after looking for a while could find nothing that wasn’t surrounded by Japanese men in suits. Places where you know you`re not welcome.

Eventually we stumbled across a Jazz/Blues bar called the TakoTako (Octopus) King. When we decided to go in all the staff inside the bar cheered loudly and had the biggest smiles on their faces. We got a table and a couple of drinks. Everytime a new customer came in they all cheered at the absolute top of their lungs and it was a small bar so they were always near you. There were 2 other tables and a bar with about 4 stools. It was mostly full, and had one of the best atmospheres of any bar Id ever been in. The staff were so friendly to everyone, and me and Sam had some really long conservations with them in Japanese about music, films and sport and stuff. In fact pretty much everyone in Osaka seems to be friendly at a level which is above and beyond what any reasonable person should be. I decided that night that its probably my favorite place in Japan.

After a few hours however the night took a bit of a turn for the worst for me. My flu had still been there all along and despite knowing this I foolishly decided to ignore it and drink. After I started feeling rough we left (after receiving a ridiculously massive hollering of course).

My flu felt like it had mutated into some hideous creature that had possessed me and was going to burst through my skin at any point. Luckily I managed to get to bed before that happened, although I did not get much sleep.

The next morning Sam had to waste the whole day as he was getting the night bus, so I stuck around and got lunch with him. We also went to the Osaka castle to see the actual castle, but as soon as I got a picture of it I decided to bail, as my illness got worse. Somehow I managed to get my way back to Nagoya get home and get to sleep. Ayae had been at her parents so the flat was still in the horrible mess I had left it in. When I got in I phoned my boss to ask for the day off. Surprisingly I was told that no one could cover for me so Id actually have to go in, in this obscene coughing spluttering feverish state although only for my adult classes. I got up early in the morning only to find that it was snowing unbelievably heavily. Of all the days to start snowing….

This meant I was really late and got into work about 30 seconds before my first lesson. My voice was literally almost nothing, it was hollow, a shell and I had to do 2 and a half hours of conversation classes. All my students were really sympathetic even when I had a really flemmy coughing fit in the middle of a sentence. In fact one of my students even offered to finish 15 minutes early for my sake, or maybe it was just because he felt really awkward…..?

Anyway eventually I got to go home although my bus was an hour late due to the snow which meant an hour of waiting in the snow. Then when it finally began moving it had to finish early as it couldn’t get up the snow covered hill which meant I had to walk the last part of the journey on foot in the snow.

This was definitely a low point I think and probably the worst single day since Ive been in Japan, given that everything happened on the same day. But after the Rage gig, it still was all worth it.

That’s all this week guys thanks for reading. Next week I plan to spend as much time as possible in bed trying to get over this bloody flu.

Peace out

Jack

P.S Heres a video of Rage in Concert doing Bulls on Parade. Sorry for the shaky work but I was trying to dance at the same time.

The Hail of Tears

2008-01-29T02:14:00.000Z

After the hecticness of work last week, I was given a chance to unwind this weekend which was very welcome.

Saturday night I went to my friend Rauls house for his birthday party. The theme was a `Wine and Cheese party`, so everyone had to bring a bottle and/or cheese. Raul knows a lot of people so the party was pretty crowded. I met some really safe people and found that there are actually quite a few American fans of British football. They seemed to know their stuff as well and so made for good conversation.

The food was awesome with some really tasty cheese as well as bread, crisps and some awesome other finger food. There were these rolls of smoked ham with this lush cheese filling in the middle that was properly tasty. Im not a big cheese man, but I must have eaten my body weight in cheese that night.

After plenty more lush cheese and wine and birthday cake, everyone left and about 15 of us headed to Karaoke in Sakae. The limit for the room was 12 but we managed to smuggle a few extra people in. We also smuggled a few cans in as well, as the bar did not stock alcohol.

We only had the room for 2 hours, but I managed to get about 6 songs in, a personal highlight being Journeys “Don’t Stop Believin”. This one American guy impressed everyone with his version of a Yui J-Pop song which he sung entirely in Japanese. What a winner. Also this Japanese guy did Queens “I Was Born To Love You” and I swear it was like Freddie was there man, he properly hit every note.

After Karaoke some people went to the pub to stay out all night, but I decided to get the last train home so I could get up in time for the cinema the next day. When I got home I felt pretty rough. I don’t know if it was the copious amounts of wine, or the copious amounts of cheese, or the copious amounts of both or what but it went straight to my head when I got in the door. I eventually stumbled into bed and managed to get a fairly decent nights sleep.

When I woke the next day we headed into the city. Me and Ayae were going to meet my friends Callie, Eri and of course Japanese Bob. As we got into the city quite early we did some window shopping and got lunch. We went to this slightly upmarket Indian restaurant (Which was still cheaper than the average Curry house back home!). The décor was really cool and had the look of, well a Japanese restaurant trying to look Indian. I had the “Meat Special” and Ayae had the “Lady`s Lunch”. To be honest I kind of fancied the look of the Ladies Lunch but feared some horribly embarrassing situation where they would tell me I was not allowed to and so went with the altogether more masculine sounding “Meat Special”.

This consisted of 2 small pots of chicken curry (one was Korma and I think the other was Jalfrezi), some basmati rice, a salad, a Sheek kebab sausage type thing, a tandoori chicken leg and a Naan bread. This was properly lush and tasted more classy than the average curry.

When we first went into the restaurant Ayae noticed one of her mates from Uni was working there and so we got a drink on the house. I went with a Mango Lassi which was a lush Mangoey Yoghurty drink, which went well with the curry.

The arrangements for the cinema had to be changed in the end so me and Ayae were left in the city with nothing to do. As a result of this we decided to spend rather a lot of money on Lottery scratch cards. Whilst we didn’t win much, it was a good way to use up time as we had to keep going back to collect winnings and buy more tickets.

After a little more waiting we headed to Nana-Chan to meet everybody. Nana Chan is a big statue thing near Nagoya station. Why shes called Nana-Chan, nobody knows but she is one tall lady. Whilst we were waiting for people I took a picture of the new building that attracts a lot of attention from people when they leave the station. Apparently it’s a school for design, and although not quite finished yet, it is looking properly awesome.

I also considered what I was going to say to Bob. Whilst I was waxing lyrically in Japanese with him last week that was under the influence which does of course as I`ve said before, rapidly increase anybody`s linguistic skills. I was therefore a bit nervous about meeting him sober, even thinking maybe I should do a few shots of vodka first thing. In the end I went in dry and actually did ok. Unlike most Japanese people Bob speaks slowly and quite simply so I was able to understand him quite well.

The cinema we went to was called “The Picadilly” and was on the 7th floor of one of Nagoya`s skyscrapers. I got some lush caramel popcorn and went into the theatre which contrary to Japanese tradition was absolutely huge and was pretty full. The film we were going to watch had just opened and there was a bit of buzz about it in the press here because this famous pop star guy is doing his first acting role. After some trailers for some other Japanese films which looked awesome, the movie started.

It was called “Kage-Hinatanisaku” and was a drama about different groups of people, in the style of Pulp Fiction or Love Actually. Well it was more Love Actually than Pulp Fiction, but anyway the stories were about this one guy who had gambled all his money away, this one guy who was homeless, this one woman who was looking for her dad and this geek that fancied this pop star.

It’s the kind of film that would never get translated into English for international release, a film completely aimed at the domestic market, but because of that I was quite excited to watch it. Whilst I could understand the absolute minimum of dialogue I could just about follow the basic plot (I found out afterwards that there were loads of plot twists I missed), and actually quite enjoyed it. There was plenty of arty Guy Ritchie-esque edits, and the locations were awesome. It was set almost exclusively in Asakusa and Akihabara in Tokyo where I have spent quite a lot of time, and so it had a vague familiarity about it which was cool.

Some of the jokes were quite funny as well. Im not sure if I`ve been here too long or what, but I used to totally look down on Japanese comedy, but now I sort of get it, (well some of it anyway).

The film ended in a hail of tears. Seriously there was a good 30-40 minutes of solid crying as all the characters reunited with their long lost relatives, or gained redemption, or made good on their unrequited love. There was also some really cheesy symbolic gestures which were well over done, but like I said this is aimed at the domestic market, and the Japanese love that sort of thing.

After the film we headed home, and I prepared to go out to a bar to see the Tottenham game that would be on that night. I had previously also downloaded this program called “TVU” which someone at Rauls party had recommended to me for watching live premier league football on the internet. Whilst I doubted it would work, and even if it did they probably wouldn’t be showing the FA cup, I was surprised but delighted to find it did work. So in the end I didn’t have to go out and get an expensive taxi at 3am to watch Tottenham lose, I could do it from the comfort of my own home.

They also show football games live that even Sky Sports don’t show so I was proper chuffed to find it worked.

Monday and Tuesday were spent at work although its test week this week so all my kids lessons involved testing each of the kids. This is kind of good and kind of bad, its good because I don’t really have to plan, just turn up and ask them the questions on the test paper, but bad because its not as fun as the regular lessons. Anyway Im hoping I haven’t ruined the kids` education too badly, and hopefully they should all have improved from the last years tests.

On Wednesday I went with Ayae down to her parents to welcome back Yusuke, her brother. He has been in Canada for a year, and so this was the first time any of us have seen him in a year. After meeting Yusuke we went back to their house and chilled out. For dinner we had fresh sushi which was awesome as always.

In Ayaes house, her mum had put her dolls out for “Dolls Day” which is a Japanese festival for Dolls (well not for dolls but about dolls). Anyway in every house with a daughter you`ll see they have some slightly creepy looking dolls out around this time of year, so that the Gods ensure that the daughter gets married off in the future.

The next day we went to Ise shrine to get blessed for the coming year. Usually it is done around New Years day but because Yusuke was in Canada at that time, they waited til he came back. This was a big family day out with both Grandmas coming along for good measure.

I wont go into too many details about Ise shrine because I did that in my blog last year (see the myspace blog in January 2007), but basically it’s a really awesome town with a really awesome shrine.

After going through the ceremony which involved kneeling down and the occasional bow, we went into Ise to get some food. We went to a lush Udon shop which had some sesame coated Tuna sashimi on vinegared Sushi rice, with a bowl of Udon noodles and soup on the side. This was a really awesome meal.

We also went through the main street of Ise, and me and Ayaes Grandma got lots of free samples of the various grilled fish and chestnuts and other foods on offer. At one point we found ourselves in this really cool fish shop that had these huge fish on the walls which was really crazy. We also stumbled upon this awesome drum concert which was really cool (see movie below).

After walking for a while we stopped at an Amaizake (sweet Sake) stall. This was a little strange to the pallete at first but it was nice and warm, so was a good drink to have on such a bitterly cold day.

When we got home Ayaes Dad had lots of fresh crabs which we deshelled and ate immediately. After that we had some really nice Sukiyaki. Sukiyaki is a famous dish which is like a soup with meat and vegetables. The difference here is that you also get a bowl of raw egg to dip each mouthful in first which, although doesn’t sound that tempting is actually really nice. Another of Sukiyakis unique aspects is that there is no given rule to what you put in it. So Sukiyaki usually filled with loads of random ingredients. This means that different families in Japan all have their own recipes for Sukiyaki, which I guess makes it one of the more interesting dishes of Japan.

The next day we went back to Nagoya as I have to be at work for Saturday. More testing so hopefully thatll go alright!

Anyway that’s about it. Be sure to tune in next week for a Rage Against The Machine special. I can hardly wait. UH!!!!!!!!

Peace out

Jack

The Bob

2008-01-26T09:21:00.000Z

This week was all quiet for the most part, but I did have an interesting Saturday night. I had agreed to meet my friend Callie in the city to go for a drink with her and some of her friends. After getting there, I was a little surprised to find about 20 people in her crew! Half of them I didn’t get round to meeting but there were some really safe people there, including one of the hip hop dancers from the last time we went out.

We started off going to Mybar, a gaijin bar. After drinking and chatting for a while someone decided to buy a round for everyone in our group! Someone also ordered a big plate of chips and some fried chicken for people to share which was greatly appreciated by me.

We met some American guy who joined our group and then we left to go to a club, Looop. One of the girls with us had a brother who was gonna be rapping on stage so we headed to the club. On the way lots of our group split up to go home (in Japan if you leave before 1230 you can get a train home and get a reasonable nights sleep, but if not you have to wait til the trains start again around 6).

On the way we met some skateboarders and chatted to them for a bit. We then saw some hip hop dancers and tried to persuade them to come with us but to no avail. Just before we got to the club, we stopped off at a combini (convenience store) to get some food. I bought this battered chicken and cheese thing and some oden. Oden is a type of Japanese stew containing chicken, fish cakes and various strange things you can only buy in Japan. Most combinis have a big oden which people can help themselves to (for a fee obviously). Whilst I have had Oden at home many times this was my first taste of Combini Oden. It might have been that I`d drunk too much but it tasted really awesome.

After we`d eaten we met this girls brother outside the club. He was called `Texas` and looked like a Japanese Snoop Dogg. He spoke little English, but had an affinity to me as we had the same coat.

Texas gave each of us a flier to get a discounted entry. The club was on the 3rd floor of this building and surprisingly was not a hip hop club, although they did initially play a lot of hip hop. Once we got in we drunk loads more and I ended up meeting this Japanese bloke called Bob (apparently his real name was too hard to pronounce). The ironic thing about this Japanese guy who had taken an English name was that he didn’t speak a single word of English all night. This gave me a great opportunity to speak Japanese although most of what he was saying I couldn’t understand. Nonetheless I pretended I knew everything he was saying and whenever he asked me a question I replied either `Yes` or `Hmmmm a little`, and this seemed to work.

I also met this radio DJ who was really cool and who spoke very good English. Apparently he was actually quite a famous DJ. I`m not sure how famous, but he did have girls hanging off his arm every time I went to chat to him.

The music in this club was nothing if not varied. They started off playing hip hop, changing to rock, then to German folk music and then to a Japanese cover of the YMCA. Eventually Texas and his friends took to the stage and did a really quite decent set. There were about 4 other MCs and one singer with him, although Texas seemed to be the frontman.

After Texas had finished the music suddenly changed to extreme death metal which meant a lot of people left and we did too. We decided to go to Mago, a techno club which is apparently the best in Nagoya. Since no one really knew where it was we got a taxi, and the driver dropped us relatively near (I guess he didn’t really know where it was either).

We stopped at a combini en route, and I stocked up on junk food, buying a folded naan bread with a sausage in the middle. After this we went into Mago, drunk some more and met a few more random safe people. After a few hours it was half 6 and so we decided to go.

On the way we stopped off at Denny`s (a popular American restaurant chain) to get some breakfast. I had bacon, sausage, eggs, salad, 3 pancakes and a Japanese style croquette which really hit the spot. After a while Texas came to join us as well- presumably he`d stayed at the other club all night.

Once we`d all eaten Bob decided to pay (he was still with us. At one point he had bought me a drink, then I returned the favor and it escalated until he was with us for the whole night). I gave him some money and he refused it but I eventually managed to put some yen into his hand. I found out later that it is Japanese tradition that at meals etc, the person who is oldest pays for everyone else, and he had generously paid for most of the people with us (which by this time had reduced to about 8, though this is still quite a lot if one persons paying for it!).

We left and all went our separate ways and I ended up getting home around 9. Once home I went to sleep and managed to get a few hours before waking up and taking a long walk around our neighborhood with Ayae.

Monday and Tuesday I had work so didn’t really get up to much, but Wednesday me and Ayae went into Sakae. We shopped for rather a long time as it was the end of the January sales. I got a nice new designer shirt plus a load of books including a lonely planet guide to Thailand. Ive recently come to the realization that I need to start figuring out what I want to do at the end of this year. I decided a while ago that I should try and tick off some of the countries in South-East Asia while I am here, and also that I should do them all at once when I finish work　probably in June or July. Anyway that’s another blog for another time.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday Ive been caning the work thus this blog has been put together rather hastily. The school reports had to be in by Saturday and because I stupidly left them to the last minute I had to spend all day doing them on Friday then go to work then come home, work til 1am finishing the reports then get up again at 7 on Saturday to go to work again. The reports were quite easy to do although it was a little weird being on the other side and actually writing them. It wasn’t too long ago I was getting reports myself which actually helped as I had some good key phrases to use, although I don’t think any of the reports about me said “This is an awesome student”.

This weekend I am going to my friend Rauls birthday party followed by Karaoke. Also on Sunday, Im meeting up with “Bob” to go to the cinema to see a Japanese film which should be a pretty hardcore test of my Japanese skills. Not just the film but of course Bob as well.

Sorry to cut it short here, but Ive been exceptionally busy and I wanted to get it out before the weekend. Expect a longer blog around Thursday. Anyways thanks for reading everybody.

Peace out

Jack

P.S Heres 2 videos. One of the Japanese version of the YMCA, and one of Texas tearing up the stage. Enjoy.

The 4 Month Mark

2008-01-17T12:48:00.000Z

As I suspected this week has been completely quiet on all fronts. The need to save money combined with the lack of anything going on combined with the cold weather has turned me into somewhat of a recluse venturing out only for work and the odd walk to the DVD rental store.

Whilst on occasion it has been a little boring, its also been nice spending 15 hours in bed with no real reason to get up. However Ive began to recognize that I need to start doing SOMETHING, so I thought Id give the old blog a whirl.

Last week, as Ive said has been uneventful. The only thing Ive really done is go to Osu to sell my rubbish Japanese dictionary for my DS. Osu is THE place for second hand or cheap goods- in fact it was where I bought it in the first place, (second hand of course) and so was a natural choice to go to sell the `softo` (the Japanese word for cartridge derived presumably from `Software`). I was a little nervous, as I presumed not just my Japanese speaking but also my Japanese writing skill was going to be needed, neither of which really had the right to be called a “Skill”.

When I got to a store I believed to be a second hand shop (they were selling second hand games) I approached the counter and bluntly said “Uritai” which means “I want to sell”. I got a slightly confused look followed by some instructions in Japanese. I pretended I understood which led to an awkward silence followed by him pointing to his colleague waiting by the door.

I followed this guy out of the shop and down the street for a couple of minutes neither of us saying a word. Eventually we went into another games shop which had a counter set aside especially for people selling their games. Presumably the stores are owned by the same company and both shops get their stock from this one counter.

The guy behind the counter was very friendly and helpful, and gave me a couple of forms to fill in. Before I attempted filling in my whole address in Kanji, I asked if it was ok to use the roman alphabet and luckily he agreed. I put my name in Katakana though just to prove (mainly to myself) that I wasn’t completely illiterate. I got 1000 yen for the game which was more than I expected. It was after all now (at least) 3rd hand, not to mention a bit rubbish.

All this had made me rather hungry and so on the way back I stopped off at a Hawaiian burger joint. I had a Loco Burger (Or Rokko Baagaa) which was somewhat of a beast. Cabbage, Lettuce, Onions, Bacon, Tomato, Mozzarella and a fried egg accompanied the burger, as well as a healthy dose of barbeque sauce. This cost the better part of a 1000 yen so including travel expenses I had actually made a loss, but at least it gave me one picture for this blog.

Anyway that’s pretty much been my week, I wont bore you with the details of the films and TV shows Ive been watching, but its looking like a bit of a slack blog so Ill reflect a bit on my state of mind at this time.

A few days ago I hit the 4 month mark, meaning of course that I have been here for 4 months. Whilst this is a relatively short amount of time compared to prison sentances etc. it’s a long time for me. Also its given me a pretty cool blog title.

The teaching is going pretty good at the moment. Ive got a fairly stable stock of ideas on how to teach certain things, which although not really that interesting or innovative minimizes my worries before the lessons. Ive recently started a regular Tuesday teaching slot which should help recoup some of the losses from December (the day is long, and the lessons packed in) . Ive done 2 days so far, the second going considerably more smooth than the 1st.

On my first tuesday I arrived at school an hour and a half before the first lesson as it was a new bunch of lessons Id be teaching. This proved to be just the right amount of time which gives an indication of how much Ive still got to learn about this profession.

The next week I tried to arrive 30 minutes before, but as my first lesson cancelled I was given an hour and a half prep time again and being as this was not my first time at the dance was able to plan the day pretty well with only one real hiccup. One of the classes is a girl of about 10 who is taught privately but with her mum and sister present at all times. Whilst this was intimidating at first, the mother actually seems really nice so its not so bad. It does mean however that I spend more time planning this 30 minute class than any of my hour classes, as the pressure to perform well or at least to the best of my abilities is by far the highest.

Anyway, whilst the first lesson I did with them was awesome (as awesome as a 30 minute English lesson with a highly inexperienced not particularly motivated teacher can be), in the second one my lesson plan went to pieces a bit when the flashcards I was going to use for a game did not appear to be in my box of tricks even though I had just used them in the previous lesson. After a little too much dead time of me hurriedly rummaging through the box I resorted to the classic game of `Guess Who` (a great tool for teaching physical descriptions). Whilst I had used this before for the last 5 minutes of a lesson, this time there was like 10 minutes left and despite my painfully obvious attempts to pad out the game (“Are you wearing a hat with a feather in the middle?”), we finished the first game in 2 minutes. Needless to say we had 4 more games, but the mother luckily didn’t seem to mind, in fact praising me on playing such a fun game.

The rest of my lessons Ive just about got the hang of although in both my Saturday and Monday kinder classes the kids seem to be getting more and more unruly which aint a good sign. My Monday class in particular features one 6 year old complete and utter evil little bastard. Most of the time hes either bullying the other kids or trying to punch me in the balls, and on more than one occasion Ive had to physically restrain him. He really seems to enjoy all this attention though so Ive taken to ignoring him unless hes completely off the rails. This seems to work a lot better than constantly shouting at him, but he still tries to punch and kick the other kids. To be fair he was like that before I took over the class so it cant be completely my fault. I had observed the previous teacher on a couple of occasions and he was just as bad then. It was no surprise then, that I sensed a bit of relief in her when she was told I would took over her Monday classes.

Anyway despite being like this most of the time he still has that childish innocence on occasion, coming up to show me a toy he`s found in the school toy box, or show off a drawing hes done (even if it is of a rotting-flesh ridden zombie), and I think, awwwwwwwwwwww ……….. hes not really so bad…. Then the inevitable fist flies toward my nether region and were back to being Bart and Skinner, or Dennis and Dennis` dad. (Altho Im the cool one, Im no square dammit!).

Anyway except for the Monday classes Im pretty much on top of things and usually can come up with some way to blag my way through the lessons in a way that wont get me fired.

So that’s work. In terms of my living arrangements, Ive got used to calling our small but comfortable apartment home, and I know the nearby surrounding area fairly well. I know where to get a take away pizza, or homewares, or wheres nice to go for a walk at 6 in the morning. I know how to get to Nagoya cheapest, fastest and easiest and Ive got the bus timetable tattooed on the inside of my brain.

So that’s ok.

The food is still amazing and to my surprise, still surprising; the Loco Burger was evidence of that. Whilst I had little or no reservations about what I ate before I came, I feel an even greater urgency now to push the boundaries of experimental cuisine and to try to try the most random things possible, spurred on by the fact that it is getting harder and harder to find things Ive never tried.

And so this is the situation Im facing now. Whilst I just know theres miles more of Japanese randomness to be had, its difficult to do this on a shoestring budget, and after 4 months of experiencing a great deal of randomness, even more difficult. However, Im not gonna let this stand in my way. Theres still lots of cities Im yet to visit, and lots of experiences I have yet to have. One way or another I will persevere to find more and more cool, funny, obscene, outrageous and damn right random things/people/food.

After all, Ive only got about 4 months left….

Jack

The New Years Eve

2008-01-09T05:19:00.000Z

Once again Ive been too busy to write an up to date blog but o well, better late than never!

So last week I went to Tokyo to meet up with my friends. I took the nightbus there, as my finances have been really rather tight recently. The trip was ok, although at one point the bus stopped at a service station for people to stretch their legs/go to the toilet (theres no toilet on the bus). I got off, used the toilet and went back toward the bus. It was at this point that I realized the service station car park was absolutely huge and there were about 50 buses parked there. In my half asleep wanderings I hadn’t bothered to take down the location of the bus and was now promptly lost. It was freezing cold due partly to the fact that it was 2am and partly to the fact that it was late December. Also I didn’t bring my coat out with me.

After a long and slightly frantic search I eventually found my bus just as they were gearing up to go. Phew!

I arrived at Shinjuku station around 6 and having had no sleep went immediately to Itabashi to find my friend Dans hotel. I had agreed to meet him at 7 but arrived around 630 and so decided to go for a wander. The streets of Tokyo is not a great place to be this early in the morning, the only people around being crazy people and tramps, one of which I swear was following me.

At 7 I managed to meet with Dan and we went to the hotel where he and his girlfriend were staying. Since they had a late checkout time (10pm!), they lent me the room for the day to catch up on some much needed sleep. Dan and his girlfriend had booked the hotel just for them for the 2 nights they would be together, after which she would head back to her hometown and Dan would stick around in Tokyo with us guys for 5 days in a weekly apartment we had rented.

Dan is quite into his kickboxing and mixed martial arts, so when I awoke we headed to a sports bar to see some K1 action. The sports bar was ridiculously overpriced even for Japan (a pint for a fiver!), and the system they had in place meant you had to spend at least 15 quid to be allowed in. After seeing some fights my friend Sam joined us. Me, Sam and Dan were good friends together at uni so it was cool to be back with those guys and getting drunk. And drunk we did get!

After spending a whole lot of money, we left and headed to Shibuya to get in a club in time for midnight. When we got to the station, we realized there wasn’t actually any trains until 20 past 12. And so we ended up having our countdown on platform 3 of Shinjuku station. Not exactly the new years I had planned, but at least I was with friends.

We eventually arrived at Shibuya station and then had to re meet up with Dan. He had gone back to the hotel with his girlfriend, as she was feeling a bit ill. This proved to be harder than expected due to the fact that he didn’t have a cell phone (I had contacted him through his girlfriend up to this point). After repeated calls from a payphone and getting lost several times he eventually made it back to us, and we headed straight for Womb. Because we got there after 12 we had a 5 quid discount so it cost us only 20 to get in.

I don’t really remember much of this evening except dancing a lot and drinking even more. Eventually the club finished at half 7 and we headed out to get something to eat. Since the apartment we had rented had a check in time of 3pm we could not go there, and so facing no other opportunites, headed to a comic café. These are all over Japan, and they basically consist of a small cubicle which you rent for a given number of hours during which you can read from their library of manga, or surf the internet. Lots of homeless people use these for places to sleep as they are 24 hours, and being as we were basically homeless til 3pm decided to do the same.

We managed to get 3 hours sleep after which we headed to meet Dans girlfriend to see if we could check in early. Since the apartment was booked in her name, we had to go there and check in so she could get her flight at 2pm. Needless to say it was pretty essential that we got an early check in. So the room was booked for Dan and his girlfriend, when actually it would be Dan, Sam and me staying there. This was due to the fact that we are all poor and could never afford a normal sleeping situation. Because they had a strict policy against guests having guests, we spent the whole week having to sneak past reception and wait round the corner for each other.

When we got into the room we tried to sleep, but ended up staying up all night messing about on youtube (our room had an internet connection and Sam had brought his laptop). After eventually going to sleep around 5am we woke up in the late afternoon and went and got some food and some drink from a convenience store.

We went home and started drinking. We then headed out into Roppongi which was where we would be staying. Roppongi is famous for its nightlife although maybe its not the reputation it wants. Lonely planet describes it as a place for “punters fresh off the plane and gormless riff raff out trolling for local talent”. However, it was where we were gonna be calling home for the next week so we decided to give it a shot.

We started off at a bar called Motown House. They played about 3 motown records before they moved onto Abba and assorted cheese. We were all quite far gone by this point though and ended up meeting just about everyone in the bar. Any attempt to speak Japanese was quickly discarded and we slurred our way through many a conversation about nothing. After a while we decided to leave our new found friends behind and head to Karaoke. We booked a room just for an hour, as Sam said he had to go meet some people the next day and didn’t want to be too knackered.

After singing for about 45 minutes Sam left me and Dan and shortly after we got a call from the reception downstairs saying something in Japanese we couldn’t decipher. A few minutes later they came back and my attempts to bribe them into giving us a couple more hours didn`t work and we had to leave after paying a somehow astronomical bill. By this point it was around 5 and me and Dan decided to head to a club. We got in there, got a beer and left shortly after. As I left the club I threw up a bit on the street and felt much better although still heavily inebriated. Dan wasn’t much more sober but decided he knew the way home. After walking for an hour in the wrong direction, we eventually decided we had no idea where we were and got in a taxi. The driver had no idea about the apartment we were staying so we got him to take us to the nearest subway station. The length of the journey was a testament either to how far we were walking in the wrong direction before we got a taxi, or how much this driver could cheat out of 2 drunken gaijin. Since the Japanese are relatively honest when it comes to scams, I suspect the former.

We eventually rolled into our room around 730. I headed straight for the toilet and threw up. Heavily. A few hours later Sam woke me up as I had fallen asleep on the floor of the toilet. I stood up and then passed out on the floor for a few hours before someone got up to go to the toilet and put me to bed.

When I woke up I felt horrible. Sam, having gone to meet his friends was gone, and so me and Dan headed to a restaurant to eat some food. We ended up in Matsuya which is a chain of gudon places similar to Yoshinoya specializing in bad meat and bad rice (how can you make bad rice?!).
We then headed home and went to sleep. When we woke up, Sam was back and we watched a couple movies. Sam was totally knackered as he had not had much sleep and had gone out and done a full day, whereas me and Dan had pretty much slept all day.

Despite the excesses of the night before we ended up drinking some Shochu (a Japanese spirit) which was proper cheap and rank. Around 4 me and Dan decided to go out and find a club since we had a second wind. Because of the sheer amount of money spent on the previous nights out (I had spent over a hundred quid on each), we decided to set ourselves a limit of about ten quid each. After searching the streets for a while and not finding anything that interesting, we ended up at Gaspanic, which is probably the sleaziest, worst, most degenerate bar in all of Tokyo. However, they did have a drinks deal meaning we could get 4 drinks each with our meager budget.

When we got in there, it was packed with greasy gaijin and sleazy Japanese girls. Almost immediately we were put upon by this older Japanese woman, who whilst not too bad looking was absolutely nuts. She was all over the 2 of us and as a last resort we told her we were a gay german couple, which she believed. She then regaled to us about her homosexual friends and how much she loves the gays. After getting a little tipsy we decided to head home to prepare for the next night which would be a Friday, and our last night together.

When we awoke we started playing drinking games, including one where we watched the movie “300”, and drunk every time someone mentioned the word “Sparta” or “Spartans”. After this we finished the remainder of the Shochu, Chu Hi and beers and headed out to meet one of Dans friends who would also be in Tokyo at the same time.

Once we met them we headed to an Izakaya to get some food with “Nomihodai” ( this means an all you can drink bar). After drinking ridiculously heavily, we left and decided to head back to Womb. We got in there after paying another hefty entrance fee, and stupidly went to the bar to drink more. After a few hours dancing we all decided to leave early, the music not being too good and the alcohol not having the desired effect of making us happy and stupid, (well we weren’t that happy anyway).

When we awoke the next day we had to check out, which was going to be a bit of a mission due to the fact that me and Sam weren’t meant to be staying at the apartment, but had to get a whole lot of baggage past reception. In the end we decided to just do it calmly and confidently and we got out with no problems.

Sam and Dan left me at this point, Sam going back to Kofu where he goes to Uni, and Dan going to Kyushu where his girlfriend lives. However, since I had booked a nightbus I would have to wait around until 11. I decided to stash my bag in a locker at Shinjuku station and explore Shinjuku and Akihabara. Whilst I thought this would be really boring, it was actually alright and I ended up meeting a safe American couple in a tempura restaurant, and chatting for a while.

Eventually I got on my nightbus, and got to Nagoya around 7am on Sunday. I then slept for a few hours before Ayae came back from her parents. She came back around 12 with her Dad, and loads of fresh fish from the fish market! Because I had said that Unagi (eel) was my favourite fish, they had got me 12. As in 12 Eels! This brought me no end of happiness and they are chilling in our freezer as I speak.

The next day I had to go to work which was ok, although I had to question where all my money had gone and what I had actually achieved with my week in Tokyo. I guess I got some memories. And pictures, I got some funny pictures. I should be grateful for that much.

Ive just about adjusted my body back to the routine of sleeping at night and eating 3 decent meals a day which feels really great. In Tokyo I was lucky if I got 1 meal a day and it was usually from a convenience store. The hideously grimy pig sty that was our weekly apartment has been replaced by mine and Ayaes lovely clean Nagoya flat, and I haven’t drunk anything for about 4 nights. I think it will be a while before I embark on another Tokyo adventure, mainly because I really can`t afford it, financially or physically.

Still Ive got a feeling Im not done with the Electric City just yet, and Im sure before this year is up Ill end up back there, wallowing in my own filth and hanging around my fellow gaijin scum.

Peace

Jack

The Okinawan Xmas

2007-12-29T11:02:00.000Z

Ok, so first of all a belated Happy Christmas and an early Happy New Years to everyone!

The week (or last 10 days or whatever) started with me having my last day at school. I was tired and hungry at the end of the day (I work 9 til 3 with no break), but was in good spirits as it was the last day. This changed however when I found I would not be getting paid for my holiday. My money seems to be getting spent faster and faster these days, so am in need of every yen.

I assumed I would be getting paid as the other teachers were, but because I am part time my manager told me I wouldn’t get anything. Normally I would have accepted that, but Im always well touchy when Im hungry, so decided to ring the company president to complain. He apologized, then promised me a Christmas bonus, which was an awesome result.

The next day me and Ayae went to the Sakae Orchird gardens which were excessively decorated with electric lights. There was a live Jazz band playing cheesy Christmas numbers, and an exhibition of a British style Christmas. This was basically some rooms decorated in a traditional British style, complete with a fake fireplace, and a Japanese Santa Claus (who was wearing trainers).

We also went to Nagoya city to buy a Japanese-English dictionary for my Nintendo DS. Despite being really expensive everywhere, I eventually found an earlier version which was also second hand and so extra cheap.

Because we would be spending our Christmas day travelling to Okinawa, we decided to have our Xmas day on Xmas eve. This was an awesome day although I was a bit miffed to find that my Japanese English dictionary was actually rather rubbish. It’s a program designed for Japanese students to learn English so all the definitions from English to Japanese are in Kanji and so unreadable to me. O well.

The next day we set off for Okinawa!!! For those that don’t know, Okinawa is a group of tropical islands quite far south of mainland Japan. The fact that its quite far from Japan means its culturally a little different, and the climate is about the same as Hawaii.

The journey was a long one. We flew from Nagoya to Okinawa island, and then from there flew to Ishigaki island (even further south!) where we would be spending the first night. We got to the Hotel about 8pm totally exhausted. There were 4 restaurants inside the hotel, and we went for the Japanese style one.

There was no choice in the menu. The trip to Okinawa was a present from Ayaes dad to us, and included travel, hotels, and all meals. For this particular restaurant we had a ticket that entitled us to a certain meal.

This was a really awesome meal. It consisted of some delicious grilled fish, some pickles, some ginger, sashimi, rice, miso soup, some tofu, some special Okinawan Soba, some shrimp, and some obscure but delicious vegetables. Although I love pretty much all Japanese food, this one was the first meal in a long time to really stand out as absolutely delicious. Awesome.

The next day we woke at 6 and had a delicious breakfast buffet. Then it was on to the tour bus. The day was going to be a long one, as it was a `Tsua` (Tour), which consisted of visiting many different places in Okinawa, all in one day.

Even at 8 am on Christmas day, there was a warm breeze which was really lush. There were palm trees lining the streets, and a beautiful beach and ocean stretching out as far as the eye could see. I wore my shorts for the first time in a while, which was awesome.

The first thing we visited was some Chinese grave thing, which was pretty cool. After that, we went to a gorgeous beach to go on a glass bottom boat. This was nice and there were lots of colorful fish, and lush coral.

After this we went to Ishigaki port, and took a rocky boat ride to Taketomi island. We then took a bus to `Starsand beach` where there were star shaped skeletons of miniature creatures amongst the sand. Whilst all the other tourists looked for these, I soaked up the sun in this absolutely gorgeous location, and smugly thought about what the weather in the UK must be like.

We then got back onto the bus and went to look around Taketomi village, which was really nice. The building design is different in Okinawa to the rest of Japan, particularly the roofs. I climbed up a ridiculously steep stone staircase to get a view over the top of the village. This was a beautiful view, as the beach was also in the background.

Apparently on Taketomi, there are no police, and only 2 traffic lights on the whole island. In fact everyone in Okinawa seems to be really chilled out especially compared with the often ridiculously stressful rest of Japan. It has the highest life expectancy of anywhere in Japan, presumably due to this relaxed, happy go lucky attitude of the Okinawan people. Despite the hecticness of the Tsua, I often felt well chilled which was ideal after working so hard the past few weeks.

After Taketomi, we went back to the port, and got another boat to a different island, Iriomote. There, we had lunch which was a delicious bento box featuring some Okinawan specialties. Okinawan cuisine often features lots of pork, which was fine for me, but pretty tough for vegetarian Ayae (especially when she found out she had accidentally eaten pigs ear!). To be fair I didn’t know it was pigs ear either, but it was actually really delicious.

We then chilled on a nice beachy, grassy area before taking a buffalo drawn cart. Buffalo rides are apparently something that Iriomote is known for. We used them to get across some shallow water to a different island, where there was a cool botanical garden and a butterfly garden which was awesome.

On the buffalo ride back our driver (the guy in charge of the buffalo, are they called drivers?), decided to pull out a sanshin (a traditional Okinawan instrument, a bit like a banjo) and play us a song which was cool.

The Tsua then took us along the Urauchi Gawa (basically like a miniature Amazon) on a boat, where we could see an awesome mangrove, where many of the trees had been uprooted by a massive typhoon. After a while we stopped at a famous Okinawan tree which was 400 years old and had these crazy massive roots, before heading back.

We then went to Kohama jima which is a different island, to stay at the hotel there. This hotel was awesome. Instead of regular rooms, there where chalet like buildings that look out over the beach and ours was about 4 times bigger than our apartment in Nagoya! There was however pretty much nothing else on the island which meant for tea we had to have the hotels all-you-can-eat buffet which was exceptionally expensive.

Despite this it was proper lush, and I got to try Chanpura which is a famous Okinawan pork stir fry, as well as loads of other specialties and more pigs ear! After totally filling up, we saw some Okinawan music performed live in the hotel lobby which was pretty cool but had to go to bed straight after as we had another early start the next day.

Unfortunately we overslept, so only had 5 minutes to eat breakfast, meaning we stuffed our faces at an unhealthy rate. After that we had a bus tour of the islands village which was once the setting for a famous Japanese TV show set in Okinawa. The most interesting part of this bus tour was when the guide revealed he had only left the island (which was absoloutely tiny!) twice in his life. He seemed happy enough tho, so fairplay I guess.

After that we headed back to Ishigaki to have a quick tour of a traditional Okinawan fabric makers factory, before getting on a plane back to Okinawa island and then on to cold and wet Nagoya. When we got to Nagoya airport we met a couple of Ayaes Uni friends who had just graduated and got jobs as air hostesses which was cool.

The next day Ayae went back to her parents and I stayed in Nagoya. In the evening I went out with my friend Callie for a drink. After moving from pub to pub we tried to find a famous techno club, but ended up getting completely lost. We asked a band who were busking, and ended up chatting to them for an hour, as they were really friendly. After that we kept walking, and asked some girls who were hip hop dancing nearby. This is as Ive said before a common activity in Japan, especially outside skyscrapers with reflective glass.

They were also really cool, and invited us to go to a club with them so we followed. On the way we randomly bumped into the singer from the busking band, who out of nowhere produced some traditional Japanese sweets and offered us some. After munching down some sweet beans treats, we found ourselves at a hip hop club named `The Underground`, which was ironic cos it was actually on the 4th floor.

This club was pretty cool, and had live performances from Japanese RnB singers and also a couple of rappers. After this there was a dance showcase, where our newly found friends performed their routine. There were about 5 different troupes, and it was awesome to watch them. After dancing til 5 and meeting loads of random cool people we headed to get some ramen (which is basically like the Japanese equivalent to the Kebab). Ramen are a type of Chinese noodle and usually served in a soup with meat and vegetables. This was pretty horrible, but I had the munchies so I chowed down.

Ok that’s about it. I go to Tokyo tomorrow to meet my friends for New Years Eve which is gonna be well good, so next week expect another `Tokyo special`!

Peace yo!

Jack

PS Heres the video of the Buffalo ride complete with Sanshin playing dude.

The Gig

2007-12-20T05:06:00.000Z

Ok, sorry for this blog being a bit late again, but I have been busy as usual.

Nothing really happened during the week until Thursday where me and Ayae went for a meal with 2 of her friends. We went to a nearby curry restaurant where they offer all you can eat on naan bread, every Thursday. This was obviously awesome for me, as I demolished 4 naan breads. Then I went home and felt sick.

On Friday I was called in to work, to replace a sick teacher. This went ok although I timed it a bit wrong and got there with 3 minutes to prepare. Somehow, on my blagging skills I managed to get through the day but in 1 lesson, I literally didn’t know what I was meant to do. I managed to find some Christmas related flash cards to play a game with, but the rest of the lesson was just made up on the spot.

Luckily my last lesson, which was a 1 hour adult lesson cancelled and so I was able to go home early.

On Saturday I went to work as usual, and came straight home to prepare for the party. Last week I had met this American, Raul at the Izakaya who invited me to his end of year party at the school he ran. I was going to go with Ayae, my friend Callie, and her friend Eri.

To find where the school was I checked out his website, which had pictures of previous parties. All seemed to have a heavy emphasis on the food, so I was really looking forward to it. I was not disappointed. They had a turkey, as well as loads of other dishes such as meatballs, tandoori chicken, salads, tofu dishes, oysters and pizza. There was a pretty expensive entrance fee to get into the party, but given the amount and quality of food, it was definitely worth it.

After the first and main courses they brought out the cakes which were really amazing. There was like 8 of them! There were chocolate logs, Victoria logs, strawberry tart, cream puffs, fruit tart and loads of cakes I don’t know the names of. Anyway it was proper sweet.

The party itself for me mainly consisted of me and Callie trying to speak Japanese to these guys, and trying to explain the principle of the `Big fish, little fish, cardboard box` dance. Which was pretty difficult.

Before leaving for the party, I had picked up some Chu-Hi which is kind of like a Japanese alco-pop, except it’s a lot stronger. After finishing them off, Raul came round with shots of Shochu, a Japanese liquer, which was tasty but in retrospect not a great move.

Everyone at the party was really cool, and for the most part, Japanese. I think the idea of the party is that students at Rauls school get a chance to practice their English on genuine gaijin. As a result, gaijin had a half price entry (Which was still pretty expensive mind!). I think this is a great idea as alcohol is a great social lubricant, so the students can get a lot of practice for their English skills, but still have fun.

After the party, we went our separate ways although many of the teachers and students lived quite near us. Callies friend Eri, had driven to the party and very kindly gave us a lift home, which was awesome cos the taxis are so expensive in Japan.

The next day I somehow avoided a hangover, and went shopping with Ayae in Nagoya for my Christmas present. On Monday I had gone to a jewellery store to buy hers, a pinky ring which she had carefully decided upon the week before. It was a little expensive tho so Ayae agreed to buy something of the same value for me. I had decided a while ago that I was gonna buy a Nintendo DS at some point, as they had a special Japanese teaching program that I thought would be really helpful (and also Im still a kid really and love video games!).

After buying the DS and a couple of accessories, we went to a book shop so that Ayae could do some shopping. I was getting a bit bored, so Ayae gave me a magazine with a list of the bands that would be playing Japan soon. To my surprise I saw that Rage Against The Machine were playing Osaka in February. I figured the tickets must be sold out, but upon ringing found that there were some left. After checking that it definitely was THE Rage Against The Machine, I immediately booked one, then bought one for my friend Sam as well.

Rage are one of those bands I never thought Id be able to see live (they broke up 7 years ago), and although I heard they reformed for a couple of festivals I thought they were just special occasions, as had heard no news of any dates in the UK. I have since found out they are only touring Japan and Australia so feel very privileged to have this opportunity to see them. They are probably top of my list of bands I want to see live, so I have had a spring in my step all week.

On Monday it was back to school, although this was my last Monday before Christmas which was a relief as Mondays are my hardest day.

On Tuesday I went to school again although it was just for an hour to observe one of the classes I would be taking on from next year. After work, I headed to Nagoya city to buy a game for my newly purchased DS. After much deliberation, I eventually decided on a `Bleach` game, taken from the popular anime series. After that I headed to Imaike to meet my friend Callie. She`s been wanting to find some live music for a while, and I had found out about a band called Hawaiian 6 who were gonna be playing in Nagoya, and arranged sometime ago to meet and go to the gig with her.

I had also found out that unfortunately all the advance tickets had sold out. When we got there we queued for about half an hour in a queue that turned out to be for merchandise. We eventually managed to get in just after the first support band started. It seems they wait until the bands start then if theres room let more people in (at a far more expensive price mind!).

Unfortunately, in this case there wasn’t really enough room but we were let in anyway. As we tried to push open the door to the floor area there was a huge resistance. Eventually I got my head round the corner, and found that it was so packed, people were crushed against the entrance door making it nearly impossible to open. After some heavy pushing we (and the rest of the latecomers) got in and then ourselves were crushed against the door. To make matters worse, because me and Callie had both just come from work we both had backpacks, and being as there were no cloakrooms, found ourselves in a bit of a squeeze.

The underground room was tiny, about the size of 2 living rooms, but there must have been more than a hundred people there. The surprising thing for me was that it wasn’t just packed with people at the front, it was like that all the way to the back (although the back was only about 10 rows back to be fair). Ive taken pictures from where I stood both in front of me and behind me to highlight this (although I should say the one of the people behind me was taken between bands and thats why everyone looks a bit bored). In the UK a place like this would be shut down as a health and safety nightmare, but everyone was really safe so it wasn’t really a problem. Dread to think what would happen if there was a fire though….

The first band was pretty good, slightly cheesy Stones-esque rock n roll that you could nod ur head to (well you couldn’t do much else given the crush). After that some bloke called Ganja came on and everyone went mental. He was like the MC of the evening and people loved him. I couldn’t really work out what he was saying, but at the end of it, the audience cheered for him to down a pint of Guiness.

After that a band called No Rebound came on, and there was a massive surge to the front. No Rebound were a really awesome punk band, and the crowd went absolutely nuts. As soon as they started, the room started moshing and there were people crowd surfing everywhere. The club seemed to actively encourage moshing, and within about 5 minutes I had sweat out my body weight. I was holding my bag by one strap, and bouncing round the whole room. Since I had run out of money earlier, I had withdrew like all my savings from my Japanese account (it’s a real chore to find an ATM for my bank and didn’t want to have to find another one again). So all my savings were in my bag, as well as my new DS game, and my suit for work. As a result I was rather concerned with losing it and so couldn’t really stash it.

After No Rebound finished, Ganja came on and downed another pint of Guiness. Then, Hawaiian 6 came on stage to Dancing Queen by Abba, which was a bit weird as they were a speed punk band. Anyway as soon as they started the place went even more crazy and everyone was crowd surfing again. On several occasions people tried to put me up there, but given my backpack situation, I figured it wasn’t a good idea. It broke my heart, but unfortunately I couldn’t join in with those crazy Japanese kids.

Despite this I had a really awesome night. Hawaiian 6 are one of those bands I wouldn’t listen to at home, but live they are amazing, and such good fun. As I left, my shirt was absolutely soaked with sweat, and covered in footprints from the numerous crowd surfers. In fact even after washing it, the stains are still there.

Unfortunately I missed the train I needed to get as the band went on about 3 minutes longer than I wanted them to, so I had to walk home. Luckily I could change into my work clothes to get home, as my T-shirt was well rank. Eventually I got home, took a shower and went to sleep.

Ok, that’s about it for this week. Next week is Christmas, and me and Ayae are jetting off to Okinawa on Christmas day. We come back on the 27th, so look out for a blog around the 29th or 30th.

Until then, Peace.

Jack

P.S The organizers of the gig made an announcement that we couldn’t take pictures shortly after I had taken a couple. As a result I don’t have many to show. Please enjoy this movie of No Rebound though, as evidence of how mental it was. Look out for the pair of vertical legs that crop up now and then!

The Izakaya

2007-12-12T11:10:00.000Z

Ok despite my attempts to `make` something happen this week, it has actually been fairly uneventful.

Monday I had work which was ok, and Tuesday was spent chilling.

On Wednesday I went to an English pub to meet up with the Polish/Australian Max, as I was feeling a bit of cabin fever, and like I needed to get out of the house. When I got there he was sitting at a very international table. There were 3 people from France, 1 from Salvadore, 1 from Spain, 1 from Hawaii, 2 from Japan, and 1 from America.

Everyone was pretty safe except for the American who was like something out of The Office. Seriously, for like the 3 hours I was there, he was just making the most rubbish, sex related jokes you could ever hear. Even the Japanese weren’t laughing, and they laugh at everything. EVERYTHING!

Despite this it was a pretty fun night. The Hawaiian guy was actually an aeroplane engineer for Mitsubishi and provided a nice break from the usual English teaching anecdotes. At one point a short Japanese man in a suit came over to talk to us. I think he must have been pretty drunk, cos before asking me my name he invited me to a party on Friday. He said it was his end of year party, and as the boss of a gas company I assumed that to mean his companys end of year party. The idea of getting wasted with a bunch of drunken Japanese salarymen sounded like an awesome cultural experience so I immediately replied yes.

At the end of the night, I got a train as far as I could toward my appartment, and then had to walk 40 minutes to my apartment. Its started to get really rather cold in Japan so it was a good thing I was wearing a sufficient `beer jacket`.

On Thursday I went to the bank, as it turned out my cash card would be ready before I initially thought. Thankfully I got it (although I went there on my own this time so got really lost again!), so I am now not so skint.

Friday, and I was really looking forward to hanging with some salarymen. I had agreed with Kawai-san (the short Japanese guy in a suit) to meet with him outside a central subway station. The plan was to then go to an izakaya (a Japanese pub). Never having been to an izakaya added to my expectations of the night. Since they were salarymen I decided I better dress appropriately, which obviously means wearing a suit. Everywhere u go in Japan 90% of people are wearing a suit so I figured itd be rude to turn up in a hoody and jeans.

When I got to the subway station I discovered that not only was no one wearing a suit, but none of the people were salarymen. They were all filthy gaijin like me!

It turns out that Kawai-san organizes international get-togethers once every couple of months or so. There was about 30 people outside the subway station and as usual they were from all over the place. Everyone was friendly, although I got lots of weird looks followed by `Why are you wearing a suit?`. I pretended that I had come straight from work, and most seemed to believe me except for one guy who took me aside and said `Don’t worry man I like to wear suits out sometimes, you know?`. Which was a bit weird.

The place we had met was outside Fushimi station which is where all the hip hop dancers hang out. There`s a big skyscraper with reflective walls, so they can see themselves as tho they were in a dance studio. They all had boomboxes and were doing their thing with no reservations or shyness, despite the numerous gaijin staring at them.

After everyone had arrived we headed to the izakaya. This was underneath another of Fushimis numerous towers. An Izakaya is, as I said like a Japanese pub although it’s a little different. There are lots of private rooms which groups can book (as we did), or they can be used by many small groups.

You sit on the floor, and whereas English pubs put the emphasis on drinking, in Izakaya drinking AND eating are the main activities. You order from a selection of small dishes, most of which are based around chicken (which goes really well with beer!). The idea at this particular party was that everyone ordered whatever they wanted and then the bill would be split at the end. Since I am a big eater, I stood to profit from this arrangement.

The food I had was really awesome. There was lots of Tonkatsu (Pork cutlet in breadcrumbs), sashimi, chicken legs, Nabes (kind of like a hotpot with chicken balls in), chips, and salad. There were also these slices of fried chicken skin which Im sure were terrible for my health, but which tasted awesome.

Despite not being a big beer drinker, I decided as it was the drink most commonly associated with Izakaya, I should partake in some. There were several pitchers constantly being bought to our table, so my glass never went empty. I also drank a lot of Sake which Im starting to really get the hang of now.

The people there were all really cool and I got lots of phone numbers as the night went on. I was however the youngest there (or at least the youngest gaijin male - there were lots Japanese girls about my age who I guess like hanging out with older foreign men. Fairplay.) Actually Im making it out to be far more sleazy than it was, the guys there were actually really cool and nice, and nothing like the drunk American I met on Wednesday night. The girls themselves were all really cool as well and it gave me a good chance to hone my Japanese skills.

I even met one Brit who had been there about 6 years. I proudly told him how I had discovered cider in Nagoya. “That’s nothing” he said. “A few weeks ago I discovered a Real Ale pub. In Nagoya”. Im not a big real ale man myself but im sure some of you will be interested in that fact.

Anyway, the night was a great laugh and despite being disappointed at the lack of drunken Japanese salarymen acting like fools, I had a great night and got to see lots of drunk gaijin English teachers acting like fools.

Yes, as expected they were nearly all English teachers, although most were now teaching in high schools or junior high schools which is apparently a slight step up from Eikeiwa (private schools). Actually there was also one German guy who was a computer programmer, but I think apart from that they were all teachers.

After everyone was full of fried food and alcohol we went to a nearby English pub. This was one I hadn’t been to before, but was quite similar to the other one except they had darts. The plan was to drink there for a few hours and then go to a 24 hour karaoke bar. That sounded great to me, except for the fact that I had work the next day. After a quick (but pricey) drink I sprinted to the subway to get the last train home before making the 40 minute walk back to my apartment. I had to be up early the next day which was not pretty, but I eventually got thru the day, and spent the majority of the afternoon/evening Christmas shopping. When I got home I went straight to sleep, knackered.

On Sunday I went to the center of Nagoya to pick up a couple more presents, before heading to Issha, a nearby district to get my haircut. Ayae had found an uber cheap barbers which given my current financial situation was much needed. My pay came a couple of days later than expected, and the Christmas shopping had wiped me out. I spent my last 1000 yen on my haircut and then I had officially had no funds. Luckily I would get paid Monday so it wasn’t a massive deal, but it was a staunch reminder of how much this country eats up your money. I am planning to go travelling at the end of my year here, but saving the money to do that may very well be harder than expected, especially with my trip to Okinawa for Christmas AND my trip to Tokyo for New years.

Anyway that’s about it for this week, next week I should be going to Raul`s (a guy I met on Friday) party at his school in Issha (he owns his own English school) which should hopefully be interesting.

Until then guys, take it easy and as always thanks for reading.

Jack

The Koyo

2007-12-05T06:15:00.000Z

This week started with me going to get a Japanese bank account on Tuesday. My school has decided to stop paying me by cash for whatever reason, so they`ve told me I have to get a bank account. After ringing round just about every bank in Nisshin we eventually found one who would accept me as a customer. To get a bank account, you need an `inkan` which is kind of like a stamp with your name in Kanji (a single Chinese character). Since my name (obviously) has no Kanji I have had one (very generously by Ayaes mum) made in the shape of a `J`.

Because it’s a home made one, lots of banks wont accept it, but eventually we found one that would although it was on the other side of town. After taking about 4 buses (most of them going the wrong way) we eventually got there. To create the bank account I had to fill in lots of forms, which took ages as Ive never really written Kanji before, so I had to have Ayae draw each one first so I could copy it.

On the way home, I realized Id missed out 2 lines of address on the forms so they wouldn’t be able to send the cash card to me. After a few phone calls it got kind of sorted out , although Im now gonna have to wait a month to access my cash which leaves me a little skint.

Anyway Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty uneventful, but Friday we had a Takoyaki party at our apartment, with a couple of Ayaes friends. Takoyaki are basically golf ball sized fried balls of batter (made of flour, eggs, vegetables, and fish shavings things) with chunks of Octopus in the middle. They are then covered with Soosu (a brown, slightly sweet sauce), mayonnaise, seaweed, and bonito flakes. These are available as street food at most festivals and downtown city areas, and I have them quite regularly as they are well tasty.

One of Ayaes friends had a Takoyaki machine which is kind of a hotplate with circle shapes on it. You pour the batter into the holes, then put some Octopus onto the batter, then when one side is done flip it over using cocktail sticks and put a bit more batter in to make it a bit bigger.
Despite finding it difficult at first, after a couple I was a Takoyaki master. They tasted awesome and were well satisfying to make. When you buy them at street stores, you normally get a box of 8, but the fact that we wanted to use all the mixture meant we had an average of 30 each, although Im sure my number was higher than the others so Im guessing I had about 40 Takoyaki. Which is ridiculous.

On Saturday I went to work, although stopped off in Sakae to see if anything was happening. There was a big model pirate ship with some Spanish guitar style band playing, and a huge model treasure chest. Weird.

On Sunday we woke up at 4 to get a bus to Kyoto to see the Koyo. Koyo is what the Japanese call leaf viewing in the autumn. Certain areas are really great for Koyo, and Kyoto is one of the best. We booked onto a tour bus which would take us to 2 places in Kyoto which are famous for their leaves.

The first we got to was a temple called Tofokuji. Tofokuji is where zen priests used to go to achieve enlightenment although that would be almost impossible now given the immense quantity of people. As soon as we got there we could see a sea of people that stretched out ahead of us as far as the eye could see. After queuing for a while however we eventually got to a bridge over a chasm valley type thing.

This was absolutely gorgeous and unlike anything Ive ever seen before. The sheer amount of leaves was really overwhelming, and despite the huge amounts of people, all vying for the best spot to get a picture on their digital cameras, it was really beautiful.

The temple buildings themselves were also really nice and were surrounded by awesome zen gardens. It was a pretty huge site and there was loads of trees to see. The ground was often entirely red in places and was just like something out of a Zhang Yimou kung fu flick.

After looking round for about an hour and a half we got back onto the bus to go to Ginkakuji. Ginkakuji was a temple Id wanted to see for a long time but never got round to seeing. Whilst Kinkakuji (which I visited last month) is known as the Golden temple, Ginkakuji is the silver temple.

The road to the temple was next to a small river, and there was plenty of red trees and bushes along the path which was well pretty.

As we got closer to the temple there was more and more shops selling traditional Kyoto goods such as kimonos and fans, as well as lots of souvenir shops. There was also lots of snack stalls selling Macha (green tea) related goods. We had some macha ice cream, and some other Japanese style sweet things. They also sold macha cream puffs, although I didn’t partake in any of them.

When we got to the temple it was, as predicted really really gorgeous although the pictures here show it a lot better than I can describe. Some shogunate in like the 1500s spent his whole life building it as a place to live, and so the garden was really really lush, although once again it was swarming with people.

After looking round the temple and the surrounding area for a while, we found a nice little restaurant, selling Macha flavoured Soba (noodles). This restaurant had an Edo style interior and recreated the feel of a very old restaurant really well.

After lots more wondering round we eventually got back on the bus to Nagoya although it stopped off at a famous Kyoto Pickle shop first. Whilst I do enjoy Japanese pickles from time to time Im not mad keen on them so we didn’t buy anything.

We got home around 10 pm totally knackered and went straight to bed.

K, that’s about all for this week, unfortunately Im a bit low on time so I wont say any more. Next week I pretty much have a free week so Ill try and make something happen. This blog sometimes feels like an albatross as I have to do something otherwise Ill have nothing to write about. However, I think its beneficial really as it makes me more adventurous and gives me extra motivation to not sit in my apartment watching Japanese TV all day (although that’s always a temptation lol).

So until next week, stay classy UK.

Jack

The Pub

2007-11-28T04:49:00.000Z

Ok this week hasn’t been anything like last week, but its still been pretty sweet.

After getting back from Tokyo last week, I had a huge cold, and going to work on Monday with relatively no sleep was not nice. After just about getting over it on Tuesday, I went to work on Wednesday. One of the teachers here has gone back to Canada so while we wait for a new teacher I was filling in. The classes were ones Id taken before (since the same teacher had taken a week off last month and I had filled in). So I knew what to expect.

The first 2 classes were young bratty kids that always started fights and cried and didn’t pay attention, so that was a bit of a chore. In one of the classes, one of the students objected so much to me (being a newish teacher and a break from the norm) that he refused to come into the classroom. Eventually he did, but only on the condition that he could be cuddled at all times by one of the female Japanese teachers. Im sure she had other things to do but she stayed for nearly the whole class, bless her.

On several occasions the kid fell asleep in her arms which was pretty funny. He was awake and on his own for the last 5 minutes tho so I suppose at least there was a bit of a lesson. Felt a bit sorry for the other 3 students tho.

On Thursday I had a similar day of teaching except the kids were all pretty well behaved this time. I also had an adult class this day which was quite good fun as they all had quite a high level of English.

On Friday I had a much needed day off. Ayae was going to her parents for the weekend so I went to the station to see her off. After that I went to a bookstore and bought another book on learning Japanese (I must have about 10 now!). I spent most of that day reading and trying to get better. Ironically since Ive been here I think my Japanese has probably gotten worse. When I was in the UK I was a dedicated student, studying for hours every day and now that Im here, I never seem to find the time. I justify it to myself that as Im here I should be subconsciously getting better, but Im not really talking to people in Japanese enough so theres no way that can happen. Occasionally me and Ayae do talk in Japanese, but I don’t push it enough. Since going to Tokyo last week where I was chatting Japanese I have decided to really try harder, so hopefully my new book and new attitude will help me get better. We will see!

On Saturday I had work, and afterwards I did my usual thing of checking out Sakae although there was not as much on as usual (there was a couple of bands playing in the park and on the street but they were pretty awful). I did however come across a new department store which featured a Tower Records with some awesome discounts, and also a new live music venue. It seemed to play to some pretty big acts in the past (such as Stereophonics) so Im thinking it was a good discovery for the future.

I also went to an `English pub` called The Hub, to check if they would be showing the live Tottenham - West Ham game Sunday. I was told `Tabun-ne` which basically translates as `I think so`. I decided I would definitely go anyway as even if they weren’t showing it, it seemed like a cool place worth checking out.

Sunday was a big day for me. I had been wanting to see some live football ever since I got here, but the 9 hour time difference means unless it starts around 12 or 1 its not really possible. There are bars open late, but the last train is around midnight, so I have to go then anyway (unless Im staying out all night!).

The game would start at half 10 but I decided to go into the city early as I had nothing else to do. First I explored a park which I hadn’t been to before in Fushimi, near Sakae. There were a couple of cool sculptures, as well as lots of nice trees which had changed color because of Autumn so that was cool.

After that I decided to go to Osu to do a bit more exploring. On the way I came across a really beautiful shrine although it was right next to a busy main road. I also found a temple which was really nice.

When I got to Osu I was bombarded with ridiculously bright lights everywhere. The first thing I saw was some fire eating dude surrounded by a wall of Christmas lights and topped up with a huge cat statue thing that is everywhere in Japan. Awesome.

Next I wondered through the indoor market thing which again had Christmas lights everywhere. On the ceiling, on the trees, and even on the archway thing. Nagoya is well and truly ready for Christmas.

After this I headed to Sakae which again was decorated to the hilt. I decided to explore Sakae again as this time I had lots of time (it was still about 3 hours til kick off). After walking up as many streets as I could, I discovered Sakae was actually about 3 times bigger than I thought it was; it just didn’t stop!

As the light faded, the seedier side of the city exposed itself. Whilst there wasn’t a red light district per say, the streets seemed to go : Shop, shop, restaurant, shop, brothel, shop, restaurant, brothel and so on. Women on the street started offering me massages and as it got later they were everywhere (even on a Sunday!). As I tried to get away I somehow managed to double back on myself and had to walk past them again! I eventually found refuge in `The Hub` and sat down with a refreshing pint of Guinness.

The crowd in the hub was about 50-50 gaijin and Japanese, and most were aged mid to late 20s. Though it was on one of Sakaes busiest roads, the interior replicated an English pub very well although the emphasis on the fact they sold fish and chips was a bit much. As I perused the menu I noticed they sold Strongbow. I have been looking for Cider in Japan for a very long time, and so to finally find some was a huge victory for me. It was ludicrously overpriced of course, but I have come to expect that about drinking in Japan.

After sitting on my own for the best part of an hour, I decided to make a bit of an effort, and got talking to this Australian/Polish bloke called Max. He was sitting at a table with an English girl and a Japanese guy and girl so I chatted to them for a bit. Max and the English girl were both English teachers so there was a sense of camaraderie there. After a while the football started and I warned them that I could get a bit anti-social watching football. They laughed a bit and carried on talking. I managed to fire off a few words of terrible Japanese to the guy and girl, which was just about understood and so a great step forward in my language learning.

After a few minutes I happened to notice in the corner of my eye Tottenham scoring. I jumped off my seat and screamed `Fucking Come on! Yes!!!!`. As I did this I noticed that no one else was actually paying attention to the game. They were however staring dead at me and most were laughing. To make matters worse, the goal was ruled offside so it didn’t actually count. I took to my seat again and proceeded to act like nothing happened. The other guys at the table thought it was really funny tho and were very curious as to how a game could mean so much to someone.

After drinking and chatting for another hour or so, it was midnight and although the game had another 15 minutes to go, the bar was closing so I left. Although I hadn’t missed the last train home Max insisted I had and that his mum would give me a lift home. Max was about my age and had lived in Japan for around 2 years, after moving here from Australia with his Polish mum. The lift home was pretty surreal being as I was drunk and Max`s mum tho very friendly had what she called a `lead foot`. Im sure we were close to careering off the road many times but eventually we got to the station. Because I didn’t really know where I lived I asked to be dropped at the nearest train station (although this wasn’t actually at all near to where I lived).

From there I got in a taxi and asked to be dropped at the nearest landmark I knew- which was Ayaes University. The driver (a nice middle aged women with about 5 very bad teeth. Come to think of it the taxi driver in my first blog had no teeth….. Hmmmmm…….Maybe theres some sort of weird sadistic initiation ritual involved in getting a Taxi license here……..I wonder…..) must have taken from this that I spoke fluent Japanese and proceeded to talk at me the whole way home. I nodded and smiled through the whole thing and I think she was none the wiser although for all I know she could have just spent 10 minutes badmouthing me.

After she dropped me off, I got into my apartment and fell straight to sleep. I had work the next day so was not too pleased to notice I had a hangover. Luckily my shift didn’t start til the afternoon so I caught up on plenty of sleep. Although it was a pretty stressful day (I don’t like Mondays), my last 2 adult classes cancelled, so I got to go home 2 hours early which was awesome. All in all it was a very strange but very cool and worthwile night out.

Next week me and Ayae are off to Kyoto again to see the changing leaves so Im thinking that should be pretty awesome; expect a gratuitous amount of pictures!

Anyways, thanks for reading, and hopefully Ill catch you next week.

Peace out

Jack

The Tokyo

2007-11-20T13:14:00.000Z

This weekend was every bit as insane as I expected it would be. Its been said that Tokyo and the rest of Japan are like 2 different countries and I would definitely agree with that. Tokyo is so mental and so much more … everything than anywhere else in the world. Put simply, it’s a city that you have to see.

I got to Tokyo at 7am on Friday having taken the night bus, as the train is so unbelievably expensive that its not even worth considering. The night bus basically goes from Nagoya to Tokyo via a few other cities. It leaves at around 11pm and arrives early the next day. The idea is that you sleep on the way and therefore don’t lose any time. Unfortunately for me, Im particularly adverse to sleeping sitting down (especially when the bus is ludicrously bumpy) and so only got a couple hours sleep.

I got off the bus in Shinjuku and decided to look around since I had a few hours to kill before I was allowed to check into the hostel. Shinjuku is a pretty incredible place, filled with massive skyscrapers and a ludicrous amount of neon. Still, at 7 in the morning theres not really a whole lot going on except A LOT of men in suits rushing to work.

It was still pretty interesting looking round, altho I ended up well lost. At one point I stumbled across `Kabuki-cho`, or the red light district. One minute I was walking along minding my own business, the next Im being approached by pimps trying to drag me into brothels! Normally I quite like seeing the seedy underbelly of cities, but having had 2 hours sleep was not the best preparation, and I got totally freaked out! Somehow I got out of there, and decided to head to Akihabara (the electric city).

Akihabara is one of my favorite places in Tokyo just because its such a haven for geeks. I don’t think theres another place in the world with more video game shops or crazy model shops. Whilst not buying anything, I did manage to play some weird new Japanese games, and see plenty of cool stuff. I also got to fulfill a recent ambition and try the `Rice Burger`. Theres a fast food chain here called Mos Burger, and they sell this. Its basically the same concept of the burger but instead of a bun, 2 kind of fried lumps of rice, and instead of a burger, some stir fried vegetable stuff. I have to say this was an awesome mix, and no doubt healthier than the average `burger`.

After Akihabara I headed to my hostel in Asakusa. I had booked this at the last minute (literally, I got confirmation 30 minutes before I left the house), due to some terrible planning. However it was a very decent hostel and had a very reasonable price. My friend Sam was going to meet me there in a few hours so I decided to catch up on some sleep.

Once I woke, I met up with Sam, got fed, showered and dressed, and we decided to head out. Since we had both been sightseeing in Tokyo before, the main motivation of this whole trip was for clubbing. I don’t have many friends in Nagoya, and there aren`t any clubs in Kofu (where Sam is from), so we both had a lot of pent up energy to abuse Tokyo with.

Whilst the hostel arrangements had been slapdash and last minute, the clubbing aspect was something I had put a lot of man hours into planning. Friday would be spent at Womb, where Shinichi Osawa, a famous Japanese house/J-Pop producer (kind of like the Japanese equivalent to William Orbit) was playing, whilst Saturday would be spent at Unit where there was a drum n bass event on.

After a couple of drinks in the hostel lounge, we headed out to Shibuya. We searched far and wide for a decent and relatively cheap bar, and eventually we came across one. As we sat down and began the drinking process, I noticed something strange happening directly in front of where we were sitting. On closer inspection I realised there was a man cutting thin slices of pork from a huge pigs leg placed directly on the bar. Nice.

After a few more drinks we decided to be a bit more adventurous, and bought a special hot plum liqueur complete with a whole plum inside. Not being a big plum man, I was suitably apprehensive. Surprisingly it was actually really rather tasty, altho I don’t recommend trying to eat the plum afterwards!

This bar was also a good chance to practice my Japanese. Sam is studying Japanese at uni, so his level is really rather good. Mine however needs a lot of work, so I took this opportunity to inflict some of my `skills` on the barstaff. Whilst I wasn’t exactly waxing fluent, I was satisfied with some of the exchanges, and considered it a decent achievement for my language skills.

After leaving the bar we headed to Womb. A number of readers will have been there (they told me about it!) but for those that don’t know, Womb is kind of the Japanese equivalent to Fabric; a chilled out atmosphere, with safe people and top name DJs playing regularly. Its not that big, but the main dancefloor is big enough to produce a suitably `epic night out atmosphere`.

Ive said it before, and Ill say it again, clubbing in Japan is an awesome experience. The friendliness of the people is above and beyond any `pills-free` place I have ever been to. Its one of the main factors that got me here, and this night more than lived up to expectation.

After getting suitably hammered my Japanese was getting better and better (this is a phenomenon which is apparently very common) and so we ended up chatting with loads of random people. Having said this, most of my conversations consisted of me saying `Subarashii, ne!!!` and getting the response of a hug.

The music in Womb on this night was house and techno, with a few random selections (at one point impromptly breaking into `Hit That` by The Offspring!), and was for the most part really really awesome. Im not a big fan of house music generally, but when its done right its really cool, and this was one of those times.

I also have to say something about the quality of the laser lights show and VJs in womb, as they put on an awesome show. The pictures here wont do it justice, but they were really cool all the way through, trust me!

After hours of dancing, drinking and chatting we left the club around 5. On the way out we were given a whole bunch of leaflets although I have to say my favorite one was for a drum n bass tour of Japan sponsored by Nike. The leaflet was obviously coproduced by Nike, as it had some pictures of various Nike trainers `ideal` for drum n bass. The idea of having a pair of `Drum n bass trainers` is awesome to me, and I definitely now want a pair!

Before we left the hostel this night I had mentioned to Sam that we should at some point see the Tsukiji fish market since neither of us had seen it, and it is meant to be something that you should definitely see. Since our timetable consisted of clubbing all night and sleeping all day this was almost certainly going to be out of the question (especially since you are meant to go there around 7am). Sam however came up with the ingenious idea of going to the Fish market on the way back from clubbing.

The fish market was as expected a market with lots of fish, and we got to see plenty of interesting species, although our enthusiasm was dampened slightly by the intense tiredness which had yet to, but which was surely about to hit us.

Highlights of the fish market included seeing some really big fish, and the crazy buggie guys (they drive dead fish around to different parts of the market) who nearly run you over at every available opportunity due to the incredibly narrow streets, and the large volume of people.

After realising we had seen enough we headed back to our hostel to catch up on some much needed sleep.

The next day we woke up around 3, headed out for some food, then went back to bed to rest up for the intense Saturday night we had ahead of us. Saturday was the night we were both really looking forward to as it was a drum n bass night headlined by DJ Zinc and Dynamite MC. Since getting to Japan I have been searching far and wide for some DnB in Nagoya, but it seems I overestimated how popular the scene is here. I have recently found out about one night on the second Saturday of each month but it seems that it is not as widespread as I initially thought. Because of this I was very excited to find this night featuring Zinc and Dynamite, as well as the extra draw of Makoto (a Japanese DnB artist with releases on Hospital records) who I had been wanting to check out live for some time.

Once again we decided to drink in the lounge of the hostel, and ended up talking to this American bloke named Dave. He had just got off the plane, and had not had any sleep but decided it was best to stay up all night, and agreed to come along with us. Dave was in Japan to study Aikido (a Japanese martial art) under a teacher who is the only person in the world who can teach it apparently.

After a large amount of drinking (Dave drunk an entire litre of Sake on his own!), we decided to leave having first also dragged along an Australian bloke named Warren with us. On the way, Daves jetlag sunk in and he passed out on the subway, veering dangerously close to falling asleep on some poor womans shoulder.

We ended up once again in Shibuya, and headed to a bar to meet one of Warrens friends. After about an hour of looking we eventually located it, and then promptly decided to leave to avoid having to queue to get into the club. Warren however decided to go with his friends to a different club, so we left them. After a lengthy wait for a train and a very long search for the club we eventually finally found it.

Unit is slightly more upmarket than Womb, altho still has a very casual dress code and a chilled out atmosphere. There were 2 rooms, one was 2 floors below the ground, and the other, 3 floors below the ground. We headed to the lower floor to get some much needed alcohol for me and Sam (Daves Sake antics had him totally wasted).

On the wall of this room there was a giant video screen playing Disneys Fantasia which went strangely well with the intensely loud jungle music. After a few drinks, I headed upstairs to check out the main room. This room was awesome! The first thing that hit me was how good the sound system was. Im not much of a nerd when it comes to stuff like that, but obviously the Japanese attention to detail and being at the forefront of technology applies to clubbing as well.

The room had started to really fill up, and there was a group on stage called Rub-a-dub-Market who were some Japanese electro-reggae MCs, and who were really quite good. After a few minutes Zinc and Dynamite hit the stage and totally smashed it. Zinc is a DJ Im a big fan of, but I have to say this performance blew away all expectations and was one of the best Drum n Bass experiences Ive had in a long time.

As per last night, I met lots of really cool Japanese drum n bass fans, including one guy who had been to Fabric. Having said that there were also loads of gaijin once again, altho they were all really safe too.

After Zinc finished his 2 hour set, Makoto took to the stage with a Japanese MC, and again was totally awesome. I danced solidly for a ridiculous amount of time, and we got out the club around 530. The subway started again at 5 but the music was actually so good I sacrificed a vital half hour of sleep ( we would have to be out of our hostel by 11).

At a certain point in the night me and Sam realised we hadn’t seen Dave in a while. He had left his hoody in our locker so we assumed we would see him again. However we didn’t and we still don’t know what happened to him. He didn’t really know where he was or how to get back so Im a little worried about him, especially since he didn’t speak any Japanese, and it was freezing cold outside. O well.

Once we got back to the hostel it was about 730, which allowed us a 3 and a half hour sleep, before we had to check out. Since my bus wasn’t leaving Tokyo til 11 at night, we decided to do a bit more sightseeing when we woke up. I had been told by some of my students that the Meiji Jingu shrine was worth seeing, so we headed there. The shrine was in Harajuku which is famous for the kids that embark in CosPlay (which is where they dress up as their favourite characters from Manga comics or just really, really weird).

The shrine was quite nice, and afterwards we headed to Jingubashi which is meant to be CosPlay central, especialy on Sunday. According to my lonely planet book, these guys love having pictures taken of them so I was a little miffed to have my request rejected by the ones that I asked. However, there was a lot of love shown by the `Free Hugs` guys. These guys are all over Japan. As far as I can tell, they just love hugging people, so they stand around with signs saying `FREE HUGS`. You hug them and then that’s it. There is a few in Nagoya here and there but I was pleased to find a bloke dressed in a pink bunny suit offering them as that was a little bit special.

After my hug, we headed deeper into Harajuku to look around. We were both feeling well rough so didn’t probably take it in as much as we should have, but it was interesting nonetheless. As we kept walking, we ended up in Omote-Sando. This is a really high class shopping area, and everyone seemed to be proper loaded. I always say, in Japan you can tell how rich an area is by how many `little` dogs (i.e chiuaua`s and poodles) there are, and Omote Sando is full of rich girls with some sort of tiny mut.

A plus side of this areas economic luxury is the awesome architecture that adorns every building. Time after time we saw really cool, weird buildings, and this was reason enough to explore the place.

One of the highlights was Omotesando Hills, which is a high class shopping Mall. Instead of just having stairs and escalators between floors, they are all connected via sloping ramps that circle the outside of the mall. The center is also filled with these huge diamond like structures which make it look like Supermans ice palace.

Also in the middle on this occasion was some Japanese male vocalist singing. He started with singing an acapella of `White Christmas`, and then went on to sing some really bad songs.

After this we headed back to the station to get back to Shinjuku. On the way I saw some more CosPlay guys and decided to give them one last shot. I asked for a photo, and these guys were awesome. They got all the nearby CosPlay people together just so that I could get a picture with them. In my mind, they had redeemed their culture.

Also on the way, we passed Harajuku park. We could hear lots of loud music coming from within so we decided to check it out. When we got there, we saw what can only be described as a huge circle of Japanese men, dressed in an American 1950s style complete with motorbikes, INSANE slicked back hair and quiffs, dancing to 50s rock n roll coming from a huge speaker next to them. It was like we had stumbled upon rehearsals for Grease. Some were going completely mental, twisting like there was no tommorrow, others just kind of bobbed along. Sam turned to me and said `Only in Japan…`

We also saw a band playing in a hole in a hedge. Literally, there was a gap in a hedge, and there was a J-Rock band playing a set there. They were actually really quite good, well they deserved to be playing somewhere other than a hedge anyway, and we joined the small group of people that had gathered to watch them.

After this we headed to Shinjuku to get some food and our respective buses home. Sam left at around 830 but I had to wait another 2 and a half hours, and whilst there is a lot of things to do in Shinjuku, when you’ve had little or no sleep, there is not as much motivation. I managed to find a few video game arcades to waste some money, but aside from that just wanted to get home.

Luckily at this point I remembered that I wanted to buy some stuff for my students so went on a quick mission to find some sort of Tokyo speciality. I happened upon a rice cracker store and bought a box, which according to the salesman was a Tokyo flavor altho they may have just been trying to get money out of me.

The bus was 30 minutes late so I was standing around in the cold for ages which sucked! Eventually I got on it, got to sleep and got home without incident.

When I got in the door, I slept for 3 hours and then went into work to do a 5 hour shift. Im not sure if it was the copious amount of alcohol, or the standing in the cold, but Ive since developed a distinctly horrible cold. Luckily I`ve had the day off today so Ive been able to try to get over it before I have work tomoro. Urgh, what a chore! Tokyo was awesome but Im paying for it in spades now.

However it was still blatantly worth it! Cramming 2 months of clubbing into 2 nights was definitely needed, and I cant wait for my next Tokyo adventure. Accomodation permitting, I should be going there for New Years Eve to meet up with some friends, so I really hope I can pull that off as Im thinking that will be immense.

Anyway this has taken me ALL day so Im gonna go now. Not sure what Im doing next week so expect some more random thoughts etc. Thank you all very much for reading all of this, and hopefully I`ll see you (or have you read my words!) next week.

Much love

Jack

P.S Heres a couple of movies to go with the trip. One is of Unit, with Dynamite and Zinc on stage, and the other is of the rock n roll guys dancing. Enjoy!

The TV

2007-11-13T12:00:00.000Z

Ok, sorry again for the lateness of the blog but yeh am getting a bit slack sorry! This week has been about as exciting as last week but this time at least I had my camera with me!

On Sunday I went shopping in Nisshin in the hope that I could get something in the Dragons sale. Whilst I was after clothes, in the end I found a DVD store with a classics section in which all the films were 500 yen (about 2 quid) so I ended up buying Casablanca. (Since then I have also bought The Maltese Falcon and Strangers on a Train). Sweet!

On Monday and Tuesday I was at work all day so no fun then.

On Wednesday the highlight of the day was a trip to a nearby restaurant (surprise, surprise!). This particular restaurant was specialising in Doria`s (kind of like a Gratin but with rice). This was a three course meal starting with a lush salad, a main of a seafood Doria, and a desert which was awesome! It was a fruit parfait buffet, which is basically where you get a glass and can fill it with as much fruit and lush ice cream as you can.
Yes. I was very impressed by that.

Thursday and Friday were spent planning the numerous trips I have planned. Next weekend I am going to Tokyo with my friend Sam (more on that later), in 2 weeks me and Ayae are going to Kyoto to see the Koyo (the changing of Autumn leaves altho we may be a bit late lol!). Also at Christmas we are going to Okinawa for 3 days and finally I should be heading to Tokyo with some mates for New Years Eve. So there are plenty of blogs to look forward to!

On Saturday I had work, a highlight being Yukiko (one of my adult students) going to the trouble of preparing maps, directions and even information on various tourist spots, for my trip to Tokyo. I was very touched by this and will be sure to buy some Tokyo themed gifts to bring back for her and the rest of the class!

After work I decided to try to explore Osu again since I was completely defeated by it last week, this time armed with my camera. Again my frugalness reared its ugly head and I came away with nothing, however hopefully these pictures will make it somewhat worthwhile. As you can (hopefully) see, there are rows after rows of a sort of indoor market (but huge) each framed by a different ornamental archway. In addition to this there are loads of tiny little backstreets with more obscure hippyish clothes and variouss home wares. There is also loads of huge neon signs beaming from the massive stores all around this area which makes for quite an assault on the senses.

On Sunday again I went shopping in Nisshin, and Monday again I worked. I should also say that on this day I was feeling rather experimental so after some gentle persuasion I decided to buy a can of `Tomato Cocktail` which was basically like a tomato flavoured alcopop. The taste was as expected completely disgusting but hey, at least I gave it a crack.

In need of a topic to further this blog, this week I have chosen the well documented world of Japanese TV. I`ve been here 2 months now and whilst I haven't sat down in front of the `idiot box` very often, the few times I have, have given me ample time to gather some material.

Japanese TV is famous round the world, mostly for bizarre game shows, rubbish soap operas and animation. Actually being here and watching at my leisure has given me a much more authentic taste however.

One particular show I love is called `The One Million Yen Dream` which is a show in which the hosts give the contestants the chance to win a million yen. There are various different opportunities for this. One involves trying to blow out candles on a birthday cake from a 1 metre distance, one involves travelling around a water circuit in a rubber dinghy (dressed as pirates of course), whilst the hosts use various methods to try and knock you from your boat. These include a huge inflatable ball set off a big ramp thing Indiana Jones style, an inflatable ball gun thing, and a huge huge fan. Its basically It’s a Knockout meets The Krypton Factor.
My favourite challenge however is the `If you find me you get a million yen`challenge (great translation!). This is basically a game of hide and seek in which the hosts are invited into the contestants house to find them, and if the contestants can evade capture for 30 minutes they get the prize.

Its such a simple idea but makes for awesome watching. Theres this one where the contestants come up with ingenious ideas such as flooding the bathroom to the ceiling with bubbles, and using a straw to breathe whilst hiding on the floor. It should be said that even on this occasion the family were still found, but Im told occasionally someone does actually win.

Another show I saw yesterday was `Is it Just Me?`. This is a show where various celebreties are gathered together to have all their weird personal habits (such as chewing rice for 5 minutes before swallowing it, wearing a different pair of pajamas each night, and sleeping in a sandwich like state with 5 futons on the bottom and 5 on the top) exposed to the audience. They are then given the chance to say why they have this weird habit, and find out how many people out of 1 million Japanese people do the same. Lastly the two hosts judge them as to whether they are `futsu` (normal) or `Henne` (weird). Its all done in a very comical manner, and typical of Japanese TV features a ridiculous myriad of graphics and bright colours constantly bouncing round the screen. The highlight for me though is when the audience find out what the habit is and squeal a huge communal `EEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH?????????????!!!!!`.

Being as British TV is generally regarded as the best in the world and Japanese is regarded as well, the strangest, it was interesting that I found these 2 shows so wonderful. Recently British TV has been on a downward spiral (as anyone watching Charlie Brooker will agree!!). It seems the only things of recent success (circa Sep 07) in Britain usually involve some reality element, filled with hosts that are complete bastards and contestants you want to punch. Japanese TV however which is supposedly based on ritual humiliation (well, according to Clive James and Chris Tarrant anyway), seems to be much more respectful and enjoyable on all levels (even with the language barrier!). Its also providing me with good exposure to the Japanese language, although quite when Ill need to know the phrase “Argh! The bathrooms filled with bubbles!` I don’t know.

I also want to take this time to introduce you to a Japanese comedian who goes by the name of Yoshio Kojima. Here he is.

His act basically involves him dancing around in his underwear and singing at a high pitched voice. At the moment he is EVERYWHERE. Seriously if I put the TV on now I can almost guarantee Ill find him. On a commercial, or a talk show, a sitcom or even a food show he`ll be there somewhere. Anyone familiar with Japanese comedians will know this is typical. Apparently when a comedian becomes famous they are on every show every day for a year and then never seen again. I guess if your entire career can only last a year you`re gonna want to put in as many man hours as you can if you want to support yourself the rest of your life.

The names that precede him as `famous for a year then never seen again` include HardGay (a leather clad gimp like wrestler) and someone who I know only as `Bowl Head` (who the Japan `05 guys will surely remember). They become famous, ridiculously over exposed, then disappear. They are everywhere, then nowhere.

(BTW I tried to get a picture of `Hard Gay` but after googling `Hard Gay Pictures` and seeing the results I got, I decided it just wasn’t worth it).

Anyway despite the crudeness and ludicrousness of Kojima, a smile always creeps onto my face everytime he comes on screen. I dunno, maybe Ive just been in Japan too long.

Anyone whos curious enough feel free to check out the movie linked at the bottom of the page. Its worth staying with it, as theres a good slapstick payoff at the end.

Ok, that’s enough for this week, thanks for reading and be sure to tune in next week for a Tokyo special edition of my blog. Got a couple of things planned which Im hoping will be awesome, (in fact I`m certain they will be!).

Take it easy yo!!!!

Jack

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1237096EAwQaze7