Tokyo Adventure

Actually, nothing noteworthy happened. I basically wandered around Tokyo for 4 days. The pictures do a much better job at telling the story. But here is the rough outline in writing.

At 10:30PM on Tuesday, Dec. 23rd I set off on a night bus towards Tokyo. We arrived at Ikebukuro station at 4:30AM, so I headed over the the Tsukiji fish market. It was a total mad house with lots of dead sea creatures for sale. Then I explored Ginza, went to the Imperial Palace, Hibiya park, Tokyo Tower, walked to Ropponggi district and then Shibuya. I spent the afternoon in Shibuya exploring and looking for a specific capsule hotel and I ate all-you-can-eat pizza to Shakeys (yummm). I finally found the hotel, checked in and then went out for a few drinks. That was Christmas eve.

Christmas morning I walked over to Harajuku and checked out the Meiji temple and Yoyogi park. Then, once again, I spent all afternoon looking for a specific place. Once I found it, I met up with a bunch of other English teachers (mostly from England) for an extremely expensive and miniscule turkey dinner. Then we went off to the sticks for extremely affordable all-you-can drink karaoke. Back at their apartments we continued to sing and party until very late. I got an unclaimed bunk which was nice and private but totally bare, so no pillows, blankets or pads for me.

On Dec. 26th I got to sleep in (on the empty bunk) and then one of the hosts made amazing breakfast sandwiches. I took off back to the main city and stopped by the SONY building and then Akihabara, the electronics/computer geek capital of Tokyo. I spent the night there in an internet cafe. 

The next day was probably my favorite day, which I spent at Ueno park. It is a great park with statues and museums and a zoo. I spent all day there and I could probably spend another day there. There were also some really good street street performers. That evening I headed to another part of the city to catch a band, but I could not find the venue... even with the assistance of a bilingual college student. It turns out I had the address wrong. Even though I initially wanted to go to Harajuku on Sunday morning to see the people who dress up, I decided to save some money and the struggle to find a cheap hotel and just head home. So I caught the shinkansen home and met a really nice old guy that bought me a beer in exchange for English conversation practice. 

It was a good trip. Very challenging and lonely at times, but I'm really glad I had the experience. And I learned many new things. For example, even if you have a map and an address, it can still take hours to find an establishment in Tokyo.

Japanese hospitality

Last night was the gathering at Tamura-san's house and I finally got a real Japanese home experience. There were two other football players, Franchesca, Kelsey, Me, and the Tamura family, which consisted of grandma, grandpa, Tamura's wife, and two children. The guests were treated like royalty. The made us eat home-cooked Japanese food and drink large amounts of beer and good sake... it was horrible! (sarcasm)

The whole evening was spent sitting on the tatami mats around the low heated tables (kotatsu). Early in the evening I got to chat with grandma which supported my generalization that little old Japanese obaasan are super easy to talk to. The always seem to talk very simply and slowly for me. Grandpa was the opposite. He sat right next to me and mumbled everything, but I think it was because he was perpetually smiling. He looked at me and we laughed together every time something was said, even if it was in English and not even particularly funny. 

The kids are unbelievably cute and very good at English for their age. I could tell Tamura-san was ecstatic to have 3 native English speaker in the house. Much of the evening was a language lesson (both English and Japanese). 

The picture is of Kelsey, Franchesca, the Tamura kids and me. I'm sure Grandma was just being polite, but she told me that she is waiting for me to come back and eat with them again because I live fairly close. Tempting. 

PS- It took me like 5 minutes to figure out how to flush the toilet... which was operated by remote (why is a remote necessary for a toilet ?!?!?!?!?!). I couldn't read any of the buttons and only a few of them had illustrations. But I survived without making a mess. 

The joys of miscommunication

Backstory - My second day in Joetsu I was walking along the beach and I met a group of Japanese guys. One of them knew a little English so I talked with him for a few minutes. He then invited me to play beach football* with them on the weekends. I have been meeting up with them almost every weekend and they have been good acquaintances. 

*It's actually two-hand-touch rugby, played with an American football, on the beach. However, we moved to a gym once the weather started to turn. 

Last week the English-speaker, Tamura-san, invited me to a BBQ on Dec. 20th. Cool! 

Yesterday on our way to the gym, he asked if I had free time after practice. Then he said something about "helping for a Christmas party". I ASSUMED we were going to be preparing for the BBQ.

Actually, we went to a reasonably fancy Christmas dance recital that Tamura-san was helping run. There were about 500 people in a huge theater, all wearing nice clothes, while I was wearing smelly gym clothes. I mostly did easy stuff like open doors, except for at the end they thought it would be cute for me to lead the "goodbye" line. I had to stand in front of a big line employees and yell "arigato gozaimasu!" super fast while bowing repeatedly as people exited. During the exit rush I thought I was going to pass-out. 

Afterwards we went for a few drinks with the crew and I made some new friends. It was a really good day that I didn't see coming at all.  

Notes on Japan II

A friend made me realize that I've posted a lot of complaints and criticisms about Japan. So I decided to write an entry on the things I love about Japan. 

Japan is a cash society. As a result I've not seen any checks since I got here. You get paid by direct deposit and you pay your bills at the nearest grocery store or 7-11. It's really nice. And the ATMs update your bank book. You just insert your book and it will print out your transaction history. NEAT. 

I still love Japanese food. And I really wish I could keep getting the school lunch after I go back home. 

I can keep myself entertained by using my own translation for some words. For example, "machigata" means "I made a mistake". But I laugh internally every time I hear a teacher or a student say it and I pretend they said "aaaaahh, I fucked up".

I can't believe I'm thinking in another language a little. It is not very often, but I've caught myself thinking "dekinai" (I can't do it) and "nanji?" (what time is it?). Some words are just easier to think in Japanese. 

It's not a car society. Public transportation here is cheaper and more efficient than cars. And since there is higher demand for trains/busses (when compared to the U.S.), they run more often and can get you anywhere. I think they promoted public transit by making gas, parking, and toll roads expensive. 

What I do with my spare time

Photo tour

Last weekend I took a trip down to Takasaki, Gunma, to visit another English teacher from California (Ian) whom I met before I left on my big adventure. I took all local trains to save money and to make things challenging for myself. I definitely succeeded in the latter by missing my first connection (actually, it didn't exist, I swear), so the train schedule I had written down from the internet was useless. The whole trip took about 6 hours.

Here are some photos from along the way at Muikamachi station.

Ian (yellow shirt) and I went bowling with a bunch of JET's that he didn't know either.

After that we found a small Izakaya and chatted with a few drunk old guys over some beer. It was at that establishment I discovered the world's smallest bathroom.

 

The next day I just hung out with Ian and then took the long train ride home. This trip also took 6 hours because I missed my first connection again (my fault this time). But in my defense, I only had 4 minutes to change trains and it was the biggest station of my journey (10 platforms). 

Monday was a holiday so I got to explore Joetsu a little more. I found a neat statue on my way to the aquarium, and from the aquarium roof I was able to take more pictures of Joetsu.

Notes on Japan

I was under the impression that the girls would go crazy for me over here. But I'm learning that 95% of the girls my age seem to be deathly afraid of me. When a girl sees me she acts like I'm going to steal her purse and then grind her bones ot make my bread. I met one girl that seemed excited to meet me, but it turned out that she just wanted free English lessons. My Jr. high students are a differnt story though. I get weekly marrage proposals from them.

In a similar vein, most old men look disgusted when i smile to them on the street. Old women smile back or just pretend I'm not there.

I expected the hospitality to be unbelievable. And it is about 50% of the time. Then 45% of the time the person I'm dealing with seems totally indifferent. The last 5% is outwardly rude. But every time somebody is rude I just assume they have to poop really badly.

I heard that some foreigners over here don't like to see other foreigners. I guess they want to pretend that they're the only westerners in Japan. But every foreigner I've met or seen has been really friendly or at least given me a very genuine smile/head nod. It's probably because we both know what it's like to feel like an extra-terrestrial. I've also heard that some foreigners band together in groups and only hang out with each other in an English speaking bubble. I think I have observed that, but I don't blame them because it can be hard as shit to make Japanese friends over here for some of the above-mentioned reasons.

I was going to write how nobody sits by me on the train... kinda like the smelly homeless guys on the busses back home. But during one particularly long travel day, two different women sat next to me to practice English. The first one spent the whole trip looking away from me, but then said "Have a good trip". The other was much more chatty and tried to convert me to Christianity.

Everybody told me there would be a ton of vending machines here, so I expected the streets to be lined with them... which is not the case. I thought to myself, "There aren't THAT many vending machines". Now I'm starting to realize that whenever I get the urge to waste 150 yen on a sugary, caffeinated drink, I only need to look around and there will be a vending machine in sight. It happens way too often. There are a ton of vending machines in Japan.

The "sake principal" has me totally confused. After the lesson in Japanese mind reading, most people over here told me he just wanted to relate to me and didn't know how to use the proper tone, since he's a student of the English language. But I didn't buy it because during our talk he was not smiling, he didn't need to take me into his office to have a friendly conversation about sake, and his body language was authoritative in general. Furthermore, he was not chummy after the talk like he had been for my first two weeks at the school. He totally ignored me. For some reason, today he came up to me and started talking about my car in the friendliest way imaginable. He has not acted like that since before the sake talk. I can only guess that I was well behaved during the unspoken 1-month probation period and I was let back into the club. Or maybe he just had to poop really bad that month.

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. I really missed Thanksgiving dinner and the family gathering, but I had a pretty good time over here. I met up with Franchesca and Kelsey for Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant. I'm glad they agreed to meet me because they didn't even know it was Thanksgiving (she's English and he's Canadian). They don't sell turkey over here, but I had a hamburger steak, corn, potatoes and cesar salad :-)