Phew... I'm rather glad this week is over. Basically, I've moved the entire contents of an apartment by hand. Because I'm too cheap to use a transportation company, or even a taxi, every day I've been hauling huge loads of bags via the trains, lurching clumsily through every ticket gate, and leaving my stuff at my office.
This morning is the first morning I've neither had to move, nor work. I have a whole glorious day to do nothing. Right now I'm staying at a hotel, and I shall presently go down for a free lunch buffet. ^_^
It really is remarkable how much stuff one can accumulate in just over a year and a half. I sent a package of stuff back to Australia; I threw out about ten huge garbage bags of stuff, and I still had about 20 bags, and a very swollen suitcase, to bring.
Anyway, it's all done now. I expect to move into my guesthouse in a few days. Happily, it's only a few minutes' walk from my school and hotel, and I chose to move in one day before I have to check out of this hotel, so I can do quite a leisurely to-and-fro of bringing my bags in. My room is going to be really small - I mean, considerably smaller than the fairly small apartment I just left. So long as I can physically fit my suitcase in there, I guess it will be okay. I've never stayed at a guesthouse before. Hopefully it will have a nice atmosphere. I haven't even seen it, but I've signed up for one month.
Last night after work I went out for Nepalese curry with some students. After that, we went out to karaoke. We did three hours of karaoke, and I sang at least a dozen songs, and it was the first time I didn't sing *any* English songs. ^_^ Actually I think it may have been the first time I was the only foreigner among Japanese people. It was nice to be able to finish at about 3am, and just walk back to my hotel, without having to feel 'trapped' by my lack of train.
Tomorrow I and another teacher have been invited to lunch at the house of one of my students. She is my child student; the one I have taught the longest, and I really like her and her mum. So it's nice they invited us over. The girl was all 'onegaishimasu!', hoping we would come. ^_^
I've now been teaching my 'last' classes. That is, I taught my last Thursday, my last Friday, and my last Saturday. I will still teach Tuesday and Wednesday next week. So at the end of each class I've been giving everyone a Tim Tam. Several students have given me presents, which is really nice.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Tokyo Photo Scavenger Hunt
I had a very fun day today. Pete organised a Photo Scavenger Hunt. Basically, you get a big list of items, and go off and try to take photos of as many items on the list as possible. The team with the most items at the end, wins. We were divided into three teams. I was with my co-worker Aya. ^_^
We spent most of our time running around Shibuya, Yoyogi and Harajuku. The race began and ended at Hachiko square. We were allowed to go anywhere, but due to time restraints, we stayed in the same area (we had five hours, which sounds like a lot, but we also had a lot of items to find).
Some example list items...
Someone waving with both hands. It's not all that uncommon to see this; particularly young girls at train stations. But we couldn't find anyone. So a few minutes before our 'deadline', we asked some random foreigner on the street if he wouldn't mind waving his hands for a photo. Hahaha...
A live cicada. Aya supposedly photographed one - I couldn't really see it in the picture she took - but I never saw one. I heard hundreds of them in Yoyogi Park, but they really are completely impossible to find...
Someone wearing leather pants. Even at Harajuku station, we couldn't find one. But happily, the Rockabilly club was out in Harajuku. These are the dudes who dress up like guys out of 'Grease' and dance to 50s rock 'n' roll in the park, complete with ducktail hairstyles and - black leather. Score! Actually, all three of our teams went to that park and got the same guy!
A kid laughing. And, a kid crying. So every time we saw any child go past, we looked at their faces. 'Oh, all the kids in Shibuya are not laughing,' said Aya.
Then in Yoyogi, there were a lot of happy kids, and we finally got one laughing. After that, we were scrutinising all the kids in Yoyogi to try to find a crying child. They were all too happy; we pondered how we could make one cry. Fortunately it didn't come to that, and we eventually found one outside a huge toystore. Hahaha.
A shirtless man. These are very easy to find in Yoyogi Park, and almost impossible to find in regular city streets in Tokyo. Today was pretty warm, but fortunately not as hot as the last few days have been (it was really humid and stifling). In fact, it was quite comfortable weather for our scavenger hunt. ^_^
Twins. I saw identical twin girls in identical dresses. My camera was permanently on, and in my hand, and in a second I had them. We had to keep a lot of different items in our mind at all times, looking around for people wearing crocs, and someone with a tattoo, and so on.
Disney ears. All of us, independently of one another, went to the Disney store in Shibuya. Actually we got quite a few of our list items in relevant stores.
A stuffed dolphin. We looked in a lot of stores for this one! Finally we were in Harajuku and I spied Kiddy Land nearby. Score!
A couple kissing. Anywhere but Yoyogi Park, this would have probably been quite tough. But I saw a foreign couple walking hand-in-hand, and they looked quite lovey-dovey, so I kept my camera trained on them, until - yes!! - they leaned in for a kiss.
Someone walking two or more dogs. If I were in Yokohama, down at the harbour, this would have been super easy. We had to actually go to the 'dog run' area of Yoyogi Park in order to find someone. A nice man was pulling a bulldog in a cart, and when Aya asked, he invited us to come with him to the area. (It was funny to walk with him; every single picnicker and couple and family sitting nearby turned to stare as we walked past, and most of them exclaimed 'kawaii!!' (Cute!))
A bald head, taken from above. We were in a large department store, going downstairs, when suddenly Aya did a u-turn and took off up the stairs, taking them two or three at a time. (This kind of behaviour was par for the course today, hahaha.) When I turned to see what she was doing, I immediately realised why - a guy with a fully shaved head was coming up the stairs past me. ^_^
A Louis Vuitton bag. This must be one of the easiest things in all of Tokyo to find. Hahaha! 'Let's look out for one as we walk,' I said, and within about thirty seconds we had a good shot.
A couple wearing masks and holding hands. Some people do wear face masks to protect against colds and flu; but this was a difficult item to achieve. So in a novelty store, we asked a random couple if they wouldn't mind wearing some children's face masks and having a picture taken. So we have a cute shot of Kamen Rider and Stitch holding hands. ^_^
87 different things to find. We got 59 of them (well, 62, but 3 were deemed 'invalid', for example instead of a picture of 'a shrine' we just had a picture of a shrine gate, etc). We got a few extra points for having 2 or more list items in the same picture, and overall our team came second, out of three. ^_^
Some of the items we *didn't* get: a cat, a couple both wearing crocs (and I looked SO constantly for this one!), a child using a vending machine, the 49th floor of a building, and the inside of a love hotel (the other teams got this!!!).
I'd love to do something like this again. Maybe I'll organise one myself some day. It really does seem better in Tokyo etc, than it would in Adelaide, mostly because people in Adelaide don't tend to run around with cameras, whereas in Tokyo you don't stand out much.
We spent most of our time running around Shibuya, Yoyogi and Harajuku. The race began and ended at Hachiko square. We were allowed to go anywhere, but due to time restraints, we stayed in the same area (we had five hours, which sounds like a lot, but we also had a lot of items to find).
Some example list items...
Then in Yoyogi, there were a lot of happy kids, and we finally got one laughing. After that, we were scrutinising all the kids in Yoyogi to try to find a crying child. They were all too happy; we pondered how we could make one cry. Fortunately it didn't come to that, and we eventually found one outside a huge toystore. Hahaha.
87 different things to find. We got 59 of them (well, 62, but 3 were deemed 'invalid', for example instead of a picture of 'a shrine' we just had a picture of a shrine gate, etc). We got a few extra points for having 2 or more list items in the same picture, and overall our team came second, out of three. ^_^
Some of the items we *didn't* get: a cat, a couple both wearing crocs (and I looked SO constantly for this one!), a child using a vending machine, the 49th floor of a building, and the inside of a love hotel (the other teams got this!!!).
I'd love to do something like this again. Maybe I'll organise one myself some day. It really does seem better in Tokyo etc, than it would in Adelaide, mostly because people in Adelaide don't tend to run around with cameras, whereas in Tokyo you don't stand out much.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Earthquake!
We had two quite big earthquakes in the last 36 hours. Here's a report on the ABC website.
Lee and I got woken at around 5am this morning; the windows were rattling violently. The floor was swaying back and forth between us. I thought 'it's a stronger quake than usual', and sat up and moved into the middle of the room (thinking to move away from any objects that could fall on me. Lee was also woken up by it (she's in Japan for the week, staying with me ^_^) and we both sat up.
Apparently it was a quake of magnitude 6.6! Fortunately we're not right at the epicentre so it was a little less powerful where we were. We didn't have any objects falling over or anything. But it was certainly the strongest earthquake I've ever felt.
Actually, there was another earthquake - during the day on Sunday - which was apparently slightly stronger, but I guess it might have been further away?
I hadn't felt any earthquakes for a few months.
Lee and I got woken at around 5am this morning; the windows were rattling violently. The floor was swaying back and forth between us. I thought 'it's a stronger quake than usual', and sat up and moved into the middle of the room (thinking to move away from any objects that could fall on me. Lee was also woken up by it (she's in Japan for the week, staying with me ^_^) and we both sat up.
Apparently it was a quake of magnitude 6.6! Fortunately we're not right at the epicentre so it was a little less powerful where we were. We didn't have any objects falling over or anything. But it was certainly the strongest earthquake I've ever felt.
Actually, there was another earthquake - during the day on Sunday - which was apparently slightly stronger, but I guess it might have been further away?
I hadn't felt any earthquakes for a few months.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Karaoke to ka
On Monday I went to karaoke. I sang a few Japanese songs. Now, usually I can only sing Japanese songs if I have properly memorised them beforehand. But this time, I was able to sing several songs that I know only fairly well. I haven't memorised them; I can't sing them without reading the words. But I was able to read the Japanese characters on-screen, fast enough to sing. I made quite a few mistakes - sometimes I couldn't get the right character quite quickly enough. But I could *mostly* do it!
I remember when I first sang Japanese songs in karaoke; I could just read the first couple of characters on the screen before the sentence was gone, and a new one appeared. There was absolutely no way I could have sung even a slow song just by reading it.
I am still a slow reader, but much improved, so I am happy. ^_^
One reason for this is that now my vocabulary has improved, I can often see the first couple of characters and 'predict' the rest of the word or phrase. Or if I'm reading a whole sentence, I can make sense of the sentence, and thus my brain will more quickly interpret the characters.
This is one reason my katakana has improved only partially. I can fairly quickly read common katakana words - system, campaign, campus, cappuccino, sawa (^_^) - I see these words on lots of signs and ads. But katakana can also represent names, company names, foreign words, etc, in which case I am sadly slow at mentally translating each syllable. Another problem is that you rarely see whole passages of text written in katakana - just words here and there. It's not like you can read a whole passage and get the gist of it. All the words are unconnected...
***
One of the nice things about having high-speed Internet constantly on tap here in my house is that any time I encounter a word or reference I don't understand, I can look it up on the 'net. There are a lot of pop culture terms and references which I have heard before but never really understood.
Two recent examples - read some article where they described this guy as looking 'like Ted Bundy'. I'd heard this reference before and always thought he was the hapless goof from 'Married with Children'. Then I realised, hang on, that's AL Bundy; and I looked up Ted and he was a serial killer!
Another example, today, was a reference to Rip Van Winkle. I know he had some connection to sleeping, from Gershwin's 'Bidin' My Time', but finally looked him up and found out who he was.
I remember when I first sang Japanese songs in karaoke; I could just read the first couple of characters on the screen before the sentence was gone, and a new one appeared. There was absolutely no way I could have sung even a slow song just by reading it.
I am still a slow reader, but much improved, so I am happy. ^_^
One reason for this is that now my vocabulary has improved, I can often see the first couple of characters and 'predict' the rest of the word or phrase. Or if I'm reading a whole sentence, I can make sense of the sentence, and thus my brain will more quickly interpret the characters.
This is one reason my katakana has improved only partially. I can fairly quickly read common katakana words - system, campaign, campus, cappuccino, sawa (^_^) - I see these words on lots of signs and ads. But katakana can also represent names, company names, foreign words, etc, in which case I am sadly slow at mentally translating each syllable. Another problem is that you rarely see whole passages of text written in katakana - just words here and there. It's not like you can read a whole passage and get the gist of it. All the words are unconnected...
***
One of the nice things about having high-speed Internet constantly on tap here in my house is that any time I encounter a word or reference I don't understand, I can look it up on the 'net. There are a lot of pop culture terms and references which I have heard before but never really understood.
Two recent examples - read some article where they described this guy as looking 'like Ted Bundy'. I'd heard this reference before and always thought he was the hapless goof from 'Married with Children'. Then I realised, hang on, that's AL Bundy; and I looked up Ted and he was a serial killer!
Another example, today, was a reference to Rip Van Winkle. I know he had some connection to sleeping, from Gershwin's 'Bidin' My Time', but finally looked him up and found out who he was.
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