Miscellaneous

I'm back at work after a good Golden Week. In Japan, there are three Big Weeks of the year, when most people have holidays. As you can imagine, having a whole nation of people on holiday at the same time has good and bad points.

Good points:
-you can see any of your friends, as you all have holidays; families can easily spend time together
-if they didn't force them to take this break, a lot of Japanese people would probably work the whole year through with no time off at all

Bad points:
-every touristy place is CROWDED
-roads are hugely congested
-hotel prices and airfares skyrocket

I had a student who drove up to Tochigi Prefecture. The journey of 30km took him over 5 hours. !!! The Government reduced the toll on the highways (yep - you have to pay to use the highways here) so the already congested roads were packed beyond belief. Fortunately, I never had any problems with this.

***

The video shop on my street, which closed recently, has reopened as a fruit and vegetable shop. There was clearly a gap in the market for it - literally, a 500m gap. It's nice for me, because it's on my walk to the station. Before, if I wanted to buy fruit, I'd have to walk an exhausting 50m away from the station to get to the supermarket from my house. (Yes, I live 50m from a supermarket. ^_^)

This is a place where small stores can still fill an important role. In my suburb, especially, there are lots of tiny 'mom and pop' stores. When I went in there for the first time, the owner offered me a piece of grapefruit to try. I bought a bag of six apples for 150 yen (about $2). This is an AMAZING price for Japan, where it is very possible to pay more than that for *one* apple. (And most apples here are Enormous. These ones were normal-sized.)

I can get most basic vegetables here, but one thing I don't like is that capsicums are expensive here, no matter what the season. Here, capsicums are called 'paprikas' (?!) and a single one usually costs from $2.50-$3.50.

I'm going to teach a special class called 'Food English'. The main goal in this class is to try to dispel some of the Japanese English. So, as you may know, Japanese has adopted a lot of English words into the language. However, some of the words don't have their original meaning, or have been so katakana-ised that they don't sound anything like the original.

Other Japanicised words are words that are originally from French or Italian or other languages, but Japanese people think they are English and use them in English conversation.

Here are some examples of Japanese English and the translation:

chou cream (pronounced 'shoe cream') = cream puff

soft cream = soft serve ice cream

taruto = tart (you can see it's come from English, but the pronunciation is unrecognisable)

cookie and cookie = cookies & cream (ice cream flavour)

donuts = donut (they pluralise it even if it's singular, because in Japanese it's donatsu - same with shirt (shaatsu))

piman = green pepper (we don't have these in Australia; they're like small capsicums, but they have very little flavour)

one-piece = smock/tunic (that kind of long top... actually, we need a decent name for that in English...)

marron = chestnut

wear = clothes

soft drink = non-alcoholic drink (coffee and tea are listed under 'soft drinks' on menus here)

maniac = fan

arubaito = part-time job

anketto = questionnaire (apparently it's from the French 'enquête')

horumon (sounds like 'hormone') = offal

English words are popular here, but even if the English is written on a menu, it's still safer to pronounce it Japanese-style. Today I recklessly ordered a 'Bailey's Cinnamon Latte', using normal English pronunciation, while pointing to the Bailey's drinks (there were only two drinks on the poster - cinnamon and hazelnut). I had to repeat myself, and then the clerk asked me 'cinnamon or hazelnut?' ("shinamon, he-zurunatsu?")

Speaking of coffee, the staff at my local Starbucks have taken to writing little 'thank you' messages and smiley faces on my daily cappuccino.

(I'm sad to say it really is a daily habit and I am very predictable. Today, I only bought a banana*, and the girl, slightly confused, asked me if I wanted anything else. Other times, I haven't had to open my mouth. Once, the guy had caught sight of me and finished making my cappuccino before I could even get to the counter to order it. They are very nice people, at my Starbucks. ^_^)

*(Am ashamed to relate that the reason I only bought a banana was not because I was forgoing the coffee. It was because I had just finished my cappuccino at a different branch of Starbucks, which didn't sell bananas.)

Izu trip - day 1

Atami - Day 1

On the weekend I went to the Izu Peninsula in Shizuoka. From Yokohama, it's about 2 hours south by train (assuming you don't take the expensive shinkansen, which we didn't).

I went with my coworkers Nami (manager), Aya (assistant manager) and Pete. It was probably one of the best weekends I've ever had. They are all nice, fun people, and we went to some beautiful places; the food was good, the weather was good, we did some fun things...

So, first we went to Atami. We were staying in a kind of ryokan (traditional inn) slash hotel. In my experience, a ryokan differs from a hotel in two main ways: there are more rules, but they take better care of you, especially regarding food.

The main rules involve following a rather strict time schedule (Pete commented, 'oh, I didn't realise we were staying in a military hotel') and making sure you're wearing the right kind of footwear.

The scenery near our ryokan was beautiful. After checking in and having the customary cup of green tea awaiting us in our room, we went down to the beach. Now, up close, that beach was disgusting - the far end of it was strewn with garbage, and we found a dead albatross buried in the sand.

However, we had a lot of fun. Aya had brought a beach ball and we took lots of silly pictures and wrote in the sand.

Of course, the next day we realised that there was a nice, clean, non-black beach just 100m further down the road...

After that, we went to get in a hot bath before dinner.

I love hot springs. Atami is very famous for its hot springs; in fact, there's even a hot spring complex in Yokohama that pipes in its hot water all the way from Atami. Pete went into the guys' side and the rest of us into the girls'. We had a small indoor hot spring bath and a small outdoor one, rimmed with rocks. Very relaxing!

After the bath, it was time for dinner. Dinner starts strictly at 6, and when we went into the dining room we found many tables laden with meals, each serving prepared, ready for the guests.

Atami - and the Izu peninsula - is very famous for seafood. (I think I've mentioned this, but it seems like every place in Japan is very famous for something. Whenever you say you're going somewhere, people will say 'oh, you should try their local soba' or 'you should eat ramen there'.) Accordingly, seafood we ate.

That meal was pretty impressive. There was a huge sashimi boat in the middle of the table. I didn't eat any of it except to try one piece of tai (snapper). Then, each of us had several small dishes, such as tiny, flavoured shirasu (baby sardines); what tasted like potatoes with a thick coating of nikujaga-like paste; small shrimp to be eaten whole, head, legs and tail; an oyster; edamame (soy beans), tsukemono (pickled vegetables).

That was just for starters. We each had a kind of pot; a waitress lit candles/fuel things under each of them. These 'candles' burn fiercely for several minutes, cooking what's inside the dish. Inside were clams, which opened as they became hot, and mushrooms and bean sprouts.

We were brought a whole fish, a big orange one, divided into four bits. Me and Pete claimed the middle parts; Nami got the tail and Aya the head. Pete didn't like the eye staring at him while he was eating. We also had as much rice as we wanted, and miso soup with crab legs in it. To finish, we had ice cream and green tea. It was a very satisfactory dinner. ^_^

After dinner we went to karaoke, as our ryokan had karaoke rooms. We had an hour included with our ryokan. Then we had an hour of ping-pong, in a huge room we had to ourselves. This was a lot of fun, though I'm not good at ping-pong...

After this we went back to our ryokan and set it up for bed. Usually, ryokan staff will set up the futon while you're at dinner, but we had to do it ourselves, laying out the futon, sheets and quilts. Our room had tatami mats and paper sliding screen windows, so we opened a window to let in the cool night air.

Ryokan and hotels in Japan provide you with yukata (casual Japanese robes) you can wear in and around your room. They're a great idea for places with hot springs, because they're less hassle when dressing and undressing. Also, in Atami, with its holiday feel and quite a few hot springs around, you can see a few people walking on the street wearing yukata. (I think usually you'd only wear yukata within the confines of a hotel. It's like nightwear.)

Then there's shoe etiquette. You wear your normal shoes outside, then put on the ryokan slippers for walking up to your room, then you leave the slippers outside your room and go in your room in your bare feet or socks. If you use the bathroom, there's a set of bathroom slippers in there. You can also borrow the ryokan's zori (wooden sandals that go with yukata) to wear outside. It's easy to forget what you're supposed to be wearing...

We had another hot spring bath before bed. ^_^

Seoul

Well, I've just come back from being in Seoul, South Korea, for three days. I enjoyed Seoul. I was comparing it with Japan a lot, because the two countries have a lot in common, I think.

Seoul, though perhaps a less popular tourist destination than Tokyo, is more tourist-friendly and tourist-oriented. It seems like most people speak a little English, or at least, are not intimidated by foreigners coming up and speaking foreign languages to them. A lot of stores seemed to have products geared to a foreign market, too. I think one benefit is that Seoul seems to have a tighter concentration of tourist-popular areas. Seoul is a big city, but a lot of the popular places are in walking distance in the middle. Whereas in Tokyo, the popular places are all quite widely spread.

The people were a bit more friendly and outgoing than in Japan. Several people randomly said "hi" to me, shopkeepers were genuinely smiley and friendly, and I got 'interviewed' by a couple of Korean uni students in different locations.

However, on the 'dealing with foreigners speaking English' point it's a bit difficult for me to compare the two countries.

See, I knew very little about Korea before going there; my only research consisted of finding out about some famous sightseeing places. I had booked it so soon before going (I was literally confirming the flight two days before leaving), I didn't have time to do much research. The day before leaving, I found out purely by chance, talking to one of my students, that the water is unsafe to drink. And I only realised, through putting two and two together, that Korea's toilets are like China's - you often can't flush paper, but should put it in a bin beside the toilet.

My ignorance about Korea included the inability to say even one word in Korean. During my stay I became just about familiar with how to say 'hi' and 'thank you', but that's about it. It took me a full day to learn 'thank you'. For some reason, Japanese words stick in my mind much more easily; I think because Japanese pronunciation is much more straightforward.

Anyway, as a result, I could only rely on English, gestures and so on. So I'd go up to people and just randomly speak English. I have actually never tried this in Japan. In Japan, almost without exception, I will speak Japanese first, and only switch to English if I get completely stuck and the other person has to 'rescue' me. So I don't know how Japanese people would react if I only used English. But in Korea, communication was never a problem.

Seoul seemed a bit more polluted and humid than here. The mornings were kind of hazy.

Korean food was delicious. As you'd expect, there was a lot of kimchi. Sometimes I'd order a dish and get anywhere from 4-7 little side dishes accompanying it, with various vegetables and kimchi. To be honest though, it was a bit spicy for comfort. The best thing I had was chijimi, the vegetable pancake. I had one with stalks of green onions, and octopus. Really good! But I ate far too much.

Spiciness aside, in some ways Korea is a better place for food than Japan, I think. You can get some Japanese food there, if you like Japanese food (and I do like a lot of Japanese food), but Korea has much better snacks, and a much better coffee culture. In Japan, at least half the snacks and desserts you see are pretty miserable-looking, and there are only two or three coffee chains that produce decent cappuccinos in the whole city.

I thought perhaps Japan's poor coffee was just an Asian thing. But Korea is bursting with cafes, and has loads of coffee store chains, all of which are as good as any I'd find in Australia. It was nice to be able to try some different coffee places, not just go to Starbucks all the time. Also, the Korean coffee shops had much nicer-looking desserts than in Japan.

Also, everywhere you go in the shopping areas, there are little carts and stalls, everywhere, selling freshly-made pancakes and waffles, and various fried and barbecued things I couldn't identify. I tried a few and they were delicious. ^_^

There's going to be a festival from this weekend, so some things were being set up for that. I don't know if this is normal, but we saw lots of police officers. I mean, buses and buses of police officers. And setting up sandbags, etc. Many of them had riot shields. I walked past the entrance to an underground shopping mall, and passed about thirty cops, all sitting in neat rows on their riot shields, looking at the entrance. They looked pretty young though. I'm glad I wasn't coming out of there; I'd be rather taken aback to emerge to that sight. I have no idea what that was all about...

I also saw a few cops walking down the street holding up 'Free Hugs' signs...

I went with an ex-coworker. We did some of the usual sightseeing things, and went to a club. I also got a body treatment massagey thing. Very nice. ^_^

As for the tourist places we went to, you can see them on Flickr. Okay, I really should go to bed. Tomorrow I'm off to Atami, a hot springs town in Shizuoka!

Miscellaneous updates

Last night I had an all-nighter in Shibuya. (All-nighters generally happen when one gets stranded somewhere. Last trains, you know. So around midnight there's always the inner debate - should I leave right now when the party's just getting started, and get my last train? Or should I stay, thus committing myself to another five hours here?)

It was a fun night. But I was a little surprised. I thought of Shibuya as the city that never sleeps - there are lots of 24-hour places and lots of clubs, bars, etc. But a lot of those clubs and bars close around midnight. Accordingly, we did a *lot* of wandering around. We ended up in the love hotel district. I couldn't believe it. There were SO many love hotels, there must've been at least 100 or 200.

(Love hotels are places where you can rent rooms for a short time - 'rest' - or the rest of the night - 'stay'. They are themed hotels, often with decorated rooms, where couples can go discreetly... some of them were boasting Wii or DVD, and some had sexy costumes you could wear...)

***

The weather continues to be wonderful. So much nicer than last year's spring. In the last two or three days, suddenly azaleas bloomed everywhere. I never realised just how many azaleas there are around here. A student told me that Kawasaki's 'symbol' flower is the azalea. It would make sense. There's also a big underground shopping mall in Kawasaki called 'Azalea'.

***

I am hoping to go to Korea next week. It's very close to Japan, after all. I found someone to travel with (it's easier to find someone to go to Korea for 3 days than someone to go to the US or something). But nothing is booked yet, so I'm not sure.

The other night I went out with some students and we had Korean food. Korean food is Magnificient. We had bulgogi (a kind of beef and thin rice noodles dish) and chijimi (vegetable pancake), and a kind of pork yakiniku (barbecue) where we wrapped the pork in lettuce leaves. Yum!

***

Yesterday I went to the Edo Tokyo museum in Ryogoku. It was really interesting. I was lucky to get a free English guide, in what was basically a private tour. His English wasn't that high level - he could talk quite well but every time he asked me a question, and I replied in my clearest, simplest English, he wouldn't understand my answer. Hahaha...

But he was a very nice man and I learned lots of really interesting things about Japanese history. When someone explains things to you, it comes clear and alive in your mind a lot better than just reading loads of signs.

After this, I went to Akihabara for a while. They have some interesting souvenirs. I bought some Maid Cookies. (Maid cafes are a famous thing in Japan.) They also have oden in cans, and bread in cans. I bought bread in a can (with cute anime girls on the outside) for a friend as a gift. It sounds pretty gross, but it's one of those 'only in Japan' things... hahaha...

***

Life is good. I've started studying Japanese a bit again. I'm going to take a one-off lesson today, though generally I've stopped taking lessons. As I think I mentioned, I am finishing my contract in early September. I've been thinking vaguely on-and-off abut what I might do next. I'm still not sure I'm ready to leave Japan; I like it so much.

There is some possibility in my mind that I would try to stay on for another 6 months, in a different job. On the other hand, it'd be a lot of hassle (organising visas and taxes and accommodation, etc), and much easier to just go back to Australia. So I haven't made any decisions yet. I suppose it would depend a good deal on whether I could secure another job.

I hope everyone's doing well. I wish I could come over to Adelaide for a week or so, just to say hi...

Kabuki

After reading this blog entry, Pete and I decided we wanted to see kabuki. Accordingly, today we went, with three friends. (Two of them are students - I went white-water rafting with one of them - and the other I just met today.)

Kabuki is a style of traditional Japanese theatre where all the roles are played by men. There is a famous, old kabuki theatre in Ginza called Kabuki-za. Next year, this lovely old building will be torn down - apparently it's not earthquake-resilient and there are various other reasons - and relocated into a more modern complex. Thus, this year is like a 'farewell' year where each month, they play various famous or favourite shows.

You can purchase tickets for a whole session - a few hours - but we decided to see only one act. It was 1 hour and 20 minutes, so it was long enough to enjoy. Since we couldn't get reserved tickets, we lined up a short time before the show. I was disappointed that we could only get 'standing' tickets - thinking that 80 minutes is a long time to stand - but actually I enjoyed it. We were in the very back row of the theatre and we had a good view, though it was at a distance. There was a row of benches behind us, though if we sat down, we wouldn't have been able to see.

They also rent out English earpieces. It's a headphone that goes in just one ear, and during the performance they give you explanations of what's going on. You can listen to the show with the other ear. This is really good, because they don't try to translate every single word; they summarise it. Eg: "Rokusuke reveals that he lost the fight on purpose. He knew that his rival was caring for his elderly mother, and he felt that he needed this job. Rokusuke was moved by his rival's dedication to his mother."

When compared with Western-style theatre, there is a lot more emphasis on stylized movements and in creating an attractive 'picture' than in representing situations in a realistic way. According to the earpiece, if you were to take photos of a kabuki show at 3-second intervals, and looked at them, each would look like an ukiyo-e (woodblock) painting - nothing out of place, each character and item perfectly positioned.

The tale we watched was called "Keya Mura". According to the Kabuki-za website:

"The evening program begins with KEYAMURA, a play from the puppet theatre, that shows a master swordsman named Rokusuke (Kichiemon) living humbly in the countryside only to meet his fiancée, a powerful woman named Osono (Fukusuke) and goes to avenge the death of her father, his fighting teacher. The highlight of the play is the contrast between the two highly contrasting sides of Osono’s character. She is a fierce fighter on the one hand and delicately feminine when she learns that Rokusuke is her future husband."

The characters wore white facepaint and traditional costumes - kimono, samurai clothes, etc - and extras, dressed all in black, would scurry about the stage removing props etc. To the side, musicians would sing/narrate, or play the shamisen, and one guy's job was to strike the ground loudly for dramatic effect. The actors warble operatically rather than speak, and they didn't seem to have microphones; they spoke loudly, but did sound a little quiet from our vantage point at the back of the theatre. Add to that the fact that kabuki includes a lot of archaic Japanese, and I was very grateful to have the English explanations.

After the show, I realised that our Japanese friends had barely understood any of it. I asked one girl how much she understood; she said 20%. But then when I was explaining some elements of the plot, they were like "ohh! So that's what they were doing?" etc; so in fact they hadn't even understood as much as they thought they had... Overall I think it was more interesting for us foreigners, and I really enjoyed it.

After the play, we walked down to Tsukiji, which is famous for its huge fish market. The weather was lovely. The market was closed, as it was night time, but we went to one of the many sushi restaurants. I still don't like sushi... but I tried crab brains (yuck) and we got a huge tuna head (delicious).

As we left, the clerk gave us all candy shaped like sushi. Pete was rather startled to find that what looked like nori (seaweed), actually WAS nori. That's right, they made fake sushi out of sugar candy, and wrapped it in real seaweed. Hahaha...

Hanami season

Haven't blogged much about my recent activities but I've been keeping busy and still doing something every weekend.

Three weekends ago I went to a house party that Pete had, and then went to all-night karaoke. (^_^)

Two weekends ago I went to a hanami (cherry blossom-viewing party) with some students, and I saw a movie ('Yes Man') with my co-worker, Yumi.

Last weekend I went to a festival in Kawasaki and a kind of mini-hanami at Daishi Park, nearby. The following day I went to Odawara Castle, another popular spot for seeing cherry blossoms. Yesterday morning I went to Mitsuike Park, which is not far from Kawasaki. It's supposed to have about 1000 cherry trees.

This year I've been very lucky; the last few days have been prime for cherry blossoms (as in, the trees have been at their peak - cherry blossoms don't last at all long), and the weather has been perfect. As of last week, it actually feels like spring for the first time.

I've been taking excessive numbers of pictures, especially of the cherry trees, which are beautiful. I finally updated flickr so you can see my last few weeks on there.

Tanoshikatta

Today we had a potential student, an elementary school girl. When I came to meet her she was fairly quivering with excitement. This girl's love for English had to be seen to be believed. I taught her a few words in a fairly simple way and she was jumping about and saying 'tanoshikatta!' (that was fun!!).

She was brought by her grandparents, and I don't know if my teaching was especially impressive, but there was no denying that this girl was INTO it. Before I started, she had an air of 'oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm actually about to study some English!!' In fact, her grandparents said that it was the girl's decision to come to an English school - she was the one who begged to be able to come.

After mentioning that we were having a class of that level less than an hour later, they decided, on the spot, to join. And I mean, she actually stayed around and joined that class, the same day. I tell you, seeing this girl's face, you'd think all her Christmases had come at once.

So today I had three new students in my kids' class. This class has always had only one girl - for a full year, only one student - so our lessons have been fun but more subdued and with more direct interaction. Needless to say, the dynamic today was very, very different indeed. Instead of participating in every game, I was organising them and monitoring what they were doing. I kept it very energetic and we did a lot of running around etc. I'd been a bit apprehensive about it but it was a lot of fun. ^_^