At the training centre

Hi everyone! I'm writing this from our training centre in Omiya. It's like a school camp, since we're all living in the training centre together in rooms like dorms. There are ten of us new teachers here. I'm sharing a room with a girl from small town New Zealand. There's also one other Aussie, a Canadian, and the rest are Americans. It's such a relief finally being around other people who speak English. I feel like a normal human being again!

Today is our day off training, but tomorrow we have five consecutive days of 11am-8pm training. It's going to be full on and we'll have to teach real Japanese students three different lessons. The lessons seem very formulaic though, so once you get used to it it should be easy enough.

Nikko was really nice. It was a lot of effort to get there - took about 7 hours from Kyoto, and as usual I took a train I didn't intend to take... But it was really stunning there, and I got a free room upgrade. I had a double room, my own personal dining room, and the hot springs bath was really fantastic after a long day walking around in the cool.

It's funny, sometimes I travel in a kind of 'I've heard of this place, I think I'll go there' way, without really knowing where I'm going. For example I went to Lake Chuzenji from Nikko, not realising it was up in the mountaing. We went up 700m in altitude - it was a stunning bus ride - and you could feel a tangible drop in temperature up the top!

In one of the temples - they all sell good-luck charms - I saw a 'dragon arrow talisman'. This item 'protects from misfortune for eternity'. When I saw that I thought 'for 3000 yen, an eternity without misfortune is a pretty good deal'!

I'm very adept at recognising the katakana for 'cappuccino' now.

I had dinners at my ryokan in Nikko, and I couldn't believe it. It took me a full hour to eat. My first night, I sat down and there were only about five small dishes in front of me. I thought 'bonus! This is achievable! I can eat all of this!' Five minutes later, a lady came in with eight more dishes... oh well...

Sometimes I can hardly believe what I'm eating. There are occasions where I don't even know whether it's meat or vegetable. Still, I can be more adventurous at dinner than breakfast. There are lots of pickled or vinegar-y flavours. The other night I had whole anchovies, and what looked like the cross-section of a fish, including all its internal organs, only the whole thing was a dark, ominous, purplish-grey.

Sometimes I feel like Bill Murray in 'Lost in Translation'. You know the part where he's filming the TV commercial, and the director gives him heaps and heaps of instructions - just talks on and on - and then the translator gives a three-word translation. It's so true. You'll be on a train and there'll be this very lengthy spiel in Japanese, talking about arrival times and which stations you'll stop at, and it will be followed by the English:
"The train at platform 8 is going to Joyo."

Yes, thank you.

Better still is when they cut off the 'unnecessary' English translations in mid-sentence, eg: "The train at platform 9 is the local train bound for -". Yes? Bound for where?

I saw a food stall with the interesting sign:
"Would you like to have a Rice Clacker?"
I decided I would like to have a rice clacker, but I regretted it. It wasn't very nice, and like most things I buy here, it went in the bin.

I actually bought a jar of Vegemite today. I'm such a sad Australian...

Last week I actually had my first ever Big Mac, in Kyoto. I was fairly unimpressed with it; it was a pretty sad excuse for a burger, in my opinion. But I've never eaten Hungry Jacks or Maccas burgers, I'm used to home-made ones, or gourmet ones, or even fish-and-chip shop ones, so this was pretty sad in comparison.

All this trip, surrounded by the Japanese who are light packers, I've felt like I've had a ridiculously excessive amount of luggage with me. It hasn't helped that I've been hauling it around several cities and train stations. But compared with most of the other new recruits, I've packed very light indeed. It's all a matter of who you compare yourself with, right?

Anyway, I should probably go and prepare my lesson material and read my notes for tomorrow... fun fun... wish me luck, I'm a bit nervous about teaching in front of people... hope you're all well! :)