A holly jolly Korean New Year Part 2

I’ll start off where I left off I guess, New years day saw us sleeping in until noon after all that dancing and stuff. Jake and I went to a temple (as is the Asian custom to do on New Years day) with Moon-Ju’s parents. She had work to do or something, can’t remember what but she didn’t come along. So ya, we went to the famous “T’ongdosa Temple” where Melissa stayed the night back when she came here. It was a beautiful scenic area in the mountains with a fancy stone bridge over a stream, and hundreds of brightly colored lanterns illuminating the walkway to the front gate among other things. There was another type of wishing well; this time you threw money into a pond where a pedestal was erected underwater. If your coin landed on it your wish would come true, great way to get rid of those 10 won coins that are nearly impossible to spend ;) (1 won is 0.1 cents Canadian.) Anyways I got 2 of them all right and it was the same wish as the day before with the rocks so technically I’ll have triple the luck on my wish, right? :D

After the temple we went to the “spa” or public baths you could call them. We indulged in the different saunas and temperature varied waters; I still enjoy sitting in the ice cold bath after getting way too hot in the warm ones. So anyways later on we were getting ready for this “full body massage” that we kept hearing about since arriving. I was in the middle of wondering what kind of cute girl will help me relax with a hearty massage when we turned the corner and met with our reality. Two short, hairless, naked Korean men with steel wool gloves and beach ball bellies awaited our arrival with waist-high beds in front of them.

Haha for some reason I sure wasn’t expecting that, but I guess it WAS the men’s public bath (where everyone is naked anyways). Ah, how strange wandering thoughts can shatter the moment. If you were wondering about the steel wool comment, it was because we weren’t actually “massaged” as one might delicately put it. No, it was much more interesting than that. We were very slowly and meticulously relieved of our top layer of skin. I wish I were making this up; they took their time going over every inch of our naked bodies save for the face or bottoms of our feet with this painful sock-glove. I was grimacing in pain for most of it and was afraid a couple times he might actually rip open my stitches on my hip from the surgery among other fears. I went into a few more details a moment ago but it made even me gag so I deleted them and I will save you from my own discomfort, leaving the rest of that 20 minute long session to your imagination. It ended none too quickly and he made sure to show me the layers he took off that were now strewn about my body and the immediate area.

Well that was an unpleasant experience but Jake didn’t have much of a problem with it, maybe my skin is more sensitive or something. I wasn’t in there much longer and got dressed and waiting in the lounge until it was time to leave. There was news on and it was rather uninteresting so later I somehow snatched the remote and changed it over to channel 71, the star craft channel ☺ Almost immediately the atmosphere around the locker room changed as people got excited and huddled around us watching TV. Boys who heard it from far away shouted “star craft!” and ran over to watch it with us. I said to Jake “maybe this was a bad idea, we are attracting naked boys.” Haha it was so strange and it started a couple cool conversations with people around us about their son who plays or whatever we could scratch out commutatively regarding the game.

Yikes enough on that, we had a great supper and learnt a Korean card game which is similar in Japan. It is a lot like matching but it was still fun, hard to describe without the deck to show you (it had special cards kinda like uno). Anyways the next day (Weds Jan 2) we took a bus to Seoul. The bus took about 4 hours and we didn’t do much other than check into our hostel for the upcoming 3 nights, read a lonely planet on things to do, and explore the immediate area waiting for Star to finish up work so we could all hang out together. The hill we climbed had a great view over the city of Seoul during the sunset and a cool thing about Seoul is there are exercise equipment strung out on these nature trails for the general public to use and enjoy. We found it odd but they were still entertaining, some we would spend time trying to figure out their purpose and digging into the old memory banks of elementary school phys ed class.

On the way back we saw a robot museum! It was closed though and we were sad, me especially. We met up with Star and had a wonderful evening again just chatting and trading stories; she showed us another really cool Korean dish that involved chicken. Korea seems to be big into chicken, another stark contrast with Japan that relies heavily on fish or beef, sometimes pork. She had planned a nature walk for us which coincidentally landed us on the same hill we were a couple hours previously ☺ That was alright though as this time it was a nice night view of the same area. You could see Seoul tower nicely again and it was lit up with fantastic colours. Star had to leave to get ready for a weekend snowboarding trip and we were sad but it was fun while it lasted. We went to a live jazz club (my first time) and relaxed with a beer listening to live jazz music.

Jazz and beer is a strange combination, a fusion that almost forces one to delve into their own souls and search. I spent the next couple hours just reflecting on where I was, where I want to go and the pros and cons to each possibility; or maybe I’m just weird ☺ I just know the Korean trip was a great time for me to simply get away from it all. I shocked myself with how much negativity came up about my current situation and all of it was digested and processed accordingly. Things like my cold house, missing my friends and family back home, how utterly busy I have become and other grievances that have become buried in my sub-conscience and all of a sudden my body was puking it all up at once; tired of being downplayed and demanding my attention.

Who has all the answers? I certainly don’t. I just go out every day and try to be the best person that I can be; or at least the kind of person my conscience has concocted as one who is a good person. I feel many of my actions are of a self-less nature, taking in the welfare of others before my own personal gratification. But are they really? One may argue my very existence in this foreign place is a direct contradiction to all that I believe, that me being here because I want to itself is being selfish.

Anyways I need not trouble you further with that stuff, I contemplate posting even that. Anyway I was definitely rattled leaving the club but was determined to bury it again for another day and enjoy the today for what it was, a vacation in Korea. Thursday came and we went to a town called Suwon, which is about an hour away by subway from Seoul with a rather large fortress in the middle surrounded by and older styled wall. Jake and I spend the next 3 hours traversing the parameter of that wall and seeing the city. I was rather surprised to see a humongous European style cathedral in that city. We didn’t spend much time in the fortress itself as the fresh paint and new buildings didn’t have much of an authentic feel to it. Before we left there were many cool China-styled markets with vendors and goods out on the street for the consumers to haggle over; perhaps it was a flea market? Oh and the train station coming home had a vending machine for books, the bottom row of which were books about your blood type ☺ I found that particularly amusing, apparently blood types have different meanings in Korea than they do Japan. I still find it odd, I mean there are only 4 types really; someone is getting rich off this superstition ☺

We met up with some Australian fellas that were staying at our hostel and made a voyage about ½ hour away for some Mexican food ☺ It was a humorous journey which included the “is this our stop?” along with the door closing behind Jake after he stepped out with the rest of us trapped on the subway and their unforgiving closing doors. He took the next one and all was good, but it was still funny to see him laugh at the 6 of us trapped on the train and helplessly coast away, clawing at the window like puppies in need of their mother (all the while again, Jake violently laughing at the whole thing through the window).

We didn’t stay up late as we figured we were probably doing a DMZ tour the next day. The tour was booked so our plans moved it to Saturday. Friday we met up with another JET who was visiting her friend that was classmates with her when they were learning Japanese. She uses Japanese everyday at her job but she says being with her friend was the “first time” she was “glad to have learnt Japanese.” I was still kind of rattled from the Jazz night so I didn’t need to hear that, my low Japanese level gets me down sometimes and hearing that from people who can practically speak fluently doesn’t help the motivation much.

We all ended up going to an old prison used during the last Japanese invasion for POWs. It was interesting seeing the old cells and reading about the history, even if WWII wasn’t mentioned at all, it kind of eluded to Korea forcing them out near the end of the war. There were different types of torture used but I don’t think it was displayed very well and a lot of it was aimed at getting children to bear a grudge against their Japanese neighbors; at least that was the impression I got. The information pamphlet even mentioned on the first page how important it was to spread their ancestor’s passion (read: racism) on to tomorrow’s youth. Which brings up another story, our friend was on the bus talking with her friend in Japanese when an older man abruptly interrupted and gave her a big long lecture on “Why are you speaking Japanese? Don’t you know what they did?” and all that stuff. Apparently he was so upset he got off at the next stop.

Anyways those are never happy places I guess, I found the one I visited in Europe much more informative; it didn’t have graphic mannequins dripping in blood and voice boxes playing screams in loops while children ran about us doing their homework assignments or a Japanese guard mannequin sitting back smoking a cigar while “watching torture on the monitors” or something like that. Didn’t know they had monitors back then. Apparently it was refitted and used by Korea up to 14 years ago or so before becoming a museum.

We weren’t there very long and like I said I wasn’t too impressed with the place, there wasn’t much English to be read. After many emails and a lot of co-ordination our friend had to leave and we were left to fend for ourselves again. We perused the area where there were markets and cool food shops; the one shop had a guy with a monster mallet making rice cakes. We spent a couple hours procuring our return tickets for Saturday then went out to see Seoul’s nightlife.

Star is a great gal, even though she was busy and she had work, she was still kind enough to send a lot of helpful information on where to go, how to get there and other useful stuff. Having a phone with an email address is really helpful! Anyways, we went to a couple clubs and had an amazing time, dancing until 5 in the morning. One place had tequila shots for $1.50 each and another place called M2 played electronic music that I loved and had a huge dance floor. The bartenders there were similar to ones back home, wearing scandalous outfits. Not that I’m complaining it was just so odd seeing something that provocative in an Asian country. Very nice! :D As Jake said “I swear I’m not staring!” haha

The next day we went to the DMZ. Last time I went I saw the tunnels and the train station and whatever, this time we went to the JSA where the table sits that North and South come together to have talks. This was easily the most interesting part of the trip; we had to sign waivers before we could go in saying we understood that our safety wasn’t guaranteed and what not. It specified specific rules like who you are not allowed to talk to by law and stuff, we got to keep it after the tour as a memento ☺ pretty cool.

We luckily had an American soldier step in and give the tour at the actual JSA as our current guide had rather shabby English. We saw cool things and I took many pictures when it was specifically allowed. Korean guards need to be at least 6 feet tall and a minimum of a black belt in tae kwon do. We saw the propaganda village from a distance where they have the largest flag in the world, 300 pounds or so flying over nice buildings that are uninhabited, trying to lure South Koreans over to defect.

We went inside the building where the talks take place and by going on one side of the table I was actually inside North Korea so I can add another country to my checklist ;) We were specifically told what we could or couldn’t do which included no pointing at anything at anytime. Apparently not long ago someone pointed at something and the North Koreans used the picture as propaganda saying “they are laughing at us” or something and before there used to be a strict dress code, specifically against jeans and propaganda saying “look how poor the Americans are!” or something. There are LARGE jamming towers that you can see in the distance that North Korea uses to keep radio and TV waves out of their country. (pictured: SK soldiers staring down NK. They stand half-way like that in case they are shot at then they aren't full targets)


We heard stories of the struggles over the years, North Korean ambushes, axe murder over trimming of a tree and America’s responding “operation paul bunyan”. We saw the bridge of no return where they filmed the bond movie and where POWs were traded. We saw the old house erected in 48 hours in the distance across the border where the armistice was signed. We saw the high tech surveillance everywhere, the quick time anti-infantry scramble units, the anti tank barrier, rare wild life in the DMZ where no one has been in over 50 years and that is littered with mines…

I could go on and on. Like I said, easily the most interesting thing of the trip to Korea, really cool and well worth the money. On the way back at a gift shop I bought some tea from North Korea for omiyage (presents) for back at the office. It smells good but I don’t really like the taste, some teachers joke with me saying they are afraid it might be poison ☺

We bused back that night and stayed at Moon-Ju’s again. The next day (Sunday Jan 6) she took to Busan to the beach! It was too cold to go swimming so we went to a large aquarium. It was a really nice place with glass tunnels that you could see sharks and large turtles swim around you. There are a couple videos on youtube of it now and lots of pictures posted. There were even cute penguins, so cool! Outside there was a car with an aquarium inside it and we went on a 3D ride that was really fun. Moon-Ju kept screaming and I kept laughing, it was really fun.

We went on a more scenic tour after that, walking around the shoreline seeing buildings and beach in the background, and fishermen in front of us huddled on the large rocks casting into the ocean. There was a large building near there where APEC 2005 was held and had pictures of various world leaders, even Paul Martin.

That night we went out for food and I saw Yuran again for the first time in years. She was surprised that I even remembered her but that’s alright, I think she got cuter since I last saw her. ☺ We all had a good time catching up and reminiscing, apparently I lost a lot of weight since she saw me last so I was beaming at the compliment. This was the meal where we got our whole deep fried chicken as a side dish to accompany our French fries. I poked some questions in her direction like if her company is hiring engineers or not ;) Oh and I’m to tell everyone she misses them! Especially Melissa. Unfortunetly I didn’t get any pictures together with her, it slipped my mind. Sorry everyone. (why did I only take 750 photos?!?! Oh the delicious irony)

Everyone had to work the next day so it wasn’t a very late night. Monday was technically our last day in Korea and it was a relaxing one. After sleeping in and lunch with Moon-Ju’s dad and other workers from the university we went to a large park in Ulsan. We spent a couple hours there enjoying nature trails and exercise machines; one machine flipped you upside down! It was cool but I couldn’t go on it long, too much pressure on the head.

Moon-Ju picked us up after work and took us to a traditional Korean market place to buy supper for the night. We got chicken feet, pig feet, seaweed and other tasty treats ☺ Ok I didn’t like the pig feet much but I guess it’s popular there. I love those style markets, they are so cool and the people were so friendly. I tried to buy a cheap Korean pear but the lady gave me an expensive one for the same price ☺ so nice.

The last night was really relaxing, sitting up late and enjoying each other’s company. We didn’t talk too much though because of the language barrier and because Moon-Ju was working overtime translating and she was getting tired. I slept one more night on that wonderfully heated floor (wish Japan had those) and we headed home on the 8th.

So ya, amazing trip and greatly needed. I was kinda surprised how much bitterness came out but feel somewhat better now because of it. I kind of realized on that trip that maybe I should see less different countries and more of countries I have already been to. A lot of my frustrations about Japan I feel stem largely from my small town and current situation. I need to see more of Japan, get out of my prefecture and go somewhere other than Tokyo. The more I learn about other cultures the more I realize how little I know about my own. I would like to say there is more to Canada than hour long lines in the morning at Tim Hortons, or that during winter we hibernate in our insulated centrally heated houses.

But that’s enough! My computer is telling me I wrote 3400 words already and it’s a long weekend! I’m going to get off the computer finally and play some video games ☺ The next update might be on Wednesday not Monday simply because it is the long weekend and I feel I’ve written enough for a while, you and I need a break ;)

"If you start to think that the problem is 'out there,' stop yourself. That thought is the problem." - Stephen Convey

"Yay video games!"
-tnoy

A holly jolly Korean New Year Part 1

Happy New Year! I’m back and feeling rested; I never realized how much I needed a holiday like that. I had a big and crazy adventure; I can only hope to convey a somewhat accurate representation of my exploits as sometimes words or my memory fail me.

Tuesday… the 25th (haha really reaching into the memory banks now eh?) Was one really busy day. I taught four classes and cooked a Christmas feast with my new oven. It didn’t turn out as good as I had hoped but that’s what happens when you try things for the first time… and having to leave the oven unattended for hours on end while teaching. I didn’t have a proper pot to cook the chicken in so I laid it out on some tinfoil, which unfortunately ruined my ability to make gravy. My pirogies had a lot more dough than I would have liked and my potatoes had a strange taste but at the end of the day everyone loved it and I need to share recipes later. I had hoped to go home and bake some cupcakes or something quick and easy for my other school too, but was just too tired after working 8 hours without a break. So that was my Christmas, can’t remember what I did to relax when I got home, I probably played more of that Mario Galaxy ☺

Wednesday I spent over 3 hours driving to and from a friends place 40 Km away or so, so that my kitty Otaku had some care during my extended absence. I am continually amazed what a good kitty she is; after being scared for the first 10 minutes or so in the car, she spent the rest of the trip napping on my lap. Amazing for a cat.

Thursday was a great day for school, my schedule of 4 classes somehow dropped to 1 giving me needed time to catch up on stuff, it was also the night of my bonenkai (year-end party) with Yayoi. There was the now seemingly standard all you can eat dishes of sashimi (raw fish), nabe (kinda like fondu but with food and broth), sushi (rice rolls), and other assorted platters. That night was one of my better experiences in Japan thus far, as there were no English teachers around me so I tried hard to use my Japanese. They would speak to me in English and I would respond in Japanese, it was very neat. I shocked them and myself, not that my skill is very good yet but at least I feel better about my progress. Apparently Bingo is a common door prize game at these parties and I ended up with some office supply prizes.

Friday’s bonenkai was like night and day with this party. Not only was it twice as expensive and I stayed half as long, but also since I was next to an English teacher no body would talk to me without talking to him first. I was very bored for most of it; even when I tried to branch out and talk Japanese to other people, they would stop listening right away and look at the English teacher beside me. Luckily it wasn’t so bad after people started getting drunk and not so afraid of talking to me. One of the table pieces was a fish’s head and tail, in the middle of those erected limbs was neat sashimi pieces. I found it odd, my one English teacher is pretty funny though: “we Japanese are like barbarians, we eat everything raw.” Haha what a guy. He said some people even eat the eyes of that ‘decorative’ fish head.

Saturday Dec29 I was up at 3 a.m. again after being drunk the last two nights in a row… still kind of feeling the effects of that, I headed out on the ½ hour walk to the bus. I told Jake (lives in the same town as me, my travel partner for the trip) to send me a message to make sure I was awake. Everything was all right though but we were sending a message or two back and forth confirming where we would meet, when the bus left, etc. I was about 5 minutes away from my house or so when I got the last message from Jake:

“Alright see you there. Don’t forget your passport.”

I froze. Holy crap you saved the day dude. I dropped my luggage and ran back to my house to get it. At any rate that was a stroke of luck, I would have been 3 hours away at an airport before I would have noticed most likely.

The trip turned out alright, still is kind of tiring waiting so much while half paying attention to where you are. When we arrived one of the first things we did was take a bus to Ulsan (where Moon-Ju lives. Friend of the family, great gal. Cute too!) from Busan where our plane landed. I bought a quick snack at the airport and before I know it the pretty lady working there was trying to give me a juice box. “service” she kept saying even though I didn’t really understand. “Gift?” she thought about it “yes, service” at any rate I got a free juice box and was thinking to myself “ah, how I missed you Korea”

My phone works quite well in Korea and other JETs are rather jealous of me for that. So it was easy to co-ordinate by sending emails for cheap or just calling internationally. Moon-Ju sent me a picture of where we were to get off. We panicked a bit when the bus driver drove by it and confusingly got off the bus when he did stop. I soon felt better though when I saw a girl jumping up and down outside of the bus door waving her arms with a big smile on her face. It was Moon-Ju! I hadn’t seen her for a couple years at least. She picked us up in her new car and told us she just got her license a couple months ago. It was quickly evident as we almost hit a car immediately as we pulled out and then ran a red light turning left soon after (they drive on the right like in Canada). The inside joke of the trip quickly became about taxi cabs as Jake joked how he was scared and Moon-Ju joked back how he should take a cab then ☺ Nah I think she did alright though, people drive pretty crazy in Korea.

Moon-Ju has a style of talking that more people need; blunt and honest. Pearls of wisdom shared with us included “this is my mom’s favorite singer, she is ugly” and “I don’t know why he did that, maybe he is boasting because you are foreigners.” But I shouldn’t talk about other people that much I suppose; at any rate hanging out with her was always fun and informative. We taught her “real” English that included slang words like “lamer” and different ways to express how cold it is… ;) not so politely of course.

So first off we went for Kristy’s favorite food. (Patty’s friend now living in Calgary) It was Korean BBQ with the grill in the middle of the table, not unlike what Chris and I had in China. You cook the meat on the grill and mix it with lettuce, sauces, and other side dishes strewn about the table. One thing you notice about eating in Korea right away are the side dishes; one night at a pub we ordered French fries because all pubs expect you to buy food if you are going to have alcohol. We got the cheapest dish on the menu (French fries) one of the side dishes was a deep fried chicken. I wish I were making this up; they served a whole chicken as a SIDE DISH for French fries. Other side dishes for those fries were a bowl of ice cream, soup, and other dishes you see quite often like dried fish and kimchi (spicy cabbage mix, it is like rice in china/japan; you have it with every meal). At first I thought the kimchi was kinda gross being cold and soggy but it was surprising how fast I warmed up to it, in fact I’m kinda craving it now thinking about it, but I digress.

So we went to leave the restaurant and Moon-Ju forgot that her lights were on ☺ It was the 4th time that week and she called her dad for a boost. She said it was lucky we were with her otherwise he would have been more angry. That gave us time to walk around and scout the area. We enjoyed the colorful signs and interesting names like “girl & beer” bar and got familiar with chain stores like “WA bar” which was on every block it seemed where there were restaurants. Later we met up with her dad and then her mom, she had practiced some English all week to greet us. It was funny being at her workplace as our mere presence was enough to shock and scare away some of the other employees. One fella actually started running away as soon as he was out the door and we were told his face was bright red for hours after. Super shy or something ☺

We explored more of Ulsan, seeing light displays and other goodies, even riding a Ferris wheel on top of a building in the middle of the city later on. I like seeing night views of cities and I like aerial views even more so it was very cool, lots of neon lights everywhere. We went to a pub after and hardly ate anything as they keep giving you food and you are expected to eat when you drink. Another thing we noticed right away is that there are a lot of birthday parties in Korea. They dimmed the lights and played a techno birthday song (different each time) at least 4 times in the hour we were there and they had sparklers. Moon-Ju had her birthday a couple days before we got there and said she had 4 parties thus far ☺ We pushed for another one but we decided against it considering how much food in front of us already wasn’t being eaten.

The next day (Sunday) we went with her parents to a famous temple/city in Korea: Gyeongju. There are building codes there where everything needs a traditional style roof… even the gas stations! Pretty neat to see, although the fringes of the city were seeing more leniency to that code and were more of the same you’d see in Ulsan. The place was pretty cool and we did ‘traditional’ things like place rocks in a pile. How it worked was there were many piles and you make a wish. You then take a small rock and put it on top of a pile and it comes true. I managed to do a rather difficult one so my fingers are crossed ;) I noticed in Korea superstition is aimed more towards wishes and not luck, a stark contrast to China. The temple we were at is famous for a monk character depicted on many paintings around Korea. You hang a picture of him in your room and he keeps away bad dreams, not unlike a dream catcher. But he also wards off “underground streams” or something; forces in the earth that sap your energy. But ya he looked creepy at first but now he looks pretty bad-ass; what he did was cut off his eyelids so he wouldn’t get sleepy. I wish I had bought a picture while we were there now but oh well.

We went to a nearby museum and saw things from ancient Korea and many students working on their winter vacation homework. Again, more homework specifically for their holidays, the outrage eh? ☺ They seemed pretty cool and it was awesome watching them write Korean letters on their paper, that alphabet is really cool. We went for “low fish” after, which is Korean sashimi I suppose, raw fish of sorts. Although there were more side dishes than raw fish it was still a good meal and there was a lighthouse in the background out the window overlooking the vast ocean. I’ve never really seen a limitless ocean from ground level before without islands in the background or something so it was pretty cool.

Monday came, New Years Eve, and everyone had to work; So Jake and I slept in and later indulged ourselves by watching Korean television. They have video games on channel 71 (ya I remember these things) all day long, 99% of the time it was Starcraft battles. For those who don’t know, Starcraft is a video game over 10 years old by now maybe and is almost a part of Korean culture itself, more on that later. The commercials were weird and wacky and usually TV shows or movies with Korean actors were riddled with bad acting; amusing to watch especially when you don’t understand what is going on. (pictured: me, jake, Moon-Ju, her parents)

Moon-Ju came and picked us up a little after lunch so that we cold see her university, the University of Ulsan (I think). It was quite a nice campus; we got a guided tour of at least three of the buildings. One building we went in had a picture of AIP 2005 on the wall. Haha yes, my sister Melissa is posted and laminated on that wall in the University; immortalized for the ages. It was funny I couldn’t see pictures of other years that have went, only the 2005 group. Anyways I took pictures and they’re posted along with the other photos; I took 750 photos on my trip and have since deleted almost 200 of those (blurry, duplicate, etc).

We met our tour guide and he said I look a lot like my sister, a comment that was expressed and echoed a couple times during my stay, even from Moon-Ju’s parents. While I’m not sure if it’s a compliment or not to look like a girl, I made sure to point out Melissa has more hair than me while showing my back hair. :O Just kidding Melissa.

After the tour and when Moon-Ju was done work we went to a pottery place to make things out of clay… ☺ Pottery is self-explanatory I suppose, anyways I started making a beer mug but boy that took a long time, my project was abandoned later when the teacher showed up and started using the spinning machine… thing to make cool pots right in front of us ☺ Moon-Ju and Jake gave it a try but I decided against it, maybe good thing too because we went to a New Years party right after with a bunch of her high school friends and she had a bunch of clay on her black pants ☺

The food was good and so was the company, it was Jake and I to about 7 different good-looking girls (including Star who I met last time! yay!). We wowed them a bit with what little Korean we had learnt the last couple days (na nun tony ya = I am tony; very roughly). It was cool too, my students wrote some Korean words on paper for me that they translated on their cell phones. Important things to say like “thank you” and “I love you” ☺ Those kids are great. Funny thing about that though, when I tried to use their words I “sounded Japanese” because the Japanese way of saying things uses their alphabet; “cream” becomes “kurimu” in Japanese kind of like “camsamnida” in Korean became “camusamonida”.

We later went for Korean karaoke, of which there was no nomihodai like Japan (all you can drink alcohol). It was still a lot of fun though and if you want to see something REALLY awesome, get a small cute Korean girl to do gangster rap for you ☺ oh man that was something else, she liked singing and was good so she did more than one song. Also teaching and getting a bunch of Korean girls to "raise the roof". All the girls save for Moon-Ju had to leave and go home though… before midnight on New Years Eve. Apparently all their mom’s would lock them out if they were out late but Moon-Ju had the “there are foreigners with me” card to play so she was safe, although her mom did call a couple times later that night to check up I believe. We went to a bar and convinced the bartended to play the countdown at least and we handed out sparklers to other patrons so they could join in. We counted down later in the night after I found my first Canadian beer since leaving Canada (it was moose head and it was over $7 but oh well). It wasn’t too terribly exciting and there weren’t many other places to go; one other foreigner was drunk and said rather vulgar things once stumbling to our table, but one point was kind of clear “does this look like new years or just a normal Tuesday night?” (pictured: moon-ju, star and friends raising the roof)

Ah well, so we later went to a bar with dancing (apparently kinda hard to find) and busted moves past 3 in the morning when we had to leave. Couples in Korea wear the same clothes here it is weird ☺ I have heard about it in Japan but haven’t seen it yet. Anyways sometimes they’ll go so far as the same shoes, backpacks and everything. That bar was cool; I somehow got 3 free tequila shots, maybe because it was 2008! (woo!) Some cute girls came up to me asked where I was from and another question. Bars are the worst places for talking and worse yet when there is a language gap, I regretfully made them repeat their question 3 times and ended up just guessing what it was. I guessed wrong though as all previous excitement in their cute eyes was instantly replaced with confusion and awkwardness. They quickly turned around and that was that. I still had fun though; Moon-Ju is a great dancer.

Well maybe this is enough for now, good way to end the year and not drive you mad with endless reading ;) Part 2 might be up tomorrow, see if I have time or not, I have to pick up my kitty and tutor my genki kids again.

"Whatever you dwell on in the conscious grows in your experience." -Brain Tracy

tnoy

Quick Reminder

Heya,
I'm in Korea until Jan 8! Extremely unlikely there will be and update in the meantime.
Happy New Year! Drink some of that delicious eggnog for your homie overseas.

"To die is nothing; but it is terrible not to live" -Victor Hugo
tnoy

Happy Holidays!

Well here I am Christmas Eve with my little kitty enjoying a day off. I don't really have a tree or anything but that's alright and tomorrow I will ambitiously try to cook a roast chicken for the first time outside of the 4 classes I am teaching. Yes on christmas day :'(

But anyways, I almost forgot an interesting story from last week's blog. One fella at the party Friday night and I were talking and he kinda drops a reference to how I'm from Saskatchewan. I thought that was weird as I usually remember when I mention where I'm from. When I ask more he asks me are you from moose jaw or something? I told him he was close and he said he could tell because of my accent. I was like whaaaa? I was rather shocked, I really must be tone deaf. I guess he was from Edmonton and said he could tell Saskatchewan people because they sounds nasally or whatever, the sound from having a plugged nose. I wonder if that's because our winters are so cold half the year when we talk the nose IS plugged. At any rate I was weirded out.

Back to more recent stories I guess, had alot more "free" time this week, as in I experimented more with cooked suppers and what not. Wednesday I had something of a christmas party with my English club. Everyone brought a snack from the convenience store and I brought some of my now world famous rice crispy squares :) We had snacks and chatted, even though sometimes they talked in Japanese so it was a little awkward for me not knowing how to contribute. Later on I got out the computer and showed more pictures from christmas last year and roast chicken.

A number of classes last week were cross word puzzles and find-a-words that I made for students to work on. I would write out the vocabulary on the board and draw pictures beside them for everyone and later explained what they were, what they had to do with christmas and how they were related. For example I would make an arrow connecting "stocking" with "fireplace". It was enjoyable for everyone and they liked my artistic ability even though I felt it is lacking. It was also a good chance to teach them what I thought were the basics of Christmas that surprisingly the students and teachers haven't heard of before. Things like leaving milk and cookies for Santa, or that he lives at the north pole (not Finland like one student said)

Thursday and Friday were good days in that the later parts of the day I had free. I found a chicken and other hard to find ingredients so I'm going to boldly partake in some cooking excursions. Friday night was another all you can drink and eat night which is always alot of fun. Jake and I got there rather early but the tables filled up quickly and we met new lots of new people. Jake translated for me at one point "she is saying she wants to talk to you more but doesn't know enough English". I told her to drink more and that would give her confidence! Many people were driving though so they couldn't drink. I find it kind of strange they would go to these kinds of parties then considering they're not that cheap if you're only eating and not drinking.

As the night wore on my own advice was taking effect and I was talking up a storm! Atleast I felt it was a storm and thinking back on it now I was assisted by Jake alot too. I found it really cool that I was using words I had learnt literally a day or two earlier and people were understanding me. I'm pretty good with the charades too I suppose. Later on in the night we started playing games for some reason for prizes. I was nominated more than once for drawing a picture or two. We won 3rd place of the 4 teams thanks to my wonderful drawing of a popular anime character ;) Even later yet the whole room played Janken (rock-paper-scissors) for the large door prizes. I had no idea what was going on as the whole room was doing Janken but somehow I ended up winning the last of the two big door prizes as seen in the picture. I was so confused it really was a gong-show. Jake was beside me telling me "you're still ok, keep playing" and I kept making different Janken signs with my fist until I was the last person. Next thing I know there is that big bag in my hands. "speech! speech!" they start chanting. Oh boy, time to give this Japanese a try that I've been using all night while I'm monstrously confused over what just happened.

"zen zen wakanai. arigato" (I don't understand at all. Thank you)

The room burst out laughing and I got many congratulations later on what a good speech I made. Inside the bag was a super fuzzy and soft blanket. Jake and I had long missed the last train home and luckily got a ride home from some people we met that night. Junko would have drove again but she had things to go and do unfortunately. Other funny events that night included showing off my mini dictionary Patty gave me... and the page that tells you how to say "touch me here" (koko o sawatte kudasai) Oh and my dream that night was all in Japanese, it was really cool, I feel like I'm make more progress all the time and words are sticking easier all the time because the vocabulary is getting bigger so you can relate words more and relation is how memory works really.

Saturday I played video games for maybe 9 hours straight. It was glorious.

That night having felt rested and like I satisfied my passion for a while, I agreed to a ski trip the next day :) Jake and I went over to John's place in Shiojiri so that we could all carpool the next day at 7 in the morning. We got a big snowfall that night, biggest one I've see here this year yet anyways. We gathered together a convoy of 3 cars and got ready for a 2 hour drive straight north (1 turn the whole time) to the "Happo" resort, site of the Nagano winter olympics (or one of them anyways)

So we get out on the road and drove 2 maybe 3 blocks before getting a phone call. We "lost" one of the cars and needed to meet up at the upcoming starbucks so we could regroup and try again.

Oh boy, this was going to be a long trip.

When we got to starbucks the "lost" car had caught up with us already by then which just further annoyed everyone; the trouble car was then on in the middle of the convoy, tightly sandwiched between 2 now slower moving cars. At one point our car (at the back of the convoy) didn't make a light that just turned red. Sure enough our phone started ringing soon after asking if we would be ok and if we knew where we were going (again, straight road) before the conversation was over we had caught up to the other 2 cars already. Anyways, long story short "let's meet at starbucks and try again" became the inside joke of that road trip.

We got to the mountain and it was really beautiful and covered in fresh show that was starting to melt as it was a warm day; I was sweating. Seems I dress way too warm for these trips. Anyways I tried snowboarding for the first time! It was really cool learning something new and getting over old fears. It was really shaky at the start, but soon enough I was making weird flexes and poses as I slowly skid down the hill. It is important to learn to land on your elbows when you fall though as broken wrists seem way too common, I had a couple close calls where my wrists were pretty sore after, and one wipe out buggered up my knee too for a bit.

Anyways it was a long run, seeing how there were 4 beginners. We wanted to go back up but they started closing the ski lifts because it was "windy". We weren't happy, those lift tickets were pricey and the weather was beautiful. We hiked for a bit to a moving chair lift and soon found out what they were talking about. There was a slow moving storm coming. The chair lift started to swing and freak me out, I was never good with heights to begin with but now I was alone on a chairlift with no safety brace in front of me swinging back and forth and dealing with the wind grabbing the big sail of a snowboard on my feet and trying to pull me out.

We got to the top and tried to get to the gondola which would get us back to the cars and what not. Problem was there was a STEEP mogul course between us and the gondola. Better yet, that snow that was melting all day now froze over into a nice sheet of ice. Getting down that hill was one of the more frightening things I have been through. I tried walking at first but it was too windy and I wasn't getting much traction. Later I tried to slide from mogul to mogul but there was a couple times where I almost never stopped as my body weight gave too much momentum. So ya, it was scary and took a long time but somehow we made it through ok. Amanda lost her snowboard early on and we watching it go super fast for like 100 meters before finally flipping and getting stuck in a bank.

We all went to an Onsen (spa/public bath/hot tub) after to heal the bodies and it was great. My muscles are still pretty sore, wondering if I got whip lash the one time I fell. We went out for sushi after and it was so tasty. I love those sushi train places, it's fresh and very buffet style. Monday today was a day off which was great again for the sore body. A friend knew someone who was looking for a big foreigner to play santa for their family so that was all I really had planned for the day.

He was extremely generous and doctors are my new best friends now. Let's just say for 10 minutes work I could buy a proper oven for my house which I hope to use tomorrow. So ya anyways there I was in a Santa suit in his house giving presents to his three kids. There was no tree and I didn't sit down. Pictures with me were a little strange for what I was expecting, like I shook the one kid's hand while they took pictures. Luckily Santa has the cop-out "ho ho ho" to say whenever he is feeling awkward or confused. I sang jingle bells and the kids where very quiet so I didn't give my deer in the headlights look too much I don't think should they ask me something. I told them to study hard and the mother of the house that she had beautiful children.

Well ya that was a crazy experience, oh and man those taxis are expensive! Luckily the guy paid for them, but it was $140 for him to get us and drive us back (he had been drinking so he couldn't drive himself) Now I know why everyone says don't take those things.

Well this will be my last update for a while, on Friday I leave for Korea so I won't be able to update until Jan 8th or 9th at the earliest when I get back. It's going to be a busy week and I need to get some sleep. I hope to make some roast chicken tomorrow, this having an oven had opened many doors for me :)

"you have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself." -Alan Alda

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! Sorry I can't be there, maybe next year ;)
Anthony

There is a cute little girl living with me

If you want to listen to an amazing song, it’s called “still alive” and it is played at the end of the game “portal”. It’s so happy and upbeat even though it’s the end boss singing about the inhumane experiments it conducts. ☺ Anyways, busy as always. Monday ended with Matt, Jake, Junko and her friend and I going for Ramen and then playing some video games at my place after until late. I was lucky to have my blog ready as I only had 5 minutes to post it before I had to run off. I was up a little late considering I was teaching at the Ina Yogou (handicapped school) for the first time the next day.

I am and always was nervous around people of disabilities, maybe mainly because I don’t know what is politically correct. Before saying handicapped was ok, but now it seems you have to say ‘special’ instead. Even saying that now makes me all squirmy as the last thing I ever want to do is offend someone, I catch some flak for being too polite sometimes but maybe that’s the Canadian side of me coming out. The movie “Canadian Bacon” comes to mind where all the Canadians are apologizing profusely even though they are being rudely shoved to the ground. So yes, the day was an interesting and enjoyable one. I met many wonderful people and brought many smiles to teachers and students alike. Many of my classes were me talking about myself or Canada and showing photos on the projector of last year’s Christmas at uncle Arthur’s place and Mom’s birthday last March when we had a roast chicken.

It’s fun explaining how we don’t eat horse in North America or how Santa asks you if you’ve been naughty when you’re sitting on his knee or how my family loves to eat their roast chicken with cranberry sauce even though I don’t like it. One teacher was so interested in seeing pictures of gravy being made (and hearing how it was my favourite part) I need to get the recipe for her and email it. Other time was spend with the students at lunch where I felt like a surgeon; everyone had to wear a facemask, bandana and apron after profusely scrubbing their hands with an abundance of soap and water. We also played some “badminton” in the playroom. I used quotations around badminton as we basically just had racquets and birdies, but it was still enjoyable. One student drew and coloured a picture for me of Jack Skeleton, another student gave me some Dragon Ball Z manga. (manga = Japanese comic book) There was a music class too where I sang “O Canada” to everyone alone and then lead them in “if you’re happy and you know it” and “Jingle bells”. We sung a number of Christmas songs that day.

It was a great experience and one everyone should have I believe. I remember when Melissa (my imoto; younger sister) worked with some special children and how that positively affected her. I like to believe I am more humble now but at any rate I look forward to future visits, the next being in February. Coming home Tuesday I went straight from the train station to the Japanese lesson’s Christmas party. I helped make Gyoza (same as Chinese Jyoze; Chinese pirogies) I didn’t do very well, but that and teaching about our Ukrainian pirogies inspired me to make some of my own. At any rate we had an amazing meal (theme of the week) and I even won a prize from a game we all played later. One of my students is from the Philippines and her Japanese is so well she now volunteers in giving the Japanese lessons as well. Her mom was kind enough to give me a ride home, which was much appreciated; as I was so exhausted I was practically passing out.

Wednesday and I’m off to Ina again for the 3rd day in a row. The 3rd years here are now spending their last semester cramming hard for their university exams and the upcoming Nation wide exam that pits the students against each other, maybe similar to SATs in the US, but I don’t know much about either. That night we had a going away party for Neal as he leaves to go back home to South Africa for almost a month. We went to a Co-Cos restaurant and had another good meal. I’m not a big fan of how small many meal portions are in Japan; I had 3 courses, doughnuts, milkshake and a beer that night and then I was full, eating out adds up fast on the wallet.

Maybe the best part of the night was me getting a picture with a large stuffed Doraemon doll as Co-cos maybe owns the mascot, he was everywhere. Also we had good conversations and wished Neal well as he stressed out and goes broke getting Christmas presents for his “large Indian family” to make up for being gone a year and a half, I will most likely be in the same situation next Christmas if I stay another year.

Thursday I was bombarded with 4 classes (almost 5!) and a tutoring session after school again. The students surprise me all the time with their abilities as most of the time I don’t know what to expect. I’m just lucky they try so hard I suppose and hope these really will help them when they go to New Zealand. The most enjoyable part is just the conversation we have at the end of the lesson, this time however they hijacked my cell phone and send me emails. Not to mention they have my blog website now (hello Aya, Ikumi, and Emi if you’re reading this :P) And yes, I still bug them about building snowmen which isn’t much of a stretch anymore, the ground is cold enough for the snow to not melt right away even though the equinox is this week apparently so in theory things should start warming up.

That night I had my first night off in a week! Yay, time to do some grocery shopping and some of that laundry that has piled up on the floor after overflowing the washing machine! It finally dried on Sunday (it’s hard to dry clothes now that it’s so cold outside) I’m thinking I need to find a nearby Laundromat, maybe tonight, as the washing machine is full again already. I tried out the Bluetooth microphone that I got and made my first real long overdue call back home since coming here 4.5 months ago. It is hard to co-ordinate, as I need to stay up really late to call to not wake people up or wake up early which is something I don’t do.

So I was tired Friday again and made it out alive again somehow, just to go home and rush to a party that night about an hours drive away. There were many people and a lot of mingling done (good meal again), but maybe the most entertaining of the night was the fire show that happened outside. One of the guests, Edwards, brought his own apparatus that he used to practice with daily for a long time. The photos turned out amazingly. There was something about the exposure taking too long and you got really cool streaks of light for photos. It was really interesting to just watch him swirl them around (video on youtube) as the expression on his face was so relaxed and blissful. The humming noise they made as they moved around were something else as well, very hypnotic. I got to try for a little bit but not long as I was mostly taking photos. I guess how it works is you soak Kevlar as wicks and they don’t get damaged from fire. Pretty neat stuff, stops fire and bullets at the same time.

There was a meteor shower that night as well but it was kind of cloudy and I didn’t see much. The house was pretty full of people sleeping on the floor; I ended up under the kitchen table for the night ☺

I skipped out on the caroling as I wanted to go home and relax but alas I got a call from Erica’s co-worker about some kittens they were trying to give away. So I roughed out yet another hour of driving trying to find the place while fighting to stay awake and long story short I have a cute little girl living in my house now ☺ I am going to name her “otaku” (Japanese word for enthusiast/maniac. What my students call me as it usually pertains to people who play too many video games and watch too much anime). She is so cute. I had time to buy her some presents and toys, take some pictures and then I had to rush off to Ina again for Brett’s birthday party.

I got there and I realized I was still wearing the clothes I was teaching in Friday, slept in that night, and played with a cat that day with. I chose to drive though to make sure I didn’t drink (Japan has zero tolerance for drinking and driving). There was great food and people and lots of mingling was done at Hiroko’s (name of the owner, is fluent and very friendly)

I went home and slept in for once, it was much appreciated. My poor kitty was lonely all night though as she was crying and overly affectionate when I found her in the morning. I can tell she will need a lot of attention, at least until she grows up some more. We played for a little bit but I had to go back to Ina yet again, this time my co-works Ono Sensei invited me over for lunch with her family. Talk about amazing food. I had a wonderful time and we visited for hours. They had been to America for a year or so and were fluent so we had a great time. This was maybe the first time I was invited over to a Japanese house like that and it was another reason I didn’t want to drink much Saturday, although it was very generously refilled in my cup that Sunday.

We ate “nabe” I guess you could call it. You have a broth and a heater in the middle of the table and then you put your ingredients inside when you are ready to have it cooked. We cooked tofu, cabbage, chicken legs, soba and other goodies; it was amazing. Also, I need to buy some sesame seed dressing; that was pretty tasty. I went home and played video games while otaku slept on my lap instead of getting stuff done as I’m always complaining I have no time for that. It was a good evening; Mario Galaxy is a lot of fun.

My cell phone got hijacked again by students first thing this morning so again, hello Nanako and Saki if you’re reading this. ☺ We are going to have our English club Christmas part on Wednesday most likely which is good as I felt I never had much time to prepare anything, I would like to make some of that rice crispy cake again.

Well that was the week crammed into a very tight nutshell, way too much happened and I feel more than overwhelmed. They say I’ll only get busier but I don’t see how that is humanly possible, I have to be careful not to fall into “this needs to get done” mind frame. I sat down Sunday and thought “alright now I have time to quickly beat this game so I can play the next one!” and instantly saw my fault for that. Entertainment isn’t meant to be completed as fast as possible; for then it becomes work. I made sure to clear my head of worries like the carpet that needed vacuuming under my feet or the Japanese learning that has been horribly neglected and just enjoy myself. It has definitely has taken me out of my comfort zone being busy like this and I’m looking forward to the challenges that await me.

"The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want." - Ben Stein

Anthony

My body disagrees with my optimism

I find new meaning to “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” all the time; maybe I just need to get more sleep. Anyways, Wednesday was a good day; Neal’s tutoring group threw a cooking Christmas party. I stole some of the show by whipping up some super quick and easy rice crispy cake that I learnt from the thanksgiving event a couple weeks back. (butter, marshies, rice crispies) Although rice crispies are hard to find in Japan, I settled for crunched up chocolate corn flakes… which might have been better than rice crispy cake thinking about it now. We didn’t have an oven so traditional foods were out but we did have things like curry, salad, nan (tasty bread) and so on.

Thursday seems to be my busiest workday, usually I have 4 classes and a tutoring thing after school which I usually extend much longer than I have to or it should be largely due to me enjoying talking to the students so much. They are a lot of fun and I like to joke around. Mentioning that I usually stay longer than my contractually required 4:15 largely because I like just talking with people or vising the sports teams as they work hard. On that note, maybe one of the cutest things I’ve experienced is a gym full for girls warming up for volleyball practice. The soft chorus of “hai!” “hai!” going off like sweet melody as they pass the ball, it was so cool.

Friday I had classes again and one student asked me how old I was (standard question, I don’t mind) “ni ju yon sai” (24 years old I say) she seems surprised so I ask how old I look “san ju said” (30 years old)

Ouch. “kanashii” (I am sad) I reply and hang my head. Maybe I need botox? ☺ Ah well, Jake or Neal tried to cheer me up saying they were maybe complimenting me as girls like older men kind of deal here. Nah, damage was done I think.

Friday went to that cool restaurant where the owner translates song lyrics for people like Eric Clapton and Neal Diamond. We had some tasty food and watched some old DVDs that he had of Johnny Cash’s TV show from the 70’s I think it was. I never even knew Johnny Cash had his own show, nor that it was so groundbreaking. It was funny how people would walk out with the guitar in their hands like a weapon and immediately start playing it, or seeing somewhat older performers in their prime and with fashionably long hair that was pretty cool for the time. Jake and I drank and played video games until maybe 2 in the morning even though I had to be up at 6 ☺

So I woke up at 5:30 getting maybe 3 hours of sleep and walked a good half hour to catch my bus to Tokyo. I got more sleep while on it and when I got there I proceeded to explore after eating a Wendy’s bacon burger for breakfast (what can I say? Need a taste of home sometimes, anything but Crap-Donalds will do) I knew there was a Square Enix store somewhere around Shinjuku so I proceeded to… walk. This was the theme of my Saturday.

After asking around a couple game shops set up and getting a map, I finally found it! It was on the other side of the large highway kind of hidden. For those who don’t know, Square Enix is a rather large game company that makes mega sellers like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. I half ran up to the door with hungry anticipation…

It was closed.

Oh man, it felt like I just got punched in the gut. This was too much, seeing a store for one of my two favorite game makers (other is Insomniac based in the US) being right in front of me for the first time in my life and not being open. The store was well lit with big glass windows just taunting me with all the cool loot inside. I took a bunch of pictures and some other people came around. I got out my phrasebook that Patty gave me and tried to piece together how to ask when the store opened (kono mise wa nan ji ni hirakimasu ka…?) The book wasn’t very good about asking that stuff… but it sure tells you how to tell people if you do drugs, what kinds of drugs… maybe Patty was trying to tell me something ☺ Oh and there is a hilarious section all to itself on what to say when having sex and what not “I can do it myself” and “easy tiger” among others. But nothing on asking when something opens.

While this is going on I see movement inside. Could it be? Sure enough, at 11 a.m. the store finally opened. That is something I just don’t get about Tokyo mostly, but to some extent the rest of Japan. How can (one of?) the largest city in the world not be open until 10 a.m… and close down at midnight? Maybe I should visit New York sometime and see if it really sleeps. I easily spent an hour inside looking around. The store wasn’t that big but it was a certain level of cool that I had achieved for the first time, one of those childhood dreams sort of deals. They had a large TV showing videos of games I wish I had time to play and trailers for games to come that I will buy mostly out of principle if nothing else.

Sitting there, I couldn’t help but feel like I abandoned a part of who I am and what I love. My passion. There was a couple times I was ready to just go home and play video games for the rest of the day and enjoy the experience it provides. There is a lot of talk now how gamers are defined and it is largely 3 groups. One group tries for perfection and high scores, one is for casual, and the other one I am probably in is defined as “new art”. We don’t play to get tested or frustrated, we play to experience what is there; to see the next level. I never was much for paintings per say but when it comes to graphics and enriched worlds I explore and my eyes linger on all parts of this immersive world that I am allowed to live in and affect; my own little rich world. Thinking about it now, maybe being in Japan is my way of experiencing my love for exploration and new worlds. Except in a video game you don’t have to walk as much or spend as much money moving around… oh and saving and loading is always cool, not to mention gaming exploits!

Anyways so the store had a really cool life size Sephiroth character encased in the floor. He is one of gaming’s more famous villains, stared in Final Fantasy 7. I bought a couple things but the biggest thing I spent money on that weekend was a chocobo black mage doll (the one with the purple coat and hat, looks like a chicken). A chocobo is like a steed in the final fantasy games, you ride them around the fields. It’s so cute. ☺

I explored Shinjuku some more, saw cool arcades like stand up Mario kart racing games linked with each other or big pods you sat in to make you feel like you were piloting a mech. Walked around and took pictures (now uploaded in my photobucket under TokyoDec07) It was fun to just explore, being alone like that gave me such a rush as I’m achieving new levels of independence and confidence once unknown to me. When the rush started going down though I realized how tired I was so I decided to book into my hostel.

Atleast I thought it was a hostel, turns out I found a capsule hotel! I slept in a cube for the low low price of $30. It wasn’t the cool space aged ones you see on the Internet with the glass doors. No, this one had a curtain you could pull to keep the light out of your cube. I wanted to take a nap but check out/check in wasn’t done yet so I didn’t have a bed. Back to exploring for a while I guess!

So this time I decided to visit the oh-so-famous Tokyo Tower. It was a long walk from any train station (there is that walk word again) and I saw cool things along the way of course which made the traverse time take even longer. For instance there was a fish in an aquarium that was as large as my torso. It was freaky being so close to that thing. Japan seems to have a thing for aquariums, there sure seems to be a lot of them, or maybe Regina just had a thing against them.

So at Tokyo Tower there were some children playing taiko (Japanese drums) and it was a really good show, video is up on youtube. (the show is much longer than what I filmed) I wanted to go up the tower, as there was good weather that day, good for sightseeing. Unfortunately the line was so long it went half way around the damn tower, and the line didn’t seem to be moving. That at it cost way too much to go up it, you couldn’t go up that far. Ya you hear me downplaying it now as I had to, to make myself resist the temptation of standing in that horrible looking line, I’m sure it would have been cool being up there.

I went inside the building underneath and one of the first things I saw was crap-donalds. Ugh that place was everywhere; there were 3 starbucks around Shinjuku station alone. I’m glad I don’t feel the need to spend $6 dollars on a small coffee that will never taste good. Anyways in the tower they had a Guinness world records style museum. It wasn’t too expensive so I went in and half guessed at what some of the records were for. I saw a spot for Terry Fox and thought it was nice of them to put him on the wall. There was a mannequin of Michael Jackson too and he looked like a damn werewolf, pretty ugly.

I wanted to see that super big and super cool Playstation store that I didn’t have time to see on my last visit so I headed to Ginza to ask the other Sony store how to find it as finding directions online with my Japanese ability is difficult, google or not. I got directions and was getting excited, but then the nice lady told me they aren’t open on weekends.

I mean come on, I had completely the wrong impression of Tokyo; you’d think things would be open. Maybe it wouldn’t be the most expensive city in the world (maybe Moscow is now) if it were open longer than 10 hours. It was getting dark and I really needed that nap/sit down now. I had been walking the last 9 hours straight after being up at 5:30 a.m. I was hoping to sit down in the Playstation store and play games for a while. I went to the hostel and messaged some other JETs in the area on my phone and took a nap for a couple hours, allowing my leg joints time to swell and then slowly recede. One JET suggested seeing a illumination show. I figured why not and headed out, and saw some cool lights. That nap did wonders though, it took the look of death out of my eyes and put a small spring back in my step, maybe that’s why I look 30 ☹

I had supper at a cool “American” style restaurant for some much needed beer and burgers and went back and relaxed for a while as another JET was taking the last train to a club that I now wish I went to. Apparently it was a monstrous rave but I would have had to stay until 6a.m. when the subway started running again and I knew I was going to need energy for the concert and more exploring.

Turns out not much more exploring was done as the concert group showed up and organizing the trip was a little more complicated, I’ll spare you the details. For sure next time though I will have to see Yoyogi park, Sunday afternoon is suppose to be amazing for cos-, martial arts and stuff like that. Also need to see Shibuya, it’s kind of like the busiest area of Tokyo with 2 million people crossing one street everyday.

So we went to the concert that started at 3 but had something like 4-5 hours of opening bands playing. I saw Daft Punk come out and it was amazing. I brought glow sticks and got caught up in the wave of rushing people. I was about 10 meters from the stage and could see everything excellently. It was a little more crowded for my style of dance (read: crazy and all over the place) but I still had a good time. Unfortunately I had to leave early (8 p.m.) to catch the very last bus home (9:30 p.m.)

Maybe the theme of the weekend shouldn’t be “walking” but instead “everything closes too early or doesn’t open” oh and running to make these inane times :S I left just as they started playing one of my favorite songs too. Ah, sacrifices. So I jogged back to the station to catch my 40 minute ride or so back to Tokyo station so I could run around the station for 10 minutes because it’s so big and hard to navigate to catch another train that takes 25 minutes back to Shinjuku. I started with a light jog and before I knew it was sprinting to make the times work. I have missed too many trains in the past (Chris and I missed a big one leaving Beijing) and I wasn’t going to miss this ride home.

Heavy footsteps pounding on the ground, body getting heavy. What does that sign say? Leave it, I wouldn’t understand it anyways. The familiar taste of iron enters my mouth, coughing hard wondering if the asthma is really gone. What direction am I going? There is an exit over there, take it. Maybe I can see something familiar, I’ve been here before. Stairs are hard to run up, just one more flight. This place is familiar, I’m close! Over there, one bus left! No time to think it through, gun it. Ignore people staring, ignore the no running signs. Just keep pushing.

Somehow with some stroke of luck I made it to my bus. The bus left at 9:30 and I stepped on at 9:27 according to its onboard digital clock. Sure enough when that clock rolled over to 9:30 the door closed and the bus drove off. If you miss your ride in Japan there are no refunds and everything is very punctual. I was still trying to catch my breath and didn’t even take my coat off yet as we drove off.

The ride back was ok, couldn’t fall asleep though lest I risk missing my stop after 3 hours. Got to my house at one in the morning, at work today running on 5 hours or so of sleep. This are crazy go nuts busy with Christmas coming up, I’m glad I already bought presents and mailed them out, it made my Tokyo trip a little more affordable and the mad running less punishing. I suppose I don’t have to always write about upcoming events, as you’ll hear about them in the next post anyways.

"I have failed many times, and that is why I am a success" - Micheal Jordan

Anthony

How did conferences get such a bad rap?

Had a laid back weekend for once! But you’re here for stories so I’ll tell you about all that went on anyways. Most of the weekdays after work were spent stressed out feeling like I don’t have much free time, there was a mess to clean but the suffocation of feeling like there was too much to do kept anything real from happening.

So Thursday and Friday we had a big conference for JETs to gain more teaching skills and work out problems or whatever they were having. I had never been to a conference before per-say, at least nothing of this size or length. I didn’t know what to expect except for anything you learn from TV and whatnot, and those usually left negative impressions. I can say this one was amazing and I am glad I went.

Met up with lots of friends and new people, exchanged ideas and solutions to problems. One session we were talking about different forms of communication. (telephone, writing, etc) and one group suggested the use of “grunts”. The teacher gave them a “that’s a good answer!” while writing their suggestion off in the corner away from the relevant ideas. This kind of spurred a grunt movement as later group exercises heard many groups grunting to each other like cavemen for their brainstorming sessions. Other shenanigans ensued when asked questions like “how can you communicate romantically?” I’ll let you fill in the blanks on that one.

We were in a school of some sort although it was emptied out for us it seemed. There were classrooms, presentation rooms, a cafeteria and dorms to stay the night. I was kind of surprised how much some people complained about things from the food to the room sizes. For $20 a night (that is reimbursed even) I have no beef with it. Chris and I did a cheap overnight train ride in China once so we know the feeling of being a sardine or having a stranger sleeping 3 feet from you snoring loudly. Also I thought the food was pretty good, supper and breakfast was free.

I wore my pink tie from Korea on Thursday and got a bunch of compliments. It looks cool, what can I say. Although it may be the reason I got called on to answer a couple times, having the teacher even say “you with the pink tie! I love it by the way” in the middle of a class discussion. Thursday night had us high school JETs sitting around drinking and having a good time. The doors were locked at 10 though as we had a working day Friday. (Sorry the picture is sideways, I can't figure out how to rotate it.)

Friday was like more of Thursday but with even more useful information. I got paired up with a nice teacher, Shizue sensei, from northern Nagano prefecture and our lesson was picked as the best so we had to present to our small group. We started off with some warm-up activities as if they were the real deal and everyone got a little too into them, insisting to play some more. My favorite one is the “Boggle” warm up. Draw a 4x4 grid on the board and ask students for letters. Then give them 3 minutes to make as many words from that grid as possible, the biggest words being the winner. I like to go and ask the students what their biggest word is. It helps pronunciation, spelling and vocabulary.

After the conference most people just went home. Jake came over later and we relaxed watching some TV shows I had. Saturday was a great day as I had time to finally “catch up” on stuff I left building. Laundry, dishes, cleaning and Christmas packing mainly. I have a box to send home now with various presents but haven’t really wrapped it knowing it would get mangled in transit.

Saturday night Jake and I didn’t really want to go anywhere too far so we decided to walk around Tatsuno and see what there was to be found in terms of mingling with locals. It was a great opportunity to see more of the town I’ve lived in for the last 4 months. I was kind of surprised and disappointed with the lack of young people and the abundance of “snack bars”, not to mention most places were pretty empty. Snack bars in Japan are places where mainly old men go to spend money to flirt with pretty girls. You have to pay to even sit down and you pay for time to enjoy each other’s company. Pretty shady if you ask me, why not go out somewhere else where you can flirt for free. It was funny too as one snack bar had, in English no less, “we are not associated with Yakuza”. Yakuza is the Japanese mafia for those who don’t know, also the reason why tattoos are so looked down on here as only they wear them.

At the end of the night we were getting tired of all the walking around, maybe the first place was the best in my opinion as the waitress was one of the most gorgeous ladies I’ve seen. Ended up going home but now at least I know I gave the town a chance, might need to go to bigger towns to meet people more my age. Sunday was spent relaxing and playing games again. Jake and I went to a local restaurant that we haven’t tried yet and refilled our kerosene containers for the upcoming cold days. I have a new lid on it now so it shouldn’t slop on my car again.

Today at work was a busy but sad day. It is the last I get to see my 3rd years at Yayoi as they get ready to buckle down and study the rest of their high school career for university entrance exams. I gave them some words of encouragement after the test I gave them; much too long I found out (wish I had time to play one last game or two) and later on had some students visit me in the teacher’s room so they could get their picture with me. I made sure to invite anyone that wanted to visit me at anytime. At least this test after marking it had high marks on it.

It was great as the last part of the test was a writing section and one was “you are at your entrance interview for university, talk about English and Japanese, be creative” or something along those lines. One student wrote down the interview question “do you love Anthony?” and then answered “yes I do!”. I wrote in the comments “alright! I love me too!” haha. Another student wrote down how they would like to talk to more foreigners like “Mr. Tony”. Has a nice ring to it if I must say.

I drove to work today as it was raining pretty hard. Was disappointed to find out it still took an hour to get here largely due to the morning traffic, I should stick with the train then, at least I won’t have to worry about getting in an accident that way, the road and drivers some days leaves you wondering, just like back home I suppose. It is just less stressful not driving but at least I was kept mostly dry and have the flexibility to go home whenever instead of waiting an hour for the next train. It’s nice to have options I guess.

Well sorry there wasn’t much to write about this week, I needed the R&R. It is kind of nice having the blog, as it is a good kick for me to get out the door some days and make new adventures to report, like how I finally got out and walked around this Saturday. I also look at interesting situations differently now, as if I was narrating my own life for future stories here. I have the option of taking a bunch of holidays for upcoming Christmas/ new years but have yet to make solid plans, I should really get on that… maybe Thailand? Korea again? Also figure out how I’m getting to Tokyo next weekend for the Daft Punk concert, should be a blast ☺

"Life begins at the end of your comfort zone." - Neale Donald Walsch

Anthony