Christmas in Japan

They have started playing Christmas carols in stores now, which has jump-started my Christmas spirit! We went to the dollar store yesterday and I bought some smallChristmas presents and stickers. I have also been singing carols with the kids on my guitar. Christmas in Japan is not as important as New Years, which is the opposite from North America. Many children know of Santa and some celebrate Christmas, however it is on a much smaller scale than at home. Some of my students don't even get presents on Christmas, however all of them get otoshidama which is usually money on New Years. This will be my first Christmas away from home, but my parents have sent me some gifts to open and my girlfriend will be here to celebrate with me so it will make for a gay-olde time! 

When I was studying today I came across a hilarious drawing to go along with a conversation between a husband and wife:

Not only is it sexist (wife dressed up in an apron and wanting a new washing machine and dryer) but even more the man looks like he's flipping the bird and saying "F-that, I'm buying a new car." 

Tokyo Disney Land

This past weekend we went to Tokyo Disneyland. The Christmas theme was set up which is nice because I rely on stores to go straight from Halloween to Christmas in order to get me in the mood. Oh and lets not forget the carols being played blared everywhere you go. Although I used to compain November was too early to start Christmas decorations, I feel it is not a big deal at all here so I would rather have the 2 month hype then no hype at all. 

Disneyland was good fun, although the 2 hour waits were not the most enjoyable, however the time passed quickly by playing random word/trivia games. Overall it was an awesome trip. 

Here is me being strangled by the cheshire cat. 

Snow!

This morning was the first time snow stayed on the ground! Lots of it! (at least for Japan, 1/2 foot) 

I'm finding it hard to deal with the lack of central heating. I've bought some slippers and wear long pants and long sleeves while in the house. Thankfully I was left an electric heater by my predecessor which has been とても　べんり (very useful). 

Despite the fact that it is cold, I find it amusing how many times in a given day I hear comments from Japanese people about how cold its getting. "Samui desu ne?" - "Cold isn't it?" seems to be the new catch-phrase of the season. 

Anyway, I'll have to get some shots of the snowy mountains. It's quite a spectacle. All this snow has me eagerly awaiting my first Japanese snowboarding experience. There is a gigantic sports store (Xebio) opening in our city, which will aparently have a grand opening sale so I'm hoping to get some cheap boarding gear then! 

Photos to come! 

Settling in...

My house is finally starting to feel like a home. I have some scattered art up on the walls, re-arranged the apartment, and bought a sweet TV unit for $20 at the second hand store. The second-hand stores here are much different from a Goodwill or Salvation Army back home. Instead of having items donated, the "recycle store" as they call it, buys your used clothing, furniture, electronics, sporting gear, pretty much anything. As a result, the merchandise is of higher quality. I now buy pretty much all my clothes from there ($9 dress shirts, $5 tees, $15 pants, etc.)

I have an electric acoustic guitar which I got a week after getting here, but last week I finally bought a stand for it so it can be easily accessed, and look awesome. Just wanted to give you a glimpse into my dwelling, although I'm not here that often. Hope you like my setup!
* I had some friends over to eat pizza since there is a half price deal ($15 large) at Pizza Hut on the 8th, 9th and 10th of the month, hence the pizza box.
*The shower is tragic. You have to crank it to light the gas which in turn heats up the water. Although the bathtub is wickedly huge. *My nice cozy toilet.

Technology rant!

So far I've have seen probably the most elaborate toilet ever conceived. One with 2 types of water sprays(one for girls and one for everyone), heated seats, two types of flushing (big and small. I usually use both, the small as a courtesy half-time flush.), a warm blow dry after the bidet, a remote control stuck to the wall so you can control all of this (temperature and strength of water, flushing, etc.), and my absolute personal favorite so far... a motion sensored lid that opens when you enter the stall. The first time I encountered this however, I was a hair away from not even having to use it anymore, and may have let out a small scream. In addition, the train systems are extremely complex, yet extremely efficient. I have yet to see a train that has arrived 2 minutes late, or left even a minute after it was supposed to. The ticket system is also pretty amazing, especially since I now have a pass in Tokyo which you can just add money to and swipe everytime you go through the gates, which saves you the hassle of using the actual ticket machine and calculating fares.

Despite remarkable leaps and bounds in some technological aspects of society, they still have yet to catch up with the Internet and banking. First off, it is very rare for you to be able to use a creditcard or debit in a store, even major chains. Second, the massive wave on Internet purchasing has not yet caught on here. Although Yahoo has a Japanese auction site, not many people use it or Ebay. In addition, there is no online banking to manage your finances. On top of that, ATMs exist and you can do a lot with them, however they CLOSE(!?!?!?) at 7ish. WTF is the point of an ATM if it closes??? I thought the whole point was to allow people access to their money 24/7 without having to hire staff. Instead it is used as a more efficient way to deal with bank transactions during the day. Not to mention most banks are only open until 3pm so you have to find time out of work to go do anything financial. At least it give you an excuse to get some fresh air! The good (horrible) thing is that the 7-11 which is open 24/7 has an ATM where you can take out money whenever you need it for a nominal fee of $2.

Anyway, I guess you cant have a society where everything makes sense. Where's the fun in that? What's life without pointless inconviniences? We'd have way to much time on our hands if society was completely efficient (if we don't already have too much. The crap you see on youtube as my case and point!).

(I have used a lot of brackets this post, I'll try not to use any in the next few to balance out the bracket-to-post ratio)

Me fail English, that’s unpossible!

So I’m realizing that I’m forgetting how to speak English properly. I’m used to speaking slowly using simple vocabulary and not being surrounded by English has my spelling going from bad to horrendous. A few of us find ourselves stumbling over our words when in a conversation with native English speakers.
This gave me the idea of a word of the day. I will post a Japanese word and its English meaning every day. Please e-mail me English words that I may have forgotten due to lack of use and I will post them on the blog.

Tokyo

This weekend we went to Tokyo Friday night to check out the night life. Unfortunately, in Japan people are still allowed to smoke indoors, even if the ventilation sucks so I was having to take breaks to get fresh air in the club we were in. Canada has had the smoking ban for as long as I can remember now. Hopefully Japan will follow suit sometime soon. Japanese people just really like to smoke which is probably why you are allowed to pretty much everywhere. Here are some pictures of Tokyo in a place called Ropongi Hills, the Beverly Hills of Tokyo.
I stayed with my relatives near Tokyo on Saturday night which was my first experience at an onsen (public bath). It was a relaxing time, however a bit awkward at first since everyone is naked. You undress in the change room, then proceed to shower yourself at little sit down wash stations with mirrors, a hand shower, a stool, shampoo and soap. After washing you can choose one of a few hot tubs. One is just plain water, one jets, another had a soapy feeling water and one was yellow and murky which I assume was sulfur. The sulfur bath made my silver necklace turn a rusty color, but that was easily resolved with a little bit of tooth paste. Overall, I approve of the whole onsen experience and am excited to go after a long day of snowboarding.

International Festival

This weekend we spent time at an International festival in Koriyama, where we painted children’s faces. It was a way to talk to Japanese people and raise awareness of multiculturalism. It was so much fun that by the end of it I was nearly dragging cute little Japanese kids to paint their face.

In one of my journals today, a 3^rd year high school student wrote:

Almost all students wear a black school uniform. What do you think about it? Do you think it is like an army?

Granted it is an English select class, that is a very deep comment to be making in a foreign language. I was both impressed and depressed by this question. Unfortunately it is something I have thought myself before. The school uniforms do look like military attire, and a typical Japanese lesson is very much teacher centered with a lot of choral repetition from the students. English is broken down into a subject to be studied and learned as opposed to a communication tool which is why I can't blame students for having no motivation to learn English.

Soccer and the Town Festival

I’ve been playing soccer here. It has been a lot of fun. Something that shocked me was that after we play outside, we rake the entire field, because it is made out of this coarse sand. And when we play inside, we mop the gym floor after we’re done. It’s a totally different mentality, and although at first I saw it to be a waste of time and pointless, I appreciate it more now to come play on a field and it is in pristine condition ready to be played on.

On another note, my good friend was in his town festival as a samurai. He got to dress up and parade around town on a horse. It is something like the Santa Clause parade at home where locals line the streets and eat yaki-tori (BBQ chicken on a stick) and drink beer.
Another thing I also found myself thinking about while in Japan is the safety regulations we have in place. Here is a picture of a playground in Japan. Back home I have never seen a playground like this before. They have even taken see-saws out of playgrounds in Canada because they are too dangerous. From an immediate standpoint, that is a logical action. Kids are getting hurt on see-saws so lets remove them from playground so kids can't hurt themselves. Next we'll take out the slides, and the monkey bars and we'll pad the ground with soft woodchips. Where does it stop though? The playgrounds in Canada have started to become so safe that kids can't explore their limits. I remember falling off the monkey bars all the time. Kids are tough, they get up and try again. From a long-term perspective it may not be wise to try and protect our children by removing potentially dangerous obstacles. Let kids make mistakes, pick themselves up and learn from the experience. Anyway, thats enough deep psychology for one day. I need sleep!

Online once again!

Hey everyone!

Sorry about the long delay between posts! I just finally got internet at my house, 2 months after applying for it. Japan has excellent customer service however there can be a lot of red-tape to cut through in certain situations. To make a long story short I had to go through two companies before someone would come and install my internet. At least the guy who came to install my internet sat down with me and loaded all the software I needed since it was all in Japanese. Quite a lot has happened since the last post. I have been to Kyoto, Osaka, and Nara, where we saw some amazing shrines! Nara has the largest wooden structure on Earth and it is only two-thirds the size it was when it was first built hundreds of years ago!!

This is my favourite picture so far. It was taken in Kyoto at a shrine called kiyo-mizu-dera or clear-water-shrine. (きよみずでら)

So far school has been going well. I teach anywhere from 0-4 periods of 6 per day. The students at my base school are intelligent and they are easy to teach. I also have placements at a blind school and a school further into the country. The blind school is a very interesting and different experience. It was hard for me to plan lessons at first, but I have learned to provide them with something concrete to touch and speaking a lot. It is good because there are only 4 or fewer students in these classes so you can do many different activities with them. My school in the country is a bit more challenging to teach. Many of them will probably never leave Japan and end up working on a farm or somewhere rural, so they have little motivation to learn English. Thankfully my JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) at the school is fantastic and we both hope to change the students’ outlook on English learning. The education system here is much different than that from home, especially language learning. A huge emphasis is placed on reading and writing with little concern for speaking. Unfortunately the entrance exam to get into university is purely written and is actually quite difficult even for a native speaker. That being said, the schools therefore stress written English and much of it is taught as a teacher-centered lesson where students write down a sentence from the board, repeat the sentence after the teacher. As well CDs are used frequently as students follow along in their textbooks. Luckily I am given pretty much total freedom so I plan completely different lessons for the kids. I get to teach the same lesson probably 15 times to all the first year classes in each school so I get to tweak the lesson every time and it improves each time. So far I have done broken telephone which is hilarious because students have trouble pronouncing Ls and Vs so you get some amusing sentences. Overall, my job is fulfilling and I'm enjoying it! Promise the next post will come sooner than 2 months later ;)

My Hotel Room

I've landed safely in Shinjuku and my hotel is awesome! I'm staying at the Keio Plaza and it has the coolest toilet I have seen yet. At Narita airport I had to crap in a hole in the ground which proved challenging considering I was exhausted from the 13 hour flight so this toilet is the holy grail of toilets in my eyes right now. It actually shoots warm water at your anus so you barely have to wipe. Below is the view from my hotel room window. Overall I'm stoked to be here, but am starting to miss people from home wishing they could see all this first-hand.