Luke in Translation

Sayonara

2007-03-10T22:02:00.001+09:00

After 18 months, I have left Japan. It was an awesome time. For anyone considering doing what I did, I'll leave with some parting advice:

If you can afford it, come to Japan then get a job in that order. There are plenty of job opportunities for teachers here, only a fraction of which you could know about while in another country.
If you come with Nova, move out of Nova accommodation ASAP. It is expensive and your housemates are a lucky dip of cool people and freaks.
Learn Japanese. Before you come, learn speaking basics by listening to tapes. Then join a Japanese class when you arrive, and find a language exchange partner (easy to do).
Take up a hobby that you do back home. For me, it was soccer. That's the best way to expose yourself to Japanese culture.

Tokyo 2

2007-03-08T21:20:00.000+09:00

I returned to Tokyo on my way out of the country for one week, during which time I managed to check the boxes on three more of the things I wanted to do before I left the island:

I ate whale: There is a whale restaurant in Shibuya called Kujira-ya, which means 'whale restaurant'. Really nice place. I went for the whale steak, which was delicious. The menu included every conceivable other part of a whale too, including whale bacon (???).
I played Pachinko: There are some professional pachinko players in Japan - it turns out I'm not one of them. My 1000 yen ($12) disappeared before my eyes in the form of little metal balls plunging into an abyss over the course of three minutes. The idea is to control the force at which the balls shoot into the machine (like Pinball) so that it bounces off lots of little pegs and hopefully falls into this special hole, which then activates a kind of slot machine that can cause you to win... more balls. You can exchange the balls for a coupon representing balls. Gambling is illegal so you can't cash the balls in. BUT - you can go into the alley next door to a guy who will by the coupons. It's a kind of loophole. In any case I never made it that far.
I sang Cutie Honey at Karaoke in Japanese: English version...

She's a girl who's in fashion
She's a girl with a nice butt
Look at me Honey
Just a little
That's all
Please, please, don't hurt me
My heart is pounding
No, no, no, don't look at me, no
Honey Flash!

She's the popular girl nowadays
She's a girl with a big chest
Look at me Honey
Just a little
That's all
Please, please, don't come near me
My nose is twitching
No, no, no, don't look at me, no
Honey Flash!

She's a girl who's in fashion
She's a girl with skin like a kittens
Look at me Honey
Just a little
That's all
Please, please, don't follow me
I'm weaping femininely
No, no, no, don't look at me, no
Honey Flash!

Favour

2007-02-25T06:51:00.000+09:00

One lesson we teach is about requesting favours, and it includes several phrases to learn, one being 'Could you do me a favour'.

Here's a transcript of a recent lesson between the teacher, Brinnen, Erina, a high-school student and one other student, which went wrong with, as they say, hilarious results.

Brinnen: Let's practice. OK, Erina!
Erina: Err.... I know you're really busy, but I was wondering if you could do me.
Brinnen: ....
Erina: .
Brinnen: [falls off his chair in a fit of laughter]

(If you don't get it, ask your parents when you're older)

Heart vs Face

2007-02-25T06:46:00.000+09:00

An interesting article on Japanese society...

Honne and tatemae are Japanese words that describe recognized social phenomena.

Honne (本音) refers to a person's true feelings and desires. These may be contrary to what is expected by society or what is required according to one's position and circumstances, and they are often kept hidden, except with one's closest friends.

Tatemae (建前), literally "façade," is the behaviour and opinions one displays in public. Tatemae is what is expected by society and required according to one's position and circumstances, and these may not match one's honne.

The honne/tatemae divide is considered to be of tantamount importance in Japanese culture. The very fact that Japanese has single words for these concepts leads some Nihonjinron specialists to see this conceptualization as evidence of greater Japanese complexity and rigidity in etiquette and culture.

The conflict between honne and giri (social obligations) is one of the main topics of Japanese drama throughout the ages. Stereotypically, the protagonist would have to choose between carrying out his obligations to his family or feudal lord or pursuing a forbidden love affair. In the end, death would be the only way out of the dilemma.

Contemporary phenomenona such as hikikomori (acute social withdrawal) and parasite singles are seen as examples of late Japanese culture's growing problem of the new generation growing up unable to deal with the complexities of honne/tatemae in an increasingly capitalist society.

Australiana

2007-02-15T00:56:00.001+09:00

Jetstar now flies direct from Kansai to The Aussie east coast. There is a billboard with a woman in a bikini pulling a suitcase through snowy Kansai, surrounded by people in winter clothes (miniskirt and boots), evidently on her way to the airport and sunny sunny Cairns. When I see it I realise that I miss the Australian weather a lot. I miss a lot of things.

When I get home the first thing I'm going to do is drive to the beach in my mum's Toyota Corona and dive into the ocean for a morning body-bash. Then I'm going to have weet bix and vegemite on toast with a glass of Berri dark grape juice for brekky. Then I'm going to go to the boulevarde for mornos consisting of real coffee and donuts - for the first time in 18 months. Then I'm going to go to the fish and chips shop and get a meat buy with chips and chicken salt. Then I'm going to watch re-runs of Last Man Standing all afternoon. Then I'm going to call up my mates and get some sheilas around for a barby and put away some carltons. Then maybe I'll night-cap it with some butterscotch schnappes (I know it's not a Australian, but it's a damn good drink).

Keep the Nova

2007-02-15T00:27:00.000+09:00

Valentines Day is great in Japan: women are expected to give the men chocolate. And not just to their special someone, but to friends and even co-workers. One of our students gave chocolate to her brother and her father, which I had to raise my eyebrows at. But I can't complain, as I myself receive the mother lode of chocolate from friends and students, and even from Tomoko, my manager (even if it was only giri-choko, 'obligation-chocolate', and not ravu-choko). Men are supposed to repay the favour a month later with a gift of at least double the value, on 'White Day', but I'll be out of the country before then! The perfect getaway.

Today was also the sales target deadline at work. Tomoko had written all over our schedule in red-ink, reminding us that her team had 6 million yen in sales to make in order to meet the target that day. At Nova, the system is that students purchase tickets in bulk, which they can spend on different types of lessons which may cost one more more tickets. When they use all of their tickets, they have a counselling session with the staff to look forward to, during which the staff will attempt to sell more tickets. Some students were highlighted with a footnote urging teachers to encourage them to buy more tickets today. Tomoko is a lovely girl, and speaks much less English than the rest of the staff and most of the students - so her message to us was "Please tell her to keep the nova!". In order to bring the point home, someone had put up a poster with the message "Come on! Let's try! KEEP THE NOVA!" emblazoned in yellow capital letters.

It has quickly become a catchphrase, a greeting, a way of life.

Hostess Bar

2007-02-10T00:27:00.000+09:00

This post is rated PG.

I was always curious about hostess bars and made up my mind that I wanted to see the inside of one before I left Japan. Two days again I got my chance. It was not what I expected.

The best thing about working in Shinsaibashi is the demographic. It's a pretty cool area, full of restaurants, bars and clubs, and the students are similarly cool, and include an aromatherapist, a professional dancer, several hostesses and a two hostess bar managers, or mama-sans. One is the kind of older, slight eccentric past-her-shelf-life type of madame that I can imagine heading up one of those hostess bars where all of the women are wearing kimonos and you pay top dollar to talk to them and buy them drinks. She has this scary wig and buys me green tea soft-serve icecream cones when I have her in my class, which is great but has the regrettable side effect of turning your teeth lime-green. The other is a young, trendy mama-san with fur jackets, a fake tan and a hot body.

I was lucky to have a one-on-one class with both of the mama-sans last year. The older one has recently sold her business and is retired. The younger one is mid-career and we got to talking about her business: how it all works, how she got to where she is today. When she learned that I was leaving soon she said, "Come to my bar. We can go together." And she gave me her number. Don't tell my boss.

Last night I met her at a cafe on the way to work. It was 5000 yen an hour with free drinks. I could buy the hostesses drinks if I wanted - it was on her.

I didn't know what to expect but I had an idea. I imagined I would be able to meet all of the available hostesses, then choose one to sit down with at a table and I could talk to her for an hour about whatever I wanted. I've heard a lot of customers talk about politics or the economy. They wouldn't be my topics of choice if left to my own devices with a beautiful woman, but then, I'm not a salaryman. I had my own set of questions. Do hostesses have special training? How do you get recruited? Are hostesses usually prostitutes, or are they more like geisha? Are geisha usually prostitutes? Is it a fun job? Do you have regulars? When you go golfing with your regulars and their wives, is it weird (one of the hostess students at work ran into this situation)?

But on the way, mama-san told me that "This isn't a normal hostess club. I think you'll be surprised." She was right.

We took the elevator up to "Members VIP" and stepped inside. I took my seat at one of two which counters, with 4 groups of about 3 salarymen each, like some kind of sexed-up last supper, if the apostles were salarymen and I was Jesus. Between the benches I saw a holy vision: four Japanese angels serving drinks and entertaining the guests. I said G'day to the nearest salarymen, who were enjoying something called an Omego-beer. This is a drink that is surely only found in Japan, probably only in this one bar, and even shouted me an Oppai-cream, which was very nice.

I can't really say much more about the place in case my baby cousins are reading. Suffice it to say that Japanese men are weird guys, with weird tastes. I might add that it's always strange when you incidently see a student outside of the school - especially when she is topless.

Nara

2007-02-09T23:38:00.000+09:00

I spent last Sunday exploring Nara, next to Osaka. I was fortunate enough this time to benefit from the combined wisdom of two tour guides: Yoko, with whom I used to work, and her mysterious friend who I'll just call the model, because I've forgotten her name, and because she is a model.

Our first objective was culinary: we tracked down a small Japanese restaurant and enjoyed a traditional meal. Japanese meals tend to always involve hundreds of little plates and bowls with various unidentifiable dishes. No dead sparrows this time, it was all fairly above-board, unendangered and good eating.

Nara is famous for the park, which is full of temples and deer. The deer are always hungry and deer cookies are sold throughout the park. In typical Japanese style, the deer are all very polite about it and will come and bow to you if you have some cookies on hand to distribute. Occasionally they do get a little antsy, though, and bite your jacket. My grandpa had his map eaten when he went there last year. I escaped unscathed.

As for the temples, Nara Park is home to the largest wooden structure in the world. Inside is probably the biggest buddha in the world. The pamphlets claimed that its eyeball was about 5 metres across. That's a big idol. As if that wasn't enough, there is another statue on each side of one of his disciples.

I know my way around temples pretty well by now. Go to the offering alter. Yoko and the model made a wish but wouldn't tell me what it was, which precludes it from coming true. Guard statues, prayer tablets. Yoko explained that most of the prayer tablets here were wishing for luck in the entry exams.

No day-trip is complete without hanging out at the coffee shop. We headed to Mister Donut afterwards. Have I mentioned that donuts suck in Japan? Mister Donut only has two things going for it: the uniform, from which an enterprising ex-cashier could make a profit by selling it to one of those schoolgirl clothing stores, and infinite Cafe Au Laite refills. Usually one cup is enough to energise me and after two I'm red-cordial hyper. But you know, you get to talking... four cups later I was practically diabetic. On the train ride home I had the strangest feeling. I had a cold and was really sleepy, but at the same time I had all this caffeine and sugar surging through my system. It was trippy.

Funny 2

2007-02-01T00:37:00.000+09:00

I went to the hospital for some injections. I got there early to take a number and beat the crowd before reception opened. When in did open, all of the receptionists came out and stood in a line while the flourescent lights haphazardly flickered to life above them. One of them was pumping her fist and saying to another "Gambaru!" = "I'll do my best!". I think she was new. Then the PA crackled to life to welcome us to the hospital, and the receptionists bowed as one. I've seen this kind of thing in a department store, but a hospital?
English continues to be fashionable for clothing, etc. whether it is unintelligable gibberish or even dictionary definitions. This inspirational message was spotted on a young girl's satchel bag on the train:
POLK DOT. One of many dots that together form a pattern, especially on fabric. Compare: spot.

Funny

2007-01-27T20:54:00.000+09:00

I was at home in the morning when I heard a tinny tune in the distance, like the 'Greensleeves' tune you hear from ice cream vans. My curiosity grew as it got closer, and eventually went onto the balcony to look down the street. As it approached our building I saw that it was in fact... a garbage truck! That is so Japan. Even the garbage trucks are cute. It was bright pink with pictures of flowers and had the icecream music blaring. Sometimes living in Japan is like being a Fisher-price toy.
There is a pretty popular j-pop group with a stupid name. They have a new CD out at the moment, and at the record store I saw this big glossy poster with a moody black-and white shot of the band next to their name: "Bump of Chicken." My friend finally explained the meaning the other day: turns out it's meant to be "Goosebumps" - but I guess the band doesn't own a dictionary.
Speaking of Engrish band names... I saw a 2-piece street band recently with an interesting name: "Small Johnson".

Kyoto 2

2007-01-22T00:46:00.000+09:00

I have just over a month left in Japan, after which I'll be travelling to Southeast Asia. So I'm working through my list of things to do before I leave the island. To this end I went to Kyoto for the second time, this time with a new mission: to find a geisha or maiko [apprentice geisha]. Apparently, it's possible to catch them jumping into a cab on the way to an appointment and get a good picture, if you'e lucky. Sadly, I failed in this quest. But I did eat some suzume, and that has to count for something.

Suzume

This time I was armed with a trusty local tour guide, in the petite form of Miki, my friend from work, who, in typical Japanese-style, had only slept 2 hours the night before. In spite of every excuse to adopt a zombie-like demeanour she did a great job of navigating. Thanks Miki-chan.

First stop was Fushimi inari, which is a famous shrine. All shrines have a bunch of torii, which are red gateways you walk through on the way to the shrine. Fushimi Inari's claim to fame is that it has a lot of torii, so much that they form a kind of tunnel. I picked up my fortune for the year, and it looks to be a good one: my lucky direction is south-east.

Outside the shrines there are usually a bunch of stores. It's all very mercantile, and there is street food aplenty to be had. But Miki and myself were both surprised to see suzume on the menu.

I generally adopt a 'try-anything-once' policy (there are some exceptions involving particular body parts). Miki passed, deciding it was too strange. Suzume are everywhere, so for her it would be like eating a pigeon, I guess. But honour-bound as I was by my own principles, I dutifully bought one sparrow kebab. There were three birds on the stick, marinated with barbeque sauce. There was no doubting that they were sparrows: they were the whole thing, with a head, a beak, feet, and all the parts that typically make up a sparrow short of feathers. It was nasty. It took 30 minutes for me to polish off the whole thing. When it came to the last bird it was already stone cold. As I gingerly yanked it up the kebab stick with my teeth, the little head fell off and landed on the pavement, facing me with its little eyes, as if to say, "That was just unnecessary". And that was the first and last time I'll ever eat a sparrow.

After that I just had to get some western food in me, so we found a Macdonalds. The Macdonalds shopfronts in Kyoto are brown, not red, because red was deemed too loud and ugly by the city.

Next we went to Kiyo mizu, which is a huge temple. They have tons of ema [prayer tablets] with a special section for love-related prayers. There's also a feature where you write your problems on a paper effigy of yourself, blow on it three times and put it in a bucket of water, the idea being that you transfer your problems to the effigy, which suffers in your stead. The effect is pretty cool, because the thin paper quickly deteriorates and becomes transparent, leaving a collection of warped Chinese characters floating in the water.

The final destination was Gion. This is an old-style area where geisha and maiko hang out. Alas, tonight was not my night and I didn't see any. It was around 5:30, twilight was almost over. I think I came too late for the maiko and too early for the geisha (no innuendo intended).

Sexy Vending Machine

2006-12-31T14:28:00.000+09:00

The rumours are true.

The machines in question were inside a little shed, not on the street like your typical drink vending machine. You had to duck through a little opening to enter. Then, there they were: three machines with various porn and second-hand panties and... toys.

The items were quite expensive. You imagine a vending machine to be a kind of automatic discount store, but most items were upwards of 4000 yen ($50).

Everything you've read about Japan is true.

Women Only

2006-12-09T14:07:00.001+09:00

I just made the train. The doors almost closed on me, but I was safely inside and on my way home. I breathed a sigh of relief and quickly settled into my in-transit routine. Sometimes I send some email from my phone. Sometimes I listen to Japanese lessons. Sometimes I read a book.

I was pretty absorbed in my various schemes for world domination and it wasn't until about 10 minutes into my journey that I looked up to take stock of my surroundings. My first thought was, "There sure are a lot of women on this train!" You might be able to see where this is going. I didn't.

My next epiphany was "Wait a moment - I'm the only man on this train! How bizarre".

I did eventually realise I had unwittingly jumped on the women-only car. The subway platform clearly marks where the women-only car will stop, only I was too rushed to notice.

Next stop I played it off like it was my stop, and joined the salarymen and the BO in the next car.

Vertical Sleeper

2006-12-07T00:50:00.000+09:00

It was a typical late evening on the subway. People were travelling home after drinking or working. The train was relatively empty for Osaka: no vacant seats, but not so many people standing. Some people snoozing. Not a day goes by without me seeing someone asleep on the train. Sleeping in a seated position has always been an artform that has eluded me. I pride myself on being able to sleep on any surface, but it's important that I'm horizontally oriented when sleeping. It never ceases to amaze me how people will suddenly wake up as the train arrives at their station. Any time, day or night, you can find people asleep on trains - and not just on trains: in cafes, in (stationary) cars, in my lessons, you name it. On this particular night, I saw the king of subway sleepers catching a quick nap - while standing.

This is not really that uncommon. I've seen vertical sleepers before. In Tokyo, I used to catch the rush hour train, and it was easy enough for one to sleep while standing, using the sardinesque crowd as a buffer to prevent falling over. If one was so inclined. Once I saw a young OL (office lady) drifting off next to the doors, she began to lean forward and suffered a rude awakening when she headbutted the window. If you're going to fall asleep on the train, it's best to find a seat. People are always falling asleep on my shoulders. Sometimes I let it slide - I'm a charitable guy (especially if they're cute). I draw the line at drooling on my suit jacket. That's when I deliver a subtle but firm elbow to the ribs. A little 'tough love', after which my fellow passenger will usually lull around in a kind of 'sleepy-dance', eventually coming to rest back on my shoulder. Sometimes this behaviour can lead to a domino effect. My ex-housemate Danny saw a line of four salarymen, each leaning on the shoulder of the next. I can't help but wonder about what happened when the last guy got off. No doubt hilarity ensued.

As I pointed out, sleeping on a seat is not always an option. That's when you take your chances standing up, as the master I witnessed, the king of subway sleepers, was doing.

He was a typical salaryman, a little portly, red-faced, briefcase on the overhead shelf, grey suit jacket under one arm, the other hand gripping one of swinging handles. He was gripping that thing for all it was worth. I think his right hand was the only part of him that was awake. For fifteen minutes I watched in awe as he swayed to and fro in time with the train's motions, like a cherry blossom in the wind. If cherry blossoms were grey and... sweaty. At one point, his knees seemed to give out and he lurched forward - but tragedy was averted by his iron grip. He must have the strongs forearms I'd seen in a while. Maybe he rockclimbed.

I was unable to witness the dramatic climax, where he would no doubt come to his station and magically wake up just in time, as my stop came up first. I made a good video, though.

Ninjas

2006-11-18T22:17:00.000+09:00

I recently did something I've been wanting to do for long time, and visited the ninja museum in Iga.

Nin-nin

Iga is one of the areas famous for ninjas. Apparently they used to have a secret base in the mountains surrounding Iga's Ueno castle in the middle ages.

There is a 'ninja house' demonstrating the various tricks and traps they used to disguise their base as a farm house, and some friendly, pink-clothed Ku-no-ichi [female ninjas] to show you around (cultural note: ku-no-ichi didn't really wear pink clothes), and there is the museum itself, in which you can marvel at a collection of old ninja gear, including the famous smoke grenades for 'disappearing' and the equally famous 'water-walking' shoes (ninjas couldn't actually walk on water, but they could walk over the slightly more viscous marshes that comprised the castle moats of the day). And, of course, a heap of old shuriken.

Then there was some not-so-famous ninja gear. I wasn't aware that the ninjas had develop land-mines. There was also a cannon. Ninjas were around at the dawn of gunpowder so that was pretty high-tech stuff.

There was also a ninja show with some battling etc. It was pretty corny. They had this nu-metal pump-up track before the show, and all of thes choreographed sound effects when swords clashed and so forth, like and old episode of Monkey. But there was a nice surprise at the end, when the audience had the opportunity to throw some shuriken at a target. It's harder than it looks.

The museum is pretty small, but I would recommend it to anyone who falls into the category of "really into ninjas".

Girls Bar

2006-10-21T18:59:00.000+09:00

Rod and I visited a "girls bar" in Minami.

What is a girls bar? It's basically a poor man's hostess bar. This particular establishment is called "Girls Bar Honey". Upon alighting from the elevator on the 4th floor, I took in the scene of a dark, quiet bar with a few salarymen sitting at a counter in front of three waitresses - a tall, half-Brazilian-looking woman, a short cute j-girl and a brown-skinned, brown-haired j-popstar. It seemed all tastes were catered for.

The salarymen looked up upon what I imagine to be a rare scene of two white guys walking in and said in unison "Kakkuiiiiiiii!" (meaning either cool or good-looking). We paid our 1800 yen for the first hour and received our complimentary drink, then chatted to the waitresses. There turned out to be a one-to-one ratio between the ladies and the customers - I don't know if that was deliberate or if it was just a quiet time of night. I ended up talking to the cute short girl, who turned out to be a university student and very typical Japanese girl. I don't know why that surprised me. Was I expecting them to have had some kind of... flirtation training? I actually asked her about their training and found out that being able to mix a drink was pretty much the only prerequisite.

She was really sweet and had I 'met' her - I mean how normal boys and girls meet (however that is) - I would have gotten her phone email. That sums up the girls bar experience: it's just like meeting nice girls in a regular bar, except that there's no chance of taking it further. That's not to say it wasn't fun. I enjoyed the chat and even won a free drink in a card game. This kind of place is so ubiquitous in Japan that I considered it part of my education to go along. But I might have to roll with the big boys and visit a full-blown hostess bar if I want to really understand why people spend so much time in these places.

Unicycles

2006-10-18T00:52:00.000+09:00

I used to think that only circus clowns rode ichi-rincha, or unicycles... until I met a guy in Tokyo who went off-road unicycling in the Aussie outback. After he gave me proof in the form of a DVD featuring one of his 'tours' to a soundtrack of nu-metal, I started seeing evidence everywhere that the arcane sport of unicycling was alive and well in Japan. But nothing prepared me for what I witnessed one fine Sunday afternoon.

The weather was decidedly 'parade weather': a cloudless blue sky. All eight lanes of Midosuji Street were replete with spectators and spectacles. A procession of floats from Japan and around the world.

I walked against the flow of the parade in order to see it all in less than the requisite four hours of parading. Taiko drummers, Miss Thailand, Chineses singers, Suntory beer representatives, a sphinx on wheels, samba dancers, brass bands, kids on roller skates: all of the usual suspects collaborated in what I assume was a parade how parades are meant to... parade. I'm not really a parade connoisseur, although I still like to think I know a good parade when I see one and was not at all surprised when the ichi-rincha first appeared on the horizon. In the form of an ichi-rincha club, no less. The members were young kids riding a variety of different makes and models, some regular, some very tall.

Then came some more. Then more again. Then the brass band... riding unicycles. There were hundreds of them.

Have you ever ridden a one-wheeled vehicle? I have, and it wasn't easy. Admittedly I was drunk at the time, but even so I've always believed that this particular sport was reserved for the prodigously agile. These kids were not only riding for four hours, but doing tricks and playing trombone at the same time.

It was an inspiration to see such an ostensibly difficult talent be mass-produced. Come to think of it, this kind of focus or 'perfectionism', as in improving on some skill until you're ridiculously good, is something I feel runs really deep in Japanese culture. That, along with harmony and symbolism. I should write a thesis. I'd call it "Zen and the art of Unicycle Maintanence".

Life in Osaka

2006-10-18T00:51:00.000+09:00

Dotombori

March is too soon to be leaving Japan, but that's when the man at the passport office says I have to get off the island. There is another option: to get visa sponsorship from Nova by working full-time. I think I've gotten the platinum treatment from Nova: an apartment all to myself, weekends off, the highest-paying shift and no kids' classes. That would all change if I went onto a full-time contract. And besides, I'm no career teacher.

I leave Osaka on February 27th, then leave Japan from Tokyo on the 7th. Until then I'll continue to enjoy the Osaka life to which I've become accustomed.

I work in Minami, which is the Shibuya of Osaka. That means it's a shopping area replete with bars, restaurants, karaoke boxes, hosts and hostesses. It's 'downtown' - the word Minami means 'south'. I get off the subway at Shinsaibashi and Nova is right there on the mall. Buskers are often playing opposite after my shift - even though it's apparently illegal. On one occasion a band was just starting to pack up when I got out of the office. They explained to me that a group of 'bad man' told them to move on. I've since heard that there have been cases of Yakuza smashing peoples' instruments if they didn't comply.

It's a quick walk down to Dotombori, if I'm in the mood for some takoyaki. On the way I'll see the odd illegal busker or street store with an Israeli, always an Israeli, selling fake Louis Vuitton (my wallet set me back a mere 5000 yen, whereas the LV store is selling it for 60000). I'll see the hosts in their trademark black-suit-white-shirt-open-collar-big-hair uniform, attempting to pick up customers or recruit new hostesses. I see them pick an attractive target (of which there are plenty in Minami) and walk alongside her for a while, trying to start a conversation, being ignored. "Hey, how's it going, are you a student? Do you work part-time?" And I see all the gyaru [girls] with their brown skin, big hair, hot pants and heels with stockings that end just above the knees. Yesterday there was a gang of these girls on the subway, and one was touching up her stockings, laying down a fresh sheen of glue on her thigh to hold it up. Sometimes it's fun just to have a chu-hai on the street and watch the fashion parade. Now that I'm returning to Australia, I've been seriously concerned that I might be ruined for Aussie girls. You don't wear miniskirts in the middle of Winter? You don't have socks glued to your leg? You don't have plastic gems glued to your fingernails? You don't even own cowboy boots? Not interested. Hopefully some nice arian girl will set me straight in the months to come.

My neighbourhood is 15 minutes out of Minami. I live in an apartment building next to a junior high school. In Japanese comics and cartoons, the schools always look like prisons. When I came to Osaka I was surprised to find that they really look like that: there's a three-metre wall around the whole school with spikes on top, and a huge iron gate that locks latecomers out. There is a famous story of a young girl being crushed by the gate as she ran to get to school on time. Once inside, however, it seems nobody ever does much work. Most days as I walk past on the way to work, schoolgirls amuse themselves by shouting "Hello! How are you!" at me out the windows. Japanese schoolgirls are the funniest. They are so overly enthusiastic about everything. If I had a daughter, I'd want her to be a Japanese schoolgirl (but not in Japan, there are too many creeps). On the weekend I was walking with a Japanese friend and there was a bunch of them hanging around smoking. On of them said "Hi" and I replied, "Hey, how are you?". She just looked at me in awe like I was Buddha revealing a pearl of wisdom and they started muttering to each other in Japanese. My Japanese friend told me they were saying "Wow, why is he so handsome?" or something. Aww, shucks.

The park is what puts my neighbourhood on the map. It's really big, there are a few stadiums and a road that circles everything, which I like to run on at night. It seems everyone likes to go there in the evening and practice their various arts - I see people singing, dancing, playing trumpet, swinging swords around, and of course, playing Shougi. Always with the Shougi. There is a homeless community that lives in the park, and they love their Shougi. It's kind of like Chess. The homeless are pretty well set-up, with a generator and stereo, and their trademark blue tarpolon houses. Being homeless in Japan is not like being homeless in, say, India. You see these guys walking around with mobile phones. Someone told me he once saw a homeless guy with a laptop. Then there is the rumour of the Nova employee who went homeless for the summer, to save on some rent.

Nagai also has its very own 99-yen shop: Shop 99. This place is awesome. Everything is 99 yen, and it's open 24 hours. I try to do all my grocery shopping there. They have this crazy soundtrack playing in the shop, which alternates between j-pop and death metal. Every third song is the Shop 99 theme song, which goes a little something like this:

Kyu kyu kyu kyu
Kyu kyu kyu kyu
Kyu kyu kyu kyu
Kyu kyu kyu kyu
Nandemo itsudemo
Kyu kyu kyu kyu

which means "9999999999999999 anything anytime 9999". It gets in my head and I find myself whistling it on the way to the shops. You have to feel sorry for the staff, though.

After 18 months in Japan, bad English can still make me laugh.

Salons. Why does every salon in Japan have a really bad name? There's a discount barber's in Minami called "Cut face". One of the students is a salon manager - he named his establishment "Dag". My man in Nagai works at "Cut House Brave Scissor" - and if my current haircut is anything to go by, you do have to be brave to walk in there.
Shop 99 has some interesting products. There is a chocolate product with the mouth-watering name of 'Crunky'. Crunky comes in two styles: there is the regular crunky, which resembles your typical block of chocolate, and the logically-named Crunky walking bar, which is more like a snickers, allowing you to walk at the same time as eating (genuis!). They also carry a curry mix aptly named Oishii [delicious] curry, which sports this cannabilistic slogan: 'Have you always wanted to eat a curry master? Now you can.'

Moving is Hard

2006-09-02T19:09:00.000+09:00

Aiko

Moving is hard. I'm not talking about saying goodbye and becoming accustomed to a new environment - I'm talking about moving my physical shell and wordly possessions between point A and point B.

When I found my new place in Nagai Park, crumpled Nova-issue map in hand, I was very excited. So excited, in fact, that I immediately collapsed in exhaustion in the corner of the one western-style room. I recall being pretty stoked when I came to, though. Osaka is the second-biggest city in Japan but it's still a lot smaller than Tokyo - so the apartments are larger. My Osaka digs is a definite upgrade on the Tokyo place. There's a real clothes line, not just a piece of string on the balcony. Tokyo apartments don't really have rooms as you know them. There are some bedrooms and there's an "LDK", which is a combined Living/Dining/Kitchen area. In Osaka I have a real kitchen, so that's nice. There's a rice paddy next door. The most exciting moment, though, came when I went to pee, and found that we were the proud owners of our very own all-Japanese robo-toilet.

"We" at the time meant myself and Rod "Frenchy" Gicquel. Before long we were joined by Dennis "Dagger" Ngai, who, being Australian-born Chinese immediately became the 'stealth gaijin' of Nagai Park, and was always addressed first when we went shopping in spite of his 3-word vocabulary. At this point I would jump in with my admittedly survival-level but fairly useable Japanese. Amazement and hilarity ensued.

There are many roads to Japan. Rod took the road of 'Japanophile', one day finding that his bookshelf was full of manga [Japanese comics], his hard drive full of anime [Japanese cartoons] and his photo album consisting entirely of snaps of him with his arms around various asiatiques [Asian girls]. He came here with only a Playstation but wasted no time in acquiring a Nintendo DS, PSP, second laptop and of course a Japanese girlfriend. Rod spent the last four years perfecting his Japanese so he could live here. Dennis, meanwhile, is here to learn the language, which is a business decision for him. Afterwards he plans to return to China and start a company.

Both Dennis and Rod have since moved out. Dennis wanted a cheaper place and besides didn't really enjoy living in the wardrobe. It was a big wardrobe for sure, but he was still technically living in Rod's wardrobe. As you might be able to guess, Rod's wardrobe would be scary enough for anyone. Relatively, he had it pretty good. My mate James in Tokyo had such a small room that he had to sleep diagonally if he wanted to stretch out. But Rod's habit of coming home and playing with his anime figurines at 4am finally got to Dennis. Rod, a short time later, moved out so he could get a cat, giving me sovereign over the whole apartment. It's a Nova-owned apartment, which means they could move anyone in at anytime, but at the moment I'm lucky to still have the entire place to myself. When I first moved in I was lucky to be here at all.

Exactly twelve hours prior, I had been sprinting through Tokyo station drenched in sweat with a garbage bag of completely random personal belongings and holes over one shoulder, leaving a trail of accessories and computer peripherals in my wake. How did it come to this? Let's go 'Fight Club' - lets roll it back...

Flash to the night before: my last night in Tokyo unfolded like a DVD trilogy. Episode I was at Watami, a Japanese bar, drinking beer by the jugfull. Episode II was spent drinking my last Chu-hai on the Tokyo streets. I may have mentioned Chu-hai before: it is a pre-mixed carbonated beverage consisting of shochu (a potato-based spirit) and fruit juice, best enjoyed served cold from the convenience store and drunk on the street just outside your office, or on the subway. For Episode III we moved to Ain't No, my favourite bar. Then we had some "bonus features" in the form of myself, my stalwart housemates and partners in crime Mark and Danny, and Scott, an American coworker, drink into the wee hours back at our place.

Suddenly, I woke up in a small Tokyo apartment to the tune of my phone ringing. It was the movers. Was I ready to start moving my stuff? I said OK, figuring I had a good 15-20 minutes before they arrived. One minute later, there was a ring at the door and a phalanx of about 10 blue-overalled men poured through the door and into the LDK. Scott, a coworker from the USA, was passed out on the sofa, and narrowly escaped being bundled into an Osaka-bound van. It was all I could manage to start throwing random items into boxes, and random boxes in the general direction of the phalanx, which began piling up in a queue at the door of my room. When they left, my room looked like crash site. There was still clothes and rubbish strewn everywere. When I finally left the city 12 hours later, various trash and a lone t-shirt abandoned on the piece-of-string clothesline would bear grim testament to the chaos that was my brand of moving house. Scott was still sleeping soundly. It was at this point that I realised I'd drunkenly left my bag at Ain't No - and that the bar wasn't open again until that evening. I tried to put that out of my mind while I ran some errands - chaning my billing addresses and other things that probably shouldn't have been left until the last possible day. But the real fun began when it came time to pack my backpack... and I realised that I had never brought it to Japan in the first place.

Oops.

No sweat, no sweat. I went to my local super to buy a new suitcase and picked up nice little black number for 8000 yen. At this point, the manager of Ain't No sent a mug shot of my bag to my mobile phone. On top of that, Aiko, one of my best friends decided to come and buy me a farewell dinner. It was all coming together. I met Aiko at Ain't No, got my bag and opted for the nachos.

I can see in retrospect how free drinks, latin music, a beautiful girl and great friend who I'm meeting for possibly the last time and Mexican food could be a recipe for disaster. By the time we were done I was racing the clock. Aiko agreed to wait for me at the station while I bolted home to finish packing, which I anticipated would take precisely the time required by the the total content to my floor to be thrown across the room into my shiny new suitcase.

That was when I discovered to my horror that my shiny new suitcase could not accommodate everything I had left, not by a long shot. I cast about for any kind of container. This was where the wheels of fate started to turn: under the sink I found a huge white garbage bag. It was in poor condition, but it looked tough enough to do the job.

With my black suitcase and my white garbage bag, I ventured into the streets of Tokyo like a foreign vagabond. I was exhausted after 50 metres. As a young male traveller, the thought never really occurs to you that anything could actually be too heavy to carry a reasonable distance. But clearly I was never going to make it on time. To make it worse my mobile phone battery had just died (in my morning panic I had confused the various chargers in my room and packed the wrong one), so I couldn't call for help. I was alone on this one. I thought of Aiko, my best friend on the island, waiting alone at Omori station, wondering where the hell I'd gotten to.

Wheels of fate. A familiar figure approached on the road ahead - it was Mark, having returned from work. With his help we made it to the station and charged through the gates. My portable hard drive dropped out of a growing hole in the bag. A tie pin fell out on the escalator and was swallowed at the bottom, disappearing into the green... whatever. But we made it onto the train.

The dash resumed upon reaching Tokyo station, me with my hobo bag, Aiko in hot pursuit pushing my suitcase. I made it to the bus terminal with about 2 minutes on the clock. That was the fastest I've ever fallen asleep in a seated position. Several way stations later I woke up in Osaka. The garbage bag found a temporary home in a bank of lockers, while my suitcase and I made it to Nagai Park.

I collapsed onto the carpet and thought religious thoughts. Aiko and Mark were my guardian angels that night. Clearly God wanted me in Osaka for some reason... or at least he wanted me the hell out of Tokyo. I lay on the bare carpet, no futon, no pillow. It was the best sleep I've ever had.

Parents

2006-08-06T21:48:00.000+09:00

I was waiting at Shinagawa station, watching the Tokyo crowd pass by with a fresh fascination. Schoolgirls and salarymen. For some reason these two groups are ubiquitous: they seem to be found at every station at any time, day or night, weekdays, weekends, holidays. Visitors always make you see things for the first time... again. This time the visitors were none other than my folks... with my grandfolks in tow. Yes: of course I was scared.

It was actually impressive that they made it to Shinagawa at all. Between the four of them they knew about... one word of Japanese. One word of Japanese and thick Aussie accents. By the time I met them, they had already had one adventure. They needed to pick up their tourist train passes from some office, that actually closed shortly after their plane came in. They had to run to get there, and made it in just as the door was closing. Grandpa was too slow... he was shut out.

This is the first time I'd seen my folks in a year, and it seems that during that time, they had gotten older. Or maybe I had just forgotten how old they were. Mum was looking pretty trim, though. She's been working out. It was good to see them again. It turned out to be a lucky opportunity with regard to my grandpa, who has recently passed away. Heart attacks were nothing new to to him, but I was still shocked, as he was usually very genki (healthy and energetic). So I was fortunate and happy to have some time with him in Tokyo.

He and Glenda, my step-grandma, made a fun couple. She definitely wore the pants in that relationship while they were on the road. Grandpa just ate the sausages. It's impressive to see Glenda in action. Her method of communication with locals is the time-honoured technique of speaking really loudly in English. Our first duty at the station was to make an inquiry about the express to Kyoto. Glenda just blazed into the office and starting shouting in English. The staff was probably scared as hell. I speak Japanese, Glenda. I'm here for you. But the funny thing was, it worked, and she got everything she needed. I can only assume that she and grandpa had no issues whatsoever later in Kyoto, as they shouted at various monks, geisha and guides throughout the city.

On the first night as tour guid, I guided us to the local fugu restaurant. I got the feeling that some members of our party were a little dubious - especially after I explained what fugu was. At the entrance of the restaurant, there was a big tank with a few fugu swimming around. They didn't look very poisonous. Apparently a handful of people get sick or die every year eating these guys. Of course, it is never from restaurant fugu: gung-ho consumers sometimes buy them at the supermarket and attempt to remove the poisonous organ themselves, in their own kitchen. Still, I decided not to let my family no about that little j-factoid. Instead I amused myself by tapping on the glass, trying to make them puff up.

We sat down and the waiter came around. Immediately, grandpa took the reigns and ordered us all beers. He did that. Then we started searching the menu.

I didn't know this at the time, but grandpa's diet was very specific. He only consumed four things: sausages, eggs, chicken and beer. That's pretty funny, considering he and Glenda were constantly touring the world. Glenda is the opposite: she will try anything. In Japan, restaurants usually specialise in one thing. This restaurant was all about fugu. ALL about fugu. The dishes were all different parts of fugu, fried fugu, fugu sushi, even the salad had fugu . It's entirely possible the beer contained fugu. So as Glenda and grandpa scoured the menu the conversation went like this:

Grandpa Do they have chicken?
Glenda I don't think so.
Grandpa That one looks chicken.
Glenda Yes, but it's actually fried fugu.
Grandpa But it LOOKS like chicken... Look, there's an egg in this one! I'm getting that.

The fugu karaage (fried fugu) was amazing. It really did look and taste like chicken. Grandpa decided that in fact is was chicken, and the menu was wrong. When grandpa's egg dish arrived, is took the form of a kind of nabe (hotpot). However, there was no egg in sight - I think it was mixed into the soup. He claimed it was false advertising. In any case, how the nabe was cooked was so cool it deserves a mention. There was some kind of hot-plate, or so I thought, on the table for preparing nabe. The waiter got a circle of paper and made it into a bowl, then put it in a cradle on top of the plate. Then he poured the nabe inside. I had no idea how the paper wasn't disintegrating or burning. When I touched the hot plate... it wasn't hot, yet the nabe was bubbling merrily. Really cool.

Food was an ongoing theme of this trip. And grandpa was nearly always able to find the steak amongst the mess of Chinese and Japanese characters that comprise the menus here. One night I took my family to the izakaya where I had first eaten raw horse meat. As I attempted to pronounce and describe the various dishes on offer, grandpa suddenly blurted out, "SNAGS!" He had found the sausages. He could have been in a Belgian pub that night, with his large order of beer and plate of 'snags' (that's Aussie for sausages). A Japanese patron at the next table had also ordered a large beer, and grandpa kept eyeing him off. "His beer is bigger than mine!" No, grandpa: the beer's not bigger, he is smaller. But he wasn't having any of that. Meals were always entertaining with grandpa.

We ate every imaginable form of fugu that first night. On the next day at Asakusa, we passed an other restaurant from the same chain, and observed the display of plastic food in front. We had eaten every single item on the menu. I was also later given props for getting grandpa to eat something that wasn't on the menu at the pub.

There were a group of costume play boys and girls hanging around at the temple this time. I chatted to them a little, and it turned out they were dressed as video game characters. I was interested in what my grandparents would make of this. Grandpa, on seeing them, just exclaimed loudly, "Now why would they dress like that!?" He seemed completely puzzled. I was afraid that his brain might explode when we made it to Harajuku, which was this times ten. Come Harajuku he was just mystified, more than anything else. I'll never really be sure what he made of those people.

Next on the itinerary was Meiji Shrine. I've been there before, so I have the purification rites at the entrance down pat. Take the ladle from the fountain. Wash your left hand. Wash your right hand. Pour some water into your cupped hand from the ladle, and wash your mouth (you may spit the water onto the ground discreetly). Finally, rinse and replace the ladle. Meanwhile Grandpa, as usual, had his own version: take the ladle and drink directly out of it. I suspect he thought it was a kind of Edo-era drinking fountain.

Inside the main courtyard I showed my family the altar. A young acolyte manned a booth to the side in a white gown and tall black hat, his role seemingly being to sit still and hold a stick upright in front of his body. We joined the other tourists in taking pictures of him - he didn't react at all, reminding me of those guards with furry hats in London. In true Tokyo style, he was struggling to stay awake. We could tell when he was starting to go, as his stick would slowly descend in front of him. Then it would spring back up as he caught himself.

I showed my family the huge tree surrounded by racks replete with prayer tablets. Meiji shrine is the biggest in Tokyo and there is a phalanx of desks set up, classroom-like, at which people are busy writing prayer tablets in every conceivable language: Spanish, English, Korean, Chinese, even Hebrew. So my new pastime at the shrine is to read everyone's prayers.

In what has become a family tradition, it rained for the duration of my parents' visit. Of course, this is the rainy season in Japan, and generally not advised as the best time to come. My parents planned a day trip to Hakone (the place of Fuji-san and many hot springs) and generously got a ticket for me, but when we got there is was so misty and windy that we couldn't make out much of the famous scenery (I lived in Tokyo for a year and have been to Fuji-san twice, once to climb it... and I still haven't seen the bastard).

However, there is an upside to this time of year. It's also matsuri (festival) season. My mum and dad were lucky enough to time their visit, completely by accident, with some kind of community matsuri right next to their hotel. By the time I joined them in the evening, they had already had their fill of takoyaki (octopus balls) and were all holding drinks - for free. Grandpa hailed me with a call to "Get a beer!", and I had the opportunity to meet mum's new friend. She is one of those women who redefine the word "hospitality", and she would later shower us with gifts and generally embarrass my mum. We also tried the bon odori, a traditional dance. There are a few different variations that are symbolic of different activities, like farming, mining etc. Dad informed me I had just missed the "Driving Safetly Dance" when I arrived. Rock on.

One of the highlights of the trip was Tsukiji fish market. This place is completely packed with wholesalers flogging every kind of sea creature. We didn't get there early enough to catch the auctions, but we got there in time for the aftermath: piles of frozen tuna being loaded onto forklifts, all with prices inscribed on them. Apparently, a single tuna fish can go for $1000. Later, we saw the same frozen tuna being cut up with a band-saw at one of the shops. The whole place is pretty chaotic, it is one of the most 'Asian' places I've been to in Japan. There are swarms of small vehicles driving around on 'roads' between the stores. You must know the courage of the dragon in order to brave these Chinese traffic conditions, young Grasshopper. As usual, grandpa was in fine form here. While we nervously waited for an opening like dumb tourists, he would dauntlessly amble onto the laneway and make an opening of his own. It was like he didn't even see the traffic. I was in awe.

Of course, no trip to Tokyo is complete without shopping in Ginza. We got there after breakfast in Tsukiji, probably smelling like dead eels, and were able to enter one of the world's largest department stores as the doors opened. The cool thing about being the first customers is that all of the shop staff bow when you walk past their area. The cosmetics section, with its hundred little booths, is the best for this. Dad pulled mum down a 'fresh' aisle in order to be the first to make everyone bow, embarassing mum once again.

I experienced Kabuki for a second time. It still makes no sense at all to me. This time, the story was about some kind of sea prince in an underwater castle who made a deal with a King to take his daughter in exchange for various treasure from the sea (takoyaki, sushi, etc...). For this to work he had to cause the daughter's ship to capsize and drown her, so her soul could be transported and reincarnated as a water dragon, or something. On the way to the castle, she was obviously upset on finding out what was going on, and met the prince only to say she is ugly as a water dragon and he might as well kill her. He was about to, but then realised she was beautiful, the end.

It was great to see my family again.

Matsuri

2006-08-06T21:47:00.000+09:00

Summer in Japan means matsuri (festivals).
I was walking through Omori one day on the way home, when a matsuri procession intercepted me. There was a long line of groups with mikoshi: portable shrines that had been tied to a group of criss-crossing wooden poles so that they could be supported by a group of carriers. Each mikoshi had a drum lashed to the side. One group member would play the drum while another played a little piccolo-like instrument.
The Japanese don't do things by halves. Even during these Summer festivals, they go hard. The mikoshi must weigh a ton because the carrying teams were constantly making substitutions and were covered in sweat. Some of the members - only the men, unfortunately - had stripped down to their loincloths. I followed the procession for over an hour, and I know that the parade takes longer than that. The music never stopped. The drummer would switch mid-beat, to be replaced seemlessly by another guy. It was a well-oiled machine.
As if that was all too easy, the teams would pull 'stunts' out of their repotoire from time to time. I was following one shrine that seemed to going particularly hard. All of the teams seemed to be different demographics. Some were smaller kids' teams, some were high-school groups, some were all-female, etc. This particular shrine was all young guys and they were working hard. Suddenly, the drummer sped up and they started to rock... literally. Two guys on either side of the mikoshi pushed up and down on the poles, rocking the whole thing back and forth. I saw this again and again throughout the parade. One of the mikoshi teams would suddenly 'rock out' and throw their mikoshi around a bit. Another group later showed off my lifting the whole assembly up off their shoulders so that they were supporting it with their hands, arms stretched straight up.
The teams also chant non-stop for the duration of the parade. Amusingly, some of the chants were in English. One group was shouting "Always working!", which I felt really summed up the Japanese culture as represented in this festival. Another group was shouting "Let's go!... Let's go!"
I followed the parade down along the shopping arcade, and starting wondering where it was headed. I figured it must end back at Omori Shrine, where they can put all of the portable shrines back in the hall. I resolved to follow until the end.
I rushed forward to catch up with the beginning of the procession, which comprised a guy dressed as a demon, some old monkish gentlemen carrying lanterns and what can best be described as a medieval DJ deck. It was a small wooden house with wheels, and three old 'DJs' playing various percussion instruments that were built into the structure. I rushed forward and waited in the main shopping mall with various chefs, housewives, passers-by and a squadron of wheelchaired people from Omori hospital.
Then I watched about dozen mikoshi blaze by.
The end of the shopping mall came up and the procession moved shamelessly onto 4-lane main road. It had to wait at an intersection for the traffic lights to change, but after it gave the green light, it was all over. I can only imagine the annoyance of the cars that missed that light, and had to wait for the entire procession to pass.
As it turned out, the middle of the main road is where the procession eventually ended. There were some stands set up and the parade just kind-of ended. This is not to say they didn't go out without a bang. The finale was great. All of the people not carrying the mikoshi at that time attempted to push the mikoshi down onto the stands, while the carriers tried to keep it up. During this time the whole things was sliding around everywhere, and two members crawled around underneath the shrine repositioning the stands - not the role I would be putting my hand up for. The parade ended when either the mikoshi came to rest or someone got killed (haha).
The funny thing is, this was just a small, local parade. The big ones make these guys look like wimps. The most famous festivals often involve mikoshi ramming each other.

Mount Fuji

2006-08-06T21:46:00.000+09:00

Some people rave about the Fuji climb, some people hate it. I can understand the mixed opinions. The mountain definitely looks a lot better from a distance. When you're looking at is rising up behind the skycrapers in Tokyo, you can't see all the trash. You also can't see that it's a huge volcanic pile of dirt, with no plant life to speak of beside some tufts of grass that stop about halfway up. Parallels can be drawn between climbing Mount Fuji and waiting for the next train at rush hour. The environment is mostly grey and full of sleepy Japanese people, there are long queues and vending machines. Yes: vending machines. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that Fuji is unique on this point. As far as I know, once you arrive at the top of K2 you won't be able to revitalise with with a hot can of corn soup from the 'drinks corner'. I'm also fairly certain there are no ramen outlets on Everest. People who climb to be surrounded by nature don't enjoy Fujisan. But I'm one of those people who climb 'because it's there'.
I loved this climb.
Most people start climbing at Station 5, which is as far up as buses can travel. Station 5 itself is pretty huge: there are the requisite ramen restaurants and all kinds of souvenirs. I arrived there as part of a group of foreigners. Once we got off the bus, we talked safety. Every year, there is always some fool who goes and dies on the mountain. I think people underestimate Fujisan quite often. We were given some oxygen canisters for use in case of emergency, and were assigned a buddy. My buddy was Tomoko, one of the few Japanese people in our posse. Next, of course, we picked up some ramen. After that, it was time to pick up our hiking sticks. On the way up, there are a series of about 9 way stations where you can burn a symbol your stick, so that once you reach the top it's covered in various brands.
The first thing you notice is the crowd. To state the obvious: there are a lot of people in Tokyo. Just think of Fujisan as a regional area of Tokyo. For the first few hours we were in the middle of a solid procession of Japanese mountaineers. It takes all sorts to climb a volcanic pile of dirt: some were impressively young, like that punk kid who races past me in the Sydney fun-run every year. Some were impressively old. Some people look like they do it every week: they have all the gear, colour-coordinated backpacks, vintage sticks completely covered in brands. I look pretty amateur hiking next to them, with my bright blue plastic rain-coat from the department store. Then there are some people who 'didn't get the memo' - people wearing jeans, some fool in a business suit, girls who look like they fell asleep and missed the stop for Shibuya (downtown). You wonder how long it will take before they freeze to death. Then you remember that 45kg women walk around Tokyo in the snow wearing miniskirts with no complaint. There are also a lot of army guys.
We were aiming to catch the sunrise, so we began climbing at about 5pm so we could make a relaxed ascent and arrive at the top 12 hours later.
As it turned out, Tomoko and I were meant for each other. She was really tough, so we burned ahead and broke away from the group early in the piece. At every way station it is possible to buy ramen and drinks, and they get steadily more expensive as you get higher. After dark, it is pitch dark between these stations. At around 2pm, Tomoko and I stopped between way stations to enjoy the peace. We jumped off the trail and lay down on the rocks. Looking down on the mountain we could see an endless stream of white dots, zig-zagging like ants up towards us: helmet-lights of fellow climbers. Beyond that was the dim glow of the nearby towns, and a barely visible display of fireworks bursting above, in celebration of Summer. In felt like anything but Summer where we were: it was freezing! Tomoko and I lay there for a while, sharing body heat. Later, at the summit, the tour leader would tell us that he saw two of the climbers from our group making out on the side of the trail! "It was that Indian guy and that French girl, I think." I guess the romance of the moment didn't pass unnoticed by the rest of the group, either.
In spite of our interlude we reached the top too early. The top is the coldest part, so ideally you want to time it so you get there right at sunrise. Instead, we now had to contend a freezing wind. There was a ragged group of climbers attempting to rest, illuminated by the warm glow of two vending machines. I bought a corn soup and we tried, fruitlessly, to get a few hours sleep. After giving up, we went for ramen. Again.
The sunrise was surreal. Below the summit was a sea of whispy cloud, and as the run rose it was filtered through this shifting white layer. The end result was this shimmering orange ellipse that constantly hovered left and right, like a UFO.
But our journey was not over. Fujisan is volcanic, and there is a trail around a huge crater at the top. Looking at it from the summit, it looked like a jolly little jaunt to enjoy after some piping hot ramen. It turned out to be the toughest part of the whole trip. The walk took about two hours and it was not flat. At that altitude, everything is harder. Moving, talking, thinking... I actually used up all my emergency oxygen on this leg.
The trip down took about half the time as going up, and was pretty easy. On the way up, it had been very rocky - but we took a different route down, and it was all dirt and sand. The hardest part was avoiding the dust clouds. Most people had bandanas to protect their lungs from the onslaught. Now I felt like the one who hadn't gotten the memo: all I had was a think scarf. I created a makeshift mask out of it, but it wasn't what you would call effective.
By the time we arrived back at station 5, it was after lunch. He had been climbing for about 16 hours. By time the I arrived home, I had been awake for close to fourty hours. Jack Bauer is a pansy.

Japanese Honesty

2006-07-15T18:00:00.000+09:00

Last Saturday I couldn't find my MP3 player. Assuming I had left it at work, I gave the office a call but they couldn't find it either.

Eventually, a few days later, I realised that I might have left it at the soba shop at the station. I went in and asked about it, and the soba lady said that indeed, I had left it there. I cannot articulate the sense of elation that I experienced at this moment - I actually had assumed someone had stolen it from the office, and figure I'd never see my beloved player again.

But the story did not end here. different staff members kept coming out telling me to wait a little. After ten minutes: no player. They couldn't find it! Maybe it was stolen, who knows - bottom line: I was playerless once again. Hinai, one of staffers, asked for my details just in case, but I had to go to work so I said I'd come back.

I returned the next day and Hanai started asking for the usual information: my name and number; what make was it? What colour was it?

I thought she was just building a description in case it turned up. But then she started getting specific: how much memory? Do you have the box? What she said next blew me away:

"Could you bring in the box? We will buy a new one."

I was completely shocked at this. I honestly think that in Australia, this story would have already ended in tears by now. But in fact, the story gets better.

Next day, I brought in the box and Hanai said to wait a few days. Yesterday afternoon I got a call from Hanai to check what colour I wanted! She was in Akihabara (a good place to buy electronics). She also informed me that my model has not in production anymore, and would it be OK if she bought me a different model. Needless to say, I was more than totally OK with this.

On the way to work that evening I called by at the soba shop, and picked up my new player. Hanai handed me my old box and a sleek new one. When she urged me to open it, it felt like Christmas all over again. And when I pulled out the new player, I found to my still-growing pleasant shock that she had upgraded me! My new player is smaller and has double the memory.

Quotable Quotes 2

2006-07-09T16:19:00.000+09:00

Sometimes I do help shifts at different Nova branches. I like help shifts because variety is the spice of life, a change is a good as a holiday, etc.

Each branch has advantages and disadvantages. Ooimachi branch, for example, has the bitchiest Japanese staff on the island, but the friendliest foreign staff. They have a lot of fun at Ooimachi. The branch is actually located inside a games centre, so it seems fitting that there's a playstation in the staff room.

They also have an awesome collection of funny student quotes, recorded for posterity in a large volume. Below are my favourite quotes:

"Luxury is fat." (is that fat with a 'ph'?)
"Vietnamanian: they are very small and weak and short, but they are strong... in their mind."
Instructor: "How are you?"
Student: "My task quantity is average." (proof that Japanese salarymen are robots)
Instructor: "what's a person who makes bread?"
Student: "A bakarian."
"Australia is made of wool."
Exercise: What should we bring to a desert island
"If we bring a clock we won't become lazy." (more proof that they're robots)
"I am the technical director of cheese."
Instructor: "What is your favourite food?"
7C (lowest level) student: "I... can't... eat... anything... Bark. Sunshine."
"I have a headache in my stomache."
Students: 45-yo salaryman and 15-yo junior high school girl
Instructor: "Please ask Tomomi some questions."
Salaryman: "I think 'some questions' means sexual harassment."
"This steak is too tight." (???)

Oxygen Bar

2006-07-09T16:11:00.000+09:00

I was feeling tired before work started, so I went to the Oxygen Bar. Since it was my first visit, I had to buy a tube for 300 yen - but as luck would have it, it was happy hour, so I was able to buy 20 minutes for the competitive price of 1000 yen!

The 'bartender' showed me how to connect the tube to the machine and wrap it around my ears to that I could breath the scented oxygen through my nose. My oxygen machine had four available 'flavours': eucalyptus, green apple, strawberry and cranberry. I found eucalyptus to be the most refreshing.

I left feeling more relaxed and alert after sniffing pure oxygen, but ultimately the effect wasn't that strong.

Quotable Quotes

2006-06-24T03:24:00.000+09:00

More amusing quotes from students:

There is a schoolgirl called Barbie (seriously) who comes in. She is fun to teach but she's a little weird. I taught her for the first time the other day, and she asked me, "How many girlfriends do you have?" While this was flattering, I was not so flattered when I found out that she thinks I "look like Frankenstein" (I guess she means the monster, not the guy).

I gave a lesson on animals. I taught the word 'claws' and asked the students to name one animal with claws. One student, let's call him Hide, said, "My wife." Later, we were playing a guessing game. The conversation went thus:

Student 1: Does the animal have fur?
Student 2: Yes!
Student 1: Does the animal have sharp teeth?
Student 2: Yes!
Hide: Is it one of the hostesses in Ginza?
(cultural note: Ginza is ritzy and the hostesses there wear furs)

Irasshaimase Practice

2006-06-10T01:58:00.001+09:00

A student who works the reception desk at a beauty salon revealed to me that every morning, about 15 minutes before opening, her and her fellow staffers stand in a circle and practice welcoming customers.

"We practice saying Irasshaimase [Japanese for 'welcome'] and bowing," she explained; "but it's not an Irasshaimase like you hear in a clothes shop - it is a very cultured Irasshaimase."

She demonstrated her 'very cultured Irasshaimase'.

"We also practice smiling and saying agreeing with customers - saying Hai ['yes']."

Taiko no Tatsujin

2006-06-03T15:24:00.000+09:00

There is a popular arcade game in Japan called Taiko-no-Tatsujin (Japanese Drum Expert). It is similar to Dance Dance Revolution, except instead of a dance floor with pressure pads, you have a taiko (Japanese drum) and two sticks. So you have to follow the music and perform in time with it.
I went to Akihabara on the weekend, and saw fans of this game in action.
The first thing I noticed was a crowd gathered around the game centre. As I approached, I saw the king of all nerds drumming away as he played said game. He wasn't alone - we was there with two of his mates.
This guy was serious. He had brought his own special sticks from home (declining use of the provided sticks tethered to the machine). He was playing in two-player mode... by himself. So he had one stick on each drum (player 1 and player 2), and was doing these crazy cross-over moves, drawing applause and bemusement from the crowd. By the end he was sweating.
His buddy was up next. I noticed he hadn't brought any special sticks of his own. Was this guy an amateur or something? I stood corrected as the game began and he donned a blindfold. Yes, a blindfold. As in, he couldn't see. He did alright, too!
The third member of the troupe was a bit of an amateur. He didn't have any special moves like blind-drumming or crossing over. He was not so much a super-nerd, more of a low-level, nerd-ish young gentleman. At the nerd bar, he probably has to be content to chat up the leftover cute babes after all the girl-nerds have been snapped up by the more adept taiko players. Still, he was clearly committed to perfecting the art: not only did he bring his own sticks lovingly wrapped in special cloth - he also pulled up a pair of gloves as he began the game!
These guys are NOT DICKING AROUND.

Crazy Japanese

2006-06-03T14:56:00.000+09:00

In Japan, you wear a face mask if you have a cold, in order to stop the spreading of germs. There are a few different styles. Some are just simple squares of tissue paper, then you have the high-end models which have a kind of ninja-esque air to them. People wearing this type remind me of Master Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - or Darth Vader. Wearing a tissue-mask really common; every day I see several people with masks. Sometimes a student is wearing through them, which is pretty amusing since they are there to practice speaking English. So I guess it was only a matter of time before I saw someone with a Darth Vader mask and eye-patch combination. with most of her face wre athed in mummy-like tissue, the OL (office lady) in question looked more kleenex than human. Sadly, my trigger finger was too slow as she shambled out camera range and off to work
I was walking past a noodle restaurant with a potted plant next to the entrance. A store clerk was polishing the leaves of the plant with a cloth and a water sprayer. (Update: I've been told there is a special chemical that makes plant leaves look shiny. I still think it's crazy)
If you go into a store in Japan, you can generally expect every employee to yell an enthusiastic Irasshaimase! (welcome). At my train station in the morning there is usually a woman manning a small sandwich stall outside one of the big department stores. Every 5 seconds, like clockwork, she shouts Irasshaimase to the throng of passing commuters. Always the same Irasshaimase: same tone, same volume... continuously, almost like a voice recording. I don't know how long she does it, but it must be at least 30 minutes every morning.
In my Japanese class, we were practicing a grammar structure that roughly translates to seems/appears to be (naninani-sou desu, for you Japanese speakers). The teacher is showing flash cards that we have to respond to. A plate of food - Oishisou desu ('It looks delicious'), we chant. An office worker - 'He looks busy'; a sunny landscape - 'It looks hot'; a pair of legs with a short school skirt...? The teacher explains: 'In Japan, girls wear very short skirts'. Then she acts as if she if attempting to look up the skirt! 'Ah - I can nearly see her panties! Pantsu o mie-sou desu!'

The Cut-throat World of Sales

2006-05-15T11:18:00.001+09:00

Nova staff work hard (the Japanese staff, not the foreigners). They have a lot of pressure to make sales, and our branch being one of the busiest in the area, and atmosphere can get pretty tense around the front desk, when sales are being made or broken. I recently heard that our branch ranks 21st for sales over the whole of Japan (of 700 or so, I think), for whice the credit has to go to our Japanese manager, Azusa-san.

One day I had a no-show: for whatever reason my student had failed to meet their appointment. At times like this I usually either evesdrop on another lesson or hang around the sales area and talk to staff/students. On this particular occasion I opted for the latter.

I was leaning on the reception desk for all of 2 seconds when Azusa kind-of shouted and whispered to me at the same time across the office - that one people do when you are committing a heinous faux pass. While gesturing manically toward the staffroom door she shouted/whispered:

"Luke! House!!"

House? Her English is broken at the best of times, but this is the first time she had talked to me in the same way that my mum talks to our miniature poodle Albert when he has peed in the living room. I thought that implying that I lived in the staffroom was a bit rich, but I acquiesced and hid in my 'house' for a while.

Eventually, I ventured out, and Azusa explained the cause of her anxiety. There had been a middle-aged woman discussing the company's products with a view to possible sign up. The thing about this potential client, though, was that she is petrified of men. Azusa was worried that if she saw me, she would run screaming from the building. This is strange since the woman is, in fact, married (to a man, for the record). It is also a little ironic that she would choose our branch, which as of two months ago had ONLY male instructors. It is a total sausage factory.

That sums up the cut-throat world of Nova sales right there: that the manager would attempt to sign a student who fears men to our delicatessan-esque school.

Kyoto

2006-05-15T11:18:00.000+09:00

Tokyo and Kyoto are said to be the two places you must visit in Japan. I spent two days in Kyoto recently, which was not nearly enough time.

I got there without much idea about what to do. So after checking in at the ryokan (Japanese inn), I grabbed my camera, grabbed my lonely planet guide, and went walkabout.

There are so many temples in Kyoto that it was about one minute before I found one. The temple grounds are beautiful. Even the public toilet had a traditional style roof and looked great. Sadly, this one was not open to the public.

I walked for another two minutes and found another temple. This one was huge, and the public could enter for a small fee. I decided to check it out. Little did I know that I was about to enter Sanjusangendo temple, which is very famous - this made it all the more sweeter, because I had no idea what was inside until I got in there.

The temple grounds were swarming with school kids on excursions and tourists. We had to take our shoes off, of course, when we entered the temple, and I was annoyed to find signs prohibiting taking photos of 'the sacred buddhas'. I went straight it without taking a pamphlet or anything, so I still had no idea what to expect. When I got inside, I was amazed.

The place is filled with rank upon rank of golden buddhas. Hundreds. They are about the size of a short adult and they are of the kannon variety (they have 42 arms). Each one is slightly different, and I found out later that tourists often like to find the buddha that most resembles family members, friends etc. I estimated there was about 800 of them, but later was told there are 1000. In front of the buddhas are a dozen or so statues of Japanese gods, and in the middle is a HUGE 42-armed buddha - the whole thing looks like a shining holy army.

I took a pamphlet on the way out, just because it included a photo of the sacred buddhas.

Kyoto is famous for tofu, so I ate some awesome tofu for lunch. Since my strategy of walking around aimlessly was working so well, I continued and found another random temple. This temple was absolutely massive. Again, this temple turned out to be famous too. I found out after that it was Nishi Honganji Temple: the biggest wooden building in the world.

The other interesting thing about that temple was that it was really a real, functioning temple - not just a museum/tourist attraction. When I went in, there was some kind of church-service-like event going on. People were listening to the priest give a kind of sermon. Then he intoned some holy scripture, and people started saying 'Om' and meditating. At the end they sang a kind of hymn, and meditated a little more. There was a large sectioned-off area for the priests at the front with all sorts of holy ornaments, like at a Cathedral - but the rest was spare: no seats, everyone was sitting cross-legged on tatami mats.

On the second day, I sought out the Golden Pavillion. Basically, it's just a large garden with a goldleaf-painted three-story building next to a lake, which you're not allowed to enter. To be honest, it was smaller than I had expected, after seeing the monstrous temple the afternoon before. Again, the place as full of kids on school trips. This one kid practiced his English on me for a while (this happens a lot in Japan). Being in junior high, though, the conversation was more-or-less limited to "Hello" and "Where you come countries from?". I also saw a gang of monks from all over the world, including some black guys and some white guys. At the exit to the garden there were a number of sweet stores (Kyoto is famous for traditional Japanese sweets), all giving away free samples! So that was lunch taken care of.

The last place I had time to visit was Ryoan temple, which is famous for a rock garden which is said to be the pinnacle of zen art. When I saw it, it was not what I expected. I had expected an elaborate, large arrangement of pebbles and stones, but you couldn't even play tennis on what I saw. It was small and extremely simple: a paddock of raked pebbles 15 larger stones placed in arbitrary positions. The famous landscaper had offered no explanation. The garden is supposed to be good for meditating at. There was a group of American students there with a professor, who was explaining that if you sit in the middle of the garden, there is an optical illusion that makes it look larger. Whatever. He also said that after a while, your mind will start to find patterns or meaning in the arrangement. I gave it a chance and chilled out for an hour or so. Given the noise from the throng of visitors passing through, it was not possible for me to achieve enlightenment. All I could think about was that it would make a cool indoor soccer court, with some added natural obstacles. I meditated on where the monks would put their sandals (which they would be using as goal posts). I don't know if this is what the professor meant. In any case I did come to appreciate the simple beauty of the place - even if you're not allowed to play soccer. I guess zen buddhism isn't for me.

It was raining by the time I left, so sadly I didn't get a chance to see geisha.

Osaka, sucker!

2006-05-04T18:42:00.000+09:00

Caught the 7:14 bullet from Shinagawa. The ticket inspector and food tray ladies bowed to me. Moved at a fast clip over to Shin-Osaka station. Found the hotel, transferred my reservation to the non-curfew section. Tried to reserve my ticket home for next week; cute Kansai resident called Yukiko (meaning snow-girl) helped me. She has an American boyfriend called Greg who wears a Ramones t-shirt. Devastated. Checked out the area, found lots of old men playing Shoji (Japanese Chess) and Go. Checked out the park, ate takoyaki (fried octopus balls) while watching teeny-bopper j-pop group. Went to den-den town, the electronics and geek district. Bought a camera case. Bought a fake Louis Vuitton wallet. Didn't buy weird hentai figurines from geek toy shop. Saw a guy with a girlfriend wearing one of those sexy french maid costumes. Saw a gaijin hawking more fake Louis Vuitton products (for too much). Finally checked in officially, tried to sleep, couldn't. Bought a genki drink to wake me up instead. Sent a hundred messages to friends of friends who know Osaka.

Met Kako, cute little hairdresser, at night for live street jazz, okonomiyaki, drinking, a ska show with a band of 10 members, and drinking. Missed the last train, went back to her place. Returned to Osaka, met Kosuke, friend of a friend of a friend of a friend. Saw crazy fashion in Amerika-mura, window-shopped, tried on a nazi shirt that would get you beaten up in Australia. Didn't buy it (wrong size). Ate more okonomiyaki. Went to Osaka Castle: full of Golden Week tourists, janitors dressed as samurai, and members of school girl taiko (Japanese drum) groups. Saw lots of freaky Samurai relics. Met Kosuke's bespectacled, nerdy friend and his short-skirted, balck-booted 17-yo girlfriend: a rare coupling - and played pool at the Amusement Space. Also got to level three on the only typing coin-op game I've ever seen.

Went to Dotombori, ate Hamburg steak, found the infamous 'pick-up bridge'. Found a bar, practiced my nanpa (pickup) skills on women too old for me. Missed the last train, went necktie-shopping at midnight. Got lost, ended up in Japan's first Irish pub (I was really lost). Bought some information for the price of a cider and ended up at a club with pole dancers in the corner, VIPs on the mezzanine and unlimited drinks for 2000 yen. Practiced my dancing and nanpa skills.

Got home at six, slept until three. Chilled. Scoured the neighbourhood for a tiny bar with a big reputation. Found it around 10pm. Ate a burger, drank beer, practiced my Japanese. Watched some live music, met some Nova teachers from Canada. Practiced my nanpa skills. Went to sleep for 3 hours, checked out, slept in the lobby for another 3. Went to Denden town, talked to the maids, went to the Billabong store and felt homesick. Visited Kako, got a free haircut and ate Japanese barbeque. Tried tongues - actually quite palatable (haha). Didn't like skin. Bought Kako a drink for the haircut, watched a terrible DVD, slept.

Went to USJ (Universal Studios Japan) with Kako. Spiderman is the best ride. Peter Pan is overrated. Got wet at Waterworld, wetter at Jaws, soaked on Jurassic Park, dried off while watching gay Chinese acrobats. Got a photo with the delorian from Back to the Future. Ate tempura, went back to Kako's, watched a terrible DVD, slept.

The next morning I headed to Kyoto for two days, but that's another post.

(yes: I did watch The Rules of Attraction recently)

Gaba

2006-03-27T00:41:00.001+09:00

I am effectively full-time now, having started a second job at Gaba.

Gaba is another English conversation school, for people much richer than Nova students. They are a "man-to-man" (Japanese-English for one-on-one lesson) specialists, and it seems almost criminal to be paid, for the most part, to flirt for 40 minutes at a time for all manner of flight attendants and young professionals.

It is a pretty cool company. They have a kind of snooty image, though - their slogan is "Helping people achieve their most audacious life goals". Audacious! Some branches play chillout music in the background. They are ostensibly innovative in that they have a kind of social agenda to challenge some of the norms of Japanese society, for example gender roles. Whatever. The comic story that the lessons follow have gay characters, sex, drugs - so that's all good. Our trainer in the beginning loved the seeming near-risque innovativeness at Gaba, loving the fact that his company dares to 'go there'. Then in the next breath, he told us that an instructor got busted for teaching a student the word 'promiscuous' (for perfectly legitimate reasons, I might add), so that seems pretty hypocritical to me. That guy was a bit weird anyway.

Another strange thing about Gaba: they have an ad on the train entitled 'Why you should send your significant other to man-to-man lessons' (Gaba being the man-to-man specialist). The ad's copy roughly translates to: 'If your girlfriend starts learning English, she has less time to spend with you and less money to spend on clothes and makeup. So the last thing you need is to have her go to some group class and be surrounded by flirtatious males every week.'

I work at Gaba in the mornings, which means I am now catching the train during peak hour. During peak hour, th train is like a sardine tin. On my first day I had my gym bag with me, and the train doors couldn't close because it was hanging out of the car. So I had that classic Japan experience of station attendants pushing me into the car! I had my umbrella with me that day, and I near impaled some poor OL (office lady). It is difficult to keep your personal effects in check during peak hour. Women sometimes lose shoes.

So I am pretty much a salarayman now, with my schedule and regular hours. I even started drinking the genki drinks that office workers use as a substitute to sleeping. Soon I will be sleeping on the train.

Dino Riders

2006-03-27T00:41:00.000+09:00

I went snowboarding at Hakuba, Nagano. I caught the overnight bus at 10pm on Friday night, and arrived in a snow-covered village 8 hours later, still in my work uniform. My friend Caroline and her friend Mariko eventually located me, and led me to our shared dorm room. Then they explained that there was a costume party this weekend.

What this means is that on the second day, if you show up in costume at the ticked office in costume, you get a free lift pass. Caroline had her cow suit at the ready, while Mariko had opted for the "Tyrannosaurus" look, as she described it: a goofy green dinosaur, complete with tail. The plan was for me to put on the dinosaur costume and get my lift pass alongside Caroline, then go and change out of it, so that Mariko could get a lift pass for free. The costumes are worn over the top of your gear, so it's easy enough to change in/out of them. The dinosaur costume is apparently pretty common, so that this coincidence would not arouse suspicion. But things did not work out as planned.

On the first evening, there was a reggae party. It was a lot of fun. The band did a reggae version of Sukiyaki. Up until this point I was unaware that the song was originally Japanese, having only heard the boy-band version by 4am - so it was interesting to hear the reggae version of a pop song sung in Japanese.

I got to bed pretty late, and when I awoke my dorm was empty - the girls were gone! I had overslept by just a little, and they were at the ticket office.

I called them, and the costume operation was to go ahead as planned (sortof). I ran up to the slopes and found Mariko. We went to the locker room and she gave me her costume.

I got my lift pass for free, but Mariko wasn't going to wait around any longer - so of course I got stuck with the stupid costume.

If you're in costume and you're good, it makes you look better. If you're me, it makes you look worse. Nothing looks as stupid as a dinosaur falling off a t-box.

A Narrow Escape

2006-03-27T00:40:00.000+09:00

Haku.

That's the latest Japanese word I've learnt. And I nearly learned it the hard way.

I was hanging out with my friend Ai-chan when she got a call from work. She had to go meet clients. This is one feature of Japanese work culture: you are always on call. Next week I asked her how it had gone, and learned that the 'meeting' had been held in a bar in Ginza! Had she cut our date short just to sink the piss with some work buddies? Apparently not: the difference between an office meeting and a bar meeting doesn't really seem to exist in Japan. Not only that - it seems to be perfectly acceptable to get completely blind-drunk in front of managers, clients and subordinates, and as long is you don't haku all over them, your business clout can only increase.

Japanese people can't really hold their drink. For the most part, that doesn't mean they drink less, only that they are drunk more often. Like most nights. In Japanese class we were supposed to be learning about how to talk about our daily routines. The example was the schedule of one Mr Tanaka, whose day began at about six in the morning, consisted in a twelve-hour working day and culminated in hitting the bar, eventually getting home at midnight. This is a typical weekday?

I catch the Yamanote line to work. This train line traces a circle around the centre of Tokyo and links the top two (at least) busiest stations in the world. So quite often, of an evening, I'll see a salaryman stumbling around, trying his best to save his haku until the next stop. Like I said, I nearly learned this word the hard way...

Often there are people sleeping on the train. You see them hunched forward on their seats, swaying in time with the car. Usually, there is the ever-rare sight of a vacant seat next to them. I always wondered why nobody would sit there, and figured it was for the same reason that sometimes, nobody will sit next to a gaijin (foreigner), i.e., typical Japanese-brand coyness. But I know better now.

I had just come back from snowboarding and was very tired, so I was ecstatic about finding a sleeping salaryman slumped in the corner of a seat, with an empty spot to the right. I seized the opportunity to sit down. I actually remember catching the slightest whif of some serious funk at the time - that fetid burp-smell that you can only recreate after hours of careful drinking and platesful of greasy bar food - but thought nothing of it, as it passed momentarily.

Then, at the next stop, the sleeper suddenly awoke and lunged for the nearest door, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. On his way out, he managed to haku on

A man wearing a very nice suit, obviously heading out, and
His girlfriend, and
The back of another innocent female bystander - but
Not me!

I had a close call, but after this incident, I tend to avoid anybody who isn't wide awake on the trains.

(haku = vomit... fool)

Now THAT's Good Television

2006-03-04T00:30:00.000+09:00

Japanese TV is growing on me.

Now that we have a bilingual TV once more, I can watch the news. My favourite segment is the weather. In Australia, the weather report is boring - but here, it looks like a video game. Cold air pockets materialise in a flash of stars, hot and cold fronts shake hands. There are all these characters popping up everywhere: happy suns, shivering housewives, nonchalant snowmen. Occasionally, Old Man Winter himself rears his ugly head - I never realised he was a moustachio'd samurai dog made of ice. On one episode, at the beginning of Winter, I remember he rode a train across Japan. The forecast this week showed that the angry cloud hovering over the Kanto area (where Tokyo is) will be eaten by a happy sun from the southwest, which is exciting. Sadly, the sun then appears to have a stomachache and will not be able to eat the twin cloud to the northeast for a while.

Earlier this week we caught some arm-wrestling. I have a newfound interest in this esoteric sport... why didn't anybody tell me that the competitors were Japanese girls in swimwear? It was also news to me that losing teams in this sport are required to do sit-ups while being given random electric shocks!

I was appalled to see that one team was a group of three schoolgirls - they threw off their sailor uniforms at the start of the competition and not once during the 2 hours I watched were they wearing anything but bikinis! Terrible.

At one point they came up against a team of older women, one of whom accused the girls of having tiny breasts. This actually brought one of the girls to tears! The sledging can get pretty dirty in arm-wrestling.

One competitor was an enormous, fat woman. I don't know why.

This is a fairly typical evening of J-TV.

Gaijin Style

2006-03-04T00:02:00.000+09:00

The thing that makes travel interesting for me is experiencing different cultures.

When I say 'cultures', I mean how people live and interact. In the case of Japan, that doesn't really mean tea ceremonies and kendo - at least, not in Tokyo. Japanese culture as I know it is working really hard every day and night, hopefully snatching some sleep on the train or somewhere in the brief cracks between work and getting drunk from 1.5 beers in the local Izakaya with business clients and/or friends; then on the occasional lucky half-a-weekend you can catch up on sleep or study some English in the local coffee shop for 3 hours, then head out to karaoke for another 3 and sleep in the foyer. It's pretty relentless, but cool too.

The best way to experience foreign culture, I think, is to do normal things and notice the differences. For example, I went to a boxercise class at my gym. Whenever there was a break in the routine, rather than going for their water bottles, nearly everyone grabbed a sweat-mop from the corners and cleaned the room, running madly to get it all done in the short interval! These are voluntary, not to mention exhausted, gym patrons; not staff.

Stuff like this is interesting to me, including what Japanese people think of our culture. Take this quote from my friend Mika, who went dining with some other gaijin friends:

"Though I can't catch up hearing when people are talking fast but I feel so comfortable with guys from other countries I don't know why.Anyway it's fun for me.For example with my Japanese friends If someone say [anything]... other people try to do the same Everything is together but with foreign[ers,] one Never adjust to others .That's natural and don't have to care about someone. and about ordering food.With Japanese we 're sure to ask others"What do you wanna eat or anything you dislike??" but with foreign[ers] everyone try to order what they wanna eat.It's simple and without bothering.omoshiroine [fun, isn't it]!"

Students Say the Darndest Things 2

2006-02-25T16:14:00.000+09:00

My mate James was conducting a lesson on avoiding difficult questions. Mid-lesson, as an exercise, he asked each student a personal question which they were supposed to dodge. He asked one student (let's call him Masa), 'So, Masa: how's your wife?' Masa thinks for a little and says - 'I don't know...'!
James explains that the answer has to be something reasonable. Masa tries again: 'She's fine.' Good job, Masa.
At the end of a lesson, James reviews, asking each student personal questions again.

James: ...and Masa, how's your wife?
Masa: She's fine... as you know!

(Nudge, nudge, wink, wink)

I often discuss Japanese food with the students. I have heard that in some restaurants in Tokyo, you can eat live octopus tentacles. The octopus is alive right there on your plate, and you cut the tentacles off one-by-one and eat them. The catch is, the tentacles are still writhing around and can even suction themselves onto your tongue or the inside of your mouth. Apparently this is painful, so you have to be quick - no easy task, I'm guessing: I've never eaten a live octopus but the dead ones are pretty chewy.

I was asking some students whether they had tried eating live tentacles before.
One student - a fairly typical, rotund balding salaryman in a grey suit - said that he had.
Then he added: 'I ate it underwater.'
I was not the only one amazed. He then explained that he had gone scuba-diving, found an octopus, got out his knife and cut of a tentacle!
The more he elaborated, the more bizarre his story became.

Another student: But doesn't the octopus attack you?
Salaryman: No, because you make it faint. Don't you know how to make an octopus faint?
Other student: FAINT??
Salaryman: You can make it faint by turning its head upside down.
Other student: Upside down??
Salaryman: Ah, no, no.... um.... inside-out!
Other student: Heeeeeeh?
Salaryman: When they are unconscious, you can move them back to the boat easily.
Other student: The boat??
Salaryman: The fishermen wanted me to take many, because the octopus eat abalone [it's expensive here]

Up until that point I had assumed that the octopusses/octopi in question were like every octopus I've ever seen: about the size of a rat. But at that point the man clarified that these were giant octopi, with 2-foot-long tentacles.
I guess sushi just isn't fresh enough for some.

Akiba By Night

2006-02-09T02:11:00.000+09:00

Every weekend I try to meet my good friends Aiko and 'Hikki' for language exchange. I speak for an hour in Japanese, then they speak for an hour in English. Every week, we try to meet in a different cafe. Last weekend, we went to a maid cafe.

Maid cafes are a strictly Japanese phenomenon as far as I know - and they are gaining popularity here in Tokyo. The basic idea is that you have a cafe where all of the (female) staff are dressed in French maid costumes. When you enter, the maids say things like 'Welcome home', and might address patrons as 'My lord'. You can also pay extra to play Uno with one of the maids.

The maid cafe hotspot is Akihabara, or Akiba for short. This is where all the otaku (nerds) hang out, and if you want electronic items or porn then Akiba is where you go.

(Speaking of porn, there have been rumours of Eikaiwa (English conversation school) themed porn around. Eikaiwa is what I do. I conducted a brief investigation last time I was in Akiba but nothing yet)

Aiko and I met in Akiba in the evening. Hikki was running late so we began our search for a good maid cafe. We didn't have to look far - every time I have been to Akiba there have been several young women in maid costumes positioned strategically about the train station exits, handing out tissues or flyers. We approached a maid and asked for the location of a good cafe, and were pointed towards the famous '@ Home Laundry'.

It was located 6 floors up opposite a cosplay shop, sporting all the latest maid, stewardess and nurse uniforms and accessories. There was a long queue. The first surprise was the mix of patrons. I had expected a line of the pimpliest otaku in town - in fact there were men, women, even children!

We had to wait in line for over half an hour - but there was some in-queue entertainment. In a windowed room by the entrance, the maids of @ Home Laundry were hard at work - sowing, hanging skirts up to dry, browsing clothing catalogues - generally just being their cute selves. Sadly, an oversized red noticed prohibited photography, so I have no hard evidence that there are girls in Tokyo being paid to pretend to be laundry maids. Photos of the maids within the cafe was also disallowed, but there was an overpriced Purikura machine (glorified photobooth).

Inside, it was just a normal cafe - with costumes. Although Aiko assured me that, if I wanted, a maid could be asked to blow on my food before feeding it to me. I told her I was OK, thanks. It was a fun experience, and as a sightseeing opportunity it is unique.

After @ Home we walked the streets of Akiba. As you might guess there are a lot of game centres (Timezone-like arcades) in this area, and at one a crowd had gathered to watch one man play a drum game. This game is pretty popular here - it is like Dance Dance Revolution except instead of dancing on pads in time with the music, you need to hit some drums. The man in question had clearly invested a few yen in this game - he was smashing those drums like a fiend. As the track came to an end, he finished with a bit of a flourish that all-at-once communicated: 'I am the greatest man alive' and 'I am the ultimate nerd'. The crowd erupted in applause, which Aiko and Hikki nearly suffocated themselves with laughter. They tend to laught at nearly anything, but admittedly it was pretty funny. I admire just how serious this guy was about drumming, though (see the previous post 'Focus').

The other thing that caught our eye was a street performer. She was a highschool girl singing j-pop, mic coyly held in one hand, teddy bear under that other, wearing a black-and-white maid-esque dress: the ultimate otaku pin-up. And sure enough, the otaku were gathered in force to hear her song. Aiko and Hikki looked on bemused as, after the performance, she handed out postcards with her picture and statistics (age, blood-type...) to the enthralled, exclusively male audience.

This is Akiba by night.

Sumo

2006-01-22T23:49:00.000+09:00

Today I went to the last day of the Winter Sumo tournament.

I didn't know much about Sumo. I knew the basic rules: push the other guy out of the dohyo (ring) or onto the ground and you win. I also knew that there are no weight divisions, meaning that instead of watching your weight very carefully (like in western martial arts), you eat as much fat as possible.

I only knew one of the rikishi (competitors). At the moment this one wrestler is very famous throughout Japan, and I have seen him interviewed on TV. His sumo name is Kotohshu, and he is from Bulgaria.

On Friday night I decided to find out a little more about the sport before I saw the final. I learnt the terminology, and rankings and the significance of some of the ritualistic elements. I also found out about a few of the highest-ranking riskishi. I was especially amazed at Kotohshu's statistics. For a start, he is only 22 years of age! He doesn't look like a sumo wrestler - he is not particularly overweight - just huge (203 cms, 144 kgs). I found out he is not the only Eastern-European in the game. There were a few Russian riskishi and the current champion was from Mongolia.

The match was excellent. If you have ever watched sumo on TV, it may seems slow, because there is a lot of psyching up before each match, with each rikishi warming up by slapping himself, stretching, or whatever, then moving to the start position, then back to the corner to warm up, then back to... and the match itself is usually very short. The Grand Final today was all over in about five seconds. However, if you're there, it is all much more exciting. You can hear the wrestlers slapping together.

The crowd adds to the atmosphere massively. They were loving it! At the end of every bout there was copious shouting and applause. Some of the rikishi are showmen, and the crowd goes off every time anyone does something a little unusual. For example, before the match, both rikishi throw a handful of salt onto the ring (I used to think that was to improve their grip, but on Friday I read it is a tradition from when sumo was a a religious ceremony, which is how it started - they are 'purifying' the ring). One guy decided to up the ante: he grabbed a mound of salt and just showered it everywhere! The crowd goes for things like that. Another ritual is the stomping they do as a warm-up: they lift one leg outward until it's about a metre off the ground, completing a huge leg-spread, basically, then bring it down, and repeat with the other leg. Again, one guy thought all that just wasn't enough: he lifted each leg right above his head, nearly vertical! But the best was a guy called Takamisakari. He is a massive crowd favourite, because he always psyches himself up bu slapping himself in the face, shouting at himself and jumping around like a fat boxer. The crowd went mental when he started.

Most of the seats are cushions on the floor. The front row seats are about a metre away from the action. This means that occasionally, a wrestler will get thrown out of the ring and on top of a spectator or judge! I saw this a few times. One of the closest spectators was an elderly woman in a grey kimono. She must be someone's mother because she was risking it all, sitting where she was.

I was there with a group of other gaijin, so nobody really knew that much about the Banzuke (rankings) I only knew about the top rikishi from my research, so for the early matches we backed arbitrary rikishi based on gut feelings:

I'm going for that guy, I like his pants.
That guy is the hairiest - he's gotta win.
He's actually skinny - I'll back the underdog.

I also backed anyone with showmanship, including Takamisakari and the others mentioned above. The only person I geniunely backed was Kotohshu. He is one of the few white guys in the tournament, and I like his story: he has risen through the ranks very quickly, and is already at the rank of Ozeki, which is the second-highest possible rank (it's very difficult to reach Yokozuna, the highest rank - there have only been 62, ever). He was actually the biggest crowd favourite all round. The crowd went insane whenever his name was mentioned. His match was a close one, both rikishi somersaulting out of the ring - but in the end he was defeated. The current yokozuna was also beaten: in the end a Japanese competitor reclaimed the sport from the Mongolian champion Asashoryu.

At this point about half the crowd threw their cushions in anger at the ring and left. I guess they were the half supporting Asashoryu. After the cushions were cleared, the new champion, Tochiazuma, performed the Bow Dance, a traditional victory celebrations, and the award ceremony commenced. There were heaps of prizes to be awarded. I had read that in addition to the places, there are prizes for things such as sportsmanship, and so on. Finally an assistant brings out a very big trophy. I figured that was the victory cup - but then a larger trophy is brought out. The MC was expected to hand this monstrous thing to the new champion but he couldn't actually lift it safely - an assistant had to lend a hand!

Then we sang the Japanese National Anthem. The Australian anthem always seems a little hokey to me, but the Japanese anthem is very inspirational.

By the time I got out, a crowd had gathered, ready to photograph the victor as he rode out of the stadium. He finally appeard and drove off in style, in the back of a white convertible.

Audition

2006-01-22T22:54:00.000+09:00

Last month I ran out of money. For the first time in my life, I literally had no cash in my bank account. I had drawn up a budget a while ago, but I got a little excited at the time and the budget was too complicated to actually follow. I guess I've done pretty well to get this far in my life (24 years in and counting) without ever have NO liquid assets, but clearly I need either more work or less snowboarding/alcohol/cuisine. Need I even say that the latter option is ridiculous?

Actually, I have been looking for additional work ever since I got here. The plan was always to get some extra tutoring in on the side and, with a little luck, some modelling work. I should explain at this point that the lack of foreigners here creates a market for modelling and even acting work for people with black or white skin. I have had some luck with the private students, although not as much as I had hoped. One serious problem is that I have a penile unit. My mate's girlfriend came to Japan recently and had, after a little over a week, already secured eight private students (probably all men). After four months I have two. Women are in high demand. I am tenaciously seeking a modelling position and believe I'll eventually get something. That's what I really want. But for now, I'll try anything. I even applied for a video game design role.

Last weekend I auditioned for an extra role in an upcoming film which will be the sequel to The Ju-on (called The Grudge in the West), starring Sarah Gellar. They were calling all foreigners, all countries and ages, no experience required.

The audition was at Toho Studios, and I had no idea what to expect. I was emailed a map with directions on how to get there, and that's about it. One part of the instructions requested a left-hand turn after the Fit Dog Cafe. I thought this was hilarious (not to mention a contradiction in terms, haha), so I made a point of checking it out on the way. What came as a surprise was that this literally was a dog cafe - there were two dog-owners having coffee there, with their two dogs enjoying a light snack. Right next to the counter with cake, sandwiches and all the usual cafe food, was a second counter with dog food and supplies! This kind of thing is actually not rare at all in Tokyo. People pamper their pets to ridiculous degrees here, including buying them Louis Vuitton accessories. And to think that a week ago I couldn't buy a spring roll.

It turned out that they filmed us right there and then, presumably to find out how we look on film. It was nothing complicated - just a few simple questions: 'What's your name, where are you from...' - but to be honest I was quite nervous. One of my work colleagues was there, and he had done a little acting work back time and had head-shots ready, the works. Nobody told me to break a leg. I got my name right, but it went downhill from there.

The cameraman was English and a bit of a joker. Next he asked, "Whereabouts in England are you from?" I am constantly accused of having a weak accent, and often people guess my country of birth incorrectly. Even Australians struggle sometimes, or think that I'm from Melbourne (What the...?) So keeping that in mind, this was one of those awkward situations where you don't know if someone is kidding or not. So I just stammered, 'Er, Sydney. Sydney, England, haha.', figuring I had all my bases covered there. I am not so great at first impressions. The third impression: that's what I'm about. Mine is the middle game. The actual shooting begins next month, so I won't hear from them for a while in any case.

Coming of Age

2006-01-20T10:32:00.000+09:00

In Australia, we officially come of age at 18 or 21, depending on how you look at it. Personally, I still feel like a kid, and that isn't likely to change before I turn 25 next month. I can drink and smoke, but nobody ever sat me down and said, "Luke: you're a man now. Here's what a man has to do:...". I had a 21st - I got thrown in the pool, but I didn't get any advice. In Japan, 20 is both the legal drinking age and the recognised beginning of adulthood - and they have a ceremony to mark this time.

On the 9th of January I had the privelage of attending Seijinshiki (The Coming of Age Ceremony) with my friend, Marina, who became Hatachi (age 20) last year on Christmas day.

I looked for her at Setagaya Community Hall. I was a little worried about finding the place, having never been there before. However, Marina assured me that once I got off the bus, I could easily 'Follow the kimono girls' to the appointed venue. During Seijinshiki, every female wears a traditional kimono. Nowadays, most of the men wear a suit, although some still opt for the traditional hakama. I was doubtful about the directions, however - what if I never saw a kimono girl? I needn't have worried - I didn't even need to alight from the bus without knowing exactly where to go, since a gorgeous girl in full finery rode the bus straight there. Seeing a woman in kimono doing something mundane, like shopping, riding the train or speaking on a mobile, which I see about twice a week, is always a strong reminder to me that I'm in Japan. This girl on the bus was something else, though - makeup, fur, the works. There was also a constant stream of kimono girls walking to the venue from all directions.

Marina herself looked amazing. You can see a picture of her in her beautiful pink kimono on my photo site.

I had my first Puri-kura (Print Club) experience with her. This is the name of those photo booths you can see back home in Chinatown (usually) where young girls go to take pictures of themselves with their friends. First you get the photos done, then you use a light pen to embellish them, writing all over them and adding stamps of hearts, stars, bubbles, until you can't fit anymore kawaii (cute) in the frame.

One thing I noticed immediately was the lack of parents. I had expected mums and dads swarming everywhere. Japan isn't as family-oriented as, say, Italy, in my opinion - but they do have very strong ties to their families here. I asked Marina about this but she couldn't really explain, since to her this is normal. I think it is to do with independence.

In any case, there is not much to the actual ceremony, and standing around consuming the complementary mochi (rice cakes) and coffee while kimono-watching was the real event. The ceremony was a 45-minute speech, including some satellite messages from various celebrities from Setagaya. I couldn't understand anything but Marina said it was 'Life advice'. To be honest, nobody seemed to be paying much attention. Some people were sleeping, or chatting on their mobile phone. Marina herself was just excited to see all of her friends dolled up. Personally, at that age I would have appreciated some advice.

There was also a feature at the end of the ceremony. This year's feature was the traditional and highly ritualised Japanese pastime of... cheerleading! I was surprised to see a group of cheerleaders on stage performing to American pop, but I guess I should be used to this sort of thing by now. They were actually really good - except for one part. This troupe was all-female - but anyone who has ever seen Bring It On (or 'Cheers', as it is called here) will know that you need one or two guys to do the heavy lifting. The cheerleaders made two towers, three girls high - but without the necessary muscle power, one of the towers fell down! Nobody was hurt - I guess part of the art is knowing how to fall over.

Amazingly, I wasn't the only gaijin (foreigner) there. I noticed two reporters doing a feature - the strange thing was, they seemed to have forgottwn to zip up their tops. Their black Playboy bras were in clear view. After a moment I - ahem - recognised one of them as a reporter from the Canadian program Naked News. I confirmed this with a man who turned out to be the director, and he asked if I wanted to appear on air in an interview. I asked him if the pope was Catholic. So it may be that I'll be appearing on Foxtel some time in the near future, chatting to two playbody models.

Beautiful young Japanese kimono girls, semi-naked Canadian models - that day, I didn't know which way was up.

New Year

2006-01-14T16:02:00.000+09:00

Christmas doesn't happen in Japan. They love Christmas carols here - at my local department store they kept playing horrific covers of carols in the style of various Beatles songs, e.g. Jingle Bells/Love Me Do; also see the Christmas Speed post - and they love Santa costumes, but Christmas day itself is largely a non-event. In fact, I worked on Christmas day. That says it all right there: people choose to spend their Christmas studying English. Here, Christmas day is a little like St. Valentines Day. So I consoled myself with the hope that people coming to Nova on this day must be looking for a date :) In the end, though, it was a little dull.

In Japan, New Year's is the big event. People here don't send Christmas cards: they send New Year's cards.

I spent my New Year's even in Shibuya, my favourite Tokyo locality, at a place called Club Harlem (no prizes for guessing what kind of music they were playing). There are some amazing breakdancers in Tokyo, and we saw a small sampling on that night. But strangely, whenever they were just gearing up - whenever a circle of impressed spectators bagan to form - a staff member would come and shout something in the dancer's ear, apparently telling him to break it up. The place was packed. By the time Countdown came around I had lost my mates and was surrounded by strangers. I had completely failed to position myself next to a sexy lady-friend with whom to - ahem - usher in the New Year. I'm not so good at the New Year thing.

On New Year's day, I went to Temple. This is tradition in Japan: head to a temple or shrine and throw some yen into the offering bin, along with a prayer for good fortune. I went with Sarah, a friend of mine, to Senso-ji: the largest temple in Tokyo. It was completely choked with people. There were police conducting crowd control. We fought our way in and made it to the offering bin after about 40 minutes. There were coins flying everywhere. Precious ornaments had been covered with dropsheets to shield them against the rain of shrapnel. Yet another policeman was standing next to the offering bin with a chicken-wire screen protecting his upper boy from yen. He was constantly directing through his megaphone... 'Throw your coins now!'

I also bought a fortune slip: it declared itself in two languages to be 'Regular Fortune'. Not quite what I was hoping for, but it could be worse. In any case I'll be acting in ernest to make this anything other than a mediocre 2006.

Happy New Year.

Yokohama

2005-12-31T01:21:00.000+09:00

Apparently, Yokohama used to be a tiny city. I'm told that if I could read Kanji, I would discover that all of the regions in Yokohama have names like 'Swamp Town', 'Dirt Pit', 'Swamp Pit' etc.

Whether this is true or not, a prudent open-trade policy on an otherwise xenophobic island made this port town the second-largest city in Japan - and now, it's really nice to visit. It is so large that it has effectively run into Tokyo. I can travel from my place to Yokohama without a break in the cityscape. And that's exactly what I did this morning.

My friend Mel showed me the sights of Yokohama, beginning with Chinatown. Unlike Sydney's Chinatown, which is kind-of a sprawl, this Chinatown is clear demarcated by huge gates on a few city blocks. There was a rickshaw driver there, but no business today that we saw; everyone was happy to use their own legs. 2005 has been a year of trying new food, of varying commonality. I have tried butter chicken, raw pig's heart, chicken tikka, yum cha, pig's intestine, sashimi, TGI Friday's, fish gizzards, kimuji (Korean chilli fish type stuff served cold), cafe latte, octupus jerky - and today, Chop Suey (a relatively mundane addition, you could argue). In one sense, Chinatown here is the same as back home: you get lots of good food for cheap.

The highlight of Chinatown was a huge, ornate temple. One thing that Chinese architecture isn't is minimalist. The temples in particular tend to go overboard in detail, with an army of dragons and lions piled atop a million red lanterns crushed under the weight of a billion incense pots. I have never seen a place with the air so thick with incense. There was a kiosk selling incense sticks; the minimum unit available for purchase was a wad of ten sticks. I couldn't even see the inner shrine for all the smoke. There were staff whose sole job seemed to be repositioning the incense people stuck in the pots, so as to create space for continual influx of more incense. We walked out smelling righteous.

Next we went to Yamashita Park, which is next to the harbour. I realised that I hadn't seen this much water since arriving, and it reminded me of an industrialised version of Sydney Harbour for that reason. The park follows the harbourside for a while, and we did so too accordingly. We saw the only portable outdoor ice-skating rink I have ever seen on the way, and eventually made it to a theme park sporting the biggest ferris wheel in the world. We steered clear of that but did try one of those things that resembles a horizontally-aligned ferris wheel that spins really fast before turning vertical to spin you upside down for a little while (what are they called?). After that we hit the game parlour and I attempted Lupin III: The Typing. Yes: this is a touch-typing game. Instead of a light gun you get a keyboard, and you are required to type the names of the enemies before they shoot/punch/bite/scratch you. You can opt for Japanese or Roman alphabet. Early on, everyone had short names (like 'Ki' or 'Go') but it quickly got challenging (with a few 20-letter names popping up), and eventually I got eaten by three evil zombie priests. This is how touch-typing should be taught.

For dinner, we hit Dominoes - but I was disappointed to find that here, they don't make the best pizza ever: BBQ Meatlovers. They don't even make Supreme. In their stead there is a myriad of exotic new tastes. They don't have Meatlovers', but they do have Gigameat (which is a scarier name), and Simple Meat, for those who are intimidated by the Gigameat. In the end I went for The Garlic Master.

By this time, Yokohama looked like Christmas, with lights everywhere. Its a city that is at its prettiest at night.

Private Students

2005-12-16T01:08:00.000+09:00

Most foreigners in Japan that I meet have one of two jobs: English teacher - or hostess.

Hostesses get paid for the pleasure of having Japanese men buy them drinks and expensive presents. I think of hostesses as low-level Geisha - except that they come in the Japanese and foreign variety. One of my students is a hostess, and some instructors I know do part-time hostessing. I suspect that the Ukrainian 'waitress' in my Japanese class is a hostess as well: you don't abandon your son to fly to Tokyo in order to serve coffee. Besides, many 'hostess bars' are exclusively populated with Russian women.

Needless to say, hostessing is immediately attractive as a job. Long before I came to Japan I had decided that the ideal job for me would be getting paid to talk to people all day. Before I discovered the existence of the hostessing industry, I figured the closest anyone could get would to be to become some kind of middle manager, and call meetings all day. From what I've heard, hostesses not only get paid to chat, they get bought drinks, kimonos and occasionally short holidays (although for this, they must be 'rented' from the bar, which is very expensive). For a lot of Japanese men, they work so hard that they have no time for a relationship, so their favourite hostess becomes a kind of de facto girlfriend. If this seems weird, remember that this is the country in which grown men fall in love with realistic life-sized dolls.

That's all tangential. There is such a thing as hosts also, but they are rare and possibly off-limits as a profession to foreigners. But I've found that the next-best thing is private students.

I work part-time for Nova, and currently have two private students who I meet outside of hours. At work, we are teaching a number of skills - fluency, grammar, vocabulary, etc - through exercises, role-plays, and short conversations. As for the 'privates': they seem content to just chat for practice. I'm their host.

My two students are:

Nakazawa: I meet this guy every weekend for two hours to talk about anything that comes to mind. He believes that the best way for him to learn English is to answer all of my questions about Japan, so he is my go-to guy for all of those questions about they mysterious facets of Japanese life (of which there are many).
Koji: He owns about five Izakaya (bars) near where I work, and his job is 'to go and collect the money' from the bars every day. He is pretty young to be so successful, I think late-thirties. He has a second house at the snow, and said I can use it whenever I like.

Needless to say, I'm hoping to heavily expand my portfolio of privates.

Students Say The Darndest Things

2005-12-15T01:12:00.000+09:00

Everyday, students entertain me with their wry, usually unintentional wit (although some students are genuinely funny).
This post, I'm sure, will prove to be the first of many of its type.

During a 'Voice' (free conversation) class, we started discussing Pokemon.
Takeshi: Do you know the meaning of 'Pokemon'?
Me: It's short for 'Pocket Monster' - right?
Takeshi: But do you know the meaning of 'Pocket Monster'?
Me: Umm...
Takeshi: It means, symbol of male.
Me: Huh?
Takeshi: Symbol of male.
Me: You mean... [gesture toward my - er, pokemon]
Takeshi: Yeh! Symbol of male!

During a lesson on describing objects, a middle-aged salaryman had to describe a rolling pin. His description:
'It has a long shape - and women use it to make pizza...'

During a lesson on food likes/dislikes, a student had to describe the type of food served at different imaginary restaurants.
Me: [point to a picture of 'La Dolce Vita' restaurant]
Student: Italian food.
Me: [point to 'The Red Dragon']
Student: Chinese food.
Me: [point to 'Burger Heaven']
Student: Err... American food.
(the correct answer was fast food, but close enough, I guess)

A lot of students love their drink, and on morning shifts upon asking a perfunctory 'How are you' and the beginning of class, I inevitably get one or two responses along the lines of 'Oohhhh, I have headache: I am overhung!'
One student is notorious. During a voice lesson, students had to give three hobbies. His three hobbies:
'I like drinking, going to the Izakaya [traditional Japanese bar], and - uhhh - errrrr - drinking.'
On another occasion, I overheard the same student in a roleplaying situation, with the instructor acting as a restaurant waiter:
Instructor: ...And what would you like to drink?
Atsushi: A large bottle of sake [usually over a litre of 40%+ alcohol]
Instructor: and how many glasses?
Atsushi: err... One.

Christmas Speed

2005-11-24T23:02:00.000+09:00

Christmas is largely a non-event in Japan. This is a country of non-believers with the occasional Buddhist and Shintoist around. I'm actually going to be working on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day - Worst Ever. On the upside, Christmas Eve here is similar to Saint Valentine's Day - so anyone bothering to spend their Christmas Eve studying English is obviously single and looking for a date! Hehe. At all times please observe the more illuminated facet of life.

The fact that they don't celebrate Christmas doesn't seem to deter anyone from playing carols in shopping centres and putting tinsel and trees everywhere. Nova has released a special Nova Usagi Santa (see earlier post re. Nova toys). They really love the carols here.

School Boy Errors FC (that would be us) made an another appearance last weekend, this time at Konami Sports Centre, an indoor futsal place (as usual, our name got lost in translation, rendering us 'Schoolboy' on the draw). Some of you might know Konami as the producers of many fine video games, including some soccer titles. Well, apparently they do real soccer too - only the awesome, very loud music pumping through a PA and the 4-a-side (a-la FIFA Street) rules lent this day a video game feel.

This being Tokyo, everything is done a little differently. The coin-toss is replaced by Jyan-Ken (Scissors Paper Rock, which is like a national sport here), and we bowed before and after. Oh - and as soon as the game started, the most heinous HARDCORE RAVE CHRISTMAS CAROL REMIXES started screaming from the PA. Not even Silent Night was spared from the turntable.

It was a dark day for 'Schoolboy'. If our series of defeats were a cake, the icing was when one of our team members kicked the emergency door after a frustrating game, only to nearly break his toe! One of the teams we played was called FC Jesus. We were never going to defeat them with HARDCORE RAVE CHRISTMAS CAROL REMIXES screeching in our ear. You might say that we got crucified (haha).

We later check the DJ deck and found out that the source of the HARDCORE RAVE CHRISTMAS CAROL REMIXES was a compilation simply labelled 'Christmas Speed'. The only time in about four hours this CD stopped looping was for the grand final, when an ominous choral piece came on: the kind of music you would hear before the major battle scene some kind of epic gladiators/swords/barbarians/knights/killer robots film. The tune was with us for about 20 seconds before the HARDCORE RAVE CHRISTMAS CAROL REMIXES started again.

Afterwards we went and drank an an expensive Izakaya.

Halloween

2005-11-24T01:25:00.000+09:00

I experienced my first halloween: Tokyo-style. Halloween is not celebrated in Japan; however, I got wind of one Halloween event and checked it out.

The Kawasaki Halloween Project consisted of a costume parade and contest, followed by the obligatory screening of The Rocky Horror Show.

The parade was manic. Given the obsession with costumes and uniforms in Tokyo, in was no surprise that the parade costumes were amazing: there was not one toilet-paper mummy in sight. Besides that, there was a prize give-away at the end, with the major prize being some sort of trip to Europe.

Some of the costume highlights were:

Captain Hook. This guy's face was completely made of some kind of putty, in order to recreate accurately the hooked nose and gnarled pirate-ly features. It was so realistic that I didn't know for a long time that he was Japanese - and he only gave that away when he opened his mouth. His girlfriend was also in tow, as the cutest 'Peta' Pan ever. She also had face putty, to lend her elven features including pointy ears and a sharp nose.
A zombified schoolgirl. Again, I didn't know it was a man until he spoke. He was walking around in character for a while, shambling along like one leg was broken and groaning at people.
The prize-winners looked like something out of Carnival. I think that combined, their costumes were pushing five metres wide. They put a lot of effort in.
This is Japan, so of course there was the obligatory Sadako (the scary little girl from The Ring). There was also the downright messed-up sight of a little kid, maybe five years old - in a gimp outfit. Leather all the way down. Nasty.

There are photos of these in the usual place (except for the gimp-child - you pervert).

I was wearing plain clothes - but a funny thing occured. Specifically, I was wearing a Superman T-shirt - the class blue T with a medium-sized 'S' emblazoned over the chest. There was some guy just taking photos of everthing. When he saw me, he got really excited.

"Superman! Supermaaaaaaann!"

...And began snapping off pictures of me! And this was not an isolated incident. I approached Captin Hook and Peta Pan, humbled by the sheer brilliance of thier costume and meekly asking permission for a photo. When he saw me, Hook was all like, "Yeh, Superman!!!", and even gave his camera to someone so that he could get a photo of him and me.

I also saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time. To put it mildly - that is one freaky movie. If you're not familiar with it, the whole point is audience participation. Everyone shouts out additional lines and cat-calls throughout the film - in English and Japanese - and people act out the on-screen action at then front of the cinema.

I've never seen so many cross-dressers in one place. And I'm from Sydney.

Vicious Fauna

2005-10-29T03:38:00.000+09:00

Yesterday I gave a lesson entitled 'Fears and Phobias'. One female student revealed that she was terrified of butterflies - 'I don't like the shape, it's strange' - so much so that she claimed if she saw a butterfly in a park, she would go somewhere else!
During another lesson, an ant on the table caused great excitement. I mean a tiny ant - not a bullant or a green ant, one of those garden-variety harmless dots that you see everywhere back home. This one girl (about my age) was particularly shocked by this gatecrasher to our lesson. At first I attempted to guide the ant onto my finger so that I could dispose of it, but I quickly tired of that and - as you do - brushed it off the table onto the floor. But that was not the end of the story. With her eyes, the girl followed the ant's trajectory as best she could before it landed somewhere in the corner of the room, lost amidst the multicoloured carpet. You could read her thoughts right off her face: 'Ohmygod, it could be anywhere!!! God, whereisitwheresitwhereisit!' Her expression was like something a sci-fi horror, where the blips suddenly disappear from a scanner like that one they used in Aliens. I felt terrible, because she was on edge for the rest of the lesson. She even picked up her handbag and hugged it for the next half-hour, guarding it from the phantom menace, as it were.

Kabuki

2005-10-29T03:19:00.000+09:00

We saw a show at Kabuki-Za Theatre in Ginza.

Kabuki is a traditional form of Japanese theatre. It was a lot of fun, even if it was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.

In Kabuki, everyone is played by a man - so you get a lot of cross-dressing onstage. It's like Shakespeare in the olden days. It's also gives new meaning to the word 'melodramatic'. Every line is delivers with over-the-top passion. Obviously it's all in Japanese, so I had an earpiece during the show giving coarse translations throughout. An actor would scream out a line as if his mother had just been murdered - and I would hear in the earpiece, 'The samurai requests a glass of water', or some such benign explanation. The is also a a narrator who sings out explanation every now and then. Kabuki is supposed to look like a perfect picture, so there is very little movement and a lot of posing. It's all pretty hard to take seriously.

To be fair, though, Kabuki is not trying to imitate reality. To put it technically, Kabuki is presentational theatre, whereas in the West we are used to representational theatre. That is, western theatre asks the audience to accept what they see as reality (i.e., it represents reality), whereas Kabuki make no such pretence. The west elevates theatre to the level of reality - whereas Kabuki elevates reality to the level of theatre, if that makes sense. Ultimately, the official point of Kabuki is simply 'to be beautiful'. So I can see what they're trying to do.

The plot was pretty cool and typically Japanese, starring a samurai who need to balance conflicting obligations of family loyalty and duty when he discovered that a wanted murderer was in fact his brother!

Useless People

2005-10-29T02:55:00.000+09:00

There are a lot of people I see around whose roles in society seem very unnecessary. They reinforce the stereotype of Japan as the capital of bureaucracy, and reinforce the point of the quote about focus that I posted previously.

Since my traffic warden post, I've seen a lot more. These guys signal the pedestrians/motor traffic to proceed and stop at crossings - in spite of the fact that all crossing in Tokyo have traffic lights and stop/go lights for pedestrians! They are 100% redundant.
At business district driveways (out of hotels or underground carparks, for instance), there are yellow sirens to indicate to pedestrians that a vehicle is emerging with no visibility of the footpath. Nothing new there. But again - there are wardens signalling to pedestrians! A completely pointless job.
If there are tradesmen working on the footpath for any reason - repairing underground cables, say - again, a warden appears. His role in this instance is to halt pedestrians whenever the work takes the tradesmen beyond their witch's hats. The wardens are pretty serious about this. I was going for a run - at a high pace, I might add - when I was stopped dead while two tradesmen rolled a car tire across the footpath and into a dumpster. Come on.
I mentioned the melodramatic light display around roadwork in a previous post, including a big screen with an animated worker waving a race flag. Since then, I'm seen several 'robot' workers with an articulated arm signalling to traffic, to varying degrees of realism. Today I saw a real worker, really standing there waving a big flag. I watched him for several minutes. And we was really waving it - as if a wilde card entry had just won the Grand Prix.
Sometimes I see cleaners cleaning things that, in Australia at least, would just never get cleaned. Today at the Government building I saw a man mopping a part of the staircase that I'm pretty sure doesn't even have a name in English.

As pointless as these people seem, I must admit to being thoroughly impressed at their dedication. It also puts the most meanless job I've ever hard into perspective.

Ginza

2005-10-29T02:18:00.000+09:00

Engrish of the day: At one of the train stations I saw a guy with this profound message on his shirt:

Life has many HUNDLES we must leap

Tokyo is officially the most expensive city in the world to live in - and with two of the three largest department stores in the world, Ginza is probably the district where the spending occurs.

Sony Dog

I went to Ginza with my mate James, his girlfriend Soosun, her friend Hyon-Gyung, and my language exchange partner Ayako. With English, Japanese and Korean language skills spread unevenly throughout the group, just getting to Ginza proved to be the first significant hundle (haha). We eventually made it into a few interesting venues.

In the Sony building we found a robot dog. It responds to petting and, for reasons unknown, speaks like a Japanese girl! One can be yours for only $5000. Considering the price, they aren't too bright. They can find their 'kennel' to recharge, which is cool. However the robot we played with was consumately poor at playing Fetch - or maybe you just have to say 'fetch' in Japanese.
There are heaps of dedicated fashion stores: Christian Dior, etc. When we saw the Gucci store, I was reminded of a funny story. In Japan, you might see scandalous couplings of old salarymen with young schoolgirls occasionally. I was telling an Australian friend about this. 'Apparently, the men buy Gucci handbags and so forth in exchange for... well, you know,' I said. My mate's outraged reaction was, 'That's disgusting!... Gucci? What about Louis Vuitton?' Anyway, we went to the Dior store. It is a beautiful five floors of extremely expensive accessories. On the .top floor I found a shaving brush for 52500 yen ($600)! Mine costed $3 from Coles.
On the main street there were a constant stream of middle-aged women - and even some younger ones - in kimonos and traditional sandals. Apparently, this is what the old money wears around here.

Earthquake

2005-10-22T15:26:00.000+09:00

I experienced my first earthquake this week.

I was working at the time. We were five floors up, mid-lesson, when the entire building started to shake. It was a very minor quake, so my students barely blinked and continued to describe their umbrellas without missing a beat (meanwhile I'm thinking, 'I'm gonna die...'). I'm sure that being elevated to any real degree, e.g. ten floors up, would be terrifying (for an Aussie).

I learned from the news that night that we had experienced an earthquake of level 5-minus. A 78-year-old woman had fallen out of bed and experienced a nose-bleed; no other damage or injury had been reported (cultural note: this sort of trivia seems pretty typical of the news here, since it is so safe that there are no violent crimes to report).

The following day brought some very minor after-shocks, which I only noticed because at the sushi restaurant we went to a very light empty plate was slowly rotating on the table of its own accord.

Still waiting for 'the big one'.

Schoolboy Errors FC

2005-10-19T03:01:00.000+09:00

Our futsal team, Schooboy Errors, played again last weekend. This time, not sheeps nor any other barnyard animal stood in our way, and we made it to the finals! We were defeated during a penalty shoot-out, but ultimately not too shabby an effort.

Schoolboy Errors: My good self, Darren (captain), Breet, Danny, Kengo, Brendon, Hide (keeper)

Notice the new uniform. We now have an alternate uniform, which makes me feel like we've gone professional. This is all gratis on the part of our caption Darren, who takes his footy very seriously. He has the Liverpool shield tattooed onto the base of his neck.

(Funny story about that. When he got it done, he was a little worried about how his father might react. He had always told him, 'Son, you can drink, you can smoke, you can do what you want - but there are three things I want you never to do. Never commit adultery, never do drugs - and never get a tattoo.' Darren came home and sat his father down. 'Dad, I love you, but there is something I have to tell you.' His father started to pale. 'Dad - I'm gay.' He turned bone-white. 'Dad - I'm not gay, but I've got a tattoo.' His dad was so relieved about his not being gay that he barely cared about the tattoo!)

I was again reminded that the Japanese seem to have the hard-core attitude of 'If you're doing something, you may as well be doing it with extreme skill and pride'. We were talking about our team to a Japanese guy. The very first question he asked, after finding out he have a team, was, 'Do you have a web site?'

Nova Students

2005-10-14T00:32:00.000+09:00

Some of the students at the Tamachi branch are very intersting/funny people. Examples:

There is one woman who is always in Voice. She is known variously as the Voice Queen of Tamachi, and the Tamachi Broadcaster. Voice Queen nearly deserves a post all to herself, she is quite a character. As far as I can tell, she has some kind of junket of a job that allows her to occasionally tour the world as a translator, and live off some kind of passive income the rest of the time, allowing her to spend more time in Voice than I spend at the office. She believes that her reflection (in mirrors, windows, etc) is another version of herself in a parallel universe, that that she can garner otherwordly wisdom from this alternate self. She also comes onto me every single Voice lesson - which would be alright, if she wasn't the same age as my mum.
During a lesson entitled 'Dealing with Annoying People', I asked for examples of annoying people in various situations. One man said his sister annoys him, because she is lazy. I asked him to construct a polite way for expressing his annoyance. He used the lesson plan to build an insanely polite example that went on for several sentences: 'Excuse me, I was wondering... if you're not busy... it's just that your room is a little untidy...'. Another student exclaimed, 'Is that how you talk to your sister??' He replied, 'No - I usually just say "Move yo' ass"!' Keep in mind that this guy is a middle-aged salarayman in a grey suit.
Same lesson: I ask for another example of polite expression of annoyance. 'Someone is smoking on the train platform, what do you say?' The student says that she would get the station staff. I withhold a groan and clarify: 'there are no staff around; what do you say to the smoker?' She pauses for a moment before replying, 'I wouldn't say anything because he will... hit me, and stab me and kill me.' The other students find this amusing too - but ultimately agree! Cultural note: evidently nobody but complete psychos would dare commit the heinous faux pass of smoking on a platform.
Sometimes I get the feeling my students should be teaching me. I had a really interesting level 3 (very articulate, level 1 being native) class where everyone had such an amazing career, described eloquently moreover. One man was a Nuclear Physics expert who toured the world consulting with plant operators on safety. One man was in glass manufacturing and was working on the cockpit and cars of the new Shinkansen (bullet train). The woman's career - well, maybe it was the dullest thing in the world for all I know, but her job description was long enough that it sounded interesting, or at least lucrative. I immediately felt like a massive dunce who was unworthy of being flayed by these three Nobel candidates, let alone attempting to actually augment their considerable wisdom by drawing on my own life experiences as a... middle-class white guy (cough).
The lesson is about small talk. I have the genius students mentioned above. For the examples he uses, the nuclear physicist brings up picking up women: 'When you want to seduce a woman, you could use this technique...' The icing on the cake is a listening task: I read a conversation and the students discuss afterwards which small-talk techniques were employed. The first thing he says is, 'I got the feeling that he was trying to seduce her.' I choke down a laughing fit, but then realise - he's probably right! The listening exercise is a man trying to score at a business conference (there isn't actually a lesson on flirting - but there should be).
Speaking of flirting, my favourite student is an absolute hottie. She always turns up to class wearing the tiniest sliver of a skirt and basically looking ready for the catwalk. Her job description is 'event companion' - I wasn't sure what that was so I asked her about it. Basically she goes to Pachinko promotional events and stands around looking beautiful. To put it another way, she is in the same industry of the woman who turns the letters around on Wheel of Fortune. She's a really cool girl, though, and not even a bimbo.
The students' files have various information including their reasons for studying. Most students state their reason as either travel, need for work, favourite subject or want to communicate with people all over the world. There is this one really cute uni student I teach whose reason for studying is, 'I want to talk to Joe, lead singer of Good Charlotte'.

Nova

2005-10-10T19:08:00.000+09:00

I work part-time for Nova, which is probably the biggest Eikaiwa (English conversation school) in Japan. Literally everyone on the island knows Nova; it has 100% brand name recognition.

Foreigners seem to have a love-hate relationship with Nova. I've heard it described as the MacDonalds of English-teaching: it's ubiquitous, but not particularly nutritious, goes the thinking. Some things really frustrate me about the company, but at end of the day, it's a pretty sweet deal, and the easiest way to get into Japan.

Nova is one of several huge Eikaiwa that, for some reason, all have four letter words for company names (Aeon, Geos, Gaba), then there are some other huge ones with more letters(Berlitz, Shane). Sometime it seems that every foreigner in Japan is working for an English school or a hostess bar (or both). I can only tell you about Nova because I haven't had any contact with the other schools or their employees.

A typical day for me would include a few lessons with 1-4 students, and normally a session in the 'voice room'. The lessons are taken from a series of text books, so there isn't really any planning involved, beyond checking the students' files and selecting a lesson suitable for their level and interests. For me, the more interesting classes are the higher level lessons, because as the students get better and better, a lesson begins more and more to resemble a conversations. The lowest-level lessons are things like, "How are you?" (and present their own challenges), and the textbooks run the gamut from this through to "What is your opinion on software piracy?".

Voice room classes are my favourite, because they literally are just a conversation. It is a room where people hang out and chat in English, with one instructor acting as facilitator. Occasionally you might do structured activities, like theatresports or word games. Today I had everyone in the room introduce themselves by giving their name, job description and the strangest food they have ever eaten (the winner was from a woman who had tried cod semen. Mmm, salty). Normally, however, I just go for freestyle conversation. Occasionally I literally get paid to flirt with a Japanese beauty one-on-one. Like I said: Nova is a pretty sweet deal.

It seems that if you run a company in Japan, you have to have some kind of 'cute' mascot. No matter what business you're in, it seems you are in the business of cute mascots. Japan Rail has the Suica penguin. Even NTT DoCoMo, largest mobile communications company in the country (over half of the phones in Japan), has this weird mushroon with a face and limbs. Nova is no exception: their mascot is Nova Usagi (Nova Rabbit), which is this pink... thing which I suppose looks a little like a rabbit, if rabbits had beaks.

There is all sorts of Usagi merchandise on sale at all branches. Some people get right into it. The other day I had a student who had a Nova Usagi pen and a Nova Usagi badge on her pencil case. "It's cute!", she exclaimed when I enquired about her accessories.

Collect the whole set: Nova Usagi Merchandise

A lot of the merchandise is the rabbit in various costumes: Soccer Usagi, Space Usagi (Malibu Usagi?) You get get a big stuffed Usagi too, and various Usagi t-shirts.

There is a lot of folklore surrounding Nova. I take most of what I hear with a sack a salt. The best ones I've heard are:

Nova is controlled by the Yakuza (Japanese mafia) - that's why they have such convenient branch locations at every train station.
There is a stupid policy that Nova strictly adheres to: never have contact with any student outside of a business context. Since the people who work for Nova are obviously keen to make Japanes friends, this is a frustrating rule. Why such a policy? In addition to the obvious notion of stopping male instructors hitting on students, I have heard that this originally came into play when female instructors who were also working in hostess bars would entice their students to meet them in the bars after work!
Someone told me that Nova teachers have a reputation as being players - 'If you are chatting up a girl, never tell them you work for Nova!'. Judging by who I work with and some of the other stories they've related, this comment might not be so far off the mark.

Japanese Toilets

2005-10-04T00:34:00.000+09:00

I wanted to avoid returning to this subject, but I have been so impressed by what I've seen in the mens' room (get your mind out of the gutter) that I felt the urge to comment.

In my defence, there seems to be some level of general fascination of toilets around the world - it isn't just me. When I went to South America, companero Adam Peyser (his real name) developed an excellent collection of toilet pictures, some bizarre, some enlightening, some visions of Hell itself. Also, please refer to Toilets of the World, at which you can find some fine examples of the Japanese toilets mentioned here in addition to scary phenomena from around the globe.

I mentioned in a previous post that Japanese toilets require consumate skill to use. Or at least, more skill that it requires to slovenly throw your rear end onto a 'throne' with the latest copy of Player. Fortunately, every toilet I've seen so far has various hand rails to help you out.

Japanese toilets are squat toilets. To me they resemble a small, shallow river which, at one end, disappears into a cave. There is a sensor at squat-level that ensures an automatic flush when you stand back up.

While you have these seemingly primitive squat toilets on one hand, you also have these insane 'robot' toilets, for want of a better word. At first glance they look like a western-style toilet crossed with a home entertainment system. There are all kinds of buttons on either side, the purpose of which elude me this far as I've been too scared to press any, fearing the worst (I know one of them is a bidet). The first time I encountered a robo-toilet was inside a portable cubicle. I was of course, pleasantly surprised to find something other than the gritty cylinder you usually encounter inside porta-loos. At first I thought I'd found every man's ultimate dream: a playstation where you never have to stop playing. When I first sat down I felt like Davros, lord of the daleks.

One robo-toilet I saw was called 'Shower-toilet (tm)'. Might this suggest that by pressing one of the buttons, it is actually possible to shower while you wait? Shower-toilet comes with a wall-mounted remote control panel affixed to the cubicle wall, and the 'flush' button gived a satisying 'beep', like a microwave.

Mission Control: Nothing is left to chance at Shinagawa Station mens' room.

Even more impressive than Shower-toilet was the men's room at Shinagawa station. As you enter you see a tactical map of the facility, with indicaters showing which cubicles are currently engaged. Shinagawa station has overtaken both Sydney Arthouse Hotel and the original Sydney Central Station toilets to become my favourite public facility anywhere.

Focus

2005-10-04T00:20:00.000+09:00

'Passion' was not quite the right word. When I hear 'passion' I think professional sportsmen and latin women on the dance floor. What was that virtue I found so impressive in Japanese people?

People here don't do things by halves. I'm sure that there is no word in Japanese for 'hobbyist'. Whatever you do, you do as close to perfectly as you can.

I eventually figured that 'focus' was the right word. There is an English magazine called Japanzine, in which I found this amazing, if somewhat bleak, quote:

"Japanese people tend to confirm their existence by dedicating themselves to something: to doing their jobs, being a soccer fan, taking too much care of their pets, being crazy about a race queen - it is not important if their target has any worth or not."

-Masafumi Hirota, computer engineer

Roppongi

2005-09-30T02:47:00.000+09:00

It's Not Japan, But It Rocks.
That's Lonely Planet's description of Roppongi, which is a nightlife district that is completely overrun by gaijin (foreigners). Someone I know also described it as 'a godless place'. It is apparently where Japanese women go to pick up black guys and white guys (as opposed to black-and-white guys, haha). Needless to say, I had to check it out.
I've been there are few times by now. One quirk of going out in Tokyo that I have previously mentioned is that the subway system closes at midnight, and the trains stop not long after - so you're going out for a big night, or not at all. I found out the hard way, though, that this does not mean the last train is at midnight - rather it means that everything just stops bang on the stroke of twelve. I was on a subway train bound for Roppongi when midnight came around. Suddenly the train just stopped, one station out of Roppongi - a tiny, insignificant station - and that was it. Everyone out. I had to catch a taxi the rest of the way. That night I also learned that Tokyo taxis are scandalously expensive.
(Cultural difference #243: when you hail a taxi in Tokyo, the back door opens automatically. You don't actually make contact with any part of the taxi or driver throughout the journey - the seat has a dust cover, the door opens remotely as controlled by the driver, and he is wearing medical-type gloves. On this night I did the Australian thing and charged the taxi down before he could drive off, wrenching at the locked front door. Oops. He probably thought I was trying to murder him.)
Most of the action in Roppongi is along one street, with African touts literally dragging anyone who comes within three metres into all manner of R&B and hip-hop joints, in addition to the token gentlemens' clubs. Every time I've been down there I've been in a group with some black person, who has by their presence alone deflected any unwanted harassment away from myself and my fair colleague, since the touts generally try to pull the good-ol' "Yo, my brotha/sista...", like they go way back.
Sure enough, the place is crawling with beautiful Japanese women looking for foreigners. I know what you're wondering - and the answer is no. The following story should serve as a case study for my general complete incompetence when it comes to girls.
We went to a popular club called Lexington Queen. Interesting setup: men pay a 4000 yen ($50) cover charge, but once you're in, all drinks are free. Yes, that includes spirits. Women get in free - and never pay so much as a yen for drinks all night! The astute/alcoholic among you have realised the logical corollary: if you're a man, you are obligated to drink your money's worth.
I haven't so much as ordered my first drink when this gorgeous girl strolls up to me, untamed auburn hair, olive skin, you get the idea, and interrupts me mid-conversation to say, "Hey, you are really cute." What a line! I wish I could claim that this has ever happened to me before. My mate chivalrously performs a houdini at this point, leaving us along to talk. I really liked her immedietely. Her name is Reika. She's half North-American, half Japanese. After disclosing this info she reminds me that I'm really, really cute. Then, inexcplicably she turns and retreats back to... wherever she came from.
I was reeling from this for a few seconds. Was I supposed to follow her? As I said we had just entered, and in fact I had been on my way to the Gents'. I decided I would play it cool - I'll relieve myself, get my first drink and then seek Reika out.
I looked everywhere. I just couldn't find her again!
(Amazingly, this is the second half-Japanese girl called Reika with whom I have messed up this year. What are the chances? Maybe this story is even more of a textbook commentary on my general lame-ness than I initally suspected)
Later on, we run into some other people we met at orientation. One of the girls is a real honey. She is something like Californian/Spanish/Italian - just imagine a nearly comical amalgam of backgrounds from every place where beautiful people come from, and that is her. She has this perfect caramel skin and really thick, curly, lusty gold hair, not to mention the classic en-fuego latin body. It was great to see her again because we had gotten on pretty well on our last meeting but then lost contact. By this stage of the evening she was a little merry, and we weren't talking for long before she basically 'attacked' me (in a good way - a very good way) without preamble. At some later point I got her number and texted her the next day - only to hear back from a very confused Japanese dude. I entered her number wrong. Please just kill me now.
If you enjoy the clubbing scene and are less lame than I am, I would definitely recommend Roppongi. It is very busy and because of the trains, everyone is forced to continue to party until 5 am ('You must keep dancing!')
The other place we went was Vanilla, which has three floors completely crammed with people on weekends. There are these tequila cowgirls circulating with shot-glasses and bottles in holsters hanging off their hips. I noticed one strange thing there: there were this girls sitting in a booth in the corner looking bored, literally falling asleep. I went to talk to them but a staff member materialised in front of me and said, "Ladies only section." A ladies-only section in a club? I've never heard of such a thing. On the second floor there is a whole ladies-only room, decked out with a few couches. There is an ominous sign at the door with a big red cross over the standard 'international man' you see on toilet doors the world over, and a curtain over the doorway implying that men are prohibited even from looking inside the room. This probably should not be so surprising to me in Tokyo. Women getting felt up on crowded trains has become such a problem that women-only carriages are being introduced during peak-hour. No joke.

Electric Town

2005-09-25T22:17:00.000+09:00

I went to the 'Electric Town' district of Akihabara (locals call it 'Akiba' for short) to do some shopping.

Electric Town - on the weekend, 6 lanes turn into a mall. It's busy.

Akiba is where you go to buy

Anything electrical or electronic
Anything to do with anime, manga or video games

One place I checked out while there was Radio Hall, which is your one-stop bizarre j-pop hobby shop. Amongst other shops there is

A floor devoted to manga, with a massive manga-porn section (this stuff is full-on, and it's just sitting there, unsealed, next to Dragonball and Sailer Moon!).
A floor and a half devoted to collectible-type toys that everyone here loves. There are loads of these tiny dolls, the type of thing you would hang off your mobile phone by the millions if you were a Japanese schoolgirl - then there are dolls of robots, characters from movies - and way too many scantily-clad manga babes in suggestive poses. Think along the lines of like an 'S&M Barbie' or something.
A massive shops that is essentially a doll parts factory!You can go in and buy the body, the head, the hair and the eyes, then buy any of a ridiculously large multitude of clothing and accessories.

I had lunch at 'Mr Donut', which is a fairly well-known chain. Apparently there is a place where you can buy used Mr Donut uniforms (if used schoolgirl uniforms just don't do it for you).

I came home from Akiba with a new MP3 player, an electric razor and several thousand tissues. In Tokyo, street touts don't hand out brochures - they give tissue packets with product or company information slipped inside. I have noticed that wherever there are manga/anime shops, there will be girls in black maid-type costumes handing out tissues. This particular costume seems to be really common, I've seen it in a few places. And I am cool with this.

There was an army of these 'sexy maids' handing out tissues.

Engrish Sightings

2005-09-23T00:31:00.000+09:00

Thought of the day

Do not walking and chewing gum at the same time either.

A woman on a bicycle near where I live had this inspiring message on her top: "You make CAN HAPPEN! CATCH POWER with your efforts perfect"
This is the best one I've seen was at the train station. There was a young-ish mother pushing a stroller, dressed conservatively in jeans and a biege top - upon which was emblazoned in bold capitals: "FUCK'N COOL." You go girl.

Japanese TV

2005-09-23T00:00:00.000+09:00

No wonder Japan is so crazy. You'd go nuts too if you had to endure Japanese TV.

Last night I turned on out TV for the first time, and what did I see? None other than the talk-show host from Lost in Translation participating in a bizarre game show.

Matthew Minami (real name Fujii Takashi) and Bill Murray

Not only was I completely surprised that this is a real person, and that he really is like that, I was further shocked to learn that he is purported to be one of Japan's most famous and cherished entertainers! He really does host that TV program - it's called "Matthew's Best Hit TV"! But wait, there's more - apparently, he is celebrated by youth in Japan as a cutting-edge fashion guru! Keep in mind that he really does dress like in the movie - in fact, it is entirely possible that the footage from the movie was an excerpt from a real episode of "Matthew's Best Hit TV".

While I was reeling from the initial revelation, I was also bewildered by the nature of the game show. Essentially, this was a game show where the contestants had to say various tongue-twisters repeatedly, very fast. They scored points if they made no mistakes. That is the whole show. Every time a contestant took the floor to make an attempt, the lights would dim and they would crack their neck and generally braces themselves as if going into battle. Then, whenever they made an error, everyone - the hosts and all of the contestants - would go into hysterical laughing fits.

Every now and then, Japanese writing would flash up on the screen with a little sparkle or flourish (again, see Lost in Translation)

This was the most coherent thing I saw all night. The following show seemed to be about photographing some woman as she posed suggestively in a black maid's costume and cleaned her teeth. I'm serious.

Tonight, one of the greatest films ever was on: Back to the Future! It was in English and there were no subtitles - except when there was an English signpost, for example, on-screen. This begged the question: who was the target audience? They seemed to be targetting people who can understand spoken English, but can't read it. This demographic constitutes a decided minority in Japan - I would estimate approximately 0% of the population falls into this category. In Japan, everyone can read English and no-one can speak it, so I don't know exactly what their intentions were.

they cut a lot of scenes for no discernable reason.

Used Schoolgirl Underwear

2005-09-20T02:43:00.000+09:00

Before reading on, let's set one thing straight: I am not a pervert!

Today I bought some used schoolgirl panties.

I am going to hell.

Maybe some back-story is appropriate at this point.

There is a popular rumour that it is possible to buy used schoolgirl underwear from vending machines in Tokyo. I made some inquiries and found that, yes, this is possible. Vending machines have been spotted. This phenonemon is the logical sum of two facets of Japanese culture. First, you can buy anything from a vending machine. Cash transactions are automated as much as possible. Even at some noodle bars, you select your order from a vending machine then present from the machine to the chef. Second: this is a country when you can buy pornography from any convenience store (and, of course, vending machines). They are just sitting there, no plastic cover, no nothing - you can even flip through them as you debate which brand of milk to buy. For the really hard-core ones, they might put a tiny piece of tape in the middle so you can only look at the corners. I'm no sociologist, but my theory is that since everyone is working too hard to have a decent sex-life, they go to hostess bars, read this crazy porn - and develop weird fetishes. Japanese men like their women young. Combine these cultural strands and you have grown men handling clothes worn by girls as some kind of sexual release.

Anyway, after thinking about this a while back I figured I would keep my eye out for a vending machine, and forgot or about it. Then, when I was doing something unrelated and completely innocent with the PC I stumbled upon a post of some 'interesting' sights in Tokyo.

(OK, so it wasn't all innocent. I was checking out another rumour that it is impossible to buy regular-sized condoms in Tokyo. But that's another post altogether...)

So I gingerly set out for Shibuya's red light district in search of Rope, which I was told I had to see to believe. Love Hotel Hill doesn't look sleazy in any way - it just looks safe, busy, clean and nice like most of Tokyo. Even the call girls just look like my next-door neighbour. In Australia they would have the usual token accoutrements: fishnet stockings, the FM boots, the miniskirt... here, they are just plain-clothes citizens. They will approach you, and you're ready to hear someone ask if you're American - next thing you know, you are being offered a massage and a - you get the idea. It's confusing, because there are trendy 'Shibuya Bitches' (previous post) everywhere, showing off their tanned legs and waving their blonde hair around. If, hypothetically, one was to seek out the service of someone in the red-light district, if would be very confusing, and he would probably end up offending some Shibuyan who is trying to do her grocery shopping.

Amongst all this I eventully located Rope. For some reason I expected that once I got inside, it would look more-or-less like any Jeans West outlet - racks of clothing, j-pop pumping over the stereo, helpful sales assistants asking 'Can I help you' - but sexed up just a little - maybe some school girls giggling as they wiggled some new stock out from beneath their skirts. Welcome to the disturbing mind of Luke McConaghey.

Needless to say, it wasn't quite what I had imagined. The shop was a cramped store room replete with anything and everything you can imagine a young girl wearing. Skirts, blouses, thongs (the kind that go on your feet - pervert), and boots. The expensive items are the full school uniforms. Of course, you have the underwear and pantyhose too.

Rope Burasera - here we have used footwear and underwear - and some videos on the right.

Uniforms - these are the most expensive items in the store.

Pricing System:

The price of panties varies according to just how used they are (eeewwWWW!), whether the panties are anonymous and the age of the girl. You can get a bag of about 12 anonymous panties for 9000 yen, OR get one pair and a photo of the wearer for 3000-4000 yen.
The price of uniforms varies from about 30000 to 130000 yen, according to the school. If it's the Tokyo equivalent of North Sydney Girls' then obviously that's worth more than Mount Druitt.

One of Danny's students told him that when she left high school, she sold her uniform for around 150000 yen. Danny's response to her just sums up Danny perfectly: 'You should have bought, like, ten uniforms in your final year!'

Futsal

2005-09-20T02:18:00.000+09:00

I played in a Futsal Tournament this weekend.

Soccer is popular here but there seems to be no room for soccer fields (all of the prime real estate is filled with baseball fields). So they tend to stick to futsal (indoor soccer). The tournament consisted of a series of very short games.

Our team, 'Schoolboy Errors' (which became 'School Errors' once put through the lost-in-translation machine) was the only gaijin team in this tournament. The team was:

Myself and Danny
Darren and Brett - Danny's English and Welsh mates respectively
Sexy Matt (to differentiate him from the other Matt they know, namely Crazy Matt). He is, of course, Aussie.
Hans - A Canadian with a German name, who looks Chinese, working in Japan.
Aki - Local talent. Aki isn't really a keeper but he filled in for they other guy who normally keeps - and also isn't a keeper. I guess that makes Aki our reserve non-keeper.
Yaioi and Rie - our cheer squad

With such amazing talent both on and off the pitch, it was a rude shock that we lost every game. I didn't actually know it was possible to lose 6-0 in 14 minutes. The salt on the wound was our finishing behind in points to a team called 'Sheeps'. Sheeps! Apart from the poor English, the sheep is not an animal known for its sporting prowess. It's an animal known for foot-rot and getting its personal effects bitten off by farmers (so I've heard). Lions: maybe. Cheetahs, jaguars - any big cat really, or even a little cat. Hornets, wasps, killer bees even - but sheep?

Team School Boy Errors - left to right, back to front: Hans, me, Danny, Aki, Matt, Brett, Yaioi (still on the phone - she's like our manager), Darren, Rie

Some Subcultures of Japan

2005-09-20T01:09:00.000+09:00

Sarariman (Salarymen) - The most impressive asset of Japanese people to is their passion for perfection. It seems to me that whatever they do, they do really well. The flipside (and downside) of this is that they work really, really hard. Today was a public holiday. I had to work as usual. Kotaru, the manager, was present as were the Japanese staff Yumoko and Hitomi - poor girls. Someone asked them if they at least had an early mark and they said yes: they were leaving at 7pm! Sarariman epitomise this. These middle-class businessmen in grey suits fill the trains at all hours. To quote Danny (my flatmate), these MoFos can sleep anywhere. Recently our train terminated at a station abruptly - I couldn't understand the announcement, but I just followed everyone off the train. This salaryman groggily followed us off, and while we were waiting for further instructions, I swear - he began to doze off right there on the station - while standing up. Somehow, uncannily, these guys always wake up just before their stop, although occasionally you also see them sleeping at the station, having missed the last train for the night.

Tokyo train - businessmen sleep in this and much, much worse.

School girls - most of them wear that classic burasera (bloomer/sailer) outfit, and honestly look like these swarms of Sailer Moons running around. I don't know where all the boys are going to school, but all I ever see is school girls on the trains. School girls further drive home the point about Japanese working hard. Last Sunday afternoon I caught a train. It was as desolate as Tokyo gets - just a few people sleepily riding in the car, maybe heading to the park. Then suddenly, at one stop, about ten thousand girls in school uniform jump on. On a Sunday. In their evidently tiny amount of spare time they hang out at these Timezone-like places that seem to be everywhere.

School girls - Normally only old women wear kimonos - so why the fancy dress? Because, as they explained, they are going to the 'Game Centre'! Apparently TimeZone is a black tie event in Tokyo.

Cosplay Gang - They hang out at Harajuku and shop at Snoopy Town (see my other post).

Cosplay Girls at Yoyogi Park, Harajuku.

Shibuya Bitches - Occasionally you'll see women walking around with umbrellas to prevent tanning. In Japan, apparently, white is right - at least for women. Shibuya bitches, on the other hand, have the heaviest tans I've ever seen on anyone. They usually also sport a tattoo or two, a mini skirt and blonde hair. The first time I saw one I thought, 'What is that?' A tanned Japanese blonde is always going to look weird - having said that, they can look pretty cute, in a debaucherous kind of way (and I am totally fine with that). They hang out in Shibuya, which is one of the trendy areas.
Otaku - the Japanese approximation of computer nerds, they may work in IT or as a manga cartoonist. You'll find them in the Electric Town part of Akihabara, where every shop sells hardware, games or anime and manga.

Orientation

2005-09-13T01:12:00.000+09:00

I started my job today with an orientation seminar.

The most interesting part was an introduction to teaching techniques. A few key points: first, our classes are to be student-oriented, meaning we are there to encourage and mediate student conversation rather than just disseminating information. The seminar leader demonstrated a way to do this by giving us a task that we had to complete in two minutes: to find out amongst our groups who had brought the strangest item to Japan (the strangest in our group was an American who brought juggling sticks; the strangest overall was another American who brought his grandfather's ashes - "He always wanted to see Japan..." - which elicited a united 'Awwwww' from every girl in the room).

The other key point was the importance of context, body language and facial expression for communication. First we listened to an audio clip from a popular Japanese drama, and had to discuss what we thought was going on. Next, we saw the clip. Finally, we were given the context, namely the preceeding and proceeding scenes. The difference in understanding at each step was amusingly significant.

Today also brought with it my first real culture shock, in two forms. Firstly, KFC here is downright horrid. Secondly, at the risk of throwing down a cliche: what is with Americans? At orientation we had people from all over the world: Canada, Australia, the UK, and of course the USA. I was discussing this with my Aussie mate Brett. We get on pretty well: he looks like Vince Vaughn and I supposedly look like Matt Damon. Anyway, we both agreed: there is just something about Americans in particular, they are on a different wavelength. I don't mean it in a bad way, it's just that the USA is another planet altogether...

After orientation a big group of us headed out to Gas Panic for a drink. Anyone who has travelled will know what I am talking about when I say that this is one of those universal bars - in any pocket of the world, from darkest Africa to an alley in Thailand, you can find one. It's worse than MacDonalds. They rarely have windows so once you go in, you can't actually tell which country you're in, but if you were to guess, you would say the States. When we entered Gas Panic, the bouncer - this huge, black American dude - asks me, 'Hey... are you from Alabama?'. Common mistake. Later, when I went to the Gents', there was some rasta American guy at the urinal who turned as I entered and said, 'Eh, what's happening, white thang?' Firstly, you don't talk to the other guys at the urinal, that law crossed all cultural boundaries. Secondly - white what? What thang? Then there is the American Nova employees themselves. One of the guys let me in old his golden pickup line, which he has reportedly used with great success: 'So... have you had a foreigner before?' Yep, those Americans are smoooth operators.

Having said all that, it was fun :) The Nova employees, as could be anticipated, are a varied, unusual and ultimately cool group of people.

Yaki Nikku

2005-09-12T03:10:00.000+09:00

Tonight I had my first Yaki Nikku experience. You are served pieces of uncooked meat and you grill it right there at your table.

Beforehand, my flatmate Danny and I met some of his friends at the local race track to bet on the horses. I won $2 (don't laugh - that was far and away the biggest victory amongst all five of us all night)! On the way to the tracks we encountered the strangest thing.

City pedestrian crossings here are more-or-less the same as anywhere. You stand at the edge of the road. Traffic is moving past, so you must wait until the the light with the little man turns green. At this point the traffic stops. At some point, the little man starts flashing, then turns red, at which point the traffice proceeds. It isn't rocket science.

And yet, at this particular not-in-any-way-major-or-conjested crossing, was a uniformed man directing traffic and pedestrians - doing exactly what the lights were saying! When the green 'walk' sign lit up, he would beckon pedestrians with a light baton. When the traffice lights turned green he would wave the taffic through, after delivering a firm 'stop' gesture to any lingering pedestrians. Put simply, he was mimicking the little flashing man. Was he in fact the flashing man? I wondered. The guy who all those 'walk'/'don't walk' signs were based on? In the flesh? In the presence of such celebrity, I has had to take a photo.

Foolproof: Just in case the don't walk sign fails - the crossing warden's got your back.

Here's how Yaki Nikku goes down at our local: you crowd around a low table, cross-legged, on cushions. There are two cauldrons filled with hot coals, with a grill over the top. The waitress provides two thousand tiny plates of various animal parts: liver, stomach, and the favourites like ham and beef. Cook and eat.

The participants:

Darren - An Englishman his goal in life is to amass multitudes of money. He has been in Japan for six years now. His one piece of advice to me: learn Japanese now.
Steve and Matt - fellow friends and countrymen of Darren's.
Akira - Promised he'll teach me Japanese if I teach him English.
Hide (pronounced 'Hee-dey') - enjoys giving and receiving nipple-cripples.
Li - Beautiful Korean girlfriend of Steve. She is tri-lingual: Korean, perfect Japanese and good English. Impressive.
Yaioi - Cute Japanese girlfriend of Darren. Yaioi is super-cool, and speaks great English, slang and all. She plans to write a book on how to pick up foreigners. Her pick-up tip to me was 'Japanese girls are shy, but they like gaijin - so just ask for all girls!' ("Hi, can I have all girls, please?").
Danny and myself.

Yakki Nikku: Danny, me, Hide

Yaioi, Li, Steve. In true Japanese fashion, Yaioi has seen the camera and instinctively made the Peace symbol with her chopsticks

Cosplay Girls

2005-09-12T02:20:00.000+09:00

Keen to try out my new digital camera, I headed to Harajuko, where all that trademark Tokyo fashion happens. The trend is known by various names including Cosplay (short for Costume Play).

3 Cosplay genres: Most girls seem to go for the goth-look, accessory overload or the bo-peep style.

Sunday is supposed to be the best day for checking out all the Cosplay freaks. They wander around Harajuko shopping for accessories or just hang out in neaby Yoyogi park. Being a beautiful sunny sunday afternoon, I eagerly headed for Harajuko, shiny new digital camera in hand.

Cosplay girls: Yoyogi Park, Harajuko

Cultural note: in Japan, instead of smalltalk along the lines of 'How's your health' and the like, people talk about the weather. In Australia, the weather is seen to be the most boring smalltalk subject available. Not here! Japanese weather is full of scanda: there is all manner of typhoons, seismic activity and general upsets. The company I work for strongly recommends that all employees prepare an emergency earthquake pack with, among other things, three days worth of rations! I experienced Japanese weather first-hand today.

When I arrived at Harajuku station, I was greeted with a torential downpour. From sunny to Noah in a few stations. Everyone was crowded underneath the shelter at the train station.

Suddenly, this guy materialised out of nowhere and instantly constructed an umbrella stall directly in front of us. 'Kasa, Kasa - get your kasa!' I wondered if this was some kind of umbrella superhero, who, summoned by a rain storm, could teleport to where he was most needed.

I took some great pictures in the shelter, but eventually took refuge in Snoopy Town. Only in harajuko would you find a large store entirely devoted to Snoopy products. They really like Snoopy here! (I am actually expecting Disneyland to be better here than in the States - they eat this stuff like candy here)

Being 9-11, the day wasn't complete without a peace rally. A large parade proceeded along the main street. It was the most militant peace march I have ever witnessed. There were armoured police vans everywhere, people beating war drums - and everyone was shouting what sounded like the haka. I'm told it's a Japanese thing.

Engrish

2005-09-12T01:39:00.000+09:00

Yesterday I went to the 'Electric Town' area of Akihabara, where one can buy anything electrical or electronic, to purchase a digital camera (and MP3 player).

There is so much Engrish signage, advertisement, and fashion around that I could easily devote this log to all of the examples I see on a daily basis. Most of them are on t-shirts, but it is difficult to photograph those ones since you need to be quick (one I saw recently was "I do what I belive in"!).

However, a simple trip down to the local 24-hour convenience store yielded some laughs...

My beverage of choice: puts back what you sweat out.

There is a wide range of product available at our local AM/PM - none of which I have the faintest clue regarding ingredients, taste or fitness for consumption. By trial and error I established that these triangular objects are basically nori rolls (sushi as we know it in Australia).

Delicious Triangles: how can you resist them when they are so happy?

On this occasion I bought a tuna triangle and a loaf of bread for lunch; and not just any bread...

All Good: As you can see I opted for the 'double soft mild' variety; that's how I like my Good Bread.

I was discussing this Engrish phenomenon with my flatmate Danny, and found out that photographing Engrish examples is one of his hobbies. More examples to come from his impressive collection.

First Impressions

2005-09-10T02:11:00.000+09:00

There are glowing/flashing lights everywhere. The extent of this was exemplified when I saw a woman walking her dog in Ebisu - the dog's collar was a flashing, bright-red neon ring! There is some road work occuring downstairs, just outside of our building. One lane is partially closed, the sort of road work that in Sydney would necessitate placing some of those witches' hats with lights or reflective strips. Compare and contrast: downstairs they have 2 LED boards with yellow flashing arrows, what I can only describe as an animated flower-light - and, the coup de grace, big LED screen showing a construction worker waving a white flag, Grand Prix-style!
If there is an announcement from a PA, or if you press a button in any context, you'll usually hear a cute little tune of some sort. Whenever I buy a train ticket I get all excited, thinking I've won something. I'm glad to say that our toilet is an exception, although I have heard of musical toilets here in Tokyo somewhere.
The above two points conspire to make Tokyo remind me of every Nintendo game I've ever played.
I saw a school girl with a bunch of cute accessories hanging from her mobile phone. That goes on in Sydney, of course - what surprised me was the sheer quantity. There must have been 20 accessories dangling from her phone! Small furry animals, little dolls, the entire cast of Sailer Moon... it was at the point where they were actually interfering with her phone call.
There is quite a lot of English around. Most signs are in Japanese and English. The major trains have English announcements, automated purchasing facilities have a 'cheat' button that turns all of the instructions into English, and it is fashionable to have Engrish all over you clothes. I have seen some really funny ones. Two I saw today at the station were a woman with 2 trophies on her chest and the words, 'Award-winning Wife'. Another woman had this written on her top: 'People who are very beautiful can make up their own law'. These two are rare examples in that they actually make sense (sort-of) and aren't just a garbled collection of seemingly random words.
There really are a lot of vending machines. Next to our apartment building is a park that has a 'drink point' - a large bank of drink vending machines and even a gelato dispenser. I don't actually know what kind of drinks they are, but whenever I go to the park I essentially press a random button and try something new. It's like a slot machine. So far I've tried some kind of ice tea, something called Calpis (which is great, if you can get past the name) and lemon squash ('The vitamin C equals 77 lemons!').

Arrival

2005-09-09T01:10:00.000+09:00

I'm at my new address in Lions Mansion Oomori, Shinagawa. It is an awesome place: great view, close to the city. To be fair, they are laying in on a bit with the 'mansion' part; it is a huge cube of tiny apartments not so disimilar to the multitude of others that comprise the living arrangements of the majority of Tokyo's citizens. Ours is a small 3-bedroom apartment on the 10th floor up. Western toilet... a big plus. I had my first Japanese toilet experience before leaving the airport, and it was not the smoothest display. With a western toilet, you can sit back, relax, flick through this month's FHM - there is not much that can go wrong. More dexterity is required over here; without going into detail, my effort completely lacked form and balance. I think I invented a few new breakdancing moves in that cubicle.

Home sweet home - Lions Mansion Oomori.

The other thing about my new digs: I know that one day I'm going to brain myself on the door frame.

At the moment it's just myself and Danny, of England. Danny is exactly the sort of man you want to know in my situation: he has lived in Japan for 2 years on and off, has a reasonable command of Japanese (no matter what he'll tell you) and is an all-round hell-of-a-regular-guy. I have questions and he has answers. I know what you're burning to ask and no, I did not ask him where I can purchase used schoolgirl underwear from a vending machine. Come on: I've known the guy for 24 hours, during which I was for the most part either tipsy or in a zombie-like post-long-flight limbo of consciousness. There is a time and a place!

Danny

Orientation for my job begins on Monday, so I'm effectively on holidays. My first day of holidays was celebrated by registering myself as an alien (it's the law) and recovering from the flight. I did make it out for drinks with Danny's work associates and Japanese friends. Two other Aussies: Dani and Chris (there are a lot working for Nova), then there's Mami, who Danny introduced as 'my sort-of girlfriend' (whatever than means) - and Rio, who claims that he is 'a Ninja... sometimes' (whatever that means).

Today I gave Rebecca a call. Rebecca was the one person who I knew in Japan - and I use the term 'knew' in the broadest possible sense. She was a friend-of-a-friend, and we agreed to meet in Shibuya.

Shibuya is basically your postcard-perfect perception of Tokyo - crazy fashion, flashing lights, a lot of people and the Shibuya crossing, which is that massive intersection you'll always see on stock footage of Tokyo.

I didn't know how I was going to recognise Rebecca amongst the throng oustide of Shibuya station but figured there wouldn't be that many white girls to choose from. This theory didn't actually work that well, but we eventually found each other.

Rebecca is an amazing girl. She was originally working for Nova, but tired of that within a few months and quit to work as a hostess. She does a little modelling too, in addition to keeping up private English tuition; and lately is pushing to turn her freelance journalism into a full-time career. I'm honoured that she took some time out to show be the sights and even buy me a milkshake - it's not every day that a gorgeous international model shouts me.

Japan Checklist

2005-09-05T23:30:00.000+09:00

At 3:40pm tomorrow, I will be taking off from Sydney airport. At 7:30am Wednesday (Japan-time), I'll be touching down at Narita airport in Sunrise-land.

As for the subsequent 12 months, I haven't really figured it all out - although I do have some ideas. Actually, I made a list. I made a list on my last trip (to South America); I even went so far as having a Mission Statement. This isn't as weird as it may seem; one of my two travelling companions had a mission of his own. His, if I remember correctly, was 'to change'. Mine was 'to try new things'.

(the others' unstated mission, as far as I can tell, was to dance the horizontal Salsa with every latina and her sister on the continent).

No specific mission for this year - just the checklist. I haven't posted the whole list - it's long and not as interesting to read as it will be to do - but at my farewell party, I was given the dubious honour of having some 'wisdom' imparted by my friends, in that they came up with a few 'todos' that I had missed. Some of the suggestions:

Buy used schoolgirl underwear from a vending machine. If you haven't heard the stories, Japan is a vending culture - you can buy anything from vending machines - and a culture that probably watches too much Sailer Moon. Suffice it to say that this is one of those only-in-Japan things (and I already have one order to fill from back home)
Buy girl spit. The vending machine thing I've heard of, but this one is new to me.
Eat endangered whale. Sacrilicious...
Visit HKS Kansai and ask for a ride. I'm told the test rides offered at the dealerships are more like an illegal street-racing than anything else. Apparently, this is the country that invented 'drifting' around corners as a racing technique.
Go on a crazy Japanese game show. Did anyone ever watch Endurance? It was basically a torture reality TV show. Hell, I'll give it a shot.
Become a 'host'. I've heard that hostessing is massive business, especially for Westerners - not sure if this goes for the men too, but if I can get paid to socialise with exotic, rich women, then more power to me.
Become the #1 white prostitute in Japan (to rival Deuce Bigalow) with HQ in Ikebukuro.

It's going to be busy year.