What a day... sorry this will be a really quick entry as netcafes are damn expensive over here and I have fellow teachers waiting to go get drunk and stuff ourselves full at an izakaya (Japanese pub.)
Well, I:ve taught my first lesson... or part thereof. What a rush! 4 hours preparation and there I was moulding the minds of tomorrow, hyuk hyuk hyuk. I had no idea teaching would be such a rush. The students (aged 13 to 27) were all so attentive and eager it was an absolute joy. The youngest, a high school girl, was a real crackup and by far the best with vocab. Don:t know what you:re always whinging about mum, with my 20 minutes under my belt now I reckon teaching is a breeze ;)
I finally went out properly at night on a bar crawl with some of the other staff. Hiroshima is riddled with Melbourne-esque bars tucked away in cool little places. As soon as I walk in any girls in the place that speak english tend to migrate towards me to test it out. I guess I must look like a good teacher or something... hoho. It was quite amazing how much more at home I felt once I had been out for a decent night on the sauce. Only shame is the Japanese don:t know what an *all day fried breakfast* is so I have to cram myself full of nutella toast.
Oh, for all the sneaker junkies out there reading this blog... hooooly crap get yourself to Japan. I stumbled across 5 stores each with over 1,000 different types of Gravis, Adidas, Converse, Puma, Asics, etc... all so cheap! Less than $49 if you don:t mind last year:s fashions (heaven forbid).
Would love to stay and type up more but really must dash. Love to all, thanks heaps for the emails I will endeavour to reply to them personally once I have internet on at home.
Sayonara!
Monday, May 29, 2006
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Adventures!
Alright, so that seems to have worked.
On to my next adventures. Lee and I set off to the "Internationl Library" in the Peace Park Museum on Thursday morning. The Peace Park itself is quite amazing, had it not been packed full of school kids I:m sure it would be quite peaceful too. Quite a few of the schoolkids had obviously been given the task of interviewing any gaijin they could find. I obliged the first group that found me , but once it became obvious that we were about to descended upon by many many more groups we made a quick escape from the park. Heading directly west from the park we decided to navigate the little backstreets of Hiroshima until we reached the trees on the edge of town. This took a suprisingly short amount of time so we kept going up and up and up into the ever-steeper hills surrounding Hiroshima until the heat and humidity got the better of us.
Thankfully, even right on the edge of Hiroshima, one can find vending machines stocking my now favourite drink "Aquarius" in 500mL cans for ￥120. Quick aside, one thing that puzzles me enormously is despite the myriad vending machines dotting the city, you never seem to see anyone drinking! I see people buy drinks but then they rush off to somewhere... no doubt a secret drinking hall where no gaijin has ever been allowed entry.
On our walk up through the hills we passed a few shrines and other such interesting sights, but I:m afraid until I start work and get one of the Japanese-speaking staff members to accompany me, I won:t be able to buy camera and post photos up here. Stomachs grumbling we headed back towards the skyscrapers.
We had a brilliant bit of luck on our return journey through likewise tiny backstreets when we stumbled right into a tiny okonomiyaki restaurant (no idea what the Japanese would refer to it as, yet). We managed to order ourselves an okonomiyaki each and sat down at the enormous L-shaped bench which was 90% cooktop with the other customers (3 beer-drinking labourers and one cool-as-can-be 20-something guy reading manga). I really wish I could have taken photos of the chef as she prepred our lunch, it was quite an amazing spectacle, particularly since it all happens right in front of you. Once ready the chef simply drags it across the cooktop to you and you begin wolfing it down armed with a metal blade/spatula contraption. To say it was delicious is definitely an understatement. I am most certainly on a mission to try as many different okonomiyaki places as I can, now.
I'm about to be kicked out of the netcafe now, so a quick summary of other interesting things as I'm not sure when I'll be back online again.
Yesterday and today have been warm but very wet so I've spent most of my time investigting Hiroshim's galleries and museums. Seeing Dali's "Dream of Venus" was quite an experience.
I did my first big food shop at a supermarket 2 blocks from my appartment. This place was absolutely enormous and I recognised only maybe 5% of the goods. I'm definitely going to have to get a book on cooking seafood as it is so much cheaper than beef or pork or chicken. Bread is ￥300 for a 10slice miniloaf and Ballentine's whiskey is ￥１，４９０ for a 700mL bottle. I love this country. A tray of gyoza ready-to-cook is only ￥２４８ so I can see myself going through a huge amount of them.
I got to experience the downside of asking Japanese people for help while at the supermarket. "Sumimasen, chirisosu wa doko desuka?" (Excuse me, where is the chilli sauce?) I asked an elderly woman. She replied with a rapid fire answer that left me staring blankly. Before I could finish saying "Wakarimasen" (I don:t understand) she grabbed me by the hand and took me to the end of the aisle, pointing in the direction of aisle 6 she repeated "ROKU" slowly for my benefit then smiled and resumed her shopping. I made a mental note of where my chilli sauce could be found and resumed my own shopping but less than 30 seconds later the lady was grabbing my hand again and this time dragged me all the way to the chilli sauce and would not leave me until said sauce was in my basket. "Domo arigato gozaimasu!" (Thank you very much) I said and after we both bowed to each other she left with an expression on her face I am beginning to realise means "last time I help a bloody gaijin...".
Time for me to head off. I'm sure the many red-blooded males with a taste for Japanese girls that are reading this would rather I spent some time going into detail about all the cute girls I have met, but that can wait for another time.
Lee has organised dinner and drinks with some girls from work tonight, Saturday I'll hopefully get to see the baseball live with Wes and on Sunday Lee has his Nova funded welcome party with all you can eat all you can drink karaoke madness. Should be fun!
Missing everyone in Austrlia plenty. Feel free to email me at swfenton at gmail dot com. Would love to be kept up to date on the haps of Melbourne town.
For now, sayonara.
On to my next adventures. Lee and I set off to the "Internationl Library" in the Peace Park Museum on Thursday morning. The Peace Park itself is quite amazing, had it not been packed full of school kids I:m sure it would be quite peaceful too. Quite a few of the schoolkids had obviously been given the task of interviewing any gaijin they could find. I obliged the first group that found me , but once it became obvious that we were about to descended upon by many many more groups we made a quick escape from the park. Heading directly west from the park we decided to navigate the little backstreets of Hiroshima until we reached the trees on the edge of town. This took a suprisingly short amount of time so we kept going up and up and up into the ever-steeper hills surrounding Hiroshima until the heat and humidity got the better of us.
Thankfully, even right on the edge of Hiroshima, one can find vending machines stocking my now favourite drink "Aquarius" in 500mL cans for ￥120. Quick aside, one thing that puzzles me enormously is despite the myriad vending machines dotting the city, you never seem to see anyone drinking! I see people buy drinks but then they rush off to somewhere... no doubt a secret drinking hall where no gaijin has ever been allowed entry.
On our walk up through the hills we passed a few shrines and other such interesting sights, but I:m afraid until I start work and get one of the Japanese-speaking staff members to accompany me, I won:t be able to buy camera and post photos up here. Stomachs grumbling we headed back towards the skyscrapers.
We had a brilliant bit of luck on our return journey through likewise tiny backstreets when we stumbled right into a tiny okonomiyaki restaurant (no idea what the Japanese would refer to it as, yet). We managed to order ourselves an okonomiyaki each and sat down at the enormous L-shaped bench which was 90% cooktop with the other customers (3 beer-drinking labourers and one cool-as-can-be 20-something guy reading manga). I really wish I could have taken photos of the chef as she prepred our lunch, it was quite an amazing spectacle, particularly since it all happens right in front of you. Once ready the chef simply drags it across the cooktop to you and you begin wolfing it down armed with a metal blade/spatula contraption. To say it was delicious is definitely an understatement. I am most certainly on a mission to try as many different okonomiyaki places as I can, now.
I'm about to be kicked out of the netcafe now, so a quick summary of other interesting things as I'm not sure when I'll be back online again.
Yesterday and today have been warm but very wet so I've spent most of my time investigting Hiroshim's galleries and museums. Seeing Dali's "Dream of Venus" was quite an experience.
I did my first big food shop at a supermarket 2 blocks from my appartment. This place was absolutely enormous and I recognised only maybe 5% of the goods. I'm definitely going to have to get a book on cooking seafood as it is so much cheaper than beef or pork or chicken. Bread is ￥300 for a 10slice miniloaf and Ballentine's whiskey is ￥１，４９０ for a 700mL bottle. I love this country. A tray of gyoza ready-to-cook is only ￥２４８ so I can see myself going through a huge amount of them.
I got to experience the downside of asking Japanese people for help while at the supermarket. "Sumimasen, chirisosu wa doko desuka?" (Excuse me, where is the chilli sauce?) I asked an elderly woman. She replied with a rapid fire answer that left me staring blankly. Before I could finish saying "Wakarimasen" (I don:t understand) she grabbed me by the hand and took me to the end of the aisle, pointing in the direction of aisle 6 she repeated "ROKU" slowly for my benefit then smiled and resumed her shopping. I made a mental note of where my chilli sauce could be found and resumed my own shopping but less than 30 seconds later the lady was grabbing my hand again and this time dragged me all the way to the chilli sauce and would not leave me until said sauce was in my basket. "Domo arigato gozaimasu!" (Thank you very much) I said and after we both bowed to each other she left with an expression on her face I am beginning to realise means "last time I help a bloody gaijin...".
Time for me to head off. I'm sure the many red-blooded males with a taste for Japanese girls that are reading this would rather I spent some time going into detail about all the cute girls I have met, but that can wait for another time.
Lee has organised dinner and drinks with some girls from work tonight, Saturday I'll hopefully get to see the baseball live with Wes and on Sunday Lee has his Nova funded welcome party with all you can eat all you can drink karaoke madness. Should be fun!
Missing everyone in Austrlia plenty. Feel free to email me at swfenton at gmail dot com. Would love to be kept up to date on the haps of Melbourne town.
For now, sayonara.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Yes, it really is a crazy place
As I sit here drinking my free ice milk coffee from the enormous vending machines near the netcafe entrance and battle with this semi-broken keyboard littered with hiragana and katana and " where @ should be, I think I have found a nice analogy for my experience with Japan thus far. It is a country that at the same time manages to be both extremely helpful and convenient yet confusing, frustrating and lonely for the gaijin (foreigner.) (I guess those two sentences also give an indication of just how much of a minefield of bad grammar and poor spelling this blog is going to be.)
I'm still toying with ideas as to how I'm going to organise these postings, so it may change in the coming weeks.
[You:re going to have to endure : instead of ' and other erroneous characters, I cannot be bothered trying to learn to touch type on a new keyboard layout just yet.]
So, I:m living in Naka-ku which is, as far as I can gather, the ward that includes most of downtown Hiroshima. My appartment is small (duh) by Austrlian standards, but much larger than I had expected. It:s going to take a while to get used to paper (literally) thin walls and having no oven. The shower is huge (although the shower head is annoyingly low for 187cm tall people) and the bathtub is an enormous couldron like beast that I:ve not wanted to try out yet for fear that I will go crashing through the 9 floors below mid-bath.
My housemates are both very nice guys. Lee, 21, from Adelaide and Wes, in his 40s (I assume) from Toowoomba. They haven:t been home heaps, since they both work 38-odd hours a week. Lee did spend his day off and parts of other days showing me around which was really helpful. I speak the most Japanese out of the three of us (which isn:t much) but Lee has started lessons and I:ll go along too once I start work next week.
This is all sounding a bit dull so far... I think its going to take me a while to get the hang of what to mention and what to leave out. I have to keep in mind that my audience here on this blog includes my grandma, parents and other relatives, as well as friends and fellow japanophiles.
Lets rewind and try diary style for a bit...
The flight was pretty poor, 1st leg MEL to KUL was filled with noisy babies and hopeless dated films so I ended up watching various bits of Good Night and Good Luck 4 times. Malaysia Airlines had great staff though, and reasonably tasty food. The 2nd leg was staffed by some of the most gorgeous Japanese girls I:ve ever seen, even after being in Hiroshima for 4 days. I finally got off to sleep around 3am but was woken at 5am with an "OHAYO GOZAIMASU!" and the worst breakfast I:ve ever seen.
Osaka Kansai airport felt like a space terminal and since I:d only had ~5 hours sleep since Monday morning it felt a thousand times stranger. Before I realised I was through customs and standing in a huge crowd of Japanese people in the international arrivals. My first "wtf" moment of the trip came soon after when I attempted to do number twos only to be confronted with an odd trench in the ground where a toilet should have been. "Mmmm fuck that, I can hold it" were my thoughts, I believe.
I met up with the Nova staff, a very chipper British chap, and was pointed in the direction of the local train to Shin-Osaka where I would transfer to the Shinkansen (bullet train.) I got to test out my Japanese for the first time on the girls working at the Starbucks in Shin-Osaka. They greeted me in broken English and when I replied with Japanese they all began giggling and covering their mouths with their hands. Transaction completed, giggles and all, I waited for my coffee in the designated area. Despite my zombie-tiredness I did notice that the girls making the coffee kept peering around the machine at me. I took a stroll through Shin-Osaka's shops/market area and saw such sights as a Pokky the size of a baseball bat for ￥1,900.
The platform for the shinkansen to Hiroshima was a good km or so long. I had to walk the full length of it to get to the unreserved seats and in doing so passed about 300 schoolkids all waiting to board. Every single one of them stared at me and the more adventurous started yelling out "HARRO! HARRO!" while waving and grinning. I gave a group of them my best "G'day mate" and got a huge round of laughs for my troubles.
The shinkansen ride to Hiroshima took 1hour55minutes exactly (like they said it would). Those trains are seriously impressive machines, so incredibly smooth and fast. Sadly most of the journey was through incredibly long tunnels but the glimpses of country side that I got were gorgeous.
A Hiroshima Nova employee met me at Hiroshima station and escorted me by tram to my appartment. The tram conductor was this wonderfully camp bloke in his 20s who delighted at my confusion with the ticket machine (you pay to alight not to board). For a city of less than 1.5million people (from what I:ve read) it sure does feel far bigger than Melbourne. I guess that:s largely because the Japanese build up not sideways. Naka-ku is full of buildings well over 10 stories tall and all sorts of flashing lights. It wasn:t until my third day that I discovered the entire underground section of the city that contains even more shops and walkways.
I spent most of my first day walking around the city centre, getting stared at, failing to find a single shop with towels for sale and buying very cheap alcohol from the delightful old couple that run a small shop opposite my appartment building. ￥1000 for a 6pack of 500mL "Draft One" (5% alc) cans, awesome. Relaxing on the couch in front of a Hiroshima Carp vs someone Orix baseball game while downing those beers definitely put a grin on my face.
I:m going to upload this now as this netcafe machine is starting to do very strange things... this better work!
I'm still toying with ideas as to how I'm going to organise these postings, so it may change in the coming weeks.
[You:re going to have to endure : instead of ' and other erroneous characters, I cannot be bothered trying to learn to touch type on a new keyboard layout just yet.]
So, I:m living in Naka-ku which is, as far as I can gather, the ward that includes most of downtown Hiroshima. My appartment is small (duh) by Austrlian standards, but much larger than I had expected. It:s going to take a while to get used to paper (literally) thin walls and having no oven. The shower is huge (although the shower head is annoyingly low for 187cm tall people) and the bathtub is an enormous couldron like beast that I:ve not wanted to try out yet for fear that I will go crashing through the 9 floors below mid-bath.
My housemates are both very nice guys. Lee, 21, from Adelaide and Wes, in his 40s (I assume) from Toowoomba. They haven:t been home heaps, since they both work 38-odd hours a week. Lee did spend his day off and parts of other days showing me around which was really helpful. I speak the most Japanese out of the three of us (which isn:t much) but Lee has started lessons and I:ll go along too once I start work next week.
This is all sounding a bit dull so far... I think its going to take me a while to get the hang of what to mention and what to leave out. I have to keep in mind that my audience here on this blog includes my grandma, parents and other relatives, as well as friends and fellow japanophiles.
Lets rewind and try diary style for a bit...
The flight was pretty poor, 1st leg MEL to KUL was filled with noisy babies and hopeless dated films so I ended up watching various bits of Good Night and Good Luck 4 times. Malaysia Airlines had great staff though, and reasonably tasty food. The 2nd leg was staffed by some of the most gorgeous Japanese girls I:ve ever seen, even after being in Hiroshima for 4 days. I finally got off to sleep around 3am but was woken at 5am with an "OHAYO GOZAIMASU!" and the worst breakfast I:ve ever seen.
Osaka Kansai airport felt like a space terminal and since I:d only had ~5 hours sleep since Monday morning it felt a thousand times stranger. Before I realised I was through customs and standing in a huge crowd of Japanese people in the international arrivals. My first "wtf" moment of the trip came soon after when I attempted to do number twos only to be confronted with an odd trench in the ground where a toilet should have been. "Mmmm fuck that, I can hold it" were my thoughts, I believe.
I met up with the Nova staff, a very chipper British chap, and was pointed in the direction of the local train to Shin-Osaka where I would transfer to the Shinkansen (bullet train.) I got to test out my Japanese for the first time on the girls working at the Starbucks in Shin-Osaka. They greeted me in broken English and when I replied with Japanese they all began giggling and covering their mouths with their hands. Transaction completed, giggles and all, I waited for my coffee in the designated area. Despite my zombie-tiredness I did notice that the girls making the coffee kept peering around the machine at me. I took a stroll through Shin-Osaka's shops/market area and saw such sights as a Pokky the size of a baseball bat for ￥1,900.
The platform for the shinkansen to Hiroshima was a good km or so long. I had to walk the full length of it to get to the unreserved seats and in doing so passed about 300 schoolkids all waiting to board. Every single one of them stared at me and the more adventurous started yelling out "HARRO! HARRO!" while waving and grinning. I gave a group of them my best "G'day mate" and got a huge round of laughs for my troubles.
The shinkansen ride to Hiroshima took 1hour55minutes exactly (like they said it would). Those trains are seriously impressive machines, so incredibly smooth and fast. Sadly most of the journey was through incredibly long tunnels but the glimpses of country side that I got were gorgeous.
A Hiroshima Nova employee met me at Hiroshima station and escorted me by tram to my appartment. The tram conductor was this wonderfully camp bloke in his 20s who delighted at my confusion with the ticket machine (you pay to alight not to board). For a city of less than 1.5million people (from what I:ve read) it sure does feel far bigger than Melbourne. I guess that:s largely because the Japanese build up not sideways. Naka-ku is full of buildings well over 10 stories tall and all sorts of flashing lights. It wasn:t until my third day that I discovered the entire underground section of the city that contains even more shops and walkways.
I spent most of my first day walking around the city centre, getting stared at, failing to find a single shop with towels for sale and buying very cheap alcohol from the delightful old couple that run a small shop opposite my appartment building. ￥1000 for a 6pack of 500mL "Draft One" (5% alc) cans, awesome. Relaxing on the couch in front of a Hiroshima Carp vs someone Orix baseball game while downing those beers definitely put a grin on my face.
I:m going to upload this now as this netcafe machine is starting to do very strange things... this better work!
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