Journal 9 - OK, just cut it a little shorter ... OK, a little shorter ... mmmm, a little more ... NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Well, hello there everyone. Yes, it's that time again. First, I just want to thank those who commented on the website, I will definitely continue with this. Some of the suggestions was to have more pictures put on. That's actually what I'm trying to work on now. I don't like the way I have them on the site right now, so what I'm trying to do is put all my photos into a photo album and you can link to it. And yes, mom, that will include pictures of my apartment. Although there's going to be a lot since I live in such a huge place. Anyway, so a lot's happened since last I left you. Last week was actually pretty good. I ended up going to Nagoya for a 2 day teachers training. That's one of the prerequisites with this company, training twice in your first year. So, the first part was last week; I have no idea when the next time will be. The training was very productive. It was a good way of finding out if your teaching method is right or not, they will give you pointers on what to do better (ie what you really should be doing) and then you come back to the schools as a much better teacher (ie come back teaching your old way and pretty much tossing any suggestion they give you). But, it was actually great seeing some of the original teachers that I trained with as well as meeting some new one's. Not to mention we had the opportunity to go out, socialize, hear the horror stories the other teachers are going through and realizing that my situation isn't that bad. Although everyone agrees, I have the worst "stage mom" in the world. What was also nice was I was able to cancel 2 days worth of teaching which are my busiest days. So, I only had 3 days of teaching and then another 3 day weekend since Sunday and Monday are my regular days off and Tuesday was a National Holiday. So, what did I do? Well, let me tell you. Sunday I decided to take the bullet train to Yokohama, stay the night in Yokohama and then go to Tokyo.

Yokohama is a beautiful city, especially down along the peer. I wasn't sure what to expect because when I got off the train and went outside, all I saw was highways, overpasses, run down buildings. It almost looked dirty, although that's impossible since they basically have people following behind you sweeping every little part you step on. OK, slight exaggeration, but pretty close to being true. Anyway, so, I got a map of the city and noticed there were some huge buildings and what looked like a Ferris Wheel and then I also noticed there was a China Town which apparently is one of the biggest. So, naturally I wanted to head down to where the Ferris Wheel was ... ah, the child in me will never leave. So, I took the train down and all I could say was wow ... it looked like a completely different city, huge sky scrapers, department stores galore and yes, an amusement park. I pretty much spent most of the day there walking around, seeing all the different types of places. They even had street performers, so I stopped to watched a lot of them ... very good. I was also amazed to see that there was a Hard Rock Cafe ... I thought they all closed down, but I guess not. Walking around I noticed most of the people were all going the same general direction, so I decided to follow them. The road I was on took me towards the Ferris Wheel area and also into a huge building that had tonnes upon tonnes of shops, restaurants, museums. It was quite the place. I ended up looking around there for a while, basically window shopping, seeing all the neat gadgets they sell. I've noticed that Japanese people are huge movie buffs. They have every little trinkets from different movies. "The Nightmare Before Christmas" seems to be a big one for some reason, maybe it's the time of year. They're also starting to advertise The Incredibles, so figurines everywhere. I also went into this huge Disney Store which is about 4 floors ... oh my, that's a lot of Mickey and Donald. Snoopy stores also seem to be pretty big here as well ... tonnes of Peanuts memorabelia. So, I carried on out of the building and continued on along the path to what looks like a loading dock / lookout. I think this is the loading area for cruise lines (there wasn't one there though). But, I walked to this lookout point and what a view it had. Not only the entire city, but along the water as well, very beautiful. I noticed that the time was around 4:00 pm, which is usually when it starts to get dark, so I decided to hang out there until the sun went down and watched the lights come on. It was quite spectacular. As I was sitting there, I wrote a journal ... Here's a small part I wrote: " I'm sitting here in Yokohama on what looks like a huge ship, over looking the city. It's funny, I'm sitting here looking at this city that seems so American, but yet the people around me are speaking a completely different language. I'm watching people and wonder what they're thinking. It's amazing how such a busy, urban society, who thrive on working, studying, learning, can still take the time to enjoy such a beautiful sight. Japanese people are so 'pro-family'. When they go out for the day, so does, grandma, grandpa, brother's, sisters, children, everyone. Fashion is so interesting ... normally, on a day like today, at a place like this, you would be wearing the comfortable attire. Here? It's common for men to be wearing suits and women wearing high heels and walking everywhere."

Now the next day I took a 25 minute train ride to Tokyo. When I arrived, I thought I was in an underground city. I went to the information and asked for a map. They gave me the map of the train station which I think was about as big as the map of Tokyo. It was nuts. I have to admit, when I first looked at the Tokyo train routes and the metro routes, I was pretty intimidated, but when you really study it hard, it actually is pretty easy. You have these different routes, which are different colors and you need to go on the train that's the same color as the route on the map ... pretty easy. It's the same with the metro. So, where did I go? Well, the first place was called Akihabara which was Electric Town. This place had millions and millions of electronic shops. When I was walking around there I felt like I was walking through a huge wave of energy. I don't know if that was a good thing or not. But, as I was looking at these spectacular electronic devices, I couldn't help notice that the prices were ridiculous ... very very expensive. I was looking for one of those GPS watches for running. There are some people I ran with at home who has one and I think they spent around $200. I figured I could maybe find one cheaper, boy was I wrong. I found one that was very similar and it costs 45000 Yen (about $450 US). Yeah, so that's not going to happen. So, moving on the next place I visited was called theKyu-Shiba-Rikyu Gardens. Famous Japanese gardens that's open for people to walk around and enjoy the beauty. Very nice place, with a huge pond, different kind of Japanese style plants ... I'll be honest, it was alright. I didn't think it was worth paying 150 yen for it, but it was nice to sit around and enjoy the view. I took lots of pictures and walked around. It was also a good time to figure out what the heck I'm going to do next. Ah yes, the next stop was the lovely Meiji Shrine. This was an absolutely amazing place. Japan is well known for their shrines and temples and this is one of the biggest one's. Home of the spirit of the emperor Meiji who was the first emperor to introduce Japan as a western civilization, which is what brought Japan to a powerful Asian nation (there's a little bit of history for ya). So, today this shrine is open for everyone to visit. Usually people go to look around and see the beautiful structure, others go and pray. There's also different functions that occur like wedding ceremonies or coming of age ceremonies which is when your child turns 20. There are certain birthday's for children that are very important which are 3 (boys and girls), 5 (for boys) and 7 (for girls). On those birthday's it is customary to go to a shrine, wear special kimono's and pray for the health and well being of your child. When I was there, there was a girl and boy (probably twins) celebrating their 3rd birthday. They looked very cute in their kimono's. I think every tourist there was taking pictures of them. So, moving on, after the Meiji shrine, I walked around looking at different shops, but mostly the amount of people. I decided to walk along one of the streets that eventually brought me to the famous Shin Juku. Now, the name doesn't sound familiar, but I'm sure the look of it does, especially for those who have seen the movie Lost in Translation. It's the scene where the girl is diagonally crossing the street while thousands and thousands of people are walking all around her. It is the busiest area of Tokyo. I was told people who want to meet their friends downtown Tokyo, always say meet me down at Shin Juku ... how they find each other I have no idea. Seeing this area was just a little bit overwhelming, but it was also pretty cool. I managed to survive a few hours there walking around, again looking at different shops, but really mostly people watching. It's fascinating seeing all these people and knowing this is their way of life. Finally, I realized I had enough and was pretty much ready to go home. So, I ended up grabbing a bite to eat and grabbed the next train back to Tokyo station and then grabbed the next train back home. All in all I had a great time, but I think next time I go to Tokyo, I'd like to go with other people, maybe some locals, so I can get a real feel of what Tokyo life is like, but right now I'm glad I experienced the city and it's another thing I can add to my adventure.

OK, so I'm realizing that this is getting very long and what you don't know is it's been taking me a couple days to write as well. So, I should probably close soon, but first I should explain the title. If you remember I like to mention my "Firsts"? Well, this week I had my first haircut experience. I'll be honest, it wasn't that bad ... mainly because the hair dresser spoke pretty good english (she was an ex GEOS student), but I was worried ... now I know how little kids feel when they get their first haircut. But, it is safe to say, I still have all my hair on my head and I don't have to walk around wearing a ball cap all the time.

So, that's all for now. I'm sorry again this has taken a while, but I wanted to get this and the pictures organized for you. Plus, I'll have to admit, today is the first day that I'm finally feeling 100%. My cold is finally gone, which is about time.

Hope all is well and I will talk to you all later.
Joe

Journal 8 - I think I just ate Mr. Ed

Well hello all, hope you're doing well .... It's another week gone by and as you can see this a slightly different place to be reading my stories. I wanted to do this for a few reasons ... The first is because it was kind of a pain sending the same message to different groups of emails. For some reason, Yahoo would not allow me to select every single email address I have and put them into one group. So, I've been selecting groups of about 50 at a time. Yeah, kind of annoying. The second reason is I can now post pictures and you can finally see where I am. For some of you who have Hotmail, you have limited space. Sending pictures was pretty much out of the question, because it would've filled your limit very fast. So, all in all I think this is easier. Please send me comments about this and let me know if I should continue this or not.

So, moving on ... it's been a very interesting week to say the least. Last weekend I ended up going out with one of my students. There was actually 6 of us who went. We went to a town called Fujieda which is about 8 minutes by train from Yaizu, so not too bad. We went to a Japanese restaurant/ bar for dinner (around 8:00). My student and my manager handled all the food ordering .... Yeah, that was a mistake. There were some interesting dishes ordered. Luckily, nothing was still moving. That's where I drew the line. Anyway, the first dish was of course raw meat ... Sushimi. I actually thought sushimi was like sushi, raw fish, but without the rice. Wellllllll, not exactly. So, I do have a philosophy and that philosophy is I will try everything once (except if it's moving). So, I tried it. You know, it actually wasn't that bad, nicely marinated, had no fishy taste, I kind of enjoyed it ... until they told me I just ate HORSE!!!! Now, the one thing I learned you never do is show fear ... so, when they told me, I had no expression on my face ... I nodded a few times, said yeah it wasn't bad ... meanwhile in my head I'm screaming "You bastards, how could you make me eat Black Beauty". They had a good laugh over it though. So, anyway, out comes the second dish ... looks very good, nicely breaded with some spices ... to me it looked like salt and pepper ribs. Wrong again!! I took one, popped it in my mouth, had a very good taste, kind of like pork. So, I'm thinking salt and pepper pork. Nope!!! WHALE!!! OK, so far Silver will never be High Ho'ing and Willy ain't so free anymore. Thank God the rest of the night did not get progressively worse ... I'm not sure if it was my nonchalant expression or if they just decided to give me a break, but luckily the rest of the dishes were normal ... chicken, rice, some seafoods like shrimp. I did have squid as well, but I've tried it before and really, you might as well be eating a car tire. I guess I should've clued in though when they asked me in the beginning if I was hungry and I said "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse". I'll never make that mistake again. Anyway, so the rest of the night did get better, we had a good time ... at my expense of course, but we had a good time. Fujieda is very good for their pubs, there are tonnes in this little town. We ended up going to an english style, actually American, style pub called "The Skin Flute" ... take it any way you want. But, it's owned by a man who spent some time in America and loved the atmosphere so much, he decided to open a bar with the same theme. Now the name? Well, this man enjoyed learning english, especially the more colorful expressions. But, the bar is very much normal, don't worry. It was great, nice atmosphere, played some free pool all night ... You definitely don't get that at home unless you have it in your house. We ended up staying there the rest of the night (usually when you go out in Japan, it means bar hopping, so this was unusual). Definitely fun times.

The rest of the week was alright ... well, kind of ... all I can say is I'm glad it's over. I won't get into the details, but to start, that stranger who was following me did catch up to me and instead of going straight for the jugular, went for the ears ... So, to add to the list of "Firsts" ... I had my first experience at the doctors ... very strange not being able to talk for myself. I had to have one of my co-workers translate everything for me. So, yes, that means she had to come in with me. I felt like I was 5 again, seeing the doctor with my mom. Anyway, long story short, it was an ear infection due to my cold and they gave me drugs. Then the rest of the week was progressively worse because of that "stage mom" again ... I wonder how Japan looks upon murder by foreigners. No details necessary, she complained because her child knows everything, blah blah blah ... whatever, she'll never be happy, so I just take it as a "cultural experience".

Anyway, I better close now. I hope everyone is doing well and again please let me know what you think of this. You can still email me at my regular email. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the most important thing ... I now have internet at home ... woohooo!!! I'm very happy ... a good way to end the week. I also want to mention that there are people who just recently got added to my list ... mainly because I was sitting down looking at the book you all wrote in at my party and then noticed that some of you gave me email addresses. Hmmm, maybe I should've saw those earlier. So, I apologize for not adding you earlier, but the good news is ... you can now join in on the adventures and I have posted the recent stories as well for you to look at.

Take care everyone,
Joe

Journal 7 - Trick or Treat ... Smell my Feet ... Give me some ... Sushi!!! Konpai!!!

Trick or Treat ... Smell my Feet ... Give me some ... Sushi!!! Konpai!!!

Hello all! Yes, another week (or so) has passed and I'll be honest I've been racking my brain trying to think of something to tell you guys, but really not a lot of has been going on. The last time I left you, I mentioned there was a Halloween Party going on Sunday (October 31, how convenient). Well, the party was a somewhat success .. it's very hard entertaining people who have never celebrated a day like this before. There were about 35 people and a lot of them were kids. So, we ended up doing some activities like pin the face on the Jack-O-Lantern .. have you heard of it? Yeah, neither have they, so that was interesting. Then there was Guess what's in the bag ... K, one of the things in the bag was liquid soap. Let me tell you a little something about Japan and paper towels or napkins ... Yeah, they carry their own. if you don't have your own napkin (hankerchef .. sp?) then good luck on drying your hands. The public washrooms do not have them, some don't even have any toilet paper, but that's another story. Anyway, so picture a bunch of people putting their hands in a bag full of soap and then running across the room frantically looking for their hanky ... it's the funniest thing I've ever seen, especially when it drips on the floor .... yeah, a little slippery. The other native teacher and I were the only one's who dressed up for the party (of course). Actually, I wasn't planning on dressing up, but then I got told I had to, so I came up with my brilliant idea of being a gumball machine. It consisted of a clear garbage bag and balloons. I kind of forgot that everything in Japan is much smaller then home, so when I got the bags, I had to use 2 of them, which still didn't work, because the length was narrow. Anyway, the balloons were suppose to cover my whole body, instead they ended up all falling to the bottom which not only made it look ridiculous, but very hard to walk around. Anyway, everyone still had a good laugh and thankfully the garbage bag did not last long. I was walking around talking to people and I guess as I was walking the bag was ripping, so the balloons were on the verge of falling out. The only thing I'm seeing at the corner of my eye are little hands helping the balloons fall out. Finally, all the kids came up to me and asked if they could have a balloon. I pretty much just ripped the bag off and the kids had a ball (no pun intended). The rest of the day pretty much consisted of kids throwing balloons at the teachers. The party lasted about 3 hours and then we had more of an adult night which consisted of, you guessed it, Karaoke. There were maybe 20 people all in this room ... definitely had a blast. The night ended up being a late one as they usually do ... didn't really help with my cold (yes that stranger was following me again), but what can you do. Wednesday was a national holiday which I was so excited about because that is my busiest day (8 hours straight of teaching). I ended up going into Shizuoka city where they had a street festival going on. Apparently they have this every year on the same day. They had the jugglers, magicians, clowns, mimes, dancers, singers. It was a great day, just walking around watching the entertainment. Anyway, yes I know this isn't a very exciting one this time, but like I said not much went on and now that my students are getting to know me, they're starting to ask to go out. Saying no really isn't a good thing to do, so of course I feel I have to which means it takes away from doing some site seeing. Hopefully, next week or the week after I'll be able to do some more. But, I just wanted to let you know that I am still alive (no more earthquakes, although people are convinced there will be a big one here ... let's hope not) and I will chat with you later. Oh yeah good news, I'm finally getting my internet hooked up next week at home ... 'bout time, eh?

Talk to you all later,
Joe