So here's a funny piece of news: I've inadvertently achieved internet fame! As part of the gap schedule set up that the company is rolling over the next couple weeks, I'm on the school tour as an All-Star substitute. The awesome school director of today's location, Joy, kindly asked me for my photograph, and who am I to say no? I had no idea that I was going to hit front page on the Konomiya website though!
I think that qualifies as a successful day on the job. The funniest part is that I am fairly confident that this school is not on my schedule for the school year starting in April, and I just sincerely hope students don't check the website and come out specifically for that handsome guy in the top row, second from the left. I'm such a heartbreaker.
I recently came into the possession of my holiday schedule for the school year (April 2012 - March 2013), and although I haven't a clue which if any of you are planning on visiting me, my availability is as follows:
April 29th - May 6th, 2012 (Sun - Sun, 7 days)
July 16th, 2012 (Mon)
Aug 5th - 19th, 2012 (Sun - Sun, 14 days)
Sep 17th, 22nd, 2012 (Mon, Sat)
Oct 8th, 2012 (Mon)
Nov 3rd, 23rd, 2012 (Sat, Fri)
Dec 23rd - Jan 5th, 2013 (Sun - Sun, 14 days)
Feb 11th, 2013 (Mon)
March 20th, 2013 (Wed)
As well as my days off being Friday and Sunday, I also have an additional 5 flex vacation days that can be used throughout the year. Provided you give me enough notice, I will be able to slot those into my schedule or fit them onto the end of larger vacation periods to accommodate any visits.
I do hope to see at least a couple of your smiling faces in the year to come!
In order to properly appreciate this post, it is my recommendation that you press play on the video below before continuing on. This is merely a suggestion for your enjoyment though, viewer discretion is advised!
So if you had not guessed by now, I bought a bike. However, instead of jumping the ledges on route twelve on my way to catch sweet Pokemon and earn gym badges, the only thing I've caught is a cold and I get to hop curbs in a jostling fashion. The new bike is a stunner, and fits the mould for what I would call the stereotypical Japan-bike. Wheel covers and a basket. I was told last night that the youth slang for these majestical steeds is a Japanese word meaning 'mother carrier', and there is no real guess work that needs to go into figuring out why the kid's call it that. Don't I look like a tough guy.
Knowing a while back that I had intentions for purchasing a bicycle, I had made a inquiry with my friend Emily as to whether or not she'd be up to the task of naming it. As she had just come off a multi-month, Australian bike tour with some friends last year, I figured she was intimate enough with the biped-als (a joke) to be the authority on names, and a couple weeks later I presented her with this picture:
And this description:
"Ummm, the pedal strokes are firm, and with purpose. It rides steady, and the springs in the seat allow for a very soft and relaxing sit. The basket and bell accent it perfectly and both brakes work splendidly, but the left one has a plaintive squeak! It's an older girl, but it carries itself with an air of dignity and poise that shouldn't be overlooked."
Keeping in mind that I had only rode this bike a whole eight minutes home from the shop before taking this picture, writing that paragraph and then asking for a name, I feel like I outdid myself to build this thing a personality from half truths and copious amounts of crap.
Thus the Shinkansen came to be. She actually did well, considering that naming other people's inanimate objects can be a rather obscene task. The name is a joke and a compliment wrapped in an enigma, that is again folded into a paradox. As far as mother carriers go, it is a nice silver colour and I guess 'sleek' enough. Calling it the bullet train gives it something to aspire to. Yet in no way is it fast, despite possessing a whopping five gears. Its real allure comes in the possibilities for mockery, the times when I can leave the apartment and say "I'm off to the store, I'm taking the Shinkansen!"
You can turn the music off now too, if you were crazy enough to keep it on this long. It is really a ten hour loops of the bicycle song from Pokemon, and it's only relevance to the story is that I was humming it on my way home from the store and that Pokemon are awesome.
The shop where I bought the Shinkansen was this little hole in the wall of a place that I found a few weeks ago while making one of my night walks around Nagoya. The store immediately caught my eye because it was the first place to sell used bikes, and it was run by this friendly looking Japanese couple, the husband always eyeing me warily when I happened to browse his selection on any given day.
When I finally stopped to make my purchase, he was out front of the store making repairs to a rather dilapidated looking thing. Again he kind of looked at me sideways, and provided me the courtesy of grunting. I started inspected his wares, and his eyes followed me as I poked and prodded the inventory. I was disappointed that the green one that I had been eyeing for a week or so had been purchased, but I'm absolutely positive that it must have been picked out by some child who was saving their money for months to buy that very bike, and that now they're off in some sunlit, grassy field, frolicking hand in handle. When I finally had made my consolation selection, the real fun began.
All bikes of my Shinkansen's variety come with built in bike locks on the back tire. They all have a special key that only fits that lock, and that key MUST be in place for the bike to move. When the lock is not secured, the key can not be removed from the mechanism. This means that theft on bikes is pretty low in Japan, and the whole system works quite well.
Unfortunately for this cute, shop owning couple, they had made one ghastly oversight. For whatever reason, they had been possessed with the notion of placing all the keys for all their bikes into one jar. I'm not sure if they just didn't expect anyone to buy them (which seems like a fairly poor business model), or it had been something done in haste, but it led to a rather funny montage of the older man parading keys to the bike in order to free it from the confines of the iron manicle. A modern day tale of Cinderella and the matching slipper.
While this was happening, I was facing a struggle of my own. His lovely wife possessed about as much English as me Japanese, and was trying to kindly request of me my address for something I can only assume was a police registry. This is all fine and good, except that my address is about three lines long and goes a little like something-chu, something-shi, something-ku, etc, etc and I for the life of me have been unable to commit it to memory, let alone try to pronunce it without being laughed at.
With all praise going to the iphone, I was finally able to find my address in some remote corner of Facebook where I had messaged it to my sister. Seemingly simultaneously the correct key was found, and the bike freed from its chains, and I proceeded on my mary way. I finally used it again today to get groceries and succeed in hitting a traffic cone, but fortunately didn't break my eggs when I bailed. Thankfully, a nice woman did come quickly to the aid of the fallen pylon, and no cones were seriously injured.
In none-bike related news, I signed my contract, and am now a full fledged instructor! Nice work me! Due to the proximity of my arrival to the end of the Japanese school year, my week and a half of contract leading up to the end of term has me rocking the role of a sub shifter, and for the past three days and the next week I will be visting a variety of different ECC schools in Nagoya and getting a taste of the many faces of the company.
I managed to get a little bit of experience out of the past couple days, and even got my hands dirty in a few free time lessons, and I think I may have even managed to teach something. I also learned that I hate the meitetsu train line, as its sign boards at Nagoya station are a blanket of Kanji. I can't blame the Japanese for using their language, but I am allowed to be rueful and petulant.
Yesterday I was most graciously invited to the end of the year party of one of the schools that I will be working at come April. It was also a goodbye/welcome party to a couple staff members, and the event was carried out in the form of a Japanese drinking party. So with the keg tapped and the food served, I was offered a glimpse into the cool world of Japanese social customs. I also simultaneously got to realize how little I really do know about the people here, and how bad my pronunciation is for the few words I know. I have a long way to go.
The night was good though, and as the party was made of students and staff alike, there was much chance to talk and learn about where I should go, what I should see and the likes and dislikes of the wonderful people that live here. I couldn't maintain my normal position as wallflower, but I guess I really wasn't too bothered.
Thanks for reading,
Much Love,
Sean
P.S. I think my bike could still maybe use a first name, *__________* the Shinkansen. What do you think is a suitable title for this noble steed? Let me know in the comments!
As I come to the end of one of the busier weeks in my life, I finally find myself with enough time to sit down and write. With tomorrow being my last day of training, and today my only day off after six consecutive days of kids teaching demos, my time over the past week has been filled with prep work and actual work. I always have good intentions of writing more, but it is interesting to note that you can move to the other side of the world only to find out you're the same person everywhere.
Training was split into two parts, good choice and KEW, with good choice being the adult teaching methods portion and KEW standing for Kid's English World. Good choice was a rather laid back experience, and involved lots of time spent sitting at a table and reading from a manual. In stark contrast, KEW training has been a high power, non-stop, energy draining thrill ride. Starting on the second day, I've done demos after demos of different levels and ages, until you're singing the songs and chanting the vocabulary in your sleep. I've learned that smiling is important and that it is frickin' hard to sing and dance at the same time for a half hour. Yet, as exhausting as it is to live through, I can already see the value from the training starting to show.
All of the initial stress of having to be loud and smiley infront of other people, singing songs acapella and playing games with adults pretending to be children was pretty quick to evaporate after my second or third showing. The doubt I had in my abilities to think on my feet during a lesson is also starting to fade, as I've learned that any game that makes the learning fun is effective, and anything that involves throwing a ball into a basket from across the room is an instant success, even among pretend children. The manuals for the lessons do a great job of telling you what needs to be included, and for the sake of the condensed thirty minute demos, as often as not it is harder to not go over time than anything.
In my free time, instead of writing, I've been taking to the streets through either elaborate, meandering walks or brisk, directionless runs. If you look at my last post, there is a picture there of the hotel that shoots up from the top of the Nagoya train station. Along with three other buildings next to it, that block happens to be the tallest section of buildings around for many kilometers. Fortuitously, this provides me with somewhat of a built in compass. With a beacon in the sky, that can be seen from a fair distance, I am able to set off in any way and always circle back to the center of my new world with ease.
My ability to navigate has also been further improved by my recent acquisition of an iphone, my first ever smart phone. I realize I'm a little late to the party, but I've just never had a necessity for them over the past few years. Yet, as it turns out they are basically the cheapest available phone in Japan, with an Android alternative running you about an extra 2,000 yen a month, and a simple flip phone parallel in price. I've already used it to chat up girls at a bar and find my way back home today after I wandered outside the range of my landmark based navigation system. I guess it is paying for itself.
Walking is swell and all, but I think with my first pay cheque, the purchase of a shiny new (or used) bicycle will be in order. Every morning when I wake up and the sky is clear, I can see mountains in the distance. I'm also acutely aware that there is an ocean a mere 5 kilometers from the floor I am currently lying on. Although I think the sea is easily within my capabilities, the mountain quest would be a pretty lofty adventure without a wheeled steed.
The bicycles of choice here may not be what you think. If all the rage for bikes in North America is trail riders and sleek road racers, then Japan's mainstream double rimmed weapon of choice is something more reminiscent to what you might have seen in the 1950's. You're picturing the curvy, swooping, old fashioned bikes and you're absolutely one hundred percent spot on. Except they all have baskets, every single one. I'm not sure why this has become the trend for the Nagoya bike scene, but I find them all rather charming. I've been scoping out places that sell bikes, and there is a shop a couple blocks off that has a lonely looking green bike that gives off that abandoned vibe. It's also cheap and has a sweet basket, and I'm freaking tired of walking with my groceries.
Last Sunday was 3/11, and the one year anniversary of the Tsunami and Fukushima meltdown. I had to go to Sakae that day to get my phone, so I guess I wasn't very surprised to seem people marching along the streets in what I thought was a memorial ceremony. However, I was quite shocked to instead see many of them holding anti-nuclear signs, and to learn that the whole thing was just as much in protest as remembrance. From what I've heard, the wound is still fresh, and it is hard to find a single person in Japan who doesn't know someone effected by the tragedy.
Look at the bikes in this video... I was not kidding.
Other than everything else I just told you, there is little to report. Two more demos tomorrow and then a day off before signing a contract Wednesday. I walked briefly by Nagoya castle today and snapped a quick photo, but I plan on going back Tuesday and visiting it proper. We also recently got a rice cooker and I am the master of chop sticks!
The last time I spoke with my family, my Dad asked me a very simple question: What is the most striking difference between Japan and home? Now it might have been the residual jet lag, or the fact that I was trying to absorb and process every cultural difference all at once, but the long and short of it is that I came up blank.
It feels like it should be an easy question. Japan finds itself on the forefront of new technology and design; it has a long and rich cultural background that weaves itself into every facet of its society; and exhibits a social group dynamic that is quite different than that of North America. With all this is mind, it may sound weird when I say that the answer is none of these; instead it is the most simple and common sense thing that I find the most striking difference from Canada. Japan is home to the Japanese.
Take a walk through the Yorkdale Mall in Toronto on a weekend and tell me what makes someone a Canadian. What one thing, what one common physical trait makes someone easily identifiable as a Canadian citizen? Canada has such a rich blend of ethnicity, that to try and pick a background or an identity to bind us as a Nation is virtually impossible. There is a pride in our country, a mutual satisfaction in calling it our home, but where we come from and why we live the lives we do could not be more diverse.
I don't want this to sound like I'm surprised to find Japanese people in Japan. I'm not an idiot, and I knew what to expect. I am aware that Japan has had a history of being exclusionary and pesky to foreigners, just ask amnesty international. Yet think of how much I stand out here, and then drop a Japanese man in Union Station and ask yourself who turns their head.
I hope I don't give off the impression of complaining, as I simply meant this more as an observation than anything else. If Canada is a mosaic of all sorts of cultural threads, then Japan is a tapestry of a much more singular origin. Yet as I have spent increasing amounts of time observing and watching people, I have come to realize that to be Japanese is to be apart of a look just as diverse as any other people on the planet. From diversity they achieve unity. I love it.
I've really enjoyed my time here so far, and am starting to feel comfortable with my more immediate surroundings. Moving around the world is, I assume, never easy, and I don't believe it is weird for me to miss my family, friends and fuzzy dogs considerably. Yet, in the grand scheme of things, my transition to Japan probably could not have gone any smoother. Within the past couple days I have started to return to my apartment with a feeling of home, and that comforts me.
Day three of training starts tomorrow, and just as the first two days tended to be more administrative in nature, the following days should be more hands on and demonstrative. Everyone I have met from the company has proven to be rather upbeat and positive in the way they go about their job, and more importantly in the way they talk about ECC as an employer.
If you leave Toronto at noon on a Wednesday and head west towards Japan, a funny thing happens. For the next thirteen hours of your life, the sun will never set. This of course causes all sorts of problems for the airlines, as they are then faced with tough logistical problems such as how to justify trying to serve you an egg dish they call breakfast when you're an hour from Tokyo and it's two in the afternoon. The passengers will never stand for the nomenclature! The longest day of my life, quite literally.
An interesting fact about flying from Canada to Japan is that the world is not flat. You big shots like to sit in your wing backed, padded chairs and look at your maps, taking your kids fingers and slowly tracing straight lines across Oceans from continent to continent, labouriously plotting your misguided routes of transit. In reality, the fastest route between Canada and Japan is apparently over Alaska, across the bearing strait and concluding with a swing down the eastern arm of Siberia and a brief jaunt over the Sea of Okhotsk. The icy world of perpetual sunlight.
The flight itself was uneventful to the fullest. I continued my streak of having a window seat located exactly by the wing, and shared my little three seat nook with a youngish looking Japanese woman and an older gentleman who I assume was Canadian. The woman beside me had two different states of existence: eating and sleeping. She never missed a meal, and always hailed the drink cart as it passed. Yet as soon as the tray went up, her sleep mask came down and she'd be out in minutes. In the whole thirteen hour flight, she never stirred once from her seat. I thus deemed her Iron bladder.
I realize that it is my fault that I opted for the beer and the tea from the drink cart in consecutive passes, but I had to assume she'd get up at least once. Fortunately for me, the old man was super fidgety, and had about a twenty minute window for sitting before he had to pace the the aisle, and I managed to not so nimbly jump her seat a couple times.
Despite the plane being about twenty minutes late to Narita, my transfer couldn't have gone better. Since the airports are so far outside the city centers for most of the big Japanse cities, I was unfortunately not able to get a good look at Tokyo while we were landing. This wasn't helped by the fact that there was a dense layer of cloud close to the ground. However, as we were circling the runway I did manage to catch a glimpse of a certain famous mountain sticking out from the clouds. So beautiful.
Transit from the arrival gate was hastened by the moving sidewalks affectionately called Travelators. You must NOT play on them, warned signs. Immigration came next, and after a brief moment of the official staring at my passport photo and laughing, I had picked up my bags and was through the domestic gate on a bus to my connection. As we got off the bus, the two stewardesses who were standing infront of the plane gave a bow and enthusiastically welcomed everyone aboard. As we took off from Narita, the baggage handlers energetically waved at our plane from the runway.
After landing in Nagoya, I slowly found my way to the attached train station, and using my printed out instructions, meticulously went through the process of buying a train ticket from the automated machine. English in Japan is for the most part pretty common. They have managed to find this balance between the two languages that allows for fairly easy navigation by anyone with an understanding of at least one of them. If you do get confused, there are often people nearby that will be will attempt to send you in the right direction.
The trains are always running and always on time. I may not have a large sample size, but from my limited experience, when a platform displays an arrival time, that train is there without question. There are two big train companies in Japan: the meitetsu, which is the government run train system, and the JR lines, which is a private company. These companies have tracks that run independently from each other, and you can only get to certain parts of the city, certain ways, via certain lines.
Nagoya Station, which is a not too shabby 10 minute walk from my house, is a connection station for most of the different lines for both companies, and as a result tends to be busy.
The building is massive, with dozens of different tunnels leading to the different subway lines that run in every direction like spiderwebs from the station. Sitting on top of the station is a looming hotel that jets out into the sky in the form of two large towers. Most importantly, Nagoya Station is a stop for the Shinkansen, or bullet trains, that can take you swiftly throughout the country.
I'm still relatively green on the train lines here, but in my first two days I have ridden a total of five different lines between the two companies, left my umbrella in one of them and mistakenly underpaid for a ticket; embarrassingly getting stopped by the automatic gates as I tried to exit the station. Good will be the day when I get a grasp on all the lines.
Nagoya is a beautiful city. Due to its history as a major manufacturing center for Japan, it suffered heavily from bombing in the second World War, and as a result close to a quarter of the city was destroyed back in the forties. This destruction provided the Japanese with the opportunity to rebuild in a new way, and I will be the first to say that they have done a great job.
The wide streets and copious green space give a sense of openness to Nagoya. There is this really sharp mix of new and old Japan that comes together and provides a very unique effect. Skyscrapers and apartment buildings form perimeters around the city blocks that are filled with narrow streets and small traditional Japanese dwellings. Fountains and statues are common around parks and in plazas, and due to the amazing coverage of the train systems and the raised highways, there is very little traffic congestion in my area.
The place that I am living at is a complex called Freebell apartments, a fourteen story apartment complex that overlooks the train tracks leading to Nagoya station. The skyline is rather striking. and the sounds of the trains can be heard regularly all day long.
I find the sound relaxing; muted and rhythmic. The second floor offices have an extensive English library and there is also a fitness room available for all tenants. Things are good on the top floor. There is a bit of a learning curve with this all in one washer/dryer though.
I have had some time to explore on foot in the past couple days, and can proudly report that I did manage to get lost at least once. Most recently I found myself trapped in a department store that was ten floors of sheer madness. Unlike the western floor plans of separate stores on the same floor, Japanese shopping centers employ an open concept that is just sheer madness. Sensory overload. I wandered about this giant building for what must have been an hour, going up and down escalators, and even getting trapped briefly in a gaming arcade. I did however managed to scope out the prices for bicycles, and spot a robot vacuum desperately trying to break free of its tiny prison.
Today's major accomplishment was taking the subway to Sakae to find the 100 yen shop, and buy cooking utensils so that we could stop eating dirty convenience store sandwiches. My roommate Gary and I were pretty successful in finding the store eventually, and we managed to navigate our way around the madness and buy some cookware before giving up on the confusion in an attempt to find food. Today's minor accomplishment was ordering a coffee at Starbucks through a series of hand gestures and pointing!
In our travels we happened upon a vehicle safety festival hosted by Toyota, complete with a full brass band, pom pom dancers, and a device called the seatbelt convincer! It crashed you into a wall at five clicks! The funny thing is that the children seemed to love it. Other highlights were the exclusively Pokemon store and a weird track observatory called the Aqua Spaceship.
I am extremely happy to report that the first few days have been going quite well, and the only thing that really needs to come along now is my sleep schedule. I will call the move a success when I stop waking up at 4 am. I have yet to experience any of the anxiety that I had in the first few weeks of Africa, and it is such a relief as I can honestly say that I really had no idea what to expect upon coming here.
