The God damned plane has crashed into the mountain!!

Das Nova ist kaputt!!

You heard it here first folks. Actually no you probably heard it first in the Toronto Star, right under the headline ESL teachers left in limbo in Japan. Things are not looking good right now. For Nova I mean-don't worry about me I'm fine. Basically it's the Enron of Japan. A private school with a mere 480,000 students was run into the ground by an incompetent owner. It's one of those things that in retrospect you could see coming and yet at the same time still not believe could be possible. We're talking about the school that controls 60% of the English conversation pie.

Let me reiterate that I am fine. In fact I am enjoying being able to not work on a Saturday or Sunday for the first time in two and a half years (of course there's a typhoon today-what are the odds?) On the other hand there are people in this country who are not fine. In fact, it would probably be more accurate to say that they are screwed. I know people who have barely been in the country for a month. They haven't even had time to adjust to a foreign country and all of a sudden they have no job, an apartment eviction and a months worth of work for which they might not ever see compensation. Oh and did I mention they probably have NO money? Fortunately for the Americans their government is willing to fly teachers home provided that they repay their goodwill once they get back to America. I don't know if everybody will get that opportunity though.

It's a bloody crime that Nova brought these people into the country when they knew full well that they were a sinking ship. It's criminal that they deducted money from teachers salaries to pay their rent and then never bothered to actually pay the rent.

The Nova boss has gone AWOL and I must say I can't blame him after all that's gone wrong. I'm sure most of the teachers are hoping that he has taken the honourable Japanese way out and saved the courts a whole lot of trouble.

I'll keep people posted!

Just call me Walter...

I picked up some new glasses yesterday. Two pairs actually. I lost the screw on my old pair so I decided that after four years I would finally go get a new pair. They were quite cheap-only about 80 bucks but I quite like them-mostly because they're a little risque. They also fixed my old pair of glasses which was nice of them. I found out that they in Japan they call the Philips and the flat-head screws "plus" and "minus". At first I found it a little quaint-oh those Japanese, bastardizing our language again-but then I realized what genius it was. Who hasn't had that moment where they need to get a Philips screwdriver for someone and thought, "What the heck is a Philips screwdriver anyways?" It's pure genius I tell ya!

I also picked up a new pair of sunglasses while I was there-more of an impulse buy than anything. I call them my "Walter Sobchak" glasses. If you've seen a certain movie about a carpet then you'll know what I'm talking about. I always wanted to get a pair but my head was never the right shape-no my head hasn't changed. These glasses seem to fit a lot better though-don't believe the poor photo.

I made one final purchase yesterday-a new suit for the wedding. Fumiko and I went together with two completely opposing views-price and style. I'm sure you can guess who was which. They have two types of suits at the place we went-$200 suits and $300 suits. I wasn't real keen about the $300 suit. Not only was it out of my price limit (not my range-my range would be much more but my limit is very low) but I wasn't so keen on the style. I guess in Japan it's stylish for Japanese men to wear really tight-fitting suits. I'm not sure if that's the style or not in Canada. We managed to come to a great compromise though. We bought the more expensive suit and I paid $200 and Fumiko paid $100. I got away not feeling that I had been robbed and Fumiko gets a decently dressed boyfriend that she can show off to her friends at her friend's wedding-we both came away very happy.

My private students gave me a nabe pot for my birthday so we had a little welcoming party for Peter when he moved in. Nothing big-just four of is. It was quite a lot of fun though and very tasty (and pretty darned healthy as well I think). Here are some pics of the event (none of me though-I'm the photographer).

Big day tomorrow!

The new roommate moves in officially. It will be strange to have three people in the house again. Our rent will drop from 61,500 yen to 41,000 yen per month so I've got no complaints in that department! We were planning on having a nabe party tonight but it got postponed till Monday night after work. My private students gave me a big donnabe for my birthday (basically a big earthenware pot) so hopefully I'll be able to put it to good use over the winter time (that's when you eat nabe, silly!)

Next weekend I'll be heading away from Tokyo for the southern shores of Japan...for a wedding. Yech. Oh well, it can only be better than I expect! I've never been to that part of Japan before so it will be interesting to see what it's like. Immediately after that weekend I begin taking my holidays. Gotta get those things used up while they're still good! I'm adding two days to each of my weekends so it will make for a nice relaxing month and half. Four days is more than enough time to go anywhere in Japan so perhaps I'll do a few trips.

More daily details of my life: I came back to my illegally parked in front of McDonalds bike this afternoon and found that someone had the nerve to tape a threatening letter to it. Actually not "someone"-it was McDonalds themselves. They even signed it-MaKUdonaRUdo. Basically it says if I park my bicycle there again without buying something they're going to send the yakuza after me. Of all the nerve. I've eaten there many times and never used their lot-they owe me at least 10 bicycle parkings!

Don't look now...

...but it appears that someone is posting on this blog again. June 20th. No posts since June 20th. Absolutely despicable. Atrocious. Embarrassing. What's even worse is that I spelled all three of those words incorrectly (four including "spelt"). My oh my. Anyways I think I'm back. We'll see. The reason why I stopped was because I was trying to concentrate on my studying and looking for ways to create time for that. Unfortunately 24 hours is just not nearly enough time in a day.

The blog was considered expendable by the big guys at the top so it was axed to save time. I think now I could probably spend a few minutes every couple of days posting a little something though so keep checking and I'll try not to disappoint.

What's happened since June 20th? Well a lot and not much I guess. I survived two birthdays (Fumiko's and my own). Applied to take a Japanese test. Bought a printer to help study for said test. Quit the gym (conscious decision). Quit reading (not a conscious decision). Went on strike for a couple of days (well actually only one) and almost flew head first off the front of my bike. Not all in that order of course. Oh we're also getting a new roommate on Saturday.

Here's an article I got from my Aunt Grainne about...hmm not sure how to describe it. Isolationism of the Japanese I suppose. Basically they have an island full of Japanese people and they want it to stay that way. There's a lot of latent racism in this country-I'm not sure if it's as bad as the article makes out but it's certainly a lot different from countries such as Canada. Anyways it's a great read so check it out.

Globe and Mail:Racism in Japan

I know some of you want to hear the boring details of my everyday life in Japan so here we go (and it even has relevance to the above link!):

My co-worker Peter (a really decent Scot) is moving in with us on Saturday. Today I helped him move a small piano (not really a piano but whatever those portable things are). Today happened to be a special garbage pick up day for all the garbage that doesn't usually get picked up (broken glass, umbrellas, etc). Anyways we're walking down the street, carrying Pete's piano and we come up to one of the garbage pick up spots. Next to the pick up spot are two large Jerry gas cans in black garbage bags and an old man. He comes up to us and using the universal symbol of crossed arms says, "Kore wa dame dayo!", which in Japanese means, "What the hell are you doing? You can't put those things here!" I was a little bit shocked. I can't understand how anybody could connect two foreigners carrying a piano down the street with "criminals" who don't put out their garbage properly. I can only assume that he assumed that since we were foreigners, we were the ones who had left the gas cans there. Quite a ridiculous situation but not too surprising-especially coming from an elderly man (or woman for that matter). They all seem close-minded, suspicious and cranky (even more so than old people usually are!)

Well that's it for today! Oh and my new favourite idiom:

"We've always been at war with EastAsia."

Any idea where that's from? Bonus points for anybody who doesn't have to Google it.

So anyways yeah I'm back in Japan. Flight was uneventful. They had a new (to me anyways) Boeing 777 which has TV's in the back over every chair. Touch screen too-I watched at least three movies and one tv show. There was a heck of a lot of Brazilians on the flight over. They were all wearing the same shirts so they must have been part of some kind of special group of some sort. I looked at them smugly as I passed them while they stood in front of pictures of Mt Fuji at the airport and took pictures of each other. "Tourists!" I thought to myself.

New blog is going well! Are you checking it out? Unfortunately I haven't discovered any Cucumber Pepsi's around, despite searching every convenience store in a one block radius (25). We'll see how much posting on my blog I do-not much would be the answer so far! I've solved the riddle of how to do everything I want to do in one day simply by cramming it all into one day. I have several things that I don't want to give up - I don't want to stop going to the gym, reading books, studying Japanese or playing videogames. I also have to fit the internet in there somewhere. Not to mention soccer and Fumiko. Basically I've been trying to limit myself to 30 minutes of computer a day to give my studying chances a boost. I have a stopwatch and everything! You wouldn't believe how fast 30 minutes can go buy. You can probably understand that that doesn't leave much time for posting on blogs!

I try to read an hour a night and I've been trying to get to bed by 12am. That means that I've got to read 60 minutes worth in the next 5 minutes. I've also been drinking a glass of red wine most nights with my dinner! Jared just said that he was finally able to put his finger on what's different about me since I got back. He says, "You got old."

Dinner and a movie

The Unveiling

Well it's up-my new blog. When I went home, the big news that was circulating about Japan was the man who dropped his 3-year old child off at the baby drop of centre. Weird, right? Well that's not even scratching the surface! There's no end to strange events coming out of Japan. Most of them you'll probably never hear about in Canada. Therefore I will be skimming the national news and try to filter out all the boring old stuff leaving you the reader with only the juiciest tidbits of information. Sometimes it will be comical, sometimes gruesome (think of boy who walks around with his mother's head in his bag), sometimes quirky, sometimes interesting, sometimes informational and possibly occasionally boring if there's ever an off day. One thing is certain-it will probably be updated more regularly than this blog. First, crazy stuff happens every day and secondly it's easy on the creative side of my brain-this stuff writes itself!

Anyways enough-check it out and see what you think:

notablenipponnews.blogspot.com

I'm back!

I had a great vacation in Canada and I returned to Japan safely and a little less white than when I left. Let me tell you, not having to suffer through 28.8kbps internet is just amazing. I'll have some pics up soon-it takes a while to get all unpacked and back into a normal way of life.

In other news, a bit of a teaser here, stay tuned for an altogether new blog by yours truly. This one has the potential to be a lot better than it's predecessor for the simple reason that it's not about me! Give me a week to get the kinks ironed out and get a bit of content on there and then it should be fit for release to general public consumption.

Back in God's Country

I wasn't planning on doing an update (and with this 28kbps internet I don't plan on doing another) but I was checking an email from my girlfriend and she said that she was watching the news and that two bad things had happened in Japan that day and she wanted to know if I could check from Canada. So I go onto the Japan Today website and these are the top headlines for today:

• Parents held for abuse in 2 cases
• Agriculture minister commits suicide
• Blair asked to help in Hawker case
• JR trains to have SOS stickers
• POWs want to meet emperor in UK
• Newborn baby found in garbage bag
• 2 girls arrested for abandoning baby
• Australia whale-watchers protest
• Bank worker held for sex assault
• 2-year-old girl stabbed in mall

I'm not sure which two bad things I'm supposed to be looking for. Actually today appears to be a good day-no parents killed their children and no children killed their parents! This is why I love Japan-it's such a happy happy place.

My new look

By the way I'm planning on growing a beard during my vacation so I apologize in advance for my scruffy, unkempt look. It's one of those things all teachers end up doing eventually.

Sorry!

Been quite a while I know. No excuses-I've just been lazy. The phone is great! I've updated my Books Read 2007 page. You might be surprised to see what I'm reading now! Just for anybody who doesn't yet know, I'll be coming home from May 15th to June 6th.

I finally did it!

I managed to kick the wanting to buy a cellphone obsession/habit. And I did it by buying a cellphone. Now if this sounds like an alcoholic kicking his need for alcohol by downing a bottle of vodka then you just aren't looking at it the right way. Anyways, I was able to satisfy my materialist needs for at least another year at least. I'm not sure just how advanced Japanese phones are over their North American cousins or if that is even the case at all. A quick glance at the Futureshop website shows that most cellphones now have Bluetooth (most of ours don't) but they also cost approximately $400 dollars. They all seem to be stuck at 1.3 megapixels for a camera as well. Well mine doesn't have Bluetooth but it only cost 80 bucks, comes with a enormous screen, has a 4 megapixel camera and has video calling (what a ridiculous feature). It's probably a year old as well. Most new cameras over here can play TV and it's all free. The phones just pick up the signal and you don't have to pay a darned thing.


Hopefully I'll be able to put some music on mine once I get the darned Japanese software sorted out. Do people text in Canada? I know I never did when I was home. We Canadians prefer to talk on the phone I think. Texting is huge over here. Actually it's emailing not texting. They've really got it down to an art. Before I used to just send regular text messages-now I send messages that blink, that go by on a ticker, that swing back and forth. Who knew it could be so fun!

U-RA-WA RED-ZU! We Love You!

I went to a soccer game with my friend Peter on Wednesday night. A team from my area (sort of) is playing in the Asian Champions League, a tournament sort of like the regular Champions League but without the pedigree. The game itself wasn't that great. Our team (Urawa Red Diamonds) were playing a team from Shanghai and neither team was all that impressive. And it was raining. Fortunately our seats were covered but it was still a little nippy. The fans, on the other hand, were absolutely fantastic. There was only a crowd of about 28,000 at the game (less than half of capacity) but I think about half of them were sitting behind the Urawa goal and were chanting ALL game long. It was amazing how one little area could fill the entire stadium with noise. And boy was it noisy-loudest thing I've ever heard in my life. Behind the goals is uncovered so you know those fans are hardcore, standing in the rain all game. Here are a few videos I took-unfortunately it was just with my camera so the sound doesn't really come through all that great.

Straight from the horses hoof

Here's some of the kanji that I've been learning . This has been written by myself and I did it on the pain program so it does look a little chicken scratchy. The first kanji picture means "friday" and the other one means "go", "come", "see" and "book".

Oops again!

Thanks to Crazy Conrad for letting me know about the problem with computers not being able to recognize asian languages and displaying only question marks instead. I'm afraid I have to apologize. I'm sorry to tell you that most of your computers are complete ignoramuses!! They know even less kanji than I do and let me tell you, that is pathetic! All joking aside, if I ever post any more kanji I'll try to post a picture of it or something that North American computers should have no problems displaying.

My hat

Yes I have an interesting hat. A couple of them actually. I'm only writing about them because of some inflammatory comments written by a sibling on my new addiction-Facebook. It's like MySpace I suppose. I honestly have no idea as I've never ever checked out MySpace before. Anyways back to fashion in Japan. One of the great things about living in Japan is that you never have to worry about feeling self-conscious. It's has a little to do with the fact that Tokyo has 15 million people that you'll never see twice and a lot to do with the fact that you can dress up as ridiculously as you want and walk out your front door perfectly confident that you'll be the least ridiculous looking person out there. This is a country where men think it's cool to dress in feminine fashions for God sakes. No amount of ridiculous hats will ever top that.

New kanji!

I've been browsing through my new kanji books and I think they've been a success already. I haven't actually learned that much from them but they have changed my attitude from 'kanji is stupid' to 'kanji is cool-sort of'. The neat thing about it is how it combines different kanji to form new words and sometimes gives a lot of insight into Japanese culture.

Take this is an example- the kanji for marriage 姻, is a combination of 女(woman) and 因(depend). I'll let you draw your own conclusions. Here's another one: the kanji for noisy or immoral is 姦, that is, three kanji of woman. And lastly, the kanji for strong or manly is 壮, the left-hand kanji being 'big' and the right-hand kanji being 'samurai'. Interesting as heck, I tell ya.

My own personal kanji has improved slightly. I now know (wait let me try and write it just to make sure I'm not lying).........Yep I remember! Here it is!

日　sun
月 moon
火 fire
水 water
木 wood
金 gold
土 earth
曜日 add this kanji to the above to make the days of the week
川 river

It's still fairly easy, straightforward stuff but it's a little more difficult than the numbers at least! It's interesting to see that some of the Japanese days of the week are similar to our own. For example, 日曜日 (sun+day) is the same as our Sunday and 月曜日 (moon+day) is the same as our Monday.

Oops...

Now I remember why none of my five pairs of work/casual shoes have laces in them. Oh well.
I have been learning Japanese by the way, I just have more trouble doing it on a regular basis than I do reading or playing videogames! But I'm coming along now. I was supposed to get some Kanji books today that I ordered from Amazon but I waited for them until 10:15 this morning and then took a quick trip to the grocery store. Upon my return, I realized that someone had called at approximately 10:17. Whoever it was didn't leave a message but if they had it would probably go something like 'Sorry we couldn't deliver your package today. We'll come again tomorrow morning two minutes after you leave for work.' Gah.

I am learning though. Just yesterday I learned to write my first kanji. Up till now I've taken the stance that I would rather be ignorant than learn that stupid picture language. Now I've had a complete reversal of attitude-I'm gonna learn that stupid picture language but I'm not going to enjoy it.

My first kanji was just the numbers 1-10 and actually it's ridiculously easy compared to some of the stuff out there. Let me see if I can do it for you:

一 1
二 2
三 3
四 4
五 5
六 6
七 7
八 8
九 9
十 10

See that was easy wasn't it! I've decided not to learn 0 partly because it actually isn't really used very often (for example 40 isn't 4-0 but rather 4-10 四十）and mostly because it looks like this: 零

New boots!

Came in the mail this morning. Interesting way of shopping that-I'm not sure if it's done back home or not. "Sorry we don't have any boots in that size right now. If you want to purchase them we can ship you a pair from one of our other stores in less than two days time."
Whaddaya think Emily? They're pretty cool eh? Maybe I'm ahead of the fashion curve instead of behind it!

The new organized me

You may remember last week I mentioned that I had purchased a new organizer/schedule book. Well here it is. As you can see, April is pathetically bare. I guess I'm not the social butterfly you thought I was. The truth is, ever since Grade 9 at least, I've been one huge pathetic failure at keeping a schedule book. Every year, at the beginning of the year, they would hand out a free schedule book and I was would use it and stick to it for about 2 days-maybe 3 days max. I never had one in university and last year I bought a nice Tintin one from Tokyu Hands which I think I got maybe 3 months use of before I completely forgot.

This time I'm determined to keep it going. My strategy is two-pronged. First, I bought one that is small enough to fit in my pocket. Anything bigger is too inconvenient to haul around. This way I can just whip it out of my pocket when I need to and scribble something down. Secondly, I use it as a backup wallet and carry about $80 cash around in it which ensures that I'm not going to just leave it in the bottom of my desk drawer.

Buying a schedule book at a hobby store is actually quite fun. There's a huge selection and then once you've picked out what you want they have all these things that you can buy to put in it, ie. train map, extra pages, calendar, ruler , pens, plastic inserts etc. It's quite fun actually. It's sort of like buying a stock car and then souping (sp?) it up with custom parts. I think the planner itself cost me close to 4000 yen and then I ended up spending another 2000 yen just on supplementary materials!

Still, when you have as spartan a life as mine, it's difficult to find the material to write in your schedule book. I almost cried this morning when my private class told me that there would be no class due to Golden Week on May 2nd because it gave me something to write in my book. Perhaps I should add it to my list of New Years Resolutions-all of which I'm keeping up with by the way (well except for that darned Japanese one).