Archive for January, 2014
January 18, 2004 – Walking around Yokohama
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan on January 18, 2014
I met a language exchange partner in Yokohama today, let’s call her Aruko. We did a lot of walking around together. One of the highlights was the Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery and accompanying museum. When Japan reopened the country to the outside world in the 1800s, Yokohama became the place where most of the foreigners settled. The cemetery houses some of the important foreign settlers from that time period.
After sightseeing and a lot of walking, Aruko and I went to Yurindo bookstore which has a large English section, though not as good as Kinokuniya. I bought the second volume of the Complete Sherlock Holmes collection. I also found an interesting book that teaches Japanese speakers how to talk dirty in English. Seriously, this book was explicit. No, I do not have examples, and no I didn’t buy it.
(2014 update)
I should have bought it 🙂
January 17, 2004 – Pandas speak Chinese, not English
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on January 17, 2014
Nova Usagi – the worst mascot ever
The picture above is of NOVA Usagi (NOVA rabbit), the horrible mascot of NOVA’s language school. It is supposed to resemble a pink rabbit with a bird beak. The idea behind it was that the rabbit ears represented listening well, and the bird beak represented talking well. To me it looks like a mutated Pokemon that needs to be destroyed with fire, but what do I know?
NOVA Usagi is well known all over Japan, and you can’t look in any direction at a NOVA school without seeing it’s stupid face. At work I was teaching Voice class (an open conversation room for students of all skill levels), when I was suddenly inspired with a good topic; finding a replacement for NOVA Usagi.
There were 5 talkative students in the Voice room, and I asked them to come up with ideas for a new mascot. Many animals were suggested, narrowed down, narrowed again, and we finally had a showdown between the two front runners; monkey and turtle. I then broke the class into teams and got them to come up with ideas to defend their animal. After a brief debate, Shelly the NOVA turtle won. It was one of the best Voice classes I have ever taught, and the students seemed to have fun too.
On a side note, I asked why nobody had suggested panda, and all 5 students (at the same time) shouted “PANDAS SPEAK CHINESE, NOT ENGLISH!!!” like it was the most obvious thing in the world. I guess that’s why I have trouble talking to pandas.
January 16, 2004 – Should have stayed in bed
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Life in Japan on January 16, 2014
Yesterday was a train wreck of a day. It started out when I couldn’t find my watch. I spend a long time looking for it in my room. How long? I don’t know because my watch was missing. I did find it eventually, but was almost late for work.
After work the plan was to meet Marshall at Kawasaki station and go to GasPanic Yokohama. I had planned ahead by bringing a change of clothes to work (didn’t want to go out in my suit) and getting directions from other teachers. The one thing I didn’t do was get cash, because there were numerous bank machines around Kawasaki station. Right after work I changed clothes and headed to the nearest bank machine. No luck. I quickly tried about 5 more bank machines in the area, also with no success. I contacted Marshall and he said he would cover me, so we met at the station to go to Yokohama.
The train from Kawasaki to Yokohama is usually busy, but this was the most crowded train I had ever seen that wasn’t going to or from Shibuya. Seriously, if everyone had breathed at the same time the doors would have popped out. From Yokohama we followed the directions I had been given and took a train to Takashima-cho station. It turns out that the directions I had been given were CRAP, and after about 30 minutes of wandering around we gave up and headed back to Yokohama.
Since we were already out, plan B was to go bowling at a nearby bowling alley. The problem was that the alley had no shoes to fit 193cm (6’4″) Marshall. Dejected, we decided that plan C was to return to Noborito and go to Avenue Izakaya for some cheap beer and octopus. Avenue was a safe bet because it was usually open until 5:00am every night. We took the 27 minute train ride from Kawasaki to Noborito, walked 5 minutes to Avenue to find that it was closed and dark. Last night was the one night it was ever known to be closed.
One of the great things about Japan is that beer is easily available in convenience stores. Coincidentally, there was a convenience store directly across the street from Avenue (plan D for those keeping track). We went in to find that the store was completely SOLD OUT of alcohol. Seriously, WTF? We ended up going to the 99 yen store to buy some some mystery beverages which may or may not have been alcoholic, and then returned to Hello House.
I don’t know what I did to upset the universe so badly, but I am hoping that this will all balance out at some point. I should have just stayed in bed.
(partial rewrite for formatting and detail)
January 12, 2004 – Coming of Age Day
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, Tokyo on January 12, 2014
Shiodome City Center
Today was a National Holiday: Coming of Age Day. It is a holiday to celebrate all the people who became 20 years old in the past year. 20 is considered the age of majority in Japan. Since I had the day off, I went to Asakusa with Yumi and one of her friends.
Asakusa is home to Sensoji – a giant Buddhist temple. The approach to the temple is a 250 meter long shopping area called Nakamichi. This is a great place to buy souvenirs and touristy stuff. Due to the holiday, the temple area was completely packed with people in kimonos, so getting around was difficult.
After spending some time around Sensoji, we went to the Shiodome area near Shinbashi and Ginza. This area used to be occupied by a large train station. Expressways and changes to other nearby train stations made the original Shinbashi station unnecessary. Since real estate is at a premium in Tokyo, the large area of land occupied by the train station and yards was redeveloped into an area filled with skyscrapers. Shiodome has become on of Tokyo’s most modern city centres.
The three of us wandered around some of the tall buildings and then went to a restaurant called “Vietnam Frog” for dinner. The food was fantastic and they had an English menu.
As a conversational English teacher, I have to be fairly good at having a conversation. I usually pride myself on being able to talk to almost anyone and still be somewhat interesting. During dinner my brain shut down and I literally had nothing interesting to talk about. Seriously, nothing. I ended up discussing my job in English at great length for some reason. When I got home later I was thinking “why did I just end up talking about work the whole time?”.
It was a great day out – I got to see a historical side of Tokyo and one of the newest major developments as well. I just wish I would have been a little more interesting for my friends to listen to…
(full rewrite of original post which was only 4 sentences long)
January 11, 2004 – Revenge of Channel Kitano
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan on January 11, 2014
Channel Kitano was on again, which is good because absolutely nobody believed me when I told them about it.
January 10, 2004 – Is Channel Kitano even legal?
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan on January 10, 2014
After work I went for a few beverages at the nearby izakaya. When I got home I wasn’t quite tired enough to go to sleep, so I decided to watch some late night TV. After flipping through the channels, I came across a variety program called “Channel Kitano”. In the segment I watched there was a female reporter walking around Tokyo talking to women with large breasts. The reporter asked for permission to touch and then PROCEEDED TO GROPE THE RANDOM WOMAN’S CHEST! This is usually how porn starts!
Many of the women that were approached instantly said no, and some ran away when they saw the camera coming. A few brave souls returned to the studio for an interview after their initial groping. At the studio there was an in depth interview, apparently about having large breasts. The interview would usually involve the reporter continuing to grab the woman’s breasts while saying “sugoi”, which means “great” in Japanese.
Channel Kitano was, by far, the most unusual thing I have ever seen on TV. Considering that some of the girls were only 16, I don’t know how this would be legal in other countries. Wow.
January 9, 2004 – Cold, but not “Canada” cold
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan on January 9, 2014
Its cold here. Sure, its not “Canada” cold, but outside is windy and cold. Like many buildings in Japan, Hello House doesn’t have any insulation and the windows are single pane glass. In addition, the cleaning staff likes to leave the doors and windows open during the day, so all of the hallways and common areas are really cold. My room has it’s own heater, but as soon as I go into the hallway it is unpleasant. At least in Winnipeg when it is -30 degrees you can stay warm inside.
Brrr.
January 8, 2004 – The All-Canadian Dream
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, Teaching English on January 8, 2014
I had the best day at work! In my voice class I talked about hockey for the whole class. That`s right, I got PAID to talk about HOCKEY. This is literally the All-Canadian dream.
All of my other lessons featured students who tried hard and really seemed to get the point of the lesson. I gave 2 level ups and got compliments from the staff about my lessons. After work I celebrated with a relaxing evening watching “The People vs. Larry Flynt” while enjoying some beverages in the cool new beer stein I bought at Tokyu Hands. Sometimes, teaching English in Japan can be a really cool job.
January 5, 2004 – Kinokuniya is the best
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, Tokyo on January 5, 2014
Today I went shopping in Shinjuku. From Noborito, Shinjuku is about 20 minutes on the Odakyu line. Outside the south exit of Shinjuku station is a massive shopping complex called Takashimaya Times Square which has several different stores.
My first stop was Kinokuniya bookstore, which has 7 huge floors full of books. The 6th floor was entirely foreign books and magazines, most of them in English. I bought two books to learn Japanese and Michael Moore’s “Dude, Where’s My Country”.
After Kinokuniya, I went to Tokyu Hands. It is a department store that carries the most and least useful things known to mankind, and everything in between. Their motto is “when you visit, you find what you want”. The most memorable item of the day was a pair of glasses with a flexible camera so you can look into your own ears. Tokyu Hands is definitely worth a visit if you are in Japan.
(partial rewrite of original post due to spelling errors and to add some detail)
January 2, 2004 – Mishima Taisha, Evangelicals, and Fathers
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, The Penpal on January 2, 2014
A crowd trying to celebrate New Year at Mishima Taisha
Today’s plan was to go to Mishima Taisha with The Penpal. I took the train to Numazu station to find The Penpal waiting for me. She walked up looking worried and told me that her father was waiting outside. Apparently he was off work, wanted to meet me, and offered to drive us to the shrine. I am generally pretty good with parents in Canada, but had no previous experience with Japanese parents. This was going to be a new challenge.
The Penpal’s Father greeted me at the car. We exchanged some pleasantries and the three of us got into the car. About a minute into our drive, he got the Penpal to ask me how old I thought he was. This was obviously a loaded question and I needed to come up with a reasonable answer. Guessing too high was out of the question, and if I guessed too low he would know I was lying. I masked my panic and decided to work this out logically. He looked to be anywhere from 45-65. The Penpal was 24 at the time, so if he was 25 when she was born then he would be 49. After redoing the mental math, I attempted to sound confident with my answer of 49 years old. He was actually 62, so he seemed pretty happy with my answer. Bullet = dodged.
With that out of the way, we went in the direction of Mishima Taisha but made a few stops first. The first stop was the rooftop parking of the new Seiyu department store in Numazu. It offered a good, unobstructed view of Mt. Fuji. After that, we went to Kakitagawa Park. It is a park next to a river where water comes underground from Mt. Fuji. The Penpal’s father treated us to some Green Tea ice cream and then we departed for Mishima Taisha.
Taisha quite literally means “big shrine” or “grand shrine”. There are only a few taishas in Japan. Since it was New Year, there were literally thousands of people trying to get into the shrine to pray for good luck in the upcoming year. On the approach to the shrine we passed a lot of food stands and souvenir shops, which gave the whole area sort of a carnival atmosphere. We got into the shrine itself, worked our way to the front, and dropped in coins to pray for good luck in 2004.
After leaving the shrine, we worked our way through the crowds to leave and find some lunch. Across the street was a van with a giant loudspeaker on top. The Penpal explained that they were a Christian group warning people not to go to the shrine and pray to false gods, recommending Jesus instead. It was an interesting scene to say the least.
We ate lunch in one of Mishima’s many small parks and exchanged slang from each other’s languages. Some time later a security guard approached us and told us that the park was closed. We apologized and he escorted us out of the park. We wandered around Mishima for a while and then ended up at karaoke again. Karaoke is fun – my singing isn’t getting any better, but I am starting to care less about how bad I sound.
It was a good day and I got to see a lot of new things, as well as spending time with the Penpal. On the way home I managed to sleep on the train, but waking up as my head hit the stainless steel handrail I was sitting next to. I am getting better at sleeping on a moving train, but am still in training.
(rewrote parts of the original post to add more detail)
Drinking in Japan 
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