Archive for category Life in Japan
October 20, 2004 – Mover details
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, The Penpal on October 20, 2014
The Penpal sent me an email with the details for my upcoming move. My Japanese language ability is likely not good enough to organize a mover by myself. I am sure that NOVA would offer some assistance, but having a helpful bilingual girlfriend made things much easier.
After doing some research, the Penpal found a company called One Room Hikkoshi Center. They specialize in small moves within Japan. Before my moving date on November 1, they will send boxes, a futon bag, bubble wrap, and packing tape to me at Hello House.
On the day of the move, one mover will show up with a truck at 9:00am. He will be bringing a hanger box for my clothes and a PC box for my computer. While I pack those, he will be loading the truck. The Penpal even made sure that I could ride in the moving truck instead of having to take the train to Numazu.
This is my first time hiring a mover, and thanks to The Penpal the planning couldn’t have gone better. Thanks The Penpal, you rock!
October 17, 2004 – No voice = no work
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, Teaching English on October 17, 2014
I woke up with no voice due to the nasty cold that’s making the rounds. For an English teacher, no voice means no teaching.
I spent my day chugging orange juice, sleeping, and playing Playstation.
October 16, 2004 – Catching cold
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Life in Japan, Teaching English on October 16, 2014
There is a nasty cold making it’s way through the teachers at Kawasaki NOVA. In the morning I started feeling the cold. By the time I got through four lessons, I felt like I had been hit by a truck. I took some daytime cold medicine from Canada on my break, and made it through the rest of my shift with my brain swimming around somewhere above my body. This was actually less fun than it sounds.
When my shift ended, I immediately went home and directly to sleep.
October 14, 2004 – Phoala’s farewell – part one
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Friends and coworkers, Karaoke, Yokohama on October 14, 2014
Phoala’s farewell party – part 1
Tonight was Phoala’s official farewell party. I traded for an early shift so I could go home and get ready for a big night out. Our plan is Thursday night karaoke in Yokohama, then staying out all night in Roppongi.
I met up with Phoala, Archie, and K-Lo, who used to work at Kawasaki NOVA but had been transferred to Hiyoshi to try to improve the school. K-Lo was slightly annoyed to find that Ruby, one of our karaoke regulars, had brought along a female student that she was interested in. Hanging out with students was an official no-no, but since it was Phoala’s last night, K-Lo decided to turn a blind eye.
In addition to Ruby’s guest, Jem’s sister was visiting from England. I have talked before about how amazing Jem’s singing is. Jem had been telling us that her sister had an even better singing voice than she did. Jem has always been the best singer in our group by far, so we couldn’t imagine anyone actually being better. However, she was right and we were all treated to some amazing singing by Jem and sister. We were seriously blown away by their talent.
The rest of us sounded extra terrible by comparison, but all you can drink karaoke has little to do with actually being a good singer. We all had fun badly singing along to our regular songs. Archie made sure to sing the entire Styx classic “Mr. Roboto”. The album version is five and a half minutes long, but somehow it seems much longer in a karaoke room.
After two hours of karaoke, Phoala, Archie, K-Lo and I headed off for Roppongi. We got there just after midnight so the story continues on the next post.
October 9, 2004 – Sideways rain
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Life in Japan, Teaching English on October 9, 2014
Today was my last big topic voice class. I woke up early to transfer my resume presentation files to a disk. I then went through my usual routine of eating, showering, visiting, hanging out, and getting to work. When I got to work I realized that I had left my disk at home, and didn’t have enough time to go back and get it. Time well wasted.
Fortunately, in the 3 hours of preparation time, I managed to remember the key points. Without my visual aids I pulled a 90 minute presentation out of my ass. Overall it was well received. Resume voice allowed the students to practice past tense sentences for their accomplishments, and there was a lot of work with adjectives. The students were really surprised to learn that in Canada, you aren’t supposed to put information like your age, height, weight, and marital status on a resume. I was surprised that such information was common to include in Japan.
The other notable event today was my first typhoon. My students were explaining that it was the worst typhoon to hit the area in about 10 years. It was raining and windy when I got to work, but I had no idea what a typhoon could do until my dinner break came. I went outside with my umbrella into crazy winds so strong that the rain was coming sideways. My umbrella was instantly turned inside out and nearly pulled from my hands. When I walked around some corners, the wind was so strong it almost knocked me over. I had never experienced a storm so intense before!
Due to the strong winds and rain, several train lines shut down. This had a positive effect on NOVA, as students couldn’t really go anywhere, so they booked into any lessons that had space or hung out in the Voice classroom. Fortunately for me, Nanbu line was not affected so I could go home on my regular train.
My experience with the typhoon was relatively mild compared to other parts of Japan. There was property damage across the country and reports that two people died. Nature can really be terrifying at times!
October 5, 2004 – A bomb with skull and crossbones
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Friends and coworkers, Karaoke, Lux on October 5, 2014
Today was another rainy day in Kawasaki. Lux is leaving for vacation to Canada for 3 weeks on Wednesday. Before she leaves, Zoe and I decided to take her out for dinner at Gyukaku. Yum!
After yet another fantastic dinner of grilled awesomeness at Gyukaku, we went out to karaoke at a place close to Noborito station on the Tama River. I can’t remember the name, but it was great! The song selection was huge; I sang the theme from Sesame Street, 21st Century Digital Boy by Bad Religion, and Sugar by System of a Down.
The drink menu was also huge, with a very long list of different cocktails available. The ingredients for each were all written in Japanese. I could only understand about half of the menu, but one drink caught my attention. The picture showed a clear, bubbly drink that looked like a gin and tonic. However, there was a picture of a bomb with a skull and crossbones next to the drink. Taking this as a challenge instead of a warning, I ordered the mysterious cocktail.
For the record, I have never tried drinking industrial strength drain cleaner before, but I am pretty sure that it tastes better than the bomb cocktail. Blerg!
October 4, 2004 – The heater is on
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan on October 4, 2014
The temperature dropped about 10 degrees overnight, and it didn’t warm up at all today. I now have my heater on as I am typing this in my room. Since I don’t have internet in my room at the moment, I am creating blog updates on my PC, saving them to my memory stick, and then uploading them when I go to the internet cafe.
It was cold and rainy all day, so I really couldn’t be bothered to do anything other than watch a whole lot of CSI. I will try to do something productive tomorrow.
Probably.
October 3, 2004 – Mick Foley debates
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, Teaching English on October 3, 2014
Today I did my first level check, and it was fun! The student seemed really nervous, but I would probably also be nervous if I suddenly had to speak a second language to a native speaker for 20 minutes.
After work I went to the internet cafe “just for an hour”. I caught up on a lot of old email, and then found a streaming video of pro wrestlers Mick Foley and John Bradshaw Layfield debating about the upcoming US election. No chairs or elbow drops were used. It was refreshing to see two wrestlers sounding intelligent and well informed, which is much different than the characters they play in the ring. The WWE gets a lot of grief from people, but they do a lot to encourage people to vote.
I ended up leaving after spending four hours in the internet cafe. Stupid entertaining internet.
September 26, 2004 – Digital Camera
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan on September 26, 2014
This is the 8 megapixel version of my new camera!
Today I finally went out and bought a digital camera! I went to the big Yodobashi Camera near Kawasaki NOVA and bought a Canon IXY 4 megapixel camera with a 256mb memory card. I was looking for something in the 4 megapixel range with optical zoom that was point and shoot. This camera met all of my requirements, and the price was pretty good too.
I managed to make the entire purchase using Japanese. Very simple Japanese, but I still felt pretty proud of myself. The salesperson was very polite and patient. Yodobashi Camera rules!
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