March 21, 2004 – First trip to Izu
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, The Penpal on March 21, 2014
Today I went to Izu with The Penpal. Izu is a mountainous peninsula that runs south from Numazu into the ocean. There are small towns through the central areas and along the eastern coast. Izu is a famous area for hot springs, Ryokans (traditional Japanese Inns), and vacation spots that cater mostly to Japanese people. Due to some terrible weather, most of the plans that The Penpal made fell through, but I still enjoyed riding around and seeing the sights. Riding in a tiny car on winding mountain roads after a big rain storm is quite the adventure, especially when you still haven’t adjusted to driving on the left side of the road.
Other than the scenery, one of my personal highlights was eating grilled eel on rice served with pickles and miso soup. Eel is seriously delicious.
March 20, 2004 – Time flies
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on March 20, 2014
I think the 10 minutes between classes is getting shorter every day. Today I had my ass handed to me by a very busy schedule.
(2014 Update)
Typical NOVA lessons were 40 minutes long with 10 minute breaks in between. In the 10 minutes between lessons teachers had to return to the teacher’s room, give rankings and write comments on all students, pass along the files to the next teacher or refile the student folders, check the schedule for changes, and then get ready for the next lesson. Bathroom breaks usually meant writing up comments or refiling student files later.
Most teacher’s rooms were narrow closet like environments with a bunch of people moving around quickly trying not to knock each other over. In large schools like Kawasaki there were not enough seats for all teachers to sit down between lessons, so many comments were filled out while standing and trying not to be in the way.
I liked most of the people at Kawasaki NOVA, but hated the pace of work some days.
March 19, 2004 – Australian English is just wrong
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on March 19, 2014
Holy crap the kids group was good again! In this case good is extremely relative, but they were still putting forth an effort. I found that the best way to get results was to time them on their activities. Everyone really wanted to beat the clock.
During the workday, I got into a lengthy, pointless, but very fun argument with other teachers over the correct pronunciation of words and letters. The Australians, in particular, did things very differently than the correct Canadian pronunciation. Seriously, who pronounces the letter “H” as “hate-ch”. We also had disagreements over Z, Adidas, Semi, and a few others.
After work the discussion continued over beers (like most good discussions), and I learned that in Australian English, to “knock off work” is to go home. This simply makes no sense, and it is no wonder that their country is overrun by kangaroos.
(2014 Update) In case my sense of humour doesn’t come across well written, I would like to state for the record that I love Aussies and their unique pronunciation and slang. It it always a surprise how two countries with similar roots can speak English so differently. And now any Aussies reading this are laughing at “roots” 🙂
March 17, 2004 – St. Patrick’s Day at the immigration office
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan on March 17, 2014
Happy St. Patrick`s Day, or as it is known here in Japan – just a regular Wednesday.
Today I once again slept too late and then tried to rush to the immigration office. I found it this time and went into to see some great examples of how to fill out the required forms. Unfortunately for me the examples were in Spanish, Vietnamese and Portuguese, all of which are languages I do not understand. I ended up guessing at a lot of things and sat down for a nice long wait.
At noon everyone was kicked out so they could close the office for lunch. At exactly 1:00pm the doors opened again, and they started calling out numbers. I feel bad for the people who came back a few minutes late to find that they had lost their spot in line. When I actually got my turn I received very quick and friendly service, the kind I have come to expect from Japanese civil servants.
As I am updating my website now* I am very happy that I have some computer knowledge. The web interface to upload files and edit html is not working, so I am using Wordpad to edit html and a small ftp program that I brought on floppy disc to upload files. Good times!
(2014 Update)
* The website that I was referring to was my old blog which is no longer online. I used a hosting company based in Vancouver which provided a pretty good web interface. My 10 years later blog (what you are reading now) is all done on WordPress which has a very reliable online interface.
March 15, 2004 – Vanilla Ice wants to talk to the manager NOW
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan on March 15, 2014
I went to Western Union to send some money home. The only Western Union in Tokyo is in Nihonbashi, which is about a 45 minute trip from Noborito. The office was really busy – I had to wait about an hour from the time I got there. There was some American guy who was REALLY angry about something, arguing with the manager very loudly. Notable about this was:
- He spoke really great Japanese
- He looked like Vanilla Ice
Vanilla had a problem, but Yo, he didn’t solve it. The Western Union manager rocked the mic like a vandal, lit up the office and waxed a chump (Vanilla) like a candle. Seeing this reminded me that I would like to work in retail about as much as I would like to watch Cool as Ice.
After Western Union I headed over to Ueno park, which is centrally located and huge. Usually a “park” in Japan is a bench and a few trees. Ueno Park is actually big, and features many benches and lots of trees. It is also the home of a zoo, several museums, and a cool pond where you can rent a boat and paddle around. I watched some live performers, talked to some friendly people (who all asked if I was American), and took a bunch of pictures. Ueno Park is a must see for anyone coming to Tokyo.
March 14, 2004 – Too many foreigners in Japan!?
Posted by Barniferous in Teaching English on March 14, 2014
I worked overtime at Oomori school today. This was my first time teaching outside of Kawasaki (not counting a few post training classes in Yokohama). It is amazing the difference that a more relaxed schedule and less teachers makes in creating a totally different work environment. Seeing different students is a nice change too.
Since NOVA schools are basically just glass boxes next to each other, it is easy to see and hear what is going on in nearby classrooms. During one of my lessons, the neighbouring classroom’s teacher was doing a lesson about good and bad things about Japan. When asked “what is bad about Japan”, his student responded “There are too many foreigners”. She was also of the opinion that Japan was a dangerous country, but did not offer an opinion if the danger was due to the abundance of foreigners.
To be fair, there are likely about 1.5 – 2 million foreigners living in Japan. Most people would consider that number to be “a lot”. If you asked me to make sandwiches for 2 million people, I would say that the number is “too many”. However, compared to the 125 million ethnically Japanese people living in Japan (98.5% of all residents), 2 million is a pretty small number.
I also question the wisdom of complaining about foreigners while you are talking to foreigners in an English school that proudly advertises that all of it’s teachers are foreigners. But that’s just me 🙂
March 13, 2004 – The Great Sasuke is not always a great topic
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English on March 14, 2014
The Great Sasuke
Yesterday in voice class I had some success with the topic of “The Great Sasuke”. Masanori Murakawa, aka The Great Sasuke, was a Japanese professional wrestler turned politician. Sasuke was elected to the Iwate Prefectural Assembly in 2003, and refused to remove his mask when serving in office. In fact, he rarely (if ever) removes his mask in public at all. I got the students to discuss if they thought it was okay for an elected official to wear a wrestling mask while on the job. From there the students came up with a list of appropriate and inappropriate accessories for a politician, including jeans, sombreros, Elton John glasses, etc. The topic went well and the students got some good practice agreeing and disagreeing.
Today I attempted the same topic again with four different students. 3 out of 4 were really enjoying the topic, and the other student started giving answers like “I don’t care”. At one point I asked him a question and he looked directly at me, didn’t say a word, then started playing with his cell phone. I have never had such a strong negative reaction before. Maybe my student was actually Sasuke without the mask?
(partial rewrite of original post)
March 12, 2004 – (not the cat)
Posted by Barniferous in Kawasaki Nova, Teaching English on March 12, 2014
My kids class wasn’t terrible today for a change. Also, the boys managed to finally win one of the group games. In a class of 9-12 year olds, the girls usually do much better with everything.
Somehow the boys learned the word pussy (not the cat) and were using it in class to try to get a reaction from me. I can assure you that I didn’t teach it to them!
Drinking in Japan 
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