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)
January 1, 2004 – Happy New Year
Posted by Barniferous in Hello House, Life in Japan on January 1, 2014
Happy New Year!
After spending most of the day recovering from the sins of the previous night, I ended up watching a lot of The Simpsons in the Hello House common room. At about 9:00pm I went to the station to meet up with Marshall`s friend who was en route to Thailand and had a one day stopover in Japan. Since Marshall was skiing in Nagano, I met up with his friend, gave him the cheap tour, found him some dinner, and gave him directions for the next day. To close out the day we watched some very strange Japanese TV.
“Very strange Japanese TV” is probably redundant.
December 31, 2003 – New Year’s Karaoke
Posted by Barniferous in Drinking, Karaoke, Life in Japan, Tokyo on December 31, 2013
Bob Sapp vs. Akebono, NYE 2003
Happy New Year!!
New Year’s Eve was a lot of fun. I was worried because most of my tentative New Year`s plans fell apart at the last minute. Fortunately I was able to join a group of Hello House people and friends on their way to O’Carolan’s Pub in Jiyugaoka. We got to the pub just in time for the big Bob Sapp vs. Akebono fight. I have written about Bob Sapp before, but Akebono was a retired sumo champion who had a little trouble with the transition to MMA. Sapp won quickly and then challenged Mike Tyson to a fight. We had beer and did the big New Year’s countdown, but it just wasn’t the same away from home.
After O’Carolan’s we went to a karaoke place in Musashi-Kosugi. Our group got a private karaoke room that rated your singing at the end of each song. My “Daydream Believer” got a whopping 78 points, which left me in first place until Katsuragi racked up just over 80 points on the last song of the night. Stupid Katsuragi!
Overall it was a fun New Year and I ended up getting home around 3:30am.
(small updates from original post)
December 29, 2003 – Robocop (the good one)
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, Movies on December 29, 2013
Most of Japan shuts down round New Year, and for a change NOVA was no exception. The one downside is that bank machines are also shut down, so you need to plan ahead for spending cash. I still don’t understand the need to shut down bank machines at any time, especially in a mostly cash based economy.
The day off was great. I sat on my butt, played video games and watched a lot of TV in the common room at Hello House. Included in my viewing was British detective show “A Touch of Frost” and Robocop. Fortunately this time it was the excellent original Robocop, and not the shockingly bad Robocop 3 that I endured a few weeks earlier.
December 28, 2003 – Yokohama Redemption
Posted by Barniferous in The Penpal, Yokohama on December 28, 2013
Cosmo Clock in Yokohama at night
Today I spent a great day in Yokohama with the Penpal. We started the day off with a trip to the famous Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum. Just like the name would indicate, this museum is dedicated to the history of Japan’s favourite noodle soup. Japan has some unique museum ideas.
The upper level has a history of ramen in Japan, including pictures, videos, old packages, and TV commercials through the years. They also have an impressive collection of ramen bowls from famous ramen shops across Japan. The basement is the truly interesting part. There is a recreation of a city block set up to look like 1958 Tokyo. Within the city block there are 8 different restaurants, each specializing in a different type of ramen. Also, there are long lines. We waited about 45 minutes (the shortest line) to eat some really delicious noodles. The Japan geek in me loved the experience, but the cynical Canadian in me pondered the wisdom of paying to get into a museum so I could wait in line and pay for ramen.
After the museum, we wandered around Yokohama’s Chinatown. Even though I had been to Chinatown recently, I still saw new things on my second visit. From Chinatown we moved on to Minato Mirai to see the port area. Since we had been walking all day we stopped for karaoke to get a break. I sang Barbie Girl, various Beatles songs, and some Radiohead. The Penpal sang a lot of Sheena Ringo
After karaoke, we headed to Cosmo Clock, the giant Ferris wheel together. About one month earlier I had gone on Cosmo Clock with Asako, misread signals, and ended up making an ass of myself. However, the Penpal and I had been talking to each other often and started to see a bit more than just a friendly connection. Today, I was finally able to interpret signals correctly and made a move that was well received. Redemption in Yokohama!
We walked back to the train station hand in hand, cautiously optimistic that this could be the start of something good. I love Yokohama!
December 26, 2003 – The out group
Posted by Barniferous in Friends and coworkers, Kawasaki Nova, Life in Japan, Teaching English on December 26, 2013
(original post)
Last day of work before holidays! Today was a good day, but I noticed that after work some of the teachers went out for drinks. They were very careful about who they invited and made a point of avoiding questions about where they were going after. The Japanese get a bad rap for being very cliquey and keeping their own little “in” groups, but it happens just as much or more with non-Japanese as well. I kind of felt like I was back in high school again.
(2013 update)
There was a cliquey “cool” group at Kawasaki Nova, but looking back on things it is very likely that the teachers were going to hang out with students. Interacting with students outside of the classroom was officially not allowed, both because NOVA wanted to avoid teachers poaching students for private lessons and because NOVA wanted to avoid teachers doing anything that could affect repeat business. Failure to follow this rule could lead to anything from official warnings through termination.
I was definitely not part of the “cool” group, but I would prefer to think that my exclusion was due to interaction with students. It really doesn’t matter now, but I was feeling pretty excluded at the time, in addition to being homesick for Christmas.
December 25, 2003 – Christmas chicken for all
Posted by Barniferous in Friends and coworkers, Kawasaki Nova, Life in Japan, Yokohama on December 25, 2013
I was woken up by two phone calls from Canada wishing me Merry Christmas very loudly into my hungover brain. It was nice to hear some familiar voices, but did they really need to shout?
At work I got to inform a student that she was ready for a level up. If a student’s ability is good enough, a teacher will fill out a level up slip and put it in to the student’s file. The next teacher will then agree with the level up, or give reasons for denying it. I was the second teacher, so I was happy to agree and then left the teacher’s room to find the student on her way out. I told her that I had a Christmas present for her and handed over the level up slip. She burst into a huge smile and looked like she was ready to give me a big hug. This would have been very un-Japanese, not to mention getting me in trouble with NOVA. I wished her a Merry Christmas on her way to schedule her level up test.
After work all of the teachers and some of the Japanese staff went to a Christmas house party in Yokohama. We changed trains in Yokohama station and I was surprised to see a long line of nicely dressed young couples waiting to purchase KFC. In Japan, Christmas is more of a day for couples than for families. Young couples will dress up nicely, get some KFC special Christmas fried chicken, and in many cases go to a love hotel. It’s no Christmas turkey, but not a bad way to spend the day either.
The house party was a good opportunity to spend time with some of my coworkers outside of the office. Usually I spend most of my free time with the other people in Hello House. I even got a chance to practice some of my Japanese with the NOVA staff in attendance. I would have preferred to be spending time with my family, but it was still good to be around people.
On my way home, I noticed some well dressed young couples riding home on the train holding hands. Apparently it was a good night for all.
Merry Christmas!
(complete rewrite of original post)
Drinking in Japan 
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