Return to Japan 2013: July 6 – departure
Posted by Barniferous in Movies, Return to Japan on July 12, 2013
When you stay up too late packing, 5am comes way too quickly. In a zombie like state I called for a taxi and took all of my stuff out to the curb to wait. Doing this I completely forgot to take out the garbage, which was one of the key thing to do before I left.
The taxi driver was a young Indian man who was very chatty. His father owns the cab and drives during the day. The son gets to drive at night which allows the taxi to make money all day. He had just finished a typical Friday night shift of picking up and dropping off drunk people. If you ever want to get an idea of what your city is really like at night, talk to a taxi driver.
At the airport a young man blatantly cut his way ahead in the security line. Nobody said anything, either due to extreme politeness or because it was 6:00am and everyone was too tired. I hope he got “randomly selected” for extra screening.
My first flight was Winnipeg to Vancouver. Unfortunately it was too cloudy to see the Rocky Mountains from the airplane. If you ever get a chance to fly over the Rockies make sure you have a window seat. It really gives you a good perspective on how massive (and pointy) the mountains are.
After landing in Vancouver, I had a 4 hour wait before my flight to Tokyo. It’s nice to have some time to relax in an airport, but 4 hours is a bit too long, especially with a shitty free wi-fi connection. There are only so many times you can look at duty free stores that sell the same products.
Finally the boarding started and I got to jam myself into a tiny window seat for the 10 hour flight to Tokyo. Shortly after takeoff we got our dinner. The choice was beef or chicken. I chose beef and got served the saddest looking gyudon that I had ever seen (as seen above). I have flown across the Pacific Ocean with Air Canada 8 times before so I didn’t have terribly high expectations, but this was the worst airplane food I can remember.
During my 10 hour flight I managed to get about 2 hours of sleep, ate two forgettable meals, and watched Argo (great), Quiz Show (good) and Identity Thief (okay). Other than the food and lack of sleep, the flight was good and landed about 20 minutes early. The adventure on the ground picks up in the next post.
Return to Japan 2013 – July 5 preparation
Posted by Barniferous in Return to Japan on July 10, 2013
Work has been incredibly busy lately. As my company approaches fiscal year end, the work has begun coming in faster than it is going out. Selling my boss on a 2 week vacation during a busy time would have been difficult if the trip was not family related.
My wife is Japanese, and an only child. She has been living in Canada for about 7 years now. As her parents get older, this is becoming a bit of a challenge. We try to go back to visit about every second year. Our original plan was to go right after Christmas in order to be in Japan for New Years, which is the big family holiday in Japan. This also works out better with the weather and my work schedule. However, this year The Mother in Law really needed some time with her daughter, so we decided to do our visit in the summer.
The Wife does not work on Fridays, so first thing in the morning I dropped her off at the airport, one day earlier than my departure. My plans for the day included working, dropping off keys with my sister, buying souvenirs for 2 people, buying new sandals, packing everything and taking out the garbage to avoid it marinating in the heat of an empty house for 2 weeks.
I work for the Canadian branch of a giant multinational company. Our office does not have an abundance of employees, so I do several different jobs and don’t have a specific person that covers my desk when I am away. Getting ready for a long vacation requires doing twice as much work before I can leave the office, and about twice as much on the week I return. For this reason I ended up working overtime.
After work I went home, with grand plans of a quick dinner and en immediately leaving to get my shopping done. Afterwards I would pack quickly and get to bed by 11.
Then the Internet happened.
It was one of those “let me just check one site” Internet experiences that turned into a level 5 procrastination session.
I pried myself away from the computer just before 9. First stop was the liquor mart to get some Fort Garry beer and Ice Wine as souvenirs. After that I stopped at Walmart for sandals and some Mrs Vickie’s chips, and ended up picking up a few more bottles of maple syrup. When traveling to Japan you can never bring enough maple syrup. No trip to Walmart can be done quickly, so I ended up back at home around 10:30 to start packing. I ended up getting to sleep around 12:30 with the alarm set for 5:00am.
Stupid entertaining Internet.
An interlude: Return to Japan 2013
Posted by Barniferous in Return to Japan on July 10, 2013
In the middle of preparing for the launch of my Japan: 10 years later blog, I find myself in Japan again to visit the inlaws. In the time leading up to my departure, I had the very best intentions to save about a years worth of 2003 blog posts and work on getting them updated and ready to go while on this vacation. However, in the rush to get ready for my trip, I totally forgot about the blog.
Since I am here and have free time, I thought I might as well blog about the trip I am currently on. I will be in Japan for 2 weeks, mainly to visit the in laws with my wife, but also to meet up with some old friends and do some sightseeing. Also, this provides a much needed break from the office.
So please enjoy the mundane tales of a 2 week visit with my Japanese family.
The Jet Programme
Posted by Barniferous in Before Japan, The Ex on June 15, 2013
One day in my Intermediate Japanese class the professor told us about an upcoming seminar about opportunities to work and learn in Japan. I attended the seminar and learned about The Jet Programme. The Jet Programme is a long running Japanese government program to bring foreign English teachers to Japan. Being a JET teacher gets you a free trip to Japan, housing subsidies and a juicy tax free salary. The work all takes place at public schools. The downside is that many of the teaching positions are in small towns in the middle of nowhere.
Overall things sounded good, so I filled out the extensive application forms and sent them in for processing. I was contacted some time later to set up an interview at the Manitoba Japanese Canadian Culture Centre. To prepare for my interview I did a lot of online research about Japan and found some blogs written by people who had lived and taught in Japan.
My JET interview could have gone better. The interviewers were 3 intense looking people in suits who asked a lot of tough questions; why did I want to teach, how would I cope if I was the only foreigner in a small town, would I be okay if the teacher just wanted me to pronounce a list of words to the class, things like that. One of the things they focused on was my business degree. They wanted me to explain how an accounting degree would make me qualified to teach English. I answered that because I had practice explaining accounting concepts to non accounting people I could explain English to non English speakers. I made a reasonably good showing until the ending, where they decided to test my general knowledge of Japan. When I was unable to correctly name the emperor it pretty much sealed my fate.
I got a rejection letter a few weeks after the interview and discussed it with my Japanese prof. She told me that one of my classmates had been hired, but she thought I would have been a much better choice. Apparently the JET interviewers were giving preference to arts and education degrees, and my business degree was a major obstacle.
I was feeling pretty down about not getting hired. The Ex sympathized, but I think she was a little relieved that I would not be leaving the country for a year. I decided instead of giving up, I would find another place to teach English and be the best English teacher that the country had seen. I didn’t quite get that good, but I do believe that the JET Programme missed out.
The Penpal
Posted by Barniferous in Before Japan, The Penpal on June 1, 2013
Another one of the important characters in my upcoming adventures is The Penpal.
In my second last year of University I took an elective Japanese language course. I liked it so much that I wanted to continue with another Japanese course in my final year of school. My biggest concern was losing my language abilities in the 4 months between semesters. Winnipeg has a very small Japanese community, so I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to find language partners in person. Faced with a challenge, I turned to the internet for assistance.
Searching for foreign language exchange partners brings you to a wide array of websites – some legit language exchange sites, many more for finding foreign spouses. I would promote the website that I used, but it has now been replaced with a straight up dating website.
I signed up for an account and created a profile explaining that I was looking for someone to practice Japanese with. In my profile I specifically mentioned that I was a big fan of Radiohead, Pixies, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins and the Beatles. In short order I ended up with penpals from Japan, Korea and the Philippines. One of my Japanese penpals decided to write to me because she shared the same taste in music. She was about the same age as me, and lived in a city called Numazu in Shizuoka prefecture. Like many other Japanese people, she had studied English in school but didn’t have a lot of opportunity to practice in daily life. Out of all of the penpals I got on the website, she and I had the most in common and wrote each other weekly in English and Japanese.
One of the highlights of our email exchanges was when I made a mix CD to send to her. The CD included Queens of the Stone Age, Moist, Our Lady Peace, Frank Black and other music that I was into at the time. Out of the CD, she particularly liked Moist and Our Lady Peace (go Canadian bands!). Not having a CD burner, she responded with a mix cassette. Her cassette included Shiina Ringo, UA, Love Psychedelico and Number Girl. I had never heard of any of them before, but quickly became a fan.
To be clear – I was not looking for a girlfriend. I already had one of those (The Ex). She also had a boyfriend at the time. We were both honestly looking for a language partner, and we both ended up finding a friend. From here forward I will refer to this person as “The Penpal”.
Why Japan?
Posted by Barniferous in Before Japan on May 15, 2013
In my second last year of a business degree at University of Manitoba I needed to pick some electives. Up until that point most of my classes were all accounting and finance related. I decided to give my brain a break and take something completely unrelated to accounting in any way.
In my first attempt at University I took a film studies course that I thoroughly enjoyed. First stop in the course guide – film studies. All of the courses I wanted were full or unavailable. History was another interest of mine, and I noticed a listing for History of Capitalism and History of Communism. Both of these courses were also unavailable.
At this point I started randomly flipping through the course guide to see if I could get any ideas. I happened to stop in the language section. Two courses that caught my attention were Intro to Japanese and Intro to Cantonese. I briefly considered into to Cantonese due to my love of Jackie Chan movies. However, my interest in anime, video games and technology pushed me in the direction of Intro to Japanese. This turned out to be one of the best choices I made in University.
My Intro Japanese course was a full year course starting at the very basics – hiragana and katakana. The class started with about 40 people and 15 dropped out within the first few weeks. In the end there were about 15 Chinese students, 5 Koreans and 5 pasty white Canadians like me. The Chinese students had a big advantage when we started learning kanji because they were already familiar. The Koreans had a big advantage with pronunciation because there are very similar sounds in both languages. Everything was new for me, so the class presented a big challenge.
By the end of the year Intro Japanese was one of my favourite courses because it was a challenge and so different from my other courses. My good experience in the class got me interested in learning more Japanese and the possibility of travelling or teaching in Japan in the future. From randomly flipping through the course guide, I ended up having one of the best adventures of my life.
Preparing for relaunch
Posted by Barniferous in Uncategorized on May 11, 2013
Until a few minutes ago I was having a very productive evening copying my old blog posts, adding notes that I didn’t or could write at the time, and writing posts to fill in the events in between. My original blog wasn’t necessarily censored, but it did leave out a lot of stuff, especially relating to drinking, complaining about my job, or people I met.
I was on a roll, but realized that frantic typing at 1:30am is not conducive to the wife sleeping. Time to call it a night. Old blog posts through the end of September 2003 are now scheduled and ready to go.
The Ex
Posted by Barniferous in The Ex on May 1, 2013
In 2003 I was in the 5th year of a relationship with a woman who will from know on be known as “The Ex”. One of the reasons why The Ex became The Ex is due to my travel to Japan. Although The Ex is not a direct part of my experience in Japan, she is an important figure in the time leading up to my departure, and will occasionally pop up in the story.
Anytime someone talks about an ex-girlfriend, especially one from a long term relationship, there is a risk that the content will end up becoming an angry rant. I will do my best to prevent this from happening. The Ex is an intelligent, hard working person. We just weren’t the right people for each other. 10 years later we are both happily married (to other people, duh) and life goes on.
If anyone is reading this blog (and I hope there is), and you feel that I am being unfairly critical of The Ex, PLEASE feel free to call me out on it. I will try to present a balanced perspective. Thanks!
The best is yet to come
Posted by Barniferous in Uncategorized on April 28, 2013
My Japanese adventures occurred from September 2003 to November 2006. Since I am reblogging 10 years after the original dates there won’t be too much happening on this blog for a while. I do have a few “before Japan” posts coming, and I will try to fill the space with some pictures.
In the meantime, why not check out some music videos on my Tumblr here. Or, stick around here and send a comment or question. Or just disappear and show up in September, your choice.
About me in 2003
Posted by Barniferous in Before Japan, The Ex on April 27, 2013
To give a little context for the upcoming stories of my Japanese adventure, it would probably help to explain a little bit about myself in 2003.
In April 2003 I was finishing my final year of a business degree at the University of Manitoba. This was my second attempt at University after a failed experiment in computer science and a few years off to find some direction. The goal after graduation was to find get a professional accounting designation and find a job in the field of corporate number crunching.
The year before I had made two changes that ended up having a big impact on my life. The first was joining Delta Upsilon Fraternity. I had never considered joining a fraternity before, and honestly didn’t even know there was such a thing in Winnipeg. After turning down several invitations to come and hang out with the brothers, I finally decided to give in and check things out. The experience was great and I ended up being invited to join. Most people join a fraternity in their first or second year of university and end up with a 4 year experience. I had just under 2 before graduation, so I decided to get as much out of my fraternity experience as possible. I ended up gaining some close friends, some great life experience and more importantly got a lot of practice chugging beer.
My other big change in 2002 was to take a Japanese language class as an elective. This led to another Japanese language class, a Japanese history class and getting some Japanese pen pals. If I hadn’t decided on the Japanese language class as an elective I would have likely gotten an accounting job right out of school and never traveled anywhere.
Another important fact about 2003 me was that I was in a 5 year relationship with a woman who will henceforth be known as “the Ex”. Our relationship had started strong and been going well for a while, but at this stage we were both starting to realize that we wanted different things in our life. The Ex had graduated, found a job and was looking to put down some roots. I was about to graduate and looking for a big adventure before I settled down. In April 2003 things were pretty rocky between us.
That’s about it – the Japan adventure really starts about April 2003. Stay tuned!
Drinking in Japan 
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