Hong Kong day trip

Well, a day trip with Hong Kongers rather than to Hong Kong. Bit misleading there. I'll try to keep text to a minimum with this post, and fill it up with pictures rather than words as I notice I sometimes type more than is humanly readable. Well, I popped into school on Friday and Nakahara-sensei let me know that I was invited to go on a day out with the Hong Kongese. It ended up being Me, Mikey, some PTA members, afew Junten students and aload of Hong Kongians and it was great fun. We went to Ueno zoo, as you can see in these pictures, which is ace. We didn't have time to go all the way around though, so I definitely intend to go back sometime.

This is a pic of Mikey with two of the Hong Kongos and a big fluffy panda. Ueno zoo was famous for its giant panda not long ago... until it died. I didn't get to see a panda =(

After the zoo, we headed to Akihabara, the wonderful place it is. Me and Mikey went for a wander when everyone was given free time. Afew things which made my day: I played Street Fighter 4. Its only out in arcades at the moment and its class. I clearly haven't lost my SF skill that I gained when I was six, firing off those hadokens and shoryukens like no ones business. Also, there was a PC for £2.50 in one shop. No joke. Two pounds, fifty pence. Didn't tell you the spec, but I'm sure the price speaks for itself in this case, but still, an under three-quid computer!

It was quite fun trying to get from Ueno to Akihabara to Odaiba (our next destination) with more than 30 people in a group. JR didn't know what hit them when we turned up. Trying to make sure everyones there, getting on the right train and getting off at the right stop makes for a lot of hassle but its completely made up for by the looks on a few, select, Japanese faces. The only way I can describe their faces is with what I'd expect them to be saying in their heads (and this isnt most Japanese people, just a select few who I saw): "CHINESE PEOPLE? ON MY TRAINS? PREPOSTEROUS! AND THEY BRING WHITE PEOPLE TOO! HAVE THEY NO SHAME?!" This is of course a joke, but there were still some hilarious faces when people realised there was about 40 foreigners filling up an entire carriage of the train.

In Odaiba (my second time here, I came to Odaiba with Nakahara sensei and his family back in our first week at Junten) there's a huge ferris wheel from which you can see a vast distance of Tokyo, theres a beach, theres the Sega Joypolis (a themepark), several shopping centres, an Edo period hot spring theme park and alot more. We did none of this. We went to the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. What a godawful trip for the Hong Kongans. They come to Japan and where does Japan send them? A musem about science. Thats not just a museum, the've doubled - no quadtrupled - the boredom factor by chucking the word science in there. It did make for an interesting trip, but only when I was late to leave and half the people had already left and the others waiting for me. When I finally got to them it turned out Mikey was still in there, and after 30 minutes of tannoy messages and searching we found him. Ok, when I said it was an interesting trip, the interesting bit started after we left the museum, but never mind.

All in all, a good day, and what makes it best is that Junten are subsidising our travel and food costs (thats right Junten, you pay for my kebab, and you pay for it good).

Junten Christmas Party: Round 2

We had a second christmas party hosted by the English department on Wednesday, which was ace, probably a lot better than the first. The hong kong students had just arrived at Junten and I was shocked at how outgoing they all were. Not a single shy one to be seen, which is a massive change from the Japanese students. Dozens of them asked for photos with us, compared to the zero Japanese students that have asked me for one. They were a really friendly bunch, and their English was spot on which again came as a shock since Japanese students, in general, speak pretty poor English.

Tons happened on the day, free lunch (clearly the most important), Christmas games (mostly the same as the other party), singing 12 days of christmas, a performance by Junten's choir club (first I'd heard of one existing), another by the foreign language club. Then after a few presentations about Christmas in Hong Kong, Germany and Scotland, we were given an amazing performance of Shorinji Kempo. It was really ace, normally they just go out and perform a few embus, but here they kind of made a backstory and turned it into an English language skit, a really funny one at that about some Yakuza stealing someone's manga and this person eventually learning Shorinji and being able to get his stuff back. Included in the story were fighting mothers: played by male shorinji students in pink aprons; and Doraemon with a gun (I think. It was a guy in blue with a bell, I'm sure it was meant to be Doraemon or some other kids character anyhow). The brass band also gave a show, which was the most intense thing of the day. They seriously never cease to amaze me, every time I've seen them play it's been top notch. Really hard to believe that they're a school club and not a professional band.

And yes, thats me dressed as santa. I was forced to, but luckily only for a short bit of time to dish out some sweets.

Not a bad party I have to say. It's just too bad the Hong Kong students leave on monday, it was quite nice to have a huge amount of English speakers in Junten.

My ear is numb...

Yeah... my ear is numb. The kind of numb you get in your face after getting anaesthetic at the dentist. I don't know why it started, and it didn't go away after a day's sleep. If it continues I shall have to go see a doctor tomorrow, I guess. I assume I mightve fell asleep on the train in a funny way, or atleast I hope thats all it is. The internet didn't manage to comfort me.

I went out to a club last night with some people and on the way back at, maybe, 5 am or something I kept falling asleep on the train. I was on the yamanote line which is essentially a huge circle and it'd take over an hour to go all the way around it. I went all the way around atleast twice. I just kept falling asleep and then waking up and realising I'm at a station before the station I actually got on at. And then for some reason I kept on getting off thinking it was my stop, only to find out it wasn't, and then having to wait for the next train to come. It took me about 5 hours to get home, when it should've been a 35 minute journey. And I wasn't even that drunk. Well maybe a little.

Small Update

As far as holidays go, I'm pretty sure I haven't had one so far, despite my official status of "on holiday" since last thursday. Although I haven't punched in at work since thursday, theres only been two days I haven't been in, Friday and Sunday. On Friday I took a trip to Akihabara to look for a DS 'game' which is essentially a kanji dictionary. I found it but decided not to buy it, due to £20 being too much for something I decided that I probably wouldnt use, I can wait until I properly get into learning kanji I guess.

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At the weekend, apart from an exhausting day of standing in the freezing cold for 5 hours by myself, was pretty relaxing (but the kind of relaxing which is on par with boring). The only interesting thing that happened was managing to catch some of the sunderland game live through a chinese website. Needless to say, watching an english game live via china didn't make for a stable connection, and it was only watchable for a little while but I managed to catch a fair amount of us trouncing West Brom taking us out of the relegation zone... only to go straight back in after Newcastle's 3 - 0 win.

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The english christmas party at Junten, yesterday, was set for fail. For the first half an hour, only 3 people turned up apart from us dirty foreigners. No one had done much advertising, unlike the halloween party where we put posters on every floor of the main building and told every class at least 3 times. Despite our lack of effort (which I still believe was made up for with our effort in making awesome decorations), 2-6 class came to our rescue! Nearly the entire class turned up and meant that a party actually happened. We played a few games, tons of chocolate was dished out and then we sung the 12 days of christmas with pairs having each part. I say pairs, I had to sing the "five golden rings" bit alone, the hardest bit of the entire song for the worst singer. Cheers lads. Needless to say, I forgot to sing a few times, was out of key for the majority and even managed to screw up the rhythm completely, but by the end I was semi-pro I tell thee now. Just before the final game, 1-7 class finally turned up (Junten had them in the JM Hall for some lecture or something), we played pass the parcel (I won nothing, again fairly needless to say). All in all, I have to say: huge success.

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Today was a rather odd tuesday. Our first tuesday 'off', and although I did turn up to work, it obviously wasn't it's normal hectic tuesday. Our lunchtime class gave us £50 each as a gift for our journey to Hokkaido, absolute legends they are, and then Nishimura-san sorted out my gaijin card which I signed up for months ago and forgot to collect. I am now officially an alien, and I have the card to prove it.

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The thing which really made this tuesday strange, though, was that instead of teaching classes all day, I instead practiced shorinji for hours... and hours... and hours. From 2 til 5. Insanity, I tell you now. The shorinji crew were awesome though, during a break I asked for some help with my speech (more on that after) and they spent ages reading through the Japanese, correcting it and re-writing it out. For the 1-6 class students I'm sure it felt good for them to be on the teaching end of the stick, because in my lessons they clearly hate being on the student end. The speech I mentioned was sprung on us yesterday. Apparently at the Junten end of year party, the one where we're the only ones not allowed to drink, we have to give a speech in japanese to a load of rowdy, drunken teachers. Fun, fun, fun, eh? Possibly not, I've been told that they're quite a tough crowd when drunk and probably won't pay attention. I'd prefer the good, sober attention where they're amazed at my Japanese, but I guess no attention is better than getting negative responses.

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Tomorrow should be fun. On the internet I've found a volunteer japanese class that teaches four times a week in the same building as I voluntarily teach english on a wednesday night. I'll be checking that out tomorrow morning which should be good fun, if its still running and the website isn't outdated of course. The great thing about the lessons though, is the website says they're 2 hours long and only cost 100yen each (for the record thats about 50p). That means £2 a week for 8 hours of lessons, should I attend them all. Not bad eh? And on top of the lesson, the hong kong students are arriving tomorrow. They'll be treated to a shorinji performance (which I dont have to take part in, yus!), some singing and a christmas party. That's right, I get to go to another christmas party, with more chocolate. Score! More on how this went in a later update, no doubt.

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Well, I managed to keep this to a small update didn't I... lol. Never mind. I get too carried away with typing when I start.

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Laters!

Red Cliff

Last weekend I went to see what was possibly one of the best films I have ever seen in my life. Red Cliff is a huge Chinese epic about the Battle of Red Cliff in the Three Kingdoms period in China. I can barely use words to explain how amazing this film was. It was indeed epic, some of the battles and scenes could easily match up to the epic nature of the Lord of the Rings films, it was gory, but not in a ridiculous or an unbelievable way - more in a "Jesus Christ, that must have hurt" kind of way, and the fight scenes were amongst the best I've ever seen in any film, hollywood or asian.

Needless to say this is a must see film. Seeing it at the cinema in Tokyo, the film was in Chinese with Japanese subtitles so I didn't understand a word, but the film itself made up for this. I did find a version with English subtitles on the internet though and after watching it last night, mostly to try to get a jist of the story, it made the film 10, no maybe 20, times better. The story is really intense, and for anyone who has ever played the Dynasty Warrior games or read anything on Chinese history there are many names you will instantly recognise.

The best thing by far about this film is that although this is primarily an epic war/martial arts film, it doesn't take itself too seriously and manages to pull in elements of comedy here and there, while at the same time maintaining the seriousness necessary for a film depicting war. Another amazing feat of the film is the strategies used by the characters, I dont know a huge amount about Chinese history but I assume/hope that they are all historically correct because there were sometimes when I sat there in the cinema, my mouth gaping open in awe as one army falls into an amazingly intricate trap set by the other force.

Sadly, in Europe, you're only getting a shortened version, whereas here in Asia we're getting two volumes, the next being released in April. I really implore you to find a way to watch the full length films, even if that means importing the DVDs when they come out.

This film has also really interested me in Chinese history itself, to the point that Sun Tzu's the Art of War is actually in the post and ready to be delivered tomorrow. Amazon.co.jp is so handy! Screw credit cards, they give you a code, you go around to the convenience store, give them the code and then pay the bill, within half an hour Amazon will let you know they've got your payment and your order has been dispatched. Not too shabby, eh? I also bought The Book of Five Rings -a Japanese historical book on strategies, so I'm keeping up with my Japanese culture too! And since both of these books together cost about £7.50, including packing costs, and they'll both be delivered the day after ordering, I'd say this wasn't a bad impulse buy at all and they'll go quite well with the Bushido book one member of my evening class, Ohsuga-san, bought me.

Holidays are coming...

Well, my holidays begin tomorrow. Thats a month when the only day I have to work is Christmas day. I'd say one days work to make up for a month off is fine with me! The only thing is... Im going into work at normal time tomorrow, on my first day off. And then Im going into work on Friday. Oh and Saturday, and then Monday and Thursday next week, and I might start going in for Shorinji Kempo on evenings... so yeah, Im spending half my holidays at work! This might sound insane, but there is method in my madness. Japanese is so hard to learn alone so Im going in to steal some time from the exchange students to teach me some, or anyone I can get a hold of for that matter! Watch out 1-7 students, or you'll be recruited into the army which is Mike's battalion of Japanese senseis!

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But yeah, I figured that spending my time in school studying would probably be a better use of my time than sitting in the flat watching TV and on the internet. It'll also be nice to go into Junten without having working hours, or work for that matter. I enjoy being there and having a crack on with the students but sometimes the lack of breaks really limits the amount of fun you can have, so having days of permanent breaks will be ace.

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Update on the UCAS application: Leeds 1 - Mike 0. Touche Leeds, touche. Leeds have said no, not entirely a suprise after the rude emails I got from the guy a while back saying that my ABC is not fit for a BBB course as its an academic course and needs academic ability. Yeah, thanks Leeds, I apologise for my terrible academic skill. Sheffield, on the other hand, have gave me an offer. At the minute, Newcastles probably my first choice, but Im keeping Sheff in mind. Lets wait and see on a result from Newky, then.

The taste of home...

A few weeks back I felt a little bit homesick, now that its over I figure it's a good time to let you in on some weird habits that I've picked up for that "close to home" feeling.

The first being football (when typing that out, I nearly typed soccer... argh, having to say soccer instead of football to Americans is turning into a bad habit). For some strange reason a few weeks back I started being really interested in SAFC. I have no idea why, as it started a little before the homesickness, but really stepped up during that period. Back at home, most people know that I was more against football than for. At most I'd watch the world cup, and I rarely even did that, although I did try to keep up with it. The only sports I was really interested in watching on TV was the Judo during the olympics, and boxing, MMA and Muay Thai on the fight network. Im struggling to find places to watch Sunderland matches here (by struggling I mean its not going to happen, ever) but watching the highlights and keeping up with the EPL news is easy enough. Any one with any idea on how to catch EPL games in Japan that aren't just the big four, give me a heads up.

The next is drinking Newky Brown. Never wanted to touch the stuff back at home, mostly because of it looking thick and black, but it's actually some of the nicest stuff I've ever drank and really easy to get a hold of in any english or irish bar over here. Although strictly, it isn't a hometown drink, it's still nice to feel that step closer to the north east. It tasting good is clearly just a nice bonus. For any one who hasn't tried it, I really reckon you should its really good stuff.

The last is Mountain Dew. Ok, this isn't quite the right place to put it because I've never seen Mountain Dew in England but I tell you now it's heaven in a green, sparkly can. It obviously doesn't make me feel close to home at all but I still felt the need to post this because I've been drinking it by the gallon over here. Anyone within a train journey of an American import shop needs to get a crate of this. Yahoo Mountain Dew, as Barney would say.

Next episode: Japanese food and drink. For proof that I don't just live off imported booze and caffeinated soft drinks.

Christmas Carols, Dodgeball and Nearly Dying

Well. This week killed me. Like, well and truly had me knackered. I've never had so little free time in my entire life. I am probably exaggerating how bad it was but I didn't even have enough time to reply to emails, it's been that bad. Here's a round up of the weeks events:

月Monday - Monday wasn't too bad. Like usual we had a fairly busy day with few breaks, but it wasn't hugely taxing. Evening class as normal, followed by an izakaya trip with a few of them.

火Tuesday - This is where it really kicked in. We had our usual insane tuesday. Only in this case, about 10 minutes after finishing our after school PTA class, we were whisked off via one of the school shuttle buses to Shinden campus. At Shinden, we taught the 2-3 class who are going on a trip to British Hills (some crazy 'British' style village just out of Tokyo) for an hour, with me, Erling and Barney taking three seperate lessons at the same time. This was followed by a pretty good meal for school dining hall standards and then by an hour of playing Snowball Fighting in he sports hall. Essentially this is dodgeball where everyone on the team gets a few small spongeballs, with a flag to capture. We then proceeded, naturally, to play dodgeball with a volleyball. Fun, fun, fun. The kids werent too bad though, if anything they were a good laugh. One kid, I have no idea why or how he learned this word but it amused me anyway, started calling me the Sex Machine, and he'd call me this while dancing the robot. I have no idea why this started, or whether he even understands the phrase, but it was weird and kinda scary non-the-less. Anyhoo, after the sports, Barney and I hit the gym for a bit. Staying in the dormitories there wasn't too bad though, apart from having to spend an entire 30 or more hours in Junten.

水Wednesday - After being woken up at 6am by the Junten theme song (the godawful tune it is) and half an hour classical music, I wasn't best pleased. At all. Luckily Wednesday was pretty normal apart from spending some time putting up Christmas decorations in the ELC before the evening class.

木Thursday - A normal day with lessons, nursery and the ex-PTA, followed by another stay at Shinden with 2-1 class. By this time, I'm pretty shattered since both our usual free evenings are now full. Free time is non-existant.

金Friday - Friday's timetable was followed by an after school class teaching the 3rd year juniors who are going to New Zealand. Ergh. And then there was a bonenkai (end of year party) at the volunteer centre in Setagaya which, although it was pretty fun, was again fairly tiring after the week I'd had. They also made me do a speech in Japanese. Argh.

土Saturday - Saturday, a day of rest, a day of lying in, a day of doing nothing, was sacrilegiously busy. I was forced to get up early to go to the nursery at 10. TEN IN THE MORNING! ON A SATURDAY! I did it though, and we went with it being the mochi (a kind of rice cake) festival. I nearly died infront of several 3 or 4 year olds. Those rice cakes do not taste good at all, and to top it off they are unchewable and pretty large. Trying to swallow doesn't work and before you know it its clogging your throat while still attached to the bits in your mouth and refusing to go down. I think I hid my dying quite well, but after a minute of pain and intense near vomiting, I was fine and no one had noticed anything. I look up at Erling only to see his eyes bright red and glazed over. Seems I wasn't the only one to succumb to the murderous poison which is mochi. Later on, when we went to see Matt's British Embassy Chorus performance on the evening, Barney told us that several people a year die from eating mochi around New Years time. Never again, I tell you. Never. Again.