It has begun...

After the updates I kinda feel more like updating this thing more often, its spurred me on to post more than I was before (i.e. at all). Ive done a fair amount since those updates, we had a three day weekend (which was necessary, lazing around has never felt so good) and then we properly started work (I say we properly started because we've now started the 10 minute early morning lessons with the year 1 junior classes and we've also started evening classes).

Firstly, the weekend. After spending 2 days lazing around doing nothing except sleeping, eating and making katakana/hiragana flash cards (exciting stuff) I finally got to leave the house on Sunday after Lynsey and Tom invited us out to the Indian festival in harajuku. After a burger lunch in Shibuya (shiBOOYA) we walked to harajuku to visit the Meiji shrine before going to the festival. Meiji shrine is huge, infact the gardens themselves are massive - it takes a decent 5 - 10 minutes of walking just to reach the shrine after going through the gate. After taking pictures of a wedding that was taking place there (a very public wedding infront of 20 billion tourists) we threw a 5 yen coin (the luckiest coin to put in apparently) into this... box... or something and made a wish. Apparently this wasnt enough for Erling who paid 500yen (about £2.50) more for a little wooden plaque to write a wish on and to hang up in the shrine. Till this day it remains a mystery what was actually wrote on that plaque, scholars maintain the translation was lost hundreds of years ago but I believe it had something to do with beer, curry and karaoke. Lukcily the gods looked down upon Erling that day and it was granted in the form of an Indian festival followed by karaoke. All in all, a good day.

After a hugely busy day on monday (10 minute morning lesson, five 50 minute lessons during the day and an evening class at 6) I was fairly knackered and a bit worried about being far too busy from now on (I miss my lazy life). This feeling however has completely been decimated after an amazing day today. We had the same 10 minute morning lesson, the same five 50 minute lessons but then we also had the PTA (parent-teacher association) class for an hour. I was terrified, first lesson teaching alone and I had to prepare it all before hand. In the end it was ace, I was taking the intermediate class which only consists of 4 people with pretty good English, and they put so much effort in it was unreal. The lesson Id planned led on to a massive chat for the last 15 minutes (by accident, it wasnt planned - but it was good practice for them, and less teaching for me), and then the feedback was great aswell - its a massive confidence boost for a nerve-wracking lesson to go well. And straight after that class finished I went up to the JM hall for my first Shorinji Kempo practice (a martial art Im starting), again a little nervous for me because none of them speak English but it ended up being ridiculously fun. The students were friendly as owt (possibly because I dont teach any of them), and some of them were a proper laugh - they were trying their best to speak english and I was throwing in Japanese where I could but the language barrier didnt really matter because they were funny as hell and immensely friendly. Its just too bad I dont teach kids like them (I hope none of my students ever read this - if they do then this is...erm...english humour... yeah thatll do...). They were also really impressed with my karate katas for some unknown reason (probably because karate is way cooler than shorinji kempo), which is weird because in england if you said you did karate people really dont care, but in Japan you tend to get a lot of "ooooooh karate!" and they sound genuinely impressed (hopefully not just humouring me). All in all, this was the funnest day at work so far and its really sealed the deal that this year is gonna be mint.

Wow, it seems I cant stop talking about myself, so yeah, I'll stop now before this post gets waaaay too long. Leave some comments or email me etc, let me know how stuffs going down back at home.

Mike.

Bunkasai - The school festival

This last week was the week of the school festival - or bunkasai. This means alot of things but for us it meant a week with no teaching, expensive food and working a national holiday. Although describing it like that makes it sound worse than it was, mostly because it was ace. The festival itself was on the monday and tuesday and essentially every class turn their classroom into something to raise money for the school - so things like restaurants, cafes, haunted houses, crossdressing maid cafes, that sort of thing. Hold up, crossdressing maid cafes what the... The girls in the school are told they arent allowed to host a maid cafe so the lads in one class dressed up like women and held their own maid cafe, it was... how do I put this... disturbing. Infact the reaction of one girl pretty much sums it up - she walked into the cafe and about 10 seconds later ran out of the exit looking horrified shouting the equivalent of "AHHH GROSS".

Other than that though it was all amazing, the haunted house was done really well, the food was quality (still a complete rip off though) and the ice cream/crepe cafes were class. I spent so much money over the two days on food it was unreal. Aswell as the classes being transformed, several clubs did performances - the orchestra was amazing, if youd heard the music you would never have guessed they were high school students, the shorinji kempo shows were great (and Im joining their club on monday so more posts about it to come fo sho), there were also dancers, cheerleaders, baton twirlers, bands, and a play by the foreign language society.

On the thursday after the festival was over and cleaned up, the entire school went across to Hokutopia, this massive theatre, for some speeches and for afew of the shows from the bunkasai to be performed again. This was possibly the first time Ive done a speech to over 1,000 people never mind a speech in Japanese, but alas I did it, I didnt slip up, and no one laughed so Id say that was a success. It also means that I dont think Ill ever be nervous infront of a class of 30 kids anymore, because I know true fear. After falling asleep during a 2 hour maths speech (all in Japanese), it was time for the shows - some were amazing like the orchestra, the shorinji kempo and the choirs but afew misshaps also happened. The foreign language society performed the wizard of oz and dorothy tripped over the yellow brick road, the mics stopped working at times and the curtain was pulled too early. Still a good show, but I felt so bad watching so many problems going on after the amazing shows they put on on the smaller stage at bunkasai.

I'll make this the last post for today (I've already posted 3 stupidly long ones) and hopefully Ill try to update this regularly instead of having to make so many posts at once to catch up. No promises.

Mike Burns

Second catch up post

Thats me in my suit on my first day of work. Looking good, eh?

Again this is mostly copypasta'd from an email to my parents. Oh well. Original content soon to come Im sure.

Afew days later (long weekend due to monday being a national holiday) I started work in Oji. There is nothing more nerve racking than getting up infront a class of Japanese kids, who cant stop staring at the only foreigner in the room, and then introducing yourself. Once the introductions over you feel slightly relieved but then come the questions, and I guarantee atleast one girl in every class will get bullied by her classmates into asking if you have a girlfriend, which the rest of the class find hilarious. My 3-1 class also seem to find it hilarious that I look like 2 people in their year, which meant that they started going crazy part of the way through my introduction - I didnt know what the hell was going on, or how to control them so I just kind of stood there looking embarassed. Essentially most of my lessons, apart from the PTA class and the ex-PTA class, are team teaching where Im just an assistant to help with marking, to read things out or talk to them in english etc. Just to add on about teaching, my 1-7 (i think they were 1-7) are apparently amazing at noticing look-a-likes so three girls in the back were quick to point out that I look like Buzz Lightyear which is my new nickname (only with those 3 though, luckily the rumour hasnt spread to the rest of the class - athough Barney-sensei seems to find it amusing).

A few pictures to make this post a bit more interesting:

LtoR: Me, Mike, Kuni, Wakana, Matsuya?, Lynsey, Erling, Tom

LtoR: Erling, Matt, Me, Hina, Yumi

First catch up post

A small backstreet in Akihabara

Sorry about not posting at all, Ive been really lazy about it and if Im honest I really couldnt be bothered to update the blog. However here I am now, about to copy and paste from an email to my parents, laziness all the way.

When we arrived after 30 odd hours of travelling we were fairly knackered after barely sleeping on the plane and being smacked in the face with jet lag, but we perservered and eventually got through customs/immigration (the tightest immigration control EVER with a fingerprint scanner, a photograph taken and several forms filled out for every single person going through). Eventually, through my amazing sense of direction and navigation, we made our way through Narita airport and got our bags sent off to our soon-to-be homes aand got bus tickets to Shibuya where we met up with Mai and Aiko, two girls who volunteered to take us to the volunteer centre. We then stayed in Shibuya for a few days in hotel suave, being shown around Tokyo and having meals paid for us left right and centre.

All in all a great first few days with karaoke and sightseeing (to an extent), didnt really take many pictures Im afraid, mostly due to laziness - who'd hav guessed? In these few induction days we also visited the Earthquake centre where we shown how to react in an earthquake, how to navigate through a burning house and how to use a fire extinguisher (however it was all in japanese so really it was just a joke). On the saturday we got taken to Junten High School and our flat in Oji. Oji is a reeeeeally nice place, our flat isnt what Id call nice but its still great - its got character. Despite being a fair distance from the centre of Tokyo, Oji is still a really lively place with its share of skyscrapers (well, buildings alot taller than any in england anyways, not quite skyscrapers). After being shown around the school and our flat, the teachers then took us out for a meal, which was ace - the food around here is seriously amazing, I dont think Im going to be able to eat when I get back home (if I come back home that is).

View from our appartment

The next morning I woke up at 6 in the morning (the first of many early mornings) because the girls were flying up to hokkaido so I took a train to shibuya but got there far too early so I had a McBreakfast (I assumed it might be easy to order in there with it being a western establishment, I was wrong, oh so wrong "cheeseburger please" "random japanese and then pointing at breakfast menu" "oh breakfast only? ok ill have this please" "random japanese" "ehhh?"). Anyhow I then made my way to hotel suave and then went with them to Haneda airport and then found myself with nothing to do on the other side of tokyo, only to use my previously mentioned amazing nagivational abilities to make my way to akihabara (electric town) for a half day sightseeing trip. Akiba is... interesting to say the least. Imagine an entire city where shops only sell electronics, video games, anime and manga... and then throw in some girls wandering around dressed like maids and some arcades and then you have a fairly acurate image of what Akihabara is like.I then made my way back to Oji, arriving back only to be met by Mike (previous volunteer), Lynsey (another previous volunteer) and Erling to go out for a meal followed by karaoke.