Transform to Tokyo

Hello everyone! I have finally gotten round to uploading more of my photos, but now I have changed from Flickr to Photobucket, which is a lot better for me (in my opinion, I wasn`t so impressed with Flickr). Anyway, the link is in the `blogroll` or `links` (as most of us call it) section of this website, and just in case you can`t find that, here is a link too: CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS

Anyhow, I hope everyone is doing fine and I will have another post up most likely towards the start of April, so check back around then. Sorry the photos took so long!

Ben

Well, pretty much all of this seems like so long ago, but I will try and write about all of these things today as today our spring holiday begins fully as now Junten lessons, evening lessons and our volunteer activities have all ceased for the time being. We can look forward to going into Junten again another couple of times during our break as we always can, as we have to attend the graduation ceremony on the 16th and then the real last day of school on the 21st. Yes, I can`t wait, I even have my 100yen (50p) white tie all lined up for the graduation ceremony, no doubt it`ll rock hard… Anyway, I haven`t written in this blog for quite some time, and now it is March already and I have just realised that throughout the month of February I did not post at all. Sorry. But obviously things still happened in February, so now I have a gargantuan (wow, nice word) game (nice alliteration) of catch-up to play now. Well, here goes, Faighto!

Yunessun Trip (22nd Jan): Well, a long time back in January, Mike and I had quite a few random days off Junten work so on the days we could we decided to go out and about and do things (occasionally). As written in my last post, on the 22nd we planned to go to Yunessun `Resort and Spa`, home of the most bizarre ideas for onsen (Japanese hot spring bath) ever. Mike`s girlfriend, Minami offered to drive us there as it would be cheaper than taking the train, so we went with her and one of her friend`s Nozomi. In Yunessun there are a variety of `special` baths, some unique to Yunessun (I presume the chocolate bath, coffee bath, red wine bath, sake bath, green tea bath, etc are) and some world baths (such as Roman Baths etc) as well as some water slides into onsen (luckily not too hot) and for afterwards there is an area for a regular onsen (to wash etc). The two more interesting parts of the resort were the `Dead Sea bath` and the `bath that contained some weird fish that eat the dead skin from your feet` (by the way, that’s the official name…nah, not really, I forgot it). The Dead Sea bath was (you guessed it) a simulation of the Dead Sea, so it was a bath containing a ridiculous amount of salt. It was really cool to be able to float on the top of the water, but if you had any cuts on your body, they would really sting. As well, you were only allowed to stay in the bath for 3 minutes at max, presumably for safety reasons. It told us not to drink or taste any of the water, but we did a little bit when no-one was watching and it tastes really, really, really bad, I don`t recommend it. The other bath with the fish in was kind of strange. We just put our feet in the water for several minutes and let these strange fish eat the dead skin of them. At first it really only just tickles, but eventually it gets kind of uncomfortable in my opinion, Mike said he got used to it and actually found it kind of relaxing after a while. Anyway, that’s about all for Yunessun, if you want to see more, here is the website again: http://www.yunessun.com/english/yunessun.html

Snow in Oji! (Maybe 23rd Jan): How exciting! If Oji has snow, what advantaged does Toya have now? (Sorry for the insult lads, only joking) Nah, it only snowed a tiny amount, but everyone was quite shocked and kind of excited. It snowed again one more time and it actually stuck a bit better, but pretty much all of it because slush dead quickly, so walking on the pavement was pretty horrible.

☆My Busy Bonanza Birthday Weekend!☆ :
LM.C Concert (24th Jan): Well, it all started the evening before my birthday in Shibuya at Shibuya O-East as LM.C (which is `lovely-moccochang,com` by the way) were playing and I recently got into them I thought I would go to start my birthday off. Luckily for me, the 25th (my actual birthday) was included as one of our random days off in this month, though even if it wasn`t, I would`ve gone to the concert anyway. It was a really good concert and it was great to see JRock legend Aiji (ex-Pierrot) on stage. After a few weeks ago`s concerts I was quite sad at how arrogant some of the bands were, but luckily these guys weren`t at all and it was great to see this. They certainly rocked harder too! I would love to see them again sometime. ♥
Edo Museum and Hokusai Exhibition (25th Jan): On the actual day of my birthday Mike and I went along to Ryogoku to visit the Edo museum and Hokusai exhibition my mother had recommended last month after going to it with one of her friends. It was good to learn a lot about the Edo period, but the museum also has a section about another period (Meiji I think, there wasn`t that much English) and by the time we got there we were kind of tired and couldn`t concentrate on reading everything word for word. We did however have enough energy to visit the Hokusai exhibit, which was really good, as I do like ukiyo-e (Japanese woodblock prints) because the style really appeals to me.
Film and Quick Drink (25th Jan): Later that day we went to Shibuya to meet some friends (not that many) and tried to go and see Sweeney Todd, but it wasn`t on at a good time anywhere, so we decided to go and see the new National Treasure film, which wasn`t great but was entertaining. After the film we went along to an Izakaya to meet with some of our other friends, who were out with some of their other friends (how confusing). Lots of them seemed to be drunk already and we hadn`t had anything to drink yet at all. We left quite early as we had plans for the next day…
Robot Exhibition failure and Miraikan (26th Jan): The next day we got up and mailed our plans to our friends who went to the film with us last night and headed off to Odaiba to see if the Robot Exhibition was still on at Tokyo Big Sight, like it said on the posters at Junten. Unfortunately it wasn`t and we still had to wait for Hina, one of our friends. We decided to try and go to the `Miraikan` (which literally means `Future Building`), which is a large and very interesting science museum. We got in, but unfortunately could only stay for a few hours before the closing time since we had been so disorganized. We walked (while playing tag) across Odaiba to Decks where we had a buffet and wasted some time before we could get the Joypolis night pass. It was fun!
Return to Joypolis! (26th Jan): We got into Joypolis, yay! (Not that it is hard, you don`t get IDed or anything, it`s just an indoor theme park). We rode on loads of rides until closing time, including the scary ones and the strange question asking crystal maze (unfortunately not like the old-skool game show) which denied all of our combinations from entering `The Cave or Something`…gutted. Anyway, it was a great way to end my birthday weekend and we even had Sunday to rest!

Ramen `Museum` in Shin-Yokohama (1st Feb): On another one of our random days off around this time, Mike and I decided to go to the Ramen Museum in Shin-Yokohama. The Japanese really don`t understand what the word `museum` means, but it was fun anyway. Instead of learning the history of Ramen and things, it is actually just a large indoor Ramen theme park. No roller coasters though, just the top 8 types of Ramen in Japan and you can try them all! (For a fee!) Mike and I only got through 4 of the 8 half portions unfortunately, but maybe one day we will return and complete our mission!

Chinese New Year in Yokohama China Town (7th Feb): Chinese New Year season was around, so kindly, Yumi one of our Monday evening class students offered to take us to the Yokohama China town to see the Chinese new year, which was interesting. We saw several groups of people doing the `Dragon dance` to give good luck to people and the shops in the area. The Dragon dances outside the shop and occasionally `bites` people (which makes them lucky!) and then goes in the shop and then bites the owner of the shop and then goes back outside to again dance and bite whoever he pleases and then jumps up to grab a small envelope that is dangled from the front of the shop (presumably with money in it for the dancers and music players. All the time this is happening every-so-often people set off firecrackers and bang drums, so it is quite an intense atmosphere, but enjoyable none the less. After seeing a few different dragon dances from a few different dragons, Mike, Yumi and I went to an all you can eat Chinese restaurant, which was pretty cool, and though Yumi didn`t rate it so much Mike and I enjoyed eating absolutely loads, especially the desserts at the end. We had a really good evening and didn`t even get back that late, so we weren`t too tired to tell our colleagues about it the next day.

Snowboarding again! Already! (9th, 10th, 11th Feb): We had just come back from Hokkaido (like a month or so ago), but already we were already hungry for some more skiing and snowboarding, and luckily for us one of our friends Sven was planning a trip out to Hakuba in Nagano prefecture. We took a night bus there and arrived at maybe like 6.30am, when we could go to our hotel, dump our stuff off and head out ready to snowboard…the only problem was rental. Well, there were two problems with rental. One, Mike`s shoes size. It took a really long time to find anywhere that stocked something almost his size that he could (almost) comfortably wear. Two, the rental stuff we rented was of rather poor quality and in all sorts of strange states. The board I rented had both bindings 15 degrees forward and with the back one closer to the toe edge than the front one. Not only that, Happo resort (in Hakuba) was strange in that I couldn`t find a tool bench for a while and I went back to the shop and they said there was one at every lift. By that they meant I could go to the lifties, ask for a screwdriver and they would give me a screwdriver and a milk-crate as a bench. Quality. Anyway, the snow was quite good and once we were all sorted and got into it it was fun just all being together and riding around. The surrounding mountains were very beautiful too.

Jun Ten Recitation and Speech Contest (14th Feb♥): What a great event for Valentine`s day! Hmm, maybe not. Every year Junten holds a Recitation and Speech contest, and this year Mike was chosen to judge the junior recitation contest and I was chosen to judge the senior 1st grade recitation contest and the senior 2nd grade speech contest. I trust that you understand that a recitation is a reading of an already existing famous speech from history and that a speech is a self written, original speech on any topic. Anyway, I was very nervous about messing up the judging, but I did my best to keep calm and I eventually devised a system of how to do it, luckily there was a panel of 5 judges, so I wasn`t alone, but it didn`t stop me feeling scared that I would mess up. Also, as judges we weren`t allowed to confer with any of the other judges until after we had handed our papers in at intervals. It was kind of a tough job and I was relieved after it was over. The speech contest was far more interesting than the recitation contest, especially as the first speech was `Hackers vs Crackers` which I found hilarious. No-one even understood when he was almost blatantly racist other than Barney and I. Here`s a direct quote `We must put an end to the evil crackers`. Anyway, he didn`t mean to be offensive, he just didn`t even realise what he was saying. He thought `crackers` only meant people who cracked programs, rather than an offensive term for a Caucasian person. Anyway, the speeches went on and all of them were interesting or at least entertaining. In the end most of the right people won, so I felt that I did a good job.

My Lucky Valentine`s Day (14th Feb♥, duh): Other than having the delight of judging I was very lucky on Valentine`s day. Kaneko sensei had planned (presumably as it was Valentine`s day) a long time ago in November or something, to take his wife to go and see The Police at Tokyo Dome, though unluckily and unfortunately had an operation the Friday before Valentine`s day, so she could not go. Terry (Kaneko sensei`s nickname) had tried to sell the ticket and tried to find someone else to go with him, but he couldn`t find anyone and was even willing to just give the ticket to someone. I thought it had been too long since I saw a concert and I have always wanted to see something at Tokyo dome, so I said I would go (and luckily scored a half-price ticket). Both of us had a good time and enjoyed the band and now I can`t wait to see legendary, father`s of visual kei band, X Japan there on the 29th of March!

Sponsored Run (16th Feb): The sponsored run that we were going to run for Refugees Japan was the following Saturday, but Mike had been feeling ill from Thursday afternoon and even had to take the day off work on Friday. I went along (really early in the morning, I had to get up at 6.30am, which is 45 minutes too early for me anyway) and then stand on a freezing cold bridge to say `good morning` to the students. To me this seemed really pointless, but to Nakahara sensei it was obviously important, so I didn`t complain (about anything but the cold). We had a small (for me second) breakfast in the teachers area and then went along to the end of the opening ceremony and did the group stretching with everyone. Barney arrived and the three of us went along to the Arakawa River for the second warm-up, which consisted of jogging around in a circle instead of stretches. After this we got ready for the race, and even though Barney and I lined up in the middle, Nakahara sensei pulled us forward as we were part of the `faster runners` pack. We set off and I was nearish the front for the first 3 and a half kilometers or so and then I dropped back a bit. After the 4km mark, Nakahara sensei overtook me, and it was my goal to at least stay with him all the way, if not beat him. It hurt, but I managed to do it, and right at the end, he told me to overtake him and finish the race, so I did as he said and came maybe only a few seconds in front of him and finished at about 37 minutes in about 19th or 20th place. I was quite proud of myself and glad all my training had paid off. Barney finished shortly after us and got 41 minutes. Luckily for Mike there would be a rerun in one week`s time. I decided to aim to get a time of 35 minutes in a week`s time, but for now I could have a hard deserved rest, so Barney and I went back to our house.

Dinner at Nakahara-sensei`s house (16th Feb): We got back to our house and checked up on Mike, who now seemed a lot better. Barney and I took showers, as we had been invited to Nakahara sensei`s house for dinner. We got to the stop, met Nakahara sensei`s daughters (for the first time in months and months), went to pick up Yamanaka sensei and then went a long to Nakahara sensei`s house. It was strangely European, and Nakahara sensei had planned an awesome meal for us and certainly made it just right. Nakahara sensei is also a big fan of wines and cheeses, so we were able to try loads of different kinds of wines and cheeses, which was cool. We left pretty late, but it was a really good night, thank you Nakahara sensei!

Second run (23rd Feb): Well, the rerun was finally upon us and I was intrigued to see how Mike would fare with 8km without any prior training. Anyway, it was a slightly different course this time, instead of running 4km and back like last time, we were going to run 8, 1km legs instead. After about the 3km the wind started getting really strong though, and by my 6th kilometre it was immensely strong. Sometimes walking was quicker than running (due to every time both feet were off the ground you`d be blow backwards) and sometimes you really had to sprint to make any progress what so ever. Anyway, the only people who finished the 8km run were Nakahara sensei and I, as they closed the race after 40 minutes. Mike only completed 6km in 40 minutes, so I was anxious that we wouldn`t be able to collect sponsor money even after trying so hard, but Nakahara sensei said it was okay. Luckily for us we finished the 8km at about 41 minutes, as the wind only got stronger and stronger, so we went back to Shinden campus where it wasn`t quite so windy, paid a quick visit to the basketball club and then went home.

Under code Productions concert in Shinjuku (1st March): On March 1st it was the Undercode Productions (a Japanese visual kei independent record label) 5th anniversary and Kisaki`s (legendary JRock bass player and producer, also head of Undercode) birthday event, so I went into the depths of Kabuki-cho (not such a nice part of Shinjuku) to get to Holiday Shinjuku, which is a tiny live house in a 2nd floor basement (B2F) and only holds about 300 or so people. I seemed to be the only foreign person and one of the only men there as always, so I stood out pretty bad, but after people got used to me and kept seeing me (since it was so small), I didn`t matter so much. I`m quite sure I even saw some girls from Junten too, but I can`t really confirm it. Anyway, I arrived there at 3.30pm and left at about 11pm, so I was there for quite a long time (7 and a half hours) but I really enjoyed seeing all of the bands and as in the other small venue I visited (Shibuya O-East) the bands on the stage can quite easily notice a tall foreign male, so I got some attention from them of course, which is cool I guess.

Anyway, that`s about all for now, I`m so relieved I am finished, even though it has taken me several hours to write this, it needed doing. Maybe on my next day when I will do nothing, I will put up some pictures, or maybe even later tonight if you are lucky. Sorry it`s been so long, and please be patient for the next post! Thanks for reading!

Ben

Sorry, this is a post I wrote last month but forgot to post it….sorry! Hopefully do another one soon. Work has just started up again and it`s kind of thrown me off the blog course, but don`t worry I am on my way back onto it. This blogging business sure is tough! Anyway, here is the post I wrote:

Hello! Today is yet another national holiday in Japan, so we have the day off work. Today is in fact the coming of age festival, which I don`t really understand a lot about, but we have seen a lot of girls walking around in Kimonos, presumably on their way to a shrine of some description. Anyway, I thought now I had some spare time I would do a blog post to explain what happened between our Hokkaido visit to the present day. Here I go:

Niseko Snowboarding: When we arrived in Hokkaido, after a rather painful journey (sleep deprivation and high altitude…what a mix) we got the bus straight out of Chitose airport to Niseko, a small ski/snowboard mountain town in the west of Hokkaido. Here, after lunch and a bit of confusion over the phone, we met up with the Hokkaido volunteers after so many months and we also met Tom`s parents. We decided not to waste any time and hit the mountain straight away (well, after a changing session out of the back of Tom`s parent`s rental car. The snowboarding during the day was great, but at night it got even better. Quite a decent portion of the mountain stays open for night skiing, and luckily for us a lot of people went home after 5pm, so Tom and I were free to go as fast as we wished. Craig and Mike had to wait for one of Craig`s friends to deliver some of the gear that Tom and Craig left behind in Toya, so they missed out, but luckily for them there would be lots more chances to go night skiing. Tom`s parents (who were unbelievably generous to us throughout the time we were there) had rented an apartment for all of us to stay in, which was in a really good location near the slopes, so the next two days we could start snowboarding really early and finish really late. The most exciting run me and Tom found (and no doubt, Tom will`ve written about in his binding breaking in his blog) was a tree run on one of the other sides of the mountain, which was called Blueberry Fields. Just thinking about it makes me want to ride it again. We managed to visit three different onsens (hot spring baths) in Niseko, which was great after a hard day snowboarding and was just generally fun. Our stay in Niseko ended the day after as we had half a day of riding, mainly due to the wind and rain which had caused a lot of the mountain to close down, not to mention the ridiculous queue lengths for a mediocre blue run, which was pretty much all that was open. After this we went and got changed and then got a lift to Toya with some of Tom and Craig`s friends, as Tom`s parents took the rental car on their journey to Sapporo.

Toya: When we arrived in Toya it was quiet. Almost too quiet. Mike and I were shocked at the Toya volunteer’s massive house and beastly heater which kept the room nice and warm while we watched movies and played on the Xbox 360. Even though we only stayed in Toya for about three nights, it is quite obvious that Toya has a really strong community spirit, which the volunteers have been able to settle nicely into. The first night we were invited to a small party in the next town (Abuta, also known as Toyakocho, I think). We went to one of their evening class member`s houses and ate and drank before hitting the local (tiny) karaoke bar. We were much liked by the locals for trying some famous Japanese karaoke classics (such as DJ Ozma`s `Age Age (ah gei, ah gei) every night` and B`z classic `Lady Navigation`). In most karaoke places I had been to before this one, you get a separate box to yourself to sing in with your friends, but in this one it was just one machine in the whole bar, where each table could add songs to the list, but there were only two microphones. It was still pretty fun though and it was nice to all spend time together. All of the other nights we stayed in Toya, we were visited by locals who bore the gifts of food. When I say food, I don`t just mean a bag of crisps or something, I mean an entire meal. It was amazing. We had to visit a man in Toya to watch some videos of his (well, the television program about Tom and Craig, and Tom and Craig doing Yasakoi dancing) which quite quickly became a mammoth five hour video watching session, which was quite tiring, but he was a really nice man and us spending time with him obviously meant something to him. Toya is completely different to Oji in so many ways. The one thing I thought we really missed out on was a trip to the legendary `Guten Tag`, as it was shut.

Sapporo New Years Eve Trip: On New Year`s eve morning me made a trip out to Sapporo, as everyone wanted to celebrate New Year`s the British way together, but while we were there we decided that we might as well do some sight-seeing. We managed a small amount, but unfortunately a lot of things we closed in Sapporo and it often appeared to be a ghost town. Tom and Craig claim that Sapporo is usually a bustling city almost as busy as Tokyo, but I am really not sure I can believe them. We `played` (sat at a machine dumbstruck) a bit of pachinko, went on a Ferris wheel that was on top of a building and wandered far out of town to try and get to the Beer factory, that was shut when we arrived. Also all of the buffet/ all you can eat and drink for two hours places that Tom and Craig knew we also shut. Luckily we found an all you can drink place which also did quite good food (and had a video of Japanese music TV on, so I was happy to see Dragon Ash and X Japan), so we spent a few hours in there before heading out to a club they knew which was tastefully named `Booty`. If you`re someone who knows me well, you will know I am not one who enjoys clubs…at all, so this part of the night was kind of boring for me (and sometimes even annoying) but after the countdown I was able to talk to my mother, which was nice, even if it did completely drain my phone`s battery. After having to basically carry Craig out of the club, Tom and I (and Craig) made our way over to a bar, where we spent literally a few minutes before returning to the manga kissaten (kee sah ten, maybe this spelling is wrong) we had bought members cards for earlier in the day. Allow me to explain about one of these places, though, forgive me if I am wrong, this was my first and so far only time to stay in one of these manga kissatens. Basically, manga kissatens are giant otaku libraries, containing many mangas (Japanese comic books), animes (Japanese cartoons), computer games and probably (I wouldn`t be surprised) pornography. You go into the kissaten (café, basically) and choose what kind of place you want to stay in (eg, chair, bed, etc) and then you are given a booth and a ticket. You pay pretty much by the hour, so you have to make sure you go and pay off the ticket within the time you want to stay for (in our case, 7 hours between 5am and 12pm) I got to my bed and literally went straight to sleep, got up in the morning and left, without even reading, watching or playing anything. These manga kissatens, for a lot of people are just the cheapest places to stay and I imagine quite a lot of people who were in there that night had no intention what so ever of reading any manga., but just booked in for a cheap bed and to be honest, that`s exactly what we were did too. Anyway, it was fun to spend time all together, even if I did have to spend New Year in a club…

29 hour trip back to Tokyo: A few days later, we had to make the monster trip all the way back to Tokyo. This time we would travel by train, taxi, car, foot and ferry. We left the other volunteer`s house in Toya at 1pm on January the 3rd and arrived back in Oji (our house) at 6pm on January the 4th. There sure was a lot of travelling, and waiting and we even managed a nice public bath trip (it was even hotter than some of the onsen I`ve been in, I swear, it was unbearable almost) on the ferry. Our ferry room was also rather spacious…not. A room of about 70 other men all packed together tighter than sardines on futons that were not even as wide as our shoulders and with pillows harder than a bag of rocks. In the morning (after sleeping on and off every 20 minutes) I really did wish that I had slept in the infinitely lounge area. When the ferry finally got in, we had to wait for a bus, which we didn’t manage to get on, so we took a taxi to the train station, where we were able to ride in the world`s hottest train (with no space to take our jackets off). All in all, it was a terrifically pleasant and smooth journey…

Mike`s Birthday Meal in Shibuya: On the 7th of January we went to Shibuya to have Okonomiyaki for Mike`s birthday. The plan was to have the meal (nomihoudai of course. Nomihoudai is all you can drink in Japanese…I think) and then go to karaoke and then drop the Hokkaido volunteers off at a club somewhere. Unfortunately due to last trains karaoke didn`t work as the meal took a long time or we started it really late, one of the two and it was a Monday night, so we looked around the clubs but none of them seemed good for Tom and Craig, so we just went home. On Friday we tried for clubs again but this time instead of not being busy enough, they were all asking for ID, of which Tom did not have any way since he lost his wallet in Sapporo (which has luckily been found) and even if he did have ID, they are not old enough to get into clubs anyhow. Sorry Tom and Craig!

Our Yokohama Trip: Tom, Craig and I visited Yokohama and saw the sights! Similar trip to when Mike and I went together all those months ago.

Start of Work: Work started again on January 9th (well, on January 7th I attended a promotions session as well) and so did the Wednesday class. The Wednesday lunchtime class started on the 16th, but the Monday evening class doesn`t start until the 21st (tomorrow…). We have also visited the nursery twice and the bakery once since the New Year. Everything is starting off again and I need another holiday…

Stylish wave ILLUSION`08 Vol1-2: Two concerts in two nights. It was great fun! I won the tickets online, so I had really good seats, though I did have to write a live report for the website. Saw loads of good bands too!

That`s about it for now, sorry I am so far behind again, I seem to always be about a month behind. Anyway, I have good news; we have some time off coming up! There are some random days throughout January and February and I think we are finishing school earlier than expected in March, so we should have quite a nice block to travel in there (though the only problem may be booking things, as we have found out far too late). January 22nd we have off and have decided to go to Yunessun Onsen in Hakone. Yunessun is a mixed onsen spa resort (yeah, you have to wear a costume) in which there are lots of different strange coloured and smelling types of onsen. For example, a wine bath, a green tea bath, a beer bath, (mike says that there`s) a chocolate bath, a coffee bath and I believe there is more too. Here is the English website address: http://www.yunessun.com/english/yunessun.html. Also, we have next Friday, January the 25th off too and as some of you may know that is my birthday. I still want to visit the Ed museum as it has an exhibition of Hokusai, a famous (and one of my favourite) ukiyo-e (woodblock printing) artists. Also, `Sweeney Todd` the film has just come out here, so maybe we can go and see that with a few friends and then go out drink afterwards. I hope to also do some day trips to other places in our other random days off, or maybe just take a rest at some point. I hope you all had really good Christmases and New years (sorry, forgot it last post) and I look forward to any comments you have on my blog! Thanks for reading!

Hello everyone, sorry it has been so long again. Since it was the `season to be jolly` I have been pretty busy recently and certainly was in December, as always, Tokyo is keeping me on my toes, even when I don`t have to go to work. My mother`s visit is now over, it was so good to see her and so sad to see her go. Thank you for coming over Mum! Anyway, here are some more short entries of what I have been doing recently:

Tofu meal with Junten teachers: Mike, my mother and I went to an awesome Tofu restaurant in Komagome (I think), recommended to us by Miida-sensei (who unfortunately couldn`t come because she was ill). It was strange to think how a restaurant could operate only serving Tofu but somehow this place managed it. Really well too! It was really good food. The main part of the meal was Tofu in like a nabe style. Nabe (pronounced na-bay) is kind of like a hot pot that sits in the middle of the table and everyone shares it. It`s kind of hard to explain, sorry! It was a good night out though!

Daft Punk concert at Makuhari Messe: This was on the 9th of December, well back several weeks ago. Anyway, Mike and I set off to Makuhari Messe (pronounced Makuhari Messay. Like essay with an `M` at the start) around 3 or 4pm and got there in quite decent time, considering the fact that it is in the next prefecture (Chiba-ken). Makuhari Messe is massive. Please try and say that really quickly five times. Anyway, no joke, it is really big and we managed to see three acts there, Boom Boom Satellites (a Japanese electronic rock band, who I thought were awesome) then Sebastian and Kavinsky did a set together, that was cool towards the end, especially with a remix of `Killing in the Name Of“ by Rage Against the Machine. After that, everyone was exciting for Daft Punk and man they put on a good show. The show was pretty much exactly the same as the new live album, `Alive 2007` (which I thoroughly recommend) but with a cool pyramid set and some mental lights. It was awesome!

Disneyland!: Before the Christmas party we took some time off and decided to go to Disneyland with my Mum. It was a fun day as the three of us could all spend time together and relive our childhood Disney memories…in Japanese. Unfortunately though Splash Mountain was closed and the fireworks were cancelled at night due to the weather. But luckily everything else was open and my Mum even managed to conjure (not in an evil magic sense) up enough courage to ride Space Mountain with me and Mike. This Christmas season just seemed to be fun day after fun day after fun day, which was good after we had been working so hard all year. Though there was one more bit of work left…

ELC Christmas Party: We (we being Mike, me and my Mum) held a Christmas party in the ELC on December 14th. We decided to plan the party as a `Let`s make a Christmas` party, in which we split the students (and visitors, as some of the exchange visitors attended the party too) into teams and have them `decorate the tree`, `wrap the presents`, `give Rudolph his antlers` and `give Santa his hat and beard`. As well as this we had a short Christmas around the world question panel, a quick and badly drawn version of the Nativity and then the grand prize game; draw a snowman on your head and not to mention the Christmas food (mince pies, Christmas cake, Stollen and Christmas pudding) we managed to serve to everyone). I thought it was a really successful party and even had fun myself! (Though I didn`t get to eat anything…)

Cultural Day: I think this was on December 17th, but I don`t remember it so well. Me and Mike were at work anyway because we had some marking left over to do, but were finished within 45 minutes. Nakahara-sensei had told us that if we came to the cultural day that we could get a free lunch and be entertained for a few hours, so we decided to go for it. Though the free lunch took a while to arrive (as they didn`t seem to expect to see us), the entertainment was pretty good, as me and Mike could see the orchestra play again and watch an amusing Shorinji Kempo performance (styled like a Japanese comedy drama). We also got to play bingo, but luckily I did not receive the embarrassment of winning (phew). It was interesting though, and each of the people from each of the countries made a short speech (usually in English, which was good for us) about their stay in Junten and Tokyo.

FujiQ Highland: On the 20th of December, my mother returned to England and Mike and I went on a mammoth trek out to Fuji. Not mount Fuji though, FujiQ Highland; a theme park very close to Mount Fuji, famous for its roller coasters and very large and long walk through hospital. When we first got there, I was feeling very ill, but after a good trip to a bizarre Japanese toilet block I was fine. When I say bizarre, I don`t mean the actual toilet unit (though, obviously this one has heated seats), I mean the writing on the wall was strange. Above the mirror it read (in English) `Don`t worry, you are handsome guy`., above the urinal it read `Are you ready?…Fight!`, above each toilet it read `Hurry!` in a downwards arrow and my personal favourite was on the back of the toilet door which read `Smells good!`. Just to top it off, everything was a completely clashing blue and orange…nice. Anyway, back to the actual park. Not only was I ill when we got there, a lot of the coasters weren`t open. `Dodonpa`, a really fast, magnet powered coaster, which used to be the fastest in the world was closed for repairs and the other two, Fujiyama (the tallest roller coaster in Japan or something) and Eejyanaika (a really interesting looking roller coaster that holds the world record for the most number of inversions; which means, not actual most number of loops or cork screws, but most number of times for the passenger to be upside down…I think) were also closed because the tracks had ice frozen to them. We managed to get one quick ride on Fujiyama in while it was open mid-afternoon, but things look very grim for Eejyanaika. We rode (or did, lots of rides in Japan don`t require any riding) pretty much all of the rides in the park, which included an interesting Gundam building game called Gundam Crisis. For those who don`t know, I`m very into Gundam, so this was an exciting thought for me. Basically, we had to run around a maze type area (supposedly White Base from the original Gundam) with PDAs in hand, scanning spots on the wall to retrieve `Magnet Armor Coating` which would make Gundam quick enough to battle its enemies (or as the merchandise afterwards said, `Know the Quick`. Their English was obviously awesome in this place). After we had ran around the maze picking up pieces (or, losing all of our pieces in my case) we were able to go down to a huge scale Gundam model (life size if they were real) and `install the parts` or again in my case, have all my data deleted. Those who completed the Gundam (who were few or none) could go through the `X gate` and those of us who didn`t (everyone I think, Mike was only one part off though) could go through another gate and watch a movie of Gundam fighting in 3D, which was cool. As for other memorable attractions, the haunted hospital remains in my mind more than anything else. In Japan, there are a lot of rides in which you have to walk through a haunted house and be frightened by robots, actors and generally bad karma. I call these rides, `walk-through rides`. Now, Mike and I are terrified of these walk-through rides, but want to do as many as we can, as the adrenaline shots received during and after are pretty awesome, as there are actually quite scary for us. Waiting in the que I was pretty scared to enter, but wasn`t going to bail. Funnily enough, who rather extremely dressed Japanese guys and their girlfriends were waiting to do the ride too, and just before the debriefing room, the 6 of us decided to go through the hospital (which at the time was Resident Evil themed (or Biohazard, as they call it here) all together, but as I joked to them `Gaijin mae` (Foreigners before). When we got in, this place really was the biggest walk-through ride ever and was actually really cool, though, because I was being forced to lead, I was never really attacked by the zombies since they always pounce on the middle or end of the group (just when you think it is safe). It took us about 20 minutes to get to the end, in which time we had lost the japans guys whose girlfriends were in fits of tears. We left those guys to sort them out, but managed to find a group of Japanese girls, who we had caught up, who were afraid to enter one of the rooms, but didn`t mind going behind my human shield. We completed the last 5 minutes of the hospital with them dragging on us continuously. There was a cool shooting range bit at the end, where actors jumped out and we could shoot them with light guns (but this was kind of ineffective, but that didn`t matter, as the actors just messed about and even did an `Opapi` (a very famous, recent, Japanese comedian, real name Kojima Yoshio) impression. Afterwards the girls thanked us and Mike and I decided to go on a few more rides and then eat. Luckily for us, Eejyanaika (pretty much that and the haunted house were our main reasons for going to FujiQ) opened and we managed to ride it 3 or 4 times in a row. It really is a cool roller coaster. Basically, it is a roller coaster, but the seats also spin round (like front flip and back flip style) and because the track can also become inverted (sometimes rails above, sometimes rails below the carriage) sometimes you are going forwards and sometimes you are going backwards, but for all of it you can`t really tell where you are. There is a really cool bit too where you do a back flip in the chair while doing a corkscrew on the track). It was exhilarating…and that`s not a word I use very often. All in all, it was an awesome day at the park, even if it was far away!

Leon and Saori`s Wedding party: On December 21st we made a trip out to Ebisu so go to Leon and Saori (two of our friends)`s wedding party. They already had a wedding (well, became married, I don`t really know the details) but this was just a party celebrating it. Me and Mike got there eventually (pretty late as we got lost and Sven had to come and find us) and were considerably under dressed for the occasion compared to everyone else, but no-one seemed to mind. It was a fun party, but after the day before (maybe I was still a bit ill too) I felt really tired at about 10pm, but still held out to the after party at Leon`s house, where we stayed up a bit and then my body shut down on the floor in his computer room. I had a comfortable bed of a laptop and some tools (pliers and screwdriver etc) and kind of regretted sleeping there the next morning…

Speed Disk Records Shiranbanshow: The next morning also happened to finally be the morning of the day of my first (real, Diru don`t count anymore) visual kei concert. Me and Mike had already been to two concerts in Japan, but this one was going to be, and was completely different. Visual kei (visual style), for those who do not know is a style of music where the members of the band like to dress up in strange clothing and usually play heavy rock music. The outfits and musical styles differ greatly from band to band, which in my opinion makes a lot of the bands very different. I guess it is another one of those Japanese cries out to be as individual as possible and for the Japanese, cross dressing is a great way to express this. I have been very into this style of music for a long time and was dead excited about the concert, but wasn`t really sure what to expect. The bands I saw were (in this order) UnsraW, LiZ, D=OUT, Serial Number, ayabie, Screw, Guy`s Family and then the headliners, Wizard. I arrived at Shibuya O-East by myself and once I got in, realized I was one of the only men, and almost certainly the only foreign man (if you are a non-Japanese man and saw the show too, drop me and email!) in the 99% female audience. When the bands were performing, I was really surprised, that everyone does the same thing (which is often a strange hand dance or action or even heavy head banging, which I was surprised to see cute, dainty Japanese girls go so hard at). It did seem like a very `follow the leader` or even a herd activity and I decided not to join in (I had certainly had some strange looks already and was asked on the door if I even knew what the bands were like). Instead I did my own head banging thing, as everyone does in England. This was a rock gig, but it just didn`t seem to have the pit of chaos that most rock gigs usually have towards the front of the stage. I still really enjoyed the gig in the tiny hall that is Shibuya O-East and I certainly received some attention from the band members on stage, who I think were surprised to see a young plainly dressed western male enjoying their music, when the core of their fan base appears to be strangely dressed eastern females. After the concert had finished though, I had to head to Kanagawa-ken (the next prefecture South of Tokyo) to Dave`s Christmas party.

Christmas at Dave`s: The journey here was long and hard and by the time I arrived, barely even worth it. It was too late to catch and bus from the train station, so I had no other choice than to walk for 40 minutes in the rain. I enjoyed the solitude, but forgot to buy an umbrella (I forgot you could buy them in convenience stores completely, I just wanted to sit down after being stood up for like 6 hours straight), so when I got there I was soaked, and had missed the party. Only Mike, Dave and Ritsuko were there and the food was cold, but I still had a bit of it. One of Ritsuko`s friends arrived later on, only for us all to go to sleep shortly after she had arrived. It was good to deliver at least two Christmas presents though and wish them Merry Christmas…

Christmas at Leon`s: After travelling back home, later on in the night of the 23rd we were invited to go to Leon`s house for Christmas dinner. We got there and drank all as friends and watched TV and stuff and eventually could eat Christmas dinner when Saori got home from work (which was 10.30pm, since she is a nurse). It was nice and homely, as it was only Me, Mike, Leon, Saori and Minami there. We then watched a movie and went to bed. I really enjoyed it; it was just a comfortable and enjoyable night. (Even if I had to sleep on the floor again for the 3rd night in a row, but this time there were no tools around)

Christmas at Junten: On Christmas day, me and Mike had to turn up at work firstly to listen to some speeches (mainly from the principal of the school) and then to attend to staff Christmas party in Hokutopia later on in the evening. Luckily we managed an extended skive during the day between 11am and 6.30pm. The place in Hokutopia was a really nice place and the food was good too. Mike and I had to make two performances as well, though by the time they came up, most of the teachers were tipsy if not drunk. We sang `Yellow Submarine` on the karaoke together and then ad to give speeches in Japanese (pretty much right at the end, so we were being heckled by our drunken colleagues). It was a nice thing to go to though, even if we weren`t allowed to drink at all.

Hopefully I will be able to post again soon about our trip to Hokkaido and the Hokkaido volunteer`s trip down here to Tokyo! I hope to post on about the 12th or so. Sorry again it has been such a long time!

Sorry it has been so long since I last posted, I have been very busy at work as at the moment Junten is in testing season. Not only that, my mother is here in Japan so I have been spending time with her too and not to mention attempting to catch up on sleep, let alone catching up on this blog…plus I have a lot to do and see in Japan bar work. Okay, now excuses aside I want to just write some small things about what has been happening (that I can remember) since my last blog post and also on what is to come soon.

Milk Seafood Cup Noodle: Well, for several weeks, the most exciting thing I did was eat a milk seafood cup noodle. I just thought the translation was funny, they mean that the soup stuff in the cup noodle is like a creamy soup. Sorry guys, but this cup noodle does not actually contain milk (I don`t think so anyway). Mike peer pressured me into buying it and weirdly enough I enjoyed it. Thinking back to those weeks…they were so uneventful…
Linkin Park and Dir en grey at Saitama Super Arena: There was a national holiday on the 23rd of November and me and Mike were lucky enough to get tickets for the Linkin Park concert and even luckier for me, Japanese rock band Dir en grey were also playing (and Yellowcard too). Yellowcard got a good reaction from the Japanese fans and to my surprise, their set was actually quite decent (I thought it would be rubbish, as their albums have been going downhill since Ocean Avenue). When Dir en grey came on though, not many people stood up or even clapped them. I enjoyed their set though, moshing away as the only person standing in my block. Maybe everyone thought it was weird that this foreigner who can`t even understand the words was going mental for their songs but whatever. I enjoyed it and that’s all that mattered to me. Linkin Park of course were fantastic. Even better than the first time I saw them (maybe, I`m kind of undecided though). I couldn`t think of any way they could improve the set though at the end, as well the severe ringing of ears and adrenaline buzz I could feel so it was a good concert and certainly wasn`t missing anything…
Strange filmings: After our weekend promotions work one week we were asked by some 3rd grade junior students to go to Akihabara with them to help film a video for their social studies class. Mike had already been in it once, as the topic of the video seemed to be about foreigner`s views of Japan or something. Anyway, we went to Akihabara, which for those of you who may not be aware is the massive electrical town in Tokyo. You can literally buy anything electronic here and is very well known for its video game, anime, manga, action figure and strange pornographic cultism. The people who indulge in such cults are known as `otaku` in Japan and in the film we appeared to be going `otaku hunting`. Me and Mike also tried to enjoy some common otaku activities (though, not the strange pornographic kind…it didn`t really seem suitable for the 13 year old school kid`s video). We played Taiko no Tatsujin together (at our own expense of course) which is a game based on traditional Japanese Taiko drumming. Afterwards we were shown a sheer display of Taiko otakuism as one of the students demonstrated just how immense on the game he was. I also tried this level with him and barely scored any points at all…I was proud. After touring around Akihabara, we had an interview (in English) and then a fashion check from one of the students. Currently in Japan there is some TV star (I don`t know the name) who gives `fashion checks` so, it was kind of a bit of current media added in there for humor. Shortly after this, it was realized that for the whole time we were there, the camera was not filming. Of course, everyone was sad, but we quickly did our interview again for them and then left to go to Shinjuku to meet some of our friends. Though that trip was utterly pointless, there were some more times we were filmed for the video (at more promotions sessions), sometimes without even knowing it. I`m looking forward to the finished thing and will hopefully have time to tell you all about it later.
Shinjuku`s `Pink Big Pig`: After the filming disaster, we went off to Shinjuku to meet our Australian `buddies` for a drinking session. We walked around Kabukicho, the bad area of Shinjuku (and truly enough, it is not very nice), for a little bit before going to `Pink Big Pig`. For some reason, my senses tell me `Big Pink Pig` would sound better but as we know, the Japanese have a funny (and sometimes hilarious) idea of the English language, so Pink Big Pig it was…Anyway, inside was a nice all you can eat and drink place with a lot of entertainment. Me and Mike both really enjoyed the night and are hoping to go back there again sometime.
Loads of promotions sessions: Of course, the most exciting part of our time recently has been the promotions sessions four weeks in a row, one Sunday and three Saturdays…not. This weekend, for the first time in a while we actually get a two day weekend. Usually at these promotions sessions we work (if it can be called that) giving out `documents` about the school, stand there looking foreign and saying sorry for not understanding any questions people may ask us. Usually we do this between 11.30am and 5pm, split into two sessions. Three out of the four times we received a free lunch, and we expected it on the 4th time too, but it wasn`t provided and we weren`t even told about it. The free lunch is usually nice, though, it doesn`t really pay for us wasting pretty much a whole day of our precious weekend.
Night out with Barney and Terry: We had a good night out with the other half of the ELC crew last Friday (and will do once again this Friday, I hope). We went to see the Christmas tree lights being switched on at Terry`s old university and then we went to Dubliner`s pub in Shibuya and went home very late…
Kamakura trip: Last weekend we went to Kamakura, one of the old capitals of Japan with my mum, Sven (one of our Australian `mates` [that`s not sarcasm, he is our mate, it`s just that`s an Australian like word isn`t it?...Isn`t it?]) Yumi from our Monday evening class and one of her friends, Sanae. We arrived nice and early at Oji platform (so no catch up sleeping that Sunday for me…) and soon after waiting for Yumi to find us set off to Kamakura via Tokyo. In Kamakura we visited a lot of shrines, at all of which we could join the Japanese people in their weird fascination with the colour changing of the leaves. At first I thought it was very strange that they would love this activity so much, but then I got quite into it and then to be honest, by the end of the day I think I felt the same way I did at the start. It`s nice thing to do, in small quantities. Luckily, we could also do other things like see the shrines, go walking around town and eat at some nice places (well, two). One of the coolest things of the day though was seeing the `Daibutsu` which is a large statue of Buddha you can go inside of. Kamakura had a good mixture of Buddhist and Shinto shrines, all with nice gardens, so we had a nice day in the nature, which we rarely do, due to our city life…
Evening lessons and volunteer jobs finish: This Wednesday was our final evening lesson and today was our last trip to the nursery this year which was lucky for us, as now we can feel a lot more relaxed in the evenings and have more time to wind down from work. I`m sure I will miss the classes though over the time we have off, not only that but I think I will even miss the bakery and nursery, as much as they are very hard work too! (Especially the nursery which is slowly healing my dislike of young children. Today was actually pretty fun.)
Daft punk at Makuhari Messe: This Sunday. – Please see next post…
ELC Christmas Party: Next Friday – Please see the post after that…
Holiday in Hokkaido: A holiday, finally! We set off for Hokkaido on the 26th of December and will stay until the 2nd. I`m really looking forward to it, particularly snowboarding! Hurry Xmas!

Thanks for reading and once again, sorry that this post was so late. Now I must get on to putting some of my pictures up. Will post another post with the link on soon! Thanks again! See you!

The basketball game at Bunkyo High School
Last Saturday (as in the 3rd) I attended the Junten High School basketball club game in Bunkyo High School. The school was pretty easy to find, luckily for me as I could just get on the tram and several stops later I arrived at Sugamo-Shinden, which is the stop basically joined to Bunkyo High School. I sheepishly followed some other guys into the school, as I wasn`t sure where to go and promptly copied them as they took off their shoes (turned out later that these guys were in fact friends, or older brothers or something of some of the Junten players). I walked in and turned a corner and luckily the Junten team were just exiting the hall where the home team`s game was being held. The day was more like a mini-tournament than a single game, so several of the league fixtures were being held on the same day and it was Bunkyo`s turn to host (I don`t know if Junten host one or not, I will have to find out). Anyway, they led me to a large room where they had dumped all my stuff and told me it was okay to leave my shoes there. I left my shoes there and went to check out the game that was going on and to see if I could find the Jutnen coach. The coach was no-where to be found or even seen, so I decided to watch the game instead, as it was quite an exciting, fast paced game of a relatively high standard. The Japanese seem to play very quickly, though, not always fast breaks, just quick offences. Anyway, after standing around until nearly the end of the 4th quarter, the coach arrived and seemed almost surprised (though pleasantly so) to see me. Maybe he thought I wouldn`t show, I don`t know. Anyway, I asked about the team they were playing and he pointed out `Tsukuba` wearing black and red warm-up shirts and trousers. This team`s name I had heard him say in practice and he may have even said it to me before, but I thought this was `Scuba`, like the team was `Somewhere Scuba Divers` or something…this is Japan after all. Another thing to note about Japanese (school anyway) basketball is that all of the teams are dressed in an extensive uniform (included, shirts, shorts, shooting shirt, tracksuit bottoms and even a bag), all the numbers are correct (4-1 and all the teams have 15 players exactly. I was so surprised to see four table officials (young, probably high school students) who could even do the shot clocks and everything, two sets of scores, electronic for the coaches and benches and a flip chart operated by two more students for the crowd (who were sat on benches and chairs and around the balcony of the main hall) and to top it all off there was even 4 extra students in charge of wiping the floor, not only for when players fall over and get the floor sweaty, but at every free opportunity, (namely time-outs and quarter ends etc). The other thing about school sports (so many differences to England!) is that there are two team `managers`. For Junten Basketball club (and it seems for most school and most sports) this job is taken by two senior high school girls. It seemed rather strange to me that they would want to do this (and not play) but they seemed to get very involved. Before the game they gave the coach the team list and sorted things out with the table (everything was very efficient) and carried bags. I was kind of gutted (not to mention shocked) when I asked if I could help and they said no. They had so many bags on and were blatantly struggling. They wouldn`t let me take them off them, and I wasn`t about to use a lot of force (I know how annoying it is when people rip bags off you). They also seemed to be doing scoring or stating during the game, but I couldn`t tell, I was too far away.

Bunkyo won their game by quite a margin and left the hall, along with nearly the entire crowd. The coach told me where I could sit and I sat down near(ish) the guys I had followed into the hall. The game started quite soon after a quick warm up, where Junten showed their Japanese spirit once again with the same things we had done at training earlier that week. The game started and throughout the first half it was very even, one team was always about 2 or 4 points up, or drawing. At half time I decided to go up to the balcony, so after having a really tough time with a vended can (I just couldn`t open it, it was confusing) I headed up and got an aerial view for the third quarter and the start of the fourth. This is where I took most of my video and pictures from (please look once I put the pictures up!). It was also a good angle for me to watch the game as well. Anyway, it was so tight during the fourth quarter I decided to go downstairs and join the sideline cheering team again (the guys I followed in and one mum, so in total there were 6 of us). It came to 70-70 and then after that, Tsukuba went on a 14-0 run towards the end of the game, and the final score was 84-70. It was kind of gutting for everyone from Junten and some took it harder than others. After the game was finished we had to help pack up the hall (finally I could help with something). After this was done I could say my goodbyes to the team and thanked the coach for inviting me. I then went off on a small shopping trips (smallish anyways) and went home so I could get a good night`s sleep, as I had to be up early the next day…

The day trip to Hakone
Well, as promised I had to get up early and did so and we went along to meet Nishimura-san at the train station. After getting the train to Shinjuku with him and Yoshio-san (from my class) we got on quite a cool train to Hakone, though it took a long time. We had a nice cup of tea and a talk about stuff though, which was good. After the train arrived, we got on yet another train (but this time we had to stand up) and eventually we were allowed to queue for some kind of tow-cable train (I can`t really describe it) to a high up part of the mountain where guess what, we were allowed to take a cable car (more travelling…this mountain was massive). On the cable car we were treated to some actual views of the mountain and one very famous mountain. You guessed it, we could see Fuji-san himself. It was an amazingly clear day…lucky! After a sheer photo frenzy, we got to the top and this is where the adventure truly began. We were able to go up to some sulphur gas springs (not sure what somewhere where gas is released is called, sorry) where they cook the infamous black eggs. Of course, the smell was awful all over the place, but the views were great. The sun was out, it was clear and the scenery was amazing. What a place to eat a black egg, I thought. Yoshio-san bought us a bag of six between the four of us. Me and Mike received 2 each and they showed us the way to eat them and had one each. Here are some instructions on how to eat and enjoy a black egg:
1. Take a Black Egg and attempt to hold it. Be careful though, they are very hot!
2. Smack the Black Egg on your forehead and hope it doesn`t smash on your face. You should of cracked it just a little bit.
3. Now it is cracked, take off all of the black shell. Tip: It`ll take ages unless you peel off the membrane too. Maybe this is common knowledge, but my personal egg shell peeling techniques were pretty poor at the time.
4. Once the egg is naked, take a bit of salt and sprinkle it over the egg. Don`t use too much, that’s pretty self-explanatory right?
5. Eat the salted egg and enjoy another 7 years of life! That’s right, just one egg = 7 more years of life…well, or so they say anyways.

Anyhow, after our egg eating and another mammoth picture taking session we went back down the mountain in the cable car (but a different direction) and went to eat. After eating we had a ride across the lake on a pirate-ship-esque ship, though it was a fake. Then again, pirates on a lake doesn`t make sense, so it wasn`t going to be a historical piece. I can imagine the pirates now, `Let`s set sail and get some treasure!…oh damn, this is a lake`. Anyhow we got off the boat (on which I took some cool pictures of the sun…sounds weird but trust me they rock) and got onto a bus where I promptly fell asleep and was woken up so we could go to the onsen. This was our first experience of an onsen and we were a little confused as what to might be waiting for us. We knew some facts: a) Onsen translates to hot spring, its hot water you sit in, b) You go in onsens naked, after all it`s like a bath or something, c) You have to/can wash yourselfs there as there are tap things or something and finally d) You are provided (well, you can rent) a small towel. We also didn`t have a clue about: a) Where you change, b) How to wash yourself at the taps c) Where you look while in the bath… and d) What you do with the small towel. Luckily, we had our two Japanese guides to help us discover the joy that is onsen. Basically, the one we visited had three onsen pools (I think it`s okay to call them pools. Maybe the word bath is more fitting though). One very hot (basically unbearable) and two others which were of similar temperature. We entered into the room and there was simply a row of lockers. The whole place was situated on a kind of balcony. It was like a room, but missing one side, I`m sure you get the picture anyhow (I hope so), it was kind of half inside and half outside. Anyway, you just get naked first and put all of your clothes and stuff in a locker. Now that this is done its time to wash before entering the bath. We had Nishimura-san show us what to do and then entered the bath/pool. We probably looked weird, two gaijin following an older Japanese man around like stalkers. Naked stalkers. Anyways, onsens are really relaxing, though can get too hot, so every so often you can just wash yourself to cool down, or sit on the benches provided with your towel over your crotch. When you`re are in the onsen, the traditional Japanese way is to fold the towel and leave it on your head, but this is kind of hard and mine kept falling in the water, which was annoying, so I chose to just pt mine somewhere. The towel didn`t seem to be for drying at all, even h
though it was a towel. The towel has two basic purposes I think; for washing yourself, for covering yourself while you sit down. While walking around, no-one covers themselves up, so we decided not to either, though I guess it might be possible, though look weird. We spent maybes and hour and a half in the hot spring (the time we spent in there was just about timeless, it was like a time warp. We left the onsen, learnt how to get dry (you just don’t…we, you do because if you know what time you`re leaving you can sit out of the onsen and naturally dry and then leave, but we had it sprung on us while sitting in the onsen. `Hey Ben, Mike, it`s time to go or we`ll miss the train home`). We had a small party on the train on the way home with beer, chu-hi (chu-high, no idea what`s in it) and nuts and things. It was a great trip out and of course we were very thankful to Nishimura-san and Yoshio-san. We got back home at a decent time, only to realize we had loads of work to do for the next day…ah well, we`ve learnt by now the weekends in Tokyo just aren’t as long as anywhere else. This fact is kind of annoying, as there is so much to do!

Recently…
The past week was a normal week except I was a bit ill and had to skip basketball both times, though I went to watch once. There`s a new member of my Wednesday evening class, so I am going to have to adapt the plans again to fit around everyone, but I already have a good idea for this which I hope will work. This weekend had a party at Dave`s house which was a lot of fun. Went shopping the next day but didn`t get anything interesting. Sunday (today) we had advertising, then we tried two out of the three Starbucks new drinks (I had a Crème brûlée latte and Mike had a Gingerbread latte) and then I went on a ticket mission (which I was half successful, I managed to get tickets for a gig at Zepp Tokyo the week before my birthday in January) and then just planning and relaxing. It was a decent weekend, but of course…not long enough…

PS: About pictures, I will try and get some up soon, but as I said I am going to try and sort out a photobucket account。As soon as that is done I`ll post the address on here and then you can all see what I`ve been doing as well as read. Sorry for the delay but as you know I`m busy busy busy. Maybe tomorrow night if I get my Japanese homework done quickly I will be able to get it all sorted. Thanks for reading! - Ben

The Halloween Parties
Well, for us Halloween came twice and not only did it come twice it came early. We had our first Halloween party on Friday the 26th of October, which was the school Halloween party which we had to organize pretty much ourselves. The party was scheduled to be 3.30pm until 5pm, but after a lot of running around, setting things up, printing things out, cutting things out, drawing things, realizing the work you just spent 40 minutes on was for nothing and general spinning around in circles we were able to start the party at maybes 4pm, I don`t know, I didn`t really want to look at the clock…
Me and Mike were both dressed up and strangely enough, I was glad that one of us had a more traditional costume and the other had a more modern costume. I was dressed as a vampire, I am not sure there is anything more traditional than this so I got to show them the traditional way and Mike was dressed as, you`ll never guess, Pikachu. He wouldn`t ever do a Pikachu impression though, which I was quite disappointed about…Barney was dressed as a cowboy, Shu (one of the returnees) found Mike Paxman`s old ghost costume and wore that, Kento (another returnee) was in a suit similar to Mikes but instead of Pikachu was a pink version of the Disney character Stitch and Michael (from America) was dressed in once again a similar style suit as what appeared to be Marie (from the Aristocats).
Anyway, the party seemed pretty successful, we had made a Halloween quiz, which as a prize for completing correctly (in English of course!) was that they could `Trick or Treat` one of the staff members to receive sweets. We started some games too. We managed to play about 3 games in total in the entire party, though we had planned about 10 games. We started off with a Halloween pass the parcel and in each layer there was an instruction (I got `Howl like a werewolf`, though mike, who was controlling the music, surprisingly didn`t get anything) which if you completed it you got a sweet. This took quite a while as we`d written a lot of layers and there were loads of people, not to mention (some) Japanese people are pretty shy when it comes to doing something, so it takes them ages. The next game we did wasn`t really a game, more just like a fun activity. The day before me and Mike had gone to the 100yen shop and picked up some kind of white/see-thru tape (not sticky though, man this is hard to explain) and we made a spider web with it by passing it to each other and then wrapping it round our waists and so on. When we bought the tape (which claims to be 150m long) I thought we would have to stop it halfway through, thinking 150m was far too much, but in reality, it didn`t seem to last for very long…this was quite gutting, but we had a bit of fun, pulling on the ropes and making certain bits really tight and dancing around in a circle wearing the web (well, I`d given my bit of web to student, but it looked fun anyways). After a while, I had to go and cut off all of the webs with scissors. The last game we did was `pin the wart on the witch`, though, without realizing it at first, I allowed cheating, and was then unfortunately inclined to allow everyone else to, much to my own disappointment that I`d wrecked such a classic game (even forgotten the rules, how terrible of me!). Anyway, quite a few people had a go and we recorded all of the distances. I had a go last and got the worst score ever (200cm, as Barney spun me around and I didn`t know where to go and was actually facing the wrong way and pinned the wart (blu-tack) on a balloon someone was holding. Nakahara sensei got 54cm and I thought that that was bad. Anyway, it was all in good fun.
As well as the games we did a pumpkin carving demonstration using a pumpkin carving kit (thanks Mum!) though, Barney let the STAR members carve it and instead of going in straight lines they tried to cut the top off as a circle, thus bending the cutting knife significantly. Oh well, the carving went okay, but in such a limited time it was difficult to do properly, especially the hollowing out. Everything went good and once we had found something to light the candle with it looked pretty good.
Instead of finishing at 5pm we managed to finish at 5.30pm, which was fine with us and the other staff members, though it meant for our outing (post Halloween party drinking/eating session) we couldn`t get in for TGI Friday`s happy hour so we went to an Izakaya (will try and explain in a later post) and then to Hub (`the English Pub!`). It was a good night and I really enjoyed it, as much as it feels weird to be out with Nakahara sensei (Terry (I mean, Kaneko sensei) and Barney not so much, as they aren`t as strict with us as he is sometimes).

Well, the next day, we had another party to go to and luckily for us there was also a typhoon the same night…fun. We dressed up again and went on the trains to Takadanobaba, Oji to Tabata, Keihin-Tohoku line and then Tabata to Takadanobaba on the Yamanote line. For those who don`t know, Yamanote line is the ring line in Tokyo which goes to all of the major places in Tokyo (just about) so these trains are often pretty busy, especially at night. Walking through town in our costumes (especially Mike) was pretty funny for us and everyone else probably. A couple of people said `Hey!` or `Pikachu!` to us and I waved at a lady in a taxi who was staring at us while we were waiting to cross the road, but mostly the Japanese just stared and said nothing.
We got to Takadanobaba and went to the party in `Ben`s Café`, which was a pretty cool party and then later on we went to Dave`s house for more drinking, watching Mai get drunk and throw up and a good night`s sleep. The next day we woke up pretty late and then went home, still dressed in costume. The thing was, my costume blended in quite well, as I could’ve easily been any average Japanese goth (except, I`m not Japanese) but Mike`s Pikachu costume stood out once again, especially at 1pm in Shinjuku station. We got home and went to Mr. Donut, a common breakfast outing after a night of drinking…

The Basketball Practices
I have been attending basketball practices as much as possible and this week was no different in that respect, except the practices this time were for a game on Saturday (today! I can`t wait!). They started off with one of the regular members (starting five basically) leading us to the line as usually and doing the “Kyousuke…Rei” “Onegai shimasu” (which I think is like, “Quiet…Bow” ”Please teach me” or something akin to this, I`ve never asked because I think its one of those untranslatable Japanese things). After that a war-cry-esque sprinting session started as we did shuttle runs. After that we gathered on the top of the key and kneeled around our free-throw line`s jump-ball circle (don`t think I`ve ever learned the word for these lines in all my years of playing, but it’s the circle that is half solid and half dotted). We then all together shout and tap the floor repeatedly for a while and then all together bang the floor really loud once at the end (and I think shout “Rei!” but I can`t tell).
All the drills just about contained chanting and clapping while waiting in lines. These chants are pretty basic and so are the clapping patterns, but I only clap, as seeing a Gaijin chanting in Japanese would just be kind of weird looking. I asked several people about it and Arieru told me that it was `Japanese Spirit`. I took this as a good answer.

This Weekend
Today is Saturday and it all started with a (well deserved in my opinion) lie in, finally. I got up leisurely and made a cup of tea (my first of the time I`ve been here) and it was pretty good. Mike isn`t in still, as he went to Dave`s last night and I was just too tired (we were out in Shibuya) to go back to his, so I came back and fell asleep straight away (even fell asleep standing up on the train a bit). Later on today I am going to watch the basketball team`s basketball game away in Otsuka. I am so excited, I hope they win and everything goes well for me getting there. Well, I have no problem in getting there, I just hope I can get into the school and the sports hall without being stopped and questioned intensely…as I imagine is going to happen. Later tonight I hope to post a post about the game, hopefully with photos too (Craig has kindly suggested I get photobucket, which I might set up tonight too, so there will be two sets of photos to look at, maybe).

Anyway, tomorrow is Sunday, another holiday day for us and Nishimura-san, one of our evening class members (advanced of course, his English is awesome) is taking us to Hakone (said Hah, Koh, Nay, nearish Yokohama I think) to go to a hot spring. This is the bit that could get potentially ugly, but I think we`ll be okay and just throw ourselves into it (well, maybe not literally, the water is pretty hot). For those of you who don`t get it, you have to go in hot springs naked and all you get is a towel apparently, so me and Mike are kind of skeptical of seeing everyone naked (not to mention each other). This is something else I will make a post about, no doubt (the hot spring trip, not Mike naked…)

Anyways, I`m gonna try and get a lot more posts up starting now, so keep checking back! Thanks for reading!

Ben

Hey everyone (or even anyone), just wanted to give some brief descriptions of things I have been doing recently (or just interesting things) as I promised…

School Festival: This was aaaaages ago, sorry. In Japan, schools hold what in Japanese is called a `bunkasai` which I think is roughly a school festival. I`ll need pictures and things to explain fully (which I hope to upload sometimes) but basically all of the homeroom (form) classes run a stall/classroom as well as all of the clubs in the school doing things too. The stalls are either food or games and some of the societies and clubs do things related to their club, art galleries, manga sales, ping pong playing, baseball throwing, drama, cheer-leading demonstrations, martial art demonstrations etc. It lasted for two days and then there were more performances in the huge theatre 3 minutes walk away from school, Hokutopia. It was pretty fun and we didn`t have to do much, so even better!

Local Festival: This was pretty crazy. It was a `matsuri` as they are called in Japan and we were kind of staff there. All we had to do is move equipment on and off a small stage though. We were like the roadie`s grunts, the lowest of low. It was a fun festival though. The highlight was pushing a giant Neko Bus (a character from popular Japanese anime, My Neighbour Totoro) filled with Japanese children through a town…kind of random, but yeah, I`ll try and get some pictures up soon if I can!

Jazz/Art Appreciation Day: At Hokutopia the students all got to skive a few hours to go and watch a big jazz band play loads of songs and talk about the history of Jazz. Good thing was we got to skive too…(was pretty cool too!)

Ate Horse meat: exactly what it says on the tin…except I got this in a restaurant (well, an Izakaya) and it is great!

Visited Yokohama: Me and Mike had some time off so we went on a jolly to Yokohama. Visited all the main things, Landmark Tower, Minato Mirai 21 (a futuristic harbour district) and China Town. It was a fun night out!

School Halloween Party: We planned and run the school Halloween party last Friday and it went alright. Kind of chaotic for me but I think it went alright. We didn`t get to play all the games we planned because of the severe time limit but it was fun for us and hopefully the kids too (I don`t know!)

Our friend`s Halloween Party: There was actually a typhoon close to Tokyo on this night (last Saturday night) so the weather was dire all day. We went through Tokyo dressed as a vampire and Pikachu (no doubt I`ll get loads of pictures of Mike as Pikachu up soon!) and on the trains and things in the rain. The party itself was pretty multicultural, as a lot of things us and our friends do are. Afterwards we went to Dave`s house and drank more and slept until late…and then went home.

Ate at a Korean Barbeque: Tonight! It was pretty good. I got to eat kimchi and even some diaphragm. All Korean food seems to be pretty spicy、but really nice!

Maybe I will remember more interesting things I have done later on! Sorry!

Well, I am getting further and further behind with this blog every passing day and the chances of me ever being able to catch up are becoming slimmer and slimmer. Maybe once the year is finished, then I may be able to create a complete account of the year, but for now I have no choice than to just start from here…

Well, I have been here for almost two months now and have settled in just about fine with my Japanese life. Living in Tokyo is pretty tough though, I must say, mainly because I am so busy with work. My weekly schedule is as follows, for anyone who may be interested:

Monday: A ten minute morning lesson that I have to teach myself (these usually only consist of reading and repeating though, as in ten minutes there isn`t really a lot you can do…) then 6 lessons at school (there are 7 periods) with our break giving us an extended lunch time, so we now have made it our weekly thing to go up and play basketball on the roof. The lessons on a Monday are 3 junior conversation lessons, 2 senior conversation lessons and then 1 senior `foreign affairs` lesson. Monday night is my first evening class of the week from 6.15pm to 7.30pm. After this lesson we always go out with our students for a meal.

Tuesday:  Ten minute morning lesson to sart off with and since recently our Japanese lesson for an hour. After the lesson is over we can go and get changed to work at the bakery (where we work from 11am to 1pm with a little break in the middle). After the bakery is done we walk home and usually get an instant meal from ampm, eat it at home and then go back into work and plan for our Wednesday adult classes. Sometimes we get to go to Kaneko-sensei (Terry)`s classroom to just do stuff (really randomly he calls us to his classroom just to sing the birthday song, or tell them one piece of information such as `oh by the way, you have art starting next week`). Also at 2pm until 3pm we have a PTA class consisting of the mothers (no fathers so far…probably all working as hard as us) of some of the children from the school. After the lesson they always take us for coffee or whatever at the local Kohi:kan before I go off to get the bus to basketball club. Basketball club is held in Shinden Campus, about half an hour walk away (I know, I`ve done the walk loads of times as I have only successfully caught the bus once…) and lasts until about 6.30pm, so I get home at about 7pm on Tuesdays.

Wednesdays: My least favourite days, but once they are over the week feels practically over, which is great. Well, it starts off with the morning lesson of course and then Wednesday has 4 lessons whcih I think is 3 junior conversation lessons and 1 senior covnersation lesson. Well, I say 3 junior lessons, but in reality we only get to attend about 15 minutes of the last one, as we have to go and hold a lunchtime lesson for the Kita-ku office. This lesson is only about 45 minutes long and feels really weird to teach anyways. We are paid with a lunch that someone brings for us. After this we have to stay around in school a little bit, watch Barney-sensei sleep before and after his PTA class and just generally get sorted for our evening lessons. We then usually go home and dump our excess stuff before going out to the actual lesson. This night lesson is about 15 minutes walk away from our house and lasts for 2 hours. There is a break in the middle, when I always need a coffee to keep myself sane. The ability level in this group is almost as vast as how far my brain has been stretched previously to try and make a lesson suitable for all of the members. Anyways, once this is over I feel immensely happy and go home and sleep (and dread the nursery the next day…)

Thursday: Hey guess what, another morning lesson, the bane of my lfie at the moment. After that we have to go home and change to go to the Nursery in Jujo, the next town along. We walk all the way there and it takes about 20 minutes from our house maybes (I don`t really know, we haven`t done it from our house before I don`t think). We stay in the nursery until 12pm, which is when we leave after eating lunch there. We then have toi go back to work to sit there for hours, maybes get another call from Terry to go to his homeroom class and then we go to punch out and home at 4.30pm. We stay at home for a couple of hours and then go out to the `Shuwa` (Japanese Sign Language) club in the local(ish) disabled sports centre. After that we go home, cook a very late tea and then sleep shortly after washing up (by then usually about 11pm)

Friday:  The last morning lesson of the week, thank god for that. After that Friday morning is taken up by 2 hours a piece of the two English orientated classes, 2-8 (which has the `returnees` in, so me and Mike take it in turns to teach them individually for a hour) and 1-6 (who are Terry`s form class). After that we always go for curry as the ELC crew (Barney, Terry, Mike and I) which is fun. After that we have the worst class in hte school, 1-5 (a class built to spiral in a downward direction) and then quite a ncie class 1-4 to finish up our weeks…

Saturday: Sometimes we have advertising, which involvces standing at shcool handing out material of some kind, seems like a prospectus.

Sudnay: Free, though one time we did have advertising on a Sunday

Anyways, that is my weekly schedule. It is getting late and I have work tomorrow so I am going to go to sleep. Tomorrow I will be back to give some brief explainations of interesting things I have done recently.

Sorry it`s been so long, but now I am going to try and pick it up!

Edit: Sorry, I have no idea why those two lines are like that or how to fix them…it`s just because wordpress kind of sucks I think (see, and now this line is doing it too :S)

Have put some photos in an album on Flickr so you can check them out. Haven`t put that many on becuase of monthly limit, but each month I will keep adding to it until I can find somehwere to host more of my photos.

Will do another blog post soon too!

Click here!