Transform to Tokyo

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!

I woke up for my first day of school and dressed in the first time in my shirt and trousers. They don`t really suit me I don`t think but this wasn`t my choice. I have taken a very poor picture of this so that you can see how weird I looked. After having a good bowl of Frosties me and Mike walked to school, punched in and met Barney-sensei in the ELC. Time for our first lesson. After flipping a coin or something (our usual method of decision) it was decided I would have my first lesson with Barney-sensei.

In the lesson, all I had to do was introduce myself, be asked questions, go around and help kids with their summer vacation speeches and then listen to some and with Barney-sensei, grade them. This went okay, my slow introduction in English with the aid of some pictures and the white board went okay, though I was kind of surprised at the behavior of the students. I would expect, since everywhere else I have been has had everyone being polite and courteous to the nth degree that the children in school would be the same, but no. I was surprised (though I guess I shouldn`t have been surprised) that they are all just like normal kids from anywhere in the world. After my intro came the questions…or did they. No-one was really up for asking me any questions, but I think I got some, maybes even if they were forced by Barney. I even got some random questions throughout the day like “Do you have a girlfriend?” but Mike definitely got a lot more questions like that than I did, so I was kind of glad.

Second lesson was the lesson that I will never forget as it is currently the most embarrassing moment in my life, and it wasn`t even my fault. I asked Barney-sensei which floor to go to for 1-3 class, the junior class I had next, He told me, “Oh, just go up to the 6th floor and look for the 1-3 on the door”. I did exactly this, but noticed an entire class of students in there with no teacher at all. I went in and sat down at the teachers desk, after an uproar from the students in the class, some laughing, some shouting and others just looking confused. Some were even standing up from the back to check it was true. They all thought that this brand new Caucasian guy was about to teach them about Japanese Classics. The real teacher came to the door and my relief, well, not really relief but still. I went to the door, tried to apologise and left the classroom to tlak to the teacher. She had no English skills what-so-ever and I stood there kind of talking at her for a bit, trying to explain my situation with the tiny bits of Japanese I knew mixed with English. Luckily after a while a teacher in another classroom noticed us and came outside to my rescue. He had a bit of English skill and I think that it was all sorted out…I hoped.

All of the lessons went pretty similarly, though obviously the seniors were better behaved than the juniors, which was a nice bit of a break. We then found out from Nakahara-sensei that we must introduce ourselves in Japanese to all of the staff in the auditorium before their staff meeting. This was immensely scary, especially all of my Japanese skill had suddenly been lost. They seemed very impressed with Mike`s speech, and afterwards my speech was short and after I told them, “My Japanese is bad isn`t it?” they all laughed. I hoped they were laughing with me.

After the meeting Mike was invited to join the English speaking club, however I wasn`t so I was left alone in the ELC. Lindsey turned up however, so I was able to talk to her for a bit before she left to go and meet one of her friends. Lindsey is an ex-volunteer so she kind of o\understood my day as `an average first day at Jun Ten`. Tis made me feel a bit better.

We went out for some ramen in quite a small ramen bar, but it seemed pretty cool and the ramen was good. We then got some pudding from Mr Donut (one of our best friends), went home, played Wave Race for a bit and did some more ironing, ready for another day of work the next day…

Me on my first morning - Picture!