Transform to Tokyo

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!

Getting up and quickly packing after a tiring night of karaoke was hard but it had to be done. I rushed downstairs and checked out only 5 minutes late, but they let me off fine. We all met downstairs and decided to go out into Shibuya for breakfast. We found a coffee shop and ate breakfast there. Soon after we had to say our goodbyes to the Toya volunteers as they set off for Odaiba to check it out before they had to go up North. This left me and Mike in Shibuya with some time to kill and after wandering around for a bit and playing around with our newly obtained phones (that morning we had flipped a coin to see who would get each phone) we went back to the hotel, picked up our bags and headed for the subway to make our way to Oji.

We had a little confusion as to what ticket to buy as Yuki had told us to buy a 370 yen ticket, and yet the machine only sold up to 310 yen tickets. We bought these and set off and luckily arrived in Oji, however 30 minutes early (it wasn`t as far away as we thought). The ticket confusion was quickly solved by the fare adjustment machine (so far so good). We stood around for 30 minutes waiting, hoping that whoever was meeting us would not be offended by us not wearing smart clothes and me not having shaved my entire beard yet but with no cases, these things weren`t really possible.

Nakahara sensei, our contact arrived on time and with Miyashita sensei, took us to Jun Ten after a nice little woodland walk. We were let into the office and introduced to all of the members of staff in the office, however at this time trying to remember 10 or so Japanese names (each with two words and often sounding similar to the last person) was basically impossible (I couldn`t even remember Miyashita sensei`s name let alone anymore). We were taken to the staff room and introduced to who I thought was the head-master, the deputy head, assistant head and a fair amount of teachers. All of the teachers seemed to invite us to their clubs. The deputy head gave me to signal to make sure I shave fully before working here and of course I had to agree.

We finally got round to the ELC (English Learning Centre), which shortly after became our base. We each received a desk in here, albeit almost completely empty. We met Barney sensei, an American teacher who we would find ourselves teaching with about 50% of the time in school classes. After this we went to the office once again but now Mike`s luggage had arrived, however my bag was still not around. We waited in the office for about two hours (it certainly seemed this long anyway) while the office staff and Nakahara sensei were phoning as many people as possible to try and find out about my bag. It was reported that it was meant to arrive tomorrow, which was fine with me, except the fact that I had no toiletries or really any clothes left, so the next day I was bound to look awful…

After they had everything sorted, Nakahara sensei, Miyashita sensei, Isshi sensei and Mori san took us to our apartment and gave us the full tour of everything and laid down the rules for the apartment. After we had dumped our bags and Nakahara sensei was satisfied that we understood everything, we parted ways with Mori san (who I think went back to work, he is like a care-taker at the school, though I`m not really sure what exactly his job is) and then the five of us went out for a meal on Nakahara sensei, who took us to a Japanese restaurant in Oji. We had a meal and attempted to communicate with everyone, even though it was pretty tough for me, after forgetting all my Japanese. Mike did pretty well talking to the teachers in bits of Japanese. I knew I had some revision to do… After the meal was over, Miyashita sensei walked us back to our apartment and told us she would meet us outside in the morning to take us to ampm to get breakfast.

In the morning I woke up and had a shower. Remembering the fact that I still had a beard, I borrowed Mike`s electric razor and attempted to shave using it. After doing an awful shod job of it (I literally had half a moustache and random bits of hair everywhere. It was like that scene in Team America) we had to go and meet Miyashita. Miyashita took us to ampm as promised and I got an umeboshi onigiri of some kind. We walked to school, punching in and went to the ELC to eat at our desks. Man that umeboshi onigiri was bad, this hadn`t really been my day and it was only 8.15am. We then had a phone call that my bag had arrived, so I felt slightly better, but now my mind was trying to think up a sneaky plan to get my razor out of my bag in the office…

Shortly after this, another teacher came in and started introducing himself. He took a piece of paper, sat next to us and wrote on it `Jerb Ohga`. He claimed this was his name, his first name being made up himself from an acronym of things about him. `Judo`, `English` and `Road Bike`, making `Jerb`. He said he did this because his first name is a rather boring Japanese name, `Higashi` I think he said it was. Me and Mike were a bit confused at this bizarre introduction, but this easily made him the most memorable teacher so far (after Nakahara sensei probably), so he certainly did a good job of introducing himself. He took us to a gap in the fence outside Jun Ten opposite the Kita-ku Ward office and told us `It is very dangerous to cross here, so it is strictly prohibited…but just this time, let`s go`. He ran across the road and we kind of stumbled after him. We had no idea if this was a joke or what it was but we sure knew this guy was a character and a half.

We found out we needed our passports and passport photos for the registration, so we took my bag home and picked our stuff up. I was able to shave properly, so I didn`t look so strange (thank god for that), but now I couldn`t remember where my passport photos were. I decided to take the risk and hope they had a passport photo machine at the ward office.

We returned to the office and Mike started filling out his form for our `Alien Registration`. Meanwhile, Jerb Ohga, or Ogha sensei as I much preferred calling him took me to a passport photo machine and helped me use it. Soon after we applied to register as aliens (something I`ve always wanted to do…). About 20 minutes of waiting later, we were told we had to come back to the office between the 2nd and the 9th of October to check if our application was successful (and to receive the green skin paint).

Now it was lunch time and we decided to try out the school canteen, presuming this would be somewhere we`d be visiting each day. The school canteen works with a machine at the back that you buy a ticket for a meal from which you then give to one of the dinner ladies. I decided to go for a 400 yen large kare raisu (Curry Rice). When it said large, I didn`t realize just how large this was. There was so much rice it was untrue and there was just as much curry to go with it. I felt awful but I really couldn`t finish it. Me and Mike went up and gave our trays back and with broken Japanese told them that the portions were big and they just laughed, so it was okay.

After lunch we were to meet Miida sensei for a tour of Oji. She met us and took us around places to buy food and things for our house as well as some restaurants and things. We got out of one shop and it was raining really heavy, so we quickly returned to school and Miida sensei gave us towels (I don`t know what for though, since it was mainly our clothes that were wet). After signing the toilet monitors sheet to say that they had cleaned the toilet, we bought our Suica cards (train cards) and then food shopping to get some essential things. We made our first meal and ate and realizing that we had work the next day tried out the iron. The iron is like a normal iron, but our ironing board is no bigger than an A3 piece of paper. This made ironing a full sized shirt pretty hard and it took about 25 minutes or so for me to do this. We had a bit of a break and played on the Game cube (which wasn`t actually ours, we found out later) for a bit before going to sleep before our first day of work…

Well, day one started with us (Japan volunteers or JPK as we like to be known) all meeting up at the airport and getting through the check-in bit fine with our web tickets and we even got to bump quite a few people in the line since we messed up the automated machine. Soon after this though Tom was stopped for having two bags when only only one is allowed so after a bit of shifting of luggage into the rest of our bags and the putting on of about 5 layers Tom was able to get through the gates. We then had a decent, however delayed flight to Paris. This late flight meant that we missed our connecting plane, which of course at the time was very scary, but we managed to sort it all out and we were put on spare seats on the next flight to Tokyo. I was next to a Japanese man who slept about 85% of the time and the other 15% of the time watched movies. He did however talk to me a couple of times when he had been asleep and I gave him the stuff they were handing out, or when I woke him up for tea and he returned the favour for me for breakfast. He also showed me Mount Fuji out of the window as we were coming down in Japan. The girl next to me however, slept approximately 99.9% of the time, as when entering and exiting the place she was surprisingly awake for a change.

Arriving in the airport we had to fill out the forms and things, which took quite a long time as our job description `volunteer‘ confused Japanese customs. We finally got through that only to be met with the pleasant surprise that our bags wouldn’t arrive till later in the week. I was quite gutted because this now meant I had no toiletries of any kind since I`d slipped them in my main bag to avoid the fuss of the whole liquids thing.

Anyway, after posting our bags to our various workplaces across Japan we waited around in the airport to get the bus to Shibuya. We finally got into Tokyo after driving through some rather amazing views of the countryside and then later on the city itself (even Rainbow Bridge). We arrived at a very posh hotel and all though (wahoo!) only to be greeted by Yukiko who promptly informed us that this was not where we were staying. She took us to the top of Carrot Tower for us to see Tokyo from over 20 floors up and also to eat. It was here we also met Satomi and Kouichirou (who was renamed to Jack later that night) who took us to our hotel and then out to the restaurant in Shibuya where we were later going to meet back up with Yuki. We didn`t go straight there though, we were taken to a `Purikura` which I think is short for `Purinto Kurabu` which is a club with a lot of photo taking machines, all of which produce stickers at the end that you can draw on. It’s pretty hard to explain but when I get some pictures up on here you`ll see what I am talking about. To the meal afterwards, Yuki also brought her friend Mai and we all had some really random food and things before heading back to the hotel for some well deserved sleep, however I didn`t go to sleep without checking what crazy stuff would be on television. Luckily for me there was some Japanese wrestling that involved a fat guy who spat green paint on people against a woman and Tajiri, the old WWE star. It was immensely random, but after that match was over I went to sleep.

We got up and had a fun filled, however confusing breakfast including rice and some odd potato dish. We got up early so we could get to Akihabara in decent time and we took the Yamanote line (the main line in Tokyo) to get there. We looked around for a bit but didn’t have much time unfortunately, but we managed to get some arcade gaming in (which Tom claimed himself amazing at). We got the train back and met Mai back near Shibuya. She took us for a walk to Yukiko`s office in Sangen-jaya. In the office we received our time tables for the initial few days as well as witness some strange noodles and just generally talked to Yuki and Mai. About an hour or so later went up to Ikebukuro to the `Bosaikan` which means `Natural Disaster Building`. This building was filled with several sections each for learning how to cope with disasters. There was a fire extinguisher room, an earthquake room and a smoke maze. After this we took a quick trip to Harajuku and went for a snack (I had some awesome pancakes). While walking around we also were handed some Dragon Ash fans and flyers so I was pretty happy about that. (For those who are unaware, Dragon Ash is my favourite band). Later, we once again met Yukiko for tea. This time we had Shabu-Shabu, a traditional Japanese style of cooking. You get a hot pot (between several people) which has oil or soy or another kind of hot liquid in it and you cook your own meat and vegetables in it. It`s quite similar to Fondue, like an Asian version of that. It`s name comes from the way you shake the article you are cooking. After this we went for a wander around town with Mai, Yukiko and Jack. We hit a couple of arcades to play the Taiko Drum game and then of course when to another Purikura. Later on in the evening after Jack and Yukiko had gone home, Mai took us to an all night karaoke session, which we managed to do from 11pm to 5am, even after thinking this an impossible feat before we went in. I even tried to Dragon Ash songs, but my reading is a bit too slow for some of them just yet…

Anyhow, that`s how the first few days went. I hope you have enjoyed finding out what I have been doing. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to write about anything in detail, but once I have caught everything up, the new stuff will definitely be in detail and more entertaining, I promise!

Burogu o hajimemasu!!! Hello and welcome to my blog. This is my sixth day in Japan, but at the moment I am very very busy, so I have not had time to post anything here yet but do not fear, once I am settled in properly I will do an entire back catalogue of the ups, downs and completely confusing moments so far.

Before this blog even starts proper, I would like to thank all of my sponsors because without you I wouldnt not have even been able to get here and experience these things. I sincerely hope you enjoy reading my blog and I apoligise at the lateness of this post. I would especially like to thank:

The 1989 Willan Charitable Trust

The Readman Foundation

The Henry Bell Trust

The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundatio

The English Speaking Union

The Rothley Trust

Thank you all for your kind support. I hope everyone who comes across this blog enjoys reading it, please, just give me some time to start it up! Thanks again.

Ben