Easy Peasy...

Summer Holidays Pt1: Innies vs Outies! I wish.

2009-11-30T05:53:00.000-08:00

It's been a while, but recently I had a small boost of motivation - I've decided to stop being so lazy and make a few posts. This sudden passion for writing is most likely temporary, so I'm going to try to write as quickly as I can for the next ten minutes.

So last time I posted it was the middle of summer holidays. We had about six weeks off from the end of July to the first of September. Even though we didn't go overseas, like we were half-heatedly planning, I think we managed to make the most of the break.
We went to Kyoto and Nara, a belly-button festival, a fireworks festival, a drift (motor sport) festival, saw a giant robot - twice! Also did a bit of shopping in Tokyo and I climbed Mt Fuji.

I'll split the adventures up over a few posts to raise the post count and because I'm not a fan of writing epic posts anymore.

So first up, the belly-button festival in Shibukawa (Gunma prefecture). Shibukawa is known as the belly-button (heso) of Japan because of where it's situated geographically. It is about 1.5 hours by train from where we are in Ashikaga. Interestingly, since sometime in the 16th century the town has been split into two opposing factions - it doesn't take a comedic genius to imagine what those two factions may be; you and I both just proved this.

So every year they have a heso matsuri (belly-button festival). It's basically a big parade up and down the main street of the town for three or so hours - this...last year, it was on the 25th of July. Most people in the parade paint their stomachs to look like faces. Others don't- they wear other traditional stuff.
One of the big draws for participants in the parade is the mandatory beer break every 20 minutes. Yep, free beer every 20 minutes. I'll tell you, they earn it, though. Watch the short video to see why you might want a beer after 20 minutes of parading.

Jenni and I went with our English mate, Andrew. You might remember Andrew as the Pop Idol auditionee (not a word) and reject band star from a previous post. Unsurprisingly, he was keen to join in on the parade and the free beer.
Now, considering this is our blog, convention would dictate that we also took part or at least did something interesting. Well, we're breaking free from convention and all the embarrassing parading it entails - so I am proud to announce that we did neither!

Pictures:

Andrew taking advantage of the beer breaks.

Couldn't handle the pace...or the free beer?? Either way his mates don't seem too concerned.

And a short video - those kids were awesome.

Finally, a short video from an upcoming post of my adventures at the Summer Drift Festival. Please watch it as it's intended to pique your interest and suck you into checking on the blog later for updates.
Anyway, this guy is a friend of mine and he's really good. He's coming down this straight at about 120kmph. I taught him everything he knows about cheese and Vegemite sandwiches. *cough*

Honjo Circuit and Taue- small update

2009-08-18T18:16:00.000-07:00

...and moving right on from my last post; our trip to Honjo Circuit.

As some of you may know, one of things I wanted to do in Japan was to get into drifting in some way. So I bought the car - I then wanted to check out some drifting.

The closet main racing circuit to us is Honjo Circuit which, as I mentioned in the last post, is about 1.5 hours drive from Ashikaga. To get off topic for a moment, you might think 1.5 hours is
a fair drive...well, in Australia, yes. It's a little different here. Unless you take the tollways (which cost money and don't always go past your destination) it can take a long time to get anywhere. The actual distance between us and Honjo is only about 40kms. Within that 40kms, we drove through about 4 cities and about 8 smaller 'towns'.
Drifting is pretty popular in Japan and there are usually two or more events at Honjo every week. The event we went to watch was just an invitational drift day put on by the owners of a couple of mechanics workshops in the area - so nothing major I guess.
We invited Tom and Ana, and Andrew to come with us. We picked up Tom and Ana in Ota and Andrew at a train station just near Honjo.
We weren't sure where to park or whatever once we got there, but it was free entry and we just parked where all the cars were - in the pits. My car didn't look too out of place but we did get a few looks.
We spent the next few hours checking out different vantage points and watching the action.

Along with the drifting there was another set of cars doing their own 'grip racing' thing. So basically just normal racing / time attacks. This cool little Speed Racer car was doing battle with a red Evo 9.

There was some really good drifting on the day, we got a couple of pics from this corner - we were sitting on top of the dirt wall, literally 20 metres from the cars.

I also got a fair bit of footage of the day with our new video camera. I've roughly edited out the really bad bits and thrown it all together onto Youtube - VIDEO HERE.
Oh, there was one small crash...nothing too exciting though.
--Drift coverage over--

Jumping back to school-related stuff, a week or two after Honjo, my smallest school, Kuno, asked me if I wanted to join in on their Taue (sounds just like it reads - "ta-oo-eh"). I was keen as to piss around in the mud so it was an easy "YES!". Taue is rice planting. Some smaller schools in the sticks (which is Kuno to a T) often have their very own vege gardens and rice field. The students all work on these in one way or another throughout the year (actually, my biggest school, Mikuriya, also has a big vege garden which is right outside my English room - so when I get bored I often sit at the window and watch the 7 year olds toil haha). The rainy season (June - mid July) is a good time to plant rice, so that's what we did. Later in the year when the rice is ready, the kids will harvest it and then make meals from it.
Anyway, it was a pretty typical rainy season day and I only planted for about 10 minutes (thankfully, it's pretty uncomfortable work) but it was pretty cool. Here are some pictures.

Catch-up Post

2009-06-12T22:07:00.000-07:00

Here's the thing - we got our super-fast internet hooked up around Golden Week (about two months ago) and since then I have had more stuff to do (ie playing games on my awesome laptop) so I've sort of been neglecting the blog. Also, the longer we live here, the less interesting a lot of things seem to us and we take fewer photos etc. Dakara, I haven't updated the blog in a long time.

Quick rundown of what's been happening since the last post:

OK, picking up from where I left off last time, Golden Week:
Golden week is a collection of single day holidays all falling around the same time at the beginning of May. There are about three, but if one falls on a weekend, it is transferred to the following working day, and by law if there are two holidays with a working day between them, that in-between day automatically becomes a holiday too. So that's pretty kool. In the end we only had off Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues and Wed - naturally, I felt a little cheated.

So, the Friday night we went to Yakitori-kun...a tiny yakitori (grilled chicken kebab things) bar on the other side of town. This is where a lot of Ashikaga's foreigners often come to meet up and drink etc. We met-up and drank. Some yakitori was involved.

On Sunday at about 12:00pm, Chris gave us a call to see if we wanted to go on a day trip to Utsunomia, about one and a half hours north-east of Ashikaga....
OK.
So he rocks up at 1:30pm to pick us up. We're all hungry so we go to a tonkatsu (pork fillet crumbed somehow) place for lunch. We left for our day trip to Utsunomia at 3:30 in the afternoon.
Turns out that's OK because Utsunomia was pretty boring, with the exception of a whole wall of paintings done by school students of various ages in the area. Some were great, some not so great - some just strange. Here are some:

Golden week continued: On the Monday we went into Tokyo again and had a look around Ikebukuru and then Akihabara. We couldn't find anything particularly interesting in Ikebukuru which is why we left for Akihabara.
Akihabara is like the geek central of Japan, if not the world. It's called the 'electric city', and it's something like 50 blocks of shops and video arcades and all sorts of cool, weird and nerdy stuff. And there were people everywhere. Most places in Tokyo are pretty crowded, but this was by far the most crowded part that I'd seen so far. Spent the afternoon there looking around and buying heaps of cool stuff we don't need.
I was hoping to find some newish PC games to buy, and I thought I was pretty safe in assuming I could get some in the 'electric city'. Turns out I was kind of wrong. Kind of.
It was actually really easy to find huge signs advertising "PC Games" next to "Nintendo Games", "PS3 Games" etc. So I was pretty excited, thinking I'm gonna find Empire: Total War or whatever...but why is the PC section behind a door with a "18+ Only" sign on it? I didn't realise the Japanese would be so tough on computer game violence and stuff. They're not...all the 'PC games' in every shop we checked were actually cartoon porn games. It shat me - the games I thought were awaiting me, were not; I felt so cheated and betrayed. So you know what? I had to make a stand, show them just how angry I was - I stormed straight out of those stores - after having bought only three games! That'll show those lying weirdos...

EDIT: For those of you who, like Jenni, may have a bit of a difficulty with this 'sarcasm' thing, let me clarify...the above is a joke.

The rest of Golden week was pretty uneventful for us, I think.

The next weekend - we had a big night on the town (Me, Jenni and the rest of the usual crew). First up, the Cuban bar - it was basically just our group there. There were awesome rain forest toilets.

Why do we call it the Cuban bar?

We then moved on to the Okinawan bar at about 10:00 - was a really cool bar with a few more people. It also had a crazy toilet theme - this time with a penis-shaped toilet paper roll holder.

At 2:00amish we decided we were drunk enough and headed off to karaoke until 4:30amish. Walked around Ashikaga for a while, looking for something to eat. There was nothing open.

RANDOM SIDE STORY: The English guy we hand out with, Andrew had a fairly crazy bar story to tell us. He was a contestant in the second season of Pop Idol (England version of Australian / American Idol). He can sing pretty well, but probably not that well. Anyway, he dressed up in a too-small Elvis costume and kind of luckily was chosen to audition in front of the judges - Simon Cowell et al. Anyway, it ends with Andrew being one of the first people to have a go at Simon Cowell, telling him to, "shut up and listen" ...at this early point in Pop Idol, telling Simon Cowell to "shut up and listen" was actually considered rude...he was promptly rejected. Andrew was then dubbed "Arrogant Andrew" by the British press...however, Arrogant Andrew had the last laugh, going on to form reject band 'Outta Sync' (from other 'famous' Pop Idol rejects) and making a Maccas ad in the UK...
This is our fan photo with 'Arrogant Andrew' in Ashikaga at about 4:30am:

This is the Maccas ad - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NogllEkqFs

/END RANDOM STORY

Finding nothing open that early in the morning, we decided to go to Lisa's, crash for a few hours and then walk to train station at 9:00am. When we got to the train station - after getting incredibly drunk all night and not sleeping - we ran into the lady from our office who hired us...yeah.
We got home at 10am.

On the night of the 23rd of May we (Me, Jenni, Anna, Tom, Chris, Mat, Andrew, Lisa) all went into Tokyo drinking around the Shinjuku area. First, we met this guy:

Then we went to an Izekaya for nomihodai (all you can drink for 2 hours for about $20). I only had one drink. A straight whiskey - it was hell.

After a swig:

We then jumped on a train to a nearby suburb where Andrew's friend was DJing at a small place. turns out it was a Hippy bar. It was full of Japanese hippies and beatniks, and it was really weird - I kept expecting to see Yoko. Luckily, I was completely wiped out by that whiskey. This guy with long hair and a beard talked to me in very broken English for what seemed like hours about how dancing could effect a "Paradigm Shift" if I really wanted it to. For some reason I kept drinking.

Lisa, Jenni and I left at about 4:00am to get the first train of the day. Our trip back involved three trains...and me passing out on each one in turn...then being shaken awake and running like hell to make the next one. I'll never dri...eh, who am I kidding.

On the 6/6 Jenni and I went to a big shopping centre called Aeon (pronounced Ee-on by the Japanese for some reason) in our neighboring city, Ota. Then we met up with Lisa, Mat and a girl called Bridget Beaver (she's from America) and went to have curry. Curry was followed by karaoke, and karaoke was followed by missing the last train. THAT was an expensive mistake. Taxis in Japan are a rip-off. Also, we had a quick explore around the Ota train station that night and found that there are a lot of Hostess bars in this city...most seemingly in the main street, 200 meters from the main entrance of the train station:

(It says: sekushi pubu supa..Sexy Pub Super)

Also, you can buy food at the karaoke place. We went to one with a cat theme. So we bought this pancake:

Neeeext: Matt's 30th Birthday, 13 /06 - Beer garden (2 hours) >> an Izekaya (2 hours) >> another bar called Hearts and Roses (1 hour) >> karaoke until 4:30am >> then rode home very quickly because it looked like rain.

Jenni had to do a demo lesson on the 22nd of June, 90 people were watching, verdict - was alright. XD
So glad it wasn't me. Pretty hardcore, really. 40 other ALTs, 50 Japanese teachers and a University professor from Tokyo watching. Talk about pressure!

Last week I finally got my car here in Japan. It's a white 1994 Nissan 180SX Type R. It has a couple of basic mods: mechanical LSD, aftermarket adjustable suspension (TEIN), aftermarket exhaust, HKS air intake and HKS blowoff valve. Also has an old Recaro drivers seat and a front strut bar...and I got a second set of rear wheels with some fresh tires. Drives great, no problems so far. The body has the usual amount of wear, fading, cracks, dints etc plus a couple of large dents on the front left panel....and I had the front bar replaced. Here are some pre-op photos - with leopard-print floor mats for Blair:

And finally, with my new mode of transport, Jenni and I went on a small road trip to Honjo Circuit, which is about 1.5 hours west of Ashikaga. On the way we picked up Tom and Ana in Ota, then Andrew from a train station near the circuit. More about that in the next post.

Holidays now 2 weeks off, but we've been too lazy to book anything, so might not really do anything interesting. Either way, we are now officially in Money Saving mode...buying a DSi, 6 DS games, an electric fan, a car, lots of random stuff at Aeon, Hello Kitty strawberry-scented toilet paper, tiny Water Melons and some furniture doesn't count.

Another Small melon...V Big apple V Small apple:

Post From the Future! Or Past....

2009-05-01T23:33:00.000-07:00

Another very late post. Sorry to anyone who regularly checks for updates. However, not a great deal has been happening over the last week or so.
Last weekend on Saturday night (25/04/09) Jenni and I caught up with some of the other ALTs (Chris, Ana, Tom and Lisa) at Tom and Ana's house in Ota. We had a few drinks there and then went out for our (inevitable) first night of karaoke. Despite not being able to hold a tune to save myself and my throat still destroyed by the cold I had had since the previous week, it was a lot of fun. At the place we went, you pay 550Yen (currently roughly $8AUD though for arguments sake we look at it as $5.50) for half an hour of karaoke...plus all you can drink thrown in for free. That's alcoholic drinks. Beer, some wine, spirits etc. We stayed for two hours because the first hour seemed to be over in less than 20 minutes. So we payed 2200Yen for two hours of all we could drink, listening to/badly singing music we liked. I think it's a really good deal. Got home at about 3:30 Sunday morning. On Sunday we just slept in then went shopping for random grocery stuff.

Then we began our third week of school. Teaching-wise it was much the same as the week before though maybe I'm starting to get in to a sort of routine now. It's still fairly annoying doing lesson plan's with Japanese teachers when; a) I don't know anything about teaching or lesson planning, and b) I can't speak Japanese and they can't speak English [well enough for this task]. On Tuesday, Mikuria had a fire drill in second period (so rather than just cancel my lesson - like they would have at, say, Jenni's school - they made me do that lesson in first period, which was a bit of a let-down lol) and there are some small differences between their fire drill and the one's I took part of in Australia;
1. Everyone RUNS. They don't walk quickly, they all run out to the meeting area...it's how they are taught to do it.
2. They all have handkerchiefs specifically for the purpose of covering their noses and mouths when there is a fire/fire drill.
Overall I think they did pretty well.

Moving along in the week, Wednesday was a public holiday for the Emporer's birthday. We just spent the day cleaning the apartment and doing a bit of shopping again. Then that afternoon Lisa told us about some fireworks down on the river that night. So we met up with Lisa and Chris to go see those. They were pretty good, but nothing spectacular by Japanese standards - they went for about half an hour. We tried to take some video footage but the camera struggled to focus properly aaaand I don't know how to fiddle with the settings yet. Plan b, our two digital cameras...didn't work particularly well in the traditional sense either. The fireworks were quite a way away from our vantage point so we had to zoom in a lot...the result was any slight movement/shaking of the camera caused things like this to happen:

Thursday was back to school - to Kuno today though - ...nothing to report.. other than that the principal saw through my impressive pretending-to-do-work-while-eyeing-the-clock acting and said I could go home a whole 15 minutes early! This week it wasn't blowing a gale either.
The ride to Kuno is a good 25 minutes or so in good conditions. Last week I had to ride home into a ridiculously strong headwind. It took me almost double the time to get home than it usually does. At some points it was literally easier to get off the bike and walk it along than to ride. I couldn't believe there was so much wind on an otherwise clear, beautiful day. My ears were numb and there was a ringing inside my head for like half an hour after I got home.
Aaaanyway then I got through Friday fairly well, with only one small hitch: I did the wrong lesson plan for one class. I dunno why I did it or why I didn't remember what the right lesson plan was. It just happened. Luckily the only person to realise this was the Japanese teacher - not that she [could have?] said anything at the time - and the class went ahead pretty smoothly.
Following that, I found out that it's gonna require a lot of time and effort to get my Japanese drivers license and buy a car. I'm starting to think it might be easier to first just get my international drivers permit for the time being and then work on the arduous process of getting the Japanese license later. Oh well...Golden Week is starting. I'll post more updates later.

A couple of other random photos:

Our vacuum cleaner VS our iron.

The tiny cans of Fanta with Jelly in.

Oh, and I'm still sick.

Oompa Loompa Doompety Doo...

2009-04-18T20:24:00.000-07:00

Been a while since my last blog update. Mostly because we've been pretty busy, but also because I've been pretty lazy.
Why have we been so busy? This week was the first week of work/school/teaching. Why have I been so lazy? Basically for this past week we've been at school from 8am to 5pm every day, then on Wednesday and Thursday nights we had classes at the office...so not getting home until about 9pm on those nights.
So there you go. I'm writing this up now because I'm not out hiking a 419 metre (you know what, fcuk you 'spell checker'...I've had enough of your American English elitism. It's metre, not meter, so don't give me your red underline crap) high mountain over at Ohira - a bit to the East of us. Let me explain. Last Sunday night, Jenni and I got together with five other new teachers (Chris, Lisa, Andrew, Tom and Ana) and went out to dinner at a tiny little Italian restaurant in Ashikaga. It was good and they were cool people so we decided to hang out more in the future. Chris suggested going hiking (is that what we say in Australia? I can't remember) the following Sunday (today). We were cool with that (only a little apprehensive - to put it in context, Castle Hill is about 280 metres) and Sunday/today was supposed to be a nice sunny, warm day (it is btw). But last night I got a shitty cold and my throat swelled up, I didn't get much sleep etc etc - so here I sit, instead of halfway up Mt. Whatever...watching Jenni do the ironing lol.*

So, the first week. How was it? Before I go into the details I'll just give you some background. The Japanese school system works like this:
Elementary (or Primary) School for grades 1 to 6, Junior High School for grades 7 to 9, and High School for grades 10 - 12. From what I've gathered each school is totally separate from the others and each stage of schooling works fairly differently from (as well as generally independently of) each of the others.
I, Wyatt, work as an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) at three Japanese Elementary (Primary) schools in the area; Mikuria, which is the largest elementary school in Ashikaga with about 800 students from year 1 to 6 - Mon, Tues, Wed; Kuno, possibly the smallest school in Ashikaga with about 100 students from year 1 to 6 - Thurs; and Tsukuba, somewhere in between with about 200 students from year 1 to 6 - Fri. I help teach grades 4, 5 and 6 English.
Jenni works as an ALT at only Kyouwa Junior High School, which is also a very large school with about 550 students.
Anyway, the first week of lessons is basically an introduction lesson where we tell the kids about ourselves and Australia in very basic English...for 45 minutes...18 times. Eighteen. I did the same thing 18 times this week. It got old after about the 5th time. But really it wasn't all that bad. It's kind of weird being a 'teacher' - I'll try to explain. Generally as an ALT I am supposed to assist the Japanese teacher but this week it was aaallll Wyatt. I had effectively no training and I am not a fan of public speaking...but for some reason I wasn't particularly nervous. I mean, if I compare this situation to say...an English oral in high school...I should have been curled up in a feotal position rocking slightly from side to side. But no. I was a tiny bit nervous before my first couple of classes started but as soon as they got going I was fine. It felt like I had been doing it for ages. That's not to say my first class, or any for that week, was going to win me any...something...awards (is there a major teaching award?). But I was strangely comfortable up there infront of a class. Also, a lot of how the class went really depended on the students I was teaching. I really noticed the differences between each class. Some were really quiet, some were really rowdy, some took a while to warm up to me, some acted like they'd known me for years. I also realised the mood or atmosphere of each class depended largely on the teacher. For example, one of my classes was taught by a very young, very new female teacher. She was very nice and probably a very good teacher, mind. But the class were very quiet and timid...as if unsure of how to act, what to do - I think, somehow reflecting the teacher's lack of confidence and/or inexperience...or something like that. But another class, which had an older much more experience female teacher who was more confident with her English ability and was confident when communicating with me and the class, were way more comfortable asking random questions and trying to chat with me and they showed more interest in what was going on. The classes with lots of lively kids were much better than having a quiet class full of shy kids. In general, the year 5 kids were the best class to teach...for me anyway. Year 4 kids didn't know as much English and so couldn't understand a lot of what I said - which is more my fault...if I was a better teacher I could have tailored the lesson to fit their English ability - while the year 6 kids were just coming into those awkward teenage years and were generally too shy or too cool to speak up or show too much interest in the class.
Speaking of the year 6 kids, I'm sure it's Karma. I definitely remember being a little shit to our Japanese teacher in year 6 at Ryan. Pissing around and not taking any real interest in it. Well, joke's on you now, Jackass - lol.
Looking back over the week, I'm pretty sure I should have done some things differently but in general I'm happy with how it all went.
As far as I can tell all the teachers have been really good to me...very nice and very helpful etc etc. The ALT English program has only recently been introduced to to elementary schools in Japan, so most of the teachers only have very very basic English and they are very shy to use it. They also don't want to look like fools/be shown up by some dickhead straight from Uni with no real training, infront of the kids. And some teachers are busy or just aren't really interested in English at all. Which kind of makes it hard when you're trying to plan a lesson with them. But we'll see how it goes next week.

Oh oh! And that sort of reminds me. At the small school, Kuno, which is considered a 'farmer's school' - as in it's a rural sort of area - one of the teachers has a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 8 (or possibly 9) MR! Holy shit. Strangest thing ever. It's like going to Home Hill or whatever and some guy has a Honda NSX. I guess the guy is about 50 (so by Western standards he looks about 40 lol) and apparently he has quite a few cars and likes to go rallying. Nice. And there is another guy at my big school, Mikuria, with an Evo 5 which has a roll cage...he's young, maybe a few years older than me, and he likes to rally too.
Some other interesting bits of information: Mikuria has a dog-bus. It's a bus, shaped like a dog. Think of the van in Dumb and Dumber and then put it in bus form. I'll get pics soon. I hate those year 1 kids so so much. Lucky bastards.
I'm being stalked by Yakult ladies. Yes, Yakult. Yakult is big in Japan. How big? Well it's almost a religious cult. Instead of getting door-knocked by Jehovah's Witnesses trying to convert you, you get Yakult ladies door-knocking trying to sell you Yakult and make you sign up for yearly plans. Then they come to your school (no shit) and try again there. I admit I was weak the first time they came to our apartment, I caved and bought some. 500Yen for a week's worth of Yakult. To be fair I didn't really know what they were going on about and they couldn't understand me so I felt it was easiest to just give them some money to make them go away. They came back the next week, but this time I was strong and refused. They were quite nice about it.
Speaking of odd things you pour down your throat, we found some crazy tiny Fanta cans at the local supermarket/Big W. They're purple, orange and yellow and about half the size of regular Fanta...there's something strangely Willy Wonkerish about them...can't put my finger on it... Anyway, you are supposed to shake the can before drinking. At first I thought I was going to be the victim of some cruel joke - but as it turns out the fanta has some jelly stuff at the bottom of the can which, when shaken, mixes with the rest of the liquid to create a fairly...unique...experience.
Otherwise, we've just been slowly populating our apartment with bits and pieces we need and we got the TV working. Apart from the occasional news report or anime episode most of the programming seems to be either "Variety show" or "Humiliating game show" or a combination of the two. Last night they had a game show where the contestant had to compete against an actual monkey of some sort. Japan is a truly great country.

Anyway, that's it for now, I'll post pictures soon.

*DISCLAIMER: I did the vacuuming AND helped with cleaning the kitchen and hanging out the clothes.

My Blog Epic - I shall call it Uly...Ueno!

2009-04-05T03:06:00.000-07:00

You can click on the pictures to make them bigger!

Well, where to begin? As you've probably already noticed, this is another huge post. Perhaps the biggest I've written and, hopefully, will ever write.
There are a tonne of photos and a couple of videos. There could have been a lot more (we had over 200 to choose from) - check Jenni's facebook for a few more.

This week's adventure location was Ueno and Ueno Park - never heard of it? Well, it's big in Japan. Ueno is one of the biggest train stations in Tokyo and a very busy place in general. Ueno Park, which is right next to the station is just as popular. A lot of stuff is situated in and around Ueno Park; museums, Universities, famous statues, temples, shrines, lakes full of paddle boats...that sort of thing. It also has a lot of history; the usual stuff like famous last stands of loyalists against new claimants, surrender speeches and political demonstrations.
When we went it was even busier than usual; the reason being that Ueno Park is also fairly famous for it's cherry blossoms (sakura) around this time of year.

People from Tokyo and the surrounding districts swarm (see some of the pictures if you think I'm just being a bit 'poetic' with that description) to the park to eat, drink and be merry - there's a very festive feel to it all. We're not sure what the protocol is; if you have to reserve a space or just rock up with your tarpaulin and food. Either way, there are heaps and heaps of people doing just that. They come down in groups...friends, family, whatever...and set up a little spot under the sakura trees for the day. It's like a mass picnic or something. It's very cool though.

Anyway we left the apartment in time to make the 8:43am train from Fukui Station, like last week. You'll be pleased to hear the ticket purchasing process went much more smoothly this time and when we got to Kuki station we didn't even bother trying to make the express 9:31am train. Ueno is closer than Shibuya, so we ended up getting to Ueno at about 10:30am.

However, no sooner had we jumped off the train and headed into Ueno Park than we were horrified to find...

A Peruvian panflute band setting up!

It's true, the pandemic of annoying Peruvian panflute bands has already spread to Japan. (Don't know what I'm talking about? Please watch this South Park episode)

Anyway, moving along, we were both feeling pretty hungry so we decided to head along the side of the park towards the city, where we might find some food. On the way, we came across this statue of Saigo Takamori...walking his dog.

Saigo Takamori is famously known as the Last Samurai. And yes, Ken Wantanabe's character in the movie, The Last Samurai, is based on this guy (not Tom Cruise's character). Anyway, if you wanna know more about him you can google the name. Otherwise the movie gives you the general idea.
Like the rest of the park, there were heaps and heaps of people here - taking photos or just standing around chatting etc. Ditto for when we hit the streets of Ueno. Lots more people. And cars. Here's one. A cool yellow Honda S2000. Segue...succes!

Also saw this, a very nice original looking Toyota AE86 Trueno:

After stopping at a little coffee shop for morning tea we decided to keep looking around Ueno for a while. We ended up spending about an hour wandering around looking at all the different shops and bars/pubs/clubs, and eventually coming to the busy backstreets which continue up to under the train tracks and beyond.

Around this area were all sorts of shops - food, shoes, pets, souvenirs, auto-spares, pachinko (of course) - which became smaller and more market stall-like the deeper into the maze we got. The picture above shows a comparatively clear street and was closer to the main road. Around the worst spots it was basically a traffic jam, there were so many people. Eventually it got to a point where we couldn't push through any further, we just had to turn around and go back.

Heading back towards the park along the main street we saw this: a full suit of medieval plate armor...in a ladies clothes shop.

Ueno in general has a lot of this sort of thing - strange, out-of-place things randomly situated next to, or among, the usual. Like this. A nondescript white building with a huge red neon sign - ADULT MOVIES - literally right at the main intersection of Ueno, just outside the park, next to restaurants, flower shops and the like.

Eventually we got back to the park via a different entrance next to the lake. Again, heaps of people around this area. Many people also brought their dogs down. Most of the dogs were of the very small variety; small poodles, miniature dachshunds etc. Often the dogs weren't being walked, but carried around in little bags or backpacks held or strapped to the owner's body.

Around one section of the lake were about 40 market stalls set up selling stuff which we wandered through. Below is a video of the lake area and a dog. Also a couple of pictures of different types of sakura trees; one with really pink blossoms and another with lots of orange leaves (it looks nice and is actually pretty uncommon).

I mentioned earlier that there were lakes full of paddle boats. Well here they are. The whole area looks like one big lake with a wide pathway through the middle, dividing it. The pathway is covered with sakura trees, which is why you can't see the boats in my previous pictures. We are on the pathway here.

Now, for the picture below. Just have a look at it for a while - note the tightly clenched hands. Now look at the man's face...try to imagine what's going through his mind. Finally, laugh. lol.

Near the end of the path is a small bridge/weir. I was wondering earlier if there were any fish or turtles or dragons in the lake, when we got here I got my answer. I thought this was a good picture of a crane going fishing. The poor bugger wasn't having much luck though...considering the fish (carp perhaps?) were generally atleast twice the size of it. You can't see the fish well in this photo, but have a look at the next one.

Is it just me, or does this duck look decidedly uncomfortable and nervous? I think I would be too.

Once over the bridge there is a huge temple of some sort with a few statues and smaller shrines around it. Also, this was where you came for the food. There were about 25 food stalls lining each side of the path/series of bridges connecting the temple's island to the other side of the park. There was heaps of really nice food and we tried a few things.
Like I mentioned, there are temples and shrines pretty much all over the park. Here's another one. Not sure what it's for exactly, but I think the twin fox statues with the bibs are pretty cool.

We then headed back into the park, onto one of the major 'highways,' or rivers of people. Saw this statue of who we think is General MacArthur. We're not sure though. Whoever it is, it's pretty much saying, "All ur base r belong to us!1!"

We then visited the museum area and went into the main museum of Japan. Spent a good 2 hours in there but still only just a whirlwind tour of the place sort of thing. We weren't really allowed to take photos so we don't have anything from there. There was another main Asian museum and two other 'special' collections that we didn't have time to visit. You could easily spend a day or two just at the museums.
In the end we really only saw about a quarter of what Ueno Park and Ueno had to offer. We got back on the train at Ueno Station at about 8:00pm.

And finally, here are a few pictures taken at night as we wandered back towards the train station.

This is the big temple in the middle of the lake we visited earlier, and you can still see all the people crammed in between the food stalls.

This shot was taken outside the park, near the Shogun cemetery (which was closed by the time we got there). It made me think of the lamp post in Narnia lol. That's the only reason I took this picture.

And just when you thought you were safe...

BAM! More sakura!!

The end.

Ride, Jenni, Ride.

2009-03-31T05:42:00.000-07:00

Not much has happened over the last few days since our trip into Tokyo. We've sort of just been stuffing around, waiting for a call from Fifth Wings to tell us what to do.
We've spent the time organising/tidying our apartment and going for bike rides around the area - exploring, getting to know the place better. Usually we take the camera, so I've been getting some pictures of random stuff...mainly cars.
I promised you pictures of us on our bikes, so without further ado:

Jenni - refusing to be photographed actually riding.

And me - looking like I'm about to crash. Note the stylish new jacket :D.

As you can imagine, small, winding streets coupled with small, quiet cars and...lets say...rusty riding skills, have caused more than one near miss. Though considering the tiny size of many of the cars I'm still unsure who would come off second best in a collision.

So far we've found a couple of good supermarkets and department stores as well as mapping out the more important things...like the local McDonalds' and (for later) tyre shops and panel beaters. We've also come across a couple of cool little 'farm-shops.' Basically the setup is; they have a small farm (of strawberries in this case) adjacent to a road/street. Sitting on the side of the street is a large display case/dispenser which the farmer regularly fills with fresh produce straight from the farm. It seems the average price for a punnet of [about 20] strawberries is 400Yen (roughly $4 - $5 AUD). Having done hardly any food shopping while living in Australia, I have no idea if that's a good price or not.
Here's a picture of the strawberry one. Though we've also seen ones for tomatoes and eggs.

Today we decided to ride all the way to the Fifth Wings office - mainly for something to do, but also to time how long it takes for future reference (it's about 25 minutes). Despite studying the map before leaving I managed to overshoot the turnoff by about a kilometre and we ended up at another big shopping centre. One of the shops was a homewares place, much like Anaconda/Bazaar/Loot...you know the sort of trendy type, where you can buy stuff like environmentally friendly coasters that look like Pandas or some shi...Anyway, Jennifer bought some cool chopsticks (Japanese word = hashi) with cats on and a cat-shaped chopstick resting device. As seen below. Why she put them on the obviously dirty floor, I do not know.

Also over the last couple of days I've been trying to work on improving my Japanese. So I've decided that a fun way of doing so would be by reading some Japanese comics (manga). I realised that in the learning-Japanese scheme of things I could compare myself to a small Japanese child. So I had a look for manga that a small Japanese child might read/be able to comprehend, and the result is the following selection:

Clock-wise: Mario - vol. 1; Ranma 1/2 - vol. 2; Crayon Shin-Chan - vol. 6; Dragon Ball - vol. 1

Jenni picked Mario and Ranma 1/2. If you're wondering why we didn't get volume 1 for Ranma 1/2 and Crayon Shin-Chan, there's a really interesting story behind that; it's because the shop didn't have them.
Latest update: Me - still struggling to get past page 2 of Crayon Shin-Chan; Jenni - 'likes to look at the pictures.'

And finally, the obligatory car pictures.

This one was outside a panel beater's and looked like it hadn't moved for some time. I'm guessing that whatever rocket fuel they were using to power it is no longer being produced due to environmental health issues (the thing is HUGE, it doesn't even fit into a parking space). Didn't see any badges on it, but on the front above the grill it says 'Mark IV'.

And also saw this Nissan 370Z - but it's not just any 370Z, it's the special NISMO S-tuned edition. Quite rare so I hear. Either way, a very nice looking car.

Stay tuned for my next blog entry where I hope to reveal What's on Page 3 of Crayon Shin-Chan; also, answers to such mysteries as, 'What Day Are We Supposed to Put the Rubbish Out?'!

I <3 of Darkness

2009-03-28T04:29:00.000-07:00

Today we ventured into Deepest Darkest Tokyo.
I spent Friday night picking a particular place to go (Shibuya - shopping mecca) and meticulously planning our travel routes so we would actually make it to our destination. I'm so proud of it, I've put a copy on this very blog. See below.

*********************************************************************
Fukui (Tochigi) - Shibuya (Toyko) 1320Yen

Train 1:
Depart Fukui (Tochigi) at 8:43am for Kuki (Saitama) via the Tobu line on train #400 - the station before Kuki (Saitama) is Washinomiya.

Arrive at Kuki (Saitama) at 9:26am. Get off train #400.

Train 2:
Depart Kuki (Saitama) at 9:31am for Shinjuku (Tokyo) via the JR Tohoku line on train #4100Y - the station before Shiinjuku is Ikebukuru.

Stay on train # 4100Y and it will take you to Shibuya via the JR Shonan Shinjuku line - the station before Shibuya is Harajuku.

Arrive at Shibuya (Tokyo) at 10:20am. Get off train #4100Y.
********************************************************************
I had a quick look at the return trip time-table and it was basically: do the above, backwards. Simple. I was confident my plan was bullet-proof.

So, armed with our trusty phrase book (thanks mum) and Lonely Planet guide to show us a good time, we set off from the apartment at 8:04 sharp...
Fukui station is, as we discovered, a 20 minute walk (pace: brisk) from our apartment, so we arrived in time to stand around the station's terminal for a good 10 minutes deciding whether we had none, or Buckley's, chance of figuring out how to buy a ticket. I eventually whipped out the phrase book and stuttered an enquiery to the guy behind the information desk. He quickly pointed out the "English" button on the ticket machine/computer (duh!) and then showed us how to buy a ticket. He was really very nice and helpful. So a small hiccough, but from now on it should be smooth sailing.

Now, I know you, dear reader, can sense the rising dread....so why couldn't I?

Got to Kuki station, realised we only had 5 minutes to find the connecting train. Further realised that Kuki was much larger than Fukui, with several platforms and ticket gates. Did we make the connecting train?

No.
So then the two options were: Jump on the next train heading to Shinjuku which was 5 minutes away. This meant a longer trip with more stops and another transfer. Or we could wait an hour for the next train straight to Shinjuku. Trains are warmer than platforms, so we got on the train. Then we had to get off at Ueno (one of the bigger Tokyo-city train stations) and jump on a train to Shinjuku >> Shibuya. There would be about 4 or 5 different trains all heading that way - I'm pretty sure we picked the worst possible option. We stopped at about 15 stations before finally getting to bloody Shinjuku. In the end we got to Shibuya at 11:20...about an hour later than we planned. Once off the train we headed to one of the many McDonalds' (McDonald's?) in the area. And you know what, I got a double quater pounder and some chips (+ free ketchup!), it tasted almost exactly the same as Australian Maccas!
It was hard to know where to begin exploring Shibuya, and in the end after about five hours there I'm sure we only saw a tiny fraction of it. The first building we went into immediately put me on edge. For such a large building there were very few people inside. Also, these people were dressed extremely well, even by Shibuya standards. The names of the shops didn't sound Japanese at all, they were more...Western-European. Lots of the shops seemed to be low on stock and nothing had price tags. My 'typical-aussie-male' senses were tingling and I quickly hustled Jenni out. The next few shops were much better and we had fun looking around at all the 'crazy' Japanese stuff. Then we stumbled accross the Disney store which was pretty cool. I think it's also a Disney Hotel and you can buy Disneyland tickets there.
After walking around the streets of Shibuya for an hour or so I was definitely starting to notice how well-dressed all the young men were. And it wasn't just the one style of 'well-dressed' you get in, say, Townsville either -"Maaaaate, nice duds. How much'd that t-shirt and jeans combo set you back? Not going fruity on us, right?"

Disclaimer: Nyah nyah, I can say what I want because I'm overseas :P.

lol, you know I love youse. Anyway, I thought it was about time to upgrade from my trusty, warm (kept me alive at Falls Festival in '06...had a tent and a sleeping mat, but no sleeping bag or blankets of any description. I swear it got to below freezing) Glasser and Parker standard issue woolen jumper; colour - black. I spied something beginning with FCUK on the fourth floor of some building and we headed up there. Had a good look around and found a few likely jackets to try. There was also some sort of Spring sale going on so I would get something like $20 off on whatever I purchased.
**Some time later**
With Jenni's patience and blood sugar level rapidly diminishing I made my final decision - a...jacket...of some sort, and a cool black belt - and we got out with seconds to spare. We spent the next couple of hours wandering around checking out anything that stood out or looked particularly interesting. There were people everywhere. Lots of people hawking crap - ie fliers, free samples of stuff and even cheap t-shirts. 'I <3 Shibuya' t-shirts to be exact - still not sure what to think about that. Saw a Ferrari too. A couple of guys doing lappies of the main Shibuya area. At some point Jenni bought some shoes. Wait, I know what you're thinking boys, but it's not as bad as all that. They were just a comfy pair of Adidas sneakers; about $70, $80 tops. They have spots on. Finally found ourselves directly under Shibuya station...as in underground...where there is a huge food-court of sorts. There's all types of food; sweet and savoury, and not just japanese food. Lots of Western stuff. It's not really a food-court and it's not really a supermarket it's like a food...shop. Or a food DFO. It's very cool though. I bought a small piece of chocolate cake which the lady put in quite a large box, asked if I would like a block of dry ice to keep it cool (...of course I do.) and then placed that box in a bigger cardboard bag. It was perplexing. Then we went home. Well, first we got lost in Shibuya station and then accidentally took the slow train (lots more stops than necessary) twice.

EDIT: Adding some pictures and video of Shibuya and what we bought.

Shibuya:

Shibuya again:

Stuff we bought - we got those red picture things from Maccas. They are like document sleaves with Japanese baseball stars on the front. Not sure who they are, but must be pretty cool. Oh and no-one else got them, just us, cos we're special:

Video of Shibuya and Shibuya dudes:

To See What We Could See See See.

2009-03-26T01:48:00.001-07:00

So day three was nice and sunny, though windy and still cold. We decided to go for another walk around the neighbourhood and see what we could see....see see. It's a prety good area. Lots of small, neat streets lined by small, neat houses all with their very own small, neat gardens...or mini-farms.

Below are what we think might be cherry blossoms...early ones. They're in the garden of the house just accross the lane from us.

On our travels, we came accross this car. Dunno what it is, but it looks cool as.

Also saw this:

And now for something completely different...more flowers. Again, dunno what they are.

Also, Mika took us to get our gaijin cards (foreigner ID card) this afternoon. Pretty much hassle-free, should receive them in a few weeks.

Oh and last but not least; today, we got our bikes...teleported through time from the 1950s! It's really amazing - the technology the Japanese have. It must be so simple for them to just build a time travelling device, hook it up to one of their last-gen teleportation devices (think Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and hey-presto, instant bike action!
Photographed and videotaped hilarity to follow soon. Watch this space!

Give Me A Home Among the Rice Fields

2009-03-24T18:43:00.000-07:00

OK, so we arrived safely in Japan - Narita international airport, Tokyo to be exact. Apparently there was some accident/plane crash at the airport before we arrived and we were one of the lucky ones to not be delayed or cancelled. Didn't realise what a big deal it was until we were watching TV in the terminal and saw the plane crash on the news. Wow.
We were picked up by Jen and Ayako and they drove us over to Ashikaga-shi...it took about two hours. We were both pretty tired but it was really interesting seeing all the new sights. So many lights and stuff.
Didn't really get a good look at the apartment when we arrived because it was dark and we were tired. When we woke up the next day we had a look around. It's literally in the middle of rice fields...which are in turn surrounded by more city/suburbia. I'll upload some photos soon. It's a good area actually. Very close to stuff but also very quiet. There was a guy accross the laneway going over his tennis-court-sized vege patch/'farm' with a tractor. As in full-sized tractor. It was weird. Anyway, the apartment is actually quite big. Three main rooms (bedroom (with tatami mats and a HUGE cupboard), lounge room, Kitchen/dining room/laundry) and then a seperate toilet and seperate bathroom with a shower and a bath. The ceilings are high, but the doors, for some reason, don't make use of that height and are quite low. Go figure. We have a little patio/veranda thing which both the bedroom and the lounge room open on to. Oh and the coolest thing is the intercom. We have a video-audio intercom! It's pretty cool. There is also a lot of parking space outside.
Saw a few nice cars...well 90% of the cars are 'nice', as in newish, shiny and good looking...but I mean I saw one of the new Nissan 370Zs and an RX7 FD something arather. As a side note, I can now say I fully understand the term 'econo-box'. These cars in Japan really epitomise the word. There is this whole class of small 2 or 4 door car that is very square, boxy -straight lines everwhere. They are EVERYWHERE. There are also a whole range of econo-box vans and trucks.

Anyway I've had enough of blogging for now. Will write more later, though don't expect so much from now on haha.

EDIT: A few photos

Our apartment complex:

Pokemon noodles!:

Kitchen/dining room/laundry:

Front enterance and bathroom:

To bedroom (left) and loungeroom (right) from kitchen area: