Found it

hey all,

I biked for 30-40 min. to get from Omiya to Ageo-shi.

I found my school, or at least the junior high. Once in Ageo-shi, in a classic case of double guessing myself, I started out going down the right road, only to decide about 200m from where the first turn would be that I was in fact on the wrong road. There followed about 45 minutes of more travelling on a similar road, until I finally found a landmark that indicated I should be close (a "hospital" that was about the size of my guesthouse building: 3 stories, small square meters). More wandering, and I found the place. It looks kinda dead and run down at the moment, but hopefully it looks better on the inside. I figured out a simple route there, and then parked my bike near the train station, and took a train back to Omiya.

All told, I spent over 2 hours biking around after days of very little activity, and I really feel like I could use some new knees.

Hopefully my bike will still be there in a few days.

Bureaucratic Hoops

hey all,

Yesterday I received a letter from the Immigration bureau, and I figured that meant I was supposed to come in and finalize my my visa status. I got up, got on the train, and was at the front door of the Immigration bureau before I looked at the back of the card more closely and noticed that I was supposed to come in on April 10th. Why?!? When I went to get my gaijin card, they gave me a piece of paper right there that told me when I had to come back in. Why send me a letter to tell me the same thing?

I don't really understand this thing anyway. I've already been hired by the company; I've already been approved to teach in Ageo-shi by the local Board of Education. Do I need the approval of the Emperor himself?

Anyway, yesterday Masa and I went to a Buddhist center in another part of Saitama-shi. It was quite impressive and had a meeting area that was 750 tatami mats in area; it could fit something like 4 thousand people in it.

After that, we finally met up with the friend of the girl who was trying to sell us bikes. I now have a slightly beat up bike, and I'll be taking some fotos of it. It has a built-in lock that is kinda interesting. Otherwise, it looks exactly like the kind of bike I would not want: a granny-style bike w/ basket, narrow handle bars (which makes steering it kinda twitchy), and only one gear.

I think today I'm going to ride my bike over to Ageo-shi and find the schools I'll be teaching at. The only thing I can do in the meantime is get a cell phone. It turns out that in order to qualify for the family plan, you need documented proof that everyone is related, so we'll just have to sign up for individual plans. One plan that looked really nice actually requires one person to be physically or mentally disabled.

'S all for now.

Food and Money

hey all,

So I was bored today and started going through my food receipts, and realized that I've spent about 5,000 yen on food since moving into the guesthouse. That's in the neighbourhood of $50 over 7 days. To give you an idea of what I've been living on here is a list as best I can remember.

1. udon noodle soup
2. tofu
3. arare (rice crackers)
4. Kagome fruit juice
5. carrots
6. peanuts
   
7. chocolate
8. beef jerky

I really don't think it should be possible to spend that much on such meager meals: I'm not eating steak every day, and usually don't even get meat every day. I've only eaten out once (twice if you count picking up 2 donuts as eating out), and that cost about 420 yen total.

5,000/week gives a monthly total of 20,000 yen for food each month, if I keep eating the same way. Food and rent is 70,000/month. Out of around 230,000 in pay, that leaves 160,000. Taking out loan payments leaves about 115,000/month.

Cheers

Edo Palace

hey all,

So getting to Edo Palace was actually as easy as it looked. It only cost 540 yen, and there was one train change at Ueno. Very easy, and the trains were all close to being on time (at the change there is only about 2-3 minutes to make it from one train to another, so this matters).

The palace is not really there any more, as mentioned earlier. However, I was able to find the place where Lord Ako was insulted by Yoshinaka, as this was marked by a plaque. This caused Ako to either draw his sword, or actually cut Yoshinaka on the face with it: since this was inside the Imperial palace, Ako was sentenced to commit seppuku, ritualized suicide. Any violence was seen as violence potentially aimed at the Shogun. Ako's family line was to be disbanded, and his samurai made into ronin, masterless samurai, forced to find any kind of work where ever they could. 47 of them made a plan to avenge their lord by killing Yoshinaka: they would disperse and appear to move on with their lives, while secretly waiting for the signal to converge on Edo and kill Yoshinaka. They waited for a year, then executed their plan. Since they were defying the Shogunate, they were ordered to commit seppuku, just as their lord had been earilier. At the time, and even today, the 47 ronin are commonly looked upon as the embodiment of bushido, the warrior's code.

The other thing that really struck me was the shear size of the place. The grounds are at least 10km in circumference, and this means that the moat had to be dug who knows how deep, and maybe 50m wide the whole way around the palace. On top of that, the palace walls are lined with huge chunks of stone that had to be carted in from all over Japan. The labor and materials to build Edo palace formed part of the taxes the Shogunate levied on the daimyo (fedual lords) each year. The authors of the Lone Wolf and Cub manga series emphasize again and again how tyrannical and absolute the control that the Shogunate held over Japan was, and you can feel how terrible it must have been to be anyone other than the Shogun.

Aside from those two kinda dark things, it was really very pretty. The sakura trees are starting to bloom despite the cold, and the sun started to come out around 12:30.

Weekend Plans

hey all,

I've been trying to get a bike, but without a cell its been kinda hard to coordinate with the ALT who is leaving. First I get emailed one meeting time, then it gets pushed back, then place changed, then time changed again, etc.

The weather is still not so great, but last night Masa and I went out to an Irish pub (for some reason you can find these Irish pubs everywhere...). Since it was a Thursday night, by the time we got there it was winding down already. Afterward, we went to a Mos Burger and I tried a rice burger. This had been recommended to me by Sachiko, our coordinator's boss. A rice burger is basically a bun made out of fried rice patties, with random stuff for the filling instead of a beef patty. I think mine was some green peas, chopped battered and fried fish, and maybe some small pieces of potato. It was actually pretty good, and only cost 300 円. I had a melon soda to wash it down (a green pop that tastes like a non-alcoholic and sugary Midori).

Tomorrow, I'm planing on seeing Edo Palace in Tokyo. This was the seat of the Shogunate for the last 400 years. the castle itself was torn up after the Meiji restoration (which put the emperor back in power), but the walls, moat, and grounds themselves are still there. It is also the site of the incident which led to one of Japan's most famous tales: the 47 samurai/ronin. I've been looking at how to get there, and how much it will cost, and it looks like I can make the trip for about 580 円 each way, or about $12 round trip. Finding the palace itself is really easy: take the east exit out of Tokyo station, and the grounds should be right in front of you.

Not too much else is going on. I found a local branch of the bank that my company recommends using, so on Monday I'll see if I can open an account.

Cheers

Yay! Health Insurance

hey all,

So today I applied for health insurance. It was actually easier than getting my hanko made (藩田 This is hanta, roughly how my name is pronounced in Japanese. It means something like Alliance Field. I don't think these two kanji actually have a recognized meaning in Japanese, but when I show it to the Japanese coordinators, they all go "sugoi" which is great/cool/amazing. Most of the ALT's went for their names in katakana, which for me would be this:ハンター. I think the kanji are way cooler.), and took way less time than changing my visa status (at least 2.5 hours), or applying for gaijin card (30 minutes).

It's very rainy and kinda cold, so I'm staying in for now. I've been emailing an ALT who is leaving about buying her bike, but she's been busy packing and our meeting time keeps getting pushed back.

Epic Fail

hey all,

Just another random computer related post. I now have Japanese working on Vista, which is why I'm able to do this: 今日は、大序か? That took maybe thirty seconds. I tried for several hours to get Japanese going on Linux, and failed epically.

There are certain aspects to Linux which are very nice (configurability, security, etc), but by now my experience with them is about the same as with Windows or Mac: good for some things, really crappy for others. Why is it so easy to configure Japanese on Windows, while the documentation for Linux seems to have been written by a few drunken hamsters after a week long binge. They mention certain packages, but then don't tell you how to start running them in the background. Even the main UI ones don't show up in the start up menu, and starting them from the commandline failed.

Alien Heater Status

hi all,

So back when all of the ALT's were together, one of them started a Facebook group. This was useless to me, since I was not on Facebook. Now, however, I am. So far it looks like a lot of random "hey we should meet up some time" stuff, but it might actually be useful.

The room I'm staying in has been pretty cold, actually colder than the outside temp. I have a heater, but the remote for it was in Japanese and mine was not good enough to read the kanji. The school was kind enough to include a photo of a similar remote and I was able to get it working. If you think this doesn't matter, try staying in a room that is always too cold when you don't have all those blankets from home to wrap around yourself.

Yesterday, I went to the local city office and applied for an alien registration card (gaikokujin torakusho). This basically gives me permission to reside in Japan until my visa expires. Since my visa is currently that of a tourist, I also applied to change my visa status today. Once I get both of these pushed through, then I need to go back to the city office and update my alien registration (I couldn't just update the visa then go to the city office because I needed proof that I've applied for the gaijin card just to change my visa status.).

On the list of things to get done, this leaves:

1. Get a bank account
2. Get cell phone
3. Apply for national health plan

I believe that I start work some time around April 7th. Both my visa status and actual gaijin card should be ready about that time. I think regarding the cell phone, several ALT's in the area are thinking of getting a family plan.

I've gotten an invite to a Buddhist center, and I know there are some ALT's in Tokyo that want to show people around, so I might head in to Tokyo this weekend and try to get a feel for it. If nothing else, I definitely want to see Edo Castle.

Cheers,

Wandering

hey all,

So today I wandered around some more, but mostly with a purpose. Yesterday I found a store called Better Home, and today I bought a pyrex bowl from them. The room came with a fork, knife, and spoon (no hashi, or chopsticks), and several small-ish bowls and plates. It is impossible to eat ramen, udon, or soba (different types of of noodle soup, basically), out of these bowls. So I picked up the larger pyrex one.

I also spent a few hours at Hikawa Shrine. This is a major Shinto shrine that is supposedly older than Christmas (2400 years old). So far, it is probably one of the most beautiful things I've seen here. There is also a park that I had planned on seeing, but it is currently raining a little, and it is a little more than a mile over to the park.

Those familar with my study of the obession that certain European countries have with spikes (e.g., Holland), might be interested to know that so far I don't see that in Japan. It seems like a fence or even implied boundary is often enough to deter people from crossing over. Also, I've seen some very interesting water spouts. Yes, water spouts: it is the small things that are really intrigueing.

Cheers,

Guest House

hey all,

Had another really busy day today. Got up at 7AM, ate break fast, then headed over to company headquarters with all my luggage. Ayumi (the coordinator for Ageo-shi), drove Masashiro and myself to Shinjuku, which is one of the busiest parts of Tokyo. This took about 3 hours. Once there, we signed a lease agreement with the guesthouse company for the term of our temporary tourist visas (we can change the contract after we change our visa status).

I'm now typing this in my room at the guesthouse. The guesthouse has a pretty nice kitchen, washing machines, toilet, and shower rooms. The room itself is basically a short hallway, with a slight bend at one end. The slight bend contains a desk, TV, my laptop, a window which faces a lovely building wall 3 feet away, and a refridgerator. Behind the bend is the door, the closet, and (literally on the side of the closet) the ladder leading up to the lofted bed.

Right now it is 19:34, and I'm really tired: after the long drive in, the GPS system in Ayumi's car started malfunctioning, and we drove around in circles for what felt like hours looking for the guesthouse. I've already unpacked most of my things, and it looks like I won't need to live out of my suitcases after all. I'm going to brush my teeth a little later, and then listen to music and catch up on some webcomics (like xkcd.com). Everything is happening so fast, and I really need this weekend to be calm and laid back: when I arrived in Japan only four days ago, I didn't even know if they had an opening available, and now I'm living in my own place.

Cheers,

Free Day

Hey all,

So after finding that I would actually be able to work somewhere, the company turned everyone loose. On this "free day," however, I went to bank and cashed a lot of traveler's checks to pay some fees associated with moving into a guesthouse, learned about what I'd have to do to get an Alien Registration Card, change my visa status, get Health insurance, a cell phone, and a bank account. I also had a hanko made, and received my Certificate of Elligability.

Masashiro and I walked around the nearby lake and went to a really prime tonkatsu (pork cutlet) restaurant.

I still really can't quite believe what is going on. I've been in this country less than a week, and every day is different from the next. Everything seems to be happening so fast. I'm sure once start working, I'll settle into a routine but right now, it is so weird not even being able to read most of the signs, or figure out what exactly I'm buying to eat. Still, the Japanese people seem to love even the smallest attempt to use their language (this also seems to trigger the reaction that if I know ten words and how to put them together, I surely must know 100 words, so they start talking really quickly using vocab that I don't know.), but it is also obvious where ever I go that I'm a foreigner. I can't really blend into the background here the way I did in Europe.

Tomorrow Masashiro and I move into our gueshouses. We're in the same city, Omiya (very near Ageo-shi), but the company put us in different guesthouses. The guesthouse looks nice, but has very small bedrooms. I think I will still be living mostly out of my suitcases, since there doesn't look like there is enough room to unload everything.

Training

hey all,

After 7 hours of sleep, I showered, and geared up for training: suit and tie, gathered a pen, notepad, and forms, and had some Japanese breakfast.

For those who've never had it, it seems to consist of miso soup, rice, nakuto (fermented soy beans, which is something Mito is apparently famous for. This is actually quite good.), and some assorted meats and vegatables (sometimes chicken, fish or pork, with cucumber, daikon, lettuce, etc).

After some socializing with some of the other ALTs, we headed over to the training center, which was held in a room in the local city hall. There were self-introductions, some demonstrations of popular games, and the usual hefty information packets. About half way through the self-introductions, the ALT next to me, and myself were both pulled aside and spoken to by the president of the company. He explained that we were to be stationed at a new contract location for them: Ageo city (also called Ageo-shi). Ageo-shi had apparently had bad experiences with another company, and his speech basically asked us to please not screw this up for the company by making a bad first impression, all the while never implying that such a thing would ever be posible with such high calibur (although un-experienced) ALTs such as ourselves.

We received lunch and dinner o-bento, which are boxed meals. Pretty good on the whole. Those in my family will be pleased to know that it is imposible to get pizza without corn on it in Japan: the other ALTs hated it, but it seems I've found a place that is perfect for me, at least in that regard.

Training continued the next day, but Masashiro (the other new ALT stationed in Ageo) and I were taken to Ageo-shi (a 2 hour drive from Mito), by two of the coordinators to conduct interviews with the Board of Education. There were 5 other ALTs there, all of whom had been in Japan for some time. I guess we all nailed the interviews, because we were all hired to work there. Another 2 hour drive later, and we were back in Mito.

Quentin Tarantino Is A Liar

hey all,

So hopefully this actually makes it to the blog. Right now I'm typing this in KWrite, the KDE equivalent of Notepad. I haven't been able to get either Vista or Linux to connect to the wireless networks at the hotel.

Back in Atlanta 3 days ago, my friend Bri gave me a great send off: lots of video games, some responsible imbibing, and we went to see the Watchmen as well.

We got to the airport on time, and I made it through Security without a hitch. The plane even left on time and arrived about 30 minutes early. I didn't really sleep on the 13 hour slight, but I did catch up on movies: Vickie Christina Barcelona, Supsect X, Rightous Kill, Body of Lies, and I think two others that I can't remember right now. For those of you who are Kill Bill fans, I'm sure you'll all be grieved to know there are no sword stands built into the arm rests of planes going to Japan.

Arrived at Narita airport, got through Customs and Immigration smoothly. Called the company and let them know that I'd arrived, and requested a bus ticket to Mito (in Japanese, thank you very much). While waiting in the line for the bus, met a few other ALT's working with same company. Had some interesting conversation on 2 hr. bus ride over to Mito.

I made it to the hotel with the most blood shot eyes I've ever had. I stayed awake until 9:30 or 10, then crashed.

Computer Update

hi all,

No one but the hardcore techies will care about this post, because I wanted to rant about Fedora 10 w/ KDE 4.2, since I spent Tuesday afternoon updating my laptop to it.

KDE 4.2 is a vast improvement over KDE 4, but 4 was a piece of trash: it had a crappy and buggy start menu, it lacked many of the features that KDE 3.5 came with out of the box, etc. Some of these features have been rebuilt in 4.2, and some very cool new ones have been added (more later).

Fedora 10 itself is pretty: it boots up about 3X faster than Fedora 8, has built-in webcam support (Fedora 8 required you to patch and re-compile the kernel to use a webcam), and looks like it has better wi-fi support (personally, I never got wireless to work on Fedora 8).

KDE 4.2 has basic Semantic Desktop support through the Soprano, Strigi, and Nepomuk packages. Most people are familar with Semantic notions in the form of tags stored on mp3 (or in my case, Ogg-Vorbis) music files, and users of Gmail are familiar in the form of Labels on emails. What the above packages allow you to do is spread this ability to all file types: I can add tags/labels like "semantics," "verbal classes," and "Greek" to my linguistics PDF files, "Amsterdam," "Leipzig," and "Sils-Maria" to JPG files of my trips. Further, because these tags are stored in a machine-readable form, I will be able to search for them using my standard file manager. Aside from the cool stuff above, this also leads to a flatter file directory structure: multiple tags can be associated with a single file, while a file can only reside in one directory.

I leave for Atlanta tomorrow, and my pile of stuff to pack seems to keep growing.

Cheers,

Google Sense of Humor

So if you look up driving directions from somewhere on the North American continent to Japan on Google's map interface, you might notice that it has you kayaking across the Pacific Ocean, making a slight turn at Hawaii, and continuing to kayak to Japan. This is supposed to take 30 days. I really hope someone actually tries this. If I had the spare time, I'd actually like to try this at some point myself.

Additional Info

Greetings,

I'm leaving in exactly one week. I've gotten some additional info about my probable situation in Nippon. Regarding housing, there are 3 options: living in an apartment in a rural town far away from Tokyo, living in a guesthouse near Tokyo, or basically trying to find my own place. The second option seems most appealing. A guesthouse is where you live with several other people sharing bathrooms, living rooms, and a kitchen, but with private bedrooms. This is similar to what I had at the co-op my last year as an undergrad. It provides an instant social network of people going through similar things, though hopefully with different perspectives. Although popular among gaijin, nihon-jin also sometimes live there.
Also, I've usually found that I hate big cities: I don't like the bustle of Amsterdam or Paris, and especially after living a block North of the Ann Frank Huis in Amsterdam for a year, I really can't stand getting asked where things are by tourists, having my path blocked by lost, confused, or high tourists, etc. So living directly in Tokyo would most likely not be all that great for me.
Apparently, they've gotten more positions in Tokyo itself this year than previously, and not so many around it. Also, they have many positions in the Northeast, or Tohoku region of Japan. While pretty, I've read that it has a harsher climate (lots of snow and rough terrain) and is quite rural. I would basically be the only gaijin for miles around if I lived there.
I've started a partial list of things to see while I'm over there, but I lost the original copy, so I'm recreating it here.

1. See Miyamoto village in Harima province: the birth place of famous ronin Miyamoto Musashi.
2. Climb Fujii-san (in Japanese, you would normally say something-yama, for Mt. Something, but Mt. Fujii is an exception.)
3. See Ice/Snow Sculpture Festival in Sapporo.
4. Visit Hiroshima and neighboring island.
5. Watch Cherry blossoms fall in Spring.
6. Visit Golden Pavillion.

Cheers

The Job

The company itself shall remain nameless here. Once I arrive at Narita airport, I am supposed to claim that I'm a tourist since the Ministry of Immigration has not yet completed some of my paperwork. If I get through customs and immigration, I travel by bus several hours to the North East to the city of Mito, in Ibaraki prefecture. Supremely jet-lagged, the very next day all the new ALT's are supposed to undergo two days of training.
After that, I believe a promotional period begins. Basically, the company goes around to various public schools needing an ALT and says "Hey, we happen to have an ALT." Then I get to do more interviews with school principals, until I get accepted somewhere. Once that happens, the company helps me find a place to live near there, and I both a) move into and setup the apartment where I'll be living for a year, and b) start my job of teaching 7-15 year old Japanese kids to speak English.
From what they've explained, for Junior high schools, I will be assisting a Japanese teacher in these lessons. But for elementary schools, I come in 1 or 2 days a week, and do some random (chosen by moi) activities (songs & games) that happen to involve English words and grammar.
Along with all of that, within a certain number of days I need to:

1. change my status from tourist to foreign worker
2. register for the local health plan
3. get a hanko made (a rubber stamp used in place of signature, you need this to get a bank account, and other useful things)
4. open bank account
5. get registered at local city hall (residence permit)
   
6. possibly lease a car
7. get internet

That's it for now.