Better

hey all,

So today was a much better day than yesterday. I stayed with the class that I taught the first time I came in to demo teach, not the little hellions that I had yesterday.

The class went really smoothly, for the most part, and I also brought a lunch today since I was expecting to be there for a long time. They actually let me go early, which was excellent, but I do have to come back in next Saturday.

And then, of course, the Monday after that I start teaching for real.

I've got my last five days of work at my old company, and I'm in a little quandary as to how to pay for my last school lunches. As far as I know, my schools don't know that I'm leaving, and my company has asked me not to tell them. (My guess is that they want to find a replacement first, and then inform the schools, but still. If they can't find one, then they still have to explain at some point that I've quit.) But I normally pay for school lunches at the end of the month. So, how do I insist on paying for one or two days worth of school lunch before the end of the month, without cluing them in that I'm leaving?

One piece of random news I ran across is about squatters in Amsterdam. This is been legal for many, many years, but apparently a new law has made it illegal. In my own experience, even when I was living in Amsterdam two years ago, the Dutch police still evicted squatters from several buildings, despite it being legal to squat. So what gives? Now that it is illegal to squat will the police stop evicting people? The Dutch have an infamously negative attitude towards their police. I wonder what will happen now that the police have to evict people from their homes. There's already been news of riots in Amsterdam.

One last bit of commentary. Now that I'm commuting a pretty decent distance to work (from Eastern Tokyo down to central Yokohama), I get to read the announcements on the train LED boards as I ride. It seems like everyday, there is some train that is delayed because of 人事故 or "human accident," the euphemism for someone jumping in front of a train. I know I've mentioned it before: Japan has half the population of the US, but the same number of people commit suicide in each country, i.e., the suicide rate in Japan is double that of the US. When I've spoken with one of my Taiwanese housemates, he has also mentioned that Taiwan has a very high suicide rate. Recently, even the Prime Minister of Japan (Mr. Kan) has announced his intention to create a government group to look into the problem. Aside from costing the country a lot in terms of human life, the economy, etc, it isn't really something you want your country to be famous for. "Yeah, more people kill themselves per capita than in any other post-industrial country in the world."

Cheers,

Ugh

hey all,

What a brutal and grueling day. The last time I went into the school, I came in expecting to teach. But this time, I came in expecting to talk about what I'd be teaching the week after next, and ended up teaching from 9:30 until 19:00. "I'd like you to come in and talk about your teaching schedule" doesn't really send the message or have the meaning of "You'll be teaching for the better part of 10 hours today."

Despite the mis-communication, things went OK. At least, the first several hours were grueling, because they were spent trying to teach the youngest regular students: from 2 to 3 years old. But after the regular classes finished, I got to eat lunch and prepare for 3 rounds of private lessons, all of which went pretty decently.

The major ugh part is that I'll be going back tomorrow, even though I promised to meet Michi. I might still be able to meet her, but it looks to be another relatively full day. I really need to get this school's teaching style down, as I only have a short time before I have to teach classes by myself.

It's is already a bit late and I'm going to eat dinner.

Cheers,

More News of the World

hey all,

Just some more quasi-random updates. I have 6 more days with my current company, and as far as I know, they have not informed my schools of my imminent departure yet, presumably because they haven't found a replacement.

It has been a bit difficult to care too much about the more unruly classes, because I'll only see them maybe one or two more times.

Friday I'm going in to my new company to talk about my teaching schedule for the up-coming weeks, instead of going to check out a new guest house like I thought I was originally. That has been moved to Sunday, leaving Saturday free.

The weather here has been rather eerie, to say the least. That record breaking hot summer, and now it has been rather cold and dreary for several weeks. The average has been 10C cooler than just two weeks ago; that's 18F degrees. That's like it being an average of 86F, and then the next day the average is 68F, and stays 68F for two weeks.

That's all for now.
Cheers

Another Quick Note

hey all,

Just another quick note here. The anniversary went really well. I got a cortisol shot from the doctors, who having heard my story about there being no problem with my x-rays last time and my arm still not back to normal despite not going rock climbing, not going swimming, not doing push-ups, pull-ups, or anything else for the last month; decided that it was probably tendinitis. It still hurts a little, but I think it should get be getting better. There's a lot less pain when I move my arm now, but there is still some soreness and it still feels like two rocks grinding against each other when I lower my arm from above my head.

Anyway, for dinner we came to my place and made lentil soup, karage (Japanese version of KFC), and apple crumble. After that we watched Avatar, which was pretty good. I don't know if it justifies the millions of dollars that it made, but it was fun.

Today was more house shopping, with lots of surfing the web, calling offices, and sending emails. We also went to a cool burger shop called Brozer's in Nihonbashi, which was expensive but quite tasty.

I've got four days of work this week, but on Friday I'm heading out to look at a guest house. Next week will be my last week of work for my current company. They still haven't told my schools, and have asked me not to tell them yet. I feel a little bad about that, but I've been working hard and have asked for higher pay, or advancement opportunities, and my company just asked me to wait. My schools can be fun to work at, but I'm really more of a nuisance than anything else for them, as my being there disrupts the normal schedule.

That's all for now.

Cheers,

Day Off, Housing

hey all,

Just a quick note. I had the day off today, and spent a small chunk of it helping Michi buy and install 1GB of RAM for her laptop, which was previously painfully slow. Now, it is almost tolerable. We also watched Shallow Hal, which for some reason she owns on VHS.

I've also been looking for housing, and as usual, because I talk about this kind of thing to most of the people I know here in Japan, I got some good advice on apartment hunting.

In other news, Saturday is Michi and I's 1 year anniversary. We're planning on doing that most romantic of all things, going to the hospital so she can check up with some of her doctors, and I'm also making an appointment because my arm is still not normal. After that, however, we're planning on cooking a meal at my place and watching Avatar.

Cheers,

Oze

hey all,

So yesterday I got back from my trip to Oze. I tried to make it an Outdoor Club trip, but there were snags. About 3 other people were interested, but only one actually emailed; the rest replied on the outdoor club website. In my opinion, the new club website is very poorly designed and I avoid it like the plague, so I wasn't aware that other people were even interested until pretty late.

In any case, Michi and I were definitely going to go, and as it happened the other people either lost interest or canceled at the last second.

Although several places seem to say that Oze is only 2 hours from Tokyo, that might be if you have your own private helicopter. For the rest of us, it means 2 hours by train (one of those hours by the shinkansen or "bullet train;" otherwise you need 3 hours), and a little over 2 hours by bus.

So why would we want to go to all that trouble? Well, Oze is one of the largest marshes in Japan, which makes the area a lot like Michigan, except with mountains.

Hiuchigatake, as seen across from Lake Oze. Day 1

Day 1.

Yours truly. Day 1

Lake Oze as seen from top of Hiuchigatake.

Red circle is our starting point for Day 2. Red trail shows our hiking path. Day 2

The wooden walkways laid out through the center of the marsh. Day 3.

We started from Oshimizu and finished at Hatomachitoge.

Black line shows hiking route. Red dots show our camp sites.

I'd really like to give a detailed itinerary, except that it is already 21:00 over here and I have work tomorrow. I'll just leave it at the following:

• Day 1: Get up at 6:00. Leave Tokyo around 7:00. Arrive at Numata train station around 9:00. Take incredibly slow bus from Numata to Oshimizu. Arrive around 11:30. Walk on really boring path for almost 3 hours. Arrive at campsite next to Lake Oze. Take hot shower and eat instant ramen.
• Day 2: De-camp and hike next to Lake Oze for an hour. Hide heavy luggage in the trees before hiking up Hiuchigatake, a 2356m mountain. Hike down the mountain, pick up luggage, and hike several more hours to arrive at second camp site. Eat more instant ramen, and take another hot shower.
• Day 3: It starts to rain before we can even eat breakfast or break the tent down, so we have to do everything in the rain and are already soaked before we begin hiking. My backpack is extra heavy thanks to the rain soaked tent inside. Really easy hiking this day, which is good because we are both tired and the rain keeps up from 4:00 until 12:00. We make record time, completing the course from our second camp site to Hatomachitoge more than an hour quicker than the map time estimate.

I saw almost no foreigners, which is kinda rare. We did visit somewhat off season, just like we visited Kyoto off season earlier this January. As I understand it, those wooden walkways get jam packed with people and are a real pain to be on during the busy times. You get several bus loads of 70 year olds who walk really slowly, stop to take pictures every few seconds, and keep up a lot of random chatter and you can imagine how bad the situation could be. You can't pass them either, because although it looks like regular ground, they have those planks for a reason: it really is a marsh, and you don't want to step in the water.

Cheers,

Turning Japanese

hey all,

I found myself explaining a particular section of Michigan highway to another Michigander, and when I looked at my hands, I realized that the traffic directions were reversed, as if we drove on the left side of the road (like they do here).

And now I have to resist correcting myself in Japanese when I have a slip of the tongue when speaking to someone who isn't Japanese.

I'll be doing a post about the Oze trip coming soon: I've just copied 100+ pictures to my computer, and haven't even sorted out the keepers from the trash.

Cheers,