My JET Experience

My new space

2010-08-07T23:08:00.002+08:00

I suppose i still have things to say after all; find them here.

If you have any questions on the JET Programme, drop me a comment with your email address and I'd get right back to you.

* * * * *

I'd also partly taken to posting pictures on Tumblr - but for reasons I shan't go into here, I'm still posting on Blogspot. If you'd know why Tumblr isn't a clear winner to me, I explain why right here.

sayonara osaka, sayonara japan

2010-08-06T20:54:00.000+08:00

i will be leaving japan early monday, and im really sad to be saying goodbye.

i was trying to find work here but plans fell through; the news came only yesterday, and it was interesting to realise how much the hope that i will be staying kept the realities of the potentially imminent departure for good at bay.

knowing that i will be gone for good, with only 2 days left to spare, changed how everything looked. gah. there will be so many things that will miss! iced milk coffee in a can.. fried tofu from the supermarket.. sugar free cold bottled tea.. the orderliness.. the gaijin status that gave me certain advantages.. having my own apartment.. cycling around.. boo.

i'm not sure if i will continue blogging somewhere else when i'm back in singapore - i'm not sure whats in store and if i will have things to say or anything that's of interest to people the way JET is. but there will be still more posts after this, with pictures of some other stuff like those from my trips to sendai and hokkaido. of course, anyone who'd like to get in touch regarding japan or the JET programme are welcome to drop me a line!

all the best to you who's reading this. a wonderful chapter of my life has come to an end.

sendai, matsushima and shiogama

2010-08-03T23:49:00.001+08:00

(check out more photos here on facebook)

i was in sendai about 1 month ago during the lull in school where students have tests and ALTs are not needed.

sendai is really cheap by night bus – i think i paid about 10900yen return with Willer Express. Unfortunately the journey is very long (12 hours) and the bus had no toilet – 4 breaks every 3 hours or so, which were necessary anyway to stretch the legs.

the first stop was Shiogama, a port town famous for its shrine and its port festival i think.

here’s the main entrance to the shrine – the steep steps were really scary walking down!

shiogama is really quiet – this is its Honmachi, a far cry from Osaka’s:

i didnt find there much to shiogama; perhaps i should have gone over to the port area but it was hot and i was more interested in getting to Matsushima.

Matsushima is considered one of the top 3 best views in Japan. The tourist office recommended this particular park and its observation platform about 20min walk from the station. I went along that route, and this is the “stunning and spectacular view” of the bay i got:

trees! and not even a panoramic view of the bay. please do NOT bother to climb all the way up. It’s steepish and hot and completely not worth it at all.

honestly matsushima bay wasnt that fantastic. it was pretty enough, but definitely nothing worthy of Top 3 status. The seafood there is expensive too! there are some famous red bridges linking 3 smaller islands to the shore:

and the main temple with its mossy undergrowth

it was tanabata season too, and the lanterns were beautiful:

i was told that people from miyagi prefecture – where sendai and matsushima are – like to take things easy, and can find osakans brusque and rude or too direct. my sendai friend, LS, confirmed that miyagi people and osaka people are kinda the two extremes of japanese people. it was interesting actually, because i noticed that schoolgirls on the train spoke softly, which is something you dont get at all in Osaka.

sendai was nice. it’s proper urban near the JR station, but its shotengais are wide and the area near the Sendai Castle ruins has some beautiful foliage.

i found this hilarious and somewhat ridiculous:

the shotengai – its double the width of that in shinsaibashi/namba!

Sendai has the Loople Bus, which is a rather convenient way to visit the main sights if you purchase the 1-day pass:

i didnt have much time for sightseeing as i was there for 2 nights only, so i went to the Tohoku University’s museum of natural history cos i wanted to see this:

it’s been a long time since i’ve seen dinosaur bones and fossils, and it was a good decision cos i really enjoyed the exhibits in this small but interesting museum:

sendai has lots of trees, which you dont really get in japan. it also has this really nice building which is a central location for information on the arts:

and of course, no visit to sendai would be complete without trying gyutan, or cow’s tongue. It’s pretty tasty and has a slightly chewy texture - the Rikyu chain of restaurants (there’s one on the 2nd floor of Sendai station) offers a set meal with gyutan, tasty oxtail soup and rice for 1500yen:

there are more photos on facebook here too!

Why do you like Haruki Murakami?

2010-07-31T17:24:00.000+08:00

I tried finding out on facebook, but i suppose i must have asked the question wrongly, because the response was disappointing indeed. so i’ve decided to leave this post up here for the next month, even though i dont think i have good enough a readership to receive much response.

i’ve recently finished “Norwegian Wood”, and it’s my third book of his (kinda), but I’m still puzzled as to why so many people like Murakami – and so many consider him their favourite author too – and hold him in such critical acclaim. i also dont know why Norwegian Wood has received such high praise, mainly because i didnt think much of the book at all.

please share with me your thoughts if you’re a Murakami fan, because i’d really like to know!

i’d previously read “A Wild Sheep’s Chase” and tried to read “Kafka on the Shore”. So so so many people rave about Kafka on the Shore, but i couldnt finish it because i was bored. That’s right, i got so bored reading the same thing over and over again; teenage boy reading and thinking and wanking, and ‘crazy’ middle aged guy (or was he elderly?) talking to cats and hitchhiking across japan.

A Wild Sheep’s Chase was pretty okay, but Kafka.. it’s kinda like, yes I know teenagers have issues and many (most?) teenage boys have masturbation as a hobby, but it doesnt mean I want to – or need to – read about it. And Norwegian Wood I felt was just a book about people having sex. I’m okay with sex in books, but even if sex is, for some, a coping mechanism and is a part of life, I didnt feel that there was anything else to the book. Before I left for JET, a friend recommended I read it while in Japan, but well.. Murakami’s books could well be set anywhere, can’t they? It’s not like there’s much in his books that are location-specific.

I’m even more intrigued by why Murakami is really popular among English-readers. I feel that Japanese doesnt translate well into English to begin with, so Murakami is nothing special in terms of the quality of his writing. There are writers who move you because of their ability to put the right words in the right order but Murakami isnt that.

I would like to know what people who like his writing think, because i wonder if me being completely unimpressed – and this isnt an exaggeration – by his books is solely due to them not being my style. Bizarre and out-of-this-world-like books arent really my thing although I love fantasy and real-world parallels (read: the great Terry Prachett).

please tell me what you like about Murakami! Thank you!

my favourite restaurant – Pomodoro Fresca

2010-07-18T16:26:00.001+08:00

i blogged here about this Italian restaurant having some of the most delicious food around – it’s called Pomodoro Fresca and I finally made my way there for lunch today for the first time in several months.

its interior is simple and homely, and pastas range from 950yen for aglio olio to 1580yen for beef ragu. i love that it’s quiet and never really too busy, and your table gets a tall glass bottle of water to pour out on your own. it’s the perfect place for a simple yet still romantic dinner date, and there’s a proper italian-style pizza oven that overlooks half the seats in the restaurant.

for lunch, your order of pizza comes with soup and salad, while the pasta is preceded by salad and a piece of delicious and slightly chewy bread:

my favourite pastas there are their beef ragu and anything with tomato cream sauce, but these run out quickly, so be sure to get there in the earlier half of the lunch period (11.30am – 3pm, last order 2.30pm).

i tried their vongole bianca (they also serve the clams in tomato sauce) today – it was just nice, although i personally prefer heavier tasting sauces. for that reason, their carbonara is always an excellent choice as it comes with a thick, creamy, lip-smacking sauce.

lots of clams in white wine sauce; chunks of tasty bacon with sweet, soft onions.

the carbonara sauce is so deliciously thick and creamy that small eaters are advised to go with a friend, order a lighter pasta and a carbonara and share both with each other – the vongole bianca/carbonara combination might actually work well as the former has a smaller serving of pasta. i’m a pretty big eater (i know few girls who eat as much as i do) and the carbonara always leaves me happily stuffed :)

i’m hoping to return for dinner one night before i leave to have their ragu again, so hopefully there’ll be more pictures of this amazing place in heart-warming Momodani!

Directions:

Take the JR loop line to Momodani Station. Go out the exit facing the road, and head down the street with Lawsons. The Lawsons is visible from inside the gates, so you can’t possibly get lost! See here for a map.

neighbourhood shrine festival

2010-07-18T11:27:00.002+08:00

i stumbled on the festival for the Yasaka Shrine in my neighbourhood yesterday.

i saw it last year too, actually, but happened to have my camera with me this time. these danjiri make their way around the neighbourhood (or at least the immediate area around the shrine) and attract lots of attention.

moving from japan 2 – shipping

2010-07-15T16:30:00.001+08:00

i previously made a post here about shipping items using the post office, and i stand corrected:

the post office DOES do pick-ups.

i discovered this entirely by chance when purchasing boxes from the branch near my house; once again this has proven that JPO has some incompetent people in their employ, at the officers at the City Hall branch informed me that there’s no such service and that i’ll have to rely on one of the private takuhaibin companies for this.

anyway, pick-up service is called shuuka in Japanese (集荷), and the website is here. It’s in Japanese and I dont think there's English service available.

You can arrange for a pick-up online, or call 0800-0800-111. The service is available from 8am - 9pm daily. I believe the pick-up schedule is the same as for the redelivery service with 4 different time periods to choose from; basically you can call before noon to have them come pick up your boxes that very afternoon/evening.

Do also inform them while scheduling the pick-up that you will require customs labels (raberu; 1 for each box) or get them in person at a post office near you. I don't think there's an extra charge for this pick-up service, which is awesome.

I’m really happy my Fukushima-ku post office had this great, helpful person present. Although he gave me the wrong number to call, at least he equipped me with labels etc to go with my box – which led to questions from me that resulted in today’s important discovery - which the people at the City Hall branch didnt. I’m not sure why they didnt, since you have to affix labels on to box for both domestic and international deliveries anyway.

The best of~*

2010-07-14T18:21:00.001+08:00

the previous post is actually a very lengthy preface to an activity we did with the JHS 3rd years yesterday – my very last class with the loveliest bunch of students. they asked me a variety of questions using superlatives and got me thinking a little about some things i just wanna note down or share:

1. What food did you eat the most in Japan? – It has to be tuna mayo onigiri, perfect for a snack or when you’re in a rush. i prefer the ebi mayo (prawn) version but it’s not as common. Next will have to be kare raisu (Japanese curry rice) and omurice I think.

2. What was the most delicious food in Japan? – The students are actually only referring to Japanese food, which is hard because i like most Japanese food and what i choose to eat depends only on what i’m in the mood for. I’ve really enjoyed the food i had at previous school enkais (at a hotel near USJ and another at the Imperial), the meal that a Japanese teacher’s Kyoto-wife prepared for us, kani cream pasta and this amazing Italian restaurant near Momodani station on the JR loop line.

3. Which place did you visit the most in Japan? – It’s probably the Umeda Sky Building, which is also my favourite place in Osaka. For non-tourist attractions, it’s a fight between the Toho Cinema in Umeda, the izakaya Za-watami at Nodahanshin and another izakaya behind El Panchos. actually, El Panchos (Mexican restaurant) and the Dutch restaurant on Nakanoshima might be in the running too, although i havent been to either in the longest time.

4. Which was the most beautiful place in Japan? – I don’t know the answer to this, but i recall being really fascinated by the mist that formed in the valley below the highway while travelling back from Takayama. i’m only thinking about the places i’ve been to while on JET, otherwise i’m sure Hokkaido will make this list – i will soon find out if my first impressions are correct! *excited* I also think everywhere in autumn is gorgeous when the leaves change colour.

5. Where in Japan do you want to return to the most? – Since i’m going back to Hokkaido it’ll have to be Okinawa. i want to spend more time driving (i.e. being driven) along the coast and to visit Iriomote too. I think Yakushima is considered part of Kyushu, but i’d like to go there too. Okinawa food is amazing!

6. What was the most interesting/surprising thing about Japan? – The most interesting thing I think has to be the host boys along the Dotonbori bridge. As for most surprising, perhaps that people queue to get on the trains, or that women use Otohime** in the toilets. However, many of the female students don’t know what Otohime is (the boys definitely dont know cos male toilets arent equipped with them), which i find even more surprising.

and here are a few which i thought of:

7. What are some of the best places to visit? – I love Nara Park; now that I think of it, it’s most probably the place i’ve been to the most. Asuka in Nara Prefecture is great too, especially nearing autumn. I also especially recommend Taketomi island in Okinawa and Kamakura in spring. other nice places to visit would be Miyajima, Koya-san (wakayama), Arashiyama in Kyoto and Hida-no-Sato in Takayama.

8. What are some of the most overrated places/events in Japan? – oooh. Yoshino for sakura wins hands down; others include Dogo Onsen in Matsuyama (too crowded) and Matsushima Bay near Sendai (pretty but definitely not top 3 most scenic material). I’d include Harajuku too, though perhaps not for the first timer to Japan. As for events, Kyoto’s Daimonji is rubbish, and there’s this other fire festival in Nara (a side of the mountain is set alight) that i heard was a huge letdown too. i’m personally not a fan of festivals at all – too crowded, too hot and generally not all that enjoyable. Go once or twice and that’s enough!

9. What are the best things to do in Japan? – Go around the temples in autumn! it’s the most beautiful season in Japan, and temples often open till late for night illuminations. That said, go to all the illumination events there are: Kobe’s Illuminarie, Kyoto’s Higashimaya Hanatouro, Osaka’s Nakanoshima Christmas Light up, Nara-to-kae, etc. Try also to spend a night in a proper Japanese ryokan with a full kaiseki meal – you won’t regret the cost one bit. Sakura viewing is a must too, of course.

10. What will you miss the most about Japan? – The four seasons with their accompanying hype (eg crabs in winter, mango and pineapples in summer), seasonal Kit Kat, omurice, bukkake udon, delicious fried tofu, cheap and fresh sushi and widely available cocktails. For non-food related aspects (i’m making an effort here!) – buses and trains that’re usually on time, buses telling you what stop is coming up next and the convenience of combinis/vending machines. Maybe also the presence of strange/interesting people on the street.

What are some of your best ofs~?

*: i dont watch TV, but if I did, the show “The Best House, 1,2,3” would be top on my list of must-watch shows. each week, about 4 tv personalities present the Best (or most amazing, unbelievable, beautiful, etc) 3 things in a theme of their choice. Past themes include mosaics, transvestites, weight loss stories and inventions.

**: Otohime translates to ‘sound princess’. For some reason women in japan are uncomfortable having their toilet sounds overheard by other toilet users, and used to flush in order to cover those sounds. it was declared a waste of water and all toilets (except those in schools, train stations and Osaka City Hall) are now equipped with Otohime – you press a button (sometimes it’s automatic and hence really annoying) and a loud flushing sound will be played for about 25seconds.

thoughts on the nearing of the end

2010-07-14T17:50:00.001+08:00

(this was actually triggered by the next post, so go read that one – it’s more interesting anyway!)

it’s only slightly less than 3 weeks left till the end of this JET experience. i feel like i ought to get reflective on the past 2 years that i’ve spent in this country, but for some reason i’m not really thinking about much at all.

for one, i’m not sure whether this will indeed be the end of Japan – i’m still interviewing for a job (note the ‘a’: jobs are hard to find here if you’re not interested in teaching, have no experience beyond JET and are less than highly fluent in Japanese) and if i succeed i’ll be coming back to Osaka really soon.

also, the ‘T’ part of JET had more or less died a long time ago. I think i’ve tuned out the teaching aspect (or lack thereof) in order to maintain my sanity ever since the disillusionment started a little more than a year ago, so there won’t be any reflections on that count either. i’m happy to be done with teaching English in Japan; i don’t think i ever want to do it again (even taking on private students), although if i’m going home for good i do intend to set up some language exchange with one or two of the many Japanese people in Singapore.

plus, i’m more than ready to move on to doing something different – teaching English here was challenging, in a way, but i’m looking forward to something that will push my limits in a good way; something that’ll develop new skills and hone existing ones. i want to do something that will keep me engaged and interested; i want to get that excitement and adrenaline from actually working and moving and thinking.

perhaps i sound rather unhappy being on JET; that’s quite far from being the case though. the JET Programme is what gave me the chance to be here in the nice country that is Japan, in the wonderful city of Osaka – it’s what opened my eyes to so many sights and sounds and tastes.

interestingly, i dont feel like i’ve learnt the most about Japan – of course i have discovered a lot about the country that can only be gleaned from being here, but ultimately Japan isn’t that culturally different from Singapore; the sociocultural quirks of Japan do not irk me half as much as they do some other JETs*. instead, JET has been more like my discovery of the ‘west’ and exposure to the greater world beyond – despite what some friends back home might think of me, i’m still terribly Asian when put beside someone who’d been brought up in the ‘west’.

another huge reason why i’m not reflecting on these past 2 years in Japan is because to do so i will have to compare it to what life will be after this** – and the thought of that so far has mainly resulted in tears, sadness and horror. If i’m going back to Singapore, it’ll be back to living with the family again (*shudder*); either way it’s gonna be being oceans away from The Boy who’s also going home himself. “No problem shall be faced'/ Until the problem is”; i have taken Thom Gunn’s words to heart and am intent on spending the rest of my days here as a JET happily.

perhaps i will do more reflection after i’ve left Japan!

*: often, i also wonder if Singaporeans might be just a little bit more adaptable to cultural differences too (i do know of several Singaporeans do certainly think so), in that we just don’t get so bothered about some things. for example, the Brit finds it rather perplexing that classrooms tend to have the curtains drawn and the artificial lights on, when it’s really nice and bright outside so the curtains should be open and the lights off instead. he can sometimes go mental in a classroom that’s like that. Him and some others also get really bothered by the extra bright lighting inside conbinis; to be honest i never noticed it until i heard them talking about it.

**: of course i can and should also look at what life was before JET. now i have money, life in Japan is great and i love living alone – even if i werent one who doesn’t look back on things, there really isn’t much more to compare here!

nagahama, shiga

2010-07-08T21:35:00.001+08:00

i was in sendai for the past few days, but here’re some pictures from Nagahama in Shiga Prefecture from about a month ago.

nagahama is famous for glass; this says “Nagahama Eki (station)”

i think the kanji for shiga is beautiful:

Nagahama Castle overlooking a park:

i got a little carried away with pictures of this pretty stone lamp and Lake Biwa:

Lake Biwa is pretty from afar, but really dirty and gross up close:

cool glass design at the station:

kawaii!:

the corner of Kurokabe Square and the main shotengai:

Awesome stuff – i’m gonna watch kabuki this saturday, and i’m pretty excited about it:

pretty glass studio:

this was rather cool:

i dont really know what this sculpture was meant to be about – it’s a kitsune in some strange looking sack thingy, which reminds me a little of those body suits some japanese comedians wear on tv:

tranquil sights:

i visited the biggest temple in the main town square area; there were students there on a school excursion, and the most life-like dragon carving i’ve seen so far:

there’s a giant kaleidoscope in Nagahama; Nagahama is meant to be the most popular tourist destination in Shiga too:

there were some strange statues, sculptures and a stalls in the area surrounding the kaleidoscope too:

i really liked the side of this building too:

the verdict is that Nagahama is quite a nice place to head to for a short daytrip, although it’s definitely not on the list of must go places, as there really isn’t that much to see. It apparently can get a little busy on weekends; it certainly wasn’t empty when i was there on a weekday. The glass goods there aren’t that varied (i think there were more in Takayama), and if you’ve been in Japan long enough, most of the ‘japanese souvenirs’ there wouldnt be too different from what you’ve seen elsewhere in Kyoto, for example.

Nagahama’s rather pretty though, and if you find yourself wanting to visit Shiga – like i was – it’s certainly not a bad choice!

moving from japan – shipping and softbank

2010-07-04T20:27:00.001+08:00

i’m finally, and somewhat belatedly, starting to get ready to relocate – where exactly i’m relocating to i’m not sure yet. but seeing as i definitely have to move house, preparations have begun, and what i’ve discovered is somewhat disappointing.

firstly, shipping. the cheapest option is still, of course, the post office. Japan Post has this SAL option where items are shipped via surface mail domestically but via airmail between countries. it’s faster than seamail but cheaper than airmail – 2 weeks for SAL compared to 2 months for seamail to Singapore, and only 5000yen more!

unfortunately, the post office doesnt do pick-ups from your house. which means that you either have to call a delivery service to send your items to the post office – how you’re gonna pay for the shipping in that case i’m not sure, but that’s what the post office pple suggested – or you bring them there on your own.

i’d suggest not bothering with those larger moving/shipping companies, as all who’ve responded so far have told me that the amount i want to ship is way below their minimum shipping volume. in other words, because i’m not moving my entire house per se, they’re gonna be much more expensive than the post office.

PAKMAIL is a moving company that advertises in Kansai Scene. They don’t provide boxes and are slightly more expensive than the post office, but they have pick-up service from your house for a charge. they have English services, but i’m still not sure whether i’ll choose them over the post office. we shall see about that i suppose.

now, for my softbank mobile phoneline. i’m rather annoyed by them actually, as i have to go down to a softbank shop – note that yodobashi camera and big camera aren’t allowed – personally to cancel my phoneline. the day that i go down to the shop is the day that i cancel my phoneline, because i have to return my SIM card to them.

i find that really dumb cos it’s not like they dont have the capabilities to lock my SIM card and prevent me from using the softbank service past a certain date. i mean, people cancel phonelines all the time back home, and i’ve never ever heard of them having to go down personally to a shop to cancel it, without being able to choose a date of cancellation in advance.

plus, i’m cancelling my internet before i leave, so my phone is my only means of communication with anyone once my internet is gone. yet, in this day and age where everyone in the developed world is so highly connected, softbank is forcing me to be disconnected from others by making me cancel my phoneline before i actually leave japan.

gah. i’m so not looking forward to deal with these kind of little annoying things in the last few days before i leave japan, when all i want to do is to relax and enjoy the last of my time here. especially when these things, really, shouldnt be so troublesome and such a hassle to settle. and im going to be totally uncontactable sometime in the day of the 1st of August, so if you want to say goodbye, please do so before then.

**** softbank.

out and about

2010-06-30T21:30:00.001+08:00

i can say that i’ve sat on all the subway lines in Osaka, after I took the orange Imasato-line the other day. i find it a rather obscure line as it goes from Imasato – one stop east of Tsuruhashi – to somewhere north of the Yodogawa. it’s a very new train line though, and i was quite taken in by how clean and new the station and train looked:

i was happy to see this on the door of the handicapped toilet, with the lower sign stating that anyone is welcome to use the facilities. i find that most people in Japan are unwilling to use toilets for disabled people, and will stand in a long, long line for the regular toilets even though there might be a vacant cubicle for disabled people nearby.

i also spotted an advertisement for the ECC language school, with 2 of the creepiest gaijin men i’ve ever seen:

i wonder if Beat Takeshi even speaks a word of english?

anyhow, the janitors at my school were plucking these little berries off the shrubs the other day – they had a bowl full of them, and offered me one:

they’re apparently called yama momo, or mountain peach, and are sourish with a seed inside:

i’m very impressed by the flowers and shrubs that are grown in school. i never really noticed those shrubs before i saw the janitors plucking these fruits off them that day, and i love how we get daffodils, hydrangeas, tulips and a variety of other flowers depending on the time of year. One type of flower blooms, and then it fades, and then another type goes into bloom again – it’s lovely to be able to appreciate one variety at one time.

Blue Samurais

2010-06-30T21:13:00.001+08:00

it’s still slightly unbelievable that I stayed up till 2am last night to watch Japan play against Paraguay in what was nothing but a disappointing match all round.

deciding who wins based on penalties is painful and awful, but frankly i’m less disappointed by the fact that Japan is out of the World Cup than i am by their poor playing. both teams were bad, but it was highly frustrating seeing Japan play exactly the same way as they did in their past matches, with all the same flaws.

everyone on facebook has been posting really positive status updates, saying that Japan did really well and they tried their best and they played a great match and so on – which i find really puzzling.

really - dangerous and reckless tackles (Endo, did you really need to get a 2nd yellow card which would have made you miss the quarter finals had Japan won?), poor poor passing, the constant lobbing of a high long ball that bounces into nowhere and towards no one in particular (except perhaps the opposing team’s player), insistence in passing towards a heavily guarded player in the centre when there’s a free man at the wing, the numerous times they lost possession of the ball when they really shouldnt have – how can anyone call that doing a good job or playing good football?

i’ve never watched much football till this year, but just by seeing some of the other teams play, it’s pretty obvious that Japan isn’t quite in the same league as some of the rest are. It didnt help that the referee was really inconsistent in his free kicks and yellow cards – i really think a bad tackle deserves a yellow card more than an accidental handball – but well. there’s no one for me to support in the World Cup anymore, and no Beckham to catch glimpses of either.

maybe i’ll cheer for Germany now.

YAYYYYYYYY!~

2010-06-27T15:00:00.001+08:00

I’m not much of a soccer fan, but boy am i glad that the two teams that i was rooting for to NOT get into the next stage have been knocked out of the world cup.

woohoo!

well done, uruguay and ghana!

good public behaviour

2010-06-26T18:58:00.001+08:00

japan has a series of posters educating people on what is good public behaviour. most of those that i’ve seen are

with regard to the inconsiderate nature of smoking, but here’s something interesting:

here’s another sign on JR trains that i’ve only spotted recently:

words of caution

2010-06-18T23:09:00.001+08:00

it’s one week into world cup season, and unfortunately after the first few matches – south africa-mexico, england-usa, japan-cameroon and brazil-north korea (which i couldnt watch) – my interest has died somewhat. still, i’ve seen more football this year than i ever have in four lifetimes combined, so i’d actually consider it something of an achievement!

i spotted this in Family Mart the other day, and it looks really tempting but i’m not sure i dare to try:

curry in japan is very mild – i always buy the hottest available (大辛）at the supermarket, but most of them still have hardly any spice. I’ve had LEE 20 and it’s indeed spicy; enough so that my nose drips a little and i need a drink with my meal – proper spice :) i’m scared of this LEE 30 however, since LEE 20 is just within comfort level; any spicier and i don’t think i’ll be able to enjoy it anymore.

if anyone tries this, please tell me how it went down!

I also picked up two very attractive looking drinks at that same family mart:

unfortunately, they were very disappointing! i didnt realise that the former had apple juice in it – see the tiny words on the bottom left corner – but no matter what, the drink tasted more like liquid watermelon bubblegum than real watermelon juice; supremely sweet and artificial. that coming from a sugar-loving person too! despite what the little boy on the packet claims, it’s definitely NOT the drink for summer.

as for the mango and pineapple flavoured tea.. japan has lots of fruit-flavoured tea drinks. my favourite are apple tea, peach tea and orange tea – they’re really nice cold, and lipton and just tea (i think that’s the brand) do good ones. i think that some fruits just dont go well with tea though – mango and pineapple being two of them, with pink grapefruit (which i tried several days ago) being another. it was a little too sweet too; cloying and not refreshing like proper cold, fruit-flavoured teas should be. it’s a pity, because i love the mango-pineapple combination in other drinks!

weather forecast

2010-06-16T19:42:00.001+08:00

in case one wasnt aware that tsuyu - the japanese rainy season - is here, the week’s forecast from friday makes it all too clear:

help!

2 hours

2010-06-11T14:49:00.001+08:00

that’s how long i’d spent at JTB today.

it has been a frustrating experience trying to book tickets for my flight home. and i’d typed out a nice, long, ranty post – worthy of the 2 hours i’d waited – recounting the emails that were never replied, phonecalls that were never returned and broken promises by travel agents to get back to me, but lost it all just now when something happened to my computer.

the complaints are out of my system now, at least, and tickets have been booked. i still dont understand why my BOE gave me the contact information which they did, but well.

the JET journey ends 2nd August, via Singapore Airlines* which started the experience.

let’s enjoy what’s left of the time in Japan.

*: i’m surprised i actually managed to get tickets on SIA; when i checked online, the only flights within the price range i was given was malaysia airlines :P

Sayonara book sale

2010-06-08T17:21:00.000+08:00

A few of us are getting together to sell our books as we’re leaving Japan – used English books are from 300yen each! Books for Japanese study are available too.

Do take a look if you’re in Japan: http://sayonarabooksale.blogspot.com/

More books will be added as we go along, so do check every now and then and spread the word!

slacking off..

2010-06-07T20:08:00.001+08:00

i somehow found this rather amusing

and this fairly disturbing..

sigh

2010-06-06T15:16:00.001+08:00

it’s one of those times where i’m longing for the safe, comfortable embrace of home.

home is where i understand the jokes and the sense of humour. where people are a little more restrained when ragging others about stuff. where people seem to be a bit more sensitive towards the limits of others and moderate their behaviour and attitudes accordingly. where everyone else shares more or less the same socio-cultural norms as i do. where i roll my eyes at lame jokes, rather than feeling myself reach the limit (and i think i have a fairly high tolerance too) of enduring dirty (ie, sexual) humour. where people don’t seem to feel the need to play the fool or adopt a strong ‘public persona’ to get others to laugh with them; where there isn’t such a huge pressure to appear ‘cool’ in order to be accepted.

i’m just feeling so worn out from some of the superficial and foreign interactions that i’m experiencing here. it’s unfortunate and hard to believe that it’s almost 2 years now, yet i haven’t gotten used to some of the things that go on around me.

if only i could fly back for a few days, meet up with a few friends, pull the blanket of familiarity snug around me like armour and return here, recharged, renewed and ready to take on whatever else is thrown my way.

しかし、できへんなぁ。このまま頑張ることしかない。たった短い2ヶ月しか残ってなくて、大事にするべきなのに・・・帰りたくないけど、本当に帰りたい気持ちもある。この1年半、2年間、一体何のためだったんだろう？

hikone and castle, shiga

2010-06-03T22:21:00.001+08:00

i’ve been to shiga twice before – once as part of an english summer camp, and the other for my translation/interpretation course – but never had the chance to sightsee in the prefecture.

i made my way to hikone, the town famous for Hikone Castle, one of the few original remaining castles left in japan (most of them, like the garish Osaka Castle, were all rebuilt, and some fairly recently too).

And the castle pretty much is the only thing in the town worth seeing. Hikone seemed really quiet; i was there around 3.30pm but there was hardly anyone (much less tourists) about. Most of the people I saw were students jogging around the castle’s moat.

just outside Hikone JR station, you’ll first come across this:

note the really cute miniature model of the castle, and the samurai’s helmet, whose look i assume is what Hikonyan, the uber cute mascot of Hikone, is based on:

see the cat figure on the right of Hikonyan? he’s one of the sidekicks; the tourist information office below the station sells cups featuring each member of the Hikonyan + sidekicks crew! i’d always thought that Hikonyan was a solo act.

just before entering the castle compound, i came across this shrine which had an uncommon feature:

there was a little corner dedicated to peace statues and memorials – i’ve seen a fair number of these in various temples and shrines, but they’re usually just a simple plaque like the one in the following picture or a bell; never have they ever featured a human face of war.

Hikonyan is there to greet you right outside the castle’s admission ticket booths. this is my favourite position of his:

some pics of the castle’s exterior:

the view from just outside the castle – i heard a guide telling a trio of ladies that you can see lake biwa from where we were, but i spotted no sign of it:

ruins of a wall – can you spot the kitty?

Hikone castle is surprisingly small. It was only 3 stories high, and not very spacious either. It looks a lot bigger than it actually is, as you have to climb up some fairly steep steps before reaching the inner castle grounds. Inside the castle are some of the steepest and narrowest flights of stairs i’ve ever seen too:

i was a little nervous as i took the above shot. if you’ve been to himeji castle and thought that the stairs were bad, these are far worse. good thing there’re only a few of them; i still wouldnt recommend Hikone castle for people my parent's age though..

adjacent to the castle is Genkyu-en, a pretty little garden that is meant to contain the 8 scenic spots of Lake Biwa in the form of rock formations. I couldnt identify any – mainly cos i dont know what the 8 spots are, besides Hikone Castle – but it made a pleasant enough stroll. Admission to the garden is in the same ticket as that to the castle, so it’s very much worth seeing.

there was this interesting bridge made entirely out of reeds; most bridges i’ve seen here are either wooden, concrete or stone:

more views of the garden – the sun was out that day, and the foliage looked to me almost exactly the same colour as they’ve turned out in the pictures!:

heading out from the castle’s main gate, you will come across Yume Kyobashi - a stretch of touristy but traditional-looking shops on both sides of a road leading out from the castle’s main gate. Guidebooks might recommend it, but I’d suggest you skip that bit entirely, as the shops arent as interesting as those you can find anywhere else near tourist attractions in Japan, and that it requires a detour away from the train station.

i saw an interesting sign along that street though:

the area around Yume Kyobashi seems to have been revitalised recently; there was a plaque with the tagline “New Old Town”. Indeed there were some pretty and new buildings; some sections even seemed un-japanese, with european-style beautiful signs hanging perpendicular to the building above the shop.

i suppose the area is nice enough to wander around in, but it’s a bit harder to navigate as it doesnt have any T-junctions. Roads come up straight against a row of buildings, so you can never see where you’re going beyond what’s perhaps 50-100m ahead of you - “unique characteristics of a castle town”, as a sign informed me, without actually pointing me in the direction of the train station :P

that little wander (and getting lost) around Yume Kyobashi yielded me this – i find signs in Japan a mixture of the funny and slightly disturbing:

as well as a photo-op of Hikonyan and two of his ultra cute sidekicks in a shop window:

i think Hikonyan is the cutest ever Japanese mascot, and his friends pack a pretty punch too. now, if only the mascot i see the most – Sento-kun – was half as appealing as Hikonyan….

job hunting

2010-06-01T20:28:00.001+08:00

i stumbled upon this ridiculous job advertisement the other day, and wonder if there’s anyone who would actually fit those requirements AND would be willing to work for such miniscule pay:

Job Vacancy Description:

Document Checker with Korean/Japanese/Manadarin/Cantonese

1 Week Booking (start 18/1/10)
£9-11 per hour
9am-6pm
City of London, Central London

THE ROLE
My client is a specialist data recovery and court services provider and requires someone with excellent proficiency in Korean, Japanese AND Cantonese/Mandarin to assist them with identifying the origination of 17,000 documents for various court cases.

Get in touch asap if you are proficient with all these languages and can start immediately!

i mean, really, you want someone with “excellent proficiency” in three languages BESIDES english, and all you’re offering is a part-time job paying ONLY double the minimum wage? people with such good language skills arent going to be just sitting around doing nothing you know – they’re gonna be working in a far higher paying job!

and i bet that vacancy is available only to people who already have the right to work in the UK, as if most pple fluent in the three east-asian languages are gonna be EU citizens, or just happen to be studying/have studied in the UK.

i wonder who will be the person to fill that opening.

* * *

i also came across this other advertisement for a Japanese-speaking nanny. the job description isn’t ridiculous, but i wonder at how extremely well-off the family that’s hiring is, and what they did to become so rich:

“This family is looking for a Japanese nanny to care for their children. The nanny will work alongside another nanny, in the care of 4 children of 5, 4, 2 years old and a baby of 9 months. This could be a live out or a live in position. The accomodation offered is own room, en suite bathroom and kitchenette. Only nursery duties required, no cleaning since the family has 2 cleaners. The position starts as soon as possible. Salary offered is £8-10net per hour. The ideal candidate should have health and safety knowledge, be able to establish a routine and be professional.”

oh my goodness. own ensuite room PLUS kitchenette? just for a nanny? and two cleaners, one nanny and looking for another nanny?!?

sugoi!

what i will miss..

2010-05-30T15:18:00.001+08:00

… when i leave japan, are all the amazing food places that i’ve been to while here. eating is a huge hobby of mine; while i come from a country that has lots of good and cheap food, i dont think i’ve ever eaten as well as i do in japan.

it’s probably because this is my first job - and a well-paying one too – that i have the opportunity to just spend money on food. but apart from the cheap ticket-vending-machine places and the japanese-style (和風）pasta joints (they’re just not to my taste), i havent really had bad food in japan.

i also find that more effort is put into preparing and serving food in japan. there’s also more fresh ingredients; japan has many cheap italian places too, unlike singapore – i’ve discovered that i love italian food. not to mention indian curry restaurants (i eat more indian food here than back home) and all those marvellous cafes.

i want to introduce two places i really like – Marylebone Cafe and Kobe Ninnikuya Restaurant:

* * *

Marylebone Cafe

English-style cafes are fairly popular in japan, and there are many dotted around osaka. my favourite is Marylebone, because there’s one near my house at Noda station (hanshin line)/ Nodahanshin subway station.

Marylebone has very delicious cakes, big sandwiches and good coffee served in huge cups – i’ve seen soup served in smaller cups than those used here:

my favourite cakes at marylebone are their cheesecake and mixed berries short cake. the latter has really delicious as it has sweet berries, very fresh cream and light sponge. you can see it below – 2nd from the left on the bottom shelf:

if you like berries, i also spotted someone having a mixed berries french toast. the concept seems a little odd to me, with the sweet and salty mixture, but it looks amazing！:

here’s the map to the marylebone outlet which I frequent. there’s another branch in Whity Umeda – map here.

* * *

Kobe Ninnikuya

I was brought here for the first time for an enkai, and the food is really good. I only return for one thing, really, which is their fantastic crab cream pasta. check out its picture in their official banner:

The pasta (￥1291) comes decorated with half a crab's shell, and the sauce is rich, creamy and bursting with the sweet flavour of crab meat. It's so good that I never fail to want more after I'm done with the dish.

Their pizzas, though having very thin crusts, are delicious too, and so is the black pepper chicken dish.

Don't be put off by the "ninniku" (garlic) in this restaurant's name - most of their dishes come without garlic, and even if they do, you're given mints as you leave to freshen up your breath.

I also found this amazing picture of their spicy prawn cabonara pasta – doesnt it look so fantastically delicious? the sauce seems so heart attack-inducing creamy and rich…. *slurp*!:

ohhh i can’t wait to go back; i havent been there in the longest time! the one i visit is at Fukushima station (JR, Hanshin), but there’re quite a lot of other branches all over Osaka and kobe. please visit one near you!

Directions:
From Fukushima JR station, cross the road directly in front of the station exit. Head right to Hotel Hanshin and go down the stairs to Basement 1. The restaurant will be on your left.

(photos from here, here, here and here)

soccer, school fees and silly banks

2010-05-28T13:38:00.001+08:00

friendly matches leading up to the world cup have begun – south korea played japan on monday and won 2-0. i watched the match, but it was only today that i learned that the japanese men’s team is called “Samurai Blue”, while the women’s team is known as “Nadeshiko Japan” – nadeshiko coming from the japanese word yamato nadeshiko, which according to wikipedia means “"personification of an idealized Japanese woman".

the match was quite a bad one, as both teams played poorly and nothing really happened during the game. the first goal was scored in within 15min of kick-off, i believe, while the second was scored in extra time. unfortunately, the south koreans were significantly better than the japanese; my JTE said that a south korean reporter had declared post-match that korea now has nothing to fear from Japan.

such harsh words!

* * *

i also learned today that school fees for senior high schools in japan have been removed since April this year; a promise apparently made by Hatoyama’s government. before that, students were paying a whopping 140,000yen per year for an education in public senior high schools!! that’s so much!

my american ALT colleague (i have 2 at my school) says that it’s a lot less where she comes from; i’m pretty sure we pay less than $100 per month in singapore? if anyone knows exactly how much JC school fees are, please let me know cos i’m really interested to find out now!

* * *

preparations to head home – or at least leave JET – are slowly getting underway, but i’ve recently discovered that my bank, Mitsui Sumitomo, is no longer issuing international cash cards - this means that there is no way for me to withdraw money from this account once i leave japan. it’s the same thing for the Japan Post Bank; both these banks are pretty big banks too, at least in the kansai region for SMBC.

it’s really stupid, cos what kind of bank doesnt allow its customers to get money once they’re overseas? the japanese banking sector is such that it doesnt really integrate well internationally – at least from a user’s viewpoint – which doesnt make sense because it’s not as if japanese people dont travel around and spend money overseas. guess it means that japanese tourists are reliant on credit cards when they’re overseas to borrow money from their banks.

the option for me, as well as the other returning JETs in the city, is to either close our accounts when we leave and have our pension money + transport reimbursement transferred into our home country bank accounts in 6 months to a year’s time, or to open an account with another as yet unknown bank that issues an international cash card. troublesome troublesome.

Cinema restrictions

2010-05-23T16:40:00.001+08:00

I only noticed this today while booking movie tickets, even though i’ve used the online ticketing system many times before!

“At theaters located within Osaka Prefecture, persons under 16 years of age are not admitted to showings that end after 19:00, unless accompanied by a guardian. (restrictions by prefectural regulations) Persons under 18 years of age are not admitted to showings that end after 22:00 in Gifu,Kochi and Osaka prefectures, 23:00 in other prefectures, as prohibited by prefectural regulations. Student or Child tickets to such showings are not on sale.”

buying movie tickets in japan is great, because they dont charge an extra booking fee like they do back home. i dont know why there’s the extra charge back home either, because the customer does all the work when booking online; all the ticketing officer has to do is retrieve the purchase. in fact, if they just install automatic ticketing machines like they have done here, you wouldnt even need a human being to issue the tickets!

post-beer garden apocalypse

2010-05-23T13:45:00.001+08:00

in osaka – and i’d presume in other parts of japan too – rooftop beer gardens are popular in the warmer months. they offer all you can eat and drink for about 3300 to 4000yen, and are lots of fun cos you just sit there with friends and enjoy yourself on the roof where it’s nice and cool. all the people at the beer garden are nicely drunk, so the atmosphere is really lively and relaxed too.

i’d been to beer gardens several times before, but yesterday we witnessed a post-beer garden apocalypse for the very first time. these events begin from 5.30 till about 9pm; everyone has to leave by 9, and the staff will all gently shoo us out.

when we exited the building, the sight that greeted us seemed like the aftermath of a terrorist attack – there were people sprawled on the floor dead drunk with their friends gathered around them, some trying to revive them, others playing a fool and drawing on their faces. puke was on the floor in various spots.

just in this narrow view above are already two terribly drunk people – there were quite a lot more. apparently there were people being sick in the men’s room from about 6.30pm (and had clogged up the sink); there were also ladies throwing up in the toilet when we were leaving. one of the japanese people in our party said that this is something that would only happen in osaka and not tokyo. haha. i’ve seen people unconscious on the floor before on nights out, but never have i seen so many of them at one single place so early in the night. it was crazy! i’m curious as to why this had never occurred before when i’d been to beer gardens though. perhaps it’s really early in the season so people’s tolerance for alcohol is a little on the low side?

international exchange and understanding VS the (perceived) western cultural superiority complex

2010-05-20T11:02:00.001+08:00

okay, i know i’m asking for trouble by making such a post, but urgh. what happened yesterday got me so riled up. suffice to say that it really bothers me how some foreigners view Japan from their western-centric eyes, make judgements with the unspoken but implicit, underlying opinion that what goes on in this country is so “OMG this is insane, what kind of place is this??”

a disclaimer before i proceed further: i’m going to be using words like “Asian” and “Western” very freely, so anyone who’s going to take issue with that and call it a reductive dichotomy might want to stop right now and browse somewhere else.

* * *

i think i occupy an interesting position on JET, being a born and bred Asian in the midst of a whole bunch of people from predominantly ‘white’ ‘western’ societies, all of us being lumped together as “foreigners” in a country which, in many ways, can be said to be on the extreme end of things ranging from (cultural) conservatism to other kinds of crazy stuff.

many people in my social circle don’t seem to realise that the social-cultural norms that they’re used to don't apply to many other countries besides japan – so many things seem to flabbergast them, even though the same things that go on in Japan are shared in many other countries in the region to varying extents.

i find it interesting that i’d never been more aware of my Asian identity than when i came on JET. and that my culture shock – in some ways i’m still adapting - came from the other ALTs and not from Japan at all. so often when i’m listening to conversations where people are discussing something they find odd, i’m thinking, ‘well, that’s because of this and that, and besides it’s not that strange cos in some way it’s echoed back home too’.

because of my background, i find it a lot easier to understand where certain aspects of japanese culture and behaviour come from. i might not agree with some of them, but i believe i understand somewhat the underlying mentality behind them, and because of that, find it easier to accept that behaviour.

unfortunately, for many people i know, their life in japan is spent looking from the outside, seeing the facts of the situation (ie This is what goes on in Japan) but not the reasons behind them. they get into debates, discussing and judging, sometimes trying to make sense of it from their western viewpoints but not quite succeeding because they dont have the cultural background for support.

and i (naturally) get defensive – oftentimes it’s some form of japan-bashing or putting down, and i get upset because 1) i do like japan and sometimes i just think they just have to change their mentality on things and they wouldnt be so unhappy being here, and 2) i can’t help but feel they’re criticising my cultural background too, when judgement and comments are passed on things in japan that singaporeans/chinese share to a certain extent.

so i voice my dissonant view, and woah. i get told that i’m defensive – and damn right i am for the reasons above. also, try being the only westerner surrounded by asians commenting and passing judgement on aspects of some other country whose general practices you share to an extent, and let’s see whether you get defensive or not.

i also get told in the same breath that their views are equally valid, that the outsider’s view from another cultural perspective can often be illuminating on a place, and that my views are equally coloured by my cultural upbringing too.

who’s being the defensive one here? i put forth an alternative view and immediately steps are taken in attempt to squash it and reassert their opinion.

the conversation i had yesterday brought to mind what i’d read in this book on the JET Programme by David McConnell. this programme is aimed at increasing international understanding, among others, but i’m really not sure how successful it is in this respect, considering how most discussions on culture occur among westerners*; at least from my experience, there arent that many japanese people with the english skills necessary to discuss culture (and even if they do, i can’t really imagine getting into a debate with my JTEs on this topic; our relationship isn’t quite there yet) and there’re hardly any english-speaking born and bred asians around to share their cultural viewpoints. not to mention the reluctance and resistance to opposing views on culture!

Said one of the Japanese interviewed in the book:

“In many of their criticisms, ALTs are implicitly demanding that the Japanese reconstitute themselves and their society in ways more compatible with Western norms and expectations.”

and

“JET participants need to take seriously the task of learning Japanese culture and language and integrating themselves into social routines. Too often they simply criticize Japan rather than admit that they must accept some of the consequences of the Japanese model of social relations.”

Another JET himself expressed:

“Is kokuisaika (internationalisation) not a two-way street? I sometimes wonder if all JET participants are as internationalized as they pretend to be. Most of us feel internationalized because we are Anglophones, presently living outside our home country dealing with people who lack fluency in English and have limited experience in overseas travelling. We see the Japanese as the object of our presence in their own country.. however, how many of us can look at ourselves and sincerely assert that we are as internationalized as we want the Japanese to be?”

Oh, i couldnt agree with them more.

I’ve heard complaints about Japanese prejudice against white foreigners, and you know, sometimes i don’t blame the Japanese - not when you have foreigners who come here and sometimes talk bad about japanese people or laugh at their stupidity for not understanding english behind their backs in a clearly audible voice. not when there’s sometimes the expectation that people here should know english when they themselves dont make much effort or attempt to learn japanese. not when you have foreigners who jump over ticket gates and feel proud about it. not when a bunch of foreigners come onto a quiet train, chattering among themselves at a volume that echoes throughout the entire train carriage, yet get angry when someone tells them to lower their voices because they feel they have the right to do whatever they want. not when foreigners have house parties fitting 30 people into a small apartment and get pissed off when the security guard breaks up the party at 11pm**. and definitely not when foreigners go around the streets making a ruckus for the heck of it just because they can.

i just hope most of the other JETs around, as well as future JET applicants, are open to understanding and accepting what goes on in this country. i’m probably sounding hypocritical saying this***, but let’s all try to be as open-minded as possible and attempt to feel the soul of this country we’re in.

*: many of these often end in something like “Man, i think that they just need to/they should (insert Western practice or attitude)”.

**: i mentioned this to a friend, and apparently her landlord in Edinburgh would certainly not appreciate a house party in their building. Also, whoever said that 12 midnight is the magic number for things to end? Where i come from it’s very much 11pm.

***: i suppose i am guilty of being close-minded to the western-centric views on japan. and i admit i have nothing to say in my defence, except that i dislike what i perceive to be an underlying western superiority complex behind many of their comments. plus i dont think the western viewpoint on anything needs defending anyway, since it’s everywhere in entertainment and political and economic systems; it’s firmly rooted in our current world and you cant escape from it. the east knows a lot more about the west than the other way round.

JET postings

2010-05-18T13:29:00.001+08:00

i’ve heard that postings have been decided and perhaps confirmed?

i wonder who is coming to replace those of us in Osaka who’re leaving.. among us, there’s 1 irish, 2 english, 2 south african, 1 australian, 1 jamaican, 4 american and of course me the singaporean, so it’ll be nice if we’ll get some people from these countries to replace us. i really like the good mix of nationalities that we have, cos you get to learn so much more; it’s a generalisation, but i’ve also realised that i get along with some better than others.

if you’re reading this and have gotten posted to Osaka-shi, do please drop me a line! i’d be really excited to find out who’s coming.

PS: Osaka-fu apparently isn’t hiring any new JETs to replace those who’re leaving, which is surprising. i wonder how many are heading back to their home countries this year. all of us in the city who’re leaving are getting replaced, although it’s because there’s only a measly 23 of us.

interesting facts about osaka, trains and kansai

2010-05-13T20:54:00.001+08:00

i was reading kansai scene in the office today, and spotted many punctuation, grammatical and formatting errors in the magazine. such time did i have that i wrote a letter to the editor, with a list of the errors i spotted. i wonder if i will get a reply, and if i do, what it will be. the magazine, though, now has some new writers whom i think i quite like. let’s just hope they improve their copyediting.

anyway, there was this article on Hankyu railway celebrating its 100th anniversary, and included several interesting pieces of information:

Umeda （梅田）got its name because:

Hankyu Railway’s predecessor bought the area, filled it (umeru, in Japanese) and called it Umeda, using the characters for fill and field (埋田. The first character was later changed to the more romantic plum (梅).

Also, i’d always thought that Hankyu and Hanshin are rival railway companies, but it turns out that they had been rivals; the former bought over the latter about 4 years ago to form Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, Inc.

Finally, want to know where some of the most expensive real estate in Kansai are located? They’re “north of the (Hankyu) Kobe Line between Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi and Rokko station”. I do know that many diplomats live in the Nishinomiya area, but am not familiar enough with Hyogo Prefecture’s geography to verify if the two facts do match up.

Can anyone enlighten me?

stupid, stupid timetabling

2010-05-13T19:47:00.001+08:00

i’m surprised that i havent posted anything on school in a while. it’s probably because i’ve been trying to avoid whingeing about the same stuff too often.

for those who have an inkling of how free i am at work – guess what? i’m even more free this term after i got my new timetable. while time has been passing by a little bit quicker now that i’ve put in more effort into finding a job (heh), mondays are still kinda rough and depressing, as that’s when i get my schedule for the week and find out that once again i have nothing to do for the week.

i’m back at my "base school” everyday. besides me, there are 3 other ALTs who rotate being at the school. there are 2 of us on monday, tuesday and thursday, and 3 on wednesday and friday.

unfortunately the timetabling is ridiculous. when i first looked at my timetable, it seemed pretty good cos i had a good number of classes each day. then, i was told that 6 periods worth of classes that are on the timetable do not actually occur this term, as the students are focusing on grammar and other aspects besides english conversation.

okay then. so almost a third of my timetable has been struck off. then i realise that about half of the remainder are normal junior high classes that more often than not do not require my presence. i am therefore left with only 2 classes on monday, tuesday and thursday each, 1 on wednesday and none on friday that will definitely happen. that’s a grand total of 7 definite classes a week, and i’ve pretty much mostly been doing just this little since term began. urgh.

and what i don’t understand is why there are so many classes scheduled for junior high anyway. i looked at the ALTs’ timetables, and discovered that between us we have 18 junior high classes than mostly don’t require us (so far we’ve, in total, gone for about 6 classes in a week or less). 18 periods of class is about what one well-utilised ALT works in a week – with better planning, my school could have done with 1 less ALT who could have then be placed FULL TIME at another school that will better benefit from his or her presence.

moreover, further inspection reveals that each of the 6 junior high classes – we have only 2 in each grade – is scheduled to have an ALT in class THREE times a week. that’s plain ridiculous as they only have english 4 times a week! and most regular junior high schools students get an ALT at most once a week. no wonder we never get a chance to go into class because it’s plain impossible to accommodate an ALT that often. why bother to schedule us in then??

who was the person who did the timetabling? did he or she not consider basic facts? did this person pencil in our schedules for the sake of making it seem like the school is making good use of foreign talent? (my school is a newly set-up integrated junior and senior high school, and it’s apparently quite highly regarded in the city – or at least, the city has grand hopes for it.) how could the many people who have no doubt seen the schedules – given japanese bureaucracy it must have passed through a dozen desks – ever questioned if the school really needs that many ALTs?

it makes me so angry that something like this could occur. urgh.

a phenomenally educational night out

2010-05-09T15:39:00.001+08:00

this weekend, a bunch of us JET girls finally went out and did what we’d been wanting to do for the longest time – visit a host club!

you see hosts all the time in shinsaibashi and namba (among other places), especially on the dotonburi bridge. however, i think most of us were interested in learning more about hosts, or experiencing what goes on in the host trade, after we watched The Great Happiness Space.

i’d blogged about it long ago here, and i think everyone should watch that show. our experience wasn’t quite as exciting as i’d hoped it would be though, as i think the hosts were intimidated by our foreignness – they knew very little english – and perhaps the size of our group (there were 6 of us).

below, slightly to the left, you can see some hosts plying their trade:

they didn’t really flirt or chat nonsense with us that much, although one of us – who knew very little japanese – ended up being next to a host who’d had non-japanese customers before but spoke hardly any english: for most of the time he whispered in her ear that she’s very beautiful, and she’d actually found that quite flattering even though she’s completely aware that he’s saying it only to make her feel good!

i just took the chance to badger my host with lots of questions; he was really forthcoming with information, and i learned a lot in that 1 hour we had there.

1. go out late, but not too late. the hosts whom we met work 2 shifts: their night shift starts from either 4 or 6pm (can’t remember) and ends at 1am, so you have to enter their club by 11pm if you want 2 hours of their time. their morning shift starts between 6 and 8am and ends several hours later. there’re certainly other clubs that operate beyond 1am – there were so many hanging around when we left the club – but it all depends. our hosts work 6 days a week and rest only on wednesday when the club is closed.

2. don’t play the gaijin card too strongly. we walked up and down the dotonburi bridge checking out the hosts – lots of them arent too impressive by our standards, with the standard host ‘look’ comprising sallow complexion; big, golden-brown, styled to ‘perfection’ hair; tight, skinny pants revealing their very thin physique; pointy shoes; and extremely average looks.

we chanced upon a bunch that looked quite good; here’s 2 of our party below trying to negotiate a deal - note the cutie to the far left. the girl on the right knows very little japanese and she was trying to ask them if they could speak english and so on; what resulted was a longish phonecall between one of the hosts and their club, trying to check if we could go there – they said that they were just checking if there was space, but we suspect that they were just quite concerned about the language barrier, judging by their expressions.

3. it’s ok in osaka to be a host with some teeth missing. before we arrived at namba, a friend recounted her tale of being approached by a host who was missing about 3 front teeth – lo and behold, we did spot one on the bridge who didn’t have all his teeth either. it turns out that in osaka, the selling point of hosts is their gift of the gab. in kyushu, it’s their ability to hold down their drink, and in tokyo it’s their looks. apparently the top host (hosts?) in namba is really ugly (めっちゃぶっさい) but can talk really well.

4. hosts can earn negative amounts of money. yes – they might rake in millions of yen each a week, but if they don’t manage to pull in customers, their salary can go into the negative. by the way, part of their job is to accompany customers to the toilet – they wait outside till you’re done, and hand you a warm towel to clean your hands (which ought to have been washed!).

5. if you want to spend less, lower the host to customer ratio. charges at a host club work something like this. the customers are levied a seating a charge – something like 1000yen per hour for unlimited drinks – but pay for their hosts’ drinks, which start from about 1000yen for a beer to 500,000yen for an expensive bottle of champagne. the cost of the beer sounds okay – until you discover that the cans are half the size of normal ones but double the price. but naturally, given the cost of champagne, it’s unanimously the favourite drink among hosts.

6. hosts’ birthdays are the most lucrative nights. one of the hosts at the club we visited will be celebrating his birthday on the 17th of may; apparently it’s gonna be a huge money-making night. on that day, all the hosts will encourage their respective customers to buy the birthday boy champagne, with will be poured into a pyramid of glasses and drunk. this particular club is busiest on sundays too, as that’s when some of the other clubs in the area are closed.

7. “i love money, and i love drinking”. that’s what i was told when i asked the hosts what made them go into this trade. one of them even had a collar pin stating “i love money”. our hosts were fairly young: 20, 22, 23, 24, 27; the oldest guy has been a host for 7 years, the youngest for half a year and another two started only about 2 months ago. here’s them and 2 of us:

8. you don’t have to be of legal drinking age to be a host. which is interesting, given that drinking is a significant aspect of the job. the legal drinking age in japan is 20 years old, but you can start in the this business from 18 years old. all that happens is customers can only buy them juice or mocktails, which i assume just translates into a lower income for these guys.

9. hosts don’t always style their own hair. like i’ve mentioned before, one of the defining traits of a host is his hair.

(i found this really cool picture of 2 hosts in osaka here).

some hosts might style their own hair – like the cutie we had who takes 20 to 30min each day to style his short crop in a simple looking fashion, but this host below goes to the salon every single day to get his hair done. it takes 30min! it does help explain how some of them can get those outrageous hairdos, because doing your hair requires lots of arm strength – trust me, i’m a girl.

10. the busiest time of day is at 8AM. yes, you read that right – 8 in the morning is when the club is busiest. i was really surprised to learn that, but it made sense when they explained that’s when all the girls in the cabaret clubs and sex industry in the surrounding area get off work. the Great Happiness Space explains that most of their clients are in a similar trade themselves. but wow – i would never have reached that conclusion on my own, as 8am hardly registers as a time for drinking, chatting and having fun.

* * * * *

our night didn’t end there. we were ushered out of the club and into the lift with one host to press the lift buttons, while the rest took the stairs and welcomed us with cheers when the doors opened at ground level (the reverse happened when we were brought there). there were still lots of people about – other hosts looking at us, and random bystanders with interested gazes on our gaijin party – and we headed back to the dotonburi bridge to plan our next move and discuss what we’d learned.

within the 10min we were there, we had:

a norwegian tourist who tried to chat us up - “Where are you all from?”, “We’re from all around.”, “Oh, your country is all around!” *roll eyes* – by first asking if we spoke english, even though we were talking SO loudly in our native language. he thought we were fellow tourists and invited us to go to Sam and Daves – as if; you head there if you want to pick up people or be picked up. puhleeze.
this japanese guy and his friend who wondered if we’d like to have more drinks in umeda. i’m not sure what his plan was, cos his pickup line was “Oh, we were thinking of going home, but we saw you all and we’re really interested in making foreign friends”, but when we suggested we drink in the namba area gave us his number and said they had to go home. but that was not before he singled one of us out and said that she’s really cute. :)

we were gonna head to one of the gaijin bars for more drinks after that – having spent enough on paid entertainment for the night – when we were stopped by this guy in plain clothes on a corner along the Shinsaibashi shotengai. He used whatever English he had (which was a fair bit, actually) to convince us to go to his establishment; he promised us dancing (“all types: reggae, hiphop, Japanese”), comedy and free drinks for all of 1000yen until 5am. unbelievable! we were suspicious, but extremely curious, and after confirming and reconfirming several times that we were only going to part with 1000yen and nothing more, followed his lead.

he definitely beat the host boys in his willingness to chat with us, his english skills and his energy level – he was talking all the way right up to his establishment, which was off the first left turn from Shinsaibashi station. this is the only picture i have of the night there – photos and mobile phones werent allowed in there; Aran Doron is its name.

see, i’ve known that there’re tonnes of night establishments in japan and especially Osaka, but i never really knew what they were but just assumed they were some kind of karaoke bars, general pubs/clubs and so on. but i never would have imagined what we were in for. we paid the money up front at the counter, and were escorted in – there were about 20 tables, all occupied by between 1 to 4 women.

it was a lot like a host club, with some significant differences. the staff were all men – with the exception of the female cashier cum music controller – they ranged in age, with most in their twenties to a few 30-somethings and one who was very definitely well into his 40s or beyond. it was nowhere as classy or polished as a host club – the place was older, the guys were dressed more casually and had a more relaxed air about them. they also took turns rotating around the tables - at least 5 of them took turns talking to us; chatting for a bit, then leaving, and the next guy would come over a short time later – those who didnt stop to chat still nodded and smiled at us.

it was a pity that we didnt get to talk to any of them for a long enough stretch. we never got much beyond the formalities and they seem to have really colourful characters and i wanted to know so much more! one of the guys is 29 years old and looks younger than me; he had been in the army for 4 years prior to this, but quit because he wanted to be a comedian. another guy had a very pretty face and beautiful curls; he’d previously met some australian english teachers who taught him terrible phrases like “suck my ass” (kiss my ass?), “fuck off you c*nt” and “show me your nipples” – seriously, who the hell teachers others such words so irresponsibly too? another guy was really pale and had more makeup on than any of us – mascara, eyeshadow, foundation and powder – and dyed ginger hair; he apparently is a singer in a rock band and has lived in england – and will be going there again soon – even though he doesnt know much english.

what went on in there was very intriguing too. we’d originally thought that it would be like a club where patrons can dance, but it turned out to be the “hosts” who were the performers. their “Showtime” lasted 40min and comprised groups of them – from 2 to 8 – performing different dancing segments (as promised, they danced to among others, r&b, hiphop and japanese songs) as well as some comedy pieces. i didnt get much of the comedy as my japanese isnt good enough and lots make use of specific cultural or pop culture references.

the other girls found the dance segments very bizzare – the performers went through so many costume changes and danced to so many pieces; there were glittery outfits, strobe lights, fake smoke, etc – and they’d never seen anything like that before. according to them, even tacky boyband videos couldnt compare, even though it might be the closest thing to this they’d seen.

for me, the dance segments reminded me of what background dancers accompanying singers on PSC night (赢万金，游万里，欢乐周末夜) some 12 to 20 years ago used to be like. kinda like you never really knew what they were doing there, and what they did wasnt always related to the song that’s being sung or even the mood of it.

the dancing also seemed like what my friend termed a reverse Takarazuka at some points. one particular dance segment featured old japanese music. men dressed in casual kimonos, carrying a lantern and wearing a tanuki (fox) mask stage-walked their way on stage to the music. then, a kimono-clad woman started dancing in (‘she’ was actually the heavily made-up guy); she was carrying a red parasol too. a while later, this samurai-like guy came on stage and started dancing – with some definitely ballroom-like moves – with another kimono-clad woman, who was of course, one of the other guys – the pretty boy in fact.

there was also a segment that reminded me of one ballet that i’d seen which was set in europe (perhaps italy) and featured a masked clown, as 2 characters in that dance had a similar mask, and the segment appeared to be some sort of expression on the dead being escorted down to Hades. there was also a fairytale/musical box piece with a prince, princess and tin soldiers. it was all very very weird!

who are these people and what made them work here? and how does this place, Aran Doron, work? we only paid 1000yen – perhaps because we were first-timers – but the women just sit there and watch the performance, during with you’re requested not to chat among yourselves and arent able to order drinks or food. they have several performances in a night; the guys attend to the customers in between shows, although not all of them there performed. are there other places like this in Osaka, and how many of them are there? what would make a person go there? the entertainment, while watchable, is nowhere near being top-notch, and i’d personally like to be able to chat and walk around and dance if i want to.

it’s all very curious, but a most interesting experience!

my food looks funny

2010-05-06T22:19:00.001+08:00

this site is awesome. i dont know how some of the things there are created – the doubter in me suspects photoshop – because seriously, i can even begin to imagine how some of those might come about.

this i would readily devour – because mario pisses me off so much. i really suck at that game.

i really love this too, but my friends have said that im cruel for being willing to eat the kitty. my opinion is that so long as it’s not real kitty meat, i’ll eat it!

i wonder who would be so bored as to draw faces on every tictac.

countdown ticker

2010-05-06T22:04:00.001+08:00

there’s now slightly less than 3 months before i have to leave; on monday i will have to give my BOE three dates on which i would like to return, and the dates cannot be changed.

i have no idea when i would want to leave; there are too many loose ends and too many uncertainties.

if i had to pinpoint a time when i were most scared and most insecure, it would definitely be now. time to buck up and attempt to control the possibly controllable parts of my life.

sigh.

super gaijin

2010-05-05T17:26:00.001+08:00

golden week has been really boring – ill the entire time, so at least i didnt have any plans!

this video about a super gaijin hero in japan is… interesting.

English in Korea

2010-04-30T15:27:00.001+08:00

some friends have told me that the standard of english in Korea is, in general, a little higher than that in Japan, although i couldnt really tell the difference. i encountered the grand total of two service staff who knew english – one asked us if we wanted a bag with our purchases while the other asked if we were taking out or dining in; not grand feats by any stretch – one waiter who freaked out trying to explain something to us in english, and all the rest just spoke korean to us regardless of the fact that we were foreigners.

to me it’s pretty much the same as in japan; of course there’re places like Hard Rock Cafe and Outback Steakhouse where the servers speak excellent English, but such places are few and far between. given that i’ve been here a lot longer and been around more also means that i’ve had a larger “sample size”, but i definitely can’t say that english standards are any better or worse in korea than in japan.

that’s not a problem anyway, as my experience wasnt too inconvenienced by my lack of korean ability. there were some amusing english signs and expressions there though; read and enjoy :)

here’s calling your loved one:

an appetizing menu:

beverages with gendered views:

spot the mistake:

spot the mistakes:

watch out!

hello Golden Week

2010-04-29T21:44:00.001+08:00

it’s golden week and i have nowhere to go and nothing to do!

I think i’ve no more use for Lonely Planet - suggestions for interesting/scenic places to go or things to do within 2 hours from Osaka City would be much appreciated.

onegaishimasu!

JET interview – evaluation guidelines

2010-04-26T22:08:00.002+08:00

I recently read a book on the early years of the JET programme which the Brit had lent me - “Importing Diversity: Inside Japan’s JET Programme” by David L. McConnell.

The book is rather interesting as it focuses on the programme as it was before, and highlighted a few issues that i will blog about soon.

I found this information most useful for potential JETs i think. In 1992, the author was privy to the interview process, and revealed that interviewers were given an evaluation form (and score sheet) with several key aspects for interviewers to consider.

According to him, “To be considered for recommendation, applicants must meet certain basic conditions. They must be outgoing, well-mannered and have a sunny disposition.”

While this information is rather dated, it might serve as a useful point of reference for JET-hopefuls when preparing for the interview, in order to present the right image or highlight certain strengths that they might have:

“Personality: consider flexibility, strength of personality, ability to adapt to foreign cultures, etc.

Ability: consider self-expression, creativity, general knowledge.

Motivation: consider desire to participate in JET programme, sense of purpose; interest in Japan

English ability: clear pronunciation, proper word use, etc

Japanese ability: Applicants for the CIR position must have a functional ability in Japanese, an ability not only to speak and understand well but ideally to read and write as well. For ALTs, evaluate conversation and reading ability.

Overall impression: Please recommend those applicants who seem sociable, stable and can adjust well to new situations.”

Yoshino – the alternative viewpoint

2010-04-26T21:05:00.001+08:00

Mt. Yoshino is in central Nara, and is generally considered Japan’s top sakura-viewing site. it’s also a UNESCO world heritage site (as is almost everything in japan), and people flock there during cherry blossom season.

i went there last year for hanami, but unfortunately left wondering why everyone makes such a big deal of the place.

someone on facebook uploaded pictures of yoshino this year, and there were many people liking the album and commenting on how beautiful her pictures were. curious, i went to take a look, to see if she saw a different, more picturesque part of Yoshino and thinking that perhaps i was wrong after all.

turned out that the Yoshino she saw seemed pretty much like the Yoshino that i recall – totally unimpressive.

these were taken last year - what’s so pretty about such a view?

okay, so there are mountains, there are ridges, there are trees. but just because there’s nature and nature is precious and to be admired doesnt mean that we have to be undiscerning about it.

yoshino, even with its cherry blossoms, can’t be considered a picturesque or awe-inspiring mountain range. if you want to see nice mountain views, take the highway bus from Osaka/Kyoto to Takayama – now those mountains are gorgeous.

but i digress. that everyone speaks of yoshino as the mecca of sakura-viewing completely baffles me, because, as mentioned above, the mountain and its sakura arent exactly that pretty anyway. i’d expected whole stretches of sakura, but as you can see, the sakura trees are patchy at best – many other hanami spots offer you a wide swathe of sakura that stun you with their beauty. don’t forget that the sakura on Yoshino were also planted deliberately – in 4 groves at different altitudes – so one would think that they could have done a smarter job of planting trees that bloom at the same time at the same altitude, so one doesnt get some trees at full bloom and others with their leaves half out like that above.

moreover, the variant of sakura on yoshino arent that special either. those that i saw were the regular, ‘single layered’ ones. the photos uploaded on facebook by the ‘someone’ were the multi-layered variant:

those are really gorgeous, but Yoshino isnt the only place you can see them. the Japan Mint in Osaka (造幣局）has many trees of that variant of sakura too; the picture above is in fact of sakura from the Mint which i borrowed from someone here. the Mint might be open for only about a week or so in mid-April, but it’s right there in the heart of Osaka, as compared to Yoshino, which is really far unless you’re in Nara itself.

it took at least 2 hours to get there – and the trains that run there are infrequent and PACKED. plus the 2 hours i took was just to the foot of the mountain; you have to take a bus (after queuing for a looooong time to board) to bring you halfway up the mountain, and if you want to go further up you’ll have to walk or take the cable car (looooong queues too).

it was such a mission to get there that the trip left the group of us completely drained at the end of the day. we spent more time getting there and back than appreciating the flowers, which i feel defeated the purpose. none of us felt that it was worth it, nor did we think that Yoshino in any way deserves its reputation.

i dont know why so many people think highly of Yoshino, but there are some of us out there who certainly beg to differ!!

takarazuka revue – the scarlet pimpernel

2010-04-25T17:09:00.001+08:00

I saw the Takarazuka Revue perform the musical “The Scarlet Pimpernel” last weekend, and loved it!

(photo from here)

The Takarazuka Revue is an all-woman theatre troupe, and are really famous in Japan. in this troupe, there are women who train to play male roles, and women who play only female roles. (read more about them here and here).

I first saw a Takarazuka show last year, not long after I arrived. i dont recall the title of the performance, but it was an original production and unfortunately none of us were too impressed by the lack of storyline and the weak acting. after all i’d heard about Takarazuka, i wanted to give them a second chance and decided to wait till they do an adaption of an actual Broadway musical – i’m happy they decided to perform the Scarlet Pimpernel before i leave!

the wait definitely paid off. The Scarlet Pimpernel is set in France/England near the end of the 18th century, which means extremely beautiful and elaborate costumes! just check out the dress of that lady below, and imagine a stage full of dresses like that in certain scenes..

i really enjoyed the performance, as the singing was excellent, the set was mind-blowing, the costumes were gorgeous and the music and storyline was pretty good.

it was a happy contrast to the other musical that i had seen recently - i saw the Shiki Theatre Group perform the disney version of the Beauty and the Beast musical (this group does many Broadway musicals in Japanese) about a month ago, and underwhelmed by the so-so singing and lousy songs. the songs are apparently from the original cartoon, but i dont remember; i felt that they didnt have a proper tune, werent melodic enough, were very forgettable and never really engaged me. i saw the Shiki Group perform the Lion King in Tokyo last year, and the singing was amazing, hence was somewhat disappointed by the average rendition this time too.

I was therefore really happy that the singing in the Scarlet Pimpernel was good. the two “male leads” were excellent, which makes me willing to pass the previous Takarazuka experience off as an unfortunate blip. haha. the revue comprises 5 different troupes that focus on their respective performances, and the Moon Troupe which presented the Scarlet Pimpernel is apparently known for their strong singing. yay!

oh, and the set – there were so many set changes, with buildings and rooms rising out from the stage. the stage also has a revolving centre piece, which is pretty cool. In the finale, where the entire troupe comes out and does a dance, they even revealed this gigantic staircase – think a Chicago (the musical)-like staircase, with all the steps lined with many tiny bulbs – which the main stars walked down, to much applause.

so nice. i wish i could have taken pictures..

lessons given and lessons learnt

2010-04-19T21:09:00.001+08:00

Mirch Masala, an Indian restaurant just opposite Balabushka in Shinsaibashi, was reviewed in Kansai Scene this month. Lured by the promise of curry, naan, salad and a drink for only 680 yen (ridiculously cheap!) WITH free curry and naan refills (gasp), a bunch of us headed there for lunch today.

I’d just read the review this morning in the office, and pointed out to some of them that is was in KS. i also wanted to comment on the opening sentence of the review, in which the author sounded like a complete nob (my friend’s words, not mine). I might be quoting the latter half slightly wrongly, but he essentially stated that “I am qualified to tell the difference between Indian food and really good Indian food” – after spending all of 6 months in India.

it was a good thing i held my tongue on how arrogant the author sounded – it turned that he was part of the other group dining there, and that the publishers had gotten his byline completely wrong.

sometimes silence does pay off.

(by the way, if you visit Mirch Masala, please stop the owner from refilling your naan and curry if you dont want anymore. We didnt manage to stop him giving us extra naan, and i’m still FULL 8 hours after having had lunch.)

* * *

2,370,000 yen – that’s how much funerals in japan cost. That’s about 10 months worth of a JET’s salary, and more than 3 times the cost of a funeral in the US. I wonder how much Chinese funerals cost, cos they’re not cheap either.

Read more about interesting stuff on Japan at Japan Probe, a website with articles and lots of videos. I particularly like the video of this adorable security guard cat which reminded me of the cat in my secondary school, as well as the dramatic music in this video on racoons damaging national heritage sites.

* * *

someone posted a facebook link to this article titled “40 Singapore foods we can’t live without”.

the usage of “foods” makes me uncomfortable; food to me is an uncountable noun and thus should only appear in the singular. besides, “foods” sounds so awkward too – someone please enlighten me on the usage of it.

i believe, also, that the title should at least have read “Singaporean foods”, since it’s not China food, Japan food, America food or Italy food. Perhaps it’s because a prior article featured “40 Hong Kong foods we can’t live without”, but that’s okay only because there isn’t a word to describe things coming from Hong Kong.

How can sub-editors possibly miss that?

* * *

finally, as an act of public service, let me address one of my pet peeves – that of “with regards to” and “with regard to”.

please, please, please realise that you ONLY ever say “with regard to” – there is no ‘s’! so it’s “with regard to your letter”, “with regard to that point”, “with regard to what you said” and so on.

and if you’re reading, i beg you to also spread the word that the ‘s’ is, in all cases but one, UNNECESSARY and hurtful to the eye. you can say “in regards to”, but it’s very definitely only “with regard to”.

the only exception is when that phrase is used in a very different context with a completely different meaning – when you’re sending your regards to someone, like “with regards to your parents, love Jim”. that is the ONLY time the ‘s’ should ever appear in the phrase “with regard to”.

お願いします！

Spurious arguments

2010-04-19T20:10:00.001+08:00

Kansai Scene (KS) is a great free monthly magazine that provides listings on events, concerts, festivals and exhibitions in Kansai. it’s available at many restaurants, pubs and nightspots in Osaka (i’m not sure where you can it in other parts of Kansai), and our lovely BOE has copies delivered every month for us to take.

i value KS most for its listings and the amusing personal ads, as well as valuable restaurant reviews and recommendations. it sometimes has good articles, although most often they’re okay, and rather frequently you get a terrible one or one that has the odd, very dubious sentence.

the KS article that i have taken greatest issue with is by far this month’s feature article “Unarmed Utopia”. The main aim of the article is unclear, although I think the writer is attempting to compare gun ownership and armed robbery – and the relationship between the two - in the USA and Japan.

That, however, is not the biggest problem in the article. The biggest problem would be the numerous fallacious arguments present – from start to finish, in fact. Many of them are only hinted at, in the way in which paragraphs are laid out; take for example the end of the first paragraph and the paragraph it’s followed by:

“Everyone seems to carry cash in Japan, but unlike America, why don’t they get robbed?

The law is simple in Japan: no one can bear firearms (or swords) under any circumstance. The only citizens allowed to possess weapons are police and the military, along with those with hunting licenses (albeit highly restrictive). With one of the world’s lowest crime rates, gun crime is consequently nearly nonexistent. Anti-gun lobbies proclaim Japan as the kind of nation America should be.”

I dont know if it’s intentional or not, but from a literary point of view, it can well be said that the writer implies that the low rates of armed robbery in Japan is linked to the illegal nature of the bearing of firearms simply by innocuously having that paragraph succeed the rhetorical question. That argument, of course, is ridiculous, as you definitely don’t need a gun to rob someone – a blade of any sort would suffice. And given the number of elderly people in Japan, a robber has plenty of targets which might not even require much use of force or threat at all.

In the middle of the article, the writer makes some explicitly expressed, horribly spurious arguments:

“The issue of how guns fit into the overall relationship between the people and the government still stands. It could be argued that Japan is a police state, with a population overwhelmingly compliant to searches and questionings when under suspicion. Evidently, the Japanese criminal justice system has complete authority and turns a confession rate of nearly 95%. With the prevalence of absolute government power, it seems people do not wish to defy authority by owning guns for personal protection. Most Japanese simply accept that there are essentially no rights to privacy because there is no right to bear arms.

This submissiveness in society comes easier to the Japanese than Americans because Japan is far more ethnically and economically homogenous. Moreover, they willingly comply with one of the most unyielding criminal justice systems of any democratic nation–guns or not, the Japanese are simply the world’s most law-abiding people.”

Like, HUH?

How could anyone make such grand leaps in reasoning? Japanese people do not own guns for protection because there is simply NO NEED TO. it bears absolutely no relation to them being generally deferent to authority!

And the assumption that rights to privacy equates to the right to bear arms – I have no idea how they could be in anyway be argued to be related (and as you can see, the writer didnt elaborate on that either). Besides, if i wanted personal protection, i could always carry a switchblade around, but i’m sure you wouldnt find many japanese people who do that.

As for the opinion that the Japanese are more submissive because they’re more ethnically and economically homogeneous – that’s an extremely racist line of reasoning. It’s precisely what the proponents of nihonjinron use as a reason for all the arguments that they make, arguments which so many scholars take issue with due to its racist attitude.

Besides, if we look at the American side of things, it’s not even like Americans own guns because they’re thinking “hey, i have the right to own firearms, and yes, let me now exercise that right and go out and buy a gun” -I’m sure it’s more because they feel the need for the supposed protection that a gun might provide, although if it really is gun ownership for the sake of exercising their right to do so, then I all have to say is that those people who think that way are grand idiots.

Seoul – Seodaemun Prison

2010-04-17T22:43:00.001+08:00

im not sure if this attraction receives many visitors – there werent too many people when we were there – but Seodaemun Prison is one of the places that i liked the most in Seoul, and one that i’d recommend to anyone visiting the city.

Seodaemun Prison was constructed during the Japanese occupation, and if i recall correctly, is infamous for being the place where most of the tortures and interrogations of korean freedom fighters were carried out.

the koreans’ dislike for - or perhaps more accurately, their hatred of – the japanese is evident from all the descriptions at tourist attractions, and is perhaps most evident here. while most museums and attractions use neutral words in their descriptions, in korea, you see a lot of emotive language, such as “japanese aggressors”.

there were a fair number of figurines in the prison. this is a portrayal of a japanese prison warden:

there were others showing prisoners undergoing various forms of torture:

above: beatings and electric shock tactics

below: the fingernail-yank torture technique

there was also a track with some life-like screams of pain. the main building was less creepy than the prison museum i visited in sydney, however. the latter was rather eerie because it was even emptier than the one in seoul, yet the few visitors there were enough to make the wooden floorboards creak – just imagine hearing strange sounds in a quiet building, where you are the only person in sight. *shudder*

this particular prison seemed to have been built for efficiency; it was just cell after cell, and was drafty and cold. just imagine the conditions the prisoners had to endure in the harsh korean winter!

there were several other buildings on the premises. one of them was an underground female prison, where the cells were so small that the inmates could never stand up straight or lie down flat. in another particularly scary block were dark cells that from which recordings of screams of pain and terror periodically play, catching the random visitor unaware.

there were also two enormous south korean flags on the side of two of the blocks, presumably to reinforce the fact that seoul korea is now independent.

sakura in kamakura

2010-04-16T22:07:00.001+08:00

(Keeroo, this post is purely for you!)

the sakura are almost gone in most of kansai, and once again i’ve failed to take any pictures of those that grow on the grounds of my apartment complex. i can never bother doing so, cos taking pictures of them means that i’ll either have to make a special trip downstairs to take photos, or that i’ll have to stop while i’m cycling out. either way, i think the sakura where i live are best appreciated cycling fast out of the side gates, perhaps only slowing down when the petals are falling in the wind.

anyhow, i was in kamakura before school started, and the sakura there were actually more in bloom than those in osaka, even though it’s warmer here.

the first real glimpse of sakura was when we reached Kuzuharagaoka Shrine while on the way to the big buddha at Kotokuin:

by the way, i know my photos arent too impressive, but that’s because i know that capturing the beauty of sakura as you see it is an exercise in futility, so i dont even bother to try.

continuing on, this is what people in japan do when they’re out at hanami, or cherry blossom viewing:

i was about to type “japanese people” up there, when i remembered that us Osaka City JETs probably had the greatest tarp to human ratio when we were hanami-ing at osaka castle park last weekend. here’s two of our party having a DSLR vs old video recorder standoff:

note also the dirty socks – and this was only about an hour into the hanami for most of us. by the end of the day – i was there for about 7 hours – our socks were completely wrecked, mainly because people were playing beer pong or got progressively more inebriated through other methods and spilled liquid all over the tarp. it was really gross.

but i digress. here’s a close-up of some blossoms that have seen better days:

and yes, this is the length to which some people would go to for the perfect picture:

having been here for a while, however, i have to say that his lens isn’t that impressive.

some nicer sakura in the nearby park:

Zeniarai Benten, which i just blogged about in the previous post, has some pretty, multi-layered sakura. just dont wash your money there!

just a bit further down from the Daibutsu, towards Hase station on the Enoshima line is Hase-dera. It’s a very beautiful temple which a nice view, a fair bit to see and pretty flowers. It’s most famous for the 12-faced, 9m high Kannon, but i think the grotto with the Benzaiten statues was the coolest bit.

we even saw some pilgrims walk right before us

there was this gorgeous sakura tree that everyone was taking pictures of:

it was also interesting in that flowers grew in clusters on some parts of its bark:

isnt this cute?

i think, however, the best place for sakura viewing in kamakura was Kenchoji. it was surprisingly empty, but is ranked first among the 5 great Zen temples in Kamakura, and is one of the best sights in Kamakura. lots of the halls were transferred to its current location from its original location elsewhere in japan (like kyoto). Lonely Planet highlighted “the painstakingly landscaped Zen garden, shaped like the kanji for ‘mind’”, although i can assure you that the pond in the garden looked nothing like 心。

isnt this pretty?

and this concludes my 桜だより。until i next see sakura, さよなら、and お気おつけて。

spate of bad luck

2010-04-16T19:04:00.001+08:00

things havent been going well lately. in particular, i’ve been having terrible luck with money. and today, while cleaning the house, i tripped on a wire and yanked out the wire linking my nice speakers to my laptop. i managed to completely destroy the pin on the speakers wire (it was bent quite badly, and while trying to straighten it, it broke) as well as pull out some small gold piece from my laptop’s headphones jack.

basically, i cant insert any headphones into my laptop; they wont fit and no sound comes out. besides rendering my nice speakers useless now, i can’t insert anything into my laptop even if i got new speakers, including the microphone headset that’s essential for talking to my mum (although i suppose she’ll just call me on my mobile then).

if this means that i have to buy a new laptop, it’ll be extremely bad luck with money indeed.

i believe this spate of bad luck began after my visit to Zeniarai Benten, this money-washing shrine in Kamakura.

you have to pass through this tunnel before entering the shrine

it’s believed that you’ll get good monetary fortune when you wash your money at that shrine. lots of people were washing their notes; there were several thai tourists who were washing all their baht too.

here’s me washing my money. shouldnt have done that.

like seriously, which chinese person ever told you that it’s ok to 洗钱？more like washing away all my luck lor. tmd.

i need to do something to 转运, or at least 传运. gah.

ball games

2010-04-07T21:40:00.001+08:00

so i recently watched two matches: Gamba Osaka vs Singapore Armed Forces Football Club (SAFFC) and the Hanshin Tigers vs the Yomiuri Giants.

the football game was about a week ago; the Singaporean club was playing Gamba as part of the AFC Champions League and Singaporeans actually got a free ticket. that’s the only reason why i was there actually, as i’m by no means a soccer fan and have NEVER before sat through an entire game.

gamba osaka are the reigning champions in japan, and given the state of soccer in singapore, i certainly didnt expect SAFFC to win. my national pride still went down the drain however, when we lost 0-3 in a terrible game.

the last time i saw singapore play football was when we were up against malaysia i think, many many years ago at the SEA games or some south-east asian football championships. then, we were criticised for lacking energy, having poor ball control and simply not showing the desire to score goals to win.

sadly, some things havent changed.

it was very obvious how much better gamba was. whenever we got possession, the game turned defensive and the pace dropped. the players lethargically passed the ball to each other on the defence side to kill time; they werent playing to score and the ball kept being passed backwards towards our goal. and whenever the ball went across the field towards gamba’s goal, the last man on the SAFFC team would be somewhere closer to midfield than the goal post and lost possession halfway cos he simply had no one to pass the ball to. URRGHH.

above you can see SAFFC in white and gamba in blue. it was pretty crap cos it was clear that SAFFC was just trying to play it safe, even when it was after half time and clear that, at 0-2, there’s no point being defensive when the only way you can turn the tide is to attempt to score. the gamba goalkeeper must have been extremely bored that match because he only had a handful of attempts at his goal. the SAFFC keeper did a pretty good job though, as he saved quite a few balls. too bad it wasnt the same for the rest of the team.

and just earlier this evening, i went for my first real baseball match. baseball is big in japan, and if you’re in kansai, one of the things you must do is to see a Tigers vs Giants match, cos we’re HUGE rivals. you can read all about the Curse of the Colonel that ended the winning streak of the Tigers about a decade ago online, but the Tigers vs Giants rivalry is basically an extension of the Kansai vs Kanto (or more specifically Tokyo) rivalry.

it was pretty cool before the game began, sitting at the legendary Koshien stadium and seeing so many people decked out in the Tigers’ colours, just like the Colonel above. the stadium was quite full too, and there was an air of excitement that i’d expected of a Tigers vs Giants game. tickets to their matches arent easy to get, and this is another of those things that i really want to do before i leave japan.

i never thought i’d say this, but i actually found the gamba vs SAFFC football game more exciting than this Tigers vs Giants baseball match.

unlike soccer, where there’s always action (people are always running about passing the ball, or at least that’s meant to be the case), nothing really happens in baseball. the pitcher pitches, the batter bats and the catchers (?) catch the ball. and this repeats itself until someone bats a good ball, which allows him to run to the next base. unfortunately this doesnt occur very often, and even when that happens, it’s not easy to score points because you need to repeat it 3 more times to reach home base and score 3 points within ONE inning, which isnt much.

throughout today’s match, the giants did that once and the tigers none at all; we lost 0-3.

someone tell me that this just happened to be a boring match?

i’d seen part of a baseball match once before, when my high school was playing another (better) school somewhere in Banpaku. that game was rather interesting as it moved quite fast; strikes were counted, points were scored; batters batted good balls and catchers missed. so there was lots going on and people were running and everything. i have no idea why the game just wasnt as engaging today.

for some reason too, the tigers dont seem to have very good batters. there were so many balls that went high into the air rather than far across the field, and quite a few went out as well. there was a group of Tigers supporters behind us who gave funny commentaries, and a really annoying Giants fan in front who kept cheering and blocking my view. i wanted to kick him!

the most exciting part of the match was the “Lucky 7” – in baseball, the 7th inning is something like the deciding point and is called the “Lucky 7” in Japan.

so everyone in the stadium will blow up sperm-shaped balloons like those above - i have no idea why they’re shaped like this – when the announcement is made. they’ll hold it up in the air in preparation for the signal:

and when a special song is played, they’ll release the balloons into the air:

my phone’s camera is quite lousy, but it was a pretty sight and everyone was excited and cheering really loudly at this point in the game. too bad this match turned out to be kind of a non-event though! i was rather buzzed up about this but it was somewhat disappointing. if someone organises going to another Hanshin Tigers match, i might give them a second chance though, and hope that it’ll be more exciting.

thoughts on seoul – overview and food

2010-04-03T18:35:00.001+08:00

i spent the last week of march in seoul, which was unfortunately long enough to discover that there really isnt much to do there.

i admit to not being the biggest fan of korea, but with so many people around me raving about the country, plus it’s right there and so close to japan, i did go there with an open mind and the intention to give it a chance, be objective about the country and, most importantly, enjoy myself there.

seoul’s main attractions remind me of china, japan and thailand all rolled into one. the palaces are a combination of chinese and japanese stylistic elements – just less grand than the forbidden palace, for example - while the many markets about the city are very similar to those in thailand. having been to all of those countries very recently, seoul didnt really present anything new; i felt like i’d seen it all before, just rehashed.

the city itself reminded me of shanghai. while certain areas were new and shiny, with skyscrapers and conspicuous consumption, just next to them might be the older neighbourhoods, with buildings that clearly display signs of age and dirty roads.

lots of older people in seoul also like to hack up phlegm and phtttoey it out onto the streets – which is really disgusting behaviour – and the several times when i heard the sharp, short beep of the horn from a motorcycle speeding up from behind on a narrow alley, or when a car ploughed through a red light and still had the audacity to horn at the pedestrians, reminded me of beijing.

frankly, china really wasnt the best of experiences, and the whole look of seoul reminded me too much of china for comfort.

that doesnt mean seoul wasnt interesting though. seoul has great museums, and what attractions it has are interesting. however, beyond those attractions – and especially if you’re not interested in shopping – there isnt much to occupy your interest. i like being able to sit somewhere picturesque, like a park or along a waterfront and relax, but there werent any opportunities for that. places that were described as pretty in the guidebook – like Wolmido in Incheon – turned out to be disappointingly underwhelming, thus we decided not to check out the Han River – which was described as good for cycling and walking, and not for the view anyway - lest we get disappointed yet again, especially given the freezing winds and cold weather when we were there.

food in korea is quite cheap in comparison to japan though, which is really good. i discovered that there isnt too much variety to korean food however – it’s either some variety of barbequed meat or spicy soup, or bibimbap or chijimi, or some unidentifiable item – but fortunately there’s plenty of other types of food in seoul. we couldnt stomach more than 1 korean meal a day, but had some good italian, not very nice fried chicken, tasty food at an irish pub, and not bad japanese food.

apparently, the korean custom is that if a restaurant is doing well, it shouldnt undergo renovations, else its luck will be altered. this meant that there were some new, nice-looking restaurants that sold food as cheap as elsewhere. we had a korean dinner at one of these places one night, and it was it was fantastic. we ordered 1 chijimi (mistake, cos a chijimi is big!) and a serving of barbequed pork ribs with side dishes. it came to about 2400yen for both of us, which is ridiculously cheap – we ate till we burst, and essentially paid half of what we would have paid in japan.

our side dishes – the chijimi wasnt out yet, and note the bowl of rice which went untouched:

here’s the deboned ribs, which were extremely tasty and soft, as well as a huge bowl of stodgy soup, the contents of which are unknown. i think there was some tofu inside, but it wasnt tasty and there was much more delicious food to eat, so it went largely untouched:

my favourite 2 side dishes:

the above is some cold but spicy soup. it was very delicious and the noodles were firm, like chinese la mian. below is zucchini with dried shrimp – it’s near impossible to get haebi in japan, and this was so so good. i would have ordered more of these 2 dishes if i had exra space at the end, but it was a struggle to finish the chijimi and meat.

the first lunch i had brought some tasty side dishes too:

above are, clockwise from the right – kimchi, spicy dried cuttlefish (this was amazing!), bai chye cooked in lots of sesame seeds and sesame oil (i heard that korean cooking uses a lot of sesame oil. that’s the way to go), seaweed soup, tasty beansprouts and potato with chilli.

korean food is especially cheap – unless you order the barbeque meat – as they usually come with lots of side dishes that fill you up. for example, you might be paying the same price (or less) for a bowl of bibimbap than what you do in japan, but get all the side dishes too. wonderful!

i’m not dead yet!

2010-03-22T22:45:00.001+08:00

though i might well have been, considering how little time i’ve spent out of the house these few days.

nothing has been happening as the term winds down to an end and people start leaving for their respective holidays.

what i’ve been doing LOTs of lately is sit at home and play Zelda on my DS Lite; i’m really lousy at games of any sort, but this game is really fun, very addictive and you can lots of help online. haha.

i’d been expecting to check out tickets for Hanshin Tigers a little later – sometime at the start of april – but a chat with YT started me looking at their website, and with luck tickets will be reserved by tonight and i’ll be seeing the Tigers kick the Giants’ asses in about 2 weeks. Thanks for asking me that all important question!!

Winter refuses to let up; the winds were terribly strong yesterday and it felt nothing like the 11 degrees that it was meant to be. it was probably 8 deg or less i think. but anyhow, the winds have been extraordinarily gusty for about a week or so; several were injured and trains and flights suspended due to strong winds in northern honshu yesterday.

i have been going out cycling – that’s how free i am! – on the rarer, warmer days recently too. apart from the cold, the weather has been BEAUTIFUL lately with lots of sun sun SUN! a few sights caught my eye on those trips out and about the neighbourhood.

a taste of france in the form of a coffee shop tucked in a back alley near nishikujo station:

this made me think of somewhere in the mediterranean..

coat of arms for this japanese firm. i also spotted an apartment block with a shiny gold king’s face in profile on its roof (something like this below). the name of the apartment was something something king’s mansion i believe.

and this… i have no idea what inspired someone to erect a thing like this, never mind what the justification for it is!

最後、かも

2010-03-18T21:17:00.001+08:00

if i were to name my favourite class, it would be the one with the junior high students in the language course in one of my schools. they have fantastic english, the JTE has excellent lessons, and the kids are generally eager to learn, genki and intelligent. the year 2s are a lot more talkative than their juniors, but hopefully the younger ones will be more willing to speak next year.

today, we had an impromptu speaking test where we asked the kids about what they did last weekend. we pose this question to them every week at the beginning of class, and they’re usually so reticent – the year 1s – that getting them to answer is like pulling teeth.

surprisingly, the test went extraordinarily well. i think i got the better half of the class too, but i was astounded by the comprehensive ability of some of them. for several, i was speaking at near natural speed, and one of the kids – admittedly one of the best in class – even understood what i meant by “signature dish”. these are 12 to 13 year old students, mind you; i know for a fact that their english is better than many of the senior high kids whom i teach. all of them were able to tell me what they did last weekend – in full sentences - and answer follow up questions on the topic, which makes me wonder what’s so difficult for them to just give one word answers when we do the same activity in class.

i’m fairly certain that we’ll still be in this school next term, though we’re still keeping our fingers crossed, but while waiting for their turn to take the test, the students were told to make thank you cards for the brit and i. this is what i love the most – haha – as it’s such a sweet gesture, never mind that the students don’t really have a choice in the matter. and japanese students unleash their creativity when told to make cards, drawings, etc, so the final products are always a joy to view.

for some reason, some of the kids found me funny. i’m not sure why, especially since i’m the fairly strait-laced one while the brit plays the clown. the year 2s especially, are always amused by his antics. plus i don’t recall the year 1 students ever being particularly amused by anything either of us have done in class, so that came as a surprise. one of them had also drawn a cute picture of me, and another kid apparently likes my smile! :D

~~幸せ~~

“Writing as Therapy”

2010-03-15T20:52:00.001+08:00

I was looking around on facebook and stumbled upon a link to this webpage, where i came across an article entitled “Writing as Therapy”.

I fully agree with much that is mentioned in the article, and here’s my favourite part:

“Don’t sniff at the smallness of the experience or the short sentence. As the saying goes, “Little drops of water, little grains of sand; build a mighty ocean and a pleasant land.” The accumulation of your sentences over 3-6 months will give you a collection of things you might have forgotten, and a picture of your feelings. Personal writing is therapy without having to pay a bomb for it.”

school, natural light and heat

2010-03-12T21:01:00.001+08:00

today i’d like to write about 3 things that I don’t understand.

1. senior high school

i’m sure i’ve blogged before that students here have only half a day of school for the first and last week of each semester. what I don’t think i’ve mentioned is that at the end of the school year, senior high school students have no classes after their exams for that term. in other words, they have about 2.5 weeks off school before school officially closes for spring.

for senior high ALTs, this in turn means that after they’re done with marking of papers, if any*, they’ll have 2 entire weeks of no classes. depending on the policy of the contracting organisation, this could mean going to school as usual everyday with nothing to do except sit around from 8.30am to 4.15pm, while for some others it could mean going into the board of education and helping out – for a while – with administrative matters.

i have no idea what the reason behind this weird system of having the students off school for 2.5 weeks is.. after those weeks off, they have to come back to school for one morning to attend the closing ceremony. why not just close the school immediately after exams, since there’s no purpose in keeping it open anyway?

anyway – whinge whinge – that my school is a junior and senior high combined means that unlike other ALTs who teach senior high, i’m now working for junior high full time. this means going to school for perhaps 2 classes a day (where i’m not really necessary), and lovely, lovely English club after school.

*: i’ve never ever been asked to grade test papers, even though teachers are sometimes swamped with marking. usually it’s just ticking off the alphabetical choices, but i’m not sure why we’re never called upon to help. it would sure put us to better use than sitting around the office reading books or watching videos.

2. different sense of heat, or lack thereof

so, now that most other ALTs are more or less off school, and that we have to stay back for English club, we have taken to going into school later than usual, since we’re not needed anyway.

two other JTEs were in the ALT room – which is the english language room – when i came into school today, and the first thing that struck me was how WARM the room was. we usually have the heating on at 21 degrees, but it the teachers had set it to 23 degrees and our small room was like a sauna.

what occurred to me then was this: why are my teachers as comfortable in a 23 degree room as they are along the 10 degree (or less) corridors and classrooms, when i get chilled to my bones unless i throw on a jacket before exiting the ALT room? i’m ALWAYS shivering and hopping about when i make the short dash from the room to the toilet, and even the Brit does feel cold along the corridors and in class sometimes, but our teachers are fine!

what is their secret?

3. the dislike of natural light

the second thing that struck me upon entering the ALT room was that the curtains, that are usually open, were drawn, and in place of the nice natural light that comes flooding in was the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights that we don’t switch on when it’s sunny like it was today.

the Brit first pointed this out to me long ago, but we’ve noticed that the lights in classrooms and along the corridors are always on, regardless of how bright and sunny it might be outside and thus rendering the lights unnecessary. what puzzles us too is how, upon entering a sufficiently lit classroom, teachers will sometimes immediately draw the curtains to block the natural light and THEN turn on the fluorescent lights.

why??

i personally like natural light very much. it’s more comfortable and that i can see the view outside makes me happy. on one particularly depressing afternoon – it was sunny and warm outside but we were stuck in the cold, drafty school – we walked into the classroom with its curtains drawn and all, and promptly went to open them. usually we dont interfere with that the teacher has done to the room, but we really couldnt take the harsh lighting that somehow made the classroom seem dull and lifeless that day.

sunlight is free, and should be utilised as much as possible. エコ, people, eco.

meccha waku waku!

2010-03-08T22:31:00.001+08:00

nikko nikko nikko go!!

add kamakura to that too, on a short weekend trip. seriously i’m more excited about going there than to korea, and i know that there are people out there who will KILL me for saying that.

i’m blowing tonnes of money in march/april, but well… it’s sayonara soon, so might as well!

flower power

2010-03-03T19:35:00.001+08:00

today is my last day of the term at one of my schools, and i’m not sure, but am possibly not gonna be back.

the teacher i’ve been teaching with this semester – last sem i was with another teacher teaching the 3rd year students – gave me this beautiful bouquet:

she does ikebana – japanese flower arrangement – and assembled this herself! she also makes flower creations for her classroom once a week or so, and they’re always pretty.

my bouquet smelled lovely, and is now brightening up the corner of my kitchen near the stove. roses are my favourite flower too! :)

okayama and kurashiki

2010-03-02T21:18:00.001+08:00

as mentioned here, i was in okayama and kurashiki (20min from okayama) a few weekends ago.

okayama is a smallish city, though it has enough shops to occupy the weekend-tripper after the attractions have closed. the cinemas screen a rather limited number of shows – four – and the last show began slightly after 7pm, so bewarned! it’s a good place to visit to escape from the bustle of osaka city however; okayama has many history and art museums, some of which i didnt have enough time to visit.

korakuen is hailed as the city’s premier attraction and is one of the top 3 gardens in japan, but i wasnt too impressed at all:

the beginnings of spring were apparent from the few blossoming plum trees, and i managed to take this shot entirely by accident:

i was actually trying to focus on the branch closest to me, but my lousy camera couldnt handle it and gave me this instead :)

there was a demonstration going on:

there were a few groups fighting for different causes actually. those in the birthday hats were protesting for the US troops to leave Okinawa and for the disarming of nuclear weapons.

i love the cute manhole/ sewerage covers i see in japan. these are actually for the water department (?) and the fire department.

kurashiki is a smaller city than okayama, and is even quieter and more picturesque. it reminds me of suzhou in china due to its canals, and if i’m not wrong has been dubbed “the venice of japan”.

it wasnt the most interesting of weekends, but it was great to go somewhere quiet and take a break from the busy city. a few more pictures can be found here.

love is in the air – random pictures

2010-03-02T20:14:00.001+08:00

now is right smack between Valentine’s Day and White Day, on the 14th of March. White Day is unique to Japan, where guys who received gifts from girls on Valentine’s Day reciprocate with something. As implied, Valentine’s Day in Japan is such that only girls give chocolates etc to guys.

at first glance, White Day seems like a nice idea, as a girl who has “invested” in a gift for a guy would be sure to receive something in return. unfortunately though, the chocolates, sweets and other products on sale for White Day are less elaborate, cheaper and not half as appealing as those in the shops for Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s day meant all sorts of belgian, french and other european chocolates from famous patisseries on sale – like pralines and other delectable stuff – as well as liquor-filled chocolates; White Day at my supermarket means more biscuits, cookies and marshmallows than chocolate, many hello kitty and winnie the pooh merchandise, as well as this:

it’s a poorly taken shot, but this box of 3 pieces of turd come with a plastic handle, so you can swing it like cartoon characters do with their little lunchboxes. i found it really amusing, but also very what-the-hell?-worthy. they’re really cute though..

and back when it was Valentine’s Day, Domino’s Pizza had this special offer for only 1300yen:

heart-shaped pepperoni pizza! it was enough to feed 2 people which makes about two-thirds of the price of a usual pizza. I’ve only tried Domino’s Pizza and Pizza Hut here, and i like Domino’s better, as they always send me coupons for my next online purchase. the above pizza only cost 1000yen after using the 15% discount coupon i received from my previous purchase, and it of course came with yet another 15% off coupon.

good stuff!

Ladurée continued – the verdict

2010-02-24T22:05:00.001+08:00

i blogged the other day about Ladurée, the best place for macarons ever, and i finally got to savour their delectable goodness.

(photo from here)

and i conclude that they’re as good as ever, and worth all of the 244yen (!) that each cost.

what distinguishes Ladurée’s macarons from all the others out there is their filling. while most places just have flavoured cream as filling, Ladurée puts effort into it.

The Red Fruits macaron filling tasted of real berries - i actually found a whole berry in mine, and felt some tiny berry seeds. The Vanilla macaron had thick, creamy filling that scented my breath and lifted my spirits with its fresh, vanilla flavour. And the Caramel macaron was all caramel fudge – forget about caramel-flavoured cream already! Chewy and tasty and gratifying.

Even i find them an unnecessary luxury, yet when I sat there, happy and licking my fingers, i caught myself already making plans to buy more sometime soon. “The next time I’ll…..”

… probably part with the money, stop all rational thought, close my eyes and enjoy.. Ahh :)

poem

2010-02-24T20:54:00.001+08:00

My junior high students were made to write a Valentine’s Day poem for class, and this is my favourite, in its unedited form:

I love you more than anybody else

My feelings may change

But until than I love you

I love it because the teenage years are the times when you thought that love would last forever, but this kid apparently knows that it isn’t necessarily true. And the english is near perfect too!

best place for value for money Kobe beef~

2010-02-21T19:03:00.001+08:00

thanks to a review in Kansai Scene, i tried out Fuji, a teppanyaki restaurant in Kobe.

Fuji really is wonderful for Kobe Beef. Their dinner set is only 5200yen, and with it you get:

tonpeiyaki – egg omelette with a stip of bacon in it
suji negiyaki – beef gristle with an omelette with lots of fresh chopped spring onions
200g of kobe beef
a choice between fried rice, okonomiyaki and this yakisoba/fried rice combination whose name i’ve forgotten
refreshing yuzu sherbet (add 200yen)

the reason why it’s so wonderful, is because the same price at most other restaurants would barely be enough to cover just the beef.

the beef here was really juicy and melt-in-your-mouth too:

just look at that delicious goodness.. you can flavour it with the salt on the side if you want to, but it was good enough without.

just looking at it makes me want kobe beef again! arrghhh…

fuji’s website is here. just go down the street at benetton at Sannomiya JR/Hankyu station and turn left after you see the Family Mart.

unique belgian chocolate cup

2010-02-17T17:00:00.001+08:00

anyone who lives in japan would be familiar with the amount of packaging here. so many things have to be individually wrapped and often have several layers of packaging too. for example, i buy soap in a packet of 3; each piece comes in a plastic wrapping inside a cardboard box, so that’s 3 layers of packaging in all. cookies and chocolate are almost always individually wrapped too, which means a lot of waste is generated.

packaging has been taken to another level however, in the form of the box of chocolates i received for valentine’s. too bad i didnt take pictures of its initial form – i wasnt expecting anything beyond digging into the delicious chocs – but it came wrapped up in shiny brown paper. a pretty ribbon, on which were descriptions of the company’s chocolates, tied it up, and was also stuck to the wrapping paper in several different places with scotchtape, double-sided tape and promotion stickers.

then came the box – a slide-open one securely fastened at both ends with a round sticker each – and when i opened it…..

wait for it…

unbelievable!! the first thought that came to mind was “er... wth is this?”

but this is not all! check THIS out:

the chocolate, with its paper cupcake tray in its unique chocolate cup.

oh my.. the chocolates are deliciously smooth and yummy, but the packaging is definitely the unexpected icing on the cake. for all its ludicrousness – or perhaps precisely because of it - you have to admit it’s kinda cute.

happy lunar new year!

2010-02-14T18:54:00.001+08:00

i just returned from a weekend trip to okayama and kurashiki, located halfway between osaka and hiroshima. i’ll post more about it later – it has to be by far my least trigger-happy trip – but just wanted to blog about my glass figurine collection.

in takayama last september, i acquired 3 pretty figurines (thank you! :)):

i initially only wanted the cow, cos it was really cute with a little red bow on its head and its kidney bean-shaped markings, but ended up getting 2 kitty-cat ones too because i had trouble making up my mind.

from that time, they’ve been sitting on my kitchen table watching me eat breakfast every morning.

and today, i added another 2 members to my collection – Momotaro and his peach.

Momotaro – literally “peach boy” – is the main character in a japanese fairytale. he was born out of a giant peach, and when grown, headed out to fight demons and made some friends along the way too. Okayama is said to be the setting of this fairytale. doesnt he look strong and determined, in a very cute way, with his japanese fan and headband? you can imagine him going “yossHA!” with that stance of his.

at the moment, he’s getting to know his new friends – the best way is for them to sit in a circle, with the giant peach in the centre, so that they could bite into it when hungry.

kawaii :)

Ladurée - famous patisserie is now in Osaka!

2010-02-09T17:53:00.001+08:00

i went into what was once Sogo in shinsaibashi the other day – it was taken over by daimaru last year cos it went bust – and came across this wonderful, wonderful sight:

Ladurée.

Ladurée is, in my very humble opinion, the best patisserie for macarons. i tried them for the first time several years ago when i was in paris – from their Champs-Élysées outlet no less – and have never tasted macarons anything like theirs.

i heard that pierre herme is another patisserie known for macarons, and had a chance to try their macarons when i was in tokyo last may. they were delicious, but werent as to my liking as Ladurée’s.

(picture from here)

and the thing about macarons in japan is that they’re phenomenally expensive, regardless of how famous the patisserie that made them is. many are tiny and cost about 180yen; the bigger ones around the size of those from Ladurée would be from 230 to 250yen. i think these were around or that price or a bit more expensive; it doesnt matter. i have to try them and i will pay to do so – all that needs to happen is for the queue to die down a bit.

Ladurée here i come!! :D

The untold story

2010-02-09T17:30:00.001+08:00

It’s a really slow day in school today, so I thought I’d put my time to better use by writing this up. Like I mentioned earlier here*, I don’t find my job that great at all. It’s nothing to do with the schools I’m in – the teachers are fantastic and the students I have are in general pretty cool. The main problem with my situation is that i don’t get much (any?) fulfilment from my job.

For starters, I don’t feel like I’m gaining much through my work. the tasks I do are simple – I basically just do what my JTE tells me to. My role is very much that of an assistant indeed. Some JETs plan lessons, draw up activities and essentially come up with the English language programme at their schools, but not in my case. My teachers will come to me with a lesson already planned – and they’re always pretty well drawn up lessons – so all I have to do is whatever’s already laid out in the plan.

And what’s in the lesson plan isn’t much either. It usually doesn’t go beyond me explaining things in simple English – which the JTE then will translate – or the JTE and I having an example conversation and having the students try to figure out what is going on. As I said, I’m very much an assistant, while the JTE takes the lead in most classes. It’s partly because the teacher’s whom I’ve worked with have really good English and don’t need much help in that aspect, and also because they have their own ideas as to what the want to do in a lesson or how they wish to carry it out. Sometimes I’ll be asked for ideas on games and activities, but it’s not that hard nor does it take up that much time.

One reason why some other JETs are able to be the main teacher in the class is also because they work at only 1 school and more or less teach English to all levels. Except for the first 2 terms, I’ve been working in more than 1 school per term, and my senior high classes aren’t just the general English classes – I’m in writing classes, English communication classes and so on. So the focus of the classes is different and the Japanese teachers themselves only teach 1 particular class. In that sense, it’s impossible for me to be the main teacher even if I were at my senior high school full time.

My work then is pretty much a no-brainer; things are easy and not much input nor effort is required of me. Some other ALTs get satisfaction from chatting with their students and so on, but I don’t see my kids that often – my school is big compared to other schools, or I’m in that school only 1 day a week and have classes back to back, so no chance to hang around to chat. Even if I saw them more often, I think I’m not enough of a novelty to inspire students to come and talk to me – being city kids, they’ve pretty much had ALTs throughout much of their school life and are used to us. I don’t even think they’re that eager to talk in English to begin with – even the Brit whom they’re always excited to see (tall, male, white and so on) doesn’t get anyone wanting to talk to him.

Club activities after school are a personal no-no; it’s already such a chore to be sitting in school with nothing work-related to occupy my time that i’m quite eager to head out every day. So I’m definitely not one of those ‘super JETs’.

Hence, I can’t find any scope to develop professionally in my job, as my capabilities aren’t stretched because so little is required of me, and the challenge I face is mainly to try to keep myself entertained and engaged during and outside of class. I am quite underworked in terms of the number of classes I teach too, mainly because lots of classes that I have scheduled never happen because the teacher needs to focus on teaching the syllabus and cant always accommodate ALT presence in the classes. Other permanent classes sometimes also don’t occur for some reason or another – 2 of my classes (4 periods in total as there’re 2 batches of students per class) only occur about 14 times in 2 terms, which is something like every other week? And I’m not even the least worked ALT among us; some of the others at my school – I think it’s my school in particular that’s slack – have less classes than I do, and another JET I know of elsewhere has even less classes than anyone else. But I am, indeed, very free timetable-wise.

It is possible to derive job fulfilment through others, for example, to feel a sense of achievement when you see your students mature and grow and improve at English. Unfortunately, that avenue isn’t available to me either! As mentioned above, I either see them too infrequently that don’t even quite have the chance to have a good gauge of their English abilities, or that they don’t have English classes often enough and hence cant improve. As we all know, languages need to be constantly reinforced for absorption; one 50 minute oral communication class once a week would achieve little, much less at the (in)frequency mine have their lessons.

I don’t feel like there’s enough time dedicated to English here. I don’t teach at an English-intensive high school where the students ‘major’ in English and have loads of English classes everyday and are super motivated to learn English. In some of those schools, the students spend about 1 to 2 periods each morning having everyday conversations with their ALT, and naturally are more comfortable using English and actually build up the ability to communicate in English too – just compare that to what my students get!

It doesn’t help either that English language education at high school level in Japan isn’t great. There’s lots written about teaching English in Japan around on the web and elsewhere, and the main criticisms are the emphasis on rote learning and reading rather than writing and speaking, having teachers with poor English teach students English, a focus towards university entrance examinations rather than acquiring the actual skill to use the language and so on.

All those are true, but I feel that English at junior high school level is a lot more effective than English at senior high school level. At least at junior high school, there’re set textbooks teaching a set level of English for a specific purpose – and students that graduate from junior high school generally attain a certain level of basic English understanding.

I feel however that things go downhill from there. I haven’t been involved much in the general English classes, as those I teach are the elective, additional classes taken by the students who are supposed to have a greater focus on language than others who focus on art or design and so on (goodness knows that’s not quite true, but never mind). I have seen, though, the books that are used for general English class, and the difficulty of the English used in them is astounding. It’s at a level way higher than the students’ actual level, as the aim is to make them pass their university entrance examinations, which are at a very high level of English too. So understanding those texts is basically achieved through having the teacher translate everything for them, and they copying the English text and Japanese translation into their notebooks.

What really gets to me though, is that there isn’t really a proper syllabus or path progression laid out for senior high school English. Lessons aren’t designed such that they build upon and reinforce knowledge already gained, but instead there seems to either be a huge gap between senior and junior high, or that they simply continue learning the same things over and over again. For example, I’ve done classes on giving directions to students in all 3 grades of high school. So they’re not really learning anything new.

Although you might argue that since my 3rd year students don’t seem much better at giving directions than my first year students, then perhaps the class is worth doing again. But you see, that shouldn’t be the case! Topics and classes that have been covered before should NOT have to be covered again, as the students are meant to have already acquired the vocabulary and expressions relevant to that lesson. For some reason, however, quite a lot of them are never quite able to distinguish between the question words – how what why where when – or things like “how long does it take” and so on in conversation, and I attribute that to not having enough practice. It’s fine if you’re teaching more advanced expressions and vocab in classes on the same topic, but we’re always starting from scratch almost.

Moving back however to there not being a proper syllabus or path progression for senior high, is that teachers teaching the same general English lesson to students in the same year can have completely different lesson plans. Back in the beginning when I first arrived, I taught in general English classes with 2 different teachers to 2nd year students, and they did completely different things. One more or less had a proper plan whereas the other did not, and basically went from one week to the next trying to think of some not-very-meaningful/useful game or activity to occupy class time. And I have no idea why the difference exists, or why they didn’t just pool resources.

Japan’s school system is also interesting in that students don’t really have to put in much effort in their senior high school life so long as they do enough to graduate – which is very little – and pass their university entrance examinations. So moving from 2nd year to 3rd year saw a stark difference in my students. Their English teachers changed from a really good one whom they liked to others whom they didn’t like as much (and perhaps weren’t so effective), and while their interest waned their English level dropped, as there was a lot less reinforcement occurring in class. They also started paying more attention to passing their university exams, and since the actual classes they attend are essentially unnecessary for graduation and university, not long after the beginning of their 3rd year already saw them sitting listlessly in class, sleeping, chatting with their friends, reading manga, playing with their phones or listening to music. And such are Japanese schools that such behaviour is allowed and not sternly reprimanded – I’ve been told that one of the reasons is because senior high school isn’t compulsory, so students have the right to be in class regardless of what they do and you cant chase them out or send them for disciplining.

the long and short of it is that my students arent getting any better in their english either, which is frustrating. they make the same grammatical and spelling mistakes over and over again in their writing, miss their articles all the time and even in their final year of senior high might still fail to begin a sentence with a capital letter or capitalise the beginning of names and places. gargh. junior high textbooks teach students that it’s ok to begin a sentence with “because”, and teach them uniquely Japanese expressions, like “My friends are my treasures” and “I enjoy TV” without the verb attached. In a way, my english too has been dumbed down somewhat, and i use the word “enjoy” a lot more, mainly because all of us here as ALTs hear it being bandied about all the time.

so… this has become more of a rant than anything else, but the good news is that i’m done now, i think. hurray.

*: thanks very much for all the comments and encouragement! I really appreciate those comments; it makes me feel like there’s some worth in me having my blog. Haha.

chinese new year

2010-02-05T16:27:00.001+08:00

is coming!

it’s on valentine’s day this year, and i was quite happy when my JTE at my other junior high school suggested doing a combined chinese new year and valentine’s day class. i brought some red packets – or angbaos - and passed them around the class, and was rather bemused when lots of them opened all the red packets to see if there was any money left in them.

i wanted to bring some pineapple tarts with me when i came back from singapore in january, but didnt have enough space. else i could prepare some new year goodies and invite people over, just to gently demonstrate that not everyone around the world necessarily cares that much about christmas.

i received a new year card from my mum the post today, and in it was a mega big angbao – mega by her standards – which sort of makes up for all the other smaller angbaos that i’ll be missing out on. yay :)

home

2010-02-02T22:23:00.001+08:00

these two days have been rough. i have so many things i want to whinge about that i dont know where to start, so let me just talk about this thing called "home”.

for some reason lots of people around me dislike japan a fair bit. i hear way too often that they’re so homesick, they miss this, they miss that, they dont like this about japan, why is japan like that, back home we.. etc etc etc. Home is spoken about fondly and favourably when compared to japan, and people talk about missing this or not liking a certain aspect of japan as if just because we’re all on the same programme living in the same city i would understand how they feel.

at dinner today, some were chatting about how it sometimes is necessary to go abroad before you realise how good home is. this statement makes absolute sense, until it’s narrowed down to my particular experience, where it then doesnt quite hold true.

it’s taken coming to japan before i realised what i’d miss out on if i moved back to singapore after JET.

for one, going back means definitely living with my parents, and living on my own is one of the most wonderful things about being here. i can do whatever i want, whenever i want, however i want, and no one is going to say a thing about it.

singapore is too hot, and the heat lasts forever. i’ve been criticised by friends for being “snobbish” and dissing our weather just cos i’ve been overseas, but seriously, having seasons in a country is amazing. i can get through the terrible osakan summer knowing that it’ll end in 3 months; the cold is tolerable cos i know that soon it’ll be spring, flowers will be in bloom and everything will be nice again. seasons bring with them a natural way to mark the passage of time, something which i never really managed to do in singapore, except by the year of school i was in, which doesnt apply anymore. and frankly, it’s winter here now and i think i’m liking it more than the heat of summer, cos i go out and the air is cool and crisp and fresh, and you kinda feel good in it. and in winter i have spring to look forward to; in summer, autumn. winter means you can have nabe (steamboat) to keep warm, and the sweet delicious crabs are in season. seasons mean that my year is varied and a little more exciting.

i have more mobility here too. i cycle so often, and it really gets me when it rains cos my poor skills means i have to leave my bike at home. i can get to places more easily and i dont have to walk, whereas i cant really do that in singapore cos there’re too many people and the pavements are a lot narrower too. the persistent heat also means that if i want to wear skirts which are cooler, i can’t cycle, and if i want to cycle, i cant stay as cool. why do i have to choose?

i dont think my eating habits have changed that much either, which i think is a big thing for quite a lot of them. i get green leafy vegetables here (although more expensive and of lesser variety), i get rice, i get almost everything i want – and whatever’s not available, like chilli, i dont consume all that much of either. also, i eat extremely well; food here is good, and i get some kind of service when i go to restaurants. alcohol is everywhere, which makes me happy, as i like being able to drink without having to pay through the nose for it the way i would in singapore.

of course, lots of things dont make sense about this country; i get frustrated too when i cant communicate and so on, but hey, a sales person in singapore didnt understand me either, just cos i was speaking in full sentences with proper grammar. the city is crowded, but orchard road on weekends is awful, and absolutely frightful when it’s a rainy sunday. plus, if i get sick of Osaka, 1 hour by train will bring me to a more suburban (or even semi-rural) part in some other prefecture which makes for a nice change, but getting to JB is quite a mission – tampines to lavender, then bus for 1 hour just to cross the causeway? and to pulau ubin, you need to get to changi village, then wait for the boat to fill up with enough passengers to depart? W.T.F.

when i went home in december, what occurred to me was that somehow along the way, i’d lost the sense of “this is home, truly, where i know i must be” thing that kit chan sings about. everything felt familiar and i slipped back into old routines and old habits built up over 23 years so, so easily, but that didnt mean that i FELT something for those habits.

definitely, being back among friends and family was great, and i loved it; being able to just chat about stuff – conversation flows so much easier, for sure – but apart from the people… i’m not sure. if “home” is associated with some form of nostalgia and deep emotional feeling, then i have to say that most unfortunately i have no idea where it is. i wouldnt go so far as to say that i like JAPAN more than singapore – japan’s a big place, and i wouldnt even like it this much if i were living somewhere else in osaka city – but i can definitely say that there are things out there that i want at this point in my life that singapore cannot offer me. things might change – like if i want to start a family, for example – but as of now.. nope.

which really sucks considering what i’ve learnt about working in the UK – near impossible, and that’s one thing i want to whinge about – as if i were forced to go back to singapore i would KNOW what i am missing out on. of course my search will not end with the UK, but the likelihood that i might have to go back has become EXTREMELY REAL. and it’s terrible considering going back might mean me losing out on more than just working overseas and stuff like seasons, and it’s awfully depressing.

so the question is, why not extend my JET contract for another year?

simply because despite all appearances, my job is pretty crap. and given that there are few JETs who would (could?) actually say that, and given that a fair number of aspiring JETs come across my blog, i have to say again that i dont really like my job all that much at all. i’ve never mentioned this before, but i think i should because my experience is a JET experience even if it isnt the JET experience, and if you’re unlucky this might well be your experience, so forewarned is forearmed.

but that’s for another day in another post.

if only i was interested in maths and science

2010-02-01T17:19:00.001+08:00

i just learned today that computer engineers can get a starting pay of at least USD6000 a month.

that’s ABSOLUTELY freaking ridiculous.

even if you account for computer engineers being the best paid engineers around, it’s still way too much money.

all the singaporean engineers out there should just go find work in the US. and all those who arent engineers should work towards cultivating an interest – and aptitude – in maths and science for the sake of their children’s future.

SIGHHHHHH.

arima onsen

2010-01-31T17:46:00.001+08:00

is one of the oldest onsen places in japan, and is the most famous one near osaka that i know of. it’s most convenient to get to via coach buses – from the hankyu bus station in umeda, you’ll reach in just an hour; far better a trip than taking the hanshin railway and changing to yet another train line.

we went there in early december, too late for the best of the autumn leaves, but early enough that the weather is still beautiful.

heading there, we definitely felt a bit out of place, as most of the other passengers were old people, with the rest being middle-aged. i think we were the only two who were in our twenties..

its famous gin no yu public bath:

its water tasted terrible though…

check out the other steaming hot springs:

accompanied with a stern warning:

arima is very small, and its age is visible in quite a lot of its buildings

even the exterior of our hotel was really drab:

our room was gorgeous though. it had a spacious entrance way, a front porch with the toilet AND bathroom and wash area attached, a main room of about 10-12 tatami mats and a smaller bedroom about 4-tatami mats in size, as well as another area with 4 arm chairs and a small coffee table.

the onsen in the hotel itself was so-so. it wasnt big at all, which means that one can only imagine how crowded it could be on long weekends. dinner was awesome though – everyone should definitely have a traditional kaiseki dinner while in japan. it’s meant to have 12 courses, and this is only half of it:

amongst the dishes were beef sukiyaki, chawanmushi, tempura, sashimi, grilled scallop, crabs legs, an udon dish, a mixed starter, some vegetable stuff, steamed chicken and broiled fish. i somehow forgot my chawanmushi – there were too many dishes on the table – and i regret that still!

i think the most interesting in arima is the toys and automata museum though – foreigners receive a discount!

the museum contains traditional miniature toys from Germany, modern toys, wind-up dolls and others.

most of the german toys were christmas related:

this is how multiple wood-cut animals are made:

note the tiny carved figurines in walnut shells at the bottom right:

there were many such christmas decorations, but this was the biggest and the most beautiful:

on another floor were these wind up toys. push a button and they move:

note the eyes on the horse on this one:

the creator of the above has an obsession with anubis:

besides these, arima has nothing much really. it’s nice for a weekend getaway from osaka – especially since it’s so near – but it wouldnt be a must-go.

english

2010-01-29T17:42:00.001+08:00

Singaporeans might use odd expressions that we think is standard english, but at least we don’t have trouble understanding a sentence like this, i hope?:

“… The primary cause (of a recent increase in birth rate) lies in the economic recovery in addition to various measures put in place to counter the falling birth rate.”

let’s just say that there was a lack of understanding today in the office i share with another ALT, the main problem being that the above sentence doesnt make sense.

hmmmm.

snowman yum

2010-01-21T15:37:00.001+08:00

Narutoya is the best bakery in osaka, and can be found in the shotengai at Momodani station on the Loop Line.

Its signature item – to me – is their totoro bread; totoro comes in many different facial expressions and has a belly full of chocolate.

last year was the year of the cow, and for a few months into the new year, there was this cow-face bread to be had. like totoro, it had a range of facial expressions and a brain full of milk custard. that’s my favourite item actually, but i’ll have to wait another 11 years for it.

this year, they have this:

mr snowman and turd!

well, actually the turd-shaped thing is a regular item, and a very tasty one at that. it’s peanut butter caramel, so it’s slightly salty and rather sweet.

the snowman is sooo cute. this particular one was chosen cos he had the most adorable facial expression.

he has custard and chocolate inside him, and is extremely yummy :)

quotes of the day

2010-01-15T23:36:00.001+08:00

i’m back in japan, and to be honest it’s been kinda nice to be back here; at least i’m no longer living out of a suitcase in the place where i’ve grown up for 23 years. that definitely felt weird.

anyway, a couple of us girls headed out for dinner and drinks, and at this pub this turkish guy was chatting up my friend, and came up with some hilariously awful pick up lines:

“is your father a terrorist? … cos you’re a bomb!”

“when did you get out from hell? … cos you’re so hot!”

“did you eat lots of chocolate when you were young? … cos you’re so sweet!”

oh my. haha. apparently he was dead serious while saying them too, which is worse than if he said them thinking he’s being funny…

okuno-in, koya-san and some other randoms

2010-01-01T14:07:00.001+08:00

besides kongo-buji, the other big draw of koya-san is okuno-in, the mausoleum or graveyard.

apparently buddhists aim to have their remains buried there, and many of the plots have been bought up by corporations, somewhat like a company plot for the presidents of the companies and so on.

this below is apparently a memorial erected by a pest company, to atone for killing all those pests.

the entrance of okuno-in:

some of the signs there are really old and have toppled:

these rounded things were a common sight:

i didnt find okuno-in creepy at all, partly because there were 3 of us there in the day, but also because it’s actually a rather open area. you can see the sky and the trees dont form a roof over you.

a sign asking you not to litter:

the panasonic company plot:

the grave of oda nobunaga, a very significant person in japanese history. we were disappointed that it was so nondescript.

the japanese like to stick coins in stuff, and this is a really good example of their obsession:

this, i believe, is a memorial for a photographic association. it’s crazy:

here’s another crazy memorial:

after okuno-in, we headed to the mausolea of the tokugawas. the family was extremely influential, and we expected something grand and big and impressive:

that was all there is, and i snuck a shot through the fence:

what an utter letdown!

to end off, here’s a picture of the most unattractive plastic food display that i’ve ever seen in japan – mouldy curry spaghetti:

jimyo-in, koya san

2010-01-01T13:28:00.001+08:00

i just realised that i have yet to post up lots of photos from koya-san, and since i havent much to post on singapore (all i’ve been doing is eat and shop and eat and shop non-stop), i might as well get down to it as koya-san is very pretty.

like i’d briefly blogged here, i stayed in Jimyo-in when on the mountain. We learned from the owner of a coffee shop that temples on the mountain have a ranking system and the lines on its walls are an indication of how good the lodgings are.

the above temple, for example, has only 3 white lines. this means that it’s only a so-so temple. Jimyo-in had 5 lines, and the guy seemed quite impressed when we told him that we were staying there. and we managed to stay in there because when booking through the tourist information office, my friend asked for a good temple. well done J :)

jimyo-in is gorgeous on the inside, and the rooms are big:

i really liked the paintings, and didnt really expect a tv in the room.

the kotatsu was amazing too, and there’s a safe below the tv.

in typical japanese style, we received tea and a small red-bean filled cake upon our arrival.

dinner was sumptuous. i was surprised when the server came in bearing so many trays for the 3 of us:

each person had 2 trays:

we ordered sake too, as you can see above. there also is tofu, vegetable tempura, miso soup and a tasty wild vege and mushroom dish.

below is another wakayama tofu cubes – they’re sweet and full of soup – picked cucumber with vermicelli and a type of melon with mushrooms in the covered dish. dessert was sweetened persimmons.

some after-dinner relax-time shots:

breakfast was a simpler affair:

the round thing is tofu – wakayama is famous for it – soy beans with seasoned seaweed, miso soup with bean curd strips and vegetables with mushrooms.

Merry Christmas to one and all!

2009-12-25T09:56:00.001+08:00

Tis the season to be jolly and all~

I’d recently discovered – while doing a christmas class in school – that in America (and perhaps other parts of the world) you’re not meant to say Merry Christmas because not everyone is christian, and ought to be using “Happy Holidays” instead.

it’s a ludicrous idea, but to my horror and dismay, there was actually a letter in the forum section the other day urging singapore to adopt this too.

well excuse me but that seems more like being insensitive and intolerant instead! it’s like me taking offence at “Selamat Hari Raya” decorating the streets come that season just because I’m not muslim. like huh?

what offends me way more is the assumption that EVERYONE in the world celebrates christmas just because it has become a universally recognised holiday and many places put up lights and get into a festive mood and all.

i’m tired of foreigners in Japan expressing disbelief that it’s a workday in Japan, that they cant find eggnog or candy cane or this and that thing essential to christmas in their home country, that it’s more a lover’s holiday than a family holiday or something along the lines that the Japanese have gotten the whole idea of christmas wrong.

give them a break. christmas doesnt mean anything to them, and i dont see why it should.

everyone was so caught up in the christmas season and “spirit” before i left that i started feeling rather uncomfortable, as i felt like i should be more into the mood than i actually was.

there then came a point when i just got annoyed that i was made to feel that way, when christmas to me is nothing more than a time of bright pretty lights along orchard road and an excuse to eat lots of yummy stuff and an opportunity to meet up with friends and my mum’s side of the family – to eat.

dont get me wrong, i do get a little excited about christmas, but nothing like how i look forward to Chinese New Year and all the stuff associated with it. Chinese New Year is THE most important holiday in my calendar as a Singaporean-Chinese person, and i think more people should realise that Christmas isnt the most important thing to everyone and stop being holier-than-thou about the whole thing.

there. an angsty christmas post and Merry Christmas again! haha.

Reverie - Cirque On Ice

2009-12-24T12:24:00.001+08:00

i watched this yesterday with alim, and i have to say i was disappointed!

i suppose part of my disappointment came from thinking that this show was the on-ice version of a Cirque du Soleil act, but i realised – only just now – that the two are unrelated. even then, i’d went thinking that i’ll be able to see lots of skating and acrobatics on ice, but unfortunately this was not the case.

to begin with, the rink was tiny. the skaters didnt have enough space to skate around to gain the speed and momentum needed for the more difficult jumps, spins and turns, so had to make do with plain skating around at low speeds and very simple turns. simply put, the skating there was just very regular stuff.

Reverie is meant to tell a story – read about it here – but the storyline is non-existent and it felt more like a hodgepodge of acrobatic acts. the performers WERE good, undoubtedly, but without a good storyline to hold them together, the plain viewing of those performances got a bit tiresome nearer the end.

there were some memorable parts, such as the “clown”, the lady who performed with the hoops and the rope – she’s amazing and drew the most applause – and the two-man act, where the bigger guy formed the base for the smaller guy to balance on. the act began with the smaller guy doing a 1-arm handstand with his feet splayed apart in a split all on the other (seated) man’s HEAD!

In general, Reverie is simply a glammed-up circus act. dont be fooled by the elegant, mystical description of the show and go only if you’re interested in the acrobatic stuff.

back in singapore

2009-12-22T23:37:00.001+08:00

i didnt miss home when i was in japan, but it’s undeniably nice to be back.

lying in bed half asleep in the morning with the sounds of other family members moving around outside my door, it’s as if i’d never left. it’s the same being in my grandma’s house – the same place where i’ve spent lots of time since i was born – it feels as if japan never happened.

singapore is the same though. i’m still waiting for the culture shock that EVERYONE says is going to happen.

no doubt, you see things with different eyes. when i came out to the departure lounge at the airport, i was struck by the number of indian and malays around – a sharp contrast to japan, where virtually everyone is fair skinned and east-asian looking.

i’ve grown used to the smooth, soft japanese toilet paper, even if it crumbles and dissolves or tears when you’re trying to wipe.

the service standards back here are quite terrible, and i really wanted to slap the teenager working at sistic today, when i got NO eye contact, a slight slam which accompanied my tickets being placed on the counter, and a surly, barely murmured “thank you”. someone should teach that young punk better manners.

i’ve also, today, experienced the quietest bus and train rides that i’ve had in a long time. commuter noise i can deal with, but it was very different not having countless announcements bombarding you throughout your ride.

i was once told by one of the japanese women i interviewed by my thesis that singapore’s trains are slow, and i didnt believe her back then. but now i do have to agree that our trains are slow compared to those in japan. haha. it’s like sitting on the tsurumi-ryokuchi subway line in osaka, which everyone hates cos it’s so slow. heh.

NB: i went out again the day after i wrote this, to tampines mall and central, and received far better service. I feasted on mussels at Brussel Sprouts at Robertson Quay too, and the service there is EXCELLENT. I attribute that to its location in the expat area of singapore.

‘tis winter indeed

2009-12-18T10:46:00.001+08:00

i havent made a post about the weather in a while, so here’s one.

it’s freezing in this country. gah. temperatures suddenly dropped these few days, and it was about 5deg when i was out just now. it’s not as cold as it could be, i suppose, and certainly not as cold as other parts of the world, but the wind is just terrible.

it’s bright outside and sort of warm if you stand in the sun at the moment, but i’m sitting in my cold apartment and can hear the wind howling outside. this morning, i was waiting at the bus stop and had to put in some effort into bracing myself against the wind!

the wind is the killer. the parts of me that are covered by my coat are perfectly fine, but my face gets really cold. i recall many a time last winter where i wanted to get a burka or something to cover most of me, so this must be it again.

meh.

christmas in osaka

2009-12-16T21:15:00.001+08:00

is pretty cos there’re lots of bright lights! i suppose singapore’s the same too, but perhaps it’s a bit nicer here cos it actually feels like winter!

there’s a german Christmas market every year at the umeda sky building, my favourite place in osaka. there’re always duicy and delicious german sausages. german christmas decorations, sweets and so on. apparently the german food that most of the world is famous with is from south germany – north german food is rather different, and there isnt anything that can be considered a signature dish.

the main attraction of the christmas market is the amazing mulled wine though. i was there for that, hence these are all the pictures i’ve got:

those are the stalls at the bottom of the pic, and below, is the stand where they were offering some photo-taking service.

kobe has their illuminarie event in early december, which is in commemoration of the great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake. i went for that last year, but missed Osaka’s Hikari Renaissance event – a light-up of several areas in Nakanoshima, the island on which the City Hall – and my BOE – is located. managed to catch it this year though; i believe it’s purely for christmas.

the first of which is the west side of the island, where the osaka university of art is located, as well as one of the art museums.

these are made out of PET bottles and were kinda cool, even though i didnt think they were the most attractive exhibit

there was a sand exhibit too

that little penguin is so adorable

so cute!!

this is the art museum. it looked really nice from afar, but it wasnt as nice seeing it up close. i didnt take this picture, but it makes the museum more attractive than it actually was:

this is city hall, where i work every monday and on days when i have no school. this was the central section and was much busier, because it’s more accessible. i’d never seen so many people at city hall ever!

the colours also change to yellow, and blue.

midosuji avenue is the main street that runs through central osaka city. it connects the centres of umeda and namba/shinsaibashi, and city hall is along it.

right outside my BOE:

more snowmen

this kid was really cute; i saw him jump up on the polar bear. this was put up by tennoji zoo, and i think the only reason why it was there is because polar bears = white = snow = christmas.

this was by a french lighting company, and i believe they might have been the same people who did lighting work for the Singapore National Museum about 2 years ago. they made this building very pretty :)

next to the central section was the east section, where little light-dolls were displayed among the rose garden. i’m not sure why they didnt light up the roses too; i really wanted to see the roses and they would have made everything even prettier.

i like this time of year :) merry christmas everyone!

JET Translation and Interpretation Course – days 3 to 5

2009-12-14T21:03:00.001+08:00

surprisingly, the 2nd day of the seminar was the worst day. things got better after that, probably because i’d given up putting pressure on myself trying to do well in class and just relaxing and going with the flow.

i think the material covered in the days after werent as difficult either. most of the activities centred on this dialogue session between 1 japanese and 2 australian university students, and covered a range of issues like religion, learning japanese, perceptions of each other’s countries, etc.

also, for the morning of the 4th day, we took turns making a short speech or translating, and i luckily was selected to translate from japanese to english. and for the morning of the 5th day, we had mock panel discussions, and all i did was speak in English :) no doubt i didnt get to practice as much, but the pressure involved! phew. i’m happy to have escaped it, in a way.

it was nice being at the seminar. upon returning to osaka, it felt like i’d been on holiday for a week, even though i worked harder there than i would have if i’d stayed here (the high school students are having exams, which means no classes too). it was like going back to school too – sit in class, and then socialise outside of it.

also, it was definitely enjoyable chatting with the other JETs from other parts of the country; some of them are quite cool people! i was surprised though, by the number of asian-canadians i met there – many of those i hung out with are asian-canadians (originally from hong kong or taiwan mainly). perhaps those of asian descent hang out with others like them – there were definitely a lot more white people there!

now it’s back to reality – preparations to go home and to continue with the next 2 books of the course! acck.

JET translation and interpretation course – day 2

2009-12-08T19:57:00.001+08:00

today was the most intense day i’ve ever had!

there were 5 classes of 1hr 10min each, with 10min break in between. 2 classes in the morning beginning at 9.25am, lunch from 12 to 1pm, then 3 classes ending at 5pm. i never studied this hard even as a full time student!

today was 2 periods of self-introductions, my tutor’s self-introduction, and listening to this speech made by the president of a private girls’ school on her school’s education policy. all of them, naturally, involved translation from english to japanese and vice versa – it was very brain-draining work.

i got over the fact that my japanese is the lousiest among my class of 17 people pretty quickly – no point being troubled over something you have no control over, rite? besides, all of them have been learning japanese for longer than i have – most majored in japanese at university, many started learning from high school, 1 or 2 started from junior high and 1 of them even began at primary 6. on the other hand, i only had 2.5 years of japanese class at uni, so i think i’m probably excused for having a far lower standard.

the problem therefore was first concentrating for the entire day – zoning out for a moment will result in information lost, and many a time we’re called on randomly to interpret a piece of information, so we all had to pay attention throughout the day.

the other extremely challenging aspect is the sheer amount of vocabulary being introduced! i know very little vocab and am rather weak in that area. so it makes things extremely difficult in following what is happening, cos the tutor says something and i have to scramble to check my dictionary to find out the kanji for it or make out the meaning. it’s also a test of how quick my fingers are at typing in a word whose japanese equivalent i want to find – its a race against time to check the word before its your turn, or before the next section of the tape is played again.

he introduced, today, a lot of words related to education. i whinged about to the many new words to E, to which he replied that i’m here to learn, so i ought to take advantage of it. i suppose that’s true – at any rate, i certainly dont think that this seminar sucks or i’m really wanting to go home or that i’m going to break down in tears anytime soon, which is good. haha. it’s definitely more stimulating than being in school, although i’m not sure if i will be feeling the same way tomorrow, after another day of this. :P

JET translation and interpretation course – day 1

2009-12-07T19:10:00.001+08:00

today begins the first day of the 5-day long JET Programme Translation and Interpretation Course seminar. the entire seminar is conducted at JIAM, the Japan Intercultural Academy of Municipalities. it’s in Otsu City, located in the south of Shiga prefecture and only 15 minutes away from Kyoto station.

the rooms are nice enough, with a desk, table lamp, tv, lots of storage space, toilet and sink and several mirrors. the food isnt too bad either – we got a prepaid card with money that should cover almost all our meals here.

the difficult part and most stressful aspect is the Japanese, however.

oh my.

the first shock actually was coming here and discovering that there’s A LOT of us – 143 in total, with more than 90 people being in the English course (there’s a Chinese and Korean course too). and somehow everyone seemed to know at least someone else, so it was the whole thicken up your skin and talk to people kind of thing again.

i suppose though, that for that so long as you have a thick skin and dont think too much, you’re gonna be fine. what is difficult however, was the fact that everyone here has really good japanese!

they started off by giving us a whole tonne of materials completely in japanese, and everything after lunch – 4 hours of it – was conducted in japanese too. it wasnt as bad as it could have been, to be honest, but wow. it required A LOT of concentration.

the worst is the japanese standard. apart from there being lots of CIRs, some of them are so good that they sound perfect in japanese and understand way way way more than i do. some people were chosen from the audience to translate stuff, either from English to Japanese or vice versa, and their standard completely blew me away.

how do people get so good?!?!

i have one complaint though, which is that the internet here is very wonky! at the moment only msn is working – i cant see any websites on my internet browsers, although it worked for a while on 2 separate occasions earlier this evening. so i’m not quite sure what’s happening either. beh.

an autumn night in kyoto

2009-12-01T19:51:00.001+08:00

one of my favourite things about autumn is the night light-ups of some temples in kyoto. the temple grounds will be packed, but the illuminated leaves and temple structures are extremely beautiful.

i commented to the brit today that i only went autumn leaves viewing once this year, which is a lot less compared to last year, and he responded that he went only once last year and that was enough.

meh. my humble opinion is that he doesnt know how to appreciate the beautiful autumn colours that you get here :P haha.

anyway, we were at eikando, which was rather near nanzenji and ginkakuji too (silver pavillion)

can you see the crowd behind? the queue was really really long when we entered – we ourselves queued for a fair bit:

so many people were taking pictures of this bridge, but i felt that it was the least attractive part of the temple as it was over-illuminated:

and here’s my favourite picture of the night:

bits and pieces

2009-11-30T21:44:00.001+08:00

the past few weeks have flown by for some reason. perhaps it’s because i’ve been worked more than usual at my schools – which brings me to the average workload that most people have – and that the students are going to australia soon, so i’ve been busy helping them with translations – make that A LOT of translations – and helping them prepare their presentations and so on.

there have been lots of events lately too, which means that i havent been home as much as i’d like to have. it’s ironic that my schedule is near booked out from now till i return home; when i’m busy i’m really quite busy, and when i’m free i’m bored out of my wits.

this week is another hectic week. i’m going to arima onsen for the weekend (YAY!), and have to rush to complete my CLAIR translation and interpretation course.

next week brings me to Shiga for the seminar for that same course, where i’ll be in class from 9am to 5pm. it’s like being back in school – perhaps worse actually, since i never had such a schedule! – and i’m not sure what to expect, so we’ll see how it goes.

the weekend is the Honjo apartments’ “Round the World Party” – it’s like a pub-crawl in 6 of the 8 JET apartments in that complex, which each apartment having a different theme: caribbean, mexico, UK and Ireland (although the Irish arent happy that they’re being lumped together with the UK), russia, france and japan. i’m looking forward to it, as it’s the last big gathering that we’re having here before we all go home for the holidays.

after that is the last week of school for me, and then a christmas karaoke night to welcome my friend’s boyfriend’s maiden karaoke experience, then it’s my birthday the next day, and then 1 day to pack, and then home very early on monday morning.

busy busy!

i suppose i havent been home much, which makes things worse. in the past few weeks i’ve had enkais, meetups with people, autumn leaf viewing, mid-year seminar, friends visiting, thanksgiving dinner last friday with karaoke after, Inglorious bastards (i never know how to spell it “right”. it was a good show by the way, though rather gory at several points) on saturday, and today, tachinomi and then more drinks at balabushka.

it was crazy today. i definitely had a bit too much to drink and way too much to eat, but it was good fun. i learned that the Caribbean is pronounced differently by people from that region, the americans (and singaporeans) and the irish; that only americans when using fork and knife to eat, switch the fork between the right and left hand; heard a very heated debate on thierry henry’s handball against ireland and zinadine zidane’s headbutt many years ago AND a further debate on henry and FIFA and the whole world cup palava against ireland – as if i havent already heard enough about it since it happened – and chatted about a range of other stuff.

would like to do this more often, but i do have to watch my pocket and my poor tummy AND my liver. boohoo.

one autumn day in kyoto

2009-11-29T17:52:00.001+08:00

autumn is coming to an end.

this year, unlike the last, i only saw autumn leaves ONCE – and that was last week. we went to kyoto’s nanzenji in the afternoon. i realised, however, that there were a few places in nanzenji that we missed, as the place is apparently rather humongous.

first we entered one of the famous gardens on the temple grounds:

there was a pond with quite a few koi in it:

this is Sanmon, the huge gate that’s something like the entrance to nanzenji. we paid 500yen to go up – it offers a so-so view of kyoto – and felt quite cheated.

there were quite a lot of trees in the compound

i was quite amused by this:

pretty

we ventured further into the temple grounds..

everyone was crowding around this sole red-leaved tree:

the bridge lent the place an air of charm

suntory BOSS coffee

2009-11-24T21:18:00.001+08:00

i love the milk coffee that i get in japan, cos it’s simply awesome. there are people who scoff at these “cheap” coffee that you can buy from convenience stores for about 147yen, but i know i will miss them wherever i go next, even though i dont drink that much.

japan has a lot of coffee chains – doutor, excelsior, st marco/choco cro, etc. and they all have good coffee that’s way cheaper than starbucks, which makes it fantastic cos i dont like starbucks.

but if you ever want bang for your buck, then it’s milk coffee that you turn to. my favourite brand is Mt Rainier coffee, which has gotten into trouble for having a logo extremely similar to starbucks’:

i got this photo from here, and it happens to also be my favourite flavour from that brand :)

but anyway, apart from saying that milk coffee in japan is awesome and amazing, is the main point – suntory BOSS coffee, which has tommy lee jones as the face of their adverts AND has really good commercials.

the commercials might be very specific to japan, in the sense that many things might make sense only if you’re familiar with what goes on in this country. but look at it another way, and it can be said that you can learn all about japan just by watching these commercials :)

here are a few of my favourite:

and this is the best of the lot:

CIR positions for Singaporeans

2009-11-24T18:03:00.001+08:00

i just heard yesterday that CIR positions for singaporeans are available only if a current singaporean CIR is leaving the programme - apparently there’s a tendency to hire the people from the same country for the exact same position?

i have no idea, though that would explain why some years there are openings for CIR positions, whereas in other years – like mine – there arent.

if anyone knows anything about this, please let me know!

meanwhile i think the deadline for this year’s JET application is approaching – if anyone out here has any questions, i’m at your service :)

good luck!