living costs in osaka

i just realised that i’ve always intended to blog about this, but never got down to doing it.

i remember worrying before i came over, whether my pay would be enough to cover living costs and so on, and looking back now, it seems so ridiculous because the pay that JETs receive is incredible.

i get about 285,000yen a month after taxes and so on are deducted. a quarter of that goes to rent, at a bit more than 61,000yen. i think this is the most that any JET would ever pay, unless you’re living in the city in an apartment that’s larger than 6 tatami mats with a kitchen and bathroom (the other osaka JETs in the bigger 2-bedroom apartment pay around 80,000yen).

utilities – gas, water and electricity – average to less than 6000yen a month. it increases a bit in winter when i turn on the electric heater and in summer when the aircon is on, but i think my expenditure is fairly low because i dont leave my heating or aircon on the entire night, whereas i know many people who do.

food-wise, it depends entirely how much i go out that month. a dinner out will often be around 2000yen, lunches 1000yen. drinks are in general about 500yen or 700yen, depending on where you go. i definitely dont scrimp on eating out or grocery shopping, and i’ve spent between 31,000yen and 50,000yen a month. i bring bento to school most times though, so i eat lunch out only about once on weekdays. dinner on weekdays would perhaps be once to a max of 3 times – it’s usually once – and on weekends, anything goes. i think i go out a lot, but that’s the price of having company and socialisation. no choice.

internet – i share that, but it’s 4000yen for KDDI’s wonderful fibre-optic service. not all apartment buildings have fibre-optic, installed, but broadband should be around that price, unless you get a package deal. usually when you first sign up they’ll give you a really good discount – for us it was 2000yen for the first 6 months, but JETs who came this year got a far better deal.

mobile phone – all depends on how much internet you use on your phone. in japan, you can only send SMS to people who subscribe to the same company. to contact people with another phone company, you have to use email or call. calling is really expensive though, but the internet is very useful. i use it to check train times all the time, and sometimes the weather. but my bills are on average about 2600yen i think.

transport – is expensive! i already cycle to school most days of the week, but i think i easily spend almost 10,000yen a month. if i didnt cycle to school, i think i’d be spending maybe at least 15,000yen?

apart from those, there’s also expenditures on things like household items ( e.g. toilet paper), toiletries, clothes and shopping, etc. those all vary, and it’s difficult to give an estimate for stuff like holidays too. but i think it’s reasonable to say that a 7 day trip somewhere in japan would cost around 100,000yen, how much more or less would depend on how watchful you are of your wallet. i think that estimate is for a comfortable holiday, where you dont splurge but do spend some on enjoying yourself.

summer camp 2009

so most of the last 2 weeks were spent at english summer camps for the english-intensive high schools, and im kinda glad they’re over!

the thing about camps – or perhaps just the ones that i was at – are that they just go on forever. imagine your day starting at 7.30 in the morning and ending at 9.30pm, with the student’s hour-long bath time around 5pm as your only proper break throughout the day. it doesnt really matter that the things you do arent actually that taxing – in fact, it’s precisely because it’s so untaxing and mind-numbing that it’s difficult to get through it – it’s just that the day drags on!

the first camp i had was in nara, and the students had to interview me and make a poster on me. they are excellent artists, and of course what’s written down there has to be taken with a pinch (or two, or several) of salt:

this is a really good likeness, isnt it?:

on the last day, the students had some time in nara, where they were meant to act as tour guides. but in this case, they didnt, and were more focused on enjoying themselves. in fact, i’ve been to nara more times than any of my students – only 1 out of 10 of them had ever been to nara!

i like the deer in nara

the deer eat paper – pamphlets, magazines, etc – too, so watch out!:

and once they latch on, they dont let go.

we found this one in a ditch beside the main road:

and another that has a very weird left antler which curves forwards and out, rather than straight up – just compare the right and left ones!

the second camp was in kyoto, and we stayed at the Honnoji Kaikan opposite the Kyoto City Hall (or was it the prefectural hall?). In any case, the hotel had amazing food and service! they gave us a kyoto sweet for every night that we stayed over, with a hot water flask and packets of sencha and houjicha. the futons were laid out for us at night too, and the rooms are spacious. and futons comfortable! i think they paid 8000yen for 1 night and 2 meals, which is very reasonable.

especially when your dinners look like that:

how sumptuous! sashimi, tofu, fish, tempura, some seaweed thing, chawamushi, soup and some yam thingy that was exquisitely prepared. this is the tempura – its batter was amazing:

breakfasts were simpler, but still appeared in that form. they always came with some form of egg (omelette or onsen tamago, which is delicious japanese-style soft boiled egg), fish, tofu – that will be heated in its pot using a solid fuel tablet, seaweed, soup, rice, pickles. yum yum.

dinner on the second day was sukiyaki, which was amazing:

the picture is blur cos of the steam, but man it was sooooo good. i love sukiyaki because the broth is tasty, and the egg that you dip the meat and vegetables in enhances the flavour. we had extra stuff to cook too, so i ate way too much. in fact, i ate too much throughout that camp!:

those were huge plates of stuff – to be shared between 4 pple, but in my case, it was shared between 3. and there was also some katsuo salad, with 5 pieces of katsuo. so yummy – that stuif wasnt cheap either!

at least the food at that camp was really good, because that, and hanging out with the guys chatting in their room over drinky drinks (ie alcohol) at night were the two things that made it endurable.

oh, and on the last day, the school hired other private ALTs so that the students could break into even smaller groups to act as tour guides of kyoto, and oh my. those private ALTs reminded me of how i was last year, and made me realise how jaded i’ve been!

last year, i was really excited, extremely happy-sounding, and really made the effort to appear energetic, positive and interested. i tried so hard to engage the students in conversation and was really into learning about the job and all that, whereas this year i was happy to sit and eat my food without talking too much to anyone while listening in on the student’s (japanese) conversation.

it’s interesting too, that few of the other JETs in the city find what we do unchallenging. im not sure if i’ve ever mentioned this here before, but to put things very simply, life as an ALT is, in my opinion, very unchallenging. i have very little actual hours of work, and basically my job is to do as i’m told by the JTE. of course there’s room for input and suggestions, but that doesnt take too much either.

in essence, it’s very easy work and doesnt require much of you. some of the rest find communication difficult as their JTEs do not have that good a command of english and they cant always communicate with the students, but i dont really have that problem. but even then, the fact that we all that sheer amount of free time at work is what really gets to me and is difficult to deal with. i suppose it doesnt help that i feel underutilised, and that im not really developing in any way professionally, nor is my potential being stretched at all..

oh well. ganbarimasu this next year, and in the mean time i’ll develop myself in other ways!

being an alternate on JET

i once blogged somewhere here that 2 of my friends here were alternates, and that they said they replaced someone from their consulate/embassy who was supposed to be coming to Osaka City.

turns out that they were wrong! one of the people they replaced is a south african; this time around, we lost someone, and the replacement isnt from the same country either.

so i suppose the more singaporeans they choose as alternates, the better we performed in the interviews??

talk back

thanks for all the tags and comments! i really appreciate all the encouragement and support :) i will certainly stop being silly and embrace these opportunities! especially since i'm already very lucky that i'm in japan, in osaka city, and have people i can turn to easily if ever i need someone to talk to. *nods* i'm also apparently very lucky that i managed to retain my old school even if it's for only 2 days a week, as the ex-liason for my apartment says that our schools COMPLETELY change when we become liason. i really ought to be grateful then! haha.

li min, glad to hear that you're alive. you never replied to my message on facebook, which is why you're getting a special mention here!! i'm not done with you yet girl - one day i am going to call you, and i dont care if you're still working in the office! haha. hope all's going well!

regarding the JET situation in Osaka, the board of education just announced yesterday that they're reducing the number of ALTs in the city on JET by 4. this means that there'll be only 3 new ALTs next year, as there are 7 of us leaving this year. it's kinda silly because i dont understand why they hired so many in my year (16 or 17 of us i think), as it looks like they're going to have a very skewed mix of ALTs. the majority of us will be 2nd years come august, and i'm sure sure that there'll be a fairly large exodus in 2010 when people in my batch leave. it doesnt seem good to have just 3 new ALTs this year, as there's the danger that none of them will stay for a 2nd year! then there will be very few 'seniors' in the board of education.. but well. they're hiring the maximum number of new ALTs that they can this year, so i guess they've done their best. the japanese prefectural and city governments are all in huge debt, and JETs are very expensive to hire, so... :(