Thinking Outside the Box

I'm back in Canada, as some or all of you may know but I'm not going to talk about that just yet. I'm gonna talk about Japan again. More specifically my trip to Tokyo last month. We arrived at the Shinjuku highway bus terminal EARLY on Friday morning. At 5:30 there are people out and about, but not a whole lot is open except convenience stores and the bus station. We asked around a bit and found the station we were to catch our bus to the amusement park from with a minimal amount of trouble. There was a bit of time to waste until then so we grabbed some food from a local conbini and sat to rest a bit. We arrived at Fuji Q Highland somewhere around 9:30 if I remember right. A little tired, but looking forward to the day. We hit several rides, the most exciting being FujiYama rollercoaster! The track was so long that there are three sets of cars on it at any given time. The haunted hospital was really great too. Three stories of creepily-decorated rooms and VERY in-charac...

We interrupt our irregularly unscheduled programming with this brief segue into um...strange vocabulary. So this week has been a little odd. I packed up most of my stuff and mailed it off yesterday. On the plus side, it cost quite a bit less than I was budgeting it to. On the negative side, I had to fill out tons of flipping forms just to send them! I can understand the postal service wanting to be sure they aren't going to lose your stuff, customs wanting to know what they're transporting and the government salivating to slap taxes on everything when it arrives, but this was bloody ridiculous. The night before I spent a goodly while carefully taping and labelling everything with clear TO and FROM addresses. So when I get to the post office the lady kindly informs me that I have to fill out another form for EACH BOX with exactly that information, plus the contents and value of each. Also, I had to fill out a second address in the event the package couldn't be delivere...

Well, I got to see the inside of a Japanese ambulance on Thursday. It's pretty much just like Canadian ones, except for the guys ask you all the questions in Japanese. Imagine that! Answering questions in another language is bloody difficult when you're in a lot of pain and I really don't recommend it. Sitting on the floor of my apartment watching TV before breakfast then suddenly going from a stiff back to wracked with pain and unable to move would be scary at home. Add in the fact that I don't know where the nearest hospital is and that it took me four calls to get a friend on the phone who could help me and I fully admit to being terrified. A trip to the hospital and a short stay later I found out that Japanese hospital charges are lower than ours and I should be fine. BUT! I wouldn't wish kidney stones on anyone I didn't have a serious hate-on for. Seriously not recommended. For those of you who don't already think I'm crazy, I didn't canc...

Now don't go thinking anything sordid you perverted readers! Over the weekend here Fukui held it's annual "Phoenix festival". The symbol of Fukui prefecture is a phoenix, because the city has been destroyed several times due to war, fire, and earthquakes. The festival is great fun. For three days they set up tons of kiosks with food, drink and some games. There is a huge yosakoi dance festival on Saturday night and it's just a great time. Oh yeah, it's not illegal here to walk on the street with a drink either, so you can imagine there were a lot of folks out who'd had a fair share to drink. Some of the students and teachers from school spent a few hours having dinner then headed down to check out the festival. It was tons of fun and there should be some good pictures coming. I was with friends who actually had digital ones, so hopefully I'll be able to post some soon. I didn't stay out at late as a lot of my friends because I had to be up ...

Well I bought my ticket home on Monday, paid for it Tuesday. Started telling friends and co-workers about the when/where on Wednesday. It's a little strange. I don't really feel like I'm going anywhere yet, even though I've been trying to pack and all that kinda stuff for quite a while now. I still have a fair bit to sort through and try to stuff into boxes that are going to cost a fortune to mail home. As much as I may complain about my apartment and the annoyances of my job I'm going to be really sad to leave. I like Japan a lot, and the people here (ok, most of them) are great. If I had a job in my chosen field and a house / living space bigger than a postage stamp I would consider making this home. However, that's not really an option right now, and I am certainly looking forward to coming home mid-September. Now if only I had a new job waiting...

Most excellent greetings my friends and anonymous readers. The weather has been all over the map lately, but we were blessed with absolutely fabulous weather on Sunday. Project Luck had planned a huge beach party for Sunday and we were worried the weather forecast (cloudy skies and rain) would come true. Maki's friend Kayo was to pick me up WAY early at 7am, at which point I was still sleeping. I was able to get dressed, pack my junk and run the 8 blocks to the pickup spot in just over ten minutes! Not bad for someone who'd only gotten around 3 hours of actual sleep I think. To top it off we ended up being somewhere around 25 minutes early to where we needed to be. Talk about irony! Anyway, the setup they had at Takasu beach was really great. There was a full square of open tents, and they even had a food and beer tent set up! We spent the whole day doing various activities. The first thing I tried was making some bead accessories. My bracelet was a mess, but one of the girls l...

I don't know what the title has to do with my entry, but it is a line from a song in the movie The Lost Boys , which has popped up in conversation several times this week. So, it seemed appropriate. Let's see, where to start. Ah ok how about on Friday? Sitting in my classroom with my two students around 3:30 in the afternoon. Hear a few sirens and whatnot, but figure no big deal right? Head downstairs to the lobby after class to see quite the commotion going on down the street. Apparently the ramen shop three buildings down had itself a wee meltdown. Back home that wouldn't be a big deal, but in Japan it can be a rather alarming thing, since there is basically no such thing as space in between the buildings. It'd take little more than a soft breeze to take the fire over to the next building and before you know it the whole block is gone. Fortunately only the one building was damaged. Saturday was supposed to be a lazy day at home. Sleep in, no plans, sit around and wa...

Hey they can't all be witty... Another party-packed weekend. I seem to be collecting those too recently. Three parties in two days if you want an accurate count. Saturday I woke up WAY earlier than planned (ie: 6:45 AM!). Not having anything planned until about 13 hours later you can imagine my frustration at not being able to go back to sleep after that. The day was rather rainy and dreary but I slogged through the drizzle to achieve my entire list of "to-do". There is something to be said about persistence I guess. Hey I even managed to clean up my apartment a bit. Not that that's really anything to brag about but I digress. I headed down to the pub for the Canada Day party I'd set up with a few other displaced Canucks. Naturally I was the first one there even though I was late. Seems stomach flu, girlfriend implosions and laziness disuaded my three countrymen and -women from attending. That left me to entertain the 12+ Japanese folks that showed up. So, we hun...

I feel fine now, but wow was my weekend tiring! I got up early to hit the closest mall so I could pick up a small birthday cake for my friend Mari. Early for me on a weekend being before 10am. I wasn't able to buy one the weekend before (which was her actual birthday) because I didn't have any money. Don't act shocked, it's a constant of my life over here. Anyway, she dropped by around 11:30 laden with groceries!! She'd said she going to make sushi but she also made niku-jyaga, which a kind of stew with beef, noodles, potatoes, carrots and onions. It's pretty tasty. Of course most of you have probably eaten sushi before, and some of you may even have made it, but I never have. It was a lot of fun and really isn't that hard to do. Once you have the rice cooked (don't forget to add sushi vinegar!) and everything you just lay it out on the nori (seaweed sheet) and roll things up. Like this: After you roll it up, gently of course, just plop it down on the ...

Ever sit around wondering just exactly what you accomplish in a day? Happens to me all the time. My job isn't exactly a difficult one to do, but I enjoy it for the most part. It does leave me with a fair amount of free time though, which can be a blessing or a curse depending on the day. Lately I've been trying to focus a little more on some of the various projects I've started, or want to start. I'm one of those people with too many hobbies, way too many ideas and not enough knowledge, motivation or assistance to get anywhere near all of it accomplished in my lifetime. That doesn't necessarily stop me from working on stuff, it just slows me down a lot . Anyway, what's my point here you say? Well, I've had this story idea for quite a long time. I have lots of story ideas...but they're just that unless you do something with them right? Well, yesterday I was struck by some inspiration. Two of my concepts that had been kind of wallowing in the ethe...

It sure feels like it this week. Mondays are pretty quiet at work, as I'm usually the only person on staff. That means I open and close the school, chat with any visitors or parents that come by (as best I can) and essentially am bored stupid when I'm not actually teaching a class. One of my co-workers stopped by today though, so at least I had someone to go for lunch with. :) On the weekend I had a few people over for dinner, which is always interesting in my tiny little apartment. I made pasta and salad, my friends provided desert and drinks. Everyone seemed to have a good time and enjoyed my cooking, so I guess you can say it was a successful evening. We drank our way through my last birthday present too: a bottle of (what I'm assured was very good quality) Japanese sake. It was pretty good chilled, but probably not for the faint of heart or easily hung-over. Some of you may choose to stick with beer. Sunday was pretty warm outside, if cloudy. I didn't really have an...

I'm about 16 or 17 hours ahead of my "home" time zone, which means that evening games of hockey are mid-morning in my schedule. Problem is, I usually have to leave for work before the friggin' games are over. It's rather annoying listening to a tied game (via internet radio) and having to leave with ten minutes left in the third period. When you get back home it's over and all you can do it check the final score. Admittedly listening on the radio isn't nearly as interesting as watching the games, but hey, you gotta take what you can get. I was happy to come back today to find that Edmonton's own cardiac kids were able to pull out an OT win and send things back for a game six. Way to go boys! Yes, I consider myself a Calgary fan first having lived there for almost a decade...but I grew up in a small town smack in between Calgary and Edmonton. People say you can't cheer for both, but to that I say...well, I can't type that because I'm tryin...

Japan's team lost their first game, but I've been out a few times since the World Cup started, just to see what the mood is like. With the number of foreign people living in my city there have been supporters for almost team playing, which has been pretty interesting. I'll admit that the Aussies at the bar last night had the Japanese people beat in terms of volume. Rowdy bunch that. I'm a hockey fan at heart, and try to catch what I can on internet radio (damn you Oilers...ya dropped another one), but World Cup soccer here comes close to the same feeling. It's fun to see people get worked up over sport like we do back home. Some things are just universal I guess.

My name is Aaron and I collect toys. Ok, my name isn't Aaron, but the second part is true. I've been trying to organize my possessions here and have been having a hell of a time making progress getting things into boxes. "Why's that," you ask? Well, Japan may have a lot of strange things (like vending machines that sell just about everything) but if nothing else, Japan easily has the coolest toys around. I've collected stuff for as long as I remember: comics, DVDs, books, toys, ex-girlfriends, whatever. The thing is, that when you collect things, you don't really give them much though when you buy them. You know, a few comics here, a Transformer there, a couple DVDs next payday... It hardly seems to register all that much. That is, until crunch time comes and you have to put it all into nice organized groups to pack and ship home! Joy. Having lived here for nearly two years, I have somehow managed to accumulate a surprising amount of stuff. The funny thing...

I felt like posting something but don't really have a firm direction to go here. Not only that, but I am a little short on time before I head back to work. That being the case I thought I'd just post up a couple of funny signs I found in my travels over the past week. First up: Ok maybe this is only funny to me, but one of my friends from another school pronounces it exactly like this . So when I was walking down the street and saw this I started laughing right then and there. Had to take a picture for posterity. And second: Ok read that out loud. Now check it again. Yes, it really does say "Tit Collection". Somehow though, I am rather doubtful as to that being the intention of the sign's creators. My guess is that it's an unfortunate scripting choice. Since the shop was closed at the time I can't be certain. I've been meaning to go by again to see just what they sell in there. Maybe it's not a typo... That's all for now kids. Tune in ...

I picked up my pictures this morning, some of them are pretty good. I added some silly captions because it seemed like the right thing to do. So here's a link, I hope it works. B-day party pics

I'd been planning to post this one two days ago, but things/people just keep dropping in. So I finally got some time and thought I'd write up something of interest. Once again I'm light on the pictures, but at least this time they're on the way. I made sure to buy a disposable camera, they're being developed as I type. Won't have time to pick them up until Thursday though. Friday night proved more interesting than planned. I ended up being invited out for drinks by some folks on their way home from a PTA meeting if you can believe it! One of the guys was hilarious, and is apparently a maker of some fairly famous soy sauce around the region. I should go check out his shop one day. I don't know how they make that stuff, do you!? Ok, so Saturday was my 29th birthday. Getting far too close to that number starting with thi- but what can you do right? My lovely sister was the first to call me with birthday wishes from back home. I got some emails too, thanks folks...

Saturday morning dawned wet a rainy, holding on par with my weekend-ruining weather conspiracy. I was supposed to meet an Australian friend at 10 for coffee then we were going to head to a festival in Mikuni. He and his girlfriend picked me up a little late, but we made it to the festival on time. Truth be told I'm not exactly sure what the purpose of this festival is, but the little town was packed with people. Greg and I had been asked to help pull one of the many carts through the town. The carts were big enough to hold around 6~8 people inside who were playing drums, shamisen and flutes doing some kind of song/chant. On top were two more people to make sure we didn't run into any people or buildings as well as push the multitude of low-hanging phone and power lines out of the way. Granted this may sound rather boring, but it gets interesting when you take into account the fact that each cart had a 5+ meter tall samurai um...puppet thing on top and that the streets in...

I likely won't be posting much during the week because there isn't much to tell. Monday thru Friday I work 12-9. Wednesdays and Fridays I commute to work on the local train, which adds approximately 3.5 hours to my day. BUT! On Thursdays my schedule is a schmoov 2 classes, one kids class at 5pm and my brightest highschool student at 7pm. One nice thing about my job is that when I'm not teaching, preparing lessons or doing paperwork I'm not supposed to be in the school. So on Thursday I roll in to school, punch in, chat with the manager to see what needs to be done (if anything), prep my classes if I need to and then LEAVE. That's right, I only work for about two hours on Thursdays. I usually just hang out at home or do my errands like going to the post office and buying groceries, washing the dishes and doing the laundry. Not the most fun I admit, but it sure beats working. Today I already did all my errands and thought I'd post a picture of my uber-tiny living...

Saturday dawned rainy wet and had no signs of letting up. I know it's simply my pessimistic nature peaking through but sometimes it seems that the tenki-no-kami-sama (weather gods) conspire to ruin at least one half if not all of my weekend by raining or snowing. Since I had things to do though I grabbed my latest umbrella and headed out to perform my errands. I returned a few hours later several thousand yen poorer, and more damp than I'd bargained. On the plus side I was actually able to get all the errands I had planned completed. Boo-ya. Being the glutton for punishment I am I decided around 8pm that I had had enough sitting on the floor of my apartment staring out the window, so I grabbed a dry pair of jeans and headed to the only bar likely to have regular people in it: Bear's Bar . All told Bear's isn't a bad place to grab a drink. Cocktails and anything in a bottle is a cool 500 yen and the staff are friendly. The two downsides to it are that a) it's app...

It's been suggested, several times I might add, that I should have started one of these things when I first came over to Japan. That would have required me actually putting an effort into typing things up as they came. As well, I'll admit I'm still not too sure how comfortable about writing up all my personal thoughts and experiences on a website for the world to see. Granted, there aren't likely to be millions of people reading this thing, but you know what I mean. For a first post we might as well start with a little background then. I'm a Canadian guy (pushing 30 but not quite there just yet) living in Japan since December of 2004. I teach English at one of the big Eikaiwa joints. Basically I think of myself as a kind of fast food employee serving English happy-meals to the Japanese population. I'm good at what I do, but I don't consider it a career by any stretch. My students are improving and enjoy my classes. Hell if you really want me to sing my pra...