Japan Blog Part One

So being as it's one month since I arrived in Japan, I thought it was about time to write the first part of my blog.

So going back to Thursday 21st March 2013, I left Manchester airport on my trip to Tokyo via Dubai. Before I even left Manchester, I had some time in the Escape Lounge at Manchester Airport. I managed to get a few beers and rum and cokes inside me there, so I was nicely merry before I got on the plane. It was only 11am but my dislike of flying is well documented, so I thought it was the right thing to do to alleviate the stress of flying and saying goodbye to Manchester again! ;-)

I did embarrass myself at one point in the lounge when I accidentally spilled my bottle of Carlsberg into the bowl of salsa dip at the buffet bar! Needless to say that had to be replaced by a staff member, or else someone would have got a shock when eating their nachos!!!

The flight was with Emirates on the Airbus A380. The first fight left Manchester at 1:30pm. I am pretty sure I saw Man United player, Nani, on the first flight, desperately trying to get into the first class area but that coulda been the beers I had talking. He sure looked like him though, and he had all the bling but the cabin crew were telling him that it was completely full, and he was getting nowhere with his pleading!

The flight wasn't too bad to Dubai, 6.5 hours was a reasonable flight time, and the food and entertainment are pretty good on Emirates to be fair! I got speaking to a regular flier with Emirates who was telling me what it was like to fly in the first class. It sounded amazing but he said it can cost about 10,000 quid to fly return from Manchester - Perth via Dubai, so I think that sort of luxury will always remain a dream…

The first flight was good, and then I had a few hours to kill at Dubai airport at midnight local time, which is actually the busiest time at Dubai airport so the place was heaving. I found a bar, and had about 5 bottles of Heineken and connected to the wifi on my laptop. I then got the bill for the drinks, and realised I didn't know what the conversion rate was to UAE money, but I soon found out that the beers were about six quid each…ouch!

The second flight was 9.5 hours from Dubai to Tokyo and that felt very long….I managed to snatch a bit of sleep but it is weird feeling as it left at 2am Dubai time so really it's a night flight, but it's actually very quickly moves to the morning and afternoon, and just before we landed, we were served breakfast, but the time at the destination was nearly 6pm which was a strange feeling.

I then had to clear customs at Tokyo Narita which was long and arduous. I then had to get my guitar and my massive suitcase and with 3 other hand luggage bags, I was seriously leaden with stuff. I then proceeded to get my travelers cheques cashed, and then finally I had to get on the airport limousine coach to my hotel in the Chiyoda district of Tokyo. My hotel (Tokyu Stay Suidobashi) wasn't an official stop on the airport bus route but it was pretty close to the Tokyo Dome hotel on a map.

The airport coach then took 2 hours from Narita airport to get to the Tokyo Dome Hotel (a word of warning, Tokyo's main international airport is nowhere near downtown Tokyo!) By this point I was seriously tired, and then with all my bags I tried to walk to my hotel but it was difficult as I had no phone, no internet at my fingertips, and nothing to go on other than a paper print out map of a place I had never visited before. After walking in one direction for about 10 minutes I started to get really pissed off that I was lost, and so I caved in and got a taxi. The taxi driver looked at me like I was crazy where I said where I wanted to go but he took me any way and charged me 1000 Yen (7 quid) to go about 200 yards…turns out I had been walking in the correct direction any way.

Never mind, I was just happy to finally get to my hotel. The shower was amazing, and the sleep at the hotel was one of the best I ever had as I slept for 16 hours solid from midnight on the Friday until 4pm the next day!

The next day I didn't do much that Saturday, other than take a quick metro journey to the area around the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. It was night time so I just walked around the outside of the palace and then had a walk around an area called Ginza. This is where I spotted the Rose and Anchor British pub…I've since noticed that British style pubs are very common in the larger Japanese cities.

On the Sunday I had another big sleep and got up a little earlier at about midday. I then met up with a girl called Krystal who was also going to be an English teacher with the Hamamatsu branch of Interac. We went to a sushi place near to her hotel, and the food was delicious. It was only 1000 Yen for a load of very nice sushi and we got talking to a Japanese couple next to us, who had lived in California previously. It would appear if you are Japanese, and can speak reasonable English, then you probably lived in California before at some point.

On the Monday it was time to travel down to the hotel where training would begin in Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture. I used a Takyubin (luggage forwarding service) to arrange for my bulky luggage to be sent on ahead

I went to the very majestic Tokyo station and I got the Shinkansen (bullet train) down to Hamamatsu. The train cost about 60 pounds one way to do a journey that takes just 90 minutes, but it is a great experience. Just watching this space age train, with all 15 carriages of the train pull into the station, and then watching the army of old women clean the train and make it pristine before anyone else is allowed to enter is wonderful sight. They go about their business with a military efficiency, turning around all the seats so that they always face the in the direction that the train is travelling. They change all of the seat head rest covers, and clean all of the rubbish, and make it look spotless in about 5 minutes. The seats are so comfortable, with loads of legroom, and you can even recline the seat. It is so quiet on there too, and is full of business men, immaculately attired, eating Bento boxes and falling asleep.

However, I did what any self-respecting English man would do, and bought a couple of cans of lager, listened to some Stone Roses on the iPod, and savoured the view out of the train window. The suburbs of Tokyo seem to go on forever and ever; the scale of the place is truly astonishing. I was hoping I would be able to get a good view of Mount Fiji out of the window but unfortunately it was not a clear day.

I then arrived at Hamamatsu to start my training. I got to the Century Inn Hotel and was given a room key. I was expecting to have to share a room with someone else but thankfully I had a room to myself with a LAN cable access too, so I was able to connect to the internet on my laptop, as well for the duration of the training, which was good for Skyping home.

On the Tuesday morning, I got all suited and booted, ready to start the training. While waiting in the hotel lobby with all the other new teachers, I got chatting to a lad from London, England who had been out teaching in Korea with the EPIK program just as I had. His name was Jason and he had just flown from Korea to Japan the day before. He had spent 2 years with EPIK in Gangwon. We even had some friends in common on Facebook. We've since worked out that we even have the same birthday though I don't think we're twins separated at birth, as he's 5 years younger and well if you look at the photo of us on this blog or Facebook you will see that we look rather different! ;-)

I'm not going to give a blow by blow account of the training as that would be rather boring to say the least, but needless to say at 4 days it was a lot shorter than the EPIK training in Korea had been (8 days).

I reckon the Interac training might have been better though. It was more intense and the days were long, but it concentrated more on the teaching and what to expect from life at school rather than more general stuff like dealing with culture shock, learning Japanese etc.

It's pretty apparent that a lot of schools in Japan are nowhere near as technologically savvy as schools in Korea were. A lot more of the teaching revolves around old fashioned writing things on chalkboards and utilising flashcards. It's also much less of a co-teacher teaching environment compared to Korea, and more of a teaching solo type thing, with the Japanese teacher just in the classroom for discipline issues and maybe a little bit of translating.

Once the training finished on the Friday 29th March, it was time to go out and celebrate, as we weren't actually going to our cities and new apartments until Sunday 31st March.

On that Friday a big group of us went out drinking and ended up in a karaoke bar opposite our hotel. On this special evening, I was first introduced to the infamous Japanese drink, Strong Zero, available from all good convenience stores. This drink really is dangerous. Three cans and you can end up not knowing where you are. The feeling from drinking is akin to the effects of drinking Buckfast Tonic Wine. It's basically a kinda alcohol beverage in a can, but it's not as sickly sweet as alcopops are back in England, as Strong Zero has much less sugar and it comes in 500ml cans in 7%, 8%, or 9% varieties. Any way the karaoke was raucous as it involved all you can drink for a set price, on top of the above Strong Zero. I can vaguely recall doing a memorable rendition of Madonna's seminal 1980s track, Living on a Prayer!!

My memory after this is somewhat hazy and I can remember getting lost going back to the hotel. Now bearing in mind the karaoke bar is all of 20 yards from our hotel, this should show how smashed I was. I definitely went to the convenience store and bought some kebabs and dodgy flavoured Kit Kats on the way home.

The next day on the Saturday we had to meet at 10am to go to the medical centre and have a chest x-ray to test for TB or something. I overslept and awoke at about 10:05am and so I had to try and leg it to the meet up place which I managed to do somehow, all disheveled, stinking of kebabs and Strong Zero no doubt, with the world's worse hangover!!! After apologies for being late, we went to have the chest x-ray, and then I went back to the hotel to die in my hotel room watching episodes of guilty pleasure, British comedy series, Not Going Out…yes I like it!!!

On the Saturday evening I faced about 2 beers and that was it for me, and on the Sunday morning it was time to meet our local Helper, Tomoko, who works for Interac. She took us in her car to our home city of Kosai, where we would see our apartments for the first time. There was myself, and 2 other guys from training who were going to be living and working in Kosai. The 2 guys from America were called Dylan and David, who were both good lads. There was also about 5 tons of luggage that need to be taken in Tomoko's car as well. I'm surprised the car moved!

So after a 30 minute drive west from Hamamatsu to Kosai we approached Lake Hamana, and I knew my apartment was not far from the western side of the lake somewhere; what I didn't know was my apartment was about 10 yards from the lake in an area called Nakanogo.

Basically, Nakanogo is the name of my neighborhood (famous for powerboat racing and fishing on the lake really), Arai is the name for the more wider area that is the town that Nakanogo is in, Kosai is the city that Arai is in, and Shizuoka is the prefecture (like an English county) nthat Kosai is in, and then Shizuoka is in the area called Tokai, which is a sub region of the larger central region called Chubu, which is part of the mainland island of Honshu, which is of course a part of the nation, Japan…..I hope you have got all that. ;-)

So my first impressions of my apartment….

Positives

1. A lot bigger than my Korean apartment. 2 floors, 2 rooms' upstairs, large kitchen and living area, large shower. Gas range with 3 rings, and even a small gas grill!

2. Great view from my bedroom window of Lake Hamana

3. 15 minute walk from Arai train station from where you can easily get a local train in 15 minutes either direction to the larger cities of Hamamatsu in the east (and then on to Tokyo) or in a western direction to Toyohashi (and then on to Nagoya, Osaka , Kyoto etc).

4. Walk in wardrobe with loads of space.

5. Vending machine outside, what more could I want for late night snacks!!! ;-)

Negatives

1. No internet included as most Leo Palace apartments usually have this included which is a bit of s***ter that mine does not!

2. No lights upstairs as in no light fittings so not just a case of buying a bulb, but having to go out and buy a whole light which costs 8,000 Yen (60 quid) for one.

3. No table and chairs included, unlike most Leo Palace apartments.

4. Very expensive initial apartment set up fee (2 months' rent plus deposit and other fees) of nearly 200,000 Yen. A lot of people have an initial set up fee of about 140-150,000 Yen, so 50,000 Yen more is quite a big difference.

Overall

I am happy with my apartment. It has cost me a fortune to get things for it and it's annoying to think I had a lot of stuff in Korea that I shipped home to England that I really could use now, but it's one of those things where the cost of shipping it to Japan is not really worth it. Bedding is very expensive in Japan just like it was in Korea, and just like it was in Korea, it's all terrible feminine patterns and colours and rubbish material even though it costs a fortune! There are still a few things I need to buy for my place, but I have to wait until I get my first pay cheque, which is the 31st May…I'm gonna be living off cup noodles for the next 5 weeks I think!

On the positive side, the internet is getting installed on Saturday 27th April and once I have got those final few things sorted, the actual monthly rent is very reasonable at 45,000 Yen. I know a lot of other people who are paying a lot more in monthly rent for apartments that are less than half the size of mine, so it's just all about getting through these next few weeks, and getting past the pain of the initial costs!

So back to moving in on the 31st March…. I also took delivery off my new car from the lease company on this day, a black Suzuki Wagon R. It is actually a nice little car and very easy to drive. It has more space than you think once inside. Certainly can comfortably fit my entire 6 foot 2 inch frame, and would be decent for doing some road trips in. The petrol costs are very cheap in Japan (compared to England any way) and the fuel economy is good as I have been driving it for 3 weeks and I've only had to fill it up once and it cost me about 35 pounds sterling to completely fill the car from empty. I've done a fair bit of driving and I've done over 400km in it so far since I put fuel in, without having to put new fuel in!

I've not had too many driving mishaps so far. Most of the road signage is relatively easy to understand, and most people drive relatively safely and slowly to be honest. The speed limits are very slow compared to the equivalent speed limits in England, though I've noticed that most people drive at least 10km faster than the speed limit.

Any way the rest of that first week involved lots of trips with Tomoko as she kindly took myself, Dylan, and David to City Hall to register formally as residents, and also to open a bank account and get a new mobile phone. I really wanted to get the Samsung Galaxy S3 again in Japan, as I had in England! Unfortunately getting a phone on contract is expensive in Japan. The Galaxy would have cost about 25 quid a month just for the phone over 24 months, and the call plan would have been extra on top and so it could have ended up at nearly 90 quid a month in the end for the S3.

In the end the only option left was the iphone5 as this was on special offer at AU, and so the phone was free, and the call plan was only about 50 quid a month with no upfront costs. It also comes with "unlimited" data. Though I've since learnt this unlimited data doesn't' stretch to downloading 7GB of data in a week while tethering your phone to your laptop downloading HD versions of the last few episodes of The Walking Dead Season 3 (which were s*** btw!).

My data is now restricted to very slow browsing until the end of the month as a result, but least they don't charge you for using so much and once I have the net set up in my apartment this weekend (fingers crossed), I won't be needing to use my iphone to tether to my laptop anymore! As for the phone, its okay but I really miss the Galaxy. I miss the bigger screen of the Galaxy, I miss having the spare battery, I miss being able to change the operating system and using the Swift Key keyboard. The Apple keyboard is the worse keyboard I've ever used. It is not intuitive enough but any way it is what it is, and least Japanese phone networks are reliable and work pretty much everywhere.

We also went shopping for stuff for our new apartments that first week in April, and also we were taken to our new schools to meet the teachers for the first time, but not the students. I have been given 6 schools to teach at though I am only teaching at 5 of those until September. I had to try and drive to all the schools in a dry run on the Friday 5th April just so as I wouldn't mess up on that first week and get lost on my way to school, as punctuality is very important in Japanese culture. I managed to find them all thanks to Google Maps on my phone. I also managed to leave the inside light on in my car for 3 days and completely kill the battery, but that is just the kinda thing I do. As a result, Interac had to arrange taxis for me to and from school those first few days while I waited for the lease car company to come and recharge the battery, so that was another big expense, but I can claim the costs back thankfully as travel expenses!

My first day at school wasn't until Tuesday 9th April so I did a bit of exploring that first week in Kosai both in my car and when out running as well.

The area is not really a big city. It's more a combination of several smaller towns that make up a city (a bit like Stoke-on-Trent though a little prettier, just a little mind!) :-p There is a large population of Brazilians and Peruvians, Indians, Chinese, Thai, etc as there are a lot of car factories in the area, Suzuki seems to be the main car maker in the area, and the creator of Toyota was born in Kosai. There are certainly a lot more Brazilians than there are native English speakers as a lot of stuff is written in Japanese and Portuguese rather than Japanese and English. It also means you don't stand out at all though, even though there is not really anything of a tourist interest in the Kosai area.

No one really stares at you when you're out walking the streets as they're so used to seeing Brazilians around the area, so most people probably assume I am Brazilian when I'm out. I remember always been stared at by older Koreans when I lived in Incheon, but in Japan people don't do that so much. A lot of the Brazilian population has been here for a long time, even going back as far as 50, 60 years. There are always at least 3 or 4 students in my classes who are of Brazilian extraction, but who have only ever lived in Japan. I find this kinda stuff very interesting anyway, as I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't necessarily expect to find a large Brazilian population in this small little corner of Japan!

Running around my local area is certainly very nice. Having the lake and the ocean and the hills and mountains so close by, and there are loads of canals and inlets around the area. It's not the big city so it's much easier to run and cross the roads than it was in Incheon. One thing I have noticed though is that it is so windy by the lake. It is so strong and often gets very stormy and heavy rain and crazy and then 2 hours later it is sunny and dry as a desert. It is more like the English style "four seasons in one day" type weather at times!

So that first week was very chilled just settling into the new area, and finding out what's what in the local area, and then it was time to start school. I started school on the 9th April, and got to visit 5 schools that first week and teach my introduction lesson that first week. The first week went well at school and there were some difficult moments but overall it went smoothly. The introduction lesson seemed to go okay and the students were all impeccably well behaved.

I am teaching at 4 elementary schools and 1 Junior High School. The Junior High students were the most challenging as because they were teenagers (12-15 years old) they weren't all that enthusiastic about things. They were quite quiet and shy and didn't really want to ask many questions, but I managed to get there slowly. The elementary school students were all great, very enthusiastic. Their English level is definitely lower than the equivalent level of a same age Korean student, but Elementary students in Japan are not taught English formally until Grade 5 and they are not tested on English at all at Elementary level in Japan. They do not learn to read and write English at Elementary school, only to speak and listen and really it is usually 1 hour a week of English class at most.

This contrasts greatly to Korea where students are formally tested at a very young age, and go to academy classes, and are in a heavily pressurized world of learning and tests from a very young age.

Most of the schools are pretty nice as they all seem to be high up on hillsides overlooking the lake or in one case, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I imagine maybe they're not at sea level because they are probably used as shelters and meeting points should a tsunami or earthquake ever hit, but they are sometimes that little bit harder to find at first as often they are tucked away down winding roads, on a hillside, behind a lot of trees.

As for other things I've done these first few weeks, I've been out drinking in Hamamatsu again on my own one Saturday, and I got chatting to a Japanese guy called Daisuke in an English pub (The Nelson) who had been a university student at Cardiff, so his English was very good. He was a sound guy and I'm sure I'll meet up with him again soon, the next time I go out to Hamamatsu.

I also went to Nagoya on the local train from my area, Arai. It took about 1 hour 30 minutes to get there last Friday (19th April) and cost 1600 Yen which is only about 11 quid one way so not too bad. Managed to get a nice hotel room with two double beds in the main going out area called Sakae, for under 30 quid a night too which was reasonable for a large city. I had to change at Toyohashi but you are never waiting long for a train in Japan it would seem.

I met Jason there (the lad from England with the same birthday) and we went out drinking around Nagoya. The women were all incredibly beautiful, wearing incredibly sexy outfits. Fellas think lots of stockings and frilly short skirts and you get the picture! ;-) It was a good night though the Strong Zero put pay to a lot of memories of the evening again. Strong Zero really is the work of the devil!! The next day I felt rough and so that put pay to any sightseeing as well, so I shall definitely go back to Nagoya again soon, though probably early on a Saturday and then I can do a full day's worth of sightseeing in the day before drinking rather than pretending I am going to be able to do anything worthwhile the day after drinking!

And then yesterday (Sunday 21st April), one month to the day since I left Manchester, I went to a Buddhist type thing called a Kigan, as Tomoko, our Interac helper invited us. It's a kinda quasi-Buddhist ceremony that Japanese people go to when they have a major change in their life like a new child, a new job, new home etc.

I, Dylan and David went with Tomoko, and I went and took part in this ceremony/ritual where I learnt about something spiritual about ying and yang and enlightenment and so on. I had to pray with this weird kinda bow at an altar, and I am sure this priestess performed some type of incantation upon me. I have a very bad short term memory though, and though we had a Japanese professor there who had studied in Birmingham, to help explain it in English to us on a chalkboard, I wasn't allowed to photograph anything about it, and I wasn't allowed to ask someone afterwards even about it.

Basically I was supposed to drink it all in there and then I think, and remember it all in my mind at the time, but I don't know if I am built for such spiritual awakenings, as I need to see something several times before it sinks in and not just once for 10 minutes ;-) never mind! It was interesting any way, and something completely different to getting smashed on Strong Zero and eating giant rice bowls in front of a crowd of Japanese people in Nagoya just 2 days earlier!

Any way I have been writing for the past 4 hours now on my day off and I have got back ache as I have no tables and chairs to sit at!!!

So to summarise my first month in Japan, and really to compare to Korea…

Well it has been different; I think it's fair to say it is quite a lot different to Korea! Sure the fundamentals might be the same with the bowing, eating with chopsticks, taking your shoes off as you enter certain restaurants and so on, but there are a lot of differences to make it definitely not a Korea Part 2.

I haven't seen nearly as much in my first month here tourist wise, I've not been out drinking as much either. However I have really enjoyed it for different reasons. The people are very friendly and approachable. Japanese people don't tend to be quite as shy as Koreans, and strangers generally seem to be a little bit friendlier towards outsiders in shops for example, though this could be because of the amount of different people from different countries that have settled in this particular area.

Though, there are less people who speak in English in Japan that is for sure. There are less English menus in restaurants, and less English orientated stuff in Kosai but even when speaking Japanese, the culture is full of people saying excuse me, please and thank you to you, and going out of their way to help you even when a lot of your communicating is done with nothing more than body language and gestures, and me remembering the limited amount of Japanese that I know! I'm sure the situation would be different in other cities and other areas of Japan, as the country is so huge but from what I've seen of my local area, this is the case so far.

Where I am is much quieter than Incheon. There is much less noise and there is not the constant blaring of Party Rock Anthem from every shop! It is more peaceful and relaxed, though there is less life in terms of late night bars and restaurants. The good thing is there are bigger cities with life very close by (15 minutes) on a train, and the even bigger cities like Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, and Tokyo are not a million miles away. Only two hours to the centre of Tokyo if you're willing to do the bullet train. Maybe 2-3 hours from Osaka on the bullet train as well.

I'm also enjoying the freedom of having my own car and being able to go where I want, when I want. I think this will come in useful when people come and stay, and during the longer holidays in summer and winter when I want to explore the country!

The teaching is harder, more challenging. It's not as easy to prepare for a lesson, but I am certainly learning a lot and maybe it is helping me to become a better teacher as I am less reliant on just finding a pre-made PowerPoint from the internet that does my teaching for me! The Korean students were at a higher level, and were perhaps a bit more easier to engage with, but Japanese students are cool as well, just with much less English ability!

Korea and Japan are both very different. They both have lots of positives and they both have very few negatives. I loved my time in Korea, and I really do think I will go on to love my time in Japan as well.

So until next time…

Jonny

P.S. As for the general cost of living in Japan for those that want to come and visit…If you came tomorrow , with the current exchange rates, you probably wouldn't find it all that expensive! That doesn't mean you would find it cheap by the way. It's not as cheap as Thailand or Hong Kong or Korea by any stretch.

But if you were to compare it to London or Manchester, then right now, it definitely isn't more expensive either. Some things are a lot more expensive than England like fruit, bedding, Guinness, cereal, pizza… Some things are a lot cheaper like petrol, city centre hotels (if you book in advance on places like Agoda), soft drinks, rice etc.

A lot of things are just the same cost like beer and McDonalds and eating out in general.

This all depends on the rate staying the same though, and if the Yen gets as strong as it was 12 months ago again, then you're gonna notice it in your wallet!