JAPANEXILE

Saturday 15th September (evening)

Hot on the tails of our gluttonous beachside BBQ Craig and I were off to join in with what must have the been the start of the Toya Autumn Festival (actual title unknown)! Typically it was pouring down with rain but fortunately no-one else seemed to care so up to the Shrine we went with Hiromi-san armed with 1000Yen and a dictionary. The latter of which proved to just be incredibly annoying to carry, and ultimately resulted with me losing the water fight…

But first the actual festival part. Upon arrival I walked up to the main Shrine building, where I was told to ring the bell, do some clapping, take a bow, and have some ceremonial Sake. I should probably elaborate more since that was definitely the more traditional part of the evening - but in all honesty it wasn’t too exciting. Once that was over with it was straight onto the Yakitori and beer in true festival style. I honestly don’t know how I managed to eat more meat that day but its tough to turn down meat on a stick, especially when someone buys it for you. From then on neither myself nor Craig knew what we supposed to be doing, the locals all seemed to be engaged in a large game of Bingo in the rain so we bought waterpistols instead. And so the childish behaviour commenced - we were joined in our fight by Montbelle-san, one of the kids from the nursery. I unfortunately was the eventual loser, my error being buying the largest water pistol there, which unfortunately required two hands to use effectively. So with one hand busy using my umbrella to defend myself from Craig I was a sitting duck. Montbelle faired better, having the advantage of a full length raincoat and his signature Montbelle hat to protect him. At the end of the evening all the children, and many of the adults (probably under the guise of ‘helping’ their children) crouch down and have sweets and ricecakes rained down from the stage onto them. We of course joined in, waddling our way rather obviously up front. When the food shower started it was carnage, with little (and large) hands grabbing everywhere, I decided to use my height advantage and stand up to intercept the food before it hit the deck. We had quite an impressive haul by the end! Though we decided to be kind and donate much of it to the jealous looking children. The festival dissolved after all that excitement and we headed back to sleep, since we were to be up early the next day for the main part of the festival. Which unsurprisingly is coming up on my next post!

September 15th/16th - Toya 2 Day March

I was at first confused as to why it was called the 2 Day March since it penciled into our schedule only for a Saturday morning. Truth behind the matter was soon revealed however. There are a variety of different routes you can choose to do over the 2 days, ranging from the 40km walk all around the lake down to a mere 5km (the route of which I forget). We had opted for the 13km walk from Toya-Onsen to Toya-mura and by opted I mean we had been entered in without any prior consultation. We were picked up bright and early at 8am Saturday morning by a man we had never met before, whom we still don’t know the name of.

Arrived in Onsen and reported to the start area where we were given our Toya Lake Staff hats by the mayor himself. Most the ‘racers’ were 40-80yr old couple,(Plus, as we were informed through the loudspeaker, a 91yr old man who had the honour of being the oldest here) or teams of School Children. Before the start of the race there we listened to the stirring words of the mayor, just to get us in the walking mood which was followed by a lesson on how not to poke other people with walking sticks, and finally a group stretching session. The latter of which I was laughing the whole way through, was trying to imagine a scene like this in England, it just wouldn’t happen.

We set off at a steady pace, moving through the pack as we did, trying to get into open ground so we could really show them the advantage of having longer legs. The time came and myself and our un-named friend started to run. I really wished I wasn’t wearing large walking boots and trousers at this point. 20 extremely warm and sweaty minutes later we had lost Craig and Michiko (our other team member) so we stopped on the roadside to have a refreshing tomato and some boiled corn. Interesting choice of race side refreshment for sure - all I really wanted was a glass of water. But apparently everyone brings their own so there is no need, but I didn’t have my own damn it! Craig eventually caught up, by now looking great in his wifebeater and walking boots. Michiko seemed to have picked up a friend on the way, Aya-chan, who claimed she was 12, despite looking at a push 10. Aya was a good fun tho, and provided much entertainment along the way. We ran for a bit more before we started to take a more leisurely pace, collecting conkers along the way and just generally messing around. Aya, like every Japanese child it seems was a big fan of piggy back rides, which she requested whenever she got tired. Then feeling refreshed she’d jump off and run into the distance expecting us to catch up immediately. And then when we did denied us any water! Craig was quite persistent asking tho, their back and forth of “Mizu?” “Yada!” went on for quite some time. As we moved up through the other walkers we were followed by a hail of “herro” from every schoolchild. Made me chuckle everytime

The race finished at the Mizu no Eki right on the beach, where everyone had settled in to have a BBQ in the morning mist, was an amazingly still day, so peaceful. Entertainment whilst we were eating was provided, with some curious Japanese Opera played over the speakers, followed by the incredibly cool Yosoko dance team (More on that another time) Our un-named friend had got us all set up on the beach with a mountain of meat behind him. I have to say, BBQs in Japan are so much more fun than in England. There’s no really thick pieces of meat that require any skill to get right, its all small, incredibly tasty bits of beef, pork, and anything else really. You all just get stuck in, sitting around the fire, cooking your own stuff and eating straight off the grill with our chopsticks. Its brilliant. We were the last group of people on the beach, think we were eating (and then drinking) for a good 3hours! We’d been invited to go watch Judo practice at the High School but by this point I was getting a bit tipsy so thought it was best if I didn’t meet my work colleagues for the first time that day. Instead we said our goodbyes, had a quick play on the swing, then headed off home, ready for a well deserved nap!

Please check out the photography section for all my photos of the day! Click here for a link to the photo album for the day.

Craig and I had a few days off until our next event which we took the time to sleep and explore the area. It was a gorgeous day so we set off on our incredibly cool bikes, complete with bell and basket for our groceries, all of which was generously provided by the Board of Education, and headed off around the lake. Our motivation for going around the lake was not solely to explore, earlier that day Taki-san (man who had come to explain how the kitchen appliances work) had proclaimed that he had been around the lake 3 times that day, and it only took and hour each time. Why I believed him I do not know, perhaps I thought the Japanese were incapable of playing such a trick on us but 2 hours into the ride and not even halfway I realised he had been pulling out leg…

I really wished I had eaten before coming out, again, just looking at lake I should have realised there was no way to get around it in an hour. Also wished I had brought a drink, and some money. Lesson learned for next time tho. The ride took us 4hours in the end. Probably could have been done considerably quicker, but it was a leisurely ride, with lots of stops at Shrines and beaches along the way. The lake is so beautiful as well as the surrounding countryside, which provides ideal Photo opportunitys (Please see my Photography page for all these) I had a lot of fun trying to get some good shots. The camera wasn’t coping too well tho with the ride, clearly vibration is not its friend.

We were exhausted when we got back, but before I went for my soon to become daily nap I checked the map to see how far we had gone, and to find out names of all the places we had seen. 40km. Again the obviousness of Taki’s joke hit me. A 60yr old man doing 40km/h on his bike? Revenge will be mine! Click here for a link to the photo album for the day.

We were up early on Tuesday for our journey up to Sapporo. Didn’t want to miss the flight that was for sure. Finished our breakfast and headed out. We were flying from the internal Tokyo airport this time which was quite far away. We had instructions on how to get there but even so managed to get lost. Through no fault of our own really. These train stations are massive and there were no signs telling us that the line we wanted had a separate terminal. But anyway after asking several times where we had to go we made it to the airport unscathed if rather rather sweaty. Thankfully I had my sweat towel with me! Check in at Hannada airport is so much smoother than any other airport I’ve ever encountered. Its so streamlined. immediately upon entrance there and rows of computers where you scan your receipt to get your actual tickets. Then make your way up to the main part of the terminal where the check in desks are. No queue, no hassle. Done in 5minutes. Why can’t we do that at home? There’s no shame in copying something that works well! Waiting at our gate was a school trip heading to Hokkaido who were pretty interested in us (Unsurprising as we were the only Europeans in sight) They were very impressed with us being teachers at our young age! Had some photos, generally enjoyed chatting, or trying to anyway. Unfortunately we were sandwiched between two Japaneses business men on the flight up rather than the gaggle of school girls. The TV on board the plane shows a feed from cameras outside the plane. Was pretty cool watching the takeoff. Somehow after arriving in Sapporo we managed to wander out without collecting our bags which caused a bit of hassle with security. Hiromi-san, Yuko-san and Naomi-san were waiting eagerly for us. We did our introductions, awkwardly, what can you say in these situations? Yuko spoke a little English, Hiromi and Naomi…not so much. Took us for some fantastic ramen, a Hokkaido speciality, before driving down to Toya. We got chatting on the way down, tho I was a bit distracted by the scenery, as we got closer to Toya it was stunning. Two hours later we arrived at the Board of Education in Abuta. Would have been 90mins later but Hiromi managed to get on the wrong Highway at first!

At the board of Education we were introduced to, well, everyone I think. Was all a bit confusing, lots of bowing, lots of Business cards given, (I have quite a collection now, tho I don’t really remember who everyone is) didn’t really knowing what was going on. After meeting the B of E staff we were introduced to the Mayor. All the Board staff came with us to his office. The Mayor didn’t seem to grasp that I couldn’t understand a word he was saying which led to a lot of awkward silences after I had pointed on the map where I lived. The G8 summit is being held in Toya next year so we talked about that for a bit. Apparently Toya made quite a big thing about them accepting us as volunteers each year so we may be introduced to the Japanese Prime Minister and perhaps Gordon Brown when they arrive!

After all the introductions were done we were taken to Toya itself. First stop was the Sogo centre, which seems to be the central admin place for the town. They showed us our desks, gave us our timetables, had a little meeting about the rules. (More on that later) Before FINALLY being taken to our house. We had an hour to unpack our stuff before Yuko and the others came back to take us out to Dinner at the one and only Restaurant/Bar in Toya, GutenTag. Had a really good feed, nice chat with the ladies who are basically our substitute mums for the year, as well as our students. It got to 11pm so we said our goodbyes at hit the hay as soon as we got home.

The Welcome Party

We slept all day to ensure we had enough energy for our welcome party that night - obviously an important event in the social calender here. The party was to be held in the Furaei centre. One of the seemingly multiple community centres here. Was horendously hot inside, compounded by the pressure of having to write a welcome speech - something we were informed of 20mins before we had to give it. The time came for the party to start and we entered the main room to loud applause and took our seats at the centre table. Taiki-san, the nursery school teacher and sole person who can speak English was to act as translator for the night. There were multiple speeches by various Board of Education staff before ours, Yuko-san gave us an introduction, when she came to the bit about parents jobs there were gasps and again applause again. Craig went first with the speeches, the moment introduced himself in Japanese the crowd broke out into loud applause again, was really quite funny. Taiki took over, translating as Craig went, only a couple misunderstandings slowed things down, but the crowd loved it anyway. (When I say crowd - I mean the 50 or so people who had been invited to the party, mainly Board of Education staff, and pupils in the Adult conversation class) I delivered as much of my speech in Japanese as I could, which everyone seemed incredibly impressed by. Times like this I was really glad I spent my lunchtimes at school working! After the speeches was time to eat and mingle. Had a great chat with Suzuki-san, who introduced himself as the town drunk. In fact he’s the Japanese teacher…worrying! I rather enjoyed being compared to Tom Cruise, and then Josh Hartnett in my looks by all the women there Shame none of them are below 30! After some mingling we had to go round to each table and make small talk for a little bit “Hope you’re enjoying the party” “Looking forward to work” etc. At the last table I just said to Taiki “same again” and let him ramble off the speech

The main party ended and the hardcore party goers headed to the Guten Tag, where yet more food was served and a good time was had by all! Had a great conversation with Shiro-san about Brothels…some serious wires got crossed in that one.

The Third and final part of out Tokyo Induction Course begins. Monday morning we were up bright and early at 10am. Ben and Mike were off to Oji in the afternoon so we went for a farewell lunch in Shibuya together. (Irrelevant Thought: I was most impressed by the toilet in the cafe, even had a drying function!) It was a sad day for the JPK, we were being split up and forced to go our separate ways. But alas it had to be done. After a suitably emotional goodbye Craig and I decided to make the most of our time and head off to Odaiba.

Odaiba I was told is built entirely upon reclaimed land. It forms the left side (if looking out to see) of the mouth of Tokyo bay. The journey over there requires you to get a 20minute Monorail ride over Rainbow bridge. The views from the monorail are incredible, looking out over the bay and then onto Odaiba. Couldn’t help but me impressed by the engineering works of the Rainbow bridge as well, it has this incredible array of roads curling around it at each end hanging over the road. The monorail spirals up a ramp to get up to the bridge and it feels like you flying up to it. Or maybe I was imagining that last part but it was impressive nonetheless. From a distance (and up close for that matter) Odiaba has some very impressive buildings, my favourite being the one with a giant sphere in the middle! Craig and I were heading for JOYPOLIS, basically Sega World. The Ultimate Arcade.

OMG. This place rocks! My first reaction as the doors slide open. Its more like a high tech indoor fairground than an arcade. Thought we’d be adventurous and try a very Japanese ‘ride’ first. Basically you watch a creepy video after which you go into a dark room which has a very life like little girl sitting covered in blood at one end. And it talks, moves, and just generally looks extremely creepy. You’re told to sit down around the table in the centre and put the headphones on. Everything then goes black, and the headphones come on. These headphones are incredible, some very fancy 3D sound effects going on. The story continues, and it honestly feels like she is right behind you talking in your ear. I kept waving around just to reassure myself. There’s air vents in the chair to simulate her breath and something comes out the table which scared the crap out of me. It was genuinely frightening and I didn’t even understand what was going on. So next up wanted to do something slightly more ‘fun’. Snowboarding it is. This one was more of fairground ride with a queue to match. You are strapped into the board which is on a pendulum. Idea is to stamp your feet at the right time to get yourself to turn. It was a lot of fun. Unfortunately Craig and lost, which was a bit depressing. Clearly I’m not as good at snowboarding as I’d thought. After thatwe stuck to traditional arcade stuff. Tobogganing, House of the Dead, that sort of thing. Both special enhanced versions which were great. it cost 3500Yen for a Passport which allows you to use all the rides as you wish, we did our best to make the most of it but unfortunately we didn’t have much time as I had arranged to meet Ayaka at Shibuya at 4pm.

I met Ayaka when she came to my school on an exchange trip, tho I unfortunately missed the reciprocating trip. Craig was exhausted so I went to meet Ayaka by myself. I was worried she might have left already as I was 20mins late. Whoops. Thankfully she hadn’t as I managed to find her after only 10mins of wandering around one of the many exits of Shibuya station. For some reason I lost all confidence in my Japanese with her so we spoke English the whole time. Thankfully she is pretty good! Went for some ramen, ate some ice cream. My first ramen in Japan was…weird, order what you want from a Vending machine, then you’re let inside, sit down in an individual booth with a curtain infront, hand your ticket in, then your food appears. Was all a strange experience, not exactly the most sociable of meals. After that went shopping for a mobile phone and translator. So glad she was there, took me long enough to explain to her what I wanted, never mind the sales assistant in Sofbank! (Which was to just use a Japanese simcard in my UK phone) Had a really good time overall. She had to get home quite early tho, she lived an hour away by train which I felt really bad about. She’s also in the middle of studying for her exams at the moment.

Was a nightmare trying to get back to the Hotel, couldn’t remember which tube station. Wandered around for 30mins outside the wrong stop until I worked out how to use my phone to call Yuki. Craig had had an even worse time trying to get back tho so I couldn’t complain too much. We headed out for some dinner nearby. Had great difficulty ordering food, couldn’t read any of it. The place knew no English. Eventually we managed to communicate enough to tell the waitor to give us whatever he felt like. Some Yakitori appeared so I was happy enough. After that it was back to th Hotel for sleep, absolutely dead after the past few days and we had to be up early for our flight to Sapporo.

Overall my thought on Tokyo? What an incredible city just had this incredible energy to it the whole time. Definitely the city which never sleeps. I can’t wait to come back and I left feeling very jealous of Mike and Ben. Click here for a link to the photo album for the day.

And finally part two comes, been having too much fun lately to do an update, but just back from the nursery and am exhausted after all that running around so seemed like a good moment to do something productive.

So, day two of our Tokyo induction course begins! We were scheduled to meet Mai at Shibuya at 12.30pm who was then going to take us to the Bonzai-kan, aka the Earthquake centre. So show to our initiative we thought we make a brief visit to Akihabara - Electric City. It was a 40minute train journey away but totally worth it. Every shop, every stall is selling electronic gadgets of some sort, some of you may know I’m a bit of computer geek so this place was like a wet dream for me. Unfortunately with so little money I couldn’t indulge my addiction s instead we headed to the SEGA Game centre, a 4 Story high arcade! All of us had an absolute blast here, playing some obscure Mortal Combat type game none of us could understand, I was rather proud to have made it to the seventh round and only losing by indescribably small amount. In the end what mattered was that I had bested Ben, who was knocked out by a Japanese player on the other side of the room…After getting rather hot playing this drumming game with Craig we had to head out to meet Mai. Despite the short time there was so glad we went, perfect way to spend a morning!

Mai first took us to Yuki’s office for the actual induction part of the course, wasn’t too strenuous, brief explanation of the rules, the plan for the day, then finished by giving us 10,000Yen to take care of ourselves for the days we were there. So not too bad for 30mins of my time! After that we met with Satomi and headed for the Earthquake centre!

Seems this place is designed to teach yo what to you should “The Big One” strike anytime soon. Let’s hope it doesn’t as its likely we’d all perish in the flames of burning gas lines - not being able to understand a word which was being said. First task was using a fire extinguisher on a video of a video on the wall. Despite our initial confusion we made up for out lack of understanding with enthusiasm, easily besting the firefighting skills of the Japanese people there.

Now the highlight of the day, the Earthquake simulator! All go into a room which is made up as a traditional Japanese kitchen. Then…the earthquake strikes! As instructed I dove under the table to protect myself from falling objects with speed any athlete would have been proud of. After the initial shock wave we were to turn off the gas and open the door to ensure our escape route was clear, then brace for the after shocks! After all the excitement I then videoed a Japanese family in the simulator, unfortunately in my haste I forgot to press save - rather annoying as I went to great trouble asking permission from everyone to make it in the first place! We then had a series of long talks about earthquake safety. As before, probably would have been more interesting if I had understood it. One interesting fact I did pick up tho, over 1000 Earthquakes a year hit Japan! Next up was escaping from a Smoky corridor, I volunteered to lead our group through this ordeal. It wasn’t that hard, the guy running the day gives you directions…

After our afternoon at the Earthquake centre it was time for some tourist behaviour. Apparently Sunday is the day to Harajuku, for one reason only. Its when for reasons unknown people come out and behave rather strangely. People dressed as video game characters. Check. Men wearing School girl uniform. Check. Man with fishbowls hanging from his ears complete with fish. Check. Needless to say it was a great time for photos. Also got a great video of me dancing with some random guy on the bridge. Didn’t have the stamina to match him tho as he kept going for hours. Harajuku is apparently the Knightsbridge of Tokyo with designer shops and expensive restaurants on every corner. And rather out of place was the shop Condomania. Selling an impressive selection of novelty condoms and other such items. All of us were starting to get a little fatigued by this point so went to have some ice-cream for lunch/tea. After that it was off to meet Yuki for dinner.

Shabu Shabu! Thats what we went for for. And with that I had found my new favourite food. In the middle of each table is a pot of boiling hot oil (two types) You get given a nice selection of beef and pork pieces, some vegetables for good measure. Dip until until cooked, sprinkle with sesame (or bitter orange…) and enjoy!

But of course the night was not yet over. To the Arcade! Some Half Life 2 for good measure, then did purica again Just because we can. Only a brief stay there before doing some late night shopping in…well I’m not really sure what type of shop it was. Seemed to have everything that you immediately want when you see but in reality will just throw in a drawer as soon as you get home. One thing I couldn’t help but laugh at was ‘Billy’s Bootcamp’ Workout video by some American I guess. Looked ridiculous. Besides, Japanese people don’t get fat…

And the finale for the evening was the classic, Karaoke. Karaoke here is a very serious business. The place we went to had 7 floors, each packed with individual rooms for your party. You order drinks using a phone in the room, which is a great system, and resulted in us going through several pitchers of beer and a bottle of Sake. After 11pm you pay for a room for 6hours, not a typo. Apparently that’s how long people stay. We of course thought “How ridiculous, we’ll only need an hour” How wrong we were. Without realising it we spent all night there. Its just “One More” each time, then you think of a classic song to do and can’t help but add it to the playlist. Mike and Craig did a stunning rendition of ‘Barbie Girl’ to start us off. Followed by my solo of ‘Livin’ la vida loca’! And so it went on, had a great night. Hoarse and exhausted by 5am we got a Taxi back to the Hotel. Part 3 coming up. Click here for a link to the photo album for the day.