JAPANEXILE

So once again I have to start a post on here with an apology, I haven’t been taking care of my blog as I should do. I at least have a decent excuse about it though. Kanji. For those of you that don’t know Kanji is one of the three scripts the Japanese use in their writing system along with Hiragana and Katakana. Kanji make up the bulk of any Japanese text, for almost all verbs, nouns and adjectives, hiragana is used for verb endings and such, katakana for words taken from foreign languages and names for which the corrrect Kanji is unknown. So in the aftermath of my “half way through the year” panic I have become slightly obsessed with Japanese and in particular Kanji and the wider Japanese writing system. But firstly my little panic - I’m over half way through. Which prompted me to re evaluate what I wanted/want to achieve in the time I have left. And the answer fell firmly on on thing. A deeper understanding of Japanese language. My language skills are sorely lacking in my opinion, I can get by in day to day life well enough, I even talk to my Japanese girlfriend almost entirely in Japanese, though undoubtedly with many mistakes. Like most people involved with foreign languages my passive understanding greatly exceeds my ability to speak, which is fine to a certain extent, though I have become truly frustrated with my inability to express myself.

So following on from that I started researching what would be the best way for me to move forward. I looked at textbooks, in particular the Genki series of books, but then I remembered my intense dislike for textbooks, so that went out. In my searches what I found was that Kanji is something that is going to have to be learned eventually. For every new word I learn I am going to have to relearn the Kanji for it sometime in the future in my quest for Japanese fluency and literacy. But how best to learn Kanji in the shortest time possible? Japanese people start learning from the Kanji from the age of 6 and only finish when they are 18. Students of Japanese take 4 years of full time study. I don’t have that sort of time. What students both native and foreign regardless of age share is their method of Kanji learning; ie, writing the characters out over and over and over and over until they stick. I started down this route, taking making an hour to remember 4 characters, only to forget them by the next day. It wasn’t working, not to mention it was boring as hell. So back to the internet it was to research the problem.

I found an answer.

Or rather, two, firstly a book by James Heisig called “Remembering the Kanji“. This book throws the normal order of learning to the wind and instead breaks the Kanji down into the elements that make each character. Using these elements as many characters as possible are introduced. Then a new element is introduced. Using these elements as protagonists in a story the reader (at first the author does it for you) devises a mnemonic and imagines a story in their mind as a key to remember the writing of the Kanji. Its quite hard to truly explain how well it works. But my own progress is testament to it. In approximately 5 weeks I have learnt the meaning and writing of 1184 characters. Which as pleased as I am with that number it is not to say it has been easy. I spend on average 4.5hrs a day studying. Each new Kanji requires about 5mins to think a solid story through. And of course reviewing is important, which is where the second answer to my Kanji question came. Reviewing the Kanji is a website set up by a reader of the book to aid in the reviewing of Kanji using the tried and true Leitner system. If a card is answered correctly, the system asks you again the next day, correct again, and the interval is increased to a few days more and so on. If a Kanji is failed, it goes back to the start and is restudied. Its simple but there is no way I could have made the progress I have without it. In addition to this system their is the ability to save and share your stories with other followers of the book online, which is invaluable for the more obscure stories you are expected to come up with, for instance, today I struggled greatly with the keyword “brush stroke”. The elements I was given were “ceiling” “sprout” and “shovel”. Good luck making a memorable one out of that.

But in general this system is working incredibly well and I will continue to put everything I can into it. I hope to be finished with the 2042 general use Kanji within a month or so, then I will start (hopefully) with the same fervour toward learning the readings of the characters and other aspects of the language. I do have a plan in place but I will save that for when I have started it properly. But my original point - reason I haven’t updated - Kanji.

None Kanji related Toya news, lets see. Most obvious - its Spring. Without a doubt. Last snow was about two weeks ago and it has all but melted around us. Quite sad, I shall miss the snow, but am nonetheless most definitely looking forward to warmth. Plus its so beautiful here in the sun. Along with Spring has come our Spring holidays which started yesterday, we are heading down to Tokyo on the 26th and then I am heading on to Kyoto on the 31st. Returning to Toya on the 7th. In the meantime we are in the midst of moving house as our current residence is soon to be demolished.

Updates that I have unfortunately skipped over in writing this include…the Yukigassen - a professional snowball fight tournament, his might still get a post someday. The Sapporo and Otaru snow festivals will get a post since they were pretty big events for me. I decided to skip over my Christmas trip to Tokyo, most of the rest of it was eating and drinking anyway, and the trip to Yoyogi park can be included in my inevitable post on temples of Kyoto. The final casualty has been that of Taiko drumming and Yosakoi. Taiko deserves its own post, Yosakoi - not much to say. Coming back to my panic I decided that my time is better spent learning Japanese than dancing. Which I still firmly believe. I will never forgive myself if I come back to England and don’t know as much Japanese as possible.

On Craig’s recommendation I thought I’d try out this program to see if it makes blogging just slightly less effort. As you may have noticed something is up with the photos in my recent posts - no idea why. And the photography section seems to be down and out for good until I find a new solution. The response I received from my host was "Well, its working on our end" Real helpful that.

As usual I am not going to stick to any sort of chronological order. Its far quicker to group things together. So, Mike & Ben’s apartment, Junten, and Oji in general. The place is smaller than ours, but not by a particularly big margin, and there is obviously a good reason that it is small – its in the centre of Tokyo (sort of – its hard to decide what the centre of somewhere as massive as Tokyo is – its in a good spot whatever) The only real difference is that their kitchen and living room are two separate small rooms, whereas we have our larger combined kitchen/lounge. They don’t seem to use the living room at all, Mike’s bedroom is the place to be when entertaining of watching TV. The apartment is like many places in big cities however, rather noisy. The balcony overlooks a charmingly busy crossroad and the highway is pretty much the same height as their windows – so noisy. Especially if you compare to Toya, where your ears ring its so quiet at night (Yet I still wear earplugs…).

We spent only a brief morning in Junten and didn’t really get to see anywhere near as much as I wanted. We came in and talked for a while at one of the advanced ‘leaver’ classes. Named as such as it has people in it who have spent long periods in English speaking countries and have as such gained near fluency. This class was a lot of fun actually, they came up with some good interesting questions (What do you look for in a girl etc) so Craig and I could come up with some good answers as well. As Barney (The American who Mike & Ben teach with) so correctly put, Craig and I are not just teachers – we’re entertainers. In the next class we were there to help judge as English speaking contest, they all had to read out various famous English speeches from memory (if they could) whilst we judged on their pronunciation, memory and something else. It was mind numbingly boring and as I hadn’t had much sleep the night before I mainly stared drifting in and out of consciousness and gave pretty non precise marks. A terrible judge really. That was it really for our time at Junten. We saw where Mike & Ben work in the ELC (English Language Centre), met the headmaster, who gave us a nice hanging cloth calendar. We went to the local Indian for lunch with Mike, Ben, and the two English teachers – Barney is definitely an interesting guy, and quite different to how I expected him to be.

My thoughts on Junten - a nice school, with a very impressive main building. The schools we work in up here in Hokkaido are just worlds apart, same for our jobs really. Mike & Ben are very much ‘real’ teachers, having to clock in an out, working all day in the same place and are treated like teachers as far as I can tell. Their work just in general seems so much more serious than ours. Especially this year, we have had far less work (I’m not complaining), and everything is just so much more relaxed up here. Having so many jobs keeps things fresh and interesting. I wouldn’t change jobs, not for a second. I imagine they’d say the same though.

Oji. Most people think of Tokyo as being the same as any other large modern city – but its not really. Its made up of many, many, towns and cities that have grown into each other and as such each town still has its centre and own character to an extent. I can see why the Tokyo guys like Oji, its got everything you need really, nice restaurants, supermarket, arcade, karaoke – all within walking distance. And conveniently its only 30mins away by train from Shibuya and the ‘real’ centre of Tokyo. Despite being completely and totally different in nearly every way I can’t help myself but draw comparisons between Oji and Toya. I’ll admit slight jealousy at all the entertainment options available to them, and more significantly the chance to meet far more people – perhaps even people our own age! But there is always a downside – money just goes, so I doubt I’d be able to enjoy the options available to me like I would want to. The same for clubs and bars – which I am a big fan of, Japan however, has a drinking age of 20, unlike Sapporo however, they seem to ID in Tokyo. Hopefully I’ll find time to make more comparisons between our two projects, but for now, I’m happy to home in Toya.

Nearly two months behind I actual start the Tokyo post, and it’ll probably be at least 2 weeks before I even finish with Tokyo if I don’t do something about my writing style. I am cursed by the inability to shorten my thoughts, and so have a tendency to give perhaps irrelevant details. Fortunately however  my thoughts on Tokyo haven’t changed much from  my first visit – although they have in some fundamental ways. But I shall leave them for the end of the story.

 So lets get started! Something that most certainly has to be mentioned was the journey down to Tokyo. Early January is the high season for flights from Sapporo down to Tokyo (but not coming back strangely) so we had the choice of paying 30,000Yen for a flight, or finding alternative transport. Trains were an option, and an interesting one at that, definitely be able to see a lot of interesting things, albeit only through a window at high speed.  Unfortunately the cost was prohibitive again, and the multiple changes and overnight trains left too much room for mistakes. That left the ferry from Tomakomai as the only option. Tomokomai itself is 90mins away at least – already longer than the flight. Getting there is no simple task without a car either. First a bus to Toya Onsen intending on catching a connecting bus to Abuta, which didn’t show up, so thankfully Shiro came to our rescue and gave us a lift to the station to catch the train in time. Once in Tomakomai we waited around for a bit before getting a Taxi to the ferry terminal and then boarded said ferry. It seemed pretty nice inside, and I was quite excited to see what our room was like. Imagine my surprise then we step in and there are 71 other people crammed into this room like sardines.

 Most of the ferry journey was spent trying to sleep restlessly on our bed of rocks. Some relief was given in a scorching hot Onsen onboard but it short lived. Thankfully the port came into sight about 11am the next day, although I was wondering where the Tokyo Metropolis had disappeared to. We were in Oarai – a 2 hour train ride away from Tokyo, probably should have researched the ferry route slightly better. Oarai didn’t even have a train station, and the bus to the town which did filled up before we got in. Not a good travelling day so far. We shelled out for a Taxi to the train station and thankfully got on the final leg of our journey without problem. Once again we went for the cheap option and were treated to an oven like local train which stopped at nearly every station.

 In total our journey to Tokyo took 29 hours. So I will finish this post with a phrase I am sure my parents have said to me before in some form “The cheaper option is not always better, its cheap for a damn good reason”  Never again, I’m flying next time.

So it turns out the previous post was actually the penultimate post of year, however if I think about it as this final post will actually concern the early hours of the 1^st also I didn’t lie entirely. As previously mentioned It was decided to spend New Year in true British fashion (partying and blind drunk) socialising with friends enjoying a festive drink. Consequently we were up bright and early to catch the bus to Sapporo around midday. I don’t remember the exact order of events on the day. We did some obligatory sightseeing, something I have been intending to do for a while just have never got around to it. We rode the Ferris wheel on top of Norbesa, giving a nice view of the cityscape as you’d expect of a Ferris wheel on top of the building. Something that characterized much of our time in Sapporo, and was very much true for the Ferris wheel ride, was how incredibly quiet the place was. Empty streets, tumble weeds blowing down the highway, and just the general feel of cold emptiness. Not its normal bustling self, which Mike and Ben in their Tokyo arrogance would not believe. After the Ferris wheel we went to see the famous Sapporo clock tower, which is SO much smaller than I thought. Literally just a clock on top of a small wooden house. In my opinion a curious thing to choose as your city’s icon, there are far more impressive places. Its unique at least I suppose, and I won’t forget it plainly due to the shock I received when first seeing. I didn’t even believe we were at the right place until the sign informed me as such.

The search for food…is the subtitle I will give the next paragraph. You’d think it’d be easy but not on New Year’s Eve. My big plan had been to go to the Sapporo Beer Factory and enjoy all you can eat lamb and beer at the Genghis Khan. This was very irritatingly foiled after we searched on foot in the cold and dark for 40mins only to find the bleeping place was closed. I was upset to say the least. Especially as I really want to go there, but can’t think of a time when I can now, except alone, as Craig doesn’t seem so keen. If I do it’ll be by taxi that’s for sure. My spirits were lifted when I remembered that we had the buffet by the station to try yet, but again, after the journey back to the centre of town we arrived to find them putting the closed sign up outside. Truly gutting. Having exhausted my restaurant ideas we wandered back toward to Norbesa hoping to spot somewhere. Mercifully finding the completely un-descript named restaurant of “Potato Circus!” I noticed no specialist potato dished despite the name. I forgave them however due to the extreme rapid service of their Nomihoudai system, (All you can drink system) to the point that things were getting blurry by the end of the meal. It also has the advantage of being damn cheap for food as a plus, even has a Karaoke section, it looked pretty budget however.

Filled with liquid cheer it was off to Karaoke, and after a difficult registration process we managed to get our song on for a good hour, busting out some Limp Bizkit classics. I can do the voice for ‘Hot Dog’ really well I think. Karaoke was designated the ‘cool off’ period where we have juice only. (Actually, having just remembered the NDA mentioned in previous posts, let me tell you we drank only coke at Potato circus, and the blurred vision was due only to an irritation in my eyes)

Booti had a 3000Yen entry for the night which included all drinks desired from then on. Which is good value by anyone’s standards. So the rest of night was spent doing the usual things you do when under the influence of copious amounts of softdrink, dancing, singing, womanizing. A great deal of effort was spent trying to get Ben into the clubbing spirit, our attempts were met with resistance. And defeat confirmed when we found out the best part of his night was talking to his mum at night. We were forced to accept he was telling the truth that he really doesn’t like clubs. Mike made his own way back to the Manga Kisa, I’m not entirely sure when, Ben dragged an inebriated (strike) tired Craig back with me later on. We breakfasted as you do at a Curry House before getting the bus back, on which I left my wallet. Which begers belief as all of us looked for it on the bus for about 20mins before we got off. Finally it was back to Toya for a rest, all softdrinked out.

En route back from Niseko toward Toya I sent out an open invitation for everyone to join us at ‘The Tag’ so that Mike and Ben could meet the people that make all the magic in Toya happen! Unfortunately I was greeted with enthusiastic responses informing the Tag was closed for New Year – throwing a spanner in my plans a little bit there. Not to mention leaving us in a quandary about what to do for dinner. None of us really had the inclination to make a nutritious meal, and instant ramen didn’t feel right having talked about the culinary delights of ‘The Tag’ for the past few days. We were not to go hungry however, oh no, true to form hearing our plight Yuko offered to make us a nice curry, which is delivered promptly at 7pm later that evening. And after that due to a slight calendar misunderstanding it was Kathryn who came along with the promise of more food…over in Abuta. Over in Abuta after a quick stop to pick up booze it was onto Chizuko’s house, one of my English Class students. Ever together with Chizuko, Reiko wasn’t far behind bearing more food. And within a short time a veritable feast has amassed before us – good thing we had just eaten eh? We however resigned to our fate and through politeness and force of will we worked our way quite well through what was there – only to be given the leftovers anyway, dinner for the next day I suppose. And so to use I phrase I use far too often on this blog it the night was far from over. Mike and I had for better or worse made the decision to get drunk this evening and continued to work our way through a bottle of Whisky, bringing it along to the Karaoke bar we ended up in. Which is good as it means we didn’t have to drink ‘publicly’ which would have angered the powers that be. Instead we drank publicly but secretly in a very childish fashion. Karaoke was a good as ever, I actually think the ‘whole bar’ Karaoke system is better than the individual boxes, fellow drinkers always find foreigners singing amusing and I in turn find their amusement amusing. So it was a great night, even if I did kind of kill my already hurting voice by being a bit too enthusiastic in some Rage against the Machine. The singing/humming continued the whole car journey home in a great effort to stay conscious – we were determined to continue the night. Although that didn’t really happen, Mike passed out; I played with the wires on our sound system for a bit before forcing myself to stay awake for the duration of Clerks 2.

Next day! Feeling bright and alert after the previous night today was the day I was to fulfil my parent’s promise of watching videos with Onishi- san (guy with the greatest beard). The whole JPK came along for good measure. The first hour or so was quite interesting, watching videos he has covertly taken of our various activities over the past few months, as well as the 2000 eruption. The 3 or 4 hours after that were less enthralling however, watching videos of his various travels. Impressive as his holidays look, it jut wasn’t all that interesting. Still, it clearly meant a lot to him that we came so I’ll take that positive and leave it there. Night had already fallen so I unfortunately was unable to show the guys the highlights of Toya as I had originally intended. But time was running out! Tomorrow was devoted to Sapporo, which as I remember was the original intention of this post. I’ll get there soon…

The rest of our time in Toya, both before and after Sapporo was spent playing four player worms, which is very funny at times, and watching the movies we had talked about during naked banter sessions in the preceding days. (I mean during Onsen) As Ben and Mike pointed out, and as I already knew very well, when one is not doing a specific activity in Toya, there is actually very little in general which you can do. That draws it to end for this post, perhaps next time I’ll get on to Sapporo…Not many interesting photos relating to this post, so I tacked a couple of snow ones on:)