Tai-really-Wan To Go!

This weekend was both really fun and completely wasted as far as actually achieving anything notable goes. Friday turned into a 24 hour day as I ended up drinking till 8am, and thus the following/same day was spent doing very little at all. The most I could muster was eating fish and watching Oliver Stone's excellant film JFK. On Sunday I bought a new lamp.

The next few weeks will follow a more understated pattern, as I need to save money for the fun and excitement thats to come my way at the end of March...

I guess I could have called this post 行きタイワン (Ikitaiwan), and made my first terrible pun in Japanese. But I guess few people who read this blog get the joke. So I went with the above.

That's right, my second daring and adventurous trip beyond Japan's borders will be to the island of Formosa, and the interesting country that is Taiwan. I'll get to see the tallest building in the world (at the moment), many wonderful museums and temples (including a museum with all the stuff Chaing Kai-Shek yoinked when he "cheesed it" out of China in 1949), and some beautiful natural scenery. Plus the usual selection of weird and wonderful night market food and dodgy karaoke venues without which any trip is incomplete.

I'll be going for longer than I went to Korea- from a wednesday till a sunday in late March. Hurrah! And the week after I'll be back where it all began- in Tokyo for a fun weekend courtesy of the super-fast if highly expensive Shinkansen (Okayama to Tokyo in 3 and a half hours), and perhaps to mine and Pete's spiritual home in the city, the Park Hyatt Hotel with its １８００円 (£8) gintoniku. So the money I save in February will be lavishly and excessively spent on magical fun in March! So much for saving money (or as I like to say, "counting my yennies". Ho ho ho). Roll on ３月。。。

***Competition***

If anyone can think of good puns on "Taiwan", "Taipei" or anything along those lines for my posts then let me know. There will be an incredible prize. So far all I have is the preditable "Made In Taiwan", and the terrible "Taiwan-to Go Back Again" (not so different to the title of this post). Hmmmm. Maybe they will have to do.

The Return of the King

Failure. I've failed to get humous, pre-emptive strikes, and Welsh people into this years English exam. The only things I have been able to introduce so far are the appearances of me as David Beckham and Ono-sensei as Ken Watanabe. Plus the unlikely appearance of Elvis Presley at an airport check-in counter.

My plans are growing for Shonan though, growing beyond my wildest imaginations. I'm setting up a pen-friend scheme, and decided to look up my old school on the internet. I was greeted by an extremely shiny website for King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys. I was pleased to learn Mr. Southworth is still there, and we won the Sunday Times "best school in the UK for 2006" award. Jolly good chaps. As an "Old Boy" (I prefer "Camphillian") I emailed them, asking what they thought about such a scheme. I'm not sure KEVICHSFB is really suited to Shonan High though. And I'm not sure if the school will like the idea anyway. But it's worth it just to see if Mr. Jack is still prowling the Sixth Form block, and Mr. Hill still supporting the Blues. The website reminded me of the unashamed pompousness of Camp Hill; I half expected to be able to download an audio file of the school song, replete with the lyrics "forward where the knocks are hardest" (who'd want to go there??).

If that fails maybe I'll just "invent" an English school, and reply to the students pen-letters myself. Only kidding.

The more I take initiative however the more likely it is Ono-sensei appoints me King of the World, or at least Head of English. I fear I may be fighting a losing battle though, as I can't even understand what goes on in the staff meeting every day. Still, as the Japanese say, ganbatte kudasai...

Shonan Desu Ka...

So I feel I should explain a few things about my job at Shonan. In Japan school years run from April to March, so in a couple of months there will be lots of change. As many of you know, my initial reaction to change is to fear it. Changes at Shonan in April I fear greatly.

Firstly, teachers will leave and new teachers will arrive. This process is entirely determined by "the powers that be", but teachers can request to either stay at or leave a certain school. However this doesn't guarantee anything. Additionally, Japanese teachers are very reluctant to talk about where and if they will be going in March/April. So I've had to squeeze it out of them. The bad news is that both Chisato-san (Hirota-sensei) and Ono-sensei will probably be leaving. These are my two favourite teachers, although I do really love all my fellow teachers equally, of course. A particular blow is Ono-sensei, as between us we run the English department. A new sensei could dramatically upset the symbiotic relationship we have established, and throw all my plans into disarray.

So today I proposed to Ono-sensei that instead of getting in a new Head of English, he appoint me Head of English. Sadly he said no. I have been given possibly my first significant responsibility however (luckily in Japan, so far, people don't realise the words Steve and responsibility should never be placed near to each other). I am writing this year's English Exam. As the last exam (me imitating David Beckham and South Africans, remember?) was so much fun to record I thought I'd try and get a few classics into this one too- maybe some Welsh people, some humous and an answer to "Why do you want to travel to ____ ?" that's along the lines of "To launch a pre-emptive strike against a dictatorial government".

As well as the sad departures of Ono-sensei and Chisato-san, Shonan will also be losing the servies of Kagawa-sensei, the turtle loving legend-that-is. The two other English teachers at Shonan- Manabe-sensei and Takemoto-sensei, and the one at Seishi- Sugihara-sensei, will be staying. I think. This is all unofficial, and I have been told not to talk about it. So I decided to put it on the internet. Hmmm.

As I will be staying another year, next year's "ichinensei" students will have me for the whole academic year. I'll have a whole year to mould their minds. This means that they will arrive as naive, nervy Junior High students, and finish the year strong, confident teenagers, who truly do believe Birmingham is the "City of Dreams". I feel I'm playing my role as a "cultural ambassador" well...

Strangie, Strangie, Strangie

Today I had my last ever lessons with my first year Wednesday classes. Next year they'll be all grown up and entering ni nen sei (second year), where they aren't forced to (and thus don't choose to) take English. I think on balance the Wednesday classes are probably my favourite, especially the second class of four students. And I get to teach with the wonderful Takemoto sensei.

Today's classes were really fun. The first (being at 9am) always starts a bit slowly. First we had the song of the day- Don't Look Back in Anger. Last week I had to cope with Des'ree's "Life" (which includes such poetic lyrics as 'I don't want to see a ghost, it's a sight that I fear most, I'd rather have a piece of toast'), so this week I got my reward. Then we moved on to our current topic, travel. I showed everyone my passport (the general consensus seems to be my spikey hair was cooler than my current fluffy look), we reviewed months in English, then we moved onto a roleplay. It was at this point that I read out the line "What's the purpose of your visit", and everyone burst out laughing. I still don't know why. However, at various points for the rest of the lessons, Okamoto-kun would should out "purpose!" at the top of his voice, sending everyone into further laughing fits (this is the guy who in another lesson shouted out "calpiss" every so often...the name of a strange Japanese drink. It didn't help matters that I couldn't stop myself grinning every time he did it).














The second lesson only featured two of these four characters today. Chi-chan (left) felt ill, whilst Nishio-kun (who as my friend and previous JET at Shonan points out does scarily look like Eddie Izzard at times) decided to go home. Hmm. Anyway the two who turned up are both pretty bad at English. Plus they don't really try, are always distracted by each other, and keep trying to take photos on their phones every lesson, which inevitably ends up with their phones (and sweets) confiscated. But they are very funny. At the start I declared Futaba-chan to be very strange, which she is (third from left). She decided she liked the word, so wrote it on her hand in luminous green pen.










For the rest of the lesson her and Yurika-chan would randomly leap up and start shouting "strangie, strangie, strangie, strangie!". They did give me gifts though, which was very nice. Finally, in homage to their new-found favourite English word, they drew this display at the end of the lesson. It sums them up well...

It's (Almost) Official - I'm Staying

Good news everybody! As my negotiations entered the 11th hour, a break-through was finally made and I managed to get 6 days extra holiday, to take my total for next year up to 21 days. Added to the fact that I had a nice weekend in the prefecture, I've officially decided to both stay in Japan and remain in the exciting, dynamic prefecture that is Okayama-ken. Maybe its like (excuse the football analogy) Lucas Neill deciding to go to West Ham rather than Liverpool, because they wanted him more (the BOE is very keen to keep me- thats right, Steve is likeable in all time zones). Maybe its because of the great rates of pay and the comparatively light work-load. Or maybe its just the path of least resistant, paving the way for me to consume more sashimi and buy more needless things with the minimum of upheaval. Whatever the reason, like Gandhi and his passive resistance, I'm staying put.

A Trip To Takahashi

Against the backdrop of this exciting news, I had a very enjoyable and busy weekend enjoying this great Prefecture of ours. I drank more than intended on friday night, and thus made a late start to the next day. Eventually however, I got to Takahashi, a town about 50 minutes north of Okayama, in the mountains. It had a beautiful garden, Raikyu-jji, dating from 1604, and I also (unintentionally) ended up walking all 5km uphill to the highest castle in Japan, Bitchu-Matsuyama-Jo. It was calm, peaceful and thoroughly enjoyable, and I met a couple of nutty Japanese guys, one of whom was obsessed with "soccer". After walking all the way back down from the castle, I ended up in Okayama for food and drinks with a friend. Sunday was spent shopping for hats and bags, and successfully buying them (thanks to Miwa's excellant help). Then we went for yakiniku, BBQ meat with special oishi yakiniku sauce, mmmm! In the evening we saw The Departed, which is definately worth seeing just for Jack Nicholson doing a frightening impression of a rat!











So there we have it; after 6 months in Japan I've (almost) committed myself to another 18 here. I'll be working out the details in the coming days, but my holiday should now allow me to go to Taiwan for 5 days in March, have Golden Week in May, have two weeks to possibly come home in summer, have a week and a half for winter vacation, and then have another couple of long weekends (Hong Kong and Singapore maybe?) and Golden Week next year. Not bad.

Taihen Desu Ne

Well, despite the last post being called "The Past and the Future", that post was really about the past, and this one the future.

I've recently discovered that I don't receive any extra holiday- paid or otherwise- for the summer. Even though me taking unpaid holiday would actually save the city money- rather than me sitting idly at my desk during August- they are unwilling to budge. Which means I am faced with three choices...

1. Come home after this year, despite the lack of plans in place for any such return. It's certainly too late to apply for a Masters or PhD, so I guess my only option would be bumming around in London for a year, or getting a real job in London.

2. Recontract anyway, and either use or not the 15 days I have for the entire of next year to come home for a couple of weeks. I mean it really is ridiculous- even five or ten days of unpaid vacation would help out so much and make my decision so much easier, but this is not possible despite the fact that during the summer I'll have absolutely nothing to do at school.

3. Stay in Japan but move job and city. This is the most risky option, as moving would almost certainly mean working for one of the yakuza-style big English businesses. Although some are better than others- and all are better than NOVA by all accounts- its a bit like choosing between Mussolini, Pol Pot, Stalin and Pinochet- not much of a choice. The other option is finding a private school that would take me on. Whilst not as bad as the morally dubious English schools, this would certainly be more difficult to find, and I've heard that lots of people who work for such schools are significantly stressed, and pressured to work extra.

All in all its a tough choice. There are two issues- the lack of any sort of common sense with regards to holidays for next year, and the fact that moving somewhere else in Japan would be a new and exciting experience. On the other hand I like the schools I teach in, and despite many of my favourite teachers leaving, I'd have greater control over the curriculum for next year, plus I know the job description, the level of stress (low), the level of pay (comparatively high), and I could be in a far worse position geographically.

It just annoys the hell out of me that the position on nenkyu (holiday) is so illogical and ridiculous. It's a fact that I'll have zero to do during the school holidays from late July to mid-August, and despite the fact the schools know and like me, they (or more accurately the BOE) won't make any kind of concession. It is surely in their interest to retain an ALT (me) who the schools get on with and causes no real problems, than bring in someone new. Its an example of a more general problem in Japanese bureaucracy that annoys a number of people I know.

I have two weeks before I have to make my choice...

The Past and the Future

My first weekend back was spent drinking and relaxing, catching up with friends and spending lots of cash on frivolous expenses. Then drinking, and recovering after an evening of gin and DVDs on Sunday.

Anyway, in the spirit of lists, I've decided to talk about the photos that adorn this blog to the left, and to list my top few trips in Japan so far. The photos are of...Yakata-yama, Kyoto, Seoul, Miyajima, Ushimado, the Seto-Ohashi Bridge, and Yakata-yama once again. This got me thinking to what my top five trips have been in Japan...

1. Yakata-yama, 31st Sept - 1st Oct 2006. Quite possibly the most beautiful sight I've ever seen, although I was fairly drunk at the time so maybe that influenced my appreciation. A great weekend that combined some of the best things in life: amazing natural beauty, new friends, and copious amounts of beer.

2. Seoul and the DMZ, 23rd - 26th November 2006. What was initially a bold and uncertain first trip away on my own somewhere turned into a perfect weekend of sightseeing, new experiences and karaoke. So much fun that I'm looking forward to another step into the unknown with a visit to Taiwan in March (assuming my holiday allocation troubles get cleared up).

3. Philippines, December 2006 - January 2007. Although slightly marred by illness, lying on beaches with drinks and pizza was a great way to spend Xmas and New Years, plus it was good to see a friend I hadn't seen since Tokyo.

4. Miyajima and Floating Torii Jokes, October 21st 2006. The benchmark by which all day trips away in Japan have been measured by. Fun with friends, good jokes from me and Carrie, and climbing of mountains, which although painful was certainly worth it.

5. Beautiful Kyoto, 4th - 7th November 2006. The jewel in Japan's crown, Kyoto was packed with so much stuff that I'll definately have to go back several times before I leave. Kinkaku-ji, to the left, was the most beautiful sight but I also felt a zen-like calm wandering round Gion, the Heian Shrine and Maruyama-koen.

A special mention also has to be given to the Inland Sea. Ushimado, the Seto-Ohashi, Takamatsu and Yashima, and island trips to Shodo-shima (monkeys) and Nao-shima (modern art) all immediately convinced me that I like where I live. Those first few weeks in Japan were the most beautiful I've seen, even if they were ridiculously hot and humid. I'm looking forward to the sun and sea again this year. But first, I'm learning to ski! In two weeks I'm going for lessons in Okayama-ken, then hopefully practising when I go up to Hokkaido. Finally I'm going to a ski resort, at Mount Daisen, Tottori-ken, in late February.

My New Name

That's right, I have a new name which I will go by in Japan on occasion. My kanji name is

真 亜 天

and is pronounced まあてん　in hiragana, or "maaten" in romanji. It approximately means "true Asian heaven" and is now my new personal seal ("hanko"), by which I authorise highly important yet unspecified things (my other personal seal is my katakana name, which is ステイーブン and is used for more important things such as banking transactions. It's not as cool though). Above is an artistic interpretation of my new name for all to see (and to prove how bored I was at school today).

Philippines II

..and now to complete the whirlwind account of my hols. After leaving El Nido me and Pete headed west to the capital of Palawan, Puerto Princesa. A fairly pleasant city, Puerto had one overwhelming attraction- KaLui restuarant. The food here was amazing, AND cheap. The first night we had a mix of fish and seafood, including excellant crab spring rolls. The second night I had a whole large crab, and we shared garlic tiger prawns. In between the two nights of seafood we visited the Subterranean River, officially the longest-underground-cavern-in-the-world-apart-from-one-in-Laos-maybe. Also a UNESCO world heritage site. It was very nice, though spoilt slightly by a guide who's sense of humour was so poor, I mean so terribly bad, that I didn't even find his puns funny.



After Puerto we headed to Boracay, the party capital of the Philippines. We had to change planes in Manila, and got to the famous White Beach by about 5pm. The beach was very nice, and we had an excellant New Years Eve meal on the beachfront; huge langoustine prawns and a whole fish grilled with garlic, oishii!! We drank and cheered in the New Year, getting to sleep around 7am. It was after this all-nighter that the illness of death struck me and Pete. The next couple of days were spent sleeping and watching Premiership football, before we headed back to Manila.
After a night in Manila we headed north, just about making it to Banaue before the illness truly got too much. I thus missed out on seeing Sagada, and some of the more picturesque rice terraces at Batad. Such was my ill state, however, than I couldn't even get out of bed at the worst points, and I wasn't even that disappointed. I am now though. Still, all in all we thoroughly enjoyed the good points, and can chalk the bad points up to bad luck (and destroying ourselves with too much drinking and too little sleep early on). C'est la vie.

Philippines I

Due to lazyness, my account of the Philippines will take the form of several snippets of information, rather than any sort of coherent or particularly detailed account.

22nd: The Dream Team of Tokyo Wasters was reunited in Kobe, for a night out before our flight to Manila. We met some crazy characters in several bars; two comic guys in a small white dance bar, and a Japanese girl Megan in a bar appropriate entitled Second Chance, at around 4am. She taught us our game of the trip, a Japanese chugakko game involving multiples of five (more fun than it sounds, I swear). We slept about 5am, and were up two hours later, full of pain and suffering, to get our flight to Manila.

23rd: Manila was chaotic; people walking the streets trying to sell all manner of things, and a kid opposite where we were staying playing with a rocket launcher! Being there on Christmas Eve eve, we were lucky enough to find several outdoor music venues, as well as a bigger concert taking place in a square near the sea front. We had several drinks in this area, before my body gave up on me and we slept at the early time of 1am. Of particular note, as anyone who's been to Manila will know, are the bright and colourful jeepneys pictured; a peculiarity of the Philippines.

24th: The next day we travelled to El Nido, climbing into a plane that smelt far too much of gasoline, and was about the size of my bathroom (not very big). A couple of hours later we were in El Nido, a small seaside town that would be our home for the next few days. We were to meet all sorts of characters, filipino and foreign. There were the French people; Jeremy and his girlfriend, Maxim, Camille, "the band" of Wayne, Ryan, Christian and Christopher, and our particular friends from Roxas; Grace, Francis the teacher, the gay teacher, the lady-boy, crazy Iain and Regie. Plus there was loony Bob from Cyprus, who spent all of one evening complaining about the EU, much to our amusement.

Christmas Day was spend lying on a beach eating pizza and drinking- just about the best way to spend Christmas I can think of. We had the entire beach to ourselves, as we'd chartered a boat to take us there, and it was great. That evening we drank like fishies, eating with our French friends first before going to a music bar and then a Filipino bar, the only place left with lights and music in the quiet town, the racous cries of merry filipinos ringing out into the night. It was there we first met our friends. We went back to their hotel, drank talked and played guitar till late. The stars that night were absoutely amazing; so bright, like a blanket of lights thrown across the sky.

The next few days were spent exploring various islands; the snorkelling was just about the best I've ever seen, with varied coral, beautiful fishies, and two lagoons that were unlike anything else. We hung out with the band guys quite a lot- they are a Filipino band that play a peculiar and repetitive catalogue of songs at the towns main tourist bar. They dedicated Englishman in El Nido by Sting to us :) However after a couple of days the dulcit tones of The Police, U2 and Bob Marley (all they EVER play) started to get old. Only Bob's stories of transporting entire zoo's of animals round the horn of Africa, or shipments of bananas from New Orleans to San Fran through Panama, back and forth, kept the bar interesting.

Another memorable character was Julia the Hun, a teutonic nightmare of Swiss-German origin, who runs the Art Cafe in El Nido, and decided to hate us from day one. As the Art Cafe is the hub of El Nido, and the best place for breakfast, it was hard to avoid her.

Overall El Nido is a strange, strange place. We met so many odd characters in our few days there, some fantastic, others nasty, and yet more simply odd. Only the French people were relatively normal, but it was fun to hang out with a bunch of Filipinos, even if by the end of our stay we were probably both singing Sting in our sleep.

First Post of 2007

It's 2007! And I'm back in Nihon. I arrived back last night from Kansai, after a tiring journey due to the fact that I've been ill for the past few days. That sort of destroyed the end of our trip- its very hard to see rice terraces when you can't get out of bed. On the bright side, the rest of the trip before our unfortunate illnesses, was fantastic. Great beaches, delicious fishy feasts, amazing snorkelling and a random assortment of crazy characters, foreign and Filipino. I'll put up a post on it all at some point soon.

This morning I received all my held-back post, and I'd got so many nice cards! Like 35 New Years Cards, with some really nice messages in, and Christmas cards. How nice to be back!

I've certainly missed udon, and gyoza too. And I come back refreshed and full of new exciting and crazy plans for the first six months of 2007! First up is the Hokkaido Snow Festival in four weeks, as well as the famous Sea of Ice to the north of Hokkaido. Then there's Golden Week and all the potential mayhem involved. Finally I'd like to go away to Taipei in a similar way to the Seoul trip last year, for a long weekend.

Anyway, it's nice to be back.