Pip-ines Here We Come!

Yes that's right, I'm going to that wonderful country known for sandy beaches, rice terraces and occasional kidnappings by Islamic fundamentalists- the Philippines!

I booked my flights today, and am going for around two weeks at Christmas time; if all goes well I'll be spending Christmas Day on a beach, and New Years Eve in a club. If all goes badly...well, a ransom note will be heading someones way soon!

Joking aside, it should be a really good trip. It looks like a beautiful country that's a lot less touristy than Thailand. Plus it's really cheap! This weekend I'm visiting a friend in Nara, the number 2 cultural shiny place in Japan behind Kyoto. I gotta leave right after work tomorrow. I'm sooo tired today cos my mentally unstable neighbour decided to bang on my door at 6.30am. Hmmm, she'd better not do that again, or she'll learn the true meaning of mentally unstable...

A Pet Turtle Called Hirohito- If Only

Today I considered buying a pet turtle, then decided it wasn't a good idea. A boring story to tell, you may say. But let's have a closer look. An English teacher at work has two pet turtles, which he bought because he and his son really like them. He named them Michael (I gave him a list of English names to choose from, including Tim and Boris, but he went for this) and Yoshino. He'd bought them because his previous batch of turtles, working as a three, had somehow managed to make a run for it. Quite how turtles do this I do not know. Nonetheless, he came back from work one day and they were gone. So I decided that, being 22 and living on my own and all, it was time that I had my first pet. I'd get two turtles, and call one of them Hirohito, after the Showa Emperor. The other I'd let the English teacher name, in order to return the favour. Before I knew it I was immersed in the world of pet turtles, hearing about what tanks and heaters etc etc you can get, all for a little turtle worth a fiver (though obviously a lot more than that in immesurable love of course). I even went to www.petturtle.com, a thrilling site than I recommend to you all. But then came the realisation that a pet turtle is for life, not just for shits and giggles (although theres plenty of these when turtles are around, according to my eigo sensei- apparently if you get more than one they're more exciting, because they actually move sometimes!). While I'm staying at my friends house every other week, and while I'm away on holiday, the turtles will feel neglected and may develop some sort of psychological disorder. Plus there will be no-one to feed them. So I decided, at the end of the day, that it wasn't a good idea after all.

A day well spent.

Imitating Becks

This week we have exams at Shonan, so I have no lessons. Whilst this may sound good, it really isn't. I turn up at 8.50am, bleary eyed, sit at my desk till 4.50pm, then go home. I guess on the bright side I get to continue to attempt to try and learn a bit of Japanese. Hmmm. Today though, we recorded the listening exam, which involved me imitating a cockney David Beckham accent, a New York accent and a South African accent! I didn't say anything untoward though Dan, Simon, Tim :) I went into it boasting that my nickname was 'One Take Martin', a completely made up nickname that isnt really that good anyway. Still, it became an even worse nickname, if thats possible, when it took 12 Takes to get the David Beckham question right! One after another the 4 of us in the English department kept cracking up; and once u start its so hard to be serious! Anyway, that was the highlight of my day. That and showing all the teachers my new shiny phone!
Tomorrow is my lovely sister Josie's birthday, she's 17. In fact the other week I found out one of my favourite students at Seishi koko was also 17 tomorro! What are the chances eh. Anyway, Happy Birthday Josie!!!! xx

The Shinkansen, Baseball, and Hiroshima

Well first of all I finally got a cellphone. You can email me short 'text messages' for free to stevesayskanpai@n.vodafone.ne.jp to brighten up my days, and if for some reason you want the number u can also mail me to ask for that. I can't receive long emails though. In Japan ppl 'text' to emails, unless they are on the same network, as every cellphone has an email address. In other words I text friends who are on Vodafone to their cell numbers, but text other people to their emails. Its a bit confusing, and also a bit silly. This weekend I went to Hiroshima, which involved three new and delightful experiences, the Shinkansen, Baseball, and obviously visiting Hiroshima itself.

Photos of Trains, What Everyone Wants To See

At the risk of making this blog look like a trainspotters website, here are some photos of the Shinkansen. Taking the escalator of dreams up to the platform was like being transported up to the gates of heaven. It was amazing! I was literally leaping around with excitement. There are three types of Shinkansen, with the Nozomi being the fastest and stopping at the fewest stops. This is the white one you can see - the third pic is the one we got. The other, silver one, looks even cooler I think. As it entered the station it was like some mythical beast appearing on the horizon. Inside it was pretty similar to a normal train, but once we got going we went sooo fast. In part the Shinkansen is so quick because the route is an 'as the crow flies' route- as such the track goes through several hills and mountains- I get the feeling the planners just got a map of Japan, and drew more or less straight lines from place to place, ignoring everything that was in the way. But it really does fly along- at 300 kph. Just 40 mins later we were in Hiroshima; Hiroshima is further from Okayama west than Kobe is east, and would have taken about 2hrs40mins to get to without Shinkansen Power.


Baseball, The New Football? Maybe Not

The game started about 1.30pm, with the Hiroshima Carps playing a team from near Tokyo. I won't try to explain the entire rules of baseball here, but as they were new to me it took a while to get into it. There are 9 innings in baseball, and you get a point for each home run you score. If all of the bases of 'loaded' (theres a player at each base), and you hit a home run, you get 4 points. Other than that the key was watching for whether the pitcher pitched 'balls' (no good) or strikes (good). The trouble was, the best way of telling whether a pitch was good or not was by watching the lights on the scoreboard; I guess unless ur up close then either this or watching the ref is the only way of telling. We won 4-2; hurray! The first inning was good, then the next four or five had no points for either team, so it got a bit slow. After the seventh innings you have whats called '7th-inning stretch', which is a longer break. For Hiroshima Carps fans this means blowing up balloons that, let's face it, look like sperm, and releasing them all into the air for 'good luck'. It was so surreal! The game finished at about half 4; it was a great experience, and the ground has a great atmosphere, but it lacked the intensity and excitement of football. Plus although the Carps' fans were good, they were nothing compared to the nutters we'd seen at Kobe!

A Trip To Hiroshima- What A Blast

Dark humour aside, visiting the A-Bomb Dome was a surreal moment. The first atomic bomb 'in the history of mankind', as the plaque declared, was detonated a few hundred metres above what used to be the Hiroshima Industrial Promotion Hall. I thought the experience would be very morbid, and lead to me writing some sort of monologue on the tragedy of the moment and its after-effects. That it was tragic is undeniable, but what was so fantastic about the experience was that, though it was sombre, Hiroshima is now a lively, vibrant city. There was beauty and life all around the wonderful area of Hiroshima near the dome, with Japanese buskers playing below the bridge, and a large sunlit park between the two rivers where buildings had stood before 6 August 1945. It is further to the credit of Hiroshima citizens, and Japan in general, that the tragedy has been transformed into a general cry for peace and nuclear disarmament, rather than a (some might say very justified) attack on the US for dropping the bombs over sixty years ago. The Peace Memorial Museum, near to the Dome, was absolutely outstanding; interactive, interesting, comprehensive and unbiased. It reminded me of the really good Berlin Wall Museum- a really good job. Hiroshima was a great place to visit, and we'll all certainly go back as theres a lot we didn't see, including one of Japan's official 'three best views' on a island nearby. It was a bit unnerving, however, to see so many gaijin (foreigners) everywhere- I didn't like it! Maybe this is a bad sign for when I eventually return to the West!

Respect The Aged

Nice Pic from Shodo Shima

As I sit here writing this the winds are picking up and rain is on its way. A large typhoon, which has already hit Kyushu, is due to make its way inland and reach Okayama by tuesday morning. I'm hoping for something spectacular- though I could be dissapointed. Two 'typhoons' have already hit, though 'a bit windy' would be a better way to have described them. Mind you, one did almost kill me- I was cycling back from work, holding an umbrella, and listening to music while it was raining like hell and really windy. Suffice to say I almost hit several cars before deciding to just give up, get soaked, and live a little longer!

My grand weekend plans were sadly shelved, for a number of interconnected reasons. Still, I had a nice weekend as it was, and I'm getting the shinkansen next weekend, and going to Kyoto a couple of weeks after, so its all good. On Friday evening I went to an outdoor performance of Kyogen theatre in Soja. It was a really nice evening, even though I didn't understand most of what was going on! Kyogen is a bit like the more famous Noh Theatre, except that the players don't wear masks, and its intended to be more entertaining- i.e. funny jokes and silliness rather than death and honour stuff. The best performance (there were three short plays) was by some local 12-year olds, who performed one of the more classic Kyogen stories. It was really well done, and they obviously enjoyed the acting. My school secretary took me there, and we went back to her friends house after and had some food- they had 4 cats!!

On Saturday I went shopping, buying lots of CDs, fancy stationary (pointless, but its so shiny!) and Japanese tack. I'm getting into J-pop, and I'd recommend the band Puffy, who go by the name Puffy AmiYumi in the west. Doubtless all those reading this will go racing to their nearest record shop and order it right now! On the subject of music I'd also, obviously, have to recommend Bob Dylan's new album, Modern Times. I also got another Murakami- 'Underground', about the Tokyo Subway attack of 1995, which has topical significance as the ringleader Shoko Asahara was today sentenced to hang. I've already read about 1/2 of it- it's very different from other Murakami, but to my mind further confirms how amazingly talented he is. He writes little in this book, but organises and presents the stories of people who experienced the attack incredibly well, turning what could be a repetitive and boring catalogue of personal experience into an engrossing look at both the attack itself, and the idea of ordinary people being caught up in extraordinary events. Finally its a really good look at Japanese culture- particularly of the life of the 'salarymen'. I want to get through it quickly so I can concentrate on the two dense novels I'm also reading- Crime and Punishment (my third attempt!) and 'I Am A Cat' by Soseki Natsume, which is a commentary on mankind and Meiji Japan from the perspective of a pet cat with no name. It's really funny and well written and I'd definately recommend it, although so far it's not as engrossing as Kokoro, Soseki's 'masterpiece'.

On Sunday I went to Kurashiki City, took it easy, and did some touristy stuff. I visited a nice shrine on top of a hill to the east of the centre, and went to a famous art gallery in the old quarter, which had some famous names as well as a really interesting modern art gallery.

On Monday it was Respect The Aged Day, so I had a day off- hurrah! I went to Ushimado, a lovely seaside town to the east of Okayama. It was a really sunny day, and it was nice to stroll around temples, and chill out with great views of the Inland Sea. The last two photos are from Ushimado, and I'm really pleased with them.

Top of the League!

Well I had to post a...errr...post, cos my two football teams are both top of their respective leagues! A 2-0 win for the Blues last night left us two points clear at the top of the Championship, whilst this evening Vissel drew 2-2, whilse Reysol lost 1-0 toYokohama meaning Vissel go top of the J-League 2 on goal difference. Back of the net!

This week has been the first week of real teaching, after all the (endless) self-introductions at Shonon and Seishi of the past two weeks. Although its only been two weeks since I started, it's amazing how much I've already learnt about the teaching. The stress has disappeared, and its been replaced by genuine enjoyment at taking lessons- before I was basking in the glory of only having one and a half hours to teach every day (3 hours on weds)- now I wish I had more! Today I did some 'guest-teaching' at a local kindergarten, which I'll do once everyone month, and it was so much fun!!! The kids were so kawai (cute), we sang songs about bears, kangaroos, snakes and wombats, and then we gave out stickers. I'm teaching at the kindergarten with five 20-year old girls who can't speak any english. It's very different from High School, and I wouldn't want to be doing it all the time (imagine teaching kindergarten hungover!), but it was so much fun...

This weekend I have very exciting plans- first, I'm getting the shinkansen (eek!) which is very exciting for anyone with a nerd-like obsession with super-fast trains....ahem....second, I'm getting it to Kyoto, a city that, as I may have said before, has more World Heritage sites than sense- anyway it's meant to be one of the big highlights of Japan, and I'm staying with a friend- Hannah- so hopefully I can do it on the cheap! (Having said that the shinkansen costs about £30 one way!)

Anyway....top of the league!!!! : )

Young Power A Go-Go!

Going to football matches has been one of the few things I've really missed in Japan, and listening to games on the internet or on the radio just isn't the same. So it was with great excitement that me and Phil set out to our first ever J-League game, our newly adopted team Kobe Vissel against those cheeky northerners of Consadole Sapporo.

The experience was great, being both similar to a regular football match and a uniquely Japanese experience. Firstly we have great slogans like 'Higher Than Yesterday', 'Young Power A Go-Go', 'We Swear, "Keep Challenging"', and the absolutely wonderful banner you can see below, 'Vissel Expects Than Everyman Will Do His Duty!!' The best thing about Vissel though is that we seem to have picked a team to support that has a whole stand full of nutters! If you enlarge the crowd photos below, ull see a bit of what I mean. The result itself was dissapointing; a clanger by the Consadole goalie left an easy finish for Kurihara in the 76th minute, but just sixty seconds later Consadole's (what I can only assume is the incredible) 'Hulk' scored a sweet goal from the edge of the penalty area to make it 1-1 on the night. We're second in the league- and we could have gone top if we'd got a result last night. On Wednesday 1st plays 3rd, in a crucial game. We need to finish in the top two, or we'll end up playing a playoff against the 17th team in J1 to see who gets promoted/remains in the top division.

At the end of the game, the team came round and bowed to each stand; I was lucky enough to shake new player Gabriel's hand- although he seemed a bit puzzled to see us gaijin (foreigners) in the crowd! Having Kobe shirts meant that there was a bit of banter with Nihonjin fans after the game, although we were in the boring stand compared to the nutter stand opposite us- which we'll go in from now on! We also struggled to translate 'close him down' and 'get into them' accurately, and failed to think of a song that included the line 'your mother is a snowman', although that's probably just as well. To be fair, Consadole deserved the point- I'd feel sorry for the fans coming all the way down from (and especially going all the way back to) the grim northern wastelands of Hokkaido otherwise. We could drink beer in our seats which was cool- although the 'Vissel dog' I ate before the game was pretty rubbish! After the final whistle we frantically dashed to get to the subway to get the last train back to Okayama; it takes 2 hrs to get back if you don't get the Shinkansen (which, of course, only takes 30 mins). Next up in the sports world is a first visit to my newly adopted baseball team, Hiroshima Carps. Thats right, they're named after an ugly fish. As for Vissel, its a couple of months till we have a string of games we can go to- the crunch matches of November will make or break our season- until then its back to following football via the internet!