Japan, Japan, Japan

Bamboo in the forrest around my house

Vissel Kobe's Home Stadium (Where this weekend we trounced Urawa Red's - Kobe scored after 15 seconds!)

Biggest Bass Drum Ever! Woop woop

(Left to Right) One of my JTE's, a wee girl who is ultra friendly and always shouts Bobbu Sensei in the corridor and tries to hug me, the P.E. Teacher and three other students who I helped Make 300 Madoline cakes with to give out at the concert.

Maruyama from the otherside - I had a wee 20 min snooze on a bench here at lunchtime - in the sun listening to Andrew Bird, ahhhh

I think I’m falling in love with this place,

I know this because sometimes I get so frustrated here that I think I hate it! But later I realise that really I’m annoyed at myself because if my knowledge of Japan or grasp of the language was better the problem I’m frustrated with wouldn’t exist. Then at other times the newness of it all constantly offers nice surprises that make you feel like it’s the coolest place on Earth (which I’m seriously thinking might be the case!!)

Today for example started with a trip to the KEC, Mon-Wed were spent at school whiling away hours observing the sports clubs and preparation by the band for the School’s first Summer Show, along with chatting to my new ultra friendly JTE and making a board in the hall all about the Scotland and English.

We have 2 days of Job training, it’s O.K. some presentations are really good others, Ma-Ma (Japaense for So-So, clever huh?). Anyway I left early at 3pm because my School have got me involved in singing with them in the show, I practised yesterday singing The Carpenters “On Top Of The World” and 2 Japanese Songs… I just had to stand there looking keen and humming bits! Lol! Incidentally one of the songs was from Okinawa, a place I’m thinking of going on my 4 days off next month and the other one is the theme tune to an Animated film by the famous Director of “Spirited Away”. Anyway when I got back to my desk of of the Japanese Teachers had written out the Hirgana to the whole song in Romanji – So it looked a bit like this).

Ro Ku Ro Ku ------ No Kyo, Sha Bu Sha Bu Ma Ke. Ko To Me Kyo Bo Cho.

[I’m sure that doesn’t make sense but I don’t have the book with me!]

So back to today, I got horrendously lost again, twice!! And my iPhone died on me! To cut a very long story short I managed to get my phone charged in Nagata at a mobile phone shop (they do that for you here). The place I needed to be was Nagata but it was ANOTHER ONE! 6 MILES AWAY! Of course I said, how silly of me to think there would be just one town called Nagata in Kobe! DOH!!

Anyway I got to Maruyama Chugakko, frustrated to hell (My JTE, Takarada Sensei came to pick me up – he must think I’m a mentalist!) but in the end it was cool, I got introduced to the parents , said Konichiwa in the mic to them all and even gave one of the parents a rose (they all do that here), then sang “On Top Of The World” and then sang two Japanese songs, in Japanese, in their entirety!........ Well kinda :P Anyway you’d all have been proud of me – I was. Got home at 7pm and finally cleaned my sitting room. Just the Bedroom to go and I’m done making this place my own! Tonight I’m sleeping on my new futon on the Tatami floor in my nice new clean (rerranged) sitting room! (I’m so happy! :P)

Also tonight I had my first Japanese bath, doesn’t sound like a big deal but I set it to run automatically while I cleaned and it was ROASTING! So I had to wait but when I got in it was weirdly fun (novelty I think!). Anyway rubber duck is on my shopping list as weekend baths are gonna start happening!

Off to sleep now, got a busy weekend ahead:

Friday- KEC for Job training, off to Michelles for drinks and shower in Gak, then in to Polo Dog to see Jo DJ.

Saturday – Playing football 1 – 4 then going to see Vissel Kobe play footy at home, then maybe going out at night.

Sunday – Of to Osaka to a one day festival of Japanese bands. Check it out Rush Ball ’09 (Osaka) 6300 Yen.

Should be fun, School opening ceremony is on Tuesday so that will be interesting too!

Laters,

Bobb x

P.S. Here's a video of the baseball team practicing at school.

P.P.S Check out this - some interesting stuff about Kobe's food here....

Food Glorious Food

Got Beer?

Amazingly delicious food - dunno what it is but the black plate is roasting hot, and they whack on raw cubed steak and an egg and it's cooks/you cook it kinda thing.

A typical wee shop, Milk, JD, Beer, Pork, Chicken, HUGE apple, carrots, Bean Sprouts, Rice, Peaches and Gyoza. Mmmmm

Mos Burger for lunch while at the KEC - that greens stuff is called POP! Ha ha, just pop, it's made by Kirin and tastes of Melon!!

Looks great but it's served cold and as a result I wasn't so impressed with it

A month in Japan....

This is my Inkan or Hanko - it's a wooden stamp with my name in Katakana - I use it to stamp official documents like bank and work stuff. It reads Turner or [Ta-Na-] the hyphen means extended sound. The box is from Muji - they have a cool store in Kobe that sells everything; Bed's, food, stationary, clothes. In the UK it's kinda like an exclusive brand but here they sell stationary and socks and t-shirts by Muji in little packs in Convenience Stores

This is Yuki, she's a really friendly outgoing Japanese girl - most of them are Uber shy

This is me at Summer Sonic after I got my arm painted with a black waxy/PVA gluey type paint stuff. Dunno why I did it, it seems like a good idea at the time - it hurt like hell to get it off - now my left arm is half as hairy as the right!

Here's Rita on the bridge that we go over everyday to get to the station. That thing at the end is a diagonal lift up the hill.

Motomachi - Shopping centre in Kobe.

Wow, so I've been here for almost a month now and it's starting to feel like home a bit. I went out last night (Friday) after work, met up with all the other JET's in the Hub and had a few double G&T's (at 240 yen a pop you can't argue, especially when a pint is 690 Yen!) then we headed to a pool hall to drink beer and shoot some pool before heading back to the Yama (Hanayama) with Kazu, a Japanese guy who is dating one of the S.African JET's and has become a friend of mine. I got pretty pissed and slept all day today :o( was a bit bummed coz I had planned to take a trip to Nara to see the Shinto Shrines and I completely wasted my Saturday instead.

Anyway I've had a chilled day so I thought I'd write to let you know what I've been up to. Basically this week I had Summer school Mon till Wed, the first day was a bit of a skive really, it was a planning day, we set up 4 rooms with activities in each one, Craft, Music, Games and Pop Culture, the next two days involved each newbie taking a group of 4 Japanese Chugako (Junior High School) Students around each of the rooms, the afternoons were spent listening to their talks in English. It was a fun 3 days and it was nice to meet some Japanese pupils, they were very shy but really sweet i'll post some pics of them. Thursday Friday were spent chillin in the KEC (Kobe Board of Education) planning my Self Intro and downloading pics of Nessie and Irn Bru ha ha!

The week prior to that was spent in the KEC in Japanese Language Lessons which was good but a little tiring doing that all day for four days. The weekend after Joe, a JET I met in Tokyo Orientation came up to stay with me for the weekend, we had a good time and went out to a club in Kobe called Beber or something, Andy got seriously wasted so we took a taxi home which cost 5500 yen! On Monday I played football (futsal) with some JET's it was really good so I'm gonna do that regularly I think.

The weekend before all that (7th, 8th & 9th) I went to Osaka to see the Summer Sonic festival. It was really good we met up with this girl called Jen from Australia who lives in Osaka and is a JET we met on our Prefectural night out in Tokyo. It was awesome, I saw Limp Bizkit, Beyonce and Lady Gaga - a bit different from my usual gigs but fun nonetheless! I've been online all night tonight looking at gigs, Cribs, Bloc Party, Praying Mantis, Chad Smiths Bombastic Meatbats, Vtalic and Marylin Manson are all coming to Osaka, oh and Black Eyed Peas are playing Kobe, plus Julian Casablancas is playing his debut solo gig in Shibuya, Tokyo on Monday. A day I have off BUT I have the first day of school on the next day which I have to be at, I looked at Shinkansen and I would cost over £200 to get there and back and I would have to leave at 9pm .... so looks like it's not gonna happen :o(

Anyway, I'm gonna go to bed, I've got soooo many pics, I'll upload a couple to the blog but the rest I'll put on Facebook tomorrow.

Bobb x

Wednesday 5th August

Today I came into school at 9 and have to stay till 4. I’ve basically sat at my desk all day, it’s 2.50pm now so not long to go, but that is why I’ve written so much today. The only break from my desk was to walk down to the Convenience store to buy a bento, that’s a Japanese lunchbox. They come in all different styles but most of them are packaged in a plastic tray with lots of different portions of food in them, they nearly all have rice in them. Today I got rice with curry sauce and a breadcrumbed/deep friend pork fillet. It’s really good – you can get something very similar in Wagamama – incidentally I just asked a JTE sitting in front of me if they have Wagamama’s in Japan, he said no so I asked him the meaning and apparently it means “Selfish” or “going my way”.

Here's some pics from my trip to the beach last week:

Preparing Sashimi from a live shelfish :o$

Andy and Damon my Predecessor examining the huge snail thing

View from the sea front near the suspension bridge

Me and the bridge

Amusing sign

Tuesday 4th August – First Day of School

This is the town of Maruyama where my school is - it's pretty nice actually and has a massive park that were gonna go to to play frisbee and football.

You can't tell here but I was dissolving in sweat having to wear a full suit for my first day!

Today was my first day of school, I took the train there – the train here is like the subway it's very quick, easy and convenient BUT expensive. You buy your wee ticket at a machine at the station (and I really mean wee it’s about the size of 2 postage stamps) you then pop it into a turn style type thing and hop on.

20 mins later I hop off and I’m a 5 minute walk from my school.

Today I had to call the school and Takarada Sensei (my Japanese Teacher of English; JTE) walked down to meet me and show me the way. I was introduced to the Head and Depute Head, the Depute runs the school while the Head sits in an air conditioned office on his own dealing with other stuff. Takarada Senseni stopped me outside and said;

“Please, when you introduce yourself, please say; Hello, my name is Jack Bowers, you can call me Jack”... !

Here is the funny man himself - Takarada Sensei (He's a dude)

Apparently they either love "24" or think I look like Keifer Sutherland!? Anyway luckily Moriyasu Sensei (Vice Principle) found it funny. He seems like a pretty cool customer so that’s good; he’s the guy who approves my time off and stuff like that.

I had a look round the school and was introduced to the members of staff, after that I was shown my desk in the staffroom. In Japan the staffroom is very different. It’s where all the teachers sit when they’re not in the class teaching, it is where all the work is done. Each teacher has a desk, a computer and filing cabinet, there is also a photocopier and mini kitchen, it’s quite sociable actually.

In Japan the kids stay in the same room and the teachers change around. In my school there are 3 years and three staffrooms so I’m with all the second year teachers. I got shown around by a young female English teacher who, at first look, I thought was a pupil. She was really nice and took me to the music department where I had a go on a drum kit, but forgot to take my shoes off when I stepped in the room so all the kids laughed at me. Another wee boy went on the kit after me and was MENTAL like the drummer from Battles – it was pretty cool, they’re so committed to their instruments and play them everyday, as such they’re all really good musicians.

The kids officially start back at school on 1st September - because of the Swine Flu outbreak a week of school was missed last term so I won't be teaching till the second week as the kids catch up and do tests etc.

Monday 3rd August

Thought I'd start off with a few random pics of my time in Japan so far:

Beer cans, the one on the RIGHT is a stubby (same as a coke can), in the middle is a mini Asahi and on the left is a tiny Asahi (it's the same size as the mini cans of Indian Tonic you get.) Made me laugh when i saw it and I had to buy a couple. What are they for?!? Lunchboxes!?!?! p.s. this was taken as I waited for the train at Hanayama Station.

A JET called Jason from Vancouver, on our way to the Beach on 2nd August showing us his 'Pocket Diary' he's using after losing his keitai! lol

Toilet in a Shushi Place - the bit on the left isn't an arm rest but the controls. This one has a heated seat for winter and a bum washer! They are so weird but you actually start to use them and feel squeaky clean afterwards. They play forrest sounds when they feel weight on the seat and when you select wash a wee jet pops down and gets you with warm water - it's crazy how accurate they are, everyone agrees!

Japanese policeman telling us not to cross the road with his lightsaber. This country is very controlling.

I took this pic of a Praying Mantis on some rubbish waiting to be collected - it was amazing to see!

Up early today to go and visit a typical Junior High School, it’s hard to describe the schools – from what I’ve seen they are all similar, multiple buildings with a big patch of flat sandy/soily area where the kids practice all kinds of sports. This school had a big open air swimming pool even though it was a small school and was in a poor area. I think in Japan sports and clubs are just as important as the cirricular education. Everyone after school is involved in a sport type activity for at least an hour sometimes two, both teachers and pupils and they take it very seriously. So far I’ve seen Kendo, Volleyball, Short Tennis, Athletics, Swimming, Football and by far the most popular Baseball. If the kids misbehave the teachers don’t let them play sports, so the Baseball guys are amongst the most polite and well behaved pupils in the school which is the opposite in the U.K. in my experience! The schools are kinda “old Skool” (no pun intended) they all have blackboards and seem to be well used and not modern and shiny like Meldrum Academy. However they’re very clean and efficient.

After our school visit we went to sort out some paperwork at the Ward Office (my ward is Kita-ku which means Kita - North; Ku - Ward) so we can get our Gaijin (Foreigner) Cards and ultimately mobile phones (Keitai). After that we went to the Kobe Education Centre to cheerily fill in our Death Beneficiary and Medical Forms, after which we had a Japanese test to asses our levels – it’s safe to say most of us will be in the beginners class lol!

The last thing we did was to sign up for mobiles, I was dead set on an iPhone..... so I got one, and signed up for wireless simultaneously to get a discount – after that I got separated from the group and got horrendously lost but managed to negotiate the station and two trains using a lot of hand gestures and single words. Happy days!

Fireworks – Summer Festival

Fireworks over Kobe Harbour

On Saturday night (8th July) Kobe had a massive fireworks display, it was superb! We headed down amongst all the crowds on the tube to Port Island, a manmade island in the sea, it’s really big and doesn’t feel like your on a manmade island but it’s weird to think about. A lot of people wore summer Kimono’s (Yukata) both men and women and I watched the fireworks across the harbour with 1000’s of people from Kobe before hitting the town afterwards.

Me with a Japanese Couple in traditional Yukata who were sitting next to me (other JET's in the background)

Me, Yulia from Russia and her Japanese boyfriend and Andy from Melbourne in The Hub - an English pub in downtown Kobe

Andy and Andy and two random Japanese fellas in a club called Trinity

I had a good first weekend in Kobe – another guy called Andy, from Melbourne, invited me to the beach to meet 7 "hot Japanese girls" at a BBQ who wanted to meet Gaijin!?! he had his eye on one so that left, hmmm 6 for me!?! Ha ha.

In the end it didn’t happen as Andy thought they changed their plans in case of rain, we met some other JET’s and went to a not-so-good little beach where an old Japanese man shouted at me and the others, at first I couldn’t work out why and the others didn’t understand his Japanese but in the end we worked out that he wasn’t happy about us setting up camp in what was supposed to be a car park. We had a mat down for these guy’s two dogs to sit on and a tarp up to give them shade. Andy said he had never seen Japanese shout Oi! in anyone’s face like that before – he said it was rare but old people in Japan speak their mind a little more, they no longer have to show respect, it is for others to show respect to them so some take advantage apparently.... Grumpy old Bastard!

After that we went to another beach that was a lot better and played Frisbee and swam before heading home exhausted – the heat and activity together with jet lag really takes it out of you!

I never heard from my teacher, Andy said that the Japanese are the flakiest nation on the earth, constantly making plans and either changing them or not following them through I guess I’ll see if that’s true in time – but I was happy enough as I was really tired after the beach.

Friday 31st July – Earthquake Museum

Kobe Earthquake Museum (made of glass..... really!!!?)

View from Museum of Rokko San the mountain I live near

Today we visited the Kobe Earthquake Museum – it was pretty thought provoking, until then I looked at it as a bit of trivia but seeing footage made me realise just how much impact it had. 6481 people died and it absolutely destroyed the whole city – trains came off lines and roads collapsed, thousands of houses were flattened, water shot up out of the grounds and mass fires broke out everywhere, all of this destruction in only 10 seconds! Most of the people who died, died of suffocation being trapped or were crushed to death. The area I live in wasn’t really hit.

They say that there is an earthquake everyday in Japan, I’m yet to experience one but there are lots of little ones apparently. The scary thing was that they said that in the next 30 years they expect another quake, this time a bigger one! The last one had it’s epicentre just off the beach in Kobe and travelled along a fault line, it measured 6.something on the Richter scale. The next big one is projected to be further out to sea where two tectonic plates meet – they anticipate one plate moving on top of another which will cause a massive quake and probably a huge Tsunami. If I’m here when it happens I pray I’m at home in Hanayama and not downtown :o(

After the museum we had lunch and a tour of downtown Kobe (called Sannomiya) – I was in a group of just me being shown around by Adam and Adrien.

View of Maccy D's from Tit's Park // Various pics of Sannomiya (Downtown)

After all that we met up and a few people with the right paperwork got mobiles then we went to the Hub, an English pub where a lot of Gaijin and Jets go. It’s funny there, they have fish and chips and serve beer in pints but it’s run by Japanese and the walls are covered in Vissel Kobe posters etc. A pint in there is 690 Yen; that’s roughly £4.60. In the restaurant we ate in, beers were about 260 Y (£1.70). For a double gin and tonic in a pint glass it’s only £1.50 – it’s werid spirits are super cheap here, a bottle of Cachaca is £9 and for a litre of Jack Daniels it’s £15 (that’s imported and expensive too!) After two or three G&T’s I was soooo tired and Andy and I headed home to ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Kobe

Andy, Damon (My Predecessor ), Amy and Adam
A circada - I am sooo scared of these things!

Andy's Place - chillin on the Tatami floor on his futon unpacking
A Mukade - gads!

So my computer is telling me it’s 15.56 on 29^th July but in reality here it’s Midnight. I’m lying in my bed in my new house in Hanayama Higashimachi – my predecessor has been awesome and left me so much stuff including books, food, cleaning stuff, coffee table, 2 sofas, a double bed, a TV, a PS2, a rice cooker and even a set of golf clubs! (btw you have never seen so many golf courses in your life! I literally saw 6 courses within 2 miles of each other on the plane and that’s the same all over this region – apparently it’s around £100 for 18 holes tho so probably won’t be playing much!)

Anyway my house is cool – I like it although it’s a little grubby. It’s very different from what I’m used to – the Tatami flooring is cool and I have 2 new futons. There are partitions you can slide across to segment the living space or remove them so it’s all open plan – the bath is tiny and very deep, almost like a cube, at first it looks a little dated but the hot water is all electronically controlled and as well as pressing a button to fill your bath to a certain height automatically you can press another button to keep it warm or if you leave the water in overnight you can press a button to re heat the whole bath from cold. (That’s not as weird/dirty as it sounds as in Japan you wash before you take a bath.) My shower is pretty good, the bathroom is a tiny wet room so you just shower standing next to the bath. The cooker is a 2 ring gas model with a tiny little grill under it. That’s it, no oven. I have a rice cooker and a microwave too.

Nine of us flew from Tokyo to Kobe airport with a 3^rd year JET and our Supervisor, Wada Sensei who’s really nice. Kobe airport is on a manmade island in the sea just off the coast so when landing it looks like you going to land on the sea, you get lower and lower then the runway appears at the last second which is unnerving to say the least. We got taxi’s to the Kobe Education Centre (Kec) where, after lunch at a local food court with McDonalds and Starbucks alongside Japanese food stalls we filled in gas, electricity, bank and medical forms etc, got our keys and Inkan (tiny wooden stamp with Turner written in Katakana) and each met one of the teachers we will be working with who took us to our homes and got us settled in. My Teacher is a dude, he cracked a few jokes and was pretty happy I was from “Scotolando”, he left me once the gas man came to switch on my utilities and talk me through how to use it all. He invited me to his house to meet his wife and 2 children (girl, 2 & Boy, 8 months) and offered to make Ramen and Sashimi when I told him that was my favourite. He gave me his number and said I could call day or night if I needed help – he even offered to drive me to the shops or take me out for a beer once I was settled in.

After all that I looked around my house nervously checking for BUGS! All I found was one dead cockroach (they’re tiny over here – like… baked bean size). I vowed to myself I wouldn’t kill them if I saw bugs inside but I would try to “redirect” them outside. It was a bit weird to be finally left alone after being with people constantly since the 24^th, however after putting some washing on and looking through all the cupboards I eventually feel asleep on my bed out of sheer exhaustion only to be woken up at 7pm by someone knocking on my door. It was another JET called Adam who’s from the borders and is a neighbour – he invited me down to a party for all the Newbies so I grabbed a shower and went to meet everyone. They all seem really nice and were super helpful in answering all my questions about the school, mobile phones and transport etc – they asked me about the band and music and it looks like I’ll be going to a festival in Osaka next weekend with some of them. There is an Aussie, an Englishman, a guy from Trinidad and Tobago a few South Africans and tonnes of American’s. At about 11 we (Andy and I) left and nipped down to a family mart to get some snacks with a girl called Stina and another girl whose name escapes me.

Things to note:

Bloody noisy bugs, like REALLY noisy when you open the balcony doors it’s like a cacophony of loud grasshopper type noise – they’re called Circada and are cousins of the lotus and feckin horrible – forget the Mukade and Hornet these bad boys will freak me out, I just know it. They scream and fly around and are big and gross… but harmless.

My school is a badass school of rough kids. It’s called Maruyama Junior High School – they use military type tactics to keep them well behaved. Apparently they’re harmless and pretty cool but they are more outspoken then most Japanese kids, they are not allowed outside at lunch to keep them in check and when going into assembly they go in one row at a time and have to keep their heads down and not look at other kids… crazy huh (I’ve since found out that most schools do this)! It’s cool tho I can handle it – Meldrum has been good experience. Apparently I will be visiting an Elementary School too to teach wee toots so that will be fun too.

The local football team is Vissel Kobe. I plan to go to a few games but it’s pricey (£30-£70 a ticket). Apparently they’re amazing at passing the ball around but can’t shoot for shit?!

First Impressions

Well what can I say – the flight was pretty good, nice plane, ate a Japanese/Italian meal on the plane with chopsticks and had a fry-up when we woke which I also ate with chopsticks as it was served with chopsticks and knife & fork. Drank Japanese beer called Yebisu which was really smooth and tasty too.

Got off the plane and was immediately hit with warm, wet heat. Not as bad as I had prepared myself for though surprisingly. It was 32 degrees centigrade and 70% humidity – it’s really sunny and pleasant but you do sweat a lot with just doing everyday tasks like walking. The toilets are weird and cool, in the airport there were urinals, a normal toilet, a cubicle with a hole in the ground and a toilet with electronic controls!?!

Got a bus from the airport to Shinjinku district – a very posh boutique/business type area with loads of skyscrapers which took us about 1 ½ to 2 hours to get to from the airport but there was an Irish guy called Dave who was chatting to us all the way letting us know what to expect on the Orientation. Were staying in the Keio Plaza, a 5 star hotel for 3 days so were pretty chuffed! Made friends with a group of 5 or 6 people, one guy in particular called Joe from Rochdale (basically next door to Bury where I was born) turns out he’s my room mate too so were just chilling in our room on the 18^th floor listening to music and checking out the view of Tokyo while I write this and he experiments with the bum washer on the electric toilet! He seems pleased with the results.

The one thing I must mention is how organised and calm the Japanese are. Everything just runs so smoothly and everyone is so polite and charming. Also I didn’t see one bit of graffiti on the way here – it’s so clean. I asked Dave the Irish guy why it was so clean and he said that at 3.30 or 4pm everyday all the kids at school clean their whole school from top to bottom and they are taught from an early age to look after their environment.

Anyway can’t spend too much time on this laptop. Were off to meet the posse on the top floor (roof with a pool) for a swim and a few beers. Nothing on tonight so off out to eat in Tokyo after. Tomorrow is up early, lectures and workshops all day and a party at our Embassy in Tokyo. (Apparently the British Embassy is one of the few do this). Next day is much of the same but ending with a Karaoke night out (all you can drink for 2 or 3 hours for €25) with all the peeps from my Prefecture.

So far Japan rules! :o)

PICS:

Andy Amy and I Drinking on our Prefectural night out in Tokyo

View of Shinjinku District

Restaurant/Bar in Tokyo