Speak the Gaijin. 6oct2005

First the Bad News.

As of the end of October Jenn and I will be without our own living
accommodations. Since the last week of September Jenn's supervisors
and type people have been working out a contract with a Real Estate
Agent for the apartment we found. As of this Tuesday we were operating
under the assumption we would move in by the end of the month.
Yesterday Jenn was told that we HAD to move on the 16th, and pay a
shit load of money (about 2500 american) by that day. Today Jenn went
with her supervisor and her coworker Todd to sign the contract and
make everything in order. Bear in mind it was the real estate agent
who called on Wednesday saying we had to move in on the 16th, and that
they should come in Thursday to sign the contract. Jenn, Ikawa (her
supervisor) and Todd, show up, are sitting at the Agent's desk, when
the agent tells them there is a problem with that apartment. Asks them
to wait and minute, and goes and makes a hurried phone call in
Japanese. The Agent comes back, aplogize proffusley and says that she
is most sorry but the landlord has already let his family move into
that apartment five days ago, and that he only called us right after
we called you yesterday. But we have many other (shithole rustbucket
on stilts) apartments for you to move into".

To end the story quickly, we are going to find a new real estate
agent. but we have to find a liveable apartment by Samhain or Tim
starts lighting fires. It's not like we'll be out on the streets,
friends places have couches and floors, but the place was nice and it
just horribly disappointing and the making of the new stress. The
funny part is that it may cause hilarious results, as to expediate our
moving the Giant Lie that Jenn's supervisors have been telling is that
I have horrible horrible fatal allergies to the tatami (straw) mats
which the Japanese love so much. the old new apartment had western
style lineloeum flooring, which will most likely not happen with any
new apartment we find.

but moving on, Japanese people love to dance synchronously. they love
it. they fucking love it. Nothing gets your average japanese hotter
than what basically is the Electric Slide. Remember the Macarena. Fuck
those guys, the Japanese invented Dancing Ridiculously in Formation.
again check my photostream set at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tasteful_tn/sets/1050659/ for visual
proof. Words fail to describe. I'll give a proper right up in a few
days, mostly on how Japanese Fireworks make Gandalf's fireworks in the
Lord of the Rings look like a dog farting in the wind. I require sweet
black sleep.

Speaking the Gaijin,
TN

Tokyo, the Anagram lovers Kyoto

(author's note, all emails are presented in uncool and very un-Tarantino-esque chronological order, the following one is from september 27th 2005)

Minna-san,

I have been living here for a month so I shall delightfully pepper my
discourse with japanese words and phrases, if you don't like it, you
can feck off.

I spent the weekend in Tokyo, and using the completely accurate and
unbiased reaction of a first impression, I shall here present to you a
thorough and irrefutable guide to Tokyo life. I didn't get to go to
everywhere in Tokyo, so I'll do it this guide by neighborhood.

Ikebukoru: More like... IkebukoWHOOOOAAAA!
Ikebukoru is neat, pretty much like Times Square in NYC, if instead of
theaters and shopping there were arcades/panchiko parlors and
shopping. There's a KFC and a Wendy's near the station. Ikebokuro is
filled with touristy/normal dressed style people (this is important,
you know where you are in tokyo by what people are wearing). Ikebukoru
is an enjoyable place for all ages, but on a tokyo scale of
crowdedness it reaches a 4 out of 5 people per square meter.

Ueno: Hey Look! Homeless people!
Ueno Park, the Schenley Park of Tokyo, has the largest population of
homeless people in Japan. Also there's a bunch of museums and a zoo
there. The National Museums are very large and impressive from the
outside, but nothing really cool is inside, unless you think Awesome
Samurai Swords and Giant fucking suits of armor are cool. I didn't go
to the zoo. Ueno Park, like Tokyo, is very big, like everything in
Tokyo. There's also a giant train station (all the major stops on the
Yamanote line, see below, are giant malls.) that has a delicious
bakery and a Hard Rock Cafe. 5 out of 5 people per square meter

Roppongi: America-town
This is where we stayed, at another giant sized building called
Roppongi Hills, which has a hotel, and a giant mall, and probably
other stuff as well inside of it. The subway station is also right
underneath it, providing easy (aside: Tokyo has it's public
transportation down. The heart of the city is carved out with the
Yamanote Loop line, a sometimes El train that encircles the Metro, it
passes through all of the places I went to (with the exception of
Roppongi, which is inside the yamanote line) from the loop you can
pick up subway lines which run pass in straight lines from one node on
the loop to another node. it's pretty easy to get around, and also
goddamned expensive. end aside) access to Tokyo's major neighborhoods.
There's a good mexican restaurant in Roppongi called La Fiesta, run by
actual latino/a looking people who speak English. I'm pretty certain
everyone in Roppongi speaks english. It's where all the trendy clubs
and bars are where the foreigner touristy types flock to. I was in
line at a Don Quixote (strange and large japanese
supermarket/department type place, but all japanese stores in tokyo
are strange and large.) behind two african type people who spoke
accented english I couldn't place, they were having an amusing
boyfriend girlfriend type argument and also buying $350 dollars worth
of wine/champagne, it's hard to tell if it was cheap stuff or not,
because liquor in japan, even the high shelf stuff, doesn't run so
much, a bottle of Tanqueray is about 15 of our american dollars. It
was quite a lot of champagne. 3 out of 5 people per square meter.

Harajuku: where dignity goes to die, and sanity takes a holiday. or
Harajuku: somebody get these kids a fucking mirror.
Harajuku was like a bad nightmare Hunter S Thompson had. It would have
been an awful trip from which he would have never recovered. Harajuku
doesn't make any sense. Harajuku is something MC Escher would have
had to draw. Harajuku could only be explained in words properly by HP
Lovecraft. Harajuku is, as Col Kurtz put it, "The Horror... the
Horror"
If Jesse describes Adam as the King of the Goths, then the teenagers
who flock to Harajuku are the gayed up princesses of the Goths.
Seriously. walking down Takeshita (shopping street in Harajuku) is
like walking through some sick and twisted version of the world as
imagine by the CEO's behind Hot Topic. Only a million times less
coordinated. Even the hardlinedest of the American Goth Teen, decked
out in black this and pierced that and metal this and torn that would
look like Opie compared to these kids. It's like they poured glue all
ove Enthusiastsrthemselves and fell into their goth Laundry bag,
filled a shot gun with cold cream, shades of pink, red and black, and
shot themselves in the face, and stuck their fingers into an
electrical socket, looked in the mirror and said, "Now I am ready to
face the world" And the goths are just one example, there are also the
Japanese Punks and Japanese Ghetto Enthusiasts who also give off this
feel. I saw two 16 year old boys dressed like they were in a kanye
west video and thought they were the least embarrassing individuals to
look at. BUT THIS IS NOT THE END. Oh no, what makes Harajuku even more
insane is that the biggest Shinto Shrine in Tokyo is RIGHT NEXT TO THE
STATION. Meiji Shrine, a very large, very beautiful place with trees
and ponds and koi and nature and japanese wedding ceremonies and large
impressive japanese architecture is located less than three blocks
away where the teenyboppers converge, so that when you exit this
beautiful and serene place the first thing you see are three japanese
girls of indeterminate age with terrible bleach blond dye jobs, awful
fake orange suntans, and terrible purplish and bluish makeup jobs and
puffy shirts and shorty skirts that would make a Jennifer Lopez blush.
It's like going to a rave at saint peter's basilica.
(The average tokyo teenaged/tweenaged female feels this is appropriate
day to day wear:
http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/Image:Ew_ganguro.jpg)

Shibuya: As Mr. Cooper would say.. shiBOO-YA!
Coming up out of Shibuya station is like heading into a battle. a deep
thicket of people surges forth to the edge, where they wait patiently
at the crosswalk. The light turns green. Two 25 people deep lines of
people head towards each other at a quickened pace, will I be
beheaded? Will I be disemboweled? That is what shibuya is like. also
there's a good indian restaurant there where you can order out of a
machine. The japanese are fond of making you put money in a machine to
order, and then hand tickets to some clerk where he passes it on the
cooks. it saves paper and time. It's better and more efficient than
having a human being take your order. Shibuya is kind of like London,
small streets, bright lights, lots of people, shopping food drink.
I've never been to london, but I imagine it to be like Shibuya. 5 out
of 5 people per square meter.

Akihabara: Home of the Dateless Wonder
If you don't know what the words manga, hentai, or lolicon (roricon)
mean, you have no reason to ever go to Akihabara. If you know what
they mean and you prefer to sleep well at night, you are better off
never having gone here. Yes there are cheap electronics there, but you
could probably find stuff just as good and just as inexpensive
somewhere else in tokyo. Akihabara is populated with surging crowds of
badly dressed (revenge of the nerds is a reality) japanese nerd-boys,
the saddest nerd-boys of them all. 6 out of 5 people per square meter/

Meguro and Mejiro: Two Stops on the Yamanote Line
We didn't get off the train at either of these stops. The only reason
I bring it up is because the characters for each of these
neighborhoods respectively mean Eye Black and Eye White. It is
interesting to note that every 77 years the residents of each of these
districts much exchange places with their opposite (or Hoka No Hito)
for one day to see how the other lives. It was enacted in 1645 by in
an Imperial Edict of Emperor Karigyura, who had a twin brother that
died at birth. Karigyura was an unbalanced leader, who even elected
his horse to his cabinet of counsellors Out of silent respect for
their former insane emperor the Tokyoites continue to follow the edict
to this day.

Takadanobaba: It's Hard for Foreigners to say, but sounds hilarious
when you say it.
Another place I didn't go to. There's absolutely no reason to ever go
to Takadanobaba, even if you live and pay rent there.


Emails pretty long, gonna end it just incase you're still reading.
I'll send the next email sooner, as the town's festival is this
saturday, and I get to participate in the traditional Electric
Slide/Hokey Pokey-esque dance-off which takes place in the
shopping/drinking district. Should be a hoot-a-nanny.

From Russia (see Japan) with love,
TN

P.S. I post pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tasteful_tn/
PPS. Cliff, patnik or campbell, tell Jesse I miss his smile.
PPPS. Senator, I think I lost your address mailing address, email it
to me just in case I don't find it.
PPPPS. Smeagol, I've been goin on walkabouts through the mountains, I
haven't met Gollum yet.
PPPPPS. I just realized I still don't have any of the glynn boys email
addresses, somebody hook me up with those.

For A Relaxing Time, make it, Suntory Time

(whirlwind posttime, all old emails)

You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of
sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose
boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead -
your next stop, The Japanese Zone. Submitted for your approval,
imagine a place where Coca-Cola made not only Coke and Sprite, but
also Coke-Lager and Coke-XXX. Imagine a place where Bacardi sold their
usual flavors of rum, but also bottled water and ginger ale. Those
that know have heard of Kirin beer, but what about Kirin Iced Tea, and
Kirin Melon Cider. Imagine a place where shirtless females are not to
be shown in public by law, but acts of incest, sodomy, or violent gang
rape are okay as long as their drawn (with the naughty bits blurred
out for morality). Imagine a place of people born to be beaurocrats,
and you will have found yourself in a place closely resembling the
Japanese Zone.

A list of things you might not have known about Japan:

1)Cigarettes are cheap, 230yen a pack, from a vending machine.

2)5 kilo bags of uncooked Rice, amongst many other things, are
availble from vending machines. There is one not to far from me.

3)Beer is expensive. And it's all fucking pisswater. Though Kirin and
Suntory's autumn brews have hit the shelf, and they are cheap
(relatively, 240 for a pint can), and effective (6.5% alcohol, the
highest in all the land)

4)The Japanese have not grasped the effectiveness that is the medium
of television (or radio), and instead broadcast all public
announcments (typhoon warnings, missing children, earthquakes) via
loudspeakers positioned throughout the city. Our apartment right now
is right behind city hall, and right next to the first speakers that
click on (they do understand how echos work, so they delay the message
across town) so everytime I hear that electric hum I think Godzilla's
been sighted off the coast and heading for shore.

5)Japanese children have an obession with punching you in the balls
and trying to ram their fingers up your ass. It's true. Japanese
Adults think it is cute and will not dissuade them from doing it.

random news and 'dotes
Niall (the irish guy I work with) may be the funniest human being on
the planet. the kids in his class that I've sat in on must think I'm
nuts, because I just laugh the whole time. I've very excited, for he
is my partner off to the college type school we teach at down south a
bit. Yeah I'm gonna be teaching college classes, wildness. It's a
theme park university more or less. a Vet School that's located in a
big awesome zoo/theme park about 20 minutes down the road.

I can now drive a manual transmission on the left side of the road
down a two way street that's as narrow as a kings sized bed. . I
haven't mastered it, but I can get the car movin and I'm not freaked
out to see two cars, a motor scooter, three people, and two bicyclists
headed dead on for me. Now all I have to do is learn how to ride a
bike, and then how to shoot fire balls out of my hands and I'm golden.

Erich, guy who's job I'm taking, told me this about working at EVI:
"If you told me a year ago I would have enjoyed seeing a small child
cry, I would have thought you were nuts. How could anyone take
pleasure in the suffereing of the young and innocent? Well... time
makes fools of us all."

and last, we are moving out of this stink hole to better climate. It's
the same area, about a 10 minute walk further in land, right near the
station and closer to where I work. Its not really a big difference in
location, but the place is much nicer. Jenn's supervisors just have to
get their asses in gears. The people I work for found the place for
the guy who was supposed to come but didn't, so we could probably have
been moved in by now if we went through my work, but the genetics of
beaurocracy and all that are at play.

Nexttime, same Jap place, same Jap channel.

sept 7th

You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, The Japanese Zone. Submitted for your approval, imagine a place where Coca-Cola made not only Coke and Sprite, but also Coke-Lager and Coke-XXX. Imagine a place where Bacardi sold their usual flavors of rum, but also bottled water and ginger ale. Those that know have heard of Kirin beer, but what about Kirin Iced Tea, and Kirin Melon Cider. Imagine a place where shirtless females are not to be shown in public by law, but acts of incest, sodomy, or violent gang rape are okay as long as their drawn (with the naughty bits blurred out for morality). Imagine a place of people born to be beaurocrats, and you will have found yourself in a place closely resembling the Japanese Zone.

A list of things you might not have known about Japan:

1)Cigarettes are cheap, 230yen a pack, from a vending machine.

2)5 kilo bags of uncooked Rice, amongst many other things, are available from vending machines. There is one not to far from me.

3)Beer is relatively expensive. And it's all fucking pisswater. Though Kirin and Suntory's autumn brews have hit the shelf, and they are cheap (relatively, 240 for a pint can), and effective (6.5% alcohol, the highest in all the land)

4)The Japanese have not grasped the effectiveness that is the medium of television (or radio), and instead broadcast all public announcements (typhoon warnings, missing children, earthquakes) via loudspeakers positioned throughout the city. Our apartment right now is right behind city hall, and right next to the first speakers that click on (they do understand how echos work, so they delay the message across town) so everytime I hear that electric hum I think Godzilla's been sighted off the coast and heading for shore.

5Japanese children have an obession with punching you in the balls and trying to ram their fingers up your ass. It's true. Japanese Adults think it is cute and will not dissuade them from doing it.

random news and 'dotes
Niall (the irish guy I work with) may be the funniest human being on the planet. the kids in his class that I've sat in on must think I'm nuts, because I just laugh the whole time. I've very excited, for he is my partner off to the college type school we teach at down south a bit. Yeah I'm gonna be teaching college classes, wildness. It's a theme park university more or less. a Vet School that's located in a big awesome zoo/theme park about 20 minutes down the road.

I can now drive a manual transmission on the left side of the road down a two way street that's as narrow as a kings sized bed. . I haven't mastered it, but I can get the car movin and I'm not freaked out to see two cars, a motor scooter, three people, and two bicyclists headed dead on for me. Now all I have to do is learn how to ride a bike, and then how to shoot fire balls out of my hands and I'm golden.

Erich, guy who's job I'm taking, told me this about working at EVI:
"If you told me a year ago I would have enjoyed seeing a small child cry, I would have thought you were nuts. How could anyone take pleasure in the suffereing of the young and innocent? Well... time makes fools of us all."

and last, we are moving out of this stink hole to better climate. It's the same area, about a 10 minute walk further in land, right near the station and closer to where I work. Its not really a big difference in location, but the place is much nicer. Jenn's supervisors just have to get their asses in gears. The people I work for found the place for the guy who was supposed to come but didn't, so we could probably have been moved in by now if we went through my work, but the genetics of bureaucracy and all that are at play.

this is for the birds

I can't get into this personal blogging thing. Maybe it's the same reason I can never keep steadily writing one piece of fiction. I'm writing for a faceless nameless audience from which I get little to no feedback from. So instead I'll be posting the emails I've been sending to my friends, and some lovely random pic-uh-tures from my flickr stream.

Here follows the first, bear with me if it's repeat info:

Item 1: I have a job. Apparently they heard I was in town and couldn't wait to get my English speaking skills inside some Japanese brains. Approximately 830pm here last Friday, about 4 hours after landing in Kansai International, and about an hour in our new apartment, I got a call from one Kathy Sekioka, a native Alaskan who has been living in Tanabe for 20 years. She runs a small Eikaiwa (english language school) in the area. We set up a interview for saturday afternoon, and in less than 24 hours in a country I had a new job. It's part time teaching work, I have 12 classes, and hour each.

EDIT: Okay, so I started this email on sunday, since then many things have been keeping me from finishing it. One of them being training for work, and also I've already been promoted from part time to full time, so I've been having to prepare for that. My schedule is already getting changed after a week.

As for work I've sat in on a couple classes and taught a few. Students of all ages, so it's pretty interesting work in what's required of me. Training's pretty intensive, the school uses several different text books depending on the level and the age of the student. The school is small, a 5 full time teachers and one part time and two full time office workers. Except for Kathy, all the teachers are guys, and I haven't met the new part timer who's gonna replace me. Peter is a Canadian with a very maritime accent. He's been with the school for 9 years and has probably been in Japan for 12, japanese wife and a few kids. I haven't interacted with him much yet, Niall is an Irish guy who's also been with the company and in Japan for a while, as he has a wife and is expecting a kid. he has a great Irish leprechaun laugh. Bradley is a 26 year old Brit from London. He's hugged me no less than three times so far. He's a guy you can't but help like, wacky, full of energy, insane. He just came from Korea a month ago, spent time in India and Thailand, etc. I'll write a separate Bradley email, as he's the one who I've interacted with the most; I met him the second day I was here.

So less about work and more about the other English speakers I'll probably be interacting with a lot in Tanabe. Steve is the other ALT who lives in our apartment building. Northern Brit from Durham, so he has a good Beatle-esque accent. He's a youngin, just turned 21, didn't study Japanese before coming here but he's coming along, majored in History at Uni. Todd is a Seattle-West Coaster in his late 20ish 30ish, year old former microsoft employee who's basically the Johnny-on-the-spot in Tanabe. Basically if you need any help with anything he's the guy to go to, has a girlfriend who is well connected in the town, and he himself is pretty in the know here. Problem is he has a rather intense social life, so we kinda feel bad asking him to help us out with stuff. It's his 2nd year in the JET programme. Joanna is the CIR for Tanabe City, hailing from Vancouver, she's nice and pretty funny, only hung out with her twice sof far.

Oh and before I sign off on this email, I'm also learning how to drive a manual transmission. Today was my first day out of the parking lot and onto the streets. Driving a stick is pretty fun, but my teacher is Kathy's husband, who's English is very fluent and good, but not so much for trying to instill the knowledge of how not to make a car make horrible grinding noises. The car is also a japanese electric shaver, Kei-car, go-kart engine and wheels at the corners of the car, so handling is interesting, especially around the twisty and inclined streets of Japan. That's all for now, next email will come sooner than later hopefully.

----------------------------------------
Inside the bus? it IS THE BUS! The Bus of the UNDEAD!

This Round's on Me.

This Round's on Me.
Originally uploaded by tastefulTN.

I survived the 19 hour Journey from Clinton, NJ to Tanabe-Shi in one piece. It was too bad, and was more or less without incident. Other than watching Madgascar once in English, and once in Japanese, I have nothing interesting to report. The worst part of the trip was landing in Osaka and the odd things that happen in my ear. I my ears got real used to the low pressure at 33000 feet and refused to pop well into the train journey from Kansai International. My dampened hearing added greatly to the sureality of KIX itself, very large, very sterile and for what I had seen of it, mostly empty. Going through immigration, baggage claim, and customs reminded me heavily of something out of Brazil or 1984. Then again it might have just been the jetlag.

I have a job already, actually have had it since Saturday. I'm just good like that. My legend proceeded me and they just couldn't wait to give me work and pay. Like many of my friends I am now a teacher, though specifically in the English language, but wider in scope. I'll be teaching at EVI, which is a small english language school based out of Tanabe-shi, whose main office is only about a 15 minute walk from my apartment. Right now I'm teaching there mostly, but get to Shirahama every Friday to teach at their school there. People I'll be teaching range in age from 5-40, it'll be interesting.

I'm told that as of 2 years ago there was a 120 to 1 person to vending throughout Japan. I'd say in Tanabe the figure is more like 50 to 1. There's three right in front of our small apartment building. Mostly drink machines though, good amount of cigarettes, and I've seen two beer/mixed drink machines. Yes, mixed drinks come in aluminium cans in Japan. My beer experience thus far shall be chroniciled in another post.

This is it for now, I'll give a geography lesson in my next post.

The Inaka

If you have been accepted to JET you are probably mentally preparing yourself for the eventuality that you will be living in the Inaka. Yongfook has put together this short video/satire about his and other JET's life in his village. Life in the Inaka, a Documentary (Link to zip file download, .mov about 22megs, 10 minutes long)

Yong: So Mark, we're quite drunk now. If you had to sum up your life in the Inaka in maybe one or three words, what would you say?
Mark: Hmm. Well I'd say, my time in the Inaka has given me an enhanced appreciation...
Yong: Of?
Mark: Of... how sexually desirable an eighty year old Japanese woman could be.

Get A Passport

The First and probably most important thing you should do to get out of the country is go get yourself a valid passport. If you already have one, you're good to go. Passports last for ten years, so make sure yours is update. My application for passport is currently being processed, and the normal wait time is 4-6 weeks, but they can be expedited to a 10 day wait for an extra charge.

You're gonna need to bring two checks, one for the State Department and one for your County Passport Office. The total charge for a Passport is going to be around $100. The State Department charge is $67 and I would imagine the County charge is around $35. Mine was $40, but that also includes a charge for having two photos taken.

The photos are a tricky area, I recommend going to your County Courthouse to apply for the passport (that's what I did) because they will take your pictures there. Other places may or may not also take your picture there, you should call there before going. Here's a handy dandy link to locate the Passport Offices close to you: Passport Office Locator. The photo's are tricky because as a general rule they will not accept photographs taken in a photobooth. Most CVS's will do passport photos as well. The State Department has specific requirements for the passport photos, so if you're going to do it yourself or have a private photographer do it you should be aware that you need two identical 2 x 2 inch photographs of you in plain dress (no uniforms, no hats, no sunglasses).

You will need to bring a birth certificate (with seal, not a copy) or some other valid proof of US citizenship, your social security number, and state issued photo ID (driver's license, government ID, etc) . They will take the birth certificate and return it with the passport, so make sure that you have a copy of it or that you won't be needing to use, in the next month.

If you are a minor age 14 and over may need the consent of a parent or guardian as to provide proof of identity, this may not be a problem if you have a state issued photo ID or driver's license. If you are under the age of 14 you will need both parents or guardian's present to provide consent and cosign your application. If I missed anything, here's a link to a State Department FAQ about applying in person: How To Apply In Person for a Passport.

For information about renewing go HERE and if you have anymore questions visit the US Department of State's section of Passports.

I went on a Friday at 2pm and was out of there before 2:30. It's a relativity quick and painless experience when compared to dealing with other bureaucratic offices.

P.S. Passport Offices have official copies of the passport application that are the ones that have to be filled out. If you download a pdf version and print it out, you will just be wasting ink and paper. Unless you want practice on filling out personal information :p

Set-up Stand-up, Set-up for your Rights.

So I decided to get a personal blog to chronicle stuff about the adventure of me trying to journey to and in Japan. Hopefully it works out. I'll come up with a cooler title/description/layout later. Just this for now to see how ole blogger works. Hopefully I can use ecto to update this as well, I believe I can, and if I can, that will be sweetass.