Toya Day 13: A Sleepy Guy in a Sleepy Town

Alright, I’d like to apologize in advance for this blog post, because it certainly isn’t going to be exciting! The content will include a little about ironing, a little about cooking, a little about Final Fantasy, a little about the Onsen and a little about the Seicomart. Oh, and a little about toast. But all in all, this was the first day I’d truly call ‘uneventful’.

Still here? Well, I’ll continue. Waking up late, and by late I mean very late, there were many things to do practically, and, of course, the first of those was ironing. Ironing is hard. It’s seriously the bane of my life, and frankly it’s worth becoming super rich just so someone would do it for me! And there was so much of it! Long-sleeved shirts are the hardest, but I don’t care much for doing trousers either. Since I’m no good at it, I aim for ‘improvement’ not ‘perfection’. If someone is willing to do it for me for free, I’ll gladly FedEx them out to you 😀

My ironing pile. Incidentally, there’s a post open for volunteer maid if anyone is interested?

Before ironing, I had breakfast – Japanese toast in my Japanese toaster. The Japanese toaster is really quite high-tech, really more of a mini-oven than a conventional western-style slot loader. It has different wattages for different uses – sliced bread, baguettes, pizza and pies. And it works really fast! You get perfect toast in about a minute. With the Japanese butter we bought (which tastes almost exactly like Kerrygold), it tasted good – although the Japanese slice their bread really, really thick. Think the thickness of a green Warburton’s loaf and double it, and you’re on the right track.

Post-ironing, it was time for some R&R after two weeks of hard graft. I decided to take the time to play a little Final Fantasy – first, Final Fantasy III on PSP, and then XIV on PC.

Final Fantasy III on PSP. Enjoyable so far!

I’ll talk a little about III first – it isn’t the greatest game in the series, and I’m not very far into it, but I’m enjoying it. the Job System is very in-depth and very customisable, and it makes for a fun gameplay experience – if a very challenging one. The port to the PSP was handled quite well, too. The graphics are a notable step up from the DS and iOS versions even if they aren’t that great by PSP standards, and the loading times are fast when you do the install (although I’m told they’re unpleasant without). It’s the best version of Final Fantasy III, I think, although it’s not something you should particularly open your Play Asia account for if you have the DS or iOS version (although if you do, the Japanese UMD version has an English Language option).

After that, it was XIV time, and I logged in once more with my character, Sasuke Kojiro. Meteor has grown huge with the latest patch, and Garlean Airships prowl the skies. With A Realm Reborn imminent, it’s only a matter of time before current XIV is literally killed with fire. I gained a few levels with my Thaumatuge Class (my Dragoon Class is already Lv.50), before cooking dinner.

Dalamud, the Meteor, has grown quite large at this stage. The Garlean Airships are menacing, and Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 will soon burn with fire! Heed the Crystal’s Call!

The A-Coop was closed, and Seicomart is not well stocked with groceries. The only thing we had in was some ‘bacon’, which we cooked into some sandwiches.

I put ‘bacon’ in quotation marks because I’m not sure it was bacon. I’m not sure if it was just uncured belly pork that we fried. It tasted like bacon to be sure, but it was more akin to pork in how it looked. But, the taste was the important thing, and it did taste good. What’s more, there is half a pack left, so we can have more for breakfast!

Anyway, it was now Onsen time! Walking up once again past the Haunted Nursing Home, we arrived at our favourite Japanese hobby in due time. The water was unusually hot tonight, we thought, but it was still very pleasant. With us going quite late, it was also quite empty – the Onsen seems to be this way after the 8:00PM mark. But a pleasant soak is a pleasant soak, regardless of the time of day, and there’s no more pleasant a soak than the Onsen.

Brendan then decided he wanted some Kara-age, so we went to the Seicomart for some reason at 9:00PM (it’s open until 11:00PM nightly). They’d run out of Kara-age, so we did the next best thing and bought some beer! Specifically, Kirin Ichiban. Brendan thought beer was expensive, but when you buy six-packs it works out at roughly ¥100 a can, and Kirin is really good beer (indeed, of all the Japanese people I’ve asked, they’ve all either said Kirin Ichiban or Yebisu Premium Malt. I think I prefer the latter by a whisker, but they didn’t have it in, and Kirin is still a really tasty beer!

This is Kirin Nodogoshi – cheaper than regular Kirin because it has less malt in it. It tastes just as good, though!

And with that, I think this blog is now up to date! I’ll try to keep posting them daily from this point, but if I don’t, be assured I’ll keep a daily chronicle and it’ll make its way to WordPress at some point, even if it is  a day or two late. I hope you continue to enjoy this blog!

Toya Day 11: Omelette Curry and a Jug of Fries?!?!?!?!?

Shiro-san was picking us up at 11:30, so naturally we got up at 11:10 – because, y’know, we’re smart like that 😉 After the quickest shower I’ve ever had, Shiro arrived with his typically Japanese punctuality.

Today, Shiro informed us, we’d be going to Muroran, a city in the far south of Hokkaido and a 1hr drive away. There, we’d be able to do our shopping and finally get some decent pillows! We’d also be buying a new garbage bin, new bedding and some new shoes for Brendan among other things.

On the way we stopped for lunch – a sort of curry omelette with rice in it. It was very, very delicious! It was a very good example of curry – spicy, slightly tangy and wonderfully rich. Indeed, it was a great lunch!

To get into Muroran one must first cross the Swan Bridge (or Hakucho Brige) – a huge white suspension bridge from which you can see the entire city. Muroran looks very different to Date or Abuta – it has a very industrial feel to it, and there are a lot of factories along the bay. Some of these are also very old – at least one, the Ironworks, dates as far back as World War 2!

The Swan Bridge in Muroran. Around it you can see the many factories of Muroran.

We began by entering UniQlo, which is a Japanese clothes store. I’m sure those of you who know me can see where this is going. As someone who stands at  186cm, buying clothes is not the easiest proposition for me in Japan! The store clerk said that I would have to order online because I was an ‘unusual’ size. That was a shame because they did some really nice clothes in there – I did get a pair of jeans, however.

After that, we visited a hardware store akin to a Japanese B&Q. It was here that we bought our much bigger garbage bin, our new pillows and our new bedding. It’s very embarrassing, we found out, to ask which ones are bedsheets or pillowcases because A: You can’t read Japanese and B: Your practical skills are rather lacking at the tender age of 18 😉

The sports store was up next to look for Brendan some new shoes – but it was very, very expensive! I saw some boots for in excess of ¥20,000 – and while they were nice, they weren’t THAT nice. I also bumped into one of the Roku-nen students here and we said hi – I remember my own experiences of seeing teachers out of school, and it’s like ‘Oh yeah! Those people ARE actually human beings!’.

Anyway, after that, we headed for a Japanese shopping mall.

These are exactly the same as Western shopping malls – to a fault. I’m sure my assorted Aunts would like this place, but for me it felt like any shopping mall at home, a task of which I’m not overly fond – I much prefer high street shopping, it’s more exciting! Anyway, Brendan got some shoes. And on the way out, we noticed the cost of Japanese suits, which Shiro-san informed us was the average – ¥50,000! That’s just shy of £400! I got a new French Connection one in the UK for £150!

The Japanese Mall we visited – although you could easily mistake it for any other shopping mall…

Shopping finally and quite gladly over with, it was time to head to the Onsen! Today, we would go to Kitayuza, which has a wonderfully huge outdoor, entirely natural hot spring. And once again, it was simply fantastic. Seriously, UK, I can’t reiterate enough how fantastic these Onsen are – as I said to Shiro-san, if I ever get super-rich, then I’m having one in my back yard 😉 Outdoor Onsen are the best because you get a nice contrast between the fresh air and the hot water – they feel so damn good!

After yet another fantastic Onsen visit, Shiro-san said we should go for Korean Barbeque, which is his favourite meal. However, there was an hour’s wait, so in the meantime, we went to the video store again.

I love this place – a fantastic selection of everything for every games console you could imagine, every movie you’d ever want, or every manga you’d want to read. It’s seriously great – so great, in fact, that I got a member’s card! I also bought a Rurouni Kenshin RPG for the PS1 – I’ve heard it’s rare, so I thought seeing it must have been fate or something! Anyway, I only paid ¥410 for it. I’ll understand what’s going on by the end of the year! I also told Shiro-san that I’d watched K-ON, to which he only laughed and expressed bewilderment 😀 Oh, and we saw a film called MegaShark versus Giant Octopus – what an excellent-sounding piece of filmography!

Me holding a K-ON DVD rental box. Shiro-san just laughed 😀

RuroKen in hand, we finally returned to the Korean Barbeque restaurant – a placed called BLU-STA. It was an… unusual restaurant in several ways. Firstly, you had to take your shoes off to dine. Secondly, dining was done in tables recessed into the ground – ground level was seat level in the booths. Thirdly, they actually brought us a barbeque, and we cooked it ourselves! And finally was what can only be described as a jug of fries. Literally, a jug of fries. Anyway, it all tasted fantastic – we tried fried oysters, wagyu beef, genghiskhan (the Japanese name for lamb), kimchee pickles (which are the wierdest thing I’ve ever tasted, having a sort of garlicky flavour) and some kind of chocolate dessert which I ate with a two-ended piece of cutlery, one side being a fork and the other being a spoon. Oishikata desu!

On the left is the Korean Barbecue, but you didn’t want to see that, did you? Yes, that is what a literal jug of fries looks like 😀

Finally going home after another memorable day with Shiro-san, the only other notable incident was buying a Japanese PS1 on which to play my new Rurouni Kenshin RPG 😀

 

Toya Day 11: As it turns out, Japan DOES NOT have a Victorian School System…

Toya Day 11 has been a… shall we say… physically challenging one. But I’ll get on to that in a minute.

The morning began not by going to the Sogo Center – but by heading straight to Toya Elementary School to work with the sixth grade (roku-nen). The sixth grade is a small one, and the kids in it seem very close-knit, but anyway, they were beginning their English Class when we arrived.

Taking our places front and centre, each student came and greeted us in English – recapping what they’d learned in their last lesson. After being asked at least four times what the weather was and how I was feeling today, they all took their places for the bulk of the lesson – directions.

Again, in a manner not wholly dissimilar to High School French Classes at Minsthorpe, the activity was a physical one. Basically, it took the form of a game where each student had to guide a partner back to their chairs. Me and Brendan demonstrated on the teacher, who was more than happy to bump into things to amuse everyone!

This is actually an interesting point to elaborate on. The stereotype of the Japanese Education System as one of rigid discipline, endless graft and lack of freedom are unfair and, as far as I can tell, groundless. Sure, the kids do as they’re told, but if anything, the teacher-student bond seems closer in Japan than in the UK, and the teachers are more than willing and able to make their classes enjoy school. As I said in another post, the teachers share everything with the kids, so I’m not sure if it’s a sense of camaraderie or what, but the kids are eager to learn, well-motivated, happy and respectful. From what I’ve seen so far, Japan’s education system is great – and a far cry from all that nonsense I’d heard about it like ‘the nail that sticks out gets struck down the hardest’ and ‘why learn when you can rehearse?’ – maybe these things were true in the past, or maybe Toya Elementary is the exception to the rule, but I’ve seen no evidence of either of those things.

What most would imagine a Japanese classroom to be like…

…They’re actually more like this than that stupid stereotype.

Anyway, after directions, it was time to learn about vegetables in English! The game we played was basically snap – the teacher said he liked certain things or didn’t like certain things, and if one of the cards on the table was called out, it was a race to grab the card. Whoever had the most cards at the end won. In many ways, the Japanese Education System is very similar to our own. I can remember doing similar things in my own language lessons.

Now, to elaborate on that physically demanding part. The entire school had to run a 3km cross-country run (1.5km up the road and then back again) – and dear god are these kids fit! Fitter than me, in any case. Since we were running with the Roku-nen, we had to wait a bit to start, and I got talking to a 6th grader who liked Top Gear! He said his favourite of the Top Gear team was the Stig – and I can’t fault him on that!

One of my Japanese students was a big fan of this guy 😀

As we began running, I immediately realized that endurance fitness is not my strong point. I’m more of a muscular fitness kind of guy, but I’ll bet that all the Seicomart Kara-age made it even harder! I also noticed that the Principal didn’t run – he should run every one, to set an example to the kids 😉

As a reward for the marathon, the school lunch for the day was a Bento Box – and it was really good. It contained fried chicken, pilau rice, salmon, pumpkin and numerous vegetables, and these were all of a high quality. Oishikata desu! Those kids put a lot of effort into their running, so they deserved it.

I’d also like to make another note here – in Japan, winning isn’t the be all and end all. The Japanese respect someone just as much for putting effort in as actually winning – even the kids who came last got cheers of sincere applause from their classmates, not insults and shame like in the West. Competition is good, but I much prefer the Japanese attitude to it if I’m honest.

Not much happened for the rest of the day until the evening.

I’m going to be a bit of a bore and talk about cooking now – the original plan was Chicken Korma, but it went wrong on several levels. Firstly, we bought the wrong kind of yoghurt – sweet instead of plain, and after a bike ride to the Seicomart to get more, we discovered that we didn’t have chicken stock. So the plan changed to something I haven’t done in a while – throw random things in a pan and see what works! I used garlic, ginger, soy sauce, some kind of odd Japanese dry rub, and the last of the cooking wine as well as salt and pepper. And it actually tasted OK!

The late evening was taken up by Yosakoi Dancing again. We continued to practice the routine that we had begun on Tuesday, and on some level we could actually do it by the end of the class! I say ‘on some level’ because I mean we could do it slowly, in half-time, without music – when the music came on, we were all over the place!

Yosakoi! One day I will be this good!

I will master you, Yosakoi Dance. Just wait and see.

Toya Day 10: Sakura, Sakura

Ok, missing breakfast is beginning to become an issue. I think it’ll be a good idea to buy cereal in Date on Saturday, because the coming day would be a tiring one!

We were in a nursery again, but this time, it was slightly out of town – the Sakura nursery, up on the hills above Toya. Some background information – it used to be a Elementary School, and was founded in the Taisho Era. Four years ago, it became Sakura nursery, and it’s got some good kids in it.

As we entered, the children proceeded to rag us around and try to beat us up! They were tugging from all directions, and we were inundated with them! These were more *very* energetic children! The mistress of the nursery didn’t speak much English, so communication was hard, but we at least introduced ourselves.

Playing nursery games with children is fun – at first, they were playing Castle, with a large set of foam blocks which they had. At one stage, they let me in, and I became Shogun of the Castle! Other times, I was the big scary monster outside the castle – it was the kind of stuff you’d expect from four year olds!

A real castle. Again, for legal reasons, this is the best I can do 😉

After a brief bit of pretending to be a bear, the children assembled in the main hall for sing-along/exercise time. Several songs were played in Japanese – all to the same tunes as English nursery rhymes, but in Japanese! After much crawling, it eventually progressed to a game to the tune of ‘Wheels on the Bus’ (I think it’s a train in the Japanese version, since they sing choo-choo-choo). Everyone goes around, and when the music stops, you must play rock-paper-scissors with the nearest person. The loser must form a line behind the winner, until everyone is behind one person. It was fun, and good exercise!

At this point, I should chat about how important rock-paper-scissors is here. It solves literally all disputes. ‘Rock-paper-scissors, ONE TWO THREE!’ is a very common thing to see and hear. It’s used in a lot of games, and it solves all disagreements. It is the perfect solution to all problems.

Following this, we went out for a walk around the area – the farmlands of Hokkaido. The job here was basically just to make sure the children didn’t get hurt or wander off, but it was a long walk! They do this daily, apparently, too. The children cheerfully said Konnichiwa to everyone, though!

While here, I saw my first instance of litter in Japan. Literally. I hate to get on my high horse about this, but I guess there are arseholes everywhere in the world. I mean, the Japanese Garbage System is complex but not overly so – it’s not hard to keep that coffee can in your car rather than throwing it out of the window.

Seriously, Japan.

Anyway, it was lunchtime upon return, and then naptime. In many ways, I wish I was still in nursery – why can’t I have naptime too? Anyway, before that, the kids wanted us to read them a story. It’s at those kind of moments that you really wish you knew Japanese. It’s hard to explain to a nursery kid that you can’t read.

Nursery children in bed, we returned to the office only to be greeted by Taka-san – who was carrying two large sacks with him.

Taking out the contents, it turned out to be a set of Shinai and a set of Kendo Armour! Taka-san told us that we could begin Kendo on the 1st of October, and we’re both looking forward to it a lot!

And then he showed us how much Kendo Armour of our own costs. Before I go on to say how much this is, I should clarify that he said he would try to borrow some for us in the meantime. It’s very expensive to say the least.

¥63,000.

That’s £500 in UK currency. Basically, 3/4 of a month’s salary! I’m not sure whether to take the plunge or not. I have the money in my savings, but it’s a lot of money! Anyway, we’re lending for the time being, so there’s no hurry to decide.

63,000 of these for Kendo Armour. Of course, I won’t say no to a set as an early birthday present!

Also awaiting me were my first two orders from Amazon Japan! These were two mouse mats – one for home and one for work – and Final Fantasy III for PSP! With this, every Final Fantasy is available on PlayStation, and the Japanese UMD version happily has an English text option!

Final Fantasy III! Not the greatest in the series, but it completes my Final Fantasy PlayStation Collection a bit more!

Today also marked my first truly successful experience of cooking while here. While the dry-rub chicken went OK, it was very much a copout meal. It couldn’t have gone wrong short of burning the house down. Yesterday, despite the chicken and sauce being good I burned the rice (the dish was oregano and garlic chicken in white wine sauce). But today, my Korma was good!

Finally, food that was Oishii!

The Onsen beckoned as a reward for this, so we trotted up the hill once again past the scary nursing home to some hokahoka water!

 

On an unrelated note, the reference in the title is to a Japanese folk song – this one:

Toya Day 9: Oh, the Youth of Today…

Today was an… interesting day. Getting up as normal, we quickly discovered that we hadn’t a clue where the place we were working was!

Cycling to the Sogo Center 30 mins early – Aoba-san took us over to our assignment for the day – the Toyamura Nursery. It was a five minute walk away from the Sogo Center – so in many ways the energy we would need was preserved.

Entering the Nursery, we felt a little awkward if anything – our job was to keep the kids entertained, but how exactly does one do that? It turns out, in several ways! I found out the first one by accident – falling over! Some of the kids were helping to clean the floor, and I decided to join in. In socks? Bad idea. But at least it made the kids chuckle!

Second, it turned out, was tormenting Brendan! Now, you can probably imagine the toy room of a nursery – lots of toys, scattered everywhere – plastic tea sets, wooden blocks, pretend cars and spaceships – and they put all of it on Brendan, plus the storage boxes! Relentlessly, repeatedly, and possibly with intent to harm 😉

At this point, I’ll discuss the dynamics of nurseries. In an Elementary School, there is lots of energy, but it’s controlled, and can be used positively for learning. In a nursery, that control hasn’t been learned yet, so it just ends up being chaotic – and occasionally destructive 😀 The Brendan thing is just one example of this – it was a morning of being ragged around and just generally punched a lot!

The Apocalypse. Nurseries are a bit like this 😉

At around ten o’clock, it was time for ‘Outdoor Play’. Today was also unique in that, but I’ll come on to that in a second. The kids in the nursery have to wear sun hats and walk in pairs holding hands outside the nursery. In many ways, it’s kind of nostalgic thinking back to my own nursery days where we did similar things, although something tells me that in the UK today going outdoors at all would be considered too high risk to even try.

We walked down to the lakeside, and the kids picked up acorns and shared them around with everyone, including us. It was kind of nice – they’re good kids, if a bit energetic! They also played in the park a bit – running around, racing, and climbing on rocks. I can’t imagine the amount of risk assessment forms this would take in the UK!

Risk Assessments. Not an issue in Japan.

After that, it was time for the thing that made outdoor play a bit different – the kids were doing a road safety rally, in conjunction with the local police and town council. The First Grade of the Elementary School were also in attendance. Each person was given a flag, and for the next 30 mins we stood at the roadside at the entrance to the village shouting ‘Koto Anzen Onegaishimasu!’ to every car that passed by – I presume it means Drive Carefully or something. The kids were very enthusiastic anyway – and the policemen too! (Japanese Police Uniforms are also very fancy!)

With that, outdoor play was over, and it was time to head back to the nursery. After an eventful lunch, it was also time for us to leave. So we returned to the Office, for an afternoon of quiet web browsing…

Until 2:00PM, when Aoba-san told us that we’d get the internet in our house today! Two men from NTT Plala (a Japanese ISP) came and tinkered with the router, finally putting us online! Life = complete! That’s also the reason for the lateness of these blog posts, I’ve been typing them daily and WordPress is a bit cumbersome with pictures, so thanks for your patience 🙂

As the internet men left, I used the new luxury of Google Translate to give them this message: あなたは私のヒーローです、どうもありがとうございました = it means: ‘You are my heroes. Thank you so much!’ – maybe I laid on the praise a little heavily – they both laughed!

The internet speed in our house! Be jealous, Cory Bailey!

That evening was the thing we were most nervous about – the Adult Class. We’d planned extensively for it, and put a lot of effort into it. We’d come up with many games – charades, pictionary, shopping role-play – and included them in a variety of topics, so we were well prepared. The basic gist was a loosely fitting story about a holiday – ‘You have gone on holiday – how did you get there? You decided to go shopping… What clothes did you wear? et cetera. It was a cheesy idea, but everyone was receptive to it. The people in the class were also keen to know more about English and Irish culture – it was an assessment lesson at heart, but it was fun and everyone seemed to enjoy it, although some people got really ‘ripped off’ in the shopping activity!

Turns out, Shiro-san is a shrewd businessman.

Toya Day 8: Unlike Oil, these Kids are an endless supply of Energy…

Well, this has been an eventful day! Not arising as usual, I awoke at 6:20AM due to… a text from Aoba-san?!?!?!?!? Seriously? It was only a quick reminder that we were in the Elementary school today (and man is that place going to produce some interesting stories!), but 6:20AM!

Anyway, after catching up on my lost sleep I rose again at 8:00AM. I showered, and then cycled to the office again in my work clothes, feeling very Japanese for doing so!

We arrived at the office in good time, and discovered that we had lost our ‘business cards’ for the icebreaker at the Elementary school! Quickly scrambling to find card, we made some more in the nick of time just before Taka-san arrived. It was also at this point that we finished planning and preparing our first adult class!

The Elementary school was only a very short walk from the Sogo Center – less than five minutes – and on the way we bumped into some energetic kids who had been out on a walk. So energetic! They looked like one of the lower grades, and they seemed very excited.

Toya Elementary School – a place where I’m actually partly responsible for the education of some children!

As we entered the school, we were lead to the Principal’s Office. The Principal is a really nice guy, too – he gave us some coffee, and we chatted a little about what the UK and Ireland were like. He had a very nice Office, too – a big wooden desk, work adorning the walls, and two comfortable couches for guests. It’s the kind of Office I want some day!

Eventually, we were summoned by the Student Council into the Gymnasium in what was probably the most elaborate welcoming ceremony ever! The kids started by standing as we entered and applauding us until we took our seats, front and centre. Then, several speeches ensued, and finally, we introduced ourselves very briefly, in Japanese, to what was a very big applause.

This is a picture of President Obama giving a speech. Unfortunately, for legal reasons, that’s the best I can do 😉

After a few more speeches, we played the icebreaker game with our newly-written ‘business cards’ – the kids had also made their own, and they had produced some really nice designs. Basically, you had to go around the room and play rock-paper-scissors – gaining a card if you won and losing one if you lost. Whoever had the most left at the end would win – and I won! I had 16 cards, with the next person having nine. I was probably helped to be honest by the masses of enthusiastic kids coming up to greet me!

We then played a second game. In this, each person was given a colour, and you had to run between chairs for the colour that was called out (unless someone shouted ‘happy’, in which case it was a mad scramble with every colour). The loser called out the next colour. Both of these games were pretty fun, and it was a good way to encourage some communication between us and the kids.

The next part of this welcoming ceremony was by far the most interesting – the school song, or ‘Kouka’. It’s a concept completely alien to us in Britain, but apparently each school in Japan – at every level, so from Elementary all the way to University, has a unique song which all the students know from memory. It’s a nice way to encourage a school spirit, I think, and all the kids seemed very enthusiastic about singing it. I also said they know it from memory – this isn’t a short song, it lasted for five minutes and had numerous verses as well as a chorus. Mr Gregory, if you’re reading this, take note – it’s a good idea.

The welcome ceremony closed with a speech from the Principal. This was a moderately-sized address, lasting for perhaps three or four minutes, but it was all in Japanese so all I could discern was that he said I liked skiing.

After this, it was time for fourth period, which we spent in 6th Grade. This was a very small class – less than ten (the school as a whole only has 67, however) – but all the kids were very enthusiastic and eager. 6th grade in Japan is age 11-12, so it’s basically what we’d call Year 7, and it’s the last year of Elementary school. This wasn’t a particularly tough lesson – it was basically the kids introducing themselves, then asking us some questions in English – which was actually very good. Certainly a higher level than Year 7 French at Minsthorpe, anyway! One kid liked Mario, another liked cooking, another liked Final Fantasy, and another like baseball.

Final Fantasy. One of the children liked this xD

After this, it was time for Japanese school lunch. Now, this varies massively from in British schools for several reasons. Firstly, the teachers eat with the students – they share a table, and they all talk informally. The teachers seem to have very strong relationships with their students. Secondly, lunch is eaten not in a cafeteria, but in the classroom. Each child is given a tray but brings their own lunch set (chopsticks and a placemat), and the class takes it in turns to help the dinner ladies bring up and serve the food (even wearing the full shebang in the process – an apron, a face mask and a cap). Thirdly, the food is actually edible – dare I say even enjoyable! Today’s lunch was vegetable stir-fry, miso soup, a bowl of rice, a carton of milk and fresh (a word which to British schoolchildren has become confined to legend) mackerel. Brendan and I ate with the sixth grade, covering all sorts of topics from whether I had a cat to what games and anime I liked. I also won hearts and minds with my impression of Himura Kenshin 😉

I do a kickass impression of this guy – at least the kids seemed to think so!

Fifth Period would be spent with the Go-nen, the fifth grade. This was a larger class – perhaps 15 or so students. However, they were just as enthusiastic as the others. The entire lesson was a big Q&A Session about us and our countries. We introduced the Go-nen to Leprechauns, Yorkshire Terriers, the Queen and fish and chips. It’s going to be hard learning all the names!

Our shift over, we departed the school on the revelation that  I’m 186cm tall – a veritable giant in Japan, and a size which impressed the Go-nen! Come to think of it, that makes me the tallest person in Toyamura!

Upon returning to the Sogo Center, I decided to make life a little easier and I made an account with Amazon Japan, ordering a Mouse Mat and Final Fantasy III for PSP. Thankfully, the site has an English language option so it was easy to navigate! It’s going to be useful, I think. When I go to the office tomorrow I’m ordering a wok and I’m ordered some kind of ladling implement. My kitchen is still woefully underequipped 😦

Speaking of which, dinner tonight was chicken, vegetables and rice, and while a little plain, it was actually successful this time! I used some Japanese dry-rub on the chicken which was very spicy, but it wasn’t wholly different to the Schwarz ones at home. More importantly, the entire meal was very healthy (chicken breasts are lean meat, and we had broccoli and mushrooms with it), and it probably cost less than ¥500 each – which will be even less now that we have stock dry rub and olive oil. It was also filling.

Now, Yosakoi Dancing. One of the wierdest things I’ve ever tried, but also extremely enjoyable and with some very nice people attending (who frankly have the patience of saints to put up with me and Brendan!). Yosakoi is a semi-traditional Japanese dance, and it’s quite complex with a lot of complex footwork and many complex hand motions. It’s also a hell of a workout! But it’s also very fun, and I’ll certainly attend again! For the last three years, the group have also participated in the Sapporo Yosakoi Festival which is held every June – and all the volunteers since have participated. Hopefully, me and Brendan will be good enough to as well!

Yosakoi Dancing – extremely fun, but very hard!

The only other event of the day is that my umbrella was stolen! Still, it was a cheap promotional umbrella and there are probably 500 more in the Sogo Center so it was no huge loss. Still – dammit Japan! I’m sure someone took it by accident, however – something tells me that the Toyamura Umbrella Thief doesn’t actually exist to pray on innocent umbrellas. It had stopped raining by the time we left anyway 😀

Toya Day 7: ‘Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life’

It’s one week since we arrived in Toya, and it feels like we’re finally starting to learn the ropes a bit. In short: This is a very nice town! The people here are very nice, the town is pleasant and peaceful and the area surrounding it is beautiful.

So, we began our second day of work today. However, it was actually real, serious work this time – not the bimbling about on the Internet and setting up computers that had happened on Friday. We even did two and a half hours of overtime! But I’ll come on to that in a bit.

The morning was a fairly normal one – I woke up, got in the shower, and had a cup of strong Japanese coffee. It was also Monday, so the garbage had to be put out again – the crazy, insanely complicated Japanese garbage in our way-too-small burnable waste bin 😉 We may have to invest in a bigger one of those at some point – that would make the Japanese garbage much easier I think.

Cycling to work in the Japanese way – by Jitensha (bike) – we arrived in good time, perhaps ten or fifteen minutes early.

After some general fannying about with Email and Facebook (maybe a small Facebook argument), we actually did actual, real, bona-fide, paid work! We were planning the lesson for our adult class, and it was a difficult thing to do, believe me! In many ways, much of it was guesswork since we don’t actually know most of the students yet, especially the beginner class. Usually, the class is divided into Advanced and Beginner groups, but this week it will be both so we can decide who will teach which class and assess them to find their level of English.

This is the thing that has single-handedly destroyed the productivity of every worker in the world. I can now join that crowd!

Thinking back to my High School French lessons, and remembering the Golden Advice of Nick from Project Trust – ‘There is no such thing as plagiarism in teaching – if you see a good idea, steal it’ – I set to work. Basically, it wasn’t too different to the setup of a High School French lesson.

After some basic introductions, the main body of the lesson will be an all-inclusive story that includes several themes. It’s a holiday story – including ‘How did you get to the UK’, ‘You are hungry, what did you have to eat?’, ‘What did you wear the morning you arrived?’, ‘What was the weather like when you got there?’, ‘It’s a good day for your favourite sport…’, ‘You decided to go shopping’, You decided to go sightseeing’ and ‘Oh no! Your friend is injured and the Ambulance driver only knows English!’. This all gets rounded off with an opinion of the holiday, and then some writing of the experience! At the end, the class read to each other. Of course, this is very interactive – there are games like charades,  matching the shopping list to the object, Pictionary, and pin the body part on the Brendan involved. Part of this may be influenced by my desire to see Taka-san act out canoeing in charades, but I’ll leave that ulterior motive on this blog 😉

In the afternoon, Aoba-san took us to the bank to set up our Japanese bank accounts – and dear god was that a palaver! Apparently Japanese banks are just as hung up on bureaucratic nonsense as Western ones, and it took no less than five attempts before they accepted the paperwork! There were problems with the way I’d written my name, with the way I’d only put my name in lower-case letters, and even with the way I’d written my number 7! At least my Kanji and my Kana were good enough – that was nice, I suppose!

Slightly out of order, I’m now going to talk about my lunch – because of the conversation I had with Aoba-san in the bank about it. I had two boxes of Kara-age, each with about four pieces of chicken in (which is roughly equal to a box of six McNuggets), an ice cream and a bottle of water – and she looked astounded by this. Now this actually surprised me, considering how enormous all of the Japanese meals we’ve had have been. It lead to some rather mean jokes later 😉

I feel I need to emphasize the deliciousness of Kara-age. Therefore, this IS the same picture from the other day 😉

Anyway, we ended up working overtime on the Adult Class lesson plan preparing resources (we were also partly motivated by the rain – because when it rains in Japan, it doesn’t do so by halves). Aoba-san also stayed, and I was the butt of a few more mean jokes xD Lucky I’m not sensitive – I’ll cycle off those Kara-age anyway!

A letter also came from Project Trust today – nothing fancy, just a newsletter and some insurance details. Still, it was interesting to see what was going on in the other places around the world. In Thailand, they ate some bugs, and in China, some people took a 40-hour train ride from Beijing to Urumqi in Xinjiang! To think, that could have actually been me – the Japan project is so competitive, I was more than likely to be headed there with them! (By the way, if any fellow PT Volunteers read this, best of luck in all of your Projects 🙂 )

This was almost me. For 40 hours.

Next it was time for more cooking, after a brief shop in the A-Coop. We tried making chicken korma, which went well until the last goddamn minute with the yoghurt. The yogurt wasn’t creamy, silky yoghurt, it was very lumpy and just generally inappropriate for cooking. It tasted like korma, but it looked nothing like it and the sauce was very watery. It was also while cooking this that I realized how many basics are missing from this kitchen, so if anyone would be kind enough, I’d be grateful for a sieve, a ladle, a wooden spoon, a spatula and a garlic mincer!

After some more edible-ish cooking, we rounded out the day with what else? The Onsen. Seriously, the Onsen is the single greatest  thing about Japan. Nothing else except maybe the Kara-age compares. And the first thing I do when I get back will be to go on Dragon’s Den and get the things introduced in the UK – public nudity isn’t as bad as you think it is, UK! Especially when you get a bath this wonderful!

Toya Day 6: Kimchee Base and Literal Toilet Humour ;)

It was Sunday, and we’d been up early every day of the week, so it was finally time for what we considered a well-deserved lie-in. Originally planning to get up at 10:00AM, it turned out to be 11:30 for me! Brendan was even worse – arising at 1:00PM! I guess the jet lag that we hadn’t yet gotten a chance to work through had finally hit us.

The early part of our day was taken by washing, ironing and cleaning in general – practicalities in other words. Not too exciting, I guess, but it all went well until the fuse blew! I was about halfway through my ironing at this point, and it took us a while to figure out what was actually happening (initially we feared that the dryer had broken). Taka-san came over and showed us how to work the fuse box, and left us with potentially the greatest line that can be said at 2:00PM in the afternoon:

‘It’s my birthday, so, of course, I’m drunk’.

What a guy.

I dislike these things 😉

We wished him a happy birthday, and he departed, we noticed, on his bicycle, not his car! The pro-ironing mood had been rather washed away by this event, so we decided to head into the village for some more delicious Seicomart Kara-age. It was, once again, delicious. After that, I went to the Mizu no Eki, where I discovered a fantastic fresh produce market! The Mizu no Eki, it turns out, stocks exclusively goods from the Toya area – and the shopkeeper (who is actually one of our adult class students) recommended me some potatoes for tonight’s dinner (Kareraisu).

It kind of feels odd when you’re abroad with no real objective – we hadn’t been told about the content of our real work yet, so we had nothing really to do. So we decided to cycle around a bit, and then cycle as far up as the hospital and back, and then go to the shrine again. Toyamura also seemed oddly empty today – the majority of people we said hello to were the campers around the lake, the actual town was extremely quiet.

It was then time to make our first meal in Japan for ourselves. As I said earlier, we made Kareraisu, and since we didn’t have many ingredients, the flavour was a little flat. There were also some minor disasters in making it – we forgot to unfreeze the chicken the night before so it was strictly a vegetable curry, we overcooked the onions, and I put too much water in the stew pan (Japanese curry is quite unlike Indian curry in that the meat and vegetables and curry roux are cooked separately and only combined late in the cooking process). What’s more, watching Brendan try to dice onions and peel carrots was nothing short of painful – the onion in particular made me cry more than him!

An actual good Kareraisu! Be assured – ours looked nothing like this!

Still, it turned out to be edible, even if a little boring.

Mine, at least, stayed that way. Brendan decided to add a disproportionate amount of Kimchee Base to his to give it a little more flavour. At first he said ‘Wow, this isn’t bad, actually – try a bit’ – knowing that I was foolish for doing so, I did.

It was bloody awful.

Brendan then proceeded to pick at it for the next five or so minutes before saying ‘Yeah, I may have ruined this. At first it was ‘Wow, flavour!’, but then I realised it was bad flavour’.

You know where it ended up? Not in the Japanese Garbage, not down the Japanese sink, but in the Japanese toilet. Literally.

That traumatic experience over with, we decided to head to the Onsen, where we discussed the inherent scariness of the abandoned nursing home that looms over the town. The Onsen visit was uneventful, but coming back we noticed that there were lights on in the abandoned nursing home! It wasn’t bright light, it was eerie light – kind of horror movie-ish light. Kowai desu! I offered Brendan ¥100 to stay the night there.

He said no.

And with that, we returned home, debating the scariness of the Haunted Nursing Home (Hollywood, if you want to get in touch, please email me!)

Toya Day 5: A Tale of Swords and Souls

Shiro-san was here at 9:30AM sharp, and we were looking forward to spending the day with him in Date city which is about 40 minutes out of Toyamura.

The car ride there passed quickly with us talking about various things – music, how Shiro-san for some reason doesn’t like Sushi, Temura or Sashimi, and he really, really hates salmon roe for some reason! He likes Aerosmith and 80’s western music, and he’s just generally a really cool guy. His wife also came along and was also really nice – even if their food tastes were polar opposites! She likes all of things that he hates! He also has a really nice car – a Mitsubishi Gallant which is very well equipped!

Eventually we reached Date city, which is much bigger than Toyamura, Toyako Onsen or Abuta – it has a population of 90,000 people, so it isn’t tiny by any stretch. Of course, the first thing we had to do was take care of some tedious practicalities – like buying laundry baskets, cooking knives and other such practicalities. This was a more interesting experience than it sounds – we went into what was essentially the Japanese equivalent of a Pound Shop to do it – again, I have no idea where the notion of expensive Japan comes from! We also saw McVities biscuits there. McVities!

Following this, we went to the International Food Fair which was visiting Date city that week. We had beef and ‘deep-fried french fries’ – in many ways, steak and chips! We also met one of Shiro-san’s work colleagues here, who sat and ate some ice cream with us. It was a very popular thing apparently – the Japanese seem to like to try different foods from around the world – quite unlike the British who complain when there are no baked beans available! We also had a really delicious Japanese dessert here – a sort of pudding with strawberry flavouring, but made of rice.

From Left to Right – Me, Shiro-san, Mako-san, Shiro’s work friend and Brendan.

Nearby was the old house of none other than Date Masumune – an old ally of Tokugawa Ieyasu. The city of Date was named in his honour, but more importantly, so was the Masamune sword from Final Fantasy! Anyway, this was one of the oldest buildings in Hokkaido, so it was quite impressive. Unfortunately, it was also closed, so we couldn’t go in – ah well, there’s always next time!

Next up was the Date Edo Jidaimura – a kind of Edo Period theme park. It was really fun! Several interesting things happened there – we tried out archery and throwing stars, and we visited the (extremely strange) Temple of O-Nyan-Sama, a giant golden cat god! There was a ‘dark secret’ hidden in this – a kind of haunted maze filled with evil cats. It was very odd – only in Japan!

Me and Brendan with a Samurai at the Edo Jidaimura!

The Ninja house was a similar sort of set up – a maze-like building with some basic traps and features to confuse and disorient. It was very easy, but it was fun regardless – and Shiro-san kept almost falling over!

Of course, the highlights of the Jidaimura were the Ninja shows. There were three Ninja shows and one Kabuki show. The first Ninja show told the story of an old man and a Samurai retainer of Date Masamune called Kinsuke. They were looking for gold to build Sendai castle, and just as the old man had found it, Ninjas from the Shogun attacked! Kinsuke and the old man fought them off in an elaborate and fantastically choreographed swordfight which was incredible to watch – like a martial arts movie brought to life! Of course, Kinsuke defeated the Ninjas in the end.

Us with the cast of the Ninja show! Kinsuke is the guy with the blue headband.

The next we went to was the Kabuki theatre. The interesting part of this was that one of the audience had to play the role of the Shogun, and people had to take part in a rock-paper-scissors contest to get the part.

I won.

As Shogun, I took my place on stage. There were line prompts for me, so the part was fairly easy to play. Basically the story went that I, as the Shogun, was at a Geisha house. I progressively ‘smoked’ a Japanese pipe (which was fake), ran out of money and tried to escape. Then I agreed to marry the Geisha or something as payment 😀 The most shocking part for me was when I had to drink ‘real Japanese Sake’ which turned out to be real Japanese Sake! After the pretend pipe I had assumed that I would just be drinking water or something – but that was actual Sake!

Me as Shogun – as it turned out, that was Real Japanese Sake!

The third show was a continuation of the first, as far as I could work out (there was no story guide for this one in English). I think that the Old Man from the first was defending the Gold Mine from a Ninja attack, and then a girl who reminded me of Misao-chan from Rurouni Kenshin came and saved the day from the Ninjas. It had by far the best acrobatics – there were backflips and somersaults, enormous jumps and cartwheels abound – it was very impressive, especially considering that there was some intense swordfighting in between!

The Ninja Show – the fight scenes were amazing!

The last awesome thing about the Jidaimura was that they sold umbrellas with sword handles. Enough said.

We had heard before coming to Japan that Shiro-san liked Onsen, so it was not too surprising when he took us to one. However, this was far removed from the ones in Toyamura – this was in Noboribetsu, which is an upmarket resort town with a natural onsen. It was extremely pleasant! First we tried the outdoor spa, which is apparently Shiro-san’s favourite one – and then we tried another one, with a wooden basin which is apparently good for the skin. This was before heading indoors to the bubble-pool, which was absolutely fantastically amazing. In the pool, we discussed why Onsen would not be popular in the UK – how people are embarrassed by nudity and would feel ashamed to enter a public bath in front of and with other naked people. Seriously guys – loosen up! Onsen are one of the best things I’ve experienced in Japan – they’re extremely, extremely relaxing and it’s like taking the best bath you’ve ever had every single time you go in! Come on UK, embrace the Onsen!

At this point, it was Japanese sunset, and Shiro-san stopped off on a hill overlooking Date city. The sunset over Funka Bay looked stunning – very, very beautiful.

Date at sunset – stunning scenery!

Anyway, we next went into a Japanese supermarket, where Brendan bought a hairdryer and I bought the beginnings of my Japanese spice shelf! For those of you who are boring enough to be interested, I bought Paprika (which is a go-to in a lot of my cooking), Garam Masala (for curry), Oregano (another go-to) and Habanero Powder (which is for my inner masochist 😉 ). Japanese supermarkets are the same but subtly different to UK ones – instead of Dairy, for example, it was misspelled as ‘Daily’. It was an interesting experience nonetheless, and far removed from Toyamura’s Seicomart.

It was also an interesting experience going into a Japanese CD/DVD/Game store. Now, I’m going to go all nerdy for a second, and discuss the ins and outs of this. Firstly, Japanese games are VERY expensive. For new ones – even PSP games – upwards of ¥6000 is not uncommon – basically double the price of the UK versions. The cheapest was ¥3500, and that was Final Fantasy III, a port of a four-year old DS game! I was actually about to buy that, but it was sold out 😦 Oh well, next time.

The final thing we did with Shiro-san was go for sushi – which he wasn’t so keen on, but he said next time we’d go for Korean Barbecue, which is his favourite. Sushi in Japan is not what I expected – it’s far better. I expected a very acetic, acidic flavour, but in really it was hard to tell it was fermented rice at all – which left the fish as the main event for flavour. Highlights for me were unagi (eel) and salmon roe (which Shiro-san really, really hates). I was a bit skeptical of eel so I was surprised when it turned out to be my favourite! Eel has a reputation for being slimy and chewy, but it was one of the best fish I’ve ever eaten – very soft and delicately flavoured. All of it was wonderful, though. I actually seem to remember a promise to MacIntyre-sensei at one point that I’d show him and Gibson-sensei the best sushi places in Japan if they ever came – that place is definitely one for the list!

Unagi Sushi – absolutely delicious! Embrace the Eel!

It was very late by the time we returned home, but it had been an amazing day. Shiro-san is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, and his generosity was astounding. The Noboribetsu Onsen, the Ninja shows, and world-class sushi to top it off? One of the best days ever.

Toya Day 4: Yaki-Yaki-Yaki-Niku!

Toya was finally starting to feel cooler – the first day was atsui desu! But we had no time to appreciate this – it was 7:40 and the complicated Japanese garbage had to be sorted by 8:00 (burnable garbage is Mondays and Fridays, sorted into kitchen waste and non-kitchen waste). Thankfully, we managed on time 😀 and our first load of Japanese garbage was gone. In many ways, Japanese garbage is a fantastic idea for the environment, but seriously, dustbins are so much easier to manage xD

Work began in an hour. It would only be desk work in the Sogo Center, but it was work regardless! It wasn’t anything heavy – the first thing we did was fill out some official residence forms, and the second thing was to fill out forms for our bank accounts – in Japanese, and Kanji of all things! It took a few attempts, but we managed in the end. The rest of the morning’s work pretty much just involved setting up our very, very old computers – using Windows XP! Someone had installed craploads of bloatware on mine, but it was easy enough to uninstall it and get to an acceptable level.

My PC in the Sogo Center – I have cousins younger than this thing!

Lunchtime was sounded by a bell which we for some reason mistook for a fire alarm. We were free to leave the Sogo Center for lunch, and we decided to go to the Seicomart for some convenience food. I’d also like to point out that we were cycling to and from work in suits, which is possibly the most Japanese thing someone can do! But yes, I had some Seicomart Kara-age (chicken marinated in soy sauce and deep fried) and Brendan had a Katsudon which he didn’t really like. However, Kara-age wa oishikata desu! It was so good I went back for more 😀 It was very cheap as well – I got my lunch for less than ¥500 which included a drink and an ice cream. Japan isn’t as crazily expensive as I’d been led to believe.

Kara-age – Japanese fried chicken – is one of the tastiest things I’ve ever had!

The work afternoon was spent in Abuta-gun, meeting the Mayor of Toyako District. He was a surprisingly nice guy actually! He told us a bit about the history of Abuta and Toya, and he wished us luck on our year. He also has a swank office – fancy wooden chairs, fancy calligraphy on the walls, a fancy TV and even a lady to bring hot tea!

While in the Abuta-gun office, we also got to see where we’d work on Thursdays – in a nice spot upstairs with some more very nice Japanese people! The reason that we work in Abuta on Thursdays is that we work in the Nursery there in the morning and late afternoon, and it would be impractical to travel back for only a few hours – which is fair enough.

As we toured upstairs with Taka-san, Aoba-san had wondered off somewhere. So we were surprised when she came back and told us that we would be receiving our first month’s salary! Now, I’ve never had an actual salary before, so this was a big moment for me. I opened an innocuous-looking brown envelope to discover ¥80,000 waiting for me – about £600! Not exactly a sea of money, but a sizeable chunk regardless!

My first paycheque awaited inside this envelope!

After returning to Toya, me and Brendan went cycling again around the village. We figured it beat waiting inside, so we aimlessly cycled around for a while! At one point we went to the Mizu no Eki for some aisu creamu, and then spent a while trying to find a public waste bin (they don’t exist in Japan!). Aoba-san eventually called us and told us that she’d pick us up at 6:00PM for a Yakiniku Party!

Yakiniku is essentially the Japanese equivalent to a barbecue. Many meats are placed on grills which are then picked up communally when cooked – there isn’t one person in control, everyone looks after the food and is welcome to all of the food. It’s a very communal eating experience – much more so than in the West where it’s like ‘this is MY food’. A lot of Japanese food has been like this – Shabu-Shabu was, as have been all the public meals and the one in Gonpachi. It creates a very pleasant, relaxed atmosphere.

Yakiniku!

Anyway, the Yakiniku really made me throw most of my perceptions of Japan out of the window and into the waters of Lake Toya. The Japanese and we are very similar – up for a laugh, up for a bit of fun, and appreciative of good company and a good meal. They have a similar sense of humour to us (they even made gay jokes about each other – which was VERY surprising!), and there are nicknames, too – one of them was called Toruburumeka – Troublemaker – something which he adamantly denied! There were also ‘Ojisan’ (Old Man) and ‘The Beast’.

We then began to discuss the Yukigassen – we are planning on making a Sogo Center team, which must of course include The Beast! Troublemaker was *sort of* pressured into becoming our sponsor because apparently he’s rich! The Yukigassen plan is coming together…

As for the food, there was a wide variety on offer. Many cuts of beef and pork, chicken, lamb (or Genghiskhan as it’s known here) and vegetables like Hokkaido Corn and Hokkaido Pumpkin. It was all very good – very tender, juicy and flavourful. We also tried ‘horumon’ – or offal, which is popular with the Japanese. That night it was Pig Anus and Cow Intestines – and they were actually really good!

The night carried on merrily, with stories being told on all sides (you haven’t lived until a drunk Japanese guy sings 80’s Western Music to you). Troublemaker was arrested at Heathrow once, so he lived up to his name!