Adventures in Japan

No more entries

I've stopped updating this due to lack of time, and growing accustomed to daily life here. I'll keep these pages online as a record of the first year and a half in Japan. Please check out my new photo blog, or the japan photo gallery which are updated more regularly.

More photos

I spent about 4 days up in Hokkaido around Christmas.

Sapporo, the capital city of Hokkaido.
Niseko, probably the biggest ski resort in Hokkaido.

The skiing in Hokkaido was incredible - it was about -10C during the day, and the sheer size of the ski runs was unlike anything I've ever experienced before. I'd love to go back there again.

Some older photos I haven't linked to yet:

My new camera

My new camera in 3D.

Life in Japan.

I should change the name of this blog - Japan's become not so much an adventure as a second home.

I've been getting back into photography again, and so I've juggled around the photos on my website. You can find them here

Robots and fluro girls

What better way to celebrate safety week than with robots and pink and green fluorescent girls? The sign on the left says "don't forgot your seatbeat". Click the image for a big view, or check out a news article

The taiko drummers on the left were really talented. It was probably the first time I'd seen taiko live.

昨日仕事に福岡に行ったのだ。博多駅出たらすぐこのエベントが見えた。うちの同僚が普通と思ったけど、僕たった1年間日本にいて、こういうものをまだすっかり慣れてないな。

New photos:

a beautiful beach in Amakusa (Mogushi in Ushibuka)
a trip to an aquarium in Fukuoka.

It's been a good year

Today (1st March) marks a full year in Japan. It feels like only 6 months. I spent the morning cleaning up my apartment - neglected plates that needed washing, and stuff like that.

A couple of days ago I'd been speaking to a student about air conditioners. I said my air conditioner wasn't a reverse cycle aircon, and it couldn't heat my room. He said that was strange, and if it could only cool, it'd be called a cooler.

Today I remembered that conversation and decided to give it one more go. At first it started pumping out cold air, but after a few minutes it started to get warmer. Shame it took me until the end of winter to notice!

今日で(三月一日)僕はまる一年間日本にいるのだ、まだ半年ぐらいに感じるのに。今朝家事をして過ごしてた。ずっとしてなかった皿洗いをしたりした。

2、3日前生徒とエアコンのことを話してた。僕が「うちのアイコンは"reverse cycle"のじゃなくて、冷房しかできない」って。生徒が「それはおかしいよ。それなら、"クーラ"と言うやつじゃない?」って言った。

今日その話を思い出し、エアコンを点けてみた。最初は冷たい空気が出てきたけど、2分ぐらいしたら暖かい空気が出てきはじめたんだ。冬の終わりになるまでに気がついたらよかったのに。

Alive and well (again)

(a newly bought table and chairs - 新しく買ったテーブると椅子)

久しぶりだね。日本語でまだよく間違ってるけど、練習のために日本語でも書こうと思ってる。で、どこから始めようかなあ。

この前のブログの書き入れは、ダイエットしてるって。あのダイエットをすぐ止めたんだ。忘年会があったし、新年会があったし。さぼてた。でも最近一所懸命にがんばってるよ。痩せるためにだけじゃなくて、体のためにも。

このごろに日常生活はうまくいってる。日本語は少し喋られるようになったから友達と遊びにいくとき、話の意味はだいたい分かって、ときどき簡単に答えられる。すると、最近元気だった。もう子どもじゃないと感じてるし。

日常生活以外は。。ふん。今日友達の家で鍋パーティがあったんだ。友達とバスでいった。実は、それは初めて熊本でバスに乗った。だから、払い方は分からなかった。乗ったのは大丈夫だったけど、下りるときすごく大変になった。

バスに乗ったとき切符をもらった。熊本のバスは下りるときに払わなきゃいけないのを知ってたけど、どうやって払うかは知らなかった。

下りるときは、まず、持ってる切符を両替機に入れちゃったんだ。バスの運転手が顔をしかめたから僕が早くまた切符をとって正解の穴に入れた。それから運転手に見て、なんか彼が両替機に指さした。分かったと思ってて、お釣りをそこに入れた。別のお釣りが出てきたから、「ああ、安くなった!」と思ってた。新しいお釣りをとって下りた。

外にいる友達が「200えんだよ」って。しまった。100えんしか払ってなかった。またバスに乗って、さっきもらったお釣りと100えんをほかの穴にいれた。それから、やっと下りれた。

すごく恥ずかしかった。バスは込んでいたし。僕の顔が苺みたいな赤になってた。まあ。次から払い方を分かってるので、大丈夫だ^^

じゃあ、今日仕事があるからそろそろ寝る。また近いうちに書く、仕事とか勉強とかがないときに。

It's been a long time! I'm still making a lot of mistakes when I use Japanese, but for the sake of practice I think I'll start writing my entries in both English and Japanese. So, where to start?

In one of my recent blog entries I said I was going on diet. That didn't last long, due to end of year parties, start of year parties, and me just being lazy. But recently I've been trying really hard to be more careful about what I eat.

Life's been good recently. I can speak a little Japanese now, so when I go out for drinks or something with friends, I can understand the general meaning of the conversation, and sometimes reply (albeit without prowess much of the time). So, I've been well. I no longer feel like a child who's unable to communicate at all.

Apart from daily life - hmm. Today there was a nabe party (cooking vegetables and meat in a pot in the middle of the table) at a friend's house. I went there on the bus with some friends. Actually, it was the first time I'd used the bus since I arrived in Kumamoto - partly due to no real need, and partly because I was unsure how to go about it. So I wasn't aware of how to go about paying for tickets. Getting on the bus was fine, but when it came time to get off..

When I got on the bus, I got a ticket from a ticket machine. This is used in Kumamoto to measure how much you have to pay - a further trip costs more. I knew this much before I got on the bus, but I wasn't vsure how to go about paying.

Anyway, when it came time to get off, the first thing I did was stick my ticket into a coin changing machine. The look on the bus driver's face was enough to know that wasn't the right place, and luckily I was able to pick it out swiftly enough with a fingernail (it'd gotten stuck). The bus driver motioned towards a bigger looking hole and I stuck the ticket in there. Next the bus driver motioned to the coin changing machine again. Okay, I thought, and stuck some money in. Some change came out! Cheaper than I thought. I carelessly grabbed the change and stepped off the bus.

A friend who was standing outside said "it's 200 yen!". I'd only put in 100 yen and still received change. Something wasn't right. I got back on the bus again, put my change and some more money into the correct hole, and finally got off again.

It was pretty embarrassing - the bus had been crowded, and my face was as red as a strawberry. Oh well. I know how to use the buses now!

Well, I've got to work today, so I'm going to sign off. I'll write again in the not too distant future - but between work, friends and study, it's unfortunately hard to find time for writing. Until next time!

Hot springs

I went to some hot springs for the first time yesterday. I was a little nervous because public bathing is not something I've had the opportunity to experience back home. We drove to a place called Kurokawa, which is a famous hotspring (onsen) in Japan - and fortunately, it's rather close to Kumamoto city.

On the way to the onsen we drove up a mountain which offers a great view of the area surrounding Kurokawa (literally: black river). Some photos are available here:

Snow in Aso

Kurokawa is a beautiful place set at the bottom of a valley, with streams and tall trees surrounding the area, and naturally heated water with various minerals channelled into a vast array of different baths. Indoor baths, outdoor baths, baths with different mineral contents and temperatures.

We went to a bath set outside. The trees were covered in snow and there was a small stream running about 5 meters away from us. The cold air caused steam to rise from the water and made the whole experience feel a little dream-like.

We spent a bit over an hour relaxing in two of the baths (one was very hot and hard to stay in for long). The experience isn't comparable to a normal bath - it's really relaxing and you feel wonderful afterwards. It was a great experience.

Oww.

I just got back from Hiroshima - a coworker, some students and I went on a road trip for a couple of days. We went skiing and sightseeing, and I tried snowboarding too. Although I fell over more times than I care to count, it was fun.

After a rest at a ryokan (a traditional Japanese place to sleep, vaguely similar to a hotel), we went to Miyajima, a popular tourist destination in Hiroshima prefecture. I'll let the photos do the talking for now.

A ski trip to Hiroshima

I also visited an active volcano about two weeks ago.

Mt. Aso

Photo blog

Not much luck with the diet. I'll get there eventually.

I finally got around to processing the rest of the photos from the Fukuoka trip. I've added comments to some of them.

Browse away: a trip to the Fukuoka sumo

One thing I didn't get photos of were the yattais. A yattai is a little restaurant run out of a van or cart. They range from something akin to a gypsy cart, to complicated fold-out things that don't resemble a car at all, lest you catch a glimpse of the spare wheel mounted somewhere. They generally fold out enough to allow 5-10 people to sit inside the covered area, and it's like eating at a tiny restaurant.

Fukuoka is famous for them, so we decided that a trip to one (or two) after the sumo was in order. Unfortunately, we picked the most well-known strip of yattais to go to, and it ended up being rather expensive. Two sticks of "gyuutan" - cow tongue - which would have cost maybe $6 in a normal yakitori place - ended up costing about $23. We realised the price after ordering. Oh well, it was a fun experience.

R.I.P diet

A lot of events are on at the moment - parties with coworkers, parties with students and coworkers, trips to fukuoka to watch the sumo. These have spelt hell to my diet and OT and I have spoken about a 1 week reprieve.

The trip to fukuoka was great. I'll write about it soon.

I'm alive!

I haven't felt like writing recently. I wouldn't say I've been in bad spirits, because that would be too extreme - just a little bereft of energy.

I fell off the horse with my Japanese study a couple of weeks ago. Whenever I stop studying for a few days I find it hard to pick up again, because the seemingly insurmountable amount of work left ahead makes study almost seem pointless. Of course that's not the case, but it can be difficult to snap out of that mindset.

I've still been studying, just half-heartedly. I found a Japanese chat channel a few months ago, and I spend a reasonable amount of time there. Speaking is much harder than listening for me, so it's good to get some more practice with language construction. I've also been reviewing some of my previous textbooks, but not for the amount of time I should be.

Since I still get the occasional question from friends about my "girlfriend", I should clear that up - we stopped seeing each other a few months back. For no apparent reason, our contact started becoming less frequent. She said she was busy preparing for her friend's wedding, and eventually we just stopped talking.

She was a couple of years my senior - something that probably would have bothered me more back in Australia. But the language barrier meant that while we were able to communicate, differences in experience weren't so pronounced, as we weren't able to elocute them! I didn't think we had real long-term prospects due to this, but at the time it was fun.

When I first came to Kumamoto I was going out a lot, because there were so many new things to see, and I had nothing to do at home. Now that boredom isn't such a big factor, I've tried to tone down the number of times I head down to the local "watering hole". This is good for my body and my wallet, but weighs heavily on my social life, as most of the friends I've met here I see when we go out for dinner in a big group, or when I drop by a bar. It annoys me a bit that these two are connected, since I want to socialise more than I want to drink. The language barrier makes activities like going out for a coffee a bit of a challenge.

Work is a spirit-lifter in this regard - I think if I was doing the same job I was doing in Australia, I'd feel a lot more isolated right now. My students and co-workers are lovely and while the kids classes remain a challenge from time to time, they mostly go okay. While the kids can be difficult at times, they can also be really sweet, and I must admit to getting clucky from time to time. But I don't think I'll go down that path for a few years yet!

My lethargy for study has extended to exercise too, unfortunately, and I've put on a couple of kilos since arriving. OT and I have decided to race each other to drop 10kg. Getting started has proved a bit difficult for me and he's currently in the lead, but once I get into gear I'm going to put up a fight. You can keep track of my progress by peaking at the image in this post - it'll continue to be updated as the days go by.

It's finally cooled down here and the weather is comfortable for walking in again. I spent half the day shopping today - picked up some more bedding to keep a bit warmer and a variety of odds and ends, like a cheese knife. On my next day off, I think I'm going to don my mamachari and go explore.

(Culinary) adventures in Japan

Episode 253. Okonomiyaki, take 1.

Some okonomiyaki sauce caught my eye at the supermarket today, and I figured it was time I try and make some. I've attempted this before with someone else (thanks K - that was fun), but I couldn't remember all of the specifics.

I located some other ingredients like prawns, aonori (green ground seaweed), cabbage, and premade okonomiyaki powder. I tried to read the back of the packet with moderate success - but there were a few kanji I didn't recognise. When I got home I tried to look them up, but some of them I couldn't find in my dictionary so I gave up and decided to wing it.

When making the okonomiyaki I realised I'd forgotten katsuo bushi - bonito flakes, which are dry, thinly sliced flakes of fish. They're not essential, but they're nice. Later, I realised what one of the kanji I couldn't read meant, too - tamago, or egg. Oh well. I poured in extra powder trying to thicken the mix up. It seemed to work alright.

Okonomiyaki is a cross between pizza and a pancake - sort of like a fritter but with cabbage and sauce on top. I managed to cook it alright, though it fell into a few pieces when I tried to turn it, due to the lack of egg.

Despite the missing ingredients it turned out pretty well. Yum.

Birthday bash

I turned 22 yesterday. Being many miles away from friends and family back home, I expected it would pass by pretty quietly. But everyone here's been so kind.

I woke up early, because it's started to get cold in the early hours of the morning and I wasn't using a a top-sheet. After whiling away some time, I headed into work. Tuesdays are my longest day by an hour or two - a total of 9 hours including a lunch break. But it generally goes quickly unless I haven't had enough sleep, and before long it was time to knock off.

A week ago I'd dropped into BT's bar. It's a "gaijin bar", which means it's popular with foreigners and people who want to meet foreigners. This makes it not the best place to go to practice Japanese, though there are people who come who can't speak any English, too. But the bar's got a nice atmosphere - good music playing in the background, but not so loud you have to yell over it. Comfortable chairs. I'm also friends with most of the people who work behind the bar. It's nice to be able to drop by and know there'll always be someone to chat to.

There's a girl who works at the bar - let's call her J - who I first met a couple of days after arriving in Kumamoto. Her friend was having a birthday party at a yakitori and via BT I got to come along.

With recent study, my listening skills are slowly getting better, but my speaking ability is still very low - it takes me a long time to think about how to word a non-trivial sentence (if I can even think of how to say it!), and I'm really shy about using my Japanese in a group situation unless it's something I know I can say quickly.

When I dropped by the bar last week, J was working. Her English is mainly isolated vocabulary and a few phrases, so when we chat it's in Japanese. Chatting one on one with her was fun, because it was a lot easier than it was a few months ago. Learning a new language is such a mammoth task that it can feel like you're not making any progress. But little retrospective revelations can be rewarding.

Anyway, while chatting with J, I'd mentioned my upcoming birthday. She asked if I'd made any plans yet, and on hearing no, she suggested we go to Kimura-san's - the friendly yakitori guy from that first birthday party. I hadn't really thought to organise something for my birthday, so I agreed that sounded good.

Back to yesterday. After work finished, one of my coworkers pulled out a card and present, and presented it to me. The card had been signed by the whole office, and the present was a nice tie. I'd mentioned in passing that I like understated patterns months ago after I'd bought myself some new ties, and my coworker had remembered. It was really nice of my coworkers to go to the trouble - I didn't expect anything.

After wrapping up at work, OT and I headed to the restaurant with one of our students who'd taken the final lesson for that day. When we got there, we met J and J's friend who'd had the birthday when I first got here. More than 7 months ago, now.

We sat down at a table and chatted away while waiting for more people to show up. By about 10pm things got started. We ate a bunch of dishes like a really delicious Cesar salad, something that looked like lasagna but which was actually made out of tofu, and various other things.

After dinner, the lights dimmed, and one of the restaurant staff come out bearing a slightly wonky but very exotic looking cake. We were all surprised when we found out J and another girl who was there had toiled over it for quite some time after work. It was a banana sponge cake with chunks of banana in it, topped in icing and mushrooms - the mushrooms made from chocolate sticks and chocolate drops.

Everyone launched into a chorus of "happy birthday", which was interrupted near the end in favour of another rendition with the aid of a karaoke machine - there were 2 TVs around the bar and portable mics and song selection devices lying around. After a very Japanese version of the "happy birthday" song, we tried the cake.

The cake, despite its slightly non-standard geometry, was actually really tasty, a fact that its makers were equally content to revel in. The rest of us laughed along as the cake making pair echoed back a dialog like:

"umai!"
"hontou ni umai!"
"chou umai!"

Which is something akin to "It tastes gooood! It really does! It's damn good!". It was funny to listen to them praise their artistry with such enthusiasm - but hey, they deserved it.

After we'd finished the cake, people started getting into the karaoke - a mix of some Japanese songs, a bunch of western songs, and even a few Chinese ones (OT and another guy there can speak Chinese, too). The western songs ranged from "smells like teen spirit" to "can't get you out of my head" (Kylie Minogue) to "ABC" (Jackson 5). I avoided singing for the most part (not confident about my vocal ability after last time!), but since there were two mics, I joined in on a few of them. One of the guys sung an Iron Maden song, much to his amusement and our chagrin. But it was all good fun.

The photos: a couple of months ago as I was leaving work, a photographer stopped me and asked to take my photo for a summer special in the magazine he works on. This photo is from the August edition of "Town Kumamoto". My 15 minutes of fame!

The other is a cake that was a present from one of my student's mothers. She's a really nice lady.

Culinary escapades

Horse meat which I made a stir fry with, and another attempt at kimchee.

genki shiteru yo.

Alive and well! I've been lax with the updates recently, because keeping this updated has fallen down on my list of priorities.

For the last month or so I've had my head in the books, studying when I can. That's not to say that's all I've been doing, for between work, the occasional outings and sleep, there's not a huge section of the day left over. I've started studying at work when I have a bit of free time, such as in my lunch break, and that allows me to get a bit more done.

Recently I've realised that I've grown a little lazy, snacking on unhealthy foods when I need some energy but probably just making myself feel more tired in the process. When I first got here I lost weight, but now I've started to put it back on again as I become more familiar with all the evil delights this town has to offer, such as the junk food in the nearby 7-11. I'm trying to cut down on the junk I eat at home now, so I can feel justified when I go out and eat yummy food with friends.

The photo is the early stages of a mushroom and capscicum kimchee. I got a little curious about the relative healthiness of some of the foods I was eating recently. Kimchee's actually really good for you apparently. For those of you who don't know what it is, it's cabbage pickled with lots of garlic and chilli sauce. It can be chucked into a stir fry to turn whatever the stirfry was into a kimchee stirfry. Originally from Korea, the Japanese call it kimuchi, though it sounds more like kimchi. Not the ideal thing to eat if you plan to breathe on anyone afterwards, but it does taste good.

I've also developed a fondness for umeboshi - sour pickled Japanese plums that I mentioned as rather unpalatable in a previous entry. Best described as a milder version of those sour warhead lollies we used to have as kids, though one the latest packet I bought it reads "tabeyasui", claiming it's easy to eat. I guess it's all relative.

A friend has previously pointed out my fondness for recounting culinary adventures here. Well, this entry would not be complete without the story of the "roku jyuu ni bai kare-".

I've previously mentioned the nice Indian restaurant in town. The regular chef is Nepalese and he's good at what he does, though he could be accused of being cautious when it comes to spicing up the dishes - on account of the considerably sensitive Japanese palate.

The restaurant has a hotness scale from 1-50, with anything above 10 being rated as "extra hot". I'd tried a 50 and a 25 with a coworker previously and it was difficult to distinguish between the two of them. Even the hottest one was, while comfortably warming, not terribly hot.

So OT and I went back about a week ago on a mission to test our limits. We explained to the chef how 50 hadn't been enough last time, and he nodded but looked reluctant. Eventually he said okay and he prepared two curries, one a 50 (though perhaps a little closer to 50 than the last 50 had been), and the other "roku jyuu ni bai gurai" - approximately a 62. I'm not sure how he's able to arrive at such a number. Ot and I have our doubts as to the scientificness of it all.

Anyway, our curry came out after a while, along with the garlic nan we'd ordered. The 62 curry was an interesting affair, so seemingly laden with chilli power that it was viscous like quicksand. Both were a dark blood red-brown.

The vamped up hotness proved a little uncomfortable for my dining companion and when the chef came out to ask how it was, and offered to de-spice one of them, OT gladly accepted.

I actually enjoyed the heat, but the abundance of spices unfortunately turned a really delicious curry dish (we'd had it before) into something rather bland. The Indian curry I've had in Australia managed to sit at a similar level of spice yet do so in a yummier fashion - I suspect with more chilli oil and less spices.

An adventure, none the less. I think I'll stick to a 50 from now on.

So, what else is new? Autumn finally broke, and within a day the temperature seemingly dropped 10 degrees. There's still days where the weather's beautiful and it's too hot, but it's amazing just how quickly the weather changed. It's also started getting dark by about 7pm, which came as a surprise, since I've endured a combination of two summers since leaving Australia at the tail end of one.

Life's good.

Latest typhoon

Another typhoon went through this morning. My apartment's pretty new and sturdy, so the seals on the doors and windows held and nothing got wet. OT told me that water was blowing into his apartment.

He's a report from someone on the Kumamoto international mailing list:

At about 2 PM I went to my work place (Kumamoto Gakuen University) because I heard that the power was still on there. The traffic lights were out at many intersections along the way and I saw several power lines that had been blown down.

To see if I could find any more information I took a look at the Kyushu Denryoku (Kyushu Power Co.) web site. They report that as of 4 PM there are 820,700 homes without power in the Kyushu area. Kumamoto has 364,000 of these. It has been the hardest hit by far of any of the prefectures this time. Kagoshima is next with 122,500 and Fukuoka follows with 120,500. These are just the numbers of households so many more people are without power. In fact, though I'm not sure there may be close to a million people without power in Kumamoto Prefecture alone (if a typical household has two or three people).

Minor rearrangements

The size of my apartment doesn't leave me with much room to shuffle things around, but I moved some bookshelves and the apartment feels more spacious.

Photo update

"Extra hot" curry, a brush with a typhoon, and ultra-cute tissue boxes. All stories for another day.

Oishii (yum)

Nattou curry rice. Despite the somewhat unappealing exterior, it's really good.

My studying motivation has picked up again since I last wrote, and I've gone back to studying every day. Partly due to crazy sleeping habits during the holidays and partly because I'm unable to accomplish anything after work, I've taken to waking up early and studying in the morning. It really helps.

Yesterday on my lunch break I walked down to the local big department store, which is the place I tend to buy my lunch from, as they have some pretty good sushi there (and the occasional decent salad). While paying for my sole item, I was hunting around for the correct coins and I accidently dropped a 1 yen coin - the rough equivilent of a cent. The girl behind the counter looked at me briefly and I said to her "ichi en dake" - "it's only 1 cent (so don't worry about it)". I'm not sure if that spurred her on, because much to my chagrin she started hunting around underneath the counter for it. And she kept hunting. I was trying to pluck appropriate phrases from my memory to get her to stop - "ii yo" (it's fine, really), "kamaimasen yo" (don't worry about it), etc. Eventually I just resorted to "sumimasen" (I'm sorry (you're taking the trouble to do that)).

After she couldn't find it on her side of the counter, she came around the other side and started poking about on the floor. After a minute or two she finally stood up triumphantly, and presented me with a slightly dusty, though still legal tender, 1 yen coin.

Fireworks and mamacharis

I had my first ride on a mamachari today. The word is a contraction of "mother's chariot", so called because they are the bike favoured by housewives running errands around town. They have thin wheels like a road bike, but they usually have a basket attached to them for transporting stuff around. Back home, they might be embarrassing to ride, but here they're everywhere, and their use is not confined to mothers.

A kind American who works as a priest - the same guy who helped me get a washing machine and fridge when I first arrived, has volunteered to get a bike built for me based on a sturdy frame and some various parts. The end result should last a while, while costing me under $200. In the interim he's lent me a mamachari to get around on.

Up until now I'd avoided riding on it, partly because I haven't ridden in 4 months and I was afraid I'd be all over the shop, and partly because that sort of bike has a stigma back home and it took me a while to get over the aversion to being seen on one.

Today I had to go into a national government office to apply for a full time visa here - currently I'm on a working holiday visa which is only good for a little while longer. My coworker kindly volunteered to lead me there, since I didn't know where I was going, and he went so far as to come up and help me along with the application process to boot. Which was helpful, as the lady there could speak only a modicum of English. I probably could have made it through a conversation without him, but it would have probably taken a lot longer. I've got to go back again soon because I forgot to take my original degree with me, so I'll get a chance to see how I fare on my own.

My two weeks of holidays have all but drawn to a close, and I don't know where all the time went. It was good to relax and catch up on sleep, though I probably could have used the time more effectively. If I hadn't been sick when they started I probably would have been more motivated to use them better. Probably.

This holiday period was centred around "Obon", a buddist festival where Japanese people pay homage to their deceased ancestors. During this time a number of fireworks festivals are held, and on Saturday I got to see one of them.

My girlfriend picked me and two of her friends up, and we drove to another of her friend's houses. We picked up tea, coffee and drinks on the way. This friend's house was in very close proximity to where the fireworks were held - maybe 2 blocks away.

We sat around eating, drinking and talking. I was a bit dazed due to lack of sleep (awful sleeping habits during the holidays) and the residual effects of a cold, so I spent more time listening than speaking. My girlfriend's friends are really lovely and despite my inability to contribute much to the conversation, they were friendly and tried to include me where they could. Questions directed at me are generally easier to follow than conversations between them - especially as they're likely to drop into the local Kumamoto-ben (dialect) when talking to each other. I have enough trouble following standard Japanese!

I was drinking iced coffee for the majority of the evening as I feared I'd fall asleep if I had any alcohol, but most of the others there were indulging in some beer. The traditional beer accompaniments over here are different to peanuts or jerky. There's edamame - which look like beans but with bigger peas inside, and you squeeze the peas out and eat them like that. They're less sweet than green peas but still pleasant. Then there's shredded bits of ika (squid), resembling jerky but much thinner. I think they put a bit of sugar in with them.

Most of the girls there were in their late 20s, and two of them had children - the host, and one of the girls we'd picked up along the way. The lady who we picked up had brought her child along.

Both of the kids were about 1 1/2 years old, and really cute. At my school I teach kids about as young as that, but it was interesting to be able to watch them outside the context of an English lesson, where the mothers are chasing them around trying to get them to behave. By about the age of 2 or 2 1/2, they start to become attentive and able to participate properly in the lessons, but at 1 1/2 they're still very much at an explorative stage and unable to focus for long. At one point I murmured "chotto abunai" (a little dangerous) to the 1 1/2 y/o girl's mother, as the daughter had wrapped a curtain cord around her throat and was at risk of hanging herself if she fell down. The mother had only turned away for a split second. Remind me not have kids if I ever develop a heart condition!

The fireworks started about 8pm, and we stepped outside on to the veranda to watch. The show was quite good - by estimation bigger than the firework festivals we have back in my home town. It was actually a smaller festival - the day before, a big fireworks festival had been held, but I didn't go to that one. Maybe next year.

Today's dinner (see photo) - a raw egg cracked over instant noodles. When you pour hot water over it, it cooks the egg and the noodles. Yum.

Lethargy vs. culture shock

It's been a lazy month. In the last month I got the internet and a new computer, which has alleviated what used to be a major motivator in my study, friendship making, etc - a lack of things to do at home.

Catching up all the computer stuff I used to busy myself with back home has been fun, but it's left me feeling a little guilty as I haven't accomplished much this month. It was good to get it out of my system, I guess, but I've about hit the stage where I think I need to put down my internet sites, pick up my textbooks again, and spend more time with friends.

On the plus side, my food and drink budget was considerably lower this month, on account of eating out less!

An often talked about phenomenon for people living in a foreign country is "culture shock" - depression or other unpleasant experiences due to living in a different country and being constantly exposed to different things. For some it's immediate, for others it follows a "honeymoon" period where everything is new and exciting - then reality sets in.

I don't think my lethargy was due to that. My experiences here have been largely positive, and I'm actually really happy to be here. While sometimes bemused by the things that go on, what I've seen here didn't differ to a great degree from what I expected.

There are trying things, but they're things that apply to living in any country where you can't speak the native tongue well. Some people come here and never bother to learn Japanese. That's okay, if that's what they want - but I was always determined to be able to speak with a degree of fluency by the time I returned home. I'd still love to attain that, but sometimes it's hard to keep up the motivation to study every day in order to meet that goal. The study is usually fun, but it requires energy, and it's infinitely easier to relax in front of the idiot-box or similar.

When I first got here I talked about how debilitating it can be to be unable to speak the language. For simple social interactions I no longer bumble about; communications with shop attendants are for the most part smooth and I've made some good friends. The more complicated inevitabilities of life are still taxing at times, though - bills written in Kanji with no clear indication of if money is due or not, the renewal of my visa, the possibility of a trip to a doctor and how complicated that would be - finding a doctor with a modicum of English ability, or dragging a friend or coworker along to help me out.

I'm aware that by tackling the language issue I'm indirectly solving my other concerns, but that knowledge alone is not a sufficient motivator. While it's nice to know that by improving my language ability I'd be reducing concerns about bills, trips to the doctors, conversations with people - for the most part I'm able to get by pretty easily. I can function enough in daily life now.

So recently I've been trying to remember my original goals about studying the language. And I'm finding it necessary to set a schedule of time to study, or I never make the time for it. I actually enjoy studying when I do it. It's just some subconscious aversion to the energy required that makes it hard to start.

On another note, convenience stores (conbinis) are everywhere here, and reasonably priced. There's one about 2 minutes walked from my house (in fact, there's at least 4 within a 5 minute radius). I often walk to the local one when I want a bottled coffee or something to eat. The food photo is what I had for lunch today - "soumen". Soumen are cold, thin noodles dipped in a combination of water and soy-sauce. Great in summer.

The other photo is my new computer next to my old one - if you look carefully you can see tape on the left side holding the screen together.

Atarashii tokoro omedetou (congratulations on your new place)

K opened a new restaurant down the road from his yakitori a few days ago, and on the night after the grand opening, OT, BT, my girlfriend, her best friend and I arranged to meet there.

It was just down the road from K's yakitori place, and it didn't take us long to find it. We walked in to be confronted with a relatively nicely furnished interior, about the same size as the old place but a different kind of shop.

A high set bar counter stood next to about 10 natural wood chairs (each about $350, apparently). On top of the counter were a number of the dishes being served that night, in big open plates which they served from. This new place was an izakaya (traditonal bar / restaurant) rather than a yakitori (meat on sticks place), and so there's a bit more of a focus on good food and less of a focus on alcohol.

We sat down at this big communal table, that was filling up the rest of the shop. The table was big enough for approximately 12-16 people to sit down, and the lack of other seating apart from at the bar meant that you generally sit down near people you don't know. This is mildly unnerving at first - if you're perched across the other side of the table from someone you don't know, it feels a little funny to be staring into their face. But at the same time, it's kind of a friendly atmosphere.

I apologised to my companions for my lack of genkiness (energy), as I was a bit dazed by my head cold. But I was happy to be there. We ordered a variety of dishes and some beers. The girls didn't drink, as they had to drive. There's no legal driving limit in Japan. Any in your blood and you're in trouble.

BT had brought a bottle of shouchuu for K as a little thank you gift, which "unfortunately" resulted in K's staff donating a bottle of shouchuu from the shop back to him.

The food started coming pretty quickly, and there was an interesting variety of things on the menu. The highlight (much to the chagrin of readers back home, no doubt), was strips of raw chicken, dipped in a mix of soy sauce and wasabi. They were really fresh, and just divine.

Also on the menu was a salad with tofu and .. I'm not sure, it looked like onions but tasted like something sweet. And these mini potato-like things, about half the size of a golf ball, with a furry skin which you clasp and push the potato-esque affair out of. And a separate dish of just tofu, sprinkled with katsuo bushi (shaved fish flakes) and a bit of shouga (ginger). Tofu is generally quite delicate here, and it's really difficult to pick it up with chopsticks. I'd like to think I'm usually okay with chopsticks these days, but tofu gets me every time, and I end up accidently mashing it to pieces while attempting to pick it up. Much to OT's amusement, though he fumbled some food later in the night and I took the opportunity to get him back.

After the girls went home due to work commitments the next day, we decided to go back to K's yakitori place - mostly because I was suggesting to OT and BT that a place with food would be good, rather than just a bar somewhere. We ordered a bunch of meat on sticks which was particularly yummy that night. K was working there at the time, and he introduced us to a type of sauce based on halapenos which isn't even on the menu, because it's too hot for the tastes of most of the customers. It was great.

BT decided to go home shortly after, as he was dog tired and slightly inebriated. I suggested to OT we drop by a texmex bar/restaurant that we've both been to, and OT seemed receptive to the idea. We were 2 of only 3 people in the restaurant (which perhaps isn't surprising for 3am on a Thursday night). We ordered some burritos and "spicy pickled cabbage" - which just turned out to be pork kimchee (buta kimuchi), though it was yummy. We sat around and talked computer geek talk for a while before deciding to meander home and get some rest.

Head colds and shouchuu

My summer holidays - 2 weeks of vacation - started yesterday. I'm coming down with a cold so a chance to rest is welcome.

So, back to the genki mothers story. Instead of ramen, Kimura-san (K) made a phone call and suggested we remain at the bar. About half of us were drinking this drink which was a mix of shouchuu (a bit like weaker vodka) and tea. It was pretty good.

About 15 minutes later, someone shows up at the bar, brandishing a huge tray, about the size of a hubcap or bigger. On the tray was a huge, perfectly presented assortment of sushi.

The highlight of the assortment was a fish-based sushi that was for some reason spicy - and not a wasabi kind of spice. It had a flavourless pepperyness to it. It was really yummy.

The girl I was sitting next to I'd met at the previous place we were at. She asked me where I lived. I told her the suburb.

"Nan-chome?" (which block?)
"Icchome" (the 1st block)
"Nan-...." (I forget. Basically prompting for more detail)
"5" (1-5)
"...."
"22" (1-5-22 - a street address)
"Uso!" (no way!)

It turns out the girl lives in the same apartment block as I do. She's a couple of floors above me, but I'd never seen her there before.

Japanese street addresses are interesting. They're indexed by block and a set of coordinates running perpendicular to each other. There's no street names here - just a suburb and something akin to "block 5, street 1, house 22". Taxi drivers over here have their work cut out for them if you can't direct them to where you want to go.

Eventually we all decided it was time to go home, as it was approaching 5am and the shop owners wanted to close up. Well fed on the sushi, we asked K how much it would be, only to be told once again that it was his treat.

The girl who lives in the same apartment block as I wanted to catch a taxi. I would have been happy to walk home, but as it was hot I didn't take much convincing to jump in a taxi instead. We were driven the 5 minutes back to our apartments where we parted ways. A good night.

A brief interlude

The second half of the previous story will come, I've just been busy. This blog entry is just a note to my parents to let them know I have been mailing them, but their email provider (inbox.net) is constantly broken.

To my parents - thank you for the parcel! The last two emails I sent you have not arrived, so I suggest you switch from your current provider to someone like yahoo.com, which are fairly reliable I gather.

Peace and happiness to you all. Tonight I'm going to check out Kimura-san's new restaurant. Reports to follow.

Super genki mothers

Even before I start writing this entry, I know my words aren't going to do it justice. I wish I'd brought a video camera last night.

The evening started around 7, when I went out with a mutual friend of OT and I - the bartender which I've mentioned previously. I'll call him BT - bartender. We went to a yakitori place (meat on sticks) that BT recommended, and ordered an assortment of things - fried liver, chicken skin, pork, mushrooms, capsicums, etc. The ventillation wasn't well designed in that place and as the food was being cooked, smoke started filling the room. A lot of yakitori places are like that, apparently, which is one of the reasons why OT doesn't like to go to them. We asked the waitress what some of the menu items were, and she explained with some difficulty - prompting a conversation between BT and I about different people's abilities to simplify their language. Some people are really good at it - using examples and simple definitions they can easily explain concepts to people learning the language. But a lot of people aren't good at it. When you don't understand a word, they just keep giving you other words (of equal or greater difficulty) in an effort to convey their meaning.

BT had a party to attend around 10pm, so with some time to kill we decided to stop by Torijin, the yakitori place with the kind bartender who'd showed me basashi on a previous occassion. It was only around the corner from the current place we were in, too.

We walked into Torijin and had a seat, greeting the kind bartender (K) and the rest of the staff - who're also nice people. We ordered some more meat on sticks - and asparagus, too, which they do really well there. When you sit down you're given a small plate of vegetables - some chopped carrots, cucumber and cabbage, and this miso-based sauce to dip it in which is delicious. We sat around drinking beer, eating our meat on sticks, and waiting for OT to show up. He'd had to work that day, but we'd sent him a message suggesting he come and meet us after work.

K came over and told us that he was going to meet 8 girls in a little while, and suggested we come along. At about 9:30 we walked a few blocks to this interesting bar on the 4th floor. They had a couple of TV screens placed around the bar, and it appeared to be an interesting combination bar / karaoke place.

I don't know how the girls all knew each other, though I think the connection was K's girlfriend was one of them. They ranged in age from 21 to late 30s, and some of them didn't know each other. But they all seemed to be getting along.

After we'd had a chance to chat for a while, 4 guys stood up in the middle of the bar with wireless microphones. At least two of them were bar staff - I'm not sure about the other two.

Morning Musume is a popular Japanese POP band - a bunch of girls who all look like they're about university age, singing somewhat mindless JPOP. I guess you could equate them to the Japanese version of Britney Spears.

Suddenly the music started playing in the bar, and the four guys, mics in hand, started dancing to a Morning Musume song - and then singing to it, too. Not accounting for the rather mediocre song, they were actually really good at it - their dancing looking much like you'd see Morning Musume doing, and they could sing. It was quite an interesting sight, and almost definitely something you wouldn't see back home.

One of the girls who was sitting with us - a mother in her mid 30s who looked 10 years younger and definitely not a mother, had said earlier that if the 4 guys do their act, then "her show would start". We'd thought she'd been joking.

After the 4 guys wrapped up their ensemble, the unlikely mother stood up and .. started dancing to the music which had just started. The sort of dancing you see on a Britney Spears video. And she was singing, too. It's impossible for me to convey what a sight this was - all of the rest of our party was cheering her on and this just made her ham it up more. OT had never seen anything like this, either, and we just sat there stunned - but having fun too.

It didn't stop there, though. In between the bouts of no music where we got a chance to chat to each other, we were treated to a rendition of a kabuki dance. And then one of the bar staff suddenly appeared in the middle of the bar with his shirt undone. A girl stood behind him and started fanning the shirt, mocking the "being blow by the wind" effect that this song's music video must have had. Another girl stood in front of him and feined blowing air at him - but then in the middle of his rendition she started trying to undo his pants, and the guy retreated to safety.

Eventually we departed the bar, and K offered to pick up the tab for OT and I again! It's sometimes considered impolite over here to refuse a person's offer of paying, so we couldn't do anything but graciously accept.

At this point OT decided to head home, along with some of the others in the group. About 8 of us remained, and we went to a little bar with a nice atmosphere. At this point they were mainly using normal-speed Japanese, making it mostly impossible to follow what they were saying - but occasionally I'd catch the gist of the conversation for a while. K graciously offered me a one or two sentence summary occasionally, in half English, half Japanese.

Eventually someone announced that they were hungry, and suggested we go eat ramen. But K had a better idea.

(to be continued - I have to work now)

Ceramic art

Yesterday I taught another "summer party" and consequently fell asleep at 7pm last night - though I hadn't slept much the night before. They're pretty fun, though, and I'm getting lots of exercise.

Sunday was a good day. My girlfriend picked me and her best friend up, and we drove about 15 minutes to an interesting set of shops, run by her best friend's fiance's uncle. On the drive there I got to see some more of Kumamoto that I hadn't seen before. I think it's a bit bigger than I'd imagined.

When we got there, we walked to the back of the shop where there was a building with one wall missing - sort of like a big garage. Inside were tables, and lining the walls were ceramics in various stages of completion. It turns out my companions had been here previously, and they were going to paint their previous concoctions - a deliberately wonky vase and a bowl. I watched with interest and amusement as the ojisan (uncle) prepared some ceramic paint and showed them how to undercoat and drip paint on to make interesting patterns.

In one corner of the room was a showcase of some of the things that had been made there - painted and gloss coated. Some of the art there was really cool.

Once they'd finished painting, the ojisan got out some new clay, and put the clay on a rotary plate and started it rotating. He molded the clay into a pillar with expert efficiency, and then gave us all a chance to work our magic on the pillar - turning it first into a cup-like affair, and then into a plate. I remember having a chance to make a clay mug when I was in primary school, but I don't think I've ever had a chance to mold clay on a rotating platform before. It was fun.

In front of the ceramic workshop is an onsen (hot spring), which we didn't check out. But beside the onsen is a traditional Japanese-style restaurant, and we stopped by on our way back - ordering a cold udon dish. I've only ever tried thick udon noodles before (like the ones you can get back home), but these udon noodles were cold and thin, almost like the soumen I've mentioned before. They were really tasty.

Speaking of tasty, I had an opportunity to try a Japanese hotdog for the first time a few days ago - the sort of affair you'd buy from a guy in a trailer back home. The hotdogs were interesting - slightly smaller than a normal hotdog bun, and there was no conventional "big wiener" in sight. There were various options to choose from, like a hotdog comprised primarily of cheese, or tuna. There was a wiener dog, but that was made from a few little wieners, each about the size of a little finger. I opted for the tuna hotdog (after asking for a recommendation), and it was actually really nice - tuna, mustard (that tasted almost like wasabi), and a few other random ingredients.

In other news, I've finally got the internet connected at home. It's about 6 times faster than affordable broadband in Australia, and from some sites close to 30 times faster. Wow.

Blood-type dominoes and 117kg melons

It's Tuesday. I'm sitting in my apartment with the air conditioner on full blast, and the soothing sounds of the washing machine in the background. I'm comfortable.

Usually Tuesday is my longest day at work - from around 12 until 9, with a lunch break. Today, though, it's a day off, because I had to work over the weekend. There was another summer party on Sunday.

I'm getting into the groove of teaching kids, and my voice has become much louder than it used to be. When I first got here and tried elevating my voice, it'd hurt my throat, but now I can yell out vocabulary or praise with very little effort. It's not so much a discipline technique as a way of keeping their attention - getting the students to yell words back at me when I yell at them tends to be more fun. Sometimes I'll whisper or speak in a funny voice just to keep them on their toes.

Speaking of body parts, my legs and shoulders are sore again, from the workout I got over the weekend. By the end of these summer parties I'm going to be pretty fit indeed.

Well, if I can consistently eat well, anyway. Most of the time I buy healthy food - sushi, rice-based bentos, etc, but sometimes I buy a pile of unhealthy things just to give me something to do after work. Even though I've been going out a lot, there's still the odd day where I go home after work, and the lack of internet means the only thing to do when I get home is to watch TV I can only barely follow, or study. Eating (and cooking) is a way of combatting the boredom.

All that will change tomorrow, though - finally the internet company is ready and they're coming around tomorrow morning to install the line. I'm so happy.

Japanese TV has its ups and downs much like TV at home. The prime time slots generally have something interesting worth watching, and there's a bunch of dramas on during the day to cater to all the housewives here. To their credit the dramas are better than the "bold and the beautiful" trash that they play back home.

I've accumulated a few amusing shows to recant over the last week or two, so without further adieu:

One of them that was on a few days ago involved a boy and a girl sitting at Chinese restaurant. They're given a fortune cookie which says something to the effect of "if you break up, something bad will happen". Invariably they end up having an argument and the girl rides home in tears. Up until this point the drama had been perfectly normal, but suddenly she swerves out of the way of some passing animal, and her bike (with her still on it) catapults over a bridge and into the water below. When she wakes up, she's shrunk to the size of a matchbox. It was a little bizarre, but fun.

Then there was the taiyaki variety show. Taiyaki is a thing made out of batter and filling, and pressed into the shape of a fish. The batter is roughly equivalent to fritter mixture back home. On this show a bunch of panelists took turns suggesting different types of fillings to try, and once the taiyaki was cooked they'd all sit down and try it - eliciting responses such as "umai!" (yum!), "atsui!" (hot! (it'd just been cooked)), or sour faces for the bad tasting ones. Some of the ingredients they tried were tomatoes (good), grapefruit (bad), rice (so/so), some sort of salty uncooked sea creature (horrible), and so on.

Then there was this show that was showcasing some of the local food produce - things like pineapples, some sort of interesting root which was purple on the inside, papayas, etc. But first a bit of cultural background: Japanese love their melons. Watermelons, canterlope, etc - melons are loved by many people here. And they're really expensive. For an average sized melon that you could buy back home, you'll probably have to pay about $10-15. And good melons are often much more expensive - and are often given as gifts. It's not unusual to see a good melon in a box on sale for $30 or $50, and in rare cases even $100 or $200.

Anyway, on this show they had this locally grown melon which was 117 kg. It was huge.

Then there was the show which goes around interviewing "bimbo"s. "bimbo" in Japanese means poor (as in financially struggling). This show visits people in their homes and enquires about how much they spend in a month, and looks around their house to see what interesting things they can find. Most of the people they interview are students, so it's not a malicious stab at the lower-class so much as a "let's make fun of the students" affair. Actually, 90% of Japanese identify themselves as "middle class", so there's not so much of a lower-class as in other countries.

There's an interesting variety of people on the show. One girl had stuck a stick through a tissue box and put a roll of toilet paper inside, so she had a makeshift box of tissues. Her apartment was an absolute wreck, and the people interviewing her commented on how astonished they were that such a pretty girl could live like that.

Then there was the guy who lived in an apartment about the size of our laundry back home. The interviewers dug around his kitchen and discovered .. cat food. The guy living in the apartment obligingly made a sandwich with some and took and bite, and then gave the two interviewers the chance to try it.

The first interviewer cautiously took a bite and a look of great confusion spread across his face. After a while he finally muttered: "umaiiii!" (yummmy!). The other interviewer was equally surprised.

Then there was the guy who served the interviewers some water out of some glass jars, and then cooked his special dish: rice and chilli rice. He'd cooked up a large batch of rice, divided it into half, and then dumped a large amount of paprika into one of the halves. He then served the dish up in two separate plates.

The interviewer took a bite and then expressed in a mild panic that it was too spicy! The bimbo ushered him to the unadorned bowl of rice to correct the problem.

Another cultural preface before the next show. A large number of Japanese people attribute a person's personality to their blood type. The blood type is seen as having similar properties as horoscopes back home, but there seems to be a more widespread belief in the blood type thing here than in horoscopes back home. On a lot of dating agency applications one of the important parts to fill out is your blood type.

I've been given a few strange looks when people asked me about my blood type, because I've actually forgotten what it is. Mum, help me out here!

Anyway, there was this show on a few days ago that had divided the kids up into small groups that shared the some blood type, and then the kids were segregated in their group and told to play with some dominoes. Some of the groups were more constructive than others, some preferring to knock things down more quickly. From this observation, the show (with the help of some "doctors") drew conclusions about the effects the kids blood type had on their ability to play.

Curry and internet

I woke up late today. I didn't go to bed particularly late last night, but I don't think I ate enough, so my body was trying to regain energy.

Yesterday was Sunday. I spent the day half-heartedly studying, with an obligatory trip to the internet cafe as well. The half-hearted studying is not for lack of interesting material to read - just laziness. There's less intellectually challenging things to occupy me as well, and it's difficult to muster up the energy sometimes. But soon I'd like to organise a routine for studying, where I put in a given amount of time each day. Sporadic studying marathons are doing me more harm than good.

One of the reasons I haven't been so motivated recently is because I've been picking up a fair few words when out in restaurants, bars, etc. This is important because it teaches me how to communicate with real people rather than how to speak textbook Japanese, but the downside is I'm probably not picking up as much as I could be from the books. Ideally I should be doing a bit of each.

Last night I met a certain someone and we went out to the local Indian restaurant called "Nanak" - "nanakku" in Japanese. I've been there once before with OT, and I wanted to go back there because the food was good. I can't remember if I've described the heat system in Nanak before. When you order a curry, there's a scale from 0-50 where you can select your spiciness level. There's even some accompanying English on the Japanese sign - "pick up the hotness of your choice". The sign advises that 0-1 is mild, 2-4 is medium, 5-9 is hot and 10+ are super hot - or some numbers close to those. The numbers are calibrated for an average Japanese palate, however, and thus not quite as hot as the categories would denote.

Last time I was there with OT, we ordered a #5 - which wasn't very spicy at all. My companion also likes spicy food, so this time we decided to hazard a #12 - the low part of the "super hot" category. It was still pretty mild! I want to try 20 or 30 next time.

On the drinks menu at the restaurant is a drink called "lassi", which is a famous Indian drink. It's basically a yoghurt drink, but quite thin (not viscious). It kills the spiciness rather effectively, and would probably be an essential companion to a real super-hot chilli. I wonder if you can find it back in Australia.

Those of you who know me well probably know that two of my main vices back in Aus were curries and internet access (probably in the reverse order). So I guess it's time for an update on the progress of my internet application.

A few weeks after I arrived in Kumamoto, I put in an application for internet access to a fibre-optic company. For about 6000yen a month (~$72AUD), you can get an unlimited traffic 100Mbit up/down link - they run the fibre right into your apartment. This is incomparable to anything on offer in Australia - consumer internet access for the same price back home is in the order of 100 times slower. So being the computer nerd that I am, I was anxiously awaiting the processing of my application. I thought it'd be 1 or 2 weeks.

After about 3 weeks, they finally contacted me and requested a time when I could meet them in my apartment. Great, I thought. It's almost ready. They came over to the apartment, poked around the power sockets and looked outside. They had digital cameras and took lots of photos of the apartment, where the cables would run. I was mildly amused by the technicians using the light attached to their mobile phone to illuminate the inside of the wall cavities. Mobile phones here can do anything.

After they were finished doing their thing, they tried to explain to me that they'd need to contact the building owner and obtain permission. We struggled a little as my Japanese is pretty limited, but we got there in the end without too much hassle.

Then begun the waiting. I put in my application on the 25th April. It took the apartment owner about 6 weeks to finally contact the internet company to let them know they had permission to proceed - so I've now been waiting about 9 weeks for anything to happen. A few days ago I received a letter from the internet company indicating they'd finally obtained permission. Now they're commencing "preparations" (running fibre along the power poles near my house), and they'll be in touch when they're ready to install it in my apartment. It'll probably be close to 3 months by the time it finally gets hooked up.

But at least I can use free internet in the international centre in the interim.

It was my sister's birthday on Saturday. Happy birthday, sis.

Playboy

Just a quick entry, because I'd like to get some Japanese study done before work, too.

On Saturday I taught a "summer party". During the June-July period my school holds a series of these parties for students that are taught by native Japanese, so that at least once or twice during the year, the students can get a chance to interact with native English speakers. Each party is about an hour long and the primary emphasis is on having fun - producing stuff they already know rather than learning new material. So we play a lot of games and run around, dance, etc.

By the end of the day I had become acquainted with a previously undiscovered level of tiredness. But it was a fun day, and I'm looking forward to teaching another one in a few weeks.

Most of the students I taught are in shougakkou - primary school, though one of the classes I taught was full of junior high school students. The shougakkou students range from about 6 years old to about 12.

In one of the shougakkou classes, there was a girl who was about 10 years old, wearing a playboy t-shirt. I'd read about things like this on the internet before, but I was still suprised to see it up close. I doubt the parents had a real idea of what the t-shirt meant.

Hisashiburi (it's been a long time)

My updates have been infrequent of late, as work, study and socialising is occupying the bulk of my time.

On Sunday I went to Suizenji park with some friends - a famous Japanese-style park & shrine. We ate soumen - thin white noodles, served in water with some icecubes. You take some noodles out of the bowl with your chopsticks, dip it in a soy-sauce-esque sauce, and then eat them. Good in the hot weather!

A few days ago I went out to a European restaurant with the other teacher and some mutual friends. One of the guys there works at a bar in the city and he's known the other teacher since school. He's a good bloke.

We mainly ate pizzas - fairly small and thin for the $12 a pop that they cost, but we're in Japan - so it's take it or leave it as far as that goes. They also had some nice salads, olives, etc.

(I'm forever referring to the other teacher as "the other teacher" since it's not really my place to be plastering people's names on the net - but since this is a cumbersome affair I'm going to start calling him OT from now on)

Last night I went over to OT's place after work. He'd cooked up some good spaghetti and we watched "the last samurai" and "kill bill 1" on his gorgeous HDTV home studio. The last samurai was a pretty fun movie, and it was good to watch KB1 again, now that I've seen KB2.

My Japanese is slowly improving, though perhaps not at the rate it should be. This is because often I wake up shortly before work starts, and it's difficult to study in the evening, either due to other commitments or just because I'm too tired to be bothered. The good side is that I'm becoming more comfortable listening to others speak, and I'm less shy about speaking as well (even if what I can say is fairly limited). The English level of some of the friends I've made varies from very proficient (due to study abroad, etc) to almost non-existent.

A few days ago I went to an Indian restaurant with OT. It's the first time I've had Indian food since I arrived in Japan, and it was a welcome meal. The curries were pretty good, if a little less exciting than the ones from the Indian restaurants back home - though it's not for lack of variety, with things like spinach curries being available (they're good!).

On the other hand, the garlic nan they served there was the best I've ever tasted, ditto their pappadums. I definitely want to go back there again.

After we'd eaten we went to a bar - the one the above-mentioned bartender works at. They employ a magician every couple of weeks and at one point the magician came over and started showing us tricks.

It wasn't the first time I've been shown magic tricks in Japan.

A few weeks ago, while walking down the main shopping street with some people from my school, two Japanese guys stopped us on the street and started trying to show us magic tricks. The first guy held a sponge clasped in his hand in the shape of a ball - sort of like a rectangular sponge being compressed into a different shape. After demonstrating its shape to us (never letting it leave his clenched fist), he rolled it around in his hands and "magically" it transformed into a rectangular sponge.

Then the other guy showed us his trick. He held a wand-like thing in his hand, and after waving it about for a bit, he turned it into a scarf. At least that trick had some semblance of impressiveness to it.

One of the co-workers I was with at the time was really surprised that we'd been accosted like this, because throughout her entire life in Japan, that's never happened to her before.

Perhaps there's some sort of magical "show me magic" aura to me. Because a couple of days later in a restaurant, a different bunch of Japanese people started showing me magic tricks again. The highlight of this second performance was a guy with a rope. After waving it about for a bit, he made it transform into a scarf like the guy had on the previous occasion. But he did so in a way that it was painfully obviously the rope had been wrapped around the scarf prior. Barely able to contain my astonishment at this fellow's prowess, I mumbled "jouzu" to him, which basically means "you're skilled".

Anyway, back to the magician at the bar. He was actually good. In fact, he was great - I've never seen such amazing sleight of hand tricks from across the table. He was making cards change size, magically push themselves out of a deck, lemons appear under cups, etc. It was really cool.

Fundoshi

Those g-string-esque things I was talking about last time are called fundoshi. And here's a photo, taken by someone who was there that night.

Sayonara

My boss got a transfer to Osaka recently, and on Saturday night we went out with the rest of the school staff and some of the regular students to give him a farewell. The "official" farewell was the night before - shabushabu - meat, veggies etc cooked in hot water. It'd been yummy.

The Saturday dinner was held at a European restaurant, where a selection of dishes were placed in front of us. "Nomihoudai" had also been organised - basically all you can drink in a given period. We ate, drank and chatted and had a good time. My favourite dish (and I suspect it wasn't European) was raw meat soaked in some sort of marinade. Yum.

After the dinner, we were walking along the main city shopping street. Most of the posse were headed to "nijikai" - the "second party", which I think was karaoke, and I was headed to a bar to meet with some newly found friends I'd arranged to meet earlier.

While we were standing around deciding where to go and saying our farewells, we suddenly heard this big noise, like a riot had suddenly started.

It wasn't a riot, and eventually the cause of the noise appeared. About 50-100 male university students, dressed in a sumo-esque outfit (something resembling a g-string), were running down the main city street yelling something about the university.

Broken records and vegemite

I went to bed early last night, and got up early for the first time in weeks. So when I woke up at 8am, it didn't bother me that my neighbour's alarm had gone off.

I conjecture that he has two separate alarm systems - one with a snooze feature that he repeatedly hits - and another rigged up to his stereo system. The stereo slowly gets louder and usually stops after a while - presumably by my neighbour getting up and turning it off.

Except I don't think he's there this morning.

I went and had a shower, and made some breakfast, and when I got back it sounded like the music had switched to electronica. My parents were always complaining that some of the music I listened to sounded like one monotonous beat when broadcast through walls, and I figured it was more of the same.

But 20 minutes later, I started thinking that maybe the CD had got stuck.

Eventually someone got into their car downstairs, and the minute vibrations were enough to get the CD going again. It played through most of a new track - and then got stuck again. 10 minutes later, it's still going. Thanks, neighbour-san!

I've never actually met the guy - I just assume it's a guy because I hear male voices coming from the walls sometimes. It's polite to introduce yourself to your immediate neighbours when you move into a new house or apartment, though not all Japanese people do that anymore. I never did because I was too scared about my Japanese ability when I first got here. Now I'd look silly showing up about 2 months after moving in to say hello.

For breakfast today, I had a craving for vegemite instead of the usual natto-on-bread affair. In the airport in Cairns, I'd picked up two gift-sized (read: amazingly small) jars of vegemite, at the time thinking it'd be fun to introduce to Japanese people. It still would be fun - but now I need more!

Work, study and going out have been keeping me busy. My boss is getting transferred in a week or two, and tonight we're going out for "shabushabu" - from what I can tell, you get a plate of raw meat and dip it in boiling water (or maybe it was oil? I'm not sure). Either way, it looks yum.

Crikey

Hey look, my blue tongue lizard photo's on the web!

www.ecc.jp

Catch me if you can

Spent most of the day reading.

The first item on my agenda was another meeting with the guy at the Kumamoto international centre. They'd purchased a wireless router but had difficulty setting it up, and asked if I could come and give them a hand. I happily obliged and when I left it was all up and running. Hopefully it'll be announced to the public in the next few days.

On my way back from the centre, I swung by the city bookshop. I got paid a few days ago and had a bit of money to spend on another Japanese grammar book. I finished reading a book on the first English person to live in Japan a few nights back (amazing how the lack of regular internet can renew my interest in reading), and I wanted to pick up new material to keep me interested.

I ended up opting for "catch me if you can" - an autobiography of a con-artist which was later made into a Hollywood movie. When I got home I started reading it, and it's quite fun - I've almost finished it already. Alas, it was at the expense of any Japanese study today. I have to do more next time.

Photos!

Some photos that I took on Sunday - the order to the text isn't the same as on the photos, but you should be able to figure it out.

The view from a road very close to my house.
A central street in between two shopping arcades (x 2). In one of the photos, the center area is covered in construction work. That's Kumamoto castle. It's hundreds of years old, and they're currently fixing it up.
The biggest shopping arcade in Kumamoto, Shimotoori. At the end of where you can see, it curves left and continues on. My school is further down.

Up one of the side streets, "naughties", a pachinko parlor, next to a "family mart". Gambling is illegal here, but pachinko, a sort of cross between pinball and the pokies, is legal, because you get "prizes" - which you can then exchange for cash at another place.
Another part of the road between the two arcades - called "densha doori" - "tram street".
A Kumamoto tram. Like Melbourne they have some old ones and some new ones running.
The end of Shimotoori. The trees in the middle are a street called "showa street" - because it's not covered, so it rains there.

Looking back up Shimotoori. My school is the little unreadable sign on the right, near the middle of the picture.
The mountains visible from my apartment. The road I was standing on is the road adjacent to my apartment's road.
An unbelievably small parking space. While hard to see, the car is right up against one of the walls. The other side, where the driver's seat is, barely has enough room for the driver to open the door.
Sunset on a road a few streets away from my apartment. More hills visible behind the communication tower.

Let's karaoke

After finishing the last two Japanese lessons in the series (only 1/3rd left to go now), my spirits were lifted a bit. That and I'd had some coffee.

At about 11:30 I decided I was not yet ready to go to bed, and I felt like going for a wander. There's a yakitori bar two streets down from my apartment (very close), and I decided to see if it was still open. I haven't explored any proper restraunts by myself before, partly on account of them costing a lot of money and partly because it's slightly scary walking into a place by yourself when everyone looks up to check out who's just walked in.

Alas, the nearby yakitori was closed. I kept walking, trying to decide what I was going to do.

First I swung right, destination: 7-11. I had no real reason to go to the 7-11, but I wasn't sure where else to go. While heading there, I pondered visiting a yakitori in the city - the place where the kind bartender had showed me basashi and natto. Yeah, why not. Let's give it a go. I swung left, avoiding the 7-11, and headed into the city.

When I got to the road I thought the yakitori was on, it looked like it was closed. Bugger. I kept walking and hung a right at the end of the street, on the chance the place was the next street up (my memory of the first time is a little hazy now). As luck would have it, it did happen to be on the next street up. I peaked in as I walked past and saw a bunch of people in there, and almost continued walking. I pondered for a minute and decided to brave the entry, complete with stares from all the other customers.

The friendly bartender remembered me and ushered me to a seat, introducing me to the other customers - a few women in their early 30s, and their male friend. The usual questions followed - where are you from, how old are you - gosh, so young! I chatted to the bartender and one of the ladies in broken Japanese, occasionally assisted by the bartender (who knows enough English to help things along). He got me a beer and insisted he'd pay because he's "very rich", and he suggested "itsumo ok" - come any time.

The lady who I'd been chatting to - who'd gotten out of her seat and come over to sit next to me - tried to have a conversation, but it was pretty difficult. She knew almost zero english, and kept using vocabulary that I didn't know, then apologising over and over. She was constantly enquiring whether I was sleepy or bored. I think the questions were multi-faceted - both out concern but also because I think she was, in a bumbling way, trying to hit on me.

A little later, one of the other ladies asked if I'd ever been to karaoke. I said I hadn't and their eyes lit up - let's take him to karaoke! The bartender joined in the convince-Damien-to-go-to-karaoke campaign. I told them "demo .. uta ga dekinai" - but, song .. can't do. They said this wasn't a problem and I agreed to come along, curious about what it'd be like.

A karaoke bar was a few minutes walk from the yakitori bar. It was a huge place by Japanese standards, with many rooms. Each room was themed - one room I saw had benches supported by chains, like in a jail. The room we were in had big red couches and was themed like a shower, with a shower head sticking out of one wall. Curious.

We ordered some beers and food - ranging from cheese and crackers to pizza with tobasco and a salad. Pizzas are about 2-3 times as expensive in Japan as in Australia, for something not quite as big. Tobasco is a popular condiment with them.

They handed me the "foreign song list" - a fairly massive book akin to the white pages back home, but with bigger print. I was a little peturbed about being the first one to sing, as I had no idea what to expect - and I also had no idea what to sing. There were plenty of songs in the booklet which I recognised, but very few that I could probably sing. After being told to "hurry, hurry!" by the girl who was hitting on me and "take your time" by the others, I eventually opted for "radio head - creep" in desperation, a song I'd sung along to back in early high school.

The microphones are wireless and your voice is digitally filtered so it sounds considerably more impressive than it otherwise would. At first when I started singing I didn't recognise my own voice and assumed it was some generic backing singer!

My companions, being somewhat limited in the English department, had no idea what the song meant, and while shooting me encouraging smiles they also looked like they were thinking "what the..?"

After the song finished, they asked me what it meant, and I attempted an explanation with a few choice words from my vocabulary and lots of miming.

Next up was the girl who'd originally suggested karaoke. She was a really good singer, and the song she opted for is a pretty popular song in Japan right now - I've heard it playing in shops and stuff before. Her voice (combined with the digital enhancement) was very close to the original song. Impressive.

While walking from the yakitori bar to the karaoke place, we'd bumped into a Japanese guy who knew the girls I was with, and he'd come along with us. He was younger than the rest of them, and full of energy. He sang next.

At one point they chucked on a song which had a bunch of "English" interspersed with the Japanese. Such as:

"oly oly oly oh. yeli yeli yeli yeah. the up-town tokyo swinging night"

and

"won't be long ... won't be long".

(not tokyo, but I forget the original place)

Both the enthusiastic guy and the karaoke suggester joined in on this song, duoing the singing (there were two mikes). They got up and were dancing, too. They were really getting into it.

They asked me what the "won't be long" bit meant, after the song, and after bumbling about for a bit I was able to explain it to them. It turns out the Japanese words that follow the English mirror the English anyway!

When we eventually decided to wrap up, it was going on 3am. The lady who'd been sitting suggestively close to me apparently had to work at 6am that day. Ouch.

The other two people who worked at the yakitori bar had come and joined us shortly before we decided to finish, and they'd chucked on "dead or alive - you spin me right round". After a pretty decent rendition of the song by one of the new arrivals, we headed downstairs.

One of the yakitori workers informed me that the friendly bartender had given him money, in order that he could pay for my share of karaoke! I managed to slip a bit of money to the girl who was getting all the money together, but it probably wasn't enough.

The friendly bartender has now either directly or indirectly been involved in my first karaoke, raw horse meat and fermented soy bean experiencies. I think I'm going to pick him up a little present to say thank you before I go to the bar next time.

Attention

I was taking some photos today, so I was wandering around the streets more than usual. A record attention tally today.

Things like a primary school kid on a passing bus waving to me. Or two guys who were acting like idiots trying to impress a pair of high school girls. One of them ushered at me as I walked past and said "uiuishi" - which apparently means "unsophisticated" or "innocent". Strange.

Then there were the two business men who were playing with what sounded like a board game near me. I sensed they were pretty close, but at first I assumed it was a mere coincidence. When I stopped at the lights waiting to cross the road, they came and stood next to me and continued to play with their game. I think they were hoping to get my attention but I continued to stare off into space, not really enthused at the thought of being approached by some weird game wielding people. Eventually they started pushing the game into my field of vision until I turned to them.

The men were pretty young, and dressed in nice suits. They looked pretty respectible. They were smiling happily and their faces were painted in an almost child-like enthusiasm - a look akin to "just wait until you see this!"

In their hands they held a plastic dart game, with a cartoon picture of a naked lady on it. Each of her breasts was in the form of a dart board, and when one of the "boards" was struck, a feminine voice uttered such insightful expressions as "ouch. that hurt" or "do it again, big boy".

Doing my best to avoid visibly rolling my eyes at this discovery, I looked at them. They asked me in Japanese what it meant, since the lady spoke in English. Not possesing the linguistic prowess to politely tell them what I thought of the game, I opted for the path of least resistance and uttered "itai", which is "ouch" in Japanese. They laughed. The second one I had no idea how to translate. They laughed again and thanked me, and I walked off.

On the way back across the road, I heard a hello. I looked up and there were three Japanese girls walking in the opposite direction and looking at me. I gave them a semi forced smile and one of them crowed with delight (or perhaps it was fright).

Normally I'm not terribly peturbed by the above - it's something I was prepared for before I came over. After having a really good time last night, however, today was a bit mediocre, on account of the small amount of sleep I got, and the fact that last night served as a heavy contrast to my usual study-or-explore-by-myself affair. I'd happily welcome some company, but not if it's only because my services are required to help translate silly toys.

But not to worry - I just need some sleep. And before I go to bed, I'm going to finish the last 2 Japanese lessons of this series I'm on. I've got 90 30-minute audio Japanese lessons, and once I finish these two, I'll have finished the first 60. A good milestone to reach!

10 times

My nextdoor neighbour's alarm just went off for about the 10th time - I can hear it get slightly louder as he picks it up, yawns, and presses the snooze button. It's about 4pm. Must've been a big night out.

Woah

I just felt my first earthquake. That or I need a cup of coffee. The more I think about it, the more it seems like it could only be my imagination. It was very light. I was leaning against the wall and I got moved back and forth a little. Woah.

Kumamoto nightlife

After a tentative plan to go to see "Troy" (the movie) fell through, the other teacher and I began meandering home from work. He suggested we go visit the bar his friend works at, which wouldn't be open yet, but at least I'd know where it was in the future. The friend in question happened to be downstairs at another bar and we ran into him as we were walking down the street. After a beer and a chat we wandered up to the other bar, played a brief bout of darts and had a seat.

After a little while other people started showing up. The bar is in a tiny room, so it didn't take long for the place to fill up. There were lots of foreigners there, and a fair number of Japanese people who could speak varying degrees of English, too. It's a known foreigner bar and some of the people come there for that reason.

I had a chat with an old Japanese man at one point (probably in his late 50s - 60s), but I was conscious he probably just wanted free English practice, rather than had any specific desire to hear what I had to say. After a little while I was happy to let the conversation trail off.

Met some interesting people in that bar, including a Kiwi who had been in Japan for 3 years but couldn't speak much Japanese at all - but then, she'd never had the ambition to, either. She was quite the footy fan and when I left the bar she was not in the best spirits because the Brumbies (Australian team) were beating the NZ team they were playing against.

There was also a nearly-bald british guy who was talkative and had adventures to tell of all the various countries he'd visited. And a person who owned their own language school and had been working in Japan for 19 years.

At one point a group of about 7 girls walked in, transforming the room from pretty full to very full. They struck up a conversation with the other teacher and I chatted to the British guy for a while. The girls ended up suggesting we go to another bar - one where the other teacher knows the owner. It was only a few minutes up the road, and sounded like a good idea.

The bar/club was interesting. It had a dirt floor (this was on the 8th floor of a building - the dirt floor would have required work to set up!), and was also about the size of a shoe-box. There was a DJ in the corner playing R&B music, and a few people sitting down or dancing. We drank and danced and whiled the night away for a while. The only downsides are the smoking and the dirt. A huge number of people in Japan smoke and thus clubs like that are like a dutch oven. The dirt on the floor, while perhaps a novel touch, resulted in really dirty shoes by the time we left.

Eventually the other teacher decided to go home as it was quite late by then. I wasn't quite exhausted enough to want to go home, and we went to yet another night club which was playing tunes like the chemical brothers, fat boy slim, etc. Good music, but we were all exhausted by then and they had the treble up too high. We sat down on some couches in one corner of the room and wound down for a while. Most of the members of our party looked exhausted by then and before long we decided to go our separate ways, with the promise of meeting up again some time.

Inappropriate footware

I just checked the state of my coffers. I've got about 28,000yen at home, and 10,000yen in my Japanese bank account. This works out to about $450AUD in total.

Pay day is not for another 9 days, but in 3 days, ECC will pay me for my two weeks of training. This will more than tide me over, and provided I limit my amount of discretionary spending (as I've been doing), I should have a bit of money to spare at the end.

Note that when I say "discretionary", I'm not referring to internet access and take-out dinners - I factored these into the "essentials" part of my budget! After the first full pay day, I'll get a gas stove and start thinking about cooking my own meals. I'm not picking up expensive take-out foods, though, so it doesn't seem to be a screaming priority. I value my free time too much to cook every night.

The photo on the right is the name of a driving school (small photo, because it was taken on my mobile phone). The name is "terabaru", but for some reason when they converted it into English, they decided to call it "terrabul". Apparently they live up to their name.

In the past, Kumamoto's rainy season (about a month, from mid June) has meant close to 40 days of rain, with the occasional day where you can catch your breath. I'm told that the weather here has been a bit strange recently, and it's been raining earlier than it usually does. In the last week, it's rained 3 or 4 times.

My path to work is mainly under cover, and I only have to walk for about 5 minutes in the rain (complete with umbrella). The problem is my shoes.

I have an old, much-loved pair of dress shoes that are really comfortable, if a bit beaten up. As I've mentioned previously, the soles have become pourous with age, and when I walk in the rain it's as if I'm standing on sponges, which quickly soak up the water below. Yuck!

I have a newer pair of semi dress shoes, but there's two problems with them. The first is that there's a plastic-esque lining on the bottom of the shoe, which makes the shoe less sturdy on wet ground, and it also has a tendancy to squeak. The other problem is that the back of the shoe is made with a hard leather, which cuts up the back of my feet. I'm going to have to get used to wearing band-aids every day for the next few months, I think. Maybe the shoes will wear in with time.

This morning I work up, rolled over and looked at the time. In a semi-awake state I have this reoccurring fear that I'm late for work - even on days I'm not working. After thinking about it briefly, I realised I didn't have to work, and I could roll over and go back to bed.

Then I realised I had an appointment that morning, and I was already a few minutes late. Expletives followed.

After rummaging around for a meishi (business card) but not being able to find it, I finally grabbed the "Living information Kumamoto" book and flipped to the back, hoping for a contact telephone number. Great. There was one there.

I drowsily typed in the number, before realising I'd typed in the post-code number of the address. Whoops. Success on my second attempt.

A person at the other end picked up and answered in Japanese. I replied, "moshi moshi. uh...". In my haste to call I'd both forgotten the name of the person I wanted to speak to, and how to request to speak to them in Japanese. After a few seconds, my memory returned, and I enquired if the person was in. The person who'd answered the phone was the person in question. I hurriedly apologised for missing the appointment (which I'd completely forgotten about), and suggested I could be down there in about 30 minutes. My appointment partner didn't seem too peturbed by my tardiness and he said 30 minutes would be fine.

After getting off the phone, I kicked myself a bit more for my mistake, had a quick shower and a rice cracker, and put on my feet-murdering shoes as it was raining outside. After a brisque 15 minute walk, I arrived at the Kumamoto City International Center.

The KCIC is a government sponsored building to further interest in international communication, and serves as a hub for international affairs meetings, information on Kumamoto's sister cities, and more. The center has a second floor annex with a number of free facilities open to visitors, including TVs showing CNN and other news stations, and papers like the New York Times.

Recently (about a month before I arrived), the center had started providing free internet access on 3 computers. Previously the internet access had been available, but at a charge. I've visited the center a few times and there's often foreigners using the computers, but sometimes Japanese people use them too.

A very recent addition to the center's arsenal of services has been the introduction of what's called a "Flet's spot". This is run by NTT (think Telstra in Australia), and for a fee of about $15 a month, you can bring along your laptop and access wireless internet services.

Which is great for travelling professionals perhaps, but not so useful for international visitors - since you need to sign a contract and the setup process can take some weeks.

The person who looks after the internet access at the center (we'll call him Y) had sent an email to a mailing list I'm on - an English speaking mailing list for people in Kumamoto - advertising the availability of Flet's.. A few weeks ago, I sent a private reply to him, to point out the inaccessibility of a Flet's spot to foreigners, and to offer to assist if the center would be interested in offering free wireless access in the future. It would only cost them about $150 in parts, and I'd be willing to help them get it set up and working.

Y deliberated over this offer for a little while and suggested we have a meeting to go over some details, and a few weeks back I went to the center and met with him. He seemed to think the idea of pursuing it further was favourable, and we had arranged another meeting to give it a test run.

Which I completely forgot about. But thankfully Y didn't seem upset, and when I arrived (I'd brought my own router to demonstrate how it works to him), we gave it a test run and determined that we'd need two routers to offer the service on both floors - on account of the heavy concrete between floors blocking the signal. When I left he seemed happy with the results and we spoke of another meeting to get the service up and running.

On account of the numerous meetings, and the time spent waiting for approval of the "project", by the time the center starts offering wireless internet, I'll no longer have a need for it - as by then I should hopefully have the internet at home. But it's nice to know that visitors in the future may be able to make use of it.

On my way home from the center, I swung by Mos Burger - which I've mentioned before. Their burgers are about twice as expensive as, say, McDonalds, but the chicken burgers have real chicken in them, rather than bits of chicken and lots of cereal. They taste quite good.

So I ordered a burger from the lady at the counter. I was anticipating being asked if I wanted fries and a drink with it (which caused me to stumble and get flustered last time I ordered from there), and I was armed with the necessary Japanese this time to reply appropriately. Alas, I didn't get to show off my newly acquired vocabulary. The girl then stumbled a bit and managed to ask "eat .. here?" in English. I replied in Japanese that I'd like take away and she was noticably relieved that I hadn't replied in English.

I sat down at a table waiting for my burger to arrive, and the girl I met on my first day in Kumamoto came and delivered it to me. She'd done a year's exchange in Australia and was the girl with the noticeable Australian accent. We had a little chat about how I was finding Kumamoto. She said she hates it here because of the weather! But it's not so bad. Or at least it won't be, once I do something about my shoes.

ame futteru (rain is falling)

A rainy day, and I felt like taking photos.

The food dish is what one company's take on "kimuchi" is - but it's not the one I buy, because it's too expensive there! The poster has instructions on how to put out the garbage.

The garbage system in Japan is a lot more complicated than back home. Items need to be sorted into about 6 different categories, and different days are used for different items. Everything is supposed to be placed in clear plastic bags in the designated area, so that the garbage collectors can pick up the right stuff. There's a little alcove for the garbage in our apartment block, but for some houses, their designated area is just the side of the street.

Some examples of the categories: "combustible" items - things like kitchen waste, plastic(!), wood, shoes, etc - are put out twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. Non-combustible goods like glass and cans get a different day.

But PET bottles are different again, and they need to be washed, the caps removed, and then left again in clear plastic bags on another day.

Then there's the bulky goods, which you need to ring ahead for. They'll pick up things like bookshelves from you (provided you're not moving out - then you're supposed to pay for it yourself!). And the recyclable goods days, where possibly working items can be put out. Some people have semi furnished their houses based on what they can find from other people on these days, but a lot of stuff goes to waste, too.

Finally there's the paper recycling. Books, newspaper and cardboard need to be separated into different piles, and bound using tape or rope.

I was delighted when I learnt the Kanji for the different days of the week, because I now know where each of the different types of garbage goes. Small pleasures.

Aiee.

My hands are sticky from the glue on the back of the gaffa tape, which melts under prolonged exposure to heat. My apartment has a faint smell of soldering iron acid. Bits of cable are scattered around the room. And it's going on 2:30. I should be asleep by now.

But I fixed it.

It's hard to explain how disabling losing access to my laptop would be. I have a bunch of Japanese lessons on there which I can't study without it, for instance. It also makes it much more cumbersome to write to friends, and renders my pending internet connection at home useless. Ditto my digital cameras. Not fun.

But I fixed it.

I'm pretty lucky, actually. Thankfully, the power-pack was well engineered - it detected a short-circuit and started flashing to indicate an error condition. Had it not noticed, it would have overheated and melted. I could have replaced it (much cheaper than replacing the laptop), but it would have been a pain to do.

Phew.

If at first you don't succeed...

Disheartened with my last attempt at Kimuchi from the supermarket, but not yet ready to chuck in the towel, I picked up a small container of Kimuchi proper. This actually contained the pickled cabbage (which is what Kimuchi is all about). I hoped this new attempt would more closely resemble what I've had from the bento place. I hoped it would be a far cry from the somewhat vile garlic-extract with a bit of red colouring masquerading as a chilli component. I hoped it would give me an excuse to stop going to the bento place every night.

Today was a short teaching day - I didn't start until late in the afternoon. First up I had two kids classes. The second went fine, but the first one was a bit troublesome. I mas meant to be teaching the names of the months, but the kids really seemed to be struggling to remember them - be it because there was too much to learn at once, the other students were distracting them, or they just weren't motivated - I don't know. In most of my classes the students are really well behaved (for which I'm very lucky), and the class I had today is perhaps the most challenging from a discipline level. I'm going to have to sit down sometime soon and think about what I can do to improve the situation. It needs a bit of work.

After classes finished, I recounted a tale to the other ECC staff about my experience at the bento place the other night. The kimuchi dish I really like is called "buta kimuchi don". The other night I'd said "buta kimuchi, (please)", and the lady at the counter said to the cook what sounded like "kimuchi cho". I noticed what she said was different to what I said, so I decided to ask her, when I collected my food, "which is better?". The other day I'd learnt a sentence pattern in Japanese about how to ask which was better, and this was an ideal time to practice it.

Note that there are two entries in the dictionary for "cho" - "work" or "be profitable". What I'd actually heard was "icchou", not "cho" - I heard the wrong word.

So after the lady gave me my kimuchi and a smile, I asked her something like: "buta kimuchi to kimuchi cho to dochira ga ii desu ka" - literally "which one is good?"

A blank look. I repeated my question and the cook came out from the back area to join the lady. Two blank looks. They started apologising and obviously had no idea what I was saying. I told them it was okay, thanked them, and left. Then returned a few minutes later, announcing "kasa .. wasureta". I'd forgotten my umbrella.

It turns out that the lady had said to the cook, what translates to "one order of kimuchi" - so it's not something I'd need to be able to say - what I said originally was better. But because I'd heard what she said wrong, when I tried to ask them, the pair of them had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. ".. kimuchi .. be profitable. which one is good?"

Anyway, after I got home tonight I decided I'd try my newly acquired supermarket kimuchi. Not that I'm embarassed to go back to the store - they seem like nice people and mistakes like that are part of the learning process. I'm just trying to economise a little - and hey, I bought a little sushi earlier anyway!

It's different to how it's prepared at the bento place, because I lack the facilites to fry it up, the meat to combine with it, or the rice to put it on top of. The vinegar taste from the pickling process is thus more evident and the garlic is a bit stronger - but nothing like the inedible concoction from the other day. I've got some strips of ham in the fridge - if I chop them up and throw them in I think it'd turn out pretty nice.

@(@%*&#(%*&#$%(*#$%

I just heard an arcing sound. The makeshift repairs I'd conducted on the back of my laptop have come loose and I've lost power. I've got an hour or two until the battery dies, and then the laptop will be useless unless I can repair it again.

Woe is me.

Mold

I spent the day alternating between study and mastication. It was raining for most of the day, so camping out in my apartment with my Japanese language course and snacks was a fun way to while away the hours.

I'm still experimenting with the food at the local supermarket. I've found some staple goods which I'm basically living off - ham, peanut butter, natto, bread, chilli sauce, vegetable juice, yoghurt, miso soup, and the obligatory instant noodles.

The yoghurt's curious - the small tubs come pre-sweetened, but the larger tubs (of the same type of yoghurt, from what I can tell), come with a separate bag of sugar, which you're supposed to mix in. That's okay with me, I'd rather it unsweetened.

There's a wealth of instant noodles to choose from, though sadly, I'm unable to find my much-prized "Mi Goreng". The more expensive noodle packs come with a variety of seasonings, including freeze-dried beef (oniku!) or bacon.

I've taken to picking up "buta kimuchi" (pork kimchee - a korean spicy pickled cabbage dish) in the evenings from the Bento place down the road - it's about $5, which is cheap enough to procrastinate the purchase of a gas stove - but not indefinitely.

I saw some kimuchi sauce at the supaa (supermarket) the other day, and figured hey, this might go well on some rice. Perhaps I can save some money! They had the choice of the whole kimuchi rigmarole (including the pickled cabbage), or just a red kimuchi sauce. I grabbed just the sauce, since I'm a big chilli fan.

Unfortunately after heaping some of the sauce on to some rice that evening, I realised that the central ingredient appeared to be ninniku - garlic. The sauce seems to be a garlic and chilli extract, which alone is pretty revolting! I tried to grin and bear it, but alas. It's back to the Bento place for now.

A mixed blessing in Kumamoto is the weather. I'm glad I won't be freezing my arse off come winter, but I've yet to endure the middle of summer - including the mid June-July period where it rains, and rains, and rains.

Kumamoto's weather can get quite humid, and this has manifested itself to me already, by way of the mold which has sprung up in the bathroom. When I arrived in my apartment it was spotless, but a few short weeks later the once-pristine walls have defiled themselves. When I get a spare moment I'm going to have to venture down to the 100yen store and pick up some cleaning materials.

Well, I'm getting hungry and I want to swing past the internet cafe before picking up some buta kimuchi - so until next time, adieu!

Suikan oyaji

The above is my ungrammatical attempt at "drunken old man". I was walking through a department store today, and I walked through a reasonably narrow passage-way between the escalator and a wall in order to get to the side that was going down. There was a man sitting on the chair and I gave him a faint nod as I walked past as a sort of unspoken "excuse me".

But I shouldn't have! I reached the escalator and the guy walked up behind me and muttered something a few times. I couldn't make out his Japanese, though after he repeated it about 10 times I realised he was saying "good evening" in a devilishly bad English accent.

The conversation proceeded partly in terrible English and partly in terrible Japanese (on my part). He stunk of alcohol and it was only 6pm, and I had no desire to continue talking to him, so I tried to lever my way out of the conversation without appearing rude. At one point he asked me in Japanese if I drank and he seemed to be trying to invite me out for a drink - to which I hastily replied "kyou wa chotto.." - today is a little... (difficult)

After a couple of uncomfortably long minutes, I managed to free myself from the weird old man's company, and I proceeded to Kinokuniya, which is a book shop company in Japan. The other teacher had pointed it out to me yesterday - they've got a selection of Japanese textbooks in English - it's the first place in Japan I've been able to find a textbook so far. Now I have more books to continue studying with!

Before running into the weird old man, I'd braved my first haircut. I was somewhat anxious about it, as I don't know many suitable words for communicating what I'm after in a cut - such as "this bit short", "this bit long", etc. The staff there were nice though and after bumbling about with "this place big, this place small, 1/3rd (miming a chop)", etc, I ended up pointing in a magazine to someone who had a similar haircut.

They'd given me a pair of magazines while I was waiting. The bulk of the magazines consisted of 4 faces per page, all with different haircuts. There were a veritible wealth of styles to choose from. Japanese men have a lot more variety when it comes to the way they style their hair.

Last night I went to see "Kill Bill 2" with the other ECC teacher. The movies here have this weird ticket system where a limited number of tickets are distributed to newsagency/stationary type shops. If you buy a ticket there, it's cheaper - we got an adult ticket for about $15 instead of the $22 or so we'd have had to pay in the movie cinemas.

After the movie we geeked it up at his house for a bit - he's got a very good widescreen HD-TV, digital PVR etc, and the picture quality is just stunning. Ah well. One day.

Post-geekage, we went to a Chinese restaurant and then on to an Irish pub which had just opened up near my house about a month before I arrived. We bumped into one of the hairdressers we'd met the other night (birthday cake from that night attached), and I also met a really happy, friendly waitress who the other teacher'd met before. When she finished work she came and sat with us and we chatted until the early hours of the morning, which gave me a chance to practice my meagre Japanese.