Itsuka to Muika

Thursday
Last day of real training for all of us, Friday the rest will be writing their first lessons with help from the people at head office. While I'll be hoping on the Shinkansen (bullet train for those who don't know) down all the way to Nagoya. Much to my annoyance this means that I will be missing the party friday night after the session. Drinks and food were all paid for and everything!! Shikusho!!! :((((.
Today was particularly long as we went through a lot of material today. As a consequence not everyone was up for going out. In the end four us decided to meet up just for dinner. We had a chinese, which wasnt too bad, different to the chinese food im used to much less greasy :P. After the meal everyone headed their seperate ways, I said my goodbyes and promised to keep in touch :'(
Feels weird having to leave this place, just as i was getting used to it, and having to get used to a whole new area again. Plus the fact all the others are up here as well :( ah well, always look on the bright side eh? Nagoya here I come!!!!
Friday
Woke up at 7.30 today which seems to be my body wake up time at the mo, even though I'm not telling myself to wakeup at that time.
*Interesting fact about me :) - I have a very good body clock, I just tell my self when to wake up and I will always wake up 1hour before the time I tell myself*
Since I was leaving the flat for the last time, I decided to tidy up the place and leave it as I had found it, except for a rubbish bag with some rubbish that I couldn't get rid of.
*Interesting fact about Japan - Japan has a system where different kinds of rubbish is picked up different days. We have burnable/recyclable, unburnable, and bottles&cans. Each has to seperated into a seperate colour bag and put out on the corresponding day. Unfortunately I had missed the day for the rubbish that I had and so couldn't get rid of it :/*
I had to lug all me luggage to the station from me flat, and knowing that, I set off extra early. After many many many stops I managed to finally get to the station :P
Saw some more Sakura trees while i rested so I took some pictures:

Still amazed at their beauty :). So after a 40minutes I got to Odawara station which is the station you go to to catch the Shinkansen. Bue to a miscalculation however I managed to get there nearly an hour before my train :P so I had time to get breakie. Deciding not to venture too far from the station I found a small Japanese noodlebar and had pork ramen. Very yummy ^_^
After wasting most of the extra time I had I headed to the platform got on me train and headed off to Nagoya, more pix :P

The whole journey from Odawara to Nagoya took just over an hour. Not too shabby if you get to look at a map and see the actual distance :P
Managed to meet my contact, a woman called Hasegawa, at the station, though there was some confusion as to where we were supposed to meet. Someone told me to meet her near a big metal clock, however what they didn't say what colour!!! as I discovered afterwards there was more than one clock, and she had been waiting near blue clock while I was near a gold one :P ah well alls well that ends well, and together we headed to my flat. And after lots of really long and annoying stairs and a very long walk we managed to get to it (with me competely bushwhacked). So ends this post, I'm going to explore a bit while its still light.
Mata ne




S

Mikka to Yokka

Zuzuku..
Tuesday
Next up on the agenda is the place I'm training. If you look at the picture, which isn't all that good mind, all of these are taken on me camera phone as I don't have a camera. Really need to get one soon as possible :(. you might be able to see a British flag on the signs beside the building. Well thats where the head office is, on the 5th floor, and thats where all my training takes place.
. Today was a little input, with the rest of the day spent observing other teachers teach. I got to see 1 adult class, and two childrens classes. The children were adorable little things, the first of the two children classe had some really young ones. The teacher and had somehow taught them to accept being hit by luffy toys, and everytime they got hit they would say 'itai' which means 'ouch' in Japanese. Super kawaii!! :))
After we finished for the day, me and another of the teachers called James wandered around Fujisawa exploring. After much walking we managed to find some foreign looking bars and some cheap places to eat :D.

Also got to see Sakura trees for the first time. Utsukushii desu ne? :))))
That night we didn't manage to go out, because quite a few of us were still feeling a bit of jetlag.
Wednesday
This was a whole days of input teaching 10am till 6pm :/. Upside was that after havinf rested the night before we were much more up fro going out this time. So we decided to go to one of the bars we found on Tuesday, and we had our first drink in Japan teehee ^_^ luckly the place we were drinking in had a happy hour thing so it didnt cost us too much, though it seems drinking Japan is comparable to UK. Will have to investigate more thoroughly :P


S

Futsuka

Zuzuku....
Monday :)
First a word about the other teachers who went over with me on this journey to Japan. All a very nice a friendly bunch, many surprisingly had never taught before and never been to Japan before!!! a double whammy!! Im only one out of two :P Taught but not been to Japan. Out of the people I talked to, and there were quite a few of us I think about 18 in all, I found two others who had taught before. One of them, Anthony, even worked at the same company I did in London!! Only at a different branch!! strange no? The other one,James, had taught in a few other countrys including Chile. Of the 18 only 7 would be training together. Anthony, Kate, Steve, and Andy were on the plane with me. James and another called Stephanie were already in Japan before the training began.
Next a bit about my appartment. Even though it only temporary it's pretty cool, and the guy who took me it,a lovely guy called Riahcard, said he was jealous because its bigger than his :P I got two rooms, with me


staying in the smaller one because it has the aircon in. Then the 'kitchen' bathroom' and 'hall' are all merged into one really.

Not bad no? wasnt really expecting too much so was quite happy really.
The flat is about 15minutes walk from the station
*interesting japanese quirk - on escalators Japanese do it the opposite way to us Brits, people stand on the left side while the right is for those in a hurry*.
Then to get to where I'm training in Fujisawa, it takes about 5minutes, only 1 stop away. Better than some people who have a 40 minute or even 1hour journey to get in!!
Training is everyday this week 10am to 6pm, work work work!!! holiday this aint!! :P
Monday was a little input lesson, with lots of talking very much like a TEFL teaching lesson for those of you who have done one, and can remember what it was like :)


S

Hajimemashite!!!

Konnichiwa!!! From the land of the rising sun!!! ^_^
So here I am finally!!
I know I know!! I'd been saying it for so long that it seemed that I'd never go, but go I did and it surprised a few people, even suprised me!!
Time went by so quickly that i didn't get to say goodbye to everyone, for which i am very sorry for. So we should backtrack to Saturday so we that we start this right.
The flight was 12 hours long, not too bad if your used to flying to place like Hong Kong, so I was fine with it. I somehow managed to meet up with the other teachers even though I wasn't looking for them, which was a stoke of luck. A group of english people talking about Japan, not really too difficult :P
Managed to watch Walace and Gromit which I missed when it was showing around the cinemas. Which was cool, and really liked it :))) a very british movie to send me off. Also got to see a new Japanese film called Shinobi which wasnt too bad but could have been better me thought. Have to say first time flyer on ANA, it was really good. If you havent been you can actually forward,pause and rewind anything on the service!! movies and music!! so if u missed a bit then you can just rewind back!! so much better than having to wait for the next showing on BA!!
We arrive at Narita airport on Sunday 26th at about 4 (had to circle round for a bit because of too much traffic). On arrival we were met by poeple from Shane (the company I'm teaching with) . Weather was a bit chilly, but no where near as cold as UK, easy for us hard as nails Brits :P. Not much to say about Sunday, apart from the fact that the journey from Narita airport to ourside of Japan took us over 2hours by train ::SSS and after the flight we were all pretty much nackered and in serious need of some sleep.
One of the people called Shane took me to my temporary appartment in Tsujido, I'm actually going to be teaching in Nagoya but I'm training in Fujisawa. Got me bedding into the place and after arranging it slumped on the bed and conked out. So endeth the first day :D


S

Shoot, shoot, shoot!

I was just surfing the web this morning looking for some information about a Namco game that I saw in HK to do with dragon breeding and found out that Time Crisis 4 is meant to be available from Namco! Considering that my mushroom and I really like playing the previous incarnation I shall be keeping my eyes peeled!

N

Engarde!

On a side note I started Fencing again...finally. I'd taken another beginner's course with the local club and had intended to join the club after it had finished but Christmas holidays and work had taken up my time. I'd joined in January and bought some kit (I have my own epee sword!) but only been a couple of times through January and February. Hopefully I will be a bit more regular, especially since I've paid up for the first quarter of the year!

N

A few hours to a month...

...well it looks like I've done it again and there's been a delay in putting up a new post! I really am very, very bad at this but I promise to change! Hopefully my brother will start to fill this out too when he's in Japan! Yep he's definitely off this month on the 25th!

So back to the holiday...so originally the plan was to go to Shanghai on a tour prior to New Year but they were all booked up! In fact most of the tours were booked up and it didn't look like we were going to go but we did find one that took place over New Year and we ended up taking it.

We arrived in Shanghai in the evening a couple of nights before New Year and we proceeded to drop our bags off on the tour bus. The tour guide and a Shanghai guide took us on the maglev train that's been built to service the airport. From what I could tell it only has a couple of stops and the service finishes early sometime in the early evening. It was an enjoyable and very quick train ride and if I recall the train did about about 300km/h but capable of more than 400km/h. We left the train at the first stop and then waited for our tour bus to arrive; which had to the usual route through traffic.

The tour bus took up to a restaurant for dinner and we were sat with other members of the tour group. The food was interesting and was typical of what we ate during the remainder of the trip; each evening meal always contained a tasty duck in chinese soup. After dinner the local guide suggested that we go to the river side to see the city lights, since it was still too early to sleep. We wanted to go, as did a few other families, but a few did not and we ended up going back to the hotel. There was not going to be another opportunity to see the evening skyline since that was our only night in Shanghai so luckily the local guide suggested taking us out using the underground system. We took him up on the offer and went out; it was a very cramped train ride in places, even worse than the tube in London! When we arrived and came back to the surface it was a neon paradise and I have to say the lighting of the buildings was quite spectacular; it was very reminiscent of Hong Kong but still very distinctive. It was cold especially since we were exposed on the promenade along the river so we were glad to be wearing warm clothes. After some photos were taken we wandered back towards to the underground station but it was decided that we'd take a taxi; which again resemble those you find in Hong Kong.

It was still not very late when we arrived back at the hotel so my brother and I and our cousin went to play some snooker! When we'd originally arrived at the hotel I'd used an information pod in the lobby to find out what was available and they had snooker, darts, a mahjong and disco areas. After an hour or two of playing snooker we were quite tired and went back to our rooms for a good nights rest...

N