Tokyo! Day 02 - 24/12

After a nice long sleep I awoke on day two ready for a traditional western fatty breakfast still feeling the hurt that Denny's had left me, and I didn't care how long I had to travel to get it. This is how we ended up an hour long queue in front of Eggs n' Things in Harajuku. This is the Japanese branch of a popular breakfast house in Hawaii that serves pancakes, waffles and crepes. After months of half-assed Japanese cereal we were willing to join the line in the freezing cold for and hour with the intention of more than making up for this hindrance with our order. We opted for seating anywhere as we were starving and didn't really care if we were placed outside on the verandah under the braziers, but luckily when it was our turn we were shown inside to a table with two comfy couches. We checked out the other patron's meals and the six inch mountain of whipped cream that sat atop of the pancakes and waffles and the three sauce dispensers with sweet coconut, maple, and strawberry syrup that sat on every table. I ordered blueberry waffles and a plate of banana crepes to share between us while Maggie ordered blueberry pancakes and a side of bacon. We realised a flaw in our plan to make up for the long wait in food when the mountains of food were placed around us. I ate everything included some of Maggie's share and by the end I felt like I was about to vomit. But we got our waits worth and that's all that matters. You may have noticed the underlying theme of this trip is value.

From Harajuku we took several escalators down to the very deep subway to Ryogoku. Ryogoku used to be near the centre of Edo (Tokyo) in the Edo Period but after the city expanded into the neighbouring countryside the centre shifted towards the newer areas like Shinjuku and Shibuya, so Ryogoku is seen as the historical area of Tokyo and is home to the Edo-Tokyo Museum. I had only heard about this museum from an anime that explained the different areas to Tokyo (the scenario being the subway stations of Tokyo were personified as good looking guys that kidnap girls on their otherworldly train to help them solve their problems in life by taking them around their area of Tokyo explaining things along the way. Oh Japan. Other things I learned from this episode, the raid of the 47 Ronin, soon to be a movie starring Keanu Reeves, took place here and it is the birthplace of Okita Souji of the Shinsengumi. Education +!) and I was surprised I didn't see much advertising or hype about it on the touristy websites, because it was a really good museum! It had a lot of hands on things and massive scale models of the towns of Edo. Also there were several volunteer history buffs who could speak English walking around explaining things. One of the funny things I saw here was an American dad and his young Japanese kids walking around and I overheard their conversation as the dad said “That's some amazing yoro~i (armour)” with the kids looking incredulously at their dad saying “Dad, it's not yoro~i, it's yoroi.” Damn you long vowels. All foreigners have that trouble.

(left)  A replica of the Nihonbashi, the bridge that led into Edo.
(right)  Geta (wooden clogs) for wading in rivers.

A model of Ryogoku in the Edo Period.

Mini-putt. Showa style.

Kago are tiny!!

We stayed here until closing time, picked up some rice cracker senbei as omiyage for the BoE peeps back at home and I bought a cloth printed with a procession of cats in kimono travelling with a cart and singing. We headed back to Shibuya and met up with Steph, Janelle and newcomer Emilio who was also a university friend of Maggie and Steph. We went to dinner at an American chain called T.G.I. Friday's where I had some roast chicken and veg and we all revelled in the taste of western food, if only for an hour. We wanted to do karaoke and sought out Shidax in Shibuya thinking it would be some nice cheap entertainment. Boy were we wrong! It costs over $15 an hour per person and we ended up staying several hours so it was an expensive night out but fun. And I have a new karaoke song I can rock out to.

Nice syncing to the TV ladies!

On the way back to the hotel at 11 pm we heard a ruckous at the famous Shibuya crossing (the busiest intersection in the world – an absolute biarch of a thing to cross during the evening rush hour, we had to go through it everyday and you just get pummelled). This ruckous was caused by a group of 20 or so punks and their girls dressed in Santa and reindeer costumes, some with Christmas trees attached to the backs of their bikes ripping up and down the crossing doing burnouts and tricks on their bikes and generally making a lot of noise. They got our approval and as we took pictures of them they played for the camera and yelled out greetings in English to us. The police were nowhere to be seen.

Vroooom!

The famous statue of Hachiko outside Shibuya Station,
now complete with a tambourine.

Tokyo! Day 01 - 23/12

It's been a while since I concluded my trip to Tokyo with the empathetic ear/shoulder to vomit on, Maggie, so I thought I'd update this journal of sorts before I completely forget what I did. Halfway there. So thanks to the non-alzheimered, identical memories of Maggie, my memories have been reborn and immortalised on the crap-festooned midden that is the intarwebs. So as the title suggests it's the first day of Ali & Maggie's adventures in that oh-so-wacky Tokyo.

We actually left to go to Tokyo from Kyoto the night before on the night bus, but because that night didn't resemble a normal night with sleep my mind thought I had arrived the day before. We arrived at Shinjuku Station after a nine hour ride with rest stops every few hours that would wake me from my shallow slumber with the blaring of fluorescent lights. Luckily I slept next to the window and managed to grab what z's I could – Maggie had no such luck. The entertainment for the first few hours of the journey was provided by Maggie's portable DVD player and the comedic stylings of Sheldon. The bus seats didn't go back very far and there wasn't a lot of room to stretch your feet so you had to sleep upright and hunched which is near impossible but it was cheap and that is all that really matters. So were arrived in Shinjuku far from being fresh-faced, and according to Maggie I looked like I was about to keel over. I know I'm not to be around when I'm in that state. We arrived at 7am or so and had a whole day of fun planned ahead of us. Goodie.

Getting ready for the day at Shinjuku Station.
Just thought you wanted the memory of how tired you were, Maggie.

Our first stop was the hotel in Shibuya and to get there we had to navigate the poorly planned labyrinth that is the Tokyo subway system and even worse, the stations themselves. Finding an exit out of the station was hard enough. We were chuffed to find our hotel was across the road from a Denny's, but our expectations fell flat when we saw the sundaes and pancakes we envisioned replaced by salad and shit like that. Who the hell goes to Denny's for a freakin salad. Japan you disappoint me, but it was salad for me.

On the internally stored itinerary the next stop was Ueno, home of the national zoo, museum and science museum all surrounded by parkland and linked by broad boulevards. We planed to go to the museum only as I had no wish to see animals in cramped cages as I'd heard the zoo was like. Even the museum took up until past lunchtime. The mascot of Ueno is a panda and after sighting a cafe that sold panda themed foods we rocked up only to find it was closed. That's Japan for you, either turn up exactly on time of do without. 2 pm is not considered lunchtime and afternoon tea does not exist in this country. The museum was alright. It had a lot of things I had already seen at the Japan exhibition at Te Papa a few years ago, and because Maggie had felt like she'd dragged me along she was worrying that I wasn't enjoying the endless rooms of Jomon pottery. Oh contraire! She couldn't believe how long I could spend looking at broken pots.

Jomon pottery figures from burial mounds.

This is our buddy M. R. Bighair from the ¥1,000 note.
Ok so his real name is Noguchi  but his hair is rather impressive.

The afternoon's entertainment was the long awaited trip to Nakano for our dorkfest. Maggie is a collector of cels from 90s animes and Nakano being the home of many of the online sellers, she locked herself up in a few shops and poured through the stacks of hand painted cels. Meanwhile I geeked out in the anime figure and DVD stores pushing through the throng and beating off the sweaty, bespectacled otakus as we all tried to navigate the narrow corridors and shop aisles, stepping over the bodies of fallen nerds in search of that elusive figure. It was chaos. The thing I found pretty funny was the fact that this entire five levelled rabbit warren of anime shops only opened from midday until midnight – prime time for socially inept otaku. Also all of the shopkeepers were expected to wear cosplay costumes to work so it wasn't unusual to see green haired girls running around with otaku leering after them. I didn’t buy anything on this particular trip to Nakano as it was just reconnaissance, but in the second trip several days later, I went nuts.

That night we met up with Maggie's friend from university, Steph and her English teacher friend Janelle for dinner at a Mexican restaurant near the hostel they were staying at. The food was great but the music kinda subtracted from the atmosphere. All night they played a CD of 'Who Let the Dogs Out' by the Baha Men with what seemed like every known remix of it. Naturally after the fifth time we'd heard it we were ready to gauge out our eardrums with a rusty salsa spoon. We then headed back to Shibuya to get our tickets for the big trip to Disney Sea from the Disney Store there and as ascended three fights of stairs trying to avoid the first floor which housed only Duffy Bear. F***ing Duffy Bear. This bear is the new mascot bear for Disney Japan. It's a generic looking teddy bear that you can buy and wears the outfits of Disney characters, in fact it's so generic it hurts to see Disney stoop that low. I hate Duff Bear. So that's why we avoided the first floor. The second and third storeys had the usual Disney merchandise and the fourth floor had the ticket booth for the Disney theme parks. We wanted to go on or before Christmas to see all the Christmas themed stuff but it was all booked out – the only tie of the year it is so we settled with going on the 27^th. Well we actually bought tickets for the 26^th as we forgot about the trip we were going on the 26^th and had to come back the day after to change the tickets for ¥200 each.

How Many Times Do I Have To Say I Hate Freakin' Christmas?

(From 16th December).

A week after the first Christmas party, another was planned, this one however was organised for by Japanese people so it lacked the usual Christmas pap that I annoys me to no end. This one organised by Keita for the volleyball club and we had it had the usual haunt – Azitos. We had to bring a gift to be put on a table and through janken (rock, paper, scissors) we would determine the order of who would go up and choose a gift. But first was the kampai and even though we paid ¥4,000 for the dinner which was already laid out on the bar, our drinks were free. There was so much good food including a chicken which one of the volleyball members reduced to shreds with his carving knife for 15 minutes as we looked on, hungry.

Like every Japanese party it was all about the delicacies and the alcohol so we had a kind of shabu-shabu with marlin meat and scallops, gourmet pizza and karaage chicken, while Maggie and I drank cassis and peach liqueur. At frist we were all lined up along the back wall of the bar sitting on barstools and being quiet but as the night wore on we got louder and louder until it was present opening time. I had packed NZ gifts into a nice bag and decorated it up nicely, but the guy who picked my present looked like a possum in the headlights as he opened it gingerly, looking like he half expected a giant weta to come crawling out of the foreign package. The present I received was two massive bags of umaibou (literally translates to 'delicious stick'), while Maggie got a takoyaki grill (which I'm jealous of). Maggie couldn't think of a present to give so I told her to wrap up a box of Pop-Tarts as she had a ton of them so she gave those with the chocolate muesli bars.

I don't remember much of the rest of the party but it was fun and I got closer to the volleyball members who usually avoided me but as usual the loud ones like Tak-chan were the best ones to talk to and aren't afraid to make jokes, not caring if it'll offend you or not. Next week is the last week of school and then it's Tokyo time!! Much to be done!

I Bleed For Free Stuff

I'm sitting in the BoE with a hole in my arm, glugging cartons of free juice and coffee admiring the bag of free rubbish bags, glad wrap, and bath salts and doing not much else. I decided to carry on my tour of the Japanese medical system and do a review of the Blood Service. Here's how it went down.

As Maggie and I walked back to the BoE after lunch at Konpira Udon, we noticed the Red Cross buses outside of city hall and Maggie started talking about how hard it was for foreigners to be accepted to give blood for no apparent reason other then they're foreigners and before we knew it I was there in the bus with a needle in my arm. We didn't plan on actually doing it as we thought we'd definitely be turned down, but I passed phase one (Can I write my own name and address? Yes, I can), phase two (Can you read your own handwriting? Yes, in actual fact I can), phase three (How is your blood? Fine, thank you and yours?) and bam! You're in the bus on your back with four others and a giant needle in your arm. Who would have known it was so easy. Maggie didn't make it past phase two after she added in a new clause with involved admitting to taking antibiotics, and not being able to read her own handwriting, so it was up to me to do my service in supplying the countrymen with blood. It just so happens I'm type O, as I found out for the first time. Nice to know next time I'm gushing blood.

We lay on comfy beds, as Nishihara-san stood beside me translating the after care sheet and highlighting the most relevant points for me after I admitted during the questioning process I wasn't sure if I was a gay male. The blood giving part was long as expected by it was over pretty painlessly and fast and before I knew it, I had a goodie bag in my hand and gallons of juice and coffee to replenish my now lowered fluid levels.

The options of blood donation were only 200ml and 400ml which I suppose makes sense for such a small people. I gave 400ml which shocked the women at the kindergarten when I told them as women are only supposed to give 200ml compared to NZ women who can give 600ml apparently. I could've given them two bags and looked like a freakin hero. It just wasn't to be.

All in all the blood donor service gets an A from me for ease of use and free stuff. Actually Kawahara-san went in before me for the third or so time and walked out with keyrings and all kinds of better free stuff so I'll have to go back in May when they come around again.

It's Kinda My Party and I'll Kinda Cry If I Want To

Ok this was from back in October and somehow didn't get put in the post bin, so here's my first real enkai (formal work party). Gripping stuff.

Yet another enkai was held in my gracious honour on October 21^st. This one, compared to the low key affair I had with the naughty kids table at the Chinese restaurant was a very stately affair, or so I felt when I walked in the door as kimono-clad women guided Maggie and I past a beautiful little courtyard garden, up many flights of stairs, past many rooms, their paper-screened doors glowing from within and doing nothing to counter the raucousness emanating from within and finally to the biggest room situated on the top floor. As we stepped through the shoji doors all fifty or so assembled BOE members were seated on their knees in their black suits, a tray of delicacies placed before them. It was indeed a few steps up from the usual watering hole, despite the regulars also present, albeit looking unusually sombre.

OK in actual fact, this enkai was not just for the likes of me. It was more like a “Oh, let's have Ali's enkai because we're already throwing one for the big, big boss who's leaving” enkai. So that was the case. It still meant that I had to sit at the head of the room with all the big guys and that I had to make a speech, an honour that Maggie didn't have to go through at her welcome enkai, and in comparison to the big boss and his pride inducing speech, I was like the handicapped cousin. And after the previous two extra extended editions, everyone was eyeing their food tray in front of them looking impatiently at me as I stood so it only seemed right that I not take too long as not to deprive my fellow hard working workmates their food.

After an hour or so my visions of this upmarket affair were soon shattered as the guise of prim and properness could not be held for long under the influence of alcohol and slipped to reveal the Naughty Kids at the Min Min minus the old food stained man with the cigarette butt hanging out one side of his mouth. Which was good. I don't know how long I could have kept up sitting seiza with my legs folded beneath me, or how long I could keep up the polite conversation with the new woman head of the BoE seated beside me at the head of the room. After it was established I was a sake drinker, not a beer drinker (the only alcohol in the room at the time), sake was called for and it was then party time.

[OK I'm sitting in the waiting room at Yura Station and there's a cat that looks just like Laaa lying down outside the door. She even acts like Laaa!! Gooey moment for ten minutes*... and back.]

For some reason empty sake bottles kept piling up around me, more than what I had drunken. I think this was because I started a new craze and sake was all of a sudden 'in' and with me being the only person in the room with it, I had it stolen. In order to convert the non-believers, I ordered several more bottles and took it upon myself to visit everyone in the room and pour them a cup of sake. This didn't work out as expected. I had started off with my favourites, the Rowdy Duo and moved on to the old big, big boss sitting with big boss and the head of the library when my plan hit a snag. In order to social with sake after the person has drunken from their cup, they give it to the pourer and pour for them. Needless to say after visiting five people I couldn't go on.

Round one as this enkai at this place shall henceforth be named, finished with some more speeches made by the oblivious Ozeki-san who at this stage couldn't control the muscles of his mouth enough to form actual words. As a final sending off the BoE members formed two lines and linked hands above their heads to make a tunnel of which old big, big boss went under. In my current state I just saw something I could take part in and also went under the retirement bridge. At this stage most of the group said their goodbyes and headed home including Maggie, but the hardcore partyers moved on to round two of three rounds – a karaoke bar in the old cobbled backstreets of Miyazu. I on Ozeki-san's bicycle. I then realised why drunk bicycling is illegal in Japan.

Round two was a lot of fun. We were the only ones in the bar so we didn't have to put up with drunks chiming in with our fabulous 70s, 80s and enka hits. Nishihara-san was a fan of Lady Gaga, or Gaga-sama as she calls her, so the pair of us warbled our way through Poker Face. At some point Ozeki-san decided in his drunken stupor to go across the road to his old haunt to see if his old drinking buddies were there and with nothing much to do with boundless confidence and obliviousness, we followed him. So started round three. I don't remember much of round three, but I do remember the free food, probably for the best. After this we rejoined the group who were still at the round two stage, sung some more songs then crab walked home.

Did I Mention I Hate Christmas?

December means Christmas and in case you didn't read the last post, I hate Christmas. The summons to Christmas parties began spilling out a month ago and after Jo's Christmas frolics, I was over it. I couldn't ignore the fact it was a party and that I had to come along to give my secret Santa present, so I grudgingly came along, present not in hand (I had forgotten it). Simon's house is next door to Alex's where we had Thanksgiving lunch and was built from the same plans, so the party became a repeat of the previous party plus added Christmas shenanigans.

Rob, Maggie and I were the first to arrive so we helped Simon decorate the house with the decorations his predecessor who was a Christmas fanatic, had left him. After strapping plastic poinsettias to his collection of small plastic animals I found a piece of Christmassy fabric in the box and couldn't work out what it was. Simon who's English decided it must be a cape, I thought it was a bonnet and Rob whose also English ascertained it was a skirt apron. It was Maggie the only American in the room that knew what it actually was – a skirt to hide the supports at the bottom of a fake tree and this was affirmed by the Americans who arrived as we put up the tree. I thought it was such a dumb usage for such a mysterious piece of fabric so I continued wearing it as a cape all night.

It's a cape, dammit!

Because the party was a little late in the evening we didn't have dinner but Yuki the baker bought in her famous Christmas cookies and Yukari bought the biscuits she, her small daughter Nat-chan and Sammi made and decorated for us, some more awesome than others.

I see Mrs. Potatohead!

Sammi had planned some games for us to do including a present wrapping game. In this game we teamed up into pairs and were given an empty cardboard box, a roll of wrapping paper, a roll of tape, ribbon and a bow. We had to wrap the box and decorate as a pair and the best decorated box would win. The thing was, there was a time constraint and each person could only use one hand, which led to disaster. I was so focussed on getting everything neat and lined up we ran out of time to properly tie the ribbon let alone put the bow on it. And the winner was Meredith an her husband Matt. It wasn't as cool as Maggie's even in it's uncompleted form, in fact that just gave it more charm in a simplistic, less is more kind of way.

OM NOM NOM!!

Another game we played was one where we would write any sentence we wished on the top of a sheet of A4, then hand it on to the person beside us while accepting the paper from the person before me and draw a picture of the sentence already written. We would then fold back the first picture drawn then pass it on the person in front of us and they would write a sentence describing the picture and continue doing that in a circle until at least three pictures and three sentences had been written per page. I thought I was doing everything properly but after Jo who sat in the circle after me exclaimed “The sentences started getting weird after they passed through Ali,” so apparently what I would call an accurate description of what I see is too twisted. Kinda doesn't surprise me this far in life.

We partied into the night while I cringed through the usual Christmas classics and just before midnight I had had enough and asked for Jenni to take me home or at least to a warm place with no traces of Christmas. At least until the next Christmas party.

Back to the Torture Chamber

I had to go to Kyoto on the 5-6^th December. JET likes to torture us with these little trips away by holding them in the middle of the week so we have work the day before and the day after the seminar thereby ruling out any days left for sightseeing and shopping. We still manage to fit in dinners out and some things on the last night before leaving but apart from that it's strictly business. On this pointless jaunt we had to prepare lesson plans and activities and share them with others in our teaching level and on the final day give examples of activities to all of the assembled JETs and JTEs (Japanese teachers of English). For those who were exclusively primary school, they didn't need to bring a JTE and there was only seven of us, three being on an programme run by a different organisation. The boredom was stemmed by the fact that our group leader was the ever lax Ben from Australia was a welcome change from the uptight Americans usually running the show. Apart from the lesson plan exchanges we had guest speakers from the education sector and even a lecture and demonstration of Japanese sado (tea ceremony).

On the first night of the seminars Most of the group went to the Chijafa, the yakiniku BBQ we had at the Kyoto Orientation, which I found a little too loud, so Maggie, Jenni and I broke away from the group and tried out the Ninja Restaurant, this time for the full a la carte menu not the lunch buffet we tried last time. In the restaurant we were led to our table by a ninja through a labyrinth and could only enter after saying the ninja password 'nin nin!'. The restaurant was really dark with every table separated by high walls, I didn't dare leave my seat as I knew it would be impossible to find the table again if I wandered off. As a free entree they gave us a bush of black shuriken shaped crackers which were pretty yum. 

Shuriken om nom nom!

We ordered sukiyaki and instead of adding plain sugar to the broth, the ninja who served us placed a huge bowl of candy floss in front of us saying we could take some before he poured the broth over it. Jenni ordered a salad but they didn't realise it was just for her and gave us a bowl full big enough for three people. We had a champagne cocktail to wash it down with and finally after our ninja told us to wait for the finale, the master ninja came out do do his ninja magic for the three of us. This guy was awesome and he spoke good English as he did his slight of hand tricks and got us to join in. For the ever cynical Jenni, she found it a little boring but for me, the slightest thing impresses me here in Japan so I was suitably entertained.

There's nothing like pork on your candy floss drizzled with  pork stock.

The desserts looked a little expensive so we went to a ice cream parlour for some fancy parfaits. There were over 100 different parfaits to choose from and I chose one with a cute bear head on the top. We were lucky this place was open at 10.30pm when we walked in because most of Japan, even the big cities like Kyoto, close at 9pm. For Miyazu it's 8pm, and for ATMs and banks it's 4pm.

The last saw all the Tango JETs meet in Kawaramachi for some shopping and a meal at a curry restaurant that had been recommended to us by our fellow Kyoto City AETs. First I had to pick up a gift for the secret Santa at Simon's Christmas party the coming weekend, then we met up for one of the best curries I had ever eaten – as good as the ones in Maizuru – and more giant naan. The Indian waiter was pretty good at English and told us about his home, giving us brochures of the fancy hotel restaurants he'd worked at previously. Then it was back home to Miyazu on the late night train with work in the morning.