...Lost in the Sea...

I keep promising to write a longer blog so here it is! Enjoy?

Haha where to begin?

My New Digs: The apartment is ok. It's nothing special nor is it spacious but it will serve its purpose and that's all I can ask for. I do have insuite laundry which is a luxury I have never had aside from while living at home... Now I just need to find someone to DO my laundry :) The view from my balcony is of a cemetary (not kidding lol)and of a 24 hour convenient store and the train station. The cemetary isn't creepy... it has a bunch of granite blocks and smells of incense. For being such a light sleeper I thought being so close to the train station would be hard to get used to but I dont hear anything. There are some bad-ass cats that like to hang out in the parking lot they seem to fight a fair bit... I think they could put even Hamlet to shame. The kitchen is pretty small... it only has one burner and a tiny sink, no oven. I have two bar size fridges and a microwave so I dont really bother with cooking. There is this great mobile Indian kebab van thing that is always outside the station when I'm coming home from work. I normally have a kebab/pita thing and a mango puree drink thing for dinner. The vendor and I both cant really speak Japanese but he doesn't speak English and I dont speak what he speaks so we have a good time fumbling with Japanese. The food is great and apparently there is an actual restaurant that is maybe 1 minute from my house that I've yet to go hunting for. My Alien Registration Card should be ready for pick up on June 8th which means that soon after that I will be able to get a cell phone and internet for my apartment. I can finally put up some pictures and share what I've been seeing these past few weeks!

Teaching: It's a lot to take in... cramming what should be a master's degree into a nine day crash course... definitely has shown me what I don't know. I think with practice and studying I should be a lot more comfortable in a few weeks. Teaching 3-9 year olds... hurts hahaha. One child spent the entire 45 minute class running into walls, swinging his socks around and trying to bite the other kids. Try reprimanding him in English... Doesn't work so well hahaha. Who would have thought I could have my ass handed to me by a bunch of kids whose combined age does not total mine? I hope who ever is reading my blog is laughing as hard as I am. The other teachers and staff at the school seem to be pretty supportive. I have had the departing teacher giving me advice and she taught most of the classes so I could observe and get a feel for things this week. She is gone on Tuesday which means I run the show. No pressure hahaha. I'm a bit apprehensive how this week will go. I figure with the right amount of caffine and pep pills I'll be genki enough to survive haha.

Good-Bye/Welcome Party: The school had a combined good bye party for the teacher I'm replacing and a welcome party for me last night. It was really fun. I got to re-meet a lot of my students. I have forgotten most of their names and faces... It was a really good turn out with about 60 people, everyone brought food and drinks and said their good-byes... After the formal party about 20 - 25 of us got a　カラオケ　ボックス　(karaoke box) and rocked out for a couple hours. Once again the alcohol was free flowing and a good time was had... I kept it in check.. knowing I'm their 先生 (sensei - teacher) really sucks the fun out of getting right pissed. One of my students did an awesome rendition of Disney's Under the Sea! It was hilarious! The other foreign teacher and I sang Oh Canada for everyone and then I did a truly spectacular version of Journey's Dont Stop Believing of course. After that we went to an 居酒屋　(Izakaya - Japanese Bar) and had some more drinks and appies til about 5 in the morning. Which I guess is as good of a segway I could ask for to highlight some of the things I thoroughly enjoy/appreicate about Japan.
1) Drinking in public. Whilst slightly frowned upon, it is fully legal to walk down the street, sit on the train or anywhere else in public with an open beer or any other alcoholic beverage
2) Easy access to liquor. Convenience stores, grocery stores, train station kiosks and, of course, vending machines all sell liquor including the hard stuff. A luxury I never had in Canada and I'm sure I will abuse the hell out of! :) Dont worry Ma I'll behave! Conveniently enough, I can SEE a 24 hour convenient store from my apartment balcony that sells booze.
3) Bars are open all night. Same with convenient stores, grocery stores, and vending machines.
4) All you can drink. In Japanese Nomihodai. It's like these bars are challenging you to see how much you can drink. You pay a set amount of money and drink as much as you can in the time period given. For three hours of Karaoke and all you can drink it was about 40$ Canadian... not too shabby. I had a good nine or ten beers. And sang my heart out!
I just realised that little tangent might make me out to sound like an alcoholic. It needed to be said either way.

So getting back on track then... Today is my Saturday as I get Sunday and Monday off. I woke up in the mid afternoon (since I went to be in the morning hahaha) and decided to go exploring for a bit. One of my students said that I would like the area around Tachikawa station because it has shopping (what a lie) so I hopped on the train and came over. I wandered around some of the department stores which have their merits of course but I dont really want any Louis Vuitton bags or Anna Sui clothes that wont fit me. So I went wandering around the area... for some reason there were 10-20 police men guiding traffic... and all the big TVs on the buildings had sound today. I want to say it had something to do with the Japan derby...
I left both my cameras at home today (big mistake) I should have known better. There are some sights to be shared here for sure. One thing I find really cool are these elaborate sky walks they have as like a second floor sidewalk that connects you to buildings all around the station, I like these because it means there is a lesser chance of me getting hit by a car. They remind me of the Ewok village in Star Wars (dont ask me why lol). I'm trying to figure out what I should do today. I have finished two books already (@DarkEnergy - I found that third book in the Stieg Larsson series you like in English and everything you should probably come over and pick up a copy!) I can only dog fuck on the computer for so long. Everyone I met in training lives a ways away and are very hard to get ahold of unless we are miraculously at internet cafes at the same time... Shrug. There is an old TV with VHS in my apartment... I'm wondering if any store in Japan sells/rents VHS tapes anymore. Hahaha and Japan is supposed to be high tech!
I'm sitting in an internet cafe right now... and the person in the booth beside me is snoring quite loudly. Apparently its quite common for Tokyoites to get drunk, miss the train and sleep at an internet cafe in one of the booths... it's only about 1000円　because it is not peak hours... They have showers, hot food vending machines, comic books, drink machines, tanning beds, and what I think is an oxygen bar at this net cafe. I think one could happily live here for a while hahaha. There's also ice cream :)
I got some great news from back home! Chris is talking about coming out for a visit during O-Bon in the summer when I'll have some time off. I'm hoping that all comes together as it would be great to see him and show him some of the crazy things I have only been able to describe on the phone/via facebook messages. I actually managed to find a place with pool tables and I dare say Chris might be one of few people who would enjoy/abuse nomihodai more than I do :) It's been a big adjustment going from seeing him every day to some sporadic phone calls and messages on Facebook I gotta say I really miss him.
I spoke to Richard and Andrew as well and both of them are hoping to visit me in the near future too. It was really nice to hear after such a stressful week that I might shortly have some familiar faces and friends to share the hoopla with. It was really nice to talk to all those guys and get to catch up on things and have their support.

Well this entry has been really long. A nice change from the previous brief entries. I managed to miraculously be online while one of my friends was online so we're off to get lost in Tokyo.

I miss you tons Mum, Dad, Chris, Andrew, Richie (I'm not sure who else reads this?) Love you all, and take care till we speak again!