Blogs from Nagoya, Aichi, Japan, Asia - page 3

Well, second day of Nagoya. The first day was pretty cool but there was some stress --- Jordan had no cash and couldn't find an ATM that worked, or we thought. The JP Bank (Japanese post office bank) is supposed to work with almost all American credit/debit cards, but he couldn't get money out of it for some reason. Well, I funded our day yesterday in hopes that he would find money today. We went out last night with his friend Scott who is teaching English here, as well as a lot of Scott's friends. It was pretty cool, Nagoya has good food. Misokatsu is awesome, as well as ebi furyaa. I love Japanese mayonaise. Best mayonnaise in the world, by far. Anyway, this morning we got up and the first mission of the day was ... read more

Ok, so being the mountains the last two days we definitely didn't have the internet. We just made it to Nagoya and we are back in business, so pictures will be up as soon as we put them on the computer. Not sure where the last post left off, but we stayed in Yokohama for a day and have some good pictures from it. We rode the biggest ferris wheel in the world, did a few rollercoasters, and then biked about 25 miles around the city. Yeah, 25 miles. It actually wasn't that bad. At night, there was absolutely nothing to do and we got frustrated walking around looking, so we just went back to the hotel and crashed. The next day we headed to Hakone. Took us a little while to get there (bullet train ... read more

Greetings and Hello. Its been 50 years since I have updated this. BUT I am back at it. I have tons of pictures. However, to save my sanity I will only post a few. So as many of you may have heard back at home. I am out here for an extended period of time. That being the case I have moved into an apartment. So I will post pictures of what my fine apartment looks like. Also I will throw in some pictures from Nikko. It is a wonderful place north of Tokyo near Utsunomiya. I was with some of my Japanese co-workers and they showed me around. It was a wonderful and cold trip. So with that being said, here are some pictures. Oh I will post a concert photo or two as well. ... read more

I have been living in Japan for about 2 ½ months now. It doesn’t even feel like it has been that long and I haven’t even gotten homesick yet. Must be because my mom sends me tortillas from overseas. (Thanks, ma!) Or maybe because when I walked into the cell phone store they were playing Marco Antonio Solis. Odd, huh? Anyways, the crazy thing is that the ‘city’ I live in actually reminds me of El Granjenal (Mexico), except with Japanese people and tons of bikes. There are super narrow streets, rice fields, old homes, giant spiders everywhere (I hate spiders), and countless power lines overhead. There is also a river, a.k.a. breeding ground for pesky mosquitoes (I hate mosquitoes), about 40 feet from my front door and train tracks about 60 feet down the ... read more

Ok so... things are rather weird here.. this is my first chance to actually sit down and just relax since arriving here. Yesturday Im on my way to where Im staying, a small Ryokan. I generally knew where I was going, but all of a sudden this business man walks up and asks where Im going in English. I show him the map Im using and he looks at it, and instead of pointing which way to go like usual, he motions me to follow him. After he asks a few people, including one guy looking up the directions on his cars GPS, we arrive at my Ryokan. He got their phone number and called ahead / explained who I was in Japanese to the owners. Turns out while talking to him he has a daughter ... read more

All the good bits about Japan so far 1) Students Yes, really. Contrary to popular belief not all Japanese pupils are passive, obedient angels but they are far far easier to deal with than pupils in the UK. Why is this I wonder? Well, from experience, I can tell you that when I was teaching in British schools, especially as a supply teacher, the first thing that always struck me was the level of pupil hostility. Ian can confirm that this is even more true in British secondary schools. Hostility not only to the teachers but, more worryingly to each other. Fights, bullying and disputes were daily occurrences. Verbal assaults towards staff were common place. Physical assaults were rare but they did happen. This behavior simply does not exist in Japan. Walk in to any school ... read more