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Published: December 31st 2009
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So far....
Japan, so far its been 2 months, and finally I am writing that blog I wanted.
I want to try to remember everything but will do my best.
Left on October the 15th or so, around then. I had a month of prior to that, and basically since I left work (no fault to the job) my life and everyday has been fantastic, I don't think I've had a bad day since September when I quit, to paraphrase and change Office Space "Everyday just keeps getting better, so everytime you see me its the best day of my life". Its not quite that good but it is definately a lot of fun!!!!!
After my final party and a few more days I headed off to the airport and (via Taiwan) arrived in Tokyo, Japan!!
My flight was ok, met a nice girl who happened to be Japanese next to me on the place, Chiziru. I should email her actually. She was going to live in Thailand after spending some time in Sydney learning English. Maybe she'll return in 2010. We said goodbye at the stop over in Taipei.
After a nap during stopover I
boarded my plane bound for Narita. Flight was uneventful, sat next to some Finnish curlers, highlight of the trip was looking out of my window and seeing Mt. Fuji emerging from the clouds, my frst glimpse of Honshu, my new island home. Definately a lucky thing for me, no snow on it at this time. Thats changed now.
Met up with my other training mates at te airport, they all seemed pretty cool. A week later we were the best of friends!
Training, well it was out in the sticks of Tokyo (technically in Saitama prefecture) and we were in a training house speaking english all the time so as far as we were aware we could have been in any country, only japanese contact was when we made the daiy (or bi-daily) run to the supermarket for food. Strange.
We had the first weekend off (just sunday) so checked out a local shrine where we were happy to catch a 3-5-7 festival (children celebrating their 3rd, 5th or 7th birthdays) - it meant super cute kimono clad kids. Then a wedding was happening, wow - pretty cool frist day off.
The the week of training, felt nervous about it at the beginnining but fine by the end, had a good weekend, completly blitzed Omiya on the friday night, hit the local bar area. One of the guys in the group, Sloan, met a japanese hustler type called Takuya, he knew everyone there and tried to take us to a heap of strip joints, after telling him repeatedly that we just wanted a bar, we found one. Its closed so we headed home and stayed up to watch the sunrise and chat. Was hoping to see a rising sun but was thwarted by overcast. The friday night was good as it introduced our slogan, the devestator. According to Neil this is a 2nd date move when your lady friend is still in the maybe category, kiss her on the forehead (the devestator) and she will swoon. Sloan tried it on a waitress who ducked, we all laughed and from then on the group of 7 of us have taken to calling ourselves the devestators, its not as lame as it sounds!!!
The next day we all slept and were too hungover, we did nothing on saturday. Sunday though we all went to shinjuku and took it in, we got a nice group shot, then we all walked to Harajuku and saw the cosplayers doing their thing, finally wound up at a Hub Pub, a franchise british pub for happy hour, we had gone to the Omiya one (near the training house) before, it has a soft spot in our hearts but I'm not sure we really like it, its all good.
with our first week ahead of us we all decided to meet back in the harajuku hub same time next week to see each other again.
Next day, last meeting then we were off. I was met at Shibuya by Mami, my colleague and kids head teacher, shes great. She showed me around the school, where i met the assistant manager, then we went to get me a hanko. This is a japanese stamp of your name that you use similar to a signature here. Declining katakana (the alphabet used to spell my name) I chose Kanji symbols for Ryan. Together the 2 symbols, for RY (a katana hilt) and AN (dark) give me the rather cool japanese name of Sword of Darkness.
Other training friends got similar, so I know a Happy Dragon and an Autumn River. I also got a phone, it is everything I dreamed of in a japanese mobile, massive, pink and a flip. It is the exact dream phone i thought of back home. Objectivly the iPhone is way better, but its not japanese like mine, I both love and hate it sometimes.
After that I saw my appartment, its reasonably sized, my only complaint is a lack of bench space, but i like it here very much. After a week i reorganised it differently to how Derek (who i replaced) had it, I prefer it this way, the photos are of both.
After that is was school. The first week. Well all my co-workers are great and I mostly just watched Derek and a few others do their stuff, I taught a few classes as well, went alright.
After that it was the halloween/farewell/welcome party that was ok, at the school. Then went clubbing in Shibuya on halloween, that was pretty cool. The first of many Shibuya all nighters
the next day we all met up at Hub harajuku to shoot it after our first week and for Sloan's bday. We had some drinks and Alex won the bet.
After we walked to Shibuya, ended up at some party that was going on there, then went to a restaurant and had some nomihoidai, a sleep on the tatami, packed a wasted canadian into a taxi and then had noodles, 2 all nighters in a row. At the restaurant Furious had a little sleepy and we all laughed at his choice of location.
Getting home from Shibuya, is 1 train, 21 mins on the all stops. Well that monday morning it took me 3.5 hours.
I got on at shibuya and told myself not to go to sleep. I did, I woke up startled a while later and jumped straight off the train and walked through the ticket gates, at this stage I actually woke up and looked around to see where I was - Shibuya again, I had gone to the end of the line and back again. So back i went into the same seat determined not to sleep again. I woke up at 730 somewhere on the toyoko line and the train was now getting a bit crowded with business people. I definately did not want to fall asleep again. At 8:45 I woke up again and the train was now really, really crowded. I must've looked pretty wierd for these monday morning commuters, rocking the blue jacket as well. I finally got to bed at 1030.
and i dont even have the best getting home story from that night. Alex fell asleep and dropped his boss all over the floor but Sloan got in that cab, passed out completly, woke up in the middle of nowhere and bailed, had no idea where he was, so went into a combini, he was an hour walk from any train station, so off we walked, trains werent running yet so he slept in a filthy basement near the station after randomly trying appartments but not finding any he could get into.
The lol
and so ended my 1st week
I've forgoten what i did monday
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