Cycling The A-Z Of Tokyo – Part II

Posted on April 28, 2010 by tokyofox

As mentioned in the prelude, station ‘B’ was a bit of a problem in that it was completely out on a limb compared to most of the other stations but it had to be done and so we left the Ginza and Hibiya district behind to head for Bakuro-Yokoyama where we had a short lunch break at Matsuya for a very cheap beef bowl dish (only 250 yen at that time) and then it was off to the Iidabashi district where a few stations needed to be checked off.

Before that Michael said we should stop at Otemachi for another ‘O’ stop as its the only one to have five metro lines going through it.

 

Jimbocho, Ichigaya and Yotsuya soon followed with the latter two being the only JR (Japan Railways as opposed to all the other private Metro ones) stations on the journey. This wasn’t really an issue for me. I just thought it more interesting to have a photo taken outside a proper station rather than the typical Metro station with its steps leading down underground.

As we rolled along the riverside into Ichigaya we could see many people fishing for fun at a place which featured in a BBC programme about Japan early last year. It’s one of those places where you pay to fish and then put them back in for the next customers to catch. Tranquility and peace and quiet are supposedly the order of the day but that looked hard to imagine with so many people there and trains going by every few minutes next to the place. I also wanted Yotsuya included as I was working there this month on Tuesdays.

Ushigome-Yaniguchi was unknown territory for both of us and was a tiny station in a quite difficult to find area and as we took some backstreets from there to Waseda just before 2pm the journey was starting to take its toll in terms of all those hours sat on the saddle if you know what I mean!

The only ‘Z’ station that I was aware of was Zoshigaya which is where I used to live for a few years and so that was quite nice to return to that area for the first time since I left. From here on all the stations were personal to me and it was me who was in charge of naviagtion for the first time. Kishibojin-mae is just a stone throw from my old house and was a bonus ‘K’ station and the only streetcar one.

 

The final straight was indeed a straight; the main road known as Kawagoe-kaido which I live on. I have never been stopped by the police on this road even when riding late at night without lights and listening to my iPod and less than a second after saying that to Michael we were stopped by a policeman who felt a desparate need to stop two foreigners to check if their bicycle codes matched the correct registered owner. This is basically what the police do in Japan and to top it off many Japanese cyclists pedalled by without problem whilst he checked our details.

I worked in Tokiwadai for 4.5 years before bowing out last September so that was next and was one of our longest stops as I had to wait a while for a delivery truck to move away from where it was parked in front of the station entrance. My home station Kami-Itabashi soon followed and the last two stations; Chikatetsu Akatsuka and Shimo Akatsuka brought the A-Z journey to an end at around 4pm.

 

Of course I had to cycle back to my house where we had a couple of celebration beers and then Michael had to get all the way back to Meguro. Almost nine hours in the saddle and mission accomplished and time to think of another bicycle challenge.

‘Cycling The A-Z Of Tokyo – Prelude’ can be read here.

‘Cycling The A-Z Of Tokyo – Part I’ can be read here.

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Cycling The A-Z Of Tokyo – Part I

Posted on April 25, 2010 by tokyofox

‘Cycling The A-Z Of Tokyo – Prelude’ can be read here.

After some very sh*tty weather recently, the forecast for Sunday 18th April was sunny and so it was that I left my home by bicycle at 7:35 am that morning to get to Harajuku for an 8:30 start at its other station; the metro known as Meiji-jingumae. It was quite strange being in this place when it was empty as opposed to its usual over-crowded status. I was even able to ride up the usually jam-packed Takeshita-dori shopping street and while waiting for my partner-in-crime Michael to turn up I thought I’d try and get a photo of me on my bike at the entrance to Meiji Shrine as I wanted the ‘A-Z’ journey through Tokyo to feature a few landmarks that weren’t just stations or subway entrances.

So this latest bicycle tour of Tokyo got underway at about 8:45 am and a few minutes later, following a pit-stop at Omotesando Hills (some fancy shopping complex), we were at Omotesando station. Daikanyama, Ebisu, Naka-Meguro and Fudomae were all ticked off within an hour. Gotanda soon followed even though Ginza was later planned to represent ‘G’. This was added spontaneously as I work there which could add a little bit more weight and justification for covering this fairly meaningless challenge in a lesson or two!

Michael was solely in charge of navigation and knows his way round Tokyo well unlike most people who live in this metropolis and just rely on the trains to get around. He thought it a good idea to do a few obscure minor stations like Takanawadai and Shirokane-Takanawa as back-up.

Azabu-juban was likewise and was an area we had been through before back in November as covered in ‘Tokyo Filming Locations Pt IV’. Akabane-bashi was my intended ‘A’ station for the reason that it was featured in a catchy song performed on the BBC show ‘Adam & Joe Go Tokyo’ many years ago. Tokyo Tower provided the backdrop before we went through Roppongi which was not so recognisable to me in the daytime given that its a place to eat, drink and party at nights.

The National Diet Building, Imperial Palace and the Godzilla statue (yet again!) were all seen and photographed as we took in Hibiya-Yurakucho, Hibiya and Ginza before embarking on the longest stretch we would have to do between stations.

         

Click here to read ‘Cycling The A-Z Of Tokyo – Part II’ 

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Cycling The A-Z Of Tokyo – Prelude

Posted on April 22, 2010 by tokyofox

Cycling the Yamanote line back in October with Michael whetted our appetite for a similar bike ride. The only problem was coming up with a novel idea as the Yamanote line is the only one which circles the city but when I heard about one of my favourite bands ‘Ash’ releasing the A-Z series of singles on the internet I came up with the idea of the A-Z of stations. Instantly, the alphabet of 26 letters was reduced to 21 as the letters ‘L’, ‘Q’, ‘V’ and ‘X’ aren’t in the Japanese alphabet and there are no stations beginning with ‘P’ anywhere near Tokyo (there are only a few ‘P’ station names in all of Japan).

Of course cycling them in order (A, B, C….) would be near impossible in one day so the idea was just to tick off each letter as we went around. You may think that sounds simple and while there are many many stations beginning with ‘K’ or ‘S’ for example, there are barely any starting with the letter ‘B’ or ‘C’ which meant that our journey would take us to all corners of Tokyo.

Another problem was that Michael and I live far apart (he in Meguro and me in Kami Itabashi) so it was decided to cover a handful of stations near these areas. Stations ‘D’, ‘E’ and ‘F’ are in short supply and luckily these and a few more big name areas (with their own stations) are all in the vicinity of his residence. As for my neck of the woods, there are a few near me which I wanted included for personal reasons like being where I live, work or used to work. The fact that the only ‘C’ stations are near(ish) my house meant that I could justify the inclusion of cycling in this part of Tokyo.

Finally, the only rule that I made was that this ‘A-Z’ journey could not include any Yamanote line stations although if a station had a separate Metro station using the same name then its OK such as in the case of ‘E’ for Ebisu. With those considerations and a plan in place all that was left was to actually get a decent day of weather for the challenge to be realised before Michael left Japan today (April 23rd).

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C*ck A Load Of This – Kanamara Matsuri 2010

Posted on April 16, 2010 by tokyofox

I made what has become my bi-yearly pilgrammage to Kawasaki Daishi on Sunday 4th April to witness the Kanamara Matsuri more commonly known as the P*nis Festival. This was my third visit to the festival and maybe my last one as I think the novelty of seeing the stone, black and pink portable p*nis shrines has worn off. My friend Gideon was with me this time but despite being in Japan for nearly 15 years he’d unbelievably never been to this cultural highlight!

 

The festival seemingly attracts more attention from the overseas media who tend to focus only on the weird things in Japan. As for me, I was just there to raise money and awareness for AIDS research and to celebrate fertility or whatever!

Compared to my last visit two years ago it was pretty much the same in terms of the main theme of the penis which could be seen everywhere in terms of candy, carved vegetables, illustrations and other souvenir goods.

 

I actually saw a bit more of the parade this year which saw the portable shrines carried by dozens of Japanese people through the streets of Kawasaki not that it was that interesting really. In some ways the festival was more enjoyable and certainly more relaxing once the parade disappeared from the shrine grounds as there was more space, the beer flowed and some performances of traditional Japanese music which added to the atmosphere. Sadly the weather wasn’t the same though as this year it was a bitterly cold and cloudy day which didn’t bode to well for the hanami party which I attended afterwards in Kichijoji.

Not to much to add to my previous blogs on this festival in 2006 and 2008 but I will say that there is something very wrong about seeing young kids sucking on phallic-shaped lollies or being placed on the big long wooden penis while their parents (along with a crowd of others) click away.

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Kung Fu Panda Special Lesson (2010 Edition)

Posted on April 12, 2010 by tokyofox

To celebrate the end of a hard years work for my kids I treated them to non-textbook special lessons in the last week of March which marks the end of the school year in Japan. This was basically the follow up to last years Kung Fu Panda special lesson and involved the manipulation of their standard text to fit in with the animal characters (from the Kung Fu Panda film) flashcards that I made and laminated and the making of a Po (the title character) mask before the culmination of some games played whilst wearing it. To be honest, I was quite disappointed with these lessons as I hadn’t anticipated so many students being absent as they were on school holiday. My efforts had been geared towards doing this themed lesson with the majority of kids in attendance.

  

Anyway, despite my somewhat wasted efforts (cutting out many rough templates of the Panda mask using old cereal boxes the night before each day) the lessons were still enjoyed a by a fair number of kids (I teach a lot of kids groups which were all mostly depleted that week) and gave them a break from the normal course syllabus.

           
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TF Film Review: Shutter Island (2010)

Posted on April 9, 2010 by tokyofox

When Leonardo DiCaprio burst onto the scene big-time after ‘Titanic’ I wasn’t taken in by all the hype around him. That may be because I am a straight hetrosexual man! However, thirteen years on and I have grown to be quite a fan of his acting with special recognition going to his roles portrayed in ‘Blood Diamond’, ‘The Beach’, ‘Catch Me If You Can’, ‘The Departed‘ and most of his other non-wussy films.

His latest movie was released in Japan yesterday (no doubt it was released in Britain and the U.S a while ago as is always the case with films over this way) and I went along to my nearby cinema to see it.

At 138 minutes ‘Shutter Island‘ is inevitably a bit too long for my liking (and for my comfort) but I have to say that I certainly wasn’t waiting for it to end. It’s difficult to say too much about what happens without giving any spoilers so I’ll just say that the plot was far heavier than I expected. In fact it was almost a horror film as much as it was a thriller or crime story. What I thought I was watching turned out to be something very different by the end thanks to the flashbacks and plot twists within the picture. Now I know the outcome I’d like to go back through it but that will have to wait till its available to rent.

Shutter Island

Tokyo Fox Rating 8/10

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Visa Renewal

Posted on April 8, 2010 by tokyofox

I was granted a new three year extension of my visa yesterday. That may sound simple news to you and in the end it was fairly straightforward but it wasn’t always that way. In fact there was a time when I was in danger of actually being given a new one following a decision last year by the Japanese government to link visa’s to health insurance.

It was reported that all foreigners had to enrol on the national health insurance scheme and backpay a couple of years in order to stay in the country. Needless to say that this went un-noticed among the Japanese population and caused uproar among the foreign community saying that, while its fair enough for us to have to have insurance, it is a violation of human rights to be told what insurance scheme you must take out in order to get a visa.

After a flood of enquiries my company eventually sent round a fax last year saying to not panic and change insurance to the national one from the private one which they organise for us. It should be said that the reason many foreigners in Japan have private insurance is because of the extra benefits which come with it such as being insured when going overseas.

Late last year I heard that the immigration office had said that health insurance would not be a sole reason for denying someone a visa which was music to our ears but it still didn’t seem too official. I heard elsewhere that the decision to tie-in insurance to Visa status was a move by the governemt to get rid of some of the other Asian nationalities living in Japan and not paying taxes and whatnot. I have nothing to support that theory but there could be something in it.

Anyway, with my Visa up for renewal at the end of April and the new rule coming into play from April 1st I wanted to get the application under way A.S.A.P. which I was able to do just over two weeks ago when I signed a new contract and made the long ‘pain in the ar*e’ trip to Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau in Shinagawa to get the ball rolling. Before that I also had to go to my local City Hall to pay 600 yen for two pieces of official paper which stated that I had paid my yearly residents tax. Finally I returned to Shinagawa yesterday and coughed up 10,000 yen for the ‘extension of stay’ and ‘multiple re-entry stamps and was relieved to put the whole saga behind me.

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Hanami In Tokyo 2010

Posted on April 7, 2010 by tokyofox

It’s been a few years (I think!) since I last did anything when the sakura (cherry blossoms) appear in Tokyo. This is a huge cultural occasion in Japan and the first week in April (or thereabouts) is witness to Japanese people having hanami (flower viewing) party’s under the trees in various parks and gardens. Its the one time when you can get away with drinking and eating in public. As nice as the trees may look, I have never got too excited about seeing them, or certainly going out of my way to see them. I usually just tell people that I saw the cherry blossom a few years ago and don’t feel any obligation to see them every year.

Having said all that, I have made a bit of effort this year and last Sunday afternoon I went to a hanami party in Inokashira Park in Kichijoji which was attended by a handful of teachers and other hangers-on. Unlike the preceding day there was sadly no sunshine and it was indeed very cloudy and cold but good fun to sit under the trees getting sozzled and eating a load of snacks while talking b*llocks with some colleagues! Can’t say that I gave too much attention to the sakura itself other than taking a quick snap when I arrived and crossed the bridge to find my friends. The one below that shows typical lack of communication between Japanese people! They were sat at a neighbouring place under the trees playing on their Nintendo DS’. Very sad!

 

On top of that, I had a bit of time before work two days ago so cycled the scenic way to work (well to the train station which I use!) which is along a river and the cherry blossom did look very pretty on a rare sunny day so I took a few more photos.

   
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Spring School 2010

Posted on April 6, 2010 by tokyofox

I thought I had avoided having to do Spring School this year but last Monday (March 29th) I got a fax saying I had to do this special two hour lesson on the last day of March before doing my regular day on top of that. All in all it wasn’t too bad though the material wasn’t great or maybe it was because the two students were both very good for their level and I can rather proudly say that they have both been taught by me; one in the past and one presently.

 

These Spring schools are based on a theme with this one being ‘Space’ with some simple lexical items taught and used in ways that were very familiar to both students. With that I am referring to prepositions, clothing, colour words, number words and ‘this v that’. I could have basically finished all the material in about a quarter of the given time so had to use all my teaching skills to pad out the lesson with a load of fun games using the target language.

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Not In Peak Condition After A Day Trip To Hotaka Mountain

Posted on April 6, 2010 by tokyofox

I had to be up very early on the 17th March to meet my colleague Ash to go snowboarding on a one-day return trip. He booked it the day before so I had no idea where we were even going. It turned out to be an eventful day at Hotaka in Nagano but for all the wrong reasons.

No problems with the weather (sunny), the bus (spacious) or the price (3100 yen) but as we went to get on the chair lift to start we got a bit tangled up and having not warmed up I embarrassingly fell off and lay in agony for a few moments fearing I had damaged my thigh badly. As it was, I was back up and ready to go within a few minutes.

Time to continue from where I left off last year but that didn’t quite go so smoothly either as I had a tumble half way down the mountain which ended up with me badly injuring my little finger. A bad case of cramp followed before our next descend and then I decided to alter the board (very kindly given to me by Ethan last year) to make the foot settings ‘goofy’ (right foot forward) rather than normal (left foot first).

Hoping that it would be plain sailing after that I uttered the immortal words “nothing can go wrong now!” and I was right for the next 2-3 hours before Ash decided to attempt a fairly simple barrel jump (that I chickened out of) which he wanted me to record on his camera.

Inevitably he fell but little did I know at the time that there was anything wrong. He was in agony with a bad wrist and walked back up to the top to get help while I had to carry his board down which wasn’t so easy as I found out when I fell on my ar*e to great pain. When I got to the bottom Ash arrived on the back of the snowmobile and that was basically the end of our day as he was left with no choice but to basically wait till we returned to Tokyo to get it seriously checked as cancelling his bus ticket and taking a taxi to the nearest hospital and back would have been more hassle than it was worth. Ultimately, his wrist was broken and has since been fitted with a metal plate and my finger has yet to recover properly.

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