Living Under An English Umbrella

Posted on October 2, 2006 by tokyofox

Was in a British bar on Sunday night for a works leaving party and who should walk in but Liverpool indie band ‘The Zutons‘ who were playing a gig the following night. Thought it was a bit sad that they ended up in such a place when they’re probably only in the country for a week. I think I can get away with it as I’ve been here a long time now and feel that they are far more convenient than the Japanese izakaya’s where you always have to pay a small sum for a starter dish that I don’t want and also being sat down at a table the whole time and not being able to move about is not something I am always too keen on.

It also got me thinking that maybe the reason I like Japan is not because I’m living a full Japanese lifestyle but because I’m living in the comfort of a very English existence or “Under an English umbrella” as a wise-man once said to me. Sorry to ruin the illusion some of you may have but I’m not sat at a low table in my room eating sushi in my kimono with a geisha sharpening my samurai sword while watching the sumo on TV. Well not always anyway!!

Instead I read English in terms of books and magazines, I listen to English via BBC radio on-line and downloadable podcasts, I watch English satelite TV and download the stuff from back home and of course I speak English both in my job and predominantly in my social life too. I speak English to my Japanese friends who I met in Australia mostly out of habit not that I’m capable of having a decent Japanese conversation anyway. My other Japanese friends are keen to learn and practise their English

In fact it’s only really when I leave my house that I know I’m really in Japan. I do eat Japanese food most of the time but of course the golden arches are always in sight should I want a bit more of an international taste though even then I tend to choose the teriyaki burger which is only available in Japan. Nothing better than the ‘real’ taste of a country!!

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I-Podge!!

Posted on September 26, 2006 by tokyofox

This is the follow up to the ‘A Lot of dieting is wishful shrinking’ article which I wrote a couple of months back and the title refers to ‘The Sun’s’ headline when the comedian Ricky Gervais was papped running with his i-pod. Amazingly my training is still on-going and its fair to say I am now quite hooked and enjoy the time jogging around the backstreets of my area with just my i-pod for company. That keeps me going as the shuffle option keeps me motivated to hear whats coming up next.

However, I have been getting very frustrated lately with all the rainy weather which has denied me a few times. I am now running for 45 minutes each time but I may have to put a cap on that as I really can’t find it in me to dedicate any more time as the warm up, cooling down afterwards and subsequent shower all add up.

I don’t really want to be one of those guys who dedicates so much time to keeping fit but i am still running five or six times most weeks which is less than when I started but more than the three or four times I think ok. I am impressed that I have been sweating a nice triangle pattern on my t-shirt which they always used to (and no doubt still do) get in the aussie soap ‘Home and Away‘ after running in Summer Bay aka Palm Beach.

Sadly I can’t complete the standard routine as I have no ‘Surf Club’ to enter after my run where I can then just grab a drink which I don’t appear to have to pay for before potting a ball that is hanging right over the pocket and leaving the club with someone I meet and leaving the aforementioned drink in the process

As far as the eating part is going, I am still refraining from snacks but I have been eating a bit of junk food lately in the knowledge that it will get burned off….hopefully! Whether that actually happens I really don’t know as I have no scales. Anyway, two months gone but for how long will I continue as the Winter approaches?

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The Kids Are All Right…

Posted on September 22, 2006 by tokyofox

Its been a very busy September for most of the teachers in my company with lots of cover shifts and last Sunday was no exception. My job was to go to a party but before you think that sounds a bit easy I should add that this was for kids only between the ages of four and seven. There were four of us teachers on hand to ‘entertain’ the 40 children with two hours of games.

The hall we were in was divided into four zones with one corner for a story, one for hopscotch, one for bowling and the other for drawing a monster picture. Now I know that may sound quite organised but given that most kids have a short attention span and that very little planning and thought had gone into the games it was left to us teachers to effectively ‘wing it’ and milk every bit for all it was worth….and then some!!

Though I regularly teach a class of ten kids (big by my schools standards) trying to keep each group of 10 children for the allotted time was a little taxing. By the end of the two hours I was shattered but its all in days work.

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Tokyo Daytripper: Tokyo Bay Cruise

Posted on September 17, 2006 by tokyofox

My English school organised for us to go on a ‘Tokyo Bay Cruise‘ last Sunday night. I went on the huge party boat last year but not with my company and the weather back then was fine as it luckily was this year too. A few thousand people crammed on to the boat with very little space as is customary in Tokyo. The boat travelled from Takeshiba down the Sumida-gawa river to the ocean and back going under Rainbow Bridge along the way which seemed to cause great excitement among the Japanese for some reason.

It was nomihodai (all-you-can-drink) for the two hour duration and the great thing was that you never ever had to queue for beers or whatever as the servers just constantly poured drinks into paper cups which were put on the counter for people to just take willy nilly.

This event was also a night when many girls (and some men too) were clad in their traditional yukata (a kind of summer kimono) with their hair up which is a very sophisticated and classy, yet sexy look which just goes to show that you don’t need to be showing lots of flesh to be appealing.

On top of this there was also a stage and dancefloor inside featuring dancing yukata girls strutting their stuff to the cheesiest of disco tunes. Apart from those cr*ppy songs it was a nice way for me to spend my evening having done cover work during the day. With the company discount it cost me 1500 yen which is only about seven or eight quid. A cheap way of getting sozzled amid a setting a little different to usual.

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No Sleep Tonight

Posted on September 12, 2006 by tokyofox

It is often said to be a good idea to follow the local customs when you’re not in your own country. Something along the lines of ‘when in Rome do as many Romans as you can!’

Sleeping seems to be the favourite past-time of the Japanese but they do very little of it in their own homes due to punishing work schedules. It is so so common for Japanese people to sleep on the trains every day and anywhere. It is also not unusual to regularly see people sleeping in restaurants such as McDonalds, their cars by the side of a road and generally in any shops which provides seats. In fact the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno actually has an area for people to rest in comfortable chairs where they inevitably fall into a sleep. Can’t imagine that ever happening at the more popular and bigger British Museum in London!!

Lately, I have been quite tired at times (thats the effect of not doing much I guess!) and have started having naps during breaks between lessons at my schools but not during the lessons of course! I leave that part to the students!!

Of course, falling asleep on the trains can prove costly if you miss your stop though not finacially. On the whole the Japanese people seem to be trained to instinctively wake up at excatly the moment the train pulls into their station. I usually do too but not when I’m drunk and taking an early morning train home. On a couple of occasions I have missed my stop four times which just becomes so frustrating as by that stage I am desparate for my bed.

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Keeping Up Appearances

Posted on September 8, 2006 by tokyofox

No this is not about the BBC comedy of the same name but an observation (with a heavy reliance on generalisations and stereotypes of course!) about the millions of kawaii (cute) Japanese girls for whom it seems appearance is everything. Nothing wrong with that of course but one of the downsides is seeing them putting on their make up in public on the trains. Slapplication and vanity are not problems here whereas if we get caught looking in the mirror back home we get embarrassed and ridiculed for being vain.

Japanese girls spend hours on their make up and of course they look good for it. This is obviously welcome news for us men who get to see so many cute slim girls everyday walking (though wobbling slightly and often dragging their heels) the streets in their delicate, strappy high heels, skirts and cute outfits while more often that not playing with their hair (not a tell tale sign that they fancy you though).

Hopefully I don’t sound too old when I say that appearance comes before practicality. This species of J-girl is one that is very different from the more clued up Japanese girls who you see in the UK or the USA or wherever.

They are obsessed with all things cute, particularly Disney and ‘Hello Kitty’, and dress up in ways which would probably be deemed not suitable in other countries. Maybe another sign that Japan is a safe place where these kawaii girls can dress in a way which would see them get harassed, whistled at and no doubt called sluts elsewhere. Having said that though there are a fair amount of gropers around by all accounts. In the UK girls tend to mostly just dress up to go to a pub or club but here they get dressed up to go out anywhere, particularly to do their favourite pastime of shopping and the temperature seems to have no bearing on whether skirts are worn or not.

Picture club stickers, many accessories hanging from their mobile phones and the high pitched whining voices also characterise the hordes of these fine specimens who certainly brighten up my day.

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A Breath Of Fresh Air

Posted on September 6, 2006 by tokyofox

While walking through Shibuya on Sunday evening a few of us encountered an Oxygen bar. These have been becoming more common of late and so we thought we should sample it and so proceeded to sit in front of bubbling bottles of coloured liquid with tubes up our noses.

oyygen1  oxygen2

It’s supposed to be good for hangovers, help beautify your skin, reduce weight and fatigue, purify blood, increase metabolism and no doubt increase your manhood, make you a nicer person and turn your sh*t into gold!!. Call me sceptical but the only thing that i am sure it did for me was lighten my wallet to the tune of 300 yen for the tube thingy and a further 600 yen for the minimum 10 minutes time.

There were 24 kinds of aromatic liquid of which four were available to each person and you could use and mix them as you wished. I have to say that I did enjoy the novelty factor of it all but don’t think that it benefitted me too much.

oxygen5  oxygen4  untitled  untitled
Posted in Japan Life, Quirky Japan | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Tokyo Daytripper: Ghibli Museum

Posted on September 4, 2006 by tokyofox

Just after I came back to Japan in May 2005 and following the release of anime band Gorillaz’ second album I tried my hand at drawing manga too and even bought a book on the subject. Sadly the novelty wore off quite quickly. In that time though I found out about the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka and finally a year later I got round to visiting this place. One of the reasons it took so long to get my a*se into gear was that tickets had to be purchased in advance due to the popularity of the place.

Ghibli 021 Ghibli 014

I think this place would be great for those with a reasonable interest but with mine long gone I have to say that I didn’t think it was anything really special. The museum colourfully exhibits the process of making animations and we saw an interesting 20 minute anime film on arrival. What I did enjoy and could relate to was the exhibits relating to ‘Wallace and Gromit‘ and ‘Morph’ which was a fairly simple animation which i grew up watching regularly as part of the Childrens BBC ‘Hartbeat’ programme. Very surprised to see this I certainly was.

Ghibli 004 Ghibli 008 Ghibli 020 Ghibli 013
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The Ice-Man Commeth…….As Cool As You Like!

Posted on August 31, 2006 by tokyofox

Took a break from the intense Tokyo summer heat last Friday and went ice-skating in Takadanobaba near where I live. It was maybe 10 years ago when I was at University that I went for the first time (apart from early childhood which I’m too young to remember and I don’t think I could even stand up then!) and I didn’t get cold feet and took to it like a duck to water.

However, having been about half a dozen times since I don’t think I am ever likely to get better. I never really fall on my ar*e and speed is no problem but my style is at times rather unorthodox and far from graceful. Definitely won’t be winning any prizes for dancing on ice!

What is also a little alarming is seeing kids who are only a few years old cruising round the rink at top speeds with ease while doing all kinds of fancy tricks, spins and turns. I guess going backwards on ice for more than a few inches is just something i’ll never achieve a breakthrough with!

One cute little girl of about six was fascinated by the presence of a gaijin like myself and kept looking at me before breaking the erm ice by asking me where I was from. She was desparate to play ‘tig’/’You’re it’ with me and so not wanting to be ice-olated I relented and joined in which was good fun though I did feel a little awkward at times amid worry that the watching adults would give me a cold reception! Now it seems I can’t even get away from ‘entertaining’ kids on my days off.

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Taiwan 2006 – My Stay In Taipei

Posted on August 22, 2006 by tokyofox

Taipei is admittedly one of those places I never really had much interest in visiting but realistic options are fairly limited when you only have a few days available. After my research though I was very much looking forward to the trip and wasn’t disappointed.

Fortunately, I was able to avoid any of the tropical downpours until my last day on the way to the airport. It was bloody hot though with temperatures in the high 30’s and, as I was hiking quite a bit, I sweated absolute bucketloads!

I found the people to be very helpful, kind and friendly which is very important when you can’t read or understand anything. English signs aren’t as common as in Japan but the standard of spoken English is certainly higher! One particular woman even lent me her own bicycle in order to see some of the sights in Pinglin which went beyond her call of duty.

Taipei Aug '06 082  Taipei Aug '06 097

I spent my first two nights at the YMCA but it wasn’t so fun to stay there (expensive too) so I moved to a cheaper hostel where I met some really nice Taiwanese people. I also met two American girls at Fulong beach and a Canadian couple in Yangmingshan National Park who gave me some useful advice about where to go and what to do as I didn’t really know what was essential to see as everything is made to sound good in the guide book.

Yangmingshan National Park  Taipei Aug '06 045

I have never seen so many motorised scooters in a country. Absloutely thousands of them and often weaving in and out of the crowds on the paths. Its very common to see a family on the one scooter but to see 5 people (a mother, father and 3 kids) on the one machine was a sight to behold.

I didn’t tend to stay in Taipei city in the day as I thought it would be just like most other asian cities. Instead I went to the north east Bitou Cape to do some hiking on day one where I saw some beautiful coastal scenery including sea eroded cliffs. At the end of the trail I went snorkelling in the ocean park at Longdong Bay (the name caused amusement for a few minutes!) which was far better than I imagined it would be. I saw lots of fish and cooled off after a sweaty walk in the heat. Further down the coast I went to a beautiful white sand beach called Fulong.

Taipei Aug '06 059  Grand Hotel  untitled  untitled  Ximending  Oxford College

Climbing Mount Chihsing in Yangmingshan National park was on my itinerary for day two and on my third day I went cycling and hiking in Pinglin which is in the sticks and famous for its tea not that I ever really drink too much of it. Don’t let small matters like that stop you from seeing such a place!

My three full days were very busy long days usually starting at 8am and finishing at around 11pm and other highlights included going up the worlds tallest building, seeing the changing of the guards at Martyr’s Shrine and eating lots of nice Taiwanese food from the many night markets. I somehow managed to resist the temptation though to drink snakes blood which was available!

Posted in Asia Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments