Imperial Palace

TWO weeks ago we went to Tokyo to see the Emperor's palace. No one is actually allowed inside the palace grounds but many small parks and visitor areas surround the palace wall and their gates with guards. The palace is actually right in the middle of the city, it's a small oasis of green and quiet in the middle of one of the biggest cities on earth.

The palace is built higher up and has a large moat and walls which surround it completely. There really isn't anywhere nearby to stop and sit though. Signs and fences everywhere keep people off the grass and there aren't any benches or seats. We went on a very hot day too. Both of us had mild sunburn after walking around.

Perhaps the most famous shot of the palace (and I'm not sure why) is the front bridge from the side. From this angle you can see a bit of the palace in the background on the right.

Sounds, noises and music

JAPAN has many things similar to other places I've been but the most different thing is how quiet everyone and everything is. No one talks in the streets or on the bus or train. The only sounds are city sounds. The only place that's noisy really are the casinos, arcades and, somewhere way down the line, government offices.
All noises, alarms, bells, warning sounds are all musical chimes (everything: washing machines, dump trucks, garbage collection, vending machines, etc...) nothing makes loud scary "beep" noises. In most countries a van with a melody coming from it would mean the ice cream guy, here it means the guy who picks up the recycling is coming.
Every train station has a distinct musical melody which is played when a train is coming into the station. If you were to close your eyes you could recognize each station because of the music. That's no mean feat since the train system has hundreds of stations.

Jobs

THE interview I went to yesterday went well, I have a few more in the next couple of days but the school seems interesting. I have to give a trial lesson on Thursday to show my competency, this seems to be fairly standard in the business. So far so good, I'll have to see what job I'd prefer afte all my interviews. Ganbate!

Japanese festival

ANOTHER Festival! My girlfriend and I went to this festival and really enjoyed the demonstrations. This time we went with her non-Japanese co-workers.

There was a mix of new and old. There were many younger kids who did dances or skits, some high schools were represented, other schools such as the dance school did demonstrations and older woman's groups. Some of these included belly dancing, break dancing, Hawaiian dancing, the Daikon Radish dance, and I especially liked the "flag dance".

Posted here under for your enjoyment!

Odd brands

I keep bumping into brands which make things you wouldn't expect. Here are some interesting brands of sandals.

Goodyear, Dunlop and Pepsi!

Fireworks

FIREWORKS are very popular during the summer, there's a festival of some sort hapening every few days and of course they all have fireworks!

A few days ago My girlfriend and her Japanese co-workers invited us out to see fireworks with them, there ensued an interesting blog post on odd food items. ;)

But the fireworks were really amazing, they even had some sort of torpedo fireworks which were shot into the water and then would shoot upwards into huge roman candles.

Beach

LAST Sunday my girlfriend and I went to the beach in Mirukaigan. It's a nice beach with a vast amount of sand and a warm sea. We went for a day of relaxing and de-stressing.
We plopped ourselves down on some mats and borrowed a parasol from someone who had left it without returning it to the rental company (yes you can rent almost anything you need while you're at the beach).

Pictures coming soon!

Earthquake!

WELL I did feel it last night. A tiny quake which wasn't even strong enough to be registered woke me up at some time in the night, I felt some shaking and the windows rattled for about 10 seconds. My first Japanese earthquake! My girlfriend told me she felt it too at her place.

To cellphone or not?

MY first stop of the day was at the bank to open an account. I had the Alien Certificate, passport, stamp and money. I was met by the same two ladies who last time told me I had to get these items to open an account. This time they said the Alien Certificate was not good enough and turned me down. I was in and out in a matter of seconds and very disappointed and off to a not so good start to the day.

Getting a cellphone in most places is considered a bit of a hassle but not something which you need to book an entire day to do. Of course if you speak Japanese in Japan it would probably help...

I walked into the cellphone store with an idea of what I wanted but not sure how it would play out. I needed a phone with the company Softbank. I wanted a cool phone with a great camera for cheap with a one year contract, well ideally of course it would have come with a car and chauffeur too, but I might have been expecting too much.

The girl there seemed fairly friendly, after a bit of an unfruitful exchange of my terrible Japanese and her terrible English she pulled out a laptop and used Yahoo translate to try to get some basic things across. Of course this led to some ridiculously terrible English sentences such as "the phone work it Softbank." I resorted to using broken simple sentence like "how much is phone with 1 year contract". I only hope some of the simple sentences I constructed were translated better than what I got from the Japanese translations...

After an hour of difficult conversation, she told me she had called someone else who spoke English and that they would be there in 10 minutes, So I sat and waited happily for someone I who could answer my questions. The 10 minutes turned into 30, which in turn turned into an hour. Finally another girl arrived and joined the first, her English was simply a memorization of some key phrases the other didn't know.

It took another hour or more (I stopped looking at the time, it was discouraging) to get my questions on how a contract affects how much you pay for a phone, and how the discount systems works. I tried to ask about if a phone bought in Japan would work in Canada, the consensus is that the phone would work, but only with a Japanese SIM card. I expect that if the phone were unlocked it would work in Canada though I'm not sure.

I had to give them my Alien Certificate, Passport and Mastercard (no bank account yet) and a paper on which I had my full address. They also required a home number, so I gave them the number of the guesthouse.

It took them a long long time to get the phone papers organized and input, which included an hour session on scanning and rescanning every part of everything on my passport and Alien Certificate, with many problems and paper jams (my Alien Certificate is now ruffled from being jammed and pulled out of the scanner). It was so funny I was almost laughing.

Finally everything was in place. I was told it would take 30 minutes to process the order. I waited patiently and 30 minutes later it came back declined due to the fact some parts of the forms were improperly filled out. So ensued another bout of fixing papers and scanning and another 30 minute wait. I decided I had to eat something, it was 2:00pm. I left them to wait and grabbed a small snack and drinks from the grocery store nearby. I brought back coke bottles for the two girls, I figured a bit of sugar in their blood might get them going too.

I came back and found out that the forms were Ok but that my permission to pay monthly for the phone instead of in one lump sum was declined. The reasons were "undisclosed by Softbank", meaning they wouldn't tell me. I didn't really want to cough up US$480 for a semi-decent phone in on shot. So I took another cheaper one, both in price US$160 and options, and went with that. I had to go through the whole thing all over. By the time I was accepted and had my phone it was 4:30, nearly 6 1/2 hours after walking into the store. I grabbed the phone I paid for and nearly ran! Oh, and the phones don't come with chargers, you have to pay another US$12 for that too.

The system from what I understand is as follows:
The Phone: you pay a certain amount for a phone, the cheapest being about US$260 and the most expensive somewhere around US$1200. There are no rebates on the phones no matter if you take a plan or not. There is however an extra fee if you choose to go the prepaid card way. The phone however can be paid in monthly installments over 24 months (or in one shot). Of course everyone wants to pay monthly but it's at the discretion of Softbank whether you'll be allowed to.
The plan: you pay ¥800 per month for the Universal Fee (System access fee) plus your plan. plans are fairly cheap but don't include much.
White (basic) - ¥980 call to other users are free between 1am and 9pm. All other calls are ¥42/min(US$0.42).
Double white (add on) - for an extra ¥980 you get to call other phones for ¥21/min(US$0.21)
Basic pack (add on) - ¥318 for email on your phone and text messaging.
Other stuff like TV and Internet etc are available for about US$5 each.

So the plans are pretty cheap all in all.

So what phone did I get?

Here are the specs:
Panasonic 830P
49 x 109 x 15.4 mm and about 114 g
3″ wide LCD screen with 240 × 427 pixels
0.77 inches organic EL external LCD
2 megapixel camera
3G speeds
infrared
Streaming TV support
38MB of internal memory
microSD card support up to 2GB

Typhoon!

HOT on the heels of the earthquake seems to be a large Tropical Storm or Typhoon. This morning I woke up to an announcement at 6:30 am, on some sort of public speaker system outside, warning of a Typhoon. The rain has been torrential and there was some lightning. I expect it'll ease up during the day though.

Checking out the weather it looks like this morning was just a small preview. The Typhoon is going to hit hard tonight and tomorrow. Yokosuka is not far from Yokohama.

Well I'm going to run to get some food for the day before I can't go anywhere! :)


Japan travel advisory: Typhoon to hit Tokyo and central Japan, August 10th-11th

Typhoon #9 (Tropical Storm Etau) is expected to hit the southern coast of central Japan on August 11th (JST), sending heavy rains rain ahead today, August 10th (JST). Heavy rains, strong winds, and high waves are expected throughout central Honshu, as well as eastern Shikoku. People in the area, including Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, and Tokyo, are advised to take care.

August 10th rain, Honshu and Shikoku

Typhoon #9 has sent a thick band of bad weather ahead of itself, currently causing heavy rains throughout central Japan, largely in Kansai (Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe) and Shikoku.

August 11th typhoon, Tokyo and central Japan

According to the Japan Meteorological Agency (as of 7:45am, August. 10th JST), the typhoon is expected to hit Japan just south of Osaka sometime around midnight. It will then run east along the coast, passing through Nagoya, Yokohama, and Tokyo before heading back out into the Pacific Ocean.

Tropical Storm Etau is currently traveling at about 9 knots (10 mph), with average wind speeds as strong as 35 knots (40 mph) and wind gusts reaching 50 knots (58mph). It is also expected to slightly increase in strength over the next couple days as it runs along Japan.

Travelers' warning Japan

Travelers and people living in the area are advised to take precaution. Heavy rains may cause rivers to swell, flooding, and landslides. Public transportation, including trains, in the effected areas may be slowed or stopped completely. Outdoor events might be postponed or canceled. Flights may also be delayed or canceled.

For more info:
Japan Meteorological Agency’s information on Typhoon #9 (Tropical Storm Etau)
Satellite imagery of Typhoon #9 (Tropical Storm Etau) from Weather Underground

Earthquake!

AT 8:00pm I was out shopping for groceries just 10 minutes away in a big mall. By the time the quake hit Yokosuka, which is South of Tokyo on the coast, it was down to a large 6.4 and everyone where I live reported the house violently shaking for 2-3 minutes. I didn't feel a thing in the mall... Must have been earthquake proof!

(CNN) -- A strong earthquake struck off the south coast of Japan on Sunday night local time, "jolting Tokyo and wide areas of eastern Japan," the country's Kyodo news agency reported.

The 7.1 earthquake hit 200 miles (320 kilometers) south-southwest of Tokyo at 7:55 p.m. (6:55 a.m. ET), the United States Geological Survey reported.

Its epicenter was 188 miles (303 kilometers) deep, the USGS said.

The Japan Meteorological Agency reported its magnitude as 6.9, Kyodo said.

There were no immediate reports of damage, and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not issue a tsunami warning.

REFERENCE: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/08/09/japan.earthquake/index.html?eref

Crunchy supper

LAST night I had the most unsettling food in a long time. I went out with my girlfriend and her co-workers to see another fireworks festival (this is the season for it apparently) and we sat on the beach and shared food.

I'm not a picky eater and will try just about anything, at least once.

On the large canvas tarp there were about 15 of us seated with an immense variety of items to pick and eat, most of which were dimly visible in the dark. We were offered chicken skewers which were amazingly tasty to begin with. Being emboldened I accepted a fish fry, which I took to be a fish stick. Not quite so, I bit down into the 5 inch long! breaded piece of fish only to realize it was not a piece of fish but rather a whole, head, tail, fins, guts and all fish in a layer of batter outside. It took me several bites and mental exercise to keep it down. Followed by copious amounts of Coke.


Next there came some beef skewers, once again very tasty! My girlfriend got a "chicken" skewer which she found to be a bit too chewy so I popped the rest of it in my mouth, then I quickly realized it was not chicken at all! I had a mouthful of BBQ pieces of tripe. I washed it down again with lots of Japanese tea.

Finally I saw these small tempura shrimp which I examined and it looked OK. I grabbed one and ate it. But underneath the tempura was an entire shrimp, head with prickly spikes, shell, legs, and all. And ensued another bout of difficult swallowing. It was dry and it's mustache tentacles and legs scratched my throat as it went down. I grabbed some chicken balls and used them to finish getting the thing into my stomach. I also followed this with lots of tea, tomatoes and coke.



Well that was supper! Except I was hungry and got a bean bread at the store before going to bed.

Getting a Job

EVER since the collapse of NOVA English school, in which many Japanese people lost a lot of money and many Foreign teachers got a simple goodbye and were thrown out on the street, there has a been a big decline in the Teaching English profession, confidence is minimal. Some other schools tried to take up the slack from NOVA but they have only reopened a hand full of schools.

I sent out many requests by email to all and any local English schools which operate in Japan in the Yokosuka and Yokohama areas. I went online and did a lot of research and also used the Japanese phone book online and found as many language schools as I could. The fruits of my labour are two schools interested in seeing me when I get to Japan. I am going to go see a certain school in Yokohama which is interested in me on Monday.

If this fails, or maybe even if it works out, I will set myself up as a private tutor and see what I can bring in this way. There are many English teacher down here in Yokosuka since the American military navy base is here. But the farther away you get, the less there are. Ganbate!

Getting settled down

IT'S been a few days I've been here now. I'm getting used to the train system although I still sometimes mess up. Taking public transport here is expensive relative to what I'm used to in Canada! It's about ¥130 to take the train 3-4 stops. It doesn't sound like much, but if you go farther (quite easy here) you are looking at US$2 to US$5 per each way on your trip, so US$10/day which is roughly US$350 a month. I'd pay the same in gas for my car in Canada.



I've been getting my paperwork here done to be able to get my life in order and get a job. The order of things to do in Japan is very important as no step can be missed or you will turned back at the next step.

First you need to get an Alien Registration Card, Simply go to the local Prefecture office and give them the information (you will need an address, two 35x45mm photos and your passport). They will give you a time two weeks away to come and get it, so it's important to do this as soon as you can!

Now you have to ask to get an Alien Registration Certificate, this is a paper which proves you've applied for alien registration. Same place, just ask and wait at the certificate booth to receive it (you need your passport and address, it costs ¥300). It works in some (but not all will accept it) places as the Alien Registration Card and can be used to do official business.

Next you need to get a Hanko or stamp. It's a seal which you need to use as well as your signature to be able to do anything official. They are carved out of wood and are pretty expensive, the smallest size you can get is 10.5mm and it costs ¥2890 (US$29) without a box. Round ones are for individuals and square for companies. I got an oval one. :) The bigger the Hanko the more expensive it gets. You can get a standard Hanko if you have a Japanese name, but really you should get a personalized one made by translating (more or less) the sounds of your name into Japanese Katakana or Hirigana if you are a foreigner. As there are many ways to make similar sounds and different symbols will be used by different translators.

Now with your cool Hanko and Alien Registration Certificate you can go to a Bank and open a Japanese Bank account! Well, you will also need you passport and of course money, bring ¥10000 at least.

Now you have the basic tools to be able to get other things you will want in Japan, such as a cellphone, internet or anything else.

Yokosuka first days

I booked a room in a place called Soleil Yokosuka, it was the only guest house which said they had room in Yokosuka so the choice was not hard. My girlfriend and I took the train together from Yokohama to Yokosuka, I needed a guide since the train system was still so unfamiliar to me (I'm getting better at it now)!

Me lugging my 100 pounds of luggage through the hot humid, subtropical weather. We got off at the right station (Hemi) but could not find the place as it was indicated on the map. We asked a few people and one of them brought us to the local Police station, called Koban here. The Koban is for any time where someone (even a Japanese person) is lost, needs directions or anything else. It is generally a much more people friendly place, they deal with many issues most of which are not criminal, when you walk into one, you feel like you walked into some government office with clerks rather than that hard-ass I-will-punch-you-in-the-face-and-arrest-you-if-you-look-the-wrong-way feeling in North America. The officer had never heard of the place, he called other people and a general search of 20-30 minutes happened at which point we decided to go to my girlfriend's house and use her internet to figure out where it was and call them up.

So I lugged the bags back up the to the train station and then on a 20 minute walk to her apartment in the middle of the day. I collapsed on the cool floor of her small room when I got there! My shoulders were raw and bleeding from all the weight on them over the last few days.

We found the place online, called them and they told us to go to a small building right next to where we had been! But when we got there a person came and met us. The address they give is not where the guest house is but rather where they meet people to take them there. So I lugged the bags again, over another 15 minute walk to the stairs leading to the guest house. The house is near the top of a large hill, and getting up there requires walking up more than 150 steps! (yes I counted them)...

I paid up front the $1000 for my room and dropped off my luggage and then went back down into town to get some food with my girlfriend and watch the Yokosuka fireworks and celebrations for Yokohama.

First days

Map of the Area


I finally got to Yokohama and met up with my girlfriend, it was great! :) I got there so late though that I was unable to check into my reserved room at Hostel Yokohama. So I went next door and stayed one night at the Hotel Porto Yokohama first. I must say the rooms are small but comfy in these Hostel/Hotels. However you only have a room, shower, bathroom and all else is shared by floor. I woke up in the morning and wanted to take a shower, so I grabbed my clothes and soaps and went into the shower, only to discover you have to insert ¥100 (about $1US) for every 2 minutes of shower water. So I ran back, grabbed a handfull of coins and took a nice long (and expensive) shower. :)

I wandered around Yokohama, checking out the shops, restaurants and getting used to the sounds of the language and the way people act. The Room at the Guest house in which I'm staying in Yokosuka wasn't available till August 1st so I had to kill 2 days in Yokohama, it was pretty easy to do!

I visited a lot of Chinatown in Yokohama, it was pretty amazing, and the funny thing was there were tons of Chinese tourists in Japan visiting Chinatown!

While I was there I saw this local Koban. See how small it is? Most of them are this size, holding only one or two officers.

I bought a pair of plastic nunchakus while I was in Chinatown and my girlfriend bought a cute Panda pillow. Panda stuff is everywhere! It's Panda-monium! (hahaha) It also happened to be the day before the 150th celebration of Yokohama city.

I took off and split the nunchaku's rubber outside in half and tapped them to the handles of one of the bags I was carrying, now I was able to turn it into a backpack (sort of).

The trip to Japan

WEDNESDAY, at 9:25 am I threw my luggage onto my back and walked onto the plane headed for Vancouver, then to transfer to Japan Airlines. I got some decent coffee on the flight. Probably my best experience with Air Canada so far!

In Vancouver I had to transfer to Japan Airlines. Having had an issue with my tickets, I more or less bluffed my way into the International departure lounge with my ticket for Air Canada. I bought some Yen there (the international symbol is ¥ but they use a different local symbol 円,, conversion is about $1US=¥100) I got a new ticket from the nice people of Japan Airlines. after boarding I slept through most of the flight. I only woke up once or twice. My mistake was to eat the food offered on the flight, it was pretty bad, burnt noodles with burnt meat sauce, a small dish of mashed potatoes with radish (this is apparently the way to make mashed potatoes here) and ice cold noodles with a semi-sweet sauce for dessert.

I arrived at 3:30pm on Thursday the 30th of July. It took about an hour or so to get through customs. When foreigners enter Japan, they must now put their index fingers on two electronic scanners which catalog and record your fingerprints, passport ID and take a picture of you at once. This is in case of any problems they can always figure out who the foreigners are. Being used to Big Brother, I was mildly surprised but the Japanese people here are really upset with this system (one of my roommates here even apologized to me for it).

I got the the luggage pickup zone and all the police dogs were coming to sniff me, maybe 5-6 dogs came up. After the first two I got a bit weireded out that I seemed to be such an interesting person to sniff. I guess I should have expected it though, with 4 cats and a dog back in Canada, my clothes must have smelled really interesting! None of the dogs seemed to be interested in my luggage, and one even came up wagging his(or maybe her?) tail to me to lick my hand, he was pulled back and reprimanded. After that they kept the dogs away from me.

After grabbing a cart and my luggage I wandered around and found an information kiosk. I asked the girl how to get to Yokohama where I was staying for a few nights. Ensued a long conversation between her and two other girls there trying to decide what to do with me. they finally gave me an itinerary which was much different form the one My girlfriend had given me. So I went to the public phones, fiddled around a bit with a phone card machine, and called her. Apparently the trip they had recommended would have cost 3 times what the other trip would cost, around $40. So I went down some pretty interesting escalators on which you can take your luggage carts and found the train station under the airport.

I gave the girl at the train ticket booth the method I wanted to take and she gave me a ticket and said that it would leave in an hour and a half. Unfortunatley the luggage cart had to stay there as I grabbed my two 40 pound bags in each hand, my backpack and walked to the platform to catch my train. I plopped myself down and sat there waiting. After a while a train employee started to walk around in my vicinity. I showed him my ticket and asked him if I was in the right spot, he said I was. After a long wait, the time for my train to arrive was getting closer, however there are 3 or 4 different trains there, with different markings and going different directions, all at the same platform. There is a local train and different express trains, which stop at larger and larger intervals.

Something must have happend because there was a stop in the trains and then they announced that all trains would be 10 minutes late. I kept an eye on the platform waiting for my train to arrive. When the time was a minute close, a train going the wrong direction stopped, I didn't get on it, it left within seconds of stopping. Then another came the right direction but an express, it too stopped for a second and left. Then some other different type of train stopped for a second and left. At this point I wasn't sure anymore which one I was supposed to get on. I saw two more trains go by one of which didn't actually stop so much as slow down to an almost stop, open the doors, then quickly closed then and took off. That was my train...

I went to another train employee asking when the next train was going to leave going my way, she answered in about and hour... Arrrg.... I had to call my girlfriend and tell her I was going to be a little late...

This time I was determined not to miss my train! I would dive through the doors like Neo if it was required! As I was waiting a New Zealand guy came up to me and we chatted, he directed me to another train employee who understood English and gave me specific instructions on how many trians to wait before getting on. Turns out the Guy from NZ was heading the same way for a part of the trip, he was going to Tokyo, so we waited together and chatted. He was on his way to see his sister for her birthday in Korea and decided to make a two day trip through Japan on his way there.