Japanese Valentines Day

So how was Valentines Day back in the states?

I bet most of my boys had fun buying stuff for their girlfriends and wives. I remember scrambling each year to make reservations at restaurants and buying flowers or chocolates.

Well you can all be jealous because on Valentine's Day in Japan the woman have to take care of the men. I got a box of chocolates from my students and my girlfriend bought me a bunch of gifts. She then made me chocolate fondue and took care of me. Japan is sweet, I love this place.

Don't worry I know its only for one year and next year, I will be just like all the boys back home. Standing in line at the flower shop and calling expensive restaurants trying to make reservations.

PS I won teacher of the month for January!!!Woo hooo

Naked Man Festival Hadaka Matsuri

So nothing new has happened so I havent posted anything until now!

This weekend was the naked man festival. Imagine 9000 men naked in the middle of winter, fighting over 2 sticks in a temple. Now imagine me doing it. Sounds crazy, fun, exciting, strange, wierd? Well it was all of the above and I did it.

I didn't really know what I was doing so I didnt win but I managed to stay alive and undamaged. Although I can't say that for everyone, one man was crushed in the action and most of my friends got injuried falling down stairs or fighting in the mud. If you are one of the two lucky guys to win then you get a $1000 dollars.

The battle starts when you arrive at the temple. You take off your clothes and put on a fundoshi which is basically a towel that you wrap around your family jewels. There is a special way to wrap it and it is not pleasant. The wrapping process ends with the equivalent of an atomic wedgie or else you end up like my friend Tim who spent one year run around naked holding his towel. We then run outside in the freezing cold and rain. Thank god, I was lucky enough to be here a year that it rained since I just love being cold and wet.

Then we run to the temple and when we get there we have to do laps around the temple. First stop, a fountain of cold water where you run around a statue while throwing cold water up in the air. Second stop is an altar where you are suppose to pray and then head back to the fountain. You are suppose to do this three times but we just went straight to the temple after one lap.

Once in the temple it is really similar to the most crowded club you have every been too or a huge mosh pit. You can't move at all but everyone is pushing to the front. It gets so crowded that you have to put your arms up so you can breath easier and protect your head. Then everyone pushs and pull trying to get to the center and wait for midnight. At midnight the lights go out and they start throwing wooden sticks into the crowd. There are around 100 fake sticks and 2 real sticks but nobody can tell at the time. The madness ensues and everyone starts fighting over sticks. I couldnt see anything but I did notice it started to get really tight. Then I noticed that the pile of people was moving backwards and I tried to hide next to the pillars so I wouldn't fall off the stairs. My buddy Tim wasnt so luck and fell 10 feet to the ground below. But I noticed the pillar wasnt such a good idea either since I was starting to get crushed against it. So I slide around the pillar and watched the chaos that continued. It was almost like a controlled gang fight. Some people had teams and formed offensive lineman to block for the stick carrier. Once I left the temple I was cold and ran back to the house to get my clothes back on, but some people continued to fight all the way back to the houses.

It was good fun and an experience I will remember for a long time.

Here is a link so you can read about it.

http://www.city.okayama.okayama.jp/saidaiji/guide/eyo/English/eyo.htm

Return of the Blogger

Thanks for everyone that put up comments and let me know that you have been reading up on my life over here. It inspired me to write today’s blog since I have been pretty lazy about it. I haven’t written anything on my blog for a while mainly because I had nothing new to report. When I first got here, everything was new and exciting but slowly I started to feel homesick and the honeymoon stage wore off. I went to work then came home, bought some movies and studied Japanese. On the weekends I went out and got drunk with my friends. Pretty much the same thing as back home but I can ride my bike home and get piss ass drunk. But like anything its gets old after too long and I got tired of being stupid every weekend.

The weather started to get really cold here and I don’t like being out in the cold all night. So lately I have been chillin at my friends Tim’s house or staying home. We use utorrent to download our favorite tv shows to his computer and watch them together like a big happy family. Almost like the old days when you only had one tv so everyone had to watch together. I watched seasons 3 and 4 of “The Wire” possibly the best show since Sopranos and 24. I also starting playing a few new sports that I have never played before which is quite unusual for me since I thought I played every sport in my youth. Well I don’t think you can call them sports but leisure activities. Darts at the local bar is a must for us these days. They have these great computerized machines with all kinds of Dart games. The other one was Frisbee golf which is just like golf but you throw a Frisbee. They have par 3 and 4 holes at the place we went to. You have multiple Frisbees for different length throws and accuracy.

My American co-worker left me to go back home to Buffalo NY. It was sad times but also a lot of fun. We had lots of parties and dinner with students to say good bye. The last month he was here we screwed around a lot and work was a lot of fun. Now that he is gone it’s not as fun but I do get a lot more work done. I also think I have connected a lot more with the Japanese staff because I have just gone with the “cant beat them join them” attitude. Even though I think some of the things they do are totally ridiculous and a waste of time I have no one to bitch about with me so there is no reason to fight it. I just do it and laugh about it to myself. Where as before we would ban together and complain together until they met us halfway. But by myself complaining and making a big deal about things reminds me of my old coworker in FC. He used to always complain about everything and I found myself disgusted that I even contemplated being that guy in the office. So now I just smile do what I’m told and make my suggestions heard. As I’m here longer they start to realize that I am an intelligent individual and most of the time when I suggest something it will make an improvement in the work environment. The Japanese work ethic is extremely hard but the management style is based on the shit rolls down hill philosophy. The top sets ridiculous goals that are unattainable and yell at the subordinates to make the deadlines. The middle management relays the message and the shit rolls down hill. Only the foreigners have the balls to voice out that this is ridiculous and a waste of time. But most of the time the Japanese coworkers just say “Gambatte” we can do it and “Shogunai” can’t be helped. When then person at the top makes the correct decision it works very well and a large company can work at one. But if the decision is wrong then there are no checks and balances to correct the mistake. I know that in America we have different problems but it’s interesting to have a totally different business philosophy.

Other things at work that I have noticed, Japanese people have a really hard time being opinioned and are the most polite people in the world. Which is why everyone says Japanese is really complicated, simple Japanese is easy but the more polite you speech is the longer and more difficult it becomes. I also noticed English is the same. If you want someone to help you at work you can either say “Finish by 5pm or Excuse me but we will need to have this report done by the end of day and I would really appreciate it if you could have it to me in a timely fashion.”

ClimbingFuji

I haven’t written anything in a while mainly because there is nothing good to write about. I have been going to work each day and teaching English. On the weekends I just hang out with friends and drink. I also have been feeling a bit homesick lately and my Mom and Aunt were nice enough to send me some stuff to make me feel better. I also focus a lot more energy into studying Japanese since that was one of my main goals in coming here. I haven’t been learning as quickly as I want but my friends all say I am ahead of schedule compared to them. I can get a basic idea of what people are saying around me when put in context but I can in no way understand a whole conversation. Imagine being in a Peanuts cartoon where everyone is just saying whaaa whaa whaaa and occasionally you hear a word you know. Then I can respond in quick one to two word answers but sometime my pronunciation is off and they usually repeat what I say correctly. My friend Rhett said it best, "the only word you need for your first couple months here is Daijobu (OK) you can just point to everything and just say Ok?," we call it pulling the gaijin card and just acting stupid. This isn’t too far from the truth since I feel about 10 years old in this country, which I find to be so ironic since I came here to become a more independent and reliable person. I have learned a lot but I have a long way to go to become fluent. I have learned quite a bit and if I was home, I bet I could fool a lot of you into thinking I learned a lot of Japanese by ordering food with bad pronunciation and reading a Japanese menu.

So its vacation time for me. For most of you back home Obon is when we go to Mountain View to drink cheap beer and sake at the Obon festival. But here in Japan Obon is the week in August where Japanese get together with family to pay their respects to their loved ones that have died. The entire country takes vacation around the same time so prices for plane tickets and bullet train or Shinkansen rides are expensive. I wanted to go to Taiwan to visit Eric but the plane ticket was $1000 so I decided I should just wait until New Year's.

Instead my boys Rhett and Brian decided to climb Mount Fuji or Fuji-San is what they call it here! I figured it was one of those things everyone should do and sounded like a cool and relatively inexpensive thing to do on vacation. Climbing Mount Fuji is a lot like going to Vegas, everything is really fun and exciting until about the end of the trip where you’re just really tired and getting home is the longest and worst experience ever. Luckily Rhett is pretty good at Japanese and made most of the arrangements. Fuji-San is about 6-7 hours away and you have to take Shinkansen and bus to get there. We left Okayama around noon and got to Fuji at 8:30. I ran into some friends from training and we all went together. We started walking up the Mountain around 9pm from station 5 up to station 10. Stations 1 through 5 have a paved road leading to them so most people take the bus up to Station 5 and start there. Station 5 is at 2,400 meters high and Station 10 is at 3776 meters or about 8,000ft-13,000 ft.

So I heard that old people do it all the time and my student went last week and I figured a young strapping America lad like myself would have no problems walking up a mountain. But climbing Fuji-San was up there on my list of hard physically activities that I have endured. I definitely rate my Wrestling years, Black Belt test and 75 mile hike where I got burned a lot harder but this was no walk in the park. We walked for 12 hours straight and the climate changes were pretty extreme. At the bottom of the mountain I wore shorts and a t-shirt while I was sweating from the heat. At the top of the mountain it snowed and I was wearing 6 layers of clothing. Also the altitude made me dizzy and luckily Rhett brought cans of O2 which helped a lot. We watched the sunrise at the top of the mountain which was the highlight of the trip but it was so cold we just wanted to go back down right after. The way down was really tough too, maybe I’m just getting old but my knees were killing me. My days of feeling indestructible are definitely numbered. The ride home was equally as exhausting after staying up all night walking uphill. I didn’t get home until 5pm the next day so it was quite a long day. Here are the pictures of my glorious trek up Fuji-san. The local saying here is “only a fool will never climb Fuji-san and only a fool will climb Fuji-san more than once. I am no fool so check and check onto the next item on the list of things to do before I leave Japan.

the big 30

Went to Osaka got drunk and took some pics. Yeah I should be told old for this childish behavior but its still fun.

So I have been putting off writing anything for a while but today I plan on playing catchup. Osaka was a fun town it reminds me of San Franciso a bit except for the language thing and everyone is Japanese. I went with my buddy Tim to meet up with some of our fellow Aeon co-workers. We started off eating Yakiniku or Japanse barbacue and drinking sho-chu or japanese vodka. It was still technically July 1st when I got to Osaka so it was Canada day and all Canadians got into this bar for free. I followed my friends lead and just pretended to be Canadian, threw in a few "Thanks aye how ya doing aye" and got in for free no problem.

We met some girls that spoke English pretty well and had fun dancing with them. But somewhere in the night I made this girl drink an an irish car bomb but the guy made it differently than normal and I got really sick. After that I wasnt doing so good so I had to sober up.

So we decided to go home but the trains were closed so we had to get a bite to eat and spend the next hour or so screwing around in the station waiting for the trains to open. I got some great shots of Tim attempting to show off his gymnastics abilities on the train. The old people were not amused but it was pretty funny. He also wanted a good pick up line for these girl in the station so I told him to say he was an assassin (ore ga koroshiya) and wants to know the best place to kill someone. The rest of the day was nostalgic of coming home from Vegas after a long weekend of partying.

Going through the motions and living day by day

So I finally settled in and I don't feel like I am on vacation anymore. The honeymoon stage of being in another country has started to wear off and the reality of what I signed up for is starting to settle in.

My typical day consist of waking up at around 9am and getting ready for work. Once I am ready, I head out to starbucks to study for a few hours and learn some Japanese. I usually get something to eat and get into work around 12:30pm. I don't have to be there until 1pm but in Japan everyone is always early. I work until about 10pm, then I come home and get ready for bed. Unlike at home I spend a lot of time by myself which is unusual for me. I even discovered eating by myself which I wouldn't be found dead doing back home. I also spend a lot of time listening since most of the time I cant say anything and just listen and watch people. Most of the time I don't know what they are saying but I can catch a few words here and there. Sometimes enough to piece together the general jist of what they are saying.

I found that girls in the US and Japan all complain about the same things. At the office 50% of the time the girls are complaining about being hot, hungry and tired. I told all the girls in the office that Japanese and American girls aren't that different.

I am becoming a better teacher and I am starting to understand the job better. At first I thought it was all fun and games and the job was really easy but now I actually want to be able to teach them well. Unlike Engineering this job is all about people and communication. The strangest part of this job is varying the level of English ability you speak to different level students. For example low level students you must speak slowly and use 1 or 2 words and higher level students you can say complete sentences but need to pause after each sentence so they can translate in their head. Also the words that you pick are very important and sometimes you can get in trouble trying to explain something. I was trying to explain to a student that San Francisco's Haight Ashbury District is an interesting place to visit. When I told her that they have a lot of hippies there I got into big trouble. She didn't know hippies and any words that I picked to describe them got me into more trouble.

So in one day you must vary your level of English with every person you talk to from beginner to advanced and choose different words when talking to both. The hard part is first remembering which one of the 200 students you are talking to and there approximate level or ability. Learning Japanese also helps me with this since I can sometime hear the Japanese word and anticipate what words they want to say to me. Also some sayings are totally cultural and Japanese people have no idea what you are talking about. For example most of my sayings come from movie and television. I never realized how much slang and movie quotes actually use in my every day vocabulary.

Other culture problems I have recently encountered was my bad posture was interrupted by our older students as disrespectful and arrogant. I also accidentally insulted my co-worker this week when I joking with her. I caught I bit of a cold this week and she took me to the drug store to buy medicine. So jokingly I told her that I was going to take the whole bottle since I couldn't read the instructions. Appartently she was up all night worrying about me and when I came in the next day I told her I took the whole bottle and I feel better now. When she asked if I was joking I laughed and didn't reply. She thought I was being patronizing and insensitive to her worry so I upset her.

All and all I think everything is going fairly well. I am a bit lonely out here and I wish I could have all my friend from home here to share the experience. I did make some really good friends Tim and Brian and we spent our weekends hanging out and partying. Both are big drinkers and party animals so naturally we are good friends. Its been almost a month and I feel that I have adjusted well but I am starting to miss things from home.

communication systems online

So I just got my cell phone and yes it is soo cool. So cool, that I cant use or understand most of the functions. haha

pic of my phone (left image) but mine is black


So the highlights include a 4 megapixel camera, yes thats right 4 megapixels with camera on both the outside and inside of the phone. The inside camera is for video conferencing so you can talk and see the person at the same time. You can also take videos and pictures like normal cameras.

It has a plug in for some sort of data storing device where you can have songs on your phone and use it as an ipod or music player. Of course I dont know how to use it yet so I have no music on my phone.

I also I have slot to add a credit card device that can be used to pay for dinner and other items at the department store.

My phone is bluetooth compatible and has a nextel type option but I dont have enough friends to use it yet.

So what can I do with my phone, not too much but I do know how to call and email people. The phone plans in Japan are extremely expensive and minutes are really low for expensive prices per month. So everyone emails each other or text messages each other. Text message is called sms or short message something and each phone comes with its own email. So my phone email is ksokada @ docomo.ne.jp and everyone emails me to save cost. The only problem is I have to download an english dictionary to get a
T9 type text messaging so it takes forever to type anything. All the buttons are set for japanese not english and the dictionary changes all words to Kanji and katakana.

I have tiger woods golf, sonic the hedgehog on my phone and a bunch of applications that I can't read what they do.

The other phone I wanted had a thumbprint id for using the paypal type device but mine just has a pin number. Other phones come with TV standard but since I cant understand Japanese TV I decided it was a waste of money. So when I figure out my phone a little bit better I can report on how to use it.

My first day off and going shopping

So I had my first day off all on my own. Right now its pretty lonely since I dont know anyone and I have no cell phone to contact people. All my new friends from training got shipped out to their schools. I am sitting here in my room staring at the wall since I can't understand tv. I probably should study Japanese since I told like 8 people today that I dont know Japanese when they tried to talk to me.

It took me 4 hours today to buy the following 3 items:

Alarm Clock
Soap
Groceries

I already knew where to find the grocery store so that was pretty easy but the other two took some time. First of all think about the way you would buy something at home. If I wanted an alarm clock I would probably go to Target, Best Buy or any home or electronic store. Now image there is no Target, Best Buy and you dont know any electronic or home stores. What would you do? Well how about try the newspapaer, oh wait I cant read, what about the internet, uhm yeah that reading thing again. Being illiterate sucks....I need to start studying.

So I went to plan B, randomly walk around town and see if I could find a store. Since I couldnt read anything or ask anyone for help, I pretty much just wandered into every store I saw and tried to find it. Okayama has a crapload of camera shops, clothing stores, cell phone shops and places to eat. The soap wasn't too hard to find but once I got to a walgreens type shop I had to spend like 10 minutes trying to read the box and make sure it really was soap. And no, they dont have dove or any of my normal brands and what is the Japanese word for soap? I didn't know this morning but I just looked it up and its called sekken.

Now the alarm clock took forever, I walked for hours trying to find an electronic store. I walked into every department store and every floor looking for one, but I couldn't find anything. Finally I lucked out and walked into the right store and they had 3 alarm clocks. I bought the one that was in english of course.

Then I found a suit store and decided to buy some work clothes. All the measurements are in cm and I didnt know my size. I used my broken Japanese to get someone to help me and measure me. I am a 43cm neck and 86cm arm length. All together my trip cost me 10,000 yen or a $100 for two shirts, soap, alarm clock and grocercies.

Then walked back to my house and decided to write about my small victory. Away mission successful captain....make is so...haha

My apartment

I finally moved into my place and good news, it isnt the closet that I saw on the website. It isnt big compared to my places in America but it is big enough for one person. I have to sleep on the ground and put my bed away each morning. I think the apartment is about 400 sf with the main room at 15'x15' and the kitchen and bathroom taking up an additional 100 sf. My apartment is about a 15 minute walk from my school and I live on the 2nd floor of a 5 story building. I have the end unit and nobody is below me but the bike parking area. I get a free wireless connection in here so I am pretty happy about that.

My First Day at the Office

I had my first day of work today. The office is really small and 6 people share a space smaller than my bosses office back home. Suddenly my 9'x10' cubicle back home doesnt feel so small. But the nice thing is everyone is close together and everyone is working hard at the same time. Sometimes I need quite time and move to my classroom to catch some peace and quite. However its not the same kind of noise when 4 girls are talking japanese and you have no idea what they are saying. The sounds quickly becomes background noise and I can ignore it enough to get some work done. So far the work has been really fun and easy, all I had to do today was draw a board with my name, place of birth, hobbies, previous job and countries I have traveled. Everyone was really impressed by my drawings which I find funny since its not my best work and alot of Japanese are far better artist than me.

I have a pretty easy schedule averaging about 3-4 classes per day except for sat which has 6-7 classes. Since teaching english is a service industry we are bound by the times that people are available so the busy times are at lunch time and after work. I start work at 12:45pm (Japanese are never late and you are expected to be at work early, so no more foster city time) from Tuesday to Saturday and get off work around 10pm.

I wear a suit and tie to work everyday and spend most of my time talking to students and observing my fellow teachers classes. The job doesnt seem very hard but like anything you need to get used to it. So far its alot more fun and doesnt really feel like I am working. I am worried about Thursday when the teacher I am replacing leaves since the guy has the job down and it's easy to just copy what he is doing.

I took some photos of my office so you can see what my office looks like. I have my own classroom and I am allowed to decorate it anyway I like. I have 6 co-workers: Kyle is from Texas and I am replacing him, John Paul is from New York and he is the other foreign teacher, Chihiro and Kaori are japanese teachers and teacher the lower level students, Shuko is the boss and Keiko is the assistant manager.

I spend most of my day preparing for my lessons, coloring drawing and reviewing grammer points. Then when lessons start we are required to sit in the lobby and talk to students before and after class. Other job requirements are interviewing potential students and consoling students on how to study more effectively.

Right now I still need help on teaching but I think after a few weeks I should have it down. Keep your figures crossed since the rest of this week should get interesting when Kyle leaves by myself.

Celebration on Successfully Completing Training

Training has been completed and I now have the tools necessary to be a successful Aeon teacher. We had a small graduation ceremony during which we received our Aeon pins while everyone in the room hummed the graduation song. Of course, after that it was time to celebrate!!! You can view my flickr set for this event here

Off to welcome party number 1.

I met up with my fellow foreign teacher John Paul and our Japanese counter part Chihiro for the first time sat night. I meet them at the train station and rode a bike to my welcome party. I had not rode a bike in almost 10 plus years but like the old saying goes, its like riding a bike you never forget. My welcome party was also a going away party for the guy I am replacing Kyle. Kyle is moving to Kobe to continue his teaching and marry his Japanese girlfriend. Both Kyle and John Paul are big tall guys well over 6’ and tower over everyone in the town.

I then tried my best to learn everyone’s name and learn a little bit about each person. Learning people’s names are difficult since I have not heard a name like that ever and often had to say it slowly and spell it out. Another difficult part of Japanese names is everyone name is similar characters mixed together in different spots so all the name sound the same. For Example the character “ko” means child and for some reason all girls names end in “ko” so I met a yumiko, akiko, yukio, yuko, maiko, mariko and for males I met a lot of “hiro” masahiro, hiroyuki, hiromasa, yoshihiro, yoshi and a bunch of names I clearly cannot remember for lack of even understanding what they told me.

The party was a lot of so fun, I was the center of attention and I loved it, usually I am used to having all eyes on me but I can get used to it. Everyone wanted to talk to the American and practice there English. I had to give a quick speech which everyone thought was great. But I had to behave since the manager was there and since she is my boss I wanted to be on good behavior.

Off to party number 2 where the craziness ensued. Before I got there the other teacher came back from Nomi Hodai or all you can drink. Since I was on my best behavior at my party I was the most sober one. We then signed up for Nomi Hodia at Karaoke which came out to be about $30 for 2 hours. It was our last night out together and everyone decided to get super faded. Robert from Missouri turned out to be a kick ass singer and did a great Axle Rose impersonation, we even had some Japanese people come out and he had some groupies. The girls Lauren and Jacky were off the hook and sang great. Alex and I sang “it ain’t no fun if the homies can have none” by Snoopy Doggy Dog. I met a new Aeon teacher from Okayama Ikimai named Brian from Los Angeles who is a cool guy. Dushan and Brian had a drinking contest for “Alpha Male status” with the biggest penis. Dushan won since he spilled both drinks all over himself without actually drinking it all. After he finished, he spiked the glasses on the ground like a running back that had just scored the winning touchdown. Half the people died laughing and the other half was appaulled. Being the drunken bastard I am, I found the stunt to be hilarious but also realized that I need to sober up and become the voice of reason.

Usually when something gets broken it’s time to go home so we decided to move to the next party. Unfortunately the other half of the party thought Dushan’s stunt was not very funny and one guy decided to insult him. Words were exchanged and it was time to play referee. I decided to distract Dushan by having him rough house with me and we decided to play who can hit each other in the shoulder the hardest. After our game I just heard “hey Chris hold my beer” I then heard footsteps and decided I might need to have some evasive maneuvers. Dushan had decided to tackle me and when I moved out of the way he did a swan dive in to the bikes. After that it was time to go, Dushan had hit drunken terror level 5 red or “severe possibility of drunkenness and stupidity.” After that I played Baysitter got everyone home and it was time to go to bed.

Explanation of Teaching at Aeon

So everyone asked me before I left, “Do you speak Japanese?” and wondered how I could teach English if I didn’t speak Japanese. Well I now know the secret to Aeon teaching since I have completed 4 days of training and had my first day of actually mock teaching to actual Japanese students.

First foreign teachers are used as a marketing tool and a goal for the lower students to work to. The lower level students have a Japanese Teacher that helps them get up to a higher level and tells them if they work hard, they will be lucky enough to move up the foreign teacher. So we only teach students at the intermediate and advanced level students. Another one of our main duties is to interview prospective students or talk to people thinking about signing up. Aeon is first and foremost a business and makes its money by the new subscribes and return customers.

It is funny being a novelty here for speaking a language everyone I know speaks fluently. They all call me Kevin sensei which covets great respect in Japan. The classes are actually quite fun and engaging; you feel more like a cheerleader and facilitator than an actual teacher. The classes are very strictly standardized down to the minute but leave room for adlib and adjustment to your student’s level.

Right now the amount of information is almost overwhelming with having to learn Japanese, get used to my living environment, get used to jet lag, learn to teach and learning to speak “classroom English.” Classroom English is basically simplified English with hand gestures and signal to help your students understand what you are saying. For example instead of saying, “ok class, please open you text books to page 23 and Mr. Okada can you please read the instructions for the class out loud, the rest of you follow along and listen.” This is overly complicated for the class and almost nobody will understand you, instead you gesture (pointing is considered rude) Mr Okada read page 23. Sounds easy but the next time you give instructions to someone think about all the additional words and redundant words you used to give simple instructions.

I learned a lot of great things from my boss at Wilsey Ham on how to be a great employee and worker so it was interesting to see this new work environment and culture. For one, they are way more sensitive to business ethics, and being polite and rude at the work place. Such as you should never interrupt your boss if he/she is giving you criticism or justify why you made a decision. Instead you must listen to the whole suggestion and ask a question at the end that makes the manager see your point of view and let them give you another suggestion. For example if the boss comes in an tells me I need to speed my class up and not spend so much time correcting my students, I shouldn’t say well My Okada is kind of slow and I need to give him extra help. In stead I should listen to the whole suggestion and ask “well if Mr Okada is not getting the material and holding up my class how do you suggest I handle the situation?” This of course is expected only with manager and apprentice and people of the same level are allowed to debate. So basically the Boss must be treated with respect at all times with a more formal set of rules than back at home.

In Japan it is considered very disrespectful to be late ever. So everyone shows up to work 10-15 minutes early. I think this will help me since I am always late. No more Foster City time in Japan.

Everyone is also very picky about being well groomed and dress code. I wear an suit and tie to work every day. So after each day at work you should say "Otsukare sama deshita" or thank you for your hard work.

first night out drinking

So suprise surprise...I had my first night out drinking.

So our trainer had to show us where the supermarket was and how to buy food. Don't laugh because you would be the same way. When is the last time you had no idea where the grocery store was and when you got there you had no idea what anything was. It took me like 5 mins to read all the labels on the milk and find out which one I wanted. I'm still not sure which one I got but when I drank it, it tasted like milk. So after watching Lost in Translation I just had to try Sunatory Whisky for quite times. Of course I drank half the bottle by myself pre partying with my new friends. Seemed like a good idea at the time!!

Then we went to an all you can drink place. Thats right all you can drink, they would never have that in America because with my friends the place would be broke. It was 1200 yen or about $12 for 90 minutes. We left there after about an hour but that was enough. I learned a few drinking terms like "Sugai" slang for fuck yeah when drinking or Gozoropu shimi wataru which has no translation but means something like this is so refreshing it is moving through out my body. We yelled this after chugging your beer. We then went to sing Karaoke and drink more. Karaoke here is all you can drink and sing by the hour. It cost us about $25 for 2 plus hours. This is when the night gets alittle fuzzy. I carried my new friend Dushan who weighs like 220lbs around and we tried to borrow a bike to take home. But my new friend Tim from Englad said we were being "dodgy" and we shouldnt be taking peoples bikes. Voice of reason turned on and we left the bike.

So I then pushed my friend Chris from Canada into a bunch of girls because he had a t-shirt that says accepting applications for a japanese girlfriend. I have the same shirt in blue. It didnt work because I pushed him too hard and he hit the pavement. I felt really bad, so sorry Chris.

We then proceeded to wander around the town and I waved to girls driving down the street. Some girls pulled over and starting talking to us. I was cold so I asked if I could hang out in there car. Really I was cold, I swear...I packed all my jackets in my other bag and everyone told me that japan is super hot in May. Then Dushan and I spent the next 30 minutes trying to convince these girls to drive us home but Dushan has no game. Oh well, it made a good story. I wish I had a picture of that.

just arrived in Kansai

So I just got off the plane from SFO and I am starting to realize just how screwed I am going to be. I watched Lost in Translation on the ride over (thanks Wilsey Ham for the gift) and I am already starting to totally sympathize with Bill Murray's character. Even when people are speaking English to me I am not 100% sure what they are asking me. For example my guide who is totally fluent in English asked me if I had met my cousin before coming on the trip. I replied of course he is my cousin and I have known him all my life. She replied with, "no did you meet up with him before you went on this trip." Also she asked me something else where the L's and R's were totally mixed up and I had no idea what she was asking me. If you havent seen the movie watch it again and think about me being Bill Murray. Maybe I'll get lucky and find Scarlett Johannson to hang out with.

BBQ and Matrix pics are up in flickr

Here's some of the BBQ pics There is a slideshow mode on top right if you want to use that, or you could even leave a comment if you prefer Here are the friday night Matrix pix as well.

You can leave a comment on any of the pictures or even leave a comment below on this blog post

(this post by Jeremiah, who is Kevin's personal web geek and getting Kevin all setup)

Spring Training for opening day

So this is my first attempt at a blog. I am leaving for Japan in a month and I have no idea what I got myself into. Right now I just feel bored, like I am reliving the same day over and over. I need a change of scenery and I am ready to see something new.

I have no idea what to expect but I know I am going to have a good time, because well I always have a good time. I still know almost no japanese but I am a wing it on the fly guy. I have been trying my best to study here and there but study was never my favorite thing to do. I speak my best Japanese with a few drinks in me.