Finally, an update.

Well, I don’t want to keep you all out of the Japan loop forever, so I’ll mention briefly what’s going on. I’ve discovered that I’m not really much of a blogger though haha. Or an emailer for that matter. Looks like I’m definitely a real time player, IMs and phone messages. But, once in a while I should probably make an update right?

Main roads in Juso

Well, firstly, I’ve settled in just fine, here in concrete Juso. It’s known as one of the roughest parts of Osaka, which is known as the roughest part of Japan. But people say it has a sense of being ‘real’ Osaka, because of its very roughness. Juso is filled with little restaurants, takoyaki and okonomiyaki places (the trademark food of Osaka), and a whole street pretty much dedicated to adult entertainment. Little streets around my place are really cool cause not many cars go through here. It’s mainly pedestrians and cyclists. I bought my own bike which is nice and handy as I get around Juso in a flash, and sometimes I ride up to my friend’s place in Amagasaki which takes half an hour or so. Most of the bikes here are single gear, but I got one with six gears. You can get a new single gear bike for ￥10,000 which is about $100 Australian.

Bikes in Umeda

The two most popular areas in Osaka are Umeda and Namba. I live two stations away from Umeda, or a 20-30 minute ride, whichever you prefer. But I don’t usually ride to Umeda because then there’s always the ‘where should I leave my bike’ thing. Many people would be worried about bike theft, but… all I can say is… ah, a picture speaks a thousand words… You will notice that, you can indeed, just kind of leave your bike anywhere.

Juso station happens to be the hub station for all three hankyuu lines. Each line seperately comes in at least once every five minutes. It’s usually 3 or 4 minutes between trains on each line, and I have my choice of any line. I usually just stick to the platform closest the gates cause it seems to come quite often and not be so full, and they haven’t even bothered with a big board that shows all the incoming arrival times for trains because you can get into the station from the east side or the west side, so there’s no one main place to put it, and it’s not like one of the main huge stations where there’s a big open entrance area. Well, you’d understand if you see it. Apart from those reasons, there’s NO POINT! If they did have something like that, it would just be changing all the time before you can read it anyway . And seriously, you’d only be saving like a minute anyway. I once saw the train on my usual platform leave as I arrived, so I went to another platform and then saw another train arrive at the platform I just left. It was pretty funny. Anyway, two stations away is Umeda. From Umeda I often change to the Midosuji line which goes through Namba up to Tennoji. Serisouly, if you see this one leave as you arrive… don’t panic, there’s another one three minutes behind. There needs to be too, cause the platform takes that long to fill up again. But it’s not like Tokyo where they have to push people on… I doubt I could handle going back to Australia’s public transport haha.

So, that midosuji line happens to take me to work on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Tuesdays and Thursdays I work at Web School in Namba. It’s pretty much a whole bunch of 1 to 1 20 minute lessons and the occasional 40 min group lesson. It’s pretty easy stuff, but it can feel like it drags sometimes. But then again… it’s a job right? haha. Some of the students are absolutely awesome, and some are like… well… hmm. Wednesdays are great cause I have my own students, whereas other days are random. On Wednesday I teach three old ladies in the morning, a completely random class after that followed by a pre-intermediate group and a business intermediate to finish up with. I say “business” intermediate, but I don’t teach them anything to do with business, it’s still just English, but the topics in the text are like “making arrangements” or something. Basically it’s teaching the same English, but practising it in a way that can apply to work situations, like role playing telephone calls with customers or something.

Monday and Saturday are still sub days for me. I go where I’m needed until they get me to take over someone’s regular shift, or a new shift is created. I haven’t been given any kids yet, so I’m kind of expecting a few kids classes to show up soon. I’ve subbed a few, and they are pretty crazy, but it depends on the kids.

I’m thinking of moving out as soon as my minimum stay period is up. This company rips people off in exchange for the ease and convenience of a fully furnished apartment with no key money needed (pretty much a ‘gift’ of cash to your landlord when you move in, separate to any refundable deposits…). My friend’s mother owns a little apartment building 400m from here. But it’s only actually 80m further from the station than my current place. That place is actually a little bit BIGGER than my current apartment, and is LESS THAN HALF the rent I’m paying now. Go figure…

Emergency update! Live news report! I just got word that the 2nd floor room has been taken and only the third floor room is left. I’m going to get my backside down there, and decide if I want it, and take it a month early, meaning I’ll be paying rent for 2 placed for the month of October! Whoa! That is… holy god… $1000 for rent in one month. After that it will be $300 a month only. That is why I need to get this place. Other places would require a guarantor… It’s a whole bunch of complicated stuff to explain, but it’s kinda important that I get this one! No time to lose. Bye!

:O

Well, it’s 4am here in Juso, Osaka. I got home after a couple of drinks with a neighbour. Now I’m dizzy and tired. Time to sleep ^^;

Tomorrow I will got to the big electronics store in Umeda and see if I can get this softbank white plan happening.

Lots to tell, but now is sleep.

Night!

China! 中国！ Part 1 – KunMing

So, I’m back. We got back yesterday actually. I caught a cold on the last couple of days, but it didn’t get bad until the last day which was no problem. So now I’m sitting here with the sniffles having just finished putting all my panoramic pictures together (don’t ask). So what happened? Let’s begin with…

Day 1:
Flying flying flying, stopping off at Singapore airport for three hours, flying flying fling, Kunming. I have to say, Singapore airport is so impressive, and so so big. In fact, it seemed smaller this time around because I didn’t have to walk all the way! They have little skytrains to take you to the different parts of the airport now, so it doesn’t take ages to walk everywhere. Free internet too!

So, Kunming! When we got off at Kunming, there were press waiting because we were on the same plane as the Socceroos, the Australian team. When we came through customs, they took our picture because they thought we were the players, but they didn’t put them in the paper haha.

We were picked up by our tour guide people and went to the hotel. We were on the soccer tour for 4 days while we were in Kunming, so we started by checking in to the hotel and then going to get our tickets for the game. The hotel was great. My bro and I were staying on the 11th floor.

Walking down the street for the first time was a bit strange as everyone was looking at us. I don’t think there are enough foreigners in Kunming for the locals to ignore them when they walk past haha. But I guess that’s the same in most of Asia. Ordering lunch was simply funny as we didn’t know Chinese. I’ve been to Beijing so I know what the traffic is like in China, but some of the others were quite surprised at the traffic conditions. Australia is certainly very different. It’s calmer and less fast paced. In China, everyone’s moving all the time, and that includes through red lights when they can. On the main roads, it was illegal to turn left so the roads didn’t block up, so people did U-turns up ahead. And there were heaps of bikes and motorbikes, which were ALL electric! They were basically silent, and gave off no pollution at all. The weather was nice; warm in the day and cold at night.

That night we went to a function for all the Socceroos fans on the tour. It was in one of the hotels, in a big room with a pool. Fruit and snacks were provided was well as drinks. It was interesting, but nothing so special. After that however was more fun. Some of us went out to Kundu, the local bar and club area, and went looking for a good place to have a few drinks. We ended up going to this one that was really quite loud, and were shocked at the high prices. Long story short, we ended up getting a bottle of whisky or something and had a drink, and then found out why the prices were so high. A couple of girls sat with us and started talking to us. They were actually part of the staff, and later went up on stage where bidding began for their company! I probably should have made a bid of 300yuan! That’s $50AUD, and I would have won too hehe. Oh well, no matter now. After that we went home and slept!

Day 2:
Well, it was… hmm, more of the same? I don’t even remember. Let’s see, ah yes! We went on the bus with the tour group up to these mountains in the east, or west… um, maybe it was the west. I can’t remember. To get there we took a little tour through the city where our tour guide, Selina (her English name) explained a whole lot of things about the city. All I really remember is that taxis each have an animal and a number, so if you lose anything or have any enquiries, you can call the taxi company and ask for tiger 11 or something. Pretty nice idea. Oh, and by the way, Kunming is known as the eternal spring city because the weather is nice all year long and flowers grow everywhere all the time.

Anyway, we got to this mountain where a path was made around the side, very narrow, not originally built for groups of tourists to go together. There were 300 steps to climb, but we did it fairly slow and there were many stops on the way with various shrines and statues along the way. We had a view of the whole city from the top, but it was a fairly foggy day, so we couldn’t see the whole city clearly. I’m not so into the touristy things, so it was so-so for me. On the way back down we walked past all the shops again and some people bought some things. My bro bought a resin dragon statue.

Afterwards, we went off to a temple. It was more of a religious site, but these days it’s very touristy as well. We went around this big room with hundreds of figures on the wall, each having their own role in the world whether it be something like the saint of health, or the guy who reaches up with his long arms to put the stars in the sky. There was a woman there praying to one of them. But we couldn’t take pictures of any of the religious things, so I can’t show you.

After that, we went back to the hotels, and everyone got ready to go the Socceroos training session. I decided to opt out of that though, and asked Selina if she had any friends who’d like to go out with me for the day . I was in luck! A girl called Vivian (English name) came to meet me, and we went out! Her real name is ChengYan, but I can’t remember which tones to use in her name ^_^;. I always forget that with Chinese. Anyway, ChengYan and I went out to drink some tea together! We talked a lot about music and language and stuff (so obviously she could speak English). Her English was very good, and she wants to be a tour guide one day. We then went out for dinner at a restaurant which turned out to be very close to a bar where my brother was that night. We had a hot pot dinner together, and over ordered haha. It was delicious of course, and a pleasure to eat with her ^_^. I invited her to come out with us the next day as we were going to go to a mushroom hot pot restaurant that our friend had recommended and my dad had visited. She wasn’t sure if she could come because she had training the next day, so I said I’d call her the next day to confirm if she was available. So after dinner we walked around a bit more and then went home.

Day 3:
Ok, so we had breakfast, went looking for my bro, couldn’t find him, and thought he left with some other people without telling us (which turned out to be completely wrong), so we left without telling him! >_<. Later we found out he spent the day walking around town, which was probably better than what we did haha. Nah, we had a pretty good day I guess. We went to this park which had mock villages of all the ethnic minorities of Yunnan, or all of China? Well, lots of ethnic minorities! There was plenty of singing and dancing, and heaps of buildings in the style of those ethnic subcultures. It was a long day with heaps of walking, and I bought a silly hat because I forgot to bring mine, and I didn’t want to get burnt. I later got rid of that hat haha. I took way too many pictures, Joe tried using a bow and arrow and went horse riding and dad had tea in a Mongolian tent.

So we got back to the hotel and I called ChengYan. She finished her training and was able to come with us! So we all met at 7 or something, and took a couple of a taxis to the mushroom hot pot restaurant. Dad borrowed ChengYan to help order, which took AGES so I went to join them to see what they were doing… they were just still ordering haha. So finally that finished and we started eating. Yum yum. About 7 types of mushrooms and noodles at the end. ChengYan must have thought we were so strange haha, and she said she couldn’t understand everything because it was too fast and we were speaking natural Australian English. She wondered what ‘the mother’ meant when Alan, one of the guys with us, said to pass him the mother spoon (the big one). Hehe.

We then went out to the club that my brother went to the night before. There were other Australians there from the tour group in their Socceroos gear, and some of them, including my bro, were signing things, passing off as the players! >_<! Pretty funny. There were girls dancing on little platforms throughout the club which many people enjoyed haha. ChengYan came with us and ended up calling a friend to come so she had a place to go after as her dorms closed doors at 11pm and she wanted to stay out with us ^_^. We danced and drank, and I stayed longer than any of the others so I danced with ChengYan for ages ^_^. Everyone enjoyed themselves and it was a very nice night!

Day 4:
It was the last day in KunMing, and for most of the tour group, the day. It was the day of the Soccer game! We all dressed in our green and gold (Australian colours) and went to the pre-game function where there was plenty to drink and eat. One of the officials from the team came to talk with us which pleased many people, and he told us the team line-up, which was quite amusing for those of us who knew anything about sport (everyone except me). Apparently, we had no strikers! They were all injured! All of them! We had one of our mid-fielders up front who never plays as a striker. Everyone was doubtful of our ability to attack, and rightly so.

So we went to the game in the bus. When we approached the stadium, we could see all the Chinese supporters flooding into the stadium. We had to walk around to the other side of the stadium, through the sea of the red army. But everyone was quite enthusiastic to see us in fact, and some of the Chinese stopped to take pictures with us. So we got into the stadium at last and took our seats waiting for the game to start. Long story short, it was a pretty uneventful game. No one scored any goals, so it was a draw. The Australians were very happy with that because we had no team! All our players were injured and we stopped a penalty shot. We could afford to lose, but the Chinese had to win. So all in all, we were happy haha.

Getting back was good because I could meet ChengYan again for the last time, as we had to leave KunMing the next day. We went out for dinner again, this time having soup and dumplings. Yum yum. We talked heaps about lots of stuff again and then went for a walk. And then…!! My first ICECREAM DATE! haha. We just got some ice cream and went for a walk. I had always wanted an ice cream date haha. It was very nice to see ChengYan again, and I already miss her ^^.

Shakuhachi!

Hey hey, today I went to a shakuhachi workshop. The shakuhachi is a traditional Japanese flute, originally used for meditation by monks! Anyway, it is very pretty if you can play it well. It’s a bit difficult to produce a sound at first, and takes heaps of practice to get a nice consistent sound. So it was just $5 for this quick little workshop, but that’s just cause the guy wanted to sell a few flutes. I have one now which I can choose to pay off in full, or return soon. I think I will keep it though. It’s $100 which is very cheap for a musical instrument, but I think it will be nice to practise on, and when I manage to produce a tone, it sounds very nice ^^. In the hands of a pro it would be awesome. Pity I’m only a beginner ^^. Well, I seem to have quite a nice collection of flutes now, despite the fact I can’t play any of them haha.

So here it is! My flute collection (click to see the full size picture)! From left to right starting with the little bowly thing that you probably don’t believe is a flute, we have the little bowly thing (I don’t know what it’s called haha) from China, Chinese pan pipes, Andean pan pipes, a Chinese… well… it’s a reed instrument, a Chinese flute called a Xiao, and finally a Japanese shakuhachi with the sellers label still attached haha. Funny considering I studied percussion. haha. Maybe sometime I’ll take a picture of all my percussion instruments.

So, if you can play shakuhachi, drop me a line and give me a few pointers . Right now, I certainly need all the help I can get…

Ouch (not really…) for China!

To China! We will leave on the 23rd of March and return on the 2nd of April. 10 days! So, in preparation for this lovely trip to China, we’ve all gone and gotten shots in our arm. Ouch . I think it was a hepatitis shot. Apparently this one will last me 20 years because I had one on my last trip to China three years ago. I thought you had to get a booster shot within 6 months of the first shot, but the doc said that’s more of an official thing so people don’t forget, and three years is fine, it will still last me 20 years. Well that’s excellent. So in a couple of weeks and a few days, we will be heading off to Kunming and Lijiang in Yunnan province. For your viewing pleasure, I present to you a map of China with all the major cities. You can see Kunming to the south. Lijiang is not shown, but it’s just a little bit north west from Kunming ^^. We will see Australia play China in the world cup qualifiers which will be interesting. Maybe I will buy another nice flute haha. Enough talking, the people want maps! But I’ve only got one!
… my arm feels strange

日本語で！
えっとね。。。あの～　はい。終わった。

。。。

いいえいいえ！もちろん終わらなかった！中国へ！3月23日から4月2日まで行きます！１０日間です！今日はお医者さんに会った、接種をしてきた。（接種はいい言葉だな～辞書で見つけた:D）痛い！＞＿＜！いいえ、うそ！ははは。ちょっとめんどくさいけどね。その接種は中国へ行くじゅんびです。YunnanのKunmingとLijiangへ行きま～すぅ～！Yunnanはとてもきれいなところだそうで、たくさんの人は休みのためにYunnanへ行きます！お父さんとお兄さんと三人のお父さんの友達と一緒に行って、サッカーを観て、たくさんのものを買って、新しいフルートを買う！＞＿＜！イエイ！上は中国の地図、もちろんねはは。Kunming見える？じゃあ、Kunmingのちょっと北西はLijiangです！近いですよ。じゃあ、ここで 本当の終わり。：Ｄ
。。。腕は変な感じがある。。。（’_’）

Leap Year!

You know, it only happens once every 4 years, so I’m not going to get a chance to pointlessly write about it again for a while… February 29! Woo!

2月29日です！おめでとう！イエイ！次の2月29日は4年後だから、僕は書いています。ｗｗ

2 year anniversary!

Well, it’s not today, and it’s certainly not very romantic, but yesterday was my Japanese learning 2 year anniversary! The 27th of February! The truth is, it might be the 26th or the 28th, because it was about a week after I started learning that I decided to put it into my phone calendar. But hey, it’s probably right!

Well, yeah, that’s about all I have to say about that. Not very exciting, but significant to me. It’s also interesting to note that in the past few months after university finished, I’ve been learning at such a faster rate! I can only imagine how things will be from now on, especially once I’m living in Japan.

日本語で！
今日じゃなくても、ロマンチックじゃないけど、昨日は日本語の勉強を始めてから2周年記念日でした！　イエイ！2月27日です！実は、日本語の勉強を初めての1週間後に、その年月日を僕の電話のカレンダーに付けたから、多分間違った。多分26か28だったか分からないね、でも、大切じゃない！27はいいよ！

じゃあ、それだけです！あまり面白くないけど、僕には大切です！ もう一つのことは、最近、大学の終わりの後に、新しい言葉を速くて習っていて、嬉しいです！日本に住むときに、どうですかな、想像しか出来ません。

My New Pocket PC!

Ok, so some people might think I’m a bit of a gizmo geek with all these little electronic things I have. To my collection of electronics including a digital camera, iPod and electronic dictionary, I have added a pocket PC (PPC). Yep, that’s it in my hand in the picture! And as the picture suggests, I bought it so I can study Japanese on the go! Why can’t I simply do it at home, you ask? Well, when I start working for ECC in Japan, I will be doing a lot of commuting. I will probably be working at 3 or 4 different schools, and a couple of them might take a while to get to. Now, I’m a bit of of an efficiency nut! I love my efficiency! I especially love to maximise it with technology. As you can see in the picture, the PPC is running Stackz, which is one of the favourite programs I use. I actually use two… Stackz for short term memory and Full Recall for long term retention. I won’t go into the details, but if you happen to be into the details, I’m now taking appointments.

So, I still haven’t gotten to the point yet, have I? Well, it’s probably obvious by now. Time efficiency people! Instead of wasting all that time on the train doing nothing, I can get through my daily Japanese revision! I used to spend most train time listening to Japanese pod casts… lessons and talk shows, but now I’m focusing on flashcards for vocab, as speaking and listening is no longer a problem for me… it’s just my small vocab holding me back. Besides, I will be getting plenty of listening practice once I’m in Japan!

I didn’t really research much about what they can do to be honest, I just researched which to buy. How’s this for cool… if I’m in a wifi hotspot, I can connect to MSN and Skype and have voice chats for free with people from anywhere in the world as if it were a mobile phone . Yeah, just like any computer can, but it’s kind of cool to have a little portable device that you can carry around in your pocket! I could even use a Bluetooth headset and really use it like a mobile phone!

Go the tech! I highly support technology as an aid to everything. People who say it’s unnecessary just don’t know how to use it well!

新しい言葉。。。

固い・かたい 殺し屋・ころしや 投げる・なげる 固まる・かたまる 殺す・ころす 固める・かためる 定める・さだめる 設ける・もうける 更に・さらに 硬い・かたい 更新・こうしん 変更・へんこう 堅い・かたい 予定・よてい 固定・こてい 資金・しきん 花・はな 資本・しほん

資料・しりょう 投資・とうし 爪・つめ 設定・せってい 原稿・げんこう 元旦・がんたん 組・くみ 織る・おる 番組・ばんぐみ 組織・そしき 組合・くみあい 訳・わけ 模様・もよう 写す・うつす 追う・おう 掛ける・かける 掛かる・かかる 追加・ついか

番・ばん 一番・いちばん 大昔・おおむかし 暮れる・くれる 暮らす・くらす 神・かみ 正月・しょうがつ 年の暮れ・としのくれ 一旦・いったん 投稿・とうこう 緑・みどり 写真・しゃしん 汁・しる・つゆ 決定・けってい 録る・とる 写る・うつる 撮る・とる

この間書いた時以来勉強した言葉。　頭。。。僕の頭。。。痛い～＞＿＜！　ｗｗ
じゃあ、今、例文！！　いいえ、うそ！　ははは。　ね、　この推理小説を勉強しています （推理小説じゃないけど、正しい言葉がまだ分からないｗｗ）。　読みませんか?　：Ｄ

さて：

ネコがネズミをおいかけるわけ

むかしむかし、人間も生まれていない、おおむかしのある年の暮れのことです。
神さまが、動物たちに言いました。

ECC

There is a reason why I started a new blog. This blog allows comments from people without an account here, whereas my previous blog did not. This is important to me because I will be going to Japan, and I want my friends and family to have a way to check up on my adventures

So, about that… Two years ago I decided to go to Japan. Over the two years reasons changed and interests evolved. I went for a job interview with a company called ECC (English through Communication for the Community). They have many schools throughout the Kinki, Chubu and Kanto districts, which are all next to each in central Japan. So I went for my interview which consisted of a group questions and answers session with a guy from the company and the two recruiting people, followed by a killer 1 hour English test with a minimum pass rate of 70% (that test knocked back about 40% of the applicants), a role play (pretending to teach beginner level kids), and finally personal interview. There were breaks in between each stage and it all lasted from 10am to 3:30pm. Talk about fast contact though, they called me at 5:30 to confirm that I was successful. After people failed the English test, there were only 13 people left, so they just talked about it afterwards, made decisions, and contacted us soon after.

So, in 3 or 4 months I’m expecting to go to Japan to teach English! It will be 29.5 hours a week. The pay is not amazing, but it’s enough. I’m going for the experience, not to get rich, and I’m really looking forward to it! I will be teaching adults and children, about 50% of the time on each. Well, that’s what I’ve been told to expect, but it could lean more towards adults or more towards kids depending on, well, a lot of things.

Well, the next step is to wait for placement info. I’m really hoping to get the kinki district, as that will mean Kansai, and very likely Osaka. Osaka’s dialect is very colourful and relaxed, very reflective of the people. Also, the only possibility for my own apartment (box) is if I am placed in Osaka. Well, wherever I end up, I will put my Japanese to the ultimate test, and see how living in a foreign country works out!

But before any of this happens, I’m going to CHINA for 10 days from the 23rd or March, where I’ll see Australia play China in a World Cup qualifier. It will certainly be interesting sitting in the green and gold army surrounded by tens of thousands of Chinese supporters. I’m going with my dad and brother, along with 3 family friends. I’ll have to brush up on my survival Chinese