Around the World in Half a Day

3rd November is yet another National Holiday in Japan. They have about 12 a year, more than most countries, and my theory is that it's because of their insane work ethic which leaves many people, some of my friends included, working 17 hours a day in Tokyo.

What to do with a holiday? Well, the answer was EAT.

Kyoto International Community Foundation is a large organisation not far from where I live and it's where I've just start taking Japanese lessons (for free!) They were holding an open day, promising food and entertainment from around the world. Well, we didn't get much past the food to be honest.

I've said this before, but I'll say it again: food from stalls is never as good as it looks. I decided to visit Germany which was perhaps a mistake in itself, given my recollections of German food. However, they promised good quality looking sausages and potato salad. How could I resist? The two sausages in the picture were quite small but they looked so tasty and potato salad....mmm......

NOT. Firstly, when I went to buy the plate advertised for 400 円 they charged me an extra 100 円 for a second sausage. I believe that's called false advertising, and I believe it's illegal in the UK. Next, when I examined my potato salad, it looked very strange indeed. It didn't appear to have any potatoes in it. Nor did it seem to be covered in mayonnaise. Instead, I got some doughy pasta balls mixed in with sauerkraut. Not impressed.

Instead, we spent 25 minute queuing for a delicious mutton kebab which was sized for hungry two year-olds.

It was only later that we discovered more food stalls and some delicious looking burgers at Tom's Burger Bar. But hang on...Tom's Burger Bar rings a bell.......I realised I was looking at Tom of Tom's Burger Bar and Tom's English School which I'd applied to the day before! I even wrote that should I not be the teacher he was looking for, I'd stop by and try what he promised were the best burgers in Kyoto. And here he was......packing up his stand! He looked pretty busy so I didn't stop to say "Hello, I applied for your job yesterday, and actually I'm really gutted that your burgers have sold out as I just ate some German mush." (*Tom actually emailed me the day after the fair and now I work for his English school!!)

Food disappointments aside, the open day had a wonderfully lively atmosphere and was packed full of people, and mega cute kids (Japanese kids seem so much cuter than British kids!) Check out Calle's photos of the varieties of human life:

(Yes of course it makes perfect sense to have a Japanese man dressed as Santa, playing some kind of Asian instrument, in EARLY NOVEMBER).

Needless to say, we were still hungry and we decided to cycle down to Yamashina station area to do some shopping and take tea at the cake palace, mentioned in this previous post here. You can see more amazing photos of probably the weirdest café in the world and read the review on my brand new blog.

Interview terror; Afternoon tea; Giant brooms

Last Friday, I went for an interview as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) within Kyoto City schools. Most (all?) junior high schools and high schools in Japan will have an ALT come to help out with teaching the classes. The position started in under two weeks so I guessed they were desperate - an ALT must have dropped out. It was also the dream job.

Perhaps I should back-track here. I turned down Berlitz because of the hours - 3 evenings a week and 12 hours on Saturday would leave little time to see Calle, who studies 8:30am - 18:30 on some days. This ALT position with 7 hour weekday working hours was therefore like a dream come true.

And the interview was a nightmare come true.

Calle navigated me to this council building next to a huge, imposing Victorian-style building that stood out like sore thumbs amongst the ugly, modern buildings which dominate central Kyoto. Turns out the council building was somehow joined to it because I ended up inside it. By going to the 5th floor of the council building, following labyrinthine passages down a ramp and ta-dah! There I was on the 4th floor of the creepy mansion place.

As to the interview itself, I guess I can only describe it as one of those "lost in translation" moments. I was sat in front of a panel of 5 Japanese men who spoke little-to-no English and an American interpreter, who looked a little to smug at this position of power. Perhaps that's because I have a bone to pick with him over the fact he didn't translate my answers in the great depth and length with which I gave them. But perhaps that was the least of my worries.

They asked me very few questions about my experience. In fact, they seemed more bothered with things like this: "What types of people do you get on with?", "Who do you not get on with?" and "A lot of taxpayers money will be going on your salary. How will you be a good public servant?"

To which my answer was, "Not go out and wreck the city?"

Unsurprisingly, I haven't heard back.....

After being thoroughly traumatised by the psuedo-psychological test, I need a good dose of British culture. And so Calle and I set off to the Kobe Afternoon Tea Club!

Kobe Afternoon Tea Club was founded by Richard Mort, an English Afternoon Tea lover. He originally ran the group in Tokyo but since life has brought him to Kobe, the club came too. I met him back in August 2009 as he is a CouchSurfer. We shared a sophisticated tea and cake session.

This month's club was held at the Oriental Hotel, a modern yet swanky affair which provided us with a fancy yet restrained function room.

The menu included a variety of British

"delicacies", such as scones with clotted cream and jam, Cornish pasties and flapjacks. Yet they were not quite British: they were distinctly Japanese in size. The most interesting interpretation had to be the Cornish Pasty - it was minuscule, shaped like a gyoza, with very thin pastry and neatly layered meat, carrots and potato. It was pretty tasty though!

On the way back, we discovered a cake palace on a quiet street. Can't wait to go there for cake!

Sunday was the Kyoto Jidai Matsuri. One of the three largest festivals in Kyoto, it was created in the late 19th century in response to fears of Kyoto's declining glory after it lost its status as capital to Tokyo. The festival features a procession of historical costumes from each era in Kyoto's history, from 794 to the more recent Meiji period.

It takes over two hours to go past. And the participants look far more bored than the spectators. Many are teenage boys who clearly look coerced into it and carry their swords without the relish one expects from males when presented with a weapon.

My second favourite part was the giant brooms, which were tossed in the air. It prompted me to remark クリーニングをします！(I do cleaning!) which turned a few heads in the nearby crowd.

My favourite part was the horses, which no-one had trained. The very first horse in the parade refused to pull the carriage and the other carriages had to overtake. Others had to be continually calmed down and a few kept whinnying and tried to bolt! Given that this festival happens annually, I wonder how no-one thought to bring in trained horses?!

Check out more below:

Bike, Mobile....Job?

It was my second day in Japan and I had my mobile. But I sorely lacked two things: the job and the bike to get to the job.

Kyoto public transport is expensive and changing lines can cost you twice as much. Hence the bike. Its something which everyone seems to have.

THE BIKE

This mission was swift and successful, like my entire morning. Venturing out with my broken Japanese, I managed to get a second key cut for the apartment and photocopy my passport. On a roll, I decided to catch the subway just two stops and walk the 2km to Kyoto University, without any regard for the humidity. Sweaty but still as bouncy as usual, I met Calle and two other students on the scholarship program: James, the ultimate stereotype of the Oxford undergraduate, and a Swede, Victor, who I want to call Jacob for no apparent reason. (I decided to tell him this to avoid any future embarrassing mistakes by advance preparation).

We lunched and approached a new and second-hand bike store around the corner from the uni. I eyed up the specimens before selecting the biggest beast of them all (from within the price range). I can proudly declare that my bike has 27 inch wheels, not 26 inch wheels like all the other commoners! Sadly bikes in Japan don't seem to have gears. And sadly, my pride was sorely diminished after the events of today. I shall elaborate below.

However, my bike did lead me to this rather fine fellow here:

THE JOBS (and the mini-saga)

Being anxious to find work, I applied to EREV English school who match students with teachers for private one-one lessons. Before I'd even arrived, they hooked me up with three different students. I was to meet the first on Friday.

I also had a group interview session with Berlitz arranged for Thursday. I trekked over an hour to Osaka, and despite waiting longer for my trains than expected, made it with a cool 5 minutes to spare. The four of us were given a presentation, talked through the contracts available, and asked to fill in a post-interview questionnaire.

The trek back became more like an epic quest, a quest in which the protagonist's actions are thwarted at every turn. First, the subway train decided to stop halfway to the station I needed to get to. I had to abandon it and get on the next. Then at the station, the signs to the JR line took me out into the middle of nowhere. I whipped out some broken Japannese and a lady directed me to where I needed to go: 50m down the road, up three flights of stairs, double-back on myself, cross an underpass, go down some stairs, walk for another 10 minutes. Finally I saw steps ascending to the JR line. I came to the barriers - barriers with no ticket machines! Turns out tickets are only sold on the other side of the station. FML. I then hop on the first available train, which I read as a "rapid service". Nope. It was local and it stopped everywhere!

The only good news on my arrival home was that I had got an interview for the next day at the Kyoto language centr. Hurrah! Oh, and Calle cooked me dinner :)

THE SAGA: BIKING TO THE JOBS

Friday morning: Prepared for my interview and for my private lesson, I hoisted my rucksack onto my back. It was far too heavy, but as I don't have access to a printer, my laptop was the next best way of using teaching resources for my student.

One trouser leg rolled up, I glided down the hill, feeling like a じてんしゃひめ (bike princess). However, normally princesses don't have to navigate their way.....so I wasn't paying slightest attention at all to where I was going, I realised I'd turned off before I hit the river. The result: I sweated more than I would have liked to getting to that interview. I then found that the street where Berlitz is located had plague of no bike signs. However, being encouraged by the other bike outside the building, I parked it and rushed on up to the ninth floor.

The interview could have started better. It could have started without me knocking three books off the shelf as the interviewers walked into the room. However, I felt like it went really well and quite enjoyed myself (where did my nerves go?) As I was leaving, however, they gave me a warning about the council who go around impounding bikes. Under no circumstances should I leave the bike outside this building, especially as the owner of the building is a big wig in the local Shijo community and always campaigning against the bikes.

I bade them goodbye rather too hastily and ran to my bike. It had a notice stuck to it. Praying it wasn't a fine, I ripped it off and spun my bike round. CRACK. The bottom of the saddle snapped, leaving it only attached by one spring. My fearsome beast had failed me already. Still in a panic, I mounted my bike and kicked the stand back, slicing my ankle open in the process. Bleeding, and sweating again, I focussed any sense of direction on making it to my next engagement without cycling down a narrow side street full of temples.

Target: located. But where the hell do I put my bike? Yet again, the roads were filled with anti-bike signs. I ended up detouring down a side street and parking it outside someone's house like it belonged to them. With 15 minutes to spare, I entered the station in search of the Lotteria burger bar, and through some more broken Japanese, I found my student and launched into a "Getting To Know You"-style lesson.

The saga continued however. I received a call from Calle, who had neither a bike nore the money to get the train into town. He has had a rather unfortunate accident with his credit card which means that it doesn't give him money now it's snapped in half. He had to walk. For over an hour in the pouring rain.

Nevertheless, he made it and we returned to the bike store, where they replaced my saddle without any fuss. Phew.

We then had to walk home. In even heavier rain. Then Berlitz rang whilst I was walking down a very busy street in very heavy rain. So we stood in a doorway. Which apparently greatly offended the man who worked inside. He decided to shoo us, then drag a heavy sign out to where we were standing and finally resorted to trying to sweep us away with a broom, at the precise moment when I finished my phonecall. No love and shelter thy neighbour there.

But that doesn't matter. BECAUSE I HAVE A JOB. (If I do the unpaid 9.15 - 5.30 training in Osaka next week. There's always catch, isn't there?)

Nani desu ka / What?! (on earth is going on?)

Have you ever had someone want to molest your hair on public transport? Keep this relatively clean, please - I'm talking about the hair on your head. If not, I can tell you all about my experiences (yes, plural for a reason). The title of this post pretty much sums up my reaction to this, and a few other events throughout the evening.

However, it also perfectly fits my experience of language learning on my 2nd day at university. We had a different teacher who is very keen to speak as little in English as possible, although doesn't always manage it. As a recent TEFL graduate, I can only commend these efforts. However, there is a need to explain what is going on very slowly and clearly in Japanese and check the class understands this. Because several of my classmates and I had not one clue what was going on. We knew she wanted us to read something. Or maybe, no, it was answer the first question. Or was it just do the example? Oh wait, I'm not even on the right page. Damn.

She'd only just taught us numbers so I half the time I only understood that she'd asked us to turn to a page when the student next to me, Tom F, who has studied a bit more Japanese than I have, began rifling through the handouts. To cut what could be a much longer rant on the frustration of not understanding, I need to study hard this weekend. And hopefully I'm going to make a better, more empathetic TEFL teacher when I go abroad next year.

The afternoon was passed confusion-free and with a stomach blissfully full of very cheap and oishii (delicious) tabemono (food) from the Shimo-tokaido campus. Sadly, this doesn't make for a very interesting blog post. The fun really begins when we all set out to an izakaya (Japanese drinking tavern that serves food as well) in Shinjuku for a party to say goodbye to one of the Japanese volunteer students and to welcome us JLSP students to the fold. First off, we get separated at Shinjuku, one of the world's largest station, and horrendously easy to get lost in. Finally, we manage to regroup and wind our way through the streets near Kabukicho, the red light district of Tokyo. Here's a shot of the Shinjuku at night:

We arrive at a place that looks like a garage but actually contains the izakaya which stretches much wider than its bizarrely nondescript entrance and goes up four floors - it was pretty much a Tardis! I then discover that even though I don't drink I have to pay 3,000yen for this evening. I pray this some kind of good deal, despite the price. After much questioning, I find out it is eat and drink as much as you like for a value up to that 3,000.

I didn't need telling twice. Lucy (another non-drinker) and I began to work away through platters upon platters of food. Fried chicken, fried octopus, fried shrimp, potato salad, octopus dumplings, gyoza (Chinese dumplings), pickled cucumber, braised pork belly, pork belly on sticks, shitake mushrooms, endamame beans... I wish I'd taken a picture. It was soooo good. Tom P also insisted that I drink some plum wine (priestss in training like their drink apparently) and so I managed a glass of that, and duly bowed when I completed it. I wouldn't order it again, but I didn't want to spit it out immediately which is an improvement on most alcohol.

Many introductions and fun conversations later, and the evening was getting late. We left at past midnight, with many people definitely tipsy if not drunk, whilst I was cheerily sporting the latest chopstick look. Sadly, they were only wooden disposable ones which inevitably led to comments that I was obviously pretty cheap...

With fears that we would miss out last train, we made it onto a different line. By this point, many people were a little worse for wear. Axal (on the right) felt somewhat neglected and decided that he should also share in the cuddles:

It was at this point that hair molestation on public transport experience number 2 occurred. Experience Number 1 was in London when a friend and I were attempting to make it back to Richmond on night buses, accompanied by two guys heading the same way and possibly on something more than alcohol. Whilst on this bus, I turn round to find one of the guys has got my hair in his mouth and is chewing it.

Experience Number 2 fortunately involves no saliva. A Japanese man became enchanted with the chopsticks in my hair, asking repeatedly if he could pick one out, and for me to spin round. Now trust me when I tell you it's not a particularly comfortable feeling to turn your back to a drunk person who's trying to feel up your hair. Eventually, I picked out a chopstick and gave it to him in an attempt to shut him up but then he tried to put it back in my hair, almost taking out my eye in the process. Antti, one of the Finnish students, safely returned it to me.

The party should have stopped as soon as we stumbled home. But Tom P called for more drinks in his room and beer-sharing man-love was high:

It was past 3am before I made it back to my room in a frenzied, hyper-state and decided to call England until 4am. It's 1pm the next day now. I am unwashed, coming down with a cold and sorely regretting the late night. But what an evening!