In Tokyo

Well this is my last night in tokyo, i've had a great time i've checked out all the major districts- Shinjuku and Shibuya(the main 2 shopping districts), Jinbocho(the used book district), the emperor's palace, Roppongi(spelling unsure- the club district) and my personal favorite Akihabara(the electric and manga district). The only sad thing is the fact i've been unable to physically meet up with any of the other trainee's, but thats okay its still been fantastic, Tokyo is huge and wonderful.

One Weird thing though i've discovered that the Nintendo DS(both the new lite model and the original) are sold out everywhere in tokyo. I noticed it when looking around akihabara and so i've kept my eyes out for them and in all districts and in all game and department stores they are either totally sold out or jacked up to exhorbitant prices.(RRP is Y16880(about 185 AU) jacked up prices are Y5000 to Y10000 more).

The picture is a picture of akihabara at night.

Merry Christmas from Tokyo

Well, i'm on a 5 night trip to visit tokyo during my holiday before i start teaching. Getting there: I caught a LTD express from Kumamoto to Hakata(major transfer point for Kyushu(south island of japan) and from there i caught a Shinkansen(bullet train) all the way to tokyo. I'm staying at a nice hostel called the Sakura Hostel in Asakusa, its very close by train/subway to pretty much everything. Anyway today's christmas and i spent the day walking around in Akihabara(Electronics district), and i loved it almost every gadget imaginable along with an amazing amount of games, dvds etc. and anime, manga and all the related merchandise. Anyway, despite being very cool its not all that amazing to look at so instead i've got a picture of me in front of the aussie flag in my apartment in kumamoto.

Last day in Takatsuki

This is my last post from Takatsuki(i know its also only my 2nd). Training is over and tommorrow our training group splits up and goes our seperate ways. I'm going to Kumamoto by shinkansen(and a few other trains). Training has been great and the group which is in the photo(from left to right: Myself, Alex(canadian), Nissa(canadian-bengali), Billy(canadian), Alice(canadian-chinese), Cory(american), Aaron(canadian) and Hamish(canadian)) has been a fantastic group as was our trainer Glenn who's australian by birth but has been living over here for 5 years and is married with 2 children. Its kind of sad to be leaving this area but it was a great experience and in a short time i've managed to see Nagoya, Osaka and Kyoto(the 4th, 3rd and 2nd biggest cities in japan). I've got a fortnite(approx)holiday when i get to kumamoto so i plan to see more of japan in that time(hopefully tokyo), it may take some time to get the internet set up properly but i'll be sure to post whenever i'm able.

PS a very big and very happy birthday to my dad who's turning 52 tommorrow.

long time no post

Sorry for not posting for a while, I've moved from Nagoya to Osaka(well Takatsuki which is halfway between osaka and kyoto anyway). The internet at the hotel has been acting up and only a few people have consistant connections, i'm posting this in one of the other guys rooms through a wireless network. In the last week i've been doing training starting with monday in Nagoya which was in formal suits and consisted of the official introduction and contract signing before catching a shinkansen(bullet train) to Kyoto. Tuesday was general training, wednesday was more training and a pair based observation of actual lessons, thursday was more training and friday was observation plus teaching a lesson. On the weekend we looked around osaka on saturday and kyoto on the sunday. Kyoto was by far the superior with Kiyomizu dera being by far the biggest highlight. I'll post some photos at a later date since i'm very tired at the moment.

EDIT: added image of location of Takatsuki in Osaka prefecture.

2nd day

In the morning i went of to look around sakae by myself, i checked out Oasis 21 which is a really cool bus depot/shopping area which has an unusual glass roof structure with a large fountain on it. After that i checked out Mandrake which is a really cool shop with heaps of new and old anime and manga stuff in it. Then i just wandered around for a while until meeting up at about 1-1:30 with the other trainee's to go and see the robot museum. One really cool thing i did see while wandering around was an "Outback Steakhouse" which is an australian restaurant japanese style, I also saw Thorpedo sports water.

Anyway the robot museum was fantastic there was a robot which sketched outlines and another robot which made music by its rotational noises. Upstairs they had a history of robots in popular culture and a cool section where you could play with robot related merchandise(they also had a large robot giftshop), one toy which is a sort of lego on crack allows you to build fully articulated robot looking creations and was highly addictive(myself aron and alex stayed there for about an hour).

After the robot museum we headed in a new direction to go and find lunch, when we eventually did discover a place it was noodles with egg and pork etc. which was very nice and filling. We continued on after lunch and found a large shopping arcade which we wandered through for a while stopping at a gaming place where we lost alex to the lure of the fighting games. The other 5 of us continuedd through the arcade getting a touch lost but in the end we found our way out and headed back to the hotel to get some jackets before going for dinner. Before we got to the hotel we ran into Alex and another new trainee the chinese canadian Alice, who has already done a small amount of time with Peppy Kids and speaks much better japanese than the rest of us.

We went back to the hotel, got the jackets and headed out again, it took us a fair while to find a place which could seat 7, eventually we ended up sitting around a bar in a quite nice restaurant, i had the garlic fries and a chicken with roast vegatables dish which was nicely spicy. On the way back from eating we saw a very cool street band called "The Blunk Top" http://www.blunktop.com, they did a nice swingy funk rock thing which was foot tappingly good.

The image is of the arcade we went to.

1st Day

Well yesterday was my 1st full day in Japan. I rested in the morning until about 11 when Garth brought Hamish(canadian) another of the trainees to the hotel. Myself, Garth, Hamish and Nissa all went for a walk to Maruzen which is a massive bookstore with a decent foreign language(aka english) section. Afterwards Hamish went of on his own because he couldn't sign in to the hotel till 2 and Garth showed Nissa and myself how to use the subway and where the head office is. After seeing the office and saying goodbye to Garth Nissa and myself went to Mos Burger for lunch, its a really cool place which does fast food style food but does it freshly prepared and with restaurant service, miraculously while there we met a teacher with another program called Afsana who was bengali, this was particularily miraculous since Nissa is also bengali. After lunch we went to an electronics store to get Nissa an adaptor and some batteries for myself, while there i bought a cheapish but nice casio watch since that was one thing i forgot to bring over. After that we went to see nagoya castle, its a really nice reconstructed castle with a beautiful garden surrounds. Then we went back to sakae and had a look around and went on the ferris wheel on the side of one of the buildings before going to a sushi restaurant for dinner. When we got back to the hotel some of the other trainees who we hadn't met yet were there Alex, Arron(unsure of spelling) and Cory, Cory had just got in and was from america but both Alex and Arron are canadian. We went out searching for somewhere to get a drink and finally found a restaurant/bar which served saki, bear and pizza, Japanese pizza is nice but really thin. The picture is of the top of Nagoya castle, the gold things are dragon/fish beasts which are a symbol of nagoya castle and seem to be a good luck charm, also interesting is the murder of crows which were flying around the castle.

In Nagoya

Hi this is Luke Gration now in Nagoya Japan,

The flight over was good except that wearing winter gear during the Cairns stopover was a bit strange. Garth from the company picked me up at the airport in Nagoya. Getting through customs at the airport was much easier than i thought it would be but then i'm used to australian customs which is the strictest around. We drove from the airport it took about 45 min to the Mitsui Urban Hotel Nagoya which is within walking distance of the main shopping district Sakae, the room is small but nice which TV aircon and everything you might need. Later on Jeff(also with the company) brought Nissa(who is from Canada), also a trainee to the hotel, after Jeff and Garth left, Nissa and myself went out to check out Sakae, and also to get some food, i'm not quite sure what I ate but it was good.

Thats all from me for the moment, as soon as i get some new batteries i'll post an image from the hotel.
EDIT: Here's a photo from my room at the hotel, as you can see its overlooking a pretty busy intersection.

1st Post

Hi my name is Luke Gration and this is my BLOG, i'm going to be teaching english over in Japan(i live on the sunshine coast, QLD, australia at the moment) for a year and this BLOG is primarily a method of keeping contact with friends and family.