Quick Post- Last Day

Yello everybody

just a quick post on my last day in Japan. In the morning I checked out of the capsule hotel(the nights sleep was pretty good) and went to tokyo station to deposite my bags in a locker for the day. I then caught a train out to Miyataka where the studio gibli museum is. Miyataka is a nice town and the gibli museum was fantastic, it had a room full of watchable animation displays including one where a large number of figurines were on a mechanical circle and when the circle moved very fast and the lights were strobed it would appear to be animated. There was also a movie showing however I unfortunately didn't line up fast enough to make the first showing and the 2nd showing wasn't until mid afternoon. Anyway it was great fun and well worth a visit, afterwards I went to Shinjuku to look around and shop for a while before coming back here to tokyo where i'll catch the airport express in a short while.

The images are a couple from the gibli museum and one of my capsule.

Akiba I love it so

Yello Everybody,

Today was my last full day in Japan. I arrived in Tokyo early morning stopped had breakfast and rested for a while before heading over to the capsule hotel in Akihabara to drop my bags off. After doing that I spent the entire day in Akiba, looking through electronics, otaku and souveneer stores. I bought several otaku related items, some gifts for people and towards the end of the day after checking all the stores around I bought a digital camera for myself. My other camera as i`ve mentioned is tempermental and old(it was my dad`s old camera 1st). So for the low price of just over 20000 yen($200) I bought myself a 7.1 megapixel Nikon "Coolpix" digital camera, a leather case and a 2 gigabite SD card、not a bad price if I do say so myself. Anyway for dinner I went to an interesting cafe called "with cat"(or alternately "witch cat"), it was a neko mimi theme cafe, with all the waitresses dressed in maid outfits with cat ears(very cute). The cafe was(as the majority of them are) very laid back and family friendly and I enjoyed a nice light dinner and some great service. Unfortunately they prohibit photography so I can`t show you any pictures.

Anyway tommorrow is my last day in Tokyo and in Japan, my plan is to go and see the studio gibli museum in the morning, followed by lunch and some final shopping(and probably cash changing) in Shinjuku before heading to Narita airport aiming to get there by 4:30(the plane leaves at 8:10. I`ll try to do another post tommorrow, probably at an internet cafe in Shinjuku.

The photo`s today are one of my new camera and one of the sign for the with cat cafe.

Nagoya and a envelope full of cash

Yello Everybody,

today i`m posting from a media cafe popeye internet cafe(it`s a quite common chain in Japan), in Nagoya. Last night I caught the overnight bus from Tokyo arriving at about 6-6:30 am this morning, I stored my bag went had breakfast and rested for a while before catching a subway to Peppy`s head office to collect my final pay check. It took next to no time at all and I suddenly found myself in possession of an envelope full of cash(I won`t say exactly how much but it was slightly better than I had expected and is a sum larger than i`ve ever had at 1 time before(which is not saying much in my case). For a while I thought about spending a small part of it on some special item today, however Nagoya just doesn`t have the range of things that Tokyo does and i`m back there tommorrow. I spent the day looking around Nagoya, unfortunately the 1 place i was actually interested in going to, the Robot Museum is now closed(been closed for less than a month). But I still enjoyed looking around and suprised myself by being able to remember how to get everywhere despite only spending a few days here a little under a year ago. For dinner I decided to treat myself and went to check out the unique restaurant called the `Outback Steak House` which is a japanese steakhouse with an Aussie theme and Aussie decorations(australian paintings, australian aboriginal wall paintings, boomerangs and so on). The food was mainly steaks but also had chicken, ribs, american style hamburgers and something known as the bloomin` onion(a whole large onion cut spread and deep fried into a massive flower shape). I personally went for a good steak, some salad and some fries, it was very tasty and the service was good especially that of a fantastic waiter who spoke very good english and asked to be called Moto(`-san`). One interesting thing was that they didn`t have any australian beers(although they did have australian wines and Two Dogs alcoholic soda`s). Anyway i`m just spending time in the cafe now until I have to leave and catch the highway bus back to Tokyo(my last thank goodness).

I will continue my post a day trend tommorrow and try to on Wednesday before finishing up with a final post after I`m back in Australia. This will total 100 posts(all full posts, any double posts or youtube only posts have been altered or deleted). I`m considering maintaining the BLOG afterwards as an Otaku related blog site.

Chillin` near Harajuku

Yello everybody,

This morning I left the Sakura Hostel in Asakusa, went and found the exact location of my bus for tonight and deposited my large bag in baggage storage(unfortunately only open until 6pm). I then went by subway to Yoyogi-koen, near Harajuku, it`s a massive park famous for it`s diverse cultural activities. There were many live acts along the paths and streets, some sort of regae festival, people with drums and practising performance arts. Later I found the rockabilly men, people who basically seem to live a breath the movie `Grease` with leather jackets, motorcycles, old american cars, and doing coreographed dances to 50`s music(very entertaining), they also have massive permed hair. Later still I found the group which was my main reason for going, the Cos-play-Zoku. They are an interesting group of mainly youngish people(high school and older, for the most part all girls, who on the weekends get dressed up in cosplay(costume play, dressing up as a character) and hang out near harajuku posing for all the people who come past. The appearance is mainly gothic lolita but there were some variations including a girl dressed up as a elementary school students(uniform hat bag lollypop) a girl in a suit with bunny ears(bunny being Usagi in japanese, ears being Mimi, making them Usagi Mimi), some hard core punkish girls and others. All very interesting and they had quite a large crowd gathered just to photograph them.

After Harajuku, I went over to shibuya looked around and ended up posting this at an internet cafe located above the big HMV building.

The picture today is just a simple shot of one of the more simple cos-play-zoku girls.

Anyway tonight i`m going to have to pick up my bag, wait and catch my overnight bus and then i`ll be of to Nagoya to pick up my final pay(woohoo, spending money).

EDIT: found a wireless connection, the other pictures are all uploaded on my facebook. My camera is again on the fritz, it took 1 shot and then died, i'm seriously thinking about getting a new one after I get paid(not top of the range but a decent brand decent quality small digital camera), luckily my camera has a 2 megapixel camera which takes decent quality shots, so at least I can take pictures.

Voting and a stair master with a view

Yello Everybody,

Greetings again from Tokyo. I had a nice night sleep late morning today I headed to the Australian Embassy to vote in the federal election. The embassy is in the southern end of central tokyo about 5 minutes walk from Azabu Juban subway station, the building is a horrible concrete and steel structure which i'm sure was meant to be modern but just ends up looking ugly(at least to my mind). There were a lot of other people there also for the election(including a young woman who for some reason was carrying around a large inflated kangaroo(half her height)), anyway I voted in a relatively short time and left.

QUICK POLITICAL RANT- I'm not a huge follower of Australian politics, I was when I was younger but i've given up after coming to the realization that both the major parties are pretty much the same and whatever positive things the government does are balanced by the negative things. Take the Liberal party and John Howard, they've done a great job with the economy, however we now have to pay much more money for things like health insurance, university degrees and books(book costs in Australia are outragious, I buy imported English Language books here in Japan for 2/3rds of what I would be paying in Australia and book costs have only gone up to this high in the last 10 years, it's a sad state of affairs which adds to Australia's illiteracy problems). The one thing I truly believe is that no party should be in power to long(especially with majorities in both houses of government), the longer they are in power the more complacent and egotistical they become. On this premise I'm hoping that the Liberals lose power(and the polls seem to support this happening).

After the embassy, since it was only a short walk away I went to the Tokyo Tower(major landmark of Tokyo and of much anime fame(mainly for many animes showing it being destroyed)). The first 4 levels of the tower are shops, small museums(of the tacky king like guiness world records), the 5 level is open and has some small rides for kids. After that the fun starts, to get to the main observation level you have to buy a ticket(costs 820 yen for an adult) and that buys you the privelege to walk up 600 steps, quite small quite steep steps to the observation level. When you get there there are 2 levels for observation, one with a cafe and one with a gift shop. On the 2nd level there was also the entrance for the special observation level(even higher up) but since it was an extra 620 yen and the line was incredibly long and a staff person told me there was more than a hours wait, I decided against it. The view from the main observation level was pretty impressive in anycase. Tokyo tower by the way is the interesting height of 333 meters, and every child in Japan knows this.

Afterwards I headed over to Shibuya where I had dinner and looked around the shops for a while before returning to the hostel. The photo's from today in entirety are on my facebook.

On a sad note one of my many favorite authors, Robert Jordan has died. It must have been relatively recently since I found out from a small sign when I was investigating the english language section of a bookshop. He is best known for his series "The Wheel of Time" which is a huge series numbering 11 massive volumes, he was in the process of writing the 12th(and possibly final) novel, but has died from some sort of rare heart condition. This is a great tragedy and his characters and great ongoing story unfortunately die with him.

Quick Post- Sakura Hostel

Yello Everybody,

Just another quick post. Today i'm at the Sakura Hostel in Asakusa Tokyo. I stayed here about 11 months ago last christmas, it's a really nice hostel, clean, cheap, good facilities(including wireless internet) and it's very popular almost always booked out or at least very full and considering there's 5 floors of accomodation(my floor for instance(no. 2) has 4 rooms with 8 bunks a piece), that's a lot of people(mainly foreign tourists). Last night I caught the highway bus from Kyoto to Tokyo(again it wasn't a great night sleep, this one was more crowded and had less seat room and leg room than the one from Hiroshima to Kyoto) I arrived here at about 6-6:30 in the morning, caught a couple of subway out to Asakusa, stopped at MacDonalds for breakfast(bad but at 7 in the morning the 24 hour MacDonalds was the only thing open), before going to the hostel and checking my luggage in. I then went to Shinjuku to look through some of the shops, have lunch and then I came back this afternoon to actually check in. I'm pretty tired so I'm not planning on doing anything tonight, luckily though i'm here 2 nights so I should be well rested. Tommorrow I have to go to the Australian Embassy to vote in the Federal Election, i'm planning to probably go see Tokyo Tower as well.

The picture is of the sakura hostel staff in front of the hostel from the hostels website(SakuraHostel).

A couple of charms

Yello everybody,

Last night I stayed at bAKpAK youth hostel in Kyoto, where I met an interesting american named Ray(he works for the big computer company accenture in management despite being only 20) and we went out in search of Kyoto night life. We didn`t find much night life but we did find a really cool bar(with the interesting name `Sex on the moon`) where they did cocktails, mixers, sake, shochu(another japanese alcohol) as well as beer and wine, with all drinks for an amazingly cheap 300 yen(around $3). We also met a young Japanese university student by the name of Takuya who could speak good english, he was also the captain of his universities aikido club(old traditional form of martial arts). Anyway after a good night we went to the hostel.

Today I signed out of the hostel went and checked my large bag into baggage storage at Kyoto station(where my highway bus is starting from tonight) and went down to Inari and the Inari Fushimi shrine. Inari Fushimi is dedicated to the god of rice(very important in Japan) and is the biggest, most famous and the head temple of its kind. The most distinguishing feature of the temple is the fact that it`s on a large hill with 4 kilometers of Torii gate covered tracks(a Torii gate is the traditional gate you see at most shrines in japan, it`s orange/red with 2 round poles and a trapezoidal beam connecting them at the top). The other thing that you notice is the amount of foxes(kitsune) statues, Kitsune were considered sacred messengers/friends/servants of the rice god. Anyway I wandered around a lot(getting partially lost at least once) but I managed to cover the entire structure and got to the very top of the shrine(283 meters up apparently), where there was not much of a view(blocked by trees and buildings) and a lot of small shrines/statues. It was a great temple to see the thousands and thousands of orange wooden gates/arches are very impressive and if you like walking this is definitely a good place to visit(if you`re very unfit or have an injury of some kind I wouldn`t recommend it though, you`re almost constantly climbing up and down stairs). On my way out I bought a small fox shaped silver charm from a miko(priestess) of the temple.

Afterwards I caught a train back to Kyoto station, where I had a lunch of Okonomiyaki(japanese pancake/pizza thing, which was quite nice). Then I went to see Kiyomizudera(which is my favorite kyoto temple and which i`ve now visited all 3 times i`ve come to Kyoto), I originally planned to go and see it at night because I saw a 6:30 to 9:00 Kiyomizudera at night with full lighting event poster, however due to the fact the baggage room closes at 8pm and the fact today has been overcast and spitting(making rain a high probability) I decided just to go earlier. As always it`s a beautiful place and a fantastic view. On my way out I bought a temple charm shaped like the traditional Japanese schoolbag, which was supposed to be for luck with studies(I thought it was appropriate since i`m trying to go back to university next year).

Anyway i`m now back around the station area and i`m going to go and pick up my bag in a short while afterwhich i`ll have to wait till about 9:30pm when my bus leaves for Tokyo(it arrives at about 6:15 in the morning). Tommorrow i`m in Tokyo staying at the Sakura Youth Hostel in Asakusa(a great place that I stayed in during my first trip to Tokyo last year at christmas time).

I`m using a pc in a small internet cafe so i`m unable to upload any photos tonight, I will upload some tommorrow night though. Also i`ve uploaded all of my Hiroshima photo`s to my Facebook page, so anyone who`s on facebook or wants to join can see them, any friends, family, friends or family of friends and family and any casual aquaintance of mine from any stage of my life is welcome to become my friend on facebook. I`ll upload the kyoto photo`s to facebook as well when I get the chance.

EDIT: added a couple of pictures, see the rest on facebook.

Quick Post- bAKpAK Kyoto

Yello Everyone,

Just another quick post, this time from the bAKpAK youth hostel in Kyoto. Last night I caught the overnight highway bus from Hiroshima to Kyoto(left at 11:40pm arrived at 5:30am), I didn't have the best night sleep but it was cheap and it got me here. Today I dropped my bag of at the hostel and i've spent the day exploring around central Kyoto. Tommorrow I'm planning to do the more cultural side of things. The hostel is good enough and all the other guests i've met so far are nice people.

The picture is of the outside of the hostel building. Also i've updated the last few days pictures so please take a look.

Day in Hiroshima

Yello Everybody,

Today i`ve spent the day in Hiroshima a very nice city to explore around. The main things for today were visiting the Peace Memorial Park, the museum and the A Bomb Dome. There were hundreds(possibly thousands) of Japanese school children all in groups all visiting the memorials, a couple of groups asked me for my name, country and a peace message. My message which feels trite given the solemnity of the place but is true nonetheless is `May war become a thing of the past`. The museum showed me what I already knew that war and especially atomic war is a horrible thing. Particularily shocking were all the bland, insensitive government statements made by the people in America responsible for the bombing. Incredibly touching to see was the children`s memorial in honor of Sadako(of the famous 1000 paper cranes story) and all the other children killed. The making of 1000 paper cranes to fulfill a wish is a genuine and well known Japanese custom(although rarely done due to the difficulty).

The rest of the day was spent looking around central Hiroshima. Hirshima suprising is a very otaku friendly city, with an aniMate store, a card and model shop(which has Magic the Gathering cards), a comic shop, a hobby and comic shop, a huge pro model shop and that`s only the ones I could walk to and find while I`ve been here.

I haven`t managed to download my photos yet so i`ll put them up tommorrow or the next day. I`m going to go and catch my Highway bus to Kyoto in a bit.

EDIT: added photos, the children's memorial, some cranes actually folded by sadako, the A Bomb Dome.

Quick Post: J-Hoppers Hiroshima

Yello Everyone,

I‘m sitting at a computer in the J Hoppers backpackers hostel in Hiroshima right now and I just thought i`d do a very quick post.

Yesterday monday 19th I spent the morning doing a final check and spot cleaning my apartment with my now former PS Dominic, while waiting for the gas, electricity and water men to come so everything could be shut down and paid for. At about 12:30 everything was finally finished and I said goodbye to my apartment, suizenji and kumamoto for the last time(I`ve got a photo which i`ll upload when I get the chance). I then caught a limited express train from suizenji station all the way to hakata station (fukuoka) before catching a high speed nozomi shinkansen all the way to Hiroshima. In hiroshima I caught the tram to J-Hoppers(about 20 minutes ride) and checked in around 5:00, I then rested for a while before going out walking, I walked a fair distance down to the A Bomb Dome and ended up eating dinner at Subway(the sandwhich chain, which is incredibly rare in Japan(the reason why I actually ate there)) before coming back and resting. Anyway J Hoppers is a simple but nice backpackers and I stayed in a 8 bed shared room for the night.

I`ll try to do another post Tommorrow or the next day from Kyoto.

EDIT: added a final shot of me outside my apartment door for the very last time.

Last week in Kumamoto

Yello Everybody,

Tonight is my last night in Kumamoto, tommorrow i'm leaving my apartment and starting my week and a half holiday around Japan before flying home to Australia. This week has been a bit hectic, i've been doing all the last minute cleaning, cancelling all my service(phone, internet etc.), sending parcels to Australia(2 parcels adding up to around 25 kilos) unfortunately there was a box size limited and my 2 cushion chairs didn't fit properly so i'm going to leave them here for the next NT and of course packing. On top of that I had my normal week in Kusunoki classroom(the closest of the classrooms, 10 minutes by train and 15 minutes walk) where I taught my final lessons from tuesday to friday. On saturday I had an office day which I used mainly to shred all my Peppy related documents(there's a secrecy agreement, although I'm at a total loss to who would want anything related to myself or to any of the teaching techniques, my theory is that it is part of the over companies policies which were past down to the smaller sub companies like Peppy regardless of actual validity) and saying some last goodbyes. Today was spent doing all the final cleaning and packing at my apartment.

All in all i'm very happy with how i'm leaving Peppy, i've given a gift and a goodbye card/message to every student(and left one for all the students who were unable to come to my final lesson), a gift and a goodbye letter to the JT at each of my schools(who have been a great help over the past year), a gift and goodbye letter to the AM(area manager, she is doing a great job) and a gift to each of the hard working Japanese sales and office staff, to whom I wrote out a short message in Kanji(I created the message and was given help translating it into Kanji by a JT and then personally wrote it out(very difficult I have a much greater respect for Japanese literacy now)). I received a thankyou gift and a board with messages/stickers/photos from the AM, some of the staff and JTs, which i'm very touched by.

I will miss Kumamoto a lot, this past year has been a great experience for me, meeting a lot of new people, interacting in a different culture, teaching young children and learning a lot of new things. While I am happy to return home to Australia, to see friends, family, go to university and to be able to communicate more easily, this city has become a home to me and I will miss it, it's people and treasure my memories of life here.

My plans for the coming holiday are as follows- monday 19th catch a shinkansen to Hiroshima, spend the night in Hiroshima at a backpackers, tuesday 20th spend the day in Hiroshima(seeing the A-Bomb Dome and the Peace Garden Square) and catch a late night overnight bus to Kyoto, wednesday 21st arrive in Kyoto, spend the day sightseeing and spend the night at a backpackers, thursday 22nd spend the day in Kyoto(the 2 main things I want to see are the Inari Fushimi shrine(famous for having hundreds of red Torii Gates) and the animation studios of Kyoto Animation(the outside anyway, inside is not allowed) who've done some of my favorite anime like Lucky Star and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzamiya and catch a late night overnight bus to Tokyo, Friday 23rd arrive in Tokyo, spend the day sightseeing and spend the night at a youth hostel, Saturday 24th, spend the day sightseeing and go to the Australian Embassy to vote in the Australian Federal Election, Spend the night at the same youth hostel, Sunday 25th, spend the day sightseeing(the main things I want to see in Tokyo this time are, the studio gibli museum(famous for the movie Spirited Away and many others, Hayao Miyazaki's company) and Tokyo Tower), catch a late night overnight bus to Nagoya, Monday 26th arrive in Nagoya, goto the Peppy head office and collect my final pay(Japanese pay system is very strange and annoying), spend the day sightseeing in Nagoya and catch a late night overnight bus back to Tokyo, Tuesday 27th arrive back in Tokyo, spend the day sightseeing and souveneer/gift shopping, spend the night at a Capsule hotel in Akihabara, Wednesday 28th spend the day sightseeing, in the afternoon go to Narita airport and catch an 8:00pm flight to Brisbane Australia, arriving at 8:00am in the morning Australian time(roughly 11 hour flight).

Japan: Gaijin

Yello Everybody,

Earlier this week I was on a train going to Kusunoki school and a fellow Gaijin(foreigner) sitting next to me started talking to me. His name he said was Si(pronounced Sigh, probably short for Simon) and he was a high school exchange student from Adelaide. He was a nice guy, just started living in Kumamoto in the last couple of months and asked about things to do in the area. It also turned out that he had less japanese speaking ability than I do(apparently none of the top Japanese speaking students at his school wanted to go so he was able to). Anyway it was nice to talk to a fellow Aussie and get a new perspective on Japan. However this got me thinking about the different types of Gaijin in Japan and certain common Gaijin behaviors.

Si was quite unusual, for some reason most Gaijin don't start up conversations when they see each on the street, in shops or on trains or the like, despite the fact it's very rare to see a fellow Gaijin(especially in a smaller city like Kumamoto). This of course doesn't hold true in other settings like bars, clubs and so on. In public there appears to be a feeling of being in a bubble of some kind, you have your bubble floating in the sea of Japan and Japanese and every other Gaijin(who is not a friend or co-worker) has their own seperate bubble which doesn't relate to yours. It's a very strange thing and not even something truly done on the conscious level, I find myself doing it all the time even if its the only other Gaijin i've seen in weeks we see each other, maybe give each other a nod(as fellow Gaijins) and then ignore each other.

Anyway I've come to the conclusion that there seem to be 4 fairly distinct types of Gaijin.
1. The Party Gaijin: These Gaijin are over in Japan purely for the fun, they generally have little knowledge of Japanese culture and don't really care about it, clubbing, parties, socializing, short term relationships. They are often loud and sometimes do things which give the other Gaijin a bad name. Usually Party Gaijin are short term visiters, but some ELT's(english language teachers) who have a dorm style set up(a lot of Gaijins living in the one place) also fall into this category and apparently the American Soldiers in Okinawa are somewhat infamous for being like this(to the extent that many bars in Okinawa ban foreigners). In terms of long term Gaijin, being a party Gaijin is very difficult without a closeknit group of fellow party Gaijin. These Gaijin don't often talk to other Gaijin outside of their actual group.
2. The Relaxed Gaijin: These Gaijin are in Japan also for fun, but not in a less aggressive way than the Party Gaijin. They have varying levels of Japanese knowledge, but are happy to use what they do know and unafraid of making any embarrassing mistakes(they appologise if they realise they've made one). This type of Gaijin is the type which is happy to talk to other Gaijin on the street and are allround nice people. These Gaijin can be short term, long term or in any type of situation. Extrovert's without being insensitive is a good way to describe them.
3. The Consciencious Gaijin: These Gaijin are in Japan not only for fun but also to learn about the Japanese culture. They have a decent level of Japanese knowledge which they try to use when they can, but they are more cautious about offending people by making mistakes. These Gaijin are almost always long term. Slightly Introverted with cultural sensitivity is a good way to describe them.
4. The Professional Gaijin: These Gaijin are in Japan for the long haul, they've got a greater understanding of Japanese culture and often a high level of Japanese language skills, they are in companies and often in long term relationships(usually with a Japanese person). Professional Gaijin are often very nice open people, however they sometimes fall into the trap of acting "More Japanese than thou", basically by virtue of their superior Japanese knowledge, they often feel as if they are a real part of Japanese society(not truly possible unfortunately(at least without having lived here for a very long time(40 years or so) or through all your childhood schooling and up, and even then it's iffy)) and have a tendancy to look down on, snub and maliciously correct the faults of other Gaijin.

Personally I fall somewhere between the Relaxed and Consciencious categories(probably more Consciencious since although i'm working on it i'm an introvert by nature). The image today are the Japanese characters for Gaikokujin(full prounciation of Gaijn).

Kumamoto Castle

Yello Everybody,

Sorry it's taken me so long to post these pictures, i've been busy with my last week of teaching and with doing all the final arrangements to leave Kumamoto and for my holiday in Japan afterwards.

Anyway earlier this week I went to Kumamoto castle for the 1st time(1st time actually paying and going inside the grounds anyway), and yes I've been in Kumamoto almost a year and yes it's quite a famous castle, but it's just one of those things where you don't tend to do the tourist things in the area you actually live in.

Kumamoto castle was originally constructed exactly 400 years ago(Kumamoto has been celebrating the 400 year anniversary this year) by the Kato clan. It is most famous for being the site of Japan's last civil war where a group of samurai fought against the Meiji Government, known as the Satsuma Rebellion(the Tom Cruise movie "The Last Samurai" was roughly based on this story). It was sacked and destroyed in 1877. The long surrounding stone walls and some of the outlying wooden structures are still original, however the main castle itself was reconstructed starting in 1960 and this year they are rebuilding the inner palace of the castle(it should be finished in the first half of next year). Anyway the original and reconstructed elements are very impressive, the grounds are huge, inside the castle there is a museum with various historical displays(and on the grounds there was some sort of flower show thing(temporary show)). All in all it's a very good castle(rated one of the top 3 in Japan apparently) and well worth a visit.

The pictures are just some random shots of me, some exibits, the castle and the castle grounds.

Week of Office and Cleaning

Yello Everybody,

The time for me to leave Kumamoto is fast approaching. This past week I spend 3 days in the office doing general preparation stuff, and helping out however I could. I left presents for the Area Manager(a fantastic Japanese woman named Kaoru who does a lot of great work) and all the office and sales staff, small Australian animals and the like. Friday, Saturday which would have been office days were given to me as classroom project days to work on the final cleaning of my appartment. Sunday was also spent cleaning the apartment. Much less time was taken by the cleaning than by the actual sorting of things in terms of posting home, taking home on the plane and throwing/giving away. I accumulated a lot of english language books and manga of over the year and ended up donating about 3/4's of it to the International Center, who will probably keep some for people to borrow and give others away to people who want them. Postage is a bit of a problem, I found a large box which would fit everything in, but apparently it's too large to post(even by freight ship like I am), so i've now got 2 smaller boxes(meaning i'll have to leave something behind, probably unfortunately my cushion chairs(cushions which have a fold out back turning into small chairs), which although fantastic are too bulky and are something I probably wouldn't use). The other bother is filling out a comprehensive list of items for customs purposes, especially since i've got a large number of small figurines and such which i'm sending home. In any case i've worked out all the postal details and i'm going to do the actual postage tommorrow before my afternoon lessons. This week, my last week, i'm in Kusunoki School(the closest school, only 10 minutes by train adn 10-15 minutes walk) for 4 days and then i've got saturday as an office day to do all the final documentation stuff and the shredding of work related documents required by the company. Anyway i'm getting a bit tired, so i'll wrap things up there, I also went to the Kumamoto Castle today but i'll cover that in a seperate post tommorrow or the next day. The image today is a generic image of the castle, i'll put up some better ones when I do the post on it.

Japan: Various Things

Yello Everbody,

Today in my series of small things about Japan, I'm just going to mention various small things which while quite common in Japan are no where near as common or non-existant elsewhere in the world.



Plug-in Keitai(mobile phone) chargers, both with replacable batteries and with single use battery cells. All you do is connect them to your Keitai and you can use it, keep it in your pocket or bag and it will charge while you go. I don't remember seeing these in Australia(although it might have changed), but they've been in Japan for ages and any convenience store or the like will have a small collection with ones for use with different models and with different charge speeds or use with different amounts/sizes of batteries. This picture is of the one i'm using currently, it takes 2 "3" size batteries(equivalent to Australian "AA") and as you can see it has a "Nightmare before Christmas" theme, the attachment can be used to clean the Keitai screen.




When you think of Toilets in Japan the common perception is of the squat toilets and these to exist but mainly in older buildings(20 years or so), in the last 15 or so years the standard toilet seems to be a western style sitting toilet which when you flush it produces water in a basin at it's top so that you can wash your hands(very convenient). In the last 5 or so years super high tech toilets with heated seats and multiple button controlled flush options have become the standard. Above is a wash basin toilet(mine in fact) and a high tech toilet(which I found the picture for online).



Folding bikes, the standard bicycle in japan(known as the Mamachari) is a incredibly simple affair and looks similiar to what would be called a "womans bike" elsewhere. Racing bikes and Mountain bikes while existant are expensive and uncommon. More common than both put together(while still substantially less common than the Mamachari) are folding bikes, 2 small wheels 2 poles(one for seat, one for bars) and a rectangular bar between the wheels, which folds in the middle. They are small lightweight and easy to take around with you, you can buy them for under 10000 yen($100) at cheapest(although the better ones get very expensive). The picture is of a fairly standard design(although for some reason it's a chevy bicycle).



Parking Lifts, car parks which stack cars on multiple levels lifting them up. People may have heard about this in terms of huge cities like Tokyo(and i've heard they also exist in big north american and european cities as well), but cities of any size in Japan(including ones like Kumamoto, where I live) have them. They range from fancy undercover ones, which can be very high tech with revolving garages and robotic controls allowing you to park, have your car hidden away and then recover it easily later, to much more simpler outdoor ones which are basically a few levels of steel girders with hydrolic lifts, where those who park first and have their cars on the top level, leave last(or need to get the others below them to leave). The picture above is of a fairly standard undercover model.

An additional note on Japanese parking, unmanned pay carparking lots in Japan have a useful anti theft device, a metal traffic bump is in place about a 3rd of the way from your back wheels when parking and after you pay(electronically) it will rise to a level where it is impossible for your card to be driven out(with wheels intact anyway). I'm not entirely sure but I assume if you want to leave early you can key in some sort of code to lower it.

I hope people enjoyed these small things and pictures today. Tommorrow i'll be doing my weekly update post.

BTW I am now on Facebook, I know i've been pretty slack not joining up much earlier(this is due to a strange aversion I have to the new "big thing on the net" when I did not discover it prior to it becoming big), however I am now "Facebooking it up"(horrible use of gramma intended as a joke) and anybody who knows me and I haven't managed to find you yet please look me up.

Otaku Corner: EXMACHINA

Yello Everybody,

Today in my otaku corner post, I'm going to talk about the cgi anime movie Appleseed Saga: EXMACHINA. I went to see this movie in the cinema's yesterday. Appleseed was a manga created by Shirow Masamune who is also famous for creating the Ghost in the Shell manga. Appleseed is set in a future in which a devastating world war has destroyed most of the earth and in many places is still ongoing, it takes place in the new high tech metropolis of Olympus(a city built with high technology and populated symbiotically with humans and bioroids(genetically engineered humans who were created to stabilize society(they have no dangerous emotions)) and the main character is woman named Deunan Knute(part of the ESWAT anti terroist police group. Her partner is Briareos a friend and romantic interest from the time they were both soldiers, he is now due to an old accident living only as a fully robotic Hechatonchires cyborg(he has living cells and his brains the same but he's inside a robotic body, leads to romantic compatibility issues). Anyway that's the basic background information about the Appleseed world, this movie EXMACHINA is a new movie(only released late last month) and of course is entirely in Japanese, however thanks to my partial knowledge of Japanese and my knowledge of the series I could at least understand the basic plot of the movie(it was enjoyable even without full understanding thanks to the high action high quality animation and fantastic techno-esque soundtrack):

WARNING THE FOLLOWING MOVIE PLOT CONTAINS SPOILERS AND DUE TO LANGUAGE BARRIERS MAY BE PARTIALLY INNACURATE READ ON ONLY IF YOU WANT TO

The ESWAT team do a raid on an all cyborg terrorist group to recover some hostages, everything goes fine with some fantastic action scenes until just when it should have been all wrapped up one of the terrorists chooses to self destruct and allthough they escape just in time in the process Briareos is injured/damaged. Briareos is in a critical condition and Deunan is very upset, then Deunan is given a new temporary partner named Tereos who to her surprise and anger is a bioroid whose genetic data was based on Briareos(he looks like Briareos before he had the accident and become a Hechatonchires cyborg), Tereos is also a test case for the use of Bioroids in ESWAT. The leader of Olympus Athena is undergoing negotiations with the leader of a company/state group known as Poseidon Hajime Yoshino. The current new technology craze is the Connexus(a device which looks like a blue tooth ear piece but creates a digital display for communication, computing and entertainment purposes). Briareos regains conscience and is much better but is still unable to return as Deunan's partner. Hitomi and female bioroid friend of Deunan's(and an important person in Olympus) has her birthday party, Deunan comes looking a bit uncomfortable in her designer dress(design by Prada(the famous real life designer) specifically for her and the movie), Briareos shows up looking a bit strange in a suit and she is happy until Tereos shows up looking exactly like Briareos should if not for the accidentl Olympus is launching it's new Global Security net satillite system and Athena hosts a world conference with important dignitaries from around the world attending. ESWAT is doing the security and it's all gong well until suddenly some people start acting strange and attack the conference, including a partially cyborised ESWAT member who goes so out of control he ends up being killed by Briareos, the attack was found to have been caused in some way by a signal sent from some doves which were actually robotic. Everyone is a bit bewildered and at the same time sad over their comrades death. Later Briareos infected by some sort of computer virus goes out of control and hacks into the security net aswell as attacking and hurting Tereos and almost hurting Deunan. Briareos is imprisioned but realising that the cyborg doctor Kestner had something to do with it escapes with Hitomi's help, he is pursued by ESWAT but manages to find the doctor who activates the nanobots he imput in his system, tells Briareos how he was used to hack into the security net and the security net is being used to send a signal from Halcon laboratory(as mysterious laboratory with links to Poseidon). Meanwhile Deunan has realised that the connexus is controlling people and a ban and recall is called, however the public are too addicted to teh connexus to listen. Then the signal from Halcon begins and a large number of the populations are turned into a cyborised mob through the connexus's mind control. Tereos has caught Briareos who is going beserk thanks to the nanobots, they fight but Deunan arrives with an anti-nanobot injection saving Briareos. The 3 team up and go to Poseidon in search of answers, there they find out about Halcon a labratory researching the use of nanobots as a miracle drugs(re-fusing spinal cords and all that jazz), which discovered a sinister alternate use as a mind control device, the labratory was shut down after the death of it's head researcher. Poseidon lend the ESWAT members helicopters, troops and give Deunan a new cutting edge Land Mate(flying robotic exoskelton) to use and they head for Halcon Laboratories. Halcon turns out to be an amazing floating cube like structure, which is made up of shifting segments(making it a bit dangerous to fly through), inside they encounter a large number of flying robotic drones as well as a few incredibly high powered humanoid robots, a massive fight ensues which is spectacular and they manage of course to win. The doors to the inner sanctum are closing and Briareos tries to hold them open while Deunan and Tereos try to make it in time, they barely do but the Land Mates are all destroyed. Inside is the original head research of Halcon who after she died was hooked up to the nanorobotics by Kestner in an attempt to save her, she attacks the 3 with long rope like robotic arms. Briareos is caught and encapsulated apparently trying to convert him through nanobots, Tereos and Deunan try to attack her but she is too powerful. Briareos breaks partially free and gives Deunan the anti-nanobot injection to use on Her. Deunan charges and seems sure to be killed, however Tereos steps in the path of the robotic arms, being pierced deeply in the stomache, Deunan charges manages to avoid the remaining arms and plunges the injection into the researcher, who regains her sense of self, is horrified by what she has become, the anti-nanobot injection starts wearing of and she begs Deunan to kill her, which she does receiving the researchers thanks. Briareos and Deunan help the heavily injured Tereos out of the inner sanctum however the labratory is crumbling around them, Tereos tells them to leave, they refuse and at the last second a Poseidon helicopter arrives and they escape just in time. Olympus is severely damaged but with the signal and the connexus gone, they are mostly alive and Athena vows to rebuild. The end.

A PREVIEW ON YOU TUBE:



Anyway I enjoyed the movie and can't wait to see it with an english language subtitle and/or voice acting, the CGI animation is of an incredibly high level, the music score was very fitting and well done, the plot was from what I can tell solid enough and the action was highly enjoyable. All up i'd give this movie about 4/5 stars, in comparison to the other recent anime films i've seen(Vexille and Evangelion), it was better than Vexille(allround better) and worse than Evangelion(in enjoyability and storyline).

Meetings, Partying and a Cold

Yello Everybody,

Today it's time for my regular weekly post. This past week was a bit of a strange one, on tuesday we had a staff meeting(all the native teachers in the area), it was my last staff meeting and I met Cam and Derek(the 2 19 year old canadians who replaced tim and heather). On wednesday I had the 1st day of the ATS(autumn training seminar), which was a combined event with the native teachers from kumamoto and kagoshima, the days were broken up into short sessions on different topics with the teachers taking care of a topic. The 1st day was at the international center and it went well, afterwards everyone went onto a namihodai/tabehodai and following that most of us continued onto a bar(nice Gaijin bar wtih a halloween theme for Halloween night), where there was drinking and dancing until after midnight. The 2nd day of the meeting started on a downer, since the 1st night was a big night I was tired and slept through my alarm missing the proper leaving time for public transport, however I did leave with plenty of time for the taxi I caught. Everything seemed to be going fine(the meeting was held at a new Kumamoto classroom for the 2nd day) however the taxi driver got lost and caused me to be 15 minutes late(my 1st and last lateness in the entire year, DAMN!!!). Anyway on the 2nd day I was also very tired and due to drinking and singing the last night I had partially lost my voice. Myself together with a new teacher in Kagoshima named Frank(new to peppy but he's been in Japan longer than me, nice guy who's done actual teaching and is from Kenya originally) were doing the session on Education in Japan, I did a general overview which had to be cut short a bit due to time restraints and Frank did a section on a day in the life of a preschool student in Japan. Anyway all the sessions went fine, afterwards many of us went into town and had dinner at a nice little cafe, allthough due to tiredness from the previous night and a need to return home from the Kagoshima teachers, we finished much earlier in the night. Friday and Saturday were given as days off(making a 4 day weekend), Friday I was exhausted from the ATS, partying and lack of sleep so it was a day of rest, I had planned to do many nice things around Kumamoto however I came down with a cold(possibly orinated with losing my voice) which has lasated all weekend long and put a dampener on my plans.

This coming week i'm in the office tuesday-thursday and i've been given friday and saturday as project days to do a good final clean on my apartment. The pictures today are of the native teachers on the grassbank in front of the Kumamoto castle walls and at the restaurant for Namihodal/Tabehodai. There will be no otaku section today.

Japan: Otaku hotspots of Kumamoto

Yello Everybody,

Today I thought I'd cover the best places to visit in terms of shops for otaku related items in the Kumamoto area.

The number one alround store for anime music, manga, anime dvd's and general merchandise is AniMate which is in the first half of Shimatori up the last side street on the left hand side just after the new Keitai(mobile phone) store, it's on the 3rd floor and there's a decent amount of signage(heading into Shimatori from Toricho)[Shimatori is 1 of the 2 major arcades in Kumamoto and Toricho is a major bus stop]. The staff are all very friendly, the store is nice clean and their stock is regularily updated plus as part of a major chain of stores it has cheaper prices and special items that you might not find elsewhere.

The bookshop in the Daiei store on the 6th level(also in shimatori first half, towards the start and on the right) has a large selection of anime dvds, anime cds, manga and illustration books as well as a very small english language manga section(less than 30 books total from several different series and only covering the initial books of a series not the most current). The staff are nice and the prices are okay.

The Tsuraya bookshop(also in shimatori first half, practically half way down and up a side street on the left(well before AniMate)). Has a large manga section, decent anime dvd and anime cd selection, solid video games selection and a smallish selection of anime merchandise(mainly small figures). The store also has an english language section including manga in greater quantities than the Daiei bookshop. The staff are all nice and it's a major bookshop chain in Japan.

Zap imports shop in Kamitori(the other major arcade in Kumamoto, smaller and in the opposite direction from Toricho) is on the right hand side in a in-building mini arcade(it has signage). Not all that much in the way of anime as they specialise in imported toys and oddities mainly from america(star wars toys, simpsons and so on as well as lava lamps and many other retro items), but they do sell a large range of Kubrick collectables many of which are anime related. The staff are very friendly, remember you and can speak a small amount of english(well one does anyway).

The Hobby Shop in Hikarinomori YouMe shopping Center(Either of the JR Hohi line at Hikarinomori station or by bus to Hikarinomori from the Kumamoto Bus Center). It's right in the middle on the 2nd floor of the same building as the cinema's. This is the best place for anime related models with a much larger variety than anywhere else i've found, it has Plastic Figures as well as model build kits(for Gundam and the like), they also have a range of smaller figurines from boxes and gachapon(ball toys) which are open and you can see what they are(making it easier if you are collecting a set), and cards both trading card game cards and collector cards. The staff are very nice.

Not in Kumamoto but within reasonable travelling distance is the best place in Kyushu for Otaku items- Mandarake in the Tenjin area of Fukuoka. 3 large levels with everything imaginable, both family friendly and not so family friendly. I've only been there once but the staff were nice and the selection is fantastic including such things as original animation cells(from famous animes no less, evangelion and Hayao Miyazaki films were represented).

The picture today is the banner for AniMate mail ordering.

Otaku Posting

Yello Everybody,

It occured to me that I hadn't done an otaku post for a while so today I thought I would post on a couple of very Iconic anime females here in Japan(who anime interested people surfing the internet and exploring stores may have seen, without actually realising who they are or what they come from).

This long green haired horned tiger skin bikini wearing character comes from the series Urusei Yatsura by the well known female manga artist Rumino Takashi, her other series include Ranma 1/2 and Inuyasha. Urusei Yatsura(also known as Those obnoxious aliens) was incredibly with 34 volumes of manga, 195 episodes of animation, 11 OVA episodes and 6 movies, however unlike most of her other series it's fame hasn't spread as well internationally. The original manga started in 1978 and the anime in 1981. The story is very convoluted as a totality however it centers around the antics of a school going boy named Ataru and his alien girlfriend/fiance/nemesis. The character in question if you haven't guessed by now is called Lum and another name for the series is Lum the invader girl. She is a very iconic character with models, posters and so on still quite common, she is also a popular cosplay choice.
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This short green haired robotic antennae'd sailor fuku(school sailor uniform) wearing character comes from the game and anime series ToHeart. The game a visual novel was released by Aquaplus/Leaf in 1997 for PC originally as a eroge(hentai or erotic game) however it was late modified and re-released as an all ages version with full voice acting in 1999 first on Playstation and then as a PC re-release. The anime series by Oriental Light and Magic released in 1999 was 13 episodes in length and spawned a 2nd series ToHeart remember my memories using the same characters a while later, and a follow up series and OVA's called ToHeart2 using different characters but the same school and world. The story is a basic slice of life school drama with a bit of a sci-fi twist. The character in question if you haven't guessed by now is called Multi also known as HMX series 12 and she is a android maid character designed to have real feelings and to learn things. She wasn't even the main character in the series, more of a major sub-character however she was the most iconic of them and is still everywhere in posters, on the internet, in models and as a cosplay choice.

I hope that this was of some interest, these 2 characters are very iconic in Japan and yet not all that well known outside of hardcore otaku circles elsewhere in the world.

Japan: ____-hodai and All Hallows Eve

Yello Everybody,

Sorry for not doing a mid-week post, but i've been busy with an training seminar this week(and with going out with the other native teachers from kumamoto and kagoshima afterwards). Today in my series of posts on small things about Japan I thought I would cover the concept of the hodai(pronounced Ho(as in santa clause Ho Ho Ho) and dye(as in hair dye etc.)). In Japan many restaurant bars have this concept and the simple premise is "All you can ..." for a certain period of time. The most common ones are nomihodai(nomi being drinks) where you can drink all you want for a set period of time and tabehodai(tabe being foods) where you can eat all you want for a set period of time. The usual length of time is for 1 hour, however 1 and a half or even 2 hour periods do exist in someplaces(for instance this week after the 1st day of the seminar all the teachers went to a tabehodai + nomihodai at a restaurant which lasted 2 hours). The cost varies but 1500 yen - 2000 yen for 1-1.5 hours for either tabehodai or nomihodai seems common, a combined tabehodai and nomihodai seems to cost 3000 yen - 4000 yen for the same length of time(the one I went to this week was very cheap at 3000 yen to both and for 2 hours). One of the basic rules for doing a nomihodai/tabehodai is that all the members in the group eating at the restaurant must participate, the restaurants won't do a partial one with 1 or more people ordering seperately. This rule leads to the social politeness of if the majority of the group wants to go for nomihodai/tabehodai, regardless of if you're not very hungry/thirsty you should agree to it as a matter of course. Gaijin(foreigners) get a good deal out of hodai since we tend to eat and drink a lot more than your average Japanese person does, some very rare places actually refuse to do hodai for Gaijin customers, and almost all places seem to dislike us doing it and won't bring up the possibility unless it is directly asked for. As for other hodai, some cake and sweet places to special cake hodai with all the cake and chocolate sweets you can eat.

As an add on to todays post Happy Halloween to all those who celebrate it(although it's a few days late), here in Japan there is some recognition of halloween, in terms of special halloween themed products or toys with products and some places do halloween themed decorations(more Gaijin bars than normal Japanese places though). My company also does a special fun Halloween lesson for all the kids(although for some reason it's taught by the Japanese teachers now(wasn't always the case)). As an Australian myself I personally have never really been all that involved or interested in Halloween although I do find it interesting that there is much more recognition of Halloween than there seemed to be of Easter. In Tokyo and other bigger cities I hear Halloween is being used as an excuse to do scary cosplay(costume play, which i've previously posted on, wiki it or check out my previous posts if you cannot remember).

The picture today is a range of rather comical Japanese halloween goods, found from the Tokyo Times. To make up for a lack of posts in recent times, i'm planning to do a post both tommorrow(saturday) and sunday in addition to my usual monday weekly wrapup post.

Last week in Ozu Kikuyo

Yello Everybody,

Today it's time for my week post, this past week was my last week in Ozu Kikuyo school(furthest of the 2 Kumamoto schools, 30 minutes by train and 5 minutes walk). The week went well and was a lot of fun, I did a bare minimum of book work and concentrated on making the lessons as fun as possible for the students. As with the week in Okuchi, I gave the young kids a body figure to color and the older kids a manga, as well as handing out a goodbye card and the gift of an Australian sticker. Unlike Okuchi however at Ozu Kikuyo I have a few JR classes(Jr high students, who have a decent basic english knowledge), for these classes, I turned almost the entire lesson into a time of fun with music(Australian music from CDs I brought with me, Jet, the Waifs, Missy Higgins, Eskimo Joe, Hilltop Hoods and so on), and games, this didn't mean that we weren't doing a class though because in the process of playing the games we utilized english and I also tried to encourage conversation in english.
I felt really touched when a few of my students gave me good bye cards/letters and even gifts, one girl gave me a hand towel with the lucky white neko with gold coin figure on it(white cat sitting on it's hindlegs with one paw up and one ontop of a large gold piece sitting between it's legs, it's a common good luck symbol) and the Kanji for happiness, a pare of young siblings also gave me a pink rose each(pink for friendship), which made me look a bit strange returning home from school with a pair of roses, however I was very grateful for the thought. I won't name the students(they are customers of the company and i've signed a non-disclosure agreement and all of that), but everyone whether they gave me gifts or not will be missed, many of my favorite students are/were at Ozu Kikuyo.

This coming week I've got a staff meeting, followed by a 2 day training seminar(which while i'm being paid for it and it is important, seems a massive waste of time for me seeing I only have 2 weeks and very little classes remaining).

The images today are one of the pair of roses I was given as a parting gift, and one of the Ozu Kikuyo classroom.

Japan: Travelling Long Distance

Yellow Everybody,

Today in my series of small things about Japan, I thought I would do a short post on travelling around Japan and the cheapest ways to do it. This is particularily relevent to me since once I finish I have a week or so holiday time and a budget to consider.

In terms of transport over long distances, there are Trains(called Densha in Japanese), trains for the most part come in 3 varieties: the 1st and cheapest is the basic local trains, they are slow and stop at every station but they are cheap and by catching connecting trains and the like it is possible to get just about anywhere in Japan on the local trains(if you have the patience and the time), the 2nd is the limited express trains, these trains are much faster than local trains and have less stops, however they run on the same train lines as the local trains and thus to travel long distances you have to live with delays and multiple train changes, the 3rd and final is the shinkansen(also known as the bullet train), these trains are very fast, only stop at major cities and use their own seperate lines(there are 3 main shinkansen groups in central Japan: the fastest is the nozomi, the 2nd is the hikari and the 3rd is the kodomo, all 3 are very fast but there is a difference and it is reflected in the price, the nozomi is also the one train line you can't travel on with a JR Pass(international unlimited travel pass for Japan Rail, very useful for visiters to Japan)). As an example to get to Tokyo from Kumamoto by local train costs about $140(14000 yen) and would take about a day and a half non stop with almost 20 transfers and a 6 hour wait in a train station(local trains stop usually just before midnight and start around 5 or so), To get to Tokyo by shinkansen costs about $250(25000 yen) and only takes about half a day(quicker on the nozomi), Limited express is somewhere between the 2.

There are also national small aircraft(smaller planes which only travel inside Japan and not internationally), these range in price depending on destination and distance. Generally it's cheaper to take the shinkansen as opposed to flying, a flight from Kumamoto to Tokyo for instance takes about 4 hours and costs about $350(35000 yen)(which is not bad at all for a flight). Of course the problem with airlines is even if they are quicker and you can afford the additional cost, you also have to take into account the costs to transport you and your luggage to and from the hotels(by taxi or if you are lucky by bus or train), something which isn't always cheap since airports are generally situated on the outskirts of cities.

The 3rd and cheapest option for long distance travel is by highway bus, there a number of regular buses between cities, which run both day and also as overnight buses(overnight saves you the cost of a hotel for the night). There are no buses from Kumamoto directly to Tokyo(since Kumamoto is only Kyushu a seperate part of japan). However from the nearbye Fukuoka you can catch an overnight bus for $150(15000 yen) which only takes 14 and a half hours.

Depending where you are and where you want to go there are also ferry options for transport. From Fukuoka to Tokyo by ferry costs $125(12500 yen) for the cheapest class and takes 34 hours(long journey). However if you like the ocean, have the time and want to travel cheaply the ferry is definitely a good option.

I hope that this has been of some interest and potential use for anyone thinking about travelling around Japan.

The picture today is of a couple of shinkansen at tokyo station.

Japan: Animal Onamatopeia's

Yello Everybody,

I just thought i'd do a brief post today, in my series of small things about Japan. We don't really think about it but in english we have a lot of onamatopeia's(spelling hopefully correct) or words to describe sounds, these include laughter "Ha Ha" is used in writing as the sound of laughter, and "Giggle" for giggling. There are a lot of others, one for almost every sound effect. The most common ones are those concerning animals. Ask any english speaking child what sound a dog makes and they say "Woof Woof", a cat = "Meow Meow" and so on. The interesting thing is that Japan has exactly the same thing, words to describe sound effects, and even though they are describing the exact same sound they are different. Sniffing for example, in english if describing the sound of a dog sniffing around we'd use "Sniff Sniff", in Japanese however it's "Kun Kun". Three common animal sound words in Japan are the Dog( Inu in Japanese) which goes "Wan Wan", the Cat( Neko in Japanese) which goes "Nyan"(or "Nyah") and strangely enough the Rabbit( Usagi in Japanese) which goes "Pyon". If find rabbits going pyon very strange since rabbits are quite animals and in english we don't have a sound word for it.

In terms of anime and otaku related matters the sound words, Wan, Nyan and Pyon are quite relavent since although not overly common, there is a tradition of manga/anime which have characters(generally female) who are either part animal, animal spirits with human form, magical girls who transform into part animals. These characters are generally almost entirely human apart from the ears( mimi in Japanese) and often the tail( shippu in Japanese). The other distinguishing characteristic is their speech paterns, the simplest from of Japanese is A wa B desu( in english approximately "A is B" such as "You are Amazing" "She is Beautiful" and so on), in animal character speech is becomes A wa B wan/nyan/pyon and so on. Animal characters are amongst the most popular to cosplay( costume play the act of dressing up as a character from an anime, not huge but definitely existant all around Japan), probably for the simply fact that a pair of attachable ears and a tail together with whatever costume you like best turns into a cosplay without the effort of going all the way with hair, makeup and accurate costume.

The picture today is Wiki-Tan(the mascot for Wikipedia), doing a nekomimi cosplay.

Last week in Okuchi

Yello Everybody,

This past week was my final week in Okuchi. At the start I ran into a small amount of trouble because the office people had forgotten to book the hotel room, however I called the native support staff and it was all sorted out okay(in hindsight it's a bit funny since the only time this happened was the very last time). I had prepared a special activity along with a goodbye card and goodbye stickers for all the students(as well as a goodbye present of a floral plate for Marika(the Japanese Teacher)). For the younger kids I had an outline of a person and got them to color them as a picture of themselves, For the older kids I had a single square manga/comic with the head and shoulder outline of a person and a large speach bubble, I got them to color and to write hello my name is _____. In both cases the results range from the abract to the semi realistic, but everyone seemed to have fun. The week went by and was overall a lot of fun and without any real difficulties(barring a nosebleed(not caused by anyone it just happened) of one of the younger boys). The saturday events of going to Yatsushiro to teach and the fireworks afterwards, I've already done a post about. On sunday I had a nice day of rest after the long week, and today I did all the tasks like cleaning, class preparation and leaving japan preparations. This coming week is my last week in the Ozu Kikuyo classroom(furthest of the 2 kumamoto schools, 30 minutes by train and a 5 minute walk). Again this is both a happy and a sad thing.

I'll just do a quick otaku section today, as i've previously mentioned in the last few weeks the new season for anime on Japanese television has started and as such we are now seeing alot of different shows being fansubbed. The bigger shows like Clannad, Shakugan no Shana 2 and Genshiken 2 are all being subbed by multiple groups and large groups. However there are a large number of smaller shows(there are a total of 35-36 new shows after all) which smaller dedicated groups are fansubbing. Night Wizards is a farely good show if you like a magic action school drama mix, it's based on a video game and has a good mix of both comedy and action thus far, the story is pretty standard invaders from elsewhere being fought by a secret magic organisation and special gems needed to be collected to save the world. Rental Magic is a decent show in the occult, mystery and school drama genre, it revolves around a company called Astral which rents out magicians for odd jobs(jobs of a magical nature that is), it's set in the present and the magic is a mixture of various countries mythologies. On a completely different style there's Moyashimon, a show about a new university age boy who has the unique gift of being able to see and differentiate microbes(although they don't look like the real thing very much and act a bit like people), it's a pretty wacky comedy thing, with learning about microbes thrown in. Anyway that's just a few of the new shows going around, if you're interested you can always download them, animesuki or bakaupdates which i've mentioned before keeps a track of all the different anime torrents.

The images today are 1 of the Okuchi Green Hotel(where I stayed each time on my trip), 1 of the Okuchi Peppy Kids Club classroom(outside), 1 of a manga collection for an older class and 1 of a figure collection for a younger class.

Yatsushiro Fireworks Festival

Yello Everybody,

Well as with all Okuchi trip weeks, I was unable to do any mid week posts, however this was my very last Okuchi trip(it's an ambivilent feeling, both happy and sad at the same time). Anyway Okuchi is only a 4 day week and this week on saturday I went to teach at Dai2 Yatsushiro school(Yatsushiro is about half way between Kumamoto and Okuchi, maybe a bit closer to Kumamoto). After teaching, I was invited by Tim and Heather(the leaving canadian teachers) to come and see a fireworks festival, Yatsushiro is famous for this festival and it's apparently the biggest one in Kyushu(southern island). We met up with Kanna a friend of theirs and went to the festival, it started around 6 and finished at about 9. There was a massive massive crowd of people and lines absolutely everywhere, everyone in the town and a large number of people from other places come to this festival. The fireworks were amazing, any 15 minutes of the festival was superior to any non state-national government sponsered fireworks in Australia. The fireworks came in an amazing variety of colors, and in incredible gold and silver sparkles, in different shapes(they did hearts, stars, lots of flowers, chicks and other things I couldn't quite work out what they were). The fireworks unlike most of the ones i'm used to weren't one part affairs, a single firework did a lot of different things, a couple of the most impressive were one that exploded into 4 ascending golden balls which remained visable and it finally exploded into a large multicolor firework another one was made up of several fireworks which combined to look like a massive golden tree like thing which suddenly had small blue fireworks explode and move amongst it like fireflies, at another stage they lit a huge line of fireworks held at a decent height of the ground and the trail of each firework combined to look like a waterfall. The best of the night in my opinion was one that flew up as a long silver line high into the sky, exploded into the most massive firework ever with 5 layers of different colors, before turning golden and just when you thought it was over it spun away into little colored spirals. Also around the festival were heaps and heaps of festival food stores, with takoyaki(octopus dumplings), Ikoyaki(fried skewered squid), yakisoba(fried soba noodles), chips, hotdogs, toffle apples, and heaps of other food and drink items as well as toys, and a lot of different glowing and LED flashing items to wave around. Anyway after the fireworks, I went to Tim and Heather's apartments(it was late and they have a spare apartment so I stayed the night). We met up with a couple of the Japanese peppy teachers who had also come(they left at 3:30 for a drive which usually is a bit shorter than an hour(think caloundra to brisbane) and arrived at 7:00, that's how big and popular this festival is) and we went out for dinner at a nice Udon place(udon are thin japanese noodles).

BTW I've mentioned it before by fireworks are called HA NA BI (fire flower) in japanese.

The pictures are just a few I took with my Keitai(mobile phone), one of the huge street of portable festival stores, one of some Takoyaki being made, one of everyone at the Soba restaurant and a couple of fireworks(I didn't take too many fireworks shots(I do have some more though) because the camera on my phone while okay isn't great and because when you take photos of fireworks it's very difficult you have to get you're timing exactly right or miss the color or special effect(also it ruins the experience of watching the actual fireworks).