Working, thoughts, and Tokyo.

"A view atop of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building's Observatory Deck"

Got home from Shinjuku today. I've only been to Tokyo 4 or 5 times since being here, but I think during this summer break, I may go more times either by myself or with someone else (perhaps Hiro when he gets back from Hokkaido or Mitsue maybe ^^). I am reading Lonely Planet's guide on Japan (don't get me started on how Lonely Planet treat things in the book, because sometimes it's pedantic, elitist, and sometimes plain silly and wrong, but that rant could be a seperate entry in itself) , and there is so many things I want to see in Tokyo and the surrounding area, but have yet to go to.

I started working on Tuesday, with Mr. Nagao and Mrs. Yukie at Starbucks at Ustunomiya station. At first I was worried when Mr. Nagao didn't appear to show up as early as I thought, but he strolled in right at 4 when the lesson was supposed to start. His English is okay, but it takes him a while to put sentences together. He's a anesthesiologist. Strange thing is, Japan seems like a socialist society sometimes. In America, anesthesiologists are among the highest paid doctors in the profession of medicine. However, in Japan, they make the same amount of money as surgeons and other lower specialties do. It's more about the amount of years you spend in one field that determines how much you make. Kyle (a previous student of Hakuoh's program) told me tonight he watched a program that comes on occasionally in Japanese TV that compares prices of salaries among different professions. Dentists starting out make 40k a year, but 20th year (meaning, working for 20 years as a dentist) dentists make 800k or something a year. That's a huge difference. However, this "age = wages" system is breaking down in Japan, but not as quickly as once thought in most professions. Mrs. Yukie, my 6 to 8 PM student, on the other hand had decent English skills and seems to have taken a liking to me because we both enjoy Astronomy as a hobby. She's even read books I've read (Like Cosmos by Carl Sagan) about that field. I later found out on Wednesday's lesson that she's an accomplished figure skater and has been practicing for 20 years. That's pretty cool.

On Wednesday, I had 6 classes, but only had 5 because one student canceled the lesson at the last minute. My first lesson was with Ms. Rie and her English is okay. She spent some time in Australia and Norway/Sweden so her ability was pretty good. This lesson I discovered that teaching the Japanese how I (and other non-native speakers of Japanese) learned Japanese, she was better able to understand how to translate things she wanted to say into English. The next lesson was with two women, Ms. Eri and Ms. Ae. Both women's English ability was decent. Ms. Ae really surprised me though, as she is the oldest of my students about double the age of Ms. Eri. She loves to travel, and she says her travel English is the best of her English, but outside of that, she doesn't know much. She also said that it's "never to late to do anything" and that's very admirable. Next I had about a 2 hour break. I walked from the school (I just received my bike rental card, so I couldn't use it that day) to a Tsutaya bookstore and was impressed with the amount of books and magazines available compared to Oyama's bookstores. I later went to an arcade which was cool as shit because it was an old school arcade (I am talking about an arcade with a laundry place attached to it). Japanese arcades never cease to amaze me, and I'll do another entry eventually just for them.

After that, I walked back and had Mr. Hamaguchi. His English is okay, but he wants to practice mostly his listening because he too is also a doctor and he attends medical congresses where there are foreign speakers giving seminars. He occasionally wants to ask me if I can read a part from medical journal at a "normal speed" (i.e. my natural reading speed) aloud so he can practice his listening. My pronunciation with new words seems to be great in English, but with these medical terms and such, my speed is sometimes hampered at trying to maintain my speaking rate. After that, I had Mrs. Rie again. We talked about 天文学の単語　(Astronomy Vocabulary) in English. I knew of most of the planets were called in Japanese, but because Mercury (水星）　and comets (彗星）　have the same pronunciation in Japanese, specialists and hobbists of Astronomy call Mercury (すいぼし） or Suiboshi instead of Suisei. My last lesson was canceled so I was able to go home early and not on the last train.

I hate working though until 8 (or past 8) sometimes at Utsunomiya, despite I've only worked 2 days so far. On some days I may want to do shopping or go hang out at an arcade somewhere like I do in Oyama sometimes, but the major shopping areas close at 8 or start to close at 8PM in Utsunomiya. I still can't get over that fact that places that could have a lot of business because people just start getting off work at that time close, and have to resort to cobinis and such for food (and possibly reading material on the way home for the commuters). I am so used to that if say a mall closed down at 9PM in America (which they do), then I could go to a Target or Wal-Mart to get any shopping I needed done, and Meijer and Wal-Mart are 24-7 shops. Don't get me wrong, I am used to the system here, but a LOT of the crap that is said about Japan being "convenient" and "timely" is mostly incorrect (meaning, not all the time true).

Take for instance, trains. Japanese trains are a popular stereotype of timeliness in America. I am also guilty of that one. I would have to take the Indy Go bus system to get to school when I had classes, and would have to time it out because I figured the bus would come usually 10 minutes behind schedule. I dreamed of a public transportation system that would be like Japanese trains, so precise and timely. But, the reality is, Japan trains aren't ALWAYS on time. In times of big events and regular commutes, trains are packed. Even if the train came on time, there might be a time where you might not be able to ride one train because it was packed to the brim with people. There's also times of natural disasters (your train being more likely to fail after the line being struck by lightning than being derailed because of an earthquake) or the lesser talked about person whom committed suicide by jumping in front of the train (this DOES happen, but it usually is treated like the rest of the problems that can go wrong and is just referred to as "so and so train line is stopped" only). But, for the most part, trains are pretty precise in most other times.

Another thing is that ATMs are NOT 24 hours here. They are usually open from 8 to 7 on weekdays and 10 to 5 on Saturdays and during certain holidays (like Golden Week) they are closed (going from ATMs in Oyama experience). Banks close at 3PM here. They are NOT open on weekends or holidays PERIOD. Post offices usually have ATMs in them as well, but are usually open for the same length as the rest of the ATMs in the city. Banks and ATMs are one of the major disappointments of "convenience". The only thing that is always convenient is the cobinis, but they HAVE to be convenient. It's in their name.

Sorry to go on a rant, but that's just a few things I've noticed since being here. I like to share this with you all, so that if you're ever in Japan, you know what to look out for.

Before I went to Shinjuku today, I bought a new digital camera at Yamada-Denki. It has 4x optical zoom and 10.1 megapixels (uploading time to flickr increases because each picture is now between 1.8 and 2.5 MB in 10 megapixels). My last camera cracked the LCD screen when I had it in a really tight pair of jeans with my wallet in the same pocket. So, I forged ahead and bought a $37 dollar protection case. I found it weird that they didn't have many off brand protection cases, just the main ones from the manufactures of the cameras themselves. I thought it was a rip off having to spend that much for a case, so I just used my built up points on my Yamada-Denki card to spend towards that puchase which knocked $50 dollars off that price. America would NEVER have a points system similar to the Japanese systems found at many stores,grocery stores, bookstores, etc . Card point systems are pretty much 1 point = 1 yen, so it acts like REAL money. America would be content with just giving shoppers a percentage discount, rather than a 1 point = 1 cent kind of deal. This kind of points system in Japan ENCOURAGES more people to buy things so they can save up and knock down a huge chunk off the price of like an I-phone or something.

I went to Tokyo today to meet up with Kyle and Shrida. We ended up meeting at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku. The view from the observation deck was amazing and I got to try out the new camera I bought today. The pictures turned out pretty awesome, except for the occasional glare from the windows you can see in the pictures. The zoom pictures are okay, but with the glare from the windows, it messed with the zoom pretty bad.

We later headed to one of only 2 Mexican restaurants in Tokyo, one being in Shinjuku. The inside of the restaurant was pretty amazing and the food was alright. I also discovered riding home with Kyle, a train line that goes directly from Oyama to the heart of Tokyo (i.e. Shinjuku), allowing me to bypass the fuckhole that Ueno station can be sometimes during rush hour. That's awesome.

Next time going to Tokyo is this Sunday with Keleih to meet up with Marco and play some board and card games in Akibahara. Saturday is the Oyama Fireworks Festival (actually "big event" 大会、but same thing) and I should get plenty of pictures of the festival and such. I heard it can be as crowded as Utsunomiya's matsuri I just went to in Oyama, so that should be interesting to see (Oyama isn't a big enough city I think to hold 100k+ people all at once, but eh). So, see you all later!