Chores on a Friday?

It seems like this weekend was filled with all kinds of things that needed to be done. I know I'm jumping all back and forth through my adventures here in Japan but for I should get this down before I forget. It's only been about 36 hours but it seems like so much has happened. Let's start from the beginning.

Early Friday morning we made a list of important chores that needed to be done. Before you get all bored by me mentioning the word "chores", let me emphasize that this is not like taking out the groceries or shopping for trash or other things that you normal people do. No, these chores are less than ordinary, and even if they were ordinary they would still be hard because it's all Japanese.

Anyway, in an earlier posting I explained that we had our Alien Registration cards registered to our crappy guest house, which we thought was a really good idea (if you have no idea what I'm talking about see earlier post). Well it turns out that the Japanese administration is not as stupid as we figured. In fact, we learned that they are very compulsive on every little detail. Once we moved into our new place, we wanted all of our mail forwarded there instead of the guest house which of course our Alien Registration cards, bank and cell phones were connected to. Turns out, once we changed addresses we got a landslide of things to correct in order for things not to be more screwed up than they already are (mostly because our bank accounts are with Japan Postal Bank and they must have realized that we changed the address through Japan Post so they are now holding our cash cards hostage until we produce the proper papers! WTF!) We realized, eventually, that our cards needed to be re-registered in the district of our new address. It took a while but it ended up being a good walk from our place. The plan for the following week is to correct everything else.

Our new place, apparently, is just outside of the Kyoto registration regulations and, as such, we had to go to another ward and change our registration there. So what's the big deal? The place we had to go to for registration was outside all of the maps that we had the time. Everything we have is for the central Kyoto area (even though our place is on all our maps, we don't count as being in the centre). So we had to wing it trying to find this new administration building in the heart of suburban Kyoto. This is not an easy task as we had to rely on maps like this one randomly found in the street.

So you tell me, does this sound like an easy task? Well it ended up being a lot easier then it seemed. Yes, we got lost and it took all day but eventually we found the place. It's really weird, once we got outside of the central area, of course, there was less things in Romaji and more in Japanese characters. (By the way when I said things were not in English that wasn't exactly the whole truth. Things here aren't in English but you can read them. There are Japanese characters and there are Latin alphabet characters. Some things are written in both so at least I can read it, even though I have no idea what it means). Also, as we ventured further from the tourist areas we got more looks from people than ever before. I guess the suburbanites don't see many non-Japanese people. One situation comes to mind where we walked over to two ladies waiting for the bus. They had the look of dread in their eyes thinking we were approaching them and they feared that we would talk to them in NOT Japanese. Once we strung together our "where the hell are we?" question in Japanese, the look of relief on their faces was priceless because they could answer that.

Oh and on a side note, I can read one of the three alphabets. Currently working on #2. #3 has over 5000 characters.

On the way, more and more things started to pop out as being strange since they were geared to a different crowd than the central Kyoto people. Things like car ads and signs for Ikea.

It turns out that Ultraman is a proud sponsor of Honda. Ultraman is a Power Rangers type TV show around since the 1960's. They're still making new episodes and he is the biggest superhero in Japan, I think. He is super popular and somehow he is a major toy product. Everyone loves Ultraman.

Basic concept. A Godzilla (In Japanese Gojira) type monster comes down to mess with Japan, so Ultraman kicks his ass. That's pretty much every episode. In one of the department stores we visited, I found a complete collection of monsters from the Ultraman series. I'm serious when I say that this is a major toy.

After much searching, distractions and overall confusion we found the place for registration. Needless, to say it was fine. We did find a Pizza Hut on the way but it costs about $25 for one 3 toping pizza. That's lame in my book. I think the issue is cheese. It's hard to find it here and if I do it's expensive.

Tell me this doesn't look fun. ------>

A small add-on to this story. I realized after my freak-out a week ago I needed to find a gym or something. Sorry about that by the way. I thought it was worth mentioning to explain the situation. Things are a lot better. I got some sleep and things got a lot easier. Nonetheless, I was in search for some form of exercise that wasn't running. I couldn't get anywhere on the Internet since everything was in Not English. If there is a problem like this, we usually go down to the International House and ask the old volunteer women who work there. They may take forever and be hyper compulsive but they will find something for you on the far reaches of the city, which is what they did after an hour of searching. Anyway, I got wind through a source that there was a gym near enough to my house and after the grand adventure to get the new cards, we found the gym and I got a membership.

This leads into my Saturday story. What happens when you don't understand the transportation system and you have no map of the surrounding areas? Well you end up getting on a bus in the direction that you want to go and after an hour end up on the other side of the city. I was so pissed off and exhausted. Its hard enough to get me to go to the gym. It took me another hour around the board to get back to Go. Of course, this had to happen after I was already having a bad day.

Earlier, I tried using my boss' bike to get to the gym. Got half way there when I realized that the tire was getting flatter. Now, I'm not an idiot but after about 35min of screwing with the bike pump and tire, I couldn't figure out how to pump it up. It doesn't look the same as a regular tire. No. the Japanese have their own way of making tires apparently. Removable bike valves? Can someone explain this to me?

Anyway the pool and gym turned out great. There's even a nice Japanese trainer who speaks English. However, people were staring at me as if I had two heads. I guess they've never seen a person sweat so much before.

This a schedule of the classes the gym offers. I have no idea what they are.

Working and Sleeping..HOW? With Style.

People have been asking me if I got a job, a place, what the situation is ...

Most people when they travel to Japan for work do it through some kind of organisation like JET. There a few major problems with this idea. 1) You don't really choose where you get placed 2) If you hate your job, tough 3) If you want to go with someone you probably will not be placed in the same city. So you can probably see why we didn't go for that option. Besides, most of these programs are for people who have little or no experience teaching or living abroad.

Most people who decide to work abroad typically don't do it for very long, 1-2 years at most. Either they miss their home country, become bored or decide that it's time to stop running from their lives. These people typically go traveling after a major break-up or tragedy in their lives. So most people that apply for teaching positions have little or no experience. I believed that after teaching English in France for two years I would have no problems finding a job. So, I took a chance.

Rather than going through some official program that holds your hand, we decided that we would get working-holiday visas and arrive here and hope for the best. I'm not sure how smart that was in retrospect but it ended up working out anyway. We didn't really apply for any jobs before coming here since most places wanted an interview anyway. So we really came blind.

Now that I've been here for a month, I can honestly tell you that you could walk down the street and trip over work here. Everyone wants to learn English. If the economy is down, people want to learn English because it will help them get a better job or secure their job. If the economy is up, people still want to learn English, probably for the same reasons. There are jobs being posted everyday. I applied to about 7seven jobs in the first week I was here and got an interview at five of them. Given my work experience, I'm sure those interviews would have gone well. The truth is I never went to any of the interviews that were offered to me. Like I said, you can just trip over work here by doing very little.

For instance, the first week I was here, I was sitting at the international house trying to figure out how to start this blog. A 20 something year old Japanese girl came over to me and asked me if I was an English teacher, I said "yes" and she became really happy, bought me a coffee and chatted with me for 20 min. A few of her friends came over and Helene ended up teaching one of them every Sunday.

Like I said before, people are looking for new teachers all the time. Sometimes it's because people come over here and freak out because of the culture shock, you never know.

What ended up happening with me was on one hand great, on the other hand one of the most stressful situations of my life. I was introduced to a Canadian man from Toronto who was looking for someone with just my experience. I had my interview on the spot and overall felt very happy with the chance encounter. What was offered fit closely with what I was looking for and it seemed that he was happy with my qualifications. The situation was that he needed to go back to Canada for personal reasons and that he would be out town for some time. He had set up a rather large network of students that he taught English to and didn't want that network to fall apart.

Coming to Japan I was really worried about working for a large company because they usually have their own system of teaching English and insist that everyone use it. This was one of my problems when I was in France. I ended up creating my own system (hardly original, I'm sure others do it) and it ended up achieving amazing results. What my boss helped me realise was that I couldn't properly expand on this system because of the limitations of my last job. He had spent the last 18 years in Japan working on a very similar system. The point is we were very compatible in style and approach of teaching English and I could learn a lot to learn from his experience.

I spent the next while in an apprenticeship position learning all I could about the classes he taught and his style of teaching them. Due to the nature this approach, as it did not use a clear cut book, we ended up clashing here and there about many issues. I've always had a problem with authority, even when it's justified. I like doing what I want and so did my boss.

I'll make this very very long story short. Every day for the next two weeks became very very long. First of all we had to run around all over the Kansai region (this is the area that Osaka and Kyoto are in. A Region is sort of like a Province/State) using many different transportation systems at the same time. I had no idea where we were going or how long it would take to get there. We ran to the class, gave the class and ran to the next. Between each class, I listened to stories about the classes, the students, criticism of my teaching, personal stories and suggestions on how to make life smoother in Japan. Overall, it was all very interesting and very helpful but after a week or so it started to become too much. I started to get really cranky and the training became more difficult.

By the end of the first week, I was coming home to that crappy guest house I mentioned earlier exhausted and in the worst mood. By the end I was on the edge of crying every night because there was too much happening too quickly and I honestly don't take stress that well. It felt like it wasn't working even though it was. I'm not sure what the main reason for me being so overwhelmed was. Culture shock, jet-lag, running around, criticism, the food, the late nights, the apartment, or a combination of all the above. At times it really felt that my arrangement would not work out because we clashed a lot and were both under a serious amount of stress. But it did. Things did get better and I ended up keeping the job.

I really wanted this job. Based on everything the other jobs were offering and what I had to do for them, this offer really seemed like the best for me. The hours are good with a small exception, I work really late on Thursday nights and every other week I teach an early morning Friday class. Pay is good and the classes are all really great. Mostly, I teach seniors but I also have some young doctors and some high school kids. So, right now that's my job. Helene ended up getting one of the jobs I applied for and by listening to her stories about it, I would have hated it, simply because of the strict system. But that works for her and I'm happy about that.

As for living conditions, that's another story.

In Japan most places require a deposit, usually this is about a month's rent. You're thinking "what country doesn't?". You typically don't need to sign a year-long lease but you're really encouraged not to up and move every little while. This encouragement comes from something called Key Money. I'm not sure of the full name but most Japanese people know what you mean when you say Key Money. Key Money is not for rent, deposit, or services. The closest thing I can call it is gift money. Most places expect it and it's usually written in the advertisement. This money is a form of "Thank you for choosing me" payment. I don't really get the ins and outs of the system but it can be very expensive depending on the place, location and the landlord. Plus, on top of the Key money, deposit and first month's rent, if you go through an agency you have to pay agency fees. Most people will not rent to foreigners so getting a place can be super hard. An agency that speaks English may be the only way, PLUS many land lords also want a Japanese Guarantor. A Guarantor is a person who can vouch for you, basically say that you're alright and they represent you. If you up and leave without paying rent, the guarantor must pay the landlord the money you owe. As you can probably guess, we did not have a Japanese Guarantor.

Anyway, all this stuff makes finding an apartment long, difficult and above all expensive. We ended up visiting a few places. The people preyed on foreigners who didn't know any better or who didn't want to go through all the above junk. So be careful if you're looking in a newspaper or website that rents out places to foreigners, you might end up getting a Japanese guy offering you a hole in the wall for more than its worth but without a guarantor or key money.

One of the things that we had to learn was that a place was calculated on the number of Tatami mats, not square meters or inches. Tatami Mats are standard size and all rooms in Japan are evaluated in the number of Tatami Mats. So we started looking into all kinds of different layouts. For the most part, Japanese apartments are very small and they don't really like clutter so you don't get that much space for your stuff.

Both my job story and my apartment story end in the same way. Because my boss had to leave the country, part of the deal was that I would house sit for him as well.

I'll get into the details of the place later.

Suffice to say it's awesome...

It Feels like a Tomato Hitting a Wall

It's been a month now and people have all kinds of questions. I suppose the big question is "How am I doing?". All these fun stories about Japan are interesting but I guess what's missing is a real update about what I've been going through emotionally.

In the last few weeks it seems that I've been experiencing a retro Jetlag. I've been getting very tired at strange parts of the day and waking up every night at about 4:00am. This has been happening for about 5 days now. Waking up and not really being able to get back to sleep. It's similar to the feeling of an actual Jetlag like the one I experienced when I got here. 13 hour difference really screwed with my system. It was sort of neat too because we got up super early and had more opportunity to do stuff. However, what I'm experiencing today, I think, is more of a culture overload.

Right now, it feels like my brain can't work correctly. During the day when I'm not doing my job, I find that it's becoming difficult to focus on alternative tasks, like reading my Star Wars book or learning Japanese. I'm not day dreaming, just not thinking. I think the expression is zoning out, but I'm not sure. I'm consciously there but I notice that my mind is not actually thinking about any specific thought. I get frustrated that Helene can multitask right now and I can't. She deals with stress by keeping busy. I deal with stress by shutting down. By the time I get home, I just feel exhausted and I end up vegging out in front of the TV and passing out early. (I've watched all four seasons of "How I met your Mother" this month) Through the night, as my brain relaxes, I start thinking about things. Things that I should do, things bothering me, funny stories and things that I want to write on this blog. Sometimes, I get up and have a snack or something but overall I don't really fall asleep again. Just end up tossing and terning for the rest of the night and being overly caffeinated tfor the rest of the next day.

I hope to find a gym or some kind of alternative exercising like Aikido or Kendo but I haven't been feeling motivated to research these things at this time. Perhaps, I will visit the gym I found tomorrow. Helene suggests that I try meeting with some form of Zen meditation master in order to focus my thoughts and find my inner Chi or something like that. I may do that as well. That may sound weird and lame but over here many people talk about that kind of thing. Spirituality is very important for Japanese people. So finding your center and focus is very important. I suppose at this stage in my life, I could really use greater focus to find myself. This is sort of the point of this trip to Japan. I hope to find myself.

Why is this happening? Well I've been thinking about my spacing out and I realised that I'm over-stimulated. When you visit a place, the first few weeks are fun and exciting because everything is new and the things you don't understand don't really matter because you typically won't be around long enough for them to matter. Plus, if you're visiting a place you typically visit all the tourist things and they are designed to be idiot proof. So far, I've barely touched the tourist attractions of Kyoto, I've been too busy setting my life up here. What's happening now, is that all of these little things are now coming into the foreground and confusing me to hell. Generally, I can do my job and get the things done that I need to be done but it's all the little things that make the big things run smoothly. Right now, all the little rocks are making the road very bumpy.

As I mentioned before, almost nothing here is in English and most people do not speak English. So I have to get by on the Japanese diagrams and pray for there to be pictures or something to help me. In order to explain one of the little things that bother me, I'll use this example. I've been trying to get a map of one of the train systems in my area. From what I understand there are about 4 or 5 different train systems. I've gotten two maps already. I'm at one of the train stations where I usually catch the train I need. I ask the ticket booth guy for a map of the system. Basically, I say "Map Please" using my little pocket dictionary. At first he gives me a general map showing the main routes and main stations for all of Japan, all written in Japanese. I ask him for a more detailed map by saying "Map, Detailed Please". After fuddling around for a bit, he passes me a detailed map of the area I wanted but it's still all written in Japanese characters. At least at this point I have what I want, I just need to find it in English. So the plan this week is to take this map and say "English Please" at the main train station. Hopefully, I will get one.

This is a menu.

Honestly, most of the little things are not as complicated as the above example. Sometimes, it's just going to the supermarket and looking at the labels and not actually realising what the item is. One of the things that bothers us is that we don't know what items we can buy. Can we buy X and if so what item on the shelf is X and where is X sold. Sometimes its just about going to the right store. Every supermarket seems to sell different things. But, I'm digressing again.

In short, I'm overwhelmed, I have no idea what's going on around me, but at the same time I'm loving it. I have another friend in Japan right now and he got here about a month or so before I did. We finally started talking on Skype (mike.steinberg1) and he explained to me that he has a new story everyday. I agree. with that. There are so many little things that are worth telling a story about. I honestly wish I had enough energy everyday to get on this blog and tell a story. For example, on Thursday I went to a Toys 'R' Us and they have little TVs every 3/4 meters with commercials of the toy that they're trying to sell. The store basically sounds like a video arcade because all the TVs are super loud to get the kids excited. That's the kind of junk that I want to tell you about but I'm so dead because of this weird culture shock jetlag syndrome.

I suppose, I knew I was getting myself into this. I don't really have a support structure here besides Helene and we really haven't had time to go out and meet other Gaijin (foreigners) because we're so dead in the evenings. We've been relying on each other and it's been stressful as we don't really have another outlet to explain all our craziness to. The result is that we get on each others nerves at times. But we relax and realize that this is not who we are and that the situation is very taxing on us as individuals and as a couple and we hope that things will get easier. I'm sure they will.

This story of 'how I'm doing' can ultimately can be summed up with what I just said. After the first week or so when things started to get more interesting, the stress started to get crazy too. I suppose this can only make me stronger and I hope it won't do any permanent damage to me or my relationship. Right now we need to relax take it easy and take things as they come one at a time.

In order to tell the most stories that I can, I need your questions to keep me going. So if you have any questions please leave a comment.

Movies are Expensive

It turns out that their Cinemas are super expensive. It costs $21 Can to see a movie. On Wednesdays it's 11.50 Can for women. Cheap days for women, that's totally sexist if you ask me. The first of the month is cheap for both men and women. Not to sound cheap but I'm not paying $21 for a movie. That means that I can only see a movie once a month. That means that on Sunday November 1st I'll get to see something. Unfortunately, 2012 only comes out November 21st. Right now my best choice is to see X-men Zero, which sucks and I won't pay that kind of money to see that again. My mission is to find an English Imax theater before December 18th. I don't care if I have to go to Tokyo, I will see Avatar on the Imax!!!!

Kyoto City of Mystery

This Saturday will be a month so I'd better get up to speed a little faster. Basically all I've covered is the first day or so after we arrived. The next week pretty much stands by itself and I'll cover it with some random stories.

After we moved into our bar/apartment we needed to get our bearings of the overall area. We were under the impression that we had to register at the City Hall so we went looking for it. In the process we got lost and spent most of the day walking around taking pictures of random stuff. It turns out we didn't have to register at the city hall at all and, due to the public holidays and the weekend, we didn't learn that information until a week after we arrived. I think we walked up the street with the city hall 7 times in our first week here. But that's OK, it's a cool street and that's how we found the Manga Museum.

We were told that recently there was a law passed that limited all forms of advertisement in Kyoto in order to maintain its cultural look and feel. So if you have ever seen pictures of Tokyo, Kyoto looks nothing like it. It doesn't have the neon signs, not much, or the giant billboards on the side of buildings. Many buildings have formal tops to them making you believe that it's somehow important but it really doesn't need to be nor is it necessarily that old. This building is a restaurant, I think. Most buildings look as if they were built recently though. Classic Japanese buildings are built from wood with stone shillings. They also have the classic Japanese toilet that I had in the guest apartment. Public toilets commonly look like that too but you can find some western-style ones. So most of the buildings look modern and, by modern, meaning after WWII. However, they have figured out a way to make this overall eclectic feeling fit with the style of the city. Somehow it works. There are not many skyscrapers and if there are they aren't very tall and they're in the south of the city near the main train station or down the main shopping strip. I think they leave that sort of thing to Osaka and Tokyo. The building you see in this picture was in a private lot in the center of Kyoto. Either it's an embassy or someone had a lot of money to waste. It looked pretty though so I took a picture. A few more things about public toilets. During one of our first days walking around I journeyed into a public toilet. There was a lot of writing and an arrow pointing at a button near the bottom of the stall. I had no idea what the button was for so I pressed it. I honestly thought it was the flush button but it turns out it was the HELP HELP, I'M BEING ATTACKED button. The alarm went off and I ran from the scene. I could hear it down the street and sure enough police showed up within 3 min. I wasn't sure whether to be impressed or embarrassed. The cool thing is that there are public toilets everywhere. Every subway station and 7-11 has a FREE toilet to use. Makes me think of the paid toilets in Europe. We should get with the program and let this issue just be easier. When I get back to Canada, I'm starting an association for public toilets. Who's with me?!!

Not too far from our place are the two main shopping streets of Kyoto. I would compare it to the Eaton' center area in Toronto. Shops, Karaoke, Bars, Restaurants and eateries line up these two streets. Its pretty awesome and really fun to walk around. Lots of lights and people. Occasionally we came across an English menu, which was nice.

Right beside the main shopping street is an outdoor mall, sort of. I thought it was once a normal street with shops that eventually got a cover to it and stopped all traffic. There are larger and smaller versions of this all over Kyoto and the surrounding area. Connected to this is a little market street that sells fresh seafood and produce everyday. Later I read that this shopping street was originally the area where the road from western Japan crossed with the road from Eastern Japan. This market area was filled with temples. The Teramachi mall ended up becoming the center for travelers and I guess it eventually became a market place. There are still vendors there that sell temple-related souvenirs. There are little elements of old temples still there in the corners and shadows.

At one of the largest intersections, three different department stores tower in rivalry to each other. Now, by department store I'm not talking about anything that I've seen before. Nothing in Ottawa even compares. 10-11 floors of stuff, each. Rather then going out into the suburbs they have everything you need in one store with only one exception, electronics. That's right they don't sell electronics in department stores in Japan. Not even coffee makers. So where are all the electronics. Everyone seems to think that Japan has all the latest technology and gadgets, but where are they? We spent the better part of the following week looking for them. OK, occasionally we would come across a camera store on the main shopping streets with a bazillion cameras and attachments and lenses. They really are picky about their cameras. It definitely not the selection that Best Buy offers. I really hope to buy a crazy camera or camcorder but it's too hard to choose when you can't read anything about the camera. I'll come back to department stores and electronics another day. But, bottom line, the camera selection here is crazy.

The pictures above and below are some of the examples of the things we saw on these streets. Japanese are crazy about casinos. There are small and large ones all over the place. But many don't have the games that you would expect, like black jack and roulette. A few days ago I had my first casino experience in Japan. I think that will take a whole page to explain. Slot King is one of the casinos that we passed by. There's a large 18 or over sign in the front doors, usually with a bouncer. All the colors and lights intrigue me.

I'm not sure what's in the other picture but I'll let you know when I find out.

In the center of the city is the old Imperial Palace. I think you need a reservation if you want to visit it and it's only open on certain days. This area around the palace used to house the elite of Japan and was converted into a park not too long ago. The park is gorgeous with different flowers blooming every season, or so I've been told. The area is huge and quiet, people reading and jogging. There isn't enough space to play any sports on the grass, only on the big roads. I think its more of a place to relax and enjoy quiet time. What you see in the picture here is one of the many doors to the park. A lot of things in Japan seem to try to make things light and less stressful, whether it's a happy little mascot here or a fun little tune there. Like the microwave in the crappy apartment. Rather than buzzing it played a little tune. Things like that.


The Japanese take their Manga very seriously. Here is a small section of a Manga store. Nothing's in English. What's really cool is that every volume of every series has a number on it right on the spine. Every book from that series uses one font so it looks nice on the shelf. The compulsive side of me likes that. I only wish my comics had giant numbers on them to tell me what order they came it.

Now, my brother tells me that Taiwan is very similar when it comes to the 7-11 type stores so this aspect may not be as unique as I thought. However, let me suggest a different metaphorical situation. You're walking down the street in the humid (yes Kyoto is very humid) weather, today for instance was 20 °C, wondering where the closest 7-11 is so you can buy a drink. Maybe you need a gas station or something like that. Damn you're thirsty and you don't know what to do (OK, as I type this I'm getting thirsty and I'm going for a Coke). Well, this situation doesn't happen in Japan. At least not for very long. Every 25 meters or less there's a Coke machine. And not just Coke, coffee, juice, ice tea or hot coffee in a can. Yes hot coffee in a can from a vending machine.
They have this company called Boss with Tommy Lee Jones as their spokesperson. It's a coffee company with a hardcore spokesperson with a name like Boss, how can it not be awesome? Their logo has a dude with a pipe. It's pretty awesome.
Drink in these machines usually comes to about a $1.50 or so for a can of Coke. Sometimes you can find tall boy cans of Coke for the same price. Now I don't know how they do it but all the machines have the same prices on them. Either it's a national thing or Coke just controls all of it. My buddy Jay seems to believe that it's not Coke but the beer companies of Japan. Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo and Suntory may be the companies that run this country. I write this because you can buy beer in a vending machine too. Cigarettes also. On the bed, on the floor, on a towel by the door; in the tub, in a car, up against the mini bar - you can get your vice anytime you want.

Guest House Illias

OK, Last day I left off with my first breakfast in Kyoto. When we were done with that we had a mission to find the apartment or "Guest House" that we reserved in advance. Most of the guest houses we found online were very expensive but one stuck out as being a significantly lower price than all the rest. Honestly, we didn't care if we were in a roach infested motel for the two weeks. The price was right and I'll explain why it was necessary. The deal was great. It cost the both of us 29000 Yen (¥) which is about $340 Canadian. We needed a base of operations from which we could do everything we needed to do. Perhaps, two weeks was too short to do everything but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Before I say what we found. Let me explain what the dilemma was.

In order to get a job many steps need to be done before hand. First of all, all foreigners (Gaigin) must apply for an Alien Registration Card (The application for such a card was entirely in Japanese and no one at the office spoke English..Fun). In order to get the Alien Registration Card you needed an address that they can send it to. In order to get a place to stay you needed a bank account, which of course you needed an Alien Registration Card to get. If you want me to make it even more complicated, to get a place to stay is nearly impossible without a cell phone and you need a bank account to get that. And please keep in mind once again that the cell phone reps, bank tellers and most people who will rent out appartments DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH. Once again, Neither I nor Helene speak Japanese, at least not enough to get anything we needed done properly.

So what to do in this screwed up world of contradictions, we rented an apartment (Guest House Illias) and immediately went to get our Alien Registration Card using our temporary address. Unfortunately, we arrived on Silver Week, which is a national holiday week (sort of, only 3 days.). It turns out that this week two holidays fell on the Japanese calender fell one day apart from each other and the government decided to give the people the day in between off as well. This only happens once every 8 years, I think. They called it Silver Week because every year they do have a national week off, which is called Golden Week. The name definitely keeps up with the Asian stereotypes.

Thus, we couldn't get anything done in any manner until the following Thursday September 24th. This was of course good and bad. Good since we could do some exploring and bad because we couldn't do anything without those damn cards.

Alright, I think I've digressed enough. What did the apartment look like? We got a ride from a really nice Japanese man from our hostel to the guest house. It was located in the Gion neighborhood. Now we didn't actually realise what kind of neighborhood Gion was until about 3 days later. It turns out Gion is the center of Kyoto for Bars, Clubs, Restaurants and Adult Entertainment. You wouldn't be able to tell by looking at it, at least not at first. Not to say it was loud or anything like that. Surprisingly it was very quiet. Everything was very well contained indoors. The point is, we were in the center of Kyoto, well within walking distance of most things cool.

The apartment was nestled on the 5th floor of a very small building. It was one of two apartments on this floor. We didn't have a shower. That was located on the 7th floor and honestly I'm not sure how hygienic it was. I don't have a picture of it, so I'll leave that to the imagination. The first thing that we noticed about our apartment was the smell. It came from the toilet area. Yeah, just by looking at the picture on the right you can see the problem. I have no idea what kind of balancing act I was suppose to use with the traditional toilet, but for me it was fine because a western style toilet was available on the 7th floor. Helene on the other hand could not run upstairs every time she had to pee. Plus entering this thing was just an awful experience not only because of the smell but the sound of the fan was so loud that it would wake up anyone in the next room. You would think that the fan worked well because of how loud it was. It didn't.

The layout of the place was funny. Couches on the side. A bed and a couch that turned into a bed. Both were too short for me, my legs stuck out. In addition it had, a small sink and a gas element with no gas. We eventually called them (once we figured out how the phones worked) and complained that the gas didn't work on the stove but that ended up going nowhere. The gas also heated the hot water, so we didn't have that either (eventually we called and complained that the shower had no hot water either and they fixed that). The nice man that drove us to the apartment offered us some instant coffee. How we were suppose to make it was a question that I asked everyday. I suppose we were suppose to use the microwave to heat the water but that never made good coffee (still not sure how healthy that was). We also had a bar fridge.

I before I get to the punchline of this story I wanted to say one more thing about this apartment. We didn't have a key to it. To both the apartment and the shower we had a combination lock. There was a lock on the door with a combination of 4 letters in order to get into the apartment. I've seen that on bikes but doors?

I've mentioned that we were in the bar district. There were more bars per square inch then I've ever seen before. If you look at the pictures above you'll see that there are a lot of signs everywhere. How can you fit so many bars into such a small area. Well I'm not sure of the liqueur laws in this country but it seems that anyone could open a their own bar and sell booze to anyone willing to buy it. The areas are small and cozy. Smoking is allowed indoors. I suppose a place where you can show up with your buddies and take over for the night. Most bars in this area turned out to only hold about 20 people. Some of these bars are also hostess bars. Which I will write about once I get more info about it. I think you pay girls to flirt with you while you drink. But I'm not sure.

Finally the end of the story where all the clues that I've laid out earlier all culminate into one final joke. If you look at this picture what you will see is a place called BABES on the 5th floor. I'm pretty sure that the apartment across from us was not a bar because I saw a single mom coming out of there a few times and heard a kid in the corridor. So, I pritty sure that our place was BABES. Once we figured this out we were a little more cautious about locking the doors. Who knows what kind of business occurred there and what kind of clientele it had. If you look at this picture below it is the exact mirror image of what the apartment looked like.
The bed was uncomfortable. It smelt really bad. We couldn't cook anything and the fridge could barley hold breakfast for the following day. No we didn't have wireless. We survived off Cup of Noodle soup and easily microwaveable stuff. Eventually we found hard boiled eggs in the store. This avoided having fried food at the start of the day. My stomach is still complaining from that experience. It was fun because we had to work with what we had. Plus, the microwave wouldn't beep when it was done it would sing a little song. I would also like to add that there was a sign in the shower room that warned users not to shower while doing laundry because "fear of the burn". Yes we had a laundry machine but we had nowhere to dry our clothes nor could we realise how to use the damn things since all the buttons were in Japanese.

One last thing which is up for conversation is this last picture which I took outside our window. I would love to hear what you think it means.
We ended up extending our lovely stay in this apartment for an extra 4 days.

Daichi for Beatbox Battle Wildcard

A friend of mine showed me this. When he starts scratching with his voice that gets me every time.

First Arrival and the following days

Finally got the Internet up and running, so, now I can fill in all the details that I've missed up to now. I realise now that I haven`t said much about my actual experience here.

Today is day 22 and what I've experienced the last three weeks has been exciting and horrible in many ways.

Honestly, I don't remember the last time that I was this emotionally and physically exhausted. What began as a challenge to find a job, a place to stay, a cell phone and a bank account ended up merging together to form a impact on my senses. Did I mention that no one here speaks English.

But as usual I'm getting ahead of myself. So, we arrived. the night before was filled with passing in and out of consciousness. The next day we got up at 6:00 to search for breakfast but only really finding a 7-11. Little did we know, 7-11 type establishments are part of the norm here. Honestly, its worse than Tim Horten's. Sometimes, there right next door to each other. Circle K, Lawson's, 7-11, AM/PM there all the same. We bought some random things. I'll try anything once, twice if I like it. These chip things in the picture tasted kind of like bacon bits. I sure hope it wasn't dog food. In addition I purchased what I thought was a vegetable cocktail type drink. Upon further inspection I realised that it was missing a key ingredient, TOMATO'S. It was a combination of Fruits and Vegetables which I learned today has a huge variety. Think about it. Why limit vegetable cocktail to vegetables and fruit drinks to fruit. When you can have orange juice mixed with carrot, broccoli celery, apples and grapes. Confused yet. Later I bought a Tomato, pear, plum and apple drink. It was OK. Today I bought a few other weird mixes. We'll see how those go.

Bananas Cure Cancer

Here is something that I came across. I won't post something like this often but I thought it was a good idea.

"The fully ripe banana produces a substance called TNF which has the ability to combat abnormal cells.In an animal experiment carried out by a professor in Tokyo University comparing the various health benefits of different fruits,using banana, grape, apple, water melon, pineapple, pear and persimmon, it was found that bananas gave the best results. It increased the number of white blood cells, enhanced the immunity of the body and produced anti-cancer substance TNF. The degree of anti-cancer effect corresponds to the degree of ripeness of the fruit, i.e. the riper the banana, the better the anti-cancer quality. Thus, the Japanese love bananas for a good reason. According to the Japanese professor, yellow skin bananas with dark spots on it are 8 times more effective in enhancing the property of white blood cells than the green skin version. The recommendation is to eat 1 to 2 banana a day to increase your body immunity to diseases like cold, flu and others."

Why Kyoto

I feel like I'm playing catch-up. I've been here for 15 days and I'm so behind on this blog. Well the main reason is that I don't have regular access to Internet right now. The only place I use the Internet is at the Kyoto International House. It's not that far away from where I'm staying but we've been so busy in the last two weeks, which I won't go into until things are finalised, that I haven't been at the International House long enough to say anything. But don't worry, soon enough things will even out into a common normality and I'll have fun coming back and commenting on all the things I missed. As soon as I have regular access to the Internet, I will be posting more often, I think....

So I arrived in Kyoto (Direct Translation - Capital City). Why did we choose Kyoto, you ask. Where is Kyoto? That's what wikipedia is for. The point is, for all you lazy people out there who don't want to check, I'm not anywhere near Tokyo. Right now I don't want to touch Tokyo with a 10 foot stick. To give you an idea of what Kyoto is like, it's about 1.5 million people surrounded by mountains from all sides. Now I don't know my geography and I'm not sure what kind of weather I'm getting myself into but it's been hot here everyday since I arrived. 30°C everyday. The last few days have been rainy but whatever. Anyway, this was the capital city until 1868 at the time of the Imperial Restoration (which I also will not get into) when the capital was moved to Tokyo (Direct Translation-Eastern Capital). Kyoto was the capital city for about 700 years. In the center of the city, the Imperial Palace is a huge and amazing structure which I'll get into more when I visit it. Kyoto is about an 8 hour drive from Tokyo and about 45min from Osaka.

We chose to live in Kyoto for a few reasons. Firstly, Japan is known for volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, typhoons and hurricanes. Kyoto is protected on all sides from all of these wonderful things. I have no idea why Tokyo is as big as it is because it's the center for most of these problems in Japan. This safety idea was probably why Kyoto was chosen as the location of the capital. Being surrounded by mountains probably helped with defence too. So this kind of leads to my second reason. Since this was the center of the Empire for so long, we figured that many aristocrats and other wealthy people would have wanted to be near the Imperial Palace. The city of Kyoto grew around this type of society. Thus, today even though it's not the capital, Kyoto is considered the most cultural city for most things Japanese. Whether it be clothing, music and traditions, Kyoto appears to be covered in non-western culture. This is the richest place to get it in Japan. At least this is what I've been told. Thus, we chose this place because we figured that it would be the best place to learn about Japan and Japanese culture. I've recently visited Osaka and from what I can tell it is far more Westernised. You can see it from the way people dress and the kind of restaurants available.

Our choice of Kyoto may not have been the best because it may lack a certain variety that most cosmopolitan places seem to have. Right now, it doesn't seem like a problem but I wonder how much of the food I can eat before I start to miss other things or how much overall culture I can take before I yearn for something familiar. I guess living 45 min from Osaka will give me all the variety I need if I want it.

Now, I wonder what kind of image the reader has in his mind of what Kyoto must look like or be like. All I've seem to say is that it's very traditional. Well, it's not as old fashioned as I make it out to be; its simply the most cultural. Were definitely not talking about Upper Canada Village. There are cars, taxis, subways, banks and McDonalds just like any large city. But, it's not uncommon to see a woman walking around in a kimono. There are more temples here then I can currently count. I'm sure I'll say more about them after I've visited some. What I love most about Kyoto is the constant mixture of old and new, of tradition and modernism.