Korea: Change of plans. Waiting for my visa number

If you asked me a few months ago, I definitely wouldn't have guessed how things would turn out.

In May and June I took a TEFL certification course.  I loved the course and got really pumped up about teaching English abroad. I used the teacher placement service provided by the TEFL company and also applied to different schools in Japan by myself.  Unfortunately, my job search in Japan wasn't going well. After a few interviews with no luck, I decided to expand my job search to other countries.

Well, here’s the situation so far. I signed a contract for a job in South Korea a few weeks ago. I sent a bunch
of documents to my school there, which were then forwarded on to immigration.  I’m waiting to get my Visa Issuance number from immigration.

After I get my Visa Issuance number, I have to go to Chicago to meet the Korean consulate for a short interview regarding my qualifications and intentions. After that, the consulate processes some more paperwork and issues a visa within about 5 days.

I live over 8 hours away from Chicago, so I’m going to have to take a flight and everything.. it’s going to be quite the ordeal.

My school wants me to depart December 26th. We’ll see if it happens!

A much-needed update.

It's been entirely too long since I posted here, so an update is in order.

I left Japan in July of 2008.  I have so much that I never wrote about and I feel like I'm just too far behind to catch up, so I'm going to have to apologize about that. I won't be writing about the last few months of my time in Japan, because it's not really the same to write it in such retrospect.

So, at the moment I'm at my university, finishing my last semester.  I audited a Japanese course last semester to keep my skills up, but this semester I'm too busy with other classes, I can't afford to take Japanese as well.

So, to keep up I'm watching a lot of Japanese movies on netflix, trying to keep  in communication on sites like mixi so I can practice reading and writing, and using some software. I recently found the websites www.iknow.co.jp which has some useful daily lessons.  In addition I play a few Nintendo DS games, mostly kanji games, that help me keep my kanji literacy up.

As for Japan, I'm planning on returning sometime this year. I graduate May 9th, and I'm enrolling in a TEFL certification course that goes from May 30th to June 14th.  I'm ready to leave for Japan at any time after that. I'm going to be applying to AEON and ECC and Amity.

My goal is to make it back to Japan before the end of the year. I'm actually aiming to make it back before September, but if that fails, before 2010.

I won't have any updates until I actually apply to those companies, but I'll try to udpate it here play-by-play for anyone interested in following in my footsteps.

OH GOD.

BEHOLD! THE MOST HORRIFYING IMAGE EVER! I'll post soon with more pictures (not all this horrifying) and also an explanation for this.

Man, I suck!

OH MAN GUYS SO I'M ACTUALLY GOING TO UPDATE FOR ONCE! LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED! I haven't posted in forever so I've actually got a backlog of stuff to post about, because hey, I wanna show you guys all the sweet pictures I've taken.

SO LET'S JUMP IN THE TIME MACHINE! IT'S NOW MID-MARCH! SPRING BREAK!
LET'S GO TO TOKYO!


So a lot of people believe that you can get anything out of vending machines in Japan. Well, it's mostly true. It's common to see cigarette and beer vending machines-- here's an example of a vending machine full of beer. (One of those is beer mixed with grape juice.. I haven't tried it but it sounds pretty gross.) I just thought I'd get this out of the way.

So, we decided to head over to one of the most scandalous places in Tokyo, Yasukuni Shrine. The reason for the controversy is that it's a shrine dedicated to all who died for Imperial Japan--particularly soldiers and others killed in war. Why would this be controversial? Well, first it's important to understand what Shrines are. They're a Shinto place of worship-- the basic belief is that certain deities are "enshrined" at each of these shrines. These deities are referred to, as a whole, as "kami" which can be loosely translated as "god". So, being enshrined is no short of a great honor.
Again, why is this controversial? Well, of the ~2.5 million enshrined, more than a thousand are considered war criminals-- about 15 are considered to be Class-A war criminals. There have been many attempts to remove these kami from enshrinement, but they've always been ignored. The fact that there's an adjacent war museum which highly glorifies Japan's aggressively militant past only reaffirms that the shrine is stubbornly refusing to apologize for any wrongdoings during war.
Additionally, many of the people 'enshrined' are also NOT Japanese, but Korean and Taiwanese soldiers whose families don't hold the same beliefs.

Anyway, we thought it would be a good idea to check out a scandalous place. The "Peace Museum" (which was really only about war) was indeed pretty inaccurate-- it's sad that Japan's leaders still refuse to admit any fault in ANY war.

Read more about Yasukuni here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasukuni

A big ole' gate near the Meiji Shrine. The shrine itself wasn't really that impressive or anything, but I thought this was a nice picture.

Okay, now it's time to go to the city! Here's a picture taken of me with Japan's most famous dog! This statue is in Shibuya-- and although the statue is tiny, it's INCREDBLY famous. Everybody meets up here when they're looking to gather. Anyway, the story of this dog, Hachiko, is quite amazing.

Hachiko was an akita (japanese breed of dog) who belonged to a professor of the University of Tokyo waaay back in 19324 Every day, the professor and the dog would walk to the train station together. The professor would say goodbye to his dog there and go to work. The dog usually went home or went walking around the town, but he always came back at the same time every day to meet his owner at the train station. They'd walk home together. They continued this routine every day, and the whole city (which was small, then) knew them for their great bond. Until one day, while the professor was at work, he got terribly ill and died without ever making it home.

Hachiko came to the station and waited every single day. He would stay at the station for days at a time, even. He waited for ten years before dying right at that very station. The people of Shibuya were so touched that they had a statue built to commemorate Hachiko's undying loyalty.

Aww, nice story, isn't it?



Here's a picture I threw in for dad. I know he likes pictures of flowers and food-- since I don't have a food picture right now, I thought I'd show some flowers. These are some Cherry blossoms! They just started blooming around spring break, so it was hard to get a nice picture. but I found these!


This is right next to the Hachiko station-- the immense crosswalk of Shibuya. The crosswalk is a giant octagon (I think..) and all sides are given a green light at the same time. The result is incredibly chaotic. You've never seen such a sea of people cross a street at the same time! I got some more shots of the crowd but it would be boring to just see a bunch of heads.


These pictures are totally out of order, but it doesn't really matter that much. This picture was taken in Akihabara! This is the infamous "Otaku District" of Tokyo-- pretty much every building is an arcade, collectibles shop, computer store-- all of the coolest, geekiest stuff you can find! This is a great place to look for electronics, as well as video games, figurines-- whatever else you could imagine. This particular building was a 7-story arcade. I think I enjoyed Akihabara the most in Tokyo-- everything here was just so completely bizarre, you couldn't help but get excited.

Time for the Tokyo Tower! Not many people know about the Tokyo Tower, but it's a rather neat place. Obviously based off of the Eiffel Tower-- except for the fact that it's painted orange and white. This, nearby, is a small temple.. I can't remember the name at the moment. Anyway, you can ride an elevator up to 2 different observation decks. The first one, which is quite spacious, is about 150 meters (490 feet) up, and the second deck is about 250 meters (820 feet) up. I went to both, of course.

This is the main observation deck-- the lower one. It seems to always have a good amount of tourists. I took some nice shots of the city from here, too.

LET'S GO TO ODAIBA! Alright, so Odaiba is called the "futuristic city" in Tokyo. It's all on an artificial island, which you have to get to by means of a subway called the TOKYO TELEPORT. Sounds really futuristic, huh? This is the most famous building in Odaiba, Fuji Television. It was a pretty crappy day out, as you can tell by the picture, but I was still happy to see it.

Odaiba also has a neat museam called the Miraikan (literally, FUTURE BUILDING!). Here you can see tons of neat robots and strange devices. We messed around in here all day, it was so much fun. Here's a real Asimo robot! Apparently they let him out to play from time to time, but I didn't catch it. I'm going to try to go back to the Miraikan and see if I can't see him.
I did get to play with a neat robot that looked like a roach. I got to control it and make it go around an obstacle course.

Alright, I still have about a billion things I want to talk about when it comes to Tokyo, so I think I'll have to stop here and make another post soon. And I DO mean soon! Seriously! I'm going to redeem myself.

MEGA HUGE POST.

ALRIGHT EVERYBODY! I haven't updated in a few decades because I've been busy, lazy, or something inbetween. So to make up for it I have a MEGA-POST, chock full of images. I'm usually at a loss when it comes to what to write about, so I guess I'll just write about the pictures.

LETS GO TO OSAKA! I go into the city of Osaka every weekend. I'll clarify this a bit for people who might not know-- although I live in the prefecture of Osaka, I don't live in the city, I live in a suburb. So, to get to Osaka, I take a train for about 30 minutes or so. I then switch to the subway and ride a few stops to get to an area called "Umeda". Here's some pictures!


This is the famous HEP building. It has two parts, one is the HEP FIVE, the other is the HEP NAVIO. It's famous because, as you can see, it has a huge red ferris wheel on top of the building. The buidling itself is monumental. I had to do a backbend just to get a picture of it. The bad thing about trying to take pictures in the deep city is that you can't get far enough away from building to take a nice pictures, because the buildings are too close together. I haven't ridden the wheel yet, but I plan to!

Mom wrote in a comment earlier that Japan looked empty compared to how she imagined it. My pictures so far have been pretty deceptive. The area I live in is pretty 'empty', but if you get into a city area, it's definitely not the case. Here's a crosswalk in Umeda. I was standing on an elevated crosswalk, so I was able to get a good shot.

On that elevated walkway, there are musicians performing and people watching. The typical things you see near commuter areas, anywhere in the world.

Nighttime! Here's the entrance to one of the covered bar areas. I'm not sure exactly how to explain these areas.. they're still considered streets and everything, but there's a roof. It's nice because you can walk around in these areas without an umbrella open, which gets really cumbersome in tight crowds. Some of the big streets here are so wide that pedestrians get stuck in the middle during crossing times, so they have to wait for the next green light there.

Blurry shot inside the covered bar area. Random people I don't know. Sorry for the blur, but it's hard to hold a camera steady while walking around. The bars seem to cater to any sort of interest you could possibly have, with plenty of small restaurant stalls packed close together for late night eating.

In Japan, you always eat bread or rice, pretty much. It's common for people to snack on some sort of tasty bread with juice. Here's an example of such tasty bread! It's a super-moist green tea bread. It's delicious. It's strange-- before living in Japan, I didn't particularly like the bitter taste of green tea, but now I do. You basically learn to love it, because people drink it like water here.

Pretty shot of my campus! The weather here, so far, has been really dreary. Mostly overcast days, frequent rain and some snow... not very pretty! So luckily, I had my camera with me on a rare sunny day and got this picture of the main administrative building.

Back in my lonely town! On my way to the supermarket, "Sanko", I walk along a looong pedestrian street. It's nice to not worry about cars. The pedestrian street runs along a river. Here's the cute neighborhood I pass when I go shopping!

SO I WENT ON AN ADVENTURE. One afternoon, I was sitting around feeling bored, when my friend Heidi said, "I'm bored!" So, we decided to go on an adventure to the station, to explore.

We ended up in a strange enclosed market-- it looked like a street market, except that it was completely inside of a building. You could buy anything you wanted here, from fine alcohols to home-pickled vegetables. Heidi and I ended up buying some incredibly delicious Mochi desserts. Mochi is made from pounded rice, and turns into a semi-gelatinous substance that is sweetened and sticky. It's so delicious! Usually it's stuffed with something-- often red bean, a sweet bean that's mashed into a thick paste. The mochi we ate was so fresh and flavorful! I'll post some mochi pictures soon.

We found a KFC near the station. So far the american chains I've seen here are KFC and McDonalds, both seeming pretty popular. I snapped a picture with THE COLONEL, of course. (Notice how I managed to idiotically button my coat wrong.) In that yellow bag, I have about 7 comic books, all for sale for 100 yen-- about 1 dollar each. Never even been read! Comics here get marked down to RIDICULOUS sale prices, it's awesome. I can read the comics, more or less, but it takes a lot of effort.

Heidi and I found an Italian restaurant! We'd both been craving pizza, so it was an omen. We had to try Japanese pictures, and take idiotic pictures of eachother.

Yum! This pizza had garlic, onions, black olives, and ANCHOVIES on it! It was so good. It's lucky for me that I like thin pizza. If you like thick pizza, JAPAN IS NOT THE PLACE FOR YOU. At this restaurant I had another fun "foreigner experience". There were no other foreigners in this restaurant, which isn't that strange for US, but seemed to be strange for some of the other customers. A little girl stood on her chair to look over her privacy barrier (that low wall they put between booths so people can have some privacy while they eat), and stared at me for about an hour. It was pretty fun.

UH OH SOMEBODY WENT OVERBOARD AT THE CAPSULE MACHINES! In Japan, there are these magical machines. They're like those crappy gumball machines near grocery stores in the US, where you can get a STICKY HAND, except that they have all sorts of awesome things. Mostly the things for sale are on straps-- to be connected to cellphones or backpacks, or whatever. But some are just small toys. In my selection, I have cute decorative straps, TINY WII-MOTES that project a picture of mario if you press one of the buttons. There's of course 5 different projections, so the idea is that you collect them all. Those red teardrop-shaped items are "sound drops". If you press the big button, you hear a sound effect or character's voice. These are popular with nerds, so I got a few. Haha! Also-- if you look carefully you can see a toy that looks like a toilet with a blue poop on it. The Japanese like cartoonish poop, because the word for it "unchi" is similar for the word for luck--"unki". So, it's a superstitious and silly thing. MORE ON THAT BELOW THE NEXT IMAGE!

Another example of cute-poop-love. This is a memopad with different designs of poop on the front, and writing space on the back. It's a bit hard to wrap your head around the concept of CUTE POOP at first, but eventually it starts to seem normal.

Okay, how was that? I tried to include some bizarre things for the people who've been bugging me about that, as well as some cool city stuff. BLAH BLAH! I'm tired from writing this out.

If you wanna know about anything in particular or want me to write more about something in particular, let me know. I just don't know what to really say when I have to address so many different people at once and end up rambling stupidly.

EDIT: I forgot to include the MINI JAPANESE LESSON! Well, here we go, let's try to think of something good this time..

One of the most useful phrases I've learned since I've been in Japan is the very simple "betsu betsu". What it basically means is "separately." When you eat a restaurant, the check will almost always be on one check-- when you go to the register, if you don't say anything, they'll assume that it's just one ticket, regardless of how many people are in the group. So when you go to the register with the ticket, you must say "Betsu betsu". If you say just that, they'll understand what you mean. But if you know a bit more Japanese, it's probably better to say "Betsu betsu de, onegai shimasu" which translates roughly to "Separately, please." Cashiers are happy to split the check up so it's not a problem to ask for this. The service industry in Japan, actually, is excellent. I should make a note to write more about it next time.

Cell phone and other adventures.

I don't have a whole lot to say in this post yet, but I'll try to cover some neat stuff. I've been busy with classes and life.

So here's a buncha random things!

FIRST: Food! I know that Dad loves food pictures, so I thought I should post some.

This is "okonomiyaki" -- sometimes called "Japanese Pizza" for no real reason. It's a round, flat .. cooked stack of dough with cabbage and other seasonings inside, and usually some type of meat or seafood. I got shrimp! It's then smothered in some mayo and a brown sauce. It's cooked in front of you and and you serve it to your own plate, bit-by-bit to keep the rest warm. Very tasty, an Osaka special!

This is something that I'm not sure the name of. The main dish is a rice porridge with vegetables and an egg cooked on top. That cup on the right is full of Ume-shu (plum alcohol). It was really sweet, I think it's my new favorite drink.

This is a meal I got at a 'college student chow' sort of restaurant. The portions are huge for a super cheap amount. It was pretty tasty. (That's teriyaki chicken and some fried fish on the left, and miso soup on the right.)

I got a cellphone! It was kind of a hassle-- I had to get a 'permission form' from the store, then go to the City Hall to register. I had to go and register as an Alien anyway, so I just did both at once. Then I went and bought the phone. The company is called "softbank" and they offered a discount for foreign students. It's a lot of money up-front (you have to buy the phone, approx 160 dollars), but the monthly plan is super cheap-- about $2.50 dollars. Softbank to Softbank is free (calling and email, both). Outside of network, it costs 41 yen per minute (a bit less than 40 cents), and 3 yen to send an email (less than 3 cents.)
I checked out all the other options available to students, did the math-- this was the best deal.
There's a 6 month contract, so my plan will be canceled in August. The cancellation fee is higher than the monthly fee so there's no point, haha!

Here's a close-up of my little cellphone charm buddies. The left is a cute pig for no reason, the golden cat is the popular "Maneki Neko"-- a good luck charm. Since he's gold, he'll bring me good fortune and wealth.


Of course, I went to the city today to get my registration stuff done. Here's the area near the city hall-- a park. Very nice and peaceful!

Here's a slice of Japanese bread. ITS HUUUGE! You can see that it's huge in the right picture, compared to my hand. I didn't have a ruler, but I wanted to properly show the thickness. The left picture is the bread compared to my gameboy. My gameboy is about .85 inches thick-- the bread is thicker. Bread is sold in bags of 5 slices, or so. Very strange.

I met my Homestay Visit Partner (the daughter who is about my age, of my family) earlier this week. She was really nice. We had lunch together and talked. I'm going to meet her again soon. So far she hasn't invited me to go to her house yet.. I hope that I can visit soon. I feel like I'm not getting enough exposure to Japanese.

Tomorrow I'm going to go into Osaka proper (the real city), so hopefully I can get some adventuring in, and lots more exposure to Japanese

WORD OF THE DAY (not really) IN JAPANESE!

Again, Dad requested that I give a little bit of Japanese information with my posts, so here's a starter. Let's see, what's a good word to learn?

Let's start with a word I hear a lot: TAIHEN. (Similar to spanish phonetics. Basically you'd say it as to rhyme with "my pen")
"Taihen" is hard to explain, but the dictionary lists the meaning(s) as: "difficult, terrible, tough, enormous." Basically, you use it to describe something that's quite bad. I mostly hear it used in the past tense-- that something "Was terrible." This would be, in Japanese, "taihen deshita" in a formal way, or "taihen datta" informally. I use this phrase a lot. If something was bad, but you want to de-emphasize it a bit, you can say "chotto" before either of the above phrases. It means "a little..".

Let's go to class.

Alright. It's currently snowing super hard, the buses aren't running.. so, here's an update!

It's time to go to school yaaay! Let's leave the dorm.
Goodbye, Seminar House 4! I'll miss you.

And now.. we walk. A random shot of my walk. It's kinda uneventful. I walk along this path. To my left, houses and some business. To my right, a few businesses, and then, a giant Komatsu factory. (That's the name of the factory, Komatsu.) It's not much to look at.

Almost to the East Gate of campus! This is the corner shop right in front. The blue onning's text reads "Tabacco"-- here are some cigarette vending machines. They're cheap, too, pretty weird stuff. Too bad I'm not a smoker or I'd have a little Death-Dealing corner!

Hooray! After walking about half a mile, we've reached the East Gate. There are guards here to monitor who comes and goes. These gates close sometimes, I don't know when, though. Maybe Holidays? Anyway. After this, you have to walk about another half a mile. It's a really boring walk, nothing to look at. The "east gate" is soooo off campus.

Finally! Reached campus. Here's the bike parking area, one of many. This is just about 1/4 of it, and as you can see it's pretty empty at the moment. It's usually bike-to-bike with no space at all.

On campus, I got this nice shot overlooking the soccer fields. In the distance you can see the mountains.

Suddenly, SNOW! This was yesterday, it snowed viciously for about 30 minutes and stopped, with nothing collecting. Today it has accumulated.
I dont really have good campus pictures yet, but I'll take some soon.

Coming up soon: Tasty food pictures, more campus shots, local sights.

Yep. Things have been a bit uneventful lately. Classes as usual, had some fun plans for today that were foiled by the mega snow.

Maybe I'll do something fun soon..