This commercial is on tv ALL the time! I BELIEVE it's a commercial for a loan company? There seem to be a lot of those, but, maybe I'm wrong. I'm not a good source of information.
There's another version that I like WAY more, but I can't find it on Youtube! I'll definitely post it if I find it, though.
Alright, well, I still don't have any pictures so I'm just gonna write a brief update.
I started working last week on Tuesday (Classes were canceled on Monday), so it's been more than a full week now. It's been.. well, a mixed bag. Some classes have been great, well-behaved students, etc. Some classes are .. well, not disastrous, but definitely difficult to get through. My throat is sore after most days, just from talking so much (and raising my voice above the roar of the children.)
This Saturday I have to go in to work between 2 and 7 PM, since my classes were canceled last Monday afternoon. I am not thrilled AT ALL by this prospect. :/
About my usual workdays..
I work the morning shift, so I start working at 10 am every day (have to arrive 15 minutes early to be ready by 10), and I stay until 7 PM on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. On Tuesday, Thursday, I leave at 5:30 PM. That's just the way the morning teachers are scheduled to work. One hour of every day is lunchtime (break) -- lunch is provided at the school for free every day, though I can go out to eat somewhere else if I want. I can use my lunchtime however I want-- leaving the school, sleeping at my desk.. whatever.
.. Well, that's all I'm going to post about right now. I'll post more interesting info (as well as some pictures) soon.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
A long overdue update; now from Korea.
Alright, well, I think it's way past due for me to update a little about my life.
Visa Interview Process
I completed the visa process for an E-2 (English instructor) visa in mid-December. I interviewed with the Korean Consulate in Chicago via MSN messenger. It was a very short video chat, lasting less than 10 minutes. The questions I was asked were the following:
-Have you ever been to Korea?
-Have you been reading or researching Korea?
-What kinds of things have you learned?
-Do you have any teaching experience?
-In your experience teaching English, how long does it take a student to gain a working knowledge of English?
That was the end of the interview process. Nobody gets the same questions, but you can imagine the kinds of questions you'd be asked are somewhat similar in terms of topic. I received my passport (with the visa pasted inside) about 4 days after completing the interview. I contacted the school and they purchased a plane ticket for me, leaving on the 29th of December at 10:30 am.
The trip from USA to Seoul
My trip was problematic, of course. My plane was delayed by over two hours leaving my hometown, so I almost didn't make the connection for my overseas flight in Dallas. Luckily, my next flight was also delayed by about 45 minutes. I panicked until I checked in at the gate.. what a relief! My luggage, even though there was only about 45 minutes, made the transfer as well!
When I arrived in Seoul, I went through Immigration without a problem. They looked at my visa, stamped stuff, and let me through. After picking up my luggage, I went up to a Customs agent who took my custom form (I had nothing to claim), asked me a few questions which I couldn't understand at all, and then laughed and waved me through.
Strangely enough, my luggage was never opened. I had one large suitcase and one very small one, both of which had TSA-approved locks on them.. but neither were opened at any point. The locks have a special built-in signal that pops out if the lock is opened by key, and the signals weren't showing. None of my items were shifted or moved around at all. So, actually, the trip went smoothly in that sense!
When I left the Customs area, I immediately saw a man holding a sign with my name. I waved to him and he took me to a van, loaded my stuff, and drove me to my apartment building. I didn't actually know where we were going-- I hadn't been told if I'd be going straight to my new apartment, or if I'd be staying at a hotel for a while. He took me to the apartment building, where the Director of my school met me and showed me around. He also took me out for dinner at a nearby traditional restaurant. It was an expensive, full-course meal.. most of which I couldn't eat because I was so exhausted and jet-laggy. Also, some of it was so incredibly spicy that I couldn't eat it at all.
Crazy Taxi: Real life version
I'd like to elaborate a little on the taxi ride from the airport to my apartment complex. My school is actually in Incheon, so the ride wasn't all that long-- maybe around 30-45 minutes, but it was one of the most terrifying rides of my life. Taxi rides have a reputation for being a bit scary in a lot of different places, but the degree of terryingness was shocking to me. The taxi ran red lights whenever nobody seemed to be coming from the other way, swerved across many lanes at a time without warning, turned into areas that weren't supposed to be turned into, etc. Everyone in Incheon (and all the cities in Korea, from what I hear) seems to drive pretty recklessly, so the taxis aren't doing anything incredibly unusual.
But just because everybody's doing it, doesn't mean it's a good idea. There's a reason why there's a lot of fatal car crashes in Korea. (For my family: imagine that everyone drives like Dad, except that nobody is aware of the other cars around them or of the laws of traffic.)
Pokin' around for a few days
The first night, the 30th, I just went to bed right after eating dinner. I was soo exhausted! I woke up the next morning, the 31st, and walked to the school to meet my boss and have a little orientation. The walk is around 20 minutes, which can be easy or treacherous, depending on the weather. My first time walking to the school I found out the unpleasant fact that they haven't figured out how to clear sidewalks here. Almost the entire path to my school (approx 1 mile) was covered in thick, slick ice. It was like being at an ice skating rink, except I didn't have skates. It was incredibly hard to walk and I wobbled and nearly slipped every few feet. I can't believe I didn't fall and crack my head open.
I bought grapes at the supermarket (Lotte Mart) next to my school and went home. I was still extremely jetlagged and fell asleep early in the evening. I had originally planned to go out to a bar to celebrate at the very least, but I ended up just setting an alarm so I could wake up and eat my grapes!
Happy New Year!
I immediately went back to bed after eating the grapes. The next day, January 1st, was a national holiday, and so most places were closed. I took a walk around the area surrounded my apartment and found an electronics store. I also checked out the convenience store on the first floor of my apartment building as well as the internet cafe on the 2nd floor.
PC-bang (internet cafe)
Internet cafes are called PC-bang here. "Bang" means room, so the meaning is "PC room." It's exactly what it sounds like-- a large, dark room full of expensive computers. The place is mostly frequented by teenage Korean boys playing online games. Mostly Starcraft and games like that, but I've seen some other kinds of games that I can't name. It gets really loud in there cause they're all playing together in groups and yelling out orders to eachother. There are people using the computers for other things as well, but the gamers seem to take up the majority of the audience.
Oh, the PCbang is really cheap, too. It's 1,000 won per hour, which is a bit less than 1 dollar an hour.
Boring life details.
On the weekend (2nd and 3rd) I went shopping for some groceries and basic electronics that I needed-- a hairdryer, specifically, as well as a computer mouse and headset for voicechatting. I brought my own webcam, but I won't be able to use it until I get internet set up in my room. Before I can do THAT, though, I need to complete the Alien Registration process and get my card (Alien Registration Card, or ARC). It may be about a month until I'm able to set up internet access in my room.. so, be patient, everyone!
First day of work!
Today was my first day of work.. for the first week, I'm only teaching part-time hours. During the mornings I prepare and "train". Today I realized that my "training" involves me sitting in a room by myself, reading the same lesson plan over and over. I'm not sure why I'm supposed to use all this time for "training" when the lesson plan is already decided for most classes. All I have to do is follow the directions, so.. I'm not sure if there's something I'm missing, or what. My boss wanted to help me out and spend more time talking to me, but she had to fill in for some of the Korean teachers who couldn't make it to school. I think I'll be observing some classes later this week, but.. today was a disaster.
It snowed about a foot here. It snowed for hours before classes even started, and it's been snowing all day. Cars are stranded all over the place, and attendance at school was shockingly low. Busses are stranded, taxis aren't running.. basically the only good way to get around today was by walking. After two hours of "training" and one hour of "break" (aka, I ate lunch and then stared at my lesson plan for the rest of the hour because it was too miserable outside to go anywhere), my boss told me that she'd canceled all of the classes for the afternoon, including mine, and sent me home.
Bummer! So, after about 3 hours of sitting around at work, "training", I left. I'll have to make up for the cancelled classes sometime later this month, on a Saturday.. Totally sucky, if you ask me! But, I guess there's nothing that can be done when the weather takes such a sudden turn for the worse.
When I saw the snow this morning, I didn't think it would be such a big problem-- I figured that this amount of snow was typical, but apparently it's not usually this bad. I'm kinda bummed because my easier lessons were going to be today (Monday-Wednesday-Friday) schedule.. and tomorrow my classes will be pretty tough. The classes I give tomorrow are classes that have no pre-set curriculum, so it's up to me to plan and structure the whole course. Also, the classes are 80 minutes long, so if I run out of stuff to do, it's going to be pretty obvious. I've got several hours tomorrow to plan, though.. so I guess I'll worry about it then.
I met my coworkers today. Not all of them, only the teachers who work in the morning-- the teachers who only teach in the afternoon didn't come since the classes got cancelled. I probably met around 8-9 other foreigners and lots of the Korean teachers. I couldn't spend much time talking to any of them because they had classes to go to, but they all seemed friendly enough.
Free lunch!
One of the perks of the school is that I can have lunch there for free every day that I work. There's a full staff of cooks there, and all of the preschool/kindergarten classes eat there with their teachers. There were some non-spicy options, but mostly spicy stuff. I ate some spicy stuff and acted like I wasn't dying. But I was.
End of boring entry.
Well, that's about it so far. I know this entry is incredibly long, not very interesting, and contains a lot of information that I've already emailed to some of you. But for the sake of making sure everyone's on the same page, I summarized it all. I'll write again when I have something of interest to say, or at least some nice pictures.. Maybe I'll become friends with some of the other foreign teachers, and actually venture out into the city sometime.
Weird anecdote.
Today was the first time I saw a non-asian face since I got here! Not only did I see the teachers at school, I bumped into a white guy in Lotte Mart. I looked up, saw another white person, and the next thing I know, the loudspeakers at the store are blaring information in English! Until now I'd only ever heard the korean announcements, but suddenly the announcements were like, "Welcome to Lotte Mart! Lotte Mart is a discount department store with quality blahblahblah." I think the presence of 2 foreigners caused them to put on the english introduction. Also, walking home from the store, I bumped into another foreigner. Literally, because the walkable path throught he snow was too narrow for two people to pass eachother-- so we both just kinda said "Hello" without knowing what else to say.
The end. For now. I promise to take more pictures-- particularly of my apartment, once I get settled in more.
Visa Interview Process
I completed the visa process for an E-2 (English instructor) visa in mid-December. I interviewed with the Korean Consulate in Chicago via MSN messenger. It was a very short video chat, lasting less than 10 minutes. The questions I was asked were the following:
-Have you ever been to Korea?
-Have you been reading or researching Korea?
-What kinds of things have you learned?
-Do you have any teaching experience?
-In your experience teaching English, how long does it take a student to gain a working knowledge of English?
That was the end of the interview process. Nobody gets the same questions, but you can imagine the kinds of questions you'd be asked are somewhat similar in terms of topic. I received my passport (with the visa pasted inside) about 4 days after completing the interview. I contacted the school and they purchased a plane ticket for me, leaving on the 29th of December at 10:30 am.
The trip from USA to Seoul
My trip was problematic, of course. My plane was delayed by over two hours leaving my hometown, so I almost didn't make the connection for my overseas flight in Dallas. Luckily, my next flight was also delayed by about 45 minutes. I panicked until I checked in at the gate.. what a relief! My luggage, even though there was only about 45 minutes, made the transfer as well!
When I arrived in Seoul, I went through Immigration without a problem. They looked at my visa, stamped stuff, and let me through. After picking up my luggage, I went up to a Customs agent who took my custom form (I had nothing to claim), asked me a few questions which I couldn't understand at all, and then laughed and waved me through.
Strangely enough, my luggage was never opened. I had one large suitcase and one very small one, both of which had TSA-approved locks on them.. but neither were opened at any point. The locks have a special built-in signal that pops out if the lock is opened by key, and the signals weren't showing. None of my items were shifted or moved around at all. So, actually, the trip went smoothly in that sense!
When I left the Customs area, I immediately saw a man holding a sign with my name. I waved to him and he took me to a van, loaded my stuff, and drove me to my apartment building. I didn't actually know where we were going-- I hadn't been told if I'd be going straight to my new apartment, or if I'd be staying at a hotel for a while. He took me to the apartment building, where the Director of my school met me and showed me around. He also took me out for dinner at a nearby traditional restaurant. It was an expensive, full-course meal.. most of which I couldn't eat because I was so exhausted and jet-laggy. Also, some of it was so incredibly spicy that I couldn't eat it at all.
Crazy Taxi: Real life version
I'd like to elaborate a little on the taxi ride from the airport to my apartment complex. My school is actually in Incheon, so the ride wasn't all that long-- maybe around 30-45 minutes, but it was one of the most terrifying rides of my life. Taxi rides have a reputation for being a bit scary in a lot of different places, but the degree of terryingness was shocking to me. The taxi ran red lights whenever nobody seemed to be coming from the other way, swerved across many lanes at a time without warning, turned into areas that weren't supposed to be turned into, etc. Everyone in Incheon (and all the cities in Korea, from what I hear) seems to drive pretty recklessly, so the taxis aren't doing anything incredibly unusual.
But just because everybody's doing it, doesn't mean it's a good idea. There's a reason why there's a lot of fatal car crashes in Korea. (For my family: imagine that everyone drives like Dad, except that nobody is aware of the other cars around them or of the laws of traffic.)
Pokin' around for a few days
The first night, the 30th, I just went to bed right after eating dinner. I was soo exhausted! I woke up the next morning, the 31st, and walked to the school to meet my boss and have a little orientation. The walk is around 20 minutes, which can be easy or treacherous, depending on the weather. My first time walking to the school I found out the unpleasant fact that they haven't figured out how to clear sidewalks here. Almost the entire path to my school (approx 1 mile) was covered in thick, slick ice. It was like being at an ice skating rink, except I didn't have skates. It was incredibly hard to walk and I wobbled and nearly slipped every few feet. I can't believe I didn't fall and crack my head open.
I bought grapes at the supermarket (Lotte Mart) next to my school and went home. I was still extremely jetlagged and fell asleep early in the evening. I had originally planned to go out to a bar to celebrate at the very least, but I ended up just setting an alarm so I could wake up and eat my grapes!
Grape time! (I tried to show the view from the window but it didnt work, oh well!)
Happy New Year!
I immediately went back to bed after eating the grapes. The next day, January 1st, was a national holiday, and so most places were closed. I took a walk around the area surrounded my apartment and found an electronics store. I also checked out the convenience store on the first floor of my apartment building as well as the internet cafe on the 2nd floor.
PC-bang (internet cafe)
Internet cafes are called PC-bang here. "Bang" means room, so the meaning is "PC room." It's exactly what it sounds like-- a large, dark room full of expensive computers. The place is mostly frequented by teenage Korean boys playing online games. Mostly Starcraft and games like that, but I've seen some other kinds of games that I can't name. It gets really loud in there cause they're all playing together in groups and yelling out orders to eachother. There are people using the computers for other things as well, but the gamers seem to take up the majority of the audience.
Oh, the PCbang is really cheap, too. It's 1,000 won per hour, which is a bit less than 1 dollar an hour.
Boring life details.
On the weekend (2nd and 3rd) I went shopping for some groceries and basic electronics that I needed-- a hairdryer, specifically, as well as a computer mouse and headset for voicechatting. I brought my own webcam, but I won't be able to use it until I get internet set up in my room. Before I can do THAT, though, I need to complete the Alien Registration process and get my card (Alien Registration Card, or ARC). It may be about a month until I'm able to set up internet access in my room.. so, be patient, everyone!
First day of work!
Today was my first day of work.. for the first week, I'm only teaching part-time hours. During the mornings I prepare and "train". Today I realized that my "training" involves me sitting in a room by myself, reading the same lesson plan over and over. I'm not sure why I'm supposed to use all this time for "training" when the lesson plan is already decided for most classes. All I have to do is follow the directions, so.. I'm not sure if there's something I'm missing, or what. My boss wanted to help me out and spend more time talking to me, but she had to fill in for some of the Korean teachers who couldn't make it to school. I think I'll be observing some classes later this week, but.. today was a disaster.
The view from my 17th story apartment. Snowwww.
It snowed about a foot here. It snowed for hours before classes even started, and it's been snowing all day. Cars are stranded all over the place, and attendance at school was shockingly low. Busses are stranded, taxis aren't running.. basically the only good way to get around today was by walking. After two hours of "training" and one hour of "break" (aka, I ate lunch and then stared at my lesson plan for the rest of the hour because it was too miserable outside to go anywhere), my boss told me that she'd canceled all of the classes for the afternoon, including mine, and sent me home.
In the morning I cross the street and go down the road, heading off to the right. There's also a subway entrance here-- that tall building with the green-covered scaffolding on the side is blocking the view, but the entrance is right there on that corner.
Bummer! So, after about 3 hours of sitting around at work, "training", I left. I'll have to make up for the cancelled classes sometime later this month, on a Saturday.. Totally sucky, if you ask me! But, I guess there's nothing that can be done when the weather takes such a sudden turn for the worse.
Another view. Mostly residences, I don't pass through here..
When I saw the snow this morning, I didn't think it would be such a big problem-- I figured that this amount of snow was typical, but apparently it's not usually this bad. I'm kinda bummed because my easier lessons were going to be today (Monday-Wednesday-Friday) schedule.. and tomorrow my classes will be pretty tough. The classes I give tomorrow are classes that have no pre-set curriculum, so it's up to me to plan and structure the whole course. Also, the classes are 80 minutes long, so if I run out of stuff to do, it's going to be pretty obvious. I've got several hours tomorrow to plan, though.. so I guess I'll worry about it then.
By the time I got home I was dripping wet from the snow.
I met my coworkers today. Not all of them, only the teachers who work in the morning-- the teachers who only teach in the afternoon didn't come since the classes got cancelled. I probably met around 8-9 other foreigners and lots of the Korean teachers. I couldn't spend much time talking to any of them because they had classes to go to, but they all seemed friendly enough.
Free lunch!
One of the perks of the school is that I can have lunch there for free every day that I work. There's a full staff of cooks there, and all of the preschool/kindergarten classes eat there with their teachers. There were some non-spicy options, but mostly spicy stuff. I ate some spicy stuff and acted like I wasn't dying. But I was.
End of boring entry.
Well, that's about it so far. I know this entry is incredibly long, not very interesting, and contains a lot of information that I've already emailed to some of you. But for the sake of making sure everyone's on the same page, I summarized it all. I'll write again when I have something of interest to say, or at least some nice pictures.. Maybe I'll become friends with some of the other foreign teachers, and actually venture out into the city sometime.
Weird anecdote.
Today was the first time I saw a non-asian face since I got here! Not only did I see the teachers at school, I bumped into a white guy in Lotte Mart. I looked up, saw another white person, and the next thing I know, the loudspeakers at the store are blaring information in English! Until now I'd only ever heard the korean announcements, but suddenly the announcements were like, "Welcome to Lotte Mart! Lotte Mart is a discount department store with quality blahblahblah." I think the presence of 2 foreigners caused them to put on the english introduction. Also, walking home from the store, I bumped into another foreigner. Literally, because the walkable path throught he snow was too narrow for two people to pass eachother-- so we both just kinda said "Hello" without knowing what else to say.
The end. For now. I promise to take more pictures-- particularly of my apartment, once I get settled in more.
Monday, November 30, 2009
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!
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!
Sunday, February 22, 2009
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.
Friday, May 23, 2008
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.
Monday, May 12, 2008
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.
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.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
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.
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.
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