The end of a year

So it has now been a whole year since I moved to Japan, and what a year it has been! I haven’t traveled to so many different places in such a short time before and I have been lucky enough for every trip to be a great one.

It’s probably just because of how different things are here but even everyday things for locals like visiting a shrine, even just walking past one, is still a fun experience. The food is still amazing, and also really cheap compared to back home. Less that one pound for a plate of sushi, almost any sushi. No that’s not a typo.

But I’m not just here to tell you how great Japan is, because even though it is pretty great this is more of a learning experience kind of post. 

So let’s start with things I would do differently.

1. Study a lot more Japanese. Yes you can kind of muddle through with just English and bad acting, but if you want to have a real conversation with anyone you are going to need Japanese. A big jump in success for me was being able to register my new address with the phone company by myself, but I feel this would have happened a lot sooner if I was using the apps and books I am now from day one.

Yomikata is a must use in my opinion, teaching both vocabulary and reading skills it has been invaluable in growing my understanding of that language, second only to just going out and actually speaking with people.

2. Choose my own house (sooner). Moving into a leopalace was easy, but I should have done it by myself and not relied on my work to organise it since it means it was more expensive. Now that I’ve done it by myself it’s nearly half the price and there are no hidden admin fees for moving out!

3. Watch more TV and movies in Japanese. It’s pretty fun and it’s nice to start putting words to reactions together. You will be surprised how much you learn and it’s a talking point with new Japanese friends. 

Luckily it’s only a short list of changes, because as I said before Japan is great! I also get 100 yen every time I say that.

So what is the plan for the next year?

Well I’m going to do some more traveling and certainly keep up my studying. Hopefully by this time next year I’ll be roughly conversational, which would be nice. In the meanwhile watch this space for more Japan updates!

Japan is great.

An even more magical time of year

As promised I have returned with part two of things about trees in Japan, aka the Sakura season.

Today I visited the rather lovely, if not also very rural Kawazu ‘the land of sakura!’. The advertising is actually ‘it’s always beautiful’ but I think mine is better and since it’s not always beautiful (because after the blossom is gone you just have a load of naked trees and sad tourists) if you are going to tell a lie you might as well make it sound a little exciting.

That said, it really was beautiful today with most of the trees in full bloom and there is a recommended trail that starts at the sea and runs for about four kilometers alongside a river which is full of lovely lovely trees.

This is the beach. No there are no trees here, they are behind me. Sneaky trees.

This is the trail, in case you hadn’t guessed. But now the beach is behind me. Sneaky beach.
In addition to all this lovely nature you can also buy a range of sakura themed novelty items and foods. You can also buy a tree if you want to take one home with you to save on traveling next time, but to be honest I’d recommend just traveling as you would need to buy a lot of trees to really compete with Kawazu and your neighbours probably won’t be too pleased when your forest of cherry trees starts growing through their house.

There are of course other things to do and see too, as Kawazu is also home to one of the rare hot natural springs of Japan, and provides water for many onsen (public bath) and foot spas around the area. You can also find some interesting character statues along the way, including these two whom I have named Crazy Eyed Steve and Simon respectively. 

If you do want to follow in the trail that I blazed behind thousands of other people each year, then you can get to Kawazu by train from Atami. Be careful though as there are two types of train and the fancy looking one is nearly twice the price (although also a fair bit faster). The standard train takes a little over an hour, but you get a nice costal view as you go. Also if you don’t want to spend too much on food, as the stalls can be a little pricy, then there is a Family Mart near the beach and a 7/11 by the station.
So even though it’s a little bit out of the way and for me costs about the same as a trip to Tokyo, I really would recommended it if you get the chance and have the time, it’s a very nice way to spend a day.

This has been a review about trees and things from Japan.

That magical time of year

So it has been over half a year since I first moved to Japan and boy how does time fly! 

Since I arrived in summer though it meant that I missed the cherry blossom, or sakura as it’s known in Japanese. As one of the most iconic things about Japan aside perhaps from sushi and schoolgirls I was a little bit sad about that. Fortunately, time has not yet ended which means like all things that follow a cycle, this wonderful season has returned!

This is possibly the most ‘Japan’ photo I have ever taken. The only way it could be more ‘Japan’ is if I had a schoolgirl holding some sushi, but that would be a bit weird and I don’t want to do that.

Anyway, as you can see it’s basically beautiful here and you should all check it out if you visit Japan around this time of year. One of the bonuses of living in Shizuoka is that we arguably get some of the best views this season, along with a much earlier and longer ‘in bloom’ season.

If you do find yourself here, then I would strongly recommend walking alongside any of the rivers in Fuji as they are lined with these amazing looking trees, and since the rivers go on for many miles you can spend most of the day enjoying the wonderful combination of water and cherry blossom. 

A little further east, and then south of Atami you will also find some amazing costal areas which supposedly boast some of the best sakura sites in all of Japan. I will be confirming or denying this tomorrow (because my good readers need to know the facts, and not because I’m a sucker for nature walks) so watch this space for part 2 – the quest for more blossoms.

Things that I have been doing, and the longest title for a blog post that may or may not also be about Japan (it totally is)

Hello once again you strange, wonderful and perhaps terrifying people. I trust that you are all well and enjoying the current disaster that is the state of our world. (except Japan which I love like a tiny animated ball of fluff that’s always smiling and telling excellent jokes and can do no wrong).

As this is kind of a Japan / travel blog I’ll talk a little about some travel and Japan things too. So Shizuoka, or Silent Hill if you go by the kanji, is the prefecture I currently call home. While I have explored to a reasonable extent all the cities within this prefecture there is one thing about Japan which makes it rather hard to grow tired of, and that is that they seem to hide everything up in the sky. Well, obviously not the literal sky but in tall buildings that in the UK would be nothing more than office blocks. This means that for a dirty immigrant like me (correction, expat) it’s very easy to forget to look up and find these hidden gems. I should add here that this goes double for big cities like Tokyo and it wasn’t until my recent return that I realized just how many shops I had missed when I first arrived. And it’s not just shops, but bars and restaurants lurk in nearly every possible space within these cities. You can even find super rare places to eat where you can dine with a native Japanese family, as long as you don’t mind them shouting at you in Japanese while you eat and generally having to help yourself to food. Two thumbs up though, would recommend.

Recently, tucked away in a reasonably public corner of Shizuoka city (okay so in this case I just walked past it a few times and didn’t really pay any attention to what it was) we discovered a honest real ale bar. Even better, it’s only 1200 yen for a pint which is like £8.50… Yea, maybe don’t convert the prices. Compared to regular beer at 800 yen a pint, the extra 400 is completely worth it because the beer is great and they have ten on tap, including an 8% one called Jubilation. It’s also the first place I’ve found cider in Japan, again good cider, which also makes me very happy. If you happen to be in the area you can find more about them here

In addition to all this beer drinking we had a day jaunt back to Tokyo, this time to enjoy the trains. Not in a strange nerd kind of way though (because we all know that having unusual hobbies makes you strange and an easy target for people to gauge their visualized self worth, but I digress) but because there is a yearly event called Tokyo Metro Mysteries . As the name kind of suggests you get to solve mysteries around the different train stations and nearby areas in Tokyo. The puzzles are fun, and solvable for both Japanese and English speakers and require a nice range of puzzle solving skills and processes. You also get to see some interesting places in Tokyo that you might not have gone to on a normal tour of the city, which is a nice plus.

That’s all from me this time, hopefully see you all again soon assuming a certain orange racist hasn’t blown up the world by then.

Another day in Japan

Another month in Japan has brought some new experiences, from new foods to art exhibits. Actually it’s just new foods and art exhibits. If all goes well I’ll be able to add snowboarding to this list too! (But that’s a story for another day)

Recently I was lucky enough to be able to visit the Ghibly art exhibition and as anyone who has seen one of their movies can probably guess, it was amazing.

Not only did it show off hundreds of original sketches and scene layouts, but included some step by step demonstrations of how the movies go from being a rough drawing to a fully hand painted animated masterpiece. It was both educational and enjoyable to see, which was nice. 

On top of this I tried something called omochi, which is a traditional Japanese sweet made from rice. Apparently if you hit rice for long enough it becomes sweet and chewy. There might also be some additional processes to this, and/ or magic. Either way it’s a little strange to eat as the texture is unlike anything we really get back in the UK, the closest I can think of is marzipan but even that doesn’t really quite compare. That said the taste is pretty good and you can get a few different flavours, so it’s well worth a try if you can. It’s also traditional to eat it on new years day.

That’s all from me this time, hope you are all having a good year and haven’t been snowed in somewhere!

Another year passes

Today marks the last day of my working year, and for most people in Japan the national new year holidays start today too. While Christmas is not really celebrated here, new year is a very important holiday for many. It is a time when people go to the temples to pray for a good new year and watch the first sunrise with their families. It’s also very traditional to clean your home before the end of the year, to start clean and fresh in the next. This makes me glad that my home is not so big here and thus much easier to clean.

Personally this has been one of the most interesting and exciting years of my life, as it’s the first time I have lived in another country (unless you count moving from England to Wales, which I really don’t). The food here is good, the places are interesting and the language is crazy. I’m also still really enjoying my job, and the people I work with are great. It helps that they like to go on little adventures, which leads me to my next point… 

Adventures in Kyoto – a day trip.

As mentioned in my last post, I recently visited Kyoto for the day with the other teachers. 

This day mostly consisted of walking from temple to temple, eating some amazing food, seeing more temples and then going for a rather delightful boat ride before we got to view the city at night.

Kyoto is a city of historical sites, as the former capital of Japan there are a lot of buildings that stand as testament to that fact 

I have never seen so much red in one place before today (it’s a lucky colour here) and as it’s winter even the leaves on the floor are matching the rest of the city in colour. It’s just kind of a shame they were not so attached to the trees.

On the plus side it did give our boat guide the opportunity to ask us to imagine what all the trees will look like in about 4 months, which I promise was much funnier at the time. Mostly because he started by telling us how amazing it is (I’m guessing from a prepared script) before looking at the bare trees and then switched to ‘imagine’.
We also got to see some interesting rocks with names based on the vague shapes they resembled (other than rock shape, although I for one would like to see more rocks named rock rock). Some were more believable than others. Snoopy rock was actually pretty clear while Monkey Jamp, yes Jamp, was more than a little perplexing if only because I have no idea what Jamp looks like.

The city at night is of course also a beautiful thing to behold, made more so by the illuminated bamboo forests

While I was sad to have to go in the end, it’s always nice to know that it’s reasonably easy and not so expensive to visit places like this in my spare time. In the UK while I would go places occasionally, I’ve never traveled as much as I have here. Every month I’m visiting a new city but it doesn’t feel like such an effort. 

Next time I’m visiting Osaka, and then next year I’m going to try for a little further away and visit Hiroshima which will likely be my first time on a bullet train too. 

So until then, have a great new year and I’ll see you all in the future!

An overdue update

Hello once again from the glorious land of Japan. A land that has seemingly allowed me to live in it without asking any important questions like ‘why not Canada, everyone seems to love Canada’ or ‘why can’t he wiggle his ears.’ 

That being said, here I am and I’ve been fully taking advantage if the situation by visiting lots of nice places. On my recent adventures I visited Hammamatsu and Mishima (the later of which I am convinced is a place from the final fantasy universe). Should you find yourself in the area, I can heartily recommend the castle at Hammamatsu. With the beautiful park surrounding it, you can enjoy some very peaceful walks around the area, including some wonderful waterfalls.

And of course you can explore the castle, which was once home to Japanese nobility. 

Mishima was a little less impressive as a place to visit, but it did have one very cool thing going for it which is the sky bridge. 400m long and 500m off the ground at the highest point it has some quite impressive views. You can also look straight down through the grating if you have a head for heights.

Autumn (or Fall as everyone keeps calling it like they are American or something) is certainly a beautiful time in this part of Japan, making me once again very happy to have randomly ended up in this slightly more rural prefecture.

I’m heading to Kyoto next week so brace yourselves for even more awesome and also more blog.

The Good and the Bad

Today has proven to be something of a mixed bag in terms of productivity and reward. After my phone broke last week and my internet connection started to prove more than a little temperamental (It’s currently free so I can’t really complain about that) I decided I would finally ‘splash out’ and gt a pocket WiFi. Things were going rather well, I had bought a friend who spoke enough Japanese to get though the transaction and had enough documentation with me to start the contact. Unfortunately it turns out that the bank had decided to use a different spelling for my middle name on my bank card compared to my health insurance card. This being Japan meant that rather than looking at the more official ID, or even calling the bank to check that I am who I am, one little character difference stopped the whole process and now I have to go to the bank tomorrow to change it.

On the plus side after watching some friends fail to win an ice cream at a horrendously rigged claw machine I decided to try my luck on a different machine and won some anime statue thing on my first try. I don’t quite understand what this anime is all about. My best guess from what I have seen is that there are battleships, but these ships are also girls who fight other battleships, who are of course also girls. See why I’m confused yet?

Other than this slight name problem, everything else is still going pretty well. We are now on the third summer of the year as every time it gets a little bit colder two days later it shoots right back up. I’m starting to think that winter may actually never happen here and the land of the rising and permanent sun might be a better name for this place.

Japanese; it’s almost easy

But unfortunately it really isn’t. Japanese has the appeal and struggle of being considered the hardest language for a native English speaker to learn. And not for the reasons you might expect. Sure there are two alphabets with 46 characters in each. But once you learn these sounds they almost never change.

Of course there is also kanji, the 3000+ symbol writing system. Memorising this lot is quite the challenge, but with each one you learn you are safe knowing that it’s done, the meaning of that reading will not change. 

The problem is Japanese is a high context language. You can know all the words but unless you are in the situation good luck guessing what the topic was, cause that will be said once at the beginning and then dropped for the rest of the conversation. In English we like to state everyone quite clearly. Even when we are being ambiguous there is still only so much guesswork that’s needed. Japanese is closer to 50% understanding the language and 50% paying enough attention to figure out if we are talking about your house and friends house or a house you once visited ten years ago on holiday.

That being said I think it is a beautiful language and the challenges are exciting and interesting. Living here certainly helps my interest, as being able to actually order food rather than pointing and looking hungry is quite a rewarding experience. 

I’m particularly pleased today as I passed my first language test, and I’m now studying harder lessons. So yay for more language but oh dear for the complexities and confusion that is bound to follow. If you are also interested in learning this delightfully challenging language, aside from taking lessons I can really recommend two apps to help you along. First is kanji study. This one helps learn kanji (surprising I know!) as well as teaches you how to write them and gives you a good bulk of vocabulary too. It’s a flashcard style teaching app and quite effective in my opinion.

The other is memrise. This app deals with a few languages but I’ve only tried it for Japanese and I’ve really noticed a jump in my learning since I started using it. It’s fun and simple enough a tool that I actually want to use it every day, and have done so for nearly a month now.

Both apps have a good free to use section, but have the option to pay for more features. I’m still on the free versions but would not consider it a waste of money when I’m done with those to upgrade to the full versions. (This is not a sponsored review, I really do just like them.)

That’s all from me this week, happy learning!

Things what I did in Japan

This week I’ve been back up to my usual shenanigans of traveling around bits of Japan and taking pictures, because apparently that’s what I do now.

Once again I managed to find another volcano to climb, because that’s also what I do now. This one was a much easier climb, mostly because I could use a ski lift instead. It’s amazing really how much easier walking is when you don’t have to do any real movement.

At the top of this particular volcano was a rather interesting sight. Now I don’t know about you but when I think volcano I think rocky, maybe lava in the crater if it’s active. I do not usually think ‘this would be a great spot for some archery.’ Well apparently someone did think this and that’s exactly what you can do here.

This week has also seen a return to eating more delicious raw fish, and generally amazing Japanese food. This pleases me.

It was also the week of the lucky moon, although I failed to cash in on this luck by eating a dumpling while staring at the moon. I assume this is some sort of threat, that the dumpling represents the moon and on this clearest of nights the moon can see that if it does not give you luck you will come up there and bite it.

Until proven otherwise I will assume this is basically a fact.