So this morning.... I got up super early. And in the process of putting up makeup..... i felt things spin around.... and felt dizzy. And then I realized it was an earthquake. And it TOTALLY wouldn't stop. I got really freaked out. And I think I'd rather not live in an earth-quake prone zone anymore. Except.... I sort of will for at least the next 6 years.

Anyways, so afterwards I went to check out Tokyo Dome before work. At the opposite entrance..... there was a huge line mostly males. I almost wanted to ask a random person what it was for..... but then in Japan ppl don't randomly talk to each other or something like that..... so I didn't. Maybe next time when I'm super curious.

Look..... a concert!

And there were of course the concert goods. It was insane.... cuz I was there around 10 am. And the line was soooo insane. Cuz it was two parts all the way around the back! But here is a pic of what ppl were waiting for:

I thought the posters were very well done. (gah Japanese aesthetics are slowly infiltrating my mind, things I would've laughed at before now fits strangely into place) I almost wanted to buy one.... but then first of all I dunno who. And second the line was insane. And then I started trying to guess who's poster was wrapped in what colour plastic wrap. Since most ppl had light green.... I'm guessing that's jun's. Sort of want to go again tmr to see if I'm right..... maybe during the con.... but tmr I also might be going to the beach. We'll see.

One thing I noticed about the girls (and poor random boy there with family) there were that..... they were all SUPER young. Like mostly middle school I'm guessing. Whereas last year... most of our audience was like at LEAST high school.... some looked in their early 20s even. Ahhh.... the differences between the groups. But maybe it's just everyone there early are the younger children. I started thinking perhaps ARASHI is much more kosher..... and then I remember LOCK W/ ME. like..... What was that?! I think no other traumatized me so....

Finally.... I still think it's AMAZING that the roller coaster goes thru a building:

(written June 14)

Some random pics:

a pachinko ad

guess what these are? (answer: USB drive!)

A random temple very near my apt.

Today, I went out with some students and I was trying to explain how I thought the TV here seemed educational. Because I was randomly on some channel.... and they were showing 6.02 x 10^23. And of course talking in Japanese. And I was like.... hey isn't that Avogadro's number? And the TV was trying to explain it or something. So I tried to say with my limited Japanese.....and even with the other ex-teacher's help..... nobody understand. Mostly cuz they don't call it Avogadro's number in Japanese....it's some long string of kanji instead. It was sort of amusing tho that we were on this subject.....in some izakaya. And them getting confused with Avocados. They were like..... what does Avocados have to do with Carbon 12 and how many molecules of that in 12 g. lol......

(written June 13) today I found out this account worked.....hence the move

So I still haven't figured out what's up with my other account. I guess I'll just write in this one. Many many things has happened that I wanted to write about.... but cuz I had been lazy/ waiting for the blogspot page. Oh well.... so I'll try to cover my past 3 weeks real quick. So basically my dad came to visit me. And we had a GREAT 2.5 days visiting *almost* everywhere in Tokyo. And then the week after my lovely cousin came for like 8 days. We had an awesome time. And we watched some TV and of course made fun of some stuff. We even sang this song we saw on "show wa Hey!Say!". nai nai nai..... lol..... But then she left....boo hoo. And now I am alone again. I was starting to get used to being able to speak good English consistently everyday and otherwise have someone to talk to.

But some thoughts on my work: at the beginning.... I didn't like it. Because, well it was different from what I expected. Everything seems different from what I expected. Mainly I didn't expect it to be so tiring. Cuz I'm not the most extroverted person, but the Japanese students are REALLY shy.... sometimes I can't hear them. So it's up to me to make the class lively. That's fine. But then I have like 27 classes/week so it's hard to have that energy. But after a month..... getting the hang of teaching..... it's quite fun. That is when the student's level is high enough so we can talk about something interesting. I actually like a lot of my kids classes too. Cuz they are oh-so-cute. Soooooo cute! And some of them are soooooo young..... cute. But the young ones are a mouthful too. Of course my opinion about teaching changes day to day too.

The craziest thing was that today I found out this one female student I have that seems very delicate and otherwise lady-like..... she majored in engineering! I was surprised so I asked her why and of course I was curious how many girls were in her class. She said the numbers of girls was OK and it was 10/400 O_o But then again, I expected no girls in Japan to study engineering..... so I shouldn't form my own pre-conceptions. Well.... I thought my ex-manager said she wanted to be a programmer, and I was amazed.... but I don't think that's what she meant. Actually I'm not sure but I should've probably tried Japanese back then...lol.


Some interesting things I see:

-the other day for the first time i saw litter....a hs girl trying to be all badass by the pachinko threw away an ice cream wrapper....lol

-boys here really like riding on the backs of the bicycles of other boys....and girls. I even saw two business men!

-Japanese TV really like explaining the "why" to everything

-it is a country full of contradictions

-they don't seem to like helping out when they are needed (of course another over-generalization) but specifically, today, this lady and young man were waiting at our office. Since I was the only one w/o a lesson then, the lady came to talk to me and said a long string of Japanese. I caught 7:30? And since the other teacher's class starts at 7:30 I thought it was a student. So I tried to talk to her more to make sure there's nothing wrong. And we were trading limited Japanese and even more limited English while the other student watched. But then later, my student came and he helped me out. It turned out she was the korean teacher. And the other student....the korean student.... spoke REALLY good English. Like better than my student....I was like....WTF. So I told her some more stuff via my student....sort of a bad situation. And finally I remembered that there were supposed to be korean lessons and my ex-manager had hyped about how hot the guy student was and knew English. Because we were on the subject of guys and I was telling her how Japanese guys were not good for me cuz they didn't speak English. And she was all raving about this guy. Next post....less words and more pics.

(written May 12)

Today, I met up with my manager (who doesn't really speak english) and we went to the edogawa city hall for my foreigner's registration card. It was really bad cuz I finally got my luggage and was in the middle of un-packing and everything was sooooo messy. She came right up to my room and saw it. Gahhh......she was 15 min early. I really should've gone early outside and waited for her. I forget the Japanese run on super early time. She probably thinks I am house-work challenged now (which I sort of am). Like she asked me if I cooked and I was like a little, and she was not hmmm probably not huh. Then she showed me a flyer for AU phone. It's actually really really cool. The phones I mean..... like there are those phones that I saw last year with the big screen that flips around. And apparently they can even receive TV!!!!! So I guess if there's some TV program that I JUST can't miss. And I'm out and about I can use it. Anthony showed me his......it was really clear but sometimes the pixels are messed up. I'll probably end up getting an AU phone. Cuz I heard Docomo is more expensive and Softbank has crappier service. I guess I'll be having fun shopping for a cellphone company. See which has better sales peoples. But my manager was showing me the different models and colours and she pointed to a pink one and asked if I liked pink. I told her no. And then I told her I like blue/green. And she asked me if I liked black cuz it's 'kakkoi', and I was like......I don't like black either. But I couldn't explain to her cuz it's too severe. lol.....and I just remembered that my cellphone from the states is actually hot pink......exact same colour that she pointed to and asked if I liked. Well I guess I liked my phone's design more than the colour. I wonder where I can pick up pamphlets for the other companies? Maybe akihabara. I forget where there were lots of phone stores. I think near all the major stations......
Anyways, so the bus-ing around was sort of confusing. And I'm gonna have to go back to the city hall in 3 weeks to pick up my official card. Highlights include them getting really really confused about my residential status. Cuz I was born in China...... (and the dude goes......ahhh nanking, cuz at first he was like peking...... and i was like......no i was born in nanjing) And then my nationality is Canadian (my manager thinks nationality= birthplace which is unfortunately not true) and finally I'm living in the states. So when they asked for my address in Canada......I wrote the one in US and they crossed it out. Anyways...... after that fun fun trip I went back to the school and ate lunch with Anthony......the teacher I'm replacing. He showed me around. My apartment is NICE. The inside is sooooo big. Well bigger than I'm used to. There is a loft I can sleep in so the main area is quite large. I might need real tables and chairs though......being so close to the ground is weird. He even has a kotatsu that he may or may not leave with me. Actually I sort of don't want the kotatsu anymore. I'm not sure about TV yet. He says his cable is broken but he can get the basic channels anyways. I think cable is probably useless for me anyways. And apparently TV is useless for him cuz he doesn't watch ANY. lol.......I'm addicted to TV so perhaps I'll be using it more. And he told me there's dance studios and other stuff nearby. It's a pretty cool area. Near the station at least......very busy. The apartment area...... well it's 'shitamachi' so the equivalent is downtown (as in uptown downtown). Apparently there are taller apartment complexes to the south near tokyo bay (the landfilled section). I'll have to explore the city I guess. lol..... And there's a small creek and beside it is a small side walk, apparently ppl jog there. Which is good because nobody jogs around the hotel. What else? Yeah.....not much to do there at all......Anthony says he hangs out with his friends in Shibuya which he personally hates. And I must say I sort of agree......Shibuya didn't impress me at all last summer. I also got a SUICA at the train station, I feel more Japanese now. lol..... cuz i don't need to be buying those crazy tickets everytime. It's soooo confusing finding the fare and stuff. Here is a pic of the outside of the apartment:

I'm going to be so excited when ppl visit cuz I was worried I won't be able to house anyone but i think I can stuff 5 ppl there no problem! lol......and then I went into some random stores to grab stuff. I saw some cute cups utensils in this 100 yen store. I'm excited about getting it. And I started browsing through pharmacies....most of them don't have much cuz all the stores here are so tiny. I DID see something exciting though. OXY cardboard! maybe i'll take a pic next time. I also need to take pics of my work place. Oh, and I'll cover my trip to Yokohama later.