Martyn in Japan

Tokyo Game Show 2005, 千葉

2005-09-19T22:29:00.000+09:00

Yesterday we checked out Tokyo's annual video game exhibition in the leafy surroundings of the nearby Chiba prefecture. There were a few sneers and cries of 'A-Boy!' or 'Aki-baki!' from our peers but it was definitely a sense of 'when in Rome...', and also a chance to road-test the impending X-Box 360 & sneak a peek at the new Playstation 3! And as the photos we have from the day such as the one below testify, it was definitely us who had the last laugh!

Rather than give you a blow-by-blow account of the day here, I point you in the direction of my good friend Ryan's blog for an run through of the days events!

Summer Sonic Rock Festival, 千葉

2005-08-15T21:10:00.000+09:00

Summer Sonic is the equivalent of the V festival in England, with one line up playing on Saturday in Osaka and Sunday in Chiba (next to Tokyo) and vice versa for the other line up. Oasis were the headlining act this year on the Sunday and followed The Ordinary Boys, Asian Kung-Fu Generation, Kasabian and Weezer on the main stage albeit 40 minutes late due to a power failure caused by a faulty generator. That was the 5th time I'd seen Oasis and although the banter on stage wasn't quite as entertaining as usual and perhaps their performance wasn't the best I'd seen, they went down really well with the Japanese crowd and the new songs sounded great, especially 'Lyla'.

Oasis's set was as follows:

Fuckin' In The Bushes / Turn Up The Sun / Lyla / Bring It On Down (dedicated to the generator that broke down) / Morning Glory (dedicated to any lesbians in the audience) / Cigarettes & Alcohol (dedicated to the audience) / The Importance Of Being Idle / A Bell Will Ring (dedicated to boxer Ricky Hatton) / Live Forever / The Meaning Of Soul / Mucky Fingers / Champagne Supernova / Rock 'n' Roll Star / Wonderwall / Don't Look Back In Anger / My Generation

乾杯！

2005-07-29T22:55:00.000+09:00

I was thinking about creating some kind of Top 10 of things in Japan, and if I did, Chu-Hi drinks would definitely be vying for the number 1 spot. Close to the hearts of many teachers, they are a Japanese equivalent of the alcopops back home and are a cheap yet oishii source of comfort on the train ride home after a hard day teaching 7A students!

My Japanese TV debut

2005-07-20T21:38:00.000+09:00

This week I made my debut on Japanese national television! My friend Chris and I appeared on the morning TV show Tokudane on Fuji Television, one of the main terrestrial channels in Japan.

Kumagaya was the hottest city in Japan last year with the maximum temperature recorded at 40°C. However the other day the temperature reached a sweltering 41°C, and it seemed a camera crew had been sent to cover it. We were standing outside Nova on our break when they came over and asked us a few questions, but when they left we thought nothing more of it.

Then the next day at work lots of students came up to us saying how they'd seen us on TV! So it was a bit of fun, being a mini-celebrity for the week and joking how we'd probably been seen by a few million people on TV! (^-^)

Summer Matsuri, 鴻巣

2005-07-10T23:40:00.000+09:00

It's festival time here in Japan! All over the country at this time of year every town and city holds a traditional festival, and this weekend was the matsuri in my town, Konosu.

The main celebrations centred around a procession along 旧中山道, the main street in Konosu, of several groups of people, one group from each ward, carrying portable shrines called mikoshi. I invited a couple of other teachers Greg (l) and Mick (r) to take part in carrying the mikoshi for my area 入形町. It was pretty hard work, it was a hot day and the mikoshi was very, very heavy! But it was good fun, everyone was in high spirits and it was a good experience to be able to take part in something so Japanese!

ただいま！

2005-07-08T23:10:00.000+09:00

I've returned to Saitama after my holiday to Okinawa. What an amazing place! Our hotel was fantastic, very luxurious and we were lucky that we went just after the rainy season finished but before the summer holiday season starts in earnest so we had lots of space to relax around the pool or on the private beach. As you can see from the photo, the weather was nice and the ocean was incredibly blue and clear.

I tried different types of local Okinawan food - goya champuru (stir-fry of egg and goya, a bitter green fruit), soki soba (buckwheat noodles and pork ribs served in a clear broth), shikuasa (a very sour fruit which is making my face screw up just thinking about tasting it again!) and even mimiga (thin shavings of pig's ear served with mayonnaise!). We also tried snorkeling which eclipsed any previous attempts I had at snorkeling in England where you'd be lucky to see your own hand in front of your face in our murky sea let alone any tropical fish or corals!

*sigh* and now back to Kumagaya...

Star Wars Episode III

2005-06-26T23:40:00.000+09:00

Yesterday I went to an advanced preview showing of Revenge Of The Sith, 2 weeks ahead of the scheduled release date in Japan (this sounds more impressive to people in Japan than those reading from home where Star Wars has been out for about a month already!!).

I thought the film was by far the best of the three 'prequels' - the story was more fast-paced, the plot was a lot darker and it was really satisfying to see the two trilogies come together with the foundations being laid for Episode IV.... go and see it!

沖縄に行くよ！！

2005-06-02T13:03:00.000+09:00

Today I booked my summer holiday to the Japanese island of Okinawa in July - can't wait!!

Staying in the 5-star Busena Terrace hotel!!

Champions!

2005-05-28T21:03:00.000+09:00

On May 25th my beloved football team Liverpool beat AC Milan on penalties to win the Champions League, the world's most prestigious club competition!

What made it extra special was the way in which we won it; 0-3 down at half-time against a team that was touted as the best in the world defensively, yet Liverpool produced a courageous, passionate second-half display to fight back to 3-3 and ultimately win 3-2 in the penalty shoot-out!

Possibly the greatest final of all time, and I was 6000 miles away! d'oh!

Fish Market, 築地

2005-05-19T16:33:00.000+09:00

The Tokyo Central Wholesale Market in Tsukiji is one of the biggest markets in the world, handling around 2 billion yen's worth of marine products (£10 million) every day! I'd been wanting to check it out for ages having heard from other teachers what a unique place it was and it was true - having visited the typical, touristy sightseeing spots in Japan, it was fascinating to see the other side of Tokyo, being amongst the hustle and bustle of this heaving marketplace at 4:00 in the morning.

Making our way there was quite an adventure. All the trains in Tokyo stop around midnight and don't start again til around 5 in the morning, by which time the main action in the market would already have finished, so we took the last train from Konosu at night into central Tokyo and went to karaoke in Ginza til around 3 a.m. It was quite surreal making our way to Tsukiji afterwards - walking through central Tokyo on foot with hardly any people or cars around was a strange experience!

We were unsure what to do upon arriving at the market - after all, this was a place of business and visitors aren't particularly welcomed - but we wandered into where it looked like the action might be: a warehouse stretching as far as the eye could see with dozens of motorised carts buzzing around. Making our way through the maze of stalls and crates of fish was quite perilous seeing as the cart drivers were driving as if any gaijin casualties wouldn't spoil their day, but eventually we made it to the main auction hall.

Before daybreak, wholesalers had lain out hundreds of tuna in preparation for the start of the auction, and when we arrived to take some photos several traders were carefully examining the quality of the tuna and estimating the price. Feeling as though we'd outstayed our welcome and not wanting to get in anyone else's way, we soon headed out into the early morning light for a sushi breakfast!

Happy Birthday Tommy!

2005-05-18T17:35:00.000+09:00

Tomoko you're getting old! 23 candles on the cake this year! (^-^)

Tomoko's gourmet birthday lunch came courtesy of our student Takami who is a trainer at McDonald's and gave us 3 free meal vouchers when he saw us!! いっただきます！

鎌倉

2005-05-17T23:03:00.000+09:00

The Great Buddah in Kamakura.

English T-shirts

2005-05-16T18:29:00.000+09:00

Walking around Japan, you cannot fail to notice the abundance of T-shirts with various English phrases printed on them... and when you take a closer look 99% of them make absolutely no sense at all!

This one was in a department store in Omiya.

芝桜の丘、秩父

2005-05-03T19:55:00.000+09:00

This weekend I finally got a taste of the countryside after 7 months in the urban sprawls of Tokyo and Saitama! We drove to Chichibu to see these beautiful shibazakura, carpets of cherry blossoms.

飲みほ～だい

2005-04-17T20:06:00.000+09:00

One of the sweetest words in the Japanese langauge we've come across is nomihodai. Translated as 'drink all you want' in Japanese, we tend to interpret this as 'drink all you can'!

For around £10 you usually get 2 hours of unlimited beer, cocktails and wine, as well as a selection of food. This doesn't represent too bad a deal for the Japanese izakayas since Japanese people drink tend to drink in moderation, but they certainly count their losses whenever the gaijin roll into town!! (Don't know if any of you remember that scene from the Simpsons where Homer goes to the Frying Dutchman for all-you-can-eat, but it's kind of reminiscent of that!). So whenever we book a party, we always reserve it in a Japanese name so they can't hide away all the alcohol before we get there!

京都

2005-04-16T17:30:00.000+09:00

This day was the highlight of my trip to Kyoto with Tomoko and my friends Matthew & Animesh! We had our photos taken in traditional Japanese costumes on a film set used for countless Japanese films and TV series. We thought it was fun just to be able to dress up and have our photos taken, but the bonus was that after the photo shoot we could walk around the movie set for 1 hour in full costume which was great - we took loads of action photos of us fighting, jumping off small buildings and bridges etc! :-)

Animesh & I were dressed as Shinsengumi Samurai warriors, Matthew was an infamous Samurai called 'Musashi Miyamoto' and Tomoko looked great as an elegant geisha.

Join the revolution!

2005-04-08T23:35:00.000+09:00

It's the craze that's sweeping the nation - anyone who's anyone is wearing one of these stylish accessories!

When I first saw people wearing these I assumed it was so they wouldn't catch germs from other people but in fact people wear them so they don't pass on their colds to anyone else. These were everywhere in Japan in spring time!

韓国

2005-01-08T13:40:00.000+09:00

This photo was taken during our visit to South Korea. We took a tour to the 'Demilitarised Zone' which is a stretch of land controlled by the United Nations separating North and South Korea, who are still technically at war. In this current political state, no Koreans are allowed to travel across the border and consequently this tour is only available to people holding a non-Korean passport, so we took the opportunity to visit as we thought not many people would be able to say that they'd seen over the border into North Korea.

When we got to the U.N. base we were warned not to make any gestures to the guards standing across the border so as not to provoke them into opening fire on us, and
each had to sign a disconcerting document absolving the U.N. of any blame in the event of our death!!

I was under the impression we would only be able to see into North Korea, but we managed to go one better - we were unexpectedly allowed to enter a room used for peace talks, half of which was in South Korea and the other half in North Korea - so in the above photo, I am standing in North Korea while Tomoko is in South Korea! Neat!

Imperial Palace, 東京

2005-01-02T21:45:00.000+09:00

Today was the emperor's birthday and one of only two days in the year when the Imperial Palace grounds are open to the public, so we went along to Tokyo station to join in the celebrations. We each got given a Japanese flag and made our way through the palace gardens to a balcony in the main courtyard where the royal family came out to wave to the crowd!

(L-R) Julie, Claire, myself & Meghan

お風呂に。。。はまった！

2004-11-10T20:42:00.000+09:00

This pic was taken from a particularly choice piece of quality Japanese broadcasting, filming people who live off a monthly budget of about £50 after rent.... however this portly fellow still manages to afford a 3 square meals a day! And although this scene of him squeezing into his bath had no real relation to his budget, it was pretty damn funny!!

Ai's University

2004-11-02T21:41:00.000+09:00

Ai's university, Mejiro

Who's feeling hungry?

2004-10-20T10:35:00.000+09:00

Orientation, Shinjuku

2004-10-11T23:30:00.000+09:00

After a few days rest and acclimatisation, today was our first working day in Japan - attending NOVA orientation in Shinjuku, one of the high-rise districts of Tokyo. As you can see from the photo, it meets all the preconceptions one has of modern-day Tokyo - the high skyline, pavements bustling with people and colourful electronic signs on every building... very impressive and quite a contrast to Swindon!

私の誕生日です！

2004-10-07T23:16:00.000+09:00

Happy Birthday to me!

ようこそ！

2004-10-07T15:17:00.000+09:00

Hi there, welcome to my blog! I'm teaching in Japan for a year and thought I would use this to post some photos & a few of my thoughts on life in Japan!

If you stop by, please leave a comment!

Martyn Rankin