Good Times in Tokyo

See what happens when people stop being polite and start getting oolong'd.

03 December 2005

Teaching

Today all my students asked me for my address so they can send me new year's cards. It was one of those feel good moments that was immediately followed by a "What i am doing in Japan teaching english to five 10 year olds?". Apparently I'm a really good teacher according to my boss. Many times I have been told I am "invaluable" to the staff. How strange is life that I answered a random job ad and ended up with all this.

01 December 2005

Largeness

I should reiterate that Tokyo is huge. Sometimes it's pretty amazing how big this city really is. For instance: I often go to Shinjuku since it is the way to school but I rarely ever see the same things twice. Like today I found a whole new neighbourhood, a couple shrines and a park in an area I had walked around before. And everytime I go to shinjuku station I never really take the same exit or entrance. I'll probably never get around to seeing even 1/2 of Tokyo by the time I leave. Which will probably set me into heavy depression when going to wal mart in waco means I've seen 3/4th of the city.

But actually I do miss that dumb city sort of. Well not actually the city. People more like. I had a dream that when I went back to Waco, all the resturaunts were serving pseudo-western food like they have here in Japan. It quickly turned to a nightmare. As long as Mama Jade still knows how to make bow ties, we'll all be safe.

To end this useless post I would like to comment on Japanese fashion. They are crazy. The high today was about 15C maybe with pretty chilly winds and I still see miniskirts all over. Either they have some sort of internal heating that we don't know about or they are planning on amputating their legs of frostbite for the sake of fashion. Fashion is normally priority number one here. Almost everyone has some sort of high end designer brand at all times. It cracks me up with I see an old lady and her Prada handbag or the old man and his Fendi scarf. No wonder the pension program is in such trouble here, you people spend too much. My favourite though is the middle aged man I saw in kyoto in full japanese girl clothes. But he didn't walk like a women or have on make up. Which makes me think instead of a drag queen he was just really fashionable. Although I enjoy all this feminine japanese men stuff, it makes me seem really masculine. A definate first for me. Hooray for Japan.

29 November 2005

Tokyo re-entry

I must say I enjoy being back in Tokyo. Kyoto was pretty and all, but nothing quite compares to the glit and glammer of the world's second largest city. It's hard enough to get used to Tokyo life much less be expected to master Kyoto in a few days. Today in one of our Japanese classes, our teacher was asking us about our Kyoto trip and then told us that she didn't like people from Kyoto too much. It was pretty funny. It pretty much sounded just like the great north/south divide in the US. Funny how things remain the same all over the world.

I bought my 100 yen christmas tree today with some ornaments to get into the Japanese christmas mood. I think I may even act like my mom and wrap up empty boxes to make it look complete. It's definately full time christmas season here in Japan. Our dorm cafeteria just set up their tree and I saw a few trees on the walk home from the station.