The End

I'm writing this from my room in the the Hankyu New Hotel Annex in Osaka. I'm leaving Japan at 10 tomorrow morning. Saaaaad. Feel really sad right now but fortunately have had a couple of things and people around to take my mind off it today. Figured it was important to finish the blog off in Japan rather than back home, I want it to be a complete record of the year for me to look back on later. I'll recap from last week.

THURSDAY & FRIDAY
Gave my car back to the garage Thursday then went for a meal with my supervisor and his fiancee before staying over at his place. Really going to miss them, my supervisor added so much to my time in Japan.



Friday was my final day of work. Very sad and very busy. Went for lunch with Kocho sensei (head teacher) which was kind of fun, and was still running round like a mad thing 5 mins before I had to leave. All the teachers came down to wave me off and my supervisor gave me a lift to the station where we said a sad goodbye before I jumped on a train to go south towards the city to see a friend I hadn't seen for ages which was great, and brought back a lot of good memories.

SATURDAY
Saturday headed into Tokyo and met up with Andrea, a friend from Uni who lives in Yokohama. Wandered round the city for a bit before heading to an early Bon Odori celebration, meeting some of her friends, and having a drink before heading out into Roppongi. Hmmm. The crowd we were with was really great and I had a great time, but I can't say I really like Roppongi as a place. Glad I went once though.

SUNDAY
Running only on a couple of hours sleep, went to meet Maho at the edge of Tokyo for a picnic with her and seven of her coworkers. This was great summer fun, playing ball games while kids ran around with nets trying to catch bugs and paddling in the stream. Maho always invited me to places which feel homely. Maho is great.



After this, went to an Izakaya with a couple of other people from Nottingham and a friend of Maho's who I've met a few times this year and ate far too much and very cheaply as friend's sister worked there. Big fun :)

MONDAY
In the morning, wandered around the Keio Plaza in Shinjuku, the same streets I wandered in the day we arrived, the same shops etc, trying to see what felt different. Not sure I have a definate answer but it was a nice thing to do. In the afternoon met up with a Simon, a mate who I met at the London training but haven't seen for a year, and Andrea again and had a wander. Checked all the shops I like in Aoyama and made another trip to Yoshitomo Nara's A to Z cafe which was nice. Said goodbye to Tokyo for the final time and headed back to Osaka on the shinkansen.

TUESDAY
Basically spent the day wandering Osaka in the baking heat. Walked from North to South more than once, all the places I like. Popped in to Especial Records (the record label I love, run by Kyoto Jazz Massive's Yoshihiro Okino, the DJ who runs the Freedom Time night) and he remembered me and was all like 'hey man'. This is very big for me. He said come to the next Freedom Time but when I said I was going back to England he gave me a couple of little badges and stuff and a cool Freedom Time mobile strap to take back. Was stupidly happy. Wandering back up towards Umeda, I asked myself why I'd never given him a demo tape, as he recognised me and was so friendly... so I went to Yodobashi, got a blank CD and a pen to write on it, went back to my locker in Shinsaibashi and got my powerbook out, went and sat in the cool little 'Continue Cafe' in Minami Horie ready to burn a demo... until I realised that 99% of my tunes are on my external HD. Shit! Still, got 2 (Late Nights and Pan Dance from my myspace page), a couple of beats and the Roots Manuva remix I did, bunged them on the CD, took them over, and talked about making music with Yoshihiro Okino from Kyoto Jazz Massive for a few minutes. Highlight of my Japan trip? Definitely up there.

WEDNESDAY
Shino came over from Tokyo to have a little Kansai trip (was also nice to take my mind off the sadness of leaving). We did most of the places I know and like, the Sky Building, Kirin Plaza and Dotonbori, Shinsaibashi covered shopping arcade, Amemura, Orange Street, little bar 'Bandwagon', a bunch of cafes. A new place for me was a cool little street just 2 mins from Dotonbori called Hozenji-Yokocho, which is paved like a street from the old days with a cool little water shrine where you chuck water over various statues. Funfun.




THURSDAY
On Thursday (which is today as I write this), headed into Kobe where I ended my mobile contract (and started to get really sad), went and ate Kobe beef for the first time at Wakkoqu, which was soft and melty.

Wandered around Meriken Park and Harborland with Shino before heading back to Osaka where there was just time for some Macha sweets before seeing her off.
Really pretty sad and with a big lump in my throat by this point, I rode the Kobe line all the way to Sannnomiya and back just for old time's sake, taking some pics on the way. I wanted to go all the way to Okubo, where I went a fair few times during winter and have some great memories of, but time didn't permit.

Came back to meet a friend in Osaka, catch up (again, nice to take my mind off leaving), eat my last meal (I bought from a conbini the same things I used to eat almost every day in Aogaki... I like being sentimental.) I'm feeling pretty sad about leaving. I'm excited about the future, and London and stuff, but there are some great people I will miss, and planning and doing my little trips around Japan has been so much fun this year. Riding the train to new places all the time has been great. I can't believe it's over. Sad. つらいね、ほんまに。

Absolutely wonderful year. I can't think of any better way to end than that.

Lessons Learnt This Week

*Starting to pack at midnight the night before the courier company comes to pick up your stuff is not a good idea.
*Onsens are quite cool, maybe I shouldn't have left it til 2 days before moving out to go to one.
*I have too many jeans and tee shirts and still dress a bit too much like a student. I am slowly changing this.
*A month's salary in cash may look like a lot, but after spending hundreds of pounds sending stuff home it quickly runs out.
*My predecessor was rubbish. She left so much junk around in cupboards I didn't open for a year which I've had to go through and sort out for the new ALT.
*I still am not used to the idea I'm leaving. Hopefully it'll hit me before I actually get home.

Movies, and being bored at work

This is frustrating. I have absolutely NOTHING to do at work as I'm leaving (normally I at least can start planning next term’s lessons, or talking with teachers about what we're going to do) and a million things to do at home (tidying, packing, sending boxes...) but as I've used all my annual leave up I'm stuck in the staffroom doing very little. Except making pointless blog posts like this.

I've been watching loads of Japanese movies recently. Something to do in the week, and although you can't really pigeonhole a whole country's cinema, there do seem to be a lot of nice vague pondering films which I like.

Anyway, I rented them all from Tsutaya, and have burned most of them to my hard disk, but wanted to buy some before I leave as a ripped file on your HD can't compare to having the real physical product on your shelf. Thing is, although most things here are similarly priced or cheaper, DVDs and CDs are generally more expensive. DVDs rarely, if ever, drop below £15, and newer releases are over £20. So I thought I'd check on Amazon UK to see if any of the movies have been released worldwide, as I know some of them (Dare mo Shiranai and Tony Takitani in particular) have an international reputation. So anyway, on the UK site they were both available for £7.50 ish, way less than the Japanese ones. (I bet you're thinking what an interesting story this is.) Anyway, the point of it was, the trade off was that the cover was kind of shit compared to the Japanese one. I checked a couple of other movies (I have nothing to do at school and was killing time... it's not my hobby) and in most cases the Japanese was better. And I feel bad for the Americans who always seem to get terrible covers. I guess maybe design is more important in Japan than in Europe? (and more important in Europe than the US?) Although that's quite a broad statement to make. What's also interesting is that most of the Western movies I've seen have the same (or really similar) covers to the UK versions (don't know about America) so I wonder why the designers abroad seem to want to play around with covers so much?

The order - although it's obvious - is JP, UK, US. I love the JP cover of this one.



Think the UK and JP covers of Nobody Knows are equally good, although the JP one sums up the feeling of the movie better. The US gets a bum deal again.



Think the UK has the best design for Zatoichi. America's effort isn't that bad this time compared to Japan's which is surprisingly not that good.



The things you do when you're bored at work... This post... lots of pictures, America bashing, pointlessness... I think I have it all covered.

Me, at work today.

My School

My blog has mainly been about the places I've been in Japan, which has always been at the weekends as there's not a whole lot round here. So this post is just about what I've done Mon-Fri, at my little school which I'm rather fond of. So, this last year, I have been working here:

with classes like this:


spending a fair bit of time in here:


working with teachers like this:

[A side note about the social studies teacher, the guy who is left on the second row giving the thumbs up and with the anpanman on his desk: like a lot of young teachers, he hasn't yet passed the full teaching exam, and so still is technically a trainee. I can't see what difference this makes in workload, they can be form tutors just like regular teachers, they work just as long hours, the only difference I think is in pay and conditions. So anyway, the teaching exam, which is only held once a year, was on the same day as a baseball match for the school team (which he coaches), and we're not brilliant at baseball or anything, it was the second round of the national high school baseball championships which is normally as far as we go. The guy is so dedicated that he gave up the chance to pass the exam and become a fully fledged teacher just to attend the match as coach. Then later on over dinner Mitsutake sensei told me he did the same thing last year! That is love for the school. (We lost the match by the way.)]

and teaching kids like this: (I know it's wrong to have favourites, but these kids are, they're from my Sogo Eigo class or the Paper Debate writing class and so feature the creators of Sou Chan, Konnyakun, Balloon Chan and Tanbo Bros).


It's been fun. The kids are pretty low level and not all that interested in English to be honest, but they're really good natured (in general, a couple of the new first years have dreams of being rudeboys but compared to London it's nothing) and if you put the effort in to a lesson they'll always give it a go and often surprise themselves.

There's something very sweet about being in a small school, as I think I mentioned before, you get to know all the kids pretty well (which is a massive plus when getting them to work in class) and everything feels small and cute. Our soccer club had one member! He used to disappear for two hours and read manga/do kickups in his Celtic shirt.

I'm not going to become a teacher but the experience of working in education has been great. Working around kids has been brilliant, just like those 'use your head. teach' government ads with all the slogans about working with kids being interesting and never stagnant. It's true! I've gained a lot from my year here and I'd like to think the kids have got a little something from it as well.

Me and Taro, (I'd go as far to say something terrible like 'partners in crime') about to teach English real nice like.

Club Theme Songs

Or something like that. It seems I'm not the only one to love Club Noon in Osaka, Sunaga t (him of the fantastic mix albums 'worldline' and serious jazz dance dj) wrote a song for it called High at Noon. Got to say though, loving the light jazz beat in the background (not very clear on the mp3 sample) and the chant bit, but really not feeling the nasally vocalist (I've heard her on some other stuff with Hajime Yoshizawa or Jazztronik or someone, but I can't say I'm a fan.) In particular, the piano solo on this is such a nice example of smoky floor jazz done right that I uploaded my own little sample. Persevere past the singer to hear a deep solo. Anyway, it's an ode to such a cool venue I can forgive it.

Also, 'The Room' in Tokyo, a fantastic small club right at the heart of the jazz crossover scene, has a very chilled (and admittedly better) song written for it by (my hero) Hajime Yoshizawa, just called The Room. Had a couple of great nights there and might head back again if there's time. I'll miss these places.

Tamba Tourist Board

Today was the last day of school with the kids, and I want to make a big post about the school, but I'm off to Osaka in half an hour to hear Theo Parrish DJ at Grand Cafe! Woo. So don't have time. But I'll start off with this that I meant to post a couple of weeks back but kept forgetting.

As a final fun project for my Sogo Eigo class, I had them make tourism pamphlets about the town. Just simple things, creating a slogan, information about where is a nice area, what to see and what you can do here etc. (In fact one of the students wrote about Miwakare Park which I had never heard of the week before I went.) Anyway they seemed to enjoy it, but the bit they enjoyed most was designing a mascot for the town. We had a little brainstorm in English about what makes a good character, then they all got really into this (including taking it home to finish, which they NEVER do) and got really creative. I present sogo eigo's characters (and also the slogans they wrote for the town) along with the little introductions they wrote for them:

Let's Go Hikami with Sou Chan!

SOU CHAN
He is very busy. He is always running. His name is Sou-chan. He is researching more things about Hikami. He has girl friend and rival. His girl friend call Ayumi chan. His rival call Skipkun. His pet call Jagapet. Jagapet is alien.

Sou chan was far and away the best. And the girls decided to draw the other characters on the back of their pamphlet too. They gave me the pamphlet, and also therefore I assume all the rights to the character. I hope one day to become rich off the back of Sou chan merchandising.

Aogaki: The Konnyaku Is Waiting!


KONNYAKUN (a play on Konnyaku, the food, and Kun, the suffix for young boys)
His eyes made from diamond.
His hobby is dance. His body is soft, but he gets angry when touch. Please be careful.

Konnyakun is awesome. I would like to draw your attention to the small konnyakun in the top right poking his head around the corner. On the other pages of the pamphlet, around the town information and places to see, they drew loads of little konnkyakuns poking out from various places.

Hikami: Frank Town, Come Down

Balloon Chan.
This is Yume Town balloon everyday look to Hikami Town. Name is "balloon chan". This is from "Jamaica". He is afraid of high places. In child hood he was picked up in slum.

I feel Balloon Chan, while not the most visually pleasing character, is a complex creature, with a difficult back story and a fear which is kind of inconvenient given his occupation.

Aogaki - Environment No. 1

He is mountain. The tree is old brother. He makes clean air at town. His hobby is look at stars.

This one was just too cute. The tree on his head is his brother.

Let's Go Tanba! Let's Go Tanbo!

TANBO BROTHERS (means rice field brothers)
Taue man plant is Nae. Taue man will die without water. Inekari man cut is Ine. In winter is sleeping. Tanbo rhythm [musical note] tanbo rhythm [musical note]

These characters are great. There should be a company making Sou Chan and Konnyakun goods seriously. I'll leave you with another picture of Sou Chan.