Oh the difficulties of writing a blog and living in Japan!

So little time! I’m trying my best, but all the time I seem to keep doing more and more stuff in Japan - so I’ll try and go a little faster in an attempt to get to the present day in my blog! Firstly, we had the New Yamgata JET Orientation, which was so great to meet all the new JETs and there are some great people - and after being away from native English speaking for a fair while, it was so nice to talk at a normal speed and have a bit of fun and a laugh. We certainly did - especially on the second day, when we went to Mt. Zao - a famous Ski Resort are in Yamagata. We went for a dip in the Zao Onsen, with beautiful outdoor surroundings and a very sulphuric hot natural water (my second onsen!), then after that we had a big Enkai with some great food, some great drink and some brilliant karaoke. Good times were definately had by all I do believe!After that, on the next weekend, a fairly calm and relaxed time was had. I met up with Koji and Yutaka, the two guys I met at the Obon festival and we played football (I know, I know, I’m no Wayne Rooney but its the taking part that counts) and I met a bunch of other young Japanese people who were all really nice. It was great fun - after that we ate ‘Kaginori’ - a Japanese favourite - basically crushed ice with some flavoured syrup over it - its quite a tasty and refreshing sweet to have when its so so so hot!

Yamagata City - my first trip in Japan!

The second weekend I was in Japan I had a whole day to myself! I decided to explore beyond the boundaries of my small city and take the train to the biggest city in the prefecture - Yamagata city. When I say biggest, it is probably the size of Leeds I reckon, maybe smaller. It took about 30 minutes to get there. First of all I had to deal with the train station and ticket system - not that these would be hard thing to deal with, only that most of the instructions, signs, train times - you name it - are all in ridiculously impossible to learn/understand Chinese characters (Kanji), resulting in a rather challenging experience. Nevertheless, I successfully remembered the Kanji for Yamagata (山形 if you ever need to know) and was on my way (only a slight panic that I was on a train heading the opposite direction, but I should have been more confident in my Japanese deciphering skills).So I made it to Yamagata city - I saw my first westerners in the train station since I first got to Nanyo - Americans I think - they looked lost and confused! Unfortunately I walked out the wrong exit from the station - walking away from the main area of the city. I wandered around a rather uninteresting park for a bit and then got frustrated that, to say it was the biggest city in the prefecture - it was rubbish!I began to make my way to the train station and get out of this place, but thought I would have a wander to the other exit - lo and behold I found bigger buildings, neon lights and more people! From that point onwards it was a very enjoyable time - I found a classical music store that sold loads of Classical music (only all the composers are in Japanese so when you’re looking for ‘Beethoven’, you have to look for something like ベートフェン　and ‘Mozart’ would be モーザルト. It was nice to see some familiar music though. Pianos were selling for about £3000 upwards so I can’t really buy one for my little Japanese house anytime soon! I bought a really cool Union Jack tie too which I will wear when the weather starts getting colder (the summer is so hot that short sleeved shirts with the top button undone is acceptable). I also bought some CDs I’d wanted - Japanese artists are so much easier to find in Japan! The other highlight was finding my first MUJI in Japan! Muji, for those who don’t know is a beautiful looking shop in the UK, imported from Japan. It is SOOOO much bigger in Japan! They sell loads more stuff! From clothes, to stationary, to food and even bicycles! Crazy! Generally this is what tends to happen in Japan, you have to work a great deal harder to get anywhere in Japan when you don’t know the language. If you persevere you typically achieve some success and great satisfaction as a result!


The remains of an old castle in the park by Yamagata station


The park had a really cool Samurai statue - one of the most interesting parts of it.

Festivalfest!

For at least the first 5-7 days of my life in Japan, I was kindly treated to a number of parties, meals out, and festivals! Here was my busy busy itinery! The day after my arrival and my Onsen/meal event, I went out to a smart looking restaurant in Akayu called EST! with my Supervisor and some other Elementary school teacher and my supervisors 16 year old son who speaks very good English. The Elementary teachers spoke little or no English but were very friendly and my Supervisor can understand English pretty OK but he’ll only speak English when he has too! I was quite grateful for my supervisors son being there because otherwise it was a little Japanese intensive! We had Italian food, which is a bit of a cool style of food in Japan at the moment - but of course it’s got a Japanese kind of feel to it. So along with pizza, which I ate with chopsticks, there was Tofu and Natto! The famous Japanese food, which is a popular question for a foreigner to get asked: ‘Do you like Natto?’ - because the consensus of foreigners think that Natto is absolutely disgusting! I was challenged to try it and eat it by my supervisor and I actually liked it! (I am the first ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) in Nanyo City to like it straight away (they have had seven other ALTs before me). Whilst it typically has quite a potent smell, I believe it tastes a bit like a mix between Peanut Butter, and Blue Cheese! It’s actually fermented Soybeans and other such things - which does actually make it sound disgusting. The meal was then followed by the most famous of all Japanese institutions - Karaoke! And we had a private eating booth complete with karaoke system (microphones, flat-screen TV, electronic computer for song selection etc.) - it was my first time in Japan doing Karaoke and when it’s done properly like the Japanese do it, with a little bit of beer to enhance performances - you can’t help but have some great, innocent fun. After that, I was ushered out to go with my supervisors son to go for some Spicy Miso Ramen. Ramen is like soup but with good portions of meat, vegetables and noodles in it. The restaurant we went to is very popular and well known for its good Ramen.

The day after - Friday, after the two events on the previous two days - it was finally my official welcome party. My bosses and some co-workers were all there and we had a traditional style Japanese meal with lots of beer (and a good opportunity for me to fill up the big bosses glasses with beer - it is very rude for a Japanese person to have to fill their own glass, but they don’t assume foreigners know about this custom straight away so it normally impresses them and looks good!) It was at this point in time, after formal introductions that I realised I had believe my supervisor to be somebody different! I got their names mixed up because the other guy, Mr Hosokawa seemed to be doing more things to help me get settled in Japan. I hope they didn’t notice but not quite being 100% certain is a common encounter in this kind of situation! After telling them I was a pianist, one of the guys in the office had taken the trouble to find somebody with a keyboard for me to play something at the party for my coworkers. Unfortunately the keyboard they’d found was the tiniest kind you can find with horrible sounds, no pedal or any such thing. Nevertheless - I played a little ’something’ (I’m not sure what !) but they clapped politely and told me I was very good - just wait till they hear me on a Yamaha grand!

Following the meal, we went on to the second party (always a custom in Japan to have more than one party - which was….Karaoke! In a charming little bar where we had Nomihodai (’All you can drink’) and lots of Karaoke. They were quite impressed when I started catching on to the choruses of the Japanese songs and singing along! On Saturday, Mr Hosokawa, one of the workers with a good grasp of English, and a keenness to practise speaking, took me around Akayu. He showed me the shops nearby and what I could buy from them. He also took me to some of the more remoter areas of Nanyo City. We went to Kuguri falls - I beautiful waterfall deep in the forests of Yamgata, and he took me to a bridge high up over the mountains where all you could see were thick trees and other green mountains in front and behind. In the evening, I was invited to (or made to go?!) to a school party - it was a nice opportunity to meet some of the teacher and the children too! They had long half-pipes of bamboo outside - like a long slide - and made a little flow of water run down them, then they would send Somen noodles shooting down them and the trick was to catch them with your chopsticks and place them into your bowl to eat! I got quite good at this in the end! There was also Yakitori cooking on barbeques - skewered Chicken with a delicious sauce! I love it!




See how the kids look up at me in adoration and amazement!!!

Sunday was a free day, but I thought I would visit a Japanese lady who speaks great English and loves to befriend each JET that comes to stay in Nanyo. She is fantastic and we had a nice chat and she told me about another festival that was happening later that evening on Akayu’s main street! So, I went along and watched some brilliant dancing and again saw a few of the kids - it was nice not to be escorted and I could wander around the different stalls and show my face around the rest of the community! Watched some great dancing too - the Japanese seem to love dance routines! Anyone know Billy Blacks/Blaxx? He’s American and really popular over here?!

Monday evening after work was a Tug of War festival - the tenth and final one being held in Nanyo. It wasn’t just any old Tug of War competition - this was a 500 metre rope and so thick! I couldn’t see the end of the rope from the middle of it, either way! Apparently this is why that festival won’t happen anymore, because they’re afraid that the rope will break soon and it’s very expensive to buy another one! Everybody from the area came out, young and old to take a side and ‘heave’ or ‘ho’ (there are Japanese words, but I can’t remember them at all!) - unfortunately, nobody who I asked seemed to know which side won - it must be the taking part that counts! And then, people kept giving me free beer tokens!


There were a lot more people pulling on either side of me outside of the photograph!!

A few days later it was the important Obon festival. Obon is a traditional Buddhist festival for the dead - I was invited to dance on the main street of Akayu with Nanyo City Hall who I work for. We danced traditional Japanese dances for such a long time around the street, but it was so much fun. I was wearing a traditional Japanese Yukata and met some great friends from the City Hall who speak impressive English! A very long winded blog entry but it just gives you a taster of how busy I was in my first week and how many amazing things I experience and people I met! There will definitely be more to come I know that for sure!

Welcome to Nanyo!

I have been living here for about 2 and a half weeks now - which is the longest I have ever spent away on a holiday. I think I feel quite grateful that this never felt like a holiday from the moment I got here. Perhaps Tokyo felt a bit like a vacation, but the Jet-lag and work-related itinerary were less than holidayesque! Quite a few people seem to mention that the first few weeks feel like a holiday, some prefectures seem to have larger communities and more parties and such, so in a way I was prepared for immersing myself in a Japanese community from the start. I never really feel that I’m sampling a part of Japanese culture from which I can take the memory back to England and treasure it. Everything I do here is to experience Japan to the fullest, and to make a great effort to fit in with my community and make them like me!

One of the main streets of Akayu in Nanyo -follow down this road and you reach my house!

My Japanese home!

It has taken me some while to gather my bearing around Nanyo but I am slowly doing just that now. Nanyo calls itself a city - it shouldn’t though because it doesn’t have a Cathedral, OR a University. Clearly, the suffix ‘city’ can be loosely applied to anything with at least two Pachinko parlours (There are three very near to where I live). It is the youngest city in Yamagata prefecture, around 40 years old and it was formed my merging all the small towns together. The town names are still used and it probably makes more sense to say that they are used as district markers of Nanyo. The towns that make up Nanyo are: Akayu, Ringo, Okigo, Yoshino, Miyauchi, Nakagawa and Urushiyama. All of these towns still have their own schools and I will be going to all of the Junior High Schools in each area. There are plans to merge these schools into two large schools, as the majority of the schools are relatively small now, but they seem to be in the early stages of planning such a big change.


Anyway, that’s the geography of Nanyo for you - and I am living in Akayu - the largest town in Nanyo. It is a pretty nice place to live, although it took me a while to get used to it, as you might expect. The odd thing about Japanese ‘city planning’ if you want to call it that, is that there is no uniformity between buildings, and there is no method to the layout of the city. There isn’t really a main road; there is no city centre - there are just odd shopping areas here and there. They don’t have street names either, not that I would be able to read them as they would all be in Japanese, but still, how on earth do you find where you are or where you want to be going?

A summer evening in Akayu

A view from Eboshiama park

The buildings often seem a little shabby, and their irregular shapes and colours don’t make Japan seem the most attractive place to live, but despite that, there is a charm about the place that you can’t quite put your finger on. After having explored Akayu, I have seen Eboshiama park with its many shrines and nicey shady grassy areas, and you can’t miss the beautiful mountains always in the background. But as well as that, it is the Japanese culture that seems to infuse charm into the area. Forever taking your shoes off and putting on slippers WHEREVER you go (people’s houses, schools, even the gym!), bowing to people as you pass with a cheerful Japanese greeting and the strange speakers stuck to the lamp posts on Akayu’s ‘main street’, that seem to play Japanese pseudo-traditional ‘Enka’ music all the time. They’re all a bit quirky but the sincerity of the Japanese people creates as Japanese an experience as you could get!

The start of life in Yamagata...

On the last day in Tokyo, the little air-conditioned, comfortable English speaking bubble we’d been living in for the past few days was quickly disspating. We were divided into our respective prefectures around Japan and went off in our groups by means of different transport. The Yamagata folk took a plane from Haneda airport (Tokyo’s smaller, largely domestic based airport) to Yamagata airport. The flight only took 40 minutes or so - but that was the moment when we started to realise what would become a common occurance - the 8/9 of us JETs were the only Westerners on the plane. I was sitting next to a rather quiet Japanese guy - I don’t know if he was scared of me, but I couldn’t really make much conversation. ‘Do you fly often? What’s the food like on this trip?’ - such small talk would have probably led him to smash the window and parachute down to Yamagata!
We were all getting a little nervous now. We collected our bags and I walked into the squashed arrivals foyer to see a big sign saying ‘Welcome Chris! Nanyo Board of Education’ and some tissue paper red/pink flowers stuck around it. It was a lovely gesture and later on the other JETs who were on the same journey commented that I recevied the best welcome!

Mr Itagaki my supervisor, Mr Hosokawa a very helpful friend with a good grasp of English, and one of the English teachers I will be working with were there to meet me. We got in the car, and went to the Shiiakshuo or City Office were I would be based. There I met the superintendant of the Board of Education, a lovely warm fellow called Mr Mikayama and I introduced myself in Japanese to the rest of the staff I would be working with.

After that I went to get a mobile phone (priorities!) and then I was taken to an onsen. I will assume that not many people know about the Japanese ‘onsen’ which means ‘hot bath’ - but it involves getting naked most of the time, washing yourself thoroughly before getting into a pool of, naturally hot (often quite hot) water. I wasn’t taken to a proper onsen of sorts. It was more a kind of hotel/spa resort. Not the traditional Japanese setting that you often seem to find (or that I’ve seen in photos I should say - maybe they just do the photos for promotional/tourist purposes).

Well being the reserved and prude British man that I am, it was a little bit of a surprise to have to strip down with a bunch of Japanese guys I’d met about 2 hours ago, but it was probably the best thing to do because the experience was brilliant and I’ve already done it again (in a more desirable setting in an outside location on Mt Zao) - I have no reservations or shyness now!

After a dip on the onsen, we had a very nice Japanese style meal in the same venue, allsorts of noodles, sashimi (raw fish), sushi, meat kept coming in. And of course, there was lots of beer too. I was still feeling a bit Jet-lagged and disorientated so my eating and drinking habits weren’t up to much. Still, the stuff that my Board of Education had set up on the first night was a great way to help me feel more comfortable and settle in.

The post-onsen feast of food and drink!

Welcome to Tokyo!

After a moderately enjoyable flight from Heathrow we arrive 12 hours later, the day after in a rather hot Tokyo. I say moderately because I managed to get no sleep throughout the whole 12 hours, and we didn’t see much night time through the flight. We got through the airport smoothly and then had a two and a half hour bus drive to Shinjuku – an area of Tokyo packed with massive Skyscrapers.

We stayed in the Keio Plaza Hotel for two nights. The Keio Plaza is a very flash and massive hotel and I would only guess that the JET programme would put us in a place as comfortable as the Keio Plaza because there are so many of us, and also to help us recover from jet lag. I didn’t actually do must exploring of Tokyo in those two days I was there, most of the nights were spent not being able to get to sleep, and a significant portion of the afternoons were spent crawling back to bed, unable to sit through the workshops and lectures because, of course, it would be the middle of the night in Britain in the afternoon in Japan.


We attended lectures and speeches trying to give us a helping hand to integrate into our jobs and our lives in Japan. I met some great JET participants, the majority being from the UK and we wandered nearby our hotel for food and drink. From the small distance I explored and the view up in the Skybar in the hotel – Tokyo is completely true to the images we see of it back at home. Loud, bright, full of neon lights, but also very clean and it feels very safe. Buildings are so squashed together, and equally so – restaurants and bars are often very tiny and stacked on top of each other on different floors.


The first night me and my roommate Dave found a nice looking restaurant – unfortunately there were no English speaking waiters, no English menu, no pictures in the menu – and we soon discovered our knowledge of the Japanese language was…useless. We began to panic as we sat down in a corner not quite knowing what to do. Luckily, we were sat next to two American JETs who had met up with some Japanese friends who spoke a little English. We asked them to help us and they invited us to eat with them. In the end it was a great night and we met our first very friendly and helpful Japanese friends! I realised as we were eating and talking together that that night would be the start of many similar situations and experiences – a little scary but overall very enjoyable and satisfying!

The first night in Japan!

From the surreal to the ridiculous

Hello everybody. I kid you not, I am in Japan. Well and truly in it! Yamagata is wedged between the northern and southern part of the main island Honshuu, but not only that - Yamagata is surrounded by mountains! There is no easy way out now so I have nothing else to do except try to blend in and look inconspicuous! Of course - no easy feat when you are in fact the only western face within a 20 minute drive.

After being here almost a fortnight now things are settling down and I am settling in. I don’t plan on making this a very detailed post - I plan on really give you the fine details along with some photos too - once I get the Internet in my house which should be around the 22nd August. At the moment I’m sitting in the Nanyo City board of education hearing people chat in Japanese, seeing Japanese bullitin newsletters and the Start bar on my office computer says スタート　(Sutaato). But let me reassure you that they are the friendliest bunch of people you could ever meet. They are really making me feel at home and despite the language barrier being a challenge I am meeting lots of new people and making new friends! To let everybody know - I am in Japan safe and sound and coping well with the crazy experience!

Sayounara minasan