Not so happy this afternoon.....

This is me....

2 seconds after swallowing my filling...

I'm sure it will be fun looking for an english-speaking dentist in Hamamatsu...

Bum

Ken's mum making mochi (sticky rice stuff -used in loads of dishes)

Inuyama castle

Ken and his dad at the entrance to Inuyama Castle.

Inuyama castle from a distance

Umeshu and soda. Sarah's favourite Japanese drink (they are plums if you are wondering...).

We are off to Nagoya today

We are getting the shinkansen to Nagoya to visit a friend of mine. I went to university with him many moons ago and we will visit his home town. I think it is still completely covered with snow so I should be able to get some nice pics.
Happy new year (No christmas holiday here but new year is important).

A slightly blurry picture of us at my Atsumi-family birthday party. It was lots of fun.

This is the Hamamatsu Christmas tree. It is impressive. When you first see it you think... err..bit tacky... but it is a big surprise when it starts the animated light display on the hour.

A public wedding, underneath a Christmas tree. In Japan it is popular to pay westerners to read short texts. They read stuff in Japanese that they don't necessarily understand but the bride and groom don't care. The important thing is the smart westerner in the wedding photos.

This is a box of oranges - Six for 7500 Yen plus tax.... For reference, there is approximately 200 yen to the pound. Yep that's right... that's over �5 per orange. Next to it (not shown) is a mixed box of 6 fruits for 8500 Yen...

Work?!

For the first time in my life I will be working on my birthday. For a lot of people that doesn't seem so unusual but I have never worked on my birthday before. It should pay for the evening festivities so it is probably a good thing!

We will also be working on boxing day which will feel strange too.
I have discovered that I share my birthday with Ricky Martin. I know that he will be working hard too, shebangin and suchlike(I will teach 'shebangin' to my students tomorrow).

Please note the pained expression - this guy really suffers for his art.

I can't buy paracetemol...

... it's not for sale in Japan. Don't ask me why, I don't have a clue. But maybe that's not a bad thing....

Link - Paracetemol causes headaches

Job opportunities in Turkmenistan

If you are looking for work...
Try here
:)

New years resolutions...

I tried a beverage that I hadn't had the pleasure of trying before - Shandyguff (シャンディーガフ). Luckily it tastes better than it sounds. It is ginger beer (with real beer). I have also made sure that I am using the correct vocab in the izikaya. When we arrived I thought we needed to order 1 beer (ichi biru) but that gets you a single bottle of beer (and happens to be grammatically incorrect too... whoops). The correct phrase that we have been using has been Draft beer, 1 (nama biru, hitotsu) but I had noticed that I seemed to be a little short-changed on volume (less than a pint) and last night I learnt that I needed to order dai jokki (large beer glass) which gets you just under a litre.
We started talking about new years resolutions and mine will probably be something like "I resolve to continue drinking lots of beer". I really hope I can stick to this one. Beer is much better for you than tea as this article shows-
Evils of tea
Please send me your new years resolutions. Bung them in the comments section if you don't mind others reading them.

Christmas lights in Hamamatsu

Some other blog has a picture of the flashy tree in hamamatsu. It is more impressive in real life (it is animated). So click the title of this post or use the url below if you want to see it.
http://wanderinginjapan.blogspot.com/

It's illegal to walk with a lit cigarette in Japan. I am not sure what helicopters or giant cigarettes have to do with this law but they are obviously very important.

This was a poster seen advertising a club night. We didn't go so we don't know what sort of people showed up but it was probably quite interesting....

Lots more work...

Hmmm... busy busy busy.... the number of hours we have done this week has shot up. Unfortunately this is not entirely a good thing. One of the other teachers was "asked to resign". It is a real shame because he is a nice guy and, from what I can tell, a great teacher too. We will be staying in touch with him anyway and we hope he has every success with future work / plans.
-d

CTL, yippee

My last group 8:30-10pm has "cancelled too late". It means that I still get paid but no need to stick around. Tomorrow I am working 10am-10pm... Keeps me occupied I guess :)
I haven't had any emails yet.... still waiting....
d

Long day today

10:30am - 10pm today. Oh well! At least I had the day off yesterday.
How are you all doing? Drop us an email!
-d

Whenever I see English written on a Japanese product I have to read it. It usually brings a smile to my face....

Those rats might get addicted!! Be careful with those hidden cigarettes! Notice the JT logo in the bottom left. It's a Japan Tabacco logo. I teach an employee of JT and was surprised to find out that JT make cans of coffee and hot chocolate as well. I asked him why a tabacco company makes coffee and hot chocolate and he said "JT makes products that bring pleasure to your mouth". Err ok!

Our apartment - an out-of-date picture

Internet Connection is back!!!

Hello again!!!
Yep, we hadn't paid on time but it's all sorted now.
There is a new link on the left hand side of this site. If you click it then you can install Firefox which is a much better browser than Internet Explorer err.. and it also gives me a dollar!
We are off for a drink tonight. We have had work until 10pm on most days this week so it will be a pleasant change to be sat in a bar instead.
Anyway I am going to crack open another can of beer and relax... Yay!
D

No connection yet...

but while you are waiting for the next thrilling installment...

I told you Japanese toilets were special..

Click here

Offline post

I am writing this offline because we are back to borrowing the neighbour’s connection… I’ll connect briefly to post this message.

I hope you are all getting worked up in the approach to chrimbo. I am sorry that you won’t be spending it together Orlo and Bobagh (cleverly disguised names heh?). Good luck with the visa negotiations B! Japan is our first experience of living abroad and visa bureaucracy is certainly not the most enjoyable aspect. I think our Christmas will be strange but I am sure it will be fun. Christmas in Japan is unusual… The Christian origins are even further removed than the west. It is an entirely commercial venture with many people working on Christmas day and KFC being the ‘traditional’ Christmas meal… Anyway… This doesn’t mean that it’s not a big deal. Hamamatsu is not a particularly picturesque city but decorations for Christmas are everywhere and actually look pretty good. I have some pics but can’t post them at the moment. So you will have to take my word for it.

The temperature has dropped again this week and we are probably experiencing similar temperatures to the UK at the moment. The main difference is the clear blue sky which definitely helps to avoid winter blues.

We had a winter ‘party’ at work… Party meaning an extended lesson for our students where we were paid with as much alcohol as we could put away. Each teacher had to sit with a group of students and ‘mingle’. Then after about 15-20mins we had to swap with another teacher… It was strange!

I am going to leave the message and post it. I’ll let you know if we get our connection back….

Lost internet connection

As soon as we were getting used to it we have lost it.
No internet connection :(
Bum.
Think it has something to do with non-payment of bills but who knows!! Hopefully it should be sorted out on Monday.
D

No response... No readers?

We have had a wonderful few days. It was Sarahs birthday on Monday which also happens to be Fumi's dad's birthday! They had a joint celebration on Saturday and we went for a meal on Monday. It was another nomihodai event (all-u-can-drink) so Tuesday was a recovery day, catching up on a few episodes of lost and some cheesey old films from www.archive.org.
Back to work today :( we are working until 10pm tonight so they are giving plenty of hours to keep us busy. We have been offered some alternative work (business classes and local Junior high schools which would mean great paid holidays)...
I hope everyone is happy and well... things seem to be getting a little quiet over there... any news???

Wanted: Information from the UK

I have heard that the licensing laws have been relaxed. Has George Street changed?
Has anything changed?

Whatever you do... DON'T SMOKE GIANT CIGARETTES!!!

Toto (the toilet)

We didn't make it to the cinema...

The visit to the homemade pizza oven lasted longer than we expected and we missed the showing of Corpse Bride. We weren't really in the right mood for sitting in a dark comfortable room though. A full day of food and drink meant that we were both ready for a quiet night in by the time the train had brought us back to Hamamatsu city.
A long time ago I mentioned that I would write a bit about Japanese toilets... Well I have decided to point you to an informative article on wikipedia which pretty much covers it.
Our toilet is fairly simple. Front and back jet spray, warmed seat and 'odour control'. They are scary looking things and I was a bit nervous the first time I tried to flush one. However they are not as scary as the 'traditional' japanese toilets. We used similar toilets across asia but it seems crazy that on one floor of a department store you can use a toilet sophisticated enough to play a good game of chess and talk about recent economic problems experienced by guatamalan coffee farmers and on another floor you a faced with a filthy stinky hole in the floor. Anyway I think I have exaggerated the importance of toilets enough... So... have a nice breakfast!
D

Pizza and a movie

Today we are heading out to the countryside again. A couple we met at the BBQ the other week has invited us over to try out their outdoor pizza oven. Sounds interesting! After that we are going to watch Corpse Bride at the local cinema. It is a special offer day... Women can watch a film today for about £5 but I will have to pay the standard £10... It had better be good!

We have the internet!!!!!

We have been connected (68Meg connection during the first test). The phone line is VOIP which means that calls to the UK are only 8yen per minute (about 4p/min) yipee!
...but we both now have to go to work until 10pm :(
If we are still capable of communicating we might start writing some of those overdue emails later....
D

Let's eat!

Sunday was a great day, one of the best in Japan so far.
Fumi had invited us to a barbeque. A schoolfriend of her dad has a barbeque each year at his farm and she though we might enjoy it. She was right! It is a fruit farm, growing mandarin oranges, full-size oranges and persimmon. It is a strange location up in the mountains about 45 minutes outside of Hamamatsu. The area was entirely rural until about 20 years ago when the first large company decided to build there. Probably the biggest presence in the area is Roland (manufacturers of keyboards) and a couple of people at the barbecue worked there.
We rolled up at the barbecue and Fumi brought out gifts for the hosts. She showed us around the farm (pictures should appear on this page..). It was really beautiful and a stark contrast to the ugly company buildings only 5 minutes away. After we had been wandering for a while we headed back to the bbq and found ourselves a comfortable crate to perch on. Then the food started coming... and coming... and coming... Forget sausages and burgers. We had four different types of fish (freshly caught from Hamana Lake), steamed rice with red beans, marinated pork and chicken, tonjiru (a pork/vegetable stew), yaki soba (a type of noodle), ice cream and cake all washed down with nice cold beer. Yum!
We then went on a 10 minute walk to a nearby stream. There were plenty of kids at the bbq and this was a bit of a ritual for the group. We arrived at the stream and then people started pulling plastic bags out of their pockets. Everyone then began overturning the larger stones. Freshwater crabs tried running for cover but were quickly popped into the bags. After almost losing my finger a couple of times I figured out the knack of picking them up and helped to deplete the local crustacean population. We carried them back to the barbecue and after saying thankyous and goodbyes, we headed home (with a carrier bag full of oranges). I am not completely sure of the fate of the crabs but I did hear some of the children saying, "Oishiso!" or "Looks delicious!" so I don't think that the crabs will be seeing the stream again...
D

The wood burning rice steamer.

BBQ Japan-style

No ugly buildings here...

To the crab hunt!

BBQ day...

Blog by phone

Only 11d left before we get an internet connection.Woohoo! Using my phone to　post　to　the　blog（no predictive text for me）isnt fun...
d

The kindness of strangers...

Last week it was Fumi's birthday. We had a great night out. We started at Ginza Lion (the Japanese/German-ish beer hall) for flaming oysters, finely sliced beef, a selection of drinks, snails, rice, mixed vegetables and a million other small dishes then moved on to a bar called Fahrenheit. At three o'clock in the morning we staggered out of the bar to head home... Without paying anything... One of the people in the group (we didn't know him) had decided to be generous and paid for the whole night (seven people). It seems to be very common and I am starting to enjoy it :) I am just dreading the night when the group we are out with turns to us and says, "Isn't it your turn to pay?"
D

Cancelled too late...

...my favourite words! If a student cancels their lesson on the day then we still get paid. Today a student cancelled a lesson 3hrs long! Great!

Test

Trying a post using my phone...

A very strange selection of pictures....

Errr.... Don't ask.....

This evil dog challenged me to a boxing match.

The southernmost point in Honshu

Finally another post...

Sorry for the lack of posts recently but I have been afflicted with severe guilt... We have to 'borrow' a neighbours wireless connection to make these posts and I have been trying to keep usage to a minimum... But I will now attempt to post a couple of photos... If this is the only new post then I have failed and you will have to wait until next week... but here goes.....

Our flat-warming party. A traditional Japanese meal of beer, popcorn and pizza. In the picture you can see us, Yuki, Yachi, Akira and Reiko.

Kimonos in Tokyo!

A rikisha in Tokyo

WOOHOO a successful picture!!

act city test- posted while hanging out of a window....

Ouch!!!

Err... last night we both went to a place called Ginza Lion. It is a wierd Japanese / German fusion restaurant that has one very important feature - All you can drink for 1100 yen (about 5pounds50!!). My head hurts.... You can't drink beer (that costs an extra 300yen per person) so you have to stick to a list of drinks including whisky, gin, cassis, red wine, white wine, vodka and a large variety of mixers. I am feeling ill just thinking about it. Today we are moving into our new place and I think at some point we are going to be drinking with friends... help!!
I need to go and drink some water.
D

Cash advance

We have finally found a reliable way to get cash without going into the bank and arranging a cash advance on our credit cards. The post office! It seems to be the only place in Hamamatsu that has an ATM that doesn't spit our cards on the floor while scowling in disgust and calling us dirty foreigners. Soon we will sort out Japanese bank accounts but until then we will be visiting the friendly post office fairly regularly.
D

Happoshu once again...

Click on the heading of this post to get a bit more information about this beer-style drink. ....er if you are interested :)
Seriously... I'm not obsessed...
D

Work goes well.....

We have had a few days of work now and the good news is that it has been really fun!
We are generally teaching lessons to between 1 and 3 students at a time. Sarah had one lesson where she had a huge class of 4 children!! It is really hard teaching so many students ;)
The materials vary in quality but they are fairly easy to work with. They like PPP a lot and it is the core format of every lesson.

We ventured out alone last night and visited an izikaya. To imagine what it is like you should picture something between a bar and a Japanese restaurant. We were incredibly lucky to discover that our chosen izikaya also had an english menu. Food was so cheap! I had some teriyaki chicken livers, grilled quails eggs, and some rice for less than 3pounds. Sarah had a huge radish salad, rice and some grilled veggies for about the same. Unfortunately for our bank balance we stayed out drinking and that definitely wasn't cheap.

Random meetings have become common place and last night we met a very enthusiastic business man that had spent seven years living in Swansea. At the end of the evening he told us that he was a senior manager at an engineering company with 50 employees that require english lessons and that we should get in touch and arrange some private lessons (the bilingual business card magically appeared). We just seem to be overwhelmed with good luck!!!!
We also met a lovely couple the other night. The husband is an artist and had lived in Cardiff while he was exhibiting some work. It's a small world!

I am going to end here and join Sarah doing a bit of Japanese homework.
Ja mata ne,
D

We start teaching today

It's our first day of real teaching today!!! Fingers crossed that it all goes well....

Slow posts....

We are very busy at the moment and I haven't had much luck using Fumi's Japanese language PC so I can't post the photo's. In a few weeks, however, we should get our nice 100MB connection and you won't be able to stop us from bombarding you with hundreds of pictures of Japanese toilets.
Just in case anyone wondered what "fake beer" is... It's a drink called happoshu. It was invented to avoid a tax on malt and so it is full of flavourings and chemicals to make it taste 'real'. It is half the price of real beer so it is quite popular. A lot of them taste pretty foul but after a few real beers it can be quite difficult to tell the difference.
We both have mobile phones now (we are trying to fit in!) and they are gizmo-tastic. Mine has TV which might be really useful if I understood anything that they say...
We have been treated so well by Fumi's friends and family. We have been taken to shinto temples and shrines, taken for meals and concerts and yesterday we were taken on a big shopping trip for our new place. Women quite commonly walk around in kimonos which was quite a surprise. It seems a little out of place in such a modern country but it seems to fit with Japanese culture - a blend of old and new.
The myth that Japan is an expensive place to live hasn't seemed to be at all true. It is an expensive place to drink with a normal beer (probably three quarters of a pint) costing between two and four pounds. We are planning on getting most of our stuff from the hyaku-en shop. I have already bought a few shirts (each costing about 2pounds50). It is like a pound stretcher shop but almost everything costs about 50p. The cheap prices in the hyaku-en shop help to balance our spending against Sarah's unstoppable Hello Kitty addiction. ;)
Fruit is really expensive here but it seems worth it. The grapes are almost the size of plums and the nashi pears are amazing. I can't get over the price of melons though... I have already seen a melon that costs over 30 pounds! WHY!? I really don't know!
We have had real problems getting cash here! ATM's close!! It is amazing that in a country where you can find baths that fill themselves and tell you that they are finished, that you can't get money out after 10pm (and you have to pay a late charge after 6pm!).
We are both in the middle of training at Berlitz(squishing an 8 day course into 3days) and will start teaching on Wednesday. The style is quite different from the course but it should be fun....

Keep those comments coming! (cheers D and O)
D

We are in Japan!!!!!!!

Sorry for the delay producing the first post. I can't put pictures up at the moment but I have taken lots and they will flood onto this site over the coming days.
The flight was painless although neither of us had any sleep and we felt like zombies (excited zombies) as we stepped off the plane. We met up with Fumi, sent a suitcase to Hamamatsu (a brilliant service) and then went to the hotel... WOW! The place was not what we were expecting. We have become fairly accustomed to staying in hostels and backpackers hotels.
http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/ic/1/en/ha/tyohb - That's no hostel.... Fumi had sorted this out and it was a huge shock! A very pleasant one. When I can post a few photos I will write a little more.... especially about the toilets. If you have never experienced a japanese toilet before then you are missing out! I think someone should start importing them to Europe. We headed to Akihabara and I bought a very cheap digital camera. The pictures are on my laptop and when I can find a wireless access point the pictures will be here.
We were tired so we spent an evening in the hotel drinking japanese beer and fake beer (happoshu) and eating snacks.
The next day we explored Tokyo visiting Asakusa and we went on a Hello Kitty tour bus to see the government buildings. We spent most of the afternoon drinking with some drunken middle-aged business men who were celebrating the opening of a new direct train route from their home town to Asakusa. Japanese people have been so kind and welcoming and very keen to help us with our poor language skills! Sarah is making much more progress than I am. We left Tokyo in the evening and took the Shinkansen to Hamamatsu.
We headed to Fumi's coffee shop and met her family. They were so welcoming and kind!!! We are very lucky to have such good friends here.
Yesterday we explored Hamamatsu and today we head into the countryside.
I have to go and have a bath (in the amazing automatic, self-filling bath tub)... So I will finish now and add some more tomorrow (after job hunting...)
Ja mata ashita,
D

No contact....

Just writing this post to let people know that we may be unable to check emails for the next week.
Best Wishes,
Dave and Sarah.

Great book for Japanese script

A couple of days ago I purchased a book about reading and writing Japanese (Amazon link in the title). Although I would say that it is fairly poor for written exercises the reading aspect is handled very well. In a few hours of effort I have learnt over sixty kanji and by the end of the book I should have learnt double that. I am impressed with how easy the author makes it! If this book is anything to go by then I will be trying out others in this range.
D.

Blogs from Hamamatsu

I might get around to adding a link section on the left.
Until then...

Here are some alternative blogs from Hamamatsu.

http://wanderinginjapan.blogspot.com/
http://nataliegoestojapan.blogspot.com/

Here is an interesting site about various Japanese things (language, learning, culture, politics)
http://japanlang.com/b2/

Our flights

We will be posting the boring minutiae of our journeys as well as the fun stuff (it will help us to organise ourselves).
It begins here-

08/09/05
London Heathrow LH4725 to Frankfurt
D: 0945 A:1215
Frankfurt LH710 to Tokyo Narita
D: 1345 A:0740
Travel Time 13hr55

An underground guide to Tokyo

I have just found this link to an 'underground' guide to Tokyo. This guide mentions lots of wierd and wonderful places that the Lonely Planet and Rough Guide fail to mention.... A parasite museum?!?! Anyway I think we will stick to Fumi's advice....

Just in case you were wondering where Hamamatsu is... This is the first simple map I have found that includes Hamamatsu and Tokyo.

Sarah and Dave
This picture was taken while we were in Szechuan. The spicy food gave me uncontrollable facial hair growth...

First post... Pre-departure

Time is ticking down... In less than three weeks we will be in Tokyo!