Well I finally got some financial stability. I have a new job. I'm
mainly teaching kids. They have really high standards, but they also
have high standards of their students, so you can really see the kids
improve. You know, living in Japan I've realized that I really like
kids, so it's rough for me, living way out here, when you and Nate are
both raising kids there. I'd rather spend my time with your kids.
The cool things about this job are I make a little more than I made at
NOVA, I only teach 25 hours a week, my other time is for planning and
training. I teach the same kids week in and week out. The company is
small, only three schools and not interested in growing more. The
reason NOVA failed. They don't spend a lot of money on advertising,
but rely on word of mouth (the reason for the high standards). Also a
reason NOVA failed. I met the owner, who genuinely thinks he has
found a system to teach Japanese people to speak English and just
wants to share it and promote it. He wants teachers to talk about it
when they go to their countries, to promote it if they go to another
school, and other things like that. It actually does seem to work
from what I saw. It focuses on a few things right away. First,
natural English, including (and with a big emphasis for me)
pronunciation, it focuses on speaking, and most important it is
designed to follow what students are learning in their own school.
For example when they are in elementary school they learn kanji. We
have cards for all the kanji with the English meaning on the back, so
it is like reviewing school information just in English. It's a
little strange. But at the same time the job is to have fun with the
kids, play games, get them to speak, and enjoy or want to learn
English. I'm happy, although I haven't quite stareted yet. It was
interesting trying to do the private teaching, scraping by, having a
tough life for a while. If you're ever broke in Japan try to find a
sale on Mikan, that's Mandarin Oranges. For like 250 yen, you can eat
oranges for over a week for breakfast and as a snack. Also look for
Hakusai, that's Chinese cabbage. You can buy enough to put it in your
dinner for week or more, as the main part of things, for like 100 yen.
And of course if you buy Daikon too, you can get a whole radish for
100 yen. For 38 yen, you can buy packets of udon or soba noodles.
The soba is really low quality, its not good for soup, but you can fry
it with hakusai for a meal that costs about 50 yen. Rice is still
kind of expensive, you can buy 10 kilograms for about 3000 yen. Thats
about 27-28 dollars and about 22 pounds. Japanese rice doesn't really
get much bigger when you cook it like other rice. Maybe that's why it
gets sticky. You can buy little packets of whats called dashi, it can
be either broth or stock. I buy Konbu and Katsuo Dashi. Konbu is a
kind of seaweed and Katsuo is a type of fish that's dried and shaved
then used to make stock or as a topping to dishes. Its about 100 yen
for a bag that has about 10 packets. With this soy sauce, and mirin,
which is like a sweet sauce, you can make a lot of japanese food.
Combine Dashi, miso and any vegetable or tofu and you have miso soup,
combine mirin, soy sauce, and some vegetable, meet or mushroom, the
turn to high and put beaten eggs on top and you made a tamago domburi,
if you put it over rice. Domburi is something over rice. Tamago is
egg. You can buy a package of umeboshi for like 500 yen. It's about
40 pickled plums. I have one almost every day for breakfast. A
packet of tofu is only 50yen and you can get a lot of mushroom for 100
yen. If you look for it you can get three little eggplants for 100yen
too, but you have to wait for a sale. This is how I've been eating.
The food I've been eating has been super healthy. I have Miso soup
and rice for breakfast with umeboshi or mikan and I add goma (sesame
seeds in black or regular?) to the rice. Usually I have mushroom and
daikon miso. For lunch I have pasta. Oh yeah a normal dish for
japanese people is mentaiko and pasta. It's a little gross but you
just mix it with mayonaise and pasta. I have been here over a year,
so mayonaise is not so bad anymore. Mentaiko is Tarako with spices
added. Tarako is cod's eggs. Their really small and actually pretty
good. You would be suprised. And this lunch is a good mix of protein
and carbs. Then for dinner I make some fried dish, rice, and some
kind of soup. That's it. And it's been full of stuff that balances
the diet and a lot of japanese stuff that's healthy. I've also been
eating a lot of natto. This cannot be explained you just have to look
it up. The worst part of being broke is I've been going into town for
two lessons, but they will be split up, so I've been finding ways to
spend no money. Some are old, some are good, but here's a list of 10
ways to spend no money.
1. Window shopping - - this is painful and I've never been a shopper
but it's definitely free and in Japan you can walk for miles inside,
or underground, so it's actually warm. Also there are some shops full
of the nerdiest stuff in Japan. I found three whole stores dedicated
to super old video games systems. One had the first generation of the
Famicom, which is the first nintendo, they also had a robbie the
robot. Also Japan has some of the cutest and cutest baby clothes.
How about a sweater for a one year old that is full of skulls and
crossbones or a baby blanket with the anarchy symbol? Don't you want
to dress your kid up as goth. They have a black skirt for a two year
with stockings and a top that has satan on it. Allright.
2. Close to window shopping, sampling things and asking questions --
Because of the language barrier this takes a lot of time. I actually
found a great electronic dictionary I will buy when I have the money.
And the best part is that we could look up any words we needed while
he explained everything to me. It took over 1 hour to find out if it
had all the features I wanted. Imagine when I looked at digital
cameras and stereos. By the way in Japan they have stereos that have
USB for your compute, SD card slots, minidisc slots, and cd. That's
it.
3. People watching in a train station. It's not really loitering,
because there are so many people here waiting to meet someone. It's
warmer than outside and you can stand here for hours without anyone
saying anything to you.
4. Go to a park. In Japan, parks only have bums and losers, who
drink one cups (this is a little tiny cup) of Sake. They're
interesting to talk to and great Japanese practice.
5. Read a book. I realized I haven't been reading that much. In the
last two weeks I've read like 5 books. I've got the time I might as
well do it.
6. Watch some Sutoriito Riibu. Street Live. People set up all the
time in Japan and just start playing on the street. Theirs a group of
guys who play jazz in japan for 3 hours straight. All right, I'll
watch you for two and then go warm up looking at twisted clothes for
little kids.
7. Gemu Sentaa. Game Center. The Japanese word for Arcade. Here
you can watch the true Otaku (nerd) in action. They have a game that
is a little like Majic or something like that, where you have cards.
You have a screen and you have a flat board. You move your cards
around the flat board and press some buttons and somehow you're
fighting some other people. The most popular seems to be a robot one.
Japanese people love robots, especially gundam. Also, check out an
old place to see some people battle out in two-d arcade fighters.
8. Explore. Japan has a very confusing street sytem. No streets are
really labeles except major streets. Everything is really just
subdivided into smaller and smaller areas, so it's really easy to get
lost. What a great way to kill time. Get lost. Then find your way
back again. Just make sure you do it in two hours.
9. Test your Japanese listening at the Koban. A koban is like a tiny
information post for the police. Here is where you are supposed to go
to report a crime although the entire Japanese and foreign community
uses them for directions. I think of places I know the names for,
like the library and say I want to go the library, can you give me
directions and then see how good my listening is. I even check by
repeating the direction. It's a good speaking and listening lesson.
It takes about thirty minutes. You can do the same by asking for
information about trains, buses, or even going to the travel agency in
any train station and asking about trips to different places. A free
lesson is just minutes away.
10. Last but not least. Similar to window shopping. Restaurant
inspecting. Drool over the plastic molds of food. Look at enticing
pictures. Read or try to reading the Osusume menu (Special). Menu in
japanese means roughly dish. Osusume is recommended.
That's about long enough. I was going to talk about some other stuff
too, but well that's about long enough.
Dan