Imperial Palace East Garden and Ueno

Okay, so as I said in last night's frenzied post, I actually did have a very big day yesterday, but it was all overshadowed by a certain provocative singer/songwriter...

So yesterday was my day off, I'd planned with Chris and Christie to go to see the Emperor's Palace, so met up with them at Otemachi station. It was such a freakin' cold day! It was drizzly all day, but because I'd been inside until pretty much the last minute, i didn't realise how cold it was, and so didn't take any gloves with me - pretty much just had my beanie, and didn't even take my 150Yen umbrella! When Dad called around 5pm when I was outside the Tokyo Museum, I had to keep changing the hand I was holding my phone in, as they kept freezing!

So we spent the morning walking around the Imperial Palace East Garden (the only part of the palace grounds open all year round) and freezing our little fingers off...

Some photos:

Beaker in front of the main gate


Beaker inside the main gate


me! inside


Christie in front of the huge gate


Beaker getting stuck in the thicket, trying to climb into the moat (the castle has a moat!!!)


Interesting contrast - shows you just how close to the Imperial Palace entrance the city is - it's literally just across the road


Samurai quarters


The Mt Fuji View Keep - used to store things, but also used by the Emperor to watch fireworks over the bay in old times, and it used to have a clear view to Mt Fuji


A keep, which they think used to be linked to somewhere else... i can't really remember


a cherry blossom tree, not quite in bloom - all of my students believe they'll bloom early this year, as it's been a very mild winter


This was the base of a huge tower, destroyed by fire sometime in the 1600s


The view from the top of the base


More cherry blossoms - very pretty already!


A Music Hall built for the Emperess back in the 1960s... yeah, kinda ugly


Beaker about to leave - that's Chris and Christie on the left


Exit gate - wasn't sure if the guard would have a problem with me taking a photo, but he seemed okay


The bridge back to 2007


Me between worlds - looking back to the 1800s, forward to 2007


Some type of statue - I can't really remember who he was, so lets just say he's the Patron Saint/Samurai of Pigeons


Chris and Christie encouraging the pigeons


So after seeing the Imperial palace gardens, and feeding the already fat pigeons, we headed to Ginza for lunch. Ginza is said to be to Japan what Park Avenue is to New York - and you could tell as we exited Ginza Station, very swanky stores, advertisements and restaurants. We ended up settling at a little Italian restaurant, as we all had a craving for spaghetti - and it was so an awesome meal! Lol it felt a bit odd though, coming all this way to Japan to eat Italian food.

Anyway, Chris and Christie had to work later that night, so they headed off then. I'd made arrangements to meet up with Stevo, a British guy I work with, for some drinks at Ueno, so headed there, then spent about 10 minutes walking around Ueno trying to find the Hard Rock Cafe, before getting a message telling me that I'd walked past it, as it was right in the station. Doh!
So I spent a good hour or two chatting to him over my ice tea (free refills! woot!), it was great, we sort of had similar upbringings, so got on quite well. So it's good to know someone else at my work a bit better now. I think we're all planning on going out for Cheryl's birthday this week (Cheryl is from Seattle), so that'll be a great way of getting to know people as well.

After chatting to him, I spent a couple of hours walking around Ueno-Koen, the huge park at Ueno. Some of the features of Ueno-Koen include an amusement park, a fountain, a huge Shinto shrine and a 5 storey pagoda (very impressive). Ueno also has the highest concentration of museums and art galleries, but as it was fairly late in the afternoon I didn't really get a chance to go into any of them (except once when i went in to warm up!).

So I'll let the photos do the talking:
A statue outside the Tokyo museum of modern art (I think? or another art gallery?)


A huge whale outside the Tokyo Science Museum...


... which Beaker managed to piss off


Inside the Shinto Shrine, looking towards the temple (?)


and looking back out


A flame from the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki - kept burning all these years. A man found his uncle's house still burning, and kept some of the flame burning as a symbol of regret, and a whole lot of other stuff happened, such as it being combined with flames created from the friction of two Nagasaki roof tiles hitting each other, and at some stage it was taken into the UN, and then a lamp was created for it in Ueno, where it now resides


The temple (?) inside the shrine


The pagoda (I couldn't find a way to get a better view of it, so this is all I could get)


The front gate of Inshu Ikeda's Residence (known as Kuro-Man, or Black Gate) - and a van....


a cool "sculpture" in front of one of the art museums - that flash is me!


The Tokyo Museum


8 degrees!!! this was at 5:30pm, I was soo cold. Okay, so I know it gets a lot colder than this, but for a Brisbane/Gold Coast boy, this is damn cold!


After walking around Ueno till around 6, hoping to avoid the rush hour trains, but getting tired of walking around, I decided to go home - and had my first true rush hour train trip! So many people packed into the trains, and they all act like it's the most natural thing! People are reading while being crushing into one another, then at a station people surge towards the exit, so people get pushed out, then if they want to stay on the train they have to get back on, but they look so nonchalant.

Also, the whole time I've been here I've been saying "sumimasen" when I wanted to get past people, as I was told it means "excuse me". Well I realised yesterday or the day before that it does mean "excuse me", but is used as a way to get their attention... so that explains why people looked kinda weirdly at me whenever i said it.

Tomorrow I get my alien registration card so can stop carrying my passport around - woot! I'm also having a hard time finding a swimming pool that's close to me that also doesn't charge a ridiculous amount to use (such as the private gyms)...

Well, today marks 2 weeks since I arrived, and it seems like I've been her so much longer! I keep stressing out, thinking that I haven't seen enough, but then I have to realise that I've only been here a fortnight, and well, I've got a lot more time here. I think I'm just in holiday mode, thinking that I've only got a short amount of time here, so trying to fit a lot in.

One stupid thing - you can't send sms or free messages to people on different phone networks to you! You have to send them emails from your phone, but of course you have to know their phone email address... Seems so ridiculous. But I have been receiving the sms's everyone from home has been sending, including the one message sent from someone telling me they had a new phone number, but didn't bother including their name :P So I have no idea who's new number I have!

Anyway, I'm still very much enjoying myself here, and am settling in quite nicely - I'm used to the train systems, have already bought my first Tekei (monthly pass), and little things like going to the shops aren't freaking me out. Work is fine, a bit brainless, but this is what I wanted, a holiday for a year or so, so it suits me fine. And I have two imminent CD releases to look forward to! Patrick Wolf's The Magic Position, coming out next week, and that should keep me happy till May when Tori's American Doll Posse is released! Huzzah!

Currently listening: Sufjan Stevens - The Predatory Wasp Of The Palisades Is Out To Get Us!

Holy Flirking Shnit!

Okay, I actually did have a very busy day today, and have so many photos to show, but I just found out that Tori Amos is releasing her new album American Doll Posse on May 1st!

check out the link here (cause i know you're all ever so interested :P)

And the photo that's been released looks amazing!!

This album is going to shite all over The Beekeeper, this picture is like the complete antithesis of the photos from The Beekeeper. Sounds like old Tori is back!!!!!!!!!!!!

okay... gonna be hard to get to sleep now...

Izakaya the same as Akachōchin?

I went to my first izakaya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izakaya) tonight! My housemate invited me out to join him and the other instructors (including my other housemate) and Japanese staff from his branch for dinner, and usually i'm kinda shy in these situations, but I thought "well i better say yes, otherwise he might not ask me again".... so I went and had an awesome time! I drank a little bit (okay I had four drinks) - my first drinks on Japanese soil!

This was also the first place I've been where I've had to remove my shoes as well (apart from my home). So we all sat at this really long table, which was set into the floor a bit, so that every time the waitress came to take a drink she knelt down - I could imagine they would get sore knees if they did this too often. Then we just ordered a stack of food from the menu - it was kinda like the yum cha days we used to have in the meetup group. I had some salmon sashimi, some sort of dumpling things, some chicken liver (I think, it was very chewy), some snow pea-type things that I was told after I'd been chewing for a while that you're not supposed to eat the husks, just the pods, a blob of tofu type stuff and we were going to try raw horse meat,but they didn't have any tonight. They also have a Russian Roulette type dish, 5 or 6 dumpling type things, and one is packed full of wasabi and peppers. So everyone around the table takes one, then you all bite into them at the same time. Apparently the last time they did it the girl who got the bad one was gagging and had tears in her eyes! So we didn't do that one.

The first drink I had was called a sour - I think it was peach flavoured - and I realise now that it was made of egg white.... I also had a plum drink, no idea what alcohol was in it, but a pickled plum was at the bottom of it (which my housemate tried to eat, till we told him that probably wasn't a good idea). Then I had this weird drink that honestly, I would say it had the consistency of slightly thicker water, and tasted a bit the same.. That's what i noticed about all the drinks I had tonight,none of them had the alcohol taste that vodka, tequila, scotch etc all have (so no "vodka face" from me tonight!). Anyway, apparently that last drink is quite potent, so hopefully I'm not hungover tomorrow (i have to work in about 10 hours haha).

Then we went to a bar around the corner - this was an English pub.. oh, all this was in Gyotoku, the suburb next to Minami Gyotoku (maybe 20 mins walk from my home, or 2 mins by train). and oh yeah, someone bought me a beer there as well...
Anyway, all the people I met from the the Gyotoku office were so friendly, there were 2 Aussies, a guy from NZ, a Scottish girl, an American and a very very gay British guy (I was so excited, the only other gay guy I've met here so far). So anyway, I think they want me to come out with them in a couple of weeks time - woot!

And I got to know one of my housemates a bit better tonight as well - we hadn't really chatted much, he arrived about three weeks before I did, so we're both in the same situation. Anyway, we had a couple of good chats, he's a pretty cool guy.

Anyway, these guys sound like they go out drinking quite often, so I could see how it would be easy not to save any money, but I'm not really a huge drinker, I don't like doing it every night/every weekend... but we'll see if that changes during my time here.


Oh, a few things I found out about Tokyo/Chiba (the prefecture I live in):
1. Tokyo has The John Lennon Museum, which has been approved and endorsed by Yoko Ono (actually I found out about that on the first day I arrived here, but I kept forgetting to tell everyone - we got a flyer with John Lennon's face on it the first day we arrived, they handed it to us at the airport).
2. The world's largest (at the time this book was printed, a few years back) indoor ski slope is located in Urayasu City, the close to Tokyo Disney and also close to me!
3. Chiba is the site of the Snore Museum and Research Center - I'm sure it's helps you get 8 hours of sleep a day, one way or another. If you want to take a tour, you have to ring to enquire (for some reason the museum isn't popular enough to warrant regularly scheduled tour times, who'da thunkit?)

Currently listening: Portishead - Pedestal

Gyotoku, and first day at work

I went for a walk to the Gyotoku Post Office today, as I needed to get money from my CBA bank account in Australia and deposit into my Japanese bank account, and it is ridiculously hard to find an ATM that has the Cirrus logo on it (ie, one that will accept international bank cards), and bank teller machines are able to do international withdrawals. Anyway, since I now know where in Ichikawa I live, the map I was given actually came in handy, and I was able to walk there! So I took my camera, as it's always on these little walks that you see some of the most interesting things.

So here's what I saw:

This should give you an idea of the attitude towards smoking in Japan - very relaxed. This cigarette vending machine was on the street.



This was their way of preventing minors from purchasing (see the tiny "no under 20's" label?):


a Japanese petrol station



This shop (for cars apparently) seemed a little seasonal, but it looks like it's like this all year round)


A Japanese park


Apparently the Tokyo air does something strange to the colour of the palm trees :P


I visited a temple! I have one in my neighbourhood - this was the Genshin-hi Temple












This door on one of the walls of the temple grounds reminded me of Alice in Wonderland, with the tiny door (or Willy Wonka). I know the Japanese are supposed to be short, but seriously, they're not this short


And this is a drink they sell in vending machines - yes, it really is called Pocari Sweat... sounds appetising doesn't it :P


but wait till you read the description on the bottle



doesn't it just sound so delicious?

and this was some purple powdery stuff to sprinkle in your food, I have no idea what it was but it was kinda nice in my noodle soup I had below the train station. and I thought it looked pretty.


Anyway, on top of my walk to Gyotoku Post office, today also heralded my first day at work. Yes, training was all over and after 3 days I'm now apparently qualified to teach all ages how to speak English goodly.
Anyway, my first shift went well, my branch is a lot smaller than the Chiba branch I trained at. The two instructors I met were very nice, Carrie is from Newcastle and Steve is from Birmingham in the UK. They were so friendly, and fun to talk to. So i think I'll like working with them.

I had 3 Voice classes and 2 regular classes. So, the Voice sessions are when students come to the Voice Room, they can stay as long as they want between the opening hours of the Voice Room, and just have conversations in English with fellow students and the instructor. I met the Voice regulars at my branch tonight, they were very excited to have a new instructor at the school. They were so friendly as well (this appears to be a common trait amongst all the people I met today, and well, among Japanese people in general, I've found so far), and I really enjoyed chatting with them. Some of them come to Voice quite often (some said up to 6 times a week), and one girl had gotten there at 2:30 today, and was still there when I had my last Voice session at 8pm.

I'm so impressed with their attitude towards learning, all of the students I've met so far (okay, yes, this is only my 4th day of interacting with students) try so hard, and are so apologetic if they get anything wrong. Anyway, it's a lot easier to teach when you're not being looked over (as we were in the training), it's allowed me to loosen up a lot, and just enjoy myself a lot more, while hopefully creating a bit of a more relaxed and friendly atmosphere for the students to learn in.

Thanks so much for sending the blu/coloured-tack Mum! It arrived this afternoon just as I was heading off for work. I've now got photos of everyone stuck around my wall! And I have a decent pillow with a decent pillow case now!!! This is going to be the best night's sleep ever, a world of thanks, Mum!

And I've just gotten into a Melbourne band called Cut Copy, so I know have my soundtrack for the next few weeks - wooh!

Currently listening: Time Stands Still - Cut Copy