Supernovas
By the way, I've forgotten to mention this...Anyone truly interested and aware has probably already seen the news the NOVA, from what I know the largest of the five Big Eikaiwas, has crashed and burned. Bankrupt. It was a huge deal, with teachers not getting paid and getting kicked out of their apartments as NOVA floundered the last couple months. Hopefully, now the teachers will get money from the Bankruptcy Insurance. Meanwhile, the other eikaiwas are panicking, or at least GEOS is, so they're doing everything wrong, as companies do when they panic. The basic strategy seems to be: make as many people, staff and students, unhappy as possible, get every dime we can now, and burn bridges for future income by increasing our turnover rate even more. So anyway, I'd already been toying with the idea of changing companies for next year, but that's pretty much a definite. I'm going to look into ECC, which is where Becky's probably going, but I'd rather get away from the eikaiwas in general, maybe get an ALT position or something. Don't know how tricky that'll be.
Anyone who wants to see one of the better blow-by-blow accounts can go here: http://memoirs-of-a-gaijin.blogspot.com/
Oh, and Yokohama was fun. Saturday night was a little more partying than I really cared for. Kaori and I were both tired, but Becky had her first three day weekend in Japan, and had too much energy. She wanted to go clubbing, but we compromised on going to a place called First Bar in Roppongi after the izakaya. First Bar was pretty cool for a gaijin bar, but way crowded. There are too many 宇宙人 (aliens) in Japan.
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Anyway, the music moved from hip-hop (Kaori) to techno (me) to a kind of ethnic mix of Spanish/Indian/Shakira music (compromise). Kaori talks to taxi drivers. The first one calmly, the next one drunkenly. We argue about where we ate last time at seven in the morning in Roppongi..."Not First Kitchen!!!" I bet her \10,000 (man) that it was First Kitchen, but she does not relent. Our taxi driver was apparently stationed at the Gotenba military base way back and their baseball team was beaten by the American base.
The next day, Yokohama. The school festival apparently is not interesting, so after bumping into Kaori's mum and sis for thirty seconds, we head for Chinatown. We have lunch, where the (Chinese) waitress/owner(?) tells Kaori we took to long to order, because she has to explain to Becky (I'm easy, I'll just pick something at random, especially if it's spicy). It's difficult not to get the Japanese prejudice against Chinese, as Chris noted. They can be rude. Then I dropped (but did not break) a dish, and people actually gasped, the whole room stopped, like a bomb had gone off. ちょっと恥ずかしい～。 So, yeah. But funny.
We took pictures with a dragon, went to a Chinese temple, and Kaori and Becky went to a fortune teller. I was not impressed, but whatever. All fortune tellers have birds in Chinatown. The Tarot was lousy and fluffy. Oh yeah, and Kaori buys a ring with an elephant hair inside for luck. Cute ring, actually. I wanted a magnetic hematite ring like I had before, but couldn't find one.
I can't remember the first thing that reminded me of a Friends episode...After taking off from Becky, we went to Plaza, then headed for Gotenba. Oh yeah, that was it...A forty-five minute wait between trains, but the train came like twenty minutes early...So we're smoking in front of the train, and it's just sitting there, and I'm being paranoid, just imagining this train pulling off with us standing there smoking. I keep asking, are you sure? Yes, the phone said so, the announcer said so. Okay, so we get on the train safely. Kaori wants to stay at my place, so she emails her mom saying we're going to stay in Tokyo. A couple stations later, Kaori says, wouldn't it be funny if they got on the train at this station? I have no idea why they would be on that station, but as the doors open a few seconds later, Kaori gasps and says, "There they are!" She looks very embarassed, they walk right onto our car, and we have a little family reunion. Later, she tells her mom she sent that email a long time ago, and we changed our minds. Then we have a long discussion of her sister's ぼおそおぞく T-shirt that says "Don't fuck with me," etc. We tell her what it means, and she gets red. Very funny. People here have no interest in figuring out what a shirt means before they wear it. Anyway, she gets off at Oyama, and I go home alone. Sigh. Tune in next time for more Tokyo Friends.
Chinatown!
Kaori and Becky with a dragon. Doesn't Kaori look like she likes that dragon too much?
Me and Kaori and a dragon.
Chinese temple.
They look just like candles...deceptive, aren't they?
Another dragon!
Dragon!
Okay, last dragon, I promise.
First newspaper published in Japan, and apparently the only guy in Japan to shake hands with President Lincoln.
Anyone who wants to see one of the better blow-by-blow accounts can go here: http://memoirs-of-a-gaijin.blogspot.com/
Oh, and Yokohama was fun. Saturday night was a little more partying than I really cared for. Kaori and I were both tired, but Becky had her first three day weekend in Japan, and had too much energy. She wanted to go clubbing, but we compromised on going to a place called First Bar in Roppongi after the izakaya. First Bar was pretty cool for a gaijin bar, but way crowded. There are too many 宇宙人 (aliens) in Japan.
\+++\
() ()
<--->
Anyway, the music moved from hip-hop (Kaori) to techno (me) to a kind of ethnic mix of Spanish/Indian/Shakira music (compromise). Kaori talks to taxi drivers. The first one calmly, the next one drunkenly. We argue about where we ate last time at seven in the morning in Roppongi..."Not First Kitchen!!!" I bet her \10,000 (man) that it was First Kitchen, but she does not relent. Our taxi driver was apparently stationed at the Gotenba military base way back and their baseball team was beaten by the American base.
The next day, Yokohama. The school festival apparently is not interesting, so after bumping into Kaori's mum and sis for thirty seconds, we head for Chinatown. We have lunch, where the (Chinese) waitress/owner(?) tells Kaori we took to long to order, because she has to explain to Becky (I'm easy, I'll just pick something at random, especially if it's spicy). It's difficult not to get the Japanese prejudice against Chinese, as Chris noted. They can be rude. Then I dropped (but did not break) a dish, and people actually gasped, the whole room stopped, like a bomb had gone off. ちょっと恥ずかしい～。 So, yeah. But funny.
We took pictures with a dragon, went to a Chinese temple, and Kaori and Becky went to a fortune teller. I was not impressed, but whatever. All fortune tellers have birds in Chinatown. The Tarot was lousy and fluffy. Oh yeah, and Kaori buys a ring with an elephant hair inside for luck. Cute ring, actually. I wanted a magnetic hematite ring like I had before, but couldn't find one.
I can't remember the first thing that reminded me of a Friends episode...After taking off from Becky, we went to Plaza, then headed for Gotenba. Oh yeah, that was it...A forty-five minute wait between trains, but the train came like twenty minutes early...So we're smoking in front of the train, and it's just sitting there, and I'm being paranoid, just imagining this train pulling off with us standing there smoking. I keep asking, are you sure? Yes, the phone said so, the announcer said so. Okay, so we get on the train safely. Kaori wants to stay at my place, so she emails her mom saying we're going to stay in Tokyo. A couple stations later, Kaori says, wouldn't it be funny if they got on the train at this station? I have no idea why they would be on that station, but as the doors open a few seconds later, Kaori gasps and says, "There they are!" She looks very embarassed, they walk right onto our car, and we have a little family reunion. Later, she tells her mom she sent that email a long time ago, and we changed our minds. Then we have a long discussion of her sister's ぼおそおぞく T-shirt that says "Don't fuck with me," etc. We tell her what it means, and she gets red. Very funny. People here have no interest in figuring out what a shirt means before they wear it. Anyway, she gets off at Oyama, and I go home alone. Sigh. Tune in next time for more Tokyo Friends.
Chinatown!
Kaori and Becky with a dragon. Doesn't Kaori look like she likes that dragon too much?
Me and Kaori and a dragon.
Chinese temple.
They look just like candles...deceptive, aren't they?
Another dragon!
Dragon!
Okay, last dragon, I promise.
First newspaper published in Japan, and apparently the only guy in Japan to shake hands with President Lincoln.