Tokyo update #2
Tokyo has been a buzz so far.
Tuesday and Wednesday, we continued with the training in Shibuya. By Tuesday, I was teaching 2 full classes all by myself (with a supervisor in the next room, monitoring me), and by Wednesday I was teaching 4 full classes!!!!! They really throw you in the deep end here.
After work on Wednesday, to congratulate us for completing the basic training, we went for "station drinks"... basically, we went to the local train station and hung out the front drinking beer purchased from a Kiosk. lol. There were heaps of other people doing the same thing though, so it wasn't just us pathetic foreigners... So it was Tim, Me, Mike (a fellow trainee) and Andy (our trainer) having beers outside. Some random Japanese guy comes up to us and is all excited, at first we thought he was homeless because he was kinda dressed like a bum, but yeah. He was a business man who just wanted to talk to foreigners. He bought us beers and everything! He was like "let's go to a restaurant!!!" and stuff.. hahah it was so random. I think he ended up buying us 2 rounds, and some beer snacks. He really liked Mike. It was so funny. Mike was showing him a tattoo on his tummy, and the Japanese guy grabbed his balls!!!! (rofl - if you're asian, you might understand this ball-grabbing = fun concept).. Mike is the most innocent boy, 22yrs old from countryside England, a small town. He's the vicar's son. This is his first big trip, and yeah. He was very thrown. LOL. Poor kid. We were all pissing ourselves laughing...
Tim and I realised (kinda too late) that we were probably gonna miss our last train (again), so Andy was like "come crash at my place, its just nearby".. so we went home with him. lol. He's a real nice guy, he's Aussie too - from Brisbane. But he's lived in Tokyo for like 8 years now? He's into Japanese boys hahaha.. so yeah! We went to his place, drank some more, then crashed in his living room. It was a little awkward the next morning - we woke up and were like "omg. we're in one of the bosses houses. and I'm wearing his t-shirt. and I threw up in his loo... and where the hell did i put my pants?!" hahahaha..
So yeah! The next day, I was pretty hung over and feel like a trashy bitch... we just bummed at home really, walked around our area and took some photos.. Had dinner at a cute izakaya (Japanese bar, but lots of food options) near our train station, and came home!
Today was actually my first day working in my local branch, Fuchu. It's a bigger area than Yaho/Yagawa.. They have a Mos Burger, which I'm very jealous of. I love the spicy burger! Mm! I was told "be there by 5pm" by Andy, so I rocked up at like 4.30pm, thinking I was pretty early.. I get to the branch, see the timetable, and notice that I'm scheduled for 5 classes one after the other. Starting at 5pm. So I had like half an hour to plan ALL my classes - which was a little stressful! But I survived!
I had a Voice class (pretty much, big room with whoever wants to have a general chat) today with a lady called Masayo. When I first heard her speak, I thought she had an Aussie twang to her English, and I later found out that she lived in Melbourne for about 8 years in the 80's. She actually lived in North Balwayn, which is like 5 minutes away from where I used to live in Melbourne. We found this pretty funny of course, we knew the same places and such. The other lady in the Voice class could barely speak any English at all - she could only just introduce herself. This made balancing the class pretty tricky, but I just ended up chatting about Australia and drawing heaps of pictures on the whiteboard.
(Side note: This is a really awesome website for the mobile phones which are available at the moment with Softbank. I'm not sure which one I wanna get. Check out the awesome flash videos though!!)
I really need to buy a mobile phone. I feel naked without one. I guess that's something to think about for next week.
Oh! I also got a haircut today! LOL.. fucking hell.. Getting a haircut in a country where you can barely communicate is tough. I ended up looking like a Japanese salaryman from the 80's. When he first styled it, my hair was so coiffed it was just ridiculous. It had volume people. lol
Ahh~ I think it's bed time! I'm working 1.20 - 9pm tomorrow, and Tim's working like 10am - 5pm, so we won't be seeing much of each other. NEED SLEEP! IT'S NEARLY 2AM!!!
x
Tuesday and Wednesday, we continued with the training in Shibuya. By Tuesday, I was teaching 2 full classes all by myself (with a supervisor in the next room, monitoring me), and by Wednesday I was teaching 4 full classes!!!!! They really throw you in the deep end here.
After work on Wednesday, to congratulate us for completing the basic training, we went for "station drinks"... basically, we went to the local train station and hung out the front drinking beer purchased from a Kiosk. lol. There were heaps of other people doing the same thing though, so it wasn't just us pathetic foreigners... So it was Tim, Me, Mike (a fellow trainee) and Andy (our trainer) having beers outside. Some random Japanese guy comes up to us and is all excited, at first we thought he was homeless because he was kinda dressed like a bum, but yeah. He was a business man who just wanted to talk to foreigners. He bought us beers and everything! He was like "let's go to a restaurant!!!" and stuff.. hahah it was so random. I think he ended up buying us 2 rounds, and some beer snacks. He really liked Mike. It was so funny. Mike was showing him a tattoo on his tummy, and the Japanese guy grabbed his balls!!!! (rofl - if you're asian, you might understand this ball-grabbing = fun concept).. Mike is the most innocent boy, 22yrs old from countryside England, a small town. He's the vicar's son. This is his first big trip, and yeah. He was very thrown. LOL. Poor kid. We were all pissing ourselves laughing...
Tim and I realised (kinda too late) that we were probably gonna miss our last train (again), so Andy was like "come crash at my place, its just nearby".. so we went home with him. lol. He's a real nice guy, he's Aussie too - from Brisbane. But he's lived in Tokyo for like 8 years now? He's into Japanese boys hahaha.. so yeah! We went to his place, drank some more, then crashed in his living room. It was a little awkward the next morning - we woke up and were like "omg. we're in one of the bosses houses. and I'm wearing his t-shirt. and I threw up in his loo... and where the hell did i put my pants?!" hahahaha..
So yeah! The next day, I was pretty hung over and feel like a trashy bitch... we just bummed at home really, walked around our area and took some photos.. Had dinner at a cute izakaya (Japanese bar, but lots of food options) near our train station, and came home!
Today was actually my first day working in my local branch, Fuchu. It's a bigger area than Yaho/Yagawa.. They have a Mos Burger, which I'm very jealous of. I love the spicy burger! Mm! I was told "be there by 5pm" by Andy, so I rocked up at like 4.30pm, thinking I was pretty early.. I get to the branch, see the timetable, and notice that I'm scheduled for 5 classes one after the other. Starting at 5pm. So I had like half an hour to plan ALL my classes - which was a little stressful! But I survived!
I had a Voice class (pretty much, big room with whoever wants to have a general chat) today with a lady called Masayo. When I first heard her speak, I thought she had an Aussie twang to her English, and I later found out that she lived in Melbourne for about 8 years in the 80's. She actually lived in North Balwayn, which is like 5 minutes away from where I used to live in Melbourne. We found this pretty funny of course, we knew the same places and such. The other lady in the Voice class could barely speak any English at all - she could only just introduce herself. This made balancing the class pretty tricky, but I just ended up chatting about Australia and drawing heaps of pictures on the whiteboard.
(Side note: This is a really awesome website for the mobile phones which are available at the moment with Softbank. I'm not sure which one I wanna get. Check out the awesome flash videos though!!)
I really need to buy a mobile phone. I feel naked without one. I guess that's something to think about for next week.
Oh! I also got a haircut today! LOL.. fucking hell.. Getting a haircut in a country where you can barely communicate is tough. I ended up looking like a Japanese salaryman from the 80's. When he first styled it, my hair was so coiffed it was just ridiculous. It had volume people. lol
Ahh~ I think it's bed time! I'm working 1.20 - 9pm tomorrow, and Tim's working like 10am - 5pm, so we won't be seeing much of each other. NEED SLEEP! IT'S NEARLY 2AM!!!
x