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Monday, March 31, 2003
 Elliott's considered opinion of this blog My nephew skived off school today with a feigned belly ache. Looks really sickly in this picture, doesn't he? Sunday, March 30, 2003
I've started promoting my Teaching in Japan page this week and have had loads of hits. The article's going to be published on ELT News. Bring me traffic. MarkCity - the city with no congestion charge. A future Nova employee from America wrote to me with a looooong list of questions about life, love and the price of ADSL connections in Japan. For the benefit of anyone else who's thinking of going to Japan, here's the Q and A: I have a friend who taught with NOVA for a year and loved it, however I have also heard some negative things as well - especially on the Teaching in Japan Discussion forum. I heard from one person that NOVA put a limit on how many shift swaps that you are allowed to do. Is this true? Firstly, yes, there are lots of people who work for Nova and hate it, but a lot of them are people who have never had to work before and find it outrageous that they're expected to turn up on time and actually work for a living. It can be hard work, it can be a slog, the training is short, the company has loads of daft rules (yes, it is true about shift swaps - 2 a month if it's for your benefit, + 2 more if it's someone else's request), and the amount of holiday you get is terrible. BUT it can also be great fun, you have a lot of freedom to be creative, most of the students are lovely, the lifestyle is great if you like going out a lot, and teaching kids is great fun too. I'm sure some teachers would tell you different, but I'm definitely glad I did it, and I'd go back. Happily. A concern of mine is how much money I will be able to save per month. I cannot seem to find info on this. How much are things like (food, gym, internet connection at home, cell phone, apt, yoga, etc.)? Is it really feasible to live off of 250,000 yen per month and be able to save money? Japan is very expensive, but we were able to save quite a bit of money (much more than we would have saved in the UK) - and we went out a lot, bought pretty much whatever we wanted (well, within reason!), joined the gym, had cellphones, broadband at home and had two vacations. However, a friend of mine was there for longer than me and didn't save a penny. It depends on how sensible you are. One thing: the American teachers at my school always complained a lot about having no money while the Brits and Aussies were usually quite happy with the wages. I think the US is a lot cheaper and maybe you're used to having more disposable income? Remember, after 3 months your wages go up to about 280,000 yen. Income tax is only 6%. You will survive! Cellphones cost about 4-5000 yen per month. Nova will offer you a Tu-ka phone when you get there. That's what I had - it's OK, nothing fancy, but alright if you just want to send texts and make calls. A lot of teachers have J-phones, which have inbuilt cameras. Better than Tu-ka but you have to wait a couple of weeks to get one because you need your gaijin card. You can use it to send email too. Actually, you were supposed to be able to send emails from the Tu-ka phones too but the instructions were in Japanese. Although it might just have been me being a bit crap, because I can't work out how to send emails from my British phone either. To get broadband you first need to rent a phone line from NTT (about 3000 yen a month) and then sign up with an ISP. I used OCN - about 4000 yen a month. There are no free ISPs in Japan. I would definitely recommend getting broadband - but it will be slow if you live more than 2km from the exchange. This company sorted it all out for me: Asist. They're currently running a campaign where sign-up and the first three months are free. The gym costs between 5,000 - 10,000 yen per month, depending on when you go. I have no idea how much yoga costs! Were you able to travel at all throughout SE Asia (Thailand)? How expensive is it to do that? I want to live in Osaka (a bit smaller than Tokyo I gather). Where did you live? Do you know much about Osaka? Yes, we went to Thailand for 2 weeks (it was beautiful! - see photo albums on left). We also spent 5 days in Kyoto. Everyone I know out there went on lots of trips - Thailand, China, Saipan, skiiing in other parts of Japan... Thailand is very cheap and flights are reasonable if you use discount travel agents. Osaka is quite a lot smaller than Tokyo but is supposed to be friendly (I've never been there - well, went through it once...) There must be city guides online. I am a veggie also. Is it really that hard to be a veggie? Can you purchase stuff to cook at home? I thought that tofu was in mad abundance over there. It is tough being a veggie, but only where eating out is concerned. The supermarkets are full of vegetables, tofu, noodles, etc. Tokyo has a few veggie restaurants, as does Kyoto (v close to Osaka). Most Japanese people think veggies are weird and it's impossible to buy a sandwich, for example, that doesn't contain meat. Have you read my page about being veggie in Japan? My veggie guide is very Tokyo-centric, I'm afraid. But I have a friend who lives near Osaka and is a very strict veggie, and he survives. How do the Japanese treat foreigners? My boyfriend will not be accompanying me on this long trip and has been telling me that I will be treated as an outcast in society (perhaps cause he doesn't want me to go) - just wondering if this is true. No - you won't be treated as an outcast. Japan's big cities are full of foreigners. You will be stared at sometimes and occasionally people will shift away from you on the train (I've written about this before - see the archives for my 'controversial' complaints about race in Japan). But if you work for Nova you'll have a big support group of foreign friends to bitch and moan to, and you're bound to make Japanese friends. I personally think that Japanese people are among the nicest on earth. Easy-going, good-humoured, polite and welcoming. And Japan is one of the safest countries in the world. You can walk around at midnight and feel completely at ease. Thursday, March 27, 2003
  Had a very exciting package land on my doormat yesterday: one of my Japanese friends (Hi Kaori!) sent me a couple of CDs - the new White Stripes CD, 'Elephant', and a Yeah Yeah Yeahs mini-album. The White Stripes CD isn't out in the UK yet and the Japanese version has a different cover and two bonus tracks! And the YYYs CD is a Japan-only compilation of their first two EPs. Ooh, it was just like Christmas. Without the over-eating. Or the arguments. It wasn't really very much like Christmas at all, come to think of it. But both CDs are excellent: the White Stripes CD is no great departure from 'White Blood Cells' but has more humour (esp. the last track) and, it goes without saying, is deeply-imbued with the spirit of rock'n'roll (man) with a big dollop of the blues. The YYYs are artier and punkier, although Butter says that Karen O can't sing: "She finds one note then sticks to it." That's coming from a Hole fan.  Also bought the new Placebo CD, from a very cheap website called Second Sounds. They've gone for a more electronic sound this time. The first five tracks are fantastic, esp 'English Summer Rain', but I think it peters out a bit in the second half. And there's something very annoying about the CD: it has inbuilt Copy Control software. This means that you can't copy it onto your hard drive. Now, I'm all for the record company fat cats protecting their profits (and I'm not being sarcastic; I always buy CDs by bands I like because I want them to get the royalties; if nobody buys their CDs they won't be able to release any more; I feel the same about books - I don't like to borrow from libraries and try to avoid buying them second hand because I want to support the publishing industry and the authors) but all I want to do is record the CD onto my hard-drive so I can upload it onto my iPod. I now won't be able to listen to the album on the move, and my love of Placebo is slightly diminished. We've discovered a big plus-point about being an unemployed layabout. We spent an hour this afternoon playing tennis in the park. And we'll be able to do it all again tomorrow. Our lunch with the BBC is all set-up. We're going to an extremly swanky restaurant called Gaudi. I was a bit worried that they wouldn't have anything for veggies, but I've checked their menu and among the disgusting foie gras and sweetmeats are a couple of fancy-sounding dishes: Gratined potatoes with truffles and smoked cheese. I need to find out what escalivada is... Ooh, just checked - it's a Catalan vegetable medley. Of course. Monday, March 24, 2003
My latest interview was at 11:00 today in High Brooms, just outside Tunbridge Wells. I had to choose between two trains - one which would arrive an hour early, the other which would get me there with 20 minutes to spare. I'd better get the first one, I said. Connex trains are always late. Don't be stupid, said Butter. Why on earth would it be late leaving Hastings at that time of the morning? O...kay, I replied, deciding to take her advice. It was 20 minutes late. All the job advice sites say that the golden rule of interviews is DON'T BE LATE. Which means that if I don't get the job I can blame Connex rather than myself. And I've decided that I'm going to have to stop writing about my job quest before it becomes too depressing and humiliating. (Cue woozy special effects, clock hands spinning forward, calendar pages flying across the room as we skip forward in time.) September 18th 2003 - Just had my 38th interview since I've been back from Japan... think I stand a good chance this time... There's nothing wrong with being a toilet cleaner... POWs on Iraqi television. Crashing helicopters. Dead ITN reporters. 'Friendly fire'. Burning oil wells, injured children, corpses in the papers. The horror, the horror. In an attempt to counter all this negative imagery, here's a nice picture that I took yesterday at the East Dean Sheep Centre  Aah! 'ickle 'ambs! Apparently, the hottest blog on the net right now is this fantastic and fascinating site written by a blogger in Baghdad - Dear_Raed. Saturday, March 22, 2003
 It's a sad state of affairs when your mother goes out drinking and you're stuck at home watching The Bourne Identity on video (verdict: a bit yawnsome). But that's what life's like when you're on the dole. Um, except I'm not actually on the dole. My income is currently zero. I didn't get either of the jobs I've had interviews for, due to an oversight on my part: I neglected to nobble the competition. Oh well, next time... Actually, I have another interview this Monday. Third time lucky?  I think Butter and I are beginning to know what it must have been like in the old days, because we're learning to make our own entertainment. This mainly involves going for long walks in the sunshine, taking photos and trying to find the biscuit barrel, which we keep having to hide to stop ourselves turning into fat pigs. Oops - as I wrote that last sentence, Butter found the Dairy Milk chocolate and consumed a large chunk. If I hear the words 'shock and awe' one more time I'm going to scream. Today's Mirror had a good headline, though: Shocking and Awful. It's bizarre the way Mirror editor Piers Morgan has gone from being a Sun gossip columnist to a raving pinko peacenik.  I bought this T-shirt just before I came back to England. Cool, isn't she? The writing at the bottom appears to be a garbled mixture of Italian and German. See more on Graniph's website. Thursday, March 20, 2003
So war has begun... one of the advantages of being an unemployed slob is that I can sit on my arse and watch BBC News 24 all day. Although it gets bit dull after a while. Apparently, the town centre here is swarming with protesters, as is London, where people are starting to stock up on water and baked beans in case of a terrorist attack. I'm going down the pub to forget about it all, appreciating that I'm lucky I don't live in Baghdad and that I'm able to do such things. I was in London again yesterday for another interview. After seeing the seedier side of the city last week, I visited the more salubrious quarters of the capital yesterday: Islington and Richmond. The sun was shining and everyone seemed to be full of spring's joys, despite the impending war. London is such a great city to be in during the springtime; it made me realise how sad it is that Tokyo is so devoid of green spaces. There are parks there, sure, but there's very little grass. And you have to pay to visit the really nice places, like the Iris Garden near the Meiji Shrine. Still, at least Tokyo is unlikely to be targeted by terrorists. Good news from LV about Killing Cupid, which for those of you who aren't keeping up is the novel we had optioned by the Beeb. The news is that the BBC are going to take us out to lunch v soon, which, I'm assured, is 'a good sign'. Great stuff. Tuesday, March 18, 2003
I received a surprise farewell present from my former colleagues in Tokyo today - a Nova Usagi, which is a pink rabbit with a bird's beak. Hugely popular with kids, but not a patch on Gloomy Bear.  Speaking of Gloomy, most of the traffic coming to this site has visited after searching for Gloomy Bear on Google and Yahoo. I had more hits yesterday than ever before. OK, I'm not in Raymi territory yet, but MarkCity is definitely becoming more popular. Most of my hits yesterday came from a Japanese pop culture forum called FRUiTS on Live Journal. I've just discovered that to join Live Journal you need a referral from a current user - so if anyone comes here from Live Journal and wants to invite me to join - Please Do! My email is on the left. I've finally made a start on my new novel. It's a break from things I've written in the past. It's not a thriller. It's possible that the body count will be zero. It will be set in Japan and is about relationships, friendship, love and infidelity among the foreign community. I wanted to call it Foreign Bodies but Hwee Hwee Tan beat me to it. Cow. It's a nightmare trying to come up with titles; I can pass many a sleepless night running the contents of the OED through my head. When the book has a bit more shape and content I might post some extracts on here and see if anyone can think of a good title on my behalf. Sunday, March 16, 2003
  Vintage have just republished all of the godlike Haruki Murakami's novels with cool (and sexy) covers. Murakami is my favourite novelist: funny, wise, modern and very strange. All of his books are worth reading, especially The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Norwegian Wood. But South of the Border, West of the Sun (above right) is a great Murakami starter novel. And while we're on this literary theme, the latest addition to MarkCity is a list of my Top 10 Favourite Books. Very self-indulgent. Saturday, March 15, 2003
 Shock horror There's an unbelievable picture of Christina Aguilera in this week's Heat magazine, in which she's showing... well, you'll have to buy the magazine to find out. But I must warn you, it's not for people with weak stomachs. I can feel myself becoming immersed in British pop trash culture again - reality TV, gossip magazines, charity telethons. It was Comic Relief yesterday (for non-British readers, Comic Relief, also known as Red Nose Day, is an annual charity-fest in which lots of comedians appeal for money in aid of poor folk and feel smug and self-satisfied about it, and benefit from the free publicity, of course). In the Tunbridge Wells pub we went to last night, they were charging people an extra 20 pence for beer with red food dye in it. I paid the extra but refused the red beer. Then I worried that everyone would think I was a tight, uncharitable git who'd refused to pay the extra. I've updated the About Me page. Of course, it will need to be updated again soon, when I get through this transitional phase and find a job. Got another interview this week, in London again. Placebo have just been on TV - they're new single is a pulsating, relentless slice of classic Placebo (ie, it sounds like all their other singles). It's great. And you couldn't see Brian Molko's bald patch at all. Thursday, March 13, 2003
I've just added another article to this site - a handy print-out-and-keep guide to Teaching English in Japan. I think this will (possibly) be the last of my articles about that place where I don't live any more. Maybe. We'll see... So, I had my interview yesterday. I want the job. That's all I'm going to say about it. It was great visiting London again. Despite the lack of a Central Line and the bitter presence of a chill wind, London has a vibrancy and atmosphere that even Tokyo lacks. It also has a lot more nutters. Standing outside Holborn Station, waiting for my friend Andrew, I was almost attacked by a crazed Big Issue seller. And in the pub, there was almost some aggro at the bar when the barmaid tried to serve me before a guy who'd been waiting longer. Sorry, mate, but there's a queue 'ere, y'know. I wasn't arguing. That's the thing I don't like about London - the very real possibility that you might get your head kicked in at any moment. Still, crossing Waterloo Bridge on the bus, the lights of the Millennium Bridge reflected on the black Thames, I felt a rush of excitement and a sense that I was home. Or was it just the Guinness? Speaking of the black stuff, it's nice to have to only (!) pay2.50 a pint instead of a fiver. Andrew and I talked about writing. He's working on a great-sounding novel, whereas I'm a bit stuck. I don't know what to write next; I can't seem to get started. I have ideas, but I feel paralysed by indecision. Which idea should I choose? Whatever I write next, it has to be honest, dragged from my soul. It's time to stop farting around. Maybe I'll start it tomorrow... Tuesday, March 11, 2003
I've been unemployed for 2 days and I'm bored already. I can imagine how being without work for a long time must drain all of the energy and life out of you; sitting and watching TV all day, staring dejectedly at job ads in the paper, listening to the rain beat against the window. Daytime TV is a kind of technological vampire - one of those particularly nasty vamps that keeps you alive so it can feed off you, in a dazed, semi-undead state. But the good news is that I've got an interview tomorrow - it looks like an excellent job, for a cool company, so keep everything crossed for me. Save me from the TV vampires... I saw a shop today called House of Tat - on the window it says 'Loads of Krap inside'. Ah, smalltown wit. The Emily the Strange postcards are on their way to Northern Ireland, Canada and the States. Sunday, March 09, 2003
Hello Blighty!   I'm back! And, predictably, it feels like I've never been away. I'm back at my parents' house while Butter and I look for jobs - we've both applied for a couple today and I've got an interview this week (I think). We've eaten roast potatoes, quiche, backed beans on toast and Branston pickle. Not all on the same plate. And we've watched loads of football on TV, read the real, papery versions of The Guardian and The Sunday Times, and I've bored everybody stupid by going on and on about Japan. The flight home was soooo long. We went 26 hours without sleep, after getting up at 4 am. It was raining in Tokyo, raining in Seoul and - guess what? - raining in London. We transferred in Korea, and it was amazing to see the startling difference in customer service between Japan and Korea. In Japan, everybody at the airport is polite, kind and welcoming. In Korea, they yawn in your face while running the metal detector up your leg. The Korean Air flight attendants are pretty miserable, too. We had the vegetarian meal, of course, and we were heartily sick of steamed veggies by the end of our journey. I think it must have been mental fatigue, or possibly an allergic reaction to chewy Korean Air mushrooms, which caused me to leave the bottle of sake I'd bought for my dad hanging on the back of a trolley at Heathrow. So... I'm back in my hometown, the eleventh most violent place in England, according to the local paper. It's certainly crime-ridden. We got new mobiles yesterday (yeah, the mobiles here are rubbish compared to the ones in Japan), and the guy in The Link told us that every day somebody steals one of the fake display phones. They don't even work! Dummies stealing dummies. And all the shops here are either charity shops or the equivalent of 100 yen shops with names like Nice Price and Pukka Prices. The pictures above are of my sister's garden, and my other sister playing football today. She's ordered me not to write the score on here, but I think her expression says it all. I will catch up with my emails this week, and send the Emily postcards to those of you who are waiting. Plus I need to call loads of people in England. Just give me a few days for the jet lag to recede... Wednesday, March 05, 2003
Sayonara Nihon!   So, it's almost all over. This will be the last entry I make while in Japan. We're all packed, the apartment has been vaccuumed and scrubbed, and the modem has to go back to the phone company tomorrow. We've just been into Shibuya to meet Helen and Scott for a final lunch (and I promise to keep in touch!), and we've cancelled our phones so are now almost incommunicado. I'm working tomorrow, and then we fly early on Friday morning. So I guess this is the point at which I mention my highlights, present my personal review of A Year in Tokyo... well, there will no doubt be a lot of navel-gazing going on over the next couple of weeks - I'll be adding reflective articles about teaching and living in Japan v soon - but here, in no particular order are my Personal Highlights from my Year in Japan: The World Cup. Being in any country that is hosting the world's greatest sporting event must be an incredible experience, but there was something special about watching Japan discover and fall in love with 'soccer'. A few weeks before the tournament, nobody had the fever and the media had whipped people up into a paranoid, hooligan-fearing funk. But the beautiful game, and the behaviour of the fans, soon turned every schoolgirl, housewife and salaryman into an armchair expert, and for a month my students and I talked about the World Cup in every lesson. No exaggeration. Where are you from? England Ah, Beckham! Owen! England are very strong! Well, they were the night they beat Argentina, and people applauded us as we floated home on a cloud of euphoria, as if we, Butter and I, had defeated Argentina ourselves. But the No.1 moment of the World Cup was being in Shibuya the night Japan beat Russia. The whole city went crazy, and I'll never forget standing at Hachiko Crossing watching a sea of blue shirts rushing back and forth across the road, random Japanese people coming up and shaking our hands, the police standing in a line, unable to crack a smile, completely ignored. Discovering My Inner Pop Star. Karaoke is Japan's greatest contribution to modern civilisation, and while I was too self-conscious to ever try it in England, I realised two things this year. 1 - I can sing! And 2 - when I get a mic in my hand, my personality completely changes, and I transform into an all-singing all-dancing mic-hogging wannabe pop star. Top songs: Hound Dog (my signature tune), Hungry Like The Wolf, Faith, Lady Madonna, Freedom, The Real Slim Shady and Pump Up The Jam. Meeting Loads of Cool People. You know who you are... This year really has been The Year of Meeting People, both students and other teachers, and I've made loads of great friends here. After leaving uni I lost touch with nearly everyone I met. I'm going to try my hardest not to let that happen again. But it's great to think that I've now got friends in Japan, Australia, America and Canada. Should make future holidays easier! (Be warned!) Seeing The Lights of Tokyo. This city is a mess. It's overcrowded and it looks as if someone threw a load of giant lego bricks in the air and left them where they landed. Traffic, neon, billboards, smoke, trains rushing overhead, people swarming, concrete and crows everywhere - it's pretty fantastic, a dazzling sprawl. And the view from the top of the Metropolitan Building in Shinjuku has to be one of the seven wonders of the world. Surviving the Summer. This should really be listed as a personal achievement rather than a highlight, but I'm still amazed that I made it through a Japanese summer without melting. Sweating 24 hours a day, showering at every opportunity, rushing from air-conditioned place to air-conditioned place, battling cockroaches, the constant pulse of cicadas... The Japanese summer is something else, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. There's loads more, but I've run out of time. I'll be back online at the weekend - I hope - using a dial-up instead of ADSL. That's gonna be weird. So this is MarkCity saying Sayonara Nihon, and I'll leave you with two billboard posters featuring J-pop megastar Ayumi Hamasaki and... well, I think she's indulging in some serious narcissism. Either that or this is the Japanese Tatu.   Monday, March 03, 2003
Am writing this through the fog of a killer hangover - last night, Helen and I had our farewell karaoke party. It was indescribably fantastic. We had a huge room with a dancefloor and radio mics, allowing us to run and jump around like we were on Top of the Pops. There were 20 of us, and between us we spent 80,000 yen (400 quid). Highlights were Pump Up The Jam, Wannabe, Hey Jude, Billie Jean, My Way ( I did it myyyyyy waaaay!) and a final farewell triptych of Que Sera Sera, Freedom and Livin La Vida Loca. God, it was great, and I feel so sad about saying goodbye to all my friends here. It's like leaving university, but worse. I've met so many cool people this year, from all over the world, from the suburbs of Melbourne to the Detroit hood, and I'm going to have to stop typing now before I start filling up... OK, I've recovered a little now. I've only got internet access for 3 more days and have masses to do - packing, cleaning, shopping, more goodbyes - so if I'm a bit slow at answering emails this week, forgive me. But this blog will definitely continue after I get back to the UK - I just hope I can still find interesting stuff to write about. |