I have discovered that I am a wimp.  Yes, yes I am.  I went to bed last night after warming up my bedroom by means of my space heater to a lovely 22C.  When I woke up this morning, I was shivering and looked at the clock to discover that my room was 13C (I turn off the heater when I go to bed).  My first thought was “Why is it so cold?  My hometown never gets this cold at this time of year!”

WRONG!  I just finished looking up forecasted weather temperatures for my hometown… and I was so wrong!  Haha… the whole of tomorrow is predicted to be in the single digits!  According to my sources the temperature feels pretty normal for the hometown peeps…  And the temperature reading in my current home now, is a beautifully warm 25C.  Which means that I really am wimping out at a mere 13C…

Anyway, today is the first of December and I am THRILLED to be starting the countdown to Christmas.  Unfortunately, I HAVE to work on Christmas Day, but on Boxing Day I am flying towards the Land of the Long White Cloud again for a short break before the new semester starts up.  I also got to start my chocolate-free advent calendar today, which was pretty awesome.  I’m going to save the box so that next year I can buy some fair-trade chocolate to put in it…

This year's advent calendar

I am working on another blog post on a topic suggested by JM from home, so hopefully that will be up within a few days.  I also owe everyone an update on November activities, so I’ll try to get on that too.  I hope that December sees a lot more blog posts than November did… oops.

It’s been ages since I have seen/talk with Miss C, she will always be Miss to us even though she has a 3-year old cute little girl already.  Miss arrived in Japan last November 11 for a 3 weeks? AOTS training in YKC.  On her first weekend here, we went on a supposed Tokyo Tour turned Tokyo Shopping

Our Nth Stop: Tokyo Imperial Palace, but before going there we have to pose in front of this fountain

The next day we met up with other former students, rachel and go to Hakone. We were really happy that it turned out to be a really nice day and Mt. Fuji was not shy to show her  magnificent self.

jay, me, baumel, miss and rachel

Brings back memories of  U.P. College days and our antics with miss. Whose batch was the “pilyo” or the intelligent ones or who became the richest hehhee..

Hope to see you soon in Cebu Miss Have a safe trip back home hope you had a nice time in Japan

 Tokyo at a glance

Tokyo is Japan’s capital and its biggest and most important city. It has a population of just under 13 million and is one of the largest cities in the world. The greater Tokyo area, including Saitama, Kanagawa, and Chiba prefectures, has 35 million people and has been the world’s most populous urban area for 40 years. Greater Tokyo comprises more than 25% of the entire population of Japan and accounts for a quarter of the country’s GDP.

Tokyo is located on the east coast of Honshu, almost exactly in the center of Japanese archipelago. The city borders Saitama Prefecture, Chiba Prefecture, Yamanashi Prefecture and Kanagawa Prefecture in the north, east, south, and west respectively.

History

Tokyo was known as Edo until 1868. Originally a small fishing village, Ieyasu Tokugawa made Edo the seat of his government after unifying Japan and declaring himself Shogun in 1603. Although the emperor still lived in the former capital of Kyoto, Edo quickly became the country’s most important city and one of the largest in the world.

In 1868, the Tokugawa Shogunate was defeated by Emperor Meiji’s imperial forces during the Meiji Restoration and the Imperial Palace and capital were moved from Kyoto to Edo. The city was renamed Tokyo, which means Eastern Capital in Japanese.

Orientation

Tokyo is the largest of Japan’s 47 prefectures, each of which has its own governor. Although most prefectures are called ken, Tokyo is referred to as a to or metropolis. All together, there are 43 ken, two fu (Osaka and Kyoto), 1 do (Hokkaido) and one to (Tokyo). They are commonly referred to as todofuken in Japanese.

Tokyo has 23 special wards, called ku, which are home to 8 million people and make up the center of the metropolis. Each special ward has a great deal of administrative independence and can be thought of as their own cities. Together, they give Tokyo the highest GDP of any city in the world.

For more info check out-http://www.japanguidebook.com/travel/tokyo-travel-guide-45.html

pictures-of-tokyo

The expression 紅葉 – literally red leaves – can denote two things: the Japanese maple tree and tinted autumn leaves.

Autumn in Japan comes late, brings clear blue days and is pleasantly mild (in fact, November went from being my least favorite month to one of those I like best). But its greatest attraction are its spectacular tinted leaves. Depending on the geography, the leaves are turning between mid-November and early December. Even though this seasonal occurrence does not quite carry the importance of cherry blossoms season (sakura), it comes right after.

Weather websites have tinted leaf forecasts, and on sightseeing maps, little leaf symbols mark the best places for maple viewing.
In Kyoto, temples and gardens with especially beautiful maples put up impressive light installations and are open in the evening for this period. Imagine the hills being virtually aflame with red maple trees spectacularly lit from below! It’s an event that is advertised already two months in advance.

Japanese Maple

Sand garden of Kyoto's Ginkaku-ji

There is the “Income tax” man – who takes a small chunk of your salary and gives it to the National government.  It is a pretty damn small amount for poor English teachers, 5%.

Then there is the “City tax” man, who usually doesn`t catch up with English teachers, cos we never stay in the country that long.  Most English schools don`t pay this tax out of your salary – this is your responsibility.  This is based on your last year`s salary, so English teachers don`t have to pay this for their first year anyway.  This is actually higher than income tax – 10% or so.

I have been over here for 2 and a bit years now, and the City tax man has got around to contacting me.  And he wants most of the money that I saved up over the last year.

My choices look like:

- pay it (I have the money)

- ask the city to let me do a payment plan (since I am poor English teacher)

- hope they don`t get around to taking me to court till after I have left the country (thinking to go home in 6 months or so), but if they do, pay it.

Had this hilarious conversation with my Girlfriend last night -

Me – I`ll ignore it

Her – (scrunches up face) that doesn`t sound good

Me – OK, I`ll pay it

Her – (scrunches up face) that doesn`t sound good EITHER.

Hilarious

PS.  Anything I have said in the past about Japan being a low tax country was wrong – it isn`t low, its only reasonable.

PSS. And I found out that the income tax scale slides, like in Australia.  Earn more, pay more.

Living away from Oz, I can read newspapers etc but I don`t think I have a good feel for what is happening back home.

I don`t know how big an issue this is, but the recent discussions on Olympic funding and the Crawford report caught my attention.

I am not Anti-Olympic sports, but a couple of recent statements made in support of the Olympic movement caught my eye …

- Adulation of top sportsmen leads to greater local participation in these sports

- Australians want to be one of the top medal tally countries at the Olympics

Well, the first point … is it true?  I`d like to see some research from somewhere on the connection between elite sport and grassroots participation.  The second point … looks like something worth either huge polling on or a referendum; because I don`t care what our medal tally is.  I think it is worth finding out “what Australians want” on this issue.

As a football fan, seeing the dedication and excellence that people can reach in non-popular sports with the only reward (usually) being non-monetary … its worthy of respect.  Like that band that will never reach the top, but they love music so they keep on touring.

You know what’s nice about living in Japan? People pay attention to details here. To details that make your life easier. A lot of times, you look at a small thing and realize, that people have actually thought about what they’re doing.

Hook and ring to fix the door

Corner of duvet tied to its case

Ice pad for cheese cake

During last month’s church bazaar, while eating our packed lunches, Samir and I saw a strange thing on the table.  Unchi.  In a candy format.  Now, unchi means poop in Japanese, and upon close inspection, we saw that it really was indeed gummy candy shaped like a rolled up poop.  Perhaps we stared and wondered at it too much that the kid who owns them gave us one. Hrmm…  I ate it at home and it tasted like cola.  Thank goodness it wasn’t from Bertie Bott’s.

packaged Unchi-kun gummy candy

yes it was cola flavor! notice the smiley!

Now after some retrospection, I realized that Japan has a thing for poop.  They sell golden poop in temples outside of Kyoto, they have poop toys, poop candy, and even poop anime!  And since this is japan, even poop has become cute!

After a few weeks, I forgot all about Unchi-kun until Sunday when I passed by Loft.  There it was again! More poopy toys!  It was different this time though, since the characters were made into a different.  They all live in an island called “Lucky-toko” and unlike the stoic Unchi-kun, they all had different personalities.  Ladies and gentlemen, meet Unko-san and friends!

I think that this interest with poop is related as to how it sounds in japanese.  Un means fortune in Japanese, and the word for poop is of course, unko or unchi.  The poop may be sold for goodluck, but in Japan nothing is left to be plain, they must be cute!

cute pieces of poop

The Unko family. My favorite is "Corn-san." Hehehe

This last week, we had the pleasure of hosting a friend of a friend from France who currently lives in Norway but is traveling for a few weeks in Japan and East Asia…whew!  That was a mouthful.

May I introduce, Melanie, lover of all things Japan.  It was super fun hosting her for a week or so, and we look forward to visiting her in Norway & France for sure.

And just because it’s a fantastically ridiculous photo, here’s our Halloween party group shot.  We all dressed up as various characters you might see in Tokyo.  Rachael was a Shibuya girl (fake eyelashes even) and I was a five year-old Japanese schoolboy.  Sorry about showing a little leg…

Today has started out as one of those days. Drain issue in bathroom necessitating plumber involvement is going on the 4 hour mark of “in progress”. And I could use a shower now. Also it is raining. Like many apartment dwelling folk in Japan, I don’t own a dryer so my laundry is outside hanging up to dry. I was in need of a smile. And this little guy delivered. Meet Keepon. Bet you can’t not smile after viewing this clip.

“Keepon is a small yellow robot designed to study social development by interacting with children. Keepon was developed by Hideki Kozima while at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) in Kyoto, Japan. Keepon has four motors, a rubber skin, two cameras in its eyes, and a microphone in its nose. Its simple appearance and behavior are intended to help children, even those with developmental disorders such as autism, to understand its attentive and emotive actions.” (from Wikipedia)

Hideki Kozima’s understanding of play is what impresses me most. An appendage-free robot dances joyfully and interacts easily with children. Keepon doesn’t seem capable of being judgmental. And Its’ ability to make eye contact is brilliant as that’s a standard of human communication.

Keepon might seem like a cute little dancing toy, but he’s actually a high-tech robot with a $30,000  price tag. And as BeatBots (where Keepon was created) only sells Keepon to professional institutional users,  you won’t find him in stores.

That last scene in the video did look like an area of Akihabara I know where you can see various robots in development demonstrated. Plans are in the make to actually meet Keepon.  More on that when I do!

Hope this post brought a smile to your face as it did to mine!

Last night was a strange one.

As another scrumptious dinner was cooking away, we started to hear the sound of a helicopter getting quite loud outside our window. When we stepped out to see what was going on, we saw police vehicles patrolling the bank of the river, divers in the river, and two helicopters searching up and down the river. No, this is not something we see often here in Kawasaki, Japan.

As you can see, I was not the only person checking out all the hubub.

This helicopter hovered between 50-100 meters about our apartment for a little while. As a kid, I had an entire notebook full of helicopter drawings…this was exciting stuff for Bradley-san.

After well over an hour of circling with floodlights, the helicopters retreated and the police along the river drove off.  It turns out that there’s a horrible gang of pillaging river pirates that prey upon gaijin living next to the river in Kawasaki.

Just kidding.    Dear Mom, Japan is still incredibly safe and there are no river pirates (that we’re aware of).

We have no idea what happened and no real way to find out since we can’t really watch the news. So, an interesting night with a mysterious ending. Thank you Japan.

Friends have a new addition to their family.. Welcome to the World

Baby Zeke

Baby Derek

Baby Zoe

Congrats to the Rabuya, Delima and Uy Family for these little angles ..

I went and join the people from my former company for a Karaoke party in TKC yesterday. It was nice meeting again some familiar face and new faces  and talking about the same thing again, bring back memories of my NEC days. So before with proceed to TKC we decided to get something to eat along the way ( I already brought some dinner with me though) . We pass by this store which sells fried food including Karage(fried chicken) and other Yakitori ( bbq chicken) food. Instead of separating our orders we combined them for easy computation.  Then afterward we ask for some chopstick if they can provide some, and then fatso said we can only give you 1 chopstick, then we were surprised since they know that their were 3 people who ordered. I tried to negotiate my way, then fatso started babbling that ‘ what the heck are you saying?? that is the rule of this store’.

I really did not like the way he looked at us and the tune of voice he was using, I would not mind if he just told us , sorry we cannot do that since that is the store rule , it was just chopstick for crying out loud.  But he just would not stop, and me being me just could not stop myself … and that is when the little encounter with fatso started.. Oh he really pissed me off… but I’m trying not to let him affect me , but well i really want to get some revenge with him…

BUT I really had fun …

Made me realize how I missed home already…

he really pissses me off… there is just one biatch here in the office that is really pissing me off lately. he was ok before, but lately he is turning into a really biatch. how did this happen?

well he is going to be assigned to another part of the project so this week I was ask to help him fixed some his bugs if there are any left, I’m not happy about so I was really hoping he will fix all his bugs early this week, I asked him if I have to fixed some of the bugs even though I have not yet finished with my current work, his bugs were to be prioritized… he explained that he is still doing the fixing and just continue with what I’m doing now, so I was relieved. when I arrived this morning, i got some request to edit the database table connected with module, so i asked him if it was ok to do it now , and i really did not like the tone of his voice when he answered me and it really pisssed me off..
I guess I’m just not accomodating today and forgiving ..

grrrrr.. i think he hates my guts, maybe because I’m a girl , prettier than him or maybe because I’m a foreigner still prettier than him and sexier and taller .. I could have told him some beauty secrets if he was nice to me

continued from On the couch #1:

Me: I mean, I like Japanese girls, but then again I like all kinds of girls….

Doc: I thought we were going to be honest.

Me: Ain’t I?

Doc: I’ve read your blog, Mister…I mean, Loco…I read ALL of it! Every post! Remember you sent me the link? You suggested I could gain some insight or at least see how your imagination works.

Me: I remember.

Doc: It was your idea.

Me: I know.

Doc: So, either you lied on your blog or you’re lying now.

Me: Me and my bright ideas.

Doc: Actually, it was. It was a great idea! Your writing has been more helpful than any ink-blot or psych-evaluation I could give you. I can almost diagnose you right now. That is, if it’s true…

Me: I always tell the truth…even when I lie. Haha. I mean, there are some areas where I took a little poetic license, but for the most part it’s spot on.

Doc: One thing I’ve noticed about your blog, which I find rather curious, is that you don’t talk about girls too often. Is there any particular reason why you avoid them as a topic of your writing?

Me: I hadn’t noticed that. I feel like I have written about them, though not extensively. I just have other things on my mind I guess.

Doc: But you came here initially for the girls, didn’t you?

Me: I don’t think so…

Doc: You don’t think so…

Me: Don’t get me wrong, doc. I think Japanese girls are awfully cute, and they do have a certain something that I find sexually appealing, but they are not the end all be all. They’re just women, nothing more, nothing less.

Doc: Did you feel that way before you came here or was that a realization you’ve come to since coming here?

Me: You got me, Doc. I figured that out here.

Doc: We’re just getting started, Loco. I Haven’t gotten you…not yet.

Me: Ambitious, aren’t we? Got me pegged, do you? Good. I need all the help I can get…

Doc: You wrote in your blog that when you went home you didn’t find any women attractive.

Me: I did, but I think that’s because I’ve gotten accustomed to a certain, I don’t know, form? I mean, the thing about Japanese girls is that, overall, their upkeep is far superior so I’ve probably gotten a little spoiled. But, I’m sure I could adjust back if that was all that was available. At least I hope I can. I intend to go home someday.

Doc: You seem to place a lot of emphasis on looks.

Me: So? Looks rule here. I’ve just adjusted to the climate.

Doc: Ok, listen, Loco, let’s not get into that just yet…it’s a doozy! Let’s start with something a little lighter, why don’t we?

Me: Anything you say.

Doc: Are you angry?

Me: Now, or in general?

Doc: In general…

Me: You’ve read my blog. What do you think?

Doc: I’m a professional diagnostician of mental illnesses. But if I based my diagnosis purely on your blog I’d have to conclude you were either Schizophrenic, bi-polar or suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder. Or all of the above.

Me:  And what a surprise! They are all treatable with pharmaceuticals. Lucky me. And those lucky pharmaceutical companies…they must love you.

Doc: Don’t deflect. This isn’t about me or the drug companies. 

Me: if you say so…

Doc: But, I would never base my diagnosis on your blog. Besides, certain entries in your blog have led me to believe that this “Loco” persona is merely an alter ego, a fictional shell you hide inside.

Me: Fictional?

Doc: I believe the events that you describe occurred but that these events are being depicted by this Loco persona. Loco is telling your story.

Me: That’s deep, Doc.

Doc: You think so? It gets deeper than that I’m afraid…

Me: Do tell.

Doc: Loco, I suspect, is a rather complex coping mechanism born of your need to entertain and your desire for approval. Also…

Me: Whoa, slow down, doc. Don’t you have any lubricants around here? Cuz I gotta feeling this is going to get unpleasant…

Doc: Sorry, Loco, am I coming on too strong?

Me: Keep talking like that doc and I’m gonna have to write you off as a quack.

Doc: Listen, Loco, I know what I’m talking about. I’m in the business of knowing. But I wonder if you do. You understanding your issues is just as, if not, more important than my understanding your issues.

Me: If you say so Doc. I’ve never done this before so I have to trust you, to an extent. And I have serious trust issues I’m told.

Doc: Uh huh.

Me: I mean, if I went to a hospital with a serious injury I would hope the doctors wouldn’t expect me to know as much about fixing me as they do.

Doc: Why do you say you have serious trust issues?

Me: It’s a recurring theme in my life.

Doc: I see.

Me: What do you see?

Doc: I see a lot, Loco. For instance, I see inconsistencies between your writing persona and the persona you’ve brought to my office.

Me: Hence the use of a pen name, Doc.

Doc: Considerable inconsistencies.

Me: I should hope so. I’m not here cuz nothing’s wrong.

Doc: Are you sure about that?

Me: I know nobody’s perfect. Perfection is not my goal. I just want to be able to get through the day without refraining from physically doing harm to someone.

Doc: Uh huh…

Me: It’s starting to hurt…the effort, I mean.

Doc: Uh huh…

Me: I’m serious, Doc. If I could do that my life here would improve 100 fold. Can you help me or not?

Doc:  Perhaps…

Me: So, let’s get started. Let the healing begin!

Doc: What don’t you like about yourself?

Me: Come on doc! I don’t want to stay in the shallow water. Let’s go snorkeling. Hell, let’s go scuba diving.

Doc: By your metaphor, loco, I’m all geared up! But you don’t even have a snorkel, let alone a wet suit and an oxygen tank. So, what do you say we get our feet wet in the shallows a while? Come on, Indulge me.

Me: Sure, Doc. Whatever you say. Ok, I wouldn’t say I was angry so much as I’m indignant, slowly approaching wrathful.

Doc: Thin line between angry and indignant.

Me: I don’t like that word angry. Back home there’s this whole archetype built around the angry black man. It’s become something of a cliche used to diminish a group of complicated people to a single mode of expression. And it kind of sucks…I guess I’m supposed to be more of a righteous black hero…which is a more acceptable stereotype. You know, cause oppression naturally generates moral fiber and what not…or maybe something  like a Morgan Freeman or Barack Obama.  But, angry…not so much.

Doc: I get that.

Me: And, if I had to choose something, I guess the number one thing I don’t like about myself is…

to be continued…

(-:

Loco