Jephso

Exams and essays are over

2012-01-24T11:40:00.000Z

I had my last of two Media Law exams yesterday. It took a lot of effort to revise for these as the subject matter is so dry and factual, but I should have passed both. The lecturer did make the module about as interesting as he could, spicing things up with controversial court cases and celebrity gossip, but I'm glad we won't be doing law again next semester. My essay for the Ethics and Regulation module is also done, so I'm free now until classes start again in two weeks.

This short break has come at a good time as we're meant to be moving house this week. We've found a house in this area and we're just waiting for references to come through now. I'll be moving in there with my brother, my sister and my mum. It's good we're staying in this area as it's halfway between uni and Pizza Hut - ideal.

I'm looking forward to this Friday as me and a mate from uni are going to Manchester for the TNA 2012 Maximum Impact IV Tour. Sting and Kurt Angle will be performing, and it just got announced that Hulk Hogan will be there as well, so it should be a great show. Speaking of wrestling, we also have tickets for Mick Foley's stand up show which is coming to Sheffield City Hall at the end of the month. Then the day after that my band has our first gig. I'm booking a show in Sheffield for a mate who's coming over from France, and I thought it would be a good excuse for my band to have our first gig, so we'll be writing and practising hard over the next few weeks - we've only had one practice up until now.

First post of 2012

2012-01-08T01:07:00.002Z

New Year's Eve was fun. A British friend from my time on JET had come back to the UK for Christmas - he's still working in Japan on JET - and he came up to Sheffield for a friend's house party. As he was in town he wanted to meet up and invited me to the party. I hadn't met the girl whose house we partied at before, but she'd studied at Kobe University the year after me and is working as an English teacher in Kobe now. That meant we'd lived in the same halls and had some mutual friends. It really is a small world when it comes to British people in Japan. A few of the other people at the party had some connection to Japan, and there were a couple of Japanese people there as well.

It was good to talk Japanese and talk about Japan for the first time in a long time. Since coming back from Aomori in August I haven't spoke much about Japan. To be honest, talking about it on NYE got me itching to go back. There was one guy at the party who's starting an English teaching job in Osaka this month, even though he's never been to Japan before. He's gonna have a great time. As for my Japanese ability, it's still there but it's very rusty - I had to think for a second for words which were once second nature.

Preserving my language ability is one reason I'd like to go back. I always remember when I was in Kobe us exchange students went on a trip to a college for older folks and we all got to talk with the students there for quite a while. They gave us some advice on life, and one of the guys told me about how he used to be fluent in English but he stopped speaking it and now he can't speak it anymore. I don't want that to happen with my Japanese ability, and I don't want to lose touch with Japan. It's been an important part of my life for the past few years and if I were to never use my understanding of the country or my Japanese skills again I'd be losing something I've worked these last few years for. So 2012 started with me thinking of returning to Japan.

For now I have my masters to deal with, and this past week I made a start on the essay for a module called Ethics and Regulation. It's as boring as it sounds and I attended less than half of the lectures, so it's been strange writing an essay without having learnt much on the subject. I've done quite a bit of reading though, so the essay's turned out OK. Once it's done I'll start revising for the law module - I have two exams on law - then the new semester begins again at the start of February.

Living arrangements for the coming year are still up in the air - I don't know where I'll be living come February but I'm gonna have to find something soon.

The Pixar Story

2011-12-29T13:56:00.001Z

I recently watched a documentary called The Pixar Story. For the most part it focuses on John Lasseter who's the creative genius behind Pixar. He's had a fascinating life, starting off working as a sweeper at Disney's Tomorrowland, getting a job as an animator at Disney, being fired for being too daring, then starting Pixar which was eventually bought out by Disney. He's come full circle as he's now Chief Creative Officer at Disney and has also overseen the running of Disney's theme parks.

As the documentary points out, Pixar is something of anomaly - every one of its films have been a huge success. It's also been a game changer, moving Disney and many other studios away from traditional animation to computer-animated films. The reason for Pixar's success has been the studio's zeal and dedication to creating something that's high quality and will stand the test of time.

Watching The Pixar Story you see the melding of technology and art and how this led to the formation of Pixar and the phenomenal success of computer-animated films. You also get to see an artist follow through on his passion and create something that millions of people can enjoy.

Christmas 2011

2011-12-26T21:03:00.001Z

Christmas this year was a lot of fun and made up for my sub-par Christmas last year.

It started with a long lie-in, then after I'd got up I walked over to my mum's place where my brother and sister were. My mum cooked us all breakfast and then we opened all our presents. Notable things I got include a Star Wars wallet, some books I'd been wanting, PJs and a Mick Foley action figure.

At around 2:30 we went over to my aunty's house, which is nearby, and enjoyed a couple of beers while watching Jingle All The Way. By around 5:30 Christmas dinner was ready and my aunty had cooked a feast which has to be up there with the greatest meals I've ever eaten. For the first time in a long time I ate so much it physically hurt my stomach, but it was worth it. After that we drank some more, listened to Barry Manilow and played Scrabble. We rolled home around 11, full and happy. It was great to see my mum have such a good time. She had drank quite a bit of wine but I hadn't seen her laugh like that in a long time.

Today I was back at work at Pizza Hut, but it was strangely quiet. The weather this Christmas has also been a bit odd. It's really warm in Sheffield for this time of year, so no snow. It's an interesting vibe.

I'm working every day for a bit, but I'm off for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. I have a friend coming up to Sheffield for the 31st and we should be going to a house party. He's a British JET CIR who's still working in Japan but he's back for Christmas. Haven't seen him for a bit so it should be fun.

5-a-side, radio show etc.

2011-12-20T00:40:00.002Z

So BJ F.C.'s season ended on a high with a 5-1 victory against the 2nd placed team, leaving us with a 3rd place finish overall, I believe. We've really improved over the course of the semester and everyone's found their role within the team. There've been a few disagreements over team choices, but we've all enjoyed it on the whole. We'll probably enter a 6-a-side league next semester.

Another thing that's on a temporary break is my radio show on the uni station. I feel I'm getting better at producing a high quality, interesting radio show, and I'm starting to get a lot of interaction with my listeners. Every week I have something to read out from my listeners and it really adds to the show. You can hear my final episode of the semester on Mixcloud.

My sister's birthday do today was fun. We went for lunch, had some afternoon drinks and then played pool till late. At the pub I saw one of the actresses from This Is England 88. All three episodes of that were on in the last week. It's a great saga that keeps on developing, and it makes it even more interesting that it's filmed in Sheffield. You can recognise a lot of the filming locations when you're watching and many of the cast are spotted around town on a regular basis.

End of term

2011-12-19T01:41:00.002Z

Uni finished a couple of days ago and it's great to get a bit of a break. It's not gonna be a complete break though, as I'll be working at Pizza Hut most days, and I have a couple of exams in January to revise for and an essay to write. But due to the nature of my masters I've already handed in a big chunk of the assessed work for the first semester. In fact, most of it came in the last week. I finished off my four patch stories from Barnsley on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, handed in my TV news piece on Wednesday, and then I had an assessed news bulletin on Thursday.

I've uploaded my TV piece to YouTube:

After handing everything in, everyone from the journalism masters courses - including the lecturers - went for a pint at a nearby pub, and then we had a party in the evening at my classmate's house.

The first semester has been tough, but not as intensive as my Japanese degree, so it wasn't too bad. And most of it is practical, working with cameras or voice recorders, so I really enjoy it.

It's my sister's birthday tomorrow so I'm going out for lunch with her and some family and friends.

Things are a bit strange at home at the moment; I won't go into details, but it means I'll be moving out around the beginning of February. I must have moved house more than anyone I know. I never seem to stay in the same place for very long. Looking forward to Christmas though, missed it last year being in Japan. I think we're going to our aunty's on Christmas day.

LOVEFiLM

2011-12-03T23:47:00.001Z

I've been subscribed to LOVEFiLM for a few months now and I think it's a decent service for the price you pay. They seem to throw in special incentives to stay subscribed every now and again, which I also think is good. For example, the other week I received an extra DVD from my rental list randomly, and yesterday I received three gift vouchers to give out to friends. These vouchers give the user two months subscription for free, and each voucher was personalised with my name on, which was a neat touch.

Personalised voucher

Personalised voucher (inside)

Funny flyer

I think things like this do go a long way to keeping your customer base interested.

Week 9 at uni

2011-11-27T00:02:00.001Z

On Wednesday we had a Twitter workshop with Neal Mann, a graduate of the Department of Journalism at Sheffield University. On Twitter he's better known as @fieldproducer, and he was one of the innovators in using Twitter to break news stories. He gave us some great tips and ideas for using Twitter, and he gave us a big list of people to follow so that our homepages are constantly buzzing with tweets from the best journalists in the UK.

On Thursday we had our first 'news day'. Our class of about 14 people had to function as a newsroom and put out radio news bulletins every half hour from 11am-5pm. We also put out online content throughout the day. Each of us was given a responsibility and I was sports editor for the day. It was my job to cover all the sports stories of the day, submit them for the regular bulletins and then read a more in-depth sports bulletin at 1pm and 5pm. I really enjoyed it and I sent one of our reporters to Hillsborough to cover Sheffield Wednesday's press conference which takes place every Thursday. I also arranged a phone interview with a local boxer by Twitter, so the usefulness of having a Twitter account is already becoming apparent. Next week I'll be online editor, working on the website rather than gathering audio and writing stories for the radio.

After our news day finished BJ F.C. had our second derby of the season against Printer Milan. There were a couple of injuries during the match but we won 4-1.

Yesterday I recorded another Gamewave and I feel I'm getting better at presenting a show. I'm putting more emotion into my voice and the show seems to be flowing really well and sounding professional. I'm also getting some good listener interaction. I want to get back to broadcasting live ASAP though.

This week also saw Sheffield University win the Times Higher Education award of 'University of the Year'. I think Shef Uni is a very good uni on the whole.

Another very busy week

2011-11-18T21:50:00.001Z

On Monday I went to film my TV news piece which will be assessed and make up a large part of my mark for the semester. There was something called the Celebration of Sport service at the Cathedral and I'd decided to film this for the assessment. I went along and set up the camera, and while it was tough shooting in the darkness of the cathedral I think I got some good footage. I also got an interview with Howard Webb and Alan Smith.

On Tuesday we heard about how the system for getting a placement next semester works. We'll all be working in media organisations for 3 weeks, so we're to start thinking about where we might want to go. I think I'm gonna go for local BBC radio.

Then in the evening, as my friend from Pizza Hut was in it, I went to see a production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast at the Rotherham Civic. It was really professionally put on and quite good actually.

On Wednesday I had an assessed interview at 9am. I was given a scenario and I had to interview my lecturer as if he was a policeman explaining a crime story to me. It went well.

In the afternoon I visited Barnsley for the first time with one of my coursemates to look for stories. Getting off the train Barnsley looked fairly drab, but we walked towards the old town hall and it got nicer as we went on. It was pretty easy to find ideas for stories, such as the town hall being turned into a museum and a new exhibition at the gallery. I'll be following these stories up soon.

On Thursday we had an all-day writing for TV workshop. We were given a BBC news story with all the audio taken out and a summary of the story. We then had to write words to fit the images we were seeing on screen. It's harder than you might think, but the teacher said mine was excellent. I'm used to writing simple, to-the-point stuff, partly through writing this blog, so I found it fairly easy.

This morning I interviewed Barnsley poet, Ian McMillan - another story for my patch. I'd only heard of Ian McMillan recently through a programme called Fry's Planet Word. Ian appeared on that show and gave his thoughts on the various Yorkshire accents, and I thought he'd be a great person to interview for my patch as he's from Barnsley. His publisher sent me a couple of his new books to read, and we arranged to meet up at the Showroom theatre. They kindly lent us the use of one of their screens so we could record without background noise, and we talked about his books and some more general thoughts on Yorkshire. I also got him to do a performance of various Northern accents, similar to that which he did on Fry's Planet Word, but the Marantz recorder didn't record all of that section, so I can't really use it. But I think the interview turned out really well overall. It was around 20 minutes and I'm going to edit it down to three and submit it. I'll probably submit it to a local radio station as well. You can hear the whole unedited thing here and here.

I pre-recorded my show for Forge Radio this afternoon and now I'm done until Pizza Hut tomorrow.

Right, let's see what's happened since my last post...

2011-11-06T22:00:00.002Z

Things are heating up at uni. We've all been given our news patches now, and mine is Barnsley, so over the next six weeks I have to visit regularly and find four stories to film and record for TV and radio.

During the last week I had a voice training session where I got some advice on how to improve my voice when reading news bulletins. Basically I need to 'read' less, and understand the story so that I'm explaining it to the listener rather than just reading from a screen. I also need to inject some more emotion and variation into my voice, so I'm planning to practise reading news bulletins quite a bit over the next few weeks. I think this would improve my voice when I'm presenting my Gamewave show as well. To an extent, doing a music show like Gamewave, you're voice is always going to sound more natural though, as you're ad-libbing, not reading from a sheet or screen.

Speaking of Gamewave, I've now switched from broadcasting live to pre-recording my shows. Broadcasting live is more fun and basically easier, but my time slot of midnight-1am on a Friday makes getting home when I've finished difficult. The guys who run the station say I should get a better time slot next semester, and I look forward to broadcasting live again. I want to get more experience doing it live. It's completely different from pre-recording, and I have enough experience pre-recording shows from doing the podcast for years.

BJ F.C. has had a mixed season so far. Out of four we've lost two and won two. Due to having so many people in the squad it's impractical to give everyone a game each week, so three players now sit out each time. We've been experimenting with formations and positions for different players, and last Thursday we seemed to find a winning formula - we played really well, winning 5-3.

Halloween was fun. I dressed up as a chainsaw murderer and hit the town with the guys from my class. Everyone at Pizza Hut dressed up over the Halloween weekend as well - I wore a Hannibal Lecter mask.

Bonfire Night was good. It's one of my favourite times of year and I didn't really celebrate it when I was in Japan last year. Well, Emma and I attempted to make parkin and bonfire toffee and watched V For Vendetta, but it's not the same. This year I went to a mate's house and he had some fireworks in his back garden.

忙しいな

2011-10-17T22:28:00.001Z

Things have been intensely busy these last couple of weeks. My uni timetable has settled down now and I have one 10am start and four 9am starts, and most days I finish around 5pm. I'm also working at Pizza Hut every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so free time is at a premium. In fact, I don't have any days off anymore, so the natural routine of five days of work and two of rest doesn't exist. I don't even get that Sunday night feeling anymore as I'm working seven days a week. Last Friday was an especially busy day. I was in at uni for 9am and filmed up until 4pm, when I caught the tram to Pizza Hut at the other end of town and did a shift from 5-9. I then caught the bus back into town and prepared for my radio show, then broadcast from midnight until 1.

The show went well and was a lot of fun. I got to grips with the software - called Myriad - pretty quickly and I've uploaded the show into the Gamewave Podcast feed. I'm planning to do this with each show. I also enjoyed listening to the show before mine and appeared on it for a couple of minutes. I went to the first general meeting for the radio station earlier this evening, and because of a 24-hour RAG event going on on Friday, this week's show will be broadcast live from the Students' Union foyer.

BJ F.C. - the 5-a-side team made up of people from the Broadcast Journalism MA - had its first match on Thursday. We won 12-2, but the victory officially went down as 9-2 to the other team, so that needs correcting. We have a decent team with players for each position. In fact, we had to turn some people away as there was so much interest. There's ten of us in the squad in all. This Thursday we're playing Printer Milan, the guys from the Print Journalism MA. Purely by chance we're in the same league, so it's been dubbed the 'journalists derby'.

There was also another small derby yesterday between Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday. My brother went to Bramall Lane and I had tickets to go to the beam back at Hillsborough, but having had so little time to revise for a law exam I decided to stay at home and study whilst listening on the radio. It sounded like a great game and it feels like a victory as we came back from 2-0 to draw 2-2. The revision paid off as well, as I did OK in the exam today, but I could have definitely done with a bit more time.

Me and the rapper from my class also had our first practice last Tuesday. He's written some really great beats and he just took out the drums and I played along and he rapped. It sounded great and we're eager to get some tracks recorded.

On the music front I've been listening to some big new releases lately. Here they are in ascending order of how good they are: Neighborhoods by blink-182, I'm With You by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Agitations by Cobra Skulls and The Hunter by Mastodon. I also just watched Swingers. Definitely one to re-watch. Some great lines and laugh out loud moments.

Back to autumn weather

2011-10-06T16:00:00.004Z

The UK's Indian summer is well and truly over. We're back to wet and blustery autumn weather now. University is going well. Thursday and Friday are pretty much all day practicals, so today we were editing video in Final Cut Pro. It was pretty simple stuff as I've a bit of experience editing audio and video.

The guest lecture by Dan Walker took place on Tuesday and about 150 people attended. He's definitely done really well for himself since leaving Sheffield University and he gave a lot of useful advice. He emphasised that we can start to build our careers in journalism even while we're students at university and that's something I'll be doing.

One way to do that will be presenting a weekly show on the university radio station, Forge Radio. This is something I wanted to do when I was an undergraduate but never had the time. I applied last week and my slot is midnight til 1am every Friday night, and the show will be called Gamewave. It'll basically be a live version of the Gamewave Podcast, which is something I started back in 2006 to expose chiptune and 8-bit music. I haven't recorded many episodes lately, but I'm planning to record these live shows and upload them into the feed.

One of the guys in my class is into hip hop and writes his own beats and raps. We thought it would be interesting if I played drums for him, so we're gonna start practising and recording soon.

All the lads on our course are into football, so we're starting a team and entering in one of the uni's intramural 5-a-side leagues. As we're doing broadcast journalism we settled on the name of BJ F.C. and our first match is next Thursday.

Today I went to the Frog and Parrott on Division Street for lunch. I haven't been in in a while and it's changed quite a bit. My band played a couple of gigs there a few years ago, but the stage has now gone and it's been replaced by a dining area. Apparently they still host gigs now though.

Going round to my mum's for tea in a bit.

Back at uni

2011-09-28T22:12:00.000Z

I started back at Sheffield University on Monday. I'm doing a 1-year masters in Broadcast Journalism and so far it's been fairly intense. I'm in from 9 or 10 every morning til late in the afternoon. At the moment I'm doing a module on law for journalists, one on ethics, one on researching stories and one on broadcast techniques for TV and radio. We also have some guest lecturers coming throughout the semester, and the first will be BBC's Dan Walker, a former student of journalism at Sheffield University. There are around 25 people on my course and we're all in our 20s. We're all getting on well, and we've been enjoying the Indian summer the UK is getting at the moment. The weather is really hot right now, meaning it's been possible to get a suntan in late September this year.

As my weekdays are so intense I won't be working at Pizza Hut much during the week, but I will still be working there at the weekends. This Saturday just gone I had the Saturday off though, and I went to Hillsborough to see Sheffield Wednesday play Exeter City. That was our fifth home game of the season, and we'd won the previous four, so before the game I put a fiver on Wednesday winning again. We played really well, the best I've seen them in a long time, and ended up winning 3-0. Playing well at home is the complete opposite of last season, so if we can sort out our away form we might be onto a winner.

24th birthday

2011-09-14T21:10:00.001Z

It was my 24th birthday yesterday and I did a few different things to celebrate.

On Saturday I went to Corporation with friends. One of my mates recently moved house near to the town centre, purely for providing himself and mates with a place to crash after going out. We've been to Corp most weekends since I came back, and we always go down before 10, drink early while the drinks are still on offer and crash back at my mate's place. It's cheap and we always have a blast.

On Monday I did pub golf with the guys from Pizza Hut. Despite the fact that there are only around 10 people who work in the kitchen at Pizza Hut, three of us have our birthday on the same day, and one on the day before. Pretty insane. Pub golf was a laugh and ensured we were all well oiled by the time we arrived at Corp. We partied long and hard there. I lost my golf visor and pink v-neck sweater inside and my shirt ended up like this:

Tonight I've just been out for a curry with my dad, brother and sister at a place called Bay of Bengal. It's just opened up near our house and was pretty nice. The interior is good and you get a decent amount to eat. Tomorrow I'm going out with my mum for a meal at a Mexican restaurant nearby.

Three weeks

2011-08-29T22:51:00.001Z

I've been back in Sheffield three weeks now. Things that seemed novel and new when I first came back have now become normal, but I'm enjoying it all. I'm working every day at Pizza Hut, usually from around lunchtime til 6 or 7, and that leaves me some time in the evening.

Last night it was my Aunty's 50th birthday party at her place and most of my dad's side of the family were there. The food and drink was great. My uncle had stocked up his alcohol fridge full of many British beers which are rarities in Japan. My aunty had also cooked a big joint of roast pork and stuffing - another luxury I haven't eaten for the last year.

I've been out for a few nights in Sheffield, and not much has changed there, apart from the fake tan has got darker and bleached blonde hair brighter. I've been enjoying watching and listening to the footy, and I went to an away game at Bury with my brother a couple of weeks ago.

Last Tuesday I went to a gig with my sister in Nottingham. A band called Teenage Bottlerocket played, and I've been listening to them a lot lately, especially during my last few months in Japan. They sound a lot like Ramones, but they're proper catchy and great for singing along to. The gig was at Rock City - where I saw MxPx a few years ago - and it was a great night of pogoing and fist-pumping.

As usual, the British summer weather has been a letdown, but I'm enjoying being back.

Back in Sheffield and my last week in Japan

2011-08-12T17:42:00.005Z

I arrived back in Sheffield on Monday night, and it's really good to be back. I've been enjoying British food and TV and meeting mates and family I haven't seen in a year. Everyone's been talking about the riots, but they seem to be dying down now and they didn't reach Sheffield, which is a testament to the common sense of the people who live here.

My last week in Japan was great as well. Work ended on the 1st, and the next day I moved out of my apartment and into my mate's place. As the Nebuta Festival was taking place all the JETs went drinking every night at Passage Hiroba, a beer garden famous among the gaijin. Old JETs left and new JETs came and everyone had a great time. However, I had to take one day out to go down to Tokyo to get an emergency passport.

I had assumed my passport was in my desk at the city hall, as the last time I had used it was when I interpreted for a foreign cruise ship that came to Aomori. We'd used our passports to board the ship, and I had taken mine back to the city hall after the ship left port. It had been in a paper envelope, and it must have been thrown out with the waste paper by me or someone else in my office, as when I was tidying my desk I couldn't locate it. When it didn't show up I called the British embassy and inquired about getting a new one. The things I needed were:

e-ticket for my plane home
2 passport photos
form of ID
Fee of 12,350 yen
Police report (遺失物届受理証明書)

You also have to go to the embassy in Tokyo to present all this. I was going to Tokyo to fly home on the 8th, but unfortunately the 6th and 7th fell on a weekend, so the embassy wouldn't be open and I wouldn't have time to get the passport done before my flight. That meant I'd have to go down on either the 4th or 5th.

Transport options in and out of Aomori were limited because of all the people travelling to see Nebuta, but I left on a night bus on the night of the 3rd and arrived at Tokyo Station on the morning of the 4th. I caught a train to Hanzōmon where the embassy is, and ate breakfast at a coffee shop nearby. I got chatting to an old man there who had visited the UK and was pretty decent at English. It turned out his hobby was yachting and he had a yacht in Sendai which he invited me to visit.

British Embassy

My white and gold passport

After breakfast I went to the embassy and received my new emergency passport within a couple of hours. I then travelled back to Tokyo Station and got a Shinkansen ticket back to Aomori. I was back in Aomori by 6pm and we all went out again to Passage. After drinking all night and an hour of sleep I had to go into work on Friday to show my successor around the city hall and answer any questions he might have. By coincidence my successor was in the year below me at Sheffield Uni, so I knew him beforehand. He seems to be decent at Japanese and I think he'll do well at the job.

That night all the JETs had planned to dance in the Nebuta Festival, so on Friday afternoon we put our costumes on then went to Passage for a pre-festival drink. There were about 30 of us gaijin, and the parade runs from around 7 til 9 every night, so we all danced for a couple of hours, then went back to Passage for more drinking. I bumped into quite a lot of people I knew during the parade, and also saw some カラス (karasu, gangs who go to Nebuta to cause trouble). According to the people of Aomori, these gangs were much more common in the past, and the Nebuta Festival was much more lively and boisterous in general. A lot of people think it's a shame that the festival has become more family-friendly, and I tend to agree. Still, it's the one week of the year when the people of Aomori truly let themselves go. I noticed the love hotels in Aomori were all full when I walked past, and there's also such a thing as 'Nebuta babies' in Aomori - there are a lot of kids born in May.

Saturday the 6th was my last night in Aomori, and me and some friends wanted to go see the Tachi Neputa, another festival in a nearby city called Goshogawara. While Aomori City's festival has huge wide floats, Tachi Neputa's unique selling point is that the floats are really tall. It was also different in that not just anybody could join in dancing, so there was a much more organised, coordinated feel. After watching the parade we drove back to Aomori City to enjoy one final night of drinking at Passage.

We stayed up til the early morning and I said my good byes to everyone, arriving back at my mate's house at 5pm. I had an hour to pack up my stuff and take a drunken shower before leaving Aomori, but I managed it with the help of some friends, and I then got a lift from another friend to the Shinkansen station. People were there from work to see me off, and the Shinkansen left at 6:45, getting me to Tokyo Station for just before lunch time.

After arriving I found a hotel nearby and booked a room and dropped off my luggage. I went for lunch at a nearby curry restaurant - there are hundreds in Tokyo - then in the evening I met up with a friend from my Japanese class at Sheffield Uni. He's living in Tokyo at the moment, and he'd just got married the day before. Me, him and his new wife ate a Thai restaurant and had a good chat about the past and our plans for the future. Then I got a few hours sleep before catching a train to Narita Airport the next morning. I checked in early with my emergency passport and boarded the plane around 11am.

The flight was with British Airways and as I'd checked in early I got a seat with loads of legroom near the emergency exit. I listened to some music, ate some airline food, watched Thor (3.5/5), Just Go With It (3/5) and Source Code (4/5), and came across this article in the free paper we'd been given. It talked about the visit of the Bremen cruise ship to Aomori Port, and I'd interpreted at that event, so one of my lines turned up in the article.

Pretty soon we'd arrived in Heathrow, where it was early afternoon. I had one more flight, which was delayed due to a worn tyre on the plane, but we eventually boarded, and 30 minutes later we'd touched down in Manchester. My mum, sister and brother were waiting and we drove back to my mum's place, arriving home around midnight.

My last week in Aomori was a lot of fun, and it was a great way to say good bye to the city and all my mates. But right now I'm really enjoying being back in the UK. This year I'll be spending much of my time studying for a masters in Broadcast Journalism at Sheffield University, and classes begin on September 26th. Until then I'll be hanging out with friends and starting working at Pizza Hut again - my induction is on the 20th of this month. I managed to save quite a bit of money when I was in Japan, but it's not enough to cover the cost of the masters, so I'll be making the cost up with work at Pizza Hut.

End of work and Nebuta

2011-08-03T03:05:00.001Z

These past few weeks have been busy at work with lots of presentations and English classes. There's also been loads of farewell parties (送別会), and I've been busy with preparing to leave Japan and fly back to the UK. I also went to Japan Blues Festival, which was in Aomori a couple of weeks ago, and bumped into WWE wrestler, MVP at a bar - he had been doing a show in Aomori that day.

Work ended two days ago, and I moved out of my apartment yesterday, so now I'm staying at another JET's house until I leave Aomori on the 7th, then I'll stay over one night in Tokyo before catching my plane from Narita on morning of the 8th. But I'm gonna be ending my last week here with a bang, so it's convenient that we've just entered Nebuta Festival week.

It's purely a coincidence that Nebuta Festival is taking place when the new JETs arrive and the old JETs leave. It's a great introduction to the city for the new guys and a great sending off for those who've been here a long time. The whole city waits for this week every year, and it's the one time when everyone is out partying, dancing and drinking till late at night. When you add all the other visitors who come from all over the world, you get a lively, vibrant carnival atmosphere – the complete opposite of Aomori during the rest of the year. And it's not just Aomori City. There are Nebuta – or Neputa – festivals all around the prefecture, and I want to get to a couple of these before I leave as well.

On Sunday night there was a warm-up event here in Aomori City, and all the 20 or so floats that will take part in this year's parade were lined up on the streets. Then in between each float was a band and dancers, and normally the parade would move around the city like this, but on Sunday it was stationary so that people could enjoy looking at all the floats close up. Each set of a float, a band and dancers is sponsored and put together by a local company or office. The city hall takes part, and last night I played taiko in the city hall band.

Being a drummer and a fan of Taiko no Tatsujin, I'd wanted to try playing the taiko since dancing in the festival last year. I went to a few practices with the city hall band and learnt the basic taiko rhythm. It's a fairly simple rhythm, and the only complex thing is the many different strengths of hit, but I picked it all up pretty quickly. We talked about me playing in the festival, but it turned out I was too busy to attend all of the practices. However, when I met the mayor last Friday for my leaving ceremony we talked about Nebuta and taiko and he invited me to play with him at the warm-up festival.

(L to R) With the 部長, mayor, a friend and vice-mayor

So last night I went down with my supervisor and 部長 (buchō, department boss) and got dressed into the 半纏 (hanten, Japanese-style gown/coat). I then joined in with the city hall band and the mayor came along for a bit as well. It was a lot of fun. The tunes and rhythms that the bands play are very simple and repetitive, but that's the Japanese style, and it's quite powerful and really gets the crowds going when you hear it over and over again. I think everyone enjoyed seeing a gaijin play the taiko, and I got given the バチ (bachi, taiko drum sticks) and 半纏 (coat). Sweet.

So no more taiko playing, but lots of drinking and dancing in the festival until I leave. We went out to see the first night last night, and the city is now bustling with tourists. Much of my job at the city hall has involved the Nebuta festival in one way or another, so this year I know a lot more about its origins and how important it is to the people of Aomori – I think it's gonna be an even better one than last year.

BBQ, Tōhoku Onsen, DJing

2011-07-10T03:28:00.002Z

August is the time when all the JETs who aren't re-contracting leave and their successors come, and now that we're getting closer to that date the leaving parties have started. Yesterday there was a big BBQ in Towada and around 40 JETs showed up. I saw a lot of people I haven't seen in a long time and we'll all be seeing each other again at the various Nebuta festivals around Aomori in the first week of August.

After the BBQ the JETs who were travelling back to Aomori City stopped off at Tōhoku Onsen. This place is famous for its black water, which is that way because of a high mineral content apparently. It was a fairly small place, but it's worth a visit if you're in the area.

Once I was back in Aomori City I went down to a bar near my house called Sublime. This place puts on quite a few gigs and club nights, and also has a practice studio upstairs. I have a friend who DJs there on weekends, and as last night was a free night he asked me to go down and DJ some of my vinyl. He knew I liked 80s music and he brought some great 80s albums from his own collection. I DJed for an hour or so, using some records of mine and some of his, then he went on and DJed some more. It was good fun and the guys at the bar seemed to enjoy it. It's something I want to carry on once I get back to Sheffield.

Super 8 review (contains spoilers)

2011-07-02T07:12:00.000Z

I went to see a new film called Super 8 last weekend. The film doesn't hit UK cinemas until next month, but it came out here on June 24th. I'd read a bit about the film in a magazine, and the article compared it to E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In fact, Super 8 was directed by JJ Abrams as something of a tribute to old Spielberg movies, and featured Steven Spielberg himself as the producer. It was also getting a lot of great reviews, so with some free time on Sunday afternoon we went to see it at the local cinema.

Although not immediately obvious, Super 8 is set in 1979. I say this as some of the language, fashions and sets seem to have a slight contemporary twist, but for the most part the aesthetics are fairly accurate, and had Super 8 been made using the grainy film technologies of 1979 I'm sure it would have looked authentically retro. The soundtrack is also great, full of solid hits from the late 70s.

The plot and storytelling techniques used here also feel somewhat vintage. Minus the slick, explosive action scenes, the story is fairly slow-paced and feels like it unfolds naturally. This relaxed method of storytelling is quite rare in more modern cinema, and Super 8's use of it is definitely a unique selling point.

The film tells how a group of boys and one girl get involved in a supernatural mystery after witnessing a huge train crash while out filming a homemade movie with their Super 8 camera. As well as E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Super 8 also owes a debt to films such as The Goonies and Stand By Me – films that featured a gang of kids bonding over an out-of-the-ordinary adventure. But it is definitely E.T. which seems to have exerted the most influence over JJ Abrams here. The similarities between E.T. and Super 8 are endless:

A plot involving a group of BMX-riding children who come into contact with an extraterrestrial life form in suburban America
Protagonist comes from a one-parent family
Extremely similar score
Late 70s/early 80s setting
A government body attempting to capture the alien
Only the children understand the alien, until their older siblings, then their parents become involved
The alien eventually returning to his home planet in a spaceship at night
Underage children driving cars
Funny banter between the kids
Star Wars references
Many instances of product placement
The alien taking machine parts to construct his own devices

The gang's filmmaking hobby is probably also an homage to Spielberg's boyhood pastime.

For me, Super 8 is a contemporary, darker version of E.T. as it takes the more sinister elements of E.T. and cranks them up a few notches. For example, while there is one shock scene in E.T. where E.T. jumps out of the grass and scares Elliott, there are a lot more of these in Super 8. And the alien in Super 8 is posing quite a threat to the people of the town, whereas E.T. was generally harmless to humans.

The only thing that was disappointing about Super 8 was the ending. After an epic set-up during the first half of the film, Super 8 seemed to lose some steam as neared its climax. While the finish to E.T. is extremely involving, Super 8 felt a bit predictable and rushed towards the end. For example, Joe meeting, bonding with and convincing the alien to go home all within a couple of minutes felt forced and rushed. I think a better ending would have gone like this: The alien chases the kids through his lair until Joe sacrifices himself to distract the alien, leading to Alice and Cary escaping. The alien is hostile to Joe until they experience some King Kong-style moments of understanding and bonding. Meanwhile, Alice and Cary have told the adults where Joe is and they all form a search party to go and retrieve Joe. The military accompany them, but their mission is to capture and neutralise the alien, pitting them against the more benevolent concerns of the search party. When Joe is found he explains that the alien is misunderstood and the search party help him escape back to his home planet while the military still try to capture him.

Something like the above is skating even closer to the E.T. storyline, but it would be much better-paced and would have established a stronger connection between the alien and the residents of the town. Actual contact and understanding between the alien and the humans was minimal, and this is one of the reasons that E.T. was such a hit.

If Super 8 had an improved ending, it could have honestly been a classic, but as it is, I think it falls slightly short. Still, the slow-building mystery and suspense created in the first half of the film are something lacking in contemporary cinema, and make Super 8 a must-see; all the more so if you're a fan of Spielberg's early boy-comes-of-age films.

Tsugaru-ben Taikai 2011

2011-06-23T13:05:00.000Z

The Tsugaru-ben Taikai is held every year in Tsuruta, Aomori Prefecture. It's a competition for foreigners to put on some kind of performance using Tsugaru-ben – a famous dialect spoken in this part of the country. The 2011 taikai was held this past Saturday, and a group of us from Aomori City entered with a Tsugaru-ben version of “More Cowbell”, the famous Saturday Night Live sketch. We had a lot of fun practising and we were really pleased with how the performance went on the day. You can see it here:

After the taikai finished we all went drinking at a local izakaya, and then onto Goshogawara City to see the 虫と火まつり (Insect and Fire Festival), one of Aomori Prefecture's numerous yearly festivals. The event's origins go back to when a swarm of locusts attacked the local rice fields, leading the townspeople to begin a festival which prayed for agricultural success. At the site on Saturday there were a few bonfires and two huge sculptures that had the bodies of insects but dragons' heads. These were set alight a few times and lit up like fireworks. Everyone sat on a big bank to watch, and there were a few hundred people there enjoying the evening.

The next day we went to ベンセ湿原 (Bense Shitsugen), a famous local marsh in Tsugaru City. The marsh is covered in yellow flowers at this time of year, and you can walk across the marsh using the path of wooden planks hammered into the bog. It turns out a lot of the foreigners had had the same idea, as we bumped into quite a few there that day.

Osaka trip and review of Universal Studios Japan

2011-06-17T08:18:00.000Z

I left Kobe for Osaka on the Wednesday 25th, taking the train from Sannomiya to Nanba. In the evening I met up with the two friends whose apartment I'd be staying at. I'd first met them when the international students at Kobe University held a 'Zombie Walk' in Osaka. They both had cameras with them and ended up taking loads of pictures for us all, as well as dressing up as zombies themselves. After that they showed up at most of the big parties we had with their cameras, and I've stayed in touch with them since. I'd met up with them last November when I was in Osaka, but now they have their own apartment in 大国町, which is close to Nanba, and that's where I stayed for my three nights in Osaka.

The first night we went for dinner at Saizeriya and then biked back to their house, which wasn't very far away. On the way we bumped into Derek from Sum 41 as they were playing a show in Osaka that night. When we got back, the girls had some washing to do, so they collected their dirty clothes, stuffed them into the basket on the front of their bikes and we rode off to the coin laundry. On the way though, the wind picked up and blew some of the clothes out of the basket, resulting in these two girls' underwear being strewn across a busy road in Osaka, and us playing Frogger to collect it all back up. In the end we made it to the laundry, washed the clothes, then rode back home, unpacked the futons and went to bed.

The next day I'd planned to meet up with some different friends I'd made whilst studying in Kobe. These guys had been part of the English Speaking Society at Kobe Uni and a few of the international students had helped out at the society quite a bit. We'd go to their events and parties and help them learn English, and they were a great bunch of people. I met with up with three of them and we went and ate okonomiyaki for lunch. After that we wandered round Osaka, visiting the Apple Store, playing games at the arcade and taking purikura, amongst other things. In the evening we went to an izakaya and met up with one more friend. This guy had been the leader of the ESS Conversation Section, but he had now graduated and was working for a company in Osaka. It was the first time in a while for the Japanese people to see him as well, and they said he'd changed and was too adult-like now that he was working.

The next day was my final full day in Osaka, and the two friends I was staying with took the day off work and we all went to Universal Studios. This was somewhere I'd wanted to go while I'd been in Kobe, but back then I'd been a poor student and couldn't afford a ticket. It was a popular date spot, especially around Christmas time and I'd had friends who went and said it was great. Now I could afford the entrance price, and we went after 3 o'clock, which meant the price was even cheaper than normal.

As you enter, the park does a great job of making you feel like you're in a movie. There's dramatic music playing over the speakers and an impressive-looking canopy that welcomes you in. To be honest though, when we started looking around there weren't as many attractions as I'd expected there to be, and unfortunately, the E.T. ride had recently been replaced by something called Space Fantasy: The Ride, which didn't seem to be based on any Universal franchise at all.

The first attraction we went on was The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man - The Ride. The whole attraction was inside a big building which was designed to look just like the offices of the Daily Bugle, so walking from the front door to where you boarded the ride was great. There were desks with half-typed stories sprawled across them, and TVs playing new reports in the cartoon style of The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man. But one strange thing was that all the audio was in Japanese, and watching a Spider-Man cartoon in Japanese didn't seem right. Everything written down was in English though. For example, all the posters on the walls and the reports on the desks were in English. And it wasn't just this attraction – throughout the park, everything written was in English, while all the audio was in Japanese. Japanese people would surely miss out on much of the fun of being at Universal Studios, as hardly any of them would be able to understand the written English.

The ride itself was really good as well. You sit in a car and wear 3D glasses and the car moves along tracks, being attacked by various Spider-Man villains. In the end, Spidey shows up and deals with the bad guys, but the best part was experiencing the attacks. Smoke, fire, movement and the 3D images and audio all combined to make it a great ride. As we left, one of my friends commented that when she came once before she waited six hours for this ride. No way is it worth queuing that long for, but it was one of the better ones we went on that day. 4 out of 5 stars.

With my friends outside the Spider-Man ride

Next up we headed over to Jaws, and on the way there, the heavens opened and it started to rain. We didn't have umbrellas, and the rain didn't stop for the rest of the day. If anything it meant there were less people around though, and we didn't have to queue long for rides. The longest we waited for anything was probably about 20 minutes.

I'm a big Jaws fan, and like the Spider-Man ride, the surroundings here were a lot of fun. While we waited to board you could watch local tourism videos for Amity Island on the TV, and outside the attraction there was a big shark tied up and hanging down on a piece of rope for you to have your picture with. The ride itself involved going on a boat tour of the island, with an inevitable attack by Jaws which was eventually dealt with by the tour guide. The cool aspect of this ride was that the tour guide was an actual actor and you were on an actual boat, riding round on the water. He did a great job of trying to get on with the tour while Jaws made passes at the boat, and it felt much more real than the other rides. Rather than trying to scare you though, the actor was quite camp, and everyone ended up laughing rather than screaming. 4 out of 5 stars.

Continuing with the water theme, we headed over to Waterworld: A Live Sea War Spectacular. My friends were really looking forward to this one, and it wasn't a ride, but a theatrical performance played out on a big set in front of an audience. It was all in Japanese, lasted for about 20 minutes and some of the stunts and theatrics were great. 3 out of 5 stars.

Next we went on Back to the Future: The Ride, which I feel was a missed opportunity. This is one of the most loved films of all time, and I feel the ride is a bit of a letdown. The original was unveiled at Universal Studios Florida in 1991, so I'm sure it was limited by the technology available back then. But while the Florida version was replaced with another ride in 2007, the same ride came to Universal Studios Japan in 2001 and is still going. You sit in a DeLorean, but unlike the Spider-Man ride, the car isn't on tracks – it just rocks and vibrates while you watch a big screen in front of you, and it's hard to escape the feeling of staticity. It was cool to see the video of Doc Brown and Biff which explained the storyline of the ride while we were queuing, but the story itself ended up pretty weak. Instead of having you travel to more modern eras and periods in history, the ride just tried to wow you with epic-looking scenes. For example, you visit the ice age and cretaceous period which gives you the chance to see vast icey landscapes and some dinosaurs, but none of it really feels like BTTF. Going back to the 50s would have been better. 2 out of 5 stars.

Next up was Space Fantasy: The Ride, which only opened last year. Like I said, it wasn't linked to any film, but tried to push a story where you depart from earth to save the sun, which is dying. And rather than being serious and dramatic, everything is painted as cute and bouncy, and I didn't think it was all that great. You sit in a circular car that runs around on tracks and rotates, and it all goes quite fast, but the interior of the ride looked really cheap in parts and just felt like an up-market ghost train at times. I think the E.T. ride would have been much better, although E.T. does make a small appearance towards the end of this ride. 2 out of 5 stars.

Next we went to T2 3-D: Battle Across Time, which is based on Terminator 2. The idea of this ride is that you're visiting the headquarters of Cyberdyne Systems to view the company's newest creation – T-70 Terminators. You go into the main hall and a member of staff comes out to welcome you all and tell you a bit about the company. You then see a promotional video, but it's interrupted by a transmission from Sarah and John Connor, telling you to leave the building as they are about to blow it up to prevent Cyberdyne from fulfilling their sinister plans. Again, all the audio is in Japanese, and while this is obviously necessary at a Japanese theme park, the original film is in English, so the experience is a bit strange. But on the whole, the surroundings and the whole vibe is great, and it's all pretty close to what you see in the films. With films like Terminator and BTTF which were produced in the 80s and 90s, these rides do a good job of replicating the aesthetic and feel of that time.

Back to the show: after the video ends the staff member comes back on stage and tells everyone to ignore the transmission, then ushers you all into the auditorium to watch the demonstration. There's a big screen at the front, and the T-70 Terminators rise up around the sides of the room. Everyone puts on their 3D glasses and the demonstration begins, but it's interrupted by actors playing Sarah and John Connor who appear on the stage at the front. Arnie appears as well, although the Arnie actor is tiny compared to real-life Arnie. But the action doesn't just play out between the actors on the stage. These actors literally 'step in and out' of the film that's playing on the big screen. For example, a door opens up on the stage and Arnie and John disappear into it, then reappear in the video on the screen. There's a cool video sequence which lasts about five minutes and shows Arnie and John being chased on a motorbike, and the 3D effect works to make the film feel more real. After this is over, the actors 'step back out' of the screen and return to the stage, where there is now also T-1000 trying to kill Arnie, but it all ends with Arnie succeeding and blowing up Skynet. The whole show has a good concept, but at times it seems overcomplicated and the transition between stage and screen was a bit jarring, especially as the actor playing Arnie doesn't look much like the real Arnie. In fact, in a similar way to the BTTF ride but to a lesser extent, the story seemed a bit forced and was over too quickly, but all in all it was a fun experience. You exit through the gift shop, and it's the perfect time to buy souvenirs of the show you just saw. 3 out of 5.

By now it was getting dark, and most of the rides were starting to close down. We were planning to finish off the day on the one rollercoaster at the park, Hollywood Dream: The Ride, but possibly because of the rain they weren't allowing anyone on, so we decided to finish off the day at Jurassic Park: The Ride. This was another water based ride, but this time the car was on tracks. There was little background or story involved, as you just took a tour of Jurassic Park, by water. At first everything is very slow and tame, and I wasn't that impressed by the animatronic dinosaurs to be honest. But as you progress, you realise that something isn't quite right. There are dinosaurs running free and destroying the facilities, and this all climaxes when a huge T-Rex appears and tries to eat the passengers in the car. At this point the car drops from high up down a steep ramp and splashes into the water. And with that the ride is suddenly over. The gift shop for Jurassic Park was really big and sold some great dinosaur themed toys and goods. 3 out of 5 stars.

All in all, Universal Studios was a fun day out, and I'm sure it'd be even better if we hadn't been soaked through for the whole day by the rain. If you're gonna go, you should go after 3 o'clock when the ticket price drops, and that still leaves you with enough time to hit all the big rides, providing it's not that busy. A lot of the fun comes from seeing your favourite films fleshed out into actual physical locations, and the Spider-Man, Jaws, Jurassic Park and Terminator rides were good at this. As for the number of rides, it seems USJ just imports rides from the Universal Studios parks in Orlando and Hollywood, but I think they could increase the number of big rides, and increase the quality of rides like BTTF and Space Fantasy. Also, a couple more rollercoasters would be a good addition – one isn't enough. So USJ was good, but not the best theme park I've ever been to.

The next day my two friends went back to work and I caught the Shinkansen back to Aomori, arriving home around midnight. It was great to be back in Kansai for a short while, seeing some old friends and hearing the Kansai dialect.

Kobe trip

2011-06-12T11:19:00.002Z

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently took a two week holiday from work, spending the second week in Kansai. Having studied at Kobe University a couple of years ago, I wanted to go and visit some old friends and places in Kobe and Osaka.

I arrived in Kobe on the night of Sunday May 22nd and went to find the hotel I had booked over the internet. It was in Sannomiya, the city centre of Kobe, and fairly near to Ikuta-jinja, a famous shrine. Hotel prices in Sannomiya were on the expensive side, but I managed to get this hotel for around 4000 yen (30 pounds) a night.

I had thought of a couple of places I wanted to visit in Kobe, and one of them was Port Island. The international dormitory I used to live in is there, so I spent a lot of time on this man-made island. It's a quiet place, full of apartment buildings and storage businesses for the local shipping industry, but there's also an Ikea, a university, various parks and quite a few hotels. To get to Port Island from Sannomiya you take the Port Liner, which is technically known as an automated guideway transit system – a train which runs without a driver. It looks a lot like a monorail as it runs on a track high above the roads, but the Port Liner was apparently the world's first AGT, opening along with the island in 1981. There is also a normal bridge, which allows you to reach the island by car, bike or on foot, and I decided to rent a bike from a coffee shop in Sannomiya called SPARK and ride over to Port Island.

As I arrived on the island it was time for lunch, so I started to head over to the big Ikea, whose café we used to frequent. On the way though, I rode past my old dormitory and decided to stop by. The back door was open and I went inside and knocked on the office door. The old caretaker from before was still there and we had a bit of a chat. He told me the place was mostly empty now as most of the international students were at other dorms closer to Kobe University, then he suggested we go up and have a look at my old room. There's no-one in it now, or even in the whole corridor. We also bumped into the cleaning lady who used to wake us all up every morning, banging her way around the dorm with her trolley full of brushes. Although Port Island is a nice location, it makes sense that most of the international students now live a lot closer to the university, as we all spent a lot of time and money making the journey there and back every day. I also noticed that the area just across from the dormitory where we used to play frisbee and football was no longer a dusty field, but was now covered in grass.

Area across from the dorms

Then I got back on my bike and headed over to Ikea. I think this was Japan's first ever Ikea, and I always thought it was a strange place to have one, as Port Island is a bit out of the way. In fact, I had a Swedish friend who lived at the dorm and had a part-time job in Ikea's kitchen, and she often said that they were considering closing it down as business wasn't great. Speaking of Swedish people, there were two or three at the dorm while I was there, and they loved Ikea. When they spoke about it, it was always in a reverent tone and I think they really did feel a strong sense of pride that Ikea is a Swedish company; one of the Swedish guys used to regularly buy snacks from the food shop there and hand them out to us all like tracts. Although even the non-Swedish among us used to go there quite a bit. It was great for buying any new items of furniture when you'd just moved to the dorm, and we'd often go just for the café. Many a time we would buy a few hotdogs and cover them with ketchup, mustard and dried onions for a tasty meal after a night of heavy drinking. Add to that a free-refill drink and you had tea for around 500 yen. It wasn't the healthiest, but it tasted great.

The menu had hardly changed from before, so I got three hotdogs, a drink and a cinnamon roll for my lunch. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for Izumi-ya, a giant supermarket that used to sit just across the road from Ikea. A lot of us students used to do our big shop there, often after eating at Ikea, and we'd also buy alcohol there, as we usually had outdoor parties in the vicinity. But now there's nothing there. Even the concrete car park was gone, replaced with rubble and grass.

Lunch at Ikea

I stopped off at the site where we'd had a couple of the aforementioned parties next, then rode over to the university campus whose basketball court we often used to play on. It's an idyllic location, just next to the sea, and they never seemed to mind us playing there, although today it was tipping it down and the rainy weather made it look a bit less spectacular than before.

Last, I stopped off at Gourmet City, another supermarket we used to frequent, but often only for one or two items, as it wasn't as big or well-stocked as Izumi-ya. It did have a free drinking water service though, something that's quite common in Japanese supermarkets. You buy a big plastic bottle and a membership card and you're allowed to fill up your bottle with water from the machine as much as you like. We all used that service quite a bit, and would often make the journey in summer in groups, like a caravan of desert travelers to the local oasis.

I'll always remember the way knowledge of Gourmet City spread amongst the international students. The place was hidden away in between trees and apartments, and wasn't obvious to the naked eye. After first arriving at the dorm I'd spent a few days buying junk food from the local Lawson's (convenience store), but one day we got talking to a fellow new arrival who had inherited a lot of appliances and local knowledge from his predecessor. He told us of Gourmet City and where to find it, and we would then in turn pass this knowledge on to the other new students who came throughout our stay. Port Island was a strange place to live, and when we'd first arrived we hadn't been given any information on the local area. We had to fend for ourselves, and I think one of the reasons we all got along so well was because a pack mentality was vital to our survival.

And that concluded my return to the Island. I headed back to the mainland, stopping off at a park called みなとのもり公園. It's located at the intersection between Port Island and Sannomiya and we'd pass this park every day on the Port Liner. It had always been under construction, but now it was finished; a vast expanse of green grass and trees sat in-between a tangle of grey roads and bridges. You often find parks like this in the middle of big Japanese cities.

The Port Liner running past みなとのもり公園

I returned the bike to the coffee shop, and by the time I got back to the hotel I was soaked through due to the rain, but after drying off I headed out to a nearby restaurant called 意屋 (Kokoroya) to meet some friends. 意屋 is somewhere a lot of the international students used to go during our time two years ago. It started when three of our friends got jobs as waitresses there, and by the end of the year, whenever we had a party, we'd have it at こころや. We got to be good friends with the 店長 (tenchō, the name for the head of any kind of shop or restaurant), and I've stayed in touch with him over the last two years. While the food is mostly Japanese-style, the 店長 also spent some time in a kitchen in France, so his dishes have a bit of a foreign twist. It was good to see him again, and one of the Chinese girls who worked there as a waitress two years ago is now back in Japan, studying at Kobe Uni and working at 意屋. Unfortunately, she's one of the unlucky international students who still have to live at the dormitory on Port Island. I also invited one of my old teachers from Kobe University. He's a British guy who took Japanese at Sheffield many years before me and ended up teaching me when I came to Kobe. I also invited another Chinese friend, and she had just finished her degree and was leaving a few days later to go back to China; the very last of the international students from my time in Kobe.

After enjoying dinner at 意屋, which included Kobe beef, me and the teacher guy went to a British-style pub just down the road called the Hub. There I met up with another friend, a Japanese guy who'd been in the rock music society I'd joined. We'd played in a punk cover band together, and it was good to have a catch-up with him and see how things were going in the society these days. And that was Monday night.

The next day I headed up to Kobe University. There are 2 train lines that take you there from Sannomiya: JR and Hankyū, and I decided to take the Hankyū line. Just like the old days, I managed to board the right train without even thinking about it. I also saw some posters for Hankyū Densha, a film that's just been released about the characters on a Hankyū train. After getting off at Rokkōmichi I started the legendary trek up the hill to the university, and just like before, the reward for your climb to the top of the hill is a great view of Kobe, and also Osaka if it's a clear day. I met up with the teacher from the night before and we enjoyed a cup of Yorkshire Tea in his office. We were about to crack open a box of fig rolls when we got a text from the girl we'd met at 意屋 the night before. She was also up at the university to say good bye to her friends, and she invited us to lunch in the cafeteria. It was around lunch time, so the teacher and I went down and enjoyed the very mediocre food on offer there. We sat with some of the current international students, and it was interesting to hear what they were all up to. Alongside his studies, one guy was getting paid by a Spanish publisher to translate a Haruki Murakami book into Spanish.

View from up at Kobe University

After lunch I bumped into an old Japanese friend on campus and we had a bit of a chat and took some pictures. She didn't know I was in Kobe so she'd been surprised to see me. Then I headed back down the hill and got on the train back to Sannomiya, where I headed for a music shop I often used to visit. They have a great selection of instruments for you to play, and that includes a few different electronic drum kits. The kits were still in the same place as before, and I sat down and jammed for 20 minutes or so. Even the staff in the shop were the same.

It was getting close to tea time, and I had plans to meet up with a family whose children I had taught English to before. I knew them quite well and they'd recently sent me a big parcel of dried food as the mum works at an import shop in Sannomiya. They'd invited me to their house once before, and I went with a friend from the UK who was visiting me in Kobe at the time. We went to the local public baths with the family's son, and it was a strange experience for both of us Brits as this 10-year old naked Japanese boy scrubbed our backs for us. After coming back from the baths we'd sat with the family's father and watched VHSs of all the metal bands he'd recorded off TV in the 80s. Being Japanese he enjoyed the music, but often didn't understand the lyrics or song titles, and I translated some of them for him.

So back at the hotel I picked up a few gifts I'd brought for the family from Aomori, and then I caught the train to their small little suburb. It was good to see them all again, and the mother cooked some great okonomiyaki and sobameshi for us all. When the father returned home from work we cracked out the beers and got back to talking about 80s metal. We're into a lot of the same bands, and the father said he was really happy to be able to discuss these bands, as none of his friends like the same music as him. He told me about when he went to see Stryper in concert when he was in high school, and how his band used to cover Ratt songs. I also translated some more song titles and lyrics for him. It was a lot of fun.

And that ends my time in Kobe. It was great to be back seeing all my old friends and visiting all the familiar places. Kobe is a completely different Japan from the one you'll find in Aomori. It feels far more cosmopolitan, even more so than Tokyo in some ways, and if I was ever to come back to live in Japan again, it would have to be Kobe or Osaka.

Next time I'll write a bit about Osaka and my visit to Universal Studios.

A family visit

2011-06-04T07:29:00.000Z

I recently took a two week holiday from work. During the first week my family came to Aomori, and during the second I visited Kobe and Osaka.

My dad, sister and brother arrived in Tokyo on May 15th and took the Shinkansen up to Aomori on the 16th. They stayed until the 21st and we rented a car so I could show them around Aomori Prefecture. In Aomori City we visited Wa Rasse Nebuta Museum, the Sannai Maruyama ruins, the Shōwa Daibutsu and did go-karting at Moya Hills. In Hirosaki we rented some bikes for free from the local tourist information centre and rode around the city, visiting Hirosaki Castle and Tsugaru-han Neputa-mura. One night we met up with all the JETs in the area and had a drink at a local bar, then we visited Towada Art Center and Lake Towada towards the end of the week.

Showing foreign guests around Aomori Prefecture is exactly what I do at work sometimes. I especially enjoyed Tsugaru-han Neputa-mura and Lake Towada though as I haven't been there with work yet.

Showing my dad how to use chopsticks

At the Shōwa Daibutsu with my brother and dad

Playing the taiko drum with my dad at Tsugaru-han Neputa-mura

At Towada Art Center with my brother

At Towada Art Center

My sister at a batting cage

My family then traveled back down to Tokyo by Shinkansen and stayed there for another week before returning to the UK. It was the first time for any of them to come to Japan and they all really enjoyed their time here.

I'll write about my time in Kobe and Osaka next.

Being a CIR on the JET Programme, Part II: Advice on the application process

2011-06-02T14:08:00.000Z

Having lots of mates who have studied Japanese and are interested in working in Japan, I often get asked for advice on applying to the JET Programme. JET operates a policy of not giving feedback on the application process, but knowing a lot of past and present JETs and having worked on the programme myself, assuming the process hasn't changed since 2010, I can offer advice on how to make a successful application to be a CIR from the UK. Most of this information will apply for people from other countries, and even those applying to be an ALT should get something out of it.

The UK JET website offers a recruitment timeline which shows you how the application process works. It all starts with the application form, and there are a lot of things you have to print out and photocopy for that, so if you're still at university a computer room is the ideal place to sort all this. It can seem like a lot of paperwork, but it will all be worth it if you land a job on the programme.

The application form is mostly common sense, but I'd like to emphasise that it really will pay to fill in each section with as much detail as possible. For example, one of the sections when I applied asked about 'International / Intercultural Experience (at home or abroad)', and I think it really would be worth writing down every interaction you've had with other countries and their people. JET are looking for well-rounded applicants who have had lots of different experiences within and outside of their own country and comfort zone. So if you have time, and aren't doing so already, you should definitely get involved in extra-curricular activities of some kind, especially those involving Japan, so you can write about them on your application. I was part of Sheffield University's Japan Society and helped run the football team during my fourth year, as well as helping to plan various society events. I'm sure this helped my application to be a CIR, as it showed experience of international interaction along with leadership qualities.

Another part of the application that is vitally important is the personal statement. I spent a decent amount of time on mine and also got it checked by a past CIR. If you don't have a past CIR to hand, still get it checked by at least one other person you trust to make sure the grammar, spelling and content is spot on. There's a word count, but it won't be strictly enforced as I went over slightly. I opened mine with the cheesy opening line of "I believe my interest and experiences in Japan embody my spirit of adventure and my desire to constantly learn, improve myself and overcome challenges that are outside of my comfort zone." In fact, cheesy lines seemed to work well for me, as I was asked in my interview "What did I learn during my study abroad in Kobe?" and replied that "I learnt wherever you go, humans are humans and you'll always be able to find friends." It still sounds stupid in Japanese, but one of the guys interviewing me, who had been bad cop up until that point, had a quick smirk at this. And whilst there was a grain of truth in there, perhaps more importantly it showed a sense of humour, which is important to doing well on the JET Programme.

Back to the personal statement, in 2010 you had to write it in three sections: (1) General statement: This should set forth your reasons for wishing to participate on the JET Programme. (2) What can you contribute to the Programme? (3) Current affairs: What political or social issues in the UK do you think a Japanese person is most likely to be interested in and why? But in general I think you want to really emphasise how you are an outgoing, confident and flexible person who has had a lot of different experiences, especially international ones. Like I said, if you're not already, get involved in lots of international activities, and especially ones which involve Japan and enable you to take an active/leadership role. A university's Japan Society is an ideal place to find opportunities like this.

Assuming you get past the paper application stage, you'll receive an interview in February in London. Some of this is common sense, but I think you need to present yourself even better than you would in a standard UK job interview. Japan is an extremely conservative society when it comes to appearance, and you should show that you understand this when you turn up for your interview. Get a haircut, and if you're a guy and have a beard, shave it. If you have tattoos and piercings, cover them up. The CIR interview is completely in Japanese, and mine was conducted by two Japanese people (good cop and bad cop) and one British former JET. It worked out well for me, as our teachers at university gave us the opportunity of making our end of year speaking assessment a mock interview for JET. It wasn't exactly like the real thing, but it definitely gave me some practice in answering the kind of questions you get asked and thinking under pressure. If you have either a friend who was a past CIR or a Japanese friend who's just willing to simulate an interview situation, practising for your interview will help.

During the interview there are a stock set of general questions, then you'll be asked about specific things you wrote down on your application. Lastly, there will be a reading comprehension part where you will be asked to read two articles (one easier, one harder) out loud then answer questions and have a bit of discussion on the articles. You should try to do all of this in your most polite Japanese while again expressing that you are an outgoing, confident and flexible person. The way I see it is there is a lot of competition for places, especially in the UK, so JET want someone with a high Japanese ability who will be flexible and able to adapt as much as possible to a new workplace. For example, I was asked whether I would do overtime if requested to. This isn't the time to air your views on the Japanese work/life imbalance or the lifetime employment system; in my interview I remember saying that I'd be choosing to work in a foreign country and learn about their work practices, so I'd be willing to take part and do overtime if asked. I'm pretty sure that's what they wanted to hear.

You should also remember why the JET Programme started. The idea was to provide a foreign presence in Japan, especially of English speakers, as well as give skills to foreigners who would perhaps go back to their country or stay in Japan and work in a Japan-related field. JET don't expect you to be completely fluent in Japanese or have lots of experience in translation and interpreting, but they do expect you to be very competent and willing to learn on the job. They also want you to pursue a Japan-related career once you've finished on the programme.

I remember the interviewers starting right away as soon as I sat down in the chair, so be prepared to jump right into the questions. Here are some of the general questions you might be asked in the first part of the interview: Why did you choose to study Japanese? Did you find studying Japanese hard? What do you see yourself doing after JET? Do you have any ideas for events to plan as a CIR in Japan? Do you have a preference for where to go? What hobbies would you like to pursue in Japan?

In the second part of the interview I was asked about the music society I had joined at Kobe University and my work as part of the Japan Society at Sheffield University. When you're talking don't give one word answers, but also don't ramble on for hours. One interesting piece of information came from the only feedback I have ever heard JET give to an applicant. This was a friend who's a CIR and was rejected one year but accepted the next. JET explained that one of the reasons they had rejected him the first time was because he said "ええと" ("erm") too many times in the interview. It seems bizarre, but you might want to take it into account. One way to combat such a problem is to write out and practise your answers to questions before the interview, or even just write out and practise a few sentences about yourself. This way you'll have some great sound bytes ready to go and you can mix and match them to create good answers on the fly.

I wouldn't worry too much about the third part of the interview, but making sure your kanji reading is in tip-top shape is a good idea. In mine and other CIRs' experience, the first task is doable, and the second is hard. Again, they don't want you to be able to read all the kanji perfectly, but you should have a good go and give them intelligent answers to their questions on the subject. From what I can remember, one of the articles I read was on Japanese people working from home rather than in an office. It wasn't quite as dense as a newspaper article, but was written in that style.

Once the interview is over you face a long wait to find out if you got a place, after which you must submit your health form and police checks. The police check is a standard fee, but the price for a completed health check form varies between doctors. Often the doctor will just make up a price as it's not something they do often. Make sure you don't pay a stupid amount, as I heard of people that did.

After waiting a bit more you'll find out where you'll be placed, then attend an orientation in London, then hear from your predecessor and contracting organisation. After that you'll be ready to go to Japan. Good luck.

Being a CIR on the JET Programme, Part I

2011-06-01T13:46:00.005Z

So I'm 10 months into my term as a Coordinator of International Relations on the JET Programme in Japan. I've been here long enough now to give an assessment of my role and of the JET Programme in general, but readers should bear in mind that there is a lot of variation between each placement on the programme. Also, bear in mind that every JET comes into the role with a different outlook and set of goals which will affect their time here and how long they choose to stay. I recently decided I'll be leaving JET and Japan in August this year as I'd like to pursue a career in journalism, but I can pass on some of the things I have experienced in applying for and working on the JET Programme.

I'm originally from the UK and currently work as a CIR at Aomori City Hall. Before JET I took Japanese Studies at Sheffield University, UK, studying there for my 1st, 2nd and 4th years and studying as an exchange student at Kobe University, Japan in my 3rd year. I originally chose Japanese as I wanted to learn about somewhere completely different from my home country and I wanted to try living in that place for a year. I was also living in Sheffield at the time of applying and Sheffield University is known for having a well-respected Japanese course. The course is known for having an extremely high dropout rate as well – the number of students in my class had halved by our final year – but around 20 of us made it through with a generally high level of Japanese ability.

Something I'd been aware of throughout my course was the fact that a Japanese degree isn't the easiest or most useful degree for finding employment. Whilst I could speak Japanese perfectly well, job opportunities in the UK would be few and far between, especially considering the job climate when I graduated (2010).

Everyone on our course knew what the JET Programme was, as a lot of former students had gone on to be JETs, and I began seriously considering it after picking up a leaflet on the programme in the university library. A former Sheffield University student who had worked on JET then came to the university and held a talk on her time as a JET. I decided to apply, and here are some of my reasons: (1) I had really enjoyed my time in Kobe during my 3rd year and wanted to go back and experience some more of Japan. (2) I had spent 4 years studying Japanese language and culture and wanted to make sure these skills didn't go to waste. (3) There were few job opportunities back home for someone with a Japanese degree. (4) I would be able to improve my Japanese ability even further and gain experience working in a Japanese office.

A job as a CIR on JET seemed perfect for my situation, and I applied, had an interview and was accepted onto the programme in April 2010 (I'll talk about the application process and give some advice later). I found out a few weeks later where I would be placed – Aomori City, Aomori Prefecture. This was not somewhere I had requested, but I had requested an urban city and was glad I got one. It was a shame I wouldn't be going back to Kobe, but you shouldn't go into JET expecting to get your requested placement – very few people do. Also, the people who end up in the most requested places often don't request to be there, so placements on the JET Programme for both ALTs and CIRs seem to be pretty much pot luck. Conversely, I think it's a great thing that foreigners get to come to every nook and cranny of Japan and that the Japanese people in those regions get to interact with foreigners. Private English teaching companies will often only send people to the big cities, but JET sends people to places in Japan where the residents may never have seen anyone outside of their small village's population, let alone a foreigner. A lot of people want to be sent to Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka etc., but you shouldn't go into JET expecting that to happen. However, I believe the JET Programme still far outweighs any other method of coming to Japan as a foreigner.

The JET Programme is supported by the Japanese government, meaning it's a stable job and the salary is insane. This is partly because of the high value of the yen right now, but I'm currently earning more than some of my co-workers who have a family to support. When you couple this with the fact that you often have your rent subsidised by your place of work, you're going to be rolling in it. I've heard of it happening, but no JET should ever complain about not having enough money. And again, because JET is such a big and well-supported programme, all JETs have various support networks and organisations to use during their time here. You'll be enrolled in a government insurance scheme, there's a helpline in English should you ever want to talk to someone, there are regional organisations which plan regular events/booze-ups for all the JETs in the area, there's an organisation which helps you find work back in your home country after you leave etc. You'll generally be extremely well paid and well looked after, to the point where JET can seem like an extension of university or some kind of paid holiday, because you don't even have to work that hard; the amount of work for the majority of ALTs and CIRs isn't that high, and being a foreigner here means that you will never have the full responsibility of a Japanese employee. This has its downsides in that you'll never be truly accepted as a normal worker and made to feel like an outsider, but you have to take the good with the bad, and on the whole there is more good than bad.

Within the last month before leaving for Japan I was contacted by my predecessor and a couple of other JETs from Aomori, attended an orientation in London and received my contract in the post. All of this comes fairly late. You have to be patient and wait, and when it comes it's all very helpful and the questions you have will be answered.

At the start of August I flew out with all the other UK JETs and stayed at a hotel in the middle of Tokyo. I had a good time taking in information at the Tokyo Orientation and everything was pretty relaxed. It felt great to be back in Japan, and it was funny hanging out with the new ALTs, most of whom were experiencing Japan for the first time and commenting on how much it was like Lost In Translation. We were then split off into our prefectures and all the Aomori JETs flew together on a plane to Aomori. Aomori Airport looked like Jurassic Park as we landed, surrounded by forests and a thick mist rather than the motorways and high-rise buildings of Tokyo. As soon as we stepped off the plane our contracting organisations were waiting for us like a mob of screaming fans at a movie premiere. One group was even waving a big sign with a hand-drawn cartoon of their new employee. One by one we were sent out to the mob and I took the short car journey from Aomori Airport to Aomori City Hall with my new supervisor. After being introduced to my office, I went out for lunch with a couple of my co-workers, where my 課長 (section chief) commented on how he was scared about showing me the apartment. Again, it all depends on your placement, but one of the biggest downsides of JET could be your apartment, as it will be generally old, dirty and cramped. Mine was all that and more, which lead to me requesting a new place pretty early on. I've found that inner-city JETs tend have cramped, dirty apartments, whereas those out in the countryside will have much more spacious and comfortable abodes.

Work started the same week as I'd arrived and it didn't take me long to get used to things. Everyone was welcoming and wanted to talk to the new foreigner in town. I took part in the Aomori Nebuta festival, appeared in the local newspaper and met with various people who were interested in international exchange within the city. Work consisted mostly of translations, interpreting and the occasional presentation or school visit. And it's pretty much stayed that way since, apart from the quantity has dropped off, even more so because of the big earthquake we had recently. This led me to create work for myself, such as re-designing the English section of the city's website. I had to push hard to be able to do this, with various phone calls and meetings where I assured them that I wouldn't leave the site looking like a bad Geocities page. A few times meetings would be planned but wouldn't materialise, or I'd submit the site but it wouldn't get looked at. There have been quite a few cock-ups and it's still not done, but I'm confident it will all be uploaded properly soon.

On the whole I'm really glad I came and being in Aomori City means I've had a chance to experience a part of Japan most foreigners will never see, with the advantage of being in a biggish city. Ultimately, there are other things I want to do away from Japan, such as study broadcast journalism, but ideally I'd like to eventually combine journalism with my knowledge of Japan in a role à la Roland Buerk (BBC).

In Part II I'll give some advice on applying for JET as it's something I get asked about quite a bit.

Golden Week trip

2011-05-14T10:14:00.001Z

It was recently Golden Week in Japan. This is a period of four national holidays within a short space of time to force the Japanese population to take a break from work, something they wouldn't choose to do by themselves. GW is seen as the big holiday period of the year, and you can either spend some time at home unwinding with the family, or go traveling around the country. The four holidays don't all fall in a row (April 29th, May 3rd, 4th, 5th), but if you take off the right days and fill in the blanks you can end up with a long break. By just taking one day off we got a seven day chunk of break and used it to do a bit of traveling around the northern part of Japan.

On Monday 2nd we left Aomori Prefecture for Iwate Prefecture, specifically Morioka City. We drove down on the toll roads to save time, but doing so in Japan can be quite expensive – getting on the toll road in Aomori City and off in Morioka cost us 4300 yen (around 30 pounds) and took around two and a half hours. After checking in at our hotel we went for a walk in the rain in search of some 'jajamen' for tea. This dish originally came from China and is one of the 'Big Three Noodles of Morioka'. The others are 'wanko soba' and 'Morioka reimen'. Jajamen consists of a bowl of wide noodles, much like tagliatelle in shape, topped with a thick meat and miso sauce and chopped cucumber. We came across a small jajamen shop on the main shopping street, and there was one guy working the ten or so counter seats. The place was constantly full while we were there and people were waiting outside for the seats to empty. The food came out pretty quick, and before eating we mixed the noodles, sauce, ginger and cucumber together, as the signs on the wall directed. Unlike ramen, there was no soup at all, so the consistency was more like spaghetti with bolognese sauce. I really liked it.

After that we had a bit more of a walk around Morioka, sung karaoke for a bit, then headed back. Our hotel was OK. It was one we'd picked at random online. The room was cramped, and the breakfast the next morning left something to be desired – soup, bread and croissants. So after checking out we went for another walk and I got a more filling breakfast of scrambled egg and sausages at ガスト, a diner which serves more Western-style food. We walked for a while to find ガスト; decent breakfast places in Japan are few and far between.

Before breakfast we'd spent a bit of time on the internet looking for things to do in Akita Prefecture, the next stop on the itinerary. We came across a useful Wiki made by some JETs in Akita and found some interesting places to go. We set off for Kakunodate, Akita Prefecture in the late morning, and arrived around one and a half hours later. The scenery on the way was quite impressive, and even though we're well into spring, everything still looked red or brown – you can see where Akita (秋田, 'autumn field') got its name from.

Kakunodate is famous for being a samurai village and home to quite a few cherry blossom trees. So even with the rain which had started again, the place was quite busy. You had to pay to enter the old samurai houses, so we chose the biggest and got a short guided tour. The guide told us that Kakunodate had not been damaged in any way by natural disasters or wars, and that's why it's one of Japan's best samurai villages. There were a few food and drink stalls for cherry blossom season, so we tried the Akita speciality of 'kiritanpo', a long rice cake on a stick covered in miso sauce. Jajamen definitely wins in that match-up.

I should explain that in northern Japan, Golden Week coincides with the cherry blossom 満開, a short period when the cherry blossom trees are in full bloom, and as the cherry blossom tree is extremely important to the Japanese people, just about everyone spends some part of GW doing 花見 ('hanami', literally 'looking at flowers'). Getting the perfect photograph of this symbolic tree is also very important, and you'll see loads of families and groups of friends posing in front of the cherry blossom with their best smiles and peace signs. To me the cherry blossom tree is just like any other tree – there are plenty in the UK, and there was a whole row I used to walk past every day on my way to university – but the Japanese, and even some of the foreigners, go nuts for it.

Next we headed to Akita City, the capital of the prefecture, where we checked in at our hotel and headed out for a late lunch. On the way in to Akita City we'd seen a 'Round 1 Stadium', and decided to spend the afternoon there. A Round 1 Stadium is a big building which houses various sports and games that you can play as much as you like for a certain amount of time. It's part of the 放題 ('as much as you like') concept which is popular in Japan. You'll often see offers for 食べ放題 ('as much as you can eat') or 飲み放題 ('as much as you can drink'), and Round 1 Stadiums are branded as 遊び放題 ('as much as you can play'). We paid for 3 hours, which cost 1700 yen (around 13 pounds), and did darts, table tennis, target shooting, arcade games, rodeo, karaoke and more. They even had a pond full of fish where you could try fishing. While it's not something I'd do every week, it was good fun for a one-off.

Next we went in search of a Jamaican restaurant we'd read about on the Akita JETs Wiki. With our limited knowledge of Akita City's geography and a paper map we'd bought from the konbini, we eventually managed to find this little restaurant and enjoyed some Jamaican food, as cooked by a Japanese person. The place seemed to be owned by a young Japanese, Jamaica-loving couple, and we ate our meal to the sounds of reggae. I really liked the place; there's nothing like it in Aomori City. There was actually a table full of Akita JETs sat behind us, and I'm sure it's a popular place for foreigners in Akita. We also experienced what seems to be an Akita custom on our way out. After paying, the two owners followed us to the door and bowed, which is something we would encounter at a different restaurant the next day.

Our hotel in Akita was cheaper than the previous hotel and much better in general. A lot of hotels in Japan are cramped, like they tried to fit as many rooms inside a building as they could, but the hotel in Akita was more spacious and only 3000 yen a night (21 pounds). That didn't include breakfast though, so after checking out we found a coffee shop in a department store nearby and had breakfast there.

We'd read from various sources about Akita City's Kantō Festival, and the festival's museum was nearby, so we planned to walk there before lunch. On the way we stopped off at 千秋公園, a scenic park, spread out over a steep hill which overlooked the city. Within the park there are various traditional Japanese buildings and loads of cherry blossom trees, so there were plenty of families out enjoying the great weather and taking pictures. After looking out across the city we descended the hill and walked over to the ねぶり流し館 where we learnt about the Kantō Festival.

The festival involves giant bamboo poles with lanterns attached, and the idea is that one of these poles looks like an ear of rice. The participants take these poles and balance them on various parts of their body, and the resulting effect is a field full of swaying stalks of rice. At the museum there are guides on hand, and you get to try balancing the pole yourself. There were four poles, ranging from child-sized to full-sized, and I tried the top two sizes, managing to balance them on one hand for a few seconds each. We also got to have a go on a taiko drum like the one they use in the festival.

When we bought our ticket for the ねぶり流し館 there was an option to pay an extra few yen and buy a ticket for the 赤れんが郷土館, another museum just down the road. This place housed various locally relevant exhibits, including a room full of colourful woodblock prints by an artist called 勝平得之 (かつひらとくし), which we both enjoyed. The building itself used to be a bank, and was much more Western-style than Japanese.

Our time in Akita was drawing to an end, and we walked back to the car, looking out for somewhere decent to eat lunch. We found a small Mexican restaurant, and, considering the lack of Mexican food in Aomori, decided to stop there for lunch. The food was good, and upon leaving we experienced the same custom we had at the Jamaican restaurant.

I'd definitely go back to Akita. Morioka felt like a slightly bigger version of Aomori, but Akita felt like a full-scale urban city and there seems to be a bit more variety when it comes to activities and eating out, even if the population isn't that much higher than Aomori or Morioka.

So we left Akita to return home, but not before stopping off at Hirosaki Castle for yet more cherry blossom at the 弘前城桜祭. Even though it was night, the castle grounds were packed. While places in Aomori seem pretty empty most of the time, everyone seems to leave their house for the cherry blossom. After eating some festival food for tea, we returned home. All in all, a successful GW trip.

Getting a haircut in Japan

2011-05-14T10:13:00.000Z

Getting a haircut in Japan is different to getting one back home in the UK. To start off, it's not just a haircut – going to the barbers involves a shave, having your hair washed numerous times and a massage, so if you don't want any of that and are just there for the haircut you must say at the start. Also, the way they actually cut the hair here is different. Then when you consider that the hairdresser has probably never cut anything other than Japanese hair, it all adds up to an interesting experience for foreigners.

You're certainly not going to be short of options though, as I'm pretty sure Japan has the most hairdressers per square mile in the world. When I first came to Aomori I chose a hairdresser that was fairly close to my apartment. I moved apartments at Christmas but I still go to the same guy because he provides a good haircut and we always have a good chat, usually about girls. But on the way there from my new apartment I pass by no less than five different barbers in the 5 minute walk. If you think Japan has a lot of konbinis, look again and you'll notice there are even more hairdressers.

Last night I thought I'd try somewhere different for a change, so instead of the usual place which is run by one guy, I went to a giant hairdressers that I always pass on my way to the supermarket. This place is like a wholesale hairdressers, with low prices, lots of staff and lots of customers. I had about 8 staff greet me all at once as I walked through the door, and a woman showed me to ‘Chair Number 3', one of the many which lined three of the four walls. After stating that I only wanted a haircut, the woman called out “カットのみ”, to which the whole place replied “はい”.

My hairdresser stepped forward. It was a man in his 40s who had a well-groomed beard and a big name-tag with “のぐち” written on it. He was softly spoken and in his big pockets he had at least 5 sets of scissors and other various implements jangling around. After consulting me as to what I wanted doing, he set about creating his next masterpiece.

One of the differences in the way they cut hair in Japan is that they do things very slowly and gradually, rather than getting stuck in straight away like hairdressers back home. In fact, sometimes they're that slow and gradual that if you're not careful you'll leave looking the same as when you walked in. I wasn't going to let のぐち get away with anything other than an actual haircut and told him I wanted my hair cutting in the same style as it was but made quite a bit shorter. Even so, it took him a while to get going, as he sprayed his water and ran his scissors over my hair for a few minutes, cutting off very little. Next he got the clippers out and I told him I wanted ‘grade 2' on the back and sides, leaving him with no choice but to take more than a millimeter of hair off. At least I felt like I was having a haircut at this point, but it was strange that even after using the clippers he went over the same area with his scissors for a good few minutes, searching for and trimming off the slightest hair that was out of line. In fact, this took up most of the process as he endeavoured to achieve a perfectly straight line around the back and sides. After this he moved to the top, where he repeatedly sprayed more water, changed scissors a few times and trimmed lots of small amounts off until he eventually achieved the desired effect. After a while, it seemed like he'd done, as he got out the small mirror to show me the back and ask if it was OK. But just as he was putting the mirror away he must have spotted a hair out of place and returned to trying to create the perfect line for another couple of minutes; I'm surprised he didn't pull a spirit level out of his pockets. He finally finished and I left the chair with shouts of お疲れ様です from the staff who were just stood by watching, the guy sweeping the floor and the other hairdressers, still busy at work on their own topiary projects.

This Japanese method leaves you with something of a precision haircut, where it's not too much different from what you had before, but it's very neat. It does take a lot of time though, and if I'd have had all the other services it would have taken quite a lot longer. If you want to leave feeling like you've had a proper haircut, my advice is to give them specific instructions, otherwise they might make it look like they're cutting your hair, but not actually take anything off. Also, the shave, hair-washing and massage are OK if you're into that kind of thing, but the massage is nothing more than a few taps on the shoulders with a warm towel over your face, and it does put the price up quite a bit. Due to the no-frills nature of the place, the price for my haircut yesterday was 1500 yen (around 11 pounds), which is cheaper than the place I normally go to. The other guy has better banter and a TV though, so I'll be back there next time.

Department names

2011-04-17T13:11:00.000Z

A new Japanese year begins every April and one third of civil servants move to a new department - workers tend to change section every 3 years or so. With this comes the formation of new departments and sections, which all need English names. The only place these English names end up is the English side of business cards - business cards here tend to have Japanese on one side and English on the reverse - but business cards are a big deal here.

Some names sound fine in Japanese, but stupid in English, and looking through the list of departments already with English translations there are a few gems. For example, 'Bicycle Race Office Management Section' (競輪場管理課), and my own department is called 'City Government and Citizen Cooperation Promotion Section' (市民協働推進課). Trips off the tongue, doesn't it.

I was recently faced with the task of translating such names as 生活安心課 (literally 'Peace of Mind With Life Section') and 子どもしあわせ課 (literally 'Children's Happiness Section'). Of course I gave them respectable names in English and didn't use the literal translations, but the problems that arise from literal translations are interesting. Languages are funny lolz.

Proof that the Japanese people love suffering

2011-04-15T07:50:00.001Z

http://www.aptinet.jp/english/guidesite-en/winter.html

Found at the bottom:

"Okutsugaru is known for its “snow blowing from beneath” to the degree one can hardly open his or her eyes because of snow blowing upward by strong wind. This is a unique winter event to walk in drifting snow in unique and traditional attire."

太宰治記念館 (Osamu Dazai Memorial Museum), and then the 津軽三味線会館 (Tsugaru-jamisen Museum) in Kanagi

2011-04-14T10:50:00.000Z

On Saturday we went to the 太宰治記念館 (Osamu Dazai Memorial Museum), and then the 津軽三味線会館 (Tsugaru-jamisen Museum) as both are located just across the road from each other. Aomori native, Osamu Dazai is one of Japan's most famous authors – I studied one of his stories in a Japanese literature class at university – and the Tsugaru-jamisen is a regional variant of the shamisen, a guitar-like traditional Japanese instrument. Both museums are found in the small town of Kanagi on the west side of Aomori Prefecture, and we'd responded to an advertisement looking for native English speakers to check the English of the Japanese tour guides.

The Osamu Dazai Memorial Museum is actually the house which Dazai grew up in. His father was extremely wealthy, and as well as being the family's home the house was used as a storehouse for rice farmed on the nearby land. The museum didn't have many exhibits or artefacts to look at, but the building itself was a spacious, impressive piece of architecture, made from many different types of expensive wood. Another interesting aspect of the house was that the first floor was Japanese-style while much of the second floor was Western-style. I can't imagine there were too many like it when it was built 100 years ago, but you often find such houses these days as Japanese families start to live more Westernised lifestyles. There were also a couple of Western-style chairs in one of the upstairs rooms, but these chairs were special in that they were lower than normal and had a large seat. This meant that women wearing kimonos could kneel down on them comfortably whilst being at the same height as everyone else who was sat down.

The Tsugaru-jamisen Museum was more like a traditional museum with a room full of display cabinets to look at. This room was quite small, so it didn't take long to look round, but next we were presented with a Tsugaru-jamisen and showed how to play it. There's a special way to hold the neck and the huge plectrum, and a special way to strum the strings, but once I learned these I found the instrument quite easy to play. A shamisen neck has no frets, but the version I used had numbers written on the neck indicating where to put your fingers to sound certain notes. My experience of playing guitar came in handy, and I was able to play the simple tune they wrote out for me quite easily, whereupon I was greeted with cries of すごい (amazing) and天才 (genius) by the ever-growing entourage of people we had amassed as our tour continued.

You see, for some reason our visit to the museum had been a huge event. We thought we would just be showing up to check the tour guide's English, but we ended up meeting the museum's director, a member of the local tourism society, a reporter/photographer from the local paper, another photographer and various staff from both museums. As soon as the tours had finished we were approached by the reporter who asked us for our impressions, so we should be in the 陸奥新報 (Mutsu Shinpō) some time soon. We were then presented with various business cards and some locally made 馬まん (horse meat dumplings).

In fact, Kanagi is famous for horse meat, and just as we were leaving we received a recommendation for a small restaurant called 駅舎 where we could go and try horse meat curry. Kanagi is a very small town so it didn't take us long to find the place. The curry was pretty good, and the horse meat was quite tasty. It was like a salty shredded beef, but it had more of a bitty texture and fell apart when you chewed it.

We received a great welcome and got tours of both museums for free, and the guide's English wasn't that bad, so we learnt quite a bit. We also got to try playing the Tsugaru-jamisen which normally costs 5000 yen (35 quid) per group. All in all, a good day out.

I'm everywhere lately

2011-04-13T10:39:00.000Z

I recently took part in an interview over email with Nick Spacek from Wayward Blog. The interview was in connection with The Dark Side of the Moon - The 8-bit Album, a release my netlabel made last month, but the article only touches on that release briefly – it's more about Pterodactyl Squad and the 8-bit scene in general.

Also, I was called up again on Monday evening by BBC Radio Sheffield and asked for another quick interview on the earthquake. This interview was with Dean Pepall for his drive time news show, and unlike the previous one was pre-recorded rather than live. The content was a bit different from the previous one as well. I've uploaded an MP3 of the piece here.

Appearance on BBC Radio Sheffield

2011-04-10T13:14:00.002Z

My dad has been on BBC Radio Sheffield a few times and he recommended that I get in touch with them, saying they’d probably want to hear from me about the earthquake. I emailed someone at the station who my dad knows, and after exchanging a few more emails and phone calls with various people it turned out they did want to ask me a few questions on air. I was called up on Friday while they were broadcasting the breakfast show and put through to the host, Toby Foster. We talked about how life has been in Japan since the earthquake and how people are feeling; it was good/bad timing because we'd had another big aftershock on Thursday night with the power getting knocked out again for around 12 hours. I was on for around 4 minutes and I've uploaded an MP3 of the audio here.

TMNT postcards

2011-03-26T06:44:00.001Z

I first visited the Branded in the 80s website four or five years ago when I used to listen to a lot of podcasts. I came across the Branded in the 80s! podcast on iTunes and listened to all the episodes, where host, Shawn Robare talked about memories from his childhood in the 1980s. The podcasts weren't all that frequent, but posts over at his blog gradually started to increase, and Bit80s has now become a great mix of childhood memories, analysis of 80s culture and a library of 80s ephemera - Shawn buys up and scans loads of vintage magazines, trading cards, stickers etc. from the 1980s, meaning his images have ended up all over the internet.

Earlier this month Shawn made a post about how he'd got hold of a sweet TMNT postcard book from 1990 and that he was willing to send out a postcard to any reader who wanted one - he wanted to finally put these postcards that had been made 21 years earlier to use. I thought it was a good idea and said I'd like one, and it came in the post a few days ago:

Make sure to check out Branded in the 80s if you're into nostalgia or sweet 80s ephemera.

Earthquake

2011-03-20T09:08:00.000Z

So as you probably know, Tohoku, or the North East area of Japan suffered a huge earthquake on Friday March 11th. It was 9.0 on the Richter magnitude scale and is now being classed as the 4th biggest earthquake in recorded history. The earthquake happened just off the East coast of Japan and created a tsunami that caused destruction to many of the prefectures in that part of the country. The resulting tsunami also caused all the problems with the nuclear power plant in Fukushima. There seems to be a few different names for the earthquake at the moment, such as 東日本大震災 (Great Earthquake Disaster of Eastern Japan) or 2011年東北地方太平洋沖地震 (Tohoku Region Pacific Ocean Offshore Earthquake).

I was in no way badly affected in Aomori City. We certainly felt it, but experienced nothing like the terrible damage and destruction witnessed in Miyagi Prefecture and Iwate Prefecture. I'd just like to record a few of my thoughts here.

I was actually in the shower when the earthquake struck. I'd finished work early, as I do every Friday, and I'd gone to get my hair cut. I then came back home and went straight in the shower. After about 5 minutes I stepped out of the shower room to grab a flannel from the shelf where I keep them. Just to left of this shelf I have my umbrella hung up on the wall, and as I grabbed my flannel I saw the umbrella swinging back and forth. My first thought was that I'd perhaps jumped out of the shower a bit more heavily than intended, but as I looked out into my living room I started to see everything swaying and hear the walls creaking and cracking. I looked back into the shower room and the light had now gone off. Soon the water stopped running and I just stood in my living room, wondering whether to grab a pair of trousers and dash outside.

By my counting this was the fourth earthquake I've experienced since coming to Aomori last August, which is odd, as I didn't feel one earthquake during my whole year in Kobe. And every earthquake has happened while I've been working at the city hall, but this one came while I was in my apartment, meaning I had no way to tell whether this was big or small compared to what I'd experienced before. I would later discover that this had indeed been a big earthquake, but didn't know it at the time. I did notice that it was especially long though. It lasted around 2 minutes, where as the ones before had only been about 20 to 30 seconds.

The water had come back on in the shower, but the electricity hadn't. I waited a while, thinking it would eventually. It didn't and I tried flipping the breaker in my apartment on and off, but no luck. I tried to finish off washing in a freezing cold shower, but another earthquake came, and then another. By this time I'd gauged that my apartment wasn't going to fall apart, I'd just have to endure the swaying. I finished showering and put some clothes on, and then a couple of emails came to my mobile phone. One from my supervisor from work, asking if I was OK. I told him I was. Then another came from a Japanese friend, currently in the UK. She'd heard about the quake and asked whether I was OK, and it was at this point I realised this might have been a big quake. I heard people leaving their apartments in my building, and then I started to hear sirens on the streets outside.

There was still no electricity so I couldn't watch TV, use the internet or turn on the radio to check what had just happened, but I did have my mobile phone, which can pick up TV signals, so I tuned in to various channels and all of them were showing footage of the earthquake and the damage it had caused. I got another email from my sister back in the UK who seemed extremely worried, and I messaged her back to reassure her I was OK. It was only later when I managed to log in to Facebook that I noticed a large number of posts on my wall asking if I was OK, and my sister also posted on my wall to reassure everyone I was fine.

After receiving more emails I gathered a tsunami warning had been issued. Aomori City is very near the water, and so it seemed like a good idea to get away from the coast. A friend came to pick me up in her car and we travelled to her house which was a bit more inland. In the end it turned out that Aomori City didn't get hit by the tsunami because of its location within the 'natural harbour' of Mutsu Bay, but at this time nobody was sure what would happen; panic had started to spread and the roads were jam-packed. We tuned in to the radio which was broadcasting advice and messages about staying calm. More earthquakes came while were on the road, and eventually we reached my friend's house. We'd seen that none of the traffic lights were working, and piecing together various reports from various sources we realised that power was still completely out everywhere in the area.

A few of the local JETs gathered together at my friend's house, partly to stay warm and for something to do, as everyone's plans for the evening obviously had to be cut short. With a combination of torches and candles we managed to cook some dinner and entertain ourselves for a while, but not before one of the JETs set a blanket on fire with a candle.

We received more emails and phone calls from concerned Japanese friends across the country as well as people back home. People had been trying to get through to us for a while, but because of the earthquake everyone had been making calls and the networks were too busy to put all calls through. 'au', one of the mobile phone companies was especially bad, and I have friends with au phones who say they're now going to change to a different network. I have a 'Docomo' phone, and it seemed to be working more than anyone else's, so a lot of people ended up using my phone to email friends back home. In the end the battery got really low and I had to turn it off to conserve what power I had left - we didn't know when the power would come back on for us to be able to charge our phones. Some people were saying it could take up to a week.

Eventually we went to bed, and when we woke up in the morning the electricity was back on. We got online to check reports and contact people, and turned on the TV to see every channel still running reports on the earthquake. In fact, it had turned out to be a lot worst than we had all expected. Even in Hachinohe, a city fairly close by in Aomori Prefecture, there had been a huge tsunami that washed up on the coast sending cars and boats floating down the street.

After getting in touch with more JETs around the prefecture we realised we were in one of the only areas to have electricity, and therefore internet, back on. More JETs came round and watched TV and used the internet, and we spent the rest of the day watching movies and cooking with the few bits of food we had in the house. We heard that some コンビニs (convenience stores) were still closed, which is basically unheard of in Japan, and our thoughts turned to buying supplies of food to make sure we could last the next week.

The next day I headed home to Aomori City in my friend's car as none of the trains or buses were running. Electricity had now been restored, but it was becoming apparent that stocks of food, petrol and kerosene - widely used for heating in this part of Japan - were running out. We stopped off at a supermarket and I bought lots of pasta and instant ramen, and that turned out to be a good move - it's been all I've been eating all week. Due to the shortages of petrol, no-one was able make deliveries, so there were no fresh fruit or vegetables, milk, bread etc. Just backup stocks of dry, snack foods, and most of those backup stocks went as well.

Work carried on as normal on Monday, although the city hall was taking part in energy saving procedures, meaning no lights or heating. I think most countries would have called off going to work, but the Japanese take great pride in carrying on with work in such situations. There are pros and cons to this idea. In some ways it helps prevent panic and helps get society back up and running quickly, but it can also be counter productive when you're trying to conserve electricity and petrol and there's not really much work to do anyway.

This past weekend things have just about got back to normal round here. Bars and entertainment venues are opening up again, and shops are restocking their shelves. You can also buy petrol now. Aomori even avoided the scheduled power outages which have been affecting parts of Japan. In fact, the only real visible signs of the earthquake round here were a couple of cracks in the pavement, which were quickly filled in by construction workers.

We've been experiencing aftershocks and other small earthquakes this week, and I've had a lot of friends leave Japan because of the fear of radiation travelling up from the nuclear plant in Fukushima. I'm staying for the time being. Basically, I've been extremely fortunate throughout this whole thing and very lucky to not have been affected much by the earthquake. I hope the country as a whole can pull together in the way it is so famous for. One, to help the badly affected areas to get back on their feet as quickly as possible, and two, to take steps to limit damage if such an earthquake is ever to strike Japan again.

My appearances on FM Aomori

2011-03-02T13:39:00.000Z

As I mentioned before, I was on the radio here in Aomori throughout the month of January.

There are two stations in Aomori, one being RAB Radio and the other being FM Aomori, and I was on the latter. I was on a show called 一路青森こちらカ・ケ・メ・ぐる隊 which airs every Friday from 1PM and it started towards the end of last year to mark the bullet train coming to Aomori. The hosts on the show talk about various sightseeing spots and events in Aomori as well as playing music here and there, and there's also a monthly guest section which I was part of. November's special guest was the mayor of Aomori and December's was the head of tourism, January was me and February was my Korean co-worker. I managed to get hold of a CD of my four appearances and I've uploaded them as MP3s here:

First appearance
Second appearance
Third appearance
Fourth appearance

The hosts of the show came to the city hall at the start of January and we recorded all four interviews in one go. We just went to a spare room and they used a simple portable mic and recorder setup. They didn't send the questions ahead of time, so I had little idea of what we'd be talking about until they turned up. I was told we'd be discussing Aomori, but when they showed up they said they wanted to talk about me as well, so they handed me a sheet of paper with some vague questions on and we pretty much started straight away.

For the first interview we talked about Sheffield, how my interest in Japan began and food. For the second we talked about the local dialect here and sightseeing around the prefecture and in Aomori City. For the third interview we talked about British culture, and for the fourth we talked about my goals for the future and interests. The first two were handled by one woman, and then the second two by another woman. They both seemed to be pretty nervous - I must have been their first time interviewing a foreigner. At the end of the third interview the woman ran out of the room to get a cup of water saying her mouth was dry because she was so nervous.

After my first interview had aired the team sent me an email asking me to choose three of my favourite songs to be played for the remaining three weeks. So at the end of the second interview you'll hear "Photograph" by Def Leppard, then at the end of the third you'll hear "When I Get Old" by Descendents. It was interesting because the guy who is in charge of the show is a Descendents fan and we've been discussing various punk bands by email for the last few weeks. I actually requested a different song by Descendents but they didn't have anything except "When I Get Old", so we went with that. Then at the end of the fourth interview you'll hear "Light of Vein" by Japanese band, FACT.

As I said in the fourth interview, radio is something I'm quite interested in, and it sounds like there could be more opportunities to work with FM Aomori again in the future, which would be great.

Melting snow

2011-02-27T04:31:00.002Z

The weather in Aomori is slowly turning warmer and the snow that has covered everything for the last couple of months is beginning to melt. We tend to have a couple of really warm days that'll get rid of a lot of the snow, then a couple more days where it snows and some of the snow is replaced again. But on the whole, it's disappearing. There are still massive piles that people have contributed to every day for the last few weeks when shoveling their drive ways or shopfronts, so it'll be a while before they go. But a lot of the smaller piles and patches are melting, and often when you're walking round you can hear the constant sound of water dripping off peoples' houses giving the illusion that it's raining.

Work has been pretty busy this last month. For the first four Tuesdays in February I ran a series of lectures called 英国文化理解講座 (Lectures on Understanding British Culture). To give an idea of what I talked about, here were the four titles: 外国人が見た日本人　英国編 (Japan Through the Eyes of a British Person), イギリス人の生活の仕方 (Daily Life in Britain), イギリスの食文化 (Britain's Food Culture) and 偉大なイギリス人 (Great Britons). The lectures were open to the general public and most people came after seeing an advert we put in a local newsletter. There were around 20 people in total, mostly older Japanese women. I even got asked out to karaoke by one and gifted two boxes of sugar by another. I also took questions after each presentation, and was asked such gems as "Who is stronger, the British or the French?" and "Do you have pet shops in the UK?". Preparing each presentation took a lot of time as each session was two hours, but it was a good experience and has given me four presentations I can use again in the future - I sometimes get asked to do presentations at other clubs, universities etc.

Last weekend was the city hall bowling tournament, and that was a lot of fun. We took up the whole bowling alley with about 120 people bowling at the same time. Then this past Friday there was a party for a couple of the American JETs who live in Aomori City. Well, it started off as for those two, but then grew to include another 3 gaijin whose birthday it is this month. After the sad demise of our regular winter watering hole, ONE SHOT HOUSE, this party was held at a new venue called Goofy, complete with its sign in the Disney font; I'm sure Disney's lawyers will be in touch soon. This new place was OK, there was a good mix of Japanese and gaijin and we had all-you-can-eat and drink, but that sounds a lot more fun that it ever is in Japan. The food consisted of about four buffet plates of food that disappeared very quickly, and then the drink consisted of a slow bar that would often forget your drink order, leading to nobody getting their moneys-worth at 4000 yen (about 28 quid). After that we went to another local bar where know the guy who runs it well. We sang karaoke there for a couple of hours. Interestingly, a guy I met on Friday added me on Facebook, and I noticed today that it said on my profile page I'd become his friend from meeting him at the party. Facebook must have looked at the guest-list for that event and made the assumption. Facebook grows ever more powerful.

Photo courtesy of wannabe-Brit (notice the shirt), Crave

Two documentaries

2011-02-19T01:42:00.004Z

Been watching a few films lately, a couple were documentaries - The Making of a Cult Classic: The Unauthorized Story of 'The Goonies' and Best Worst Movie.

I heard about the The Making of... a while back and I followed it's progress up until it's release last year. As a big Goonies fan I was interested to learn about the process behind the film from the people who made it. Surprisingly, when you consider the film's massive and zealous fan base, there hasn't really been much like this documentary available. To my knowledge, there have been a few scraps of video on YouTube, and some documentaries shown on US TV, but nothing like this before.

If you check the The Making of... 's entry on IMDb it has a current rating of 9/10, which is extremely high for IMDb. The Making of... isn't really worth that high a rating. I think the absence of this kind of doc has meant people have gobbled this up straight away, and rated it a bit more highly than it should be. I was looking forward to seeing it, but when you get down to it it's basically just a lot of interview footage from a few of the actors and the director, and the whole thing lasts under an hour. In some ways it feels like a glorified YouTube video. In an age when decent media is now available online legally for free, I don't think the price of this DVD ($15.99) is justified.

You do have to take into account that this is obviously an extremely low budget production. The people who made this are just a group of fans, so there isn't that much meat to the film. If you want to hear a bit of insight and a few stories from behind the scenes it's great, but I'd have liked a bit more analysis and background information, rather than just anecdotes from the actors and director. There are times when the actors are talking about a scene in the film, and it would have been great if the viewer could actually see that scene, but budgetary constraints obviously meant that actual footage from the film couldn't be included.

Ultimately this is something for mega-fans. Even the casual Goonies fan might struggle to enjoy this. Richard Donner and Corey Feldman are good value for money, but everything else feels a bit inconsequential.

So it was great to see Best Worst Movie, another documentary about a movie, and this doc is mostly deserving of its incredibly high praise. There's a tendency to oversell documentaries, to make the events of the documentary seem more groundbreaking and coincidental than they actually are. Best Worst Movie has suffered from that a bit, but that's how documentaries are marketed these days. And part of the fun is getting caught up in that and believing that this story is something special and touching. And for the most part, Best Worst Movie is.

It's all about the film Troll 2, commonly acknowledged as the worst movie of all time. I first heard about Troll 2 on a podcast a couple of years ago when the hosts were indeed discussing how terrible it is. Interestingly, Best Worst Movie has been made by Michael Stephenson, who starred in Troll 2 as a child, and the documentary mostly follows George Hardy, who also starred in Troll 2.

Hardy is now a dentist, and his role in the film was his only ever acting role, but as the film has gained a cult status recently in the US Hardy attends quite a few Troll 2-themed events and is hailed as a hero for his role in this train wreck of a movie. Some of the other actors are similar in that they haven't had the most successful film careers since, but for these people the recent interest in the movie has given them an opportunity for their 15 minutes of fame through screenings across the US.

One of these failed actors is Don Packard who plays the drugstore owner. While hearing how the movie has been part of all the different actors lives is interesting, Don's stories pre and post-Troll 2 are the most interesting. His frankness and openness genuinely draws you in. He readily admits he's mentally ill, and goes on to tell how he was high on pot whilst filming for Troll 2. Most of the actors didn't have a clue what was going on with the film while they were filming it, mostly down to the incompetence of the Italian director who could barely speak English, but Packard being high the whole time just adds a whole other level of absurdity to the situation.

Then the Italian director enters the documentary. This guy is totally deluded, as he thinks the film's newfound popularity is down to it being a great film. The actors all know this isn't the case, but the director doesn't, and he just can't accept that all these people who come to the showings come to laugh at how bad the film is. The director and actors even have a bit of an argument in front of the fans resulting from the director's frustration that no-one can appreciate the film for its artistic merit.

Best Worst Movie is great as it shows the effect Troll 2 had on the lives of everyone involved, and the whole situation is just absurd, especially after the director gets involved. Definitely check this one out if you're a fan of docs.

Vinyl dump

2011-02-05T02:09:00.000Z

So I received my latest stack of vinyl yesterday evening. What tends to happen is I'll order various vinyl over a period of time on eBay, then the postman will try to deliver them one by one over the course of a week. He'll do this during the daytime while I'm at work, which means I'm not in to collect them. So I'll amass a letterbox full of undelivered item slips which I'll reply to, meaning I get a big dump of vinyl all in one go. By this time I've forgotten what vinyl I actually ordered, so it's always a surprise opening up the packages to see what albums my past self has sent along for future Joe.

Bonus Fat is an short album from back when Descendents were called The Descendents - 1985. It throws together various tracks from the years of 1979 and 1981, and the difference in the band's sound between these two years is very apparent. The noisy hardcore of Side A shows signs of the band that would go on to write pop punk classics like Milo Goes To College, while Side B is the band's first release from back when they were more of a new wave/surf band. The only thing on Side B that sounds anything like the rest of the band's output is Bill Stevenson's drumming. But this is a fun release, as it shows how much the band changed their sound between '79 and '81.

Next is something I've been looking for for a while now, the soundtrack to National Lampoon's Vacation.

The Star Wars-rip off album art on the front is a sight to behold, and then there's some great design on the back cover as well.

Much like the Goonies soundtrack which I got hold of, this vinyl looks like it was a promotional copy. It reads "Lent for Promotional Use Only. Any Sale or Unauthorized Transfer is Prohibited and Void. Subject to Return Upon Demand by Owner. Acceptance of This Record Constitues Agreement to the Above." The capitalisation of most of the words there is kind of odd.

Then lastly, we have the soundtrack to Rocky IV. I've been looking for this one for a while, ever since my brother played me "Training Montage" by Vince DiCola. Synth rock at its finest. DiCola also wrote the music for The Transformers: The Movie which was actually the best part of that film, so he's a legend in my book.

Aoni Onsen

2011-02-04T08:41:00.001Z

As I mentioned in my previous post, last weekend all the JET CIRs from Aomori prefecture went to stay at a rather famous hot spring resort called Aoni Onsen. It's a remote little lodge located in a dip between the peaks of the Kuroishi hills. It's so remote the place can't get TV or mobile phone reception, and it doesn't even have electricity. As we drove out to the onsen on the special shuttle bus - normal cars/buses aren't allowed to drive out there - I watched the signal bars on my mobile disappear and realised I wasn't going to be in with much of a chance of following the Asian Cup final, which I'd wanted to watch. Japan ended up winning 1-0 by the way though. Well done lads.

We arrived mid afternoon, while it was still light. First things first, we went for a dip in a couple of the four pools. Whilst bathing in the second one the sky turned dark and the only illumination left was the gas lamps scattered about the place. As the daylight dimmed and the temperature dropped, the pool room became dark and filled with steam. This made it hard to have a conversation, and we spent a good 30 minutes shouting at each other across the pool, until we left for dinner. Dinner was traditional Japanese food, lots of fish and boiled vegetables and rice. The Japanese have a word for food like this, 山菜料理 - mountain plant food. Yeah, we weren't gonna be getting much else out here.

We then headed back to the rooms for a quiz and drinking/eating/chatting. There were two Japanese-style rooms - one for the girls, one for the boys - complete with tatami mats and green tea kits. Our team won the quiz, then we spent the rest of the night trading various Japanese alcohols and snacks. You can find the craziest snacks in Japan, and everyone seemed to have their own recommendation which would get passed round the circle. As people got sleepy the group got smaller and smaller, and eventually everyone made their futon from the ridiculous pile of blankets, sheets and cushions. There was actually a guide on how to put the futon together, but we just threw some blankets together and slept on them. We switched off the kerosene heaters, which had by now given everyone headaches and sore throats due to the windows being frozen shut meaning the rooms couldn't be aired. But heat is a necessity when your living at the top of a mountain in the middle of winter.

We woke up earlier than I'd wake up on a weekday to catch breakfast, which was basically the same meal as we'd eaten 12 hours earlier. After gathering our things and posing for a picture we got back on the shuttle bus and made our way back to civilisation.

I can see why Aoni Onsen is popular. It feels primitive and natural, but it's not an easy, relaxing weekend. It's quite the opposite actually, but when you take into account how much the Japanese love the idea of 頑張る (struggling on despite difficulties) I think Aoni will be doing good business for years to come.

Asian Cup 2011

2011-01-26T11:58:00.001Z

Last night was Japan vs. South Korea in the semi-final of the Asian Cup. It was a great game full of twists and turns, and Japan ended up beating their bitter rivals on penalties. They now face Australia in the final on Saturday, so everyone's gearing up for that. It's the equivalent of England reaching the final of the European Championships, and that would send the whole country into a frenzy back home. Excitement hasn't quite reached those levels here yet, but it's still good to be in a country where the national team is doing well at football. And while Australia will be favourites, it's definitely possible for Japan to sneak a victory. There's a meetup for all the Aomori Prefecture CIRs on Saturday night, which means I'm gonna be staying at an 温泉 (onsen, hot spring/hotel) in the middle of nowhere, but there should be a TV somewhere nearby.

In other news, I'm feeling rather smug about the fact that I managed to finally pay off my overdraft on my bank account back home. All the way through uni I was dipping in and out of my overdraft, and I graduated in the red. Money from relatives and my wages from Pizza Hut helped keep things at a reasonable level, but last Friday I transferred some money from my Japanese account, and it was enough to make sure I'm back safely in the black, and I shouldn't be plunging back into my overdraft again anytime soon. I'm not gonna lie, the wages on JET are a lot for what you do - I get paid more than some of my co-workers who have families to support. It's great though. Even though I've travelled a bit and had to buy quite a few expensive items since coming last August, my yen have been quietly piling up, and it's enabled me to send a whole months wages back to the UK. My sister told me they've been getting letters from the bank back home, saying my overdraft limit was about to be cut. I bet they were looking forward to drilling my account with various fees and charges, but, unlucky for them, I don't need my overdraft anymore.

Goody Goody

2011-01-17T14:59:00.003Z

I recently came across an ace vintage clothes shop in Aomori called Goody Goody. It's located in 新町 and I went in for the first time last week.

From the outside the place looks like a typical vintage shop; you'll find a lot of them in Japan, even more than back home, but the stock is usually fairly limited and the prices are often fairly high. There are even places which try to look like vintage shops but actually sell mainly new items. But Goody Goody is better than your average vintage shop. It has a strong 1950s American vibe - there's rock and roll playing on the speakers, old toys and decorations litter the walls and shelves and the stock is mostly 50s and 60s items. There were a few new items tucked in among the real vintage stuff, but the shop more than made up for it with a shelf full of obscure rock and roll compilation CDs for sale. Granted, LPs would have been even better, but the owner obviously likes this era and knows his stuff.

There was one guy behind the counter when I went in, and it seems he runs the place on his own. When I entered I wasn't greeted with the usual "いらっしゃいませ", as is customary in Japanese shops, but after speaking to the guy later I realised he was fairly shy. And there's also the fact that I'm a foreigner, so he probably just thought it best to keep quiet. After buying a shirt and a jacket I had a bit of a chat with him. At first he seemed apprehensive, asking if I could speak Japanese, and then when I explained I worked at the city hall he said he recognised me from the TV and radio. We talked a bit about the rockabilly scene in the UK, and I asked him if he'd been abroad, as he was obviously interested in foreign culture. He told me he wanted to, but couldn't speak English at all. I asked him where he got all his clothes and toys and ornaments from, and he said from a wholesaler in Tokyo, then he gave me his retro-style business card.

It's great to come across shops like this in Japan. When Japanese people go for a theme, they really go for it, even if, like this guy, they've never actually been to the country they seem to be in love with. But Goody Goody is still a great shop. While there isn't racks and racks of clothes, the stuff on offer is high quality, mostly actual vintage and the prices are reasonable. The guy obviously knows his stuff, as he told me a bit about the jacket as I was buying it. One of the benefits of not having piles of stock is that you know a bit more about each item it seems.

I'm sure I'll be going back at some point.

'77

2011-01-11T14:41:00.001Z

If there's one film I wanna see right now, it's '77. Problem is, it's not been released yet. Here's the trailer to give you a taste of what the film's about:

The film was written and directed by Patrick Read Johnson and it's based on Johnson's life growing up in rural America. In the film, Pat wants to become a filmmaker, and inspired by the likes of Jaws and Star Wars he sets out to make his own movie.

'77 refers to 1977, the year when Star Wars was released and the year the film is set in. Pat is played by John Francis Daley, of Freaks and Geeks fame, and the film was produced by Gary Kurtz who produced American Graffiti, Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, but there have been a few post-production problems that are holding the film back.

I remember first reading about '77 on the official Star Wars message boards a few years ago, and it seems the film was shot in 2007. There was even a premiere in 2008 at the Hamptons International Film Festival in New York. If you were to go to the website of Johnson's production company, Moonwatcher Inc., or the film's official website you'd think it was already released. But if you dig a little deeper, like on the IMDb message board for the film, you'll find a personal post from Johnson. Responding to claims that George Lucas was somehow holding the film back for legal reasons, Johnson says that film isn't finished yet and that it'll be released once post-production is finished. He says that the backers who put up money for certain aspects of post-production have pulled out, but once money comes through again the movie will get finished and released. But in the post, made in 2009, Johnson says he is confident '77 will see a release in 2010, and that date has obviously passed now.

Now there were some fairly big names involved in this film. While it is an indie film, it had the producer from Star Wars working on it, and Johnson has made movies before that have been released. I can understand Johnson wanting to take his time so that the film is as close to perfect as it can be, especially as it is based on his own life. But the amount of mystery surrounding the project and the length of time it's taking to get released is odd. And why was the film premiered if it wasn't ready yet?

It'd be great if the film gets a release eventually. Looks amazing from the trailer.

TV and radio appearances

2011-01-08T06:16:00.001Z

So as promised, here are my 2 recent TV appearances. They were both on the local station, RAB. The first was by chance when I was out on a hiking trip to くろくま滝 (Kurokuma Waterfall), a famous waterfall near 白神山 (Mt. Shirakami).

The second was on a show called 江奈滋家の食卓. It’s a drama/comedy which focuses on environmental issues, and I was on to talk a bit about recycling in the UK. Recording was fun, and I got a lot of insight into how a TV show is made.

Also, my first radio interview was aired yesterday on a show called 一路青森こちらカ・ケ・メ・ぐる隊 on FM Aomori. On Thursday the team of the show came to the city hall and recorded four 5 minute interviews which will be aired on their show every Friday during January. The show only started in November last year and was designed to help promote Aomori and its attractions now that the Shinkansen line is here. November's special guest was the mayor of Aomori, and December's was some head of tourism, and January is me. Tune in from 1pm every Friday to hear me. We talked about my background, and then what I thought of Aomori and its dialect. The kind of questions I get asked everyday by Japanese people basically. As I said previously, I should be receiving the shows on a CD at some point, so I'll put them online when I do.

It'd be great if I get more opportunities like this - radio is something I'm interested in and perhaps wouldn't mind doing after JET.

New place

2011-01-01T11:07:00.000Z

So six days ago I moved house. I'd been wanting to move for a while as the last apartment was generally a terrible place to live. It was small and old, but my new place is a lot bigger and newer and I'm enjoying it a lot. The city hall put up a bit of a fuss about me moving, but, as a JET, if you want to move you're well within your rights to do so. The old place was good location-wise, as it was very close to the city hall, so I didn't have far to walk to work every morning. And while the new apartment is about 10 minutes down the road, it's still within easy walking distance of the city hall. It's also closer to the local コンビニ (convenience store).

I was planning to travel to Kansai to see some friends and spend New Year's in Osaka or Kobe, but the apartment move was decided at the last minute and disrupted any travel plans. I've had a great time in Aomori City though, being one of the few JETs to stay here over the break. It's been much better than the Christmas and New Year's I spent in Kobe two years ago. This year a couple of friends and I ate a big Christmas dinner at the local Tony Roma's, went to karaoke, then walked around the streets of Aomori singing more Christmas songs. The Aomori snow also added to the Christmas vibe. Then last night we went to an izakaya and to the local temple for New Year's Eve.

The winter break began on the 29th and it lasts until the 4th. It's the first extended break since I came in August, and it's useful as it'll give me time to unpack all my stuff, which is currently in boxes.

I recently received a couple of DVDs of my appearances on local TV, so I'll put them online at some point. I'm also gonna be appearing on the local radio station a couple of times this month. I don't know the details yet, but it'll be on a show about foreign cultures and travel, and I reckon I should be able to get a copy of that as well.

Kuwahara KZ-01

2010-12-23T04:52:00.003Z

I've been meaning to post these photos for a while. They're of my new Kuwahara KZ-01 BMX.

After coming to Japan and living in Aomori for a few weeks I decided I was gonna get a bike. Japan is fairly flat and well suited to bikes, meaning that a lot of people ride them here. But the vast majority of people ride ママチャリ (mama-chari, or mother's chariot) which are big boring bikes with a bell and basket on the front. I wanted something that looked a bit more exciting. I love old things, so searched for some old-school BMXs on Yahoo! Auctions, the Japanese eBay, but I never really found anything I wanted on there for the right price.

Then one day I noticed on the Kuwahara website that they were about to go into production of the KZ-01, a throwback to the KZ series of the 1980s. This was exactly what I wanted, and Kuwahara is a Japanese company, so being here I thought I should be able to get my hands on one pretty easily. Well, it took a bit of searching, as it seems this model has been really popular. I believe there has only been 300 made in this run, 100 of each colour - black, white and chrome. But I managed to find a place called candyrim in Osaka which was still taking orders and I put an order in for the white version.

Kuwahara were the company who made all the BMXs in that scene in E.T., and ever since seeing that I've wanted a BMX. And it's even better that I've been able to get a Kuwahara KZ-01, which is very close to the actual BMX used in E.T. - that model was called the E.T. model, ET-1 or KZ-2.5.

So the bike was delivered around the start of November and just sat in its box for a couple of weeks, but then I finally found some time to put it together.

It's a lot of fun to ride and really light. The snow in Aomori means no-one really rides too much in winter, but this bike is gonna get a lot of use once the snow clears up.

Nick Clegg

2010-12-08T13:03:00.000Z

So it looks like the rise in student fees will go ahead. I'm already finished with uni, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a terrible decision.

I started university just over four years ago, paying roughly £3,000 a year for four years, and that was separate from the living expenses I incurred during this time. This means I've graduated with around £20,000 of student debts. I had a friend who was in my class but had applied the year before, taken a gap year, then joined our class. He and all students from the year above me paid half of that £3,000 a year - around £1,500. And very soon students could be paying as much as £9,000 a year. That's an increase of 600% in a very short time.

While I accept that the debt isn't something that needs to be repaid immediately - student debts are one of the cheapest loans you can take out - I think even more important is that these kinds of figures will be enough to put a lot of prospective students off going to uni. University degrees in the UK are becoming less and less valuable, and I think many people will choose to avoid the hassle altogether and not go at all.

But even worse than this is that Nick Clegg has made a complete U-turn on one of the main points of his election manifesto. I remember the fervour that swept the UK during the last general election as the Lib Dems seemed like they might make an impact on British politics for the first time ever. One of the points the party emphasised was abolishment of tuition fees. Nick Clegg was even one of the MPs who signed the National Union of Students' pledge to oppose a rise in tuition fees. Yet now he is fronting a push to triple them.

I think what makes it even worse is that Clegg built his whole campaign on a policy of honesty. Well now that he is in power he couldn't have done anything less honest than this U-turn. And then what makes it even worse is that he's the MP for Sheffield Hallam, which means he was elected by myself and many of my student friends.

At least David Cameron never said he would abolish fees. Yet Clegg is happy to be the face of this tuition fee hike and try and persuade us it's an absolutely necessary cut. It's not. Cuts are currently being made in various places at an average of 11%, but cuts to university teaching budgets are nearer to 80%.

This is just another move to line the pockets of the universities and those who supply the student loans. It all works out for them in the end, while the students bear the debt in the long term.

This was the year when the Lib Dems finally found themselves with some influence over British politics, and Nick Clegg has made a complete mess of it. He's split his party and pulled them away from their liberal morals in an attempt to side with Cameron and the Conservatives. And he's lied to the British public after building his campaign on a pledge of honesty. All I can say is I think it will take the Liberal Democrats a long time to recover from this once this disaster of a coalition is over, and that I'm glad I'm well and truly finished with university education. And I'm sure Clegg will never win back his seat in Sheffield Hallam again.

Tokyo, Chiba, Kobe, Osaka, Aomori

2010-11-29T13:13:00.002Z

It's been a busy few weeks. I'm just looking back over Google Calendar to see what I did. I won't write about everything that happened, but here are a few highlights.

From the 15th to the 17th it was the mid-year JET CIR conference, and it was held at the Tokyo Bay Makuhari hotel in Chiba. All the CIRs from all over Japan came together for 3 days of training (socialising) and networking (eating and drinking). Most people stayed at the hotel where the talks were being held, but I ended up booking pretty late which meant there were no rooms left there. So I booked two nights at the New Otani Makuhari Hotel just across the road. It was slightly more expensive but a bit swankier. And instead of travelling down from Aomori on Monday morning, I went down on the shinkansen on Sunday night, staying over at a Smile Hotel in Nihonbashi, near Tokyo Station. It was interesting seeing all the adverts in Tokyo for the shinkansen coming to Aomori. That happens in 5 days on December 4th, and it's a big day for the city.

I came back to Aomori on the 18th to film for 江奈滋家の食卓, which I mentioned here. I learnt all my lines on the Thursday morning and it was all over in 5 minutes. The episode will be shown on RAB December 12th.

Then on the 19th I was back on the shinkansen, this time travelling as far as Kobe to take part in the JET football tournament on Awaji-Shima. It worked out that I had a couple of hours to kill in Kobe while I was waiting for my mates to come pick me up in their car, and I had a bit of a stroll round Sannomiya, a place I spent a lot of my time during my year abroad two years ago. Two years had changed my perception of the place a bit, and I noticed things I'd never noticed before. I walked all the way down to a sports shop we used to go in, as I needed some shin pads for the tournament, then I walked back towards the station and stopped at a ramen shop for some dinner. Then my three mates came and we drove to Awaji-Shima, arriving at our hotel at around 10:30 at night. The room was for all four of us, and it was obvious as soon as we entered that it was a room intended for two people, just with four beds in - there was no space whatsoever. The food and service was generally appalling as well, so a bit of a step down from the New Otani.

I was playing for the Ishikawa team during the tournament at the request of a friend - Aomori hadn't entered a team. Meeting all the guys from Ishikawa was a laugh, even if they were mostly American and had never really kicked a ball in their life. We didn't do well, but we were apparently much better than the Ishikawa team of last year, and everyone had a great time. Also, the weather was amazing, with people having to get the suncream out, and there was a great onsen on the island which we went to on Saturday and Sunday night. There were a few of us with tattoos, and we covered them up with towels and didn't have any probs.

On Sunday night we left the lovely weather behind and drove through the rain to Osaka. We met up with an old friend of mine in アメ村 and then stayed at a capsule hotel there. I enjoyed that, and it was definitely worth it for the price of only 2,800 yen. The capsule wasn't cramped at all, even for my gaijin body, and in some ways it offered more than a standard hotel with an arcade, cafeteria, onsen, coin locker and more. I'm going back to Kobe/Osaka this January, and I'm planning to stay at the capsule hotel again. You can't beat it for that price. There's even a TV that plays porn for ten minutes everytime you put 100 yen in.

I'd taken the Monday off work, so we hung out in Osaka, bought some new/old clothes, went to the Hub, and then in the evening I stayed at a friend's house in 田舎大阪. Tuesday was a national holiday, and I caught the shinkansen back to Aomori at lunchtime and arrived home at around 9pm.

All in all, a busy few weeks. And that's not mentioning the French-themed party this past Saturday where I ended up DJing for a bit. The bar owner said I could go back next time with my vinyl collection and spin some wax. Sweet.

I've been everywhere me

2010-11-10T13:25:00.002Z

I've done a lot of travelling around Aomori recently. A couple of weekends ago we went out to Hirosaki and I saw the castle there. Everyone talks about it round here, and apparently it's a great place to go during sakura season when the cherry blossoms are out, but I found it a bit underwhelming. We did go on a cold, drab Saturday afternoon, but compared to places like Osaka castle it's very small and not very ornate. That night we came back to Aomori and there was a big Halloween party at a place called ONE SHOT HOUSE, which seems to be the default gaijin drinking spot now the weather has turned and we can no longer drink outside at Passage Hiroba. It was originally gonna be a mainly gaijin affair, but when we turned up there were loads of Japanese folk drinking there and we ended up joining together for a party which crossed international boundaries and drinking limits. I dressed up as dracula this year after getting a few compliments since coming to Aomori that I look like a vampire. When I went to visit RAB Aomori Broadcating Corporation that week I managed to blag a professional costume from a woman who works in the wardrobe department.

The next week we had a day off on the Wednesday - it was 文化の日, or Culture Day. We travelled to Towada and went to see the planetarium and the art museum there. We didn't actually go inside the art museum, but they had some nice exhibits on a patch of grass just across the road which you could see for free. On the recommendation of the cleaning lady from the city hall we also tried a local speciality called バラ焼, or barayaki. The dish consists of beef rib meat (bara means rib) and onions which have been marinated in a garlicy sauce. The beef and onion are brought out raw and you cook them yourself on a hot plate. It was pretty nice, and the dish has quite a strong flavour which is uncharacteristic for most Japanese cuisine. We went to eat at a place called 大昌園 which wasn't the nicest or newest looking restaurant, but it came as a recommendation, and is in a pretty central location, and the food tasted great. After that we found a recycle shop where we had quite a chat with the owner and I ended up buying a radio/CD/tape player - something I'd been looking for for a while. The owner liked us so much she gave me a third off the price. Recycle shops are sick.

Then this past weekend we travelled to Kuroishi where we ate an amazing invention called つゆやきそば, or tsuyuyakisoba. It's literally a cross between yakisoba and ramen and tastes just like it sounds. I'm a fan of both, and when you combine them you get a tasty result. You can only eat it in Kuroishi, so make sure you go and try if you get the chance. There's loads of places that sell it. We just stopped at the first shop we saw which said つゆやきそば outside.

On Friday it was Bonfire Night, and we tried to have our own version here in Aomori, but unfortunately it's pretty hard to get all the things you need to celebrate it. Fireworks are only sold here in summer and baking potatoes don't seem to be available at all. We attempted to make some bonfire toffee, but couldn't find ingredients like back home and the toffee never ended up setting. We did manage to make some parkin though, and we'd watched V for Vendetta earlier in the week as well. I'll be better prepared next year.

Japanese TV debut

2010-10-27T11:19:00.000Z

I was on the local news in Aomori last night. I went to visit a waterfall on Saturday called くろくまの滝 (black bear waterfall) and as we were arriving a TV crew was leaving. As soon as they saw me they asked for an interview and I obliged, the interview taking about a minute in total. They said it would be on the evening news sometime this week, and apparently it was, last night. I didn't see it myself, but a couple of mates did.

Incidentally I'm gonna be on TV again next month, taking part in a program called 江奈滋家の食卓. I've never seen the show before, but apparently it's a drama which deals with environmental issues and airs once a month. They also have a different foreign guest every month, and the guest for November is me. Filming will take place next month on the 18th, and tomorrow we have the preliminary meeting. Luckily, the TV show is made by 青森放送 (RAB Aomori Broadcating Corporation), the same people who filmed me for the news, so while I'm at their offices tomorrow I'll try and get hold of a copy of my appearance on the news.

The weather was great at the weekend, but we had our first snow this week. Everyone's making a big deal about it, and half the conversations at work now revolve around the cold weather.

Today my supervisor took me out for a short run in the car. He'd been wanting to show me a few places in Aomori I hadn't seen yet, but we didn't have all that much time so we only went to 青森公立大学, Moya Hills and a batting cage, but the batting cage was fun. Gonna go back there and hit some more balls. It was also interesting to see the university, which was up in the hills, like Kobe University was.

Interpreting

2010-10-21T09:30:00.004Z

These last couple of days at work have been fun and have made a change from sitting at my desk working on translations. There's a new museum set to open in Aomori next January called Warasse, and this week the Canadian architect who designed it has been in town. This guy works for a design company called molo and you can see some imagined images of the museum on their website. The guy doesn't speak Japanese so I was asked to interpret for him for the last couple of days.

First we had a formal meeting to explain how the building had developed and what state everything is in at the moment, then we went down to see the actual place and looked around inside. If you look at the pictures on the molo website you can see the building has a striking design and it's kind of obvious it wasn't designed by a Japanese person. In those images the outside looks like it's covered in strips of some kind of brown, reed-like fabric, but this effect is achieved with a series of twisted metal ribbons. Everything looks great, and I'm sure it will be a hit when it opens next year. It was also pleasing to see a map in the entrance that I'd helped translate.

Today I went with the people I'd met yesterday, and after visiting the museum one more time to take some more photos, we went on a big road trip. The guys talked every now and then about the museum, and I interpreted, but basically it was an excuse for a day out. We ended up driving to Towada, passing by Mt. Hakkoda and some nice forests and nature on the way. Japanese people often pride themselves on the fact that they have stunning areas of natural beauty and you'll often hear that you see can clearly see the differences in the four seasons in Japan better than anywhere else in the world. It's easy to ignore these kind of statements as it sounds like hot air, but the more time you spend here, the more you realise it's true. Today we passed through autumn forests and mountain ranges that looked almost otherworldy. We ended up at quite an altitude as well and the low clouds made everything seem even more eerie.

We visited a hotel in the mountains and over a cup of coffee decided that we wanted to take a dip in the 温泉 (hot spring) there. It was quite a simple setup, and I don't know whose idea it was to have a load of Aomori apples floating around in the main pool - we just ended up chucking them at each other - but it was the first time I've been in a hot spring/public baths since being in Kobe, so I enjoyed it. It'd be great if more of this kind of work comes my way.

Vinyl off eBay

2010-10-15T07:14:00.002Z

I recently received a load of parcels in the post, and 3 of them were vinyl which I'd bought on eBay. The first was a picture disc of a favourite album of mine - Hysteria by Def Leppard.

I heard Hysteria for the first time around a year ago. I found a copy in great condition for really cheap on a little market stall in Sheffield town centre. I'd heard a couple of Def Leppard's songs and knowing the band were from Sheffield I picked it up. I ended up listening to that vinyl probably more than any other in my collection. When I moved here it was one of the records I didn't bring with me, so when I picked it up this time I thought I'd go for the picture disc as I don't have any in my collection. With picture discs the visual factor comes at a cost of reduced sound quality, but it's a nice collector's piece and a good addition to my burgeoning shelf of records.

Next is a Spandau Ballet greatest hits LP, another record I owned before but didn't bring with me to Japan. Much like The Police, Spandau Ballet were a band I grew up listening to because of my dad. These guys are a little on the light side compared to a lot of what I listen to, but it's great music if you're in the right mood, and Tony Hadley is an amazing vocalist.

Next is another album I previously owned - The Goonies: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack - but this version is, again, a little different as it's a promo version. On the back there's a gold stamp which reads "FOR PROMOTION ONLY, Ownership reserved by CBS, Sale Is Unlawful". Well, it's mine now.

This album was curated, I believe, by Cyndi Lauper, and it features her track "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough". Every track sounds totally 80s (check out "Eight Arms to Hold You" by Goon Squad) and it's a great accompaniment to one of the greatest films of all time.

The last version of this LP that I owned just had a simple paper sleeve, but this one has a great photo montage on both sides of the sleeve. Maybe because it's a promo version, or maybe because it's the US version.

MxPx's Left Coast Punk EP

2010-10-07T13:16:00.002Z

The other day I bought MxPx's most recent release from Amazon Japan. It came in a needlessly large cardboard box that could have held 50 CDs rather than just one.

Despite me being a big MxPx fan, this EP is basically garbage. With MxPx I usually get into their albums really quickly and listen to them on repeat for the first few weeks, then my interest drops off and I end up listening to the album every now and then. Well with this EP I've realised it's crap straight away. In fact, when it was first released I listened to a couple of tracks on the band's MySpace and they were terrible so I decided I didn't want it in my collection. The poor music is made even worse by terrible production. Second track, "Desperate To Understand" with its blazing-fast drums could have sounded awesome, but the production reduces it to a loud mess.

The only reason I bought this EP is because of two bonus tracks - "The Coffee Song" and "Keep A Beat" - that aren't available anywhere else, apart from a vinyl picture disc that was originally released in 2008. You can't even get them on the US or European versions of this CD, only the Japanese version, but these two tracks are some of the best music MxPx have written and blow the rest of the EP out of the water. It's strange that a difference of two years has seen such a drop in quality from the band. And now that drummer, Yuri Ruley has left I can't see MxPx continuing for much longer.

One of the redeeming features of this release is the packaging, which goes for a vinyl feel. The CD is printed to look like vinyl, and rather than a jewel case you get a sleeve with lots of paper inserts. There's also a Japanese translation of the lyrics which is a cool addition. Here are the two bonus tracks, definitely some of the best music MxPx has written:

National holidays, change of temperature, new camera

2010-09-26T05:42:00.009Z

This week has been a little different from others in that we had two national holidays - 敬老の日 (Respect for the Aged Day) on Monday and 秋分の日 (Autumnal Equinox Day) on Thursday. Japan's good for its abundance of national holidays, although they often don't come in a row so you just get the odd day off now and then. A few of my mates took some of their paid holidays this week, and that's a good idea.

Everyone's been talking about the weather this week in Aomori. It turned in an instant from a lingering summer to full-on Charlie Brown weather. People in the street are now dressed in big coats and hats, and the guys from work have started to wear ties and suits rather than 'Cool Biz' clothes. Apparently it's not usually this cold this early, but I hear that as we had a big summer we're gonna get a pretty intense winter as well.

Last night I went out with some JET pals to a steak restaurant on 観光通り called ステーキ宮 and then on to karaoke. I stayed there for about an hour then left to go play a game of poker with an Australian mate of mine and some of his friends. We played in a community centre in 大野 and there were no JETs there which made it a bit of a change from my usual weekend shenanigans. These guys play for money and play every week. They're trying to get more and more people involved as then we can play for bigger prizes.

I also bought a Nikon Coolpix P60 digital camera yesterday from パソコン工房 on 観光通り. It was just over 10,000 yen, so about 80 quid. I'm gonna test it out later.

One thing that struck me recently about Aomori City is that while the place is a fairly big city it still manages to maintain a sense of community. News travels fast, as when I meet new people for the first time it's not uncommon for them to have heard about me from friends already. And I'm always bumping into random people I know just out and about. Recently I was eating at a Chinese restaurant and bumped into the owner of the audio shop I mentioned here. And last Sunday I went to see a performance called Nanta at the local city hall and ran into my hairdresser. It's a cool vibe, as the place has the characteristics of both a big and small city.

Speaking of Nanta, it was a pretty cool show. I was invited by a Korean co-worker of mine and apparently it's a pretty big deal over there. There aren't that many decent videos of it on YouTube, but if you watch the one below you'll get an idea of what it's about.

It's a novel concept where four Korean performers use kitchen implements, more traditional Korean percussion and a big rock music score to create quite a spectacle. The performers all had (pun alert) decent chops and the whole thing definitely appealed to the drummer in me.

Internet and my birthday

2010-09-16T13:09:00.001Z

I now have super-fast-Japanese internet at my apartment. Internet is important kids. I Skyped the family and they all seem to be doing well. I also need to get on a few TV shows from back home that started recently, like This Is England '86 and Mad Men.

This past weekend it was my birthday so we all went out drinking on the Friday. It was a good way to end the week as all the new JETs from the prefecture had been in Aomori City for a 3 day orientation. We ate and drank at a popular gajin watering hole called Passage Hiroba, then went on to a darts bar. Funny story - everyone was late showing up apart from my Korean co-worker who used the time to by me a birthday cake hat from a nearby department store. Sometimes it pays to be late, if you have smart friends. Here I am modeling the hat.

Treasure hunt

2010-09-07T12:41:00.000Z

Had a good weekend which involved a treasure hunt around Aomori Prefecture for JETs followed by staying over at a log cabin resort in the middle of nowhere - the nearest conbini was 20 minutes away, that's about as rural as it gets guys. Here's some purikura that our team took at an arcade during the treasure hunt. Check out my mate, Christy's blog for some more sweet photos of the day.

Also, here's a photo of a drink I found in the conbini at work. It's a pancake/hotcake flavoured milkshake. Tastes like it sounds.

I posted this on Facebook a while back, but here's another drink from the same shop - 'Orange with Rare Cheese Flavor'.

AudioPal Shiratori

2010-08-30T11:27:00.000Z

In my last post I mentioned that the needle on the turntable I'd bought was broke, and while I'd bought a cheap cartridge and needle to tide me over, I still intended to get a new needle (Shure N97xE) for the original cartridge (Shure M97 x), as it's a decent piece of kit. After hearing about a shop called AudioPal Shiratori from the guy who runs Sasaki Records I decided to give it a shot. After work on Friday evening I ventured out towards where the shop was, having only glanced at a Google Map a couple of days previously. The shop is pretty small and is hidden in amongst a patch of trees and foliage, which is in turn is hidden within an industrial estate full of car maintenance shops.

I stepped inside and a middle-aged man poked his head around the corner. Luckily he didn't have the usual look of shock/despair on his face that normally greets a foreigner when he enters a shop in the middle of nowhere. I proceeded to show him the cartridge and told him the needle was broke, upon which he went behind the counter to look at some book or other. I'd noticed that I was standing on a mat in the doorway and there were a few pairs of Japanese slippers that looked like they were for customers to use. You often take off your shoes and wear slippers like these in eating establishments, but I'd never done so in a normal shop. To make sure what they were for I asked the guy, to which he asked me if it was too much hassle, to which I replied it wasn't. So with my slippers on he beckoned me through his workshop and to a room in the back which housed a selection of vintage record players, amps and speakers. He found one needle and tried it out, playing some jazz record on a really nice turntable. The whole place felt like his house. The rooms were carpeted and all the products were stacked on shelves, like books or picture frames. The slippers only added to the homely vibe.

The needle fit the cartridge, but there was some distortion to the sound. He went back to search for another needle while I browsed his collection of hardware. Luckily, the new needle sounded great, but I asked to hear it on a rock record, as I don't listen to jazz. He had a quick flick through his records but realised there was no rock, only jazz or classical. After having a discussion during which he told me he used to listen to rock when he was younger, he eventually managed to find a The Beatles picture disc which had never been played before - I think that was the closest we were going to get. Whilst the needle wasn't a N97xE, as the original had been, it was Shure, and we both agreed it sounded fine. The man then cleaned the needle up with some special fluid, and recommended I buy some. He also recommended I get a brush to clean my records with. This guy was obviously an audiophile, or a good salesman. The needle had been quite a bit cheaper than I'd expected so I decided to take his sage advice.

After purchasing the goods I complemented him on what a great shop he had, to which he replied I should come back again at some point and listen to some records. I removed the slippers, put my trainers back on and left the shop, nestled in between all those trees. What a guy.

Smartphones in Japan

2010-08-27T13:10:00.002Z

So this week I changed the phone I bought at the weekend (dynapocket T-01B). Despite it being a smartphone, it was shockingly bad value for money. It lacked many of the features even Japan's most basic phones have (like TV and infra-red ability), the features it did have worked poorly, it was physically bulky, heavy and glitchy, the Windows interface was poor and, worst of all, the battery life was terrible. Using it I just found myself wanting a phone like the one I had 2 years ago - something basic and cheap that just did the job. So I went back to Docomo and swapped it for a Black docomo STYLE series L-03B. Straight away it was far easier to use, and having a friend who works at Docomo meant I didn't have to pay a massive cancellation fee. So I've now got a generally better, longer lasting, less bulky phone for a lot less money. Sweet.

If you're in Japan it's kinda pointless having a smartphone. All phones come with email built in, which means smartphones are only useful if you wanna browse the internet or use specific apps a lot. But even then, normal phones have internet access. I thought the smartphone would be useful while I wait for internet at my apartment, and I thought the GPS function would be useful for finding my way around the city. And although those features worked well, they guzzled battery like nobody's business, and the poor quality of the phone as a whole outweighed them. In my opinion, normal Japanese phones are much more useful and economical than smartphones, and are way ahead of Western phones in general.

Beach Party

2010-08-23T12:20:00.000Z

So this weekend I managed to get a phone and a record player/amp/speakers. Here's a picture, taken on my phone.

I got the phone from a Docomo shop near my house after being introduced to someone who works there, and I got the record player, amp and speakers for a reasonable price from a place called 2nd Street which sells loads of second hand stuff. I also picked up a video player from there. There seems to be a lot of 'recycle shops' like 2nd Street round here. Can't remember there ever being that many in Kobe, but it's great, and makes finding retro stuff for my apartment easy. There was just one problem with the turntable - the needle was broken. But luckily there's a great record shop that's really close to my apartment, so I went down there and had a chat with the owner. He had a look at the cartridge and broken needle and then flicked through all his old catalogues but couldn't find any listing for a replacement needle. In the end he sold me a cheaper cartridge and needle which I'm using now, but we ended up having a long chat about vinyl and he showed me some of the originals he has for sale; he keeps them in special locked boxes behind the counter. He had an original In the Court of the Crimson King and when I expressed interest he said there was already a buyer. But he also has an original pressing of Roxy Music's self-titled debut which I'm gonna have a think about. It was expensive but he said he'd knock a bit off the price for me.

That was Saturday, then on Sunday we went back to Sunset Beach, the place I mentioned in my last post, for a barbecue. That was a lot of fun, and I took a few pictures. The place was packed when we arrived as there was some beach football tournament on, then as soon as that ended most people went home.

Apparently you can go camping on that island if you're willing to swim all the way there from the mainland.

The camera on my phone isn't amazing, but it's good to finally have something to take pictures with, and to call people on. And I have a laptop coming in the post, so now I just need to secure a bike and some internet.

Got my gaijin card

2010-08-19T11:48:00.000Z

Things are going good, even if it is pretty hard to do anything without internet, a laptop, a phone or a bike. To get any of those things I've needed either a bank account, my gaijin card or money. Fortunately I managed to sort a bank account on Tuesday, I got my gaijin card today and I get paid tomorrow. So things should get a little easier from now on. The first few weeks are always rough, it was like that last time when I went to Kobe.

Using Facebook all the JETs in the area have managed to stay in touch though and we've met up a couple of times already. The 5-hour karaoke sesh on Tuesday was a laugh, and there's a BBQ down at the beach tomorrow. I'm glad to be in Aomori City, as that's where all the events seem to be taking place.

Work is pretty slow at the moment. I've been mainly preparing for a presentation on the UK I'm making at the end of the month, and having a lot of time on my hands has meant I've created a pretty sweet PowerPoint presentation. I might even upload it on here at some point - it's that good. The guys at work have been helping me settle in in Aomori though; yesterday one of the office guys took me on a quick sightseeing tour of the north-east of Aomori City. He showed me the aquarium, some ancient ruins that are a pretty big deal here, this giant Buddha statue (although we could only see his head from the car park) and a place called Sunset Beach, which I definitely wanna return to before summer's over. It's an idyllic little area of the coast with a sand beach, a boat rental business and a handful of eateries.

Catch ya later.

The Eagle Has Landed

2010-08-07T14:08:00.000Z

Aomori City is amazing. These last few days have been amazing. Everything went perfectly to plan and I'm settling in to my new life here. I'm currently sat in a manga cafe about a 20-minute walk from my apartment. The screen here is bigger than my apartment, and I'm just sending out some messages to family and friends to let everyone know how it's all going. Here's a bit of a teaser of what I got up to in the last week: arrived in Tokyo, stayed at a sweet hotel in Shinjuku, met tons of other JETs from all over the world (including Joe from Joe In Japan), ate french fries for breakfast, showed some karaoke virgins how to party, went to various eating/drinking establishments including Mister Donut and a Hub, took a plane to Aomori, arrived at work, ate Pizza Hut at a work party, settled into my new apartment, had an article written about me in the local paper, experienced Aomori's hottest day in 11 years, took part in the Nebuta Festival... Needless to say, it's been an action packed week, but I've enjoyed every minute. Even the parts where I've nearly falled asleep at my desk 'cos of jet lag.

I want to get myself a camera ASAP so I can take pictures of everything here, and I need to get internet and a laptop sorted, but I have to wait for things like my alien registration and my wages to come through. Expect some cool updates soon though.

Tomorrow is the day

2010-07-30T17:27:00.000Z

Preparations are now mostly finished and tomorrow is the day. The plan is to wake up early, get a lift to town from the parents, catch a coach to the airport, kill some time, check in, and then finally board the plane to Tokyo. I'm not sure when I'll be writing my next blog entry, as I'll have to get hold of a laptop and internet connection in Aomori, but stay tuned and look forward to updates from the Land of the Rising Sun shortly...

近づいている

2010-07-27T18:04:00.002Z

We're only 4 days away from the big day now. Most of the two months I've spent at my parents' house have flown by, but these last few days have been a slow, slow drip. Apart from being in Japan, I'm looking forward to sleeping in a conventional bed (rather than a fold-out one) and not getting woken up every morning at 7 (by my parents). After arriving in Tokyo we'll be staying in the upscale Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku for three nights, so that should be quite a change from what I'm used to.

I've spent these last few days preparing for Japan. Last week I went into town to pick up some regional items to show my colleagues and for if I do school visits - it's always a good idea for the kids to have something physical to look at. I went to the Tourist Information Centre and picked up a few free leaflets on the local area, making sure there were lots of colourful photos inside. I couldn't really find anything on Sheffield in general, as most of the leaflets were focused on one particular event or place, but I also bought loads of postcards with things like the Supertram and the Sheffield Wednesday ground on, so I reckon I'll have enough stuff to show everyone.

I've also bought some gifts to give out to my seniors at work. Giving gifts (お土産) to your co-workers is an important part of Japanese culture, and it's usually done after you've been on a trip or on holiday. You also generally give gifts when you go to stay at someone's house or the like, so I guess when you combine those two customs it's only right for JETs to bring gifts. It's a kind of "nice-to-meet-you" present, as well as a good introduction to your home country/region. Last time I went to Japan I was staying at someone's house straight away, so I took gifts then as well. I wanted to buy a Yorkshire Tea tin, which I knew you could get, but I didn't manage to find one, so settled on some biscuits and Earl Grey tea. But this time I went to the Yorkshire Tea website and ordered a couple of those tins along with some other goodies to give out. I found the prices relatively cheap, and I think they'll make great presents. And because of a shortage of decent tea in Japan, I'll probably be nipping back to my seniors to borrow a few tea bags later on.

I've also bought any extra clothes I needed, had my leaving party, sorted my travel insurance and booked my coach ticket down to Heathrow, so all that's left to do now is pack my suitcase and go.

Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver adverts

2010-07-25T13:49:00.006Z

Nintendo's adverts in the UK for Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver earlier this year were quite interesting. These games were remakes of 1999's Pokémon Gold and Silver, and the people that played those games as kids are now old enough to reminisce about them as adults, and that's the idea Nintendo tried to tap into in their ad campaign.

It seems they used the same tactic in Japan as well.

Gold and Silver were my favourites of the Pokémon series, and it totally doesn't seem 10 years ago since they first came out. I bought Gold again a couple of years ago, and after sending it to Nintendo to get a replacement battery played it through, and it's still as great as ever. I'm planning to take my GBA SP to Japan with me actually. I should have some spare time to start gaming again, and I'm hoping to pick up some wacky Japanese titles while I'm out there.

I gather Pokémon Black and White are coming out for the DS soon, but I'm not all that interested. Pokémon on the Game Boy has always been more fun for me, for some reason. In fact, I went into a couple of games shops the other day with my brother as he wanted to exchange an Xbox 360 game. It was the first time in ages, and felt strange. I didn't want to play any of the games on the shelves, and these places where I'd spend many a Saturday afternoon no longer felt like somewhere I wanted to be. The new consoles, even the Wii, don't really interest me anymore, but give me a Game Boy or Mega Drive and we're talking.

Graduation

2010-07-22T08:49:00.007Z

So my university career is now officially over, 3 years, 9 months and 25 days after it all began. This Tuesday I graduated with a BA (Hons) in Japanese Studies.

Above is one photo with my sister and brother and then one with some of my classmates, both taken just outside Firth Hall. It was a great occasion and it was good having everyone meet up one last time.

There were two parts to the day. The first was a buffet in Firth Hall for students of the East Asian Studies department, and the second was the actual graduation ceremony in the Octagon Centre. My family and I arrived at the university around midday and the first thing I had to do was pick up my robes which I'd pre-ordered over the internet. The last time I was around the university the Students' Union was still being re-modelled and the whole place was a building site. But the builders had obviously put a shift in and got the majority of the union done for the graduation ceremonies. It looks completely different now, and much more like an airport than it did before. I always thought the re-design was unnecessary, but apparently the university have millions to splash on the Union and none on proper teaching staff. That's the thing with Sheffield though - it's constantly being re-developed, so you turn your back for a second and everything's changed. But it's usually for the better - I think the city centre looks pretty decent now.

After I'd donned my robes and my family had taken a few photos we headed over to Firth Hall for the buffet. There weren't too many people there when we first arrived, and some students didn't show up at all until the graduation ceremony, which meant photos such as the one above only have half of our class in them. It was good to chat to my Japanese and Korean teachers one last time though.

When all the wine and champagne had been drank we headed over the road to the Octagon Centre and took our seats for the ceremony. This ceremony consisted of students from the geography, sociology and East Asian departments, all part of Social Sciences at Sheffield. There were about 400 or so students and their families, and one after another we all filed out of our seats, up onto the stage, shook the chancellor's hand, walked off the stage, picked up our certificate and went back to our seat. I found it funny how all the costumes worn by the university staff seemed to have not changed since Tudor times. The trumpet fanfare and church organ music made it feel like some kind of church service or coronation as well.

And with that, we'd graduated. Most of us from Japanese then went down to one of the restaurants in the Union and had a drink and something to eat. It was interesting talking to my mates' parents, and all the families really seemed to enjoy the day as well. After that some of us branched off into a smaller group and went to have some dinner at a Japanese restaurant on London Road. The food wasn't bad, but I couldn't help looking forward to actually being in Japan and eating the real thing in under two weeks' time.

We then went for one last game of pool and a drink in Bar One, a place we've spent quite a few evenings over the last four years, and a place where the beer is extremely reasonably priced. I don't think I'll ever see such low beer prices again. We all then said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. I have no idea when I'll see some of those guys again, if ever, but some of us are going over to Japan to work straight away, so no doubt I'll be staying in touch and seeing those guys quite a bit.

So not long until I leave now, just 9 days. Tonight I'm having a farewell drink with some of my mates from Sheffield, and then I'll work my last shift at Pizza Hut on Friday night. そろそろやな.

"Revealing Japan's low-tech belly"

2010-07-18T10:57:00.001Z

Interesting article here called "Revealing Japan's low-tech belly". For many, Japan is a nation at the forefront of all new technology, but once you've spent a bit of time there, you'll realise that's not really the case. Yes, they are ahead in some areas (touch screens in restaurants to order your food from, or baths that monitor and adjust the temperature of your water), but they are years, even decades behind in others (a reliance on cash over credit cards, or little central heating). Add to that a rapidly ageing population and many people would be surprised that Japan isn't as hi-tech as it portrays itself. But in some ways, this lack of reliance on technology is refreshing, and I still maintain it's the most comfortable and easiest place to live in the world.

Two weeks left

2010-07-17T14:12:00.002Z

I came across this cool project today. A group of Star Wars fans have got together and tried to raise $3000 to fund the restoration of the Lars Homestead from Star Wars: A New Hope. Apparently the structure used in the film still stands in Tunisia but may soon deteriorate, so when these guys raise the money they're going to go out with tools and plaster to save it from disappearing forever. There's also an interesting report of a previous 8-day trip to visit many of the filming locations in Tunisia. I'm not in the financial situation to be able to donate right now, but it's an awesome idea and I'm sure they'll achieve their target soon.

In other news, things are hotting up as it's now only two weeks until I head out to Japan. I'll have to buy clothes, coach tickets and gifts, and then do all my packing soon. I have my graduation ceremony this Tuesday, and I'm working my penultimate shift at Pizza Hut this evening, then my last will be next Friday.

Today/this week

2010-07-11T23:15:00.005Z

Today I went to visit my grandparents from my mum's side. It's maybe the last time I'll see them for a while now, and I mainly went over to say thank you for some money they gave me to help me through my first few weeks in Japan. As I mentioned in a previous post, they've always been a big inspiration for me. They've lived and travelled all over the place, and my grandma told me today that they wanted to give me the money as they remember the difficulty of heading out to Africa as missionaries with little money to their name when they were younger. This afternoon I listened to them tell tales from the past, including stories from their holidays to Hawaii as well as from my granddad's time spent working in Hong Kong in the 1970s.

Today I also handed in my notice of resignation to Pizza Hut. I haven't had that many shifts there lately to be honest. I worked one last night, but I'll perhaps only have one or two more before I leave. The place is quiet whenever the weather's nice.

Just watched the World Cup final. I thought Spain were deserving winners. I'll perhaps write some deeper thoughts about this year's World Cup at a later point.

There was a bit of sad news this week when MxPx's drummer, Yuri Ruley announced his departure from the band. I've posted about this band a few times on here, and although I wouldn't really claim to have a favourite band, if I did, MxPx would probably be it. They haven't made a killer release in a while now, but their albums have always been decent at the least and soundtracked different periods of my teenage years; 2000's The Ever Passing Moment and 1996's Life In General will always be two of my all-time fave albums. Also, Yuri has had such an influence on my personal drumming style, that it'll be sad not to hear him behind the kit anymore. I've always admired his blisteringly fast and basic style, much in the vein of Bill Stevenson, and his whole philosophy has definitely rubbed off on me and affected my own way of playing.

Now it's not that the band are splitting up, but Yuri's departure signals the breakup of the line-up which has basically spanned the whole of MxPx's nearly 20-year career. And being such a close-knit power trio I don't think it'll be long before the band calls it a day entirely - it wouldn't feel like MxPx if the band were to continue without Yuri. And I get the impression we won't be seeing too much of Yuri as part of other musical projects, as it sounds like he wants to concentrate on raising his family. Fortunately, there should be one last musical utterance from him as part of the MxPx side-project, Arthur. And his final MxPx show will take place in Las Vegas on the 18th of this month, where the band will play their magnum opus, Life In General in full. That would be a killer show to be at man. But I'm glad I got to see MxPx twice, the first of those probably ranking as my all-time fave live experience. Me and my sister went to see them at Nottingham's Rock City in August 2005, and they hadn't been to the UK in years at that point, so I was pretty jazzed to see this band who I'd been listening to for ages for the first time. And if I remember right, for some reason they were only playing two dates in the UK at that time, which added to the buzz around the gig. The venue was packed, as people kept cramming in all the way through the night until no-one else could fit. It turned out to be an amazing gig, and then we went to see them again a year later in Leeds, and that time we met the guys after the show. Three great guys.

It was good to see all the positive comments on the Punknews new story, and I left my own, as I wouldn't be surprised if the band read Punknews. It's good to know Yuri won't fade out into punk rock obscurity completely, and I'll look forward to the release of Arthur's long awaited LP.

Incidentally, I got another review posted on Punknews earlier on this week, this one for Teen Idols' self-titled debut album.

JET Pre-Departure Orientation in London

2010-07-03T15:34:00.003Z

I came back from London yesterday after attending the UK JET Pre-Departure Orientation there. It took place over the 1st and 2nd at Brunel University, and in the day there were talks and language classes, while at night everyone stayed over at the on-campus hotel/accomodation. The accommodation was decent, even if it didn't feel 5 star like the sign outside the reception claimed, and I stayed over on the night of the 30th as well due to the 9am start the next day.

There were quite a few of us staying over on the 30th and we all bumped into each other, formed a group and went to the city centre for something to eat. Apart from myself there was only one other guy who'd been to Japan before, so I fielded quite a lot of questions concerning the country and its language. By the morning of the 1st all the UK JETs (over 100 in total) had arrived and I managed to have at least a short chat with a large number of those, eventually finding the other 4 JETs who'll be working in Aomori. And after meeting all these people I realised that JET have done a good job on the selection process, as everybody seems intelligent and eager to head out, even if they've had little, or no, experience of Japan before. There were also no (discernible) anime geeks, and pretty much everyone seemed well socially adjusted, which I was glad about, as there's definitely room for improving the image of the typical Westerner in Japan. There was also a good selection of people from every part of the UK, including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Another thing that struck me is how small the community of people with an interest in Japan in the UK is. I had random connections or mutual friends with a lot of the people I met over the three days, and I even met one guy who I'd seen a few months previously at an interview for a different Japan-related job.

There are two different jobs within the JET programme, and the vast majority of those going from the UK are ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers). However, I'm going out as a CIR (Co-ordinator of International Relations), and apart from me there are only three other CIRs from the UK this year. We had separate language classes from the ALTs, and these were focused mostly on 敬語 (keigo - honorific language) and telephone Japanese, as we'll be using a lot of that in our respective workplaces. The four of us got on well, and I'm looking forward to seeing the guys at the Tokyo orientation.

I managed to get down to London and back for cheap using National Express, and I enjoyed sampling McDonalds' new Mars milkshake whilst waiting for my coach in Victoria Station. Going to McDonalds reminds me of Japan, in fact, as I used to go a lot during my time in Kobe. For long stretches of time I was extremely busy, returning home late with little time to cook anything, and this meant I would often stop off at McDonalds whilst passing through Sannomiya to pick up a few burgers for dinner. McDonalds is even cheaper in Japan than the UK, with cheeseburgers being just 99 yen, and I remember there was also an offer on at one point where the Filet-O-Fish was 99 yen, and I used to buy four or so of them on every visit. When I had time though, and if it was open, I would prefer to go to Wendy's, which was a bit more out of the way, but the burgers were equally as cheap and far more tasty. There were also many times when I would smuggle Wendy's burgers into karaoke for a quick snack in-between songs. It's a shame that Wendy's have since ceased operations in Japan, meaning I won't be able to enjoy their Jr. BBQ burgers next year. I am looking forward to being able to frequent Mister Donut next year though - I've already checked their website and there are quite a few of them in Aomori City. In fact, Mister Donut was mentioned in one of the talks we had during the orientation, as the man giving this talk on life in Japan as a Brit had also been extremely fond of the place during his time there.

Anyway, the days are slowly passing by, and it won't be long before I'm flying out from Heathrow on July 31st to begin my job as a CIR in Aomori City. I don't mind being around for this lovely British summer we're having until then though.

Unofficial degree classification

2010-06-28T12:07:00.000Z

I'm heading down to London for the JET pre-departure orientation on Wednesday, and as I need to hand in proof of my degree to JET I get to find out my degree classification earlier than my classmates. I just phoned up the school office today, and although it's still unofficial at the moment, I did in fact pass with a 2:1. This is no surprise, as my results have been mainly 2:1s with the odd first and 2:2 here and there. Now the final hurdle is out of the way, and I can truly look forward to heading out to Japan next month.

This bit of good news is in contrast to the abysmal performance of England against Germany yesterday. England were shocking throughout the tournament though, and didn't deserve to go through to be honest. But on the bright side, I should be getting a few more shifts at work now - there are always less customers when England matches are on. We're having lovely weather at the moment as well. Better soak it up before heading out to Japan with its poor attempt at summer weather. I'm gonna be in Tokyo for the first few days and I'm pretty sure it's gonna be well hot and humid like it was when I was there last August. But Aomori should be a lot better as it's much further north.

Dissertation result

2010-06-24T17:56:00.001Z

Yesterday I went to pick up the feedback sheet for my dissertation from the East Asian Studies office, and I ended up with a mark of 65%, smack bang in the middle of a 2:1. That seems to be the only mark they ever award for dissertations, with my mates all getting the same. There was a bit of discrepancy between the two different markers though, one giving me 61% and the other 69%. In the end 65% is about what I expected, and now I'm just waiting til Monday to hear the results of my final exam.

I'm also preparing to travel down to London on the 30th to attend a pre-departure orientation for the job I start in August. The conference runs for two days and will be attended by the hundreds of British people heading out to Japan with JET as ALTs or CIRs, and although it actually starts on the 1st, it starts at 9 in the morning, meaning I'll have to stay over in London the night before. I've booked a room at the same place I'll be staying on the night of the 1st though, which should make things simple.

Today's been a great day for sport. There was the longest ever tennis match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon, Isner finally winning the last set 70-68 after a total of 11 hours and 5 minutes. There was also a shock in the World Cup, with debutants Slovakia beating current holders, Italy 3-1 to send them out at the group stages. Luckily there was no upset for England yesterday, whose 1-0 victory over Slovenia put them to through to the second round to face Germany on Sunday. My shift on Sunday at Pizza Hut starts just after that match finishes so I'll be able to watch the whole thing.

Last of Last of the Summer Wine

2010-06-18T14:14:00.001Z

The BBC announced recently that Last of the Summer Wine will run one more series before ending later this year.

The show is actually the longest running sitcom in the world, having been on air for 37 years, and even when it started in 1973 the cast and crew can't have been spring chickens, so it's pretty amazing that people like Peter Sallis, now 89, still appear on the show. Some actors, such as Sallis, no longer appear in outdoor scenes though, because it's apparently too expensive to get insurance for actors over the age of 80.

The era of Last of the Summer Wine which I remember most fondly was the one with Foggy, Compo and Clegg, as seen in the video above and which ran through much of show's life. I think these three characters together held the perfect balance, and the other groups of actors that passed through the show haven't quite had the same chemistry as these guys. Still, part of the show's charm was its sedentary pace and predictability, so the storylines or sentiment never really changed throughout the years.

The program isn't something I've watched lately, but I remember watching it every Sunday evening with my family when I was a kid. Despite the age of the actors - the whole town seems to be inhabited by pensioners - it was a show that people of all years could enjoy, as it felt like these old men were acting like kids most of the time. Our family appreciated it especially because of it's Yorkshire setting as well.

I remember the very first time I watched it I was puzzled over the name, asking my dad why it was called Last of the Summer Wine if it wasn't the last ever episode. Well, now that time is here, but to be fair the show has had a good run, and I'm sure there'll be countless repeats on the BBC and Sky for years to come. Also, check out this 8-bit remix of the theme tune I came across on YouTube.

Japanese and the World Cup

2010-06-17T10:26:00.003Z

These last few days I've been mostly watching the World Cup and studying Japanese.

Even though I've only just finished my degree in Japanese Studies, this last year I haven't had much chance to study the language itself, or at least in the way that I like to. I was pretty busy with a dissertation that took up a lot of my time, and then my language study was mainly concerned with homeworks and assignments for specific classes. That meant that my overall language ability, and my kanji especially, really suffered. These last few days I've just been going over a vocabulary list which I've been compiling throughout the year and re-learning a lot of kanji and vocab. I'm also going to get back on track with my goal of learning all the jouyou kanji (a list of 1945 commonly used kanji) using Anki. I'm about halfway there at the moment, and it's said that if you know all the jouyou kanji you can read basically any Japanese newspaper article without needing a dictionary.

Just spending two or three days immersing myself in Japanese vocabulary, kanji and newspaper articles has seen a real improvement in my ability, and I'm sure my kanji powers will soon reach their previous levels. Obviously, the main motivation to be at the peak of my abilities is because I'm starting work in a Japanese office in under two months. I remember a similar situation two years ago when I studied hard for weeks before heading off to Japan for my study year abroad and really saw an improvement then. When university and exams are out of the way you can study the things you want and in the way you want, and I think that's when you really see results.

I have been avidly watching the World Cup as well though, managing to catch parts of every match. Whereas in previous years there would often be matches played at the same time, it's great how this year there are basically three matches one after another throughout the day, so you can watch footy from noon 'til night. It's been a funny tournament so far, with complaints about the ball and the vuvuzelas, and an abundance of goalkeeping errors and red cards. It's also a shame to see that South Africa probably won't be progressing to the next round - the first time that will have ever happened to a host nation.

But the World Cup is always an amazing spectacle because of the melting pot of nations and cultures it creates. It's a reminder that there are all these different peoples and languages throughout the world, but that we're all the same in that we love football. The first World Cup I remember watching was the 1994 tournament in the USA, which England didn't qualify for, but I remember my dad buying me a souvenir magazine which had all this information and stats about the various countries involved. I was only 6 at the time, but I think that World Cup, and then subsequent World Cups, really sparked my interest in other countries and international relations.

Obviously, this year England are involved, and I think they've got a decent chance of winning. Each year the support for England's football team throughout the country grows, and even my mum and sister watched our game against the US on Saturday. It'd be great for us to win this year before I head off for Japan.

2010 World Cup

2010-06-09T19:08:00.001Z

I've been living back at my parents' house for a few days now and I'm enjoying it so far. And it's not long 'til the World Cup starts, two days' time in fact, with England's game against the US on Saturday. It'd be good to have a barbecue that evening if the weather holds out. At the moment it seems to be alternating between hot/sunny and cold/wet. I was actually scheduled to work on Saturday evening, but there was no way I was missing the match and I managed to find someone to cover my shift.

It's great to see some rare national unity as the whole country starts to go football crazy, and you notice it especially round here with England flags flying all over the place. I'm also looking forward to James Corden's World Cup Live which I've been seeing adverts for recently. It's gonna be on ITV and looks like it'll be a lot like Baddiel and Skinner's Fantasy World Cup which ran during the 1998 World Cup, and I remember that being a laugh.

Moving

2010-06-01T22:13:00.002Z

So I'm about to move out of my house in Crookesmoor and back to my parents' house in Intake. I packed up all my stuff in boxes and my mum came and took it all back to their place today. I'm left here with just an empty room, which hasn't looked this neat in ages, and my PC, which I'll take with me when I leave for good tomorrow. I just have to get my room checked over by the landlord tomorrow, hand my keys in, and then I'm off. I enjoy sleeping in an empty room you're about to move out of. It's exciting because change is happening. Even though I am only moving to the other side of Sheffield for the moment, I'm really moving because uni has finished and in under two months I'll be starting my job in Japan.

Being a student and having studied abroad recently I've moved about quite a bit, so I'm used to the process. Every time I move my pile of belongings gets smaller and smaller, and this time I made a real conscious effort to keep as little as possible, ending up filling about 6 black bin liners with stuff I don't need. The stuff I have left is mostly books, DVDs and CDs, along with my drum kit, and that'll all go up in my parents' attic. But having learnt what I need and don't need in Japan, the belongings I'll take with me this time are very few.

This house I've lived in during fourth year hasn't been that great, but the surrounding area of Crookesmoor is; I've lived here for two years in total, my house from second year being just around the corner. The area's perfect for students because it's close to uni and there's loads of parks and shops nearby. I imagine my apartment and its surroundings in Aomori City are gonna be pretty different, but I'm looking forward to living in my own place and getting to know the local area out there.

It's over

2010-05-28T17:38:00.001Z

I had my one and only exam of the semester yesterday, and assuming I passed, I'm now done with uni forever. Of course I still have my graduation ceremony to attend in July, but no more classes, homework or exams from here on out.

The exam was at the Sheffield Wednesday stadium in the Sheridan Suite, and after attending numerous home games this season, being at Hillsborough for me is usually associated with some kind of disappointment or defeat. The exam was on Japanese language, and although it was 1 hour shorter than the 3 hour exams we're used to, it was fairly difficult. However, I was inspired by the pictures of John Sheridan (Wednesday player from the 80s and 90s) all over the walls, and I'm pretty sure I did enough to pass. It's still a long wait to find out for sure whether I've got my degree and what class it is though.

When the exam had finished our year group all caught the tram back to the university and grabbed a bit of lunch and a beer in the Union. After that, a couple of staff from the School of East Asian Studies had arranged to take photos of us all in Weston Park. And when that had finished I headed home and let it finally sink in that uni is over. My 18 year journey of education ends here, and I'm now entering the world of work. I do have two months of respite, and I'm gonna enjoy chilling with my folks back at home, working at Pizza Hut and watching the World Cup. I am really looking forward to starting my job as a CIR in Aomori though, so August can't come soon enough to be honest.

青森市

2010-05-25T10:57:00.001Z

So I found out where I'm going to be working from August, and it's a place called Aomori City in Aomori Prefecture. It literally means 'Blue Forest City' and reminds me of something out of Pokémon. It's not somewhere I know much about. I only knew that it was in the north of Honshu when I opened the letter, but since then I've done a lot of research, and I'm well excited to be going now.

The letter of notification along with the handbook was delivered to my parents' house on Saturday. I'd spoken to the JET office the day before and knew the letter would be coming, so I phoned my dad up in the morning and asked if he'd seen any packages. Turns out my mum was working at Pizza Hut at the same time as me later that day so she had taken it into work. When my shift had finished I picked up the package and went home without opening it. It was a weird feeling knowing that my future was inside this envelope, but after grabbing a shower I opened it up and saw the words 'You have been placed in Aomori Prefecture, Aomori City'. I then quickly jumped on the internet and tried to find out as much as possible about the place.

As I said, it's not a place I knew anything about really. I didn't put it down as one of my choices, although I did say in the interview I'd be willing to go anywhere. It's a shame I didn't get placed in Kansai, as that's where all my mates are, but I wasn't expecting to get placed there anyway. I'm pleased with Aomori City. It's a whole new region and culture for me, and it sounds like I've landed the best of both worlds, as the prefecture as a whole is fairly rural, but Aomori City is the most urban place within the prefecture.

Next I'm waiting to hear from my predecessor, then attending a pre-departure orientation in London in about a month, then in about two months I'll be in Japan. Today though I have to print off and hand in my final ever assignment. I'm off to the library then.

The Last Bell I Will Ever Hear

2010-05-21T20:09:00.005Z

So today was the last day of the twelfth week of the second semester of my final year at Sheffield University. I'll never take another class again, unless I do another degree or a masters course or something similar, but I can't see that happening any time soon. Starting Japanese four years ago seems like a distant memory, and to be honest, four years is a long time, but we've all come a long way, most of the class going from knowing no Japanese to knowing quite a lot in that time. Today we had a listening assessment, listening to a short lecture on Japan and then making a summary of it. Over the weekend I have a translation assignment to complete, and then there's just my exam next Thursday left.

I'm thinking of moving back to parents' house soon after I finish. I could stay at my house in Crookesmoor until the end of June, but the allure of my mum's cooking and a massive TV screen to watch the World Cup on is too strong. I'll stay there until the end of July when I'll be flying out to Japan to work. And I should be finding out where I'll be working soon. I called the JET office today and they said they were sending out notifications today.

Have you been to the Google homepage today? You know how Google often change their logo to reflect national holidays or anniversaries, well today it's Pac-Man's 30th anniversary and they've gone one step further - you can actually play a full working game of Pac-Man on the Google homepage, complete with SFX.

I've played Pac-Man quite a bit over the years and still have a copy for my GBA SP which I bought when the NES Classics series came out a while back. I bought a board game version when I was younger, and I've even studied the relatively simple physics that govern the game in order to improve my strategy. And it nearly all paid off when I was in the university bar one night last semester. Sony Ericsson were running a promotion where they had a big screen set up and you could play Pac-Man on it using the buttons on your mobile phone. You phoned this special number and once connected you used your dial pad to control Pac-Man - 2 to go up, 4 to go left, 6 to go right and 8 to go down. As you'd expect, there was quite a bit of lag, meaning you'd have to estimate your turn way before you actually wanted to make it. I ended up coming second by 10 points and missing out on winning a free Sony Ericsson phone, settling for a Pac-Man t-shirt instead.

It's pretty strange playing around the shape of the Google logo and with five power-pills instead of four, but the physics all seem to be intact - I even managed to perform the pass-through bug a couple of times.

Dissertation done and dusted

2010-05-14T15:17:00.001Z

I handed in my dissertation earlier today and I'm pleased with how it turned out in the end. In fact, I enjoyed writing it for the most part. It was something I hadn't been looking forward to since starting this course four years ago, but after doing all the appropriate reading and research in the Easter break this year, actually writing it was a breeze. I wrote it on the dialect of the region where I went to study in Japan last year, and it was titled "The Kansai dialect: its place in Japan and as part of the curriculum for JFL learners". It's something I'm genuinely interested in, so it wasn't much of a chore and the words flowed pretty freely.

My year was the first in our department to write a 15,000 word dissertation, as previous years had written a 7,500 one, but they'd complained to the department that 7,500 wasn't enough space for a dissertation, which it isn't. And when they knocked dissertations up to 15,000 it meant we had to take one less class this year, which was great. I didn't reach the 15,000 mark, ending up close to 14,000, but I could have written far more if I'd needed to, and when you have to limit yourself rather than pushing yourself to fill the limit, you know you've done a good job. It all looked pretty sick when I'd printed it out and got it bound and I'm proud of it as a piece of work. We're all going out to celebrate at a sushi restaurant later this evening. Now I just have my presentation to do, the translation assignment and an exam and we're done.

Underoath gets new drummer

2010-05-13T15:19:00.006Z

One of my fave bands, Underoath just got a new drummer, for a while at least. They announced on Facebook this week that a guy called Daniel Davison is gonna be filling in behind the kit as the band write new material, record their next album and tour. But apparently he's not officially a band member yet.

When Aaron announced he was leaving Underoath a few weeks ago some thought the band's best days could be behind them. So often you see a band member leave and get replaced by someone with no personality who brings nothing new to the band, but Underoath's choice in Daniel Davison couldn't be better. Davison was the former drummer for Norma Jean, a band who I managed to catch at Corporation in 2007 on the Southern Blood Tour, which, by the way, had an amazing lineup and ranks as one of the best shows I've been to - Norma Jean, He Is Legend, Maylene and the Sons of Disaster and The Showdown. Having recorded the seminal, Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child and a couple of other decent albums with Norma Jean, Davison left in 2007, and hasn't been playing drums for anyone since, but I'm excited to see how his collaborations with Underoath work out. Whilst Davison is a massively heavy hitter, much like Aaron, I find the two's drumming styles to be quite dissimilar on the whole. Whereas Aaron has quite a precise, repetitive style with a tight production sound, Davison's style is more loose, with heavy use of the toms and a more organic, natural production sound. But the thing I'm most pleased about is that Davison has bags of personality in his playing, and will surely bring something positive to Underoath's sound. In fact, Davison did actually help out Underoath on their last album, recording additional drums on one of the tracks, "Desperate Times, Desperate Measures", so he's no stranger to the band. I'm looking forward to seeing how Underoath continue their progression as a band now that they have no original members left, but Davison on board, and I wouldn't bet against him sticking around for the long term. The band are scheduled to be recording a follow up to 2008's Lost in the Sound of Separation soon.

Work yesterday

2010-05-10T10:19:00.005Z

Working at Pizza Hut yesterday was a lot of fun. I ended up working a 7 hour shift, which is longer than usual, and I find the longer the shift, the better, not to mention you're earning more money, obviously. It just feels a bit pointless going to work for a 3 hour shift.

When I was waiting at the tram stop after work this old guy came over and asked me when the next one was coming. I told him they come every twenty minutes, and then he told me how he usually catches the bus, but on a Sunday they sometimes don't come, which he described as "dodgy". That turned into a rant at the price of bus/tram fares from the both of us and then we got onto the subject of politics when he started complaining about Labour and the state the country was now in because of them. We talked about how he vaguely remembered Britain's last hung parliament in 1974, and then how he'd served in the forces all his life and been all over to Somalia, West Germany and Northern Ireland. He showed me the army badge he carried around in his wallet as well.

Talking to old people is like getting a glimpse into the past and the way this country used to be. It's gotta be strange and disorientating for the old people now to be living in a society where things are completely different to what they grew up with. They've seen a lot of changes, and a breakdown in the social fabric of Britain (chatting to a stranger in public would have been commonplace 30 years ago, but I wonder if in another 30 years time it'll still happen), and whilst there've also been a lot of positive changes as well, these are often disregarded because "things aren't like they used to be". Growing old is a funny thing but we've all gotta do it.

そろそろ

2010-05-07T15:11:00.005Z

As this week draws to an end, I only have two more weeks of uni left now. Before the end of May I have to complete my dissertation (deadline is next Friday), perform a 15 minute presentation in Japanese, do a translation for my Japanese literature class and take an exam, but then I'll be done, completely. And I'll also have found out where I'll be placed in Japan by the end of the month, so it's a time of great change and anticipation right now. Can't wait to graduate and get back out to Japan to be honest though.

Last week it was my grandparents' golden wedding anniversary, so that whole side of our family went out for a carvery meal in the afternoon. It was great to see everyone, as it's not something that happens very often these days. When you're a kid you're always hanging out with your cousins and aunties and uncles, but it becomes a rare occasion as your grow older. It'll definitely be the last time I see some of those guys before leaving for Japan, and I was talking to one of my younger cousins who's gonna join the army, so who knows when we'll see each other next. It's always good to see my grandparents (from my mum's side) as well. They've always been supportive of everything their grandkids have done and you couldn't wish for better grandparents. They're pretty inspirational, especially when you think they've been married 50 years now. We all had fun looking through their wedding photos from 50 years ago - they looked right different, all young and dressed in their 1960s clothes. It's weird as well, because there was a photo that included one of my best mate's grandfathers - he was good friends with my grandparents back then. How strange that they were friends 50 years ago, and then two of their grandchildren ended up becoming mates and playing in a band together.

Yesterday I went to vote in the general elections. The results are in now, and this year is pretty historic as it's the first 'hung parliament' for more than 30 years. Now everyone's waiting to see if any of the parties will buddy up and form government together. Everyone thought that this year might have been a bit more of a three horse race with the Liberal Democrats being more involved. I even heard about some pre-election opinion polls which put the Lib Dems as the most popular party, and this was all basically because of the televised debates between the three party leaders that took place recently. It's the first time these American-style debates have ever taken place in the UK, and the Lib Dem leader performed especially well on them, leading many to think this could be the year when the Lib Dems really made an impact. But it turns out they were wrong, as they've ended up getting even less seats than in the last election. Right now there's a possibility they'll go on to form a coalition with the Conservatives though.

But all these changes might not affect me as much as the next person, as I'm not even gonna be here for the next few years. Also, I'm quite apathetic towards politics in general, but nevertheless, this year's election has been an interesting one, and marks the first time I've voted in a general election.

Politics on my blog? What next?...

Kick-Ass

2010-04-30T20:28:00.003Z

I didn't know much at all about Kick-Ass until my mate, Joe Roper reviewed it on his blog last month, and he made it sound like a great flick so I had it in mind to see at some point. I got the chance this week, and although I disagree with Joe in that I wouldn't give it a full five stars, it's one of the best films I've seen in a while.

The story focuses on geeky high school kid, Dave Lizewski and his ascent to local fame as real-life superhero, Kick-Ass. Things turn ugly though when Dave is mistakenly targeted by a crime gang and gets in over his head, requiring the assistance of a couple of other, more experienced superheroes.

Much like the recent Batman movies and unlike all of the recent Marvel movies, I liked the way the film stayed fairly grounded in reality for the most part. Current internet phenomena such as YouTube and MySpace were also used to great effect to give the film an even greater connection to the real world, although I did think using Facebook might have been more realistic seeing as hardly anyone uses MySpace these days.

Apparently based on a comic book series, the film is set in modern day America, but as Joe points out in his review, the film is quite a British affair, with the script being written by Jane Goldman and two of the main actors being British. There's also roles for Clark Duke of Clarke and Michael fame, and Fogell from Superbad. And from the way the film ended, it looks like the actors will be able to reprise their roles for a sequel at some point in the future.

Kick-Ass is a refreshing and realistic take on the bloated genre of superhero movies, and whilst extremely violent and crude in parts (especially referring to the foul-mouthed, not-yet-teenage superhero, Hit-Girl), it pulls no punches in its honest approach and story. Mixing some superb action scenes with a great comedy script, Kick-Ass is pretty much a must see.

"My Destiny" by Andrew W.K.

2010-04-28T10:32:00.002Z

"My Destiny" by Andrew W.K. is a song you have to hear to believe.

I've never let anyone hear this song before. I'm deeply humiliated and embarrassed at the thought of anyone hearing it. This is probably the most intense and personal song I've ever recorded – it's called My Destiny and it was written and recorded when I was 17.

You can hear the track on the Guardian website and read about why it was written and the juvenile restraining order it earned Andrew. Here's an excerpt from the lyrics:

Drove Past Your Doorway Fifteen Times
I Don't Want To Cause You Harm
Harm – That's What You're In For
If You Don't Open Your Door

So I'll Keep Knocking A Million Times
I Will Knock Until My Knuckles Bleed
Bleed – That Blood Will Leave A Stain
On You Forever

Apart from the obvious darkness and extreme creepiness of this track, it's an interesting piece because it's so intense. Recorded when he was 17, it's typical Andrew W.K. because he's pouring every ounce of emotion into the track, and I believe that's the best kind of music (you can even hear a signature piano trill here that appears in much of his later work).

I've been into Andrew W.K. for a while now. I love the passion, energy and extremeness of his personality and music - it's pretty inspirational. And even though there's some controversy over the legitimacy of his act (sparked by this video series), it only adds to the intrigue.

Shake Club

2010-04-26T15:59:00.003Z

Recently I went to Shake Club on Westfield Terrace in town. They have a pretty novel concept in that they take all sorts of confectionery and biscuits, basically anything sweet you can think of, and blend it up into a milkshake. They make over 100 flavours, with some of the weirder ones being fig roll, Werther's Original, Jamaica Ginger Cake, lemon curd and Wagon Wheels, and I'm intrigued to see how some of them like Haribo Starmix and Drumstick Chews actually turn out. I had a Walnut Whip, and although the large was pretty pricey at £2.99 it was pretty tasty. A bit like Subway's 'Sub of the Day', they also have 'Shakes of the Month', which means that certain flavours are cheaper throughout the month, so I'll grab one of those next time. As well as the one in the city centre there's also a Shake Club up at Broomhill.

World Championship snooker at the Crucible

2010-04-23T18:21:00.004Z

Watching the snooker live is something I've wanted to do for years and I got the chance to this week. Ever since I can remember I've watched the World Snooker Championship every year on TV, and it's great that the tournament is held in Sheffield, but up until this year I'd never actually been to watch a live match at the Crucible. Luckily my dad got given a pair of free tickets this week so me and my brother went down on Wednesday for the morning session.

The two matches on that morning were Ding Junhui vs. Stuart Pettman and Ryan Day vs. Mark Davis. I'd originally wanted to see the Ding Junhui game, but our seats were on the other side of the arena so we watched Day vs. Davis, and we ended up getting a better deal with that match to be honest - Ding had taken such a lead the night before that his match on Wednesday only lasted two frames. There were a lot of Chinese fans there to see him - he's a massive celebrity in China - but most of them left after the two frames. Wednesday had been a national day of mourning for the recent earthquake in China as well, and because of that Ding had requested that the four players come out with no entrance music. I believe the entrance music is actually something they've introduced this year to try and re-brand snooker, much in the same way that darts has undergone a transformation in recent years.

After the four players had entered the arena, the board that divides the arena in two came down and we were left only able to see the table on our side, and we were in for a great match (when Ding's match finished the board went back up again so everyone could see our table). Ryan Day was ranked 6th in the world and expected to win, but Davis put up a great fight and won out in the end after a total of 18 frames, so we ended up getting to watch some great snooker for about three and a half hours.

I enjoyed watching the TV production aspect of the event as well and getting to see the contrast between live snooker and the TV coverage of it. Sports journalism is something I've thought about going into before so it was pretty interesting to see how such an event translates into a production for TV. I think the BBC do an excellent job every year and really make the tournament a great spectacle, and it's even better that you can now watch everything online as it happens. They also film out in the open in the middle of Sheffield city centre and you can go down and watch the presenters in the Winter Garden. It's not uncommon to bump into some of the snooker players just walking round Sheffield either.

When you're watching the snooker live though you don't get the BBC commentary, the multiple camera angles or the benefit of hawkeye, so it's definitely a different experience, and the Crucible arena feels quite different to how you'd imagine it from watching on TV. I thought that they might have screens up inside the Crucible showing the table from different camera angles, but that's not the case. They do have screens, but they just show the score. When you're watching it live you feel as if you can't really see that much from your seat, but after a while you get used to the view. A couple of things you don't get to see on TV though are the second referee sat at the side, presumably keeping track of the score, and obviously the two cameramen constantly working away at the end of both tables to bring you shots of the action.

If I went again I'd like to get one of those headsets that they recently introduced - you can buy one just before you go in and tune it to hear the BBC commentary while you're watching. That's why sometimes half the crowd will chuckle out loud together - they'll be laughing at a joke they just heard on the commentary. In fact some of the crowd had theirs turned up so loud that you could catch bits of the commentary even if you didn't have one yourself.

When you consider that the event goes out live to national TV I had expected there to be more warnings about not making noise during play and the like. All the announcer said at the start was to make sure our mobiles were switched off and to not take any photos during the game, although I did notice there were a number of ushers placed around the venue making sure the audience kept fairly quiet during play. But it did strike me how easy it'd be to do something during play and get on TV for your 15 seconds of fame. I think next time I'm gonna get a front row ticket and wear a t-shirt advertising my netlabel. I dunno if we ended up getting on TV this time, as we were sat fairly far back, and the programme showing the match we went to see still isn't available on iPlayer for me to check.

But all in all it was a great experience and you should definitely go down and watch a match at the Crucible if you get the chance. They've recently redesigned the place and it looks great, very modern compared to how it looked before. They're always saying that the tournament might move elsewhere, but I don't think it will. As the billboards say that are all around town at the moment, 'Sheffield Snooker City'.

Right, I'm going back to watching Mark Davis vs. Mark Allen online now. The tournament's really starting to heat up now we're in the second round. I've been alternating between just writing my dissertation and watching snooker these last few days, but now I've handed in my draft dissertation I'm free to watch snooker all weekend.

Chatsworth

2010-04-15T19:35:00.003Z

Yesterday I went to Chatsworth House to meet with someone who had contacted the East Asian Studies department at Sheffield University looking for Japanese students who would be able to take groups of Japanese tourists round the house. Apparently interest in Chatsworth from Japanese tourists has been increasing lately so the house need extra translators to help show big groups round.

Chatsworth is an area not too far away from Sheffield in Derbyshire, and although I'd never been to the house before, our family used to go to the farm and playground a lot when I was a kid. I remember the playground included a big zip-line and an underground tunnel that always used to get me excited for going. The house is the home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire who still actually live there, but they open up many of the rooms for visitors to go and look round. It must be odd having people look round the place you're living in, but I guess they have to do it to help with the costs of upkeep. It's pretty big and is impressive if only because of the amount of expensive stuff in it - the whole place is filled with valuable items and has massive painted murals all over the walls. Each room is probably worth more than most people's houses.

Yesterday I caught a bus from Sheffield Interchange which stops right outside the house, and after arriving I was given a quick tour by one of the guides there. It sounds like I'm gonna have to look up some specialist vocabulary to prepare for the job, but mainly I'll just be translating what the main tour guide says for my own group of tourists. Although the work won't be that regular, I think it should be a worthwhile experience and something impressive to put on my CV.

"I'm Not Your Toy" by La Roux sounds like Sonic the Hedgehog

2010-04-11T13:22:00.002Z

This song by La Roux came on at Pizza Hut the other day, and the first thing I thought was that the samples sounded like they'd come from the Sega Mega Drive, and more specifically, Sonic the Hedgehog. I don't know too much about La Roux, as she got popular in the UK while I was in Japan, but my dad's a big fan, and the first time he played me some of her tracks I immediately recognised the influence of chiptune/video game music. Granted, artists like La Roux also draw a lot of inspiration from synthpop, which has a lot in common with VGM sound-wise, but I do think we're starting to see VGM affect popular music quite a bit. In fact, there was some controversy a couple of years back when Timbaland sampled a track from a chiptune artist without permission for the Nelly Furtado album he was producing - the chiptune artist being Tempest, someone whose music I've played on my podcast before. If you look out for it, you'll start to notice the chiptune sound creeping into popular music more and more these days.

Joe in Japan: The Sequel, coming this summer

2010-04-09T18:10:00.003Z

So it's with great excitement that I announce I've been accepted onto the final short-list for JET CIR applicants, which means that, should my medical and police check go fine, I'll be heading back to Japan this summer to work. I'm pretty chuffed to be honest. I've been waiting to hear back about this job since I took the interview down at the embassy in London two months ago, and it's been annoying not knowing for so long. I did have a backup plan to travel to Canada if I didn't land this job, but that's not necessary anymore.

A big brown envelope came through the letterbox this morning and I knew it was from JET as it had a stamp on the back saying so. I pulled back the top of the envelope which seemed to be already open (maybe the postman had a look), and as soon as I read "It is our great pleasure to inform you" I dashed off on a mad lap of honour round the house. I couldn't stop smiling. The levels of excitement and pleasure match that of getting an NES for my 5th birthday. It was a great relief, firstly to know what I'll be doing next year, but secondly to know that I succeeded in my application. For me this job is perfect and means all sorts of good things.

I've managed to secure a job in this unsure economic climate, and a good paying job at that. And even better is that it's in Japan, which is a fairly hard place to find work if you're a foreigner. Ever since coming back to the UK I've missed certain aspects of Japanese life and I'm chuffed that I'm gonna be able to take part in it all again come this August.

The nature of the role is something I'm really interested in - it's a job working for an organisation called JET, which is run by the Japanese government and sends out English teachers and CIRs (Co-ordinator of International Relations) to Japan. My job will involve translation, interpreting, organising events for international exchange and other tasks, all the while representing Britain in Japan. I'll also be working alongside other Japanese people, which means I'll get to experience a Japanese business environment, and it'll give me the opportunity to really hone my business Japanese. I can't wait to start to be honest. Also, the job prospects after should be pretty good, as people who've worked for JET have gone on to do things like diplomatic jobs with the British government.

It takes a lot of pressure off me regarding uni and earning money from my part-time job as well. If I was going to Canada I'd have had to save up a lot of money before my flight in June, but as JET pay for my flight to Japan I don't have to worry too much about money. And the flight to Japan is in August, so I can work some more at Pizza Hut before then and save up anyway. Also, now I've got a decent job lined up it doesn't matter so much whether I get a high mark for my degree, but obviously I'm still gonna make sure my dissertation is a good piece of work. That's another thing - I've been working on my dissertation so much I haven't had time to practise Japanese at all, and I'm a little rusty, so I'm gonna have to make sure I'm up to scratch again before I depart in August. Shouldn't be hard though. I always find it comes back quickly.

I don't actually know where in Japan I'm headed yet, that's something else to wait for now. I said I wanted to go to Osaka or Kobe preferably, but it could be anywhere. And to be honest, I don't think I'd mind getting put out in the countryside somewhere, but whether I'd be saying that after a few months is a different story. For now, I'm absolutely over the moon and totally looking forward to what the next few years hold.

Drummer leaves Underoath

2010-04-08T14:47:00.000Z

A couple of weeks back I wrote about going to see Underoath in Leeds, and it was a good job I took the opportunity as Aaron Gillespie, their drummer announced this week that he's leaving the band. It's a shame and quite unexpected. This guy was the only remaining original band member, having been with Underoath from the start, and despite being the drummer he was one of the band's two main vocalists, having a massive influence on and writing much of the band's material.

He made a couple of posts on his Tumblr to clear up questions about his departure, but it's still not clear exactly why he left. He's a killer drummer, live and on record, and his style of playing has definitely given me new ideas and ways of looking at the drum kit. He shaped Underoath's sound so positively and so much with his playing and vocals that I'd go as far as calling him irreplaceable. It'll be interesting to see what Underoath's next move is and it's likely their sound will change considerably, but they could have already written their best album.

Facebook 'Suggestions'

2010-04-04T12:20:00.002Z

Facebook's 'Suggestions' section on the homepage (underneath 'Requests') is an interesting and amusing feature. It's like Facebook is watching out for the social life of your poor friends who haven't been getting much attention lately. With messages like "Reconnect with her" and "Help him find his friends", you'd be cruel not to.

New part-time job

2010-03-29T12:56:00.007Z

Fulfilling one of my lifetime ambitions to work in a pizza serving establishment, and following in the footsteps of both my parents, at the weekend I started a new part-time job working in the kitchen at Pizza Hut. Well, I say both my parents. My dad did actually get a job there about 20 years ago and went to the induction session, but decided it wasn't for him and turned it down. My mum does work at Pizza Hut now though, and has for the last few years, so she hooked me up to get this job at her branch.

There's been many a time I've partaken in Pizza Hut's fine dining experience, especially the all-you-can-eat lunchtime buffet, so it's interesting to be on the other side of the fence, actually making the pizzas. All the other workers there are sound so far as well, even if it was strange that they seemed to know everything about me from my mum.

The restaurant I work at is near where we used to live at Crystal Peaks, so quite a way from my house in Crookes. That means it takes a while to travel there and back on the tram, but I like that end of town and I don't often get the chance to go back these days. Last night though, a bus broke down on the tram tracks while I was travelling home, illustrating the inherent limitations of trams and meaning I got home pretty late. No big deal though, 'cos it's the Easter break.

OK, back to the dissertation.

Haha

2010-03-23T23:14:00.004Z

Amazing Own Goal @ Yahoo! Video

Fruit, in a jar

2010-03-22T12:24:00.003Z

Dole Fruit Jars are amazing.

It's sometimes hard to get your 5 a day, and canned fruit is an easy way to reach your target, as long as the fruit is in fruit juice and not syrup, but these tubs taste way better than your average canned fruit. I picked one up last week as they were on offer for 99p at Tesco, and even though the fruit tastes super sweet, like it has some kind of sugar or syrup in there, I checked the ingredients and it doesn't, it's just grape juice. The plastic tubs are pretty handy and reusable as well.

The Good of the Game: Football, Society and Globalisation

2010-03-20T18:22:00.003Z

Last night I went to an event at Bramall Lane called 'The Good of the Game: Football, Society and Globalisation'. It was hosted by the University of Sheffield and was a panel discussion involving Howard Wilkinson (former England and Sheffield Wednesday Manager), Lee Strafford (Sheffield Wednesday chairman), Kevin McCabe (Sheffield United chairman) and other local and national figures involved with football. I'm not sure if the event was titled ironically, as the panellists ended up bemoaning the current state of football rather than discussing its potential for good, but nevertheless, it was interesting hearing what everyone had to say.

Topics included football's current debt crisis, how society engages with England's national team, globalisation's impact on football's connection to local communities and the future of the Premier League, and it seemed that the majority of the panellists were unhappy with the way football was being run at the moment, at least in the UK. Due to the global popularity of English football, there's currently a large amount of wealth involved in the game, but the panellists argued that too much of it was going to players and their agents, when it could be spent on sorting out struggling club's finances and nurturing football at a grass roots level. Whether such changes will be made is unclear, but it was mentioned that something will have to change soon, especially when it's predicted that the amount of money involved in British football is soon about to drop.

I went with a mate who studies Chinese at Sheffield University, and we were both interested in the development of Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United's relations with Asia, so after the discussion had ended we went and had a chat with the two chairman, Kevin McCabe first. Sheffield United already have a partner team over in China called Chengdu Blades, but things haven't been going too well for them - they just got relegated down a league for match fixing, and McCabe said he'd just recently fired everyone working for him over there. He still has plans for China though, and invited us back to discuss things with him again.

After that we went and had a chat with Lee Strafford, who also seemed enthusiastic about Sheffield Wednesday's overseas expansion, but when we pushed him on specifics he didn't have much to say. According to him, the club are investigating possibilities right now, but he seemed more interested in expansion into the US rather than Asia.

Being a Wednesday fan, it always feels strange going to Bramall Lane, and we stood out a bit 'cos just about everyone else apart from us was wearing suits, but all in all it was a great experience, and a rare chance to take a look behind the scenes at the two big football clubs in Sheffield.