So I decided that exploring Japan was a good thing to do while I'm still around.
Today I went to Nara. It's just 40 minutes away by train and costs 540 yen. It's a nice tourist spot with a lot of temples and shrines, but best of all it has 1000 deer walking around the city.
The first place we went to was just a path with trees on both sides. We just kept on walking and there were lanterns on each side of us. I read that there are over 3000 lanterns, and they are lit in early February and mid August. There are tiny shrines along the way, and it's just interesting to see how everything's built. At the entrance, there are many deer, but they don't go further into the path.
The deer will come up to you and eat cookies that you can buy anywhere, and then they bow. Yes, that's right, the deer bow. A video will be put up as soon as I can get it to work. They're all over the place, and they're actually quite dirty, but it's still awesome to see deer bow.
There's nice Shinto shrines, but the big attraction is a temple that contains a giant Buddha statue. The statue may not appear to be big in the picture, but in reality it's 15 meters high.
At the end of the night, we climbed a mountain and watched the sun set. It was quite beautiful. After that however, we called it a day and returned home.
They're going to Kyoto tomorrow, but I have a job interview at 2 pm for teaching English in Korea. I will have to go to Kyoto after that or maybe on Tuesday.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
Nova's finished
So it's October 19th, payday was the 15th, and I haven't see any money. The higher ups are saying that we'll get paid on the 26th, but I don't care.
I'm not going into work until I get paid, and because the job search isn't going well, it appears I'll be coming back home to Canada soon. 5000 foreign language instructors are effectively unemployed, about 3000 of which are English instructors. I am of the last 200 people to have arrived at the company (of all languages, the last 120 of English instructors).
I'm sorry this blog wasn't the fun blog that you and I expected. Shit happens.
My last hope is this one interview I had earlier this week, and maybe Korea. If you want a play by play of what happened, read these articles:
The rent situation
More rent fun
News about the pay
What started getting me worried
What pissed me off
More news about Nova
So, to summarize, there's a cash influx, but that's enough to pay 700 of their 5000 teachers. They had to delay the payment of the teachers, which was planned for the 19th. Then someone got arrested. He was a key figure in the cash influx. It turns out that has some shady contacts and embezzles money for organized crime. The president is nowhere to be found, and there's a couple million dollars in missing shares. The companies buying into Nova may be dummy corporations that are also shady. The president assures us (through a memo) that all is well, and we should be patient.
Once again, I apologize for the negative post, it sucks, but this whole situation is fucked.
I'm not going into work until I get paid, and because the job search isn't going well, it appears I'll be coming back home to Canada soon. 5000 foreign language instructors are effectively unemployed, about 3000 of which are English instructors. I am of the last 200 people to have arrived at the company (of all languages, the last 120 of English instructors).
I'm sorry this blog wasn't the fun blog that you and I expected. Shit happens.
My last hope is this one interview I had earlier this week, and maybe Korea. If you want a play by play of what happened, read these articles:
The rent situation
More rent fun
News about the pay
What started getting me worried
What pissed me off
More news about Nova
So, to summarize, there's a cash influx, but that's enough to pay 700 of their 5000 teachers. They had to delay the payment of the teachers, which was planned for the 19th. Then someone got arrested. He was a key figure in the cash influx. It turns out that has some shady contacts and embezzles money for organized crime. The president is nowhere to be found, and there's a couple million dollars in missing shares. The companies buying into Nova may be dummy corporations that are also shady. The president assures us (through a memo) that all is well, and we should be patient.
Once again, I apologize for the negative post, it sucks, but this whole situation is fucked.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Happy 1 month anniversary
Hey everyone, so I've been in Japan a month today. It's been filled with some ups and downs, and hopefully I'll get paid on Monday which will mean plenty of ups.
I've seen some really cool places and met some amazing people. Stay tuned to find out if I'll be home soon (when the company goes bankrupt) or if I'll be home less soon (when the company gets liquidated).
I've seen some really cool places and met some amazing people. Stay tuned to find out if I'll be home soon (when the company goes bankrupt) or if I'll be home less soon (when the company gets liquidated).
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Thanksgiving and a little more
I will begin by telling the tale of Thanksgiving.
Canadians make up a large part of the employees at Nova. There may be more Aussies, but I would contest that claim. So, because it was thanksgiving weekend last week, I decided with another Canadian that it would be awesome to have a thanksgiving. At first it was going to be dinner thing, but those are hard to pull in Japanese mini-apartments. There's also no turkey in the whole of Japan.
After much deliberation, we decided that a snack potluck would be a better idea, but we still had a problem with actually having people in one spot. The good bars are expensive, and the cheap bars wouldn't keep us together. Then it hit us: drinking in public is legal. Drinking in a park is legal!
Canadian thanksgiving was held in a park near my work. We met at a central location, and then went to the park. We invited everyone, Canadians, Americans, Kiwis, Australians, English and Scots. Most Brits didn't believe that there was actually a thing called Canadian thanksgiving. They thought we were joking. They were pretty surprised to see we were serious.
During the party, hung out, which then turned into a game of tag around a jungle gym, which then turned into huge circle where everyone talked, which turned into all the Canadians (and one Aussie oddly enough)singing the national anthem, then high-fiveing everyone thanking them for showing up.
Lessons learned: playing tag while drunk is dangerous... I ripped a pair of pants and was bleeding quite a bit. I'm a fun drunk. The Brits think I'm an alcoholic, but laugh about it anyways. Getting drunk in a park is very legitimate in Japan.
Speaking about legitimate and parks in Japan, a few friends and I saw a girl and a boy make themselves a makeshift bed, then put a cover over themselves. I will infer that they were having sex in a public park. So, another lesson, sex in public is fine.
Public urination in Japan: fine, people are so polite here, they pretend not to see you.
Public defecation in Japan: also fine. Once again, polite, to the extreme.
Blowing your nose in public: horrible. You're going to hell if you do that in front of someone. Blowing your nose in public, that's disgusting!
Canadians make up a large part of the employees at Nova. There may be more Aussies, but I would contest that claim. So, because it was thanksgiving weekend last week, I decided with another Canadian that it would be awesome to have a thanksgiving. At first it was going to be dinner thing, but those are hard to pull in Japanese mini-apartments. There's also no turkey in the whole of Japan.
After much deliberation, we decided that a snack potluck would be a better idea, but we still had a problem with actually having people in one spot. The good bars are expensive, and the cheap bars wouldn't keep us together. Then it hit us: drinking in public is legal. Drinking in a park is legal!
Canadian thanksgiving was held in a park near my work. We met at a central location, and then went to the park. We invited everyone, Canadians, Americans, Kiwis, Australians, English and Scots. Most Brits didn't believe that there was actually a thing called Canadian thanksgiving. They thought we were joking. They were pretty surprised to see we were serious.
During the party, hung out, which then turned into a game of tag around a jungle gym, which then turned into huge circle where everyone talked, which turned into all the Canadians (and one Aussie oddly enough)singing the national anthem, then high-fiveing everyone thanking them for showing up.
Lessons learned: playing tag while drunk is dangerous... I ripped a pair of pants and was bleeding quite a bit. I'm a fun drunk. The Brits think I'm an alcoholic, but laugh about it anyways. Getting drunk in a park is very legitimate in Japan.
Speaking about legitimate and parks in Japan, a few friends and I saw a girl and a boy make themselves a makeshift bed, then put a cover over themselves. I will infer that they were having sex in a public park. So, another lesson, sex in public is fine.
Public urination in Japan: fine, people are so polite here, they pretend not to see you.
Public defecation in Japan: also fine. Once again, polite, to the extreme.
Blowing your nose in public: horrible. You're going to hell if you do that in front of someone. Blowing your nose in public, that's disgusting!
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
The company's going to be alright
Good and bad news. Basically it means I'll get paid as long as there's a company. The bad is that the company will probably only exist for another 2 or 3 months.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Stuff you didn't want to know about Japan, and didn't ask
Hey everyone, so seeing that I'm still in Japan, I thought I'd write this up. So here's a list of questions that you all are dying to ask me, but haven't!
Q: How big is your apartment?
A: Not big, quite small. The stories of small Japanese apartments have been exaggerated however. The apartment is about what you'd get in Toronto, but ever so slightly smaller.
Q: What's the cost of living like?
A: Once again, not as bad as people make it out to be. I've spent 65000 yen in 1 month for food, drinking three or four times a week, and two out of town trips. I still have to pay rent for this apartment, which will be half of everything I pay, but this apartment is overpriced, hence why I'm looking at other apartments in town.
Q: What's Japanese TV like?
A: It's cool. I saw this one show where they do what's called human tetris. There's a wall that advances towards someone with a cut-out of a person, and the person has to make themselves a certain shape to avoid being pushed into a pool of water.
Other awesome shows include a woman dressed up a devil outfit teaching a girl Spanish. She was summoned by the girl of course. My housemate told me he once saw a show where they were teaching English for the abused wife. How to make excuses for bruises and such... yeah...
Q: What's the food like?
A: McDonald's isn't as greasy. There's a 100 yen menu, so it's the perfect place after for having food after the bar. My favorite 100 yen item so far is the McPork.
Q: Seriously, how's the food?
A: Awesome. I have been having mystery dishes. I eat something, don't how what it is, but have fun eating it anyways. So far, I've had Tocuyaki. It's balls with a creamy sauce with pieces of squid. It's disgusting. I don't like squid.
I do however like chicken cartillage. That's right everyone, they also eat the skin, the tail and the beak.
More to come later.
Q: How big is your apartment?
A: Not big, quite small. The stories of small Japanese apartments have been exaggerated however. The apartment is about what you'd get in Toronto, but ever so slightly smaller.
Q: What's the cost of living like?
A: Once again, not as bad as people make it out to be. I've spent 65000 yen in 1 month for food, drinking three or four times a week, and two out of town trips. I still have to pay rent for this apartment, which will be half of everything I pay, but this apartment is overpriced, hence why I'm looking at other apartments in town.
Q: What's Japanese TV like?
A: It's cool. I saw this one show where they do what's called human tetris. There's a wall that advances towards someone with a cut-out of a person, and the person has to make themselves a certain shape to avoid being pushed into a pool of water.
Other awesome shows include a woman dressed up a devil outfit teaching a girl Spanish. She was summoned by the girl of course. My housemate told me he once saw a show where they were teaching English for the abused wife. How to make excuses for bruises and such... yeah...
Q: What's the food like?
A: McDonald's isn't as greasy. There's a 100 yen menu, so it's the perfect place after for having food after the bar. My favorite 100 yen item so far is the McPork.
Q: Seriously, how's the food?
A: Awesome. I have been having mystery dishes. I eat something, don't how what it is, but have fun eating it anyways. So far, I've had Tocuyaki. It's balls with a creamy sauce with pieces of squid. It's disgusting. I don't like squid.
I do however like chicken cartillage. That's right everyone, they also eat the skin, the tail and the beak.
More to come later.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
A job offer!
I found an offer of employment in my mailbox today, so everything's alright. Here's exactly what was written on the hand written letter.
"We seeks Western Wowen For XXX Rated Video. Under 30. Must A Photo..."
The rest was contact info. I don't know what a Wowen is, but I'm sure I'm one! And I'm also not going to pass the contact info because I need this job, and I don't want you stealing it!
"We seeks Western Wowen For XXX Rated Video. Under 30. Must A Photo..."
The rest was contact info. I don't know what a Wowen is, but I'm sure I'm one! And I'm also not going to pass the contact info because I need this job, and I don't want you stealing it!
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