So I arrived in Korea almost two weeks ago, and I thought it was worth writing about my experiences so far.
Let me start by saying that Korea is very very different from Japan. The biggest difference is the drivers. In Japan, everyone follows every traffic law, in Korea, I cannot tell you how many times I've seen people go through red lights. The police don't stop them, it's a minor offense here in South Korea.
The people are very nice in Korea, but a different kind of nice than in Japan. The Japanese were far more polite and Koreans are more generous. Japanese are very quiet, and don't want to disturb you unless you are visibly in need of help while the Koreans are very verbose and will talk to you if they suspect they can help you.
The cost of living is much cheaper in Korea. I can go into a restaurant and have the biggest meal ever, and it will never cost more than 10 dollars. I can get a good size meal that will fill you up for $3.50. The subway system in Seoul is much cheaper, it's less than 3 dollars to get from Suwon (where I live) to Seoul which is any hour away. In Osaka, it use to cost 3 dollars for a subway trip that was 4 to 6 stops away. Taxi cabs are also very cheap in Korea, but I'll give you more concrete examples later.
Seoul's a fun city. I've had some good meals and seen some cool shops. I'll explore it all more and write about it.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Korea bound
I'm leaving for Korea on the 14th. I will not have the internet between now and my arrival in Seoul.
So here's one of my last posts from Japan, if not my last.
So I will write about a few things that I have found to love in Japan. The first is J-pop. J-pop rocks.
The Japanese people are lots of fun. The guys will drink with you, and it's awesome, because most Japanese are light weights.
A lot of Japanese women are naive, and extremely sweet. I won't talk about my successes or failure with Japanese women, but I must say that I was, and still am, quite surprised by how awesome they are. I didn't kick myself for not knowing Japanese until I started talking to Japanese women.
Japanese ancient culture is really beautiful. The temples are always a great sight, even if they're not well known.
The food's good here. Very different, but good.
The Cherry Blossom (Sakura) is beautiful. I saw my first one today that only had a few flowers on it, but I still couldn't help but appreciate the beauty of the few flowers it had on its branches.
I have been dreading leaving the country, and it's near. I'm going to take the next few days to explore.
I'll start writing to you guys from Korea. See you in a bit.
So here's one of my last posts from Japan, if not my last.
So I will write about a few things that I have found to love in Japan. The first is J-pop. J-pop rocks.
The Japanese people are lots of fun. The guys will drink with you, and it's awesome, because most Japanese are light weights.
A lot of Japanese women are naive, and extremely sweet. I won't talk about my successes or failure with Japanese women, but I must say that I was, and still am, quite surprised by how awesome they are. I didn't kick myself for not knowing Japanese until I started talking to Japanese women.
Japanese ancient culture is really beautiful. The temples are always a great sight, even if they're not well known.
The food's good here. Very different, but good.
The Cherry Blossom (Sakura) is beautiful. I saw my first one today that only had a few flowers on it, but I still couldn't help but appreciate the beauty of the few flowers it had on its branches.
I have been dreading leaving the country, and it's near. I'm going to take the next few days to explore.
I'll start writing to you guys from Korea. See you in a bit.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Halloween in Osaka
In Japan, Halloween is usually celebrated the Saturday before Halloween. They don't hand out candy to people, but I did get a piece of candy when I bought beer at a convenience store.
So Saturday was someone's Sayonora party. My friend Kate was heading back to Toronto on the following Monday. We started off drinking at the docks, and didn't realize that tonight was the big Halloween thing. We then started going to a park in American Town (ame-mura), and on our way, realized a lot of Japanese people were dressed up. It was awesome, because they go all out here. My favorite costumes included princess Garnett from FF9, two girls dressed up as white mage and black mage from FF, and a girl in a panda suit, because Panda suits kick ass.
It was absolutely hilarious, I met some Japanese guys (mentioned in the last post) and we were just having fun drinking in the park, enjoying life.
Last night, Halloween, I had a costume. If you don't know, it was Pikachu. Most people don't wear their costumes on Halloween night. On my way to meet friends, I had so many Japanese women wave, watch me walking around, and some would even say "Kawaii" (cute). The younger men would usually smile, or start yelling out "Pikachu!". The funniest reaction by far were the business men and the older women. They would look at me, and look away, but you could tell they were laughing inside. They then kept on walking as if nothing was wrong, that seeing someone dressed up as a popular icon from their culture on any given night was entirely normal. It would be rude to make a deal out of it.
Drinking was pretty uneventful, except that it was the Sayonora party for my housemate, Hugh, and another friend, Dan. Dan drank with us until 5 am, then we had to go home, catch the bus and get on his flight back to the UK. It's really sad seeing everyone leave, even though I've only known them for a short period of time.
You'll all be glad to know however that I got McDonald's breakfast at 5 am, which is probably the after drinking food in the world.
So Saturday was someone's Sayonora party. My friend Kate was heading back to Toronto on the following Monday. We started off drinking at the docks, and didn't realize that tonight was the big Halloween thing. We then started going to a park in American Town (ame-mura), and on our way, realized a lot of Japanese people were dressed up. It was awesome, because they go all out here. My favorite costumes included princess Garnett from FF9, two girls dressed up as white mage and black mage from FF, and a girl in a panda suit, because Panda suits kick ass.
It was absolutely hilarious, I met some Japanese guys (mentioned in the last post) and we were just having fun drinking in the park, enjoying life.
Last night, Halloween, I had a costume. If you don't know, it was Pikachu. Most people don't wear their costumes on Halloween night. On my way to meet friends, I had so many Japanese women wave, watch me walking around, and some would even say "Kawaii" (cute). The younger men would usually smile, or start yelling out "Pikachu!". The funniest reaction by far were the business men and the older women. They would look at me, and look away, but you could tell they were laughing inside. They then kept on walking as if nothing was wrong, that seeing someone dressed up as a popular icon from their culture on any given night was entirely normal. It would be rude to make a deal out of it.
Drinking was pretty uneventful, except that it was the Sayonora party for my housemate, Hugh, and another friend, Dan. Dan drank with us until 5 am, then we had to go home, catch the bus and get on his flight back to the UK. It's really sad seeing everyone leave, even though I've only known them for a short period of time.
You'll all be glad to know however that I got McDonald's breakfast at 5 am, which is probably the after drinking food in the world.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
How I've offended Japanese people
Let me start by saying that I've met a lot of Japanese people, and they're really fun. They always are quite nice, and I've often found myself drinking with people with whom I have no way to communicate with (they didn't speak very well English, and I speak very little Japanese).
One of my favorite events was drinking in a bar with my eigo-jin friends (English people friends), and hearing a lot of Japanese men singing a song in Japanese.
I'm not talking about the standard offensive stuff like blowing your nose, or sticking your chopsticks in the rice. I'll mention three incidents, of which the subway story isn't one of them.
The first, and lesser, incident involved eating in public. It's considered bad form to eat in public, but kind of acceptable, but definitely acceptable for foreigners. It is not acceptable to be walking and eating. I was just standing however, waiting for friends at a common waiting spot, the silver ball (a cool place, but that's a post for another time).
I was talking to a Japanese guy, and his English was pretty good. I was also eating McDonald's, and I had fries. I had two fries drop on the ground. He stopped talking to me, and stared at the fries on the ground for a few seconds, and wasn't talking. He looked at me and my friends as if a little hurt. I then picked it up, and threw it in the trash. He seemed relieved after that, but didn't say anything about it.
I've noticed that there's no trash anywhere, not even cigarette buds anywhere... Japan's really clean.
The second incident involved a few guys I met that same night. They spoke very little English. It was actually a funny incident, and we'd cheers to everything, scream words in Japanese and English, and then cheers again. I learned a lot of Japanese that night, but I forgot it all as I was drinking a bit... I mean a lot...
I was looking for a Halloween costume, and I had two choices, I could go with the one (which will be revealed soon), or GOJIRA!!! (known in English as Godzilla)
I asked my new friends where I could get a Gojira costume. The first guy I talked to was confused, then a second guy came, and I repeated that I was looking for a Gojira costume. The second guy looked shocked, said something in Japanese to the first guy, then they both started saying "no" again and again.
Here is an excerpt of Wikipedia's article about Godzilla: "Godzilla represented the fears of many Japanese of a repetition of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki." Oups... I'm in a culture where the mere mention of nuclear weapons is taboo.
Well I found a Gojira mask yesterday, but by that point I had already purchased my costume... Think Japanese... Think video games... think electric mouse/bunny...
One of my favorite events was drinking in a bar with my eigo-jin friends (English people friends), and hearing a lot of Japanese men singing a song in Japanese.
I'm not talking about the standard offensive stuff like blowing your nose, or sticking your chopsticks in the rice. I'll mention three incidents, of which the subway story isn't one of them.
The first, and lesser, incident involved eating in public. It's considered bad form to eat in public, but kind of acceptable, but definitely acceptable for foreigners. It is not acceptable to be walking and eating. I was just standing however, waiting for friends at a common waiting spot, the silver ball (a cool place, but that's a post for another time).
I was talking to a Japanese guy, and his English was pretty good. I was also eating McDonald's, and I had fries. I had two fries drop on the ground. He stopped talking to me, and stared at the fries on the ground for a few seconds, and wasn't talking. He looked at me and my friends as if a little hurt. I then picked it up, and threw it in the trash. He seemed relieved after that, but didn't say anything about it.
I've noticed that there's no trash anywhere, not even cigarette buds anywhere... Japan's really clean.
The second incident involved a few guys I met that same night. They spoke very little English. It was actually a funny incident, and we'd cheers to everything, scream words in Japanese and English, and then cheers again. I learned a lot of Japanese that night, but I forgot it all as I was drinking a bit... I mean a lot...
I was looking for a Halloween costume, and I had two choices, I could go with the one (which will be revealed soon), or GOJIRA!!! (known in English as Godzilla)
I asked my new friends where I could get a Gojira costume. The first guy I talked to was confused, then a second guy came, and I repeated that I was looking for a Gojira costume. The second guy looked shocked, said something in Japanese to the first guy, then they both started saying "no" again and again.
Here is an excerpt of Wikipedia's article about Godzilla: "Godzilla represented the fears of many Japanese of a repetition of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki." Oups... I'm in a culture where the mere mention of nuclear weapons is taboo.
Well I found a Gojira mask yesterday, but by that point I had already purchased my costume... Think Japanese... Think video games... think electric mouse/bunny...
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Korea bound
Hey everyone, in case you haven't heard, I accepted a position in Korea. I have one interview with a company in Japan tomorrow, but I doubt I'll get the job, and I doubt I'll accept if offered.
So the main advantage of Korea is that the cost of living will be cheap. I will be making the same amount of money, but because the company's paying for my flight there, my apartment and half my medical insurance, I'll make money. Basically I'll have enough to support a family of 4 comfortably in Korea.
I leave Japan on November 14th. I'm still staying in my apartment because I won't receive any other form of compensation from my current company. Today was the second date for the delayed wages to come in, and now it's all coming on the 29th... so to translate: never.
Now for my awesome subway story. To send out my resume and information for the new job, I went to the subway to get to my destination. I had just walked down the stairs and there was a subway, so I ran to the nearest door and got in just as the doors were closing.
There weren't many seats around, so I stood up. I looked around and saw a lot of people staring at me. Keep in mind that in Japan, staring at foreigners isn't uncommon. You go anywhere, there's at least one Japanese person that will stare at you. It's like they can't believe their eyes that there's a foreigner in their country. It's funny when I'm in a good mood, extremely annoying when I'm in a bad mood. What seemed strange this time however was the number of people staring at me.
An old Japanese man suddenly walks up to me, and stands beside me. He doesn't say anything, and I don't think much about it. He gets off at the first stop.
Between the first and second stop, I still notice people staring at me, including a group of school girls. One even had her mouth wide open in disbelief... like I said, it's not uncommon to be stared at, but this time it was different.
At the second stop, I realized why they were staring. I was standing right beside the door, and I looked down on the ground and saw a big pink square that said something in Japanese, then in English: "Women only car".
I stared in disbelief for a moment, and then started looking around the cart to see if this was true. All I saw were women. The old guy who stood next to me did so because he wanted to be beside another guy. The doors closed, and I noticed on the subway door a little sign that says "Women only", then started blushing. The school girls started laughing.
The next stop I exited the subway and went to the next car.
So the main advantage of Korea is that the cost of living will be cheap. I will be making the same amount of money, but because the company's paying for my flight there, my apartment and half my medical insurance, I'll make money. Basically I'll have enough to support a family of 4 comfortably in Korea.
I leave Japan on November 14th. I'm still staying in my apartment because I won't receive any other form of compensation from my current company. Today was the second date for the delayed wages to come in, and now it's all coming on the 29th... so to translate: never.
Now for my awesome subway story. To send out my resume and information for the new job, I went to the subway to get to my destination. I had just walked down the stairs and there was a subway, so I ran to the nearest door and got in just as the doors were closing.
There weren't many seats around, so I stood up. I looked around and saw a lot of people staring at me. Keep in mind that in Japan, staring at foreigners isn't uncommon. You go anywhere, there's at least one Japanese person that will stare at you. It's like they can't believe their eyes that there's a foreigner in their country. It's funny when I'm in a good mood, extremely annoying when I'm in a bad mood. What seemed strange this time however was the number of people staring at me.
An old Japanese man suddenly walks up to me, and stands beside me. He doesn't say anything, and I don't think much about it. He gets off at the first stop.
Between the first and second stop, I still notice people staring at me, including a group of school girls. One even had her mouth wide open in disbelief... like I said, it's not uncommon to be stared at, but this time it was different.
At the second stop, I realized why they were staring. I was standing right beside the door, and I looked down on the ground and saw a big pink square that said something in Japanese, then in English: "Women only car".
I stared in disbelief for a moment, and then started looking around the cart to see if this was true. All I saw were women. The old guy who stood next to me did so because he wanted to be beside another guy. The doors closed, and I noticed on the subway door a little sign that says "Women only", then started blushing. The school girls started laughing.
The next stop I exited the subway and went to the next car.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
A day in Nara
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.
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.
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.
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