Sayonara Sobu-Line...!

In the meantime I moved to central Tokyo. From the tiny suburb mansions to modern several storeys high buildings (I live at the 5th floor now, getting a great view of Shinjuku...). Going to school by bicycle rather then by train, it takes laughable 15 minutes now to get there. Furthermore, there is no more temple gong in the morning, but much sharper church bells, and in the evening no more factory-pipes fluting from the distance but drive-by-promotional-enchantments (“Gyooooza yasuiiii....!”). And between the traditional restaurants, sake bars and workshops nestled along the main street, there is some american style coffee shop or a french bakery to find here and there.

Nonetheless Akebonobashi is a mainly residential area, my room is oriented away from the main street and its quite calm, not what i expected from living in Tokyo at least (Traffic here is just not what you are used to in big cities in the west). But it is not only the outside that has changed. I share the apartment with three people, who are all nice, and we are doing much things together, talking, cooking, going out. But no more of the hospitality of my former hosts, who I liked a lot, and who I really miss. Being on my own now meaning also preparing my own food, shopping (trying to find all the good things i simply ate and drank so far), doing my laundry and putting out the garbage (one of the few things i really think is unnecessarily complicated here).
And all these things work just a little bit different, but that's the fun finding out how...!

More Fotos of Akebonbashi...
Now I have Videos too!

Farewell Sushi in Hamano

So what about school...

GEOS Kudan (just smile, my dear colleagues, this one happens to be quite a big language school chain) is located in central Tokyo, just a 10 minutes walk from the imperial palace. It belongs to Chioyda business district, but it is not really downtown, the big business places are located in the southeast (Otemachi, Ginza) or even farther off in Shinkuku. Besides the offices present here, you have a lot of universities around, and the lower part of yasukuni-dori (avenue) is full of bookstores.
First school day, was like total chaos! There was the placement-list for all the newcomers, the names written in katakana (the syllable-script for foreign words. No problem writing, but try to find your name on such a list. Furthermore they use forenames, so I had to look twice anyway...). Class started at 13:30 after a short self-introduction by everyone with the teacher just talking rapidly in japanese and – oh my goodness – the students just responding in japanese in a relaxed manner. While i didn't understand anything!
In fact class is held in japanese only. So new vocabulary is described with (mostly) more basic words. This is an overall characteristics of teaching here, things are not explained but shown (in a more or less transparent way). That applies to the structure of exercises as well. With some it took my over 2 weeks to figure out, how they really work (Especially those with pictures only, leaving you just wondering what they are supposed to mean already).
The level of the course I am in, is quite challenging for me, it is at about the level of the university course i took in Austria. But it is much more relaxed and fun, and there is a lot of interaction. Not only plain grammar repetition. After all I am quite positively surprised.
A propos repetition, yes, you have that kind of jointly reading aloud texts, fortunately only for some short times during the whole week.
One more thing: School is crowded, like most places in Tokyo, there is not much space. Classrooms are mall and 15 people fill it up quite well. During the breaks you can stay either in the classroom or in the hallway, where it is crowded. So most of the time I join smokers in the closet (smoking second hand). This is just the only place where you need not constantly give way for someone passing by.

Food

The Japanese word for meal is “Gohan” literally meaning boiled rice.
And boiled rice is just what you get all day long. Boiled rice in the morning ("asa-gohan"), boiled rice at noon ("hiro-gohan") and yes! boiled rice in the evening ("ban-gohan").
But that doesn't at all mean it is bad! It's the opposite! Rice is just the best thing to get you fed. And if it might sound strange to have rice accompanying spaghetti with sauce, it just does what it has to do. And you'll never experience that strange feeling of not being satisfied after having eat.

In fact, back then at Hachigome (Dewa-Sanzan), as season was low, all i got for dinner were two small pieces of onigiri (rice-sandwich, left). Normally these are filled with fish or something alike. But those only contained a single sour cherry. And I really worried, how I would make it through the evening only having eat those two tiny pieces.
But it lasted. And not a second I wasted a thought on getting more somehow.

Of course there is much much more than that, and especially in Tokyo you can get everything! One popular all days long food is noodle soup (“ramen”, “udon”, “soba”), you can find it just everywhere in this country! But it doesn't need to be a traditional dish. In the supermarket you can get yummie things too, like a soba-sandwich....

Beans and Rice!

During the weekend I went to Chiba City, to see what it's like. Being not that tourist-mekka, Chiba has its sights, such as Chiba-Castle, a zoo and the Port Tower, all of these linked by Chiba Urban Monorail, worlds longest suspension type monorail. Most of the day i spent at the port area, which is one of the largest in all of Japan. Just some minutes walk from Minato Station there's a small piece of green in midst the never to end industrial architecture spreading along the eastern coastline!

Just at the waterfront of this recreational area, there is the port-tower, a slender building of 112m height. Still not totally gotten used to outdoor background music, i stood in its shadow amazed and listened to jazzo-electrified popsongs (something that met my liking at last). I went it up of course, trying not to mind looking down 112 meters through a translucent glass- and steel construction. But you also have a great view over all the vast commercial area, up to Tokyo where buildings slowly disappear in the fume. Ships coming in and going out again, waking some wanderlust in me just at the other end of this beautiful earth.

Outside people were taking advantage of the accessible waterfront. At a small renaturalised bay surrounded by a factory- and silo-landscape, people were relaxing, surfing, fishing crabs (leaving aside the flying fish, which are lots of fun to watch) and looking for seashells (me too!). Still not having had enough of industrial coastline, i went on a boat, that did the port tour, allowing me to experience the view from the seaside.

I went back again by the monorail, stopping at Chiba Park to relax a bit, before continuing to the city center to experience Chiba after nightfall. In fact, by then the scenery totally changed. And daytime-commuters giving way to a more younger townsfolk looking for entertainment. Finally I let myself convince once more by some crazy background outdoor free jazz, to look for the place where they had that. But in vain. All in all I had quite a hard time getting a simple drink! That's because on ground floor, there are mostly shops. Clubs and bars, are on higher floors, so no strolling by, checking if the place is what you're up to right now. Instead there are panels in front of the elevators, turning out to be totally undecipherable for me, including signs saying pub, while the place turning out to offer some slightly different kind of leisure. I got my beer at last. In a restaurant.
Link to the Foto-Map (Thanks go to Thomas here!)

Best of falling asleep in a train (respectively in public)...

1)Man dozing off while unfolding a peace of paper.
2)Woman sleeping while on an escalator.
3)Girl satnding sleeps while holding herself up on a grab handle.
4)Girl fallen asleep while typing a message.
To be continued...

Those who are not reading or utilizing their mobile-whatsoever in the wagon are asleep. And that is about 50% of the passengers.
At first i found that really funny, how people managed to sleep in the most inconvenient positions you can imagine.
And I wondered how so many people could burden themselves with de facto no-quality rest. But after some days of commuting I now understand why.
Going for 1 ½ hour by train just drains your brain.
After about 60 minutes I just don't want to read any more.
Nothing at all!
And despite just not being able to, i realize getting near the point just dozing off too. And most of the time I arrive at school feeling like have been hit on the head by a stone.