Vincent in Tokyo

My parents

2007-10-19T22:01:00.000+09:00

It has been almost 2 months since my parents left me, so this post is really, really late, but still worth posting.

September 13th my parents arrived at Narita International Airport.
I hadn't seen them for over a year so I was very excited to see them again. I took them to Tokyo, Kyoto, Nikko and of course my apartment which was a huge mess.

It was their first time outside of Europe and although they already knew a lot about Japan, it's still a completely different thing to actually be here.

I think the first thing they noticed was that it's very, very humid here
. Especcialy during the month they were visiting, which is known to be a very humid month. My dad wore a cap that more than once was completely soaked with sweat. The first week they stayed at a really nice Ryokan in the old centre of Tokyo. The owners were really nice and the area was very beautiful, it was as if time had stopped there since the fifties.

Our first trip was to Shibuya, which is the area most of you will know from photos. Busy pedestrian crossing, lots of neon, tall buildings and lots of people.

After that we explored some more of Tokyo before taking the shinkansen to Kyoto. I've been to Kyoto before, but didn't really have the chance to visit many sights. My view of Kyoto has completely changed after my second visit. It is a really beautiful city with lots and lots of cultural heritage. I added some photos of our trip to Kyoto. (My dad made over 800 photos during their holiday!)

The first 2 are of Kyomizu Dera.
The third one is a photo of a monk begging for money. (They aren't allowed to work for money)
The fourth one is a picture of a monk signing my parents book, which is now completely full of calligraphy from almost every temple we visited. It's like an autograph from the temple.
The fifth is a traditional Shinto wedding ceremony.

Ok, that's it for now, next time more photos and more storytelling.

Gokiburi

2007-09-10T20:07:00.000+09:00

Last night I came out of the shower and while i was putting on my clothes to go to bed I could see 2 long antennae coming out from behind my closet doors.
I slowly opened the door and there I saw a big, fat, shiny cockroach sitting on the door. I am not afraid of bugs, but cockroaches scare the hell out of me, I believe that they are pure evil.

After i gathered some strength to confront this minion of Satan I picked up a small, empty box and moved it slowly towards the cockroach. Then I made my move, I tried to scoop it up with the box, but the damn thing was too fast and it fled in my closet ! I couldn't find it anymore!

Now, in Japan they use long wooden chopsticks for cooking instead of wooden spoons, so with one stick in my hand I poked around in my closet, but to no avail. It was already late so I decided to close the doors and worry about it in the morning. I closed the doors and checked the sides for openings through which he might be able to crawl. It didnt seem possible for him to make it to other side, so I relaxed a bit and checked my email before I went to bed. But! After 5 minutes I looked at the door and saw 2 tentacles sticking out of the bottom moving around. I immediately opened the doors but he was already gone.

Sleeping was difficult, knowing that there was a roach inside my closet. But somehow I fell asleep pretty fast..... An hour later though I woke up soaked in sweat because of the heat. It was at that time I heard something. I immediately turned around and saw something move right next to my futon. The evil bastard had somehow crawled out of my closet and was now after my blood !

I jumped up and turned on the light. Armed with my chopstick I tried to stab him to death. But he was just too fast and kept hiding under my pile of clothing (I really need to clean up). Then I opened the backdoor and started poking under everything in my room, suddenly he ran out from under my radio and went outside. My plan had worked. Victory ! ... I could finally sleep peacefully.

The most famous primate in Japan

2007-09-09T00:59:00.000+09:00

Pan-kun ! And his sidekick James the dog.

Sharks ! Or not...

2007-08-27T18:29:00.000+09:00

I like swimming and 2 weeks ago I found that there is a public swimming pool near my house. Upon entering the pool I felt as if everybody stopped with what they were doing and just started staring at me. Living in a fairly small town I've gotten used to that so I ignored everyone and looked for a location in the shades to lay down my towel.
The first thing I noticed was that there were 7 lifeguards in total for a really small pool. 4 of them were sitting on one of those ladderchairs and the others were walking around. They switched positions every 30 minutes. I was afraid to go underwater, because 1 of them might be thinking I was drowning.

Anyways, after just 10 minutes of swimming I heard an announcement on the loudspeakers. I had no idea what they were saying but suddenly I saw that everybody was leaving the pool ! "Sharks!" Was the first thing that popped in my mind, then realizing I was in a public swimming pool I copied the others and got out as well. Following was another announcement and I could understand something being said about a "15 minute break".

The day after I asked my Japanese friend about it and he told me that in Japanese swimming pools they make everybody get out of the pool every hour for 15 minutes. This is done so nobody wears themselves out by swimming too much and to check if there's no-one dead in the pool. The last 5 minutes is spent by doing this: Radio Taisou

YouTube videos

2007-08-23T21:17:00.000+09:00

I uploaded some youtube videos.

These are videos I made at a festival in Chiba:

Yesterday I went to Tokyo Disneyland, to give you an idea of how hot and crowded it was I present you with this video:

Hot, Hotter, Hottest, Japan

2007-08-09T22:08:00.000+09:00

I have never been in Japan in August. Last year I was at home during that month, so I missed Japan's hottest month.
It is hot ! Sometimes when I tell people back home that it's 30 degrees celsius they say: "Ow nice!" It's not that nice as it seems. At this moment it's just after 10pm and it's still 28 degrees (82.4 Fahrenheit) as you can see on the picture I attached to this post. The humidty is around 80% which can best be described as someone throwing wet hot towels in your face. Every shirt, pants, sock, towel in my apartment feels moist and when I'm outside I'm sweating bullets. The best thing to do is to just stay inside with the airconditioning switched on.

Visit from overseas

2007-07-24T03:58:00.000+09:00

On Monday I met my Japanese teacher from Holland, Masami, together with her children and a friend of hers, Miho. They were visiting their relatives in Fukui (福井) and decided to come to Tokyo. We met in Shibuya and went to an izakaya near the trainstation. I don't know how well she expected me to speak Japanese, but I hope she was satisfied. If not: "Gomen nasai! I will study harder!"

She also brought with her a few gifts for me, stroopwafels from Holland and Castella from Fukui.

It was a little bit tiring for me, because I had to keep switching between Japanese, English and Dutch. I noticed that her children don't seem to have any problem with it. While her son was explaining something to me in Dutch, Masami asked him a question and he quickly replied in Japanese before immediately switching back into Dutch to finish the story he was telling me. I wonder how long it will take for me to reach that kind of level. Thank you for the exquisite evening!

Last day at Dai-Nana

2007-07-24T03:19:00.000+09:00

Last Friday was my last day at Narashino Dai-Nana Chu-gakko (習志野市立第七中学校).
There was a closing ceremony where I had to give my goodbye speech to all students and teachers. I wrote my speech in English and had one of the English teachers translate it for me in Japanese. I used to be nervous to speak in front of big crowds, but being a teacher, I've pretty much gotten used to it. 30 or 400 students, it's all the same.
With a few minor mistakes in my speech I managed to pull it off pretty well, I even got a big applause when I finished.

After me, another teacher got up on stage and explained to the students to behave during the summer-vacation and suddenly he said my name, and then again, and then one more time. I was trying to figure out what he was saying but it was too fast. When I asked the English teacher, she told me that he was lecturing them about TPO (Time, Place, Occasion). Which basically means that you should behave according to what time of day it is, where you are and what the occasion is. He used me as an example. The reason for using me was because I gave up on wearing formal clothing about a month ago. Maybe it's just me, but I don't like wearing a tie and suit when it's 30 degrees inside the school. But, since it was the last day, I wore a tie and a nice shirt, neatly tucked in my pants.

When the assembly was over, I sat back and relaxed a little in teacher's room. Then one by one students came to give me presents !
Every student wrote a little note and had them all binded together into a little book. The messages were really sweet. One student even made me drawing ! I will add the drawing and one of the messages to my post.

From September I will be going to my next school. Narashino Dai-San Chu-gakko (習志野市立第三中学校). As you can see on Google maps, the school is a little further than my previous.

Niigata earthquake

2007-07-18T22:14:00.000+09:00

Upon arriving Tuesday morning at school the principal asked me if I had noticed the eathquake on monday morning. That monday was 海の日 (Ocean day), so I had the day off.
My reply was, "Earthquake? What earthquake?". That was when I found out that Niigata had been hit by a big earthquake which was apparently felt as far as Tokyo. I tried to recall what I was doing at 10:30 but came up blank. I think I was just taking a shower, but I hadn't felt a thing.
So all of you at home who are worrying about me, I am OK :)

Earthquake report on MSN-Mainichi

Typhoon

2007-07-14T15:07:00.000+09:00

I just got back from the convenience store. I bought instant ramen, cigarettes, potato chips and a bottle of coke. There is no need to leave the room this weekend.
The wind is already picking up and i'm getting ready to welcome typhoon number 4, named Man-Yi.
The news says that by the time it reaches the Tokyo bay area, it has already lost a lot of it's power, but i'm guessing it will still be a lot more powerful than anything I will have ever seen back home.

UPDATE: Got all excited for nothing. By the time the typhoon reached Tokyo it had lost strength en was moving away to the south. No strong winds, no heavy rainfall, no mudslides and no power-outages. So I went to see Die Hard 4.0 at a movie theater in Soga (蘇我). Nice movie. Not the kind of excitement I was aiming for, but entertaining notheless.

Baseball

2007-05-25T19:33:00.002+09:00

2 weeks ago (sorry for the late update) I went to the Chiba Lotte Marines. I have never been to a baseball game in my life. Baseball isn't very popular in the Netherlands, so I was very excited to witness a live match.
The Marines played against the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks which of course didn't mean anything to me. We arrived at Kaihin Makuhari at around 4 o'clock, the game started at 6 which gave us enough time to shop for food, walk around the stadium and check out the museum, cheerleaders, mascottes, foodstalls and performances. "Shop for food!?" I hear you ask, yes, you are allowed to bring your own food and drinks. After seeing that a single beer costs Y600, I was very glad.
The first thing I noticed when I walked into the stadium was the fact that there was no security. None. No metaldetector, no angry looking patrols and no police. Another thing I noticed was that baseball is a real family event, the last time I saw so many children was when I went to Disneyland.

The atmosphere was excellent, you could tell that everybody was there just to have a good time and watch baseball. And even though the game itself was kind of boring (1-1), I had a really good time and will definitely visit again.

And now for some photos and a movie I made.

1 year in Japan !

2007-05-06T19:00:00.000+09:00

I just realized that it's 1 year ago since I came to Japan with the intend of living here. A lot of things have happened since then. I have made many good decisions and a lot of bad ones. I have wonderful memories as well as painful memories. Overall I think that I could've done a lot better. A long time ago I made a promise which has now fallen to pieces. I pictured myself on my deathbed and try to imagine if I would have any regrets about the decisions I made in my life. Now I know that this goal is an Utopia. It's impossible to live a happy life without making any big decisions which will or won't turn out to be good choices. Right now there are many things I wish I could change, but since this is not possible I will just have to live with the consequences of these choices and try to make the best of it.

You can run but you can't hide !

2007-04-23T20:14:00.000+09:00

When I got home this evening I checked my mailbox as always and was shocked at what I saw lying in there. It was the notorious (at least in Holland) 'blue envelope'. The tax office sends all it's letters in an envelope of a specific blue color which nobody dares to use for other purposes because nobody wants to scare their friends or family. Obviously I was a little hessitant about opening the letter. Upon opening and reading it a weight fell of my shoulders.
They have tracked me down and just want to know for how long I will be planning to stay here, what my new address is etc. etc.
It's funny to see how the system works. In February I had to get a new passport, for which I had to apply at the embassy in Tokyo. They informed the city hall or Roermond whom informed the tax office. At least, that's how I think it went.

Just one of those days

2007-04-10T18:25:00.000+09:00

This morning everything went as usual. I woke up, took a shower, had breakfast, got dressed, put on my coat and take my backpack.....Hmmmm... where's my backpack? Maybe it's in the genkan. Nope, not here. Suddenly I remembered. I left it on the train the evening before! And the worst part is, I managed to get home yesterday without even noticing it was gone !

Is it possible to get Alzheimer at age 26? Probably not, I have always been sloppy with stuff like that. It runs in the family. Thanks dad ! ;) I can't even remember what was in it. To be honest, I just carried it around for no particular reason. It's not like it looked cool or that I was making a fashion statement, but I'd gotten to the point where it became a habit to bring it with me. Except for this one time.

My next step is finding the lost&found office. I don't know where it is.

--1 hour later--

Got it ! I found a telephone number for JR East and called them. A kind young woman answered the phone in English and asked me what I had lost and when and where I lost it. After giving her this information she called the lost&found office for me. After about 50 minutes she called back with good news. My backpack was found.... at the last stop of the Uchibo line in a place called Awa-kamogawa, 25(!) stations from where I live. (You can check all the stations on my line here) I can pick it up at at the station attendant.

My favorite Japanese shows

2007-03-25T00:00:00.000+09:00

Last year I wrote a bit about Japanese television. Having lived here for almost a year I have grown fond of a couple of shows.

Here are 2 of my favorite Japanese shows:

1. Gaki no tsukai (full name: Downtown no Gaki no Tsukai ya Arahende)
A show about 5 comedians who are famous for their 'batsu games'.
Really funny clip (object of the game is NOT to laugh, or else you will get punished):

Here is another clip of them playing Silent Library (forbidden to make noise) with Ernesto Hoost:

2. Hard Gay
This clip is with subtitles so you can enjoy what they're saying as well.

Religion

2007-03-24T15:54:00.000+09:00

I've just been woken up by a Jehova's Witness. I was taking a really nice nap when the doorbell rang. Since not many people visit me, I actually thought it was something important. When I opened the door I immediately realized the mistake I made. Luckily she noticed quickly that I am a foreigner who doesn't speak Japanese. This time I completely switched to Dutch and didn't speak a single word English/Japanese.

I really don't have any problems with religious people but I'm seriously starting to hate being stopped on the street by Christians, preached to by Mormons and woken up by Jehova's Witnesess. Some even speak English pretty well. But whatever they have to say, "I am not interested in it" I always tell them. Apparently they've gotten used to this 'tactic' so they now camouflaged their speeches in the form of stupid meaningless questionnaires.
Yes, I am not always happy. Just like everybody else on this planet. No, I don't think god can help me with that. Why not? Because I don't believe in god. Why? There is no proof. You feel god in your heart? Have fun with that, but please leave me alone and stop bothering me !

It's nice to do a little rant about this, but most of the time I am too kind to tell them that to their faces. I just answer their questions until I am finished. The reason is that most of these people are really friendly which makes me feel that I should treat them in the same way.

I have yet to see a Buddhist/Shintoist (Which are by far the 2 biggest religions in Japan)on the street forcing his believes on random bypassers. This fact alone makes me respect these religions much more. Believe what you want to believe, but please... leave me alone. Go read a good book or have a few drinks with some friends.

Hangman

2007-03-20T22:52:00.000+09:00

While according to The World Health Organization suicide rates in Japan are not especially high compared to other countries it is still a big issue in Japan. The reason for this is probably because suicide has always been a part of the Japanese culture. I just have to mention “Seppuku” or “Hara-kiri” and I think you know what I mean. A few months ago the newspapers were full of horrible stories about children committing suicide. Doing a quick search on a Japanese news website shows many examples. Some of the students were in Elementary School !

I can’t believe that students at that age even think of something like suicide.

Today I witnessed another example of the fear parents have.
When I have a couple of minutes of spare time in my class I sometimes play hangman with them. It’s a fun game and it helps to broaden their vocabulary. But today I heard that there were complaints coming in from parents who didn’t like the dangling stick figure that their children were confronted with after they failed to guess the word. So they requested me to change to hangman to something more ‘friendly’. I’m a nice guy so I changed it to a spider without making any fuss about it.

The name is Door, Convenient Door

2007-03-15T13:18:00.000+09:00

Let me tell you something about signatures in Japan. They don't mean the same thing as they do in the west. Signatures will get you nowhere. Whether it's a buying a car, opening a bank account or loaning money, you will be asked for a Hanko. A Hanko is a namestamp and it serves the same purpose as a signature in the west. So when I opened a bankaccount last week the bank teller suggested that I had one made. Although lately they can open a bankaccount without one, it's still a whole lot easier to just have one made for future purposes.

I now have a couple of options, I can either have one made with my name in Katakana or I can change my name from the phonetic word "Binsento" to a Japanese word with an actual meaning.
Yesterday I asked a couple of students to try and 'Japanize' my name and they came up with 2 options:
1. 瓶泉兎 (Bottle Pond Rabbit)
and my personal favorite
2. 便鮮戸 (Convenient Fresh Door)

There are A LOT more options for my name and I will let you know once I have decided. If you can read/write Japanese I would really appreciate it if you'd let me know your suggestions.

Cell phone addiction

2007-03-07T15:13:00.000+09:00

A week ago I bought a new cell phone (ketai in Japanese), I'm very happy with it. It has email, internet, TV, GPS, mp3-player, e-money and a camera and it wasn't very expensive. Cell phones are big business in Japan. I can't find the exact number of subscribers, but walking down the street in any Japanese city will give you an image of how many people have a cell phone.

Yesterday I saw a report on the news about people being addicted. They asked people on the streets 10 questions. A couple of these questions were:
Do you feel like you have to reply emails within 15 mins?
When your battery is almost empty, does it make you feel bad?
Do you feel irritated when you discover you forgot you phone at home?
Do you know at what time certain people will call you on your phone?
Do you use your phone on the train?
Do you have more than 1 cell phone?

Surprisingly, a lot of people answered "yes" to almost all questions. After that they showed some footage of polictians secretly using their phone during meetings, truck drivers who were on the road talking on the phone and normal people while walking on the platform at the trainstation. At least 1 person almost got killed who walked off the platform because he was looking at his phone instead of where he was going.

Having said this, there aren't many times I'm actually disturbed by people using a cell phone. When people in Japan are on the phone in a public place, they will most likely cover the mouthpiece with their hand to avoid being a disturbance to others.

My Japanese acting debut !

2007-02-17T18:58:00.000+09:00

This morning at 9 am I was picked up by my friend and co-worker 'Yoppy'. He is a friend of a director that works for Channel 9 in Ichihara-shi and I was asked to play a role in a series about folk stories that take place in Ichihara.
My role was that of a Doctor, named Edmond.

The leading role was a guy that received a lot of money but because he liked to spent a lot of money it took him only a couple of weeks before he was almost poor again. He spent most of it in hostess-bars. His father got fed up with him and tried to reason with him. Without any success. Through a friend he learned that there was a foreign doctor (me!) that could cure him of his habit through a strange treatment.

We all gathered in a forest and I made the lead character climb a tree without a ladder. Ofcourse he almost fell and while he was hanging on a tiny branch I made him realize that this branch represented everything he had left. His parents, his friends and his money. If he let go, he will lose everything. And of course he came out a changed man and we all celebrated this change in a bar.

That's the basic story, from what I understand at least.

The show will be aired on 4 March.

The spoiled cyclist

2007-01-25T16:41:00.000+09:00

As a cyclist in Holland you're at the top of the traffic food-chain.
There are special paths just for cyclists and cars and pedestrians will always keep an eye out for you.
Not in Japan.
Pedestrians walk in the middle of the sidewalk, cars can be parked ON the sidewalk, bumps and holes seem to fixed with only the pedestrian in mind and nobody seem to notice you until you are 1 feet away.
This is by far my biggest pet peeve I am experiencing in Japan.

From earth

2007-01-15T12:22:00.000+09:00

English is a fashionable language in Japan. It looks cool, but a lot of the times it makes no sense to an english speaker. Yesterday I opened a bag of peanuts and when I looked at the package I couldn't help but laugh.
From earth?!?! Where am I now?

akemashite o-medetō-gozaimasu !

2007-01-09T08:41:00.000+09:00

3 ! 2 ! 1 !.... *silence*
That about sums up the Japanese change into the new year.
No fireworks, no late night clubbing, no shaking hands and no kissing friends and family.
Total silence, that's it.

My friend and I knew this so the day before the 'big' countdown we went shopping for party snacks. We got home that evening with donuts, beer, champagne, party crackers (not really food, but there you go) and an illuminated sheep (I'm not even going to explain) as our midnight-mascot.
A few minutes before 12 I turned on the TV to start looking for a channel with a countdown-clock. There was an end-year concert going on in Tokyo Dome and 1 minute before midnight they showed a clock in the lower-right corner.
In Holland I am used to hearing fireworks at midnight, but here in Japan there is only silence and a distant sound of someone banging on a bell at a shrine.
We decided to go and check out what was going on there. But before we went out I flipped through some other channels to see what what on. There were many shows about food and the rest of the channels were taken up by home-shopping garbage.
At the shrine many people had gathered from around the neighborhood to pray.
They had set up a tent near a huge campfire (which we were told was a god) where they were serving some sort of rice drink (very sweet), soup and sake, free for everyone.
We got a lot of attention, probably due to the fact that most visitor weren't expecting any foreigners to visit this small shrine.
We stayed until 2AM drinking sake and talking to the locals about Holland, food and women.

The next morning we took an early train with our Japanese friend to visit Asukusa in Tokyo. One of the most visited temples at new year in the Kanto area.
I am not very good at estimating amounts of people, but I can tell you that there were A LOT.
The were all lining up to get inside the temple and make a new year donation. We did the only sensible thing to do. We cut in line. We walked all the way past the immense queue and when we almost reached to front we slided unsuspiciously into the line. Which is not so easy being a tall foreigner I might add. In 30 mins. we reached to front of the queue and were allowed inside. Everybody was shoving and pulling, trying to get into the right angle to throw there money into a big hole that was there for that purpose alone. I really wasn't paying that much attention since i was more busy trying to protect my Japanese friend from being squashed.

When we got out of the temple we were confronted by food stalls as far as the eye could reach. There was Okonomiyaki, Mochi, Yakisoba and even Doner Kebab. Have I told you that Japanese love food?
After we filled our stomachs with a fine selection Japanese new-year food we took the train back home, far away from the crowds.

Winter’s around the corner

2006-11-29T16:40:00.000+09:00

Getting my apartment up to a comfortable temperature takes a lot of fiddling around with my heater. The walls in most Japanese apartments seem to be made of paper. Double glass and central heating is something that not many people have in their home.

I usually get home around 5:30 at which point I immediately turn on the heater and go out to buy my dinner. (Since my stove takes 30 minutes just to boil water, I stopped bothering to cook for myself) When I get back it’s like walking into a tropical forest so I turn the heater off. But the second it’s switched off I can feel the cold creeping in again. It’s like an icy wave engulfing me and slowly seeping through my bones. So 15 minutes later I turn on the heater again. Within no-time it starts blasting a hot wind comparable with something a slice of bread might experience when put in the toaster.

The last 2 days I tried wearing 2 sweaters and the heater switched to off. It’s more environment friendly and inside my 3 layers of clothing I can finally relax in a comfortable temperature and read my book without being distracted.

Seoul

2006-11-20T11:46:00.000+09:00

Last thursday I made a quick crossover to Seoul, South Korea.
My VISA is currently being processed and it will be done in December, but my last VISA expired the 22nd of November so I needed to leave the country.

Seoul itself is pretty nice and the people are comparable with the Japanese. Although Koreans seem to be a bit more....uhmmm.. how do i say this.....They are more open.
I also noticed that everything is more messy then Japan. There are foodstalls everywhere, there's more garbage in the alleyways and it's noisier. And there is A LOT more police and military on the streets. You could see guys walking around with black pants, black bombers, black caps and black sunglasses, carrying a automatic machinegun. They looked pretty intimidating. In Japan you see police just as often as you'd see a girl WITHOUT a Louis Vuitton bag.

The most frustrating for me was that I can't speak a single word in Korean. Even now, I still don't even know how to say "Hi" in Korean. Luckily for me, most Koreans can speak English pretty good. Maybe it's because there are so many Americans in Seoul.

Anyways, i'm back safe and sound and now and it feels like i've never even left.