Teijyusha

Upon returning to Japan, I opened my mailbox and a flood of junk tumbled out of it. Nested inside the sleazy hooker and pizza ads were a couple of bills and, more interestingly, a summon to the immigration bureau.
Remember all that sucking, fucking bureaucracy I had to go through to apply for my visa? It was concerning that. So I showed up at the bureau, waited another two hours and boom!
 I'm now a Long-Term Resident!
 That means, as opposed to a student visa or a working visa, that I could practically decide to roll over in my bed and do nothing, and never fear getting kicked out of the country.
 So cheers, Japan. We'll be dancing our dance for another few years to come!

Milestone: Year One

It's time for a Milestone! You can compare to my other milestones by clicking on the Milestone label.

Year One: Summary

Status:

Job: Children's Fitness Teacher
Financial status:  Good

Location:


City: Tokyo
Ward: Chuo-ku
Train station: Kayabacho
Residing in: My apartment, Hermit Fortress


Cast of Characters:


Major Characters:
Ken "Goblin" Tanaka
Erika Mochizuki (and Maxine!)
Aala "Kusoyaro" Kansali of Tunisia

Minor Characters:
Fumi, the ex-hostess
Etsumi (It's-Me) Sugeno
Lisa Fukumoto Fang
Kuniaki "Forest" Mori

Retired Characters:

Sofie Monrad of Denmark
Julian "Shank" Einschenk of Germany
Anton "Foxboy" Jermaine of England
Rodrigue Zapha of France

Clement Sanchez of France



Top Five Highlights:
(since last time)

- Comiket '84
- Ashiodozan: Abandoned Mine and Abandoned School
- Hosting Canti
- Getting Lost in the Countryside
- Tsukiji Fish Market


Still to Come:

- A Second Ghost Town
- Robot Restaurant
- Studio Ghibli Museum
- Osaka City
- Walking to Yokohama

Montreal's Zombie Walk

While relatively small for a city, Montreal is known for its great number of festivals and municipal events taking place throughout the year. The annual Jazz festival and Just For Laughs festival are examples of events that draw people from around the world, but many smaller events also take place that are relished by the locals.

 Due in no small part to the approach of Halloween, it just so happened that my stay coincided with Montreal's annual Zombie Walk. This year, the event drew an approximated 3000 people. Yikes.

And so I left home after throwing together a quick outfit, and joined my (usually) lovely lady friends, Roxanne and Marie (pictured) for their own preparations. Shortly after, we were off to join the horde.

It would feel very authentic if not for the photographers!

With my trusty frying pan in hand, I went dressed as a struggling survivor, and that was great fun. I had a blast running up to photographers and just yelling stuff like "evacuate!", "run!", and "they're coming!" in their faces at the top of my lungs, while darting in and out of the zombie horde. I was often chased around by rather outgoing individuals who took their role-play to heart, and I safely assume that I can treasure those moments as some of the few where I'll ever have several women on top of me at a time.
 Once in a while I would also encounter another rare survivor who would grab me by the arm and we would go running together.
 I fancy the thought that there may have been some people who woke up at this time and looked outside and thought this was actually happening.

Game over?

This is Montreal (part 1)

When I first came to Japan, I had a return ticket due for in six months. Six months was the "trial period" I had allocated myself, and, upon make a few friends and getting involved with my job, I had then decided that I would be staying in the country for a lot longer than that. And so I pushed my ticket back as far as I could be allowed to, and it just so happened that the allowed period between entry and return was one year. It's been one year now since I've left Montreal for Japan, and here I am again in Canada, the land of greasy fries, Chinese convenience store owners and potholes sized like they're meant for you to hide your babies inside.
 I wasn't really going to blog about Montreal at first, but it occurs to me now that there are probably, like, two or three of you who're reading this blog from Japan. So here's a quick run through of a firs set of things you can see and do while you're in Montreal.

Courtesy goes to Ken for most of these pictures. I don't take many touristy pictures of the city I was born and raised in, so that'll fall upon him. Oh, and yeah, Ken did come to Montreal with me. That decision was made by him on a drunken night. Possibly one of the only ways a decision to come to Montreal is made.

 You can do the following in Montreal.

1: Eat Poutine

The steamy mass of lard and soggy french fries is something I have attempted to find in Tokyo with disappointing results. Poutine is served everywhere in Montreal. It's kind of like the Magna Carta when it comes to figuring out the local taste in food amongst the commoners. It's greasy, vulgar, unapologetic about its own existence, too much exposure to it isn't good for your health at all, but you find yourself going back to it more than you'd like. Kind of like Montreal people.



2: St-Joseph Basilica

It's the biggest domed church of its kind in North America. To me, the Basilica inspires a bit of a sense of awe, if for nothing but its size and the quietness inside. I won't go into its history too much, but a small chapel behind the basilica itself displays an impressive number of crutches left behind by people who claim to have visited St-Joseph Basilica and to have been healed. Today, it's considered to be one of Montreal's signature landmarks and can be spotted easily as you approach the city by highway.


3: Go Raccoon Feeding

Actually, few Montrealers even know about this, but on top of Mount-Royal (which offers a nice view on the city, by the way) the raccoons come out every night and are fed by a handful of people. They come out in droves and will actually eat from your hands. So long as you have food to offer, they don't mind if you pet them and are actually very docile. Reportedly, rabies has been eradicated here in Montreal, but keep safe and sanitize your hands afterwards.


4: Old Montreal

Montreal's not the most beautiful city in Canada (that would be Vancouver) but it is the most interesting one, which can be accounted for due to its cultural heritage. Old Montreal offers a lot of 16th and 17th century European architecture, complete with brick roads and horse carriages. You can also drop by the Old Port, which is nice and scenic especially for the elements noted above. On weekends, performers come out and act, juggle, play music and do acrobatics. Bring a date here.



There's actually a few things more, and I'll be periodically posting about those during my stay here in Montreal. I'll be back in Japan on the 29th.

Tsukiji Fish Market

Tsukiji's Fish Market is the biggest of its kind in the world, effectively supplying most of Tokyo's restaurants and supermarkets with perishable food meant for daily consumption. Fish is flown to Tsukiji from all over this side of the world. The place is bustling with activity 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, and during the wee-hours of the early morning, the choice catches are auctioned to the top sushi restaurants in the city.

Their faces frozen with their dying scream!

 There used to be a time when visitors were allowed to walk in and out of the market at will, but this eventually became a hazard due to all the vehicles going to and fro. Nowadays, only 120 people are allowed in when it's time for the auctions, which take place at 5 in the morning, meaning you'd have to get there before the metro starts running. You would think this would be inconvenient enough for people not to want to show up. But in Tokyo, those 120 slots fill up fast. And we were determined to make it and hold ours.
 For this, Ken and I woke up at 3:30 in the morning and were out by 3:50. Tsukiji isn't far from where I live, and the 30 minute walk took us there by 4:20, 40 minutes before the start of the auction. And yet, 60 people had already made it to line before us. By 4:45 or so, security was already sending some people back home, as they hadn't made the cut off. We watched as poor souls came in by taxi, were dropped off, and left stranded at the doorstep of the marketplace, forced to call another.

 Our turn to spectate the auctions soon came, and it wasn't long until we were brought to a hall where just under a hundred tuna fish were displayed at a time, some easily weighing 70 or 80 kilos. The room was also packed with restaurant owners, each bearing the initials of their respective establishment, auctioning for the best tunas. With a critical eye, each one had their pick and fought for it in silence, merely raising their hands when they wanted to signal an up in their bid. The average tuna flew off for around 3000¥ per kilo. That's expensive as hell. The auctioneer himself flew his mouth like a god damn machine gun, and auctioned just around 20 tuna in what appeared to be 3 minutes. Their expedience was unbelievable.

It's early, man.

 It was around 6:30 when we got out of the marketplace itself. As you would imagine, the surrounding area is rich in number of small sushi places. So we gave in to our craving and tried out some fresh sushi.
 In terms of price, there's a big difference in terms of grades of sushi. We paid around 12$ for 4 pieces, with the half of that price being attributed to one special piece: Fatty Tuna, the Holy Grail of sushi-kind. Cut from the choicest part of the tuna's belly, this mofo is usually the most expensive thing on the menu. Is it worth 6$? I dunno, but man, is it good. The fish literally just melts in your mouth like butter. It melts! It really does! Try it some time.

Brief Note: Invitation Accepted

Today was my first day teaching English in private, and my students were none other than the children of Kagaya, owner of the Best Bar in the World, who I've gotten to know somewhat better, since I guess I'm quite the regular at his shop. Of course, Kagaya himself was there to assist me with the lesson, providing me a very dynamic sidekick and altogether making the experience more enjoyable. I will be teaching Kagaya's children only once a month for just about 55$ for a 45 minute lesson.

Gunma, and the Country Side

The morning following Canti's departure from Tokyo, Ken and I were already on our feet and ready for our next escapade out of the big city. The idea was to make it to the national park of Ose, reputed to be one of the nicest national parks in the Kanto region of Japan.
Due to some shoddy planning on our behalves, we never quite made it to Ose, and instead wound up in the country side of Gunma prefecture, unwilling to pay an unexpected extra sum to take the bus to the national park. The revelation was bitter, but when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. Similarly, when life gives you an infected wound, you squeeze the pus out of it. So we tried to make the best of our situation, and perhaps we succeeded to some degree.
The three hour train ride we took brought us to a town named Numata - which literally translates to "swamp field." Once there, it wasn't long before we realized there wasn't much to be done. Numata's population seemed to be at a rapid decrease. A quick trip to what was supposed to be the local shopping mall proved to be nothing but the carcass of. The only shop in the whole mall that seemed to be able to keep business was the 100¥ store - the "dollar shop", as you would say back home. It seemed hard to keep a business running. Knowing we would find little fun in the actual mall itself, we decided we'd be the source of our own enjoyment in Numata, so we took a wheelchair to the shopping mall's roof and played the fools (much to the dismay of a high school couple trying to have a romantic moment), knowing the mall didn't have the money to afford security.

Sometimes the best fun is senseless fun.

The hotel we stayed in that night was probably some kind of pension for old people at one point or another. It smelled odd and the wallpaper was peeling off, but we had cable television and beds to sleep on, and that was all we needed.
 The next day we ventured out of the town and into the actual country side, hoping to indulge in something more typical of the rural life.

 We enjoyed picking some grapes (although, with Japanese fruit being so expensive, we could only pick so much), took a dip in a small bathhouse run by elderly country-folk, and altogether just immersed in the skyscraper-less landscape of the Gunma outback. But, city-people as we are, it wasn't long before we had run out of places to go and things to see, and Tokyo beckoned us back with its glitzy lights (and its pretty girls which could be counted with more than just the fingers in one hand.)

Braving the Storm (Goodbye Canti)

September 30th saw the coming of Tropical Storm Jelawat upon Tokyo. Droves of Facebook updates were posted, friends urging each other to stay safe and indoors, as this typhoon swooped northwards from Okinawa, where it flipped cars over. I was released out of work early to ensure I would get home safely, but I was intent on meeting Ken at Asakusa, at the other end of town.
 Barely had I arrived, though, did I get a call from Canti - waiting outside my apartment with nowhere to go. So I rushed there. In the meanwhile, the cyclone picked up in intensity. By the time I arrived, it was at its worst, pounding trees sideways and raining horizontally. My umbrella turned inside out, and I scattered it to the wind. But I intercepted Canti, and all was good. Safe and comfortable indoors, we took some time to warm up. It was Canti's last day in Tokyo, and she had yet to go to Akihabara to buy some of the things she wanted. She was visibly upset.
 "We could go now," I offered.
 And we did that. We ran across Akihabara - a shopping spree in the middle of a tropical storm. The severity of the tempest was questionable. At times, the winds would drop completely and the rain would seem to have just stopped. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, a horrible storm gust would pick up, throwing the needle-like corpses of discarded umbrellas at our legs with savage vehemence. One such gale almost swept Canti off her feet, and it was all she could do to hold on to a pole or to myself to stop from being dragged down the streets of Akihabara. It was something out of a Hollywood movie. And the wares Canti had in mind to buy leave me without a comment.

Bye bye, Canti!

Unreluctantly, Ken joined us afterwards for dinner, unimpressed by the two of us running towards him wearing the cat and dog masks Canti had purchased. Soon, the storm ended, and we had but one task left: that of figuring out how we would send the witch home.
 Her flight was bound back to Indonesia at 6:20, the last train had stopped, and the first train the next morning would take her to the airport too late. Luckily, 10 minutes walk away was a shuttle bus leading to the airport, sparing her the price of an expensive Tokyo cab. The clock struck 4 in the morning and we were off again, this time to bid Canti farewell.
 And so my strange week of hosting an Indonesian witch came to an end. I don't recall having made a stranger friend, but it hadn't at all been unpleasant. Canti, she has plans to come back, so we'll probably see her around sooner or later.