Year 2: Summary

I've just returned to Tokyo from a trip to Canada, and we've come full-circle again! This year I'm determined to make it to all the once-a-year events that I've missed the first two times. Let's see, now.

Year 2: 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 Tanaka
Aala Kansali of Tunisia
Millo, Julian of France
Dario Lupoli of Italy
Lo, Jean-Paul the French Laotian who came back from the dead!
 
Minor Characters:
 
Eri Karasawa, who manages her own branch.
Nana Takeuchi, who works with me once more!
Erika Mochizuki (and Maxine!)
Kuniaki "Forest" Mori 
Kazue Inoue 

Retired Characters:

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

Clement Sanchez of France

Top Five Highlights:
(since last time)
Ascending Mount Fuji
Kasai Rinkai Park
Beautiful Oshima
Chiba Countryside
Visiting Quebec City

 
Still to Come:

- Ninja Restaurant
- A cafe with Penguins
- An Abandoned Hotel
- Another Country in Asia?
- The Museum of Torture Devices

Quebec City, Tabarnac

My vacation in Canada's drawing near to its end already. It's a little colder here than I remembered it being, and I'm glad enough to be ducking out before Winter draws its big ugly face around the corner and breathes icy death upon Montreal. The American border might as well be The Wall (you know what I mean if you're a big enough dork.)

 And although I missed my beloved Zombie Walk this year, I did get a chance to go even further north (I know, right? I'm an idiot, shoot me,) to Quebec City. I often say Montreal has history, but Quebec is even more ancient than my hometown. This is where North America as we know it began. We're talking 16th century.
Accompanied by old friends of mine, we rented a car and made the trip in three hours and spent a good day there, basking in the sights I hadn't seen in...six, seven years now? Shit.

Hell, you'd be tempted too.

Forget what you know about North America's distinction from Europe. It all blends in here as you go down into Old Quebec, where new structures are built shouldering truly ancient ones, dating from the colonial days. Quebec is a city of battlements and fortifications, and castles and canons, but also damnable cold where you might get your tongue stuck to poles, and old men with thick old accents. It might be relatively close to Montreal, but hell is it different here. Good luck using your English anywhere, we're in deep French territory here! Shit, good luck using your European French. We're in
DEEP French territory here.
 Walking around Old Quebec inevitably ends you up in the Plains of Abraham, where American history was written as, in a nutshell, the English toppled the French. Having been occupied by both, you can sort of get why the province of Quebec holds both languages.
 Regardless of your interest in history, it's a nice place to take a walk, and gives you a nice view of the Saint-Lawrence river and the other side of the riverbank, and that's good.

On the side, if you're anywhere near Quebec, or even in most parts of Canada if you look hard enough, you can try out a beaver tail, one of the local desserts. Don't worry your vegetarian ass, it's actually just fried dough topped with different condiments like chocolate spread or cinnamon. It's worth a try - if you aren't counting calories. It'd been at least two years since I last had one of these, seeing as I missed out during my last trip.


 That aside, the Montmorency Falls are only a 20 minute ride away and are definitely worth the stop. They're actually higher than Niagara's, and the tallest in the province, which might not seem like a big deal until you realize that Quebec by itself is almost four times the size of Japan. At night the falls are illuminated by bright lights projected upon the surface of the falling water.

Is that a camera you have pointed so close to my face?

 I really skimmed the surface on this one. If I were living in Quebec city rather than Tokyo I could easily write an article about each of the things I touched upon here, but that'll have to do for now. Quebec's worth a visit, folks. If you ever do, don't forget to greet people by saying "tabarnac," loud and proud. All the locals will be so impressed!

From My Uncle's Estate

I'm in North America!
 On my way to Montreal I stopped along my uncle's place for a long overdue visit. He owns goats, horses, a pool, a gigantic house atop a hill with a pond at its foot, and all the things that make life good. Here are a few pictures.

An aerial shot of the property. Notice the barn too.

My uncle, aunt, and cousins. You can't tell but they're twins.

Dude, this place is a petting zoo. That's an alpaca. He looks sympathetic.

My cousin and his dwarf pony. It won't ever grow bigger than that.

The Workmates

Today we celebrated the 4th year anniversary of my current branch at the job! I've been working with some of these guys for quite a long time. They are, left to right:

Leftmost, yawning: Kei! He brought me up into the company from when I had just started. He's so graceful, as you can tell.
In white, kneeling: Yumi! She's the newest receptionist at our current branch. She's kind of quiet. She has really long, skinny fingers.
Guy with a mask, top: Jay! He's actually a member of a very well known break dancing crew called Now or Never (where he goes as G.) He often makes jokes during class about how Chinese he is.
Sitting, black: Nana! Remember Nana? She's back in the company and she's as good a superior to me as she is an adventuring mate.
Top: Mana. Yes, there's a Nana and a Mana. She's been the manager at this location since the dawn of time, back when My Gym was for dinosaurs instead of kids.
Holding up a V: Takashi! He's the art teacher. He's actually really good.
Big, in front: If you don't know who this is, I must kill you.
Thumb up: Tad! His actual name is Sean too but he had to change it because he came in after me. Haha. Only room for one Sean here.
Ginger: That's Daniel. He's the newest instructor in the crew. Watches a little too much South Park.
Far right: Michael! He plays the guitar. Babies hate him.

Learning to Read

It's only fairly recently, that is to say, half a year ago, that I discovered the Holy Grail of secrets to learning to read in Japanese.
 Kanji's a monstrous bitch, man. Learning to recognize 2500 symbols with anywhere between 1 and 8 alternate readings is as difficult and tedious as it sounds, but there are different approaches one can take to get to the finish line faster. For my first 16 months in Japan, I opted for the school approach - starting with the very basics and slowly progressing through the Kanji that get the most usage on a daily basis, and drilling them into my head, repeatedly writing the same symbol down on notebook pages. I learned 500 symbols.
 And then I discovered the miracle that is Heisig and how to use it in conjunction with a Kanji dictionary and a simple flashcard software, Anki. I learned 600 symbols in the last 5 months, studying 10-20 minutes a day.
 The Heisig method is simple in concept. First, it introduces you to very basic, simple symbols, and shows you four, maybe five of them. Next, it mixes and matches every combination of those symbols into new symbols, and encourages you to think of a story as you put them together.

For example,
昭 is "shining" and is made of three basic symbols: 日- "Sun"刀 - "Sword"口 - "Mouth"

So for the first kanji, "shining" to make sense, I could break it down into the following story using its components: "The sun is shining off the edge of the sword as it is pulled out of the mouth of its sheath." And I thus remember how to recognize and write this symbol.

When learning Kanji in this order (by introducing one radical at a time and mixing them with what you already know), another thing comes to attention - many kanji with the same radicals have the same readings. For instance:

召　昭　照　招　詔　紹　沼 

These symbols all contain the same radicals (the sword+mouth combination) and can all be read the same way - shou. This is the case 60% of the time - kanji with the same radicals have a higher chance of being read the same way (which means it's not the case all the time, but most!)

So how do you put this into effect in learning your Kanji?

Step 1 - download "Anki"

Do it like this!

 The program is very light and exists for smartphone. It's basically just digital flashcards, but the beautiful thing is that, by telling the program how difficult it was for you to remember the last card, it will gauge when to show it to you again. For instance, if you said it was "hard", it will show you the card again in a few minutes, but if it was "easy" it will show you the card in 10 days, perhaps, and then 30 days if you say it's easy after those 10 days went by.

Step 2 - get the Heisig pack.
 I personally like this one.

Step 3 - use a dictionary.
This one is very good. The purpose of the dictionary is to get the readings of the card. Heisig by itself only teaches you the meaning of a symbol, but not how to read it. It's up to you to go the extra step.

Step 4 - pen everything down.
For quick reference. This'll help you study and also gives you a chance to compare similar symbols with one another. Write everything in a notebook - symbol, reading, and even its Heisig number, to help.

And voila. I hope that helped you as much as it helps me. A very technical post today, I know.

Brief Note: Crisis Averted

I once went here for work also.

After going to the Canadian Embassy Consular's Office and filling forms for the better part of two hours, getting my picture taken and signed for official passport use, calling emergency contacts to confirm my identity and paying 400$, I was just about to make official my emergency passport application when the embassy received a call saying my passport had been found and was being held at the police office. Had I been 30 minutes faster in getting everything done, I would not have been able to use the found passport any longer. I even got my money back!
 Bad luck's a finite thing. You run out of it and there's only good luck left eventually.

Brief Note: An Obstacle

Arriving at the immigration bureau yesterday to present documents for visa renewal, I came to the dreadful realization that my passport, which I had taken with me that very morning, was nowhere to be found. After a mad race around the city to find it, I've finally given up on it appearing.
 I'm an alien without a passport, a visa about to expire, and a pending trip to Canada. How's that for bad luck.