A month later: lectures, job and first visitor

Hama-rikyu Garden - spring is almost in the air

I went to an interesting mini symposium at Temple University Japan a couple weeks ago. Good place to meet all kinds of international people: a Hungarian Embassy diplomat, an Irish guy who works at an Italian bank, still haven't figured out what he is permanently doing here, a young Japanese man from the foreign ministry who knew about all sorts of other interesting events and a woman who works with the US-Japan POW association. In the meantime, after numerous interviews, I signed a contract with GABA, teaching one-to-one English. The school is right near our house. The students are supposed to speak at least 70% of the time, which perfect for me. I am here to soak up the Japanese culture and get tips on places to visit and I am getting paid to do so. My schedule is very flexible and the staff and students are really friendly.


Our first visitor, Rich was here for the past whirlwind week. Last Friday we went to Shibuya and Ometosando in the morning, in the evening we went to Kareokee, a bar with lots of foreigners in Roppongi, salsa and ended the night at Masa’s favorite Ramen place at 2:30am. Here is a recent NY Times article on Ramen places in Tokyo:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/travel/31ramen.html?nl=travel&emc=tda1 Thanks Jess! Saturday I had my on my on-the-job training and the guys went to Asukusa. We had dinner at the place where they Quentin Tarantino was inspired for the Kill Bill movies: http://www.gonpachi.jp/en/casual/home/index The guys went out, I unfortunately forgot my key, but didn’t realize until I was almost home so I had to go to the club to pick up when of their keys.









On Tuesday we went to Tsukiji market (the world’s largest fish market) at 6am. To get the full experience, you have to go at that time! Pictures can definitely say more than words. http://www.tsukiji-market.or.jp/tukiji_e.htm

One of the mornings last week we took the train to Shinjuku and were looking for the Tokyo Metropolitan Building http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Metropolitan_Government_Building with a free observatory on the 45th floor and the Park Hyatt http://tokyo.park.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp where Lost in Translation was filmed. Now imagine, two Americans walking around Tokyo, one struggling to learn Japanese, the other looking kind of Japanese. An old man kindly approached us and offered to help, as soon as he realized Rich only looked Japanese and is actually American the old man hurried off.

Yesterday, Rich and I walked down to the Meguro train station to find the Pork cutlet restaurant. We stood in front of four restaurants with a map, which Masa had printed for us. We tried to match the Kanji, but none of them matched, then phone numbers. Finally we asked an elderly woman about 5’1 who was smoking a cigarette in front of what I thought was the most likely restaurant. Q: Sumimasen, dokoni restaurant desuka? (Excuse me where is this restaurant – in very broken Japanese) A: Koko (here) Apparently the Japanese was sufficient for her to understand. The dinner was delicious: pork cutlets, shredded lettuce, rice and some pickled veggies.

Hama-rikyu Garden