I Got The Job! :D

Yessss so after a horribly long commute down to Yokohama (during which time my iPod's headphones packed in, grrr), I had a two-hour long interview with the head of the Babysitter company in a café near the station.  

For the first part of the interview, he went over my résumé with me, clarifying bits of it and asking me further questions, after which he explained exactly what the job entails, before giving me a test to see if I was suitable, which I passed!  

I could be starting as soon as Monday; it all depends on when the different clients need a babysitter.  He did say however that there is less demand in the western-Tokyo area, where I'm living, but that there are still a fair few jobs available along my train line (the Chuo-line).  Moreover, a couple of families have specifically requested British babysitters, so I'm not complaining!

The company is looking for more people to apply, as lots of their staff are leaving Japan, having reached the end of their visas and the like, so if you're in Tokyo or Yokohama and fancy this sort of work, have a look at their website here, or message me if you want any more information before applying.

Oh, and there are no classes on Monday, so I now have a four day weekend! Whooop!

James

Picture of the Day

Spotted outside a love hotel in Shibuya

Job Interview!

It says it all in the title really; having sent off my CV attached to an email, on Thursday I have a job interview!  The job I've applied for is an 'international babysitter'.  It consists of babysitting (obviously) the children of international (English-speaking) residents of Tokyo on a part-time basis.  The parents will want English only to be spoken to their kids, so if I get the job I won't have to engage in any awkward baby-Japanese conversations, which is a plus I suppose.

The pay is 1,750 yen (about £15) per hour for one child, with 50% extra for every child on top of that, and each shift is a minimum of 3 hours (if they want less than that they still have to pay you for 3 hours), and your transport is paid for, too.  You're not obliged to do any jobs, just the ones you choose to do, in quantities you choose, so it's nice and flexible.

I'm going to the company's head office in Yokohama, the city to the south of Tokyo on Thursday afternoon for the interview, when I'll find out some more information and whether or not I've got the job!  I shall certainly be updating this blog with a post on Thursday evening after I find out :) excited!! I could really use the money...better get setting up a Japanese bank account!

James

Picture of the Day

Because cheese is lovely

Two Months In & Life in Tokyo

I've been here around two months now, so I think I can just about talk about what it's like to actually live in Tokyo on a day to day basis, rather than just as a tourist.

Firstly, Tokyo is an amazing, amazing city, and it should definitely be a priority to come and visit (please come visit me!).  Living here is pretty different to how I, and most other people, expected it to be.  From talking to people back home, I've realised that loads of people expect my daily routine to include things like chilling with robots, using space-aged toilets with built-in sound effects and seat warmers (okay, those are quite widespread, but anyway...), hanging around the neon-lit urban landscape munching on sushi for most of the day, and being stopped by rival teenagers for Pokémon battles on the way home from university.

Whilst some of those sorts of things are perfectly possible to do here, they're certainly not part of a normal day!  My local area, for example, is not the big, shiny metropolis that everyone imagines Japan to be.  The city centre areas like Shinjuku, Shibuya and Ikebukuro do fit that mould, but one thing in particular did strike me about Tokyo as a city.  Almost everywhere you go outside of the big centres, Tokyo has an incredibly town-y feel to it.  It's very low-rise, and seems just like a medium-sized town wherever you are.  The only difference is that this 'town' keeps going and going and going and going...it's almost like years ago there were hundreds of towns dotted around the area, which have grown and grown over time to the extent that they have expanded into each other, with no green areas in between them any more; it's a very strange feeling and quite difficult to explain, so I hope you understand what I'm trying to describe.

A typical Tokyo street

The video below was taken from my balcony during the typhoon season (until the battery ran out...), and shows that I don't live in the top of a huge apartment block only accessible by spaceship. 

That said, the major centres (and there are very many of them indeed) are exactly the frantic, neon-soaked, endless sky scraper skylines we are projected in the UK and elsewhere.  I have been to a number of leading world cities, like New York, London and Shanghai, and I can honestly say that Tokyo rivals them all (don't worry London, you're still my favourite, babes).  Below are a few pictures and videos of the cool central bits.  Despite what it looks like, I wasn't following the girl who walked past me in the last video.

So, in conclusion I guess you could say, Tokyo is a brilliant city, but not exactly what you'd expect...certainly worth a visit though!

Onto more mundane matters, my daily routine goes something like this: wake up at about half 8, have some breakfast, go to university (10:10-12:40 every day, plus 1:15-3:00 on Wednesdays and Fridays), come home, have a bit of food, watch an episode of something or other on the internet, do some work for university, have dinner, do a bit more work, go for a bike ride or jog, have a shower, sit on Youtube or Facebook for a while, then go to sleep.  Exciting, huh?  I guess day to day life is pretty much the same no matter which country you're in.  

Oh, except that Tokyo is very expensive indeed.  Over the past decade or so, it's consistently been ranked in the top 5 most expensive cities in the world, with about half of that time spent occupying the top place.  That'll strike you if you ever come; the sheer price of the most mundane things.  Thankfully, 100 yen shops provide an escape from that.  I'm lucky enough to have a Lawson 100 yen shop about 1 minute away from me on the bike, by the train station, which has a supermarket bit downstairs, and most of the products are the same price (it's actually 105 yen a piece with tax, about 85p).  I do most of my food shopping there, so at least that can be done cheaply.  The following are the sorts of typical things I'll buy whilst there, all for 105 yen; 2 chicken breasts, a pack of green peppers, 10 eggs, pack of 3 noodles, some pak choi, sugar snap pea, a bottle of soy sauce, pepper shaker, and so on...so it's not too bad!  Beer is a bit more expensive, about 200-300 yen for a 500ml can (£1.65-£2.45), but hour long all you can drink bars for under a thousand yen, or two hours for under 1,500 balances that difference out, I suppose.

Transport is one thing that is expensive here, at least on the trains, and clothing, books, and digital media are really pricey too. But I suppose that the overall message is that cheaper ways to live in Tokyo can be found once you get used to everything.

Now, I've rambled for far too long; well done if you made it this far!

James 

Photo of the Day

I wouldn't expect the best atmosphere in 'Cafe de Bore'

フライドチキン - Fried Chicken: A Serious Review

Whilst I know this is not the highest thing on people's lists when they think of Japan and its cuisine, it is something which surprised me in its popularity when I came here.  Fried chicken, generally a fillet, is cheap (generally about 165 yen per piece, roughly £1.35) and plentiful in Japan, and all of the different konbinis (Japanese for convenience store, they sell almost everything you need under one roof, albeit in small quantities, sort of like a petrol-station mini-mart thing, but better) have a selection of yummy, hot, fried food by the check-out.  They have hot dogs and chips and chicken nuggets and all that, but the only thing worth getting is the fried chicken; it's SO good.

My standard fried chicken-eating face

In light of the popularity of this delicacy amongst both Japanese people and foreigners, as well as the competition between konbinis, I thought I would save anyone in Japan reading this the tremendous struggle of sampling each konbini's offerings, by reviewing the chicken of the five konbinis local to me and then giving you a recommendation; how generous am I?!  For comparison, I give KFC 8/10.

5th Place: Lawson 

Quite simply because they're the only konbini I know of that don't sell it!  I'm sorry Lawson, I know I do most of my weekly food & ingredient shop at you, but pull your finger out and sell some fried chicken for 105 yen a piece, like everything else in your shop costs. 0/10

4th Place: Familymart

The only konbini I've been to which sells it on the bone.  It's good to be different, but not when your chicken's dry and bland. 3/10

3rd Place: Mini-Stop

It was a nice twist to see some chicken with a squeeze of lemon on it.  It was a little dry, but the seasoning was alright (maybe a little too much lemon on). 6/10

2nd Place: 7-Eleven

Absolutely gorgeous. Nice sized portions, very juicy chicken, and always piping hot. The seasoning was nice, too. 9/10

1st Place: Sunkus

My definite favourite.  Pretty similar to the 7-Eleven chicken, with all of its positive points.  The deal-breaker is the slightly nicer seasoning, plus the inclusion of a little sachet of extra seasoning, in case you like it a bit more seasoned. They call it consumer choice; I call it an extra point. 10/10

Another thing in Sunkus' favour is the fact that it is on my route home from the train station, and it certainly does the trick after a sozzled evening out in Tokyo, with it being open 24/7.

So next time you're in a Sunkus (or a 7-Eleven), whisper the magic words to the cashier:  "フライドチキンを一つお願いします", Furaido chikin o hitotsu onegaishimasu; you'll like the result.  Just have 165 yen to hand.

James

Photo of the Day

Not the nicest place to put a drinking-water fountain, ICU

新しい携帯電話! Finally a mobile!

So after a longggg few weeks of not having a phone, and all of the associated problems of not being able to contact people whilst out, and running up a high bill on my English mobile, I finally went out last week to get one!  

I met Shunyo at Musashi-Sakai station to go and have a look around the mobile phone shops in the area.  Instead of just going to a network branch, we went into a shop that sold phones from all of the different networks; sort of like a Phones 4U or Carphone Warehouse place.  The cheapest deal was on Docomo, whereby I got a two-year contract, and a free phone.  What most people seemed to get was the pre-paid option from Softbank, but despite the 9,000 contract cancellation fee, it actually worked out cheaper altogether to get the two-year Docomo contract.  I pay 1100 yen a month (under a tenner), which gets me unlimited emails.  The Japanese use emails a lot more than texts, as they're much cheaper!  Another advantage is the fact that you can email computers from your phone, as well.  I know this is a usual features in smartphones anyway, but my new phone isn't a smartphone, just a basic one.  I don't get free texts or minutes with this contract, but that doesn't bother me as I only really intend to use the email.

I got a free handset with my contract.  It's not too bad, though!  It has a 5.1 megapixel camera and an electronic Japanese-English dictionary, among other things.

 

 

A warning screen I don't understand

So I'm glad I can now finally keep in touch with other people in Japan!  It was a bit of a fuss actually trying to buy it.  It's not like at home where you can walk into any Argos and pick up a pay-and-go SIM card for £1.  For a start, you have to be 20 here to get a phone.  Ridiculous I know, but after getting Mum to fax over the photo and address page of her passport to prove she gave her consent for me to have one, I could start on the paperwork, which I won't even begin to go into, as it was hugely boring and typically Japanese in it's pointless bureaucracy.

So yes, if you're yet to get a phone, I recommend you go into a shop where you can compare deals from different networks, as they're generally less biased, and have a good range of recommendations for different deals, depending on what you're after.  They're also often willing to jump on the computer to research anything they're not 100% sure about, which just seemed to be my annoyingly precise questions about data charges and roaming, so fair play to them.

That's all to talk of on the mobile front, but I've decided on another feature of my blog; I'm going to have a 'photo of the day' at the end of each post.  There is so much strange stuff here in Japan (as I'm sure you can all imagine) so I thought I'd photograph anything hilarious I see and stick it on here :) I'll annotate them to try and give a bit of context, too.

Although, I haven't seen anything funny today, besides the picture below, which I found on the internet.  But after this post they will all be photos taken by me in Japan!

James

Photo of the Day

I don't think this needs a caption.

The Weirdest Restaurant I've Ever Ever Been To

On Friday my classmate T.J. invited me and 10 others from ICU out into Shinjuku for his 21st birthday.  Being an American, his 21st was a big deal, and he wanted to celebrate it in style.  That's certainly how the night turned out!

After meeting at the nearby Musashi-Sakai station, we all got the train twenty minutes to Shinjuku (incidentally the busiest train station in the world, with over 200, yes 200 exits).  From there we walked to Kabukicho, the red-light district.  Even to just walk around Kabukicho is an experience in itself.

The standard "Oo, Tokyo" picture

In Kabukicho was The Lockup restaurant.  It's a haunted prison-themed restaurant and I have to say that it was mind-bogglingly strange, terrifying and, well, Japanese.  To get into the restaurant itself you have to walk through a dark, narrow tunnel, where a variety of gruesome things jump out at you, like at a haunted house or London Dungeons (yes, in a restaurant).

Once inside the restaurant, a waitress dressed in a very skimpy and kinky police uniform led T.J. in handcuffs to our 'cell' for the evening.  

We weren't allowed to photograph the waitresses, so this is the best I got...

Once inside, we each opted for the two-hour all-you-can-drink (yes, 飲み放題 again) & all-you-can-eat option, which was just 3,000 yen (£25) per person.  Pretty cheap considering this is in the centre of Tokyo, the most expensive city in the world, and we all left pretty ahem satiated at the end of our two hours! 

The cocktails arrived in various pieces of laboritory equipment, test tubes, beakers, syringes, etc, and were all brightly coloured (and delicious).

Throughout the evening, endless plates of food kept arriving, and it was certainly tastier than I had heard prison food to be!  There was both Japanese and Western food, including prawn dishes, fried pork, and some very salty chips (fries to the American readers).

T.J. is the one looking chuffed with his birthday night out, second from right.

At a random moment halfway through eating, everything went dark, before a prison siren went off, accompanied by loud, heavy music and strobe lights, as the 'jailbreak' occured.  Several monster-prisoners burst into our cell, slamming open the heavy doors and reaching out towards us.  Props to Erin Flannery for getting this video;

 

It was a pretty amazing experience, all in all!  I'm certainly going to have to do something spectacular to top it for my birthday in November! 

James

The British Pub in Kichijoji & More 飲み放題

I shall first of all point out that I am NOT the type of person who moves to a foreign country simply to spend all my time mingling with English people in British pubs!!  I'd discovered the existance of this British pub in nearby Kichijoji from Miles, a Leeds student who studied at ICU a couple of years ago, and decided that I wouldn't mind having a look in, and see how they interpret our culture!

So yes, the other night, Melissa and I went for a drink there.  Many other people were invited but couldn't make it in the end, tsch.  As we walked in, Trash by Suede came on the stereo, and I liked it already.  Babyshambles and Pulp also featured on the stereo during our visit, in amongst some less tasteful and appropriate music.  Blink 182 are not welcome in such an establishment.

 

 

Remember what I said about my indoor photography abilities?

The interior wasn't too bad!  Obviously it was a little exaggerated and stereotyped, but the general atmosphere was there.  The furniture was varnished oak like back home, and it was nicely dingy.  They even had the Stoke-Liverpool match ont' telleh.

We went during happy hour, but unfortunately there was no lager on the happy hour menu, just a choice of cocktails.  It was very strange to see everyone in the British pub sat sipping bright pink and green cocktails.  Still, I'm not going to complain about the choice of drinks when it was £2 for a double Gin & Tonic.

There was a food menu with lots of traditional and contemporary British and European dishes, but I'd decided before I'd even stepped through the door that I'd be going for good old Fish and Chips.  Being not only from Britain, but specifically from Yorkshire, their ability to do a good plate of Fish and Chips was the deal breaker as to whether I'd be returning or not; the true test of their ability to replicate a crucial bit of Blighty.  Luckily, they certainly delivered!  Whilst not precisely what I'm used to, it was pretty damn close, and much more authentic than what I'd heard from people's anecdotes. 

 

Mmm the fish.  I'm not sure whether it was cod, or haddock, or whatever, but it really hit the spot.  The chips were delicious, too.  I liked the fact it was served in faux-newspaper, too; so authentic that we don't even do that in the UK any more.  Well I never got ink poisoning from when my Fish and Chips used to get wrapped up in The Yorkshire Post.

So a very good experience, all in all!  I'd give it a good solid 7/10!  Plus points for the decor, Fish and Chips, some good music, cheap drinks (the food wasn't too expensive, either) and the football being on.  Minus points for the lack of beer on the happy hour menu, and some pretty crap songs in between the brilliant ones.

Melissa had to go quite soon after we ate, so I headed back to Koganei, where I then met Ayaka, and we went for a 飲み放題 (nomihoudai, if you don't know what that means then tut tut you haven't been reading my blog posts) at a nearby 居酒屋, or izakaya, a traditional Japanese pub.  

I'll write a proper blog post about 居酒屋 at some point.  They're a great, authentically Japanese experience (and a good opportunity for western goldfish to abuse the all-you-can-drink offer).  You have to take your shoes off at the door and everything!

On a side-note, as we walked to the izakaya, we passed a rather interesting looking bar, with an equally interesting slogan (/health advice label?!).

I wonder how long a sign like that would last in the UK...

James