everything is so cheap and available it was amazing) and having made
friends with two Swedish guys that had just toured NZ and now are onto
exploring Indonesia via the back roads with almost no money to their
names it is amazing how hardcore travellers learn to survive!
Managed to get onto the last train to the airport after doing the
night safari at the zoo, an amazing experience trying to spot animals
in the dark not highly recommended for people with out night vision!
Then spent the flight trying to suss out who on the plane was going to
be my fellow work mates at Nova, of course arriving and finding out
all the non Asian people on the flight were working for Nova about 25
people in total!
Once of the flight we were in
of the wonders of the world as the airport was sinking so now the
whole island it is on is pumped up using machinery to keep it above
sea level. All the Novas were then dispatched to all their different
corners of Osaka, everyone thoroughly excited except for two aussie
guys that in the interest of being as cheap as poss had come in on a
cheaper flight the day before had found out how expensive Japan is so
spent the night at the airport being kicked of bench seats by security
guards and then on exploring Osaka realised what an ugly concrete
jungle it was.
Next stop was my flat, I used some wise advice to always think of the
worst possible scenario and then things can only look up from there,
so was pleasantly surprised by the size of my flat. That is until my 6
foot 3 Canadian room mate came out of her bedroom to greet me and
started mouthing off how small it was that I started to look at it
more realistically. But then it is
expect anything more!!
Too excited to sleep I went exploring, considering how jetlagged I was
prob not the smartest idea as got totally lost but at least had fun
trying to figure out my way back when the streets here don't have
names and my map was in Japanese! Good times!!
exciting atmosphere that is hard to compare to any other major city I
have been to in the world. You can definitely apply the term urban
sprawl to this place though it really is sprawled all over the place,
there is no centre as such or for that matter much town planning at
all with regard to structured zones it is all higglety pigglety with
industrial building, apartment, industrial building, supermarket,
shopping mall all over the place. I am very fortunate my place is
considered central Osaka but then you wouldn't know that if you saw my
surrounding areas except that the transport all kinda converges near
by I guess that is the best way of identifying the centre of the city?
The people here in the city are such an interesting mix if you get
bored you could easily just sit on a park bench and be entertained for
hours. There is a big drift here of all the young people shifting from
the country into the city (I guess as it happens anywhere in the
world) so the amount of young people in the city is amazing it
sometimes feels like a city of just 20 somethings. There is the random
small child or elderly person but not much in between those ages and
the 20 somethings. And the fashion here is so insane it's all big dyed
hair (and in some cases seriously 80's big!! with all the curls
urgh!!) and short short mini skirts and pointy black boots. The guys
all look straight out of those crazy pop Japanese movies you see in
the film festivals with peroxide blonde hair in creative spikey
shapes. From the back of the crowds you would think you were looking
at a euro culture, a totally different concept to the very misguided
view that all Asians look the same to Europeans.
The shops here are nuts they are all about the electronics and
pachinko (slot machines) can be found on nearly every corner!! Some of
the electronic shops are 8 floors high selling solely electronic
goods! And then there is Den Den town a suburb devoted solely to
streets of electronic shops, so much so though that they can have the
same electronic store selling the same goods repeated 5 times down the
same street! (Have definitely spent many hours sussing out good deals
for the stuff I want only to be quite disappointed as the electronics
in the
So I guess I had better tell you something of my job before I babble
on too much! Working at Nova is crazy, what other place in the world
after 3 days of training and teaching four lessons supervised by your
trainer are you then considered worthy of being a full time
unsupervised teacher!! So my first day of work when the trainer did
his sign off I was told I would have four lessons that day to ease me
into the job, sweet as, turn up to work the next day and I have 8
solid hours of teaching with a 40min lunch break woohoo!! It was a
very interesting day especially when it came to the lesson on Japan
Today and my student spent the whole lesson moaning about how the
Western influence is destroying Japanese culture and making them fat
so they die young, excellent!! My job at the multimedia centre is a
different world in itself though you walk into this building where
Nova occupies about half of it with 700 hundred employees, it is like
a little isolated city of English, every here is in English, most
people speak English (there are some instructors from France, Germany,
Spain and China) all day all you are allowed to talk to your students
is English. Taught through your computer terminal using a web cam so
you appear in your student’s home on their TV. and they show up on
yours. It is so withdrawn from the culture that surrounds you from
outside it is crazy! You could be anywhere even in NZ doing my job
easily, quite a bizarre feeling, especially when you walk outside and
you're actually in Japan!! It is so much like an English factory it
isn’t funny McDonaldised English teaching, you have your lesson plan
all sitting there and waiting for you, you get no planning time as you
are not supposed to plan, you just teach the lesson as it is then move
onto the next student and do it all over again. But in saying that you
always get thrown odd balls from what is well know amongst the
teachers here as the crazy Japanese way of thinking and they are all
so different that you undoubtedly end up thinking creatively during
your lesson to find out a way to answer their random and ad hoc
questions. Not a bad job but then most people there don't see
themselves lasting there more than 6months and if you do then you will
definitely be gone before the year is up unless you had it really bad
in your home country or you are a guy and a social reject at home, yet
in Japan you have a troop of Japanese girls hanging off you just for
speaking English (a clean appearance is not even necessary as you can
see from the amount of greasy haired euro guys around gross!!) This
scenario was further highlighted after being explained to me by my
roommate by the fact that there were no female trainers or senior
teachers only men!!
Well had better go as I'm sure I lost half of you during what has
turned into an insanely long email!! I will try and keep it brief I
think next time!! And include some photos oh and tell you about
clubbing here it is insane!!
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