Life as it is... living in Japan

You may start to notice a trend throughout these blogs, namely, my constant frustration with driving. I am not the only one either. It is often a topic of conversation amongst the small group of English teachers that I work with, about how rage inducing driving is. Even the calmest driver will be tested by the foreigners traps, bikers everywhere, narrow roads, and people stopping anywhere they want and putting their hazard lights on. But the one thing that has caught me most off guard is the one way roads. In Australia I always wondered how on earth people end up going the wrong way down a one way street. Isn’t it obvious? Are they blind or just stupid? Well I must be both, because I swear I do not know how I have ended up going the wrong way down one way streets numerous times, each time ending with someone yelling at me or waving a stick at me. My only condolence is that I often see Japanese people making the same mistake. *Small side note* This is my condolence for a lot of thing...

This post is not titled alcoholics anonymous because I am an alcoholic. It’s titled that because I very well may be one by the time I leave here. What’s the one thing that can ruin a good night of drinking? The answer for most people is money. Drinking is expensive, and there is nothing more depressing than waking up to an empty wallet on top of your hangover. Go out to a club and you could be paying up to and beyond $10 for a beer and $20 for a cocktail. Enter ‘nomi-houdai’. ‘Nomi-houdai’ is the solution to the alcoholic’s issue of money. It is the magnificent deal available in Japan that is ‘all you can drink’. Each place is a little different, but most range from $25 to $40. It usually includes everything on the menu. The only regular exception I have found to this is beer, which is sometimes excluded from the set price. However, for an extra $5 you can upgrade to the all you can drink beer option. It usually has a time limit of 2-3 hours, but some places are not strict on this, a...

Before I came to Japan I had to have a medical examination, which included a hearing test. I passed with no problems, however, since arriving in Japan I question the effectiveness of this test. There seems to be a lower (apparently) audible decibel in Japan that is not considered audible in Australia . I often come across it in the classroom, when a student answers a question. The Japanese teacher hears the answer but I don’t. At first I suspected that everyone was secretly trained in lip reading, but then I noticed that the people wearing masks could also be heard. Outside of the classroom the difficulties continue. As someone who is still learning Japanese, it is near impossible to understand something if you miss words due to not being able to hear. Those were probably the only words in that sentence that you would have known and pieced the meaning together with. Also, there is definitely a limit to the amount of times you can ask someone to repeat themselves before they start t...

If you are living in Japan you will most likely own a bike. Why? Free parking (probably the only way you will ever get free parking), no traffic and no paying for fuel. The most popular bike in Japan is affectionately called the mama-chan, as it has a cute little basket on the front, very convenient for groceries or a backpack. There is also a place on the back to strap down another bag or box if you wish. Your other bike choices are a road bike, mountain bike, or the equivalent of a bmx bike which I like to refer to as clown bikes, because they have disproportionately small wheels. It never ceases to amuze me when I see a business man riding one of these, which happens more often than you would think. Now that you have your bike selected, you may need to brush up on your road rules. Let's have a quick review of the biking rules. DO Ride on the left side of the road (for the most part this is correct, but bikes can sometimes get away with either side) Give way to pedestrians ...