Holiday Glee: New job, Salsa Performance, Korea

Remember you can click a photo to make it bigger!

This picture interesting not because it's unique, but because it's normal. Every day in Shibuya I see some sort of fashion that makes my jaw drop. This was taken just outside the school.
With friends at a seriously local seafood restaurant in Shinjuku (a big downtown area in Tokyo)
With students and teachers at the school's Halloween party. There was tons of food and.... alcohol?! I was amazed that we could drink with students IN the school here. It's normal for them though - a steady stream of alcohol runs through the veins of Japan.
Me wearing a ridiculous costume and posing with the six time world salsa champion and choreographer for "Dancing with the Stars" and "So you think you can dance." We danced while I was wearing this costume. Just absurd/terrific.
With my dance partner, Yumi, at before performing at the Japan Salsa Congress.
Our team: Esperanza.

Men left to right: Yuhei, Kuro, Hide, Shimon, Danny.

Women left to right: Gon, Noriko (Zumba dance leader), Kinu, Ryoko, Yumi
With Yumi... and a lot of makeup
With a friend from Hiroshima area will be going to San Diego for the World Latin Dance Cup in December.

Happy holidays everyone!

It has been far too long since I have written. All is well in Tokyo and MUCH is happening so I wanted to send a quick update.

First, as I’ve mentioned, I’ve been dancing salsa with a Japanese team here. 300 hours of practice and an ungodly amount of cash later, we were able to perform on Halloween weekend in front of 600 people at the 2010 Japanese Salsa Congress. Based on the performance, our team was invited to the World Latin Dance Cup in San Diego! (Unfortunately, however, we will not be attending). The link for the video is here:

SALSA PERFORMANCE: ESPERANZA AT 2010 JAPAN SALSA CONGRESS

In other news, I will be taking winter vacation in Korea from December 26^th until January 4^th. My Australian/Korean co-worker and I will meet there and be staying at his grandmother’s home for part of the time.

Perhaps the biggest news of all, however, is that I have put in notice to end my current employment. My last day will be December 25^th. Teaching at the school in Shibuya has been a wonderful experience I feel very blessed to have been in such a coveted location with terrific and supportive staff. I can’t even believe it’s been an entire year (as of November 24^th). The time has just come, however, to seek more growth elsewhere teaching part-time (I’ve taken an offer) and to have a flexible schedule for dance, studying Japanese etc. I’m currently in the chaotic process of moving apartments and planning Korea while still working full-time until the 25^th.

So, cheers from Tokyo! Would love to hear how you’re all doing! (Although I can’t promise a reply until January)

Best,

Danny

Miscellaneous Photos

Below are photos from Japan that I've meant to post for a while. Remember you can click on a photo to make it bigger. Enjoy!

When I stayed in Takayama this summer vacation my host cooked wonderful, fresh meals. Here is a dinner of spring rolls, breaded eggplant and bell peppers, fish cakes, tofu with whole beans inside, fried bean sprouts, cucumbers with spices and rice topped with ground sesame.
We drove to a very local onsen (hot spring) in the woods 30 minutes from the city. This is a unique onsen because the water is saturated with minerals and ions. It's brown presumably from the iron in it.
Kiki and Norio-san, my hosts in Takayama, relaxing on tatami mats in the lobby of an onsen we went to at a local resort.
A street vendor at a fireworks festival in Nagoya. Summer in Japan is packed with fireworks shows every week in every city. It also happens to be quite wet in the summer and actually was raining pretty significantly on us during the show.
A young couple wearing yukatas (summer kimonos). This is very popular garb at summer fireworks festivals.
Fashion is of the utmost importance to many in Tokyo, including these girls. "Cos' play" (costume play) is one genre of fashion. These girls were on their way to Harajuku, the top high school fashion district.
Robin, my coworker, and I at a fireworks festival in Yokohoma. On the right is our friend Shige, who joined us on mount Fuji and in Kyoto/Osaka/Nara.
I thought fireworks in the shapes of character and faces were only possible in the Lord of the Rings books...

Two peaches - 780 yen (~ $8.00 USD). These were at the local grocery store in the station at my small station of Shin-Maruko. This large grocery store chain has branches in many stations and cities. Prices tend to be approximately double compared to other grocery stores, yet it's always packed with people. I told the gentleman next to me that these prices were outrageous and he replied that they were high quality peaches. *sigh*
Grapes anyone? Only $10! Maybe I should import the ones that grow in my backyard at home...
Doggy fashion is an ubiquitous, funny spectacle in Tokyo. Because of limited space, 99% of the dogs here are small varieties. Cute clothes are just the beginning though - many dogs are pushed in strollers.
A little dinosaur.

To the country's surprise and pleasure, this year Japan made it to the quarter-finals of the World Cup. Before the game I went to the major crosswalk in Shibuya (the one my school looks down onto). Every time the pedestrian signal turned green fans rushed the streets and jumped around yelling in the middle. I had beer spilled on my suit (I had come from teaching), which warranted a dry cleaning run the next day, but it was worth it. Later, about 40 police officers showed up and barricaded the crosswalks.

Sumo Tournament

In the spring I went to a sumo tournament with a good friend, who is another teacher here, Rochelle. The tournament went from morning to evening with the wrestlers starting with amateurs and progressing to the highly paid, most skilled professionals.

Remember, you can click on the photos to make them larger! Try clicking again and on some browsers you can zoom in even further.

A wider shot of the arena. We sat in the front row of the second level. Early in the day the arena was fairly empty so we sat on the ground floor.
Sumo wrestling is a ceremonial event packed with tradition and special customs. In fact, the wrestling ground is considered a holy space with restrictions on who may enter it. Here the wrestlers line up before their round of matches begins.
These guys didn't want me to hurt them so they agreed to take a photo
Rochelle and I eating sumo wrestler food. I think it's magic food because I felt stuffed and bloated after one bowl.
This gentleman was the biggest of the big.

Here are videos of two different matches. Don't expect packed action like a Hollywood thriller; sit back and take in the ceremony as a whole. They're only a couple minutes each - you can do it!

Kyoto Photos

Below are some photos from my trip to Kyoto in the spring. Remember, you can click on a photo to make it larger. Enjoy!

A tiny, very local eatery where we ate in Nara, which is about 30 minutes from Osaka or an hour from Kyoto. Notice that we're carrying our bags; because it was Golden Week, a Japanese national holiday, all accommodations were full. As a result, we slept (sort of) in a karaoke booth. Completely exhausted the next day, boarded a train in Osaka that goes in a loop and snuck in an additional two hours of sleep.
Shige, Robin and I in front of the largest wooden structure on earth, which houses a giant buddha statue. The size of the building is a bit difficult to grasp in this photo.
A true geisha show in Kyoto.
In Kyoto, even the McDonald's' are beautiful.

Shige and I in the bamboo forest in Arashiyama - west Kyoto.

Famous zen garden of 15 stones in Ryoan-Ji - a temple founded in 1450.
Meiko-san (essentially young geisha) walking in Gion, the geisha district in Kyoto
With geisha-san! Okay, maybe they were tourists dressed up like geisha, but we can always imagine. Either way, standing next to these two felt like standing next to two moving statues - it was quite surreal.
Japanese tourists dressed in Kimonos for fun
Kiyomizu-dera: a beautiful temple complex in the hills of Kyoto

Shenanigans on Fuji

It is said that a person who never hikes Mt. Fuji misses out, but a person who hikes it twice is a fool. I just returned from an exhilarating/completely exhausting 13.5 hour overnight hike up and down the mountain. I’m glad I did it and I’m glad it’s over. I must share about this ridiculous adventure.

In Japan everything is packaged, even the nature. To my surprise, from bottom to top, every inch of the way was formed and maintained by humans. This includes stairs carved into the mountain, walls to stop falling rocks, chains to hold as you ascend and huts every 15-30 minutes. I was almost surprised not to see escalators on the way up : ).

Another interesting phenomenon is how packed with people Fuji can be. Because it was Sunday night, we only saw about 100 other hikers on the way up. On weekend nights and during summer vacation, however, there can literally be LINES as you hike up. LINES TO HIKE UP A MOUNTAIN!

The ascent started from 7,200 feet and went up to 11,100 feet at the top. The hike is all above the tree line and to fight altitude sickness we took many stops and lots of deep breaths – I managed to have only a bit of a headache and minor dizziness. The weather was PERFECT; it was clear with only moderate wind.

We started the ascent at 8:30pm and arrived at the top at 4:00am – plenty of time for the 4:30am sunrise.

After watching a glorious sunrise at the top and dancing around without shirts on in 32 degree weather, we hiked around the cone. On the edge of the cone, ripping out of the crater, was the strongest most constant wind that I have ever felt – it nearly knocked me over and did knock over someone who was taking our friend’s photo. We would descend behind a rock barrier, however, and there would be no wind at all. It was quite amazing weather.

The descent down is when things got a bit crazy. We took a trail down that was much less traveled – that is, instead of 100 other people, we saw three. Completely sleep deprived, sore and dead tired, we eventually reached a sign noting that we had hiked 8km from the top and had another 8km to go. The remaining distance was farther than expected, but we had no choice but to continue.

At about that time we ended up on the most interesting, eerie terrain – a black mountain covered in small pebbles. I had read that there was a place on Fuji where a person can “moon walk” down in huge leaps in deep pebbles and sand. It appeared that we had arrived!

We ran and leapt in big, soft bounds. The adrenaline took care of the fatigue and the deep pebbles were a huge relief on the knees. As we descended into fog, however, and hadn’t seen people for about an hour, some concerns started to creep in. Suddenly, we heard thunder in the distance. NOT GOOD! The only thing we could do was keep leaping down the mountain, so we did. It seemed to go on and on forever though and the thunder was a growing concern.

Eventually, to our dismay, we reached a fork marked by confusing signs. One of the signs noted that we were down at 2000 meters. This was shocking because we started the hike at 2,400 meters! While leaping down the mountain we had apparently covered much more ground than we realized.

With headlines running through our minds like “preserve your food and water,” we chose one of the forks. We eventually found a signpost with a location number and emergency phone number to call, and, for fear of ending up in the middle of nowhere, we decided to call. There was not enough reception for the call to go through. Just at that time, however, we heard voices down the trail in the fog. YES!

We happened upon runners who noted that there was a bus station further down. Elated and relieved, we descended for another 40 minutes until FINALLY we ended up at a small shop. The whole place was bizarre, but we were just happy to have reached some type of establishment. We had descended to 1,400 meters, an entire vertical kilometer (~3,000 feet) below where we started! It turned out that the trail we took down was much longer than the one up.

As for the thunder, it turned not to be thunder at all, but practice at a nearby military base. It was strange indeed.

We boarded a bus and headed home. Filthy and smelly, I felt sorry for the poor fellow who had to sit next me. On the ride home I was stiff, sweaty, filthy, exhausted (physically and mentally since we hadn’t slept), and had a worsening headache. I eventually made it home feeling more beat than I have felt in years. But at last, we had made it!

Happy 4^th of July!

Enjoy the photos below. You can click an any one to make it larger.

We took many breaks to adjust to the altitude, eat and relax.

Feeling the fatigue on the way up! Okay, maybe we were acting a little in this photo...

At 4:00am, with plenty of time to catch the 4:30am sunrise, we had finally arrived here, just a few steps from the top.

We've made it! Left to right: Me, Shige (Japanese friend), Rochelle (another teacher at our company who is a track star and pretty much led the pack the whole way), Robin (my co-worker)

Watching the sunrise

Behind a rock wall, this nook on top provided a place with virtually no wind. Robin stops for a nap.

Standing in the heavens

Shige kneeling on top

About halfway down here. It was sunny at this point so we wore kefias (a gift from a student who traveled to the United Arab Emirates) to block the sun. Here Robin rests again.

The beginning of the black mountain that we got to run down for about an hour.

Notice how deep my legs are in the pebbles - this is what enabled us to leap down the mountain

Running down the mountain - such a relief on the knees!

Wondering how we had come so far and not seen any other people or signposts

Salsa and Pre-Summer

Hello everyone!

I have had my salsa debut in Japan! You can see the video here:

CLICK HERE FOR SALSA DEBUT VIDEO

During the spring I took a wonderful vacation down to Kyoto, Osaka and Nara. Hopefully in the future some photos from the trip will be posted.

In Tokyo we are now on the verge of summer and the rainy season. The past couple of weeks have been a bit humid but actually quite pleasant overall. I'm told that starting now, however, it will rain non-stop for a month and eventually become oppressively hot and humid - I'm bracing for it! It also appears that we are in the beginning of cockroach season. Summer will be a... new experience.

Regarding teaching, things are going quite well overall and I have just renewed my contract for 1/2 year, which brings it out to around May, 2011.

Just wanted write a quick post because it had been quite a while.

Enjoy the World Cup! (Congratulations to Japan for winning the first game they played : )

Zen Meditation, Bankruptcy, Vomit

Just writing to send a brief update before I leave for a vacation tomorrow.

One of my goals here was to learn about Buddhism and meditation, so I found a Zen group on the website Meetup.org. The organizer took me to a Zen meditation session at a temple and it was a very surreal experience. I can’t accurately re-create the experience with words but I will just say that it was very refreshing. The inside of the temple was BIG. It had large rooms, and long hallways and, in Japanese fashion, shoes were not worn inside. I’ve become accustomed to constantly being in small spaces in this packed city so the space of the temple alone was pleasurable. Long story short, I came away feeling like the meditation had been real life and Tokyo is just dream life. After emerging I became acutely aware of things like the masses of people on the streets wearing suits, the thousands of advertisements sucking up my attention, and even people absorbed in video games on the trains. Tokyo actually felt like a dream – kind of a fake reality. I enjoyed the meditation very much and look forward to more sessions in the future.

In other news, one of the other dominant English schools in Japan, GEOS, collapsed last week. This means that there are a couple thousand English teachers on the streets now and many frustrated students who didn’t get refunds for their contracts. This is a nasty pattern after a different major school, NOVA, collapsed two years ago. Although the truth could never be known, the finances of my company are supposedly well managed so I’m not worried about it. In fact, the school is basically part of an oligopoly now – yikes!

I will end with a little anecdote. Every week on the trains I see people, old and young alike, who have drunk themselves to oblivion. Last month on the train I saw an older man and his sweetheart, who he was embracing, lose their balance and fall completely flat to the floor. Last week, however, tops anything else I’ve seen. I was on the train chatting with a stranger in bad Japanese when I heard behind me the sudden splash of liquid and chunks. I turned around and just three feet away someone had thrown up in the middle of the floor on the train. The bad part, however, was not the vomit on the floor, but the vomit covering the poor victim in a nice suit who the assailant had thrown up on. The situation was awful and shocking. In my humble opinion, no matter how drunk you are, if you are going to throw up, you should have the decency to LOOK DOWN and not throw up on someone else!

Tomorrow night begins a one-week vacation known as Golden Week. I will be hopping on a bus with a Japanese friend down to Kyoto, Osaka and Nara for the week. We have no hotel reservations yet and Golden Week is one of the busiest travel times in Japan, so we may be sleeping in Internet “Manga cafes.” They are very cheap, provide private booths and, apparently, many of them even have showers!

Just wanted to get this quick message out before taking off.

Video: Commute from apartment in Kawasaki to school in Shibuya

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO OF

COMMUTE

I created this video to give a better sense of what my daily life looks like here. The commute is ~25 minutes door-to-door but in order to not bore you, I managed to get the video down to about 6 minutes. But beware, it's at hyper-speed! Also, sorry that the quality is not better. Enjoy!

Finally some photos!

Kyoko did a home stay in America about 12 years ago with my piano teacher and my teacher's husband got us in touch. While I was in America, Kyoko was helping me with Japanese via Skype. She came to visit Tokyo last week (from Hokkaido, the big island in the north where she lives) and we met for the first time! Here we are at Ueno park (quite famous) and you can see cherry blossom trees in the background, which are currently in full bloom here.

Some photos of my apartment! It was pretty plain when I arrived and had blue curtains that depressed me so I bought some things and brought in some bright colors.
The salsa team I'm dancing with, Esperanza, after a performance at the Hilton in Shinjuku, Tokyo. For my first performance, at the end of May, my dance partner will be the girl on the right, Gon.
The happy couple whose wedding party I was fortunate enough to attend. They are also teachers on my salsa team here.
At a shrine in Kamakura (just south of Tokyo) that has a stunning garden.
Me and Robin with a student who we like very much, Ya suo. He is 73 years old, in good health and a nearly fluent English speaker. He worked on TV dramas for his entire life and is now enjoying retirement. We have gone out for meals together on several occasions.
Some wild Shibuya fashions. These are high school students.
With Nick and Robin in front of a shrine on top of a mountain (Mt. Takao) that we spent the day hiking. Robin is my Australian coworker and Nick trained with us.
John got managed to get about 10 minutes on Japanese television so here we are watching the recording and teasing him!
With Daiki, our good friend John (who is the one that inspired me to come to Japan) and Daiki's family on New Years.
The full time Japanese staff at the school! From left to right, Ke i (assistant manager), Ka ori (manager) and Kay ou (head teacher). There is a very fun atmosphere at the school.
With Chassen and our friend Daiki editing photos taken from a kooky Japanese-style photo booth. It is called "pericura" and is quite popular here. The photos are then printed as stickers and/or sent to your email.
This statue of the dog named Hachiko is located in front of Shibuya station and right next to my school. The story is that Hachiko's owner took him here daily, but one day he never came back for Hachiko because he had died. Afterwards, Hachiko returned every day waiting for his owner. This memorial statue is now the most convenient and popular meeting spot in Shibuya and the square is usually packed with people. By coming in the morning (on the way to work), we caught it when it wasn't so crowded.
A view of the rainbow bridge at night with Tokyo in the background. In the foreground is the mini statue of liberty. The photo was take from Odaiba.
The Fuji television building in Odaiba, which is next to Tokyo. We took an elevator to the sphere at the top where there are incredible 360 degree views of Tokyo.
Chassen with some male hosts on the street. Japanese girls pay to chat with guys like this in host clubs around Tokyo. The hairstyles here have a striking resemblance to anime characters!
This was taken when my good friend Chassen visited. This store is located in Harajuku, which is reputed as the most fashion-forward district in Tokyo. This Japanese sales lady, however, is by no means dressed in an outrageous way. Every day I see fashions on the streets that make my jaw drop - sometimes because they're gorgeous, sometimes because they're outrageous
During my first week at the school they held a big welcoming/goodbye party for me, the other new teacher, and the two departing teachers. There were about 50 students who attended.
The view from my classroom! It is the Shibuya crosswalk, know as the "scramble," and is the busiest crosswalk in the world. It could be called the Times Square of Tokyo.

This is our training group of 14 teachers from the U.S., Australia and Canada