Greetings from Shizuoka, Japan

Konnichiwa,

I am sitting in the home of Hiroko Bowers in Makinohara City (formerly Haibara-cho) in the prefecture of Shizuoka, just 45 minutes outside of Shizuoka City.

Hiroko is the mother of my sisters’ lovely friend Ranie, and they run the family-owned Bowers English School where I will be teaching. As I sit here with their two dogs Milanda and Hanako and one of their three cats Momo, I think of how much of a whirlwind the past three days have been:

Friday, November 11, 2005

I spent the whole morning at the Japanese Embassy in Manila trying to authenticate my work visa for Japan. The chaos of trying to get hundreds of Filipinos to get in an orderly line and wait their turn was very confusing, but in the end my mission was accomplished.

My last night in Manila was spent at two places called Mayrics and Big Sky, regular hangouts for the local musicians, where I got to see my friends in the bands Sandwich, Imago, Itchyworms, Sun Valley Crew and Bad Burn play. I had to leave for the airport at 5am, so I got home at about 2:30 and finished my last minute tidy up. I got no sleep!

My cousin’s husband Andy and my uncle Matt drove me to the airport, where the chaos of trying to get hundreds of Filipinos to get in an orderly line and wait their turn was very confusing, but the end my mission was accomplished.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Because I didn’t sleep at all on Friday night, I thought the 9:40 am flight to Tokyo’s Narita Airport would be a great time to sleep, but wouldn’t you know it, I sat beside a baby with colic, and it aggressively cried for the four hours to Tokyo. I got no sleep!

The lovely Tomoko Kobayashi picked me up from the airport and the 2 hour train ride into downtown Tokyo was pretty uneventful, except for when my big suitcase fell while we were ongoing up an escalator, nearly crushing the non-expecting woman below.

I got into Shibuya area of Tokyo at about 6pm, where we checked into a hotel and I had time for a shave and a shower before we had to go to a restaurant to for my reunion party with a bunch of former students and friends I had met at KGIC, the ESL school in Toronto where I worked for two years.

A whole range of students during two year stint at KGIC showed up to the dinner. Some of the students didn’t know each other from Toronto, but after a while they were chatting like old friends. I remember at one point asking all of the students to take a picture together because I didn’t think (my friend and KGIC co-worker) Trevor Marshall would believe that I got all these people together.

We laughed, reminisced about Toronto, ate great food and smoked a lot of cigarettes (in Tokyo, you are allowed to smoke inside, but your not allowed to smoke outside!)

Tomoko, who did a great job of organizing the party, asked me to say a speech in Japanese, but because I was tired and a little drunk, all I could say was “Domo arigato" (Thank you). I did say (in English) that it was almost like a dream being in Japan, so far away from home, but knowing so many lovely and kind people were here to make me feel safe.

We exchanged cell phone numbers and said our goodbyes before Masato (known as “Fuckin’Mark Guy”) took this picture. Sorry Shingo, your face got cut out!

Sunday, November 13, 2005

After checking out of the hotel, Tomoko took me around to see some sites and sounds of a Sunday afternoon in Tokyo. We had lunch in Akihabara, the Electronics capitol of Tokyo, then later had a cup of tea in Shinjuku, where the amount of people on the street was incredible! We then had dinner in Shibuya, which was even more crowded than Shinjuku. By the time I got on my train to Shizuoka, I was so overwhelmed, because Tokyo felt like a scene from a movie (much like the way NYC did, the first time I went there.)

Hiroko and Ranie picked me up from the train station and after we got to their place, after some unnecessary drinking, I got my first real sleep in three days.