Well I am sitting in my hotel room in Hamamatsu as I am writing this and I have to say the city has impressed me so far. It has a much more open layout than Osaka does with a feeling that building locations were carefully planned to convey a much more welcoming aura than what I am used to in Osaka. Sidewalks are very wide, the streets are clean, signs in English are everywhere, and to top it all off my hotel was easy to find! So far so good. Unfortunately as I don't start training until tomorrow morning I am kinda on my own until then as there isn't some sort of informal meet and greet tonight, so while I know there are possible a good number of other ALTs staying in my hotel I have no way of knowing who they are. So tonight may consist of watching some internet tv, finding a movie theater, exploring Hamamatsu or going to karaoke by myself as sad as that sounds. Actually I don't think I would really mind that as I love karaoke and I could sing all the songs I love, yet sound terrible at. Seriously though I love karaoke.

Well Ayuko leaves for Tokyo tomorrow while I leave for Hamamatsu to finally start my training. Both of us have been packing today, her more than me, as I mistakenly gave myself an extra day after I come back from the training before I move into my new apartment. However it is kinda nice as I don't have to stress about being completely packed before I leave for training, but I still am going through all of the papers and junk I have collected in the past year or so in order to get a head start. The nice thing is the only stuff I really have to move are clothes, so packing won't be much of a hassle. I'm also using this as a chance to finally update my wardrobe, so I'm giving away/donating/throwing away about a third to half of my clothes. Japanese fashion is fairly different than western fashion as I've mentioned before, so this will finally let me buy some new clothes for the coming summer and maybe get some good deals on some winter clothes.

Ayuko and I both have mixed feelings about moving apart from each other, but both of us are excited to be starting new lives in new cities. She has a lot of friends who already live in Tokyo or are moving there now, so she won't have to worry about starting from scratch. However she is also going to be extremely busy, so that kinda offsets knowing people. While I don't know anyone in Kyoto I have the advantage of having a seemingly easy workload with a lot of free time with weekends and school holidays off. So hard to say, but off to some more room cleaning for now.

Okinawa Revisited

I thought I would touch on the Okinawa subject again due to a recent string of events there. In the past month a marine raped a Filipina woman, a drunken marine broke into a house at 4AM and proceeded to pass out on the family's couch, another drunken Marine broke into another family's home, 3 marines assaulted and robbed a taxi driver, and another taxi driver was killed by a marine. On top of this the 14 year old girl who was raped by the 38 year old Staff Sergeant dropped her case due to a stress related breakdown induced from the intense media pressure of the event. So not only is the man responsible for the rape of this girl, who had already admitted to a sexual encounter with the girl and only argued against the severity of the encounter, going to be released with no punishment; but it seems violent, both sexually and physically, encounters with marines have if anything increased and at the very best have continued unabated.

There are currently 92,491 American military personnel and dependents living in Okinawa located on 37 bases, which is shocking considering the small size of the island. Considering the fact that World War II ended 63 years ago many Japanese living on the island and the mainland are becoming increasingly angry about the presence of American military forces. The US Military has also repeatedly refused to rewrite the Status of Forces agreement which stipulates the need for their presence despite unceasing demands from local Japanese governments. However the national Japanese government is also complicit as it always expresses official outrage over these incidents, but never pursues the matter any further. However I still place the blame squarely on American imperialism as the US currently has over 700 military bases in foreign countries and the need for a heavy military presence in one of our greatest economic and political allies is simply ridiculous. The marines are obviously a danger to the people of Okinawa and living abroad has really exposed me to the military aggression that America is so well known for internationally.

Also I am not trying to slander the entire armed services as I know there are many decent and hard working men and women who in certain cases are fighting to protect the liberties I enjoy, but you have to ask yourself a question. If a foreign power had 37 military bases in your home area of 922sq miles, the size of Okinawa, and said bases covered 12% of that area, how would you feel? Also the members of said military frequently engaged in criminal acts against mainly women and children including rape, murder, molestation, robbery, etc. Especially considering violent criminal acts are very rare in your home area and when violent crimes do occur in your country they are national news due to the scarcity of their occurrence. Finally a last thought to leave you with. My sister Mary is the same age as the girl who was raped by a 38 year old man.

Sorry for the dearth of recent posts, but as far as the training goes I will be doing that at the end of the month through the first few days of April in Hamamatsu. Should be fairly easy as it can't be that radically different from Nova especially seeing as I won't be teaching very high level English at any of my schools. Only in the past couple of years has the government started mandating English classes at elementary schools, so most of the children there have never studied English before beyond what they may have been exposed to in foreign movies. However this also means there is no set textbook or teaching method for elementary level English, so this means that I will be independently designing and implementing all of my elementary English classes. Ideally the homeroom teacher will work with me, but I have heard that it really depends on the teacher as far as how involved they want to get. Also there is a very good chance that the elementary teachers I will be working with won't speak a word of English, so needless to say my Japanese should improve exponentially. I will also only be teaching 20-25 classes out of the weekly total of 40, so I'll have a lot of downtime to study Japanese during the day. Basically this job looks pretty ridiculous and I'm excited to finally be working again in general, so life is looking pretty good.

Quick Update

This post is just to briefly try to catch everyone up on the recent news in my life. I found an incredible apartment in Kyoto that is close to all of my schools as well as in a nice area. More on that later. I was also supposed to go to Tokyo today to start my training, but lo and behold when I called the hotel to request internet access in my room they informed me that Interac had canceled my reservation. Awesome news all around. So I call Interac and they tell me that my hotel had been canceled because my training had been switched over to my new managing branch of Hamamatsu and they were supposed to have informed me of this and of my new training. The Tokyo branch was as surprised as I was that I had no information about the change in training and after calling the other branch they said that they should have sent me the info. However I assured them that I had received no such email/call as yesterday I bought a train ticket to Tokyo which I obviously wouldn't have done had I known about the training change. So I'm waiting to hear back from them about training as apparently it will be done by my new branch at some as of yet undecided time, but the good news is that my ticket will be refunded. Not that they had much choice in the matter as I told them it absolutely would be if it did turn out that I wouldn't be going to Tokyo for training as the blame lay squarely on their shoulders. So who knows when I'll be training.

Good news is after my Nova experience I have absolutely no expectations for this new company as all ESL companies over here are corrupt/inept/abusive, etc, so today's news didn't faze me in the slightest despite the last minute change of plans. I also am no longer shy about demanding compensation over the company's mistakes, something I would have been hesitant to do before simply because I was not used to dealing with a large overly bureaucratic corporation. Now I have learned that to get what is rightfully mine I have to pursue it aggressively or else they simply ignore you. Also I was shown again that in dealing with a company it is my responsibility to make sure of arrangements they have provided as I will be the one affected by any mistakes on their part. Ah the excitement of the real world never ends. Harsh lessons I suppose, but ones I am certainly taking to heart. I'm learning that ultimately the only person you can count on is yourself and success or failure largely depends upon the work you put into whatever goal you are trying to achieve. Not that I am brushing aside the massive amount of support my family has given me in my time here, but at the end of the day I am responsible for what happens.

So I received an email today from Interac informing me of the actual schools I've been assigned to. I'm going to be working at one junior high school and three elementary schools all located in central Kyoto which is great news because it means I can finally start looking for apartments. This also means that I'll be able to hopefully live right in the middle of Kyoto which places me close to everything as Kyoto is a fairly centrally focused city. I believe it has a population of roughly 1.5 million people and is an interesting mix of historic and modern buildings. Needless to say I'm happy about my placement as I can once again start making plans for my life and hopefully this time they won't be rudely interrupted by company bankruptcy or fear of deportation. Fingers crossed.

Calm, Cool and Collected

So it is now midnight of the day I found out I would not be offered a job in Tokyo by Interac and would instead be moving to Kyoto to work there. Now when I first was informed of this at 9AM sharp this morning by the ever cheerful Ssen Ota who has been my contact throughout this rather exciting time I was less than thrilled, but mainly more confused by the wild ride my emotions went on. Before I posted that I was very angry and upset, which I most definitely was, but once I got over the shock of the news and had time to think about things more coherently I was able to look at things in a different light.

Since moving to Japan it has been an up until now unobtainable dream of mine to live/work in Kyoto as it is the cultural capital of Japan and truly a beautiful city. Not only is it filled with castles, temples, historic districts, museums, etc, but it also has a very modern yet tasteful side to it. However due to the highly competitive nature of the job market there it is very difficult to obtain employment simply because so many people, many more experienced and qualified than I, want to live there. So in all honesty I'm ecstatic to be able to have the chance to live in such a historic city, yet at the same time said happiness is tempered by being away from Ayuko. We've dated for almost a year now and have been living together for the past six months. Honestly when we first started dating I didn't foresee a long term relationship simply due to the difficulties presented by cultural differences we were encountering, but just recently we have both come to realize how much the other means to us. Yet at the same time neither of us is worried about the impact the distance will have on our relationship, simply the fact that not seeing each other except maybe twice a month will be really difficult. Both of us are brought low simply thinking about it.

Also please no comments about "oh you're young, long distance isn't so bad, etc" because while I may only be 23 I'm not emotionally handicapped nor is long distance easy as I've done it before and it honestly only gets worse with time. I'm sure as of now many of you are beginning to think, "My god Chris is actually turning into an adult and dare we say it...a man?!". I'm sure the shockwaves will run through family and friends for weeks to come. I just wish you all the best of luck with this astonishing news. However Ayuko would resoundingly assure you that I am still the same immature, yet strangely lovable, person you all knew and loved before I came over here. Anyway I'll write more later, but for now I have a Japanese girl I need to cuddle while I can.

Five minutes ago I go a call from Interac saying that due to a lack of available contracts I no longer have a job in Tokyo...and instead they offered me a position in Kyoto or Shizoka prefecture. As I was absolutely stunned I agreed to the position in Kyoto simply so I could remain in Japan, but I still am reeling from this change. So many things are running through my head like how this will affect Ayuko and my plans, what it is going to do to my already low opinion of Interac, my overall extremely low opinion of the ESL industry in general and just everything else. I'm so angry and upset I can barely write this. What the fuck. As I find out more I'll post here as they are supposed to get back to me later today concerning the situation in Kyoto.

After the feedback I've gotten and some thinking on my own I've decided to keep just the one blog despite possible consequences. Viewers, as you are well aware if you are reading this, are now warned that 'adult content' may be present and their very souls could be at risk if they continue on. Thus in the grand American tradition I have absolved myself of any responsibility should anyone take offense to any posts. Long live freedom of speech.

Just wanted to let everyone know that I was granted a work visa for another year with Interac as my sponsor, so no more excitement concerning that. I should be finding out in the next couple of days where exactly I will be working and once that happens Ayuko and I can start planning our move up to Tokyo. Hopefully I won't be placed too far from her work, but I'll know soon enough I suppose.

I met two of Ayuko's friends today separately, Kano and I'm afraid I can't remember the other girls name. The first one was surprisingly masculine in not only her manner and way of speaking, but also in the fact that she drove a full size motorcycle that reminded me of a smaller Harley. She said it weighed over 600 pounds and as Ayuko was anxious for me to sit on it so she could take pictures I thought I'd see how hard it was to work with. Definitely not the easiest thing to lift off of the kickstand, nor maneuver down the driveway at a backwards walk. However when her friend left she was able to do so with little difficulty and then roar away in a blast of noise. Impressive woman indeed.