TheLeong.com

This whole not-having-much-to-do thing is really throwing my sleep schedule off. I might as well be back to 2 summers ago when I was in Bloomington having not much to do. After a midnight shopping trip to Don Quixote, the randomest chain of department-type store in Japan, I’ve managed to somehow make it to 7AM. Probably not the best idea. I don’t even know what I do when I stay up this late. Tonight I guess it was a combination of writing a long blog in Japanese on mixi, passively watching 2 movies, hooking up my external HD, and taking care of e-mail.

Now here’s my dilemma. I have the Pelican Express guy coming sometime between 9AM and 12 to pick up a package: the Gyao equipment I was accidentally sent even though NTT was supposed to cancel my contract with them. I need them to pick this thing up today, because if they don’t, I could potentially get charged for a month of Gyao TV service that I’m not going to use. So I could go to sleep and hope that the doorbell/intercom would wake me up, or I could just struggle and stay up until the guy comes. I’m thinking I might not wake up if I fall asleep, but I could also potentially have another 5 hours to have to stay awake when I’m already feeling tired.

I have to apologize for that last entry. I know it’s pretty bad and rambling, but I wanted to just get all that recorded and stuff, mainly for myself so I can go back and read it in the future. Actually, I started that post a long time ago, but in between then and publishing a few minutes ago I had eaten dinner, watched about 2 DVDs of NewsRadio, napped for 4 hours, took a shower, downloaded 4 new albums, and played a lot of Scrabble on Facebook. But for the most part, I think I’ve covered most of the important stuff from September, so from now on we’re back to regular stuff about what I am doing in my semi-unemployed life of freedom right now.

Hey! How about some Engrish!?

That’s some bar/restaurant I found over near Makuhari Hongo station a few weeks ago. I don’t know if it really counts as Engrish, maybe it’s just a weird name for a business.

Here goes my attempt at a quick summary of what happened in September while I was internet-less. Actually pretty much just parties, since there were a ton of them.

First was a party with my school staff on Sep 8 with our self-study campaign prize money. Our school did a good job in terms of goals and revenues, so the head office gave us a bit of money to spend on whatever we wanted. Free parties are always good. We went to the 月の雫 (Tsuki no Shizuku) in Chiba, which is supposed to be famous for its handmade tofu. Seriously, it’s way good. I’m not talking about tofu as in a “I’m a stupid hippie who doesn’t shower, use electricity, or eat meat,” but closer to “I’m a warrior monk who killed seven people this morning with a travel alarm clock and a Bic.” Or something. But yeah, it’s really good. I like that izakaya a lot because it’s usually pretty quiet and most of the tables have their own little enclosed areas. Helping plan that party I also realized how the enkai courses are probably a good idea if you’re planning a party with more than 5 people, since it usually includes nomihoudai and a ton of food for fairly cheap. (Keep that in the memory bank.) The last time I had gone there it was good too, but we ordered everything a la carte and so it ended up costing a lot. Oops.

The following weekend, on Saturday the 15th, I had my Farewell Party with students as well as a Welcome Party for my replacement, Andrew. The party was at this place called 天狗 (Tengu) in Goi, a large chain of discount-type family restaurant/izakaya. It was OK, but I think the old place we used to go to was better. The food might have been better at Tengu, but the room was a lot more cramped and I didn’t like the way the tables were set up. The party was good, but I was super tired from waking up balls early to go from Chiba to Goi, then working all day. But overall it was a nice party and we had a very decent turnout especially considering it was a 3-day weekend so a lot of people couldn’t make it. It was pretty sweet when right before I left; one of my STP students led the entire party in the Japanese sanbonjime clapping thing. I felt famous. Awesome.

After that during the walk home I had my final and most impressive, if I do say so myself, test of hiding my Japanese with the students. The staff and about 3 students were walking from Tengo to Goi station and two of them were just talking about me hardcore, wondering about “exactly how good Anthony’s Japanese is,” since I guess they’ve heard random rumors and stuff. I guess my predecessor had told some of these students that I can speak Japanese, and also said that I “must get a lot of girls and go to hostess clubs a lot.” That’s gross but also funny – also note that I’ve only talked to my predecessor once since he left last year. Whatever. But I was of course able to completely act like I had no idea what they were saying. No reactions whatsoever as they walked behind me talking about me. Tamayo picked up the assist by saying stuff like “No, no, I think he can only say Hello.” Ha, ha.

The next morning it was time for an early party. I had to wake up before 9AM for a BBQ at Inage Kaigan hosted and planned by Konosuke. Despite it being at a time I would usually be sleeping, it was actually really awesome. Tons of food and drink, a lot of people – it was a good time. The only bad thing was the heat. Even at like 11 or 12 in the afternoon, the sun was completely blazing. I think most people, including me, got pretty sunburnt. After the BBQ ended around 3 or something, a group of us went to karaoke and then dinner, and then just hanging out. I didn’t head home until maybe 10PM, but when I stopped by a conbini to pick up some water, I walked by a mirror and did the walk-back thing and saw how red my face and arms were. I hadn’t noticed at all during the day, but I definitely got roasted. I don’t remember the last time my skin peeled because of sunburn. Maybe never? But oh well.

Went out with my staff on Tuesday night, one of my last days. This was after a full day of trying to tell Andrew everything I knew about classes in between actually teaching. I was tired from just talking so much. My last day was Wednesday the 19th. Before leaving school we had the usual speeches and stuff with the staff, and I got a nice pen and one of those signboard things with messages from everyone. It was very weird to finish at Goi, although I’ll be back there later to teach now and again. Went out that night in Chiba as well.

Sunday the 23rd, after Tokyo Game Show, we had Mikey, Bryan, and Nick all here from their respective JET prefectures (Tochigi, Ibaraki, Hyogo). Went to some izakaya in Chiba that I’d never been to before, across the street from Umaimonya. That was good. Had a pretty big group for karaoke, so we did that all night at Utahiro. It amazes me still how cheap that place is. I was feeling pretty tired and I’m sure I fell asleep for a bit. But it was great to have so many people in one place. And at least I wasn’t the only one to pass out:

My current job finishes up near the end of next month, which means I just have a few weeks of employment there, and even less time to stay in my current apartment. This brings me to a major life junction: do I stay in Japan or head back to the US? I’ve been running this back and forth in my head for the past few months, especially since Obon vacation when I realized how little time I had left. Regardless of what country I live in after September, I don’t have a full-time job yet, and thus need to keep up the search-and-interview process. I’ve interviewed a few times here in Japan, but so far mainly with jobs that I wouldn’t really see myself doing. I need more time to properly job hunt, and also need to be able to interview on days other than Mondays. If I were living in Japan, maybe Chiba, then I would easily head into Tokyo to do this while working part-time jobs to have at least some income. I would, however, need to find a new apartment, and deal with the ridiculous fees and costs associated with moving in to a new place here in Japan. If I were to go back to the United States right now, I would need to start up the job search there as well, and since I’m not sure what part of the US I would be working in yet, I couldn’t really move into a new apartment, meaning I would be living in my parents house until I decided on a job. So there you have it, two possible situations for The Leong.

I’m going to stay in Japan.

At least for a while.

So there you have it. Was it dramatic or anything? Probably not, since I think most people, including my parents, expected this. Right now the current plan is to stay here until the end of the year. If I don’t have a good job by then, I will most likely move back to the US. I move out of my current apartment here in Goi on September 13, so before that I will be moving into a new apartment. I’ve been looking for the past few weeks, for something ideally in Chiba city or Tsudanuma, either of which would give me direct rapid train access to Tokyo. Actually I found a really nice, brand-new apartment in Chiba that would be great if not for the expensive monthly rent. I’m going to try and decide all that today. But anyway, I’ll be living somewhere in Chiba, hunting for full-time jobs that don’t include teaching English or headhunting, although those are the most common jobs in Japan for foreigners it seems, at least on the easily accessible English-language job posting sites. I’ll be going beyond that. I do have at least 2 part time jobs lined up, one of which pays very nicely. Too bad it’s assignment-based and I won’t always have assignments. At the very least, I’ve got one in November that pays amazingly for only 6 days of work. But yeah, with part time jobs, teaching private lessons, etc., I should be able to not completely tap into my savings.

So that’s the plan for right now. I’m sorry to those of you who wanted me to come back to the US immediately, but I figure that if I want to look for a job in Japan it makes a lot more sense to stay here. If I left now there’s a chance I would never come back. A very small chance, but a chance nonetheless. I also wouldn’t be ready to leave Japan in just a few weeks – its just too soon. I am, however, thinking of taking a vacation to the US near the beginning of October, in which case I would visit St. Louis and LA for sure.

I’m tired. After several days where my greatest accomplishment was leaving my apartment to get food, I had a super busy day to make up for all that. Went to bed around 4:30 or 5AM last night, and had to wake up at 7. Showered and put on a suit and hit the trains for Tokyo. Morning isn’t even that hot, but the humidity and the crowded trains definitely make it uncomfortable. Uchibo trains are especially ghetto, but the Sobu trains were fairly comfortable. Either way it’s not fun wearing a suit in this weather. Had a 10AM interview at a headhunting firm, which went pretty well. I was invited back for a second interview, which I guess is a good sign. I don’t really know about that line of work, though. After that, I snagged the subway to Shibuya, where I walked around a little bit but realized the blazing sun was making things very sweaty, so I ducked into a McDonald’s for some lunch/breakfast. I was already feeling tired. Not a good sign.

Walking further up the road towards Seibu and Loft, I considered seeing a movie because I had 6 hours to kill before my next interview and needed to be inside somewhere cool. Instead I went to this pretty nice internet cafe in the Shibuya HMV building. About 980 yen for a 3 hour day pack, which allowed me to chill out and most importantly take a bit of a nap. The place must be made for salarymen to nap, because the place was really dark and I heard a lot of snoring. Please don’t tell me I’ve become a salaryman. Anyways, it would have been more comfortable, but the reclining chair had some weird springs that made the chair move back and forth like a water bed or something. Even if I moved just slightly, the whole chair would swing a bit. It was almost like being in a hammock but not as extreme. It was nice at first, but got annoying when I was actually trying to sleep.

After my 3 hours was up, I headed to Akihabara to check out the giant Yodobashi. Instead I ended up wandering around and checking out the Crossfield building area, which is actually pretty cool. There’s like a beer terrace that would definitely be nice if I wasn’t wearing a suit and wasn’t running on 3 hours of collective sleep. Wasted some more time inside a bakery/coffee shop, and started feeling really tired, almost dizzy. I figured it was time to move around. Headed to Ebisu about 30 minutes before my next interview, which was good, because it was a longer walk than I had expected and I had to take about 10 minutes to cool off and get dressed. Since the morning I had already taken off my jacket, tie, and had my sleeves rolled up.

After that interview was all said and done and I made my appointment for the second interview, I headed back to the station. Is it just me, or do second interviews this time seem easier to get? 2 for 2 so far. Oh well. Went to Shinjuku to meet up with Mizuki; we were going to hit up some Mexican place but it was crowded so we went to an Indian restaurant in Takashimaya Times Square. Times Square is a really swanky department store, and our seats were on a terrace. First off that is potentially bad because it might be super classy expensive. Second of all there is warning signs because it’s balls hot outside. Luckily, the food was relatively cheap (and really good), and the breeze made the terrace quite nice. Overall a good night after a long day of sweating my balls off all over Tokyo.

Headed back on the train and luckily had a seat the entire way back to Chiba. Good thing too, since at one point there were people packed on, and in this weather that’s got to be uncomfortable. There were some weird troubles at Chiba with the Goi-bound trains, but I got the last one and got home. I’m still super tired, need to sleep, but more importantly need to pack for Seoul. My flight leaves in less than 12 hours and I haven’t started packing. Off to do that. Next blog will probably be from a Korean net cafe, provided I can somehow communicate with the people there.

Ah, summer vacation. Japan has this national summer break kind of thing called Obon (お盆), where most people get a week off of work or school. There is all kinds of religious and other things related to this holiday that I don’t know much about, but you can read about it on Wiki. The important thing is that AEON gives us this week off, and with my normal Sundays and Mondays off, and 2 carefully used vacation days, I find myself in the middle of an 11-day vacation. Oooooh yeah.

Last Saturday after work, went with some other AEON people to the Chiba Port Tower fireworks show (see above), which was pretty awesome despite the ridiculous crowds and the heat outside. After the show ended, we hiked a good distance to some Italian restaurant to hang out. After that, went to the Ocean’s Eleven, or whatever it’s called, bar until last train. Sunday, I didn’t do much all day except watch TV, then headed to Tsudanuma to have a staff going-away party for one of our teachers who is retiring. That was fun and relaxing. Then headed with 2 of my co-workers to Chiba. Again, last train from Chiba.

Monday, more relaxing at home. Ate some yakiniku and okonomiyaki up in Chiba. Tuesday, more relaxing and then headed to Soga Ario. First, saw a movie by myself. Yes it is very loser-ish to see a movie by yourself, let alone the Kamen Rider Den-O movie, but it was fun and I enjoyed it. Shut up. Then ate tacos, did some shopping, and bought some cream puff things to take to everyone at school since it was the retiring teacher’s last day. Even though it was my day off, I’m not a complete jerk. Wednesday, I ran some errands around Goi, and tried this Sri-Lankan/Indian buffet near my apartment which I had never tried before, partially because the outside looks sketch and also partially because the place is called Samanara (サマナラ), which sounded a lot to me at first like salmonella. The people on the Goi mixi group said it was good, and indeed they were right. Spent most of the day at home doing job-hunting related stuff, and also watching News Radio on DVD. Went to the Chiba net cafe at night to print out some Korea-related stuff as well as some resumes, and then came home.

Tomorrow, well, really in a few hours, I need to wake up and head to Tokyo. Believe it or not, I’m going to 2 job interviews/info-session things. Nothing major yet, but it’s good to be starting this kind of thing. I’m not looking forward to waking up early to go into Tokyo though, especially wearing a suit in this heat. But at night I’m going out to dinner with a friend I haven’t seen in a while, so that should be good.

Overall, yes, summer vacation has thus far involved a lot of sleeping and TV-watching. And that’s just perfect. I can’t imagine anything better than doing nothing during this break. If only you didn’t need money to live, I would probably sit at home all day the rest of my life. Unfortunately, that’s not the case, so I need to get only 2 hours of sleep to go into town for the possibility of getting another job. Ah well.

Korea in about a day and a half! Annyong!