Nothing Much Ado

Apologies for not posting here for a while.  Been bothered by a sore throat for ages.  It blossomed into an all out cold at the start of this month.  Hasn't completely loosened its grip either.

Anyways....  Occasionally I come up with things which I think would make good material for a post here...only to have it escape my memory quickly.  Right now I'm just a bit worn out.  Spent most of today working on a script for a role playing exercise.  The situation it covers is a meeting between some IT department folks and their project client representatives.  Hardly thrilling stuff one supposes.  Yet I've managed to spew out some lively banter.  Not sure if the account manager will be happy with it.  Hopefully it'll go over well.  The humour might not go over well though.  I have one character bravely saying he could write down the requirements for a project on a beer coaster in a matter of minutes.  Another catty character then asks "Is that before or after you've drank the beer that was on the coaster?".  I don't know.  I just wanted to shake things up a bit.  Otherwise the dialogue sounded a bit stiff.  After all, I can't add in all the colourful profanity and other insane expressions I've had the pleasure of listening to in my previous profession.

Actually, the little business situation dialogues I've been busy coming up with for my lessons have been quite fun to write.  It's always a challenge to come up with something realistic sounding in a field one knows little of...or remembers little of!  I suppose I've been relatively successful.  I had one student read a dialogue in class and he remarked "This is so realistic!  It's just like our company.".  Unfortunately, that dialogue took place in a fictional company where one would be inclined to question the competence of the employees.  Hardly the kind of stuff I want to hear a student describe as realistic.

Other than that...can't get the song "Funiculì Funiculà" out of my head tonight.  I tackled it tonight during a drink and karaoke session at one of my regular drinking spots.  The inspiration for doing that...an AMV featuring clips from one of the shows in the "Girls und Panzer" franchise.  I had stumbled across it this past weekend.  Don't go looking for it...trust me....

Lazy Monday Morning

Last week was a typical work week but there was an element of post holiday "blahs".  The previous week was Golden Week, the week where four statutory holidays get crammed into a span five to six days.  This year the holidays were mid week.  At our company that meant that there were work days popping up in the middle of what could have been a continuous 10 day period away from work.  One co-worker was a touch annoyed with that.  But I think we got off better than some of our students.  I asked in one class "How was your Golden Week?" and a student replied "I worked...".

I've been keeping myself somewhat occupied for the past month or so.  Read a number of books, upped the frequency of my visits to the gym, and kept plugging away at assembling model ships.  The latest one to reach completion is the one in the foreground of the photo below.  It's a little more than 10cm in length...if that.  I built it "OOB" - out of the box - in modeller's lingo.  No after market parts were added to the kit.  It was a bit of a challenge to build since the hull was originally sagging at the stern.  After my first round of warming up the hull in hot water and reshaping it, the bow was bent upward.  So the process was repeated.  In the end I managed to get it reasonably flat.

A friend asked me what do I do with these models.  I told him I eventually take them back to Canada.  He asked my why didn't I sell them.  My curt answer was "What's the point of that?".  It more or less meant that I didn't think there would be any buyers and furthermore that's the last thing I would think of doing when I assemble them.  I guess I'll be leaving the question of how to dispose of my collection to someone else....

Alright, who just washed their car?

This past Monday morning was sunny.  I did a load of laundry and hung it out to dry in the early spring light.  The temperature didn't feel too cool but there was a brisk breeze blowing.  I figured my clothes would dry, be it a not as soon as on a calm spring day but eventually.

Following that I hauled the summer tires down from my apartment veranda and into my car.  Drove over to the local service station and asked to have my tires changed.  Also asked them to wash the car.  Seemed like a good idea at the time.

As I was having lunch at Cafe ARB, someone piped up it had been snowing hard a while ago.  Must of been while I was sitting in the service station with my back to the window.  My immediate response was "I can do without that!".  Nonetheless, as I walked back to my apartment I could see snow flakes.  Snow flakes...yes, in April.  Not like on April Fool's Day back in 2013.  No, it was the 11th of April.

By mid afternoon the snow was coming down steadily.  My clothes were getting wetter rather than drier.  So I hauled them in and hung them on the clothes rack in my dining room.

When I went out to get groceries after 6pm the situation hadn't improved.  No, the weather was decidedly like early December.  The air had cooled off significantly and the snow was coming down quite hard.  On my way out from the supermarket I took the following photograph with my iPhone.

The next day I joked in several classes that I had tempted fate too much by having my tires swapped AND getting the car washed.  I think I set up the joke well because all my students got a chuckle out of it....

When Things Go Awry....

A friend of mine came over to Tokyo, daughter and husband in tow, from Canada several weeks ago.  We made arrangements to meet up on Sunday the 20th.  Concurrently, a co-worker was down in Tokyo on vacation.  Before he had departed we made plans to drop in on a mutual acquaintance who is now living in Tokyo.  Since this was all arranged using LINE there was no element of surprise.  Yuko, our mutual acquaintance, was told ahead of time we were planning to go to the cafe/bar where she works.  I took the time to take screenshots from the Apple Map application to show my co-worker where exactly in Shinjuku to wait for me.

So, as I arrived at Tokyo station on Saturday night I sent a LINE message to my co-worker.  His response was "F***, I'm in Chiba.  I forgot what day it is.".  Okay.  That definitely wasn't the response I was expecting.  I sent a query asking if he was going to start heading back to Tokyo.  No response.  I said to myself, "The heck with him" and made my deliberate way to the Burger King in the Kabuki-cho district of Shinjuku.  I sent a LINE message to my co-worker advising him that the Whopper I had just inhaled was good.  "Boy, you're fast" was his response.  Which basically told me that he hadn't budged an inch off the bar stool he was sitting on in Chiba.  After I had checked in at the capsule hotel I had made a reservation at, I headed off to Yotsuya San-cho-me on my own.  I met up with Yuko who was a bit surprised to see me without my co-worker in tow.  Needless to say she was less than impressed with his performance when I told her what he was up to.

I spent about a day and half taking my friend and her daughter around a number of spots in Tokyo.  Her husband came down with a cold so he was mostly bedridden for two days, Sunday the 20th and Monday the 21st.  Sunday afternoon was spent shopping in the area just east of Shinjuku station.  The crowds weren't too bad so it wasn't an exhausting experience.  We checked on her husband around 5pm and then headed out for dinner.  I couldn't find the place I had in mind so we settled on a yakitori restaurant.

We covered a lot more ground the next day: Harajuku (specifically the first few blocks of Takeshita Dori), Meiji Jingu, Roppongi (for the express purpose of going to a Sushizanmai restaurant a friend of mine frequents), and Odaiba.  We purchased day passes to ride the Yurikamome line and used it enough to get our money's worth hopping on and off a couple of Yurikamome line stations..  Didn't do any shopping in Odaiba but we checked out the beach side park, the life size Gundam robot, and the Toyota centre next to Venus Fort.  They have a new program for the Toyota ride simulator so we checked that out.  My friend's daughter, who just turned 12, thought the ride was the highlight of the day....

-*- 

Postscript:  One of the shops I checked out on Sunday morning, before my friend arrived in Tokyo from Kawaguchi-ko (next to Mt. Fuji), was Kinokuniya Books.  It goes without saying that my wallet became a touch lighter after my visit there.  I picked up a copy of a somewhat thick magazine whose current issue is focused on manga-ka Eguchi Hisashi.  When I got to the floor where they sell foreign language books and magazines I more or less just wandered around.  Then I got to the section where they have their selection of novels.  I don't know why but I remembered then reading a review of Yann Martel's latest novel.  But I couldn't remember the title of the book.  I found several books by Martel though.  I ended up buying two...but I can't remember their titles right away as I had the store clerk make book covers for my purchases....

Unexpected....

A few weeks ago an acquaintance had called me up to check that I was free on the evening of March 12th.  He said that a friend of his from Vancouver would be in Yonezawa that night and he wanted me to meet his friend.  I said I had no plans that night and it was agreed upon to get together.

Last night I was sitting at home and the fellow gave me a call.  I agreed to meet him at the bar where we had first met, a place called Nishiki which is run by a Chinese lady.  I got there before my acquaintance's party so I just took a seat and nursed my drink.

About 20 minutes later my acquaintance arrived with a party of about 7 people in tow.  I transferred my seat over to an area which could accommodate the larger group.  As I did so I recognized one of the women.  It was Sachiko.  I had met her in January at the annual Yonezawa International Relations Association mochitsuki.  She was a bit surprised to see me.  Next an elder fellow I had never met before addressed me in Chinese.  Sachiko quickly explained to him that I didn't speak Chinese.

As we started to get settled down one fellow looked at me straight and called out me name.  "Is that you!" he exclaimed.  I looked at him.  Didn't immediately recognize him.  Then he mentioned TELUS.  I thought to myself, "Wait a minute, this guy looks familiar!". 

Long story short...yes, he was a former co-worker.  His name is Raymond.  We had worked together on a project back in the late 1990s.  He had left TELUS in 2005.  Presently, he's in Japan to visit his son who works in Tokyo.  The acquaintance of mine knows Raymond through Raymond's brother.

Needless to say this improbable reunion was quite a treat.  I don't think scale of the improbability of it has quite sunk in yet.  I must say this is one of the biggest surprises I've ever had!

Oops!....

So....  I've been absent from here longer than I had planned.  I had thought about writing a quick set of mini-movie reviews but that all got lost in the helter skelter of events which took place in February. 

It started off with our school's move in late January.  It wasn't so much of an organized event as it was a sequence of things which happened simply that's because those sorts of things happen.  In a way it was similar to my packing up the contents of my condominium prior to my move to Japan: things were happening but not at the right pace to meet deadlines.  Same here.  In the end we tossed out half of what was in the school, scrambled to find some things which had long gone MIA, packed, found ourselves in our new location, and then ordered replacements for the items which we had tossed out but shouldn't have.

Other things which I had to work into my already busy work schedule were plans to take on a new company, a couple of re-scheduled meetings to deal with paper work and class observations, and preparations for a training course in the first week of May.  The last point required a fair bit of time to write up documentation to help my substitute plan her lessons...which all went to naught when she got the stomach flu and had to take a day off from work.  So I'll be teaching those missed lessons in lieu later this month...on a Monday which is usually my day off.

But I suppose the one thing which distracted me from posting here was the news that a close relative has been diagnosed with cancer...stage 3 out of 4 at that.  The news hasn't completely distracted me from my daily routine but it's lurking there in the background.  I'm getting regular updates on his treatments from my sister.  The question of when I'll be visiting Canada will be dependent on his prognosis once they get through the first round of radiation treatment.  There's nothing much I can do from this side of the ocean other than to keep my fingers crossed....

Right Place, Right Time

Got super lucky last weekend (Jan 16th).  I went to Sendai (a more or less spur of the moment decision).  I took a bus out of Yonezawa after lunch and arrived in Sendai mid afternoon.  After spending some time shopping I checked in at my hotel around 4:30pm.  After resting for a bit I started checking out club and concert listings.  There were a few that seemed a bit interesting.  The one featuring a "new-half" act was puzzling but didn't get me excited.  Neither did a couple of featuring local bands.  They appeared to be of the emo-melocore variety.  A link to a blues bar got me excited...until I opened the web page and found out they had closed their doors for good back in November last year.  Then I stumbled upon a web page where I thought I saw "Special Others" scroll by.  I waited for it to scroll by again and clicked on the image.  Sure enough, Special Others were playing at Rensa, a "live house" that night.  The time I realized this was 5:15pm.  The concert start time was 6 o'clock.  Needless to say I hurried out to try and find the place. 

I quickly found the nearest subway station and took a subway train to the next stop from my hotel.  Then I  headed topside under the guidance of a map app on my iPhone.  I found myself in a shopping arcade (shotengai).  Spotted a building with a row of signs...one of which said "RENSA" on it.  I headed in and took the elevator up to the top floor.  Yes, tickets were still available.  It was around 5:50pm.  The concert hall had no seats.  It was pretty packed so I found a spot near the back which had a decent view of the stage.  As long as someone taller than me wasn't in front of me then I could see the guitarist, drummer, and bassist.  The keyboard player was visible most of the time though it was kind of hard to see all of his face thanks to long-ish hair..

They played for the better part of 110 minutes.  Had a couple of lengthy chat sessions and came out for one encore tune.  Up to that night I only had one album of theirs and I was impressed with their playing (they're an instrumental rock band whose compositions are more akin to jam sessions that actual songs).  They didn't disappoint me with their live show.  A wee bit of noodling off here and there but that was part of the fun.  Style-wise they're similar to "the band apart" - minus the vocals.  Bosa nova, reggae, jazz, and all sorts of other stuff mixed in.

All in all, I was really happy that I happened to be at the right place at the right time.  :)