Ukimafunado - Legend 101

My top google searches when I really miss the old days include Ukimafunado and Shinjuku, the first being where I used to live and the later being where I used to work. I google images and reminisce about my old life back there and how unreal it all felt at the time. There was something so natural about being over in Japan teaching English and something at the same time so alien and supernatural about it all. I remember the small details like the green public phone next to the local 7 Eleven which I would use to call home on when I didn't have a mobile, the local supermarket where I would buy my nightly eats and beer, the park with the windmill at the end of my street. The fact that I was there, living in a dreamland, not really sure what to make of it all, or how to really embrace it and make the most of it. I guess there were plenty of days when I felt overwhelmed. That's all natural and normal. I feel the same now but in reverse. Having been back in Melbourne for eight years but at every moment knowing that this is not the place I long to be in I realize that sometimes the best times in your life do pass by without you even realizing. But can you do it all again, years later? I still wonder.

Your room is a little bit stink

Looking around the living room and kitchen I realise it's time to tidy things up, even though I'm currently on holiday. Chips on the floor, laundry hanging out, dishes to be washed. The title of this post popped into my head accordingly, spoken by the girlfriend at the time of a long ago Tokyo flat mate. He had to go over to her house the whole time and she never wanted to come over to our apartment. When he asked why she replied with the all-time classic line; "Because your room is a little bit stink."

I continue my Japanese studies. Years later I still torture myself with low level grammar and the same vocabulary learnt, forgotten then learnt again. It's a real groundhog day. But I've resigned myself to it and will press on regardless of my snail's pace of progress and frustrations. I really do think that JLPT is out of the question. I'm turning into the Australian equivalent of Aki, the ancient Nova student with a transistor radio for a hearing aid, who had completed every lesson in the level 3 "text" book literally thousands of times (each page of his "text" book was slate grey from the blanket of pencil scribble that had accumulated therein over the years). He took great pleasure in shouting out answers, entirely devoid of context, every time the instructor would so much as open their mouth to ask a question.

It's largely nostalgia, part functional necessity. Family and I still get over to the mother country regularly (me once a year or so) and here in Australia most of our friends are Japanese couples who all speak the lingo when they're together, so I've got plenty of reason to want to continue to improve. Back in the day I couldn't speak a word, and I remember dudes in the Nova teacher's room reading a column out of the Japan Times called Kanji Clinic. I would shake my head and marvel at their perseverance, never once thinking that I should also take up the habit of learning the language of my host country.  

I looked up Kanji Clinic online a while back and it really was like time travel, reading those old columns again. The writer was a lovely American lady who had a really gift for imparting the great sense of achievement that comes from getting your head around a foreign language. I've posted the link below for old time's sake. Take a look and enjoy a relic from my earliest days of learning Japanese.

www.kanjiclinic.com

Ah the good old days

I know, I know it's been done to death but I still get a kick every time I see an oddly named Japanese product. These days there are so many things available from Japan that we didn't have in Australia when I first went there. There a lots of Japanese and Asian groceries, and more lately, heaps of ramen shops that have recently started spreading out. The Japan booms continues unabated, and we all know why.

Today's afternoon snack, with no connection to the above comments:

Time Traveller

One moment it's 2006, next it's 2016. And here I am, resurrecting Tokyo Rush. Where do I begin? Well, to be honest there were a few posts that I'd done when I first got back to Melbourne which really didn't fit with the tone of my old TR baby. I used to look at them online and feel that they were completely out of sync but because I was no longer in Japan I had no reason to remove them and they would just sit there like smelly old turds turning white and hard with age. So tonight I removed them. And it felt great. I stripped the blog back to the last post I had done out of a Nova School in Shinjuku. From memory it was called "Ogardo" and I remember it as being one of those new schools that opened at the tail end of the Eikaiwa boom and attracted very few students. There were some, but not many, and I remember sitting in the "staff" room by myself for hours at a time just thinking how damn cruisey the life was.

Anyway, the point of tonight is that I have re-found my blog, removed the stuff that was out of place and boring, and embarked upon a new stage. I hope that those who experienced Japan, left, then realised they could never leave, will find something here that appeals. That's what's driving me. Peace.