Hamamatsu beach

I went to the beach today with some co-workers. There is suppose to be a typhoon coming tomorrow or the next day, so the waves were much bigger than a week ago.

The name Hamamatsu is made up of two words: "hama" which means beach and "matsu" which means pine trees. At the beach, you can see how the town got its name with pine trees looking onto a beach. (see the pine trees to the right):

Every so often, the waves were coming in so far that they soaked out stuff. Just before we left, the water came right up to the pine trees, and then drained away again so it was 100 metres or so from the trees. So in the end we lost some sandals and a mat as they were taken out to sea.

Karaoke

On Friday night, there was a farewell party for 2 of the teachers from my school. For a couple of hours we went to one karaoke place downtown. It was huge. It had 6 floors and we got the deal that included all you could eat and drink. The song selection was much better than I was use to in Korea. I wasn't the biggest fan of karaoke in Korea, but I think I might start enjoying it more here.

My new wheels

One thing I liked from the beginning here was seeing many people using bicycles. And most of them are riding very practical "granny" bicycles as I call them. Since so many people use bicycles, the separate bicycle parking lot at the train station near my home is huge.

I was lucky enough to buy a "granny" bicycle from one of the teachers who was leaving. And luckily it's not silver, as 90% of the bicycles are here.

My other wheels is a Toyota Carina that I use for work. It isn't my car as there's a number of cars the teachers share. I've been given the Carina although I may have to change to a different vehicle at some point later.

It hasn't taken as long as I thought to get use to driving on the left side of the road. I think it was almost good that I was more worried about not getting lost when I started driving since the driving part just progressed naturally. I am still slowing down quite a bit on the really narrow roads that are in the residential areas. I usually have one long drive per day (maybe about 40 minutes) to get out to a company to teach the workers. I am teaching at 5 different companies to start off with.

Small shrine

I went for a short walk around my apartment, since I still don't know the area very well.
I can across this nice small shrine, although it wasn't open, so I could just admire the outside.

Wandering around downtown

I went for a little walking tour of downtown yesterday. There were some nice pathways:

and a number of mini-waterfalls:
I was amazed that fairly close to downtown that a new area of houses was being built...

and with some neat designs too:

There was even a brand new church built in the area:

Near this church is the Shizuoka University of Art and Culture. I met a friend by chance when I was walking by and since she works for the university, she said she would show me around. The buildings are in a square around an open space with some beautiful grass and places to eat lunch. The university reminded me of Trent University from Peterborough. We went to the top floor which is the roof, but has grass and places to sit and look out over the city:

By looking at the photo, it looks like regular benches along a path. But it's a bit of an optical illusion since each bench gets larger as you go along so that they look all the same size when you first look at them. So here's a photo of me on the first bench and then on the last one:

Sushi Party

On Saturday night, there was a sushi party at another teacher's apartment (just 3 floors up from me). Teachers and students and other Japanese friends were there. It was nice to see some of the students and staff from the office in a more relaxed atmosphere. Here's some photos from it:










































This next (blurry) photo is of my roommate although he probably wouldn't want it to be his intro photo:

My apartment

So I thought I'd show some photos of my apartment here. I share my apartment with JP, who is from New Mexico. In the apartment there's a living room:














The kitchen:















And my room:




















Sorry, no photos of JP's room or the 2 half bathrooms.
Here's a view from our balcony though:














Overall, a good apartment and close to downtown. Much larger than I had in Korea, so I'm liking the extra space.

Scary big cicadas

While I was in Korea, there were lots of cicadas in a forest near my apartment. But I only heard them. Here in Hamamatsu, there are some big cicadas:














And they are really loud and like flying around more so I have to watch out for them.

Hamamatsu castle

So I went with Jenny to City Hall to apply for my alien card so I can be a legal alien. I don't want to be an illegal one like the ones in "Men in Black".
Anywho...just behind City Hall is Hamamatsu castle:

It cost a bit so we decided to go in another time since we live close to it.
Here's another photo near the castle in front of a ... actually I don't know what it is. I'll tell you once I find out.

A "Welcome to Japan" typhoon

Well, I had my one and only class cancelled today due to a typhoon coming in. It was very windy and rainy for most of the day and was the worst at about 6 o'clock tonight. I don't think we got the worst of it though.

Here are some shots from my apartment that I took last night:



The above shot is of a big tower (ACT tower) that is downtown and which you can see for miles. Since I'm a 5-minute walk from downtown, it's a great guide when I'm biking or driving and am trying to get home.



The next shot is also of downtown looking at some department stores downtown. The train station is also here and I can see the bullet train going by sometimes. Downtown is really clean and has some nice walking streets and a little entertainment area.

Gotta remember my camera

I knew that I wanted to make this blog when I came here, so I thought it would be smart to take my camera with me when I went out. I just didn't realize I should take it with me when I when to the supermarket. On Sunday night, I showed the other new teacher, Jenny, where the supermarket was (only a 2 minute walk from home).

On our way back we came across a mini festival happening in an abandoned lot. There were games for kids and drinks and food you could buy. We came when lots of older women were doing a kinda of hat dance. After they did it once they tried to get people from the crowd involved. Jenny and I joined in and got to learn this hat dance. Some of the teachers came by then and were also surprised to see the festival as well as the new teachers taking part in it.

After this dance, there was a group of Brazilian girls who came out and danced accompanied by a large band. I found out that my city has the most foreigners per capita in Japan. 5% of the population here are foreigners with half being from Brazil. Actually, of the foreign population, only 1% speak English. Aside from Brazilians, there are also lots of Chinese, Koreans, and others from South American and South East Asia. Many of them are working in the factories here.

Jet Lag Weekend

I live in an apartment building where many of the other teachers in my school live. Therefore, I was able to meet a number of them over my first weekend. Another teacher, Jenny from England, arrived the day after me so at least I'm not the only one who was wandering around lost.

Jenny and I met the owner of the school and he took us out to a German beer garden for a "welcome" beer. We then met up with some other teachers who took us out for dinner and drinks. Later at night we went down to the beach where a party was going on. I was lucky that somebody lent me their bicycle so I could ride down to the beach (about a 40 minute ride alond bike trains). I've found out that I can buy a bike off one of the teachers who is leaving which will make it easy to get around.

On Sunday, I met up with some teachers and we drove out to meet some Japanese friends of theirs for a picnic under a bridge. It seemed strange to have a picnic under a highway when there was lots space near there that was along a river. But they must have known it was going to rain since after a few hours it became windy and rainy.

Welcome to the new blog

Well, I arrived in Japan last Friday (Aug. 19). It was the end of a week holiday and I got the train into Tokyo and then caught a bullet train to Hamamatsu, which is the city where I'm working. It took just over an hour and a half to get here.

I'm sharing an apartment with a guy named J.P., whose from New Mexico. I could have my own apartment but the 2 bedroom apartments are much larger and everything I'll ever need is already set up here.

I'll be teaching mainly at companies in the area as well as community classes at the school to small groups of adults. For the month of September I have about 15 hours a week of teaching, although some companies can take an hour to travel to. Luckily there are cars at the school we can use to get out to them. I'm going to be taking a car out on Saturday to get used to driving on the left side of the road and see if I can get around without getting lost.