My first job in Japan

So I got the job in golf place. Yeeeeah. I work there for about 2 weeks now. It is slightly different than it was written in the job description (of course).

          The job starts from 4 in the morning till about 6, which means that I have to wake up very early, 3 o’clock. A cup of coffee is my morning friend and then by bicycle for about 30 minutes to Iiama golf square. :-)

           Here is few pictures of the place.

   

           I was very surprised, cause most of the people working there in morning hours are above 50 years old. I really admire them. They work very hard.

          Well, there is not much to be written about the job itself. I just pick thousands of golf balls. :-)

          If the weather is nice, it is quite pleasant to work in such early hours. Because of the heat and humidity, I can’t sleep well at night anyway. And I get to see all the moon shapes and many sunrises. The other day I have seen a full moon and sunrise at the same time, pure magic.

On the other hand, if it rains, it is very hard, cause rain in Japan is very heavy. If I am correct, the right expression is: “It rains cats and dogs”. :-)

          My boss is quite nice. He is about 65 years old, plays ukulele, loves Hawaiian music and Elvis Presley. So he invited me to play together one day, when the weather gets a bit cooler. Looking forward for that.

         My colleagues are also nice. Despite my poor Japanese, we try to talk, but I must say most of it I don’t understand. So I just nod my head, smile and say:”Hai…” So far it works. :-)

         It is very nice how we help each other there, especially when it’s very hot or very wet. Nice Japanese team spirit.

  

          Since I started working I discovered new things about Japanese culture.

One is that I have to have a bank account in a bank, which the place I work for is using. They don’t accept any bank. Just one week before I started working I opened a bank account in Post office. Last week they told me at the golf place, that they don’t accept them, so I have to open another account in Yokohama bank. Strange system, but what can you do…

Another is, that there is lot of presents giving, called Omiyage. It is a little present for colleagues when you have little trip somewhere, or holidays; or you give it when you visit somebody, etc. It could be sweets or crackers, or some special juice or drink, produced in the area where you go for a trip. It is a really big business here. I must say it is also very yummy.

 Little Scottish joke at the end....

Wee Archie rushed home from school to tell his mother he had been given a part in the school play. "Whit part have ye got" she says.
"I play the part of a husband" says Archie, proudly.
"Well she says, just get right back there and tell that teacher you want a speaking part"!

Meeting with Yoshie and Trip to Kamakura

     Last weekend I met with Yoshie, my good friend who used to volunteer at Allanton. For those who know her, she is very well, enjoying her life. She is now a full time teacher at Primary school. Very hard job, but she is thinking to do some teachers course, to be able to teach music and piano at High schools in the future. 

     She came to visit us here and stayed one night. She brought lot of good information with her. First, finally I will be able to play with somebody. She has a concert in October for children at school, and she asked me if I am interested in playing there. There will be other concert in November, much longer one. So I am looking forward to play again with other musicians. 

 

       I am thinking about buying a cajon, a drum that looks like a wooden box. It is an instrument that would fit perfectly for me. And would bring some beat to the performance with Yoshie. 

      Secondly, there is a certain project with disabled children in her area. And they are looking for somebody to make it happened. They have good support from local council, and schools. They have been given some land, but they are not sure what to do. So Yoshie was thinking that I would be a perfect candidate for it. Cause it is pretty much exactly what we have been doing at Allanton.

     If it happens, I would be over the moon. Creating little Allanton and spreading Ania (an environmental project for kids) in Japan. Yeeeeeeeeeeah.....

Now I just have to lean this strange language. Gambarimasu (I will do my best)….

     It looks like Yoshie is my little guardian angel. She brought to me Mitsuyo, my girlfriend, and now this kind of opportunities. Good, good, what a great mission in life she has. To bring Stano good news all the time.

     Next day we went together to Kamakura. It used to be a capital of Japan. It has one of most famous statues of Buddha (we didn’t visit that place this time), and few famous temples and shrines with lovely lotus garden.

     It was nice rainy day close by the sea.  

 

     We visited also one temple that has a little bamboo forest with tea house, where we had nice bowl of matcha tea. Yummy yummy….

     And we had lovely Japanese lunch. The owner was half drunk, so it was quite funny too. We had all good chat and lot of laughter.

     All in all, it was a good weekend.

Summer holidays and Job hunting

     Since Monday my summer holidays started. It means I have 2 months of not much to do. So I went to local job search center, called Hallo Work, and I must say, it is difficult to find anything. One reason is of course the language and another is actually the school. But at least I managed to find one job, I have never done before in my life and I applied for it. It is picking golf balls.  

(…much better than what I experienced in Prague, Czech – one of my jobs was picking dog poo from the streets. I managed only one day.)

     The job is in the early morning, from 5 to 7. So it won’t be affected by school time later on. And the money earned will pay for the food. So that would be great if I get it and later on I can still apply for evening job to make a bit more money, to cover the costs of my living here. Guys…. Japan is expensive, the Yen is so strong.

     So now I am waiting for the Golf Company to phone me.

     I also found out at Hallo Work, that there is evening Kanji course, a preparation for Japanese Language Proficiency Test, Level 4 (about 300 kanji), and it is for free.

So I applied for that too. 

     Interestingly, most of the people attending these kinds of courses are from Spanish or Portuguese speaking community, so no English. Actually that made me happier; at least I can practice Spanish again. (Que buena oportunidad.) 

 

     By the way, these free courses are quite rare here. So I feel very lucky to have such opportunity.

     And I might also start Japanese calligraphy with Mitsuyo. Looking forward for that too.

Last few weeks

Hallo everyone

The rainy season has finished so from now on only sunshine and heat.

I must say, that the rainy season was pretty much like one week of Scottish weather. That was it. Other areas had much more rain of course, some parts even 40 cm rainfall. I live in a lucky spot, I think.

So from now on: “sauna” for free, cold food, ice-cream and lot of cold water. Uma-san … I eat 冷やし中華 (hiyashichouka) almost every day… It is a heaven….

One week ago we went to Fuji ceremony. It was nice. I met lot of friends. Only for a short while, because we had to go back quite soon after ceremony. But it was good to catch up with them and exchange few phone numbers.

On the way back I have seen a Buddha with a massive penis. What a culture. It must be some kind of symbol, but I am not sure what kind. Anyway, just want to share a bit of interesting part of Japanese culture with you. You don’t see this every day, do you.  By the way, this statue is about one meter tall. Great for hanging your coat or hat. :-)

Soon my summer holidays will start, and I managed to get permission to work as well, so my mission now is to do final test which is on 26^th and find a job. After the test, 2 months holidays, hopefully working.

Well that is I think all I have on my mind right now. 

At the end I would like to share a joke with you, I found it the other day. 

I wish all mothers would have such a sense of humour.

Clever and funny… Enjoy it …. 

As well as the life, cause even life is just a joke anyway…

A letter from Russian mother:

Dear Son,

Just a few lines to let you know that I be still alive. I writing this letter slowly because I know you not able to read fast. You won't know the house when you get home. We moved. There be a washing machine in the house when we move in, but it not working too good. Last week I put fourteen shirts into it, pull the chain, and I not see the shirts since. Your sister Natasha had baby this morning. I not find out yet whether it be boy or girl, so I not know whether you be an aunt or an uncle.

Your uncle Leopold drown last week in a vat of whisky. Some of the men dived in to save him, but he fight them off hard. We cremated his body, but it took three days to put out the fire. Your father not have much to drink at Christmas. I put a bottle of Castor oil in his pint of beer. It keep him going until New Year's Day. It only rain twice last week. First for three day and then for four day. Try to learn write me soon. Your loving mother, XXX

P.S. I be going to send you ten dollars, but I already seal the envelope.

Japanese language and day full of art

In past few weeks, not much has been happening. My usual life is just going to school and wondering about the language and its magical mysteries. It is such a complicated language.  There are rules in the grammar, but every single day, there is an exception. And I am not joking; every rule has at least one exception. The language is quite flexible, so one teacher says one thing, and then other teacher says another. And both are correct. So it is very confusing language to learn.

Plus it is first language I learned where there is a past form of adjectives. Of course there are two types of adjectives (to make it more complicated) and they both have different way of changing into past form as well as negative form. And of course verbs, magical verbs, and particles, lovely particles, but I am not going into that.

So basically I have to drill a lot. Which takes me most of my free time afternoon.

Therefore I don’t go much out.

     But last weekend we went with Mitsuyo to Tokyo, to see one exhibition with paintings. In the advert, it said, that it is exhibition of Vincent Van Gogh. So I was very excited about it. At the end we found out that they had only one painting from Van Gogh. So we laughed. Cause we expected a bit more. Most of the paintings there were from Seiji Togo, who is famous Japanese painter. I liked his paintings. Very clean colors and also nice tone and shades. The figure of woman in his paintings is so gentle.

To my surprise one of his sketches was a woman from Czechoslovakia from 1970. The rest of paintings have been Togo’s collection of other painters. Because he studied in France, he met many artists and probably bought some paintings too. So there was quite a lot of French painters and also one Picasso and Daubigny.

Of course the main thing was Van Gogh. But only one picture. It was replica of the 4^th version of his Sunflowers (Tournesolos), 1888. And on left side of this painting there was one Cezanne, the Apples and napkin, 1879 and on right side was Gauguin’s painting, Lane at Alchamps, Arles 1988, which was my favorite. Such a nice colors of autumn, leaves falling on the ground. Beautiful and emotional.

   After this exhibition we had a nice lunch in Italian restaurant and after that we went to another exhibition with underwater photographs. Really amazing photos from all around the world by David Doubilet. His photos are definitely worth of seeing.

After that we had lovely cake and cup of coffee and then we went to a big bookstore. Finally I found some books in English. I bought one book with drawings from M. C. Escher. He is one of my most favorite artists.

Well and then we went home. It was a nice day out full of art.

        And of course back to school and drilling the verb forms.

        Last month we wanted to go to SOPP (big peace ceremony), at Fuji Sanctuary, but Mitsuyo had a cold, so we stayed at home. So it will be the next big one I hope we will go to in July. In the last ceremony at Fuji Sanctuary, Masami Saionji said, that there will be another disaster coming to Japan. She asked all people to pray for the World Peace as much as possible. So if you can spare few thoughts for it that would be nice. Thank you.

     May Peace Prevail on Earth.

    

Golden Week holidays

Golden Week is a national holiday. It is something that everyone should experience. It was first time in my life when I saw whole nation on holidays at the same time. Everywhere we went, were hundreds or thousands of people. Even at midnight or early morning, we were sitting in the night bus traveling to Osaka. And even it was night bus, all the motorways were completely full and also blocked, because of many accidents, just incredible. We came to Osaka 5 hours later, then expected just because of the traffic. Amazing.

     In Osaka we met with my very good friend Aki and his girlfriend Jenny. From Osaka we went to a small village called Tenkawa (Milky Way), which is in Nara prefecture. We rented there a log house for 3 days. On the way we visited one shrine. It is one of the oldest shrines in Japan, dedicated to Gods of Water. At the entrance, there was a peace pole planted, waiting for us. What a nice welcome. The person in charge of the shrine, invited us to altar, where we could pray silently and then he gave us two bananas from the altar as a present from God. He was a lovely man. Then he spoke to us, but I couldn’t understand a word, so I just closed my eyes and sat there. Such a nice feeling everywhere. What a lovely place.

     Our log house was just next to a river. It was beautiful and magical place. Surrounded by forests and hills, the birds of prey flying above our heads and many fish in the water, swimming against the current. Magical place. We could hear the sound of water all the time.

 

     First day we arrived quite late, so we went only to a spa (it is a heaven for Japanese people, to visit a spa), but I must say, that Golden Week is really an interesting experience, cause we had to wait 40 minutes to get in. It was so crowded. I was amazed. And after the lovely crowded spa, which was out in the open air, so we could see and hear the rain falling, we had a nice barbecue, few beers and wine. And of course lot of fun.

 

     Second day we went for a hike along nice waterfalls, not far away from our log house. It was nice hike. On the way we met also a snake and little altar along the path. Then we visited one shrine in the village and after that we went to another spa place, which was busy but at least we didn’t have to wait. We also tried local fish baked on fire in front of us. In the evening we had another barbecue (Japanese style and desert in American style). Yummy yummy.

 

    

     The next day we had to leave the log house. So after tiding, on our way back to Osaka, we went to Yoshino, very old village in the hills, with few shrines and one temple. It is also very famous place for cherry blossom viewing. Great hike again. On the top of the hill, there was another very old shrine dedicated to God of Water. It looks like it was the main theme of our trip, water from the beginning till the end. After tsunami, the best place to be and pray. Mission accomplished.

 

 

The temple in the village was founded by man called Enno Gyoja. I was told that it was a previous life of Masahisa Goi, founder of The World Peace Prayer Society. So I was happy to be there.

     Then after our hike we returned to Osaka and had great dinner. Osaka is famous for its cuisine. We went to Okonomiyaki restaurant. Delicious. We could bake it in front of us on a hot plate. Good fun.

     At the weekend, the last days of the Golden Week holidays, we went with Mitsuyo to Tokyo, to help with one Flag ceremony. It was very nice ceremony. I enjoyed it. It was like being back at Allanton. I actually ended up even singing on the stage at the finale. No idea how I got there…. Situations like this will probably happen more often then I thought. I need to learn the language very soon.

 Flag ceremony practice

     All in all, it was very nice week. Greetings from Japan to all of you and of course, May Peace Prevail on Earth.