Well I have been in Osaka now for nearly one week. At the moment I am staying in an area called Takatsuki which is about 20mins away from Umeda, Osaka by Rapid Express train.
I can honestly say that I have been enjoying living in Osaka far more than living in Nagoya. Compared to Osaka Nagoya seems kind of tame. The first night we got here I knew that this would be a great place to be living. It also helped that we weren't too far away from the main areas in Osaka or Kyoto.
So far my teacher training has been going pretty well. It reminds me a lot of my CELTA that I did early last year. The format is pretty much the same except that it is all being squeezed in to 2 weeks rather than it being spread over 4 weeks. The only gripe I have with the training so far is having to travel some distance to get to the training school/location.
I have observed two teachers so far and the first was pretty much what PKC were trying to tell us not to be! It was quite funny seeing him but I have to say he was really good with the students and they all seemed to be enjoying themselves in his lessons. The second teacher was pretty cool too unlike the first he was a bit more by the book but that didn't get in the way of him having fun with his lessons and creating his own games for the students to play.
Last Saturday I had my first opportunity at teaching whilst being supervised by a more experienced teacher. Overall I felt it went pretty well apart from the fact that one of the students seemed a little bored/disinterested in the lesson. But after reading the teachers notes in the communication notebook it was clear to see that it wasn't only me that noticed she seemed unfocused in class.
Later that night I was actually able to go to a Dancehall event in Shinsaibashi, Osaka! I had been waiting for the chance to go to somewhere good after arriving here in Japan. I don't really count the place I went to in Nagoya as good because it wasn't really a dance night just old school Reggae.
I got to the club around 12:30am after following the directions I had written down in my notebook. When I got inside the place was pretty empty. Apart from the DJs and Staff there were only 2 of us in there. But I have to expect this in the club scene here in Japan. Normally people don't start showing up until maybe 1:30/2:00am. It wasn't until around that time people started to fill up the club but I was quite surprised when I first got there at how small it was.
I decided to come to this club over any other mainly due to SNOB being one of the DJs on the night. I knew one of the members from SNOB named Yuka mainly through my Dancehall in Japan facebook fan page. But it was actually nice to meet her in person. Both her and her partner Tsune were both very nice and kept bigging me up on the mic...MAD!
There were 3 dance performance that night which were all pretty cool! But I will say that I liked both the first and second ones over the last one. I have posted a video of the first performance below.
Everyone in the club was very friendly. A lot of them kept asking me where I was from and if I was a tourist here in Japan. Fortunately this time I could say that I was an English Teacher and that I will be living in Japan. Although they were all pretty surprised when I said I will be moving to Kumamoto City! I took quite a lot of pictures that night and can't post them all here. If you want to see some of the better ones please have a look at my tumblr photo blog: j2dephotography.tumblr.com
I ended up leaving the club around 6:00am and got back to Takatsuki around 7:00am so was very tired when I got in. But luckily I have the chance to go out again tonight. I will go to another one of SNOB's dances in Shinsaibashi at Sam and Dave 02 called 'Get Your Shots'! Luckily I do not have to teach until 4:00pm tomorrow so I will be alright coming back at 6:00/7:00am that morning...I hope!
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