13 June 2011

My Japanese Apartment!

Like I said here is the video tour of my LeoPalace 21 apartment here in Kumamoto City, Japan. I know I made a few mistakes whilst I was talking but please forgive me because since this is my first video after all.

Please check out my YouTube Channel for more videos of my time here in Japan.

10 June 2011

It's been a while.

I've been really bad recently and haven't been writing in the blog. Whilst I was in China I was practically writing in it everyday but I think maybe that was more to do with me having to be at school for 7:40 yet I had nothing to do until at least 8:30.

I'm now in to my second month teaching. I would like to say that its getting easier but that's not 100% true. I have some classes which are good and I have some classes that are bad/annoying. I find that some of my most challenging classes are some of my youngest classes. It's like they have way too much energy and don't know when enough is enough and they don't listen. Thankfully it's just a handful of all my classes that I find a little challenging.

I work at a total of 3 classrooms and they are in Kamimashiki, Kikuchi and Kumamoto-Nishi. But because I only have 3 classrooms I tend to have to cover another teacher at a different location. Last month I went to Makurazaki in Kagoshima and this month I have to go to Kirishima once again in Kagoshima. The covering isn't so bad because I get a meal allowance of ¥2500 a day, get to stay in a hotel and all my travel expenses are covered. The only down side is that I won't get the money for this trip back until the end of the following month.

Last week I had to attend a meeting with all the teachers in my area (Kumamoto and Kagoshima) down in Kagoshima. We took the Shinkansen down there which was paid for by the company. The meeting was mainly about everyone showing off their demo for Summer School. I felt my demo went pretty well compared to my first demo I did a few weeks ago. We also had to do a short presentation on our home city/town which was pretty interesting because a lot of people put some effort in to it.

Last weekend I went to a talent show show hosted my the JETs that live in Kumamoto. It's was kinda cool to see some of the other foreigners that are living in the area. Most of them seemed pretty friendly too which is good.

When I go out in Kumamoto it seems like I mainly go one of two places and thats Bar Jail or Vibe. This is mainly due to them probably being the only places in the area that have regular Reggae/Dancehall events. It's gotten to the point that a lot of the people in there recognise me and some even gave me some nicknames such as Mr. D and Osaka 6 because of my Superdry t-shirts.

I like going to the Reggae events because it's always the same people so it's like a small community of people here in Kumamoto City that are in the Reggae/Dancehall scene. But unlike Tokyo or Osaka there aren't as many dancers here in Kumamoto so sometimes it feels like they want me to lead with the routines which I can't always do because I'm not a dancer! Also find because there aren't many dancers that come to these events the DJs don't play as much dancing music which is a bit disappointing sometimes. But hey at least there are some Reggae/Dancehall events in the area because I could be in a place where there are no events what so ever!!!

I've actually started to like living in Kumamoto City a little bit more. Kumamoto has quite a lot of cool things in the area. There are also quite a few specialised clothes shops that sell all kinds of things. I went to a shop last week in Kamitori called Packin' because I was told via Twitter that I could buy a t-shirt called 'Swag School' that was made/designed by the Japanese Reggae dancer I-Van. But I was really surprised when I saw that they were selling it for ¥5040! I ended up just buying a Red Stripe towel for ¥2000 instead.

I actually made my first vlog of me doing a tour of my apartment. After watching it back I noticed quite a few mistakes with what I was saying but I really didn't feel like spending any more time filming again. I'll upload it probably when I get home so please keep an eye out for it on the YouTube channel.