Another week another essay! Due to a power failure on Thursday night, which lead to the University basically shutting down for a day, plus the ongoing battle between me and my internet provider, this update has been somewhat late in coming. I’m aware that I’m not really updating very frequently at the moment, but I have been very busy recently. However I recently joined the Sheffield Japan Society council, which means I now wield terrible power, so expect updates about my fearsome rule of England soon. I’m also seeing Japanese cult legends Dir En Grey tomorrow evening.This week’s essay was “A place I reccomend”. As it’s somewhat fitting, I chose Tokyo, having lived there. As usual, Japanese in blue, translation in orange. The idea was to use the ‘I advise’ form, so that’s why I keep advising you to do things. Or maybe it’s because I’m really pushy.

私のおすすめのばしょはとうきょうです。とうきょうは日本のほんしゅの東にあります。

とうきょうにいろいろでゆうめいなばしょがたくさんあります。たとえば、とうきょうタワやとうきょうディズニーランドやめいじじんぐなどがあります。めいじじんぐはたいへん大きくて、きれいなじんぐです。行ったほうがいいです。がん日にたくさん日本人はめいじにいきますから、がん日に行かないほうがいいですよ。

日本のたべ物はおいしいです。日本で鳥肉 と馬肉とすしをたべることができます。私の好きなたべ物はやきそばですが、イギリスで、いいやきそばをかうことができません。ざんねんですよ。

とうきょうで日本のビールをのんだり、日本人と日本語ではなしたりすることができます。日本人はしんせつですが、まちでたべないほうがいいです。げひんです。

とうきょうのでんしゃはたいへんべんりです。一年間まえに王子えきのちかくにすんでいましたから、王子は一ばんです! 王子で、おいしいいざかやでたべることができます。いざかやのたべ物はおいしいですが、いくらのすしはまずいです!たべないほうがいいです!

なつやすみに日本に行くつもりです。おさかとひろしまでけんぶつするつもりです。とうきょうでけんぶつしたことがあります。いっしょにいきませんか。

The place I recommend is Tokyo. Tokyo is in the East of Honshu in Japan.

In Tokyo there are many famous places of different types. For example, the Tokyo tower, Tokyo Disneyland and Meiji Shrine and so on. Meiji Shrine is a very big and beautiful shrine. I advise you go there. At New Year’s, many Japanese people go to Meiji Shrine, so I don’t advise you go there at New Years.

Japanese food is delicious. In Japan you can eat Bird meat, Horse meat and Sushi. My favourite (lit: “The Food I Like) is Yakisoba, but you can’t buy good Yakisoba in England. It’s a shame.

In Tokyo, you can drink Japanese beer and speak Japanese with Japanese people and so on on. Japanese people are helpful, but don’t eat in the street. It’s rude.

Tokyo’s trains are very useful. Last year I lived near Oji station, so Oji is the best place! In Oji, (you can) eat delicious food at an Izakaya. The Izakaya’s food is delicious, but the Ikura Sushi is disgusting! I advise you don’t eat it!

In the summer holiday, I plan to go to Japan. I plan to go sightseeing in Osaka and Hiroshima. I’ve been sightseeing in Tokyo. Why don’t we go together?

nb. An “Izakaya” is a Japanese style pub. “Ikura” are salmon eggs.

So there you are. It’s true – I do plan to return to Japan in the future, I’ll be writing an update about that before too long. Hopefully you don’t all spot too many mistakes!

Finally, I’m going to wrap up today with one of my photographs, but this one doesn’t have my dog in it! The horror! This was taken with my mobile phone. It’s a shot from a long bridge over some water in the Rivelin Valley near where I live.

Pretty, huh?

It’s taken two weeks, but I’ve finally written a homework essay which is nearly as insane as Every Morning I Jump On My Bed. This week the task was to talk about what you did either yesterday on the weekend. It’s actually an assignment we had a few weeks ago, the difference this time being we are by now expected to be able to use the て form well – which allows for a lot more freedom. I chose to write about the weekend, although I stress this isn’t true – I wasn’t very well on the weekend.

私は土よう日にともだちのうちに行きました。ともだちのしゅみはおよぐことです。そして、私はおよぐことができますから、十一じから一じまで、川でおよぎました。

それから、トレンディなレストランでひるごはんをたべてから、 ビールをたくさんのみました。レストランのゆうめいなたべものはケーキです。ケーキをたべるつもりでしたが、よっぱらいました。ケーキをちゅうもんしましたが、たべることができませんでした。

それから、 こうえんに行きました。こうえんでねて、サッカーをして、アイスクリームをたべました。私はサッカーをしながら、アイスクリームをたべることができます。

よる 、クラブで女の人にあいに行くつもりでした。でも、ともだちはお金がありませんから、行くことができませんでした。よる十一じにうちにかえりました。土よう日はよかったです。

日よう日にみどりのしゅくだいをしてから、いもうとといぬ といっしょに森に行きました。二年まえから、まい日、森に行っています。

しゅうまつはたいへんおもしろくて、たのしかったです。

On Saturday, I went to my friend’s house. My friend’s hobby is swimming, and I can swim too, so from 11 until 1 we swam in a river.

After that, we ate lunch at a trendy restaurant, then drank a lot of beer. The restaurant’s famous food is it’s cake. I planned to eat the cake, but I was drunk. I ordered the cake but I could’t eat it.

After that, we went to a park. In the park we slept, played football and ate ice cream. I can eat ice cream and play football at the same time!

In the evening, I wanted to go to a club to meet ladies, but my friend had no money so we couldn’t go. At 11pm I went back to my house. Saturday was a good day.

On sunday I did my green homework, then I went for a walk in a forest with my little sister and my dog. I’ve been going to the forest every day for the last two years.

The weekend was very fun and interesting.

I know it’s somewhat random and disjointed, but getting all the various different phrases into one weekend is quite difficult. I can’t really play football and eat ice cream at the same time. At least I doubt I can – I’ve never tried and I have no intention to.

This is the 100th update on Japan Is Doomed. Here’s to 100 more!

Last year, there were NOVA adverts absolutely everywhere. Alongside Berlitz, they were pretty much the largest private English school in the country. I knew quite a few people from America, Australia and other various countries who were living and working and were perfectly happy in Japan. At it’s peak, Nova ran 900 language schools – I knew an awful lot of Japanese people who took the classes there. Whilst NOVA wasn’t held in the highest regard, it was a decent school. Then things started going downhill. In June, NOVA’s long-term contract method was called into criticism and a six month ban was levied against the company. This dealt a blow to the company it could never really recover from. In August this year the company was rumored to be, and later proven to be, paying it’s staff late and missing payments to investors and banks. Things started to slide and the inevitable happened, the business folded.

Why am I telling you this? Well to be honest I don’t really care about Nova. What I do care about is are the hundreds of foreign teachers who have absolutely no income, no way to get home and no support. Stories of teachers being fed by their students are reaching the press, and of course the government has been as awesome as it always is – by doing absolutely nothing.

“I have a couple of thousand yen (£10/$20) left in the bank. I am expecting an eviction notice any day,” Kristen Moon, a teacher from the United States, told a news conference in Tokyo, at which she appeared dressed as a pink rabbit character that Nova used in advertising.

Australian Natasha Steele was on the verge of tears as she said her students were feeding her.

Union officials said there were plans to barter language lessons for food for the teachers.

It’s happening all over the country. I particularly love the last line of the clipping; rather than sort them out with new employment or aid them in financially supporting themselves, the Union has instead decided the best way to deal with the problem is to have them teach for bread.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel though. The Nova Teacher’s Union is starting to support teachers who have no money after Nova failed to pay them. Frankly I’m let down that it’s a relatively small union who the teachers have to rely on rather than the country, but it’s better than nothing. Just. The quicker Japan realises that foreign teachers are a valuable benefit rather than liabilities the better.

Last night was the Sheffield University Japan Society Halloween party. I was going to write a full update about it, but the pictures are far too embarrasing. Well, I might put one at the end if you’re really lucky…

In the meantime, I wanted to talk about the new volunteers in Japan. Last year there were four of us – myself and Matt in Tokyo and Nate and Rolf in Hokkaido. I’m not sure if that’s the same arrangement this year, but I’ve been in contact with the two guys in Tokyo and the two in Hokkaido, so I am assuming it’s the same sort of thing.

As you may or may not know, Japan Is Doomed was the first year long volunteer blog from Japan of it’s kind. Nate had one too, but I got started first. I’m like Britney to his Christina. Except I’ve not shaved all my hair off or gone berserk (yet). I’d like to think I’ve started something of a trend – and considering all four of the current volunteers have blogs, I’d say it’s working. Little do they know they owe me £10,000 each in royalties…

I’m going to talk about each of the blogs. In the interest of me being lazy fairness, I’ll do them in alphabetical order. So, without further ado;

Craig’s Craig-San Japan! (Hokkaido)
Great read, although this blog needs way more hilariously embarrassing photos, just incase I ever meet Craig. I need to have enough ammunition for when he reminds me of those horrific Santa photos…

I loved his first blog post, about the “rushed injection of insane” that everyone feels when arriving. It sums up exactly how we felt a year ago, more or less.

Tom’s Japan Exile (Hokkaido)
Tom writes an insane amount of content on a great basis, which is excellent because it means I can read it instead of studying. Wait, that’s a terrible thing! Tom you are stopping me from passing my course! You fiend!

Since Toya, the village in Hokkaido where Tom and Craig live, is going to be hosting the G8 summit in 2008 (no, really), Tom and Craig have to do media training. They’re going to get into the papers more than Matt and I did though. Curses!

Mike’s Touring Tokyo (Tokyo)
This man has the best name of the four volunteers. He has also cornered the market in pretty photos of Tokyo, which can be quite challenging as it’s all huge skyscrapers and concrete.

His post about his trip to Yokohama, which reminded me a lot of my post on the same topic, was a great read and really puts mine in perspective.

Ben’s Transform To Tokyo (Tokyo)
Again, reading this blog is kind of difficult for me, because it just brings back all the great times I had last year, and frankly someone else having them now is just not fair. My plan to sneak to Japan in some sort of complex and hilarious manner involving a briefcase, a giant snake and a Chinchilla will be put into action soon because this is torture.

Ben wrote about the introduction to Tokyo way better than I did, so go read that.

So there you are. A new generation of bloggers. I feel like an old man already. If only they made some sort of online zimmerframe, so I could carefully plod my way from “buying-old-shoes.com” to “going-for-a-nice-afternoon-nap.org” at my own leisurely pace. All this wireless broadband Internet nonsense is madness, I say. Madness!

Oh, and here’s your embarrasing Halloween picture. Thanks to Ben for taking it and Kanako for sending me it.

Darren may have the hair, and Kanako may be well dressed, but I’m the one going to jail for murder! Haha!