First day of work & "That's not a bag"

Art in the Lucent Tower

Vanessa and I had our first day of work yesterday. Things went quite well seeing as the company more or less threw us into the wild. I felt the 4-day training wouldn't have been enough but it was. Without observers over your shoulder, lessons feel relaxed and possibly even more productive. Yesterday was a relaxed Saturday, common at our branch near Nagoya station. I worked with a sardonic Australian gentleman who used to own a record store, and had heard of Cheap Thrills back home. So far so good on that front.

I've been getting more comfortable moving around town. Sakae doesn't feel so bewildering once you've got the main streets pinned, and the diagonal sidestreets of Nagoya area, which usually spit me out into the most random places, are making some sense now.

11th Floor at Freebell

Taking the new table for a test drive.
House plants from Daiso.

Last night i went for a quick walk in that area. Saturday night in Nagoya is bubbling with good smells and people racing towards them. Lots of places are open late. Some big, some just small enough for a group of four or five. Most Izakaya have banners covering the window. I assume this is for ambiance's sake once inside, but for passer's-by it makes picking a place to eat or drink a total gamble.

We're settling pretty well so far. I'm hoping work presents an opportunity to meet some people, because Freebell is a seriously quiet place, and I so want to be one of those people chasing down some of that amazing looking food.

My Japanese is terrible, and people don't slow their speech down to accomodate foreigners (or maybe they do...), but I'm trying to pick up a new word or two every day. The trick is to try then fail miserably when talking to people who have to be nice to you (waiters, conbini employees), because they'll often repeat what you've tried to say in the correct way. Last night I took a gamble at the Mini Stop. The cashier was reaching for a bag and I tried out "baggu janai". He got it and I left without a plastic bag like I wanted, but I realized on the way home that I had accidentally said "that's not a bag" instead of "no bag".

Starting to cook at home

It was a bag, though. And I kind of want to go back to make sure he knows that I know.

The Hub. Work Tomorrow.

Training starts tomorrow so yesterday was a dry run for getting to the schools we'll we working at. We attempted to get to one of mine pretty successfully, but the train system is assuredly not as intuitive as the metro is.

That's no moon.

After figuring all that out we decided to dive back into Sakae and look for a British style pub called The Hub that we couldn't find two nights ago. Sunday is apparently a lazy day in this city and with fewer people, more daylight and less distractions, we eventually found The Hub pretty easily. Although before going in, what turned out to be the Nagoya Science Centre instantly drew us away from our mission. It's unmissable even from blocks away and bears an uncanny resemblance to a certain space station.

Once at The Hub we were subject to a strange reversal of things. Apparently the Japanese don't appreciate smoking outside, and relegate those desperate enough to small out of the way areas, but smoking in bars is fair game and even encouraged. This was not something I'd seen or looked back on since the Great Quebec Smoking Ban of 2006, but seeing people take this small pleasure for granted yesterday made me consider again just how naturally these two poisons compliment each other, and the social spaces they exist in.

Tomorrow we start what we came here to do. Nerves are high, but I'm eager for fulfilling work and a regular schedule is not something I've seen for some time.

Sakae and Nagoya Castle

Nagoya Castle.

Big day yesterday. What was supposed to be a trip to the city hall turned into our first time doing a touristy type thing. We managed to figure out the metro system surprisingly easily. It's nicely designed, with two lines running parallel and another which runs in a wide continuous loop, cutting through both lines.  It maximizes space covered and end up a cinch to figure out.

Turtle shell gunpowder case.

Just in front of City Hall, the remains of the massive ancient complex of Nagoya Castle sit, now fully restored and with the old grounds grown over with a few original trees. The castle was build by Oda Nobunaga, first Shogun to centralize Japan in the early 1600's. The complex had mostly survived nearly 400 years when it was firebombed three months before the end of the war, destroying much of it. I was glad to see the exhibitions inside focus the its early-modern history instead of it's recent fate. Old tapestries, katana, emblems, etc were on display. My favorite pieces were a fragment of an incendiary bomb from WWII, a gunpowder case made from a turtle shell, and a collection of beautiful medieval guns, one of them absolutely massive.

Afterward, we headed to Oasis21, a bus terminus in Sakae, aka downtown Nagoya. Bright and bustling, with nerdy pleasures like the NHK/Studio Ghibli shop, Shonen Jump shop and Pokemon Centre, packed with folks of all ages.

Sakae at night.

Sakae itself is a many-levelled neon cluster#$@* of a downtown core. Our destination was Daiso, a massive 100yen-store, whose wares you could furnish your house, and fridge, and yard, with. And while Montreal boasts a massive connected "underground city"(to which I always roll my eyes), Sakae's labarynthian underground is but one level of this multi-tiered shopping hell, that extends into nearly every high-rise in the area. Vanessa and I spent hours meandering the streets, half-looking for the Daiso, half taking it all in. By the afternoon, night was falling and the landscape was changing quickly and dramatically. We upped our determination to find the Daiso but only got more disoriented. Suddenly, a miracle. Mariko, the lady that runs the offices at Freebell - who rescued us not two days earlier when cab drivers refused us service out of the airport - shows up like our own personal Virgil to guide us through this impenetrable mess. "Mm", I hear from beside and below (which she always begins or ends her sentences with, with a nod like she just made up her mind about something)."Excuse me", she says. "Mariko."--

We headed home with our hands full of 100yen stuff. Put it down and left again right away for the restaurant right next door. It was our first time there and the owner was an eager-to-please colourful talkative guy who took our coats, brought us beer and english menus (which had a bikini-clad babe cut from a magazine and a handcut speech-bubble glued to her head saying "welcome to Japan": "It's joke, it's joke, you like?", he asked). He left us alone while we ate to a trip-hop soundtrack but when he saw we were done asked us plenty of questions about Japanese food, and the girls, in Canada (He loves tall blonde girls). He made us promise we would come back and gave us his business card, which says "Thank You" and came with a small bath soap which he promised us would provide a relaxing Japanese-style bath.

Pleasant surprises in a 10-minute radius

Vanessa and I have spent the last two days walking more or less aimlessly. We have a sad map of our surroundings provided by the complex we're living in that doesn't help much, so we pick a general direction - usually some store that we hope sells the basic necessities, which we are still trying to get together - and just wing it. This method has given us a great sense of what's within a 10 minute's walk so far: a bustling few blocks surrounding the main metro/train terminus just south of us, with department stores and big businesses; a quaint suburb to the west very familiar in its averageness and to the east leading back toward the terminus, small streets with tons of streetfront eateries. At lunch time, many of them set up a table stacked with bentos for the salarymen on break.

Today was tons of fun, despite the dreary weather. We headed towards a shop called Kimble Recycle Shop - labeled a second-hand store but which turned out to be more like a clearance/dollar store. The prices were ridiculously reasonable, to the point where we thought we were being scammed or missing something. But some dude near us seemed almost as impressed so we went with it. (Figuring out how to do basic stuff usually involves taking cues from whomever is closest by).

Heading home we passed a ramen shop with colourful banner displaying giant bowls of ramen I would happily live in. Having up until that point eaten only trail mix, tangerines and cup noodle, Vanessa and I took this golden opportunity to change all that. It was a (what I assume to be) typical tiny mom and pop shop with a bar occupied by three or four salary men, and two seats left - perfect. We mulled over our menu and finally I busted out a "kore to kore, kudasai" and felt pretty pleased with myself. I watched some guy drink his broth after so hell yeah I did the same.

We left happy but I apparently wasn't done. This old man owns a counter on my street that people are constantly buying from. From yesterday's look of it he sold only one thing and was constantly making them. Curiosity did a good thing and I approached not sure what to say. I think he told me what it was but I wasn't sure. (People speak faster here than on my tapes.) I gave a number one sign and he said "chotto mate" (one minute) and started a fresh batch. A minute later he handed me a white paper bag and I gave him back 100yen. I took out my phone dictionary and asked "nante iimasuka". I'd never tried that one before. "Okonomiyaki", he answered. Oh dang, I picked an awesome place to live. "Oishii des" I said nodding to make sure he understood, he did, and my enthusiasm made a salaryman laugh out loud.

(the place.)

A few things:
I expected that intuitive dance of staying out of eachother's way in crowded spaces to be an ingrained thing but it's not. I'm frequently awkwardly stepping out of Japanese people's ways.

A lot of this feels familiar. And while navigating stores and speaking to people is challenging, it isn't alienating or frustrating.

I'm tall: