Tokyo Orientation + Crazy (awesome) Cat Lady

Here is a video of the lady I saw with a cat on her shoulder =)

 Anyway, cat ladies aside lets begin the story of how my life in Japan is going. We landed in Narita August 5th, leaving New Zealand which was about 10 degrees Celsius the jump into 35-40 (104 Fahrenheit) and around 100% humidity was quite a shock, not to mention carrying bags too.

 Everyone was naturally excited but unfortunately we didnt get through customs and into Tokyo city till after sunset, so we couldn't see too much of the city but were greeted with a great view of the lights from the hotel. Wellington in New Zealand while the capital is a very small city with around 400,000 people, Tokyo has over 12 million so the shear size of it was very daunting.

 The people from out group were lucky enough to stay in the Keio Plaza, which is located right in Shinjuku.

 It was a shame we only were able to stay in Tokyo for 3 days, since we were busy with the orientation we only had the evenings to explore the city.

 Something that I didn't expect to see was the amount of homeless in Shinjuku, but also that the homeless were quite clean and looked just like normal people with clean clothes, just living in cardboard boxes. Apparently some of them just crack under the pressure of city life and become homeless but their families will bring them things. One of the more interesting people had 10 cats living with him, which he was feeding at the time although understandably he did not want his photo taken.

 Probably my favorite part of the city was the architecture of some of the buildings and a mix of cute restaurants like the one above and the tall office buildings with amazing designs. 

 The above being the definite favorite.

 The fun thing about wandering aimlessly around a foreign city is you tend to stumble upon things you might not otherwise see if you were headed straight to some location, and during one of my nightly wanders I found something I had always wanted to see.

Cat Cafe!

 When we walked up to try and get in we were very disappointed to hear it was closing in a few minutes, but when one of the patrons left lots of the cats ran out to greet us. Even though we missed out that time I have seen been to one which ill talk about in more detail another time.

 Sadly our three day trip was coming to an end and we all split up to go to our home prefectures. So we boarded the bullet train (shinkansen) and speed across the country to Kyoto. But the adventure had only just begun...

Still Alive

  Well well well, what do we have here? Holy it's been a long time, was just about 3 Months ago I made my last post. Now I will admit that when it comes to updates I a bit slack, in fact amazingly slack. However this time I have a good excuse! As you may remember I landed a job in Japan as an English teacher, and I simply haven't had a computer to actually post from.

Holy Tokyo!

Its been an amazing couple of months so far, in fact I have so much to write about that I'm going to have to take some time and write them in retrospect, so I guess this is sort of to be a bit of teaser while I sort out what I want to talk about first. Briefly Ill go over whats been happening I think then Ill go into details in following posts to be able to fully give justice to the experiences.

 

  Our trip begin in Tokyo, about a thousand people from around the world (although mostly America) came for orientation before heading out to designated prefectures. We were only there for a few days, never really having been to a super large city before it was quite over whelming, combined with jet lag and 35-40 degrees heat and 100% humidity it exhausting, but still amazing. 

New Home

 After leaving Tokyo our group headed to our prefecture, Shiga. So far it has been pretty good, its only 30 minutes by train from Kyoto as well =D. Admittedly I had never heard of this particular area of Japan, so I came here without any expectations which I think has allowed me to enjoy it all the more. Of course it helped that our first night in Shiga we were able to view the best fireworks festival of the year by the lake side.

I arrived in Japan with around 200,000 Yen ( around 2.5k USD ) and immediately had to pay 130,000 in just rent. My first pay check wouldn't for an entire month, and after factoring in money for trains and necessities I found myself with 50k (around 600USD) Yen left, however I literally had nothing in my apartment apart from a futon. With a lot of surprise costs showing up in the first month I was down to around 50 dollars the night before my first pay, so things were a bit tight for that first month. Although I still don't own any tables.

Cat Cafe

However I did have enough money to do some fairly unique things, such as going to a cat cafe! It literally a cafe where you have some coffee or cold drinks while pats walk around and you play with them and stuff.

Cats are naturally very popular over here, I even got a video of this woman who had a cat riding her shoulder while she was going for a bike ride.

Again I have been very brief and will go into more details soon, just after I decide how I want to format the content, if you guys want me to look into something specific while I'm over here let me know! Cheers.

Much to say, here is some Penguins.

Wow looks like its been a couple Months since I posted anything. What happened? Well a bunch of stuff, first I started a really boring job to raise some money for a trip and then I went on that trip, fortunately I was able to visit Granite Island in Victor Harbour, South Australia. Which is home to one of every ones favourite animals, Penguins!

Too adorable

Granite Island is really an amazing place, its a tiny island that you can take a horse drawn tram to, and then walk around and look for those adorable little birds. 

Iv been fortunate enough to see these Little Blue Penguins around my town in New Zealand as well as in Australia. But for an unknown reason their numbers are reducing on Granite Island, when I visited as a kid 10 years ago their were over 2000 on the Island, now there is less than 100.

Hopefully when I visit next their numbers will have increased, the thought of their being no Penguins on the Island would make me a very sad man. 

 Naturally I didn't spend two months just looking at Penguins, I have also been visiting family in South Australia. It must have been over 12 years since I last saw them so it was really good to see them all again after so long. Some quality time was much overdue, and we all went to a see some more native Australian wildlife...

 (I did warn him about that Emu, but unfortunately missed the inevitable bitten finger.)

 Although I should have visited sooner, its always hard when you are a poor student, this trip was also extra special because I was attending a wedding.

Also, I heard there was free drinks.

 It was my Fathers wedding, so I now strangely find myself with a couple extra adult siblings and some extended family, but everything went really well and a good time was had by all. I cant imagine the cost of the whole thing though, bringing people over from another country. Fortunately (for the cost) it was held at my new uncles house, which is an amazingly big and breathtaking place.

The biggest piece of news is that after what may be the high score in The Waiting Game I have succeeded in landing a job over in Japan. I had been waiting and hoping I would get this job for months so naturally I am thrilled to be heading over there in less than a weeks time! I will do my best to conduct myself in a professional and dignified manner while experiencing a new side of life.

And drinking all the grog.

                                                                 Have a good one all!

The Waiting Game

Whelp, good news and bad news. The bad news is that I was wait-listed for the JET Programme instead of shortlisted...which means I get to wait till someone else drops out (apparently fairly likely) and get to wait between now and December. Well that's going to be fun since I have been waiting since February already, but I guess such is life. I actually handle bad news quite well, or maybe it hasnt hit me but for the moment I am fine with this and still confident Ill get a spot before August, and in the mean time I get to look forward to stuff I have lined up for the near future.

What does this picture have to do with anything?

Oh the good news? Well I found 15 dollars on the way home, how about that eh? I mean finding 10 or 5 dollars is common, but the combination of the two? First time in my life. Well guess I dont have much to say, if I get that job then Ill have many wonderful stories to tell in the not to distant future, if not then I grow fat playing video games for the rest of the life. Since I don't have much to say here is a picture of a cat.

Happy mid April all!.

Exciting Apil and Good ol'fashioned trip to the Zoo.

 Well April 1st in New Zealand, this month is going to be a potentially life changing one for me. Back in October you may remember that I mentioned I had graduated university, around this time I also applied to be on the JET Programme. Seems like so long ago I applied, applications closed in November, interviews were in February and now in April the news of who got in will come out, goes without saying fingers will be crossed all month, but hopefully it will be in the next week or two.

Also it was Girlfriends birthday last week, since she loves animals we decided to go to the Zoo. Unfortunately the Wellington Zoo isn't very large or impressive compared to some of the other Zoos I have been too. However Its rarely crowded which is a definite advantage. 

You even get to feed the Giraffes if you want to, Im not sure if other Zoos offer that although I imagine that in really popular ones it would be hard to find the time for everyone to do it. My Girlfriend and I even held some branches in our mouths (dared to by the Zoo Keepers) and they took it right out of mouths before licking our faces haha all good fun.

 

 Also in a completely unrelated topic Iv mostly been playing Tribes Ascend

lately, its a load of fun and free to play. You can download it on the website or you can email Macguffinsc@gmail.com and Ill send you a referral  for it.

Rember not to get fooled by anyone this April 1st too =)