Wednesday January 26, 5:50 p.m.

Last Sunday, some 2 and a half years after the Akihabara Massacre, the main street was closed off for a few hours to create the return of the hokoten, the pedestrian's paradise. But it's not quite as it was before June 2009. For one thing, there are no street performances allowed but there are plenty of police and citizen patrols. However, it's not as if street performances were physically possible on that day anyways. When I was watching NHK News that night, the news helicopter showed the street absolutely coated in pedestrians. It was just wall-to-wall people marching back and forth.

I didn't have a chance to see the proceedings for myself since I had The Jyuppies for their first lessons of the year, but I don't think I missed that much. However, I do have a chance this coming Sunday after I finish with Yajima. Perhaps although the performances will not be available as of yet, there will be those exhibitionists who will strut through in their various anime costumes. Still, I am happy for the return of what made Akihabara cool in the first place.

Wednesday January 26, 5:42 p.m.

Found out from Miss Efficiency that we've pretty much lost almost all of the Grandmas. Grandma Fado decided to stop her lessons with us...perhaps for the time being, perhaps permanently. Grandmas Fado, Tango, Enka and Dynamite are gone. I've only got Grandma FON for now. Enka and Dynamite left due to family health problems while Tango has got her own health woes. As for Fado, I think our move to the new place and the fact that we've been coasting sans textbook for weeks probably made the decision. To be honest, I'm not all that disappointed to see her go although I was the last person to "teach" her. Having a lady in her 80s with just basic English just waiting for the teacher to do something is never easy. Grandma Fado was a really nice lady but I think it's time to move on.

Wednesday January 26, 2:31 p.m.

I've got The Artist in about 30 minutes. I haven't seen her since December so it'll be nice to see what she's been up to. Then it'll be the usual Wednesday night students of 001 and Miss Sony. I heard from Miss Efficiency that it looks like another TBS programme could be interested in doing a gig at our newly-minted school. Last Thursday we had a crew from the Saturday morning variety programme, "The King's Brunch" film a one-coin which flooded La Fille with tons of calls immediately after the segment aired. Now apparently, an even bigger show, called "Sanma's Karakuri TV" on Sunday nights may be curious about having its entire cast show up in our school. Sanma Akashiya is a loud brash legendary Osaka comedian who's been around for about 30 years. Like a lot of other veteran TV folks here, he's got a number of programs of which his Sunday night program is arguably the biggest one. It's basically a hodgepodge program filled with "People Say The Darndest Things"-type segments and whatnot....of course with him having his tarento buddies around him.

My feelings are that if this actually pans out next week, it's gonna be one really noisy session. I may have to give ample warning to folks like The Music Man and Mrs. Thursday, although they may get rather miha over the possibility.

As for me, I'll have to say that it might be rather interesting meeting this crowd.

Wednesday January 26, 2:09 p.m.

Saw The Bass for the first time in nearly 2 months (he was rather surprised at that fact). I gave him a tin of Maple Green Tea as his souvenir; not quite sure how he'll take to that. Apparently, he'd gotten into another accident near the end of last year; this time, it was in his car in Shinjuku when he got rear-ended. He also had his annual trip to Los Angeles for the drum convention.

He also mentioned that he'd had some problems making himself understood during his trip which made him think very aloud whether he was actually improving in his English. When I probed further, I found out that a lot of his problems happened during a performance of drums; I gently pointed out that even native English speakers would have problems making themselves heard during a sonic assault of that magnitude. But his doubts aren't the first I've heard from a student. Over the years, a number of high-intermediate students have come up to me to say that they don't feel they've improved. And for them, the fluency curve is often a lot steeper and I explain that it's gonna take a lot of practice and even more intense work into the nitty-gritty before they make that breakthrough into really fluent English. Of course, with them and The Bass, I didn't make light of their doubts. I explained to him that I can help him with his pronounciation although I warned him that this area was arguably the most difficult to reach proficiency in. And I even lightly suggested that perhaps another teacher may be the answer. This was a pretty delicate part of our conversation since I didn't want to give the impression I was being defensive and certainly I don't want to lose him as a student...especially since I've made the decision to leave Speedy's in June. However, I do want him to get the best in English training and if I'm not up to snuff, he should have the right to find someone better.

Wednesday January 26, 2:04 p.m.

Just threw up an old picture from last August when I visited the Ramen Museum near Shin-Yokohama Station. That was a mighty fine tasting bowl of Kumamoto tonkotsu. The reason I put it up is that I just got a message from The Dancer back home in Toronto confirming when she and her family will be hitting Tokyo. They'll be coming over in mid-March. Her husband is a huge fan of ramen so I offered to take them either to the Museum or to Foo Foo in Shinjuku. There could be quite a crowd of buddies coming over in March/April. The Dancer's clan is coming over, then it'll be The Anime King and possibly Automan in late March.

Monday January 24, 6:34 p.m.

On Saturday, the Speedy staff and I got together for our farewell dinner for our guest of honor at the Wolfgang Puck restaurant over JR Shinjuku. The problem was our guest of honor never showed up. Ray has been such a steady worker for us for the past 2 years that there had been a very good reason for her no-show. And as it turns out, her strong work ethic mandated that she take over at her other job for an ailing friend. Never a bad thing.

And that also meant that there was more food for us to eat (heh-heh). It wasn't the first time for me to try out Wolfgang Puck's although it has been more than a couple of years since my last meal there. I have to say that the absence did make my stomach grow fonder. The Roast Chicken in Honey-Mustard Sauce was very good; the meat just fell off the bone...hadn't seen anything like that on anything else except for an exceptionally good sparerib. The rest of the dishes were also excellent such as the Salade Chinoise and the Margarita Pizza. It was almost as if the namesake chef himself had been manning the kitchen. My only regret was that we couldn't have the famed Smoked Salmon Pizza that brought Puck to everlasting culinary fame.

Saturday January 22, 12:44 p.m.

Not sure if any of you folks back in the Americas are finding this in your local McDonalds, but the Japanese branches have started up the "Big America" campaign for the 2nd year in a row. Last year, the Golden Arches unfurled a series of 4 "Big America" burgers: the Texas Burger, the New York Burger, the Hawaii Burger and the California Burger to some success. I tried all four and found The New York Burger to be the best of the lot while The Texas Burger was more of a work in progress. Kinda wondered if George W. Bush had been the "inspiration" for that one.

Well, Mickey Dee's has decided to roll out the sequel, starting with Texas Burger 2. I tried it out at the neighborhood branch. It's actually an improvement on the original: it's smokier, has a bit more heat in its salsa sauce and the patty remains meatier. Apparently, the Idaho Burger is next although for the life of me, I have no idea what they would be put in an Idaho Burger (potato stuffing?).

It is indeed my 2nd Saturday as a free man...that is, with no more need to head over to Speedy's. I was able to get my laundry done, get a haircut and get some prints made to send back home. No way I could have gotten that done if I had still been mandated to teach Miss Prissy, The Publicity Assistant and The Intellectual. Having said that, I do miss those guys although it looks like Miss Prissy doesn't seem to want to let go of me that easily; she had her first lesson of the year with me last Monday and has done so for the next Wednesday. The Publicity Assistant will not be showing up until at least March and nothing has been heard from The Intellectual.

I've got that farewell party for Ray tonight over at the Shinjuku branch of Wolfgang Puck's. The burgers there are pretty good, but tonight Ms. Efficiency for the course option for 4400 yen.

Speaking of Speedy's....we got that tiny excerpt on our school on that variety show "The King's Brunch" on TBS about 20 minutes. A bit disappointing since it was basically just one question from the bossman followed by just some very quick shots.

January has customarily been DVD month for me since I've been going through all the sets that I'd bought back in Toronto. I've just gotten done with 2 sets of "Family Guy" which I think now is the animated comedy to beat, and Season 5 of "Doctor Who". Matt Smith's Time Lord has definitely made his mark on the fans....David Tennant hasn't been forgotten but his replacement has more than made himself welcome in my home. The 11th Doctor has that certain delivery in his voice; someone mentioned there was a bit of David Niven's Pink Panther in there, and I could certainly agree. I'm now gonna try out one more set of "SCTV" and "Futurama".

Because of all of the DVD viewing, I've missed out on quite of news. For me, the biggest one domestically has been the sudden resignation of Governor Hideo Higashikokubaru (probably the regional leader with the longest name, outside of governors of provinces in Sri Lanka or Thailand). Over the past 4 years, this former mediocre comedian under the wing of Beat Takeshi has been able to become the most popular governor in the country since he virtually threw himself into the Bird Flu crisis in his home of Miyazaki Prefecture. He earned the tycoon's worth of political capital from that point onwards. During my lesson with The Journo last night at the juku, we discussed about his future plans, and it's very possible now that he may go for the governorship of Tokyo in April after Governor Ichihara's long-awaited retirement. I'm a bit skeptical about what he could accomplish in the halls of Tocho; it's one thing to be the best salesman of a rural province of Kyushu but it's absolutely another to be the head rep of one of the world's largest cities.

The Journo had his trip to The Golden Globes last Sunday. He was just able to score a few minutes with Justin Bieber on the red carpet. What has made The Journo's lessons so interesting for me is that he has the inside track, of course, on what goes on behind the scenes in politics and entertainment. Plus I was able to help him last night figure out all of the snarky comments that Ricky Gervais had been firing as host. I taught him to understand about the host's traditional role as Chief Sardonicist.

Yesterday, I also had the rare opportunity to teach both Swank and Mr. Swank back-to-back. I learned that Swank is also a closet Trekkie, albeit more of a fan of one character in particular: Seven of Nine, which kinda knocked me for a loop. Then from her hubby, I found out that he is the only one who knew who Ruiko Kurahashi was right off the bat. Ruiko is that 80s singer that slipped through the fingers of superstardom and even stardom but has had a very loyal following.

Well, basically you and I are caught up now.

Thursday January 20, 7:03 p.m.

Well, the film crew from "The King's Brunch" came by this morning, just a few minutes after Grandma FON had made her first appearance at the school in over 6 months. She's also one of those people who effortlessly lives the Life of Riley, this despite the fact that she has titanium rods in place of a femur. She had her trip with 6 of her old classmates in a hot spring near Osaka, and then she told me that next month, she'll be heading over to Paris to stay at the exclusive Four Seasons George V Hotel.

The film crew wasn't all that noisy, although the two pop tart reporters were doing their usual squealing on camera. Must really work for one's supper, apparently. The footage will be shown this Saturday in the afternoon.

Had a bit of a small snafu later in the afternoon concerning The German. Apparently, she never got the word that Speedy's had moved. So when she didn't show up on time, we immediately got concerned, and sure enough, some 10 minutes later, we received a frantic phone call stating that she was stuck over at the station not knowing where we were. We sent out a rescue party and got her inside within 5 minutes. Happily for all concerned, she wasn't angry.

The Music Man cancelled tonight so I'm basically ready to go home. Not quite sure what I'm gonna do for dinner since if I head on home now, it'll probably be too late to nosh taking into consideration digestibility timing. My choices are not too good in the Speedy neighborhood since I said I would try to stay away from the Golden Arches.

Wednesday January 19, 10:10 p.m.

Another long night has come to an end. 001 and I managed to get through the lesson although I was wondering how much I could cut loose since I was teaching her in the open space part of the school where I was well within hearing distance of La Fille and Miss Schmooze. 001 showed me some pics from her Honolulu Marathon experience and I got my souvenirs as usual from her. I gave her some Chocolate Pretzels...not sure if beer is the right match for those, though.

Looks like students are falling by the wayside. Not only has The Patent Attorney canned for tomorrow but also my last student, The Music Man, has decided to pull out as well. And then, The Medicine Man also cancelled his lesson for next week. I'm gonna end up with a pretty easy day tomorrow.

Wednesday January 19, 8:06 p.m.

Saw 001 for the first time in over a month. Looks like she had quite the travelogue. Went to Hawaii for the marathon there and came in at 5:47:14; not too shabby at all for a beginner. Then she went skiing in Hokkaido and then to a hot spring in Hakone. Kinda wonder if her bonuses are all that small.

Not particularly a good sign but I seem to be getting rather sleepy at night. Hopefully, I haven't offended my nighttime students too badly when I try to stifle a yawn. I can probably chalk it up to age and a heavy dinner.

Anyways, Miss Sony should be here in about 20 minutes.

Wednesday January 19, 5:14 p.m.

Ran down to Kinokuniya to get a text and order a CD for that text before getting back here to have my lunch/dinner. I've got 001 for her very first lesson of the year....and her very first lesson in the new school. Should be interesting getting her reaction. And I would like to know how she did in the Honolulu Marathon last month.

Last Saturday, The Bohemian and I met in Shibuya as usual to find some sort of cheap little izakaya since he's been out of a job for several months. He found out about a Korean place just a few doors down from Tokyu Hands called Ton Mura (translated as Pig Village). It's a place that had a 1,480-yen all-you-can-drink option for 2 hours and small plates of various Korean dishes for 200 yen each. Pretty cheap. The strange thing was that for most of those 2 hours, the place was virtually empty. It was only within the last 30 minutes of our stay there that the place finally started to fill up.

As I said, The Bohemian has been out of work for several months, and has just been hitting the gym and doing a bit of trading on the Net. He's pretty lucky that he's been able to stay with his parents all these years. But to be unemployed at his age all this time can't bode well for his prospects.

The plan to have Ray's farewell party has been cemented. Looks like the karaoke option has been buried, and the five of us will be heading toward Wolfgang Puck's eatery over JR Shinjuku.

Tomorrow, there will be a camera crew coming in from the popular Saturday morning variety show, "The King's Brunch" to film one of our one-coin lessons. "The King's Brunch" is a fairly big deal since it is a popular program with the young bunch and talks on upcoming movies and trendy restaurants.

Wednesday January 19, 1:48 p.m.

Well, I have heard of everything now. Tokyo has become quite the foodie emporium with cuisines from Ethiopian to Mongolian hitting our shores. And as amazing as it sounds, now even that dish of ultimate decadence has arrived: Turducken. The culinary equivalent of Russian Matrioshka Dolls has come to the rarefied area of Aoyama of all places. I rather mention this last point since Aoyama is known as a place of rather expensive haute cuisine, not really a battleground of stuffing three birds into each other a la The Human Centipede.

However, there's indeed a place with the horrible name of Fatgroove (www.epicuriens.jp/fatgroove) that has started to serve Turducken. As a foodie, I have a rather clinical and perhaps morbid interest in what this Frankenfood might offer. At 15,000 yen for the triple bird dish, I'll have to find 9~10 other folks to partake, but frankly speaking I'd be hardpressed to find even one person who would join me in this endeavor. I can't even be sure if Turducken would last a year; Tokyoites have become foodies of late, but this meal may still be too far-fetched for most.

Wednesday January 19, 9:55 a.m.

It's another chilly one here in The Big Sushi...relatively speaking. Of course, Toronto is far colder but since homes here don't have the option of central heating, the cold just lingers that much longer in supposedly more subtropical Japan.

The chill reminds me of all that poutine I had back in Toronto over The Holidays. I went twice to Smoke's Poutinerie on Adelaide St. And had myself the traditional mess of fries, gravy and cheese curds (that sound you hear is arteries hardening) on my first visit, while having the killer Triple Pork on my second time. Wouldn't mind having a box of the stuff now but I've vowed that I would be better on my body.

In any case, I've got Grandma Fado in about 15 minutes and then The Overachiever comes in.

Friday January 14, 1:34 p.m.

Had my lone student at Speedy's today. Grandma Dance is a truly special individual. She's an octogenarian who's seen her share of history. She grew up during the Second World War, had to work in the factories as a high school kid but had the rare privilege of learning English in a classroom...secretly, of course, since the learning of English was officially prohibited in wartime Japan. And she even attended the Tokyo War Crimes Trials as a spectator; she remembered seeing the US Army MPs striding in their crispy uniforms in the courtroom. And since then she has continued to learn...or by her own admission. try at least not to lose what knowledge she has of English. She's been a Speedy student for almost as long as I have been there, and I've had lessons with her over the years although today's session was the first one with her in almost 2 years.

It was somewhat saddening and poignant that over those 2 years, age and illness have clearly taken their toll on Grandma Dance. She looks less robust and she has more instances of forgetfulness. And I've been told that she's had her stays in hospital. And yet, she still manages to keep on coming to this school to keep up her language skills. I can only hope that I still have that much fortitude if or when I hit the big Eight-O!

Since I don't have Mr. Swank today, I'll probably head for home in about 15 minutes and crash there for a couple of hours before I head over to the juku.

Friday January 14, 11:40 a.m.

Got into New Speedy's this morning to immediately find out that Mr. Swank had called in to make a rare dotakyan for his lesson this afternoon. So, I just have Grandma Polka in about 20 minutes followed by the juku classes tonight. Helps with the commute. Ms. Efficiency also informed me that there will be a party on the 29th to herald the real departure of her predecessor, Ray. Ray supposedly ended her time with us last summer but the bossman was able to hold onto her for Monday and Tuesday nights over the last 6 months I think Ray had been hoping that this would be the last time for her to unleash herself from Speedy's clutches.

I've also come to a decision about my future as well.

It's not a sudden decision...it has been mulling around in my brain for the past couple of years and it was juggling around with more energy over the Holidays to the extent that it was 90% settled by the time I got back to Japan. Then, last night's commute brought it to totality.

I'd finished my usual Thursday lineup of Mrs. Thursday and The Music Man, both fine folks and students. And I was feeling rather exhausted when I left Speedy's at close to 11 p.m. In fact, I rather slept so soundly on the subway on the way home that I ended up overshooting my station by a couple of stops. Normally, that would only be a mere inconvenience but this happened past midnight and was lucky to have caught the very last train heading West. But I was sitting like a limp rag on the bench for close to 10 minutes and just thought about having to do this 3 times a week....coming home past midnight and at least once a week having to get out of bed to head out the door at 6:30 a.m. And it's not as if I'm a senior director of a company or even a middle management drone. I'm just an English teacher and I'm sitting in a deserted subway station at 12:10 a.m. And I decided then and there that it was really time for me to make my farewells to Speedy's, the place that I've been working at for the past 7 years.

And so I'll have a talk with the bossman himself on Monday night and get things into motion.

Thursday January 13, 10:40 p.m.

Pretty conked out after 6 lessons today. Almost fell asleep in front of The Music Man.

I heard from Speedy that MB and his friend dropped by the new school last week to set up some sort of relationship with the high school that MB's teaching at. And I'll be meeting up with The Bohemian this Saturday in Shibuya for dinner.

Thursday January 13, 6:05 p.m.

Over the Holidays, I got to see a couple of flicks, both starting with the letter "T". The first one I saw was the heavily touted "Tron". Three years in the making with a cult following after the original of 1982. After several years of having Japanese otaku capture the world pop culture zeitgeist, it was now time for the American geeks to get some of their own back.

The problem was that the original was not all that great to begin with. And the new flick with a wizened real Jeff Bridges and a sleekly young digital Jeff Bridges ended up also being a bit of a dud. Not sure if it had been the jet lag of 13 hours over the Pacific and most of Canada, but I actually ended up sleeping through portions of the film...yes, even the scenes which took place on The Grid. It was like getting the cinematic equivalent of all icing, no cake which brings back the saying about all the world's best special effects designers cannot a decent story make.

The other "T" movie was quite a bit more satisfying. Strangely enough, it was "Tangled"...the Disneyfication of the Rapunzel story. I never thought I would ever catch this one but my old friend The Dancer invited me to see it with her and her kids, so I went with her to the new AMC Multiplex at the corner of Yonge & Dundas. Not sure if it'll become a classic along the lines of a "Toy Story" but the story, characterization and the humour all got together to make a pretty decent Xmas flick.

Thursday January 13, 5:06 p.m.

Had a bit of a mystery with my first student of the day...Grandma FON. I haven't seen her in over 6 months and today was supposed to have been her first lesson. She turned out to be a no-show, and so both Miss Efficiency and I got a bit worried since she had always been very punctual in the past. I even walked all the way to our old digs 6 minutes walk away. We were rather concerned since she is far from a spring chicken being in her late 70s. Did she have a stroke back at her house? Or did she end up forgetting that we had moved? In any case, the mystery had a happy resolution when she called us up during my later lesson with The Shareholder. Apparently, it was a mixture of a family emergency and the inevitable age-induced memory loss. She had to rush out to Osaka and had forgetten whether she had phoned us last night (she didn't) to inform us of the cancellation.

As for The Shareholder, he was his usual laconic self. Then I quickly flitted out to Shinjuku Starbucks to see The New Yorker for the first time this year. The timing wasn't too good since mid-afternoons usually meant a full cafe, but I got lucky and someone vacated her table. The New Yorker was suffering from a cold but we managed to get through the hour OK. I even got an olive loaf from her. It was a nice exchange for my omiyage of maple caramels from Canada.

I'm halfway through my slate of students. I've got The Carolinan, Mrs. Thursday and finally The Music Man on tap for tonight.

Over the past several days, there has been this rash of Good Samaritanism all throughout the country. Apparently, it all started with a fellow who had anonymously given a gift of elementary school knapsacks to a school. And he just identified himself after some sort of beloved anime character. And from that time onwards, other people have started following his lead and donating anything from school supplies to food to schools. It rather reminds me of the plot from "Pay It Forward". In any case, at a time where the Japanese economy remains stagnant, the Japanese government is paralyzed and bizarre murders have been taking place, it is nice to hear that some altruism actually exists in Japan. How long it continues is anyone's guess.

Wednesday January 12, 6:56 p.m.

Well, I've nearly completed my first day at the new residences of Speedy, next door to a rather scrumptious bakery that I can't really enter since I've decided to work hard on losing weight (although it didn't stop me from getting my fried chicken bento at the nearby Family Mart). It hasn't been that bad, actually. Along with Miss Efficiency, I've now seen La Fille for the first time this year. And I got to see Grandma Fado and Mr. Overachiever in the now smaller if cozier classroom.

Speaking about Grandmas, I heard from Efficiency that Grandma Dynamite is now officially gone off the schedule since she has to take care of her mother. Incredible that a woman of her age still has a mother kicking around.

With the heavy schedule today and tomorrow, it was inevitable that cancellations would happen. 001 cancelled for tonight, and The Patent Attorney has cancelled his early morning lesson for tomorrow which means that I can get a good night's sleep instead of having to drag myself out of bed and out the door by 6:30 a.m.

I had my first student at the kids' school this afternoon in Naka-Meguro. She's the mother of one of the young charges that the kids' teachers have been taking care of. Very nice lady...not too high on the proficiency level but very willing to speak out.

Just have Miss Sony later tonight. Like so many of our students, it'll also be her first time in the new digs.

As has become the tradition at the beginning of the year, I've been going through the various DVD sets that I'd bought back in Toronto. First off has been Matt Smith's "Doctor Who" and Volume 3 of "Family Guy". As for the former, going through the first half of Season 5, it looks like the youngest actor to ever portray everyone's favorite Time Lord has gotten a firm lock on his Doctor. He's definitely different from David Tennant's portrayal...kinda like the brilliant but eccentric high school nerd from "The Social Network"on extreme caffeine.

Wednesday January 12,　1:16 p.m.

This is my first entry of the New Year...rather late, I know, but when one doesn't own a computer...

Lots to talk about but I'll just start this entry by mentioning by saying that I'm back in the professional saddle again. Started with The Beehive and the juku. Got my first and presumably only chewout of the year from the juku boss yesterday when she accused me once more of overusing the Net during my break. It's the back-and-forth once more about how much access I can get with the computer. Well, I've decided to break the cycle and just not use it if I can help it; it's just too habit-forming. This time, though, I just won't say anything to the boss.

I entered the new Speedy school for the first time this morning. It's definitely a new configuration starting with the fact that we're on the ground floor now and that my classroom has no view to speak of. I had my first lesson of the year there with Grandma Fado...luckily, it was just a lot of chat.

And I've even had a chance of coming to the kids' school where I am now. It's taken me 55 minutes door-to-door so I'm a bit concerned about getting back since I've got The Overachiever in a couple of hours after my one-off lesson with a kid's mother in about 40 minutes.