Sunday Nov. 30, 1:04 p.m.

It looks like the downpours have ceased for now, although during the early morning, I had half expected Noah to come rowing by for a pickup.

Well, the first shoe has dropped. Two Japanese diplomats were shot dead by Iraqis near Hussein's hometown. Full court press has been given to the story. The government was already very skittish about sending SDF troops; this incident may have finally put the last nail into the coffin of that idea. Koizumi has always wanted Japan to play a larger role on the world stage, and the deployment of the SDF was his big audition. However, the Japanese public have remained adamantly pacifistic and they have a pretty big shield in front of them: Article 9 of the postwar (American-made) Constitution which officially limits the soldiers from any sort of combat outside of immediate defense of the homeland.

I don't know what's gonna happen in the last month of 2003, but my cynical mind thinks that there will still be a few unpleasant memories in store.

Sunday Nov. 30, 12:26 a.m.

The end of the penultimate month of the year, and true to this wacky weather year, we're getting another typhoon coming our way a full month after the last one should've made its way through. This weekend has been pretty wet already.

The kids were a bit better although I'm happy that I don't have them next Saturday because of the Xmas party next week. Then it was off fo r my monthly chat session at the old tea room before meeting up with Chip Guy and the family for dinner. Through it all, I was feeling pretty tired. I figure that I'm just getting older; now I often just close my eyes on the subway. Resistance is futile.

Speaking of the subway, I was sitting next to an old fart who was lying all over 3 passengers' worth of seating clearly sleeping off a boozefest. It's an interesting thing in this country. Throughout the half hour commute home, noone bothered to shake him from his stupor, even though the train got pretty filled up. Back in T.O., a lush like that would've been either nudged or slapped awake. In NYC, he probably would've ended up the latest murder victim. Here in Tokyo, the only person who would dare wake him up would be one of the subway staff and only when the train reached the last stop. For me, a non-confrontational guy, if he isn't bothering me, I won't bother him.

Another thing about life in Japan. I'm currently watching a late-night variety show where the guest of honour is a flaming homosexual TV personality. Once again, another paradox rears its head in Japanese culture. Japan is probably one of the last countries which will grant any sort of rights to homosexuals, and yet on the TV, clearly gay "talents" or transvestites often reach the heights of stardom. Heck, even some straight comedians act gay as part of their schtick. However, I'm not sure if these folks are truly being celebrated or they're being treated like particularly talented monkeys in a petting zoo.

My time with Chip Guy made me realize that his time in Japan is indeed numbered. Within a few months, he and the family will be moving back to Canada. Now with my ex gone to greener pastures and then my best buddy heading back to the Great White North, I guess I will truly be alone from March.

Thurs. Nov. 27, 10:36 p.m.

Happy Thanksgiving to all those Stateside. Turkey will probably be infesting most of the households across the Pacific. I had a feast of my own tonight but it didn't involve the big fowl. Actually, the mundaneness of my long 4-day weekend was broken by a little outing with some of my students to the Ikebukuro area to the Sunshine 60 Building, one of the first skyscrapers to go up in Tokyo.

There, we went to an exhibit called Namjatown, which is a kiddy play zone, but in recent years, the powers-that-be have wisely decided to put in some interesting areas for the older ones. One is the Gyoza (dumpling) Museum. Patterned after the first of the culinary museums, the Ramen Museum in Yokohama, the Gyoza Museum consists of a mini-Tokyo circa 1950 with various outlets of different gyoza. The six of us dove into fried, boiled, spicy, flaky pie-type gyoza, etc. It was all very tasty.

But we didn't stop there. To add to our torture, there was also an Ice Cream City just down the hall. The different types there were highlighted by the Turkish ice cream, which is a lot more elastic than the usual stuff. Everyone of course chose their favorite scoops, but since I've always had the showman within me, I went to the Okinawan ice cream stand and ordered the Adventure which entailed a scoop of just about every type of ice cream in their inventory, topped with corn flakes (a staple in sundaes over here), banana wedges, butterfingers, whipped cream, peach slices, cherries and candy sprinkles. All for a relatively measly 1500 yen. It took us a little over 10 minutes for all of us to devour the stuff down, but we got the job done.

Even that wasn't enough. We had the temerity, if not the good sense, to go upstairs and take a look at the custard pudding exhibit. Yes, perhaps that doesn't have quite the delicious ring of ice cream or gyoza, but at least one of my students was still slavering away. However, the rest of us were too busy digesting to display any more excitement. Still, we managed to share one jar of the stuff.

With each of our purchases in the different food courts, we received raffle tickets which enabled us to engage in a raffle. Usually, the average customer gets one shot at it, but since we were a party of 8 hungry people. we got 10 cracks at the wheel, and ended up getting a number of small prizes which could be of good use as bingo prizes at the annual school Xmas party next Saturday.

I'm feeling pretty good right now but I'm glad that I have the day off tomorrow. I'll keep it close to home.

Wed. Nov. 26, 11:48 p.m.

Well, my work week was very short. I've got nothing for the next 2 days and then we're back into the weekend again. And my work week wasn't all that demanding in the first place. Three classes yesterday and just two today.

It's hard to believe but we're now less than a month away from Xmas. And yet another sign that this is indeed the case is that NHK just announced the lineup for the annual Red and White Song Festival. Twenty years ago, my family and a lot of the other Japanese-Canadian families got really excited about getting one of the network's crown jewels to broadcast in Toronto. Nowadays, it's just kinda considered to be that distant sorta square uncle who pops in for a visit annually. Pretty much everyone either heads out for more appealing events on New Year's Eve or they get the New Year's food all ready while the Festival acts as sonic wallpaper. Seeing that I'll probably be having nothing to do on the 31st, I will probably be cozying up to it myself.

Saturday Nov. 22, 10:59 p.m.

It was one of those classes with my kids. The older kid was pretty much useless. But I did manage to get some apples from the mother.

I felt really tired after the class. I ended up sleeping on the subway once again and I just slept for the two hours I was home before moving onto my friends' place for dinner. Once again, the five of us were treated to a gorgeous feast of seafood and wine. Unfortunately, it looks like the house cats also brought out a case of allergy attacks amongst most of us. Luckily, I had the luxury of having some medicine.

Fri. Nov. 21, 11:26 p.m.

Well, speak of the devil. After mentioning my ex in my last entry, she gave me a call after 3 months of no contact. It was a typically emotional call, all of it on her side. I'm not sure if she had been drunk or not, but she was gushing forth the waterworks initially asking whether I was doing OK. When I assured her I was, she settled down. With the balm of time, I can now wonder how I was able to hold a relationship for as long as I did with her. After communicating with her for several minutes, I do realize that ultimately she wasn't the one for me. She has a new man in her life; I am very happy for her since it is someone who's in her company and shares the same age. Perhaps now we can finally get on with our lives.

Friday Nov. 21, 10:09 p.m.

My day was spent, as predicted, just lazing around watching CNN. It was nice but I also had a hazy flashback of my lengthy period of unemployment back in 1997. It wasn't all that bad but still I watched my income peter out. Sure enough, the scheduler called to inform me that I will not have any classes at the main school next week because there are no day classes due to the tests. Well, I figure that we're slowly entering the dry period with Xmas and New Year's coming up.

At least tomorrow, I will be meeting up with friends nearby for dinner. I actually haven't visited their place in several months. My ex and I were still going out at that point although things had pretty much cooled off between us by then. The hubby will be off fishing for our dinner; since he's an expert, I'm pretty confident that we'll have a bountiful seafood feast by this time tomorrow night.

Friday Nov. 21, 11:09 a.m.

Nice end to a steady work week and nice beginning of a long weekend. In this country, getting a full 3-day long weekend is still a relative rarity since a lot of the employed have to devote at least one weekend day to work, so you imagine my glee at getting the full four days off. Since my oil class is off at their last intensive, and myregular Friday afternoon student is off on vacation, I've got this nice sunny Friday off to veg out. Still, I have my kids on Saturday but that's just for 2 hours.

I was actually able to get a bit of cooking done last night. Tried my hand at gratin for the first time. This country seems to have a love affair with the cheese and white sauce dish. They've got recipes for just about every type of gratin imaginable: potatoes, macaroni, and even tofu which is the one I tried out. Worked out pretty well.

Being the big (breaking) news junkie, last night was a pretty banner one with the bombings in Istanbul and then the Michael Jackson arrest. Even the local stations here made it one of their top stories, though I think most people know the man more as the eccentric freak than as the King of Pop nowadays. My 2 cents? Jacko is a peculiar man, no doubts on that score. In fact, I would peg him as the extreme form of celeb excess; however, one isn't arrested for being an eccentric. Let's see if the man is indeed guilty of molestation, then I'll know.

Kinda interesting at my school today. Fridays are always speech days with our regular students, and today's topic is on capital punishment. And sure enough, right now in the States, a jury will be deciding on that very point for sniper John Muhammad.

Wed. Nov. 19, 9:55 a.m.

It is getting quite cold in Tokyo. I had to bring out the electric blanket for the first time this season. Just waiting for those first few snowflakes to come on down. Unsurprisingly, I've gotten a few sniffles, so I've taken the old medicine. Thankfully, the stuff works quickly; not so good is that prolonged use can damage one's liver.

It'll be pretty quiet today. Just my two afternoon and evening classes. The rest of the week should be similarly slow. Just have one class on Thursday and then Friday will be free and easy.

Monday Nov. 17, 11:26 p.m.

I was feeling rather tense with this first corporate class today and then that rather bittersweet trip to Hakone yesterday, so I went in for that massage nearby. Boy, did I need that rubdown. Like any good service, the staff there recognized who I was and what I usually wanted.

As for the corporate class, my tension quickly dissipated as the students, which included the president, were all pretty low and eager to learn....a very good combination. It was the first time that I've been to the company without having to get involved in another firefight between my friend and the president which was a nice change. And as a nice bonus, he took us out again, this time to a swanky sushi bar in East Shinjuku. I really felt like I was in a truly down-home Japanese setting. There were just six of us at the counter with our group making up 50% of the customers. The staff was very chatty and accomodating, even to my friend's insistence at using dilapidated Osaka dialect, much to his boss' bemusement. At one point, everyone in the bar got into a nice little conversation. It almost felt like being in a Japanese equivalent of CHEERS. I was almost thinking about coming here with a few of the students, when my friend took a peek at the check, which again the president paid for, and told me afterwards that it came to a grand total of 35000 yen. I realized that sushi was just too good to be true.

Happily, tomorrow I'll be able to start later than usual since my regular Tuesday morning folks canceled the class. Not that I'm tired of seeing them, but it is nice to get that extra time to sleep in once in a while.

I bought the DVD of CHICAGO. It and X-MEN 2 are the only movies that I've enjoyed this year, which just emphasizes what a disappointment the blockbusters have been in 2003. Yet, even with the DVD, I was somewhat disappointed at its sneaky technique of "padding". They put in too many trailers which resembled each other and a lot of the cast interviews pop up in bits and pieces in all of the other extras. There's the usual backpatting and gladhanding which I can only take in small amounts, even for a worthy vehicle like this one.

Sun. Nov. 16, 9:38 p.m.

We had our trip to Hakone today with me and 4 other students and a teacher. It included lunch and dinner at the local spots, a trip on elevated railways, an atmospheric experience in a tea house, a walk through a lovely garden of fall colours and a tour through a museum. The chat was lively and engaging, and everybody got along well. And yet, I feel somewhat guilty about the day. I was the one who set up the plan and organized the meeting spot, but then after that, it was all the students' efforts to get the train tickets, notably one student in particular, and to keep all of us together. I realize that they handled the ticket purchases much better than I would have, but still I had the responsibility to do it, and I just ended up standing around like a lord over his vasssals. I did thank them profusely for their help, but I just don't think it's enough.

Tomorrow, I start that first corporate class in my new bohemian career. I really have no idea how things are going to go and what their expectations of me are going to be, but I'll be working on the plan for most of the day before I head on out.

Friday Nov. 14, 8:36 p.m.

Another week over without much incident. With another payday and therefore budget sorting, I just managed to save a miniscule amount. I'm not complaining too much, though; as long as I'm saving something, I'm satisfied. Heck, even before I started budgeting on my Excel, I think I probably went minus a few times.

I officially announced that I would be spending my Holidays here in Japan due to my passport situation. Well, I figure that alternating between cities year by year isn't a bad thing. I may be able to save a bit more money when I do go back home. Plus, I've got people visiting in December anyways so it won't be too lonely.

The usual bureaucratic annoyance has come to my door. My rental company sent me an official letter stating tha t my due date for this month's rent is the 25th. It came in a soberly gray envelope with terseness. I've been faithfully sending in my rent every month for nearly 10 years and I get treated like a blip.

Monday Nov. 10, 9:59 p.m.

Nice quiet day today as I just had only one lesson. Afterwards, I came home and tried out the new kaiten sushi place at last. There was less variety in terms of the price levels of plates, but at least a lot of my favorites were scaled at one of the lower prices. So I just paid over 500 yen less than what I would have paid at its predecessor. Mind you, I did have to sit next to a boorish middle-aged Japanese guy.

Speaking of geriatrics, it looks like I've finally found out what that newly remodeled dormitory is going to end up as. It will become an old folks' home. Well, in my neighbourhood of international families and younger folks, this ought to shake up the demographics somewhat.

Tomorrow should be another busy day: 9 hours of classes!

Monday Nov. 10, 9:45 p.m.

Nice quiet Monday for a change. I just had my Monday morning students and that's all she wrote. Just came home and tried out the new kaiten sushi place for the first time. The price gradations are fewer but almost all of the sushi that I enjoy are grouped in one of the cheaper plates, so I actually paid over 500 yen less than I did with its predecessor. I had to sit next to one of those typically boorish middle aged piece of crust, though.

Basically, the rest of the day was just finishing off the last of the B5 DVDs that I had borrowed from Chip Guy. A good way to spend a chilly and rainy day.

Apparently, the British Royal Family has been trying to stave off another scandal which has all the signs of being on the level of Diana's death. The coverage has been intriguing. All this media scrum about something that will not be revealed. Well, according to my students today, the big scandal is that Prince Charles may be playing for the other team, if you know what I mean, which would of course cause a rather embarrassing problem when it came to succession.

One of the staff left a message on the machine asking me for a possible teaching gig at an Intensive for METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry). Well, I don't do useless Intensives anymore, and if the fisrt METI earlier this year was any indication, then I won't do it. Besides, I've got my private classes now, so I couldn't do it even if I wanted to.

Well, the election results for Koizumi weren't nearly as bad for him. Still, he lost some power so now probably, there will be even more consternation in the Diet. Not great for us.

Sunday Nov. 9, 11:48 p.m.

Just came home to find out that Koizumi's showing wasn't all that good in the Lower House elections. It looks like that the elections have elicited enough attention to merit an English track coverage on NHK.

I spent about 7 hours with The Madame today. I met her outside of Yurakucho Mullion, and then we went out to an Italian cafe, La Vita Belle Pace, for an hour. The whole purpose of the meet was to discuss about teaching methodology since she's been training to become a teacher of Japanese, and then it would be off to listen to some jazz. Well, true to my form, things ended up rather the opposite. We spent a mere fraction of the time on academic talk and the jazz place that she was talking about was closed since it was located in City Hall. In fact, the entire hotel district was dead. So we ended up going to the Century Hyatt for dinner.
Most of our conversation, in fact, just dealt with the usual gossip surrounding our group of friends. It was interesting that we could just gab on this for almost a third of a day, but it may signify how close we've become in our friendship. I'm still not quite sure what our future is together...will we stay good friends or will we jump into something closer? We did a bit of skirting around the issue by issuing a joint statement that neither of us are particularly all that eager to get married at all. And in all honesty, I rather enjoy our relationship as it is right now. We're in no hurry. In any case, the next Sunday will be one of a more rural nature as we head out to Hakone for a little walkabout.

It looks increasingly more likely that I'll probably be sticking around here for the Holidays. I'm appraoching mid-November and there hasn't been any progress on my passport thing, and I would think that air tickets home for the Holidays are now pretty scarce. I've warned my family about this, and they seem to be taking it in stride. I'll probably head home in the Spring. In any case, it looks like I'll be busy with visitations from friends and even perhaps my brother in December. I've even asked The Madame if she would accompany me to the annual Xmas party at my rich student's house.

Saturday Nov. 8, 10:46 p.m.

Well, I caught the third, and perhaps final, chapter in the MATRIX saga tonight at Roppongi Hills. There won't be any major harangue here as in my entry for MATRIX RELOADED; there's no need. Suffice it to say, the effects were mind-blowing but the story far less so. And one could say that the story decided to unravel a bit at the very end. I think that the MATRIX should be best remembered by its first and best entry.

Thurs. Nov. 6, 11:10 p.m.

Wining and dining....for years, I've been hearing this very literal idiom from the business world. It certainly was its own industry during the Bubble Years in Japan over a decade ago, but has since diminished due to the bubble bursting. Well, I finally became the object of that Japanese tradition.
It all started when I went for my second mediation between my friend and his boss. The session was officially to iron out some further details for upcoming English lessons with their company. However, once again, it became another 2-hour marriage counseling session. It was a bit easier to take since I now had the experience from earlier.
Anyways, when all was over, the three of us went out for dinner. I had no idea where we were heading until we went up to the 26th floor of one of the Shinjuku skyscrapers and saw us approaching a pair of large wooden doors emblazoned with the sign, "The Esquire Club". I've heard of the place before as a high-class executive lounge in the Ginza, and now I saw myself going into one of the branches.
I realized how swanky it was when the president had to take out a key card and slip it into an electronic slot to gain entry. Immediately, we were greeted by a bunny girl. The Esquire Club was the Japanese equivalent of Hef's organization. My heart certainly skipped a beat, always a risky thing considering my probable cholesterol levels.
We had a very nice dinner which included cubes of marinated Yonezawa beef and very tender pork cutlet sandwiches. The interior was what one would ezpect of a tony exec louoge...all brown leather and mahogany wood decor suffused in incandescent light. Of course, there was a pianist singing jazz standards. However, I remarked that the place was three-quarters empty and asked the president whether this was the case for a Thursday night. The president sadly shook his head and answered that it was the sign of the times for the past several years. Goodbye bubble, goodbye expense account customers. And I also did notice that there were a lot of more informally dressed customers and foreigners to boot, entities that I couldn't envision in someplace as exclusive as this place.
The service was provided by aforementioned bunny girls. They were very polite, very polished and served us individual plates as well as light the president's cigarette. Good golly. I thought I'd never set foot in such a place.


The surprising night out compensated for that marriage counseling session earlier and also another so-so class (at least to me) with the top class in my school. That was my third time with them recently, and it just seemed so flat. Basically, my philosophy after 3 flat classes is that I'm just not going to mesh with those folks. I'm certainly not going to do what I used to do in these situations and ask to be not put with the class anymore. I think that would put the coordinator in a bit of a snag, and also if the students found out, they would probably feel alternately insulted and just plain bad. Really, it's their call....if they really don't like my lessons, they have the right and responsibility to ask the coordinator to ensure my omission. Until then, I'll just have to slog away and do my best.

Wed. Nov. 5, 8:55 a.m.

For the past few weeks, I've been doing my Pilates. Yes, that Pilates, that exercise regimen that all of the beautiful people (I use the adjective facetiously, of course) in Hollywood use to carve out their abs. Of course for me I'm using the "Dummy's Guide". I'm just in the middle of the first level of exercises after a week of Pre-Pilates prep. So far, so good. Everything seems to be centered on the Core, and involves a lot of stretching. Terms like Abdominal Scoop and Coccyx Curls have become part of my bedtime vocab. I haven't really seen any six-pack yet (I confess to having more of a beer cask, actually) and I don't ever expect to, but I have felt the burn, so there is hope.

Tues. Nov. 4, 11:17 p.m.

My teaching route today was one of those pendulums. I taught at one end of the metropolis, go to the other side for the second class, and then come back to my neighbourhood for another series of classes. Not that I'm complaining too much; all of them are good. My second one was especially revealing since it was the one with my fairly wealthy students. Apparently, the new skipper of the Chiba Lotte Marines, Bobby Valentine, ex of the New York Mets came by the house a few days ago to give his respects to my student's son-in-law since his dad is the team's president. The one humourous anecdote is that the family dog decided to straddle his leg in greeting. Not to worry, though, the Valentines have 6 huge dogs of their own.

The one thing I've never really worried about over the past 6 months of my bohemian teaching lifestyle is food. I've noticed that I seem to get freebies from my students. This morning, my class with the middle-aged ladies gave me a bunch of apples and sweet potatoes to munch on. The roughage was much appreciated. They usually get some sort of traditional goodies for me, whereas at my second class, I usually get something in the form of a fancy cake, and then at the juku tonight, I received some Hawaiian beef jerky from my first class after their trip to the islands last week, and some stew from the juku president. Plus, coffee is always complementary there.

After 9 years in this country, I thought I would have heard everything. Well, I am wrong. At my second class, the ladies told me that even at memorial ceremonies celebrating the anniversary of a departed loved one, it is customary to give alms AND then receive a present which is usually half the value of the alms. One of the students got a yogurt maker out of the deal. Can you imagine this quote: "I come for the tribute for the dearly departed, but I stay for the yogurt maker."

Mr. Matrix, Keanu Reeves is back in town to open Matrix Revolutions in Shinjuku at 2300 hours on Wednesday night. Considering how often he pops by Tokyo in his capacity as movie star and also as the bassist for Dogstar, he ought to think about getting landed immigrant status here.

Well, the shoe finally dropped in the terrorism front. According to TIME, Bin Laden finally made his threat against Japan for supporting the US in its war against terrorism. I'm just surprised that he hadn't done it earlier when Koizumi loudly proclaimed his support behind Bush. TIME reassured that with the tight immigration policies at the airports and the stress on anti-terrorist training of its security forces, it's pretty unlikely that Tokyo will see a 9/11. Hmm...being the fatalist, I will believe it when I don't see it.

Tues. Nov. 4, 7:27 a.m.

Well, I celebrate my 9th anniversary since my arrival in Japan. Hm...perhaps not "celebrate"; the word implies achieving a great goal or commemorating a great event, and my time in this country doesn't really signify either. My near-decade has had plenty of ups and downs, thankfully leading in the ups category, but I can't really say that there is anything particular celebrate about. In fact, I probably won't even say anything to my students or fellow teachers unless they broach the subject. However, perhaps to a lot of English teachers, my long stint could be a source of impressiveness or aghast

Culture Day turned out to be a quieter day than I had expected. I had been expecting to meet up with Chip Guy and the family for a small dinner, but the phone call never came. I later learned that he went through the long weekend incommunicado with a cold. Luckily, he's on the mend now just in time for a shortened work week. Instead, I just took care of some household chores, and then true to the meaning of the day, Super Channel in its wisdom presented the American contribution to culture. And I'm not being facetious here...the station presented several hours of the American Film Institute's Top 100 Movie Stars. As Hollywood embraces CG and pretty boy/girl looks, it's nice to remember the Golden Age.

Today ought to be another fairly busy one as I've got 5 classes. It would seem that Tuesday will be considered my Day of Hell. Well, that's not fair to the students. All of the classes are very good...knock on wood.