A Fan of Japanese Lunch Options

Kon'nichiwa again from me in Japan, where the weather is much cooler today because it’s been raining on and off today. It’s really pleasant, actually, what with our little room getting so hot and stuffy; the rain is keeping the temperature down. I was wondering how far the ash would travel from Mount Ontake, which erupted without warning a few days ago, but we’re about 125 miles away so I doubt we’ll see any ash here.

I’ve been in Japan for one week, and this week have had two interviews for teaching positions. I applied to about a dozen jobs last week, mostly on http://gaijinpot.com/ which is a great website to find employment, housing, etc. Lots of Tokyo opportunities. A few other jobs have replied to me but I’m saving those as back-up choices (particularly the one-off Halloween Party event where, rather than the ‘teaching event’ that was listed, what I have been contacted about is coming in for an interview so I can ‘learn the dance moves’ for the performance… uhh, no thanks!) The first job interview was with a Kindergarten that teaches in the Montessori style. I really liked the environment and the job is for the age group I most like to teach, but the pay isn’t so great and it’ll be over two hours of commuting each day. On the subway. Which I hate. So, pros and cons. The second job is with a very professional company that pays quite well, but the age group (12-15 years) is older than what I prefer to teach. Depending on what I’m offered, I could be at a school just a few metro stops away, or I could be more of a substitute teacher, going to a different school every day with no regularity. So, both jobs have ups and downs. At the moment I’m just waiting to hear back from them with firm offers and the like to make my decision.

I’ve really been enjoying the shopping experience in Japan, where customer service is excellent and the items seem good value. For the first few days we were going to the supermarket pretty much every day, making the most of the late-night discounts. We got overexcited the first time we saw this, then we realised that they have this deal every day. Japan has high food safety standards and as such they never sell food that is out of date, particularly fish. When at the supermarket, we make a beeline for the fish sections to see what’s on offer. The first reductions happen at about 6:30, where sushi, sashimi and fresh fish is marked with 10% off. About half an hour after that, they go around again and mark it down to 20% off. Finally, if there is stuff that really needs to go that day, you sometimes see fish with a 30% off sticker on it. You’d think the best way would be to go to the shops late to get the best deals, but of course if you leave it too late, the best offers have gone already, so about 6:30 – 7:00 is a good time; the fine science of when to buy your sushi.

In the Aeon supermarket, they have duplicate sections for popular items. For example, there are two fruit and vegetable sections in the store – they are completely separate, selling fruit and veg from different suppliers and at different prices. It seems a bit mad to me, but I guess it’s a way to offer customers lots of choice. The main point is that, in this one shop, there are three separate sections that sell fish. That means three lots of sushi, three lots of sashimi, three lots of fresh fish… it’s great. We’ve pinpointed which section has the best deals and head to that one first, of course.

Something else I love about the Aeon supermarket is that the checkout is super-efficient. As you approach the desk, there are channels marked on the floor, like the start line at a race-course, so that you don’t block the way of people trying to cross the aisle. As you put your basket on the counter, the checkout girl will place another basket on the other side and put your items into the new basket once they’ve been scanned. This is pretty much the most organised thing you’ve ever seen. The way they pack the basket for you is far beyond the ‘heavy at the bottom, eggs on top’ mantra. Basically, it’s like a game of edible Tetris, and they win every time. There isn’t an inch of space in the basket that is wasted. Then, to make things even more orderly - rather than packing your shopping into bags at the end of the counter (while getting in the way of the person behind you) what you do is take your intricately-packed basket to a separate packing counter and pack your bag there. It’s amazing. Perhaps I’m getting carried away with my shopping experience, but I love how methodical it all is.

Back home, ‘ready meal’ is a bit of a dirty word. It conjures up images of nasty, microwavable packages filled with indiscernible gloop. The kind of cheap, unhealthy muck that burns on the outside while it’s still frozen on the inside. You know what I mean. But the ready meals in Japan are awesome. I think it’s got something to do with the working hours of your typical ‘salary man’ who works long hours and needs to grab something quick on the way home for dinner. These ready meals are great for lunch too, and I’ve been enjoying trying out different ‘Bento Box’ style lunches. Today I bought a boxed lunch from a convenience store that was epic. It contained three onigiri rice rolls, ginger, a sweet meatball, a few strings of spaghetti, sweet fried egg, deep-fried vegetables in an onion bhaji style, katsu-style fried fish, mushroom and carrot. Delicious, and it only set me back 298 ¥ (about £1.70). Also, it’s all pretty healthy. The Japanese love deep fried things, but they tend to be quite a small part of the meal with the majority just being plain rice. Good for me, good for my wallet.

I went to the 100 Yen store again today – we discovered a smaller one that’s near our house and I popped in the get a few things. It’s such good value! Better than Pound World, that’s for sure. I bought a small umbrella, a mini clothes drying rack (octopus type), tuppawear… all for only 108 Yen per item (the 8 Yen is tax added to the price of 100 Yen). Not bad at all. As for the rest of the day I’m going to do some more writing, and make a start on learning some Japanese. Sayōnara!

The Travelling Bee Arrives in Japan

Kon'nichiwa (hello) from Japan – the Travelling Bee is off once more on another great adventure. It feels like this has been a long time coming – when I first qualified as a TEFL teacher, this was where I wanted to go. Japanese teenagers were my first language students – they’d come over to the UK and I was their part-time teacher, an experience which got me into TEFL teaching and inspired me to move abroad. I applied for the JET program (Japanese-English Teaching) and was fairly sure I’d be offered a position, but because of a lack of employment opportunities in the UK that year, three times as many people as usual applied for the JET program and so I didn’t get in. Which is why I wound up in China. So basically, I’ve eventually got to where I wanted to be - I just took the scenic route.

One thing I was sure of before I started looking into this trip – getting a job in Japan would certainly be harder than getting one in China. In China, they are desperate for English teachers. It’s still a new market – language learning is a contemporary thing in China, and right now it’s booming. But in Japan, there has been a Western influence for decades, particularly since its occupation by the American’s in World War 2. People here have been learning English for a long time, and as such their need for English teachers is less frantic than in China. Browsing online jobsites for teaching opportunities in Japan, many schools won’t offer an interview to anyone who doesn’t currently reside in Japan – and that seems to be fairly standard. So here we are, in Japan, and I don’t yet have a job.

Sasha’s job is through a well-known company that hires teachers for Japanese Universities, and he’s been placed in Tokyo. I wasn’t too keen on living in Tokyo as I’m not much of a big city person, but you need to go where the jobs are. Actually, the area we’ve ended up in is nothing like the ‘big city’ I imagined. We’re in Tokyo, but we’re not really in Tokyo – we’re in a city called Kawasaki, which in itself is also pretty huge. Our area is Asao-ku – one of the seven wards of the prefecture.

So far, our local area seems lovely. It’s green and fairly quiet, even with a main road only 100m from our window. It’s not too built up in this area – there are some apartment blocks like the bit we live in, but for the most part it’s just individual houses of two floors, which look all the more smaller for their cute, compact design. Today I went exploring and found two tiny parks that are near our house. They’re little more than children’s play areas with some trees and patches of grass, and both of them were overgrown, but in a charming sort of way. Like how British parks have currently been featuring these ‘wild’ patches to encourage insects and animals to live there, except I don’t think the overgrown patches in these parks are planned.

We’re a 15-minute walk from the Shin-Yurigaoka subway station, which is surrounded by shops, restaurants and the like. Our local supermarket is only five minutes away and also there is a big one at the station, which is called Aeon. ‘Topvalu’ is like their own-brand and a good choice while we’re still working out how much things cost. It’s much harder to calculate than in China. In China you just divided by 10 for a rough idea of how much things cost (100 Yuan = about £10), but with Japanese Yen you’d need a calculator - £1 is about 175 Yen, so a bit tricky for me to work out in my head. I guess I’ll get used to it in time – once I’ve bought a few things and compared prices in different shops it’s easier to remember what’s good value and what’s not.

Thursday was our main admin day, and amazingly we managed to get lots done even though jet-lag completely messed up our sleep and we didn’t get up until after 2 pm. We had to go and register and show our residency cards, which we were given to us at immigrations at the airport, and also sign up for the National Health Insurance. The NHI in Japan is amazing – with the insurance you only need to pay up to 30% of medical costs, though fingers crossed I won’t need to use it at all.

The place where we’re living is block of little flats that are private or dormitory room style. Needless to say that we have a private room! We have a bedroom, small caravan-style bathroom and a corridor with washing machine and fridge/freezer. On each floor there is a tiny communal kitchen, and a large kitchen/dinning/living room on the ground floor. It’s not ideal, but as Sasha’s work is a short contract we’ll likely only be here for 3 months. Housing is expensive in Japan, and until I find a job we need to try and save money. It’s small, but it’s cute and functional. Easier to clean too as there is so little that needs cleaning!

So far, I love Japan. The main thing is the food, which is just amazing. Japanese food has always been one of my favourite cuisines, with the added bonus that it’s good for you! In China, I struggled with the food as the diet there contains lots of wheat (noodles, dumplings, bǎo zì, pancake) and everything is fried in so much oil all the time – I like Chinese food, but it didn’t make me feel very well. But Japanese food is so simple and clean, and at the same time – delicious! Just plain sticky rice and clean, healthy fish… yum. Obviously we won’t be eating sushi and sashimi platters all the time – it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than in the UK but it’s still not the cheapest thing, so while I could happily chomp my way through a plate of sashimi every day, we’ll be keeping it to special occasions.

As well as sushi, there is an abundance of fish in general at the supermarket. We’re cooking at home a lot to save money, but it’s easy to make tasty meals when you can get fresh pieces of fish for cheap. Our trick is to go to Aeon at the end of the day – at about 6:30 they reduce the prices of fresh things and the reductions are considerable. Last night we got a packet of delicious chunks of fish for about 150 Yen, which is less than a pound.

Something I had been told by friends who lived here is how much the Japanese love pastry. In general I try not to eat too much cake and bread because of the wheat, but I make an exception when it comes to things like donuts, which I love. So as you can imagine, we’ve only been here for 4 days, and we’ve already been to the ‘Mr Donut’ shop where you can get a basic donut of 100 yen (about 60p). Sasha had a ‘curry donut’ – someone he knows bought one of these by accident and got a nasty surprise when he bit into it, but Sasha likes savoury things and chose the curry option in full knowledge, enjoying it thoroughly. I had a sweet donut with yellow sugar crystals – I can see myself working my way through their menu over the next few months!

Yesterday we went to the harajuku shopping area, mainly to go to the ‘100 Yen Store’. As we’re not sure exactly how long we’ll be here, we didn’t want to spend a lot of money on appliances and furnishings, so this store was perfect to pick up those few things we needed for the flat – cushions, mugs, soap etc. We didn’t realise it before going there, but the Takeshita-dori shopping street seemed to be some sort of popular tourist destination, as it was fairly busy with Japanese and Westerners alike. There were loads of little cafes, bars and restaurants, as well as street-food vendors selling, of all things, crepes. We didn’t have much of a look around the area but it’s one we’ll be going back to.

So today Sasha went for his induction at work, and I’ve been madly applying for jobs and just getting things done here really. That’s it for now, but I’m looking forward to the next adventure and being able to share it here on my blog. So it’s Sayōnara for now. (So tempted to put ‘zàijiàn’ at the end there but I need to get used to my new sign off!)