The first week

The Trip Over

My plane at YVR it's a 747-400 the biggest of Boings. just about to board the 9.5 hr flight. food was ok but way too little. I was hungry like crazy at the end of the flight eventhough I ate all of their food plus my own 2 clif (sports) bars.

JAL has a good entertainment system with every seat having it's own LCD screen. I guess that's now typical on long transcontinental flights. there was a down movies, a dozen audio tracks and a dozen games including chess, go and tetris.

Tokyo's Narita airport is very old and bland. It's kind of like Tehran's mehrabad airport, but 5 times bigger. Coming from YVR I was expecting tons of shops and restaurants but found none so my hunger continued! I did encounter one store but it just had junk food.

Nartia is also extremely crowded and I had trouble moving across with my suite cart. Like Zurich airport it does have the cool feature that the cart can go on the escalators.

The 1 hr connecting flight to Nagoya was delayed for about 20minutes. I counted 7 separate profuse appologies for the delay. At the gate in Narita the lady appologized 3 times, then on the plane the Capitain did it once and another 3 by the flight attenedants.

Chubu Inernational Airport (Nagoya) on the other hand is brand new and very modern and could potentially handle a lot more people and flights comfortably.


Exactly 15 hours after saying sayonara to my friend Dave at yvr, I said konnichiwa to another friend Yukiko san (right) at Nagoya airport. I was very glad to see a familiar face after being so tired and so hungry for so long. My boss here at Trident college Mr. Hibino (left) was also there at the airport . We're in a train going from the airport to nagoya eki (main train station or bahnhoff for german speakers!).

The Dorm

Before 8pm we finally reached our destination, the Trident Dormitory. It's kind of like Place Vanier or Totem at UBC, but the rooms are a bit smaller as you'd expect in Japan. The husband and wife who mange the place are super nice and I was treated like royalty, but they didn't let me take a picture of them for some reason. They also greeted me in French which was cool.





The Dorm is locked at all times, you need a code to get in. There's a curfew between 11pm and 6am which means you can't get in and out even with the code. The security system is kind of cool. The keypad looks totally blank as in 2 pics above, then when you press a part of the panel the digits light up as above.


The first morning I was up and running at 5:30am.


They have a system of plastic name tags on pegs by which you indicate whether you're in res, outside or gone on vacation. Name visible means you're there, turned around blank white means you're out and yellow which is behind the white means you're on vacation.








On the lower left-hand corner is 'the japan times' newspaper the main english newspaper of japan. The current copy is in the dorm lobby and isn't removed from there. For 2 days in a row I asked them each morning to give me yesterday's copy so I can read it in the subway as I head to work. Last night the wife called me and said that she'll have MY newspaper in my mailbox every morning. great! On top of the newspaper the TV remote control looking thing is actually the air conditioning controller.





view outside the dorm room window


The washroom is just awesome!


A closer inspection of the sink area shows my old motel 6 soap that I've had for 8 years since I was last in an Oregon motel 6. But more interestingly I like how they have one faucet for both the sink and the bathtub. By turning the knob underneath the soap bar, you can divert water one way or the other.


A closer inspection of the toilet flush on the other hand reveals 2 settings for the flush. For those of you who can't read kanji, the left character means 'big' and the right character means 'small'. So depending on whether you do a #1 or #2, you can flush accordingly. And yes of course I looked inside to see the mechanism by which it's done. Simply put if you do a big flush the angle at which the chain yanks at the plug is such that there's much greater leverage on the plug.


Recycling/Garbage is a royal pain in the ass. I think it's quite a different concept than what we do in bancouba. For us there's stuff that's garbage and stuff that can be recycled. Then the recycled stuff may be devided into several groups like paper and plastic. Here, it's more like your garbage as a whole is devided into 5 as above and sometimes 7 different bins. So Garbage and recycling are not treated as 2 separate things. And as some of you may know, there are no garbage cans in streets and I think that's the case all over Japan. ne? so if you have garbage you have to take it with you to some building and drop it in the appropriate container.


The common area of the dorm is large and has lots of amenities like vending machines, irons, TVs and a public phone. All that's missing is a Hot tub and a massage parlour! On the other hand I was shocked that people were actually allowed to smoke in this area as well as in their rooms I would guess. People can also smoke in many is not most restaurants here. Luckily you can't smoke in our office any more!







Friends

2 Nagoyan friends I met in Vancouver. left is Yuko san, she just got a job ne? right is Yukiko san with a hat. It's at a non-Japanese restaurant near my school.

Cityscape and Architecture

Most of the city is built on a grand scale. Lots of wide streets and boulevards. The architecture is purely western, however there are a quite a few temples spread throughout the city, most of them pretty small like the one a few pictures below.












There's also a lot of these tall but narrow buildings. The green building above seems to only have space for 2 cars!



This temple is right behind our school.




This was my first day in Nagoya. Baked Unagi (eel) that Yukiko is showing is one of Nagoya's specialties. The food was Frikken awesome, by far the best I've had in the past 11 days. The restaurant was on the 13th floor of the twin tower JR building (Japan Rail) which were completed in 2000 (below). It's one of the city's Landmarks, and currently the 100th tallest building in the world. #1 is currently Taipei 101.




Near the JR towers.

The Subway

Chikusa station near the school.




I had heard that in Tokyo there's sometimes harrassment in the very crowded subways. Apparently the same is true here, hence the special cars for the morning rush hour.


Chikusa subway and JR stationl.


Jogging is not nearly as popular as in Europe and North America. This guy was one of the few Joggers I've seen.






Pay Parking for bikes! honto! near a subway station. 95% of the bikes are these regular old fashioned bikes with baskets in the front or back. hardly ever see a mountain bike or a racer. it's a means of transportation not a sport. One funny thing that you often see in the rain is people holding an umbrella in one hand while riding their bike. They also don't need helmets here.


The School

Trident is a post secondary school founded by Kawaijuku, one of the largest private prep school in Japan. High school students here go to prep school in their final 2 or 3 years to help prepare for University enternace exams. Trident on the other hand is a kind of vocational school kind of like BCIT in Vancouver. The name comes from it's 3 founding principles: culture, internationalism and communication. We have 2 year programs in: English, Japanese, Hotel Management, Bridal prep, Design and Physical Education to name a few.


The front desk


The back wall.


Large conference room. staff being recognized.





Nagoya Castle


The most well known landmark of the city. It was built in 1612, burnt in 1945 and rebuilt in 1959. It was built by Tokugawa Ieyasu, one of, if not the most important name in Japanese history. He played a big role in unifying Japan.


view from the top of the palace.


the homamru palace inside the castle


Tea shop within the castle, with Yukiko's friends


Beer vending machine, honto! The gizmo on the top right hand corner scans your drivers licence and enables the machine only if you're above a certian age, I think it's 18 here ne?


Yukiko san's place with some Canadain friends.


Watashinotokoro de (My place)

It's common knowledge that Japanese houses are small. For me the size is not the problem at all, it's the design that I'm not crazy about. For example I'd rather have a smaller living room but a larger kitchen. Or, the door from the kitchen to the living room has a very low ceiling. But the total area of the studio is all I need for now.

the kitchen. the space on the left is for the non-existant fridge. Where are the rest of the kitchen cabinets? What other cabinets? That's it!


ok there's this little cupboard by the door for shoes and other stuff.


the room with my borrowed futon.


my mess from the first day of arrival.


view strait ahead. wonderful isn't it? I got a tree it's just too damn close. the building behind it doesn't help either.


view on the left. it's gorgeous concrete!!


view to the right. breathtaking! almost looks like a junk yard.


My 1st omelete. I forgot oil, but it worked out fine.


first meal at my new place. omelete was oishi(delicious) honto! I look like a freak cuz I wasn't ready when the camera timer was almost done, and too hungry to take another shot!!