Driftin' our way to Ghibli

The Always ‘Random’ Big Night at Home

With the attempts of a quiet weekend to save some dosh, we came home and a few drinks later… the next thing you know everyone in the house was slamming Havana Club Rum, CC, sake and god knows what else! Was definitely an eventful night with everyone involved, Megu, Shinji, Sakura and her boyfriend Suzuki. A definate icebreaker also for the newcomers, Andrew (and his girlfriend Maho) and Vivienne to the house!!! Was a memorable night…although the ending was VERY fuzzy, where we woke up with a hole in the wall!! Oops…..if only memory could help us!

Driftin’

On the Sunday we went out to Fuji Speedway (near Mount Fuji) for a Driftin’ competition with Kumi and Dave. During the drive out there we had an amazing view of Mt Fuji, but unfortunately by the time we got to the speedway, that view had disappeared behind the clouds and did not appear again that day.

The Driftin’ was good but very repetitive; for those of you that don’t know what driftin’ is, it when the cars come around the bend and and the front wheels are pointing in the opposite direction to the turn. Lots of smoke and noise, but not really a lot of action, especially when you are seeing the same thing over and over again for 6 hours!

Fuji Speedway

Some serious Driftin'

Mackin' in the sun

Anyway though, we had a good day chilling out outside in the sun. Kumi and Sophi got over it and Cam got a lovely sun-glass mark to go into his new job with!

The drive out to Fuji Speedway took us a little over an hour, so we left at about 5 hoping to back by 6-7…little did we know, the roads clog up at night and instead of the nice easy ride home, it took us nearly 6 hours to drive back to our place!!

Tori in J-land!!!!!

By this point our wages from NOVA were already one week late and we weren’t expecting them anytime soon, so it was with good timing that we went to the 3 (UNPAID) days of training for Gaba. This training was basically exactly the same as the NOVA training but with Gaba textbookst. Training was 3 full days from 10am-7pm. Blah!

Excitedly Tori cam to Japan for a 2 week holiday with her mum and a couple of free nights to get mischevous with us! On the first night we went to the Buddha izakaya, and to treat her to the joys of Tokyo got nomihodai (all you can drink) with a scrumptious 6 course meal. The best shashimi we’ve tried so far in Japan, delicious. Huge filling courses also so by the end we were rolling out the door……. Straight to a darts bar!

Andrew, Cam, Sophi, Kumiko, Dave, Tori @ Bhudda Izakaya

Darts bars, such a wonder… we had nomihodai and played some reckless darts then headed home to get a cab. However the darts bar was above an ‘amusement park’ (the one that comprises of all the computer arcade games and much more over several storeys) so on the way back down we got trapped. Spending money trying to win the cute soft toys in the skill testers. May as well just put the money into a poker machine, eats it all the same! We all went home happy with a stuffed toy in every arm!

Dave & Tori

Pyscho

Ohhhhhh, the skill

Another day of training, then a ceremonial “Last Supper” of shabu shabu. Delicious, filling and feeling hungover, the feast was top notch as always. A teary goodbye from Sophi to Tor’s was given as that was the last we were to see of her for a couple of years.

Love you Tor’s and was so good to see you.and YUM thanks for the Tim Tams!




Shisha Time

Four hours has never passed by so quickly, Nick a new co worker that we met at Gaba training, enlightened us by taking us to a shisha bar/cafe!

Shisha = flavoured tabacco used in Persia, Lebanon, across the Middle East.

As finally training had ended, we were feeling overwhelmed with useless information, so we cruised to Shimokitazawa, which is kind of like Glebe in Sydney. It’s a university town, and had a very relaxed vibe to it. Nick took us to more or less literally a little hole in the wall, a Shisha Bar.

The room had a great little atmosphere as this place only could fit 13 people inside.... quite an amazing sight as everyone faces each other and everyone has their own hookah (pipe). These hookahs are of various vibrant colours with shiny metal, all were placed in the middle of the room on honey coloured floorboards... quite beautiful.

Suited up from our training, the three of us rocked up feeling some what over dressed.. yet felt comfortable as soon as we sat down, everyone was so friendly and talkative. An interesting experience which can bring all sorts together, and most definitely worth it. Such a simple concept as this is amazing, with its ability to unite characters from all over the world.... the room at one stage ended up with and American (Nick), 2 Japanese, 2 Australians (us) and a guy from Iraq. Almost sounds like the beginning of a joke.

Hard to explain the joy of this company, so diverse yet so natural. The conversation was most interesting with various languages being thrown around and everyone being fluent in 2 languages except for us. The 2 Japanese spoke great English, one of them spoke Arabic fluently, Nick spoke Japanese fluently, the guy from Iraq spoke English and Arabic, so conversations in these 3 languages kept it all flowing... very amazing!

We unwound with a good dose of Shisha, Sophi had peach, Cam had pomegranite and Nick had
jasmine. Nick had told us that it would last about 45 mins…..4hours later we were still puffig away and had “mellowed out”. It was a great way to unwind from 3 days of boredom. Thanks Nick!

A great experience and we will most defintaly be back.

The following Saturday we had planned to go to Ageha with Dave and Kumi for a huge halloween party. Ageha is the biggest night-club in Asia. Unfortunately our cash-flow scenario hadn’t improved and we were now 2 weeks due for getting paid. We had to cancel the club, which in all worked out fine for us. A typhoon hit Tokyo that night, and after Sophi spending an hour stuck at Sakura Shimmachi Station, going back out was the last thing we wanted to do. Also we had already bought tickets for the Ghibli Museum for the following day. Yay!


All Hail Ghibli

We met a very groggy, red eyed Dave (Kumi was unable to get out of bed after Ageha) who still had bits of mascara on from his costume from the previous night on his face.
Dave ever so smartly attempted to find some type of eye make-up remover from amongst Kumi’s Japanese selection. Being illiterate in Japanese obviously didn’t help so he used god knows what leaving his eyes a nice cherry red. Quite hilarious.

The Ghibli museum is dedicated to the Ghibli films from Japan. It is basically the equivalent of Disney, but Japanese stlye. Films include Oscar winning “Spirited Away” and “Princess Mononoke”. It is meant for kids, but there is definitely something to enjoy here for people of all ages, even if you have never heard of the Ghibli films. I recommend it to anyone coming to Japan, and for most, if you see it you will probably recognise it.

A fascinating building with all the background for his drawings, techniques and charaters. It was brilliant to see the creativity bursting in one place. Due to restrictions from Cam about Sophi’s shopaholic trends, she was restricted to ‘practical’ bite sized souveniers. So after gathering a collection of small stuffed toys from every where, a new obesession had started to slowly start its way…postcards. At least small, flat and so called ‘practical’. Now a huge collection devours our bedroom wall.

So with that, many more postcards were purchased and a cute little brooch that Cam surprised Sophi with. 10 brownie points to Cam! After getting lost in there for hours we headed home for sushi.

Ghibli Museum

Some crazy big statue

A just arisen Kumi came to Sakura Shimmachi (our home station) to join us for some yummy sushi train. Some raw “beef” was circulating the room, and Dave and Sophi decided to dig in on it. However, after a cautious comment from Kumi that it may be horse meat, Sophi was instantly turned off. Dave tried it and Cam did also, immediately spitting it back out and hiding it under his crab shell!

By now, we had completed our orientation and were ready to begin our new jobs….we still hadn’t been paid from NOVA, and realised that Gaba wasn’t going to pay us until 25th December, so we had about 2 months to live off whatever we had at that time….SHIT!

It's All Over for NOVA!

NOVA Goes Bye-bye

With the news that the company we were working for was going to be unable to pay wages to teachers, we started looking for some other jobs around Tokyo. We were a little worried at first, but after applying for a few jobs here and there we started receiving some responses….then we had job offers being thrown at us from every angle! When it rains it pours. We spent the week running around to interviews and teaching private students.

We went for an interview at Gaba (which is where we would end up working) and it seemed quite similar to what we had been doing at NOVA, except that all lessons were just one-on-one with integration of computers. The place seemed to be a lot more professional and appealing.

Another interview was with a much smaller company, who finds students and send them to your house for private teaching, amongst others.
Sophi landed some private students off the internet, so things were looking good, we booked in for a second interview at Gaba for the following week, which went well, and voila! A new job!

Another month of booze, bowling, karaoke

Final James farewell dinner
After a huge weekend it was time to say goodbye to Jimmy once and for all. We headed to a now famous “Last Supper” venue of Mo mo Paradise for some rejuvenating Shabu Shabu…..that stuff is so good!

Dave, Kumi, Eri, James and us had a quiet dinner and said our final goodbye’s to Jimmy as he headed off for some new adventures in South America.

Good luck buddy…. May see you in London!

Dinner in Pimpin’ Hiroo and Karaoke

On the Wednesday night, Cam’s old next door neighbour had been living in Tokyo for a while with her husband. So we went to their’s for dinner in Hiro-o. The husband, Alex, has been working for a big finance company: Goldman and Sachs.

After a little mis-communication we found Kate at Hiro-o station (one stop from Roppongi). They lived on the top floor of an apartment building with an amazing view of Tokyo. A gorgeous huge apartment/penthouse, a very nice change to the small houses in Japan. With Kate and her friend being both pregnant, Sophi and Kate’s mother finished off all the white wine, while Cam and Alex finished off all the red wine. It was great to enjoy a home-cooked curry meal and some homely surroundings for a change. The furnishings were all western and it felt like home. We left at a very late 1.30am and had missed the trains. With a few drinks under our belts, we decided to go solo to Roppongi and hit up Karaoke! (again).
We arrived at the karaoke joint, and rather than going to our own room, we just jumped on board with a big group of Japanese people (Cam gave them no choice as to whether we would be joining them or not!) who were than happy for us to join them!

Once Cam tried to steal the show and choose English songs a little too repeatedly… the gig was up, and all the Japanese guys suddenly decided it was time to go home, a very abrupt end to the night!
On the way home, a nice prostitute tried to take Cam back to her place, but luckily Sophi was there to step in!

They were loving it

Tobacco and Salt Museum

Right under our noses in Shibuya was the Tobacco and Salt museum. Interesting that such a common daily thing has such a large area dedicated to it. Understandably though, the history was interesting with the evolution of tobacco in Japan and the millions and gazillions of ciggie packs from all over the world over the decades. Particularly the fact that the Japanese have the ability to always find a way to create an art form out of every thing. A tradition that always fascinates Sophi. Smoking tobacco, with beautiful sets of several lacquered boxes all set on a lacquered tray all for rolling tobacco. The ancient pipes another art form themselves. Another museum under our belt, we were done and done.

A ‘quiet’ Sunday night

We organised to meet Kumi and Dave on Sunday afternoon, which once again turned into Sunday early evening, which turned into Sunday night! We started off with THE BEST BURGERS IN JAPAN!!!! The Kua’ Aiana Hawaiian Burger!! After discovering them in our trip to Disneyland we had found another branch in Gotanda near Sophi’s work. Perrrfect! The previous night we tested it out, got addicted and wanted to go back for more.

So hence we went back the next night with Kumi and Dave and we were definitely NOT disappointed. Our favourite burger in J-land had now been established.

There is a place in Shibuya that caters to everyone’s needs all in one building: Bowling, Ping Pong, Billiards, Karaoke, darts. What more could you need for a night out on town in Tokyo….. this was real Japanese style!
We started the night with a few games of DJ Air Hockey, where if you score a goal you get to scratch it up on the table….weird!

In this building there are 5 levels of ten pin bowling! 2 of which are neon bowling, unfortunately we missed out on neon bowling, and got landed regular bowling….
This turned out to be in favour to us, as there is no staff on that level, and you can just bring in your own drinks which leads to a much cheaper night out…. Or so we always try and tell ourselves!

Cam was the outstanding victor of both games… although Dave will probably try to dispute this. Sophi and Kumi the less co-ordinated had some retarded moves indeed!

Dave, Kumiko and Sophi

HOT!

Next level: Ping Pong. We paid for half an hour, so we could share it around… but Cam and Dave played the whole time and then with 5 mins left decided to give Kumi and Sophi a go. Such gentlemen. The chu-hi’s were starting to take quite an effect now, so skill levels were diminishing.

Next level up: Billiards. We paid for half an hour again, and this ended up not being enough time even for 1 game, so we left….quite uneventful.

What a pro!

Next stop: Karaoke (AGAIN!)
We actually decided to the leave the all-in-one building as Karaoke was way too expensive. As much as Dave was reluctant to show of his vocal cords, we managed to force him to after sinking down a few more drinks. Once again we sung the same songs, in the same off-key pitch, and again, with no tune what-so-ever….and once again we vowed to stay till first train, and got over it and ended up getting a cab home anyway half an hour prior to the train.

It looks better than it sounds!