Nabe: Yum!

The last 2 weeks in November have been very quiet indeed. With Dave gone, and the new jobs, it's work basically every single day. Sophi has also completed her training for the new ALT position as well as working the nights at Gaba. This is the first time Sophi has seen 6am apart from still being awake....a first for everything!

We ventured to Kumi's place on Saturday and her brother Taka cooked us a traditional Japanese winter dish called Nabe, which is a huge hot-pot on a little stove, filled with chicken, fish, loads of veggies. Then you dip it all in a sauce made from raw egg and soy sauce and dried fish flakes. This was a family Goto nabe recipe! It was so delicious and great to have a home cooked meal that wasn't stir-fried veggies and noodles. Thanks Taka san!

The following Sunday we got a call from Reina, a girl Sophi used to work with at Nova. They were going for dinner for Yuki's birthday (another girl Sophi worked with). We met up with the boys from Gotanda Nova branch and went to Reina's place in Shibuya, where we had Nabe again.

Twice in two weeks we were spoilt with this delicious dinner. This time around they just kept bringing out another serving of it. In all we had 3 or 4 courses.... great stuff. We had a few drinks and caught up with everyone to find out what work everyone is doing, if any at all.

It is quite sad, a lot of foreigners in Japan have been really screwed by the collapse of the company. We have heard of quite a few people who have had to go back home because they have run out of money or can't find new work. We are so lucky that we started looking for work early because the company we now work for isn't hiring again until next year.

Cam had an interview at a foreign exchange trading company, who offered him a job, but after talking to some friends who had been to the same interview, decided against taking the pyramid schemed, commission based only job. The company had no client base and said the best way to find clients was to approach house-wives in cafes and try to hit them up for 1million Yen ($10,000A)-No thanks, just a waste of time!

December is looking like it will be a quiet month with lots of work. Cam will be working 7am-10.30 and then 5-11pm most days and weekends, while Sophi will be working 8am-3pm at the junior high school and some nights, also weekends. Luckily Daft Punk tickets had been bought a couple of months ago!!

Farewell Dave!

Dave's farewell was planned for Friday night, Dave had mentioned that we would be going to a nightclub called Womb, in Shibuya. He also had a dinner planned, but unfortunately we could only do one or the other due to our lack of Yen at the moment. We decided to go to the club. A few days before Friday Cam found news that Sander Kleinenberg was DJ'ing at Womb that night. Having seen Sander about 4 years in Sydney, it was one of, if not the best club night out in Sydney ever....so high things were expected.

So ho right now!

We met Dave, Kumi and the crew after their dinner, which had obviously gone quite well because everyone seemed extremely loose (we wouldn't have expected anything less for Dave's farewell).

The main man (Sander)

Womb is the kind of club that you could walk straight past and not even know it existed. It's a little hole in the wall, with a small sign out the front. But when you get inside there are 4 or 5 levels, a pumping sound system and heaps of bars to choose from. Cam's idea of smuggling in drinks from outside worked a charm, except that he drank all of them as soon as he got inside, which left only 1 for Sophi. Sophi became care-taker all night, as, one-by-one Dave, Kumi, and Cam were all legless at different times of the night.

Drunken fools

Aussie boys and a Sumo and Ami's bro

We danced for a while to Sander but he didn't bring the same love that was evident at the Sydney show. Still a good performance though. We bailed at ?am, and when leaving tried to steal an enormous Sander sign from the front of the club. We might have succeeded except that Cam walked straight outside with it where the bouncers were standing. It was a great night out, and a good way to send Dave back to Australia.

The following night, we had a quiet night round at Kumi and Dave's place for dinner. Once again this “Quiet night” ended up being a very large night, as we polished off about 8-9 bottles of Sake that Kumi had brought back from her parents hometown. We spent most of the night playing Wii (Nintendo: Ten-pin bowling). Towards the end of the night we all had a little something to help us get to sleep. Unfortunately for Cam, his phone ran out of battery and so his alarm didn't go off in the morning. At his 2^nd weekend of his new job, a 10am start turned into an 11.30am start..... when he asked the girls at work if this happened frequently, they said it was the first time it had happened!

The new company has a system where the students decide which teachers they want (Blue booking), so it looks decidedly bad if the instructor just doesn't show up and can't be contacted...

Anyway, a learning curve nonetheless.

On Tuesday night we went for a final farewell dinner with Dave and Kumi and some others friends to a Mongolian BBQ restaurant in Ebisu. The company was great but the food was a little disappointing (could've cooked it at home for about one fifth of the price). Basically it was just simple veggies and some meat on a hot plate... nothing special. We finished the night in style at an English style pub called the Hub with many Jager-bombs and some pints. It was quite strange going back to a pub where you have to pay at the bar for each drink as you order it (Cash On Delivery System it is called over here)

Everybody has their Red bull ready to go

So long Dave, it was great having you here with us, you made our introduction to Japan smooth and easy. Look forward to seeing you when we get home, and working on our business venture together. Peace

Sophi was preparing herself for training at yet another new job, being an ALT (assistant language teacher) at a junior high school in Setagaya (our Ward). This involves teaching classes of up to 40 kids English. So, from going from having no jobs and really struggling it's looking like we are going to be quite busy for the next few months.

Art & Cars

DESIGN WEEK AND MOTOR SHOW

Dave only had a couple of weeks left in Japan, and we were struggling with no income but we stil wanted to hang out with him as much as possible. Dave, Sophi and Cam went to the Tokyo Design Week on Thursday in Aoyama Ichhome where there were displays from about 50 different designers from all around the world, there were loads of exhibits from Scandanavian people, as there seems to always be these days. There was some amazing stuff there, and some strange things also. There was another section to the exhibition, which was dedicated to people who were selling their items, some things were very cool.

A chandelier made from shoes and toys and who-knows-what else!

Can you read it?

Trendy telephone bags

On Friday Dave and Cam made their way to the Tokyo Motor Show at Makuhari Messe, in Chiba. It was the 40^th Anniversary so we were expecting big things, and I have to say that they did not disappoint. There were 3 huge buildings the size of the Horden Pavillion just for the sedans, then they had another huge building for motor-cycles and utility vehicles, and finally another huge building for simulators and people to explain what everything was. I was so big that we couldn't even get around to see it all in one day. Japanese car makers are at the top of their game, but I have to say, some of the designs for the new hybrid eco-friendly cars are absolute crap. (See below for proof of this claim!)

Awesome new Suzuki road bike

This was the sickest car at the show by far, the new Mazda (it will never hit the streets though)

They have really life-like manequins in Tokyo

Nice, a 14 year girl strutting her stuff (apparently she is promoting the car!)

The Tokyo Show shits on the Sydney one. It is, without exageration, about 10 times as large and I think they get around 100000 people through every day for 2 weeks.

Ute of the future

Crap eco-friendly designed cars (and a bus to carry them around in)

Have no idea what this is

Apart from that, we have been really busy at our new jobs, and only taking off 1 day a week, and it not a weekend, so there is not much time for much else. It is also starting to get quite cold here, so we are preparing ourselves for the winter ahead by eating lots of McDonalds to get our fat stores up.