Umbrella stands with locks

The moment a drop of rain falls, people over here whip out their umbrellas! It's pretty amazing that everyone seems to have a tiny umbrella with them at all times. People really seem to hate getting wet over here. What a big difference from California...people walk about in the rain like it wasn't raining.

If you happen to have forgotten your umbrella at home, no worries. Just make a stop at the closest convenience store like seven-eleven and you can buy a cheap disposable umbrella. By the way, you can find a convenience store every few blocks here.

The other day, I went to the gym and saw this umbrella stand. Have you ever seen an umbrella stand with locks?! Only in Japan, right? You put your umbrella in and pull the lock out. It's free. Maybe people constantly get their umbrellas stolen over here for something like this to be made. Who knows.

Disneyland and Disney Sea

Yup, that's right. I made a two-day trip to Tokyo with several friends and had a blast. I've never been on such a jam packed schedule for leisure purposes before!

We left at 5:50 in the morning to catch a plane to Tokyo, so that we'd arrive by 9am or something like that. I didn't know really know what was going on, so I made sure I didn't lose sight of my friend taking us all around. I did't want to get lost on the Tokyo subway system.

I've been the the Disneyland in L.A. more than I can count, but it was the first time for me to go to Tokyo Disneyland. My impression was that the Disneyland in L.A. was easier to get around in and more welcoming. Of course, the temperature was close to zero te day we went and we all froze our butts off. I'm sure my impression of Tokyo Disneyland will improve, if the temperature isn't so freezing cold.

I never knew stage shows existed in Disneyland. I usually did the rounds with all the rides except for anything that spins in circles up to now. Well, this time around, the main attractions were the shows and we hardly went on any rides. We went from one show to another to another. They were pretty interesting. I was kinda dumbfounded by it all because I really didn't know much about the show aspect of the place.


The second day, we all went to Disney Sea. It's another Disney themed amusement park right next to Disneyland. It wasn't as cold as the day before, so it was a lot more enjoyable. I liked Disney Sea better than Disneyland. More open space. The setting was cuter.

What's a blog without my little humorous observations, right? So here are a few things I found funny during my Disneyland trip:

1. All the trash cans said "Please Waste" on them! Do they say that in the States too?!

2. Whenever any of the Disney characters came out for the public, they got MOBBED!

It was pretty funny. They were getting mobbed, mostly by adults, not little kids, which made it even more funny. Everyone was quite frantic to get a picture with the Disney characters. I noticed that the Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty characters were popular with people over here, but when Mary Poppins walked by, no one knew who she was supposed to be!

Mexican Food in Tokyo!

I've been craving Mexican food for a while now. This past weekend, I went up to Tokyo for a meeting and stayed over at my brother's place. We stopped by a Mexican restaurant before my overnight bus ride back to Kansai. I was SO happy to finally find Mexican food in Japan, and an El Torito at that too, since that's one of my favorites.

They don't have any Mexican food around where I live, but Tokyo is the capital and they have a variety of ethnic food available. Most of the ethnic food over here has been changed in some way to fit Japanese people's taste though, so it doesn't exactly taste like the real thing, but it's close enough.

El Torito wasn't bad at all. When I think Mexican food, I usually think big portions, but the dishes were Japanese portions. The nachos didn't exactly taste like they were supposed to, but what can you expect when the people cooking the food have never tasted real Mexican food.

On my trip down, it started snowing like crazy. I don't know where we were passing through, but it sure was snowing hard. The 10 hour bus ride wasn't all that comfortable, since the woman sitting next to me kept leaning on me. I wished she'd lean towards the window instead of me.
I think maybe I'm getting too old for the grueling overnight bus rides, but since it's the cheapest way, I don't have much of a choice.

My top 3 shockers of teaching English in Japan

As most of you know, I'm "teaching" English conversation here at the moment. (I feel more like I'm just "talking" instead of "teaching" though). I teach kids from age 5 and up to adults.

Top 3 shockers for elementary through high school kids:

1. Many of them don't know what their dad's do for a living!

They answer "he's a salaryman" meaning, their father's earn a salary for a living.
Hmm...yes, thank you for letting me know that, but that really doesn't shed any light on what your dad does. Makes me wonder how much kids here communicate with their dad's.

2. Many of the kids don't have dreams about what they want to do.

Maybe they're being modest and all of them want to be doctors or something, but whenever I ask "so what do you eventually want to be?" most of them answer "I don't know." I ask them "well, how about when you were a kid? Did you ever want to be superman or a princess?" I just get blank stares, like I just landed from Mars. Why is that? Is it that strange to ask about dreams?

3. I've yet to meet a single student who claims to like school.

No one likes school over here. No one seems to enjoy it. This, I can understand....schools seem totally uncreative and they never ever ever bend rules.

One more that I remembered.

4. Most kids go to cram school on top of school.

This is the most baffling one of all. Most students go to a private tutoring school after school, so basically students are studying ALL DAY LONG. They hate school, but they go to the tutoring schools. Most of them have no problem keeping up in school, but they go to tutoring schools. I don't understand the irony in this system. Why don't kids just PLAY here in Japan? It's study, study, study, but yet they don't have dreams they're chasing after. It sure is puzzling.

Point System Everywhere I Go.

There's a point system for every store you ever visit in Japan.

Every restaurant.
Every drugstore.
Every grocery store.
Every donut shop.
Every gas station.
Every clothing store.
Every shoe store.
Every hair salon.
Every ........
....basically ANY store that you spend money at.

I find it quite annoying. All these stores give me a stamp card/point card, so I have a whole entire wallet FULL of stamp cards. I can never find the right card for the right store at the right time.

It's the Japanese way of trying to build faithful customers. If you spend enough money at these stores within a certain period of time to fill your stamp card, then you get a small discount.

Do I want a wallet full of stamp cards I can't keep track of, much less gather enough points within the given period of time, in hopes of getting a small discount or a cheap gift? Nope! Not anymore!

At first, I thought I was supposed to keep all the cards and my wallet kept getting bigger and bigger. Well, I've finally realized that I never can get enough points by the designated period, so I've started to just decline the stamp cards to begin with. Shoppings gotten easier since. The cashiers ask me "do you have a point card?" and I just say "no...,oh no thanks, I don't want to make one."