I was walking down a crowded street in Shinjuku (think Midtown Manhattan at Christmas time, that’s how crowded it is) today when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the Ghost From College Past. A guy I hadn’t seen since freshmen year. Seven years ago. In upstate New York. Apparently, he’d moved to… Read More Six Degrees of a Tokyo Gaijin Part 2
Today I got laid off from my fabulous new job…a fact that I’m sure I’ll one day find funny, once I’ve stopped eating butter cookies and staring at my ceiling in stunned shock of it all. I know that I’m probably being horrible over dramatic right now. Just as I was earlier when I wandered… Read More Thoughts on Being Jobless in Japan
Every unmarried female ESL teacher who’s under 50 and teachers adults has been asked out by a student at least once. It’s inevitable. It’s always awkward when this happens because due to the cultural and language barriers you’re never entirely sure how to interpret it. Does “Do you want to go out for a drink… Read More Would You Date One of Your Students?
Last Sunday found me gingerly tiptoeing across an icy bridge barefoot and naked. It was one of those surreal Japan moments; an Alice in Wonderland trippy ‘Wow, what am I doing walking around in the snow at three in the afternoon with nothing but a thin towel I bought at the 100 yen shop?” type… Read More EmBAREassing Moment at the Onsen
I went in for a trial lesson at a language school in Ebisu last week and I was really impressed. And I’m not very easily impressed. Working as a foreign language teacher is both a blessing and a curse when it comes to taking a language course, in that I’m able to pick out the… Read More Inexpensive Japanese Language School in Tokyo
It’s so strange working at an international school. I work in this mini-American land that’s been carved out of a small chunk of Tokyo, right off of Roppongi and next to a McDonald’s and a Starbucks. Whenever I exit the subway station and step foot into “Little America” as I’ve nicknamed it, it feels a… Read More Little America
Chances are that if you’re a foreigner and you live in Tokyo, I either know you or I know someone who does. At least, that’s the way it seems sometimes. There are 350,000 foreigners living in Tokyo but somehow I still manage to randomly and repeatedly run into the same people. Even if you don’t… Read More The Six Degrees of a Tokyo Gaijin
I love riding the trains and subways in Japanland, because there’s never a shortage of entertainment. Especially during the last train home on the weekend. It’s a little like that Disneyland ride “The Pirate’s of the Caribbean,” in that everywhere you look, there are loud, disheveled, drunk men singing, stumbling around and in the case… Read More Last Train Home
Small cup of coffee from Doutor Coffee shop…. US$2.80 Studio Apartment with a dorm-style, shared bathroom and shower down the hallway… US$751.00 Picture of my apartment, taken from the doorway. Taxi ride home from the karaoke bar last Friday… US$73.00 Believing that I can somehow still save money in Tokyo, despite all of the evidence… Read More Some Things in Life are Free…
5. I get off every day at 2:30 4. I don’t have to work Saturdays…ever. 3. My co-workers are all super chill. Last Friday we went out to Karaoke together and next weekend I’m going with a few of them to a ski/techno festival in the mountains 2 . The school is located on the… Read More Top 5 Reasons Why I Love My New Job