A little while ago I was talking about my internet speed here in Japan and I must say that today I’m loving it! I downloaded the latest Nine Inch Nails album in about 45 seconds. Not bad for $50 a month internet service! Here’s a screen shot I took.
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I mentioned them gym in my post about shrinking. Well, a gym membership is very expensive in Japan. In the U.S. I was a member of Gold’s Gym in the U.S. and paid $25 a month. Before that I paid $50 a month for a bigger gym with more options. Both were open 24 hours a day.
The memberships I’ve found in Japan vary from 6500-10,000 Yen (about $65-100 USD) per month. The hours are 9am-9pm or similar, and I’d rather be at the gym by 7am. There are strange rules like every Thursday it’s closed, or if you pay less you can only be there 1-9pm on the weekdays, or you can have a weekend only memberhsip for 6500, and all holidays the gym is closed. Also you can only pay through a bank account, so you have to open one at the bank they use.
photo credit: takeratta
So let’s break this down… You can’t go on holidays, you can’t go on certain days (like a Thursday, or every other Monday), you can only go around 9am-9pm. What I just mentioned is 8900-10,000 yen per month. So let’s say 10,000 to be safe after taxes and bank fees. If you spend 2 hours total in a gym and go 3 times a week which comes to 24 hours per month you end up paying 416 ($4) per hour to go to the gym. What!? That’s insane. I also asked how much the employees make at one place and they said they start at 800 yen per hour. What!?
By the way, I went to all gyms within a 15 minute walk. Most were full of physically fit people. However I stopped at a place in Fukuoka called American Gym and all of the people inside were freakin’ HUGE! It was an older gym, darker with only a few windows, and felt like people were training for the Strongman competition. Check out the picture of the sign taken by e-chan.
I did some searching, I did some asking, and I visited the very helpful foreigners center in Fukuoka called The Rainbow Center. I found out that each ward has a community center with a gym, basketball court, and other things. My ward’s community center has a small gym with decent equipment. It’s open from 9-9 as well and if you go when it’s open the equipment is available and you don’t have to deal with many people. The price on this… 260 Yen for two hours. That’s what I’m talking about! If you go 3 times a week per month you’re looking at 3120 Yen. It costs an extra 30 yen to use the extremely small locker so everybody just puts their gym bag in the corner of the workout area which is cool with me. This is one of the many deals I’ve found in Japan so far.
Here’s a picture of Gold’s Gym here in Japan taken by charlton_b. It’s always interesting seeing things here that I’ve seen in America.
Here are some pictures I took of a few toilets here in Japan. I find it interesting how they have traditional toilets, then toilets we use in America, and how they have many public toilets. Right by Tenjin they have a men’s toilet with no door and you walk buy and can see a guy using a urinal. Well, you almost have to look because it takes up about 40% of your view when you pass it. You can’t avoid it. It’s surprising because there’s so much foot traffic and many highschool students getting off the bus just a few meters away. I don’t think anybody should have to see a drunk guy taking a leak at 8pm on a Thursday evening (or any time really).
This is a picture of the urinals. I haven’t seen a mini urinal yet, they’re all huge and they start from the floor and go up about 1 meter or so.
This next one is the style I’m used to, the 2nd is traditional Japanese (or Asian?) style, and the 3rd and 4th are of a public toilet near the river which look pretty sweet (except the litter around it). I was going share the pictures of these two entrances because I thought they look cool, but I thought I’d snap the other ones too so people can see a difference in styles.
I’ve been in Japan for almost 8 months. My diet has changed, I walk a lot more (or further) on a regular basis, and I don’t drink as regularly as I used in the U.S. with my friends (and the bowling league!), and I’m not doing as much manual labor type of things (casual sports, helping friends move stuff, lifting heavy beers, things like this). And about a week ago I realized I am thinning out! I went to the gym here a few times recently and I’m usually a cardio guy but I didn’t feel satisfied at all. It felt like I was just burning away my body instead of keeping me in shape. I’m usually a solid 34 waist but my pants are fitting loose, as if they’re one size too big. My shirts are a little baggier too.
I wasn’t going to talk about it and I was going to fix the problem, but just two days after I noticed this, my fiancee mentioned that I’m getting skinny. She says she wants me to eat more and either get some extra baggage (aka fat) or bulk up. For now I’ll just eat more and after the wedding I’ll hit the gym. I’m 1.9m (6′2″) and 78kg (172lbs). Within a month I hope to stop tall-skinny trend and start working my way back up to 86kg (190lbs). By the way I was 86.5kg when I moved to Japan.
I tend to keep personal aspects of my life… well… personal, but this is a very exciting time in my life so I wanted to share. We’re both really excited and still have a few things to take care of.
I can’t believe it’s in 26 days! In about 20 days some guests from America will arrive so that gives us a little less than three weeks to finish everything up. I know we can handle it and I’ll be memorizing itinerary to help everything go smoothly, but I still need to finalize my vows, I need to write a speech for the reception as well as a few other things I want to say, and memorize some lyrics of a Japanese song for one of our duets (luckily I have the easy part!). We’ve added some events to our wedding, removed some, added some new things.
Mai’s good friend in Tokyo is a designer and has been working on a unique wedding dress since September. I haven’t seen it of course but I hear it looks amazing so far.
How do other foreigners have their wedding in Japan? I’m not quite sure. So far I’ve seen the traditional Japanese wedding with full kimono and I’ve seen the ‘western style’ type of wedding at a chapel or restaurant with a reception dinner following. We’ll be having a western style with a touch of Steve and Mai and our closest friends and relatives will be attending. I’ll probably post some pictures next month.
I was craving a bubbly soda and I’ve hit the jackpot! I’ve seen soda in the (estimated) 16oz/500ml plastic bottles just like the U.S. but they run about 150 yen. A while ago I went from convenience store to convenience store to see what the different stores offered and I found a 500ml can of Coca Cola at the Daily Yamazaki for just 100 Yen!
I’d say it’s smaller than this huge Coke I saw at a crepes store. And it’s only 47 yen more than the 160ml can of Coke I found at Sunny (a grocery store chain).
First of all before your journey you’ll need 100 Yen. That’s right, tax is already included in the price!
Next, you’ll need to find a Daily Yamazaki convenience store. It looks like this (I got the picture from Wikipedia)
And here are some pictures of the beast of a drink!
For the ultimate cheap snack I recommend this 100 Yen Coke and the 105 Yen Tiramisu. Both combined are cheaper than the Ishiyaki Imo from the back of the traveling guy’s truck.
If you’re ever in Japan and you’re craving something cold, sweet, and cheap I highly recommend the Tiramisu which you can find at Family Mart. This inexpensive Tiramisu is made with one layer of chocolate cake, one layer of vanilla pudding, and coffee + cocoa sprinkled on top.
The price… 105 Yen.
The satisfaction… 80%
It seems to have more pudding and fluffier cake than the 300 Yen Tiramisu’s at 7-11, but it’s nice because it’s light, sweet, and delicious. I took some pictures so you can see it in action!
This what 105 Yen looks like. This is all you need to get this party started. Reminds me of a quarter and a big penny with a hole in it.
And this is what a Family Mart looks like (picture taken from Wikipedia)
And this is the Tiramisu. The conbini clerks also give you tools to conquer your quests. Today’s weapon of choice is a tiny tiny spoon.
As I open the container I see it has Japanese writing on each side. I can’t read it so I assume it says “Tastes great! Only 105 Yen hellz yeah! Fat free and calorie free, just like the State Fair food you eat once a year back home! You should try to put it on a stick and deep fry it some day. Enjoy! / 140ml”
And here it is in the final stage of life. It took 2 minutes to devour with the tiny spoon. I like the spoon… it forces me to slow down and enjoy things.
Cherry blossom trees, or sakura (see more info at Wikipedia) look amazing and this year I got to experience them for the first time ever in my life!
I’ve seen some pictures of the trees, I heard they’re beautiful, I heard they’re romantic, I heard they’re magical, but I didn’t hear about the crazy drunken madness at night! We went to experience Hanami (flower viewing, enjoying tasty bento similar to this) at Ohori koen (means… Ohori park). I thought I was in for a romantic sakura viewing… but in fact… it was more of a fun time packed full of people, mostly drunk office workers, with some romantic moments in the quiet areas (near the temple).
The road to the park was lined up with vendors selling things from chocholate covered bananas to takoyoki (a grilled octopus dish). There were some families with kids running around having a good time and couples eating bento together, and then… there were tons of drunk people with sake, sho chu, and grills. Apparently the people under the trees brought tarps in advance and 1-2 people reserved their spot. Each cluster seemed to stay within their group of people which is good when family + drunk people are mixed.
We took some pictures but most of them ended up blurry and I took a lot of video which I haven’t taken off the camera. Here are a few of the decent pictures from that night.
If I had to sum up this experience in one sentance I’d say… it was like a tailgating party for the sakura football game. Ahh… good times, good times.
It’s time to learn Japanese.
I’ve been in Japan for a little over 6 months and I like the country a lot. It feels like I’m in another world, a much different feeling I get from traveling to other countries. My main barrier is that I don’t speak the language and that makes it difficult to do simple things like make dinner plans, learn about current events in the area, or even get the help I might need when shopping. I’d say I know about 50 words at one given time (sometimes I learn new ones but forget others) and that helps, but it’s not good enough. My sentances are basic too. People are probably tired of me asking if they’re good, the weather is nice, and I’ll have a draft a beer.
I picked up a book of some basic vocabulary the last time I was at Costco, and an Australian friend gave me a Hiragana book as a gift which I’ve tried out and then became lazy.
My goal is to learn Hiragana in about 3 months, so I’ve set a goal of August 1st. And I plan on studying vocabulary as much as I study Hiragana. I know I can do this if I hit the books every day.
Update (April 14): After the comments and encouragement you guys left I’ve learned about a new book, new methods, and some new websites so I’ve decided to update my goal. I’ve been very motivated and went to a 90 minute Japanese conversation lesson on Saturday. The teacher was speaking Japanese and using Hiragana and Katakana to explain things which tells me I need to speed things up! So I’ve set a new goal of learning Hiragana in 3 weeks like claytonian mentioned, which is May 2nd. Then I’ll focus on Katakana.
A new salon opened here in Fukuoka a few months back. The name made me laugh every time I saw the sign. Ahhhh, good times, good times.
Unfortunately it seems like they were open for a few weeks and then closed up shop or moved. I’m not sure why, but the prices were comparable or a bit cheaper than other hair salons in the area.
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