Maybe if this English teaching thing doesn’t work out, I could go work in a noodle joint. Take a look at this article.

Sunday afternoon, and I got some good photos of the Elvises. There were two sets of them, one on either side of the fountain. One group didn’t dance so well, but they definitely had the edge in hair. Here, compare the two groups’ dancing. Sorry about the lack of sound. They’re listening to Japanese music from the 50’s and 60’s (or at least that style).

I also saw a good punk band playing under the highway a little further south. Man, clubs are expensive in Nagoya, and there’s no need to go, because there is so much good free entertainment here.

OK, so today I looked for some Elvises, but didn’t find any. I did, however, see a few more cool bands, one of which is pictured here. I also took a lot of pictures of the big banana-shaped boat sculpture about which I can seem to find no information. I’ve been discussing it with one of my students and she also couldn’t find out anything about this. It’s a nice sculpture, I guess but there is no information provided near it to say, you know, who made it, and why, etc. Also, there are some other pictures and a picture of a Mexican food place I’m planning on trying in the near future.

This is Taiwan ramen ( 台湾ラーメン ) from one of the many Chinese ramen places in Nagoya. Naoki, one of my students, recommended that I try it, so I did. It’s very similar to tantanmen, the Chinese-style spicy ramen that’s popular here, but the broth is clearer, and I think there is more negi (onions) - and there might be another difference, too, I’m not sure. Oh yes - no cabbage in this one! Anyway, yet another in the delicious dishes I’ve eaten since I got here. I need to find a Korean place soon, I think. I miss some bebimbab.

This is a typical band that plays all the time by the fountain in Central Park. As the days get hotter I imagine there will be even more of these.

But that’s not why I posted. Although I’ve talked about them before, it’s the Elvises that hang out there that really got me curious. At first I was only mildly curious, but now I really need to find out all about these guys, because I see them all the time, but none of my students seem to have ever seen them. These guys dress up in black jackets with really big Elvis-like hairdos, and bring amplifiers over by the fountains so they can play this old school music (or sometimes not) but it’s always really really loud. But their main activity is dancing really really badly. Trust me I will take a bunch of photos really soon, because I need to find out more. Until then, though, here are a couple other photos I saw while I did a cursory search.

Last week, our Japanese class had a field trip to Nagoya castle. I forgot my good camera, so all I had was my keitai, so I only took a few, and even fewer have I sent back to my computer, since I’ve learned the high cost of bandwidth. Anyways, here are a couple of photos.

So about two weeks ago was Golden week. I didn’t go very far - the farthest I went was Gifu for about two hours, but I did explore a lot on my bicycle and took a few photos of Nagoya.

Thanks to Kanako-sensei ( 可奈子先生 ), I have started to learn how to make genuine Japanese food( 和食 ). Small steps, at first, of course, but a very easy meal to make now is this: miso shiru with a few vegetables, and rice with furikake. Quite healthy and totemo oishii.

大日本果汁

Finally, I have been able to swim through Japanese bureaucracy to get myself an internet connection! Other than that lack of communication, everything else has been fabulous, though. Teaching English is better than I could have hoped for, my school is great, the staff and other teachers are wonderful, and most of all, the students are really fun to teach. I got myself a bicycle (see above) and with that it seems like I can go anywhere I want to in half an hour. Above you’ll see some pictures I took a few weeks ago along the Yada river. OK, now I’ll start updating often, I promise.