A brief intermission.

Just letting you all know that Marika and I will not have our computers with us for the next few weeks and as such will be checking email infrequently and probably not blogging at all. I know, how will the internet survive? It's ok, i've been logging some serious hours this past month and I think i've contributed enough for the both of us. We will be ditching our Japanese phone but I imagine that in any sort of emergency you can probably still contact us on my Australian phone, +61403-766-133. We will take a load of photos and commit to memory as many travel anecdotes as possible, all for you.
Until then.

Bikes and new sneakers.

Marika's bike is the silver one, it even has three gears! Mine is the clapped out blue one which has one squeaky brake and a whole lot of character.


I know, not my regular style but I like them, plus they were half price...bargain!

Bikes make me happy.

Hello friends, I thought after the bulk-email I sent out recently i'd better make a post to show you that fun times are still being had here by us in Japan. It's not all doom and gloom.
Today Marika and I had an awesome day. She found out that one of her classes had cancelled which meant that we had untill 4pm to hang out together. Well, we jumped on our newly acquired bikes and we did ride.
Ok, hold up because I know what yr thinking...and frankly i'm insulted! WE didn't steal them, notice the capitalisation there. We merely recovered them from their state of disuse and abandon. Marika claimed hers from under a train bridge and mine had been dumped conviniently next to M's place of work. With a little TLC and some WD40 (Japanese equivilent of course!) they are now doing us proud, pictures soon I promise.
Now where was I? Ok, that's right.
So this morning we got up reasonably early and rode to Dennys for breakfast. It certainly is amazing what a few months in a foreign country can do to you, I mean back home we wouldn't DREAM of eating at a shit-hole chain 'restaurant' like this. Sadly the Japanese have different ideas re: breakfast to us gaijin-folk. Anyway, we dined on much french toast and coffee and had a merry old time, mainly going through one of our travel books and making plans for Munich and Prague. After breakfast we rode the length of a new bike path that we had discovered, a quiet and green strip away from the main roads. Thankfully all the kids were at school so we had the whole thing pretty much to ourselves. We rode around for ages, just acting foolishly and enjoying the freedom. I commented to Marika at one stage that this was the sort of thing i'd remember about Japan, which is a very good thing.
Oh, and somewhere in there I accidentally bought another pair of shoes. Ooops.
Afterwards we came home and lunched on fresh corn, msio and rice (of course!). Tomorrow night we will be returning to the monkey house that is our previous place of work for another farewell party. There has been a bit of a mass exodus this month, pretty soon there wont be any gaijin staff at all. May not be such a great thing for a British themed hotel, oh well. It's not my place to worry about such things!
We're off to climb Fuji-san in 8 days then it's down to Bangkok. I'm getting REALLY excited about this bike trip around Cambodia, I am starting to realise that not having my bike to ride has really affected me this past six months.
Enough about me, hope everyone back home is well. I'd like to say congratulations to my little brother Gabe for getting a teaching position over here in Japan, however i'd like to once again question his timing, in that when I arrived...he left. Now, I'm leaving and he's arriving. Hmm?
Smell you later yo.

New Photos?

Damn Straight!

Noodle making, strange gifts and endless rain.

A few days ago I was lucky enough to head deep into the hills of Fukushima with a few friends to learn how to make Soba noodles. It was amazingly simple and the whole process (from soba flour to steaming bowl) took around half an hour. They tasted pretty amazing too! After the soba workshop we walked a little ways down the hill to a little village named Ōuchijuku (大内宿). It was pretty amazing with it's old buildings and thatched roofs. As I am mindful of both my finances and baggage limits I was disciplined enough to only purchase a few postcards and some Mochi.
A few days ago we parted ways with our snowboards, it was a tough thing to do considering how much we got for them. Alas to ship them to canada would have cost us almost their original price, oh well. We also shipped a couple of big boxes of gear which should arrive in B.C. about the same time as we do. We were both really nervous about them becasue they were very large and heavy and we couldn't be sure that they'd take them at all! In the end (after a mini-drama or two) they did agree to ship them and it was quite cheap. Not only that but the little post-office man even gave Marika and I gifts of hand-towels, a pink one and a green one. Go figure, Japan at it's strangest.
Well, finally i'll get back to watching the rain. There is a typhoon moving up the country and although it was quite serious down south (2 people killed) up our way it has just meant steady, relentless rain.

JHIP - Japan Hospitality Internship Program - My rant...

My partner and I signed up with this company through an internet ad on an Australian job site and have regretted it since. We found JHIP, AAA and the Australian Student Pipeline (who does the recruiting in Australia) to be incompetent, unhelpful, unlawful, inconsistent and only concerned about making money off the interns. Below I have listed a few of the instances that we encountered whilst staying with them for 4 months:

• When we arrived at the airport, the girl who met us was neither of the people in the picture sent to us, and with an incorrectly spelt sign it took us a while to realise that JIPS might actually mean JHIP. We then found our luggage was to be sent by takyubin straight away, not from the hotel as listed on the orientation schedule received before leaving Australia. This meant we had to frantically grab clothes from our bags for the next 2 days which meant we had no fresh clothes in which to meet our employer on arrival at the hotel.
  
  
• The induction seminar had little relevance to the work we would be doing at the hotel we were placed at. Shimazu San seemed to be under the impression that we had hospitality experience and gave us a language lesson which really put us on the spot and made us feel totally uncomfortable and was unnecessary considering we're not supposed to speak Japanese to the guests.
  
  
• In the original documents we received it stated there was an end of contract bonus. I believed this was to be the ¥60,000 that all WH staff at the hotel received at the completion of their contracts. We found out 3 months into our contract that this was a typo and incorrect. They offered us ¥10,000 for reaching the end of our 6 month contract and so the main incentive for us to fulfil our contract had been removed.
  
  
• We were forced to sign a contract that stated we weren’t permitted to drive whilst at the hotel and if we did drive, it meant JHIP could cancel our contract. We only found this out when we arrived in Tokyo and were signing our contracts even when we'd asked to see all contracts we'd be signing before leaving.
  We were planning on buying or renting a small car which meant that this plan was destroyed straight away. Given the location of the hotel we were assigned to, which is 45 minutes to the nearest town, and lack of public transport, this is a ridiculous rule to put in place. When asked to remove it from the contract JHIP would not relent stating that some earlier JHIP participant had had an accident with a small child in the car and there had been legal problems. We had taken out our own insurance as the insurance JHIP was offering was overpriced and didn't provide adequate coverage and therfore made this point invalid. They would still not relent.
  
  
• We do not receive any paid leave as part of our contracts. We do the same job as our peers and paid an exorbitant amount for the privilege of being here which others who applied directly to the hotel did not. We feel like we’re worth less to the company as we’re not getting the same privileges.
  
  
• The fee JHIP participants have to pay is inconsistent as one couple paid $1000 each, 2 others only had to pay $700 each.
  The fee we were asked to pay to join the JHIP scheme ($1400) was to be paid in instalments, one before we left Australia and the rest to be taken from our first pay packet. This money was never taken from our wages so we believed that they weren’t taking the rest of the fee as other people had not paid as much as we had been asked. The contract we signed also states $1000.
  Shortly after resigning, the contact from Australian Student Pipeline in Australia contacted us, asking us to tell JHIP Japan to take the rest of the money. Uuuummmm...no, I don't think so. The money was never taken from our pays which meant in the end we paid $700 each.
  
  
• The only information we received about the hotel we were being placed at that, was stripped from the website and when we asked for more information it took weeks to come or was never answered by Australian Student Pipeline.
  The hotel has it's own form and info pack for foreign staff that we never filled in nor were given any of the information about the isolated nature of the hotel which meant we were not as well prepared to come here as others have been and were never asked about our special dietary requirements which did become an issue on a day to day basis as we are both vegetarian.
  
  
• We'd asked a number of times what our roles would be and our questions never answered. When we arrived at the hotel we were met by the current receptionist who straight away said that I'd be working with her on reception. I asked later and found out that they had known I was going to be on reception for a full month and a half, something I would have liked to have known earlier. My partner also had the same experience with his workmates.
  
  
• We only found out about a week into being here from other staff that we weren't going to get paid until the 15th of next month due to the JHIP/AAA payment system. This meant a month and a half with no cash. Luckily, I over withdrew money from my account before arriving.
  
  
• The hotel are contractually obliged to not allow people to work here if they do not fulfil their contracts with JHIP. We would have stayed on if there was a possibility of my switching to teaching as i have a degree and already knew many of the classes offered.
  
  
• All staff who leave the hotel receive their pay in full on the day of leaving. JHIP refused this stating they were abiding by Labour Standards Laws of Japan and that we had to receive our pay about 4 weeks later (when it'd fit into their systems). I looked up the laws they were referring to and found they were in fact lieing. The Law states that all final pay has to be paid within 7 days of leaving the company. I called them on this and we got our pays sent on the 7th day at our expense.
  
  
• During our time with JHIP, we have had numerous smaller issues and have emailed them our concerns which were fobbed off and disregarded.

They seem to have a lack of communication between their Japan and Australia offices, which makes it extremely difficult for anything to be resolved quickly.

A few other things, not necessarily about JHIP, you should note.

• If you work in the one place full time for over 3 months, it goes against the rules of the visa and you are working illegally. Now, Japanese immigration don't seem to worry too much about it, however if soembody was having a bad day and did want to hassle you, you can be deported from Japan and have a big black mark next to your name which may cause problems when trying to gain a visa for ANY other country. The contract you sign with JHIP is for 6 months therefore you are working illegally.
  
  
• Having a working holiday visa means you are subject to a tax rate of 20% and here's the response from the Japan Association for Working Holiday Makers about getting that tax back:
  
  "all Working Holiday makers are ineligible for a tax return, as they are considered to be non-residents.. Tax returns will only be paid for work done in the second and consequent years of work, because Japan recognises resident status after one year. However, tax returns for any work done after the first year can only be completed and processed at the end of the second year. Therefore, if you are not in Japan at the time, you would need a friend to process the refund for you. As for the amount, generally less than half of the tax paid will be refunded, if at all."

So, if you're thinking of doing JHIP or even working holiday in Japan, think very hard about it. I also heard stories of other participants who were supposed to be going to a different hotel but a week before they were leaving Australia, were told that they'd be going to the hotel we ended up at. They'd already bought their flights, so they couldn't cancel and were forced to go along with it or lose a lot of money.

My advice is to stick it out and get the degree and come as a teacher, conditions and pay are much better and you're treated like you should be. If you have to go now, contact the hotels in the JHIP scheme directly. You may get away with not having to outlay anything but the cost of your airfares.

Ok..go!

We've had so many decisions to make in the last few days and everything seemed to be going against us...
What have we done?!?
So the story is in point form:

• I started work for GEOs on the 18th - Small children and me...hmmm...interesting.


• This place is such a shithole, Khan can't find work as there aren't any english schools here, not even a NOVA!!!.


• Last week I handed in my resignation as Khan is going insane here and I can't support both of us on the one income.


• We believe we can change the dates on our airfares so we can leave early, do Europe and go to Canada.


• Computer says no.


• We ask about paying to upgrade our tickets.


• Computer says no.


• We're stuck with no jobs in Japan, perhaps one of the most expensive (and testing) countries to live in. Joy.


• We think about moving to Tokyo and trying again.


• I have no savings.


• It's too expensive and would only be for 3 months or less(we're still going to Canada for the 07-08 season remember!)


• We look for flights direct to Vancouver to replace the ones we have already


• That would mean forgoing our $2.5k tickets we already have and the Europe jaunt


• We look at going to Korea for Summer camp


• They only want people with degrees, doesn't matter how much experience you have with kids, refugees or whatever...the piece of paper is the only thing you need...even if it is pure mathematics and you have the personality of a fricken calculator


• Settle Marika


• I extend my leaving date by 2 weeks after GEOs plead me to extend for another month and a half.


• Khan looks into WWOOFing for a couple of weeks


• We buy tickets to Thailand leaving on the 1st August, coming back to Tokyo on the 29th


• We're going to do a bike tour in Thailand (Chiang Mai) and go find a beach in Vietnam to laze on


• We're going to climb Mt Fuji on our return


• We leave Tokyo again on the 2nd August flying into Munich for 3 days


• Prague for 5 days


• Looks like we can't afford the whole Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia thing, but we're getting a month holiday in Thailand/Cambodia/Vietnam instead


• There's always next time


• 11th September, fly to Vancouver from Frankfurt

Questions?!? Well, I have many...

A bit backed up.

The blog that is, it's been a while since I posted last and there has been stuff that I think is kinda blog-worthy.
At the moment things are nuts, but more about that at a later date.
Anyway, here's a few pics of Marika, Danny, Yuichi and myself in Utsunomiya. We ate and did drink a little too. There is a fantastic Indian restaurant there and a bunch of western style bars. I was excited to be able to get a Hoegaarden in a proper Hoegaarden glass. We eventually ended up visiting about 5 bars and sampling most of the international beers they had available.
A good time was had by all.
Apologies for the poor formatting, I suppose I should have paid more attention to how to create tables back when I was at university. Come to think of it if i'd paid more attention back then we might not be in half the trouble we are in now. Funny how life bites you on the ass when yr least expecting it eh?