Caring Co-Workers

"The best way to realize you're a jerk it to surround yourself with nicer people." - Me

All is normal in the office. My water bottle is halfway full, music is blasting from my macbook into my earphones, and I'm typing away at another post when..."CRASH!" Something, somewhere has fallen. My first and only reaction was laughter. Returning to my world of hydrated and seranaded writing, I can't help but notice EVERYONE leap out of their chairs and rush out of the office. "They really care," I thought which of course makes me realize that I didn't. Well I crashed the kindness party and followed the gang. As it turns out one of the teachers stood atop a wobbly desk to put a box of materials away in an overhead storage closet. Of course gravity ups the anti and sends him and a bundle of binders down to the floor. No one was hurt, but it was still a close call. That sound was not only the audio consequences of clumsiness, it was also possibly the signal of someone in peril. Therefore, I can't believe I laughed. Well...of course I laughed, and to be honest, everyone should have as well. Falls, fumbles, and anything klutzy is pure entertainment. But what I should have done is responded to the scene of the sound. Just laughing and ignoring the situation is cause for membership at the Jerk Club. So I want to personally thank all of my kind Japanese brethren for paving the yellow brick road towards kindness.



Secret Travelers

"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware" - Martin Buber

Japan is an intricately organized society burdened with paperwork but maintained with policies, rules, and red tape. Part of the nation's success is due to its citizens seeing their jobs as more than a paycheck. Biologically speaking, everyone has two parents, a mother and a father. But in Japan, there exists a third, the company you work for.

In the case of teachers, it's very difficult to get away, and very few teachers even come close to using half of their paid vacation leave. Though with the existence of several large travel agencies, such as JTB or HIS, someone is hopping on those planes. But who?

The answer: everyone. When I first aquainted myself with the Japanese workplace, I was dumbfounded when many colleagues had confessed to never leaving the country, let alone a trip to the southern islands of Okinawa. It was only after befriending them did I realize that everyone was lying. While, Japanese people are portrayed as shy, and speak less English than neighboring Asian countries, they love exploring the world, if only for a few days at a time.

Then why do they, especially teachers, work so hard to keep their travel on the downlow? It's simple: they're lazy and want to be left alone, but you can't blame them. As a teacher in Florida, all I had to do was input my requested days on the computer and my vacation time was automatically approved. In Japan, not only does your Vice Principal and Principal have to sign off, but if you're traveling, you need to submit a detailed travel report.

Just like a child going on a camping trip with friends, educated adult employees need to supply precise dates, locations, hotel addresses, phone numbers, and emergency contact information. Perhaps, the true reason for keeping the trip secret deals with the return. For any employee missing work is expected to 'thank their co-workers for picking up the slack while they were gone.' This is done with おみやげ / souvenirs, typically of the edible kind. For the first two years, I loved picking up boxes of cakes from exotic countries for the staff room, and personalized presents for my favorite co-workers. But now in my third year, I've grown tired of the ordeal. With bag limitations, and strict travel budgets, it's sometimes difficult to supply the necessary 'thanks.' This is why one co-worker didn't publicize his relative's wedding in another prefecture, and why another secretly took his family to Europe during winter vacation. It also explains why I need to keep my mouth shut. For instance, I only told two colleagues that I was traveling to China, and then everytime I was at the photocopier, someone would approach me and say, "China!"

Consequently, I can't blame any of my co-workers for not telling anyone about their trips, well except me.

A Winter Walk

"All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking." - Friedrich Nietzsche

When a town drowns in snow, the likely response is to stay at home. While I agree in the power of heat, it's impossible to cage curiosity. So one day the time had come for a walk, a winter walk.

Location: 青森市 (Aomori City)

No one said it was going to be easy!



Snow Leaves





A pedestrian's eye view presents the obscure.





Talk about dedication. I've heard of fair-weathered fans, but these are cold-weathered athletes.



Commemorative Couple Shot

Edible Statistics: McDonaldland Japan

"McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15." - Thomas Friedman

On July 20th, 1971, the first Japanese McDonald's opened in Tokyo. While that's 31 years after the first one opened in San Bernardino, Japan has quickly become 2nd ranking nation with the most McDonald's.

With an estimated 312,072,000 people, the United States accounts for 4.52% of the world's population. With an estimated 31,000 plus locations globally,  America's 13,381 locations account for roughly 43% of the world's McDonald's. In total, the US has one McDonalds per every 23,322 citizens.

While Japan, with a population of 127,370,000, has 3,598 locations. While Japan accounts for only 1.85% of the world's population it has nearly 12% of the world's McDonald's with one per every 35,400 citizens. Even my city of residence 青森市 / Aomori, with an estimated population of 302,068, has 5 locations providing one McDonald's per every 60,413 people. But 青森市 is in the rural Tohoku region. Now factor in Japan's bustling metropolitan areas, and that's a lot of McDonald's to make up for the numbers.

What about the competition? Burger King left in 2001, returned in 2007 and now has a mere 37 locations. America's 3rd fast food burger chain, Wendy's, left Japan in early 2010. Mos Burger, founded just one year after McDonald's landed in Japan, is the nation's 2nd largest fast food chain with an estimated 1327 locations. Consequently, McDonald's has nearly 3 times as many locations as its closest competition.

Of course these numbers don't account for competition, population density, tourists, economic factors, or dietary differences. Surprisingly using statistics alone, you're more likely to find a McDonald's in Canada, than either the US or Japan with one location per every 2,454 people.

Also surprisingly is that South Korea which shares some of Japan's food culture has only 243 locations with one per every 199,592 people. Lotteria, though first founded in Japan in 1972, is Korea's number one fast food chain accounting for 45% of the market.

McDonald's World Locations

*Please note: Crave Cravak, nor craveVSworld claim no responsibility for the contents of this post nor attest to their validity. Please visit wikipedia for their respective world population and McDonald's pages.

Evaluation Station: Reviews Are In Part 1

The first grade students at my high school have put in their two cents regarding my teaching style. Below are some juicy nuggets from their evaluation forms. Laugh at them, use them to guide your own teaching of ESL students, or do both, the choice is yours. Grammatical errors were kept in tact to prove the authenticity of the responses.

"I was surprised at your big voice."

"I learned that it is important not to be shy."

"Please do your best at Canada!"

"Journals were hard for me but they were very useful study."

"I love you. I want you. I need you."

"I think you are a good teacher. Because you are always kind to us and always fine."

"You have a great and big voice!! It is like an alarm clock!"

"I want you to speak more quietly."

"I don't like homework, but I owe what I am to it."

"I understand your mind."

"And I love peanut butter like you. I often eat it with bread for breakfast. It is very dericious."

"I like peanut butter too."

"I love Peanut Butter forever."

"Journal is little hard, but it will be my power."

"Please have self-confidence!"

"It was also fun for me to listen unique phrases in English."

"Your class, team teaching, is difficult. However I sometimes couldn't hearing your English, I can enjoy it. Why? Because you express not only speaking English but also sing and face."

"I get a lot of things from you. But, I am fool boy."

"I learned that there are many ways to express words."

"I like Japanese proverbs, so it's very interesting to study English proverbs."

"Your presentations excited me."

"I love you. You are loved by a lot of students. You are very handsam. You are very cool. I hope you will be happy in the USA. You will be loved in USA. I'll never forget you. I love you."

"By the way, do you have facebook or twitter account?"

Ride that Bus: A Motivational Tale Told With Words

"I missed the bus"

- Kriss Kross

The only thing lower in quality than the items on sale at Wal-Mart are the people shopping there. But I don't mind. It's a big space with plenty of room for B.O. and secretive farts to wander far away from my snobbish nostrils. Now imagine all of those people crammed inside a small rectangular box. Place that box on wheels. Pencil in a door, and lastly install a row of windows so everyone rich enough to own a car can see that you don't. There are lots of kind-hearted, honest, good-looking folk who ride the bus, I've just never seen any.

But that's the bus in America. Now imagine a community of quiet obedient people in respectful clothing (minus the 50 year old in fish net stockings) transporting themselves through the town because there's too much snow on the ground. Welcome to 青森市/Aomori, a city in Japan annually averaging 233 inches of snowfall (compare that to Buffalo's 93.6 inches). Since I don't own a car, bicycling becomes my primary mode of transport. But when those snowflakes launch their attack, I look to my wallet to spring for a taxi or to my feet to traverse the whiteness. In other words, I stay home a lot. 

But being a new year, it's time to make an excuse for change. I thus decreed the time had come to ride the bus. Don't get me wrong, I've ridden a bus before. Talk about a mistake. You can study the kanji characters for as long as you want, but when no bus arrives at the time listed on the schedule, it becomes impossible (for an idiot like me) to know if he should board the next bus. See riding trains in Japan is a breeze. Each one always (99.9%) arrives on time, so one has just to use the departure/arrival times. Buses in Japan are punctual, but in the snowy horizon of Aomori all bets are off. 

Regardless, a cheaper alternative to access downtown was needed. For two years I had been wasting 1800yen ($20) on a taxi ride or trembling for 20 minutes in the cold to the nearest train station. It was worth the walk when the train was only ￥180, but when it increased to ￥250 for a one-way trip, the ￥300 bus seemed the logical choice. 

Thanks to a helpful friend and a fearless girlfriend, I was able to overcome my fear of buses. We began the process with the simple task of learning how and when to get downtown. We walked a mere 50 yards to the nearby Sakuragawa-Rokuchome bustop. Only one line feeds into it, meaning every bus that arrives is the one we want since conveniently they head directly downtown to 青森駅/Aomori Station. 

My Stop

It pains me to think how many times I forked over the cash for a taxi when I could have just hopped on the bus. Looking at the schedule below, it looks easy enough. But I was too scared of all the characters and the mysterious 4th column, which turned out to just state "weekdays" or "weekends/holidays." So once the basic characters were learned, it became second nature.

The Downtown Path

I'm happy to report that I'm riding the bus with ease. I take great pleasure of scaling the stairs in the middle doorway, grabbing my slip of paper, and sitting nervously in the back of the bus (I'm a minority) as I count my coins to make sure I have enough to cover the ever-increasing fare. But this is just to Aomori Station and back. Let's see how long it takes me to navigate myself to the cinema.

Happy bus riding everyone.

Tourist Haven: Nebuta House Warasse

"How does one measure the success of a museum?"

- Paul Getty

Tourist Traps typicaly exist in areas highly trafficked by visitors with time and money at their disposal. So in January, 2011 when Nebuta House Warasse,　Aomori's new Nebuta museum, opened, one could easily give it the aforementioned disctinction. However, despite the arrival of the shinkansen (bullet train), Aomori still remains a city on decline. Besides the first week in August during Nebuta Festival, the mother of all night-time float parades, there's little in the downtown vicinity to stimulate tourists.

Thankfully thanks to the tourist haven of the Nebuta House Warasse, conveniently located footsteps to the north of Aomori Station, people have something besides generic shopping and eating at an izakaya to spend their time and money on.


Nebuta House Warasse

Truth be told, this small museum and hall will never receive recognition from the International Museum Federation (if one existed), but it's the perfect fit for the city of Aomori. The building's red striped exterior adopts a modest yet invoking presence. Inside, designers stuck to a black and white pallete, thus opening up the entryway and interior hallways. As a bonus, while the red strips masked the museum's interior, once inside, one can easily see past the red stripes and peer outside towards the newly opened A-Factory market, the bridge, or the bay.

The Exhibit Midway

The museum itself, open 9am-7pm from May to August and closing at 6pm Stepmeber through April, is a bargain at ￥600 for adults, ￥450 for high school students, and ￥250 for elementary/junior high school students, with slight discounts available to groups of 10 or more.

Nebuta Mask: Inside & Out

The museum exhibits both impressing and a disapointment. The artistic yet technologically advanced design shatteres the stereotype of Aomori as a backwards slumbering farm land. The 'create your own custom Nebuta face' attraction is a can't miss, and since photography is permitted, it'll perfectly fit your facebook profile picture needs.

Crave's Ninja Shadow

The main attraction rests in the Nebuta Hall showcasing a handful of full-sized floats. For Aomori residents who regularly partake in the festival, these floats may be a familar yet un-exciting sight. However, for those visitors who are unable to visit Aomori in August, these floats are pure eye candy.

For those fluent in Japanese, volunteer staff (center) share centuries of stories.

Though with arguably only 3 exhibits, and the hall, Nebuta House Warasse isn't meant to be a day-filler, instead the Nebuta House Warasse is the perfect one to two hour compliment to a quaint afternoon making this museum a success.

Edible Hand Warmers

With average temperatures hovering in the mid-20s (Weather.com), winter in 青森/Aomori is brutal. Luckily one Sunday afternoon I was able to escape the cold by boarding a heated bus. While my body recovered, my hands were so red and numb you'd think I had just administered a TSA pattdown on a snowman. Then to my surprise, a gift was bestowed. Two balls were quickly placed in the palms of my hands. Numbness subsided; warmth restored.

Metallic Spheres of Wondrous Warmth

Each ball had an aluminum foil wrapping and retained a family-sized helping of heat. But what lurked within the shiny silver skin of these heroic hand warmers?

the answer: sweet potato

When the need for heat expires, you aren't stuck with a blob of foil, you're rewarded with a savory morsel of orange-colored food! While in America many grow accustomed to greasy sweet potato fries and baked incarnations attacked by butter, on a winter's day a plain and simple sweet potato is a welcome festival in your mouth!

If you happen to be traveling in 青森市/Aomori City, be sure to make a stop at the green colored stand in front of the 青森駅/train station and for￥200 ($2.41) treat yourself to an edible hand warmer.

PS: Special thanks to Jaewon Yoo for introducing me to this warm and tasty concept!

LINKED UP: JAPANORAMA

My shoes are off (outside the house as well) to writer Steve Levenstein for effectively presenting Japan's onslaunt of quirky technological advances/backslides. Since May 2007, he has been piecing together fun-to-read posts about the latest gadgets and trends from square watermelons to a Steve Jobs action figure.

Pay a visit today to Inventor Spot's Japanese Innovations Writer page for Steve Levenstein and treat yourself to hoards of entertaining reads on mind-boggling junk (treasure).

Fat America: McDonald's Cooks Up Another Round of USA Burgers



They're back! Say hello to the newest batch of juicy quater pound stereotypes!

 Once again, America has invaded Japan. On January 7th, McDonald's rolled out its second wave of 'Big America' themed burgers. Those of you looking to fast track towards cardiac arrest while posing as a stereotypical American can look forward to four customized quarter pound beef patty sandwiches. The Texas2 is the first to debut with Idaho stampeding in late January, Miami swaying over in mid-February, and the Manhatten beeping its way through traffic in mid-March. Keep reading for individual reviews and in the meantime if you're fluent in Japanese head over to the McDonald's Japan official site. To recap the first round of 'Big America' please allow Steve Levenstein to cordially run down 2010's hearty burgers, or read the article in 日本語 (Japanese).