PT: Matsumoto Castle Ice Festival

I couldn't find what I wanted this week, so instead of a thrilling installment about Japanese cars and related blog posts, here's a picture of the beautiful Matsumoto castle. I went there last weekend and witnessed the "ICE FESTIVAL!!" they had there (festival is a bit of a strong word, but it was a nice day trip).

Matsumoto (in Nagano prefecture), like pretty much all cities in Japan, has a lot of events year round. If you're in the area be sure to check out the Matsumoto tourism site to see what's going on.

Update: Here are some more photos of Matsumoto castle and the ice. Click for a bigger picture.

Sending Flowers and Gifts in Japan

So, it's Valentines Day in two weeks, and you haven't thought of a present yet for your special someone(s). Oops!

Don't worry, it's going to be OK. You've still got some time to buy a gift, and today we're even going to show two shopping options you can check out without even brushing your hair and getting dressed.

And it gets even better if you're a guy! In Japan, guys don't usually send Valentines gifts to girls anyway. Valentines is a day when women send stuff (mainly chocolate) to men. Men return the favor with a gift of sweets, flowers, diamonds, cars, houses, etc. a month later, on a Japan-only holiday called White Day.* So, for our male readers, there's a whole six more weeks left to procrastinate!
*White Day, March 14, is technically also observed in China, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Anyway, back to the point: If your special someone(s) is/are far away from you, you can always use a gift service to send a gift when you can't deliver it personally. Here are two great florists who deliver nationwide:

Japangift.net provides full English service for shipping a wide selection of reasonably priced flowers and goods across Japan. They also offer patrons the option of paying for gifts through Paypal, meaning even gift-givers outside of Japan can place an order. The downside of this arrangement is that the gifts you send may cost more or less than normal depending on the exchange rate of the currency of your Paypal account.

Flowerfarm.co.jp is a Japanese-language only service, but they have some of the most conservative prices I've found among delivery florists. Simple arrangements run just under 3000 yen, and more exaggerated arrangements can be tailored to a number of occasions, including birthdays, seasonal events, and condolences. Flowerfarm is primarily intended for gift-givers who are in Japan, because their methods of payment are limited to credit cards (denominated in Yen) and post-pay bills. The post-pay bill service is particularly nice; after your order is placed, a bill is sent to your address, which you take to a convenience store to pay. (However, orders above 10,000 yen must be paid by credit card.)

The trick is, many Japanese people make use of these services, too, so to make sure you can get a gift, you need to order one well in advance. Valentines, White Day, Christmas, etc. are big seasons for florists, and demand habitually exceeds their supply. Finding and reserving your White Day gift now may not be such a bad idea... NHTVZ2CP9UDJ

Worksheet Sunday: 2nd Grade JHS Homestay Letter (New Crown ch8 DIW2)

If you use New Crown, you'll find this on page 77 of NC2.

Otherwise, this is a lesson which teaches the use of "I'm looking forward to..." and "I hope to (see)..."

This activity requires about 20-30 mins prep, several envelopes or containers, and some different colour sheets of paper. It should last about 25 mins from handing out the cards.

Here's what I do:

1. Students are given one hint card at random from each of the various sets (see links below). The sets I most commonly use are character, country, activity, food/drink, month/season, sport; but you can use more or less as you like.
2. Students must then write a letter to their future homestay family/character about what they want to get up to, using the hint cards.
3. The hints are deliberately unrelated. I think it's funny to have "I hope to play golf, eat spaghetti and see Tokyo Tower in Afghanistan" But explain that to your JTE. If they are as old and confused as mine, they may need telling twice. It needs to be relayed properly to the class, too.

If you don't use New Crown, the example e-mail reads like this:

From: Kentaro
Subject: Homestay in March

Dear Mr and Ms Smith,
My name is Fukuda Kentaro. You will be my host family this March. I am happy about this. What is the weather like in your town in March? What can I do to help you on your farm? I hope to see beautiful mountains in New Zealand. I look forward to seeing you soon.
Sincerely yours,
Kentaro

You can get them to simply reword that, or (of course) you can write a better example on the board, taking into account the cards you have chosen to use.

The hint card sets

Here are the sets I use (will open in Google Documents and may not look right. Save and open in MS Word and they should be fine):

• Characters
• Countries
• Dates
• Sports
• Food/drink
• Sights

And you may want to use:

• Family
• Blank sheet

It's best to print/copy these onto different coloured papers (much, much easier for re-sorting at the end of class). Give each student one card out of each set (give them out to each row of students, don't let them take their own out of the envelope. The JTE I was team teaching with did that and it took longer for her to give out one set that it did for me to give out five.)

As always, feel free to use this in any way you want, but please don't redistribute.

Job Spotlight: Kanuma City ALT Position

Kanuma City in Tochigi Prefecture is currently accepting applications for an ALT Position. This is an elementary-level position with remuneration comparable to JET, and it is open to people who are not currently living in the Kanuma area but are willing to relocate there. The deadline on this one is coming up fast, so if you're interested, take a look below then get cracking!

Application Deadline: Feb. 7, 2011

The official notice is available at the Kanuma City homepage. The links at the bottom of the page expand on the listing, including an English explanation and application form. (The English explanation lets out crucial details, like salary, that the Japanese explanation politely avoids.)

Job Title: 外国語指導助手 (Assistant Language Teacher)
Number of Positions: 1
Type: 12-month contract, beginning April 1, 2011
Qualifications: Born in a country that uses English as its primary language. At least a Bachelor's Degree. Experience teaching English at a school in Japan or TEFL/TESOL certificaiton. Conversational Japanese ability (enough to handle daily communication and lesson planning with school faculty). Interest in Japan. Living in Kanuma City or intent to live in Kanuma City. Able to commute to any location in the city. Ability to maintain own lifestyle in Japan without any serious impairment.
Duties: Standard ALT job, spread across 4 elementary schools.
Working Hours: 8:15 - 16:00, Monday to Friday.
Remuneration: Monthly, 300,000 yen. If you choose to live in their provided apartment, they will pay half of its rent.
Insurance: Shakai hoken. (健康保険、厚生年金保険、雇用保険, Enrollment is mandatory.)

Application Deadline: Feb. 7, 2011
To apply, send in their application form, filled out, a copy of your passport (including your current landing permit), a copy of your Alien Registration Card, a copy of your diploma, and a recommendation from a previous employer, if possible.

Applications may be delivered by hand to the Kanuma City Board of Education (located at City Hall, on the second floor of the East building). Or they may be mailed to:

School Education Division
Kanuma Board of Education 
1688-1 Imamiya-cho
Kanuma City, Tochigi Prefecture 322-8601

Interview: Applicants will be informed of interview time and place if shortlisted.

The interview will include a mock class demonstration.

Job Spotlight: Maebashi City ALT Position

'Tis the season for hiring, in the world of April-start contract jobs, anyway. We got a heads up today on an ALT position in Maebashi City, Gunma Prefecture. Unfortunately, the deadline for the job is today. However, the package on this one is pretty nice: Maebashi might be worth looking into next year if you're in the market.


Application Deadline: Jan. 27, 2011

Info is on the Maebashi City Homepage.
The details are:


Job Title: 外国語指導助手 (Assistant Language Teacher)
Number of Positions: 16
Type: 12-month contract employee
Qualifications: Bachelor's degree. 1 year ALT experience. A native speaker of English, person from a country where English is spoken as a common language, or TEFL/TESOL certificate holder. Conversational Japanese ability. Located near Maebashi City and able to commute. Valid working visa.
Duties: Standard ALT job in junior high or high school, with potential visits to elementary schools or kindergartens. Assist in summer school courses for junior high students.
Working Hours: 8:30 - 16:15, Monday to Friday. (8:45 - 16:30 in case of elementary school).
Remuneration: Monthly, 300,000 yen. Some travel expenses reimbursed if commuting by automobile or public transportation.

Application Deadline: Jan. 27, 2011
Application requires direct submission of:

•  a resume
• copy of diploma
• copy of passport
• copy of Alien Registration Card
• health report issued by a hospital (健康診断書)
• copy of TEFL/TESOL certification (if not a native speaker/from a country using English)
• a self-addressed, stamped envelope (80 yen stamp)

to the Maebashi City BoE. Applicants are briefly interviewed on submission of application.


---


Sorry to not get the word on this job sooner; it made for an unusual Thursday post from us.
It would be difficult to apply in time today, but again, this looks like a good one to keep in mind for future opportunities. The salary is on par with JET, and this listing may indicate a recent move by Maebashi City away from the JET Program in favor of annual direct hires.


Anyway, stay tuned for more Job Spotlight goodies throughout the upcoming week!

Driving Test Tips: Checklist when Entering and Exiting Car

The driving test starts from the moment the proctor calls your name. The proctor will be watching your actions before you get in the car and after you get out, all the way up to the moment you walk back inside the building. Here is a checklist of things to do outside of the actual driving component:

• As you walk towards the car, you may have to cross a street or another parking area. Show that you're a safe pedestrian and aware of your surroundings by glancing around for oncoming traffic before walking over to the car.
• Before getting into the car, some proctors like you to check around the car for obstructions. Take a quick walk around the car and inspect it, and bend or crouch down to check under the front and rear of the vehicle.
• After sitting down in the driver's seat, you need to, at the bare minimum, check your mirrors, seat position, and seatbelt. There's a lot of stuff to remember in the driving test, and it can be a nerve-wracking experience, but these three are absolutely imperitive. Touch the mirrors and the seat handles even if you don't think they need it. I used a simple mnemonic device and repeated the three letters "SMB" to myself when I got in the car: Seat, Mirrors, Belt.
• When closing the door, don't swing it wide and slam it shut. Bring the door within about 10 centimeters of the frame of the car and give it a quick jerk to close the door from that distance. It's considered proper car etiquette in Japan.
• Lock the door after you get in the car. Not all proctors watch for this, but it is taught to Japanese people in Japanese driving schools, so it's a nice touch to add to your own test routine.
• Starting the car: When starting the engine, put on the foot brake, then the clutch, shift into neutral, then turn the key.
• With the car started, use mirrors and turn your head to check your surroundings. Flip on the turn signal in the direction you're pulling away from the curb in, double check over your shoulder, then finally remove the emergency brake.
• Turning off the car goes in reverse order of starting the car: Stop with the brake, engage the emergency brake, put the car into park (automatics) or reverse (manuals--you may need to disengage then reengage the clutch to get the shifter to slide into reverse), turn the key, remove your foot from the clutch, then finally remove your foot from the brake.
• When exiting the vehicle at the end of the test, first check your mirrors and over your shoulder for oncoming traffic. Open the door but don't immediately swing it open. This little door "pop" is supposed to act as a signal to anyone behind the car that you're about to swing the door open. Once you've thoroughly checked for oncoming vehicles, it's safe to open the door and exit the vehicle.

PT: Japanese Beer

Will any of these not give you diarrhea? Think of it as a challenge.

I've been wanting to write about the massive variety of Japanese beers for a long time, but never found the time. Don't get excited, because I still haven't. However, I came across this interesting article about Japanese home-brewing of beer, and thought you, dear reader, might be interested. In fact, the whole of the Beer in Japan website may interest you - it has all kinds of information about breweries, bars, brands and other things beginning with b.

Do you like Japanese beer? Tell us your favourite varieties in the comments.

Being an ALT #5: Getting Drunk on Duty (The Enkai)

All the drunken work party antics you've seen in Japanese TV shows and movies are true. The enkai in Japan is a sacred event where work colleagues get completely hammered as a semi-compulsory part of the job.

On special days, like big sports-events or opening/closing-ceremonies at school, you'll be invited to join the majority of your co-workers for an enormous meal and massive piss-up. Also, when a colleague gets married, or occasionally when they have a child, win the lottery, etc., be prepared to give your liver a bashing.

It won't be cheap, but if you treat it right it will be the gift that keeps on giving. It can also be a quite surreal experience.

First, beware the price. At my school, we have enkais at the start and close of each term, on sports-day, on faculty sports-day, and on PTA day. Then there are other exclusive enkais, like Maths department enkais or second grade teacher enkais, which are sprinkled randomly throughout the year. The average cost of each of those is 5,000 to 6,000 yen. Smaller-scale ones might cost a bit less, and PTA enkais can be catered affairs on school grounds, bringing the cost down to around 2,000 yen.

The enkai itself includes lots of rambling speeches, each teacher trying to outshine the last with golf-clap-caliber humor. One speech, usually given by the vice principal (教頭先生) will kick off the party, and once people are drunk enough, a proper speech session for everyone will begin. Different people talk depending on the event, like retiring or transferring teachers at the end of the year and new teachers at the beginning of the year. Or, for example, school festival enkais incorporate as special guests the old teachers who transfered away last year. These speeches can go on for bloody ages. At the start of this school year, my school had 9 or 10 new teachers and the speeches in total went on for more than an hour. It wasn't too bad, because more food kept coming to the table during this time, but it was a bit awkward when the new and very drunk office boy could barely stay standing through his 10+ minute introduction (which he had decided to do standing on his chair).

The food will vary from workplace to workplace. At my school, organisers like to put things together the old-fashioned way, meaning a traditional Japanese, sit-on-the-floor banquet. These entail about six small dishes of various Japanesey things, like raw mushrooms in cold water, leaf tempura, koi sashimi, eighty-four types of tofu, and sixty-eight views of Mt. Fuji. Some of it is delicious, some edible, and some a gift for the guy next to you.

The drink is an unending stream of happiness, poured not by yourself, but by the person sitting next to you, or by the person crawling around the table with a bottle in hand pouring beer shots while bowing profusely. Beer is usually the only option (unless the high-roller principal has called for a bottle of the establishment's finest sake), and said beer is usually a lower-end brand name like the bowel-loosening Asahi Super-Dry or Kirin's best-effort rival brew. If a sake bottle shows up, Mr. Principal is probably going to call you over, being the token foreigner, and you'll end up drinking it even after promising yourself you wouldn't this time. Of course, getting wasted isn't obligatory. You can be an いい子 and drink oolong tea instead. This is where the tradition of filling other people's glass gets a bit silly: Having your beer topped up by excited co-workers is great, but being forced to glug down 2 litres of oolong tea an hour for three hours waterlogs anyone's stomach.

The aftermath of the enkai is you stumbling out of the building after mumbling your way through the school song (or company dance or whatever convey's your workplace's spirit) and the big banzai, only to discover it's still light outside and children are playing in the park.

And then... beware of the afterparty. This is where things and people can get messy. Usually teachers will divide into grade-groups and go to different izakayas around town where they will somehow find space for more food and a lot more alcohol. Treat these invitations with caution. After the afterparty, most of your male coworkers will go find a flowerbed to sleep in (the female coworkers will either be remarkably sober or have been asleep at the table for hours). You will go home to your totally sober girlfriend feeling like you've been hit by a train, but trying to retain your swauve debonaire persona.

And the worst part is that all more often than not happens on a weekday!

But anyway, it's all in good fun, and not going to an enkai you've been invited to is a faux pas. Miss a few, and feel the camaraderie you used to feel at work slip through your fingers.

For me, the most bizarre thing about school enkais is that I suddenly find myself sitting among dozens of new alcoholic friends who develop a passable ability to speak English. They'll talk happily all night about being my younger- or older-brother (whichever is least appropriate), how tall I am, and how massive my penis must be. Then after the party's over they'll never speak to me again until the next enkai. Are they ashamed? Can they not remember our solemn friendship pact unless they get drunk again? The whole thing is a mystery.


That's it!

Any reader-stories in the comments please.

See you again!

Being an ALT series: 

Part #1: Teaching English in Japan 

Part #2: Your Role

Part #3: A Typical Day

Part #4: Planning Classes 

Part #5: Getting Drunk on Duty (the Enkai) 

Part #6: 4 Japanese Teachers You May Have to Work With

Part #7: Physical Resources

Part #8: Making Activities

Part #9: Hopping Between Schools

Part #10: More School Hopping

Part #11: Getting Molested At School

Part #12: It Is Really This Easy?

Part #13: Brushing Your Teeth At School

Worksheet Sunday: Movie Clips

Occasionally, a quote from an old favorite movie will come to my mind when I'm trying to decide how to present a new grammar point in class.

I mean, we've already seen how drab some textbook examples can be. Why not dump all those examples about Kumi's pencils and learn the comparative forms through clips from Braveheart ("That can't be William Wallace! I'm prettier than this man!") and Spaceballs ("I see your Schwartz is as big as mine!")?


But, before you jump in to using media in the classroom, it's a good idea to at least familiarize yourself with etiquette regarding copyrighted material in the classroom. UnderstandMedia makes some good general recommendations about fair use of media, concluding that using movie clips to make a point in the classroom falls under fair use. That's great, because it's exactly what this article is about: Finding an interesting clip you can use to show your students "real" English. (Incidentally, letting your first graders watch Aladin 2 in segments over a week of classes because you are too lazy/forgot to prepare actual lessons does not fall under fair use.)

The tools to find the text of your funny quote aren't groundbreaking. The best quotes are going to be the ones that pop into your mind when checking out next week's grammar lesson, not the ones that you forcibly scour out of the Internet from obscure movies. Google will obviously help you track down your estimations of quotes, or check out IMDB's search function, which allows you to search exclusively for movie quotes as cataloged by site users.

Getting visuals for your quote is the harder part. You can take in a copy of the whole movie, but that takes time to cue up in class, especially if you're working from a DVD player. If you have the whole video copied over in another format, such as DivX or XviD, there are many editing tools to cut down the video. However, I find that even simple edits like cropping can quickly eat up a lot of time. You may be better off cuing up the clip from a full copy of the film before class, especially if you only plan to use it once.

Or, of course it's possible to find some clips on Youtube. Youtube clips come in an obnoxious Flash video format (.flv) which can be hard to edit. I found some success with RichFLV when parsing two .flv files together. But, cropping just a few seconds out of a longer clip seems to cause problems with audio and video desync. Converting the .flv to another format is also possible, but that can cause audio-video desync as well.

So, there's two duds of suggestions that you could have probably figured out yourself. But, here's the part where we introduce something not everyone already knows about. :)

MovieClips is a great site that does a lot of this tedious locating and cropping work for you. Simply type in the title of a movie, and it spits back specific, memorable scenes from that movie. The library isn't comprehensive, but the clips that are available are edited down to perfect 2-to-3-minute snippets for classroom examples. And better yet, it's free and clear of that "free use" grey area surrounding movie clips. (You may not care, but it'll put your supervisors' minds at ease.)

Finally, a word on displaying the clip in class: Japanese classrooms are starting to get more techy, despite plenty of teachers that don't know how/just don't use the new tools. Depending on your city, it may be standard for public school classrooms to have a DVD player or TV with PC hookups. Visiting a tiny junior high school in the mountains last year, I noticed even it had flatscreen TVs with USB-to-HDMI converter boxes for each classroom, which would I think be the ideal setup for showing movie clips: Cue up your PC before class, walk in two or three minutes before the starting bell, hook up to the TV, and have the clip ready for whenever you need it.

(If you don't know what your school has available, ask! Public initiatives send all kinds of crap into schools with tax money; a lot of it perplexes the ever-changing staff of Japanese schools and just never gets used. I've discovered digital whiteboards and still-wrapped CDs of English sing-a-longs stashed away in language labs just by asking the administration what was available to work with.)

So, there it is! If you have any other tricks you use when finding and playing media in class, we'd love to hear them. Comment below!

The 4 Stupidest Characters in the New Crown Textbooks

My new hobby is picking numbers out of thin air and getting angry about them (see my 5 most annoying pages and 3 appalling stories from New Crown), so here are the 4 stupidest characters in the New Crown textbooks.

I've had just about all I can take of this awful cast. Praise the lord I haven't been subjected to the CD version of these total puppets yet.

Anyway, whatever, here they are, and apologies in advance for my anger.

Paul Green

"I know, right?!"

Future acne-scarred, Bill S Preston look-a-like, Iraq war apologist, jock Paul is my first figure of hate. His douchey blonde-haired stereotype is straight out of Home Improvement or 90210 and scrapes a toothbrush hard against my gag reflex. What's in your bag Paul? Is it something stereotypical? Oh, an American football! I was expecting, I dunno, a gun and 2 kilos of coke? You cracker bitch.

"To the douche-mobile!"

His brief appearance in NC3 is only embarrassing, but at least he found out how to use the Internet. Let's just hope his child-grooming father knows how to work the parental lock. Unlikely. I bet the only kanji they know between them is 休 and 友達, thanks to Ms. Sasaki and Poor Kumi.

I don't know what happened to Paul when he came to Japan. At least, I presume he wasn't born here, otherwise he'd be playing down his American-ness somehow, right? And maybe he wouldn't dream so hard about playing American Football with black guys (not going to happen). But anyway, his first appearances in NC1 are pretty butch. He looks like he's been doing some lifting and bench presses. Turn the clock forward two years and he's just another tender-hearted featherweight. Fast forward to the teary-eyed walkaway at the end of Chapter 8 and he's even put on a bit of weight. Whatever, forget Paul.

Ratna
Matted-haired, suspiciously-stinky Ratna and her Special-Olympics-clap-along to every goddamn thing in the book deserve no more mention than this, if only because she has nothing to talk about except the fact that she's from India.


Poor Kumi
And then there's Poor Kumi. Clearly just trying to make friends and be nice, she annoys the living hell out of me. My only moment of comfort is when she openly wets herself on the opening pages of NC1.

Ta-daa!

Her ferociously annoying chirpiness grates against everything I stand for. "Oh, a kite! That's nice!" "I have a tennis ball!!!!!" "This is my rainbow coloured knitted jumper!!" "Do you want a break?" God, yes...

The only respite from her awful kid's TV personality is at the end of NC3 when she's clearly grown into a fine figure of womanhood. She and her friends walk off misty-eyed together across a map of the world and you just know she cried at graduation. The best part is: I bet no one ever calls her. All her "friends" leave her to stew in the psychological crash that surely follows her entry into Best High School in the Region. She descends into a deep, dark depression eventually chronicled in minute detail by Natsuo Kirino, the fruit of whose labor gains a steady cult following.

Take that, keener. Keen bean. Try hard. Twat.

Wang Ming or Ming Wang or Wing Mang or whatever he is

I hate to even get started on Wang Ming; the obscenely dull Chinese kid who thinks "Wonder Rings" are some genius invention which defy all logic, rather than the most pathetic opening to any textbook in the history of government-supported education. Someone definitely isn't from the big city. How many more times must I slog through painful classes where the JTE forces the children to actually follow Ming's instructions and make those terrible attempts at magic?

Kumi :  Just a minute. Wonderful!

YEAH THANKS A LOT KUMI.

Things go from bad to worse for Wang, or Ming, or whatever we're supposed to call him; in NC1, he desperately needs the toilet but can't find it. It's behind you, moron. The writers give him one more chance to prove himself with a cultural insight into China in NC3, and the best he can come up with is the Great Wall. Yeah, great, but what have you done lately?

All of this helps to explain why he only manages to be on one page in NC2, and even that was only because Poor Kumi felt sorry for him.

No-one wants to hug you.

And god-dammit that's the end of this stupid blog and I hope you all hate it!!!

..sorry :(

Oh... hi guys. These are my, uh, friends.

Chuunanshin Driver's License Center (Shiojiri) Driving Course Map

As of October 2010, this is a map of the current driving test at the 中南信運転免許センター (Chuunanshin Driver's License Center) in Shiojiri for people who are converting their foreign license into a Japanese one. Click on the image for a full-sized view, and read on for tips about the Shiojiri test.

Shiojiri's test is, from what I understand, pretty well in line with tests at other centers. But, you may find maps for your specific driving center in the AJET Driving Book or on a local foreigner mailing list.

With that said, here are some specifics about the Shiojiri test:

• At the starting line, make sure you are correctly prepared to drive.
• Signal right, pull away from the curb and up to the diagnol white starting line, then signal left again as you enter the real course.
• Remember to drive in the correct part of the correct lane.
• Shiojiri's outer ring has an interesting setup: There are two full-sized lanes for traffic moving clockwise, and only one lane for traffic moving counter-clockwise around the course. In principle, unless passing someone or making a right-hand turn, you want to be in the left-most lane while traveling clockwise.
• You don't need to signal while turning along the outer ring of the course, and you don't need to stop at the crosswalk on the left side of this image.
• At number 36 is a tall hedge around which you can't see. Ease yourself gradually through this turn.
• At number 34 is the stoplight. Stop behind the white line and dart your head around the intersection to show you're aware of what's going on.
• Coming out at number 30, you'll almost immediately be turning right again at number 31. So, instead of using the left-most lane, use the right-most lane for your traffic direction (in other words, the middle lane of the 3 going around the outer ring).
• When you leave the crank at number 29, you'll be turning left. This means you have to be especially careful about not hitting your back left tire against the curb as you exit the crank area.
• At the roundabout driving past numbers 21, 19, and 20, stay as tight as you can to the inside curb. There is a stop sign at number 19, so be sure to come to a full stop (count 1, 2, 3 under your breath) before the white line.
• When coming out at number 1, turn into the far left-lane. It's legal in Japan and saves you an awkward lane-change step later on.
• On your final run around the ring, you'll be asked to speed up to 60 kph.
• When turning back into the parking area, treat the turn like any other intersection: Take it slow and look around.
• Keep the car close to the curb and pull up within about 10 centimeters of the marker pole on your left side.

PT: Robots

To celebrate (or rather commemorate) the giant Gundam being removed from Shizuoka (see this couple's blog for details), here's a repost of my old plamodel decorated toilet. See closeups of all the awesome robots on my original blog.