Matthew Toy – Adventures around the world

My Experiences in Japan / 日本での私の経験

On October 26, 2018

So here I am, about a month after having returned to London, reflecting back on my experience in Japan. The most common question I’ve had from friends is “was it worth it?” or “did you learn what you wanted to learn?” and the answer to both is a resounding yes. However it isn’t as simple as that, as there are many layers to the question which need to be unpacked a little.

The first layer is understanding what it is that I went off to Japan to learn in the first place. Of course there is the obvious “Japanese Language” side of things, but there is much more to it than that. The real learning I was hoping to take away was about myself. And if you want to learn about yourself, one of the best ways is to teach others. Which thanks to Phil’s company I was able to do exactly that with a bunch of middle school kids over 6 days of English language camps!

Class photo!

The camp is worth a whole post by itself, but the takeaway is how teaching kids made me feel about myself and reflect on what I enjoy doing professionally. It allowed me to understand what I value (honesty, enthusiasm, progress) in a much more immersive way than a work environment would. I’ll definitely be taking this into my next role and it has helped me mature bit more as an individual.

Alongside teaching, there were many other examples of “bonus” learning opportunities I was able to take away from the experience. One key aspect was taking myself out of a familiar environment and getting the mental/physical space to learn and reflect. That alone was worth the proverbial price of admission.

The next layer is about “what” it is I did. While it is obvious to some, but not always to me, it isn’t the destination that matters so much, but who you spend it with and the attitude you take with you. I enjoy spending time by myself (quite a lot) but all my most enjoyable experiences are with friends and family. It isn’t just quality though, it is quantity too. People can help you overcome natural inertia (read: laziness) to get out there and do more. In fact, when Julie came to visit for a week, we crammed in more stuff than I did in the previous months!

Fun and hi-jinks!

Also, being in the right mindset (a positive one), I was able to value those times much more and care a little bit less about the latest distracting “must-own-thing”. But it is easily forgotten and I have to remind myself often to focus on new experiences with loved ones and less on new, shiny, technology…

There is a lot more I was able to get from my travels, but that’s about my limit for for self reflection today. I think I need to do a round up of all the beers I forgot to mention in a new post…

Nanzoin Temple / 南蔵院

By Matthew

On July 1, 2018

In Fukuoka, Japan, Temples, Travel

With Julie’s visit this week, I have been very busy doing all sorts of fun tourist type activities! One of the best trips we did was heading off to Nanzoin Temple, which features The Reclining Buddha (more on this later).

Rather than bore you with lots of hyper-descriptive prose, I think a visual tour would be much more fun. So let’s get started!

Getting there was pretty easy, just a 30 minute train ride from Hakata station. Once we got off the train and started trekking up towards the temple grounds, we found this family of turtles with their own mini-shrine. They were kind enough to let me take way too many photos as I over-enthusiastically snapped shots from various exciting angles.

Look who came to greet us!

Clearly turtles weren’t the only photogenic fauna around, as this rather large dragonfly posed long enough for me to get a fairly zoomed in photo.

Posed for the photo and flew off as soon as I was done…

One of the first statues to be seen was of this chap with his flames and sword. We originally thought he was some bad guy, but Julie did some research and we discovered he is actually Fudoumyouou who is a Buddhist deity who protects worshippers from harm.

Later learnt this angry looking guy is a protective deity

As we spotted more of the classic Buddha style statues, we noticed they were usually wearing some sort of clothing, be that a hat, a cardigan or the like. It turns out the reason behind this is fairly involved, so check out this post for details.

Lots of little statues, all wearing the cutest clothes

After a bit more walking, we finally made our way to the star attraction, The Reclining Buddha himself! I must say, the statue really is impressive and quite something else to behold. He is the world’s largest bronze statue and is the same size as the Statue of Liberty. He is so large I had to use the panorama mode of the phone to get him fully in the frame.

Even more impressive in person…

You can walk around to his feet and I think the following image really gives you a good idea of the scale of the statue…

Buddha foot with Julie touching the thousand spoke wheel symbol

Once we had seen the Buddha and enjoyed some well timed ice-creams, it was time for some exploring!

The path upwards…

After following a (very steep) trail up and out of the temple grounds, we found ourselves in some beautiful back-country, surrounded by bamboo forest. I love the sound they make as they rustle in the breeze. It was truly a magical part of the day for me.

I love bamboo forests

From the trail, we were able to visit a number of smaller temples and shrines. At one temple, we even had the Buddhist monk come out and offer us watermelon to eat! It was unexpected and very much appreciated on a very warm day. We ventured on each time and were treated to some great views through the trees.

Fabulous views over the countryside

As we wound our way back down the mountain towards the station again, we found many more statues, but the following set were really quite something else. Such a riot of colour and clothing on each of the little stone statues!

Someone likes playing dress up…

Here you can see some up close… adorable!

So dang cute…

Overall it was a brilliant day and even the photos can’t do justice to the adventure we had. If you ever get a chance, I’d highly recommend a visit!

Japanese Calligraphy / 書道

By Matthew

On June 10, 2018

In Fukuoka, Japan, Learning, Student Life

This weekend I had an opportunity to try out Japanese calligraphy at an event put on by the Fukuoka International Student Support Centre (FiSSC). Calligraphy isn’t something I’d normally be very excited about, but I’m a sucker for trying anything new so I thought I’d give it a bash anyway. It also helped that my friend Sora was coming with me, who always ready to help me avoid doing anything (too) embarrassing.

Japanese calligraphy (shodou/書道) is an art form for writing Japanese Kanji (Chinese characters) using a brush and ink that is taught to all Japanese students in primary school, but it is rarely used after that. As such the event had a good mix of Japanese and non-Japanese people attending, with quite the range of skills on display, from very basic through to really artful. The sensei (teacher) for the lesson was truly an artist and was able to create evocative works with little apparent effort. Practice definitely makes perfect.

We were given our instructions, ink, brush and a stack of paper to practise with, after which we were told to get on with practising! My own works were somewhat less than perfect, but I learnt a trick or two over the period and I really felt that I’d improved at least a little bit over the duration of the class.

The sensei watches on as a student tries to do “光” or “light”

I’m glad I did manage to improve a little as I was “asked” to try out writing a kanji out on one of the larger sheets (the joys of being very-obviously-foreign). I choose the character for “joy” or “喜” as it is simple and represents something I think we could all do with a little more of in our lives. The end result was middle of the road enough to neither attract laughter nor praise. Phew, embarrassment avoided!

My “masterpiece”. On the left is my name in katakana – マシュートイ

My own experiments aside, the work produced by masters of the art truly is something else though. I’m impressed that so much feeling and emotion can be conveyed through a simple black and white medium.

All said, I had a lot of fun and learnt the basics of a new skill. Not a bad result for a Saturday afternoon!

My other creations. One of them isn’t a real kanji, can you guess which one? 🙂

With Friends / 友達と

By Matthew

On June 7, 2018

In Dining, Entertainment, Fukuoka, Japan

The past few weeks have been a social whirlwind and I’ve had an opportunity to try out all sorts of new and interesting activities . I’ll make sure I do a proper set of updates, but this time I’d like to briefly tell you about an adventure into Thai cuisine.

As a bit of background, there is a regular “language lounge”, where we swap English and Japanese practice with learners from both languages, which is really good fun. I get to meet all sorts of awesome people and learn about Japanese language and culture from them. After one particular lounge a group of 6 of us decided to head off to grab some dinner, opting to try out a Thai restaurant in Tenjin.

All smiles 🙂

This was the first time I’ve tried Thai food while in Japan and I have to say, I found it more “authentic” than what you would normally get in London. Not sure why I think it is more authentic, apart from it not feeling particularly Western in its flavours and presentation. That aside, the food itself was really tasty! Lots of spice though, so those with a sensitive tongue will need to be extra careful.

I feel that this style of setting makes it really easy to communicate effectively with people. The casual atmosphere allows you to relax and banter back and forth, using a mix of both native and learnt languages. I really enjoy being able to try out new words, expressions and such without anyone to judge you on technical performance. In fact the only real judge is whether you are able to effectively get your ideas across to the people you are talking to (eventually).

I made a commitment to use my time in Japan as effectively as possible and I’m super happy I’ve managed to get into more of this style activity, in addition to the classroom education and personal study.

Views of Fukuoka / 福岡の景色

By Matthew

On May 20, 2018

In Fukuoka, Japan, Nature, Running

One of the things many locals of Fukuoka like about their city is that it has all of the city conveniences but also, not too far away, it has lots of nature and scenery. I haven’t had an opportunity yet to venture outside of the city properly (something I intend to remedy shortly) but I have found many lovely places while out running.

My favourite so far has to be Heiwaminami Ryokuchi Park (say that 3 times quickly) which is only a few kilometre jog from my apartment. Not only is it 100% trails with wonderful green foliage, but it is super-duper undulating. This means I can get all the hill training I could possibly want, all in one handy-dandy park!

Let’s take a quick photo tour…

Heiwaminami Ryokuchi Park

Photos never do justice to how steep a trail really is. But this was super steep, honest!Â That aside, I love how green and verdant everything looks. Cannot get enough of this sort of trail.

Peeking out through the trees

Most of the views are obstructed by all the beautiful green foliage I was just mentioning, but occasionally you can peek out and see the city below.

View from the observation tower

One unique aspect of the park is the tower you can walk up to get 360 degree views of Fukuoka.

Cemeteries get all the best views

Right next to the park is a large cemetery. Japanese culture includes a lot of respect for the dead, so you can just imagine how this is both immaculately maintained and presented.

I’m a sucker for attractive looking clouds…

On the way back from the park now, waiting at an intersection. Not too much exciting happening, but I do like how the building in front is telling me something is “Good” with a solid thumbs up included. Thank you random building, things are indeed “Good”.

Filled with fishies!

What you can’t see very well in this final photo is all the fishies in the canal. The water is very clear, so you can see all the big buggers and little guys all swimming around.

Beer Review Round-up / ビールレビューまとめ

By Matthew

On May 8, 2018

In Japan, Kirin, Reviews, Suntory, Yahho Brewing

I thought it about time to do a round-up of the various beers I’ve tried over the past few weeks. I must admit to quite enjoying this series, as I really don’t know what to expect with each drink I try.

To start things off, we have two beers which are from the same brewery. Yaho Brewing is proving to be an excellent source of tasty beers, I must say. The first one shares the same name with the very enjoyable “A beer for you and me” that I got not long after arriving. Whether it is actually the same beer is up for debate, but it shares the funky looking frog motif and is equally tasty. Really enjoyed this one, it is equal parts easy drinking, smoothness and tasty flavour.

If you see this frog on a beer, it is likely to be a tasty

The second from this brewery is the Yona Yona Ale. Not much to say apart from it being a very solid and enjoyable pale ale. They are nearly double the price of their cheapest rivals (~£1.80 to 90p) but totally worth the extra spend in my books.

From Suntory we have 金麦 or “Gold Wheat” beer. Apart from really liking the design of the can itself, there isn’t a lot I can write about this middle-of-the-road beer. Nothing wrong with it, nothing all that right. In a word: Inoffensive.

Speaking of refreshing looking can designs, next we have a Lemon Beer from Grand Kirin. The name is something like ひこうき雲と私 or literally “the aeroplane cloud and me”. I imagine it loses something in the translation.

On the beer itself, I found that the lemon flavour is there, but it is quite muted.Not a bad idea, I like the idea of a refreshing summer beer, but I don’t think this is it for me. Overall, it wasn’t too bad really, decently drinkable, but doesn’t really commit to the concept – it isn’t beery enough and not lemony enough either.

Was expecting something, but not quite this

The Suntory Beer Recipe (a blueberry flavoured beer) wasn’t ever going to be great, but I at least thought it would be interesting. It does have a bit of a fruity flavour, but it was underwhelming and left me wishing for something more exciting.

Similar to the lemon beer above, it just doesn’t commit to the concept to make it worth not having a less weird and better tasting normal beer.

Finally, I had much higher hopes for this Kirin “Prime Brew” beer, but sadly it left me thinking… “Meh, okay”. It was drinkable and if pushed I could have a few, but it really wasn’t a “prime” anything and left me wanting for something more flavoursome.

My adventure continues…

Hong Kong / 香港

By Matthew

On May 7, 2018

In Travel

I just got back from a short holiday in Hong Kong with Jules. Since I’m not really into cities these days, we thought that rather than focus on the city itself, we decided to spend our time seeing the natural/cultural attractions that surround the city proper.

The weather on each day was on the warm side (26-30 degrees) which I’m to understand isn’t too bad in Hong Kong terms. I found it really enjoyable and managed to avoid sunburn, heatstroke or other ailments for the duration.

Our first day was on Lantau and involved a very scenic cable car up to the Ngong Ping to see the Big Buddha there. The Buddha statue was indeed very big and quite impressive!

One very large Buddha

We also took an opportunity to walk along the Wisdom Path while there and see the prayer monuments set up there. The natural beauty of the area and the Buddhist religious aesthetic created a really relaxing and enjoyable vibe for the day.

Getting our wisdom upgraded

The next day we went over to Hong Kong island and took a tram up to Victoria Peak. It was a bit of a hazy day, so the view was only moderately amazing, but we made the most of it with a walk around various trails on the mountain. My Garmin reported over 100 floors worth of climbing that day, which ‘aint too shabby at all.

View from Victoria Peak

We also hit up the Botanical Gardens while we were on the island, which was a quiet respite from the cars and people. At one point we found some really neat looking critters in a greenhouse which I just had to snap a photo of!

Wascally Wabbit

The final full day was a 40 minute ferry ride out to Cheung Chau island. It had a very different vibe to the rest of Hong Kong, with a strong feeling of remoteness from the hustle and bustle of the city.

Colourful boats lined up at the port

We spent the day wandering about, seeing a Pirate Cave, the Mini-Great Wall, along with various beaches, lookouts and temples. All with the added bonus of me not getting violently ill from the ferry! Win!

The final day was spent recovering while wandering around a gigantic mega-shopping-complex, generally relaxing and counting how many shops had “London” in their name in relation to “Paris”, “Tokyo” and “New York” (spoiler alert: London won, who knew it was considered cool by people?).

I really enjoyed the trip and it was super awesome to spend the time with Jules as well!

Now I’m back in Fukuoka and need to get back into a studying mind set again…

Japanese Studies Update / 日本語の勉強の最新情報

By Matthew

On April 28, 2018

In GenkiJACS, Japan, Learning, Student Life, Study

Time for a quick study update! It has been 4 weeks since I arrived and how have things progressed thus far? Well, it’s complicated. As I expected, everything was all very challenging and a bit overwhelming at first. Coming into a new class that was half way through a course was difficult, but it was the lack of a solid foundation and effective study tools that really tripped me up.

When I was doing self study, I could do things at my own pace and skip through things that were uninteresting or too difficult at the time. However this leaves gaps in your knowledge and will come back to haunt you later, such as when that point you skipped becomes the basis of a more advanced point of grammar. So unless one has an iron discipline (that doesn’t sound like me) then you end up building a proverbial house with bricks missing in random places. As you can imagine, this past month has seen me making a lot of bricks!

In my work as a technologist, I’ve found very few situations where wrote memorisation is very useful. With technology changing continuously, it is more efficient to get a grasp of the principles and fudge your way through with the knowledge that everything will be different in 2 years anyway. However while it might be possible to apply these ideas to language study, you can’t get away from the fact that the more words you know and more grammar you have internalised, the better you will be.

A study and no play makes Matt… a better student

So there is that aspect, where I’m playing catch-up on kanji, grammar or vocabulary that I didn’t memorise sufficiently, but there is also the process of efficient study as well.

As children, we get many years of repetition and immersion to study our first language. As adults we try to condense learning a new language into a shorter period, all while thinking/acting in a different modality. Since doing it as an adult is a different approach, you need different tools and support structures to get you to your goal. Which is what I’ve been going through, a process of discovery with over the past 4 weeks. A lot of this is from other students and the rest is through the necessity of keeping up with the relentless stream of new knowledge we are expected to learn.

This is very much a developing topic for me. I’ve got a handle on certain aspects and still struggling with others, but the overall trajectory is very much positive. I’m very curious how I’ll feel 2 months from now…

A Night Out at the Cinema / 映画館での夜の外出

By Matthew

On April 21, 2018

In Canal City, Cinema, Entertainment, Fukuoka, Hakata, Japan

Not long after arriving in Fukuoka, I was lucky to make a new friend who not only shared a lot of similar interests to me, but speaks English very well. These are two essential ingredients to a friendship, liking some of the same stuff and actually being able to communicate effectively in at least one language. I know I want to practice my Japanese all the time, but the truth is it isn’t ready to sustain a full conversation yet. Give me a few more months and maybe that will change, but until then, I’m very happy I met someone I’m able to hang out and compare cultures with.

So this Friday we agreed to go see Ready Player One together at the cinema in the Canal City (it does have canals, and it is as complicated to navigate around as a city) shopping mega-complex. I have a weakness for sweets at the cinema and it doesn’t feel like I’m properly at the movies unless I have several thousand calories of popcorn and cola with me as I enter. Knowing that Japan tends to throw a few surprises at you in even the most mundane circumstances, I was ready for less-than-common popcorn choices and boy, I was *not* disappointed. It was so difficult to choose, that I went for a mix of matcha, salted and caramel flavoured popcorn. The picture below really doesn’t do the popcorn justice; it was both amazing to look at and delicious in equal measure.

Tastes a lot nicer than it looks…

The movie itself was great fun. I’d recommend it to anyone, but especially to those that wasted their precious childhoods playing games on consoles and PCs. There are so many easter eggs that it would take many, many viewings to catch them all. Although my favourite was the Gundam and Iron Giant cameos, those were super neat.

One thing that I found a little different from UK/US/Australia is that the house lights didn’t come on during the credits and everyone sat patiently as they scrolled through. I was expecting some sort of signal of “OK, you can go now” but instead I quietly watched the credits with everyone else. I even found a Quora entry about it, and frankly, they don’t know either. Ah Japan, always full of surprises.

Post movie smiles

After the movie, we had a bite to eat (OK, many bites) and before we finished up we swung by the shrine located right next to the shopping complex. It was mostly closed up at that time of night, but it looked cool, so here’s a photo anyway!

Neat!

In summary, I got to hang out with a friend, see a movie, eat too much food and see a shrine, all in the one super-fun-packed evening. That is Japanese efficiency for you!

The Axis of Evil [Beverages] / 悪の枢軸【飲料】

By Matthew

On April 16, 2018

In Asahi, Japan, Reviews

Being the adventurous type, I recently grabbed a few very different types of drinks to try out. I wouldn’t want anyone to be bored just because I decided to stay safe and only pick drinks that I might actually enjoy.

Which brings me to the topic of today’s review, a collection of three different drinks that (spoiler alert) were not very good. They all share in the dubious honour of being equally horrid (to me, your mileage may vary) and not at all to be recommended. As I say, you might like them, but I *really* did not. If you read this and then go out to try them, then you have no one to blame but yourself and your morbid curiosity.

Oh and since I know my family is reading this blog, no I did not drink all of these at once. These were all drank responsibly over a number of nights and I ate all my greens and I’m honestly not turning into an alcoholic. Not yet anyway.

Ahem. Anyway, the first cab off the rank is Orion draft beer from Asahi. It is labelled at having 5% alcohol, so this should have something going for it. Turns out, no, no it doesn’t. This is the most insipid beer I’ve tasted in a good long time. More tasteless than even the most mainstream of lagers, this beer tasted like it had heard of the term flavour from a friend, but wasn’t about to get into such sordid business itself. If this is “widely loved as an Okinawan original” then I’m seriously concerned about that island’s population’s lager sensibilities.

Okinawa can do better than this, surely…

Next up we have an experiment of sorts. The hypothesis we are testing is: can sparkling rosé be any good when you put it in a bottle made out of aluminium? In short, “no”. The longer version is “maybe, but based on this sample, not really, no”. This Sparkling Wine – Rosé from Monde Wine is a sparkling wine with a mild flavour. I’m not normally a big fan of rosé wine, but since this was an after-dinner treat, it seemed appropriate to try it out. It has 12% alcohol, so it does have a little bit of kick to it, but not all that much. I was hoping for something like a sweet version of a Prosecco, but instead has a somewhat uninspired flavour. Overall, not recommended. There are perfectly good alternative wines in normal glass bottles that are only slightly more money and worth every yen in my opinion.

Finally, for a bit of fun, I bought a plum flavoured liqueur. Specifically, the Rakuen Umeshu Plum Liqueur. This one appealed to me on two levels: 1. It was 100 yen (70p) and 2. It comes in a god-damned sippy packet. You know, like the ones you drink juice out of at school. There was absolutely zero chance of me not trying this bad-boy out.

Sippy container!

Sippy straw!

Kind of wish I had given it a miss though. Apart from the (expected) sickly sweetness, the flavour is the most synthetic thing I’ve ever tried in a good long while. Unless you want your cherry flavoured liqueur that tastes like it was made out of actual decorative plastic cherries, I’d give this one a miss.