I don't operate extensively on Twitter, but I am there to follow: @marcheiden. You'll also find five-a-day on my Flickr feed.

I haven't updated the text from what I wrote in early 2007, save for HTML formatting and some photos. The first half of the guide is mostly technical and would only be of interest to someone considering doing the same, but the second half has a fine selection of photos, anecdotes, and gripes that should amuse general audiences, so skip ahead if you like.

TEACHING ENGLISH IN JAPAN: A GUIDE

In the first half, I'll outline the basic facts about teaching in Japan, with links to the various schools and some other web resources. In the second half, I'll discuss my own experiences with two of the major schools in Japan and try to give you a sense of what to expect in terms of the work life.

I should note that I don't consider myself a teacher. I was always a pain in the ass when I was in school, and I'm sure that every one of my old teachers would have laughed (or growled) if they knew I was spending my days trying to coax English out of a bunch of blank-faced students. From the beginning, I saw teaching in Japan as a means toward traveling in Japan. Simply put, it's a lot of fun to travel in Japan, and it was worth any peace of mind I had to sacrifice (by teaching) in order to do it. If your main interest is beginning a career as a teacher, teaching in Japan isn't really worth your while - at least not as described here. This isn't teaching as you remember it from school. You'll get some sense of how to manage a classroom, but that's about it.

So, without further ado...

QUALIFICATIONS

You don't need to speak any Japanese to teach English in Japan. You don't need any teaching experience, either. All you need is a university degree, in any subject at all. I've worked with art majors, English majors and computer science majors. As long as you've graduated — and you're a native speaker of English — you can teach English in Japan. Don't worry about age, either. Although most of the teachers are somewhere in their twenties, I've never detected any kind of age bias coming from any of these schools. As long as you're well-kept and you can convince them that you'll take direction and you'll stay at least a year, they'll be satisfied. There was a grandmother at one of our schools, and it was great to have her in the teachers' room.

English schools in Japan are big business. They're called eikaiwa, which translates to "conversation school". The theory behind eikaiwa is that Japanese students have studied English grammar and vocabulary in high school, but because of the memorize-and-recite / test-based style of the Japanese school system, they never really learn to speak the language. So they have the pieces, but they've never used them — kind of like memorizing an instruction manual without ever having played the game. And that's where eikaiwa come in. Eikaiwa supply a Real Native Speaker, who conducts the lessons entirely in English — no Japanese is supposed to be used in class — and the student knows they're getting Real English, as opposed to the cocked-up stuff their high school teacher tried to pass off on them.

This works better in theory than in practice, of course. Students may or may not remember any English from high school, and they may or may not put in any time outside of the eikaiwa classroom studying what they've learned. They have a lot of different goals: to escape boredom, or to get a better test score for a promotion at work; to use English while traveling, to hang out with or date or procreate with foreigners, to do better on their college entrance exams, because their parents told them to, because their psychiatrist told them to, because they use English at work or they'd like to use English at work. (And yes, those are all based on real people I met.) Above all, they're sold a flashy, glamorous Exciting Foreign Life experience that just happens to come in the form of a school — and you.

So, in practice, you'll have several classes of students of different ages whose goals are at cross-purposes, you'll have faintly ridiculous textbooks that may or may not have been written for these purposes, and you'll churn out lessons like McDonald's churns out burgers. If you're laid-back, you're patient, you have a sense of humor and you don't mind improvising (or, less gracefully, making shit up off the top of your head), then you'll be fine. There will be days when you want to throw a brick through the window, but there will be more days when you wonder why you're getting paid for something so easy.

GETTING A JOB

There are a few big eikaiwa and a lot of small ones. The big ones hire from overseas, so that's how most people start. It's possible to arrive in Japan, find a job with a small eikaiwa, and get your new employer to sponsor your work visa, but it's expensive and risky. You can run out of money fast, and if you're already in Japan when you get the work visa, you have to leave the country and then come back in to activate it. (The upside, however, is that the small schools often have better work conditions than the big ones. So that's the trade-off.)

If you're hired by one of the big schools, they'll take care of the paperwork and walk you through the visa process while you're in your home country. You'll be on a one-year contract, which can be renewed upon mutual agreement by you and the school. Generally speaking, you have to be a pretty big fuck-up not to be offered renewal. It saves the schools a lot of hassle not to have to train a new teacher every year.

Contracts in Japan are a little different from what you may expect, though. The contract can be broken by you, at any time, with no legal penalty. The school, on the other hand, cannot fire you without paying you a huge severance bonus, no matter what you do. (At worst, they'll transfer you to a really crappy branch to wait out the rest of your contract.) Some schools build in an end-of-contract bonus to keep you locked in for the whole year. Other schools don't, though, and plenty of teachers leave after a couple of months to find a job with one of the smaller schools that can't afford to hire from overseas. The main hassle is getting that work visa. Once you have the work visa, it doesn't matter who first sponsored it; you can work for anyone with it.

Right now, work hours are in flux at the various schools. Some are on a 29.5 hour schedule, and others are at 36.5 or 37.5, which are essentially standard 40 hour work weeks. (Schools cook the numbers for legal reasons. It's all to do with Japan's archaic pension system and who's considered a full-time worker.) In practice, you work eight hour days, five days a week. You're not likely to have Saturday and Sunday off, although it's not inconceivable that you would have Sunday and Monday off. Most people work from 1-9pm, with enough time set aside for lunch. If you're on the 29.5 hour schedule, then you'll have some break time in there as well, and you can use that as you please. Some schools give you 'office hours' for prep time, and others say they don't require prep, so they don't give you time. It's Japan, so inevitably, you'll wind up doing a bit of work outside paid hours. How much depends on how hard you hold the line with your staff.

MONEY

Japan is a good place to make money, as long as you're not supporting a family. You can either live like a monk and save a ton or go out every night and still save a bit. You learn ways to save money pretty quickly; even in Tokyo, cheap meals and furnishings are easy to find. The private schools described below pay a standard base rate of Y255,000. Some tack on extras: NOVA, for example, has to pay you a little extra if you work on a Sunday, and if you live in an expensive area like Tokyo, you'll get a small cost-of-living bonus. Other schools might subsidize the cost of your apartment. If you have to commute to your school, then the school will pay for your bus / train pass. If you're from the US, Japanese income taxes are gentler than those at home, and you won't have to pay income tax on what you make. (Unfortunately, I don't know about the tax rules for other countries.) If you're paying off debts back home, it's fairly easy to send money back to a bank account. There are a few ways to do it. GoLloyds (http://www.golloyds.com) is the easiest.

Travel within Japan was my priority during my first tenure, and I did plenty of that. Travel outside Japan was my priority for the second tenure, and I've managed that as well; budget properly and you can pull off two or three overseas trips during a year.

LIVING

If you're getting hired from overseas, the school will hook you up with an apartment. And that's a good thing — getting an apartment by yourself can be a weird, byzantine process involving multiple deposits (some refundable, others not) made to various parties and a lot of rent paid up-front. ('Key money' is a dread term.) There are landlords who are comfortable dealing with foreign residents, and decent apartments are sometimes passed from one teacher to another. But it takes some time to ask around, and you wouldn't want to have to deal with it upon arrival in the country.

So you'll start in a school apartment. You might have it to yourself, or you might have roommates. It'll be furnished with a TV, VCR, basic kitchenware, a new futon and whatever has accumulated from the teachers who preceded you (often a few old futons). Some schools let you move out of the apartment with one month's notice, and other schools build the apartment into your contract. They're not necessarily company apartments, though. It's likely that most of your neighbors will be Japanese people who have nothing to do with the school. Your bedroom might have tatami floors, or it might not. I've seen a wide range of nice-to-crap apartments. Schools provide varying levels of support, but it's in their interest to get you settled in, so they're at their most helpful in the first couple of weeks. Teachers are also pretty good about helping each other find the grocery store, the transportation, and all of those basic amenities.

If you're hired, the school will ask you for a wish list of locations within Japan, and they'll try to accommodate you based on that. I got my first choice the first time I worked in Japan. For the second time, the interviewer just asked me about places I'd been in Japan and liked, and then he offered me a placement based on that conversation. It worked out fine. I've heard stories about people asking for Tokyo and getting the middle of nowhere (and vice versa), but it didn't happen to me or anyone I knew.

You can get by with very little Japanese in your daily life. Of course, it helps to learn — and there are plenty of relatively cheap classes and tutors — but there's no pressure. Some employers might compliment you on it, and others will have no interest whatsoever. Plenty of people survive the whole year (or two) by pointing, grunting, and placing the burden on the friendly Japanese waitress to understand them. In major urban areas, it's pretty effortless to live without knowing any Japanese. In a rural area, it'd be tougher. I knew a fair amount of the language, but I was far from fluent, and I never had an obstacle of any significance.

THE INTERVIEW

Schools want people who are friendly, patient, confident with speaking and genki — meaning that you have a good attitude, you can put people at ease, and you seem eager, happy, cheerful and fun. (When in doubt, err on the side of being a Muppet.) Personality goes a long way. It's not necessary to have a strong knowledge of English grammatical terms, although some schools will make a show of testing you during the interview with a quiz. It's just a show. During training for my first job, another trainee asked me in total seriousness what a 'verb' was. (She was hot, and I am smart. Hey, fair enough.) As I said, you need a college degree, but it doesn't matter what the degree is in. Former art students were among the best teachers I met.

The schools also want to know that you're not going to flip out when you're living in a foreign country, away from your friends and family. There are some people who really struggle with that. Most are fine, but the small handful of flame-outs are spectacular enough to keep the recruiters on edge. The recruiters get hammered if they send over a bad recruit, so they have a lot at stake with their choices.

If you're determined to get the job, drop these points in the interview:

1. You enjoy meeting new people;
2. You're flexible, you can adapt your style, you take direction well, and you like working as part of a team;
3. You had a job or a project once where you took direction from a person who was senior to you, you learned a lot from that senior person and you followed his or her directions unquestioningly, and the project was a success;
4. You're always on time;
5. You're keen on little art projects that could be used as lesson supplements;
6. You think Japan is interesting, and you'd love to learn more about Japanese culture; (Careful with this, though. Don't appear as though you already know too much about Japan. A certain kind of student who frequents these schools is hell-bent on educating foreigners about Japanese culture, and it just pisses them off if the foreigners already knows.)

The above should seal the deal. But if you're desperate and you want to absolutely guarantee you'll get the job at any cost:

7. Tell them you love teaching kids. Kids classes make a ton of money in Japan. I would never, ever teach one myself, but...

THE SCHOOLS

Here's the spread of schools that hire from overseas, as I know them:

http://www.teachinjapan.com
This is the website for NOVA, the first school I worked for. They have recruiting offices everywhere, and they're easily the biggest school in Japan, so they hire the most people. (EDIT 2009: since they're bankrupt, that web address is no longer maintained by NOVA. Try https://www.gcom-nova.jp/form/index.shtml.)

http://www.geoscareer.com
GEOS is the second biggest private school in Japan, but their reputation is abysmal. I would avoid them.

http://www.aeonet.com
AEON is the second school I worked for. They have fewer teachers and fewer branches than NOVA or GEOS, so they're more selective. But they're in every major area, and they hire from Canada, America and Australia. (In that order of frequency, based on my experience.)

http://www.japanbound.com
ECC is the last of the "Big Four" private schools. They have offices in Canada and Los Angeles, and occasionally from within Japan. I've heard that their interviews can be very long and involved, over the course of a few days. On the plus side, their reputation is easily the best of any of these schools, and their vacation time is awesome.

http://www.jesjapan.com
James English School is unique in that they will hire based on phone interviews, although they ask for a video, too, if possible. They only have schools in northern Japan.

There's a school called Interac whose website I won't bother to dig up because their reputation is so bad. Berlitz is a dying breed, but they're in a few cities, too.

The JET Programme (http://www.jetprogramme.org) places applicants in public high schools around Japan to serve as teaching assistants (in practice, the Japanese teacher points at you, and you say an English sentence out loud, and the students repeat after you). I know very little about it. The JET teachers have kind of a parallel existence to the eikaiwa teachers; we don't see much of each other. They get paid better and have more vacation time, and often do less work. However, they have to apply over a year in advance, and they're far more likely to be placed way out in the boondocks. Their web forum is called Big Daikon (http://www.bigdaikon.com).

OTHER WEB RESOURCES

http://vocaro.com/trevor/japan/nova/level_up.html
This is a website written by a former NOVA teacher. It's a few years old now, but it was the one I read when I was deciding whether to go the first time, so I'm fond of it. Lots of evocative photos.

http://markcity.blogspot.com/teaching.htm
This is another good essay about life as a teacher, also at NOVA.

Gaijin Pot (http://www.gaijinpot.com) is a bigger, more formal, thorough teaching in Japan web forum; Let's Japan (http://www.letsjapan.org) is smaller, less formal and funnier.

OTHER COUNTRIES

The only country that compares to Japan in terms of ease of arrival is Korea. Their schools are called hagwon. They pay a little better than Japan, but the quality of life is widely agreed to be lower, and there are more shady schools over there — foreign workers aren't as well-protected as they are in Japan under labor laws. Still, it's possible to find a reputable employer and do the same deal there as I described in Japan.

I've seen at least one school with the same set-up in Indonesia, but I don't know anything about life there. Most teaching jobs in China are through universities. I was offered a job at a rural university in China before I came back to Japan for the second time, but I decided against it. A lot of the China jobs seem to cover room and board at 100% but pay only a small wage outside of that, and I didn't like that level of dependence. In Europe, teaching jobs seem to go exclusively to EU citizens who have teaching certificates.

If you want to investigate teaching opportunities in a specific country, check the forums at Dave's ESL Cafe (http://www.daveseslcafe.com).

AFTER JAPAN

When you go home, you'll discover that your public speaking skills have improved. You'll be able to make engaging conversation with absolutely anyone you meet. (Good for parties.) You'll be better-equipped to handle weird and stressful situations as well.

When you're looking for a job, however, you might as well have been traveling for a year. Future employers won't hold working in Japan against you, but the experience in Japan won't mean anything much in professional terms, unless you come back fluent in Japanese and you want to be a translator or something like that. I eventually managed to spin the experience from my first school in a business-training direction and got a training job that way, but it took a long time, and it was as much a matter of being in the right place at the right time as anything else.

The adjustment back home again can be hard. For me, it was harder than the adjustment to Japan. Make sure you have some money saved when you leave. Being stuck at your parents' place will only make it worse.

HOW IT WORKED OUT FOR ME

I'm better at complaining than I am at praising, so the list of problems will be longer than its positive counterpart. Take it all with the proverbial grain of salt.

I had an amazing time in Japan. Again, the experience was more than worth the trials and tribulations. Many of the best memories I have are from Japan. There's just so much more that you can do when you're living in a country as opposed to just passing through — a whole new side of the culture opens up to you. I would recommend against thinking strictly in terms of one year, though. It does take about six months to hit your stride. Go, play it by ear and see how you feel after six months or so, then decide whether you're going to stay any longer. One of my few regrets is that I left too early the first time I was there.

I've lived in Japan twice. The first time was for a job with NOVA. I was teaching in a suburb of Kyoto called Katsura. My NOVA apartment was in Osaka, about 35 minutes from my school by train. It was a three-bedroom apartment, with about the same amount of total living space as you might expect from a one-bedroom apartment in America. I shared the apartment with two guys who worked at different NOVA schools. In bigger cities, those apartments tend to have a revolving door — because the apartments are kind of a rip-off and people can't live in them after they quit NOVA, there's someone new moving in every couple of months. I can imagine that would get old after a while.

Some NOVA apartment photos:

My bedroom in my first apartment.

The sink between the shower room (left) and the toilet room (right).

Our Japanese-style shower room.

Our living room (fridge/kitchen off to the left).

View from the balcony. The washing machine (no dryer) was out here.

After a month, I moved to a house in Kyoto. "Gaijin houses" can vary in quality, but it's easy to get a sense for one if you just stop by. I found a great one, and that's where I spent the rest of my first trip to Japan. Again, people were coming and going, but not quite as often, and they were carefully screened by the landlord. There was a lot more space and privacy. (Cheaper, too.) A handful of photos:

View from my first bedroom window.

Our front door.

My first bedroom.

My second bedroom.

Also from my second bedroom.

Talking shit in the living room with Adam and Alex.

When I came back for the second time, it was with AEON in Hiroshima. I had a one-bedroom apartment within a short from my school. Since the apartments are not as revolving-door as the NOVA ones, teachers occasionally leave some decent stuff behind for each other. I got more kitchenware than I have any use for, and also a Casio keyboard. Others have picked up microwaves, ovens, Western-style beds and other furniture. The apartment was nicer than the first set of pictures posted above, but in the same range:

Kitchen.

Neighbors.

Shower room.

The Sarlacc Pit. Water from the shower exits through one pipe, and water from the sink through the other. It's supposed to have a cover, but the cover was missing, and we could never find one that fit.

AEON and NOVA have their good points and bad points. In the final estimation, I think they probably even out. If you apply to any of the other schools, ECC is likely to fall closer to AEON in terms of benefits and drawbacks, and GEOS aligns closer to NOVA. In sum, I had more work and less responsibility at NOVA, less work and more responsibility at AEON. I go back and forth on which one I preferred. Draw your own conclusions...

SOME BASICS OF NOVA LIFE:

Because they're the biggest school and they have the most locations, they're most likely to be able to place you where you want to go. NOVA will provide you with an apartment and deduct the rent from your salary, but you can move out with one month's notice. (That's a good thing, because they are notorious for overcharging for rent.) You teach classes of 1-4 students, 40-45 minutes each, from pre-planned lesson scripts that range from semi-adequate to awful. You won't know your schedule until you walk in on any given day. You'll have 10 or 15 minutes between classes to find the files for your next group and choose a lesson that works for all of the students (or as many as possible). The students are separated into eight ability levels. They don't take the lessons in sequence, and while some have regular days when you can expect to see them, others call up to book lessons whenever the thought occurs to them. Since they don't know what lesson they'll be doing, there's not a lot they can do to study outside of class.

You'll have anywhere from 2 (rare) to 30 (extreme) foreign co-workers. (I had 11-13 at my branch.) They don't give you a completion bonus or airfare, so you can leave whenever you like. Turnover at NOVA is quite high. To make them happy, give one month's notice that you're leaving. They do write decent recommendation letters if a future employer goes to the trouble of asking for one.

Among NOVA's good points:

1. The lessons require no preparation or thought — you can just read a script, basically, nod and praise at the correct intervals, and you never have to notice you're teaching a lesson. You may need to put in a little extra time during your first couple of weeks to familiarize yourself with the lessons — because from day one, you're expected to be ready to teach every lesson for every level — but there's nothing else to do. There's a little bit of paperwork between lessons, but you can always clock out on time at the end of the day. All you do is teach. Students don't turn in any kind of homework to you, either.

2. Since NOVA is the biggest school, they attract the widest range of students. Whatever your interest, you're likely to find a few students who share it. I've already been back to visit my old students once, and I'm sure I'll do it again in the years to come.

3. Similarly, you'll have a lot of foreign co-workers, and that gives you a better chance of meeting people you really like. There were a couple of idiots at my school, but for the most part, the group we had was amazing — creative, smart, funny, awesome people, interested in music and art and sports and plenty else. I learned a lot from my friends at NOVA. It does make me sad to think that group will never be completely re-assembled, but now I have places to stay and people to visit in countries all over the world. And that's cool.

4. It's easy to transfer to another location at NOVA, either temporarily or permanently. If things aren't working out at your school — or you want to try somewhere new — it's not hard to arrange. I spent most of my time at one school, but there were a few other schools that I did occasional days at, and I enjoyed the new scenery and students. Overtime is often available at other branches, should you want to make extra cash. Some people make a ton of money through overtime.

5. NOVA is actually pretty good for traveling. You don't get any public holidays off, because those are busiest times for lessons (e.g. people who've chosen to spend their vacation studying English). But you do get ten days to use at your discretion and an additional week off just after Christmas. And you don't have a set schedule, so it's easy to swap shifts with co-workers, since any teacher is interchangeable with any other teacher. You work one of his or her days, he or she works one of yours — and then you've got a three-day weekend (and a six day week to make up for it). I took a week's vacation using shift swaps spread out over the course of a couple months and only used one of my ten paid vacation days. You can get anywhere in Japan within 3-4 days, and airfare to other countries is cheap during non-holiday periods.

6. It's the easiest place to get hired and the easiest place to leave. There's less pageantry. Everything you need — vacation time, health problems, transfers, etc — has a form associated with it. You fill out the form, fax it on, and an answer comes back some time later.

7. Unlike some other schools, you don't wear a suit while working — only a shirt and tie. I kept my tie at school, and wore the same tie every day for several months in a row. That amused me.

Among NOVA's bad points:

1. NOVA has a bizarre "no-socialization" rule. Basically, you're not allowed to see or talk to students outside of the school. It's a weird rule and people break it all the time, but it has to be done away from the eyes of the Japanese staff (who may fear that you're giving away free lessons, and therefore costing them money) and the Western management (who are pricks, and will report you for anything they can). It's more of an irritant then a prohibitant, since we still had barbecues with the students and even climbed Mt. Fuji with a few of them, but it's just obnoxious in principle. When I visited my friends from NOVA, we had to have two parties: one the students could attend, and another the staff could attend.

Empty school lobby, with pink bunny arse.

2. Because NOVA attracts the widest range of students, that includes the best and the worst. There's a social theory in there somewhere. Because the schedule is done randomly every morning, you don't know until you walk in whether you'll be spending 45 minutes alone with someone you detest. (Similarly, there's a pretty good chance at least one of your co-workers will be a total idiot.)

3. If you're popular with the students, nobody can cause any real trouble for you — basically, if you're good for business, that's all the Japanese management cares about, and they trump the Western management every time. Unfortunately, it's the Western management you deal with face-to-face, and they are, by and large, creeps. Inside your school, there will be one 'AT' for every seven or eight teachers. The AT is a teacher just like you, but they're also the liaison with the Western area manager (AAM). They don't have any real power of their own. They exist to get shit on by the AAM, and then to take the same shit on you. They're expected to fill out a log book with wardrobe faults, negative statements and things they (silently) observed teachers doing wrong. I had one AT, Paul Koch, who was notorious for acting like "one of the boys" in the teachers room and then heading around the corner to write up the whole conversation, leaving out his own participation, of course. The AAM comes in every so often to check the log book and deal with the complaints. You're never shown the charges, of course. The whole idea of the log book really got under my skin, personally. There are some ATs who aren't bad and do their best to create a good work environment. But it's like what they say about being the President of the United States — it's a job that attracts people who are psychotic, because only people who are psychotic could possibly want the job.

4. The new textbooks really are shit. Nobody likes them, and even though they're only a couple of years old, they're already dated. They're basically colorful phrasebooks. Some of the lessons flat-out don't work. I don't have a lot of experience with them, though. There were older, more grammar-based textbooks while I was there. But I didn't have time to prepare lessons, damn near half of the lessons in the textbook were unusable and I frequently didn't have enough material to fill out the time. That was stressful. I don't know how much that has changed.

A NOVA teachers' room will kill people with claustrophobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and any phobias regarding the need for cleanliness.

5. The classrooms are tiny — in any other country, they'd be called booths. There's a table with some folding chairs. You crowd in with your students and try to tune out the lessons taking place in the booths all around you. A guy comes in reeking of smoke, booze and his coffee breakfast. He hasn't showered or slept since his bender last night. Thanks to the booth, you'll get to know him really well. Or there are people who come in sick as hell, coughing and wheezing, and you can see the germs dancing before your eyes. The staff would never think to discourage anyone from attending their lesson, no matter how sick they are. It's a tough job for anyone who's claustrophobic and / or needs a lot of personal space. Saturdays are hell. Everyone's working, every class is full, the teachers room is cramped and the hung-over salarymen are out in force. My stomach still turns when I think about Saturdays at NOVA.

6. Everybody is interchangeable. Some of the students will miss you, but the business will not miss a beat if you're gone. Some people are bothered by that, and others like it, because it means very little responsibility. Teachers are always coming and going, which can get wearying after a while. Every newbie has the same questions. Fair enough — I did, too. But you do get sick of hearing people right off the plane do shitty sub-Seinfeld routines about the toilets and the Engrish on the bakery sign next to the school.

Clocking out on my last day (photo by Tianni).

7. Takeshi is a moron. He has sucked in every class he's taken, and he's taken every lesson in the book several times. He won't buy a new lesson package unless he gets moved up to the next level. Everyone in the teachers room agrees that he is abysmal and will ruin lessons for the other students if he's moved to the next level. Who do you think wins? Takeshi, of course. It's not a school with a business side — it's a business that has taken on some trappings of a school in order to increase the profit margin. Again, some people don't care as long as they get paid, but it really bothers people who think of themselves as teachers.

8. The sheer number of classes meant that my head was ringing at the end of most days. I was fairly useless by the time I left work. Any intellectual hobbies are best pursued in the morning or on weekends.

SOME BASICS OF AEON LIFE:

AEON is more selective than NOVA, since they hire far fewer teachers (2-3 foreign teachers per school, plus a few Japanese teachers). As a result, turnover is much lower. You teach fewer classes than at NOVA and have more break time. Teachers at AEON prepare materials for their own lessons using the school textbooks and optional lesson plans, but office hours are provided for prep time. Classes can be 1-5 people or 1-10 people, depending on the type of lesson. Teachers get public holidays off, although that's a bit deceptive, because most public holidays fall on Mondays, and AEON is closed on Mondays. But there is a whole week of vacation at the end of April, another week in August, and another week after Christmas. There are also five at-large vacation days. AEON provides a furnished single apartment for teachers, with the reasonable amount of Y42,000 deducted from every paycheck for rent. (I believe this has been raised slightly.) You're tied to that apartment for the whole contract — you can move out, but you have to keep paying rent on it. They're decent apartments, though, since they haven't had as many people passing through them. Unlike NOVA, where the Japanese staff can go their whole career without saying a word to you, the AEON staff work closely with the teachers.

They provide airfare home and a bonus upon completion of the contract. The size of the bonus depends on how long you were there. AEON presses you for an answer on renewal after five or six months of being there. It's nice to have the security, but it's also pretty hard to forecast how you'll feel about being there for eighteen more months.

Among AEON's good points:

1. Socialization with the students is fine, encouraged and will get you in the staff's good graces. There are school-plus-students parties every so often, organized by the staff. Attendance is mandatory, which is lame, and you have to pay to attend just like the students do, which is lamer, but at least there's always an open bar included in the price.

Chiyumi's awesome poster for my sayonara party.

The Halloween mob.

Chiyumi was a pirate, and Ron was Sun Wukong.

2. Because the teachers have a set schedule, the work environment tends to be more stable, you get to know your students better, and there's more of a chance that you're being given a set of classes that fits your specific skills. I did, and so did my two co-workers. Also, there's more personal space, and you may have your own classroom to decorate as you like.

3. You might get used in your school's advertisements, which is fun and weird and fun and creepy. Makes for good souvenirs, anyway.

I was, in fact, very much capable of waiting to meet everyone.

Ron's interviewee on the bottom was apparently a bandit. Mine just went to Germany. (I was working on my Winter Lincoln Beard at the time.)

4. The Japanese staff work closely with you, which can be nice - in that you have more idea what's going on at the school, and they consider it part of their job to help you with anything related to your life in Japan. (I had one of them write a note in Japanese explaining how I wanted my hair to be cut.)

5. Unlike NOVA, the Western management at AEON were terrific, in my experience — helpful, fun people with useful advice and a genuine interest in your own satisfaction with the job.

6. Japanese teachers handle the low-level students. By the time a student reaches you, they already have a couple of classes under their belt. That makes a huge difference. And the staff at my school showed admirable integrity when it came time to decide whether a student should move to the next level. If the student needed to repeat the course, they told him that, and didn't pressure me to recommend him to move up. And if he doesn't want to repeat the class, they'll find an alternate course he can do until he's ready to move up. I never had a problem with students whose ability level wasn't high enough for their class. That made my work day a lot easier.

7. The textbooks are decent, all things considered. And they're willing to use textbooks they didn't produce, which opens up a lot of other options to meet students' specific needs. (NOVA only teaches one kind of course from one kind of textbook.) I almost always had enough material to fill out the lesson, and enough time to prepare it.

8. AEON's schedule will be changing to 36.5 hours soon. I don't know how that will change things. I was on the 29.5 hour schedule. I've never worked less at a full-time job. There were days when I had a three hour break in the middle of the day to go home and watch a movie. There were days when I taught two classes. My busiest day, Saturday, ranged from four to six classes depending on whether my private students were on the schedule. Contrast that to NOVA, where you've got a solid eight to teach. It's possible that one might be empty, every so often. On a truly miraculous day, you might only have six classes to teach. At AEON, you have the same schedule week-to-week. I only had three classes on Wednesdays, four on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If there were cancellations, you might teach two classes and call it a day. Almost too easy.

Among AEON's bad points:

1. The staff's raging desire for you to socialize with students can get weird sometimes. One advertisement about me bragged that I took students bowling every weekend. (Fortunately, students only asked about it once every couple months or so.) At our Christmas party, the staff was bugging one of my co-workers because he was sitting near me and there was a table of students who hadn't been talked to yet. They wanted to spread the foreigners out to maximize value and student happiness...at a Christmas party, that he was paying to attend.

The staff often try to micro-manage your performance and your persona. That, more than anything else, is why I left AEON. I honestly felt like teaching was the least important part of my job, as far as the staff were concerned. In their eyes, if I was in the office preparing lesson materials, I wasn't working. I was only working if I was out in the lobby chatting up prospective students. My staff would have been more satisfied with a functional illiterate who loved introducing himself to strangers with chunks of broken English and American surfer slang.

2. You have a smaller group of co-workers — one or two foreign teachers at most. That means fewer people to find something in common with. You work the same days as they do, and you probably live in the same building as they do. As a result, if someone arrives who sucks, that has a huge effect on things. I liked my two co-workers, but it's harder to avoid an asshole at AEON than it is at NOVA.

3. The dynamic with the Japanese teachers can be strange. They're not completely connected to what goes on — they rarely attend the business meetings, they teach different classes and they're usually only part-time. I became close friends with the Japanese teachers at my school, but that pissed off the staff, because the staff thought I was wasting friendliness that belonged exclusively to the students. The staff at my school hated the Japanese teachers and vice versa, for ancient, long-festering reasons that nobody even remembered, and the foreign teachers were caught in the middle. That was annoying.

4. Teachers are not interchangeable, so it's difficult to take your vacation days, because they're not actually bringing someone in to teach your classes — the classes for that day are being cancelled or rescheduled. The staff will inevitably put on a big show about how difficult that particular day is, and they'll wring their hands and moan and whine and wait for you to withdraw the request. It's really obnoxious.

5. Despite the public holidays, AEON is not all that great for travel. Prices for both airplanes and the shinkansen (bullet trains) skyrocket during the three week-long vacation periods. So you can go abroad or check out another region of Japan, but you'll pay dearly for the ticket, because everyone in Japan is traveling at the same time.

6. The worst thing about AEON — and everyone agrees about this — is the pressure to do sales. Twice a year, there is a "self-study campaign" (SSC). AEON has a bunch of books, CDs, books with CDs, and other crap that students can buy to improve their English — because the huge amount of money they're already paying for the lessons isn't enough, apparently. The school leverages your credibility as a teacher to sell these to the students. You make a "recommendation" and keep the student cornered as you give them the sales pitch, and if you're a "good" teacher, you pressure them until they agree. The students have already had this stuff pitched at them in their lower-level classes, the ones with Japanese teachers, so by the time they reach you, they've heard it all before. I had a really good relationship with my students. I knew their strengths and weaknesses, and I had a good memory for their personalities and the stories they'd tell in class. I felt like we had a natural rapport, and I considered a lot of them friends. So the way some of them would wince when they saw the sale coming just fucking killed me. Meanwhile, the head office has raised everyone's sales expectations because the campaign is on, so the staff are frantic and high-strung to get this crap sold. They ignore the Japanese teachers and focus all of their why-aren't-you-trying-harder on the foreign teachers. Similarly...

7. In the weekly business meetings, the staff moan and wail about how far below the month's sales expectations they are. (Should the expectations have been met, they move on to wailing about how far behind they are for the next month.) Only the foreign teachers attend these meetings. The staff ask for suggestions from the teachers about how to pull out of this dire situation. If any teacher is actually dumb enough to give a suggestion other than "we should work twice as hard and sell more", the suggestion is rejected. Business meetings were my fifty least favorite minutes of the week. (There may have been other schools that were different, but I've talked to enough other teachers to know that our meetings were not unique.)

That's about all I've got. I hope it doesn't come across more negatively than positively. I have skills and faults that make me, in equal turns, perfectly suited and utterly ill-suited for working in Japan. I'm glad I did it, and I think my employers were glad I did, too. (In the final balance.)

I open the floor to your questions.

Finis.

UPDATED

Friend and AEON co-worker Sara sent this response:

"I just read your blog entry about teaching in Japan. Very well written, sir. I still get asked about the experience, by those thinking of doing it, and I think I'll start giving them the link to this. I'd honestly forgotten about SSC (or pushed it to the back of my brain, whatever) and how horrible it was to have to put the salesperson face on for these people that trusted me. My first SSC was a month after I'd started at AEON and I seem to remember putting my foot down a bit because my students were just getting to know/trust me. SSC was going on just as I was leaving, and I scheduled a bunch of "counselings" for it, but ended up just chatting it up with my students for 10-15 minutes and giving them a half-assed recommendation in the last 2. Sure looked like I was working hard though!"

Day 10
Distance: 93 miles
Pace: Steady
Health: Good
Weather: Cool
Meals: Filling

We made camp at The Dalles, near a roaring dam on the Columbia River. The Comfort Inn had a plate of warm cookies on the counter, and I took one before the clerk had a chance to announce the price of a room; K. rejected her offer and we left, but I still had the cookie. You can't get to the end of the Oregon Trail without that kind of quick-thinking.

On the fateful morning, before starting out in the Volks Wagon, we headed over to a gas station to fill up on sugary nonsense. It sat next to the shell of a Taco Bell, identifiable by the shade where the sign had been and a few price strips on the drive-through menu. (We saw a number of shuttered Taco Bells and Taco Johns on this trip. It was eerie, as though a plague had gone before us, and fast-food taco chains had not built up the necessary immunity to it.) The gas station also hailed from another era. It had one of those racks of classic rock cassette tapes, with more Alabama than is currently stocked by any music store in America; although I already had all of the songs, I thought about picking up a Kinks compilation that appeared to have whimsical biographies of the band members in the liner notes. There was also a selection of bumper stickers, including one that said, "Bill and Hillary = America's dual airbags". Really? In 2008? How long can an item sit on sale without anyone noticing it hasn't sold? Does that explain the shitty off-brand rice krispie treat I bought?

Sandwiched between the hotel and the dam were some old cedar shacks, long abandoned. They were a bracing reminder that not everyone makes it to the end of the trail.

We carried on. This had been a long, long trip. We were out of Q-tips, and certain members of the party were out of clean underwear and socks, while certain other members were also low on socks, but not on underwear. I had blisters on my toes from a long hike in the Tetons, and blisters on my soles from a long, blissful session on the basketball court at the Hampton Inn outside of Boise. (Age has only improved my magnificent skyhook.)

The last miles were a time of reflection. I can't remember anything specific that was reflected upon, although I did play a lot of the soundtrack from Head, in recognition of the previous day's discovery / decision that Mike Nesmith's ancestor James Nesmith traveled the Oregon Trail. (Put it in Wikipedia, folks. I'm an authority.)

Today, Oregon City is a suburb of Portland, but during the pioneer days, it was the end of the Oregon Trail. That's still the city slogan, emblazoned on the welcome sign. Did we make it?

We certainly fucking did. Free of dysentery, cholera, typhoid, snake bites, exhaustion, and broken arms; all members of the party in full health, farmers from Illinois, triple points. We are unsurpassed in the annals, at the top of the top ten list. We are exuberant. We reached the end of the Oregon Trail.

The End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center has that sign out front, and the stairs list major points from the trip - Chimney Rock, Independence Rock, and the rest. Those stairs felt like they were meant specifically for us, for people who had arrived there after doing the trail, and it was fantastic.

The exhibits weren't up to the standard of the centers in Independence (Day 1) or Baker City (Day 9), though. They obviously meant well, but there wasn't much in the way of depth or interactivity. There were photocopies of land-claim forms and pages from coloring books, accompanied by signs asking you to be polite and only take one. There was a room full of half-told stories of people who traveled the trail, with instructions for you to visit the Museum of Oregon City to learn whether they arrived safely and what they did afterward; there were replica bottles of medicine that promised to remedy illnesses such as "women's weakness", a malady whose symptoms include fainting, cramps, and "fear of impending evil". If I understood the schedule of events correctly, a movie called "Bound for Oregon!" was shown every couple of hours, and there were presentations by a band of hucksters who pretended to be merchants outfitting wagons or some shit like that - whereas, at the other two museums, you could load your own wagon without the intercession of hucksters.

Also, there was an outline on the wall of a dog, and you could dip your hand in a bucket of hand-written name tags, choose one, and place the tag on a hook coming out of the outline's neck, thereby naming the outline of the dog. First, though, you had to take off the name tag placed by the previous person. So, I un-named the dog outline "Target", and re-named the dog outline "Albert". It was electrifying. By contrast, the Baker City center had a true story from a girl's diary wherein her faithful dog, Tray, was shot because the other dogs in the party were barking at the cows and scaring them off, and the leader of their wagon party felt that dogs were a liability the group could no longer afford. The girl was sad, and felt certain that Tray would have enjoyed Oregon.

The woman at the admission desk did not comment on my "You have died of typhoid" t-shirt. (K. did not wear her "You have died of dysentery" t-shirt.) I found it bizarre that the computer game got no mention at all in any of three, uh, interpretive centers. (What is wrong with the word 'museum'?) I didn't expect the displays to be pixellated or anything, but the computer game is the primary driver of public understanding in their subject, so you'd think it might warrant a shout-out somewhere in the facility. But no, MECC does not receive its due.

We left and headed for the Volks Wagon. Our path was long and roundabout, though, and took us past an eager old man named Cedar Walt, who was keen to show us things he had made out of cedar, and then showed us how nicely and easily planks can be split from a cedar log. I tried doing it myself, and with a firm effort, soon had a fine plank in front of me. I now feel significantly more confident that I could fashion a shelter of some kind in the wilderness, were cedar trees around, and tools available. (I am also confident that I could fashion the necessary tools out of two sticks, a rock, and a vine, but the tools would be helpful.) I'm glad to know that. Unlike the pioneers, we had a hotel room to sleep in that night, but I think we could have managed in 1848. We'd have done well, even after the computer screen blinked off.

From there, it was on to Portland and Seattle to see old friends, and then across the country back to Chicago - journey's end.

Oregon Trail Diary

Day 9
Distance: 338 miles
Pace: Steady
Health: Good
Weather: Hot
Meals: Filling

We are nearing the end of the Oregon Trail, and supplies are low in the Volks Wagon. We have but two more days of Q-tips, and K. has relapsed in her addiction to Easy Cheese; that poor woman, so long the bedrock of our journey, now makes only half-hearted attempts to pretend the accursed spray-cheese is going on crackers instead of directly into her mouth. I am not without struggles of my own, of course; having traveled alone through many foreign lands, I failed to anticipate that a traveling companion would expect me to change my underwear regularly. (Girls!)

Yesterday, we re-joined the main trail in western Idaho, and today, we crossed over the border into Oregon. Despite being critically low on supplies, we have decided to skip Fort Bridger and seize the fading summer by heading straight for The Dalles. I have never been to the Pacific Northwest, and eastern Oregon quickly obliged my expectations with a heavy shroud of fog and a funereal march of tall, gorgeous pine trees.

Our only major stop for the day was the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Baker City, Oregon. (K. was curious why they won't just call themselves a museum, as "interpretive center" is really a rubbish term. I don't know, although I do work for a library that is extremely sensitive about being called a museum, so there may be issues at work.) I didn't understand why it was located in Baker City (absent from the game and historical accounts) until we were actually there. As it turns out, this was the point where settlers caught their first glimpse of the Blue Mountains, which meant the end was finally within reach. There are also some wheel ruts in the field below from the many thousands of wagons that passed through here. A marker noted that wagons usually reached this point in late August or early September; at last, for the first time in this trip, we are on pace!

The interpretive center is surprisingly excellent. Although the one in Independence is a must-visit for the load-a-wagon and ox-democracy, the exhibits in this one were jam-packed with disheveled mannequins voiced by intensely earnest actors:

This fellow argued incessantly with his ox and sheep over which way to go, and voiced doubts about their prospects for survival. He had not earned the trust of the animals, because the argument kept flaring up every couple of minutes. There were complex relationships at work there. Even better was a husband and wife on the verge of starvation, sounding out the concept of "swap" with some sock-crazy Indians. The Indians had an apparently inexhaustible supply of salmon, and were willing to use those salmon to satiate their equally inexhaustible desire for socks. The wife ended the exchange by pledging to hurry back to their wagon to knit some more socks.

The signage also displayed a wicked sense of humor. Here's an example, from the trip preparation section, with the question listed on the top flap:

Q: Harriet Malinda has learned to play the melodeon, a sweet reed organ that looks like a little piano. Can she take it in the wagon?

Lift up the flap for the answer:

A: Yes, she can take it, but will have to throw it out at Devil's Gate. The death of three oxen are one factor. Harriet Malinda's death from cholera is another. There's no one left to play the thing.

What do you add to that? And there was also crucial anthropological evidence to be uncovered:

This grave marker may be conclusive evidence that pioneers of the 1800s played the Oregon Trail differently from kids in my third grade computer lab, who never would have wasted their precious character count on details like that.

All in all, the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center was exceptional, and ranked as a favorite stop for both of us. (We also appreciated that, unlike everything else we've seen and read so far, this place had some discussion about what the pioneers actually did when they reached Oregon. There were illuminating quotes from the diary of a settler named James Nesmith, who I'm going to assume was the ancestor of Mike Nesmith from the Monkees.)

Tonight, we make camp at The Dalles, on the banks of the roaring Columbia River. The Barlow Toll Road is an option, as is a raft. Some pioneers, having abandoned all of their possessions, are wind-surfing on the river; their progress is slow and frequently devolves into circles, and we pity them.

Tomorrow, no force on Earth can keep us from the end of the Oregon Trail.

Day 8
Distance: 287 miles
Pace: Strenuous
Health: Good
Weather: Hot
Meals: Filling

After a few miles of Montana, today was consumed by the bone-dry expanses of Idaho. Shortly after leaving West Yellowstone, we picked up a branch of the Oregon Trail called Goodale's Cutoff, which was named for an Illinois mountain man named Tim Goodale. In 1862, fearful of recent Indian hostilities along the trail through present-day Idaho, a group of pioneers hired Goodale to come up with an alternate route. ("Mountain man" is one of those careers that isn't as employable as it used to be, but in those days, it was a hot industry.) Goodale came up with a route that arcs through central Idaho, across what is now the Craters of the Moon National Monument:

Craters of the Moon is an area with a handful of small, active volcanoes that erupt every so often (in geological terms), leaving the whole area covered in black lava. In the years since the last major eruption, some shrubs have made a comeback. The trees are not quite thriving, though:

All things considered, not an easy place to drag your wagons through, and not a place that inspires optimism about the road ahead. But if you have invested in a mountain man, you're kind of stuck with him, even when he takes you into a lava field. What do you do when you're a thousand miles from home and you suspect your mountain man is crazy? In this case, you stick with the plan; they rejoined the original trail (as we did) near Fort Boise, and made it to Oregon without any more than the usual amount of dysentery and cholera.

Of course, the game clearly states that you are leaving Independence in 1848, not 1862, so Goodale's Cutoff shouldn't be available to us, as we are attempting to re-enact the game as farmers from Illinois. We are cheating for practicality's sake, because we're coming from Yellowstone, which is north of the original trail. In 1848, no cutoff was necessary; everything was fine along the original trail, because the Indians weren't yet pissed off about you hunting every couple of days and only hauling 200 pounds back to your wagon. They thought it was a phase you were going through, that you would eventually start using every part of the buffalo like they did. (Or more parts of the bear.) But you never did, did you? Look around. How many parts of the buffalo are you currently using?

With regard to that 1848 date, though, a couple of things can be inferred. The migration on the Oregon Trail began in earnest in 1843, so in the game, your party of pioneers were setting out fairly early in the scheme of things, which means:

1. The reason you lose the route sometimes in the game is because the trail wasn't as worn and clearly defined as it would become in the 1850s. Also, your guidebook was probably still full of bullshit.
2. Settlers were being given 320 acres of land in Oregon for free. Since you arrived in 1848, you were probably able to grab a pretty choice parcel, once the dysentery cleared your system. (In later years, settlers had to travel further afield to find something good.) In other words, you, KURT RULES, melissa, Hulk Hogan, and RYAN IS GAY from the third grade expedition probably prospered in Oregon, if you all made it. So that's nice.

We made camp for the night on the outskirts of Boise. The lava field had been hot, but not compared to the stretch of interstate between Mountain Home and Boise. The temperature gauge of the Volks Wagon said 102. As I waited in the car, K. proved her mettle by making fresh baked cookies a deal-breaker in her negotiations with the desk clerk at the Hampton Inn; we had an excellent night.

Days 5-7
Distance: 347 miles
Pace: Steady
Health: Fair
Weather: Cool
Meals: Filling

Wrong trail. Lose 3 days.

MovableType, my web publishing software, has been very aggressive toward comments written over the last few months, and while checking the 'Junk Comments' folder, I found comments from several worthy correspondents mis-categorized as such. Sorry about that. Comments are enjoyable, not junk. This is what you get for leaving duties like that to robots.

We have been off the trail, but only temporarily. Tomorrow, we plunge into Idaho to catch back up with America's grand western migration and its finest achievement in educational computer gaming, the Oregon Trail. Because of this diversion, I am ashamed to report that we will miss Soda Springs, which was included in some versions of the game. Idaho will be a ferocious drive to make up for lost time and prepare for that last, fateful effort to deliver our entire party safely into Oregon, collecting vast amounts of bonus points.

Unlike the pioneers, who were a naturally humble lot and well aware of the mortal risk posed in the making of this epic journey, we are cocky bastards; we have taken a three-day diversion into mountainous territory, namely Grand Teton National Park and its neighbor to the north, Yellowstone National Park. Although fur-trappers worked this area, pioneers would likely have steered clear. It's been hard enough getting the Volks Wagon up some of these hills, let alone a team of oxen and a Conestoga Wagon.

We parted from the trail in Farson, Wyoming, which consists of a gas station and a small trailer park with a sign identifying the trailers as "The Oregon Trail Residences". (Was that the point at which exhausted settlers declared they'd had enough and re-fashioned their wagons into trailers, settling in to await the coming of a gas station? Some things are lost to history.) Instead of continuing west, we traveled north and checked into a Super 8 in Jackson, Wyoming, as our base for exploration of the Tetons. There isn't much to say about the Super 8, other than that the continental breakfast area had a taxidermied brown bear in a glass case, standing on two feet and wearing a ranger's hat. Mind you, it wasn't wearing any other parts of a ranger's uniform, just the hat. Over breakfast, we considered the possibilities:

1. This was a bear with a hat fetish, who was indulged by the locals with gifts of various hats until they grew bored with the game and shot him;
2. This was a bear who swiped a hat in order to more effectively swipe picnic baskets, reasoning that the hat made him looked like a ranger, and nobody would have a problem with rangers swiping picnic baskets. Being a bear, his primitive reasoning skills overlooked the fact that rangers wear pants;
3. This was a were-bear who served as a ranger between full moons;
4. This was a cruel joke played by the locals on a bear who had always aspired to be a ranger, and thought, in those final moments before they shot and stuffed him, that with this hat, he had finally achieved his dream, which was to impose law and order on his fellow bears;
5. They had this awesome hat and couldn't figure out what else to do with it, so they put it on a dead bear's head and carried on with whatever else they were doing.

Jackson (or, as the locals seem to prefer, "Jackson Hole") caters to wealthy tourists, extraordinarily wealthy part-time ranchers like Dick Cheney, ski bums, and disgruntled members of the service industry. ("We call this place poverty with a view," a desk clerk said.) It is surrounded by mountains and features a dazzling hotels-to-other-sorts-of-businesses ratio, and yet it finds room for two arches made out of old antlers discarded by local elk and collected by Boy Scouts. We made reservations at the Pony Express Motel for the second night, which was enjoyable, and transferred to the small Montana town of West Yellowstone as our base for the rest of the parks expedition. I soured on West Yellowstone almost immediately, after being serenaded by a roving local theater group promoting that night's production of "Oklahoma". We're in Montana, visiting a park in Wyoming, and you interrupt my dinner with songs from a musical about Oklahoma? You, local theater group, are Satan's geographers.

I won't write in detail about the Tetons or Yellowstone, since they're not mission-specific to the Oregon Trail (and I'm falling behind on these entries), but I should note that K. finds it strange and intriguing to be able to see the moon during daylight hours, and also that:

I could only carry 200 pounds back to my wagon. Them's the rules.

Day 4
Distance: 348 miles
Pace: Strenuous
Health: Fair
Weather: Hot
Meals: Meager

(I didn't have a reliable wi-fi connection last night, so this entry is being published a day late. A strained analogy involving the Pony Express is available to subscribers for an additional fee.)

We ended last night on the outskirts of Casper, Wyoming. There are plenty of hotels in Casper, as it is the second-largest city in the state and features a whopping two Wal-Marts, but they were all booked, save for ones offering extremely specific room types (handicapped smoking room with three single beds, one of which is haunted, but it switches from night to night - that sort of thing). The Hampton Inn had a big plate of freshly-baked cookies at the front desk, and I fear I may never fully recover from being denied lodging there. (The excuses I would have found for trips to the lobby...the mind boggles.) A clerk at the Super 8 (also full) referred us to the West Side Hotel, which is on the west side of town, and appeared - based on the sign, color scheme, wood-paneling, and murals from "Yellow Submarine" in the restaurant - to have been opened by hippies in the early 70s, and preserved thereafter as a museum illustrating the sort of hotel that hippies opened in the early 70s.

I found the place charming, fond of wood-paneling as I am, but K. didn't like the mold in the bathroom or the pillows. Well, fair enough. My enthusiasm was significantly dampened at breakfast, when I asked the waitress if the breakfast burrito had any meat in it, and she said 'no', and then brought me a breakfast burrito smothered in ground beef, and we had to have a semantic argument about whether there was a meaningful difference between meat being 'in' the burrito or 'on top of' the burrito. (Are there directional vegetarians?) The aging hippie in the kitchen, thankfully, took my side.

You have reached Independence Rock. Would you like to look around? Y / N

Independence Rock is so named because if travelers reached it by July 4th, Independence Day, they knew they were on pace to reach Oregon before the winter. Although the game and historical accounts refer to it as a major highlight, the state of Wyoming refers to it as a "Rest Area", with an additional small brown sign saying "State Historical Site Independence Rock" directly across from the entrance - very helpful, as long as your car (and all traffic behind you) is cool with going from 70mph to zero in less than a second in order to make an instantaneous turn. The Volks Wagon, however, needs a little more notice than that.

Unlike Chimney Rock, about half of the land around Independence Rock is publicly owned, so you're welcome to have a look around (until you reach the fence, at which point a sign reminds you of the importance of respecting property rights). Travelers on the Oregon Trail usually rested there for a day or two and carved their names into the rock; their names are preserved today, evidently sliding in on the favorable side of that fine line between "historic" and "graffiti". Otherwise, it's mainly a big rock, so you can walk around it and imagine people firing off guns, cheering for their nation and their ability to keep to a schedule.

At this point, we were on Route 220. By taking state roads, which are very well-maintained in Wyoming (and generally decent in Nebraska), it is possible to drive very close to the original Oregon Trail. There are plenty of little markers along the way, ranging from little white marble blocks saying 'Oregon Trail' to the big, grandiose signs of the 1930s and the teacher-chat sequential interpretive displays of the 1980s. (The WPA-era prose on the sign at the Wagon Ruts near Guernsey is particularly exceptional. That anonymous writer saw the whole sweep of history before him and strained to the very limits of the sign genre to get his readers to see it, too.)

Later in the afternoon, we indulged another fascination of mine, ghost towns - or, as they're known in Wyoming, "towns". We had already passed Jefferson City along 220, which I was surprised to find classified as a ghost - there were plenty of deserted structures, including an enticing motel with a top-hat on its weather-beaten sign, but overall, it didn't look any less active than any town we'd seen in the state other than Casper. Now traveling south on Route 287 (and witness to some astonishing mountain views), we turned on a gravel road to find Atlantic City and South Pass City. Both were mining towns that boomed in the 1870s and dwindled thereafter. Today, these roads are nearly impassable to the likes of the Volks Wagon in mid-summer, so I doubt anyone gets in or out during the winter.

K. was not much interested in Atlantic City, but I liked the atmosphere there. It had a hillside clutter of structures, but the small handful of still-occupied buildings were hard to tell apart from the vacant ones, making thorough exploration a dicey option. One billed itself as a cafe, and showed signs of being open; another, with the tall words MONK BIRD KING scrawled in red outside, claimed (in smaller words) to be the studio of a sculptor. Another long-abandoned building had an optimistic 'FOR SALE' sign in the window. We had passed a sign for "Crazy Woman Realty - Buyers Only" earlier in the day, and they have a website - they may know more about the size of the down payment expected, financing options, etc.

South Pass City is closer to the abandoned mine, which can be seen on a nearby hilltop. (Evidently, there is a state agency dedicated to making sure these abandoned mines don't become a problem.) According to the welcome sign, "about 7" people live in South Pass City today. The state has bought and semi-restored a handful of structures, the few that survived a massive fire after the town went bust around the turn of the century, and some are now mini-museums about the town's history. Others remain vacant, such as a remarkably creepy jail / temporary schoolhouse where the letters of the alphabet can still be seen inside, above the door, facing the dungeon-like cells.

The gift shop had a primitive coloring book about the Oregon Trail (trust me, I would have bought it if it had been worth buying) the same fake gold-panning kit we've already seen a dozen times on this trip, and a stack of lurid romance novels by Wyoming authors.

Impassable trail. Lose 1 hour.

There were more road crews digging for treasure in what appeared to be perfectly serviceable roads, so K. and I entertained ourselves with Chinese fire drills while waiting, and we both spent too damn long behind the wheel before winding up in Jackson for the night. We're off the Oregon Trail now, spending a couple of days at the national parks, which may come back to haunt us in the winter. Wish us well.

Day 3
Distance: 220 miles
Pace: Steady
Health: Fair
Weather: Hot
Meals: Meager

Bad water.

Bridgeport, Nebraska has a high level of uranium in its tap water, so we were cautioned not to drink any; we were assured that it's fine to brush our teeth with it, so we did, and I will be checking the mirror for the next couple of nights to see if my teeth are glowing.

A few words about Bridgeport, before I continue. Although Main Street was only seven blocks long, it had two options for nearly everything. Want to take the lady out for a cheap meal? There's Subway. Fancy meal? There's the Mexican restaurant. There were two grocery stores, two funeral homes, two bars, and two gas stations; we stayed at one of the two hotels, and according to signs, there were two parks, one to the east and one to the west. (There was only one chiropractor, but I suppose not believing in that voodoo back-crackery represents the second option.) The local paper had an editorial about how to attract and keep new residents. Evidently, there is a theory in place, and it involves two of everything (and no more than that).

There was only one cafe in town, the Tarnished Halo, but that was all I needed to begin the day with a banana smoothie. Cookies were also on sale, and I bought one, eager to sample uranium-enriched chocolate chips, but they were actually made in Wisconsin. ("That cookie has traveled farther than we have," K. observed.)

You have reached Chimney Rock. Would you like to look around? Y / N

Chimney Rock was one of the most notable landmarks of the Oregon Trail. Some pioneers would travel a few miles out of their way to see it, when a few miles meant a lot. One swore that it would be the among the most-visited places in the world if it were back east. Travelers would rest, talk, and celebrate at the base. Today, it's on private land, and you can only see it from a distance.

USA! USA! USA!

There is a small visitor center some distance away. We walked in to confirm that this was the closest we could get, and politely declined to pay $3 to look at wall displays with blown-up quotes about how amazing the rock was to people who could actually get within a couple miles of it. According to K., the old lady at the desk rolled her eyes at me as we left. Those were, perhaps, the most fucking awesome wall displays ever contracted out to the Kinkos a few towns over, and an opportunity was missed. Roll on, old lady's eyes.

We took a short drive out to an observation point, and were galled to note that the only other visitors had jumped the barbed-wire fence and hiked out to the rock; we could see them at the base, in candy-striped shirts. Our fearful law-abiding natures (and a vehement sign about rattlesnakes) kept us behind the fence. There was a mild fascination to behold in the small cemetery behind us, though. The sign at the entrance trotted out the usual lines about the rigors of the trail and the many who died along the way (K., tastefully, had chosen today to wear her "You Have Died of Dysentery" t-shirt), but there were only two kinds of gravestones in the cemetery: brand-new gravestones erected in the last couple of years for distant ancestors buried in the vicinity, and old gravestones for people who had died some 20-30 years after the end of the trail. If the Oregon Trail days and the associated hardships had been over for decades by the time they died, why were they buried there? Perhaps they had completed the trail as young men and women, and in later years, settled in Oregon and surrounded with family, they had come to remember the triumph of reaching Chimney Rock as a high point in their lives, and had asked to be buried there. Probably not true, but it has a certain beauty to it.

Impassable trail. Lose 15 minutes.

We were stuck behind two long freight trains as we headed back to Route 26, and stopped again just outside of a town as road crews dug into the pavement looking for treasure. Our frustrations paled before those of the Community Drug Drive-Thru, though:

As soon as I finished snapping photos of the signs, the woman who ran the drive-through was upon me, demanding to know what I was doing. I managed to steer the conversation to friendly ground. Evidently, the situation was exactly as it appeared: unidentified no-goodniks had been swiping the letters from the sign or re-arranging the amiable witticisms ("Men, I Don't Understand. Chocolate, I'm An Expert!") into significantly ruder form (I have no idea). We parted on good terms, agreed that it isn't very nice when people steal yor lttrs.

You have reached Fort Laramie. Would you like to look around? Y/N

We skipped Fort Kearny back in Nebraska, but with K. already dead of dysentery (according to her t-shirt's somewhat unreliable diagnosis), it seemed like we ought to stop to rest. Some sources call Fort Laramie a ghost town; I doubt that hardcore ghost town seekers would include it on their list, since it's now a designated State Historic Site and many of the buildings have been fully restored, but it is still a ripe source of toothless ruins and the passage of time.

We were standing near what had been the bakery when, in the distance, we heard someone start singing. There had been warning in the pamphlets at the entrance that roving staff members in full period regalia might walk up to you in character, but since so few visitors were there (elderly couple in a golf cart, middle-aged couple walking their dog, French couple), we hoped common sense would prevail and the re-enactors would take this opportunity to catch up on filing back at the office. K. continued to explore the bakery, while I nervously investigated the source of the singing. It was coming from a tent some distance away, surrounded by clothes hung out to dry, where either a woman or a mannequin in a red dress was sitting on a bench, surrounded by laundry. She did not move, so it was impossible to tell whether she was real or not; I think we all know, though, that the way terrifying undead spirits get hold of you and drag you to frightening alternate dimensions is by manifesting themselves as eerily lifelike mannequins in period dress. So I was not fucking around by going over there. K. was, herself, re-enacting the end of "2001: A Space Odyssey" with this goddam bakery, leaving me locked in a staredown with what may or may not have been an apparition from hell doing the laundry.

Eventually, we moved on to explore other buildings and ruins, about twenty in all. There was a profoundly awful smell in the prison and on the captain's quarters. An announcement came over the loudspeaker that the sergeant-at-arms would be giving a talk and a tour based on the theme of military discipline and punishment. We hurried over to the surgeon's house, figuring we were safe there. Like the captain's quarters and a couple others, it was jammed with vintage gee-gaws behind glass partitions. We even found the building where the fort general store was housed. Upon discussion we agreed that our beverage supplies were low, so we laid down $3 for an IBC root beer and a Sioux City Sarsaparilla at the "Soldier's Bar". There had been another announcement, that a talk would be held on the role of military laundresses, so I was glad for the sanctuary of the Soldier's Bar. On our way out, I saw the woman in the red dress from the laundry tent walking back to the administrative offices - not a mannequin, evidently.

Sun beat down, but we pressed on to a couple of mildly intriguing sights - ruts left in stone by wagon wheels, a cliff where pioneers supposedly carved their names until vacationers from more recent decades carved over them - until we both developed exhaustion, and went back on the open road to Casper, Wyoming, to rest and make camp for the night. We are still about two months behind pace, due to our late departure, but we should hit Independence Rock tomorrow, and continue to make good time.

Day 2
Distance: 555 miles
Pace: Strenuous
Health: Good
Weather: Warm
Meals: Mexican

Depending on the number of oxen involved in the original measure, we covered somewhere between one and two months' worth of ground today, including most of Nebraska. I think that's fairly impressive. A few pioneers were stopped by the side of the road, forced to make repairs to their wagons at this early stage. I pity them; I do not expect to see them in the Willamette Valley.

It is doubtful that the Volks Wagon can be safely caulked and floated across the river, so we have set aside enough money to pay for ferries or hire Indian guides. Fortunately, the Big Blue River has a bridge now, and so do the other rivers we've crossed, so we have not had to dip into those contingency funds yet. (I am already getting tense in anticipation of the part near the end of this trip where we're going to have to put the Volks Wagon on a raft and shoot down the boulder-filled rapids. That part is never easy.) In the afternoon, we arrived at Fort Kearney, and selected 'N' when asked if we would like to look around. Our supplies were holding up fine.

Most of the day's travels were on I-80 W, which was cluttered with garish attractions, but the trail did not come alive until we branched off to Route 26, heading northwest. Suddenly, the landscape changed - from acres of corn to rolling hills and gorges, lone trees and distant rock formations. It's not as otherworldly as, say, the Badlands, but it did finally start to feel more like a journey into a remote land described but not known. With towns few and far between, gasoline became a serious concern, but the Oregon Trail Trading Post in Llewelyn (pop. 228) had a pump. Inside, there were signs posted to welcome hunters, and stuffed bobcats striking wary poses above the beer. Also, there were Doritos. The later town of Oshkosh pledged TWO COOL MUSEUMS, and Broadwater proferred the multi-colored remains of the Lazy-U Motel; Lisco was fleeting.

We decided to make camp for the night at the pleasant Bridgeport Inn, located in the regional metropolis of Bridgeport. It's nice here, and large enough to feature a Mexican restaurant. (It was our second Mexican meal of the day, after lunch in Lincoln, Nebraska.) As we ate, a group of farmers at another table discussed world and domestic affairs. The frustrating thing is not that they were bumbling redneck fools and they share an electorate with us; actually, their analysis of events was, although unburdened by specifics, reasonably cogent. The frustrating thing is that they know all of that, and they're going to vote Republican in the fall anyway.

There is a cricket somewhere in our room. Tomorrow, we sight rock formations.

Day 1
Distance: 20 miles
Pace: Steady
Health: Good
Weather: Warm
Meals: Filling

K. has objected to my characterization of her iPod in yesterday's entry, and would like it to be noted that her iPod includes music other than the Top Gun soundtrack and Jets to Brazil. In fairness, that is true; "Jump (for My Love)" by the Pointer Sisters is also on her iPod. The record has now been corrected, and another chapter has been written in the legend of my fairness.

Our inn has a deal with the IHOP down the block whereby guests are supposed to receive a 10% discount on meals. We set out for breakfast, intended to take advantage of that offer, but found the IHOP still and lifeless. According to signs on the door, the IHOP had suffered severe structural damage and was undergoing repairs. There was plywood and orange netting on the right side of the building. Hillcrest Drive, as a whole, seemed to be an idea which had reached its end. On both sides of the street, reaching off into the distance, there were acres of abandoned strip-mall storefronts and big-box retailers, bare of signs and even the most faint identifying features. But there was a bus stop, and people waiting for the bus.

Back at the hotel, the desk clerks were stunned to hear about the structural damage at the IHOP. According to a quick investigation on the web, it has been closed since June, when a vehicle plowed into it. The most recent business to occupy the large retail space behind the IHOP was evidently Montgomery Ward's, which shuttered its last stores in 2001.

Hungry, with the 'Meals' category running dangerously close to 'Meager', we drove to downtown Independence and found the one restaurant open on Sunday, a German restaurant called Rheinland. In lieu of anything else on the menu without meat, I had the soup of the day and a plate of spätzle. K. had an order of Hawaiian Toast, which she enjoyed, but which raised serious questions about how much the Germans really know about Hawaii.

Not much else was open in downtown Independence. There was a business called "Game Cafe" that had a posterboard reproduction of the cover of Batman #429 in one of the windows, which is as intriguing an opening gambit as any business can offer, but it may or may not have been open, and the long, recessed entrance-way had the stink of sullen, prematurely-aged youth; we kept walking. There was a Harry Truman statue and a Harry Truman Visitor Center. I considered checking the gift shop to see if they had any of the hell Harry was so famous for giving, perhaps in convenient bottled form. But our destiny lay on the trail, so we returned to the Volks Wagon.

The National Frontier Trails Museum was the key stop for the day. It is dedicated to the various pioneer trails, with some Lewis and Clark shit thrown in, and a painfully loud recording of a cranky old man reading a cranky Horace Greeley quote (intending to dispel the rumor that he said "Go west, young man" or even thought that going west was a good idea at all). While complimentary of their overall achievements and leadership, the Lewis and Clark display had some harsh comments for the men's policy toward Native Americans. Evidently, they attempted to talk the various tribes into ceasing tribal warfare and abandoning all other activities in favor of fur trapping on behalf of the United States government; evidently, the tribes did not take them very seriously. Further on, there was a half-baked thesis that the craze for beaver pelts led to America's economic supremacy, and there were samples of various fur pelts that you could feel, along with the prices they would fetch on the open market back in the pioneer days. K. has expensive taste: her preference, otter, clocked in at $4/pelt.

The most important part of the National Frontier Trails Museum is the room with the test wagon and the supplies. On the wall is a suggested list of things to bring on the Oregon Trail, derived from letters written by some fellow named Campbell. The shelves in the room are stocked with supplies that are proportionately weighted. There were heavy barrels of bacon, slightly less heavy bags of flour and rice, and relatively light tins of cayenne pepper; that sort of thing. The wagon is plugged into the wall, and an alarm goes off if you overload the wagon, so you have to make careful decisions on what to bring. (There is also supposed to be a warning light if you're getting close, but that was broken.) The implication is that this is supposed to be a challenge; if so, the only conclusion I can draw is that K. and I are fucking awesome at the ancient pioneer arts, because we had that thing filled up with everything we wanted long before the alarm went off. Granted, we were light on bacon, because K. would be the only one eating it; we stocked up on rice and beans, and had a generous supply of cornmeal and biscuits. I persuaded K. to bring only the iron skillet and a single bowl, reasoning that whoever is not eating out of the bowl can just eat directly out of the skillet. She was skeptical of this, but when that earned her an additional sack of coffee in the wagon, her objections evaporated.

Here is a picture of our victorious wagon:

Please feel free to ask detailed questions about the contents of our wagon in the comments section.

The second most important part of the National Frontier Trails Museum was the wall that listed the pros and cons of mules and oxen, and then asked visitors to register their vote for the party of their preference. (These votes are apparently reset weekly.) The voting was running 2-1 for mules when we walked in. K. and I discussed the issue and agreed to vote for oxen. However, due to a bug in the system, each vote for oxen counted as 10, whereas each vote for mules counted only for 1. When we returned to the voting area on our way out of the museum, the counting had been fixed; however, vicious pro-mule ballot stuffers had clearly been at work, as mules now led 133-21. Outrageous!

The third most important part of the National Frontier Trails Museum was the display about ridiculous things people brought with them on the trail, and abandoned along the way. There was a grandfather clock and a six-volume set of commentaries on the laws of England. Most poignantly, there was a rolling pin, and the story of the man who had been forced to abandon it by the other members of his party in an effort to lighten their load. "My mother used it for for making biscuits," he pleaded. "She made awful good biscuits." There was also a rocking chair that had been abandoned, found by another traveler, and carried the rest of the way as a present to his wife; and there was the story of a "handsome, Gothic wooden bookcase" abandoned on the trail, which I mention because there was a less handsome but entirely real bookcase sitting in the left lane of I-435 as we drove back to the inn. These people go too far for historical authenticity.

The critical parts of the day's agenda complete, we had pleasant, informative visits to the Negro League Baseball Museum and American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, and then had dinner at a Chinese restaurant down the block from a blues band with a devoted following among bikers. As we walked back to our car, a homeless young man lurched forward and semi-rapped "Pay me, don't give me no shit," at me, and then thanked us very much for coming. As we were driving through the Financial District downtown, heading toward the highway, another homeless man smiled and shouted "No, you don't. It's your birthday!" at us. I don't know what's going on in Kansas City.

Somehow, a discussion about making a mixtape about songs with cities in the title led to a discussion about making a mixtape about songs with superheroes in them, which led to "In the Garage" by Weezer, which led to a loud, raucous sing-along to old Weezer songs all the way back to our inn. We are pioneer as fuck.

Day 0
Distance: 528 miles
Pace: Strenuous
Health: Good
Weather: Warm
Meals: Filling

K. and I have decided to travel the Oregon Trail for our summer vacation, and I will keep a record of the journey here. I have written fairly often about the Oregon Trail in the past, but only in the form of the computer game. Now, we are on the trail ourselves, using K.'s Volks Wagon to make the trip.

There are a few places from which those historical pioneers set out on the trail, but we are beginning in Independence, Missouri, because that is where the game began. It is close to the border of Kansas. We left Chicago around 10AM, but stopped for breakfast before travel had begun in earnest. Later, at the edge of civilization - in a dire outpost called North Aurora - we stopped at a Target to buy a football. It was agreed that vigorous games of catch at rest stops would promote good health and constitution. K. asked that we purchase a Nerf football instead of a regulation NFL football, which might bonk her on the nose and break her glasses. Curiously, though, there were no Nerf products on the shelves of the Target. What happened to Nerf? They were the Microsoft of our childhood. How could they disappear? Did they diversify into fields for which their solid foam was not qualified, such as the manufacture of Nerf space shuttles, and dissolve under lawsuits? I don't know. It was a disturbing omen. Nevertheless, we found a plastic Amazing Spider-Man football that met K.'s requirements, so all is well. (The clerk asked if we wanted a gift receipt for the football, assuming that we intended to give it as a present to a child, providing said urchin with a momentary distraction from the crushing despair of childhood in the barren wasteland of North Aurora. No, clerk! We are pioneers, in search of places better than this.)

My iPod's battery ran out a couple of hours before we reached Independence. Many pioneers faced that problem on the trail, and found that the guys at Fort Laramie were total dicks about letting them use their outlets. So we are going to have to be more disciplined about ensuring that things remain charged. K. has an iPod as well, but it is mostly just the Top Gun soundtrack and Jets to Brazil, so that is what we were listening to as we arrived in the Kansas City metropolitan area, which includes Independence.

Here are the basic theories with which I play Oregon Trail on the computer:

1. Load up on oxen for speed.
2. Don't waste money on sets of clothes. If you leave early enough in the year, it won't get cold enough for pneumonia to be an issue.
3. Leave in April. (See #2.)
4. Buy a minimal amount of food and begin hunting more or less immediately after departure.
5. Carry spare wagon parts.
6. Play as a farmer from Illinois.

Here are the ways in which we have already broken those rules:

1. We are not going to buy any oxen, relying entirely on the internal combustion engine of the Volks Wagon. (As I recall, Matt will not let you out of the General Store without oxen, so this would be a deal-breaker in the actual game.)
2. K. brought ten sets of clothes from home. I brought less, but more than zero. We will be clothed throughout this trip.
3. We have left in mid-August. This creates a severe risk that South Pass is going to be snowed over and we'll be stuck there for the winter; the name of the Donner Party has already been invoked. But K. just finished grad school, so we are forced into this late departure by the same institutions of higher learning that made us aware it is a mistake. School: same as it ever was.
4. Despite my urging that we needed to wait to stock up at Matt's General Store, K. bought some provisions at CVS before we left Chicago. (She paid more than .20 per pound, which is Matt's rate, so she got ripped off.) It is extremely unlikely that we will do any hunting along the trail, although I am cool with finding wild fruit, if it is there to be found.
5. We have a spare tire and jumper cables, so we are sort of in keeping with this one. If the Volks Wagon axle breaks along the trail, though, we will be stranded.
6. We are from Illinois, but neither of us is a farmer, and we are better-funded than farmers typically were when they made the trip. (It's a shame - considering the number of oxen we could buy at Matt's prices, we would probably arrive in Oregon before we had even left Independence, and wind up demonstrating various of Einstein's theorems.)

We left I-435 at exit 69 and found three inns to choose from. With the rates comparable at all three, we selected the Days Inn, hoping that the warm, lodge-like atmosphere of its lobby and its charming front desk staff were reflective of the rooms. They were not, but we will make camp here, and begin our preparations for the trail tomorrow. (I have to ask a local where Matt's General Store actually is.)