You’re Turning Into a Penguin. Stop It

Well, this blog entry is a bit special! Today, June 29, marks one month of being in Japan. That’s a pretty long time. I should get presents.

I do get something though… it took a month, but my welcoming party is on Friday. This means I’m likely gonna have to sing some karaoke. I hate singing. I dunno how much they have for English songs, but does anyone have song suggestions for me, besides the very obvious choice? Uh huh! Uh huh! The kinda bad thing about the welcoming party is that Saturday is Canada Day, and CJP was planning to meet in Tokyo at the Maple Leaf Pub… so it’s too bad I miss that, but on the other hand, I save some money, and get two days to sleep in.

Yeah, work’s a bit boring. The person that is kinda directing my project has been away for all but one day in the past 2.5 weeks. And I did everything asked (I think), so I spend some of my time either learning Japanese online, or surfing Wikipedia. This week I read about game theory, space elevators, ravenous bugblatter beasts of traal, and somehow found my way to the lame mathematical jokes page while I was at it.

I’m hoping work improves, currently I know waaay too much about everything I’ve been asked to research and check. I seem to have been forgotten about too, my supervisor talked to me this morning asking to meet in the afternoon, between 3 and 4, then totally forgot, or got busy, or something… /sigh, maybe tomorrow. I keep hoping they give me a task with an actual goal, so I can start working and prove that I’m not completely useless (which may or may not be true). I’m actually hoping things improve after my welcoming party. I haven’t really seen my coworkers outside of work, maybe karaoke will help everyone become more social… which will lead to more contact with me… which will lead to more stuff to do?

Ok so Sunday, I meet up with Anton very early in Osaka, and we head south to Wakayama to visit Keith. It’s kind of a gray, rainy day. But we had fun anyway, cause Everything’s Free in Wakayama! We get off the train at Keith’s station with our 120-en tickets. We figured we’d fare adjust when we got there, only there was absolutely nobody at the train station. No fare adjust machine, and just a box to put your used ticket… So we meet up with Keith and start walking, and stopped by a little shrine. Anton talks to the lady there, who prints off some sheets (in English) about the shrine, as well as offers us free umbrellas, since they were left there by other visitors. Very nice of her.

So me and Anton hadn’t eaten yet, so we go to a burger place at Wakayama station. The place is called Lotteria, and is apparently known for its so-called "Straight Burgers". We each got some cheese straight burgers and received a bonus point for free stuff. Not as good as my bonus points, but a point is a point.

we don’t really have a goal in mind, so we take a train to a small little fishing town/village/thing. We walk around the pier for a bit. They have really nasty bugs, cockroach-like, crawling everywhere. But it was nice to see the other side of the Pacific. Lots of fishermen on the pier too.

So we head back, and we see an onsen. Since Keith hasn’t been to one yet, we figure this would be a good opportunity. The onsen is basically on the roof of this building, and consists of only two baths! It’s way uncool compared to the one Uncle Masa took us to. But still ok I guess. Nearly everyone is basically heading out when we get there, so we got the baths to ourselves. The inside one was very hot, the outside one was a lot cooler, and quite nice with the rain again… As we get out, a big group starts coming in… I still don’t know if that was Gaijin Perimeter in action, but it’s possible…

Two other interesting points, one of the other men was smoking in the locker room. People smoke everywhere here, it’s very different from Calgary, where there’s tons of rules about it. Also, as we were leaving (and after we got dressed luckily), a cleaning lady comes into the locker room… while there’s naked guys inside… and where she can fully see the baths. I had read about this (Dave Barry again), but it’s still really weird to see.

Another tangent coming up, since I mentioned Dave Barry. Carin actually mentioned this at training week, I doubt anyone remembers, but here’s how to interpret what a Japanese person is saying and what they actually mean.

What They Say and What They Mean

	What They Say	What They Mean
	I see.	No.
	Ah.	No.
	Ah-hah.	No.
	Yes.	No.
	That is difficult.	That is completely impossible.
	That is very interesting.	That is the stupidest thing i ever heard.
	We will study your proposal.	We will feed your proposal to a goat.

Ok, back on topic. We go for lunch at a very Japanese restaurant. We order different kinds of fish, mine was rather sweet surprisingly. We also got mochi udon, which was pretty good, but a lot of food for me. I gave some away. Then we went exploring in the rain, walked for a good 20 minutes, hit a dead end, and walked all the way back. We took the train back to Wakayama and wander around a bit more. Eventually we go for dinner at a Chinese place, and then get lost on the way back to the train station. We arrive just in time to get our train, and take a long, uneventful ride home… I think I’m missing a lot, but I can’t remember. I had fun though.

Oh yeah, we passed by a beach with surfing while we were on the train. I definitely want to try that out this summer.

Dave also gave me two books dealing with Kansai dialect. One of the books has some unusual phrases to learn. Along with a complete chapter on smack talk ("He’s got a fat [arse]"), but a chapter on phrases related to love, including "I wonder if I’m pregnant" and "My son eloped with the girl next door". There’s a lot, lot weirder too, if you want a list, email me I guess...

How Am I Supposed to Write My Blog When I'm Trapped on the Ceiling? It's Impossible

Continuing from last blog... Stayed at Anton's after the concert, along with Vincent and Keith (and anton was there too), then we went in search of breakfast.

Anton’s Old Man Luring Gaijin Powers (OMLGP) benefited us again! We were discussing plans outside a coffee shop, when an older gentleman came out to usher us in, saying what a great place it was, and to come in and eat! Only he wasn’t an employee, he was a customer! Turned out good though, toast, hard-boiled egg, ham, potato salad and ice coffee (I still don’t like coffee, bleh).

Next on the agenda was climbing to the top of Fushimi-Inari. Anton was sick last time, so I was the only one to have been there… We climbed to the very top this time, which took us quite a while, since we took some detours, but it was fun. Once again there were high schoolers doing endurance training on the stairs up the mountain.

We came back down and went to get some food. Anton and I got the same thing. Anton asked what it was, and he thought the waitress said fox o.O… When he asked her again, "Is this fox?" she confirmed that it was indeed! No, kidding, she laughed a bit, and said, no, no, it’s tofu. So yeah, cold tofu and noodles in a very sweet broth, wasn’t bad, but quite different. (Now きつねうどん　is one of my fave things in Japan).

By this time it was time to head to Kyoto Station, Vincent’s bus was leaving at 4.So Vincent departed from us, and we continued on our adventure by going exploring around Kyoto Station. We pass by a large hotel, and Anton sees an attractive Japanese Policewoman. He asks to take her picture, but she seemed hesitant… and eventually said no. There were a lot of cops around, and it probably wouldn’t look too good for her. So we move on, then start thinking why there’s so many cops… at least one on every street corner! I suggest some sort of famous person passing through soon. So we pass by another cop and ask him, turns out I was right, in an hour a Japanese prince was to be passing through.

Not wanting to miss an exciting opportunity like that, we decided to hang around for awhile. Keith and Anton figured this was a good idea to do something that would be considered illegal in Canada. Drinking on the street.

Kinda reminded me of the one scene in Kill Bill, with Lucy Liu in the anime scene as the assassin on the roof… I mention this, and we look up. Sure enough, there’s cops on the roof for security purposes.

So we go back to visit the policewoman, where, after waiting for her for about 15 minutes (she did tell us to come back after the prince and she’d let us take a picture), we got some of her posing for us.

At this point it was about time for Keith to head home, so we took him back to the station and found a good route for him to get home. Sounds like he had some good luck on the train! Anton and I went wandering around looking for a place to eat.

Anton’s OMLGP worked again, only not in a good way; an older man came up to talk to us, asking if we wanted to take his picture. Anton does, then takes one with me in it as well. Then the man tells us he’s homeless, and if we had any money, since he posed for us. Anton tells him we don’t really have any to spare, since we’re students, so he left us… Wow, we really seem to draw attention to ourselves, I’ve never heard of any panhandling in Japan, not to mention such creative panhandling.

Dinner time, we pass by a little sign saying dinner bar, and some stairs leading down, and Anton and I, the adventurous type, go right ahead down. We’re greeted by some very cute Japanese girl waitresses, who seat us right away, then the owner comes to talk to us. He gives us a sheet of paper, explaining that he’s very happy we have come to visit, but that he can’t speak any english besides "Hello" and "I love you"! He was extremely cool, he was palm reading at other tables, managed to tie a piece of wire into a knot inside his mouth, and was wearing a Tom and Jerry sweater! He also showed us the notebooks he had collected… All the foreigners that come to his restaurant he has sign a page in his book and write/draw whatever they want. He’s had people from all over the world, a lot from Europe, North America, Australia, and Asia.

Anton was also quite happy about the seating arrangements, he was facing the two cute waitresses. We chat with them too, find out their names and what they do. The food was quite good, and we even got dessert (Sesame Ice Cream, since it was the waitress’ fave ^^). Anton got one of their emails, so that they can practice their english together!

Anton and I got our cell phones yesterday, though I won’t post my email or phone number on here for obvous reasons.Umm, afterwards Anton was pretty hungry, so we went into the Tomato Cooking Club and faked dumb, asking if it was a restaurant (obviously not, but there were girls our age inside, so, yeah, you know…). Nothing much came of thatthough. After asking a few random peopleon the street for a good place to go, we found an isakaya (Japanese pub). A very loud group of girls and guy was beside us, Anton wanted them to invite us over, but they never did. He even tried to get the waiter to ask how old they were. Crazy Foreigner.

Both of us were too tired to try and decipher the menu, so we asked the waiter to bring us whatever. (Note to others: while in Canada, this may be an ok idea, since you’re unlikely to get much weird, in Japan it’s a different story. But being the brave adventurers that we are…). So yeah, first dish was sashimi, which was quite good. The second dish, mmm some sort of shellfish! This did not look appetizing to me, and I wouldn’t have considered eating that in Canada, but I haven’t refused to try anything yet… It was squishy… Last dish was some sort of pasta with peppers, sausage, and asparagus, quite tasty. We pay the bill and leave the bar. Once again, too late to head back home, so I crashed at Anton’s for the night.

Not an overly eventful night, but the Tomato Cooking Club, the oyster things, and Anton acting like a dumb foreigner like myself to get a family plan kept up our adventurous streak.

Weekends Don’t Count Unless You Spend Them Doing Something Completely Pointless

Ok, onto Osaka Adventure Vol 2!!!!! And there was much rejoicing.

Saturday morning started exactly the same as last Saturday morning… well, besides meeting Uncle Masa… I met Anton in Nara at 10 in the morning and we both went down to Osaka. At Kyobashi Station, we ran into a slight snag in our plans; We had arranged to meet Keith, Boon-hau, and Tongxin here at 11, but failed to realize the size of the station. Me and Anton split up, and Keith managed to find me, and fortunately when Anton returned we spotted the other two as well.

Anton and I saw a band called Kaede playing near Osaka station last week (I may have blogged about it), and they were playing again this weekend! So we decided to check it out. In classic Link and Anton style, all we had to go by was the name of the place they were playing, Esaka Muse, and the time (Anton forgot the map). So we headed to Esaka station and asked one of the workers for assistance. Took the guy 5 minutes to find the place on the map, but was eventually able to help us.

Esaka Muse was basically the fifth floor of some sort of store maybe? We get up there, looks pretty small, there’s a dozen young Japanese guys hanging around. And we’re a gang of six gaijin… we got some looks yes. We go up to the counter, and I’m not sure exactly what the conversation was, but apparently it was more expensive than we thought, 30 bucks a ticket since we didn’t have reservations. But fortunately, the guitarist from Kaede, Atsushi, recognized me and Anton, so we got a reservation and 5 bucks off the ticket price.

Now, we weren’t sure what we were getting into exactly, we weren’t really expecting a concert to be held on the fifth floor of a store… Anton and I were up for anything as usual, but we would have felt bad if this was not a concert, and the others paid for nothing. Buuut…

We go inside, there’s a small stage (good sign), about 5 small tables, and a counter around the back corner with a bar. There’s probably 15 or so people inside, me and Anton were (of course) the only white guys. And we were pretty fly… or something. Anton proposed a toast for being the first white people to set foot there… which may or may not be true, but this was an extremely out of the way place, not a tourist attraction whatsoever. It was a place for indie bands to start out, basically, so most people in the audience were either very big fans, or friends of the band.

The first band were quite good. Their name was Re:ing (which doesn’t make sense to me either)… and according to their sticker, they advertise themselves as "Non Genre Pop" (I always thought pop was a genre, but what do I know). The band was made up of three guys, guitarist, bassist, and drummer, and they were quite good. Keith bought their CD.

Nobody was super close to the stage at this point… except for one brave soul. He was getting his groove on pretty good, dancing close to the stage with some very good moves! I was jealous of his mad skillz. Oh, perhaps I should mention, he was about 5 feet tall, and about 65 years old. The bands and the fans were very nice to him! Anton got a photo of him while he was taking a break… Some of the younger guys were copying his dancing moves too.

The second group (don’t remember the name) was decent, but waaay too American influenced… Every song the girl singer would shout "What! What! What!…". Very dumb, that’s what, but I guess to be expected. American music is everywhere in Japan, and not necessarily the good music either. Third band was better than the first two, they were called Wedding… (Yes, I use a lot of … when I type, but that’s actually part of their band name). The lead singer, female, had a very good voice. Anton and Boon-hau each got one of their singles CDs.

Yay! Kaede is next! By far the crowd favorite, people were standing right next to the stage, and kinda punching the air while cheering, guess that’s the thing to do here. And three guys were getting a little… rambunctious? But that’s the thing to do at rock concerts everywhere. Anyway, Kaede played really well, even coming out for an Ankoru (encore)!

When we left the concert Chii was in the lobby area. She remembered us from last week, and thanked us for coming, and we got a group picture.

It’s Difficult to Comprehend How Insane Some People Can Be… Especially When You’re Insane

So many good titles I could use for today’s blog. I mean, I definitely needed one to do with insanity, but I’m sure it comes as a surprise to nobody that I have a list of a dozen good insanity quotes I could use. I chose this one though, simply because I’m not the only crazy person who thinks adventures are a good idea, no matter what they involve. So if you don’t already know what’s coming, here goes… Anton and I went to the Onsen with Kaitani-san, the man we met on the train last week.

After he wrote Anton a second time, we had to make a choice… we could lie, say we were too busy to go, we could ignore the email and look like rude foreigners, or we could go along with it. After all, gotta try an Onsen at least once, and this way we have a guide so we don’t draw attention to ourselves. (Haha, yeah right, two white naked foreigners in an Onsen, not drawing attention to themselves!) Besides, Japan is very safe, unlike Canada. One guy Anton knows spent 5 weeks hitchhiking Japan and had no problems. And also, we have a great story to blog about.

Anton wrote Kaitani-san (after this point I’ll refer to him as Uncle Masa, just to be consistent with Anton’s blog) to arrange a meeting, then he told me the plan when he got home around 8. Of course this left me 10 minutes to pack and run to the train station in the pouring rain if I was to meet Anton on time. Unfortunately I made the mistake of assuming rain = cold like in Calgary, and brought a jacket; when I got the train station I was wet and sweaty. But no worries, I’d be bathing soon anyway o.O.

Met Anton at 10 to 9 at Takanohara station in Nara. We both couldn’t help laughing at what a weird situation we had gotten ourselves into. It’s pouring rain, 10 at night, work the next day, and we were going with someone we met on the train to a place where we would be bathing naked with other people.

Aah, well, I didn’t come to Japan to work 9 to 5 every day and sit in my dorm the rest of the time. I came to have fun, have an adventure, and experience Japanese culture! And yes, this adventure does turn out for the best, and though I don’t have anything to compare it to, going to an Onsen at night in the rain seems like a really good time to go.

Maybe this is a good spot to describe an Onsen. I’m sure none of you in Canada have been to one, and probably most of the CJP hasn’t yet either. The place we went to was half Onsen, half Sento. Onsen is the outdoor hot springs, basically made out of stone, while the Sento consists of the indoor baths. The shower facilities are indoors as well. The total bathing area would have been about the same as a medium sized swimming pool. The inside baths were interesting, one had magenta colored water, another had seats with water jets shooting at you, another was filled with very cold (17C) water.

Onsen are extremely popular in Japan. Some cities (Beppu is one, I believe) are known for their Onsen resorts, where people go on vacation… yes… to have baths...

So I should probably mention this now. Everyone who knows me knows I’m rather quiet and shy. I’m also rather skinny, and my friends in Calgary make fun of me lots for looking rather young… so bathing naked with other people is something I would never even thought about back in Canada. I’m remembering a certain party at a cabin last summer, where I was the only one fully clothed, while other people (male, but they’ll remain nameless) were on the trampoline with only a toga on and nothing underneath. Of course, I was completely sober surrounded by people who were far from sober, but still, my point is I’m quite shy. So this was quite the experience for me. And yes, I know this is worthy of another “Cute” comment, grrr…

Continuing on with the story, Uncle Masa met us at the station, and we talked with him on the way to the Onsen. We found out he has a family, with a son (19) and a daughter (20 or 21, he couldn’t remember), so that makes everything quite less creepy. He also told us about Onsen, some of the rules and what it’s like. He asked if we had any tattoos. In Japan, tattoos are a sign of the Yakuza (Japanese gang), and Onsens don’t want gang members hanging about inside.

When we got there, we locked our shoes in a locker, then got a key to another locker upstairs and went to the change rooms. I guess locker room would be more appropriate, not really changing into anything except your birthday suit. Also, apparently you don’t wash before you get into the tubs like I had read, you just rinse yourself off. But perhaps if you’re going yourself it would be safer to wash first before getting in. You can also take a facecloth in with you, but you have to wear it on your head when you’re in the tub, it can’t go in the water.

We go into the Onsen outside first, and sat on a little rock bench in the bath. I was right beside the rock where the hot water comes out of, so it was toasty warm. After talking for a bit, we went inside to actually shower (Uncle Masa offered to wash Anton’s back, which sounds weird, but is actually normal in Japan. Anton politely declined however.), then went into the maroon bath and then the jet baths. I challenged Anton to see who could stay in the cold bath the longest. Anton won I think, I was quite freezing, I have no insulation on me. Masa had to leave for a few minutes so me and Anton went back to the outside Onsen for a bit. After we see some bamboo mats on the side that you can lay on. We decide to try it out, and I must say, it was really nice, with your eyes closed and the warm rain falling on you.

After getting out, Masa tells us it’s customary to have a drink after bathing. Anton offers to pay but Masa refuses, and buys us each a coffee milk. We talk with him for over an hour, about many different things. Finally we head back to Takanohara station, where we say thank you and goodbye to Kaitani-san. By this time it was 11:43, and the only way for me to get home was to fly according to Anton, so I stayed at his place for the night. Nothing else eventful happened, I got up at 7 and took the train back to Kyoto for work. I got to my dorm with about 5 minutes to spare before heading to the office. It was a good thing I had a bath the night before.

Today had me taking measurements for use with the root canal machine at my company. This meant that I had to work with decayed, extracted human teeth for a few hours, mmm exciting and not creepy. And yes, another Friday afternoon with 3 hours of accordion music.

The Conversational Equivalent of an Out of Body Experience

First, I should mention work this past week… but not too in depth, I don’t want to violate the confidentiality agreement in my contract (or bore you all, this blog will be loooong)… I have 4 themes I’ll be working with during my 10 months here, and the first is improving upon a video memory circuit board. Only I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing. My first assignment is to check over the board, the circuitry, the signal, the VHDL code… only it’s not a very big job for the time I’m given to work on it. So maybe I’m doing something wrong? Or maybe I’m just prostar? I’ll let you all decide! I’m also helping a co-worker on one of his assignments, which involves me analyzing a nasty circuit diagram and figuring out what’s goin on.

Had another Monday meeting today, which means sitting for two hours, listening to things I can’t understand, and mostly trying not to sleep. Also, I’m supposed to describe what I did the past week (in Japanese).

Work’s not bad, it seems very independent, so I’m never sure if I’m going about it the right way. Anyway, not much happens after work during the week, I get home between 5:30 and 6. They tell me to leave if I’m not gone by then, not like poor Anton, who works till 9 every night. I have decided to devote 1-2 hours every night to learning Japanese… and I try to learn a bit at work too online.

Now to the good part of my blog… Osaka Adventure Vol. 1!

On Saturday Anton and I, armed with everything but my camera and a plan (both would have been good to have), went to Osaka for the day!We decided to meet in Nara instead of Osaka, seeing as how neither of us know Osaka at all, and didn’t want to get separated before we even met. So I went down to Yamato-sadaiji station and then we both headed towards Osaka.

We had our first… umm… experience?… within a few minutes of leaving; an older man (probably 50ish) started talking to us on the train, practicing his English. He asked where we were from, where we worked, our hobbies, all good. He said he had been to Canada (Banff of course). Eventually the topic turned to Onsen (for those who don’t know, Onsen are hot springs that you basically go in to bathe… naked… with other people. They’re supposed to be really good, and I’ll have to try one sometime.) . The older guy told us he likes to visit the Onsen once a week, and that since Anton lives close, he should come with him sometime! Perhaps on Sunday? He even offered to pick Anton up! Now coming from North America, this seems rather disturbing, but maybe it’s normal in Japan to be asked by strangers to go to Onsen? Thinking of how weird this was kept us laughing all day.

*Note: Asking the people at my dorm, and Anton asking at his work, this is considered weird even for Japan. Just so you know…

Next we went to Nipponbashi, Osaka’s electronics district. Interesting place, saw a store that sold miso paste, another that sold old photographs. We passed by a bookstore, Anton decided to go in. "Seems like most of the books in this store are about travelling" he says… look up, I says. The shelf above is loaded with a lot of porn books. Porn is rather, umm, accessible here. People had stands set up on the street with porn videos. Normal video stores had large cardboard cutouts of the very famous Razor Ramon Hard Gay. And yet, all their porn is censored apparently. Very odd…

We wandered around there in circles for a few hours. Anton needed some camera supplies (lens case and mem card), and he needed to change some dollars to Yen. Not sure where the bank was, he asked a lady at the department store, who was nice enough to take us halfway across the mall to the foreign exchange bank! That’d never happen in Canada. We also found Kitchen Alley (least that’s my name for it)… a long back street with every store selling miscellaneous cooking and kitchen supplies. Anton suggested that if I ever get fired from work (say from breaking the confidentiality clause), I should open up a sausage stand in Kyoto! It’s a great idea of course, Anton even found a good apron for me to wear! He suggested the blue, but I think the orange one woulda been better.

Eventually we decided to head more downtown, to Osaka Station.

This was an excellent idea! Just outside the station, on a large pedestrian overpass, were a couple Japanese rock bands giving a free live show! We stayed to watch for well over an hour (there were 2 bands, not playing at the same time, unlike some places in Japan. Speaking of which, anyone know where the park where all the bands play in is? I love live music (except Country).). Anton took way too many pictures, but got some good shots (below) and I bought the one band’s (Kaede) CD, and even got my picture taken with them! Very cool…

Anton wanted to stop at an internet café to check his email, hoping Tongxin (from the Co-op Japan program) emailed him. Tongxin works at Sanyo in Osaka, and she was supposed to have arrived a few days before. We were kinda hoping to meet here in Osaka…

Still completely without a (logical/workable/sane) plan, and without an email from Tongxin, we did what any normal person would do… we went to her neighbourhood and try to find her randomly! What? You say that’s not what a normal person would do? You’re right, sue us.
So yeah, after asking around where Sanyo was located, we headed to where we thought Tongxin may be. Got near to the Sanyo building and actually passed by the dormitory… so we went floor by floor seeing if Tongxin’s name was on any of the doors. I told Anton he gets 50 million bonus points if his super Random Meeting Gaijin Powers led us to Tongxin.

No luck at the dorm, but Anton won 30 million a few minutes later: A few doors down was a man outside a restaurant, Anton asked if there were any other Sanyo dorm buildings around. He explained our situation, and it turned out that Tongxin may have been there the previous night! The man knew someone who worked at Sanyo. He called the person, and let Anton talk to her; turns out she knew Tongxin! Wow, the likelyhood of this is… wait! Was there an Infinite Improbability Drive nearby? Was that creepy street sign warning us of Zaphod Beeblebrox? Am I going off on some tangent here?

Anyways, the lady (Tomoe-san) actually came down to the restaurant (she lived close) to talk to us in person. Unfortunately, she couldn’t contact Tongxin and wasn’t able to tell us where she lived (for obvious reasons), but we gave her a note to give to Tongxin. We invited us to have dinner with us, she declined dinner but stayed and talked with us while we ate. She spent nearly 3 hours talking to us, teaching us some Japanese while we helped her practice English. It was very cool.

The restaurant was also quite good, very small, 3 tables and a bar, but extremely nice inside. It’s actually owned by Tomoe-san’s mother in law… even more coincidences! Dinner was the specialty, basically fried, squid filled doughballs. Not really something I’m used to but managed to eat it all, it was pretty good.

Oh, side note, Music in Japan!!!
Music in Japan is quite unique… some of it (J-pop or J-rock) is quite good, but there’s a lot of music borrowed from the US… let me recap the most interesting musical selections.
The Electronics Store Theme Song – Written by the devil maybe? Pure torture!
Auld Lang Syne – Yes the New Year’s Song, I heard it in Joshin (similar to Future Shop in Canada).
Ice Candy! – We saw this ad in a store, it had very annoying music plus one of the weirdest videos ever… and it looped every 10 seconds o.O
My Grandfather’s Clock – In Japanese, playing in my dorm lobby at lunchtime…
And the most important… my office has music playing in the background. A lot of it is American music, minus the actual lyrics (just the music). I’ve heard (at least once):
Culture Club (Karma Chameleon and Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?), Queen, Disney (Whole New World, Under the Sea), Uptown Girls, and the Macarena!
Also, Friday afternoon had me listening to 3 hours of accordion music… /cry.

Luck Can't Last a Lifetime Unless You Die Young

Well, it's now Sunday night, and it's been a rather eventful weekend! Let me now recap some of the highlights... Ok, Friday night Ly and David took me for Yakiniku. David even paid for me as a happy b-day/welcome to Japan dinner! Which was very nice of him. Went back to the dorm and spent a few hours playing Battletoads for the NES!!!

On Saturday I met with Anton and Clement (from the Co-op Japan Program) and we toured Nara. We went to Kofukuji and Todaiji temples. Todaiji was amazing, we thought the gates (below) were impressive, then we get into the temple grounds and actually see the temple (also below). We don't have stuff like that in Calgary. Inside the temple is home to the second biggest Buddha statue, as well as some smaller statues, like the menacing figure also also below.

Hmm, two interesting things... there is a rather large deer park inside Nara. Clement and Anton both thought this was very cool, as the deer were extremely domesticated, you could pet and feed them, they'd walk along the sidewalk basically begging for food. Coming from Calgary and living 5 minutes from a provincial park, I thought this was a little... odd. As I expressed to my friends... "They're Deer!!!"

Also interesting was the first realization of my "Gaijin Power"... a group of 7-8 junior high girls started waving and saying hi to us, and even wanted a picture with us! It was hilarious! No picture for you guys though, we were holding up traffic on the walking path and decided we should get going.

Wandered around Nara for a bit, and then went to play Pachinko! Pachinko is a lot like slots, only weirder, and money goes very fast. Basically you turn a knob and try to get balls into this little hole, and when you do, slots start playing in the window above, and if you win you get more balls. Ly won 200 bucks (20k yen) the first time he played, lucky bum, and Clement won 50 bucks... I lost 10 :(. Don't think I'll be playing again, I used up all my non-existent beginner's luck.

On a side note, gambling is actually illegal in Japan, but that doesn't really stop anyone. See, in pachinko, you don't win money, you win little cards and a cookie (mmm cookie)... and when you're done playing, you go around to the back where there's a guy who (shockingly!) buys cards for money!!! Well, not a guy exactly, but you stick your cards in the slot, and a minute or two later, when you open the slot, there's money inside! It's like magic!!

This morning Anton was feeling a bit ill (sore throat), so me and Clement went exploring Kyoto. First we went to Fushimi-inari, which is a temple up in the mountains in eastern Kyoto. This temple was absolutely amazing. There's a path that winds its way to the top of the mountain and back down, and along the way most of the path is lined with literally thousands of Torii gates! It was amazing how many there were! Very pretty...

Then we went to eat lunch in downtown Kyoto, but didn't explore downtown much... we took a scenic (ie long) detour through Gion and area to get to Kiyomizu Temple. This temple, far up the mountains of Kyoto too, had some very nice buildings and quite the view of Kyoto.

So, today marks my one week of being in Japan! I've written about what I did, but haven't written about my initial impressions yet, so here goes...

There are some difficulties for me living in Japan. There's a lot to get used to. Food is a big thing, there's so many things that are different from Canada. I've made an effort to try everything so far, including squid and cow's tongue (two things i've never had before). I've made an effort to eat more too... if it wasn't for the miles and miles of walking every day I'd probably gain weight. The bathrooms are hard to adjust to too, ie the squatting toilets and communal showers.

Some things are also quite difficult due to the language barrier. Shopping is hard; I can't read what anything is, I have to guess... and ordering food in a restaurant is a challenge; not only do I not know what it is, but I also can't pronounce it half the time.

I also feel like I stand out everywhere I go... because I do stand out. It's kind of a double edged sword. In Canada I always did my best to blend in. Half the time my friends didn't even know I was there. But it's neat to get the attention some times, just because I a foreigner.

There's some other things that are really neat too. I get to see and do and eat things that don't exist in Canada. The train system is amazing; not only are the trains on time, but there's different speeds of trains that stop at different stations, but there's 8-9 different train lines to switch between. And it all runs perfectly. Also I'm average height!!! There's so many people everywhere (and I'm just in Kyoto). You see tons of school kids all in uniform, which is weird to see. There's temples and shrines and neat things to see everywhere. I'm learning a lot (about Japan, but also about myself) and I'm really excited about the next 10 months here.