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 | 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...
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