To Osaka!!!...and back?

Disclaimer: This is a very long post. I apologize for it's length but I wanted to get everything down and we have a very busy week ahead of us! The crazier stuff happens near the end so please keep reading.

This weekend we got some time off and decided to make the most of it by taking a trip to Osaka. Osaka is Japan's second biggest city and we think the nicest. There is a lot going on and it feels like a very modern place to be. We ran into some trouble at the end of our trip... but I'll explain later.

First we had to meet up with Asamoto. He is a really nice guy that we met a couple weeks back at Takahama Beach. He approached us and we spoke for a little while before exchanging contact information. He suggested that we get in touch with him if we get some time off, so we went ahead and emailed him letting him know that we were planning to go to Osaka. Now you must understand, Asamoto is a huge beauty. He actually drove 90 minutes to pick us up at Higashi-Maizuru station (in his yellow VW Beetle) and drove us back to his apartment in Takarazuka, a city near Osaka.

We were a little nervous about getting a ride with a stranger and staying at his place, but it turned out to be a really good experience. Asamoto speaks very good English and he had plenty of questions to ask and stories to tell us. We listened to American love songs from the 70s and 80s for the entire journey (...surprisingly no Journey).

Once we arrived at his place we watched some Japanese tv and listened to more love songs while Asamoto asked us questions. He had one bed and was kind enough to let us use it and he slept on his couch.

After a short sleep we were up and on our way to Osaka. First we stopped at a used video game shop where all of the used games were at least 10 bucks more than new games are in Calgary. Very surprising.

Once we got to Osaka the first place we went was Osaka-jo castle. The weather was ridiculous. It was almost too hot to enjoy ourselves, in fact, I doubt that we would have had we not spent the majority of the time indoors with air conditioning. The castle itself was an incredible sight, equipped with a large moat and a courtyard. The inside was basically a museum of Japanese history. We paid to wear some armor as Japanese people stared at us with a mixture of astonishment and pity. The castle was a lot of fun and people were very nice to us.

Next we went for a taste of Osaka, which is famous for having very good food. Asamoto ordered Yakisoba and Okinomiaki (letting other people order for me is something of a personal nightmare, but he had been so nice that I would have felt like a complete asshole objecting). The food was really good, Asamoto enjoyed a little too much of it and spent the rest of the afternoon fretting that he would get fat.

For our next adventure Asamoto gave us a choice between the Osaka Tower and the Aquarium. I think the heat may have had something to do with it, but nice cool water sounded very nice to us and we chose the latter. It was AMAZING. The pictures should speak for themselves but let me say that seeing these creatures up close is incredible.

After a lot of fun wandering around looking at lazy water animals (looking at you otters), we took a trip to the heart of Osaka at the train station area. There is a TON of shopping (Georgia liked it very much) and I'm sure there was a lot of other interesting things to do but we had had a long day and were actually trying to find a theatre that was playing the new Batman movie (No dice, it's not out here until mid-August). We ended up at an Italian restaurant that had unbelievably good spaghetti and a very solid calzone.

With no movie to watch we decided to indulge Asamoto's pachinko addiction (just joking Asamoto!) and even managed to try it out for ourselves. I still have no fucking idea what was supposed to be happening. There are a lot of ball bearings flying around everywhere and sometimes there is a slot machine type animation that lets you know that you're not winning anything.

We said goodbye to Asamoto shortly after losing our money. He left us in the middle of a dark and shady looking street where we were supposed to find ourselves a love hotel. This was completely our fault as we assumed it was going to be clean, cheap and easy... it wasn't... especially not clean.

Love hotels are (supposedly) cheap spots for young lovers to visit to get some privacy and also businessmen to sit down and converse with ladies of the night. The first love hotel we went to was a bit of a disaster. We didn't understand any of the Japanese and what was supposed to be a discreet transaction with minimal human contact became a lobby full of Japanese people with no idea what we meant by "how much for one night?". We were lead outside and pointed towards another hotel.

So there we were wandering around a dark street surrounded by prostitutes and adulterers, with no idea what we were going to do. We thought that giving up and paying to stay at a regular hotel was looking pretty good at this point so we tried one out... they spoke English! But they did not have any rooms. So we went to the Manhattan Love Hotel... it said Manhattan right on the building... you'd think there might be some English somewhere inside... well maybe if you were US you would think that.

We actually pushed a button this time selecting our room and took an elevator (recently occupied by a working girl) to our room. We opened the door and stepped inside. There was a machine where you choose the amount of time that you want to stay and insert your cash or credit card... sadly there was no english and not even any numbers. Georgia took a tour of our room as I attempted to navigate the machine to it's most expensive price... she came back with a look that is not easy to describe. Part disgusted, part amused and part confused might give you some idea. She saw a full garbage bag tied up in the can, balled up kleenex sprinkled on the floor (I wonder if the last visitor had a cold...) and dirty pink towels. You must understand that this room was lighted up and we had a ticket directing us to it... so it's not like we stumbled into the wrong place... it was just a filthy, filthy scene.

It was time to go... we couldn't figure out how to pay and it wasn't really looking like a great place to be. So I grabbed the door handle turned it and... LOCKED! We were locked in a room that felt like it had just been used as a set for an amateur porno and we hadn't even paid money... so we were waiting for some muscle to come up and shake us down. Soon enough we heard knocking at the door and Japanese being called out by a woman... at first I was glad but then I thought she might have a gun (she didn't). She couldn't understand me and vice versa so I tried to make my point by turning the door handle like a maniac and bumping the door. Finally, they found some employees (strange, strange people) who could speak English and they opened the door. Exhausted, I actually agreed to simply pay the 15 000 (about $150) so that we could stay in our little hellhole. Luckily for me, Georgia was still thinking straight and said absolutely not, so off we went into the night!

Thoroughly furious at Osaka and ourselves, we stomped around aimlessly for a few minutes (it was not a real upbeat hour). Finally deciding to get the hell out of Osaka. We went back to the train station and asked for a ticket to Kyoto (good old familiar Kyoto...more on that later). The man told us that we were at the wrong station. So off we went back where we came from to Osaka station! We bought our tickets and missed the first train because the genius at the counter told us to go to the wrong platform, but we made it on the next train and back to Kyoto.

The train ride was a good experience because we were able to calm down and reflect a little on our ridiculous day (remember, we had started that day at a freaking castle...). We had a few laughs and chilled out playing a drum game that Georgia had bought for the DS.

We got back to Kyoto station, which we were very familiar with because we'd had so much trouble buying tickets. We stepped out of the station and were immediately lost. We had only ever been on the other side of the station and we had no idea where anything was. Fortunately, there was the APA Hotel, listed in lonely planet as a good, cheap option so once we spotted that one we went right there. Strangely this was not actually the same APA Hotel as in the book and rooms were much more expensive than we wanted to pay so we left again and kept up our seach for inexpensive lodging. We ended up in a dark alley, yet again, joking that with the way our day had gone we ought to keep in the light, populated areas and amazingly we found the OTHER APA Hotel (the right one) and secured a room from a very rude concierge.

We got up to our room and learned that this was actually a hotel for dwarfs... with about a foot of space between every piece of furniture or wall and a bathroom that looked like it was a rejected design for a space shuttle toilet.

Thank you for reading all this... if you did.

The mysterious Japan...

I thought I'd dedicate a post to the somewhat interesting things that we are encountering here. I'll update it as new oddities present themselves!

Things that Japanese people absolutely love

• Iced coffee

It's everywhere! It tastes just like cold coffee (not particularly desirable), and yet at least half of a beverage vending machine is filled with the stuff. Thankfully, one specific brand I think is quite tasty (conveniently named "Georgia Coffee") has been quite the teaching tool! My name is very hard to pronounce over here (no surprise) and so the mention of the EXTREMELY popular "Georgia Coffee" has turned blank stares into "ooooh hai hai, like jeeooojeeeea coffee....Jeeooojeeeaaa- san!!" It's been wonderful.

• pencil cases (and stationary articles in general)
  

It has been quite amazing. Little girls have this bizarre infatuation with arranging/reorganizing/opening/closing pencil cases... often in the middle of a lesson... at least three times.

• Cameron Diaz
  

Everywhere...

• cell phones

You are actually a social outcast here if you don't have a cell phone. People use the internet here more on their cell phones than on computers.

What's even more fascinating is that in Tokyo we stumbled upon a department store with an ENTIRE FLOOR DEDICATED TO CELL PHONE VIEWING/PURCHASE. It was pretty sweet.

• Birkenstock sandals
  

I have never seen more knockoffs/imitations of a particular shoe in my life.

• Lilo and Stitch
  
  
  
• women and at least 5 inch heels
  

Seriously, in Tokyo especially, about 3 in 5 women would be walking down the street in the most ridiculously high-heeled footwear you've ever seen... effortlessly. Kudos ladies.

• Pachinko
  

In our small Maizuru city of about 100,000 people, there are AT LEAST 10 HUGE Pachinko parlours.

• small, rat-looking dogs (especially dachshunds)

Mitch-san is a great example.



• pink
  

Pink buildings, pink cars, pink bicycles....pink pink pink!

Weird/intriguing creatures

Erica's friend's kitten and ferret living and playing together like siblings. They were quite adorable.

Neko-san is the deranged neighborhood cat. We only catch glimpses of him occasionally... and when we do our eyes are met by the twisted sneer of a hobo cat... even after we fed him!

There are huge bugs here! This is some arthropod-looking creature on a dock in Tokyo. I've seen the same thing in Canada, but about 5 times smaller. We've also encountered tooooo many spider variations to mention. There are tons here. The most interesting of which thus far has been a striking black and bright yellow one (most definitely poisonous to humans) which had a leg span of about 3 inches....

Jim claims there was also a bee/fly about the size of a walnut flying around our place

This was some sort of falcon like bird that we saw at the beach. It was huge! I bet it was about twice the size of the biggest crow you've ever seen. Perhaps even bigger....

Questionable English/Western interests

Santa Claus as a fashion icon!

The Tokyo tower (in the background) is exactly like the Eiffel Tower... but 3 meters or so taller.

The statue of liberty is also a curious notion...it's probably about 30 feet tall.

Reconnected

We are back online thanks to Mark! Hopefully some of you are still coming back to check things out, sorry for the hiccup there.

It's Monday and we are starting a new week of teaching. Georgia is stuck observing classes until mid-August but she is gradually increasing her input in the classes that she will be taking over with the aim of smoothing the transition. Apparently Japanese parents dislike it when there are changes in the school.

This will be my first full week of teaching by myself, but I have basically been teaching solo since Tuesday. Monday and Thursday's are kind of a hassle because I teach in the same room that Georgia and I sleep, so we must endure a huge cleaning event twice a week.

We have not made the most of our nights here in Maizuru. From now on we are going to make an effort to get out to social places and engage with the locals. Next weekend we are hoping to make it to Osaka and have a bit of an adventure there with our friend Asamoto. I'll be sure to give an update with pictures.

Anyways, the kids should be arriving in about 15 minutes so I'd best get prepared to teach!

Erica with Kaede and Sakura (Mark and Keiko's daughters) dancing with sparklers

A beautiful Shinto temple that Jim found.

Maizuru comes to life!

A street celebration that occurs every Saturday evening near our apartment... including a dancing transvestite Geisha!! No joke.

One of the main streets in Maizuru. (it's more exciting that it looks...)

Jim and his adventures with processed meat products!!

Sausage on a .... rib bone?

Man meat!!

It had the consistancy of Spam and tasted only slightly of a hot dog-like substance.

All we wanted was something familiar...

Disaster Strikes!

Dear Loyal Blog Readers (better known as close friends and family),

Bad news. My laptop died. I guess we had to figure that something would go very wrong in our first couple weeks and this was a big one. Georgia had a great point though, at least WE are still in tact.

To paraphrase de Botton paraphrasing Seneca: possesions can only be taken me, they cannot be torn away.

Georgia and I have been separated into different teaching/observing schedules as of late, which is new as we were attached at the hip until then. The teaching is going better now that the kids are beginning to recognize and feel more comfortable with us. I am going to start teaching adult classes on Tuesday by myself at a local glass factory, which is a little bit nerve-wracking.

Georgia has a little longer to wait before she begins teaching because the teacher she is replacing is here until mid-August. I'm not exactly sure what our plan will be, but I think we will teach as many classes together as we can until we are both working a full schedule.

Today we are planning on going to a temple near our apartment to look around and take some pictures, then we are heading back to the department store to pick up some more cooking supplies. Cooking for ourselves has been a big adjustment and the refridgerators are much smaller here so it seems like we're always running out of food.

Anyways I hope you're all doing great and we'll keep updating the blog when we get opportunities to use a computer.

Take care,
Jim and Georgia

Back at it

Monday: We had our first teaching experience today with some 7-8 year olds and I cannot say that it went very well. The language barrier is a huge obstacle, especially when the kids aren't that interested in learning in the first place. We were probably a little under-prepared, but we've learned our lesson and will be ready to go next time.

Later in the day we went with Mark to Nishii-Maizuru to teach at the location where we will eventually be living. There was only one boy in this class and I'm sure he was a little overwhelmed having three teachers there with him.

Aside from the work, we are figuring out what kind of foods we like and do not like. We found some great sauce to cook our beef in and I am very, very excited about that because things were looking a little grim. Also, we had our first garbage pickup day (thankfully... it was getting pretty rancid in our kitchen). You need special garbage bags and then there is a spot along the street where everyone drops off their trash. One thing that sucks is not being allowed to leave your garbage out the night before, so you have to get up early to make sure you beat the truck... not a problem since we are usually awake at 5:30 or so.

Keiko has been a huge help to us. She took us to get our Alien Registration Card/"Gaijin" Card today and we were very lucky to have her. Nobody at the city office knew any english and we are useless when it comes to Japanese. Tomorrow we are going to buy mobile phones... we will need them because our schedules are going to be quite different in the coming weeks.

I don't think there are any pictures from today... maybe we'll take some tomorrow and pretend they happened before for those who aren't too keen about reading.

Waterfalls

Sunday: We had a lazy morning on our first full day off since arriving in Maizuru. Made breakfast, did some laundry, boring stuff.

In the afternoon we took the train from Higashi-Maizuru to Nishi-Maizuru (like east and west) to meet up with Erica. She took us for a drive in the car that we might be buying to the countrysid. We went deep into the woods to a secluded area. There was a bunch of cars around which was odd because Erica had never run into anybody there. We looked around for a while and then made our way up some stairs eventually reaching a house and, behind that, a waterfall. Strangely, as we approached the waterfall we noticed some naked dudes standing around and then running behind the house to get changed quickly.

They were nice enough people. We were allowed to go check out the waterfall without any kind of hassle. Our best guess is that it was a religious group of some sort... there were about 20 people there of all ages and both genders... it was a weird moment. Nice waterfall though.

Next we made our way to a cafe by the river (I should learn the name of the river or maybe the cafe...). It was a cool little place where they sell clothing and trinkets from India, Thailand, Laos, Phillipines, etc,. It had beatnik, or maybe hippie-ish, kind of atmosphere and also delicious cheesecake.

Afterwards we made our way through some more countryside and into a very rural town where there was rumoured to be another waterfall. This waterfall was called the "not moving waterfall", which was reassuring. This was a very beautiful area with a babbling brook!? !!! (Georgia and I were pumped... Erica not as much).

All in all, we had a lot of fun and were able to check out some things that we would probably never have gotten to see if not for Erica so we are very grateful.