Adventures in Japan

The scariest was the man dressed as an exotic dancer

Saturday night we went to a Halloween party at the Green Leaf (a bar near here I think we've mentioned before). They had a real live DJ, so we weren't listening to CDs from beginning to end like we usually do when we're there, but it was very, very loud. And crowded. We weren't in costume, but we still had a pretty good time. Afterwards, we heard that there was a train party going on that night. I'm not sure what it was actually called, so I'm going to call it a "train party" because what happened was people in costume all got on the same train and rode it round and round Osaka all night. Interesting, but probably not for me. What with the motion sickness and all.

I didn't think Halloween was all that big in Japan, but some people do dress up and have parties & stuff, but there's no trick-or-treating. "If the Japanese aren't into trick-or-treating, how will Carla and Tyler manage to get their hands on bags of tiny, individually wrapped chocolate bars?" you may ask. Well you needn't worry. Nearly everything you can buy in a bag here comes individually wrapped. Especially cookies. Tiny cookies.

Bright and early this morning we dragged our butts to the 6th Annual Interpeople Quiz Rally. We were both feeling incredibly sleep-deprived, but we'd signed up for this thing not long after we got here. It would have been really rude to just not show up. And hey, free shirts. Sweatshirts, even. Unfortunately, the day was warm and somewhat humid, so wearing sweatshirts made us feel kind of ill. But we had to wear them so people could tell at a glance what teams we belonged to. I was on the green team. Tyler was grey. Each team was broken down into sub-groups of nine. Everyone in my group spoke at least a little English. Some were fluent. Tyler's team, not so much. I don't think anyone on his team spoke English very well. Poor guy.

Once we'd all been divided into teams, we all assembled for the opening ceremonies, which included calisthenics. Just like in Animal Crossing (a super-cute Nintendo game where all your neighbours are animals). It was kind of surreal. Then we had a series of races where we had to waddle along with all our feet tied together on giant skis. I didn't see what that had to do with quizzes. I guess that was the rally part. We also had to build towers out of beer cans, and race back and forth to fill a bottle of water with a tiny cup. Then there was the quiz part. We walked around the park stopping at checkpoints to answer questions. Surprisingly enough, a lot of the questions were in Japanese. Even once someone would translate a question into English for me, I still wouldn't know the answer. Oh well. At least I got a free shirt. And a couple of other small prizes because the green team came in second. Each one was individually wrapped.

We went a little overboard buying snacks at 7-11 tonight. But we can report that Caesar Salad chips taste mostly like Sour Cream & Onion, Carbonara chips aren't particularly good, and Honey Butter Pretz are horribly addictive. We also tried mochi for the first time. It's a sweet rice cake popular in the fall and winter. Very yummy, even though we bought it from 7-11.

Eat this!

We ordered pizza from a place called Strawberry Cone tonight. It was on sale. I don't know what to say about it, other than corn on pizza isn't as bad as you might think.

For those of you who can't make out the English on the box (pictured at left), it says:

Dear Mom and Dad.
Our confession that We love pizza more than any other.
Nothing We can think of...
By the way, We love you too.
Sincerely Your Son and Daughter.

What's your favorite pizza?
Well,My favorite pizza is this. Ok,Let's try this.
Wait! I wanna try this pizza too.Ok,Let's try that too.
Wow,Look at that pizza-. Do you know,
We have only two empty stomach now.

Tony Toni Tone Deaf

Tonight I did karaoke again. With Orange House people, but not all the same Orange House people. And not Tyler. He stayed home because he was sick. He says he feels a bit better now. Maybe that's because he was spared the horrors of unfun karaoke. Now it may be that the experience sucked because there was no Tyler to inspire us all to sing our hearts out, or it may be because a certain someone sang along to every song, whether she knew how it was supposed to go or not. Loudly. Regardless of whether it was one she chose or whether someone else was trying to sing. This certain someone is such a terrible singer it was kind of funny at first. But it quickly became... uncomfortable. Almost painful. And I'm quite sure she didn't notice. There's a similar vibe in the lounge when she makes insipid comments through entire movies. She doesn't seem to pick up on that either. It's rather unfortunate. I mean, she seems really nice, but she's really hard to tolerate for more than a few minutes at a time. Apparently she's lived in Orange House for about two years, so there's probably not much hope of her moving out any time soon. I wonder how long it will be before I take to hiding in our room rather than risk a chance encounter/conversation. Probably not long.

Sick

I haven't written in a bit. Partly because we have not been up to much, but mainly because I am sick. Not sick as in wicked, but sick as in there's a quantum singularity in my nasal cavity that leads to a parallel dimension comprised entirely of snot. It makes me not want to do things. And it makes the things I do do less fun. Still, I should do more.

In fact as I sit here, bundled up against the warmth of our apartment, Carla is out karaoke-ing with a group from Orange House. I thought about going, what with David and Bryan moving out next week, but I've been fighting off this sickness for almost a week now and another night of drinking ain't the answer. Plus tomorrow night is Halloween, so I'll be going out with them then.

Oh, the other thing I can mention, to help pad out this entry is the fact that I recently bought a new game for my Game Boy Advance. Exciting news, I know. The thing is, is that it's a Japanese game. A Japanese role playing game, meaning it is heavy on text. Text that I have to translate. So it's like edu-tainment.
I've only translated the first few pages of the instruction booklet so far, but I'm having fun. And maybe learning stuff.

Let's see... other stuff... I can give shout outs to some people. Congrats to Kim and Dave for having a baby. Congrats to Herperger and Metz on getting engaged. The people who got engaged or born before Carla and I arrived on Japanese soil get no props.

One last thing. I think I may have found Nate's souvenir gift. He'll have to come pick it up though. It's too big to pack and I ain't muleing it.

One more thing, I had a chilli beer during one of our nights of drinking. It was freaking hot! Sweat producingly hot. I produced sweat. It tasted like drinking a hot pepper. Not until I was halfway done the bottle did I notice that there was a fair sized hot pepper floating in the beer. I took a bite of it. It tasted like beer.

Like a potato pancake, but better

Some say that gyoza are the Japanese equivalent of the perogy. I, on the other hand, think it's the croquette. While I guess they're technically French, you see them everywhere here in Japan. I think kids really like 'em or something. (That, and curry, of all things.) Croquettes may not be doughy like a perogy, but they're chock full of seasoned-potato-y goodness and I quite like them. In a land of rice and noodles and fish-flavoured everything, they're a bit like a comfort food. With their sweet, bread-crumby coating, I'm going to miss them when I get home.

On the subject of language

You know, I think I spoke more Japanese last night than I have all week. Kind of fluent-like, without having to stop and think about everything before I said it. Alcohol really IS a social lubricant.

There's a somewhat surprising amount of French spoken here at Orange House. There are two guys from France that live here, and the Canadian girl and the Scottish guy both understand enough to carry on a conversation. Even more surprising is that I understand a lot of what is said (if I'm paying attention, that is). Maybe we should have taken a working Holiday in France.

What a waste

Monday evening we decided that we should really go to Kyoto. It's very close to Osaka (about a ¥700, 50 minute train ride) and supposedly has a lot of really amazing old Japanese stuff to see. Tuesday morning we woke up to rain and thought, "Aw, screw it. We'll go Wednesday." Tuesday night we stayed up until an ungodly hour doing really not very much. Just hanging out, or something. Wednesday morning we slept until roughly Wednesday afternoon. The weather wasn't great anyway, so we decided that Thursday would be our Kyoto day. Then we got a call to go out drinking with the folks from Orange House. Couldn't turn that down. We had a very good time and met some very interesting Japanese gentlemen in a pub called the Britannia. One seemed to think he was Mick Jagger. He was hard to understand, but very entertaining. His companion, whose English was more comprehensible, kept mentioning that he was out with his boss. I think that was his Japanese way of apologizing for the other man's behaviour. I wish we had thought to take some pictures. Or better yet, video. I'd hate to forget those two.

Now it's about 4:30 on Thursday morning and we have yet to sleep. Maybe today we'll just do laundry.

Good news

I got a job today. It's only part time, so I'm still looking, but it takes a bit of the pressure off. And as far as part time jobs go, this one seems pretty sweet. I don't really have to teach anything, just lead conversations in English. The topics are even provided for me. The pay is good, I don't have to dress up, and I don't have to ride herd over groups of children. The people who run it seem really, really nice. Yoko is a fashion designer and really seems to want to expose me to Japanese culture. I feel terrible for forgetting his name already, but the other Japanese person there is a professional shogi (that's Japanese chess) player. I guess he's been on TV and everything.

Tyler's got an interview coming up this week, too. With any luck, we'll be sitting pretty by the end of the month. Then we'll be able to afford our evolving karaoke habit.

Nicklebag of Funk

I'm not sure what more I can add to Carla's post without becoming redundant. More redundant. Than usual. More redundant than usual. If you follow me. I'm implying, you see, that I am usually redundant.

We learned some Japanese drinking games. We participated in some Japanese drinking games would be more accurate, because if we had actually learned them, I would be able to remember them right now. They all involved drinking. The karaoke bar we went to was quite futuristic. Retro futuristic, like we stepped onto the 2001 sound stage. Carla took a picture of us, which she has posted in her part of the blog, and when Brian saw the pic, he remarked, "That will be the cover of our first album."

The Japanese really do like to Karaoke. They sang while they picked songs, in between songs, they sang whenever they could. They sang along to our English songs even though they had no clue what the lyrics were. They did know the lyrics to Livin' On A Prayer. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. They caught on to Sweet Caroline pretty quick. The DAH DAH DAH part at least.

The Japanese fellows were nice enough to give us a ride back to the Orange House. I should have walked. I'll let you infer from that what you will.

The next day all of us were a bit worse for wear. We went out for ramen and gyoza which is fairly good hangover food. Eight dollar ramen has way more meat in it than two dollar ramen. Crazy but true. Then we went up to the lounge and watched some movies. Great movies. Evil Dead 2 and Spinal Tap. David had never seen Evil Dead 2. Nor had Toni, the girl whose DVD player we were using. Nor had the Japanese girl. She still hasn't. She spent most of the movie with her hands over her eyes. It was cute.

Communicado

Hooray! We got our phone! It's this one! So far we haven't figured out how to do much with it, but it's still pretty cool. We also found a way to call home without paying exorbitant Japanese airtime and long distance rates. It's called Skype, and it works over the internet. So far we've had pretty good luck with it. The sound quality is as good as a regular phone, or better. We pay a pretty low rate to call regular phones, but if you want to install it on your own computer, we can talk to each other for free. Just install the software, then use this link:







Judging by the subway ride to get there and the drive home again, I would have thought that the area we were in was fairly far away from where we live. But after looking at our map this morning, we discovered that we were only a few blocks north of Den Den Town. We totally could have walked home. Guess we still haven't done enough exploring. Or maybe we should never go out without a map. And a compass.

And I guess some of you may have heard that there was an earthquake here in Japan on Saturday. We didn't even notice. One of the girls we were out with got a worried call from Canada while we were in the izakaya, and we saw damage reports all over the news when we got home, but we didn't feel a thing at the time. So far we've been pretty lucky. Everyone keep your fingers crossed, because I think I just jinxed us.

Empty Orchestra

Pretty lazy past few days. We've been applying for jobs and such, and that's about it. As have all the nice people we've met here at the Orange House. Tina, a nice 24 year old from Toronto, already has a job (or two) but wants one that sucks less. Dave, a 29 year old Scottish bloke, had a job for a couple of years but got sick of it and is looking for something better. Bryan, I forget how old he is but remember that he is from Colorado, doesn't have the proper visa to work in Japan so is instead taking off for Korea. Dave and Bryan decided one night, whilst drunk, that a group of us from the Orange House should go out and Karaoke. "Why not?" thought Carla and I, even though we were not drunk.

It took about a week, but we went out Karaoke-ing. The way it works over here is that you rent out a room, for a certain hourly rate. In exchange, you get the room and an unlimited amount of certain, specified booze. Good deal. We rented a room and got right to it. The drinking I mean. And karaoke-ing as well. Dave had a pretty good voice. Bryan not so much, but he had a lot of heart. Carla didn't sing any song by herself. I absolutely slaughtered Informer by Snow. Tina showed up later and sang mainly backup vocals. The drinks kept coming, as did the munchies. And the hits. A lot of Johnny Cash. Some U2. Loser by Beck. Hey Jude may very well be the best karaoke song ever. King of the Road was a pick of Carla's and it went over quite well. Another pick of Carla's that was not as well received was when she ordered our drinks. We're not quite sure what they were. All I know is that it knocked Carla's socks off. Into a toilet filled with vomit. I spent the rest of the night either singing quick bits of songs or talking to Carla through the stall door. Or trying to explain to Japanese girls what I was doing in the girl's washroom.

The walk home weren't that much fun neither. Today was spent recuperating. A lot of soup, water and toast was consumed. The bread here in Japan is mainly cut in Texas style slices. The best way to toast a Texas slice is to butter it before you toast it. It comes out butter saturated. Yummy. Using a toaster oven is advised.

My dogs are barkin', but mostly my knees don't work quite right

We walked A LOT yesterday. About 10 stops on the subway's worth. And then some. Partly because we're too cheap to ride the train, and partly because it's fun to explore. On this particular expedition we passed through what appeared to be Osaka's toy and Christmas decoration district. Just about every store we passed was selling one or the other. Eventually we made it to Den Den Town where we spent quite a bit of time looking at fancy cellular phones and staring blankly at any sales staff that asked us questions in Japanese. Unfortunately we forgot Ty's camera, which is a very useful information gathering tool. So we kinda browsed around and wrote a few things down, but we knew that we'd have to make another trip.

Also in Den Den, but almost entirely unrelated to electronics, we at at Mister Donut (a uniquely Japanese Chain). I guess their big thing is a teething-ring-shaped donut that they call a "pon". I have no idea what that name is supposed to mean, but the donut itself is second only to Krispy Kreme in terms of melt-in-your-mouth goodness. Mister Donut also serves a lot of dim sum type snacks. It's an interesting combination. One you'd probably only find in Japan. Or maybe Holland. They're weird there.

Once we left Den Den Town, we were back into unexplored territory. That's where we found festivalgate, a theme park/mall type thing. We'd had almost no idea it existed, but there it was. It's got a roller coaster running through the building. It looks like it could be fun, but we didn't actually see it running. I think festivalgate may be associated with the adjacent Spa World, where you can soak in pools with themes from around the globe. Or something like that. Also in that general area is UniQlo, what very well might be the find of the day. They sell clothes kind of like what you'd find at the Gap (but nicer), they carry Western sizes, and the clothes are CHEAP! I'm now much less worried about the fact that doing laundry here seems to be destroying our clothes.

We topped off our big day with karaoke, which was surprisingly fun. I wanted to go in with an open mind, but I couldn't help but expect not to like it. Singing really isn't my thing. But like I said, surprisingly fun. I think it helped that the drinks were free, and of course I had good company. The guys from Orange House are great, and they picked entertaining songs. At least, that's what I vaguely recall. Next time we karaoke (if there is a next time) I won't make the mistake of drinking shochu after a lot of whisky and see if maybe I remember more.

But at least the little kid across the hall has moved out

We had plans to be productive today. Really, we did. We set our alarm clock and everything. But then we decided there was no point going out into yet another typhoon, so we stayed in and did a whole lot of nothing. The Japanese sure do seem to like to talk about their typhoons, though. We've been watching NHK (the Japanese equivalent of CBC) on and off throughout the day and they're always showing typhoon footage, or the path of the typhoon, or people stranded at airports and train stations, or people bunking down in typhoon shelters. Also, a lot of flooding. And when we flip channels, more of the same. This is the 23rd typhoon they've had this season, and hopefully it's the last.

One thing we did discover by being inside all day: someone on our floor seems to really like incense. It's giving me a headache, but we can't really open the window in this weather. I'm giving some serious consideration to a refreshing walk in the rain.

The Great Indoors

Living here in the Orange House is a lot like camping.

• We sleep on mats on the ground.
• We have to get dressed and put on shoes to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.
• The toilets here are the squat kind.
• The communal showers are coin operated.
• If we want hot water, we have to heat it on what basically amounts to a camp stove.
• We're covered in mosquito bites.
• We can hear our neighbours as well as if they were in the next tent.

But so far we haven't built any campfires, roasted any wieners or gone on any hikes. Maybe tomorrow.

Drunken Ramblings and Amblings

Friday night was a fairly expensive night.

We went drinking, you see.

Drinking is not a cheap thing to do here. No wait, that’s a total lie. It’s pretty easy to drink cheap here. Just buy your beer at the supermarket. Easy. Especially if you get the purple stuff. But drinking at a bar is expensive. As is buying bottle of whisky out of a vending machine.

We, Carla and I, met Ben, the nice Aussie who shouted us some beer last time we met, at The Green Leaf, a nice little bar kinda close to where we live. Small bar, but not full of gaijin trying to pick up. So that was nice. We were surprised by the amount of Japanese people. Just last night someone from the Orange House came back from the Green Leaf telling tales of white morons on the make.

He, the guy from last night (who is also from Colorado), did not mention the meat pies. They were pretty tasty, shipped straight from Australia. Man, I can’t wait to start earning Japanese money, so I can stop converting prices into Canadian in my head. Ten bucks for a pie and some fries. Almost twenty bucks for a pitcher.

At some point I should mention that I was having problems with my voice all day yesterday. Made shouting over the music a little more painful.

At some point, Ben’s friend Chris and a Japanese girl showed up. There was much talking and laughing. It was nice.

Ben decided that he wanted to go to the Rock Rock Club. He had read about it somewhere, thought it sounded cool and wanted to give it a look. But we had to move quick, cuz it was close to midnight and all the trains were about to stop running. So Ben took his bike and we (Carla, me, Chris) took the subway. First we almost took the wrong subway, then we caught the right one but missed our transfer. So we walked the rest of the way, asking locals where we were and how to get to the station we needed to get to. We eventually found the station but no Ben. We called him up and he swung by on his bike and took us to the Rock Rock.

Really cool place, and I’m sure I’ll never be able to find it again. It’s down some alleys and up some stairs is the best I can remember. Rock Rock is small, crowded and loud. And it cost 1000 yen just to get in the door. That works out to about 15 bucks. But you get a free drink with admission. I got a Suntory whisky. I seem to remember liking it. So much so that I ordered another one. It cost 700 yen, about ten bucks. Luckily, I was already quite drunk from all the pitchers at the other bar. Rock Rock is kind of a well known secret in Osaka it seems. Plenty of big name bands have stopped in and played. Given it’s size, I can’t imagine how a band could even fit in there. But the were all kinds of autographed pictures on the wall.

My memory is a bit hazy, so I can’t really recap much of what happened at the Rock Rock. I remember that there was a Japanese fellah asleep in a booth when we arrived. When we left, he was asleep on the floor. I remember the DJ played nothing but rock. Mainly American. Mainly older stuff. I remember an Elvis concert playing on the TVs. I remember Ben and Chris surrounded by Japanese girls. I remember a lot of pictures got taken. I remember meeting a nice guy from the states. He was also taking a lot of pictures. We took photos of each other, then he introduced himself. I forget his name. When he heard that I was from Canada he said, “Oh! So you hate George Bush!” I replied in the affirmative and he gave me a high five. I remember spitting off a stairwell for no particular reason. No wait, I was trying to hit the gutter. I remember finally noticing that there was a guy standing in the street looking up at me spitting down on him. I remember hiding.

I also remember the long walk home. I have no idea how long of a walk it was, but it was long. We stopped into a Yoshinoya for a quick bite to eat at some point during the trek. My voice was completely shot by this point, which made ordering a little harder than usual.

Good night. Good times. I’m afraid of figuring out how much we actually spent.

Why?

The most cleverest thing you can do with bread is to hollow it out and fill it with creamy pasta.

This weekend is all about food

We found pizza! It is very expensive! It has weird toppings! It may or may not have something to do with The Bible! We went exploring off in another direction today, and discovered a Domino's about six blocks from where we live. The Japanese do indeed put weird stuff on their pizza. Like corn, or broccoli, or mayonnaise, or mustard, or guacamole on salad. You can pay extra to get your pizza with a lattice crust on top (like a cherry pie), and I'm pretty sure some of them are cream-filled. Okay, they're actually full of camembert cheese, but it looks like cream in the pictures. And what will one of these culinary curiosities cost you? A 36cm "Pie On Egg" (that's scrambled egg, tomato and sausage, with a lattice crust) costs ¥3700. That's a 14-inch pizza for about $45.00 Canadian! Not all the pizzas are quite that expensive, but most of them are close.

And while we're on the subject of fast food chains, I tried the sukiyaki at Yoshinoya the other day. Yoshinoya usually serves meat on rice, but sukiyaki is more of an arrangement of beef, vegetables, and noodles, simmered in a sukiyaki sauce in a shallow, cast-iron pot. I was impressed with the quality of the little sukiyaki they served me. Pretty good for a fast food place. And cheap!

I'd bet you think rice is pretty cheap in Japan, right? Well you're wrong. The price is fixed by the government, and not as a favour to the consumer. The cheapest rice we saw today was a 5 kg bag for about ¥2500. For you Canadians, that's about $30.00. Looks like we won't be getting away from eating noodles anytime soon.

And finally, some of you may have heard of natto. It's a very Japanese food consisting of fermented soy beans. It's stringy and smelly and we'd been warned many times not to go near it, but today in the supermarket one of the sample ladies pushed it into our hands and insisted we try it. I think she thought it was funny. Ha ha, eat this you silly foreigners. But really, it wasn't as bad as it's made out to be. Sure, it smelled a little funky, but it wasn't too overpowering. The texture wasn't great, but it didn't turn my stomach. I didn't think it tasted like much, really. Take that, Japanese sample lady! And bring me some Vegemite!

Japan is indeed expensive

Tyler and I, we've been very social this weekend. Friday night we went out drinking with a couple of the guys we met at the Working Holiday party. We started out at a bar very close to where we live, and ended up at a bar about a 2-hour walk away. We didn't get home until sunrise. You'd think that meant we had a really good time, but really that just means there was a lot of walking. Seriously though, we did have fun. And we took a lot of pictures. Most of them are dark and fuzzy. Some of them, we can't tell what they are. Many are inappropriate for family viewing.

I think I may have mentioned it before, but the bars here are tiny. Drinks in a bar are expensive. Trains stop running pretty early, and taxis cost a ridiculous amount of money.

Saturday, we met one of our Japanese friends from that same Working Holiday party. He had some of his other Japanese friends with him. One looked a lot like Jet Li. I guess they were looking to practice their English, but they sure did speak a lot of Japanese amongst themselves. We met at the train station in Umeda (near where we stayed for the first couple of weeks) then we went looking for somewhere to eat. We must have tried five big-ish places before we found one where we wouldn't have to wait 30 minutes or more for a table. We ate A LOT, but it also cost us a lot. Over 5 times what we would normally spend on a meal. Add that to the fact that we ate before we caught the subway downtown, and the fancy coffee that we drank at a café back near the station, and it makes for an expensive evening. An expensive weekend, really. Maybe we should get jobs.

We took an outdoor table at the café. It was much quieter and easier for us all to talk. Our two new Japanese friends were bundled up in their jackets and commenting on the cold. Tyler sat there in a T-shirt. We both found the weather rather balmy. It couldn't have been colder than 15°C. Sure beats October in Regina.

We'd only just met her, but before we all parted ways, Kanae gave us a gift of prettily-wrapped dessert-type things. They were full of red bean paste, which neither Tyler nor I really care for, but it's the thought that counts.

You said it

Moving, et cetera, et cetera

Well, it certainly has been a busy couple of days. On Monday we moved into the Orange House and since then we’ve been doing a lot of shopping and cleaning. I suppose I could have stopped to write a thing or two for the people back home, but apparently I didn’t. Here are a few things that made an impression over the last few days:

We ate real ramen noodles from a real ramen shop right across from our hotel. It was far superior to instant noodles. More like spaghetti. But in soup. This particular soup bore a striking resemblance to carbonara sauce. But soupier. Number one. The music in there was old school, too. I dug it.

After the ramen, we went wandering. We found Osaka’s "Pokemon Center" which is a clever Japanese way of saying "store that sells nothing but Pokemon stuff". It was absolutely packed! The crowd spilled out into the plaza, where kids could have their picture taken with a giant Pikachu. Interestingly enough, most of the pictures were taken with mobile phones, not cameras.

From there we meandered our way over to the Umeda Sky Building. It's got a "floating garden" on top and a old-style Japanese street in the basement, but today the big attraction was an international beer festival of some sort. It was outside in the courtyard between two towers, but we could hardly see through all the smoke. It wasn't from cigarettes; it was the grill smoke from all the food stalls. Yummy! But expensive. We hung around people watching for most of the afternoon. I don't remember seeing a single cool white guy. They were all pale, dorky, and quite a few were fat. Same goes for the women. I found that interesting. Also of note, the tequila-flavoured beer we bought. I thought it tasted more like lime than anything else, but it was definitely tasty and went down very smooth. If they weren't ¥500 per bottle, we probably would have bought more.

Monday was the big move. We thought it best to make two trips, what with all our luggage and the somewhat crowded conditions on the subway. We thought right, but hauling our stuff took the better part of the afternoon. It would have taken the better part of the morning, but we spent a lot of the morning trying to find an ATM that wouldn't reject our crazy North American credit cards so we'd have some cash to pay our first month's rent & such. We ended up cashing a couple of travellers cheques, which was no mean feat, what with Monday being Health and Sports Day. That's a national holiday over here. Oh yeah, happy Thanksgiving everybody.

So eventually we got all our stuff over to the Orange House (which I guess is named after the fruit, because it has nothing to do with the colour). Luckily for us, some rooms had opened up on the second floor. The room we got is in much better shape than the one we looked at last week. Still needed a good cleaning, but much less dingy. Plus it's got a combination oven/toaster/microwave AND a toaster oven. I think we're going to like it here.

So after we unceremoniously dumped all our stuff in our room. (Make no mistake. It is just a room.) We set out to find a ¥100 shop to get some household goods, most importantly, cleaning supplies. The crosswalks in this neighbourhood play a little electronic song when it's safe to proceed. I don't really recognize the tune, but I've already heard it enough times that I'll probably never forget it. The other thing I wonder about, is what's up with all the big bottles of water the folks around here have sitting on their front steps, or in their flowerbeds, or lined up under their windows. I assume it has something to do with superstition, or religion, or maybe they're just for watering plants. I may never know.

That night we slept with the window open because we're too cheap to run the air conditioner. It was still really hot in our room, and we were eaten alive by mosquitos. Happily, the weather is cooling off a bit now and we're sleeping better. Plus, we get to wear all the pretty new fall/winter clothes we bought before we left Canada. Hooray for new clothes! And hooray for bad English on T-shirts! I'd intended to buy a few to wear and keep as souvenirs, but it seems I'm spoiled for choice. We passed a few clothing stores while we were shopping for other things and nearly all the English we saw was either incorrect or just plain odd. Often both. I don't know how I'll ever decide on just one (or two, or three).

Once we got the "apato" all clean and mostly kitted out, it was time to buy groceries. But first, a trip to the local ward office to apply for our Alien Registration cards. There were a few complications, but overall it was not the ordeal I was expecting. We should have our cards within three weeks. Then we can go about the important business of buying a phone, and other good stuff like that. There sure are a lot of mobile phones over here, and a lot of mobile phone plans. I spent a lot of today looking them all up on ye olde internette and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. I think what we'll end up doing is wandering around Den Den Town until we see a phone we like, then take whatever plan that gets us. Hopefully it won't cost us an arm and a leg. Well, maybe we won't be quite so haphazard about it, but right now, at this very moment, it doesn't sound like such a bad idea.

But anyway, back to the groceries. We'd been in the store a few times before, mostly looking for cleaning stuff, but this was the first time we entered in search of food. Most things did seem awfully expensive, but it's got to be cheaper than eating out all the time. We couldn't identify most of the vegetables, but we bought a mysterious leafy green one. It kinda smelled like broccoli when we cooked it, so it's probably good for us. We wandered up and down the aisles for about an hour, throwing this and that into our baskets, trying not to buy too many intriguing snacks (it was hard). We found most of what we were looking for without too much trouble. Loaves of bread are tiny and expensive, and cheese seems to be hard to come by, but we were delighted to discover that the Japanese aren't above marking down prices at the end of the day. At this particular supermarket, it seems they do it around 7:00. Good to know.

And right now Sean, Orange House’s only resident 5-year-old, is hanging over my shoulder and trying to use my touchpad. He’s also asking about what DVDs I like, and if I have a child in my stomach, so I guess I’d better go.

Last Day In Umeda

This was our last full day in Umeda, we’re moving tomorrow, so we wanted to make the most of it. The day started with the front desk calling at 10:00, asking us to check out. Oops. Carla sorted out the confusion and we set out for... we weren’t really sure. Since this was our last day in the neighbourhood, we figured we should give the noodle shop right across from the hotel’s front door a try. Its lack of plastic food and pictures to point at had frightened us, but we figured what the hell. We ducked inside and seated ourselves. We were busy trying to decipher the menu when the chef came over. He was a very friendly looking, smiley guy who reminded me a bit of Chow Yun Fat for some reason. He pointed to one of the items on the menu and said, “Number one!” so we ordered two of them. And they were good. This noodle shop was a ramen noodle shop. Ramen noodles are the noodles you get in instant noodle cups. Mr. Noodles are ramen noodles. Ichiban are ramen. Those were what I knew ramen to be. Now I know that Mr. Noodles is to ramen what Pizza Pockets are to pizza. Real ramen rocks.

First of all, real ramen noodles aren’t mushy. They’re more like spaghetti in consistency. They stay firm to the very last one. Plus they are not all wavy, they are straight noodles. I don’t know what our ramen dish was called, but it was filled with everything I like. There were onions, there were mushrooms, there was smoked bacony tasting pork, the broth was hot and a little creamy. I wolfed it down very quickly. The chef seemed pleased. Or maybe he spit in my soup, whatever: he was smiling. As was I.

Not knowing where to go, we set off in a direction we hadn’t much explored. Just a few steps into our day’s adventure and we stumbled across the Pokemon store. It was crazy go nuts busy too. Pikachu was in the hizzy, y’see. Since there was no room in the store, AT ALL, and the line was nutty long, we decided to amble on.

Did I mention what a beautiful day it was? It was a freaking beautiful day! Upper twenties, easy. No clouds to speak of. Gorgeous. And this is nearly the middle of October.

We had been walking for quite a bit, so we stopped into a convenience store for something cool to drink. Feeling low on aminos, we picked Amino Suplis. Sitting in the shade, drinking our amino drink, we espied the Umeda Sky Building off in the distance. You know, the one with the Floating Garden Observatory. We decided that was where we wanted to go. So that is where we went. There was a nice little garden and stream right near the building, full of plants that I will never know the names of.

At the base of the building(s), there was a little bit of something going on. An International Beer Summit was going on. Beer and food from all over world, all congregated in this one place. What fortuitous timing on our part. We poked around a bit. Canada had a couple of booths set up. But one was for Labbatt Blue, so I guess it doesn’t really count. Also, did you know that Moose Head is the Kilkenny of Canada? Neither did I until today. There were live bands playing and all sorts of good smelling food. We were still full from breakfast, so we decided to wander a bit more before we ate or drank anything.

There was a mini jungle/forest type thing just a stone’s throw away from all the hectic hub-bub. There were waterfalls, and fish and a nice little stroll through shady trees. There was also a talkative man from Sri Lanka laying in the grass off the path. He talked to us for a while. Then he glanced around furtively and asked, “Do you have ‘smokes’?” we replied in the negative and he told us not to worry, that he had some and we were free to join him. We responded in the negative and continued on our way.

After walking for a bit more, we happened across a few groups of Japanese teens dancing to no music in particular. It looked like they were all practicing their hip-hop stylings, so we stopped and watched for a spell. It was pretty cute.

We wandered back to the beer and the food and decided to partake. We settled on a Tequila flavoured beer. The flag on the booth was German, but the writing on the bottle led us to believe it was a Mexican beer. A surprisingly good Mexican beer. Very refreshing, especially after all of that walking in the hot October sun. Plus, it had a built in bottle opener. As we were drinking, an MC came on to the stage and introduced the hip hop kids we had seen earlier. His exact words were, “In Za House!”

Their dancing was even cuter when set to the thug-a-bling music of American rappers. We had a Johnsonville brat (pronounced braut) and a spicy taco as we watched the kids do their crazy dancing. Once the dancing was done, we decided to split as well. Beer Festivals aren’t the cheapest places to get drunk, or to eat. Plus we had a big day ahead of us.

Also

I guess the big news of yesterday is that we found a new place to live. It’s I think a little smaller, and not as nice looking, and its location is not as good, and the bathroom smells a little, but we save over 40 bucks a day staying there as compared to Hotel Kinki (say it, it’s fun!).

The other thing of note is that another hurricane started blowing in. Very windy, fairly rainy and cold.

Also, I really didn’t enjoy my dinner last night. It looked good in the picture, but not so good in real life. I have no idea what was actually in it, but to me it tasted liked runny scrambled egg mixed with tripe served on a bed of overcooked rice.

Dig me, all concise and stuff.

But wait, maybe I should talk about what happened today too.

Okay, I will.

We bought laundry soap today; it took more effort than it would back home. Mainly because we couldn't tell if what we were buying was colour safe or not. It looks like we made the right choice, none of our washed clothes look worse for wear. Whilst buying laundry detergent we also bought some snacks (and I gave serious consideration to buying some Suntory whisky. Man I love being able to buy liquor in convenience stores). We purchased a small bag of rice cracker snacks. Pretty good, a lot like the kind you can buy over there in the Canada. Or so we thought! (dun dun dun)

At the bottom of the bag were a bunch of tiny desicated fish. Their little eyes stared at me man! Not cool. Especially since I had just been shovelling handfuls into my mouth, not looking. Hopefully, I'll post some pictures.

Also, we had some really good burgers at First Kitchen, which is a fast food chain here in Japan. Really good food, all things considered. Especially the burgers. Man, they is good eats. It tasted more like a burger you'd get at a barbeque than one you'd get at a drive-thru. Messy, greasy, cheesy, with bacon, and onions, and tomato and lettuce and an awesome bun. And you could add flavouring to the fries. Real good grub.

Also had a Calpis soda. It tasted different. But good. Then Carla told me it was made of milk and grapefruit juice. I didn't like it quite as much after that. Hopefully pictures will be posted.

Also, finally, I had my interview this evening. It went well, I think, maybe I was a bit too serious. And overdressed. And sweaty, I'm not used to wearing suits, nor wearing suits in 60% humidity. Man, I was looking good, all decked out in my suit. No pictures of me styling in my swank new suit cuz Carla didn't take no pictures.

How they spell in France

SoyMilk Clamchauder Soup	Plune & Fig Mix

We actually tried the Black Sesami Mix tonight. It wasn't bad. Tasted mostly like bananas, but sometimes a bit like peanut. It was interesting. Another thing about Japanese drinks, if it says "cream soda" on the label, they damn well mean there's cream in it. Milky fizz. That's right.

Movin' on down

We've found a new place to live. It's called Orange House and we move in on Monday (which is a national holiday here, by the way). It's dingy and a little smelly, and we'll have to share a bathroom with a pay shower, but the pluses outweigh the minuses. First of all, it's cheap. About a third of what we're paying to stay in the hotel. Our room has its own "kitchen" so we won't have to eat out all the time, plus a closet so we'll finally have somewhere to hang our clothes. It's on a pretty little side street and there's a lounge on the roof. The TV up there has cable (including the Cartoon Network). But the real selling point was the high-speed internet in our room. That would cost us an arm and a leg if we were in our own self-contained apartment. Plus it would take a long time to set up. So I think that with a little elbow grease and some strategically placed air fresheners our new room will be 100% livable.

I tell you, I am really looking forward to getting all my stuff unpacked. And now that we have an address, we can look after getting the all-important Alien Registration Cards. Once we have those, we can get Japanese bank accounts and phones and all sorts of other good stuff. If you're a foreigner in Japan without one of those cards, you essentially don't exist. Or are a tourist, which is almost the same thing.

Nebulous: Of or Pertaining to Nebulae

I applied for jobs today. I have an interview on Saturday. We’ll see how that goes.

The only other thing of note today was the Chinese food. More like the Chinese food wait-staff. They all wore stained white smocks with big, clumpy, white (stained) rubber boots. They would clear a table or pour someone a drink and then disappear up some rickety stairs. It was like they were splitting their time between waiting tables and working in a slaughterhouse. It was a bit disturbing. At least the food was fresh.

Oh, and Carla had some kind of seafood rice dish. It came with a very small egg of unknown origins placed atop it. She gave me the egg. Of course I ate it. It tasted like a fishy hard boiled egg. With a super fishy squirty centre.

I spent today thinking mostly about my tummy

This morning I took a closer look at our instant noodles and discovered that they've been fortified with calcium and other such nutrients. And here we thought we'd be all malnourished (eating the way we do).

Also nutritionally interesting: MOS Burger (that's Mountain Ocean Sun) sells some of its burgers on buns made out of rice. I would've tried one, but apparently they were out.

To round out our day of culinary discovery, we stumbled onto a Chinese food restaurant with wonderfully low prices. Better yet, most of the dishes contained nutritious, delicious vegetables. Much to our surprise (and I must admit, to my delight) the menu had English descriptions on it. We could be sure of what we'd be eating! Except I misread the menu and ended up being surprised anyway. I guess the fact that I can't read English makes me feel a little better about my Japanese ability.

It's HEP to be Pentagonal

We're in kind of a nebulous place right now, trying to get jobs and a new place to live. So our days are filled with dull.

"How is that different than all your other days" you may ask.

"Don't be such a jerk." I reply.

The few things of note today: we went and checked out the HEP 5, a big shopping complex right near here. It has a ferris wheel on the roof. The ferris wheel is more than just on the roof, though, it also extends downwards into the mall, so you can watch the wheel go by as you sit and eat crepes. Which we did. Good crepes too, and made right in front of us. Which was neat. The crepe place was in the middle of the SEGA JOYPOLIS, an entertainment complex on the top three floors of HEP 5. We didn't go on any of the rides, but I reckon they're those motion simulation types. Looked pretty keen.

Also today I finally partook of a noodle stand. Which is a very small establishment, only room to stand at a small counter and slurp down your soba (buckwheat noodles) as quick as you can. You're supposed to slurp your noodles in Japan, it makes them taste better – it's science.

Also, as we pored over various advertisements for places to live, Carla saw a commercial for Pizza Hut. "I want pizza." she said. Which is the first time, ever, a Pizza Hut commercial has had that kind of effect on her. So we set out to find a place in Osaka that sold pizza. And not okonomiyaki (Japanese pizza), but the real stuff. It's hard to find. So we then set out to find The Blarney Stone (I know!). We found it, thanks in no small part to my non-crap sense of direction. Very small (chisai), and full of ugly people who spoke English. They mainly spoke the English in lame attempts to pick up the poor few Japanese girls who had the misfortune of being in the bar. It wasn't all bad though. We got some pizza. it was very small. But served with Tabasco. They played all English music. Not crap English, like Oasis, but good(er) music like The Crash Test Dummies (OH YEAH!! I almost fergot, when we were in HEP 5, we heard "Don't Want to Fall in Love" by Jane Child. Never thought I'd hear that song ever again, let alone in Japan). Decent enough evening, all told. Especially since we were there during happy hour.

Plus I had a yummy crépe

The rooftop ferris wheel that serves as our somewhat unreliable landmark is situated atop a trendy shopping complex known as HEP 5. Today we went inside. Yeah, we could dig it. Until one of the greeters belted out a "Howdy, folks!" That was somehow less hep.

The top couple of floors of the HEP 5 are taken up by Sega Joypolis. It's got a lot of the usual Japanese arcade fare (some video games, a lot of UFO catcher machines) but it's also got a fair number of actual theme-park-type rides. If I remember correctly (I make no guarantees) there was a Jurassic Park ride that may or may not have had something to do with shooting dinosaurs, a Terminator 3 ride, a Wild River something-or-other, and a 3D Adventure of some sort. There were others, but they didn't make much of an impression, seeing as how we didn't ride them. I think one of these days we'll go back and buy an unlimited ride pass. Once we're rolling in dough, that is. And that, my friends, is only a matter of time.

We've only been here a week, and already I've experienced a wee bit of a craving for Western food (meaning something that doesn't involve rice or noodles). I was thinking we'd have to get something from Subway (bonus for eating vegetables) but then I saw a commercial for Pizza Hut. As horrid as I find their "pizza" back home, today I just had to have one. Maybe because they looked crispy, not greasy in the commercial. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) we couldn't find a Pizza Hut. Or any pizza place, for that matter. We ended up in a 6th floor pub called The Blarney Stone. It was very small, at least compared to what we're used to, but we were able to get a pizza. It was also small, expensive, and not at all what I was looking for, but the beer was relatively cheap, and I rather enjoyed the shepherd's pie. Not a total waste, but I don't feel the need to go back.

Nothing beats a fried dumpling!

Well tonight we visited our first food theme park, Naniwa Gyoza Stadium. Basically what it was, was a collection of stalls where you could buy various types of Japanese pot stickers. Now I can't really tell the difference between gyoza made Osaka-style from gyoza made Tokyo-style, so I guess all the subtleties were lost on me, but the decor was pretty spiffy. And the gyoza were definitely tasty (if maybe a little expensive). I bet it would have been a lot more interesting if we'd been able to read more of the signs around us detailing the history and the distinctive qualities of one type of gyoza or another. Hmmm, maybe instead of spending all our time wandering around and eating we should do a bit more studying...

Even More Talk About Videogames

Today was pretty rainy, and fairly "meh" so we didn't get up to much today. Looked through papers and magazines to find a more permanent residence and studied up on our Japanese. And watched TV. There was a bunch of 70's samurai shows on. Groovy music baby. One was about this cool samurai detective. He was like Columbo, only really skilled with a sword, and he threw these little metal disks to disarm and paralyze people. Okay, maybe he wasn't that much like Columbo. More like TJ Hooker.

We are not very good at finding our way around. We set out tonight for a place we have passed on a nigh-daily basis. We didn't find it on our first try. Nor our second. Then I took charge and we found it. What did we find? Gyoza Stadium. There were many different stands, all selling slightly different kinds of gyoza. Gyoza are kinda like Asian perogies. We didn't understand the menu, or the map very well. So the experience wasn't all that it could have been.

We also stopped in to a few arcades. Very Lost in Translation-y. Dis-interested Japanese youths playing various music based videogames. But there was other neat stuff too. There was a videogame card game. Like Magic or Pokemon. You play against the computer, scanning your cards into the machine. Plus the game was wrestling based. As we watched, a business man scanned in a couple of cards and his on screen avatar whipped his opponent into the ropes and deliver a devastating brainbuster for the win.

Another neat game was called Quest of D. It was a multiplayer dungeon crawl game, much like Diablo, but fully in 3-D, and with arcade style controls for all the hacking and the slashing. Plus, and this is the really neat part(if you're a geek like me, if not you've already stopped reading), the monitor was a touch screen, so all item management and menu selections were handled in real time, no pausing. You just touch the bottom of the screen and sort various things out. Plus the magic was touch based. Different motions cast different spells. It was all quite surreal to watch. And really cool. Plus it was developed by Sega, so there might be a chance it will be ported to the DS.

Speaking of collaborations between Nintendo and Sega, I saw a sit down F Zero arcade unit. Very snazzy. I want, nay, NEED a job so I can have some disposable income.

Arcades over here are so much better than the ones back home. I haven't even mentioned the Pachinko machines. They are every where. I bet there are thousands of machines within a few block radius of our hotel. And pachinko parlours are always busy. And the people in the parlours always have crazy lots of pachinko balls to play. Hundreds of them. Buckets of them. I just don't understand the appeal.

Spend Spend Town

The internet was very slow this morning, so updating took much, much longer than we wanted. But we got it done!

Today we visited Den Den Town, the electronics district of Osaka. Bigger than I expected. Blocks and blocks and blocks and blocks of stores. You want a cheap rice cooker? You can find it in Den Den Town. Want a three hundred dollar toilet seat? Den Den Town. Scads of videogame shops selling all sorts of things that fill me with desire. Den Den Town.

Seriously, I think someone’s souvenir is going to be a Famicom (Japanese version of the Nintendo Entertainment System) with two controllers and a copy of one of the many River City games that were never released in North America. And Sin and Punishment for me.

Plus it’s nice to see that videogames here can be cheap, you just have to know where to look. There can be a twenty dollar difference between two shops on the same block. Not that I mind browsing. They pump in classic videogame music, plus there are all sorts of playable demos all over the place. I played Resident Evil 4. Very nice looking, but the control could use some work.

See, I could just go on and on, but once again I will cut myself off.

Suffice it to say, there is no way that I am coming home with any money. Just videogames. And maybe debt.

What would you rather spend 100 bucks on? Many videogames or a handful of grapes? Glad you see it my way.

No Speak

It's a lot harder to find cheap phone cards when you don't speak the language very well. Plus the phone system here is all wonky. We're NOT ignoring you, we're just having some problems getting stuff set up. No worries. Everything else is grand.

Dichotomy

Today we braved the mighty electronics shopping district known as Den Den Town. Definitely cheaper than in shopping in a regular store. Not that we bought anything. Well, that's not quite true. We picked up a couple of things in the 5-story dollar store. And we ate a creamy mushroom chicken burger at Wendy's. I didn't even know they had those here. Wendy's, I mean.

On the way back from the subway station, we took a detour through the basement food section of the Hankyu department store. What you've heard is true. They do sell melons here for over $200. We also saw grapes for about $100 and 100 grams of bologna for $10. That may sound kind of dismal, but the store also sells bunches of bananas for about 30¢. So hey, at least we won't starve. And our diets will be potassium-rich.

Bad Scents and Good Food

Strewn all about Osaka are things I like to call 'flavour pockets'. Scent pockets would be more correct, I suppose, since they are pockets of bad smelling air. But I call them flavour pockets because they smell so bad that you can taste them. It's very disconcerting. You'll just be walking along, enjoying your day, when BAM! Someone has shoved a skunk into your stomach via your nose. Zannen.

Today I realized just how full of people Osaka is. It's Sunday, and we got going at around noon. Good god there was a mass of humanity. I believe when there's that many people in one place they're called throngs. Luckily Carla and I are tall, so we can always keep track of each other in the crowds. Another thing we noticed sticking out from the crowd were two girls with big tall tubes strapped to their backs. Carla told me that the were practitioners of Kyuudo, Japanese archery. Intrigued, we followed them. We wanted to know where they were going with bows and arrows and all dressed up. It seems they were going out for lunch.

We finally found somewhere to cash in some of our traveller's cheques. So now we have money. Which is a nice change. The downside of having money is that you want to spend it, especially when you find yourself on a floor of a department store filled with video games and model toys. I was in geek heaven. There were monitors set up all over the place showing of games that aren't out yet. And walls filled with dating simulations. There were trailers for the New Metal Gear which Kelly would have spazzed over. It was all hot chicks and Snake getting the crap kicked out of him. The trailer for Dragon Quest 7 looked very Toriyama-y. Also, it was very loud and crowded in there. Everything was cranked way up. There was a game for the GBA that I fell in love with; a top down, fast-paced mech fighter shooter. I wouldn't be able to understand what to do or how to do it, but I crave it. I also saw Final Fantasy 1&2 and Mother (aka Earthbound) 1&2 for GBA. But I didn't cave. I am strong. Plus I'm saving my money for the DS.

That's enough of that kind of talk, I suppose. Only Seve and Kelly would understand anyways. But yeah, I was happy.

Another cool thing I saw: Coke machines that played Coke commercials. Pretty neat.

We had planned on spending most of the night blogging, but we were hungry. We thought we would just step out and get a quick bite to eat. We wandered around, trying to find a place that would feed us and supply us with our weekly supply of vegetables. Japanese food, you see, follows the Jerry school of thought; meat and potatoes. Just substitute rice for potatoes. We haven't had much in the way of veggies since we've been here.

As we were wandering, one of the Japanese pamphlet hander-outers said to me, "Take! Prease!" So I took the menu from him. "Thank you!" We looked over the menu and realized that we didn't understand most of it. While we were looking at it, the guy was saying, "Good! Japanese! Food! Samurai!" and other English words. We turned to leave, but he took our intentions to be that we wanted to go to the place on the menu. So he took us to Honjin. And that is where we ate. And drank. It was the first establishment we'd been in that didn't have pictures, or lots of hiragana/katakana that we could read. We didn't understand half of what we ordered, but it all turned out all right. We pointed at some stuff that we thought we knew and at some other stuff we hoped would be good.
The Cheese Fry was good. Fried slices of cheese. We got some eel tempura which was pretty alright. It was served whole.
Meaning it looked at us as we ate it. I asked the cook (we were seated at the bar, the bar had open flame grills on it, where the cook prepared the food) if the eel head was edible. I couldn't understand his answer at all, so I ate it anyway. Very bony. The salad we ordered had bacon, so yay us. And the omelette was covered in mushrooms. All things considered, we made out like bandits. Everything tasted SO GOOD!

If I had the space and the money...

We found a place that would cash travellers cheques on a Sunday, so we're not too worried about money anymore. The currency exchange just happened to be in a big Yodobashi Camera, it's an 8-story electronics store just a few blocks from here. After walking through that store I gotta say, Japan really is full of cool gadgets. Small, efficient, feature-rich appliances and the like. Not overly cheap, but cool nonetheless. We spent a lot of time on the floor full of toys and video games. Very, very entertaining. But crowded! I kinda wish we'd taken pictures...

My mosquito bites from Friday are very itchy, and I sure do have a lot of them. Yay!

Social interaction!

Yesterday we went back to Osaka-jo. In the rain. It wasn't coming down all that hard, but we took umbrellas anyway. And we lugged them around with us all day. To our credit, we didn't poke any Japanese eyes out. That we know of.

This time we actually paid to go into the "castle". The outside is a concrete reconstruction of a castle that used to be on that spot, and the inside is a museum. The view from the top was nice, if a little hazy because of the weather, and the museum exhibits were nice enough, but mostly in Japanese. Which is only fair, I suppose.

Once the castle closed, we wandered over to the working holiday office for a party meant to introduce Japanese people that are planning to take a working holiday to people that have already taken one or are in Japan on a working holiday right now. We met a lot of nice people, and it was good to converse someone other than Tyler for a change (no offence, baby). The party finished off with a rock-paper-scissors game that was very, very fast. Ty and I were out after the first round (which took all of 5 seconds) but it was still fun to watch.

After the official party, pretty much everyone walked down the street to an izakaya (like a pub). The menus and decor reminded me of restaurants at home, except everything was somehow Japanese and cooler. There were a lot of things on the menu that I had never seen before (but at least they all had pictures), the waitress took our orders on an electronic keypad-type-thing, and the toilets were all futuristic and fancy. When I opened the door to the stall, the toilet seat cover went up by itself, and I think it talked to me. The seat was heated, and there were many buttons with many functions on the side of the stall, none of which I was brave enough to try. It flushed itself, too. Now that's progress!

As much as we enjoyed the izakaya, we didn't eat much. We were a little worried about our cash situation. We had tried a few times over the course of the evening to get money from an ATM. Even though they had American Express and Visa Logos on them, they wouldn't take our cards. I'm hoping the only reason we were having trouble was because the ATM's in convenience stores (or combini) are meant for Japanese cards only, but it is a little worrisome...

Eventually we ended up drinking in a park with the last of the stragglers. I tried happoshu, which is a beer-like drink made with sea water. In Japan, beer is taxed based on its malt content. Because most of the malt in happoshu has been replaced with who-knows-what-else, the tax is a lot lower and the drink is way cheaper. Nothing wrong with that. It gets the job done. Kind of like wine from a box. We hung around in the park just long enough to miss the last train of the night, so we walked with one of our new friends back to Umeda (where our hotel is). It wasn't that far, but are we ever tired this morning! That didn't stop me from waking up in the middle of the night again. Sigh.

Of Castles and Callouses

It never hits me that we’re in Japan until we leave our hotel every morning. The small, small room I wake up in doesn’t seem that odd. The bathroom, or water closet, isn’t all that off-putting. The strange Japanese television shows, man I watched those back at home. The Japanese people at the front desk - whatever. But when we step out the front door (mind the ramp) our senses are assaulted. Japanese lanterns with Japanese writing hanging in front of rows of Japanese restaurants as far as the eye can see. Neon lights. A Japanese cover of House of the Rising Sun blaring from somewhere. It’s a trip, man.
Also, Ichiro is everywhere. Everyday. All day. It seems Japan is pretty proud of the guy.
There are so many side streets and alleys around where we live, we never walk the same way twice, which helps in the finding of new places to eat. This morning we found a noodle shop. We could read “Udon” and “Soba”, two types of noodles, on the outside of the shop. We had been craving udon, so we looked a little closer. There were many different types of udon and soba to choose from. Carla chose tempura udon, cuz she likes tempura. I chose stamina udon (Soo-ta-me-na) because I had no idea what it meant. As it turns out, stamina means “add a raw egg”. Interesting. I do these things for you, my adoring public, so you don't have to. The noodles are served in very hot broth, so the egg cooked a little, so it wasn't that bad.
After noodles, it was back to Osaka-jo (castle). This time we actually went in. But before we went in, we had some takoyaki (like a yucky taco, but with more yaks).
Takoyaki is a local delicacy, a ball of batter, with a gooey, smooth, yet chunky chewy octopus centre. Also, very hot. They made Carla's eye's water. The castle itself doesn’t seem that much like a castle from the inside, more like any other museum you've ever been in. With half the plaques unreadable. Still, informative and such. And a nice view from the top.
After the castle, we went to a party, a Japanese English party. The working holiday office where we signed up, just yesterday, had a party tonight. It started out a little lame, with the Japanese on one side of the room and the non-Japanese on t'other. But the mingling started and we met all kinds of nice people, both Japanese and non. Lots of Australians. Of course, I forget most everybody's names. Cuz I suck. There were nummy Japanese snacks: chocolate filled mini cookies and tiny chocolate pastries. Very good. Plus some other snack that tasted like fish. Not so good. One of the girls I met was a jazz pianist, who has been on television here. She wants to go to Canada to study English and attend the Montreal Jazz Festival.
There was a French guy there. He seemed nice enough, but then he needed to get past me; he brushed past me, turned to me and said, “You should play more sports, non?” Stupid french.
We played a game, much like Rock, Paper, Scissors only more Japanese. Meaning faster and cuter. And in Japanese. After the “official” party at the working holiday offices, we all walked down the street and continued to party in a restaurant. There was a lot of drinking and eating and talking. We tried all sorts of new things. Like tako-wasabi (octopus wasabi), all the hotness of wasabi, but with way more chewing. I quite liked. We tried tsukemono, Japanese pickles. Not as good as moms. But mom? Try pickling radishes. Delicious! I forget the name of it, but we tried pickled seaweed soup. Not as bad as it sounds. Oh yeah: served cold. We also had sausages, with fries; exactly the same as sausages and fries. Plus gyoza and okonomiyaki, which we've had before. Very, very, very good. Plus we got to talk to people in a more casual setting. Ben, one of the Australians, offered to get us drunk. Because, you see, our money doesn't want to be taken out.
The urinals here are too short for me. I have to squat a little to get to the right height. A Japanese man who I had spoken to earlier was at the urinal next to me as I made this realization. He turned to me and said, “For me? Just right.” Then he laughed.
We went to a nearby park after the meal and drank even more. True to his word, Ben the Ozzie bought us some beers. Well, one beer, one reasonably hand-drawn beer facsimile. We sat and stood around until after the last train had left the station we were blocks away from. So we walked back to our hotel. My feet really, really hurt.