Week nine: Oh my naked Kobe beef

Saikin dou desu ka?   最近どうですか？(What's new?) Everything is good here as I round up yet another week in Japan. The weather is officially starting to get cool, my toes are already starting to never have feeling, and my lips are already beginning to get chapped. Woohoo, cold weather (-_-?). Well, it has to be better than the hot-as-balls weather nonstop, but we'll see how long I'm singing that song before I complain about the cold. Let's begin!

School was fine this week, actually one of the best weeks I've had yet! ...mostly because I managed to have enough needless days where I was able to miss/have canceled class and I could sleep! This futon is beginning to get downright miserable--nothing can get this darn thing to puff back up at this point--so sleeping hasn't been too easy at night. And gosh, sleep is a darn wonderful, under-appreciated thing. We watched a very interesting video about China and Japan, and it kind of makes you feel bad for the Chinese people--they've never really had a break from something awful and bad reigning over them and stopping them from being so miserably poor. It's a real shame they went from bad to crap to bad to crap with communism, but I have faith that one day there will be a democratic China. Some day.

There were two typhoons looming this week, but only one hit us--Typhoon 27. You read that right. Twenty-seven. 27 STORMS!? Meanwhile, I just finished reading an article about what an "unexpected" quiet season it was over for us on the Western hemisphere. In 2011 there were 21 named storms in the Eastern hemisphere, so this is about an average amount of storms. It sure seems like an awful lot, doesn't it? Jesh. Even these "minor" storms (our tropical storms) can do major damage to Japan, just because of how easily they flood. Poor Japan.
Friday I relaxed with friends, (hopefully) mastered the art of cooking yaki-onigiri (the fried rice balls), and made some mashed potatoes with dinner. The potatoes here are tiny, and I haven't been able to identify sour cream yet, but they came out all right, thankfully. I'm going to attempt to work on my cooking skills and learn some Japanese foods, next on my list is the omurice, perfect because of how filling and cheap it is to make.

Waterfall, taken shortly after my bathroom trauma

Saturday three of my friends and I went to Kobe and Arima Onsen (hot springs). The journey from where we live felt a little far, around an hour away, but I think it felt long just because of how many transfers it takes to get there, costing about $14 each way. However, this hot spring is pretty famous, and was definitely well-worth it. After a little bit of confusion along the way, we finally made it to Arima, which was really secluded and in the middle of nowhere, a really nice change to the bustle of the city. We explored the "park", some shrines, and the waterfall, and here's a traumatizing story for you all!

There was a bathroom (one of the "park" kinds like we have in America, big and concrete but that still let all the bugs in the world in with the high ceilings and whatnot) I used, and while I was peeing, my friends (I came with three guys) shouted from over on the other side to one of the others, "Hey, dude look at that spider! Holy crap." So I just happened to look up, and boy, what a mistake that was.
What I saw:

Zelda rendition of the spider

Staring back at me was a massive (and I mean massive) neon-yellow spider, with a body (not exaggerating!) the size of my FIST. Automatically, I yelped, which then made his web vibrate so he started crawling around. Whimpering, I desperately tried unwrapping the toilet paper (they were out, so I had to open a new roll), but the darn thing was so difficult. As I struggled, I looked up and realized there wasn't just the one mother-of-all-Zelda-spiders, there were four. All equally huge. Every time my friends shouted at each other, the webs vibrated and they all moved around, dangling above my head, and I had no way of telling them to stop without angering the spiders in my direction. My only way of surviving this experience was the equal horror at the thought of keeling over from a heart attack on a toilet in Japan. I somehow managed, with shaking hands, to unwrap the toilet paper and get out of there as fast as humanly possible. My friends thought the spider on their side was big, but I made them come over and see the ones I had dealt with, and then we all ran out, brushing our heads off in horror like little girls. So moral of this story is that I almost died, I'm just sayin'. I think this is the spider, though it seemed more solidly yellow than this, but I don't know what else it could have been. http://wordsinjapanese.com/japanese-spider.php . This is also an antidote to open the doors to talk about how big their bugs are here--I think they are equal with, if not beating, Florida bugs. There are bugs the size of my face that fly by sometimes, I swear, look at the bug at the end of this for another HUGE FREAKING BUG. (No radiation jokes, guys, come on! ...but maybe, seriously though, they all flew in radiation and are now cracked out.) 

(Left to Right: Cody, Kris, and I, Arima, Kobe)

We explored and did some great omiyage (souvenir) shopping before heading into the hot spring. Ours was a public one, so it was only $6, though there were some more expensive ones available, plus they had a deal where, for two dollars more, you could do both the Golden and Silver springs. Arima has two kinds of springs, one is kinsen (金泉,"gold spring"), which contains iron and salt. The other is ginsen (銀泉,"silver spring"), which contains radium and carbonate.The golden spring we went to is said to make your skin softer and more supple. Here's a play-by-play, without pictures, because once you enter you (obviously) can't take pictures, and I warn you, this area is not for the modest or the faint of heart.

You enter, pay, and take off your shoes, and are given a locker to put your shoes in. You go over the counter and receive another key, this one for your locker upstairs, and you can buy a towel if you didn't bring one (more on this later). I opted for the large and headed upstairs. Girls and boys then split off into two different areas, and I entered, heart-hammering, into the girls section. As I was reading the rules, I suddenly turned to my left and was assailed by boobs, flying in every direction. The locker room here was tiny, with two benches and a little "powder room" section where you can put your makeup on/do your hair afterward, a bathroom, and that's it. Nobody covered up anything, and from young to old and everything in between, everything was out. I was the only non-Asian in the house, and everyone looked over, curious. In my panic, I struggle to figure out how to get my darn key to slide out so I could open my locker, butts and bushes everywhere. Japanese women don't really believe in "trimming", much less shaving, so everything is, /ahem, au natural. I came so close to backing out, especially after realizing the pathetic size of my towel. I finally just did it, covered up as best as I could, and again, in panic, struggled to figure out how to open the door leading to the water. After pretending to wait for the bathroom (which was unoccupied), I observed and saw that the door was a slider (duh), and "smoothly" headed out. Onsens are divided by men and women by a wall that goes almost to the ceiling, but not completely, so I could hear my friends as they laughed awkwardly at their own situation.

Arima Onsen

Despite that weirdness, it was pretty, stone and tile everywhere, with a big square pool of water to the left, a little clear "cool" pool straight ahead, two standing shower areas to the right, and sit-down "cleaning" areas lining two halves of the walls. Each cleaning area had a mirror, a hand shower, a cleaning basin, two bottles of shampoo and body wash, and a stool to sit on (no little walls to hide from each other, all just out there in the open). I first showered in the standing one, but then after creepily observing everyone else (and panicking, muttering to myself about the freakishness of nudity and still having a heart attack every time someone walked by), I realized I was supposed to sit at the stool and wash off completely. I modestly shuffled over to a stool, cleaned it as thoroughly as I could, and started washing up, averting my eyes from everyone and everything, including the mirror in front of me. People were straight putting their legs up on either side of the basin, thoroughly cleaning themselves (I can now safely say I never want to be a gynecologist, or a lesbian for that matter), and my brain was frying out.

Everyone copes in their own way, like how you're taught to imagine everyone in the crowd naked when you're giving a speech so you can get past your nervousness. For me, here, white and naked in a crowd of Asians, I dealt with it by hating (hard) on everyone else. If they were skinnier, I had a slightly bigger chest, my butt (yes, even my flat butt) was bigger, whatever helped me deal with my own trauma and insecurity. Everyone was looking at me, and various people whispered, "Americajin", muttering to each other, not entirely friendly. The older people were nice, at least, so there's that. After soaping up as best I could and washing my hair, I sucked it up, wrapped my hair in my tiny stupid towel, and walked over to the pool, which was a steaming dark brown/golden, kind of the color of a mudslide or Indian curry. It was split into two sections, but I ignored that at first and just got into the emptier section, which happened to be the hotter half. It was a steamy 44 degrees C, or 111 degrees F. It made my limbs tingle, and I sat down on the step, submerged up to my chin, and managed to relax. It was really nice, especially once you could splash some on your face, breathe it in (it smelt like Earth, but not like dirt, more like salt and some kind of incense), and stretch out. After 10 minutes or so, I was feeling woozy, so I got out and headed over the "wall" (technically you could get up on the ledge and swivel around to the other pool, but that gave the entire room the OBGYN view) to the other side of the pool, which was 107 degrees F. I originally started close to the other pool still, wanting to hurry back into the water, but it was crowded and still too hot, so I wanted to move over to the corner. I'm not quite sure, even still, what the proper method of moving around in the water is, but I tried crab-crawling over to the wall, and happened to brush my butt directly over the feet of this lady who was stretched out farther than I expected, and luckily, she was nice and just smiled and nodded at me as I muttered out a quick, embarrassed apology. There were ledges all around the pool to sit up on, but I didn't utilize that, instead opting to sit on the submerged steps or the ground.

This, too, quickly became too hot, so I got out after another 10 minutes, and I didn't really want to go in the little round "cool down" pool--afraid of what I'd see in that water--so I sat down and just rinsed with cold water for another 10 minutes. At this point, I was almost completely okay with the nudity...until someone (always around my age) shot me a sideways glare or dirty look, and this would both make me feel bad but also make me want to walk naked more just to get on their nerves. I dipped in the 107 degree pool for another 5 minutes, and decided to call it a day because another minute and I'd have full-on heart attack from the heat. I rinsed off a final time, face completely flushed--which NONE of the Asians had, oddly enough, despite their red faces when they drink--and dried off as best I could (with my soaking wet mini towel) before getting dressed. Can I emphasize again how much these people don't care about nudity? As I was at my locker, still naked, a lady who had a locker beneath me just bent right down and had her face INCHES away from my buidness. INCHES!! She appeared out of nowhere, and then she was that close, and I was still all dying from the heat, so that was another close call for my poor fragile heart. I got dressed, damp as could be, and tried to dry my hair (hah) before heading out. My friends met me at the bottom, equally traumatized, and we discussed our mutual horrors.

Now, I'm glad I went, and my skin does feel much softer (especially my poor calloused feet). So I think I'd go again, but do I think I'll be just as uncomfortable with the nudity next time? Yes. I know my mom will be saying "so what", but I think others my age will probably understand better--when you just aren't used to everyone being naked, it's really weird to suddenly be surrounded by a crap ton of naked people. I'm not even the most uncomfortable person in the world with nudity, or the most insecure (I am known for mooning people left and right) but it's just weird to be full-on naked. I'm also really glad I went with three guys, because that meant I didn't have to see any of my friends naked or vice-versa.

Helpful tips for when you know you're visiting an onsen:
-Bring your own towel. Seriously, they sold towels, $2 for the "chisai" (small), or $5 for the "ooki" (large). The large was barely enough to cover from the middle of my boob down to the bottom of my buidness, and didn't even wrap around my body fully. Also, because of all the before and after cleaning, you'll want to actually be able to dry off, and your little crap towel from them will be sufficiently soaked. Nothing worse than trying to pull on skinny jeans over wet legs.

-Bring conditioner and a hairbrush. Dear God, please do. Because they only have shampoo and body wash, your hair will be tangled. My hair was matted up to no avail, and every girl knows how it is to have to wash your hair without any form of conditioner. Also, the hairdryers suck, so don't count on that, as you'll have to sit there for hours to get it damp. I pointed it at my hair and it didn't so much as blow it backwards on full blast.

-Bring deodorant. It will all be gone by the time you get out of the water, so pack ahead! Better to carry it around than smell later.

-Mentally prepare yourself. It's easier said than done, but the mental prep would probably help before you're just thrown into this. Follow what other people do without looking like you're staring them down and being a creep. Try to fit in, blend in, it'll make the whole thing less stressful.

Nicest train station bathroom yet, Kobe

Gyu-kaku style Kobe beef

Anyway! We left Arima and headed into downtown Kobe, which was super pretty and really modern. Their train stations are all updated, with really nice bathrooms and marble floors and high ceilings. There was the massive Great Hanshin earthquake in 1995 which all but demolished most of Kobe, so they were forced to rebuild and they did an amazing job with it (all of the modernity makes me even more pumped for Tokyo this week!). We were determined to find Kobe beef that was reasonable, and after a little bit of searching around and creeping down alleys (Kobe has probably more restaurants packed per square mile than anywhere I've seen yet, I swear, there were SO many options!), we found a place that served it, gyu-kaku style. Gyu-kaku is where you are seated at a table with a little grill inset in the middle of the table, which they put burning charcoal inside, and you grill your own meat with a pair of tongs. For $15, we got six slices of Kobe beef each (each slice about the size of my hand, but thin), and grilled it. The way our waiter showed us was to let it get gray on one side for about a minute, then roll it up and eat it, with one side still pink. It was delicious, especially for someone who hasn't had good beef in months. They gave us a variety of sauces, one which was really good and tasted like the sauce they use for "ginger salad", and overall it was supremely tasty, and for me at least, surprisingly filling. Worth trying just to say you've had Kobe beef.

Kobe's China town, Nankinmachi

We explored Kobe's China town, which was kind of small but still filled to the brim with food vendors and restaurants, all begging to come into their stores. They had some places serving that delicious steamed bun roll I always get at Epcot during the Food and Wine Festival in China (I was too full to try it though, but I definitely will in Yokohama in Tokyo!), and places that had Kobe beef inside of a steamed bun (which my friends got and said was delicious). We checked out their port side, though by the time we got there (around 9), everything was already closed. There were great stores though, and so much to do, so if you get there earlier than we did I highly recommend this. It all was super modern and beautifully built, with wide streets and interesting architecture. And, like always, it was good to see a body of water other than a little river.

Beautiful Port Kobe

Also, on the way back home, we ran into a little old lady we happened to talk to before on the Osaka Loop Line (train). She's super friendly, and folds thousands of these little paper cranes, and taught herself English mostly through American and British songs. She's awesome and adorable and odd but sweet. Gotta love when the world is small in a good way.

Today I'm recovering from my hectic adventure yesterday, as always, and having a lazy Sunday. It was a good weekend, and Kobe was a beautiful city, definitely worth a visit. I'm headed to Tokyo this Wednesday-Tuesday, so this next blog will both be late and long, and filled with a ton of pictures I'm sure.

Ponder ponder~~

Their shoes size and bra sizes are very different here, so be ready. Check these out to see your various sizes in shoes and in bras! http://www.i18nguy.com/l10n/shoes.html#adult , http://www.85b.org/bra_conv.php

Awesome escalator in Kobe's Port Mall

Their paper here is just slightly taller than our standard paper. I don't know why.

They used to have squirrels on mainland Honshu (the island I'm living on), but due to "deforestation", they've all gone away. Who would have thought that squirrels could disappear from somewhere?

They have loudspeakers that go throughout the city of Hirakata (and, presumably, in all if not most towns in Japan), and they use it for various things--police warnings (old people scams, some guy breaking into the library, whatever), weather alerts, and...what I think are little exercise songs? It comes on every day around 4ish, and it plays happy little music, plus a 5-minute announcement and speech when the kids get out of school and are on their way homes (mostly). I'm not sure how I feel about this system yet, because it is both creepy (think North Korea) but helpful (stopping criminals on the run, weather warning system).

Well, I think that's about it, and I hope everyone has a great week, and I'll talk to you guys next time! Until then, ja mata!

Weird things found around Arima

Delicious Kobe beef!

Snoopy store, Kobe

Downtown Kobe lit up

Awesome construction things, Kobe

Huge dead bug I pass by. Do you see the size of this?!

Expensive whopper, Burger King, Kobe

Beer served at Burger King, Kobe

Kobe, Japan

Two months in: Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum--Gaijin smash!

みんなさん、こんにちは！

Wow, am I seriously already at the halfway point of my study abroad? That's insane. I've now been in Japan for two months (to the date in three days, but close enough). I will be back in the States on the 19th of December--in less than two months! Holy crap. I genuinely can't get over all these emotions! I've always been a planner, so I'm already preparing for what I'll do when I get home and next semester, all of which I'm excited for, but I'm also already sad about all the things I'm going to miss about Japan.

はじめましょう！ (Let's begin!)

I had a pretty school-heavy week this past week, filled with two exams in Japanese (a unit test and then an oral midterm exam), plus the second half of that midterm tomorrow. Luckily, my other classes took mercy on me and kept it interesting. We learned about the different McDonald's around the world from various students, one of whom was Russian. Did you know the largest McDonald's is in Moscow? They have like, 23 cash registers. 23! That's a lot of burgers. Anyway, it was pretty cool to see the different building designs and the different menus, and hear from kids from around the world the differences at their McDonald's.

Buraku slums, Meiji 34

In my other class, a speaker came in who is a member of the buraku community here in Japan. Now this is kind of hard to explain--buraku is one of the four major minorities here in Japan, and you may ask, okay, so where are they from, how are they different? Well...they're Japanese by blood and ethnicity, they're the same religion (or non-religion) as the rest of Japan, they speak the same language, they have the same names...and yet they're a minority. Back in the Edo period, they had a feudal system in Japan. This caste system was made up as such: the ruling class was made up of the emperor, shogun (military commanders), and daimyo (land lords), immediately below that were samurai, followed by peasants and farmers, and at the "bottom" were the merchants and artisans...and then came the buraku, similar to India's "untouchables" people, a class that didn't really even make it into their triangle of power. No one is really sure how or why they were chosen to be in this caste, as even then they would have been normal, everyday Japanese people, but that's how it was. These people were given the "dirty jobs", and lived a lot like African American's did in America--slaves up until the "freeing" of the caste system with the Meiji period, but given "equal but separate" treatment. They weren't allowed to use the same facilities (restaurants, shrines and temples, public baths, etc.), nor were they allowed to marry a non-buraku. This separate-but-equal continued up until the 1920s (Showa period). They lived in slums, faced a lack of employment, poor education, and dirty or dangerous low-salary jobs.

Even after "integration" of the buraku into normal society, in the mid 1990s, 95% of people wouldn't marry a burakumin (buraku people), and many of them couldn't get jobs, live among or go to schools with other Japanese people. In the same time period we were doing our "New Deal" in America, Japan was implementing similar protocols here, with affirmative action laws and the like. And in the 1960s continuing through today, these greatly helped the buraku community, and now the polls have almost completely flipped, to 95% saying they would marry a burakumin.

Now, obviously all discrimination is dumb, but discrimination against people who are literally exactly the same as you? I completely do not understand. Anyway, even with these things all greatly alleviated, our speaker was there to just discuss the problem that Japan still faces with discrimination. There are approximately 1.5 million buraku still in Japan today, and like with most problems in Japan, the Japanese people are afraid to talk about it, even if it's happening in front of them. He said the greatest problem Japan still faces with the buraku is that if you admit to being of buraku origins, people still pull back and distance themselves, leaving the burakujin to feel excluded, something that is much more difficult to solve. The whole discussion was very interesting, and it just goes to show that people will find someone to hate no matter where, or who, you are.

He also gave another speech about homelessness in Japan, something I've seen but that isn't as prevalent as it is in America perhaps. Now, my professor and others say not to really believe the Japanese statistics on a lot of issues, and homelessness is one them, because they believe the numbers are greatly skewed due to the way they define homeless. There are homeless people, who can't afford housing at all, and then there are "day-laborers", which are people that are able to work during the day (mostly construction and the like), and are able to afford housing in the "mansions" (マンション), or "doya", which are essentially government low-rent housing. The rooms are usually about one tatami mat wide (about 3 feet by 6 feet), and go for 1,500 yen a night ($15). They get it per night, and have to be into the shelter by 5:30pm, out by 4:30am, and must lineup the following afternoon if they want another night. A lot of these shelters are in bad areas (yakuza-run towns, filled with prostitution, drugs, pawn shops, and other sketchy stuff) and, funny enough, tourists are often told by places like Lonely Planet to stay here because of the cheap hostels and hotels. Many, who either can't afford this or who don't make it in time, go to Internet cafe's to sleep (where I ended up in Hiroshima) or to McDonald's that are open 24 hours. There are approximately 5,400 of these "Internet Cafe/McDonald's refugees".

Homeless in Kamagasaki (found online)

Most of Japan's homeless population are single adult men, with almost no women and no children facing homelessness. Many of these homeless people have problems with depression and anxiety (about 10-20%), some have alcohol problems, but the majority are just unskilled and old laborers. Drugs are typically too expensive for homeless people to afford, so they have more alcohol abuse than drug abuse. They have low life expectancy and a large portion of them also are infected with tuberculosis (the "disease of the poor").  Osaka has, by far, the largest homeless population in all of Japan, with approximately 20,000 in Kamagasaki.

Young people who qualify for public assistance are told to work 26 days a month to earn a liveable sum (around $1,000 a month), and it used to be 10,000 people could do this amount of work. Nowadays however, it is down to just 1,000 people. This is due to Japan's aging population (can't do construction at 67), and because of the economic under-performance since the late 80's, and lack of jobs since the Asian Financial Crisis and bubble burst back in the late 90's.  Many homeless people do things our homeless people do to earn money (aside from begging, though they have done that a few times to us, possibly because we're foreign), like gathering aluminum cans (60 cans = 120 yen or $1.20) or grabbing the past "sell by" date bentos from the conbini's and selling them half price elsewhere. If you're 60 or above, you can qualify for public assistance of around 120,000 yen/month ($1,200), and this is a strict process, given only to those with no other options--in Japan, it's shameful to resort to public assistance, and it means that either your family has already completely cut you off (a terrible fate), or that you will cut them off because you will bring shame to them. I just found this viewpoint interesting, and something I think we desperately need back in America, because the government should truly, always be your last resort instead of your first friend. Ah well.

(Clockwise: Brandon, Yuri, Chiharu)

My weekend was uneventful--after class Friday I went shopping for a few hours (stocking up on winter clothes, crying over how huge my feet are here--triple L, laughing over hilarious Engrish), and then we went out for drinks at our usual place, Toriyiki (or whatever), and that was tasty. I do love their amazing skewers, and with everything only 294 yen after tax, it's a good time for everyone. Saturday I was going to go to USJ but I guess we're going to try to go next Saturday instead because the weather was crappy, so instead I met up with some friends and we went shopping in Namba (Osaka). I got my Halloween costume all prepared (it's a surprise!), and managed to find some really cute things on sale at H&M and at various little side shops. I finally got some Chinese food--not exactly like takeout at home, but man it was still so good, I forgot how much I missed it, and it was super cheap. We split 4 dishes: fried rice, crispy noodles, sweet and sour shrimp, and gyoza, and it was both filling and delicious, all for $4 per person. Sahweet! I spent today curled up, nose cold, studying for the last part of my Japanese midterm tomorrow and doing laundry.

I've got my Tokyo trip booked (did I mention this? I don't remember) so we leave the night before Halloween (Wednesday the 30th) on another night bus (this time we got "sleeper" seats, $10 more, so we'll see how it is), and stay until Monday the 4th (Monday is a half-holiday, so we just miss Japanese class that day). I'm so pumped it's ridiculous. 

Random:

They count by different years here. Usually they'll show both, but on any official forms you'll have to put the Heisei year (named after the current emperor, Akihito Heisei). If you're like me and you've never really heard of this concept like an ignorant Westerner (whatever), here's what you have to do: to convert a Western year after 2000 to Heisei, subtract 1988 (the year when the last emperor died). For example, 2013: 2013−1988 = Heisei 25.  You have to do this for your birth year, too, (I was a Heisei baby so it's the same math, 1993-1988 = Heisei 5). If you were born in 1960, you're Showa 35. (1960-1925, when the Emperor Showa started). Odd, right? If you wanna see what year you are, check this out here: http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/~watson/ref/mtsh.html

Throughout Japan, they have this black dust in the air, pollution they claim comes from China, which is a very real possibility...but also kind of questionable. Scientists did report Chinese pollution up on Mt. Fuji, but this then led to every pollution and soot Japan has in it's air to be blamed solely on China. I'm not a big fan of communists, so I'm all for blaming them whenever possible, but it is another amusing observation of the (not-so) secret distaste for their neighbor because, in reality, you know that a majority of the dust found in these smaller towns is probably still their pollution. It is pretty prominent, something I've never had happen in Florida, and on the possibility of TMI'ing you folks, here it is: when you blow your nose here, there's always a lot of black mixed in with your clear mucus. At first I was pretty sure it was because of my cold or something, but it's continued up and out when I'm healthy now, and my Japanese friends have explained it on this phenomena. I guess Florida gets African dust, but since they're still mostly dust instead of soot...

KFC Christmas Bucket, Japan

Did you know that during the holidays here (like "Christmas", aka just a totally commercial holiday here), people go to KFC to buy their "chicken dinners"? It's a fancy big deal that everyone does. Pretty much some of the only times Japanese people eat KFC. Turkey isn't a product that's available here (though I have, oddly enough, bumped into turkey legs, but they don't sell turkey in any of the grocery stores), and most Japanese people don't have ovens, plus their cost of electricity is so high that even if they had an oven it would probably be too expensive to make, so KFC is the next best alternative.


After a long, stressful week, sometimes it's nice just to be out there, by yourself, taking it all in. It's easy to get caught up in our own nonsense, to get so muddled that we don't really appreciate everything we're experiencing or have. I try to remind myself not to do this on a daily basis, because I think it's so important to remember what an incredibly blessed life we have...even if it's something like breathing on your own, or having even one great friend, or eating a friggin' piece of cheese, there's so much awesomeness around us that it's actually easy to blur it into one mass. So at least once every few days, I like to try to go out, walk around, and just breathe. I go shopping, even to just laugh at Engrish, or just take a moment to count my infinite blessings as the cat down the road coughs out a meow. Life can be hard, but it's so intrinsically good. If you feel pent up, just go out and do something for yourself, stop worrying about everyone else for an hour, and do what you have to do. You won't regret it! I know I never do.

Shopping with Yuri!

Halloween shopping. Kawaii?

Fools

Kids clothing store

Crispy noodles

Presh piglets

Pikachu onsie anyone?

Cross-dresser Halloween Outfits

Gyoza

Tissues they give out for advertising

Taiko: Drum Master (I am not)

I hope everyone has a great week, and I'll see you next time for week 9. Until next time (jikai made, 次回まで)!

<3

Week seven: Was that an earthquake or did a sumo wrestler just sneeze?

こんにちは、みなさん！

Welcome back to week seven of my life in Japan. This might be a long one, as I've had one helluva weekend, so I advise you of this now--you can break this one up however you like. This weekend I went to Hiroshima and Miyajima for our three-day weekend, so let's begin now!

On the night bus with one of my Canadian friends

Friday we left our dorm at 9pm and took the train to Osaka station. While on the train, my friend had his headphones on and had them loud enough that it was a muffled sound that we could hear outside of it, but not enough to make out words. When the train conductor came through, he actually stopped, identified who's music it was, and tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to turn it down. Yes, on the train. I was across the aisle from him and couldn't hear it, and it was definitely not any louder than people having a whispering conversation. Just something to point out just how quiet these trains are. We got to our bus and boarded it at 10:30. The night bus is the cheaper alternative of traveling, (only $40 each way to Hiroshima, compared to the $80 Shinkansen--bullet train), but there is definitely a reason for this. It was a normal motorcoach, probably about 30 people capacity, with normal mini-bus type seating, which means it was pretty narrow, and didn't have very good recline. They have heavy curtains on all of the windows to block out the lights, and a curtain that blocks the view from the driver.
On the way there I had a nice Japanese guy next to me luckily, who was very unimposing, quiet, and skinny. Half a bottle of umeshu and two Benadryl later, I was sleeping...for about an hour and a half. At 1 AM we stopped at a rest stop, lights inside the bus blazing, and with a very loud announcement about using the restroom. I figured, grumpily, that I might as well go and was pleased to find clean, modern toilets, so this stop didn't bother me that much. However, three hours after this, at 4 AM, we were greeted by an alarm-clock-like song, a 5 minute speech in Japanese (followed by a 5 minute one in English), and full on blazing lights...all for two people to get off at one of the stops. This pattern then continued for the next two hours, with the lights bright and the alarm clock going off every thirty minutes. I, and every other foreigner on there, was aggravated, to say the least. For whatever reason this hardly bothered the Japanese people, who seem to be able to sleep through everything--buses, trains, airplanes, you name it, they're passed out cold on it until exactly the right moment somehow. It's a skill they have. Anyway...

Genbaku Dome

Atomic Peace Memorial Museum

We finally arrived to a very chilly (50 degrees) Hiroshima, wearing our summer clothes for the afternoon, freezing to death in a city that hadn't woken up yet. We meandered around until we bought breakfast at the conbini down the street from the station, and continued exploring Hiroshima. We kind of just stumbled into a lot of places on our hunt for Hiroshima Castle, like the Genbaku Dome, or the Atomic Bomb Dome at the very end of the Peace Memorial Park. It used to be Hiroshima's Prefectural Products Exhibition Hall before the bombing on August 6th, 1945. It was the only building left standing near the hypocentre of the bombing, though everyone inside was killed instantly. It is crazy how well they've maintained it in it's exact condition since the bombing. It's an eerie place to be, as if you can just feel some parts of the city that still haven't quite been able to rest in peace yet. We headed up Peace Park, which has lots of different statues and things to see, like the Children's Peace Memorial. This is a memorial that was petitioned by people and children after the death of Sadako, a little girl who survived the bombing, was thought to be okay, but died years later from leukemia. She made a thousand paper cranes while in the hospital (based on the belief that folding a thousand of these will grant your wish), each one representing her will and fight to live. However, at the age of 12, Sadako passed on, and was buried with these paper cranes. And now, in her memory, an uncountable amount of people donate paper cranes to the memorial in honor of her and all the other thousands of children who died from the atomic bomb. There were some incredible donations, and it was beautiful. On this both inspiring but depressing note, we finally headed into the museum..

Paper crane donations at the Children's Peace Memorial

Sadako's Memorial

...to see and hear even more horrible, horrible things...not quite as graphic as the Peace Museum last weekend, but horrible still. After we made our way through the museum, we were able to listen to a survivor speak on her experience, translated by one of my professors. She was 12 or 14 when it happened, and she was out working at one of the factories, not far from the hypocentre.

Survivors

The things she described are unimaginable--walking through the streets after managing to escape from her destroyed factory, seeing people who's skin was billowed around their hands as they held the entirety of their arm flesh by their fingernails, a boy walking around with his severed arm in his hand, people with babies burnt head to toe in hand...just unimaginable suffering. She lost all of her family and the majority of her friends except for her father, who was able to find her, but died a year later from stomach cancer. She was incredible, and it was a very moving speech and question/answer section. The actual Atomic Bomb Memorial and Peace Museum was massive, and really pretty--manicured grass (kinda something hard to find here in Japan, actually), lots of statues and fountains, the whole bit.

Atomic bomb survivor

Hiroshima-style Okonomiyaki!

We headed out to do some lighter things like shopping and eating, and headed to Okonomiyaki-mura (Okonomiyaki town), which is a 6-floor building with a crapton of shops specializing in okonomiyaki--Hiroshima style. Osaka people mix together all their ingredients first, but the Hiroshiman's do it layer-by-layer, and it was equally tasty...I'd probably be more of a fan if I liked cabbage more, but since I'm not a huge lover of it (kinda fishy or something) it's all right. I'm sure everyone else would love it. It's grilled and layered with batter, cabbage, noodles (soba or udon), an egg, whatever meat you chose (I got bacon, mmm), and various spices. Pretty tasty. Afterward, we stopped for a pastry you see everywhere in Japan--essentially a copy of that one French pastry thing--it's a pancake-like-thing made into a cone and stuffed with whip cream and whatever you choose, and I got brownie chunks and chocolate in mine. Delicious, mm!

Pastry dessert thingy, mm.

We went out to our hostel, $4.80 away by train, and arrived...only to find out we were at the wrong one. Luckily, my friend with us is fluent in Japanese, and talked with the very confused owners of "Ｆuji Business Hotel" (the one we booked was Fuji Hostel, booked through booking.com), who tried everything they could to help us. They called the hotel, who's number didn't work, and who's address wouldn't work on our phones (and, at best guess, was 2 and 1/2 hours away from where we now were). They tried calling around other hotels nearby for any rooms, but everything was booked up. Unbelievable. (I now have a cancellation fee of the full price on my credit card, which I now have to fight and dispute, joy.) Also, this town was mad sketchy--everything was still open and bumping at 8pm on a Friday (yeah, that's weird in Japan), and filled with very yakuza looking men in tuxedos, surrounded by questionable looking women they had come flirt with our group of boys. AKA we were now in a town run by the yakuza, homeless.

Prices at the Internet Cafe

We decided to go back to Hiroshima ($4.80 back), exhausted, and try our luck there. We all had dying or dead electronics (no Internet or phones to find another place to stay), and I managed to find some outlets near the ticket booth, behind some chairs. As I tried plugging my stuff in, the ticket guy yelled at us not to use it, without explanation, and so we moved to the other side of the station to try our luck. He actually watched us and sent someone else over there, where we were very out of the way from everyone and everything because everything was closed, just to tell us that we couldn't use the outlets. I had my friend explain our terrible situation, and I begged for just 10 minutes ("Ju-pun kudasai!"), and he "allowed" us 5 minutes...and he timed us. However, as we were leaving, a Japanese lady came and plugged her stuff in, which the workers clearly saw, and didn't say anything. I pointed it out to them (as they stared at me like I was crazy), ready to flip out on someone in rage, just leaving before I got kicked out of the friggin' country. Japan gets a lot of things right, but when they get something wrong, they get it very wrong. Simple things like this always piss me off, America or Japan, because it's just power-hungry little security guards who feel the need to assert their dominance. As the topping on the cake, my friend lost his ticket on our way there, and like jerks, they made him pay again before leaving even though he explained he already paid, he just lost his ticket. Woohoo.

My "bedroom" for the night

Now outside, in the cold wind, at midnight on little to no sleep, we wandered around, looking for something. Another friend of ours had our dilemma earlier, just because she hadn't booked anything, and we knew she was staying at an Internet cafe across the street from the station, and we decided to give that a try. Let me tell you how strange this whole phenomena is: it's a place where you pay various blocks of time and are given either a room or a cubicle, and have access to Internet, manga, and TV. They have a game section (pool, darts, whatever) available for another fee, bathrooms, showers ($3 a shower for some amount of time), drinks, snacks, and ice cream. This is apparently really popular among runaways and homeless people, and it was busy. There were normal looking people, some sketchy people, some travelers, you name it. We paid $16 for 6 hours, plus $3 for a (required) membership card. For this, we were given a cubicle-like-office that fit a desk with a computer and a Lazy Boy recliner. There wasn't a real door, just this half-thing (think Western saloon style) you could slide closed but not lock, and you could still see over everyone's thing if you were walking by. My friend was walking around and saw people casually watching porn, or playing games, or doing whatever, at midnight on a Friday night, by themselves. I grabbed a drink (included in my price), washed my face in the sink, and managed to pass out by 1:30 after downing two more Benadryl.

On the ferry to Miyajima!

Somehow surviving the night without getting robbed or molested, we checked out at 6am to avoid any extra fees (though somehow got charged an extra $2 for God knows what), and stumbled over to the station to head to Miyajimaguchi, the port city leading to Miyajima. It was a quick, (cold) painless 25-minute ride ($4.00), and a 5-minute ferry ride (another $4.00) to Miyajima Island.

This place also holds deer sacred, therefore they roam all over, but they're less friendly/humanized than the bowing Nara deer. It was an absolutely beautiful island, with so many friendly visitors and residents, really some of the kindest people I've interacted with since being in Japan. We saw the famous Itsukushima Shrine and its torii (gate), which was breathtaking (especially in the evening), and was cool because in the morning with low tide we could touch it, but by the afternoon it was surrounded by water with boats floating between it.

Deer of Miyajima

Beautiful!

We climbed two miles up Mt Misen, (535 meters high) a two hour hike up and up and up...I swear I use this analogy too much in Japan, but it was literally like the stairway to frickin' Heaven. I thought I'd die--the way we took apparently is the way you should go down, as it is way more difficult due to the stairs that go on forever, as opposed to the more sloping area that you're supposed to go up. My legs and knees are still shaking. All the Japanese people we passed were very encouraging, and friendly, always saying good afternoon and good luck, pleased to see us climbing instead of riding the car up. Somehow we made it to the top, and the entire way up really was gorgeous, and the view justified it all. Beautiful.

We then, exhausted, took the cable car down ($8 or $10) and enjoyed the views the lazy way. Starving and thirsty, we grabbed lunch--two skewers, one fried chicken, the other oyster filled with cheese and wrapped in bacon, and a dessert of the famous momiji dessert--and enjoyed the perfect, breezy weather on the rock lining the ocean.

Top of Mt Misen

Oyster stuffed with cheese and wrapped in bacon!

Momiji, pancake-like-batter stuffed with bean paste or vanilla maple custard

Several samurai's-trying-to-kill-us and deers-eating-my-souvenir-bags-while-I-was-napping later, we took some last-minute pictures of Isukushima Shrine, shopped around, and headed out on the ferry back to Hiroshima. We ate dinner at Sukiya (the "McDonalds" of Japanese food, specializing in gyudon--literally meaning "meat bowls") and killed time before our bus left at 10pm. I thought the ride back couldn't be any worse than the ride there...and yet somehow, I was wrong.

Final goodbye to Miyajima

This bus had no power outlets, and I had dying electronics, and the girl I sat next to (another student from Kansai Gaidai I didn't know) kept scooting into my space and squeezing her butt onto mine. I literally could feel her butt cheek division on my thigh. Annoyed, I took my two Benadryl without realizing that we were going to do the same stops in reverse, so my driver talked for 30 minutes, and kept the lights on for 2 hours. I managed to groggily stay half-asleep for those first two hours, but after the first rest stop, I couldn't fall back asleep or get comfortable in the narrow seats with terrible recline. He kept flicking the lights on and talking about God knows what, and we arrived at Osaka station at 4:30 AM. Note, the drive doesn't actually take that long, but the drivers sleep halfway through the ride--not that big of a deal because the trains don't start until 5 anyway, but for those who were riding to Kyoto, another 30 minutes away, I'd probably be annoyed. We took our cold, crowded hour ride back home, plus our 15 minute walk, and I showered and crashed, never so happy to see my flat little futon in my life.

Cheese gyudon

Overall, it was a good weekend. A very long one, but a good one, despite all the bumps and bruises and lack of sleep. I'm glad to be back in my room, curled up on my futon, showered, fed, and using my electronics. It's the simple things that make you the happiest. We're currently planning our trip to Tokyo, leaving the night before Halloween so we can be in Tokyo for it (eep!) and we're going to finalize all the details tomorrow. We've got midterms coming up the next two weeks (holy crap), and my oral exam for Japanese is this week. Wish me luck!

Ponder-ances~~

Melon float from McDonalds

I felt my first earthquake! http://www.google.org/publicalerts/alert?aid=c8e488af6425776b&hl=en&gl=JP&source=web . It kind of just felt like being in a small house/car and having a big semi go by, where you can feel the sway and shake and you hear a little rumble, and you raise your eyebrow and say, "Dang." You gotta feel for Japan, I mean really--tornadoes, typhoons (hurricanes), tsunamis, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes...for a country so small, they sure do have a lot of problems. Seriously.

The melon soda float at McDonalds is delicious. Do normal floats have ice in them? They put ice in theirs, and I'm not sure if that's normal or not. Whatever, it and the ebi-fillet are must-haves here in Japan. Don't miss out.

Japanese people turn their cars off at stoplights. At first I thought they were just turning off their headlights, or dimming them, but you can actually hear their cars clicking back on when the light changes. They're incredibly patient about the person in front of them turning their car on and going (whereas in Miami, if you sit for even half a millisecond after the light turns green, they're honking violently behind you). I don't know why they turn their cars off, because at this point they should be able to idle efficiently enough that this is unnecessary. Nevertheless, just an observation.

The best brand of melon bread. SO GOOD.

Sweat rags are sold everywhere--decorative, cute, masculine, for the young and for the old. They're normal face towels, except they're used specifically for heavy amounts of sweat. I'm kind of torn on the whole sweat rag vs hand debate, as I can't decide what's actually grosser. Yes, it's nice that you don't have to worry about them having just wiped their neck sweat off with their hand and grabbing the door handle, but it's also really unattractive when you see a pretty girl whip out her sweat rag from her bag (stank and all). Practically every Japanese person has one, and I'm just not sure if it's a trend I want to catch on in America.

Top of Mt. Misen

When you go to a buffet in America, the goal is to fill up your plate with everything possible, and at least try a little of everything. Yes, inevitably, some things are going to be gross, possibly inedible, but you try it and move on. That's the whole point of paying for a buffet, right? Well, in Japan, there are rules specifically against leaving anything on your plate, especially at buffets. This is a constant struggle we non-Asian-country kids have been having, because if we first of all can't read the signs, we kind of just grab everything and hope for the best, and secondly, a lot of things just don't taste as good as they may look here. This gets us lots of glares as we try to swallow down the unpleasant food we have on our plate (and allows us to come with creative ways to hide the food we don't eat, like in a bowl of melted ice cream). Most of the buffets have time limits, and you are clocked in and clocked out, given the set of rules which always include the "clean plate" rule. I know, I know, it's good that they save their foods with all the starving people out in the world, but I just paid over $12 to eat, which means by golly I am going to eat and not eat whatever I please, because if it isn't good I'm going to fill up on good stuff instead. This argument never really works with Japanese people, however. /sigh

And on that final note, tada and farewell, oyasumi nasai!

<3

Recreation of the bombing

Interpretation of my speaker's story of what she saw

Weird salty drink

Peace Memorial Museum

Paper crane donation

Being goobers on the train ride

<3

Samurai's trying to kill us

Manga available to read at the Internet Cafe

Goodbye and goodnight, Miyajima