This still makes me laugh. I was walking down to the train station at Mikage (down the hill from my halls) on Saturday, when, as I passed by the local high school (which incidentally is one of Kobe University`s high schools), a bunch of the kids (school on Saturday I`m afraid) see me walking past. Immediately one of them shouts, and I swear I am not making a word of this up:
「オバマ大統領！！！！」
Which means...
"President Obama!!!!!"
What can I say, Japan is a weird place to be a foreigner...
That wasn`t even the weirdest part of the day... (that would be a toss-up between introducing myself as a paving slab in French (to some French people I hasten to add), or being mistaken for a drug-dealer by some fat Russians in a club...)
(For those keeping count, that`s now David Beckham, Nick from the Backstreet Boys and now Obama様 (sama, more polite, honourific version of san, for example, the emperor is Tenno-sama) for whom I`ve been "mistaken"). I think Nick is a distinct step down from the other two... If the next person is anything less than someone on, say, Will Smith-fame level I`ll be deeply insulted...
Oh, and Japan may be having a stab at challenging Scotland for the "most unpredictable weather" trophy. This morning it was 10C and sunny, 2 hours later it was snowing, then freezing but raining, and now it`s clear and relatively mild...
Oh, and most importantly, I HAD CHEESE ON TOAST TODAY!!!!!! Proper cheese on toast! Japanese cheese is a bit like the Matrix (yay for Rage Against the Machine btw), no-one can be told of it`s full horror, you have to see it with your own eyes. However, lo and behold, I found (actually, Baz showed me) a little coffee shop where they do it properly! Now if only I could find a real Pizza and a lawn to sit on... Funny what you end up missing.
Finally, I`ll just mention why I`m typing this right now, here in the faculty library. I was walking back to Rokko train station to get the train back home when I decided to call Kaori-san in Tokyo for a catch-up. At the end of the conversation I realised I`d actually managed to walk all the way to campus, about 15 mins past the train station... oops.
Oh, and I did mean to talk about the surreal Second Language Acquisition class here (though to be honest, surreal has been the norm for the past 3 months now...). Oh well, there`s always next time...
Sunday 20 December 2009
Monday 14 December 2009
Hi again
I havn`t posted for a while, I know. I`d like to say that`s because I`ve been really busy with loads of stuff but as Japanese University is a complete joke (to the extent that even the lecturers admit it) , I can`t really use that as an excuse...
I had a slightly odd Saturday last weekend. I went back to Osaka for another look around, got ABSOLUTELY lost once again (in Shinsaibashi this time, I sort of know my way around Umeda now). While I was there, I had a quick look around a few shops, inside one of which a brave shop assistant asked me in English if I needed any help. After reassuring him that I could understand Japanese, he then pointed to the jeans I was looking at and said "コレクッションじゃなくて、ジーンズです” ("These aren`t part of the collection, they`re jeans.") Oh well, at least this time they though I was a JAPANESE SPEAKING idiot...
Anyway, after wandering around Osaka for the day, I went back to Kobe, got changed, went to a bar in central Kobe with some other exchange students (where, in the middle of me ordering drinks and food, my Dad calls me... doh). Anyway, after going outside to speak to Dad I get stuck in this massive people-jam on the way in, where about 15 people are trying to go to other floors through the entrance elevator (the bar was on the 4th floor), another 10 are trying to get into the elevator to leave, and another 20 people are hanging around in front of the elevator waiting for seats in the bar. Just so you know, the entrance lobby of this place is about the size of the average public toilet... Anyway, while squished in there, the Japanese people squashed in beside me decided I looked like... wait for it... Nick from the Backstreet Boys... what the hell? (I want to say "Is it coz I is white?" but I know that is exactly the reason). I felt bad about having to break it to them that nobody in the UK has heard anything about the Backstreet Boys for the last 15 years or so, but they were too busy serenading me with "Azu rong azu yuu rabu me"...
Later on, we all went BACK to Osaka to find a club, after which nobody really remembers much else... There are however unfortunately photos, WHICH WILL NEVER EVER SEE THE LIGHT OF THE INTERNET.
I do however remember us all lying in a heap on a train bench at 0600 (maybe?) on the Sunday morning on the way back to Kobe, getting laughed at by two Japanese high school kids (Yea, they go to school on Sunday)
Oh, and I realise I`ve said this many times, but being a tall, very white foreigner sort of makes you stand out obviously. Sadly, this means a lot of people remember you from random places, even when you havn`t the faintest idea who they are. We all just get used to saying hi back to random people on an hourly basis. Unfortunatly, this backfired on my today when the person I gave a really obvious "Who on earth are you?" look to yesterday turned out to be my supervisors assistant...
Oh, and Second Language Acquisition teacher just goes from strength to strength in terms of totally surreal conversation topics... more on her next time.
I had a slightly odd Saturday last weekend. I went back to Osaka for another look around, got ABSOLUTELY lost once again (in Shinsaibashi this time, I sort of know my way around Umeda now). While I was there, I had a quick look around a few shops, inside one of which a brave shop assistant asked me in English if I needed any help. After reassuring him that I could understand Japanese, he then pointed to the jeans I was looking at and said "コレクッションじゃなくて、ジーンズです” ("These aren`t part of the collection, they`re jeans.") Oh well, at least this time they though I was a JAPANESE SPEAKING idiot...
Anyway, after wandering around Osaka for the day, I went back to Kobe, got changed, went to a bar in central Kobe with some other exchange students (where, in the middle of me ordering drinks and food, my Dad calls me... doh). Anyway, after going outside to speak to Dad I get stuck in this massive people-jam on the way in, where about 15 people are trying to go to other floors through the entrance elevator (the bar was on the 4th floor), another 10 are trying to get into the elevator to leave, and another 20 people are hanging around in front of the elevator waiting for seats in the bar. Just so you know, the entrance lobby of this place is about the size of the average public toilet... Anyway, while squished in there, the Japanese people squashed in beside me decided I looked like... wait for it... Nick from the Backstreet Boys... what the hell? (I want to say "Is it coz I is white?" but I know that is exactly the reason). I felt bad about having to break it to them that nobody in the UK has heard anything about the Backstreet Boys for the last 15 years or so, but they were too busy serenading me with "Azu rong azu yuu rabu me"...
Later on, we all went BACK to Osaka to find a club, after which nobody really remembers much else... There are however unfortunately photos, WHICH WILL NEVER EVER SEE THE LIGHT OF THE INTERNET.
I do however remember us all lying in a heap on a train bench at 0600 (maybe?) on the Sunday morning on the way back to Kobe, getting laughed at by two Japanese high school kids (Yea, they go to school on Sunday)
Oh, and I realise I`ve said this many times, but being a tall, very white foreigner sort of makes you stand out obviously. Sadly, this means a lot of people remember you from random places, even when you havn`t the faintest idea who they are. We all just get used to saying hi back to random people on an hourly basis. Unfortunatly, this backfired on my today when the person I gave a really obvious "Who on earth are you?" look to yesterday turned out to be my supervisors assistant...
Oh, and Second Language Acquisition teacher just goes from strength to strength in terms of totally surreal conversation topics... more on her next time.
Wednesday 2 December 2009
Osaka, Himeji and Green Coffee
I went to Osaka!!!!! Finally!!!! It was really big. Like really really really big. Totally unlike anything in Europe, it`s just overwhelming. It took me 30 minutes to find my way out of the train-station and then I just wandered about in a daze for a while... Oh, and Osakan accents are hard to understand...
I went to Himeji as well, which is where Japan`s most famous/best preserved castle is. The castle was amazing and really beautiful, but to be honest Himeji as a town is really really dull. Funny moment on the train there as well, when Chris mentioned "Wow, it`s really rural out here..." by which he meant you could see a field (singular). I guess that counts as rural after 2 months in the Kobe/Osaka/Kyoto metropolis....
All this getting around to other cities makes me realise how nice it is to live in Kobe; it`s not crazy big like Osaka, has better weather than Kyoto (even though Kyoto is a nicer city hands down), but is still pretty and interesting. And the view is nice.
Anyway, just to make a comment, Stevie, little ray of sunshine, said it was difficult to tell if I was enjoying Japan based on my blog. Just to let you all know, I`m having a great time here, don`t worry.
Oh, I was in Starbucks down in Central Kobe having coffee with a Japanese friend, when some random guy walks past and really really really obviously stares AT HER. Haha, welcome to my world lol. Oh, and while we`re on the subject, don`t let the spectacular green colour of Starbucks matcha frappuccinos`s tempt you, they`re terrible (I don`t know if I`ve mentioned this before but Starbucks, or Staba as it`s called for short has different food and drinks here)
I went to Himeji as well, which is where Japan`s most famous/best preserved castle is. The castle was amazing and really beautiful, but to be honest Himeji as a town is really really dull. Funny moment on the train there as well, when Chris mentioned "Wow, it`s really rural out here..." by which he meant you could see a field (singular). I guess that counts as rural after 2 months in the Kobe/Osaka/Kyoto metropolis....
All this getting around to other cities makes me realise how nice it is to live in Kobe; it`s not crazy big like Osaka, has better weather than Kyoto (even though Kyoto is a nicer city hands down), but is still pretty and interesting. And the view is nice.
Anyway, just to make a comment, Stevie, little ray of sunshine, said it was difficult to tell if I was enjoying Japan based on my blog. Just to let you all know, I`m having a great time here, don`t worry.
Oh, I was in Starbucks down in Central Kobe having coffee with a Japanese friend, when some random guy walks past and really really really obviously stares AT HER. Haha, welcome to my world lol. Oh, and while we`re on the subject, don`t let the spectacular green colour of Starbucks matcha frappuccinos`s tempt you, they`re terrible (I don`t know if I`ve mentioned this before but Starbucks, or Staba as it`s called for short has different food and drinks here)
Wednesday 25 November 2009
A Kind Sadist
I went in for my second session of sensei's Second language experiment today, which started off with her asking me my views on semi-autonomous city-states. Needless to say this was a quick discussion... Continuing the theme started by Yume last week of accidentally committing criticism of Japan to video tape, I somehow found myself having a go at leopard print (really popular here), Crocs and hairstyles (I see a new one every day...). Adding this to sensei's little game of "ask-terrified-exchange-students-odd-questions-all-the-time", I'm coming to think of her as a sadist, albeit a very kind and personable one...
Speaking of odd questions, I think I might have accidentally crushed Fujinami sensei's little dream of finding some interesting English examples... As I mentioned before, I'm the class English speaking monkey (Alexis had his turn as the French one today as well, Markus will probably get his turn at German next week), so I read out some random spiel about butterflies, at the end of which sensei asks me if it was interesting, to which I reply "Not especially", thinking she mean the content. Turns out she meant the little idioms and set phrases at the start of it (this being a linguistics class that should maybe have been a bit more obvious...).
Moral of the story, just say yes to any questions in class...
Oh, and here's a video we were shown in International communication class (I also put this on Facebook so you might have seen it already)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmanjsjp4AU
This one is also great, though the voice-over is japanese only, though you should still get the funny bits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j28Rz2P9LXA&feature=related
I actually tried Dynamite in a little restaurant in Kyoto. I don't recommend trying this in front of the owner unless you are willing to put the "Stupid Foreigner" defense to it's very limit.
Speaking of Kyoto, we had another little national holiday on Monday so Mayuko and I (Along with pretty much half of the Kinki region, the other half of whom went to Nara. No joke about the name btw) , went to Kyoto, which was the ancient capitol of Japan. We only got to spend a day there, but I'm not kidding when I say I've fallen in love with it, seriously, if you every get a chance to go don't let anything stop you. I'm seriously considering going straight back this weekend. The temples there are just amazing and they light up the gardens at night. I'll put up my (mostly rather blurry) photos soon...
Oh, and Japanese compliments... these take a little while to get used to... apparently having a small face and big nose is considered good. I was honestly not sure how to take this when told it rather directly in the middle of an otherwise perfectly normal conversation. Talking of odd conversation points, Japanese people are quite keen to know what you're blood-type is.... It seems this is seen to control you're personality. Either that or we were lured here in order to be harvested and replenish Japan's supply...
Still havn't made it to Osaka...
Speaking of odd questions, I think I might have accidentally crushed Fujinami sensei's little dream of finding some interesting English examples... As I mentioned before, I'm the class English speaking monkey (Alexis had his turn as the French one today as well, Markus will probably get his turn at German next week), so I read out some random spiel about butterflies, at the end of which sensei asks me if it was interesting, to which I reply "Not especially", thinking she mean the content. Turns out she meant the little idioms and set phrases at the start of it (this being a linguistics class that should maybe have been a bit more obvious...).
Moral of the story, just say yes to any questions in class...
Oh, and here's a video we were shown in International communication class (I also put this on Facebook so you might have seen it already)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmanjsjp4AU
This one is also great, though the voice-over is japanese only, though you should still get the funny bits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j28Rz2P9LXA&feature=related
I actually tried Dynamite in a little restaurant in Kyoto. I don't recommend trying this in front of the owner unless you are willing to put the "Stupid Foreigner" defense to it's very limit.
Speaking of Kyoto, we had another little national holiday on Monday so Mayuko and I (Along with pretty much half of the Kinki region, the other half of whom went to Nara. No joke about the name btw) , went to Kyoto, which was the ancient capitol of Japan. We only got to spend a day there, but I'm not kidding when I say I've fallen in love with it, seriously, if you every get a chance to go don't let anything stop you. I'm seriously considering going straight back this weekend. The temples there are just amazing and they light up the gardens at night. I'll put up my (mostly rather blurry) photos soon...
Oh, and Japanese compliments... these take a little while to get used to... apparently having a small face and big nose is considered good. I was honestly not sure how to take this when told it rather directly in the middle of an otherwise perfectly normal conversation. Talking of odd conversation points, Japanese people are quite keen to know what you're blood-type is.... It seems this is seen to control you're personality. Either that or we were lured here in order to be harvested and replenish Japan's supply...
Still havn't made it to Osaka...
Thursday 19 November 2009
Requiem for my German
My German ability is dying :=( Before I came here, especially after spending 3 weeks in Italy with a bunch of Germans I was pretty fluent, about C1 level on the Common European Framework, maybe even C2 in speaking, but now I can barely string a coherent sentence together, seriously, every time I try some kind of horrible, inconsistent-tense ridden half Japanese garbage comes out my mouth :-( for example, I routinely produce something similar to the following: "Tja, ケッコだな、aber jetzt bin ich so 忙しい,vieleicht 後で konnen wir etwas するね." I`m sure my second language acquisition teacher would be very happy to get her hands on that little example of code-mixing... Speaking of which, she`s doing a study on comparisons between native and 2nd language speakers in Japanese and English at the moment, and as we`re (Shin, Yume, Mark and I, the foreign students in the class) are the most readily available native English speakers around (except Mark, who slept in that morning...) we`re her guinea-pigs. Basically it involves sitting around chatting with English learning Japanese students in both languages. To put that another way we take it in turns to bludgeon each others language. Except Yume who`s as the teacher put it: "Like a native" speaker in both. Possibly because SHE`S HALF JAPANESE (I hope she reads this... She doesn`t want people to know that because people think she`s less interesting, ie, less foreign.). Oh, and I asked her if she had any tips for saving my German and she basically said "頑張って" Which basically means "good luck"...
Oh, and the other day in Translation Studies we were looking at Interlingual translation from Ancient Japanese to Modern Japanese. I understood about 5% of that lecture, no joke. The examples looked like they were written in frikkin Chinese! No kana (letters) what so ever, and then even in the later ones they had these really weird ones which I still couldn`t read.
Oh, and my Supervisor likes showing his students British movies, though after Trainspotting and This is England, can anybody think of some that don`t make the UK out to be a terribly depressing place to live. Suggests of Bridget Jones` Diary or Love Actually not appreciated. Also, they already watched Love Actually 2 weeks ago...
Oh, and the other day in Translation Studies we were looking at Interlingual translation from Ancient Japanese to Modern Japanese. I understood about 5% of that lecture, no joke. The examples looked like they were written in frikkin Chinese! No kana (letters) what so ever, and then even in the later ones they had these really weird ones which I still couldn`t read.
Oh, and my Supervisor likes showing his students British movies, though after Trainspotting and This is England, can anybody think of some that don`t make the UK out to be a terribly depressing place to live. Suggests of Bridget Jones` Diary or Love Actually not appreciated. Also, they already watched Love Actually 2 weeks ago...
Sunday 15 November 2009
Of Cake and Alcohol
I`m sure I`ve mentioned this before, but if you don`t look Japanese, ABSOLUTELY NOBODY will expect you to be able to understand a word of the language. Madame et Monsieur (I`ve been learning French... sort of), I am proud to say I discovered a new low in this phenomenon at the weekend. I was in this little coffee-shop place under the train stations (plural) in Sannomiya (central Kobe) the other day, and I walk up with my cake to pay and get my iced-coffee (The cakes are self-service). Anyway, at the till the shop assistant doesn`t even bother to say anything to be and just sort of starts pointing to the door. Eh? You want me to leave? No, You want me to go round the corner with you? What? I just stood there looking rather puzzled and just said えと，何ですか？ (Err... what?) At which point she decides to say something and I realise what she meant was "お持ち帰りですか？” Which means "Do you want this for take-out?"... seriously, just say that in the first place and we`ll all be much happier...
We also had the Kobe university festival at the weekend (every Japanese university has their own festival which is pretty much a weekend-long party.) On the Saturday night about 1/2 the Intercultural Studies faculty was converted into bars and restaurants from 1700 on Saturday to basically 1200 the next morning... Imagine if you will: Many many Japanese people + 19 hours + $2 cocktails...
Anyway, I got randomly asked by two guys if I`m the quote "Random foreigner with the sunglasses"... I think it might be time to change that particular habit (see the "Magic Sunglasses" entry if you missed that). Lilly and Yume both got marriage proposals from these guys as well. Incidentally they`re physics students as well... Japanese physics students are obviously a bit different from their UK counterparts, given the 3rd question these guys asked (after the sunglasses and marriages) was "Oh, French person (ie, Lilly), do you know A.P.C (French clothes brand)? Dior? Lavin?"
BTW, any body who learned Japanese from either Minna No Nihongo or just generally in the UK, 喫茶店（きっさてん: Cafe/coffee shop）is something apparently something only old ladies say... you have been warned. Unfortunatly I wasn`t and got laughed at by my teacher this morning...
On the subject of funny Japanese, people have noticed that, having learned Japanese in a UK classroom, I have a tendency to say "そうです” (sou desu: means roughly, i suppose/that is the case/i agree) a lot. It`s a sort of useful thing when either a) I have no idea what someone said to me b) I can`t be bothered thinking of a proper answer . Anyway, this slightly backfired on me at the weekend and someone was saying something to me, though I wasn`t really listening at all and just said そうです、turns out they were asking me if I wanted another drink... Unsurprisingly I didn`t get one...
Oh, btw, Spooks series 8: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO sob sob
We also had the Kobe university festival at the weekend (every Japanese university has their own festival which is pretty much a weekend-long party.) On the Saturday night about 1/2 the Intercultural Studies faculty was converted into bars and restaurants from 1700 on Saturday to basically 1200 the next morning... Imagine if you will: Many many Japanese people + 19 hours + $2 cocktails...
Anyway, I got randomly asked by two guys if I`m the quote "Random foreigner with the sunglasses"... I think it might be time to change that particular habit (see the "Magic Sunglasses" entry if you missed that). Lilly and Yume both got marriage proposals from these guys as well. Incidentally they`re physics students as well... Japanese physics students are obviously a bit different from their UK counterparts, given the 3rd question these guys asked (after the sunglasses and marriages) was "Oh, French person (ie, Lilly), do you know A.P.C (French clothes brand)? Dior? Lavin?"
BTW, any body who learned Japanese from either Minna No Nihongo or just generally in the UK, 喫茶店（きっさてん: Cafe/coffee shop）is something apparently something only old ladies say... you have been warned. Unfortunatly I wasn`t and got laughed at by my teacher this morning...
On the subject of funny Japanese, people have noticed that, having learned Japanese in a UK classroom, I have a tendency to say "そうです” (sou desu: means roughly, i suppose/that is the case/i agree) a lot. It`s a sort of useful thing when either a) I have no idea what someone said to me b) I can`t be bothered thinking of a proper answer . Anyway, this slightly backfired on me at the weekend and someone was saying something to me, though I wasn`t really listening at all and just said そうです、turns out they were asking me if I wanted another drink... Unsurprisingly I didn`t get one...
Oh, btw, Spooks series 8: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO sob sob
Wednesday 11 November 2009
I Am An English Speaking-Monkey
Of my 国際文化学部 (Kokusaibunkagakubu, Faculty of Intercultural Studies, ie my faculty) classes, I like Translation studies the best. I understand most of it and the teacher is really nice (and speaks German in case I really really need to know something exactly) . Anyway, slightly amusingly it seems Sensei has decided that I`m going to be the class`s English-speaking monkey... If there`s anything lengthy and written in English (It`s translation studies so most stuff is English to Japanese translation examples, though sometimes we get the odd exotic one like Hungarian or Finnish, which NOBODY in the class understands), the teacher sort of looks over to me expectantly.
I don`t mind it at all to be honest, I just find if quite funny. As the only native English speaker in the class (about 25 Japanese, 1 person from China, France and Germany and me) I suppose I`m most qualified, and it means we avoid odd- Japanese English situations. That said, I would prefer not to be asked to imitate and 8 year old American girls accent again...
There is one thing about the class that gets to me though. Whenever I`m there I seem to completely loose the ability to string together a coherent Japanese sentence. Understanding is not the problem, I just can`t say stuff! Maybe it`s just the fact that it`s in front of a big bunch of people...
Oh, and I`m going to be in a video on Kobe University`s web-page at some point. I don`t think I actually do anything other than sit in a lecture though...
I don`t mind it at all to be honest, I just find if quite funny. As the only native English speaker in the class (about 25 Japanese, 1 person from China, France and Germany and me) I suppose I`m most qualified, and it means we avoid odd- Japanese English situations. That said, I would prefer not to be asked to imitate and 8 year old American girls accent again...
There is one thing about the class that gets to me though. Whenever I`m there I seem to completely loose the ability to string together a coherent Japanese sentence. Understanding is not the problem, I just can`t say stuff! Maybe it`s just the fact that it`s in front of a big bunch of people...
Oh, and I`m going to be in a video on Kobe University`s web-page at some point. I don`t think I actually do anything other than sit in a lecture though...
Tuesday 10 November 2009
The Scarf Mare Continues...
Well, they called me up just as they promised, and apparently there aren`t any of the scarves I wanted left in the whole of Japan, for which the nice shop assistant (I forget her name) on the end of the phone made the usual personal apology for letting me down etc... Anyway, they want me to come in and check out the one they have left to see if I want it (I may just throw them a curve ball and get some shoes instead...). Anyway, the funniest thing about the whole business was my realising that I didn`t actually know how to end a phone call politely and in a non-casual way. Most unfortunately I realised this AT THE END OF THE PHONE CALL. I thanked them all for their effort and then sort of expected them to hang up, but then realised they actually can`t hang up on me because I`m 客様 (kyakusama-literally most honourable customer) and it would be rude to, and I can`t hang up because the only think I can think of saying is something along the lines of "c u l8r" which isn`t very appropriate if you don`t know the person very well... this went on rather awkwardly for about 30 seconds...
I`d just like to point out at this moment that I do actually do other things here other than go shopping... I`m off to Kyoto with Mayuko next week for example.
Oh, and I spend 30 mins of technical Japanese class struggling through a paper on Global Warming and then in the last 3 mins found the vocabulary sheet which explained everything... Actually, on this subject, given our vocabulary sheets are all in English, isn`t that a bit unfair on the Chinese/Korean Students?
I`d just like to point out at this moment that I do actually do other things here other than go shopping... I`m off to Kyoto with Mayuko next week for example.
Oh, and I spend 30 mins of technical Japanese class struggling through a paper on Global Warming and then in the last 3 mins found the vocabulary sheet which explained everything... Actually, on this subject, given our vocabulary sheets are all in English, isn`t that a bit unfair on the Chinese/Korean Students?
Sunday 8 November 2009
More Crazy Shop Assistants
Last week (particularly on Culture Day when we went to Nara) it became pretty cold here, so seeing as I only really brought a few little jacket things here with me I went out to buy a nice big winter coat. Only now this crazy country`s weather has the indecency to turn hot again! For F*cks sake! It`s frikkin Mid-November already! That`s not even the worst bit though, no, it`s not hot all the time, just when the Sun is out. As soon as it goes down the temperature plummets, so you effectively have to wear a T-shirt into Uni then drag around a jumper, jacket and scarf for later in the day...
Speaking of scarves, I found one I liked while I was out looking for the coat, and mentioned I quite liked it to one of the shop assistants. Immediately she starts profusely apologising to me that it`s out of stock and shouts over to a co-worker for some help and starts calling the Osaka branch to check if they have it, which they don`t. Before I can stop them they`ve ordered me one from the Tokyo flagship store! It`s lucky I actually don`t mind buying it... Seriously, if anyone comes to visit here, BE CAREFUL while out shopping. Expressing ANY interest in something, or heavens forbid trying anything on is effectively the same as signing a contract in blood to buy it. Anyway, now I`m waiting for them to call me tomorrow to sort out when I pick it up...
Oh, and I did my first actual proper homework piece for my class! (I had 4 Japanese friends check it over to make it readable) It was for Second Language Acquisition studies, and was about someone who didn`t learn language as she was growing up and therefore had to be taught it as a teenager. Except that would make it her First Language, so what we`re supposed to care about that I didn`t quite get...
P.S. Is anybody else watching Spooks series 8? I`m using the Library`s computers to keep up...
Speaking of scarves, I found one I liked while I was out looking for the coat, and mentioned I quite liked it to one of the shop assistants. Immediately she starts profusely apologising to me that it`s out of stock and shouts over to a co-worker for some help and starts calling the Osaka branch to check if they have it, which they don`t. Before I can stop them they`ve ordered me one from the Tokyo flagship store! It`s lucky I actually don`t mind buying it... Seriously, if anyone comes to visit here, BE CAREFUL while out shopping. Expressing ANY interest in something, or heavens forbid trying anything on is effectively the same as signing a contract in blood to buy it. Anyway, now I`m waiting for them to call me tomorrow to sort out when I pick it up...
Oh, and I did my first actual proper homework piece for my class! (I had 4 Japanese friends check it over to make it readable) It was for Second Language Acquisition studies, and was about someone who didn`t learn language as she was growing up and therefore had to be taught it as a teenager. Except that would make it her First Language, so what we`re supposed to care about that I didn`t quite get...
P.S. Is anybody else watching Spooks series 8? I`m using the Library`s computers to keep up...
Thursday 5 November 2009
Just a quicky
I went to Nara the other day! Wow, so cool! Nara is sort of famous for a) having loads of really pretty temples which were build about 1000 years ago (then rebuilt about 5 times because they kept getting burned down) and for being totally over-run with deer. I`m not making that up. Literally, you go into the park and there are just deer everywhere, and they all are perfectly happy to wander up to you and let you pet them. Some of them have also learned to bow back to you if you do it to them... Mind you, the superficial little buggers will only do something interesting if you give them food. If they realise you don`t have any for them they just wander off...
Anyway, this mornings funny happening: One of the exchange students turned up late for class and said: "The train was late", then realising that this was a completely implausable excuse (Late trains, in Japan? Is that a joke?) added: "Miraculously" to the end of it. The teacher, who spent time in America responds in English with "And the dog ate your homework?"...
And this weekend I will, really will, manage to make it to Osaka...
Anyway, this mornings funny happening: One of the exchange students turned up late for class and said: "The train was late", then realising that this was a completely implausable excuse (Late trains, in Japan? Is that a joke?) added: "Miraculously" to the end of it. The teacher, who spent time in America responds in English with "And the dog ate your homework?"...
And this weekend I will, really will, manage to make it to Osaka...
Sunday 1 November 2009
Television
I don`t know if I`ve mentioned this before, but Japanese TV is bad. I mean really really really bad. Like, so bad that a) they import Korean and Russian soap-operas and subtitle them (sometimes they don`t actually) and b) the adverts are easily the best bits.
If you`re thinking "Yea, but stuff like Takeshi`s Castle etc is amazing", well, yea, it is, but for one thing they don`t show it anymore and two the newest version is only shown on Sundays. Everything else is either this one Japanese soap opera about Okinawa (apparently everyone wears Hawaiian shirts down there) or endless game shows where celebrity`s (at least I think they`re celebrities) sit around eating or just generally looking pretty. Usually while eating.
And for the second richest country in the world everything looks really really cheap and low-budget (except the adverts which I`ll get to later...)
Seriously, I`m not asking for much Japan! You don`t even have to make up new stuff! Just rip of the Americans! Mind you, as Chris pointed out a Japanese version of 24 just wouldn`t work. Here`s an example of why:
Biiru Byukanen: Everybody, gather round, we have a situation. Terrorists have smuggled a nuclear weapon into Tokyo and are threatening to detonate it in 3 hours. We have to stop them. Unfortunatly, due to cultural obligations, we must spend the next 30 minutes discussing meaningless chit-chat before anything business oriented can be decided upon. Who wants to go first?
Tonii Arumeidaa: Well, my wife`s dead and I feel a bit crap about that to be honest...
Kuroii OuBuraian: Oh, how terrible for you... I really sympathise... By the way, does anyone know why I`m dressed as a hostess?
Biiru Byukanen: Oh, and one more thing, Jyaaku, this is particularly aimed at you; Group consensus is our number one priority, so no running off and saving the day by yourself like you did in practically every other day. Remember season 5 and the good bits of season 7 where we all worked as a team? That`s the sort of stuff that`s expected of us and if you don`t do it you will have to make a lengthy apology to everyone in CTU whom you let down by sorting everything out by yourself.
Jyaaku Baawaa: I understand. By the way, speaking of season 7, arn`t you supposed to be...?
Biiru Byukanen: Saa, minor details... Oh, and everyone, remember that at the end of the day we`re all obliged to be at the bar to get totally trashed with President Teiraa and Agent Piasuu, no matter how shot/ infected/ dead we are! No excuses!
Japanese TV`s one redeeming feature: Adverts! Seriously, Japanese adverts are amazing! In contrast to the actual TV shows, they`re actually really well made and look like they have a pretty enormous budget. Also, having some random person wander around a room asking if you want to sue someone for something that was blatantly your fault in the first place isn`t considered quite good enough here. You need at least a dance routine, disco-pop soundtrack and lots of flashing stuff. Either that or some samurai either with anachronistic product placement (like bottled green tea or PSPs) or a really famous person eating/drinking something will do instead.
Here`s a link to my current favourite:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipTUblPXzE4
It`s now my mission to find this chewing gum and see if it actually makes you and everyone around you dance (not to mention the famous local symbols get up and join in. In case you didn`t know, the second one (with the guy) is supposed to be in Nara, which is famous for having loads of deer randomly wandering around. The first one is Akita but I don`t really know much about there because it`s at the other end of the country. )
Oh, and we had a halloween party at the weekend. And tomorrow is a national holiday (Culture day apparantly...) so I think we`re off to Nara to see the deer :-)
If you`re thinking "Yea, but stuff like Takeshi`s Castle etc is amazing", well, yea, it is, but for one thing they don`t show it anymore and two the newest version is only shown on Sundays. Everything else is either this one Japanese soap opera about Okinawa (apparently everyone wears Hawaiian shirts down there) or endless game shows where celebrity`s (at least I think they`re celebrities) sit around eating or just generally looking pretty. Usually while eating.
And for the second richest country in the world everything looks really really cheap and low-budget (except the adverts which I`ll get to later...)
Seriously, I`m not asking for much Japan! You don`t even have to make up new stuff! Just rip of the Americans! Mind you, as Chris pointed out a Japanese version of 24 just wouldn`t work. Here`s an example of why:
Biiru Byukanen: Everybody, gather round, we have a situation. Terrorists have smuggled a nuclear weapon into Tokyo and are threatening to detonate it in 3 hours. We have to stop them. Unfortunatly, due to cultural obligations, we must spend the next 30 minutes discussing meaningless chit-chat before anything business oriented can be decided upon. Who wants to go first?
Tonii Arumeidaa: Well, my wife`s dead and I feel a bit crap about that to be honest...
Kuroii OuBuraian: Oh, how terrible for you... I really sympathise... By the way, does anyone know why I`m dressed as a hostess?
Biiru Byukanen: Oh, and one more thing, Jyaaku, this is particularly aimed at you; Group consensus is our number one priority, so no running off and saving the day by yourself like you did in practically every other day. Remember season 5 and the good bits of season 7 where we all worked as a team? That`s the sort of stuff that`s expected of us and if you don`t do it you will have to make a lengthy apology to everyone in CTU whom you let down by sorting everything out by yourself.
Jyaaku Baawaa: I understand. By the way, speaking of season 7, arn`t you supposed to be...?
Biiru Byukanen: Saa, minor details... Oh, and everyone, remember that at the end of the day we`re all obliged to be at the bar to get totally trashed with President Teiraa and Agent Piasuu, no matter how shot/ infected/ dead we are! No excuses!
Japanese TV`s one redeeming feature: Adverts! Seriously, Japanese adverts are amazing! In contrast to the actual TV shows, they`re actually really well made and look like they have a pretty enormous budget. Also, having some random person wander around a room asking if you want to sue someone for something that was blatantly your fault in the first place isn`t considered quite good enough here. You need at least a dance routine, disco-pop soundtrack and lots of flashing stuff. Either that or some samurai either with anachronistic product placement (like bottled green tea or PSPs) or a really famous person eating/drinking something will do instead.
Here`s a link to my current favourite:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipTUblPXzE4
It`s now my mission to find this chewing gum and see if it actually makes you and everyone around you dance (not to mention the famous local symbols get up and join in. In case you didn`t know, the second one (with the guy) is supposed to be in Nara, which is famous for having loads of deer randomly wandering around. The first one is Akita but I don`t really know much about there because it`s at the other end of the country. )
Oh, and we had a halloween party at the weekend. And tomorrow is a national holiday (Culture day apparantly...) so I think we`re off to Nara to see the deer :-)
Tuesday 27 October 2009
Japanese Classes
Kobe University`s Japanese language tuition syllabus reads really nicely. It has a 5 classes for different aspects of Japanese nicely streamed for everyone at different ability levels, from Elementary, Upper Elementary, Intermediate, Upper Intermediate and Advanced at the top. They even give you a little spiel underneath the class name about what sort of level each class is for, mentioning textbooks you should have studied and the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) level it`s aiming to get you at. They even give everyone a nice little placement test to indicate where you are before you sign up for the classes.
The reality is a little bit different.
When they say "Placement test", what they forgot to say was "Two week long" in front of it. Even then the whole thing is completely screwed up. You do the test and then from the class lists that result from them it seems that the University completely ignores them and just randomly stick people in classes until every all the levels are about the same size. I mean, Monica and I both got put in the "Upper Elementary class" for reading and composition. Monica is a Japanese Major student, and has had 2 years of a VERY grammar and writing/reading focused course and takes the Upper Intermediate and some of the Advanced courses, while I`m solidly Intermediate level. Not only are we not remotely close to each other in terms of writing ability, we were both being told to sit through what ended up being 1.5 hours of "My. Name. Is. Thomas. I. Come. From. Scotland". Needless to say immediately after this I ran to the teacher of the Intermediate class and requested a transfer (Monica had the sense to ignore the whole thing in the first place and go straight to Upper Intermediate. This has pretty much been my policy ever since.)
Oddly enough, nobody seems to care that half of ever class transfers to a different one after the first lesson. I guess this happens every year, in which case: CHANGE THE FRIKKIN TESTS!!!
It`s not even only the tests which are completely nuts, the levels are nowhere near balanced. Elementary and Upper Elementary are practically identical in terms of content, Intermediate is a massive jump from Upper Elementary, but still way below Upper Intermediate and Advanced.
There`s also the oddly named "Special Japanese" module which is a grammar module and appears at Intermediate level and above. Intermediate level is supposed to follow on from the Minna no Nihongo 2 textbook and get you to JLPT level 2 by the end of it. Class 1 covered stuff we did in Minna no Nihongo 1... This would be ok normally, but "Special Japanese II", the Upper Intermediate class is listening only, and "Special Japanese III" covers the sort of grammar that native Japanese speakers have trouble understanding.
Basically, the whole system is geared towards either people who have never studied Japanese before or Korean and Chinese students who`ve studied Japanese all through primary and high school; anyone in the middle is a bit stuck :-(
The reality is a little bit different.
When they say "Placement test", what they forgot to say was "Two week long" in front of it. Even then the whole thing is completely screwed up. You do the test and then from the class lists that result from them it seems that the University completely ignores them and just randomly stick people in classes until every all the levels are about the same size. I mean, Monica and I both got put in the "Upper Elementary class" for reading and composition. Monica is a Japanese Major student, and has had 2 years of a VERY grammar and writing/reading focused course and takes the Upper Intermediate and some of the Advanced courses, while I`m solidly Intermediate level. Not only are we not remotely close to each other in terms of writing ability, we were both being told to sit through what ended up being 1.5 hours of "My. Name. Is. Thomas. I. Come. From. Scotland". Needless to say immediately after this I ran to the teacher of the Intermediate class and requested a transfer (Monica had the sense to ignore the whole thing in the first place and go straight to Upper Intermediate. This has pretty much been my policy ever since.)
Oddly enough, nobody seems to care that half of ever class transfers to a different one after the first lesson. I guess this happens every year, in which case: CHANGE THE FRIKKIN TESTS!!!
It`s not even only the tests which are completely nuts, the levels are nowhere near balanced. Elementary and Upper Elementary are practically identical in terms of content, Intermediate is a massive jump from Upper Elementary, but still way below Upper Intermediate and Advanced.
There`s also the oddly named "Special Japanese" module which is a grammar module and appears at Intermediate level and above. Intermediate level is supposed to follow on from the Minna no Nihongo 2 textbook and get you to JLPT level 2 by the end of it. Class 1 covered stuff we did in Minna no Nihongo 1... This would be ok normally, but "Special Japanese II", the Upper Intermediate class is listening only, and "Special Japanese III" covers the sort of grammar that native Japanese speakers have trouble understanding.
Basically, the whole system is geared towards either people who have never studied Japanese before or Korean and Chinese students who`ve studied Japanese all through primary and high school; anyone in the middle is a bit stuck :-(
Monday 26 October 2009
Clothes
I went on a bit of a shopping spree the other day around Kobe (I got 2 pairs of Jeans, some shoes, a scarf/shawl thing and a T-shirt). Most of the shops I went into I`d wandered into briefly a few weeks ago when I first arrived but just for a quick look, I didn`t actually buy anything at that point. Anyway, it turns out there is an upshot of being a big tall foreigner here; I don`t need to bother remembering my measurements anymore, the shop-assistants are all more than happy to do it for me! Walking into one place where I`d tried on a pair of jeans 3 and a half WEEKS ago, the guy shouts over to me: "31 yea?" (In Japanese obviously). We had a bit of a chat later on (for anyone who cares about such things, he preferred Hedi Slimane as well...) and he mentioned that my Japanese was much better now, and that I was welcome to come back anytime, even if I just wasn`t up for buying anything and just wanted to see stuff :-)
The nice little Japanese tradition of walking out the store with you reached slightly creepy heights at another place where 4 shop assistants (that was everyone in the store!) were still outside bowing to me when I was 3 blocks away! (Kobe has a grid system, the Americans feel right at home, the Brits just get confused...) I eventually turned a corner and hid for a minute or two just to let them go back inside...
On the subject of clothes in Japan, there arn`t actually that many people wearing the really weird stuff you see in photos or on Gwen Stefani (what happened to her btw? Not that I`m complaining or anything, though she was ok in No Doubt), at least not in Kobe. I can think of about 2 distinctly odd examples, but that`s over 2 months.
Two things I won`t let Japan of the hook for are 1) Crocs. People actually wear them as serious footwear here, and 2) the awful potato-sacks about 1/3rd of the women (all ages) wear. Seriously, when I say potato-sacks, I`m not exaggerating one bit in terms of shape.
P.S Note to Japan: You know all that amazing technology you use to make everything so simple and convenient? COULD YOU MAYBE SOMEDAY GET ROUND TO EXTENDING THAT TO DEBIT CARD TRANSACTIONS SO I DON`T HAVE TO CARRY ROUND $1000 IN CASH EVERY DAY!!!!!!!!!! (I don`t mean to work in dollars but my Japanese keyboard doesn`t have a pound sign :-(
The nice little Japanese tradition of walking out the store with you reached slightly creepy heights at another place where 4 shop assistants (that was everyone in the store!) were still outside bowing to me when I was 3 blocks away! (Kobe has a grid system, the Americans feel right at home, the Brits just get confused...) I eventually turned a corner and hid for a minute or two just to let them go back inside...
On the subject of clothes in Japan, there arn`t actually that many people wearing the really weird stuff you see in photos or on Gwen Stefani (what happened to her btw? Not that I`m complaining or anything, though she was ok in No Doubt), at least not in Kobe. I can think of about 2 distinctly odd examples, but that`s over 2 months.
Two things I won`t let Japan of the hook for are 1) Crocs. People actually wear them as serious footwear here, and 2) the awful potato-sacks about 1/3rd of the women (all ages) wear. Seriously, when I say potato-sacks, I`m not exaggerating one bit in terms of shape.
P.S Note to Japan: You know all that amazing technology you use to make everything so simple and convenient? COULD YOU MAYBE SOMEDAY GET ROUND TO EXTENDING THAT TO DEBIT CARD TRANSACTIONS SO I DON`T HAVE TO CARRY ROUND $1000 IN CASH EVERY DAY!!!!!!!!!! (I don`t mean to work in dollars but my Japanese keyboard doesn`t have a pound sign :-(
Monday 19 October 2009
Crazy Teacher Reflections
For some reason the comments my teacher made to us yesterday (see previous post) really got to me. Given she`s for all intents and purposes functionally monolingual, I really don`t think she had the right to make any sort of negative criticism of other peoples proficiency in what is for most of us a 3rd language. And that comment about 2 years being a long time to study a language; I`d love to see how she would cope with only 2 years of French or German courses and then being dumped in one of their Universities...
I told some of the other students here who`ve already spent a semester here about this. (southern hemisphere academic years are the other way around from ours; it fits better with their seasons...). Apparently this teacher is pretty famous for pulling all kinds of similar crap.
I have to admit to being really, REALLY touchy about anyone suggesting that I havn`t worked hard at learning Japanese. Given I`ve had a full time physics degree to occupy myself with the last 2 years and have had to put up with all kinds of BS from that department*, I`d consider my present level of Japanese to be well above expectations. Give anybody else the workload I`ve had over the past 2 years (especially last year) and see how well they do.
*I`m not going to elaborate on that, I don`t really want to fully detail my contempt for my home department here, or we`ll be here all day and I`ll get depressed at having to go back at some point
Moan over.
Happier stuff:
We had a speaking placement test today. I was given 3 pictures to talk about. They were a bus, a train and a plane. I ended up rabbiting on about Cathay Pacific`s in-flight menu...
Another one of these odd little things about Japan that I`ve taken a liking to: You can leave anything ANYWHERE and come back a few days later and it will be exactly where you left it. Not only that, but sometimes somebody will put a cover over it if it`s outside so it doesn`t get wet (I saw one with an umbrella left over it). I`m a bit worried I`ll get too used to this and get back to the UK and lose all my stuff in a week. Actually, that`s worry No.2, No.1 is that I`ll insist my shop assistant carries my purchase out of the shop for me and hands it to me at the door...
And my talking dog hasn`t yet arrived from Softbank (my mobile phone company) :-(
I told some of the other students here who`ve already spent a semester here about this. (southern hemisphere academic years are the other way around from ours; it fits better with their seasons...). Apparently this teacher is pretty famous for pulling all kinds of similar crap.
I have to admit to being really, REALLY touchy about anyone suggesting that I havn`t worked hard at learning Japanese. Given I`ve had a full time physics degree to occupy myself with the last 2 years and have had to put up with all kinds of BS from that department*, I`d consider my present level of Japanese to be well above expectations. Give anybody else the workload I`ve had over the past 2 years (especially last year) and see how well they do.
*I`m not going to elaborate on that, I don`t really want to fully detail my contempt for my home department here, or we`ll be here all day and I`ll get depressed at having to go back at some point
Moan over.
Happier stuff:
We had a speaking placement test today. I was given 3 pictures to talk about. They were a bus, a train and a plane. I ended up rabbiting on about Cathay Pacific`s in-flight menu...
Another one of these odd little things about Japan that I`ve taken a liking to: You can leave anything ANYWHERE and come back a few days later and it will be exactly where you left it. Not only that, but sometimes somebody will put a cover over it if it`s outside so it doesn`t get wet (I saw one with an umbrella left over it). I`m a bit worried I`ll get too used to this and get back to the UK and lose all my stuff in a week. Actually, that`s worry No.2, No.1 is that I`ll insist my shop assistant carries my purchase out of the shop for me and hands it to me at the door...
And my talking dog hasn`t yet arrived from Softbank (my mobile phone company) :-(
Sunday 18 October 2009
I Think the Madness is Getting to me Slightly
I`m worried that I`m going to forget how to live in the UK by the end of the year... It`s very strange; at first, everything seems really odd and totally bizarre, but then you learn what it does and then have a think about it and realise that it`s actually a really good idea and makes perfect sense. For example, that odd key/stick thing I had to plug into the wall back in the hotel when I first got here (2nd entry think), it means you`ll only use power when the key is in the room, ie, when you`re there, so there`s no chance of you leaving a light on when you leave in the morning and wasting electricity. And all the power cables over the streets, I used to think they were there just because the Japanese just didn`t care about them looking messy, but then someone pointed out that they have them overhead because of all the earthquakes; if they get damaged they`re a million times easier to fix than if they`re underground.
Also, it`s been a bit rainy recently, not so much in the last 2 weeks, but a little bit nonetheless. Anyway, when this happens, all the shops stick out these little racks of thin plastic bags which you slip your umbrella into to stop it getting everything else wet, so you can put it back in your bag or under your arm while you go round the shop, and all the clothes/book etc shops, (basically everything other than food) give you a little rain cover which opens at the bottom and slips over your normal shopping bag so your purchase doesn`t get wet on your way home :-)
Oh, and I made it to Osaka, only for a few hours though, have to go back many times for a proper look. Anyway, Osaka central station at rush hour: Think Waterloo at the same time, 5 times the size, multiply the number of people by about 10 and give them all a couple of Ecstasy pills and you sort of get the idea. Oh, and Osaka is only the 3rd busiest station in Japan (and the world actually), after Shibuya and Shinjuku in Tokyo.
We had our medical check-ups this morning, something every Japanese uni student has to do annually. It was never really made clear what the results of these tests would mean for us, although I havn`t entirely ruled out the possibility that they might expel you for being overweight or something as it might explain why there are so few fat people in Japan... Anyway, I had an electrocardiogram, whatever that is, a "health examination" which involved being prodded with a stethoscope in various places (I`m no medic but I can`t really think what interesting sounds my hip makes...) and another X-ray. I did mention the one I had 5 months ago (which they ordered me to get and pay 80 pounds for), but they basically said "well, you should be fine. Probably." How very reassuring.
My supervisor just found me here in the library, and I got the distinct impression he`d been looking for me... How did he know? Maybe he`s tracking my mobile, you can probably do that with a Japanese phone... Anyway, he wants me to talk to some prospective Birmingham exchange students and convince them to apply there by telling them what a great place it is. At this point I realised that when he said "talk to", he meant "lie to"... Also, and apparently there`s another sake fest tomorrow evening in his office...
Oh, and I had a seriously crazy language teacher this afternoon. I think she was on some sort of mission to destroy the self esteem of everyone in the room. She asked us all for our placement test results, and then asked us how long we`d been studying Japanese. "2, 2.5 years" I replied, to which she comments "oh, long time" Which is Japanese Indirectness for: "What, and you`re still at this level? Wow you`re stupid...". A bit later she decided to have a go at one of the Korean students: "Hmm, Korean students are usually very good at Japanese" (Translation: "Why are you so crap?") and one of the Chinese students: "Did you really get level 5? Maybe it`s just because you know what the symbols mean..."
I went to Ikea as well! It`s exactly the same as the UK! I heard the Swedish students have been going there every weekend for lunch... Also, it turns out Ikea packaging and the chopstick-only culture here can cause a few problems...
P.S I wish this story was mine, but I have to credit Marina with the best "Aaah! Foreigner! Run!" story I`ve heard here. Basically, she walked past her neighbour playing in a park with his kids, and decided to say "Good Morning" to them. In response to this, he grabs both his kids, holds them close to him tightly and gives Marina a look which she described as "DON`T YOU DARE EAT MY KIDS!!!!!"
P.P.S I have money! Lots of money! (Well, to be more accurate, I have a moderatly large amount of money and Gucci has a little bit more as well...)
Also, it`s been a bit rainy recently, not so much in the last 2 weeks, but a little bit nonetheless. Anyway, when this happens, all the shops stick out these little racks of thin plastic bags which you slip your umbrella into to stop it getting everything else wet, so you can put it back in your bag or under your arm while you go round the shop, and all the clothes/book etc shops, (basically everything other than food) give you a little rain cover which opens at the bottom and slips over your normal shopping bag so your purchase doesn`t get wet on your way home :-)
Oh, and I made it to Osaka, only for a few hours though, have to go back many times for a proper look. Anyway, Osaka central station at rush hour: Think Waterloo at the same time, 5 times the size, multiply the number of people by about 10 and give them all a couple of Ecstasy pills and you sort of get the idea. Oh, and Osaka is only the 3rd busiest station in Japan (and the world actually), after Shibuya and Shinjuku in Tokyo.
We had our medical check-ups this morning, something every Japanese uni student has to do annually. It was never really made clear what the results of these tests would mean for us, although I havn`t entirely ruled out the possibility that they might expel you for being overweight or something as it might explain why there are so few fat people in Japan... Anyway, I had an electrocardiogram, whatever that is, a "health examination" which involved being prodded with a stethoscope in various places (I`m no medic but I can`t really think what interesting sounds my hip makes...) and another X-ray. I did mention the one I had 5 months ago (which they ordered me to get and pay 80 pounds for), but they basically said "well, you should be fine. Probably." How very reassuring.
My supervisor just found me here in the library, and I got the distinct impression he`d been looking for me... How did he know? Maybe he`s tracking my mobile, you can probably do that with a Japanese phone... Anyway, he wants me to talk to some prospective Birmingham exchange students and convince them to apply there by telling them what a great place it is. At this point I realised that when he said "talk to", he meant "lie to"... Also, and apparently there`s another sake fest tomorrow evening in his office...
Oh, and I had a seriously crazy language teacher this afternoon. I think she was on some sort of mission to destroy the self esteem of everyone in the room. She asked us all for our placement test results, and then asked us how long we`d been studying Japanese. "2, 2.5 years" I replied, to which she comments "oh, long time" Which is Japanese Indirectness for: "What, and you`re still at this level? Wow you`re stupid...". A bit later she decided to have a go at one of the Korean students: "Hmm, Korean students are usually very good at Japanese" (Translation: "Why are you so crap?") and one of the Chinese students: "Did you really get level 5? Maybe it`s just because you know what the symbols mean..."
I went to Ikea as well! It`s exactly the same as the UK! I heard the Swedish students have been going there every weekend for lunch... Also, it turns out Ikea packaging and the chopstick-only culture here can cause a few problems...
P.S I wish this story was mine, but I have to credit Marina with the best "Aaah! Foreigner! Run!" story I`ve heard here. Basically, she walked past her neighbour playing in a park with his kids, and decided to say "Good Morning" to them. In response to this, he grabs both his kids, holds them close to him tightly and gives Marina a look which she described as "DON`T YOU DARE EAT MY KIDS!!!!!"
P.P.S I have money! Lots of money! (Well, to be more accurate, I have a moderatly large amount of money and Gucci has a little bit more as well...)
Monday 12 October 2009
やった！(I did it!)
Oh, and I forgot to say, but I finally found Comme de Garcons, which must be the hardest shop in Kobe to find. Basically you go into Daimaru (MASSIVE, quite posh department store here, to the second floor, past Chanel, out of Daimaru, along a walkway, round a corner, BACK INTO Daimaru again and along another corrider... What is with that?
Long time no blog
Hi people, Sorry I`ve not been posting lately but I moved into my new halls here and instead of finding a neon drenched technological marvel I am now living in something that looks distinctly like it was salvaged from the old East Germany... So much for that stereotype of Japan. Anyway, the bottom line is that there is no internet access there and we only just got our university internet accounts.
So, the a brief summary of the last 2 weeks.
The faculty orientation! They started this out in Japanese, then ran off and found an english translator to repeat everything in English. Then, about half way through the Japanese speaker, who also spoke English, apparently decided she couldn`t be bothered with the Japanese anymore and just switched completely to English ( a bit unfair on the Koreans/Vietnamese/Chinese I thought). The weird thing was the original English translator didn`t seem to bother with this and just kept repeating what had already been said in English again... Oh, and despite being a physicist I`m now in the 国際文化学部 or Faculty of Intercultural Studies...
We then had another orientation for the International Student Center a few days later where we got our cups for our urine samples which we hand in on Friday (not a joke), as well as a long spiel about drug use in Japan ("Don`t do it kids!"), or as the English translation said: "If you do MDMA you will rob your friends and then suicide"... Other words of wisdom included "Since you`re all from tropical countries you may find the Japanese weather a bit cold". The Japanese have also been complaining about it getting colder now. Let me explain what they mean by this. It has gotten cooler in the past week or so compared to when I got here. It`s gone from about 35C down to a decidedly frosty 24C...
Oh, and the Kobe University vice chancellor made a nicely slurred speech at the end of our welcome party... love to see that in the UK.
I met my supervisor as well. I`d had a rather terrifying experience with Japanese teachers the day before, when I decided I`d ease myself into Japanese education with a "German Seminar", which unfortunately for me involved 50 mins of solid Japanese chatting by the lecturer who now and again waved the Frankfurter Allgemeine and said "Journalismus" once or twice. Given I was both the only foreign student and the only boy in the class of 7 he also wanted to chat to me loads, so I just had to sit there quivering and sqeeking back in the politest Japanese I could think of (I may have slighly overdone it given some of the giggles from the other students). Anyway, I was expecting the same sort of thing when I went to Hiroki sensei`s office. Instead, I walk in and see a massive picture of Henrik Larsson from his Celtic days and he shouts (In English) "Hey, how are you? sit down! have some beer!" This is followed by Hiroki-Sensei calling pretty much everyone left in the building into his office for beer and later vodka (I got a wine glass of straight vodka, and It`s rude to refuse a drink in Japan...) and then we all randomly go out to an Izakaya (a sort of Japanese Tapas bar I suppose) for food and Sake which my supervisor pays for... Not quite what I was expecting...
Oh, and we had a typhoon, which was heading straight for us but at the last minute missed the Kobe/Osaka area entirely and trashed Nagoya instead. Sux to be them.
So, the a brief summary of the last 2 weeks.
The faculty orientation! They started this out in Japanese, then ran off and found an english translator to repeat everything in English. Then, about half way through the Japanese speaker, who also spoke English, apparently decided she couldn`t be bothered with the Japanese anymore and just switched completely to English ( a bit unfair on the Koreans/Vietnamese/Chinese I thought). The weird thing was the original English translator didn`t seem to bother with this and just kept repeating what had already been said in English again... Oh, and despite being a physicist I`m now in the 国際文化学部 or Faculty of Intercultural Studies...
We then had another orientation for the International Student Center a few days later where we got our cups for our urine samples which we hand in on Friday (not a joke), as well as a long spiel about drug use in Japan ("Don`t do it kids!"), or as the English translation said: "If you do MDMA you will rob your friends and then suicide"... Other words of wisdom included "Since you`re all from tropical countries you may find the Japanese weather a bit cold". The Japanese have also been complaining about it getting colder now. Let me explain what they mean by this. It has gotten cooler in the past week or so compared to when I got here. It`s gone from about 35C down to a decidedly frosty 24C...
Oh, and the Kobe University vice chancellor made a nicely slurred speech at the end of our welcome party... love to see that in the UK.
I met my supervisor as well. I`d had a rather terrifying experience with Japanese teachers the day before, when I decided I`d ease myself into Japanese education with a "German Seminar", which unfortunately for me involved 50 mins of solid Japanese chatting by the lecturer who now and again waved the Frankfurter Allgemeine and said "Journalismus" once or twice. Given I was both the only foreign student and the only boy in the class of 7 he also wanted to chat to me loads, so I just had to sit there quivering and sqeeking back in the politest Japanese I could think of (I may have slighly overdone it given some of the giggles from the other students). Anyway, I was expecting the same sort of thing when I went to Hiroki sensei`s office. Instead, I walk in and see a massive picture of Henrik Larsson from his Celtic days and he shouts (In English) "Hey, how are you? sit down! have some beer!" This is followed by Hiroki-Sensei calling pretty much everyone left in the building into his office for beer and later vodka (I got a wine glass of straight vodka, and It`s rude to refuse a drink in Japan...) and then we all randomly go out to an Izakaya (a sort of Japanese Tapas bar I suppose) for food and Sake which my supervisor pays for... Not quite what I was expecting...
Oh, and we had a typhoon, which was heading straight for us but at the last minute missed the Kobe/Osaka area entirely and trashed Nagoya instead. Sux to be them.
Monday 28 September 2009
My new cunning plan
There's been a small technical hitch with my magic sunglasses: The Weather. When I first arrived it was bright sunshine and hot and sticky, but for the past few day's it's become quite cloudy, though just a little bit cooler. So now, I'm stuck with the choice of having everyone stare at me/ ignore me because I'm obviously a foreigner, or just having everyone staring at me because I'm the only one wearing sunglasses in the rain (or inside for that matter)... I can't win :-(
I've also been pretending to be German to stop people from constantly speaking to me in unintelligible English. Only problem with this is I occasionally have to explain my way out of "forgetting" words in my "native" language... (I did try to use the excuse that I had lived in the UK for a long time, but then they of course realised that this meant I understood English. I've also had to bluff my way through a conversations with a restaurant keepers about German football teams and beer...)
Speaking of foreign stuff, there were loads of Russians here yesterday for some reason. And today, I was walking in Motomachi and saw about 5 foreigners in about 2 mins! What's up with that? Get lost people! I'm the only gaijin in this village! Get you're own!
This afternoon I was up in Kitano, a bit lost looking for the Ichinomiya shrine, and so I checked the a roadside map. While I was doing so, a random American woman was walking by and asked (In English) "What ya lookin for? Maybe I can help ya?"(I guess she lives here), so I replied in Japanese, which she just ignored. I said again in English that I was looking for the shrine, to which she replied "Oh, sorry, I just ignore all the shrines" (And the Japanese language it seems)
Oh, and I found the source of all the Gucci bags, turns out there is a store here, (Incidentally, someone should tell Gucci about this as well, it's not on their website. It's next to Yves Saint Laurent in case you were interested.). Apparently there is a Comme de Garcons here as well, or so I was told by a shop assistant in Hankyu Department store (Hankyu also run half the trains in Kobe for some reason), but I'm still looking for that :-(
Oh, and I was the only one in a noodle restaurant for lunch this afternoon so the owners and I had a nice little chat about stuff :-) The man was particularly interested about Europe, though only because there are blonde girls there lol
Oh, and another run in with Japanese primary/high school kids, who are quickly becoming a mortal foe. This time I was walking behind a bunch of them, who, as soon as they saw me, literally RAN to the side of the pavement to get out of my way...
Oh, and I'm still working on a solution to the evil "No Irasshaimase for you" shop assistants (met another one in Urban Research in Sannomiya). I'm sort of tempted to either say お客様は神様だよ ("The honoured customer is a god in case you've forgotten", 'The honoured customer is a god' is a sort of catchphrase for how to treat customers) or maybe something like お前！「いらっしゃいませ」 といお！ which is something along the lines of "Oi, you! Say it goddamit!, but I think that might be a little undiplomatic, so I'm going to ask Mayuko-san for some advice (we're meeting for kaitenzushi (sushi-go-round) this evening :-))
P.S Does anybody have any idea why Japanese TV has Japanese subtitles?
I've also been pretending to be German to stop people from constantly speaking to me in unintelligible English. Only problem with this is I occasionally have to explain my way out of "forgetting" words in my "native" language... (I did try to use the excuse that I had lived in the UK for a long time, but then they of course realised that this meant I understood English. I've also had to bluff my way through a conversations with a restaurant keepers about German football teams and beer...)
Speaking of foreign stuff, there were loads of Russians here yesterday for some reason. And today, I was walking in Motomachi and saw about 5 foreigners in about 2 mins! What's up with that? Get lost people! I'm the only gaijin in this village! Get you're own!
This afternoon I was up in Kitano, a bit lost looking for the Ichinomiya shrine, and so I checked the a roadside map. While I was doing so, a random American woman was walking by and asked (In English) "What ya lookin for? Maybe I can help ya?"(I guess she lives here), so I replied in Japanese, which she just ignored. I said again in English that I was looking for the shrine, to which she replied "Oh, sorry, I just ignore all the shrines" (And the Japanese language it seems)
Oh, and I found the source of all the Gucci bags, turns out there is a store here, (Incidentally, someone should tell Gucci about this as well, it's not on their website. It's next to Yves Saint Laurent in case you were interested.). Apparently there is a Comme de Garcons here as well, or so I was told by a shop assistant in Hankyu Department store (Hankyu also run half the trains in Kobe for some reason), but I'm still looking for that :-(
Oh, and I was the only one in a noodle restaurant for lunch this afternoon so the owners and I had a nice little chat about stuff :-) The man was particularly interested about Europe, though only because there are blonde girls there lol
Oh, and another run in with Japanese primary/high school kids, who are quickly becoming a mortal foe. This time I was walking behind a bunch of them, who, as soon as they saw me, literally RAN to the side of the pavement to get out of my way...
Oh, and I'm still working on a solution to the evil "No Irasshaimase for you" shop assistants (met another one in Urban Research in Sannomiya). I'm sort of tempted to either say お客様は神様だよ ("The honoured customer is a god in case you've forgotten", 'The honoured customer is a god' is a sort of catchphrase for how to treat customers) or maybe something like お前！「いらっしゃいませ」 といお！ which is something along the lines of "Oi, you! Say it goddamit!, but I think that might be a little undiplomatic, so I'm going to ask Mayuko-san for some advice (we're meeting for kaitenzushi (sushi-go-round) this evening :-))
P.S Does anybody have any idea why Japanese TV has Japanese subtitles?
Sunday 27 September 2009
Magic Sunglasses
I've made a strange observation. It might just be my sunglasses, but whenever I wear them random people on the street will hand me things the same way they do that in the UK, but they won't if I'm not wearing them. Also, people just generally stare a bit less and seem more normal when I'm around if I have them on. Given what happened with the Americans the other day I'm starting to think of these glasses as a kind of instant Japanese makeover kit.
Speaking of not blendingin, I was in Starbucks this morning, and some other random foreigner (British accent) waltzed up to the counter and says "I'd like two medium latte's please" just as if he was in the UK. I don't really know what it was but it really annoyed me that he wasn't in the least bit embarrassed that he hadn't made a shred of effort to learn even a word of Japanese, and then just decided it was the Starbuck's girl's responsibility to work things out. It was even more annoying that he seemed to get his order :-( And I was having such a lovely holiday from British insularity up until then...
Anyway, I went shopping today! I bought a bag (I had to leave all mine in the UK) and a top. These will do absolutely nothing to make me look more like a local given they were from British makes but never mind... (also, I think there is a rather intrinsic fatal flaw in that plan anyway). Anyway, as I mentioned before, Japanese service is absolutely amazing, but I was in Marui (a department store here. It's name is written OIOI, because "maru" is Japanese for circle. Unfortunately nobody explained this to me for ages so I kept calling it "oy-oy"), anyway this one sales assistant just sort of looked at me when I wandered into his area. No "Irasshaimase" or anything, and then just sort of hangs around following me as if to help, but still not saying anything. I've given up bothering about the fact that everybody assumes I can't understand them but it just annoyed me that he was being like that. If I had been a Japanese customer he would never have dreamed of not bothering with "Irasshaimase".
Anyway, apart from that guy everyone else was amazing, although there are a few things i didn't know about the little rituals about buying clothes and stuff (this doesn't apply to food etc), for example, once you've paid, the assistant walks out of the shop with you and then gives you your bag at the door. Also, I don't know how quickly Japanese people can get dressed, but it changing rooms I was given about 5 seconds before the assistant asked me if I wanted the item. In one case I hadn't even got my own jumper off before she asked "Ikagadesuka?". She was really nice though, we had a little chat about stuff, and incomprehensible-English-syndrome only made a brief appearance :-)
Oh, and I've been meaning to mention this for ages but keep forgetting, I've got photos on Photobucket at http://s913.photobucket.com/albums/ac337/thomasarnot/
Speaking of not blendingin, I was in Starbucks this morning, and some other random foreigner (British accent) waltzed up to the counter and says "I'd like two medium latte's please" just as if he was in the UK. I don't really know what it was but it really annoyed me that he wasn't in the least bit embarrassed that he hadn't made a shred of effort to learn even a word of Japanese, and then just decided it was the Starbuck's girl's responsibility to work things out. It was even more annoying that he seemed to get his order :-( And I was having such a lovely holiday from British insularity up until then...
Anyway, I went shopping today! I bought a bag (I had to leave all mine in the UK) and a top. These will do absolutely nothing to make me look more like a local given they were from British makes but never mind... (also, I think there is a rather intrinsic fatal flaw in that plan anyway). Anyway, as I mentioned before, Japanese service is absolutely amazing, but I was in Marui (a department store here. It's name is written OIOI, because "maru" is Japanese for circle. Unfortunately nobody explained this to me for ages so I kept calling it "oy-oy"), anyway this one sales assistant just sort of looked at me when I wandered into his area. No "Irasshaimase" or anything, and then just sort of hangs around following me as if to help, but still not saying anything. I've given up bothering about the fact that everybody assumes I can't understand them but it just annoyed me that he was being like that. If I had been a Japanese customer he would never have dreamed of not bothering with "Irasshaimase".
Anyway, apart from that guy everyone else was amazing, although there are a few things i didn't know about the little rituals about buying clothes and stuff (this doesn't apply to food etc), for example, once you've paid, the assistant walks out of the shop with you and then gives you your bag at the door. Also, I don't know how quickly Japanese people can get dressed, but it changing rooms I was given about 5 seconds before the assistant asked me if I wanted the item. In one case I hadn't even got my own jumper off before she asked "Ikagadesuka?". She was really nice though, we had a little chat about stuff, and incomprehensible-English-syndrome only made a brief appearance :-)
Oh, and I've been meaning to mention this for ages but keep forgetting, I've got photos on Photobucket at http://s913.photobucket.com/albums/ac337/thomasarnot/
Saturday 26 September 2009
"Authentic French pastries", Japanese Style
This post will be shorter than last, I promise.
I was in a little patiserie in Sannomiya this afternoon (I wasn't actually particularly looking for anything, so I was able to find this) and there were all these really odd Japanese "interpretations" of European cakes and breads, I had a "Chocolat French" as it was called, which was brioche with chocolate chips twisted like a croissant, but there were other really weird ones like hot rolls with okonomiyaki sauce ( i think) and dried fish scales on top, and the "Danish Pastries" were like nothing you've ever seen before.
Oh, and they like Ice here. You can get seriously ANY drink you could possibly imagine in Iced form here, like Cappuccino, latte, hot-chocolate, milk, any colour of tea, hibiscus syrup and milk (I had that today up the mountain, it was actually really good), and then you can get little pots of sugar syrup to sweeten it up if you want.
Oh, speaking being able to find stuff you arn't looking for at that particular time, I wandered across Kobe's Prada, Giorgio Armani, Issey Miyake, Fendi (two of them) Dolce and Gabbana (and D&G next door to it), Louis Vuitton (2 of them again, though one sells the bags, the other has the clothes), Hermes and Dior/Dior Homme stores (But annoyingly Comme de Garcons is only in Osaka). No Gucci either, which is a bit odd given how many of the bags you see around the place (And most are real as well...). ( I also found Uniqlo and Zara in Sannomiya-Centre and a Starbucks (in a bank!). Starbucks here has an extra drink size (small) and different food from the UK... No doubt all of these places exist in that special Japanese dimension that disappears when you actually want to find it again.
I was in a little patiserie in Sannomiya this afternoon (I wasn't actually particularly looking for anything, so I was able to find this) and there were all these really odd Japanese "interpretations" of European cakes and breads, I had a "Chocolat French" as it was called, which was brioche with chocolate chips twisted like a croissant, but there were other really weird ones like hot rolls with okonomiyaki sauce ( i think) and dried fish scales on top, and the "Danish Pastries" were like nothing you've ever seen before.
Oh, and they like Ice here. You can get seriously ANY drink you could possibly imagine in Iced form here, like Cappuccino, latte, hot-chocolate, milk, any colour of tea, hibiscus syrup and milk (I had that today up the mountain, it was actually really good), and then you can get little pots of sugar syrup to sweeten it up if you want.
Oh, speaking being able to find stuff you arn't looking for at that particular time, I wandered across Kobe's Prada, Giorgio Armani, Issey Miyake, Fendi (two of them) Dolce and Gabbana (and D&G next door to it), Louis Vuitton (2 of them again, though one sells the bags, the other has the clothes), Hermes and Dior/Dior Homme stores (But annoyingly Comme de Garcons is only in Osaka). No Gucci either, which is a bit odd given how many of the bags you see around the place (And most are real as well...). ( I also found Uniqlo and Zara in Sannomiya-Centre and a Starbucks (in a bank!). Starbucks here has an extra drink size (small) and different food from the UK... No doubt all of these places exist in that special Japanese dimension that disappears when you actually want to find it again.
First two proper days
So, it's the afternoon of my second proper day in Japan (Thursday evening doesn't really count as I was only semi-conscious and busy trying to process the whole new world I've landed it.) .
First day I went "sight-seeing" in Kobe, which really means I wandered around aimlessly until bumped into something interesting. As it was, I ended up going to Higashiyuenchi Park, where the memorial to the 1995 earthquake is. They also have fountains there which turn on when you come close because there are motion detectors hidden in the sculptures and trees. After that I went to try and find Meriken Park and Harbourland, which are down by the harbour, but couldn't actually find them (although I later found out I was actually IN Meriken Park...), wandered through the really really really long shopping streets in Motomachi and Sannomiya (So long I'd actually given up finding the end of it.) and down into Nankinmachi which is Kobe's Chinatown which is really cool and totally different to the rest of Kobe. After lunch I wandered up to Kitano, which is up on the slopes of the mountains north of the city (Kobe is sandwiched between mountains to the north and the Inland Sea to the south, so is only about 3 km wide). Kitano is famous for having quite a lot of European style mansions and townhouses, due to it being the American and Dutch trading port before Japan opened up to the outside world. Apparently these are considered very exotic for the Japanese, though I was somewhat less impressed.
One thing you notice quickly is there are vending machines EVERYWHERE, like, literally, at least 3 on every street, usually a lot more. They also sell self heating coffee cans, which I havn't actually tried yet but will get round to at some point. Anyway, there are loads of pretty much everything else as well, but despite this for some reason whenever I've actually been specifically looking for anything I've never been able to find one, for example, yesterday I wanted a vending machine to get a drink from (it's quite hot and sweaty here, for me at least). Could I find one? No. Same with Udon restaurants for lunch yesterday. I found a million French and Italian places, but it took me literally an hour to find a noodle bar in all of Kitano, Sannomiya, Nankinmachi and Motomachi. This happened to me again today, when I went looking for a kaitenzushi place (conveyor-belt sushi restaurant). Actually, I havn't really seen many sushi places at all.
Anyway, at lunch yesterday I was in the what was apparently the only noodle bar in Kobe at 1400 on a Friday, and as soon as I sit down they immediately give me an English menu which didn't have as much stuff in it as the Japanese menu (I found that on my table just after I ordered :-(). Mind you, this woman did ask me if I could read English when she gave it to me, so at least she didn't just assume I was American :-) (Which happens a lot) On the subject of restaurants and shops, I have to say Japanese service puts the rest of the world to shame, you get free water and green tea, which they come to your table every few minutes or so to refill your cup, and everybody shouts "Irasshaimase" (welcome) when you arrive.
One annoying thing though, is that people try to speak to me in English. Most people can't but even if they "can" it's usually very bad, and really difficult to understand. It would actually be so much easier and quicker for both of us if they would just speak Japanese (not to mention better for my practice). Even when I reply in Japanese (or even ask them to begin with), they keep on speaking that way grrr. Oh, and EVERYONE assumes you can't read a thing.
Today I decided to brave not only the train system, but also the subway and monorail! I went up to Shin-kobe station (up in Kitano, it's where the bullet trains stop) this morning to get the cable car up the mountain and walk down (there are some famous waterfalls and it's really pretty, not to mention nice for it to be so easy to get out of the city in 5 minutes- beat that Tokyoites!). Anyway, the subway exit drops you in the 3rd basement of a big shopping/appartment complex and it took me a lot of wandering around the seaweed aisles of "Gourmet city" to find a way out. Anyway, I eventually find the cable car (which has air con, and stops half-way up for them to open the doors and blow cool air in!) and walk down the mountain through these gardens. About half way down literally the funniest thing since the "Look! A foreigner" incident happens to me. Some random American couple with a slightly odd twinge to their accents are just behind me, so I ask them if they're Russian-Americans (turned out they were German-Americans), and so just after that the guy say's to me: "You speak really good English for a Japanese guy"! I mean, I was wearing sunglasses, but still! Oh well, at least now I can say I've been taken for American by Japanese people and Japanese by Americans...
Oh, and speaking of English, I was walking through Shin-Kobe station and an entire class of little Japanese primary school kids start shouting "Erro!" at me until their teacher tells them off for being rude to the foreigner lol.
Anyway, one last thing, I went to Rokko Island (which the guidebook says is considered a "foreign ghetto"; I saw 3 westerners... and went to visit the Kobe Fashion museum, which must have paid Lonely Planet a lot of money to get themselves such a hyped up description in the book, but it did have a couple of pieces from the actual designers (mostly the French ones,like dresses actually designed by Gabriel Chanel, Christian Dior, Jeanne Lanvin and Hubert de Givenchy, who was called Givenbcy on the English blurb lol)
Oh, and there are some frikkin MASSIVE spiders in Japan.
First day I went "sight-seeing" in Kobe, which really means I wandered around aimlessly until bumped into something interesting. As it was, I ended up going to Higashiyuenchi Park, where the memorial to the 1995 earthquake is. They also have fountains there which turn on when you come close because there are motion detectors hidden in the sculptures and trees. After that I went to try and find Meriken Park and Harbourland, which are down by the harbour, but couldn't actually find them (although I later found out I was actually IN Meriken Park...), wandered through the really really really long shopping streets in Motomachi and Sannomiya (So long I'd actually given up finding the end of it.) and down into Nankinmachi which is Kobe's Chinatown which is really cool and totally different to the rest of Kobe. After lunch I wandered up to Kitano, which is up on the slopes of the mountains north of the city (Kobe is sandwiched between mountains to the north and the Inland Sea to the south, so is only about 3 km wide). Kitano is famous for having quite a lot of European style mansions and townhouses, due to it being the American and Dutch trading port before Japan opened up to the outside world. Apparently these are considered very exotic for the Japanese, though I was somewhat less impressed.
One thing you notice quickly is there are vending machines EVERYWHERE, like, literally, at least 3 on every street, usually a lot more. They also sell self heating coffee cans, which I havn't actually tried yet but will get round to at some point. Anyway, there are loads of pretty much everything else as well, but despite this for some reason whenever I've actually been specifically looking for anything I've never been able to find one, for example, yesterday I wanted a vending machine to get a drink from (it's quite hot and sweaty here, for me at least). Could I find one? No. Same with Udon restaurants for lunch yesterday. I found a million French and Italian places, but it took me literally an hour to find a noodle bar in all of Kitano, Sannomiya, Nankinmachi and Motomachi. This happened to me again today, when I went looking for a kaitenzushi place (conveyor-belt sushi restaurant). Actually, I havn't really seen many sushi places at all.
Anyway, at lunch yesterday I was in the what was apparently the only noodle bar in Kobe at 1400 on a Friday, and as soon as I sit down they immediately give me an English menu which didn't have as much stuff in it as the Japanese menu (I found that on my table just after I ordered :-(). Mind you, this woman did ask me if I could read English when she gave it to me, so at least she didn't just assume I was American :-) (Which happens a lot) On the subject of restaurants and shops, I have to say Japanese service puts the rest of the world to shame, you get free water and green tea, which they come to your table every few minutes or so to refill your cup, and everybody shouts "Irasshaimase" (welcome) when you arrive.
One annoying thing though, is that people try to speak to me in English. Most people can't but even if they "can" it's usually very bad, and really difficult to understand. It would actually be so much easier and quicker for both of us if they would just speak Japanese (not to mention better for my practice). Even when I reply in Japanese (or even ask them to begin with), they keep on speaking that way grrr. Oh, and EVERYONE assumes you can't read a thing.
Today I decided to brave not only the train system, but also the subway and monorail! I went up to Shin-kobe station (up in Kitano, it's where the bullet trains stop) this morning to get the cable car up the mountain and walk down (there are some famous waterfalls and it's really pretty, not to mention nice for it to be so easy to get out of the city in 5 minutes- beat that Tokyoites!). Anyway, the subway exit drops you in the 3rd basement of a big shopping/appartment complex and it took me a lot of wandering around the seaweed aisles of "Gourmet city" to find a way out. Anyway, I eventually find the cable car (which has air con, and stops half-way up for them to open the doors and blow cool air in!) and walk down the mountain through these gardens. About half way down literally the funniest thing since the "Look! A foreigner" incident happens to me. Some random American couple with a slightly odd twinge to their accents are just behind me, so I ask them if they're Russian-Americans (turned out they were German-Americans), and so just after that the guy say's to me: "You speak really good English for a Japanese guy"! I mean, I was wearing sunglasses, but still! Oh well, at least now I can say I've been taken for American by Japanese people and Japanese by Americans...
Oh, and speaking of English, I was walking through Shin-Kobe station and an entire class of little Japanese primary school kids start shouting "Erro!" at me until their teacher tells them off for being rude to the foreigner lol.
Anyway, one last thing, I went to Rokko Island (which the guidebook says is considered a "foreign ghetto"; I saw 3 westerners... and went to visit the Kobe Fashion museum, which must have paid Lonely Planet a lot of money to get themselves such a hyped up description in the book, but it did have a couple of pieces from the actual designers (mostly the French ones,like dresses actually designed by Gabriel Chanel, Christian Dior, Jeanne Lanvin and Hubert de Givenchy, who was called Givenbcy on the English blurb lol)
Oh, and there are some frikkin MASSIVE spiders in Japan.
Thursday 24 September 2009
Arrival: Sleep deprivation, heat and toilets.
Well, here I am. I made it! One completely uneventful plane ride later and here I am. Got completely paranoid about the immigration desk, convincing myself that there was some reason they would find to through me back on the plane and back home, though of course everything went fine, and Mayuko was waiting at arrivals to meet me (after having fallen asleep on the bus so she said). First Impression number 1: Osaka and Kobe are BIG. I really mean it. Everything is massive and has another layer of motorways or trains running over the top of it, all of which weave around the really tall buildings. The roads are massive to, like, 8 lanes sort of width right through Sannomiya (Kobe's central district). You don't even notice it though because everything is so massive it just seems in proportion. Didn't manage to get any pics this evening because I was with people, but I'll get some up soon. Now, first impression no. 2: There are Japanese people in Japan. Lots of them. I know this is pretty obvious, and I really don't know what I was expecting, but I'm not exaggerating when I say that about 99% of the people here are Japanese. Makes a bit of a change from the multiracial UK. Actually I'm going to admit to a slightly amusing/worrying thing that happened earlier. Just walking up to one of the (many) Sannomiya train/metro/subway stations (I predict this may be a source of major mishaps in the future), I saw some random Westerner and whispered excitedly to Mayuko "Hey look, a foreigner! Wow" To which laughed and pointed out "You know, that's what WE'RE supposed to say, not you!". Should I be worried about that?
Now, The Hotel. Lesson 1: Learn to speak Japanese properly so you don't misunderstand the receptionist's questions and don't answer "Oh no, I'm fine with Japanese food." when she asks if you want a receipt. First Impression no.3: Everything seems works exactly as it seems perfectly obvious for it to do so, so long as you have spent you're life in Japan. Case in point, my room key, which has a key (oddly enough) and a long bit of plastic with room numbers and stuff on it. Anyway, I get to my room after a quick unpack, find there is no power in my room. Obviously something's up here, and I'm quickly working out how I could potentially explain this to the receptionist in a way that might incline her to reply with something I might understand, when Mayuko nonchalantly mentions "check for a hole in the wall near the door." Turns out what you do is plug the plastic part of the key chain into the wall, which somehow turns all the power on. Given the complete lack of any sort of indication about what either the little slot in the wall or the plastic lump on my key chain were supposed to do, I can only wonder how long that would have taken me to figure that out on my own...
Now, the Japanese Bathroom. I feel this subject deserves more than a paragraph, but I actually haven't slept now for about 60 hours or so, so I'll be brief. The shower and the sink tap are the same thing, there is a weird little pull out string in the shower which Mayuko eventually explained (after I wondered for about 10 mins) is a drying line (which is actually a really good thing to have in a hotel bathroom come to think about it), and The Toilet. Compared with some photos I've seen, this one looks a little "primitive" for want of a better word, but it still took me ages to even work up the courage to go near the thing, never mind use it. It flushes automatically when you sit down (which I really don't understand) and then it's got a little control panel for the "squirter" under the seat, but unfortunately I can't actually think of any words to actually describe what this feels like to use. It also has a normal flush, but it actually took me ages to find this because it was actually in the place you'd actually expect it to be.
Oh, I forgot the aircon! I LOVE THIS THING! It's pretty hot here but this thing has a remote with about a billion settings on it to make it just how you like :-)
Went out for dinner later that evening with Mayuko, Ryota and a couple of their friends, where I discovered Japan's "interesting" prices when it comes to food and drink. Interesting as in set menu dinner (noodles, rice, tonkatsu (stuff battered in breadcrumbs), salad and dessert-some kind of sweet scrambled egg which I didn't eat after having had omelet twice on the plane) all for 1100 yen (about£8), and a ginger ale in a bar for 500 yen (about £4).
Now, The Hotel. Lesson 1: Learn to speak Japanese properly so you don't misunderstand the receptionist's questions and don't answer "Oh no, I'm fine with Japanese food." when she asks if you want a receipt. First Impression no.3: Everything seems works exactly as it seems perfectly obvious for it to do so, so long as you have spent you're life in Japan. Case in point, my room key, which has a key (oddly enough) and a long bit of plastic with room numbers and stuff on it. Anyway, I get to my room after a quick unpack, find there is no power in my room. Obviously something's up here, and I'm quickly working out how I could potentially explain this to the receptionist in a way that might incline her to reply with something I might understand, when Mayuko nonchalantly mentions "check for a hole in the wall near the door." Turns out what you do is plug the plastic part of the key chain into the wall, which somehow turns all the power on. Given the complete lack of any sort of indication about what either the little slot in the wall or the plastic lump on my key chain were supposed to do, I can only wonder how long that would have taken me to figure that out on my own...
Now, the Japanese Bathroom. I feel this subject deserves more than a paragraph, but I actually haven't slept now for about 60 hours or so, so I'll be brief. The shower and the sink tap are the same thing, there is a weird little pull out string in the shower which Mayuko eventually explained (after I wondered for about 10 mins) is a drying line (which is actually a really good thing to have in a hotel bathroom come to think about it), and The Toilet. Compared with some photos I've seen, this one looks a little "primitive" for want of a better word, but it still took me ages to even work up the courage to go near the thing, never mind use it. It flushes automatically when you sit down (which I really don't understand) and then it's got a little control panel for the "squirter" under the seat, but unfortunately I can't actually think of any words to actually describe what this feels like to use. It also has a normal flush, but it actually took me ages to find this because it was actually in the place you'd actually expect it to be.
Oh, I forgot the aircon! I LOVE THIS THING! It's pretty hot here but this thing has a remote with about a billion settings on it to make it just how you like :-)
Went out for dinner later that evening with Mayuko, Ryota and a couple of their friends, where I discovered Japan's "interesting" prices when it comes to food and drink. Interesting as in set menu dinner (noodles, rice, tonkatsu (stuff battered in breadcrumbs), salad and dessert-some kind of sweet scrambled egg which I didn't eat after having had omelet twice on the plane) all for 1100 yen (about£8), and a ginger ale in a bar for 500 yen (about £4).
Wednesday 23 September 2009
The Trip, part 1
Well, I made it through Heathrow, where Mum decided she'd make things as embarrassing as possible and kept hauling over random strangers to take pictures of us before I left. Also decided that from now on I am going to avoid Heathrow like the plague, did not like it one bit.
Flight down here to Hong Kong (Where I'm writing this at the moment, last flight to Osaka leaves in 3 hours yay!) with Cathay Pacific was fine, was having a nice chat with some random Australian woman as one does until some random guy (wearing a fake Prada shirt) sat down between us and promptly killed the conversation for the next 11.5 hours. Watched Star Trek, Iron Man, Terminator Salvation and a bit of an episode of Mad Men, as well as some weird Japanese tv show about restaurants in Kyoto, which mostly consisted of this woman screaming "Oishii!!!!" (Tasty) though the headphones for an hour, so it wasn't too bad. Food.. hmmm, well, I've now ended up having Omlette for breakfast (courtesy of British Airways) and Dinner/Breakfast just before we got to Hong Kong (It's 7am here at the moment, but we left at 1200 UK time, so we had Lunch just after leaving and then Breakfast just before arriving.) . I didn't have to have Omlette but I wasn't really in the mood for Seafood Congee (fish porridge incase you didn't know), that and I figure I was allowed a last western breakfast for a while
This leads me on to another point. If this is all starting to seem a little bit rambling, it may have something to do with the fact that I have had practically no sleep for the past 48 hours :-( This is of course not a situation aided by the fact that my night has entirely disappeared due to the Far East's +8 hour time difference. Just to add insult to injury, I'll be photographed when I arrive at Japanese Immigration when I get to Osaka in err... (looks at very nice new watch) 7 hours (add another hour of time difference as well) . This is not a picture I'm looking forward to having on permanent file with the Japanese government.
Oh, and I'm currently phone-less (even if you were willing to pay for the international call), so don't bother calling my old number.
Right, I think I'll go and find some food....
Flight down here to Hong Kong (Where I'm writing this at the moment, last flight to Osaka leaves in 3 hours yay!) with Cathay Pacific was fine, was having a nice chat with some random Australian woman as one does until some random guy (wearing a fake Prada shirt) sat down between us and promptly killed the conversation for the next 11.5 hours. Watched Star Trek, Iron Man, Terminator Salvation and a bit of an episode of Mad Men, as well as some weird Japanese tv show about restaurants in Kyoto, which mostly consisted of this woman screaming "Oishii!!!!" (Tasty) though the headphones for an hour, so it wasn't too bad. Food.. hmmm, well, I've now ended up having Omlette for breakfast (courtesy of British Airways) and Dinner/Breakfast just before we got to Hong Kong (It's 7am here at the moment, but we left at 1200 UK time, so we had Lunch just after leaving and then Breakfast just before arriving.) . I didn't have to have Omlette but I wasn't really in the mood for Seafood Congee (fish porridge incase you didn't know), that and I figure I was allowed a last western breakfast for a while
This leads me on to another point. If this is all starting to seem a little bit rambling, it may have something to do with the fact that I have had practically no sleep for the past 48 hours :-( This is of course not a situation aided by the fact that my night has entirely disappeared due to the Far East's +8 hour time difference. Just to add insult to injury, I'll be photographed when I arrive at Japanese Immigration when I get to Osaka in err... (looks at very nice new watch) 7 hours (add another hour of time difference as well) . This is not a picture I'm looking forward to having on permanent file with the Japanese government.
Oh, and I'm currently phone-less (even if you were willing to pay for the international call), so don't bother calling my old number.
Right, I think I'll go and find some food....
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