兄都- Kyoto

Astute readers will no doubt have noticed that those are not in fact the correct kanji for Kyoto (京都). It is infact a hilariously witty pun I created by replacing the Kanji for "capitol", with the one for "brother", both of which can be read as Kyo (きょう For all you Romaji-nazis I know are out there who complained about Yoo`s name last time around.

Anyway, to the point, It does infact seem to be the case that no matter where you go in the world, no matter how hard you might try, you just can`t avoid your family for ever. Drat...

So, here he is, being "Big in Japan" (in a height sense at least). Luckily for him he`s arrived right in the cherry blossom season here in Kansai, and he was even kind enough to bring some good weather with him! (Though I was less thilled about the 6am phonecall from Dubai Airport while he was en-route... Also apparently the immigration official at Osaka Airport gave him a horrified look when he explained that he was in Japan to visit "his brother", until he hurridly explained that I was a Kobe University student. All foreigners living in Japan being of course drug-dealing terrorists hell-bent on destroying Japanese society...)

I was a bit of a rebel and let him stay over in my room in Sumiyoshi for a night (Which is in theory ganz verboten but in reality nobody cares), telling him to keep a low profile and be discrete. Not 10 minutes late he comes back from the shower room at the other end of the corridor wrapped only in a towel and having taken (i.e STOLEN) one of the clothes baskets... dear dear (facepalm)...

So, off we went to Kyoto for a bit off culture, we went to Fushimi-Inari, (which I kept accidentally calling "Inari-Zushi", which is a kind of sushi...), which has an endless passage of over 10,000 torii gates running up, down and around the mountain overlooking Kyoto, as well as the Kodaiji (I again screwed up and asked for directions to the Todaiji, which is in Nara (Que puzzled looks on old woman`s face...) and the Kyomizudera (both of which I had never seen in the day). I`d forgotten Kyoto was abosolutely hoaching with foreigners (cherry blossom season not helping this situation), seriously, they`re everywhere (freaks me out a bit). Anyway, since the vast majority can`t speak a word of Japanese (Sean has since developed his own "unique" variation of "arigatou gozaimasu"), while at the Kyomizudera I was trying to fight my way through a massive group of Japanese school kids, so I said すみません (excuse me). BIG MISTAKE. IMMEDIATE 30 STRONG SCREAMING FAN CLUB SURROUNDING US.

Had some lunch in a tiny place in the backstreets of Kyoto, where I singularly failed to impress Sean with my linguistic performance. According to the old lady running the place, among the things I said were "My mother is very sick." and "My older brother lived in Japan for 4 years."... In my defence, she was deaf...

Sean seems to be enjoying it here, I can see he finds it very weird through, and also that he can see that he doesn`t really fit in here at all... (Seriously, I swear I get stared at 10x more with him than when I`m alone).

Kansai 'til I die. Whether I like it or not...

Rather out of the blue, I got a nice phone-call from Mei, one of my friends from back in Birmingham who graduated and is now studying at Waseda University up in Tokyo (Or something like that). Anyway, we were speaking in Japanese, and I realised I was finding it pretty hard to speak in "Standard" Japanese, bits of Kansai-ben kept slipping in, which isn't really a problem when speaking to native Japanese people, but non-Kansai (Ie, Kyoto, Kobe, Osaka) foreigners tend to find it more difficult. Aside from being mildly annoying the the above conversation, I'm rather taken aback with the realisation that I may be stuck with effectively the Japanese equivalent of a Liverpool accent... while this may be amusing, I have a feeling it may come back to bite me someday in the future...

Still, at least I won't sound like 99.9% of other foreign Japanese speakers :-)

So, Sean arrives on Saturday afternoon! Looking forward to it, think it will be interesting for both of us; he gets to see Japan, I get to find out about all the odd stuff which I'm now pretty used to now.

A quick, tourist friendly Japanese phrasebook for you all (potentially with a slight Kansai-accent):

Hello: こんにちは Konn-nee chi wa

Nice to meet you: おっぱいを見せて　Op-pai o me-se-te

Nice weather don't you think?: ちんぽがないんだよ　Chin-po ga nai-nn da yo

Thank you very much for this: てめえ、きもいやん te-mei, ki-moi yan

If you have any Japanese friends try these out, I'm sure they'll be very impressed.

On a more mundane note, I've been sorting out my modules for next term, with the rather annoying obligation to take science courses this time around. At least I'm allowed to keep physics to a minimum :-). I was flicking through the Earth and Planetary Science course list and came across the truly bizarre "Teachers advice" section of 2nd year Rocky Stone Studies(That's what the course title reads as! Its 岩石学 if anybody thinks they can translate better), which reads as "煮ても焼いても食えない[etc]", or in English, "Even though these rocks have been cooked and grilled, don't eat them." Words to live by I guess...

Oh, and I have to credit Lilly (and Facebook newsfeed) for bringing this to my attention, but check this group out. I would be EXTREMELY surprised if any of the photos were staged. Trust me...

http://www.facebook.com/yumchaaa?v=feed&story_fbid=110035052354189#!/group.php?gid=25380231345&ref=ts

Philippines Photos

My photo's from the Philippines are over on my Photobucket account now.

http://s913.photobucket.com/albums/ac337/thomasarnot/The%20Philippines%20March%2010/

By the way, WHAT THE F*CK IS UP WITH THIS FRIKKIN BLIZZARD!!!!!

Back to normality. Well, Japan at least...

So, I survived the Philippines. In contrast to the dire predictions of the British Foreign Office website, I was not kidnapped, blown-up, robbed, drugged or consumed by some tropical flesh-eating disease (that I know about yet). For the last few days we wandered around the jungle a bit, found some natural bubbling mud pools and went over to see the volcano at Tagaytay, which seemed really tiny and a little bit over-hyped until you realise that the massive hill you stand on to look at the cone down below is actually the caldera rim... Apparently the volcano still erupts from time to time so we weren't allowed onto it. Oh, and we went to what is said to be the best restaurant in the Philippines for a very nice lunch.

Oh, and I was skimming through the international tv channels at one point (The NHK World rather annoyingly broadcasts in English for some reason...). Turns out the Korean one (Arirang) really does televise Starcraft matches... I thought they were just making that up!

Incidentally I also survived the dinner party with the Japanese researchers. They said I had a funny Kansai accent even when I was actively trying to speak standard Japanese.

I caught the two Japanese guys sitting next to me on the plane talking about me. Nothing insulting or anything, and I was impressed that they were inventive enough to talk about me as 白人 (white person) instead of Gaijin which I guess they figured I would know. The death-stare they gave me when I started prominently reading the Japanese newspaper next to them was pretty funny :-)

So, Japan again! I got to go in another special passport line for re-entry visa holders, which was practically empty so I actually got through passport control faster than half the Japanese people :-) I know it sounds really really stupid, but I also was struck (again) by how mono-racial Japan is... good to be back though. I guess it's because of being away, but I kinda realise now how precious the time I have here is. At the end of April I'll have been here 6 months, so that's just slightly over the half-way point, so I've been feeling very motivated to go do stuff each day and make the most of everything (God, that sounds cheesy).

Unfortunately, the weather seems to have other ideas, and has pretty consistently been rather wet and miserable since I got back (and not even in the "It's raining but by god is it impressive rain" like it was in the Philippines.). Rather reminds me of Scotland to be honest...

And Sean arrives a week today! Should probably book his hotel soonish maybe...

The Philippines, Part 2

Still alive down here :-)

Went up to the Batad rice terraces at Banaue, up in the middle of the mountains of northern Luzon. Basically the Ifagao tribe (former headhunters) terraced an entire valley or five and farmed them for the last 2000 years (in between beheading the odd Spanish/Japanese soldier who had the misfortune of wandering round). Apparently if all the terraces were put end to end, they would reach half way round the globe... I'll put up some pictures at some point. I have to say it was probably about the most remote place I've ever been too... 10 hour drive north of Manila, way up in the mountains (Although for much less effort you could just look at the back of a 1000 peso bill, which has a photo on it.)

On a side note, while we were wandering around the Ifagao village we ran into some elderly Japanese tourists from Fukuoka (whom could be seen a mile off by their 100% stereotypical Japanese tourist gear) whom I chatted with. The actually spoke pretty good English, and had been to Scotland (Skye of all places!)

Speaking of Japan, I entirely coincidentally ran into another exchange student from Kobe in a restaurant near our inn in Banaue!

Went back to Manila as well with my cousin who went off to her museum group and left me with the driver (called Rolly), so I went to the American War Cemetery, which is the largest American burial ground outside of the States. Around 17,000 US and Filipino soldiers who died in the Philippines are buried there, and another 30,000 missing in action are listed on the walls of the central monument. Pretty sobering stuff...

World War II really has had a massive impact on the Philippines. By the end of the war, Manila was the second most destroyed city in the world after Warsaw. Basically, the Japanese refused to leave the city, even though they had no chance of defending it, so the Americans pretty much bombed the place to the ground, and since then the place has never really recovered.

Happier things; met up with cousin again to have lunch at the Peninsula hotel in central Manila, where I had a very nice Margarita and some noodles. The Peninsula hotel is somewhat infamous for a rather amusing coup attempt a few years back, where some imprisoned Filipino generals walked out of their courthouse (having been on trial for a coup attempt the week before), along with the people who were supposed to be guarding them (obviously the pride of the Philippines), at which point they saunter into the 5-star hotel ("We'll take that suite up the top") and set about taking over the country. For about 30 minutes that is, until the government took it upon themselves to do a little "redecorating" by driving a tank into the lobby... it's fixed now.

Amusingly, when we got to the hotel they checked under the car and in the boot for bombs etc, and would only let us through after this. On the other hand, you could just drive straight out the other side when you left. I guess they figure any terrorists wouldn't be so ungentlemanly as to just drive in the exit...

Oh, and corruption in politics is so rampant here that it's just a joke. All senators and representatives have the same license-plate on their cars ("8") so are basically above the law. Also, the current president (Gloria Arroyo) is the daughter of a former president, and the current candidates to replace her include the son of Corazon Aquino (another former president), who's running mate is the grandson of another president, along with an impeached former president, back for some more... they like to keep things in the family here it seems...

Finally, my cousins have invited ALL of the Japanese staff here at the institute to dinner tonight to "test" me on my Japanese... gulp...

Oh, and I checked online and the Cherry-blossom bloom reaches Kobe the day after I get back :-). Which is a public holiday, so will be absolutely mobbed :-( Oh well...

The Philippines, Part 1

So, I made it down here to the Tropics, leaving behind Japan's rain (mostly) for 12 days. I'm in Los Banos, about 1.5 hours south of Manila, staying with my cousins who live in the International Rice Research Institute compound, somewhat ironically half-way up another mountain. The jungle is literally 3 metres from my window, so it's more than a little bit different from Kobe/Osaka's urban sprawl.

Flew down here with Thai Airways (direct from Osaka to Manila), who were very good, although going by the rate at which they were handing out the Brandy I was A) pretty surprised that the Japanese weren't on the floor by the time we reached the Philippines and B) thinking Thai parties must be pretty awesome...

Airport security in the Philippines seems to be pretty interesting. They had a tank (honestly) parked outside the terminal, but at the same time my cousin was able to walk right up to the gate to meet me (I.E, past customs, baggage and immigration...). Oh, and I got to go in the diplomatic line for passport control (since they work for an international agency).

Went to Central Manilla the other day, seems a bit like a dirtier and (slightly) more chaotic version of Osaka to be honest. Minus all the Japanese people of course... Oh, and they certainly seem to love chocolate brownies here...

Second day; MY GOD CAN IT RAIN HERE... not so much chucking it down as grabbing it by the scruff of the neck, powering its face into the dirt and stamping on it down. Ironically everyone has said they haven't had rain in the last 3 months before now... consider it a present from Japan, where it's most likely still raining I expect. Speaking of Japan, my entire room back there is about the size of my bed here :-)

Oh, and Janet arranged for one of the Japanese people here to meet us for coffee to "test me on my Japanese"... she found my Kansai-ness quite funny and said she's get one of the other Osakans to drop by.

Off to Bananue tomorrow! (Which is apparently a 12 hour drive away but is very nice, so I've heard...)

After Thoughts

Hehe, title-pun, geddit?

I know... I might be going a bit blog mad lately. Sorry. If you're still reading all of these, Otsukare-sama ("O honourable tired person". Doesn't translate very well into English...)

So I got some freaky Japanese doll thing for my cousins from a little shop not that far from my halls (In Mikage/Sumiyoshi, basically where people who work in Osaka/Kobe/The Yakuza sleep. No joke about the Yakuza by the way. They keep the neighbourhood very clean.). Anyway, while down there, the shopkeeper randomly surprised me with "Are you a French person?" Eh? No... "Oh, really, you have very French hair..."

So, Anyway...