Japan - Day Twelve

Went for another walk around the neighbourhood yesterday, to get some groceries and actually get out of the house. Not working is actually becoming a drag! Never thought I'd say that. Someone slap me.

The sky here on a clear day, is a lighter blue, and kinda hazy. I can't work out whether it's pollution or the existence of an ozone layer. I've gotten so brown and not burned one bit being out in the sun, so whatever it is, I like it.

An aim of my walk was to document some of the signage I've seen around the place. Signs addressed to the public more often than not feature cute cartoon characters with faces to match whatever they want you to do.

I feel very accused by this dog. I want to think of something I can write in there.
"If you don't take my sh*t, I'm gonna hurt you. Yeah. You'll be in this bag next, and I ain't gonna clean it either."

Ad ad on the back of a bus.

It was after school time and there were heaps of cute kids around in uniform chatting away. I really wanted to get a pic of these three, but felt like I might have frightened them or something. So I tried to get a pap shot.

More kids at Rokko Cable car, they all have these extreme uniforms!!

Street View.

On the way back to Glenns place, there is this temple, or pagoda, not really sure. It's quite desolate, creepy, tranquil all at once. It has an abandoned feeling about it. I like being there, but there are bugs literally everywhere, and I feel I will walk into a huge spider web with one of those massive spiders at any minute.

This pillar has a beehive inside of it. There are bees constantly coming and going, entering through that split in the bottom piece of the pillar.

Tried to get a shot of the whole temple, but need a different lens. There are trees everywhere with spider webs between them.

Japan - Day Eleven

Awesomely and unexpectedly, I went to China Town yesterday with Azusa. We originally met for a coffee in Sannomiya, and then went around some shops. She took me to a department store called Daimaru where I was able to see what was in fashion in Japan. Fake fur, real fur, animal toys to hang off your bag (that look real), boots, animal print oh and "chouchou" - which are scrunchies. This season, I'll be mostly wearing Chouchou - Jessies Fashions; The Fast Show. One more thing - Daimaru has a floor dedicated to Kimono, it was amazing. I wanted to buy so much from this place.

After we finished mall trawling, Azusa mentioned China Town was nearby and we ended up having dinner there. Took some pics on my cellphone like a good tourist.

Apparently China Town is much more busy on weekends, packed with people. As you can see it was pretty sparse.

Me with some China Town kids.

Dumplings were everywhere, and in front of many of the restaurants were maniacal looking pigs slobbering over them.

Dumplings were cooked at all of the street food stalls - the black ones are squid-ink flavoured. Yum.

Bruce Lee I think, in front of a ninja shop. Get a load of those muscles.

More dumplings!!! I want them!! This is why I'm in Japan.

Azusa eating the dumplings. We got told off for taking this pic.

Azusa eating real dinner. Don't ask me what she has.

And I'm eating pork with sweet and sour sauce, karage (chicken, large bits of meat), salad, corn soup broth stuff, rice. Behind me are strings of Chinese 100 notes. I wouldn't go back to this place.

This shop sold Panda EVERYTHING, Panda Tshirts, Cups, Pens, Cellphone holders, Chouchou - you name it, they've panda'd it.

Azusa kindly took this of me outside of China Town - the old people next to me suddenly realised they were in a pic and were uncomfortable. They didn't know whether to pose with me, or get out - too late. Thanks for ruining everything.

More reasons why I'm in Japan. Sign outside of an optometrist place - the black pupils are constantly moving around. Crazy eyes.

And this sign was mega huge, in Sannomiya mall. How do they come up with this stuff? Azusa said "is this funny in NZ?" I said "a little bit".

Japan - Day Ten

It's Suiyoobi (Wednesday) and I had a job interview today with a company called Aim in Tanimachi, close to Namba I think. I had to take the Tanimachi train line to Tanimachi Kyu Chome Station. I can't figure out if that meant I was in Tanimachi Kyu Chome, or Chome. I had to take the train to Osaka first, and this time got a bit lost in the train station trying to find the Tanimachi line - I almost panicked but suppressed it. Anyhow, the interview was for a one to one tutoring job, where I sit with a student in a cafe, at their house or my place and get paid 500 yen per ten minutes, in cash. I think it went well; I had to give a demo lesson explaining the difference between "I went to" and "I have been to"...I said "I went to" is in the past, and needs to be defined by time, "I have been to" is more of a term you would describe an experience with. Am I right? Have NO IDEA!!!

The interviewer, Masa, was really nice and invited me to the Aim Halloween Party this coming Saturday night which will have staff, tutors and students. 2500 yen for all you can eat and drink. Sounds good to me!! Will be nice to meet some people here too, so I'm quite happy :)

Here are some pics I took today and yesterday, more around the neighbourhood shots, as I haven't really been anywhere else yet:

View of Rokko, uphill.

View of Port Rokko.

Rokko Cable Car - you go here if you want to go up into the mountains.

Construction site. You notice a few of these empty holes around Kobe, which are sites where houses collapsed in the 1995 earthquake. Reasons why sites are empty vary - from respect of the dead through to not being able to afford to rebuild. Another interesting impact of the earthquake is that Kobe has a really 90's architecture flavour.

View of Rokko, downhill.

Crow swooping to the left. Their wingspans are huge.

As you may be able to tell, I've become quite obsessed with the crows. A huge bunch of them were flying around in the sky today. Something must have disturbed them. Gutted these sky shots show my dirty lens up!!
Mark can you come to Japan and clean it for me?

Food review time. I am not sure what these delights are called exactly, lets go with Alfort biscuits as that's the only word I can read. These are tiny little ship chocolates with a mini biscuit on the other side!

Front

Back

As you can imagine, there aren't any left.

Japan - Day Seven

Was an interesting weekend, family dinner on Saturday night, BBQ on Sunday which was at my uncles friends place - James, with his wife Naoko.

Went to a place called Sayzeria for dinner (basically like Dennys). Smoking laws haven't changed here and you can still smoke in restaurants. Here's a pic of me and Maria, taken with my new cellphones camera. Maria is only 12 and goes to Juku, cram school, on top of regualar school. She has also appeared in a commercial for Hello Kitty Mints, and Rice (Star Spot).

This is Yuko, my uncles friend who came with us to the BBQ on Sunday. She said that I was big, but with little face. Thanks Yuko.

Yuko, my uncle Glenn and James making potato salad.

James has pets - a snake which I refused to touch or hold. Doesn't have a name. Not poisonous either, but I was still too scared.

He also has pet lizards, again not named.

The best pet of all though, is James and Naoko's baby DUMO!!! Look at him!!!

He is only six weeks old, with all of that hair. James is into fishing, art, books, African American history, food, music and Sumo.

Pictures from a Sumo tournament on TV, originally in Osaka. These two guys are the champs, so it was an intense match. I was surprised to see Sumo wrestlers from other countries in the tournament - Malaysia, Russia, Hawaii to name a few. Apparently these guys have the hunger and drive to get to the top. The winner of any match gets handed several envelopes full of cash. The process of becoming Sumo is extremely gruelling and is akin to top army training. I kept thinking about E Honda from Street Fighter.

Some nicer pictures of baby Dumo. He makes you work for a smile, I only got a cheek twitch. He really reads you with his eyes. I can't wait to hang out with him some more, he really is so cute.

Japan - Day Five

A photo free entry today, just wanted to document what I've been up to as it was a semi-eventful day yesterday. I had a job interview back in Namba which was scary because I had to give a demo lesson to two tutors. My lesson was targeted at young children so it was kind of embarrassing hamming it up to two Japanese adults. They were good about it anyway, and in a weeks time we'll find out if I have a job! I hopefully have some work on Tuesday assisting a friend of my uncles who is a teacher.

Apart from the job interview, one funny thing I noticed was in the toilets - I pushed a button thinking it was the flusher; it was the SOUND of a flusher but it didn't actually do anything. I soon worked out it was for women who wanted their excrement sounds to be modest :-/ found the flusher in the end. Another thing of note, most bathrooms don't have paper towels or hand driers; people carry around their own towels for this!

I've been watching a little bit of Japanese TV. It's quite intense, not the relaxing mind numbing experience I am used to. There are beer ads 24/7, and I saw one today for a company called Kirin in which a man is showing beer to a class of children...
I was watching the news as well - the presenter actually bows to the camera while seated before he starts his newsread.

My uncle took me out for dinner last night and introduced me to a guy called Robin who is married to a Japanese lady. He is German and informed me he used to be in a semi successful 90' rap group called "Hoerzu". He's the tall one with the glasses by the way. Here's the video:





Everyone's famous in Japan!

I also was introduced to a Japanese girl called Azusa Tougo. Cool name. She wants to show me around etc, so that's really nice.

I have a new cellphone too, it can receive email and cmail - I don't think they call it text here. The number is 08061557939, and email is darlenebrown@ezweb.ne.jp incase you want it. It has a good camera, internet, tv, music etc but all that stuff is in nihongoo so I can't read it. It costs to use anyway so at this stage it's off limits!

After dinner Azusa, Glenn (my uncle) and I did Karaoke. It was so cool, great song selection - Smiths, Ramones etc. I did a great rendition of Blitzkrieg Bop. I was introduced to "chuhi" I think that's how you spell it, that's the Japanese version of alcopops so I'm told. It's flavoured soju- with flavours like lime, orange and grapefruit. Not as sweet as Cruisers so I tried them and feel fine!

That's about it for now, blog soon.

Japan - Day Four

First things first:

http://www.mustlovejapan.com/howto/howto_restroom/

My purpose for today was to do a dummy run into a town? city? area? Not sure exactly, but a place called Namba which is just under an hour away. I have a job interview there tomorrow so needed to practice taking the train to Umeda/Osaka, transferring to the Midosuji line to get to Namba. The train stations are massive, kind of like our biggest malls, so the practice was necessary. I made it, and thought that Namba was cool so took some snaps!!

A view from my uncles place, today was such a clear and beautiful day that I saw the port for the first time!!

My train arriving to my local train station, this is the one taking me to Umeda where I transfer. About a 40 minute trip, seems to go fast when you're a gawking tourist.

View from the train, took this photo to show the green mountains that surround Kobe. Apparently locals would never live there, preferring to cluster near to the train stations for conveniences sake. Atop those mountains there are lodges etc that hold weddings. You can cable car up there.

This girl was dressed like Little Bo Peep, she got on the train that I transferred to. Couldn't get a good enough photo without feeling like a stalker.

I think this street is what I thought I'd see when I imagined Japan. This is in Namba.

A cool colourful building.

This building blew my mind, don't know why. Probably the sheer size and minimalism of it!

Everyone here rides bikes, from the elderly to the young, and they're all awesome bikes that you wish you had. This is just one of them, took it for the Marks and Kits out there.

Biking.

After I found my job interview place, went for a walk and found this park. It was a little bit grotty but it was really nice to sit in a big open space.

Couldn't resist this sunset shot, took it when I got back to Rokko.

OK. So I made some food purchases today which are noteworthy. Number 1 - Corn Flavoured Doritos, which really turned out to be Corn Soup Flavoured Doritos. Not that nice; think chicken and corn flavouring from 2 minute noodles on corn chips.

An Oreo Bar - just tasted like a Milo Bar.

POCARI SWEAT is a healthy beverage that smoothly supplies the lost water and electrolytes during perspiration. With the appropriate density and electrolytes, close to that of human body fluid, it can be easily absorbed into the body.

It tasted like sweat.