Big In Japan

Sometimes I don't understand Japan. Literally.

2008-09-16T06:49:00.000-07:00

Japan was quite odd when it came down to English translations. I'm sure most people reading this are vaguely aware of the concept of 'Engrish' (the hilarious mistranslations that occur frequently when putting words in our own language - it perhaps most infamously seems to happen in the oriental countries, presumably due to the rather huge difference in the construction of the languages) and Japan, of course, has it's fair share of hilarious misnomers. Coupled with that is just a general confusion as to what certain phrases mean and how they are used, or in fact a complete sense of oblivity in some cases.

As soon as we got out of the station in Nagoya, we were surrounded by trendy young Japanese people, strutting around this incredibly up market high street, filled to the brim with fashion stores. Japanese people love their Louis Vittons (sweeping generalisation), so much so that on this high street alone, there were two - one on each side of the road. Yeah. Anyway, after settling in to our hostel, we went out for a bit of a wander and waded through the crowds of fashionable young adults, with their dyed brown and spiked hair and their meticulously curated clothing. One guy walked past us with possibly the greatest t-shirt ever. Rocking his long, spikey dyed brown hair and some jeans, he wore a black t-shirt with the words "I AM A MOTHERFUCKD" on it. I am a motherfuckd. It's like the t-shirt designer heard someone saying "You are a motherfucker", misheard the last syllable and assumed that it could have only been a 'd' instead of 'er' and then figured that someone in Japan would like to publicly announce the fact that they are a 'motherfuckd' through the medium of fashion.

I personally didn't see this one, but Alex caught someone on the trains wearing a visual mistranslation of a shirt. It was decorated with airforce related symbols, and had the text "AMERICAN AIR FORCE" enscribed on it, only to have a map of Australia as the centre of the shirt. That's not even mistranslation. That's just bad geography.

Whilst visiting one of many, many temples in Kyoto, a young Japanese mother walked past me. Immediately, what was written on the back of her t-shirt caught my eye.

"Whip it up!
Can I come?
Hold back!
I'm gonna come!"

...I shit you not. Now, I'd imagine the average Japanese person has no clue whatsoever as to the kind of images that t-shirt would conjur up in the mind of the typical English speaking male, but the fact that anyone put that on a shirt to begin with is hilariously ridiculous. The entire situation was sweetened by the fact this woman was carrying her baby in her arms - it just made the shirt even more inappropriate than before. One thing that's always occurred to me is when you witness such over the top phrases on t-shirts, which are gramatically quite accurate and what not, you've got to wonder who wrote them. I'm assuming some prankster 20 year old English speaker who was bored with his t-shirt making job. It's the only logical explanation. That or the Japanese are obsessed with sex... actually, that could be it.

(20/9 EDIT: Wow, what a weird coincidence. Today I check out engrishfunny.com and bam, someone has uploaded a photo of the shirt in question! Hell, if that's the Zen garden in Kyoto (which from what little is in the photo, it actually looks a surprising amount like), then it's the same woman!
Clearly, someone else was as amused by the shirt as I was. Glad to have a photo of it now, because truly, that is a geniusly wrong shirt.)

In Japan, there is a popular book shop chain called "Book Off". A kind of nonsensical name as it is, but there's also a spin off shop.

(image clearly stolen from Engrishfunny.com)

Yeah. Whilst not in wide use, something about the phrase 'hard off' doesn't sound right to me in any way whatsoever. I, like an immature 13 year old, burst out laughing when I saw this. Needless to say, I avoided the store for fear of what might happen.

On the topic of shops, and possibly one of my favourites that I saw in several places, mainly areas of Tokyo, was the tanning salon chain 'Blackies'. Yes, you heard me, a tanning salon called 'Blackies'. In Japan, fake tan seems to be fairly popular, but the name implies a certain degree more tanning than usual. I'm sure they're again oblivious to the racial connotations of their salon's name, but I still don't quite get how they decided on that being a good name.

This one isn't really a mistranslation so much as an utterly ridiculous over translation. This was on a door in the main hostel we stayed at in Osaka, which, although the name currently eludes me, was a really nice hostel with very friendly people. And a guitar, which sweetened the deal considerably.

I still don't quite get what it's trying to tell me. Emergency Escape Device? Is it an exit of some sort, a storage room for a fire extinguisher or is it some kind of complex android that knows how to deal with every possible situation that could befall a youth hostel? I guess I'll never know.

1 yen

2008-07-27T16:46:00.000-07:00

Behold. The 1 yen coin.

Possibly the most useless denomination of currency in existence.

I thought singular pennies were useless, but at least with pennies, you can sort of add them up for a bit and actually use them in a store, especially if you're buying cheap, old school sweets. But not in Japan. The 1 yen coin serves no use whatsoever. The equivalent to half a penny, the 1 yen coin feels very different to the other yen coins. It is much lighter and feels like plastic... it fact, it's like that fake money you'd use when you were a small child and were playing pretend shop, or whatever. Apparently they're made of 100% aluminium, which pretty much explains their weird properties when compared to other coins.

What's worse is nearly everything you buy in a shop is guaranteed to end you up with a couple of 1 yen coins... if you're lucky, you'll get enough change for 5 yen coins (which are just about bearable, but they're pretty touch and go themselves). Being on the road for 3 weeks of my trip to Japan, I found I was amassing quite a collection of 1 and 5 yen coins, which were making my wallet needlessly hefty. It got so bad at one point, that I resorted to leaving deposits of 1 yen coins in the bedrooms of hostels I'd stayed at, as I had nothing else to do with them. They were worth absolutely nothing and just an awkward thing to carry around. I'd neatly stack them in to columns, so it'd look like a fair hunk of change but on closer inspection, you'd be very disappointed.

On that note, I was always curious about what happened to the coins after my leaving them in the dorms. In Japan, it is not customary to leave a tip and in fact, leaving a tip is quite an offensive act from what I understand. It's hard to explain why, but it seems to be of the logic that the person being tipped would give the same service to any customer, and does not expect anything extra for a (presumably) high quality of service. Or something like that, I could be wrong. But would the cleaners be offended if they found these two columns of 1 yen and 5 yen coins sitting on a table in a dormitory, mistaking them for tips? Or would they just be like "some twat has left a bunch of coins on this table... oh and they're all over the floor. What a berk"? The mind boggles.

Anyway, possibly the worst thing about 1 yen coins is the fact you can't really spend them. At all. The way I dealt with my constantly amassing 10 yen coins was using vending machines. Since vending machines are plastered everywhere in Japan, if you've got twelve coins saved up, you can get yourself some Fanta Grape or Fanta Shakey Shakey*, or something equally awesome. However, none of these machines accept 1 or 5 yen coins. Which is rubbish! Further to this, I was told when I returned to Tokyo, that if paying with 1 yen coins in a shop or anything, the absolute maximum of the denomination you are allowed to use is nineteen. You are restricted to only nineteen 1 yen coins. I can sort of understand there being a restriction, I mean it'd be ludicrous to pay for even the smallest thing in 1 yen coins (as 100 yen is about 50p and is the basic price for a chocolate bar - important information, I know!) but why is the bar set at nineteen? What an arbitrary number to pick. At least there were one or two situations where I could use 5 yen coins, but 1 yen coins... rubbish.

*Soft drinks in Japan are awesome. But more on that another time.

Perhaps I am being harsh to the 1 yen coin. Afterall, a penny or a cent won't get you far in most places. However, I've never been aware of a continually growing threat of single pennies / cents in my wallet before, unlike with the 1 yen where my wallet was growing morbidly obese.

Yes, I know this is a weird topic for a blog, but I foudn some of my leftover Japanese change and felt inspired!

Currry Kuri Mix

2008-07-06T14:49:00.001-07:00

In Tokyo I was staying with my aunt, uncle and cousin in this nice little district called Ikegami. Whilst it was part of Tokyo, one of the most frantic cities in existance, the immediate area around the station extending to a few minutes away to the temple, had an extremely 'small town' feel to it - something I definitely wouldn't have expected. As a result, my aunt and uncle would frequnelty bump in to people they knew and as a result, I met a lot of random Japanese people. There was one family in particular who various members of owned certain shops on this small little street. One was a Japanese sweet store (where we given this strange but rather tasty plain jelly like thing, covered in cane sugar - definitely a new one for the taste-buds), another was a curry restaurant and I forget what the other two were. At least, I think there were two. The curry restaurant was owned by the son of the sweet shop owner, who ran that shop with his sister. I think. Probably mistaken somewhere.

Anyway, my aunt took Alex and I to the curry restaurant one day. She chose this day in particular because she had been invited to sort of help fill up the restaurant as it was being filmed for a sort of 'dining in Tokyo' program that was played on Japanese telly. We were all slightly more dressed up than usual (I say that, in my case I just kept my hair tied back and wore a shirt... I was still sporting a bit of a hobo beard) just so that Alex and I particularly didn't look as Western-styled-lack-of-appearance-effort-making* as usual.

*Absolutely ridiculous use of hyfenating, I realise. But it conveys the point, almost. Basically, one thing you become incredibly aware of in Japan, if you are a Westerner, is that they are an incredibly fashion conscious group of people. Everyone (sweeping generalisation) has designer clothes and styled hair. If you're walking around with long bushy hair, sporting fuzz all around your face and wearing jeans and a Megadeth t-shirt, you're certainly going to stand out more than you would if you had dyed brown hair spiked up in a variety of ways, a tailored shirt and some Louis Vuitton related accessories. Everyone had brown hair. Seriously.

It wasn't a huge restaurant, but it was nice and quite cosy. We were ushered by my aunt's restaurant owning friends in to the last remaining table in the corner, and took our seats. At the time, there were some local monks-in-training from the temple up the road eating their meals and being interviewed by the camera crew (who could barely fit properly in the restaurant, mind, with their ginormous equipment). There were two slightly more experienced monks with short, jet black hair eating, one of them just finishing off being interviewed. Sitting opposite them on their table was a less experienced monk, symbolised by his shaved head (or so I was told). All throughout his interview with the camera crew, his seniors kept giggling loudly at his answers - he got quite embarassed by the end of it, I'm pretty sure he wasn't saying anything funny. They were just being monk-hazers. To our surprise, my aunt and I were interviewed too. My aunt being Indian, it sort of made sense that they asked her what she thought about the curry being served (Indian blood makes you the authority on curry). Of course, having lived in Japan for years and consequently being fluent in the language, the interview went smoothly for her. They insisted on interviewing me due to the half-Indianness apparently also making me a vague authority on curry. Cue awkward interview. Every question I was asked was responded by me blankly staring, awaiting a summary translation from my aunt. Then my deliberately short English answers were translated by my aunt to the TV crew, her effectively acting as an interpreter (and a very good one). I was asked what I thought of the curry, to which I basically said it was good, and what I was doing in Japan. They asked me places I intended to see on my travels, and were quite surprised by some of my options, specifically Okayama, but this was later explained to me why (in fact I later realised why - I'll detail why later). Anyway, so the interview finished, we continued chowing down on curry. We were told it was quite unlikely our clip would be used, which was understandable, and if it was, it'd be a short little snippet. Now this was at the very beginning of my trip (the first week of it, in fact), so around May 15th ish. The show wasn't to be on until the evening of June 21st, the very day I actually left Japan, so understandably the entire thing had left my mind.

Fast forward to yesterday, and I get an email from my aunt saying we were actually on the show! (The perceptive ones amongst you might realise that my aunt had taken her time to notify me of this development, but let's be fair it's not really that important [...important enough to make a lengthy blog entry about, mind you]). Apparently there was a close up of my aunt and I, and a bit of our interviews. How bizarre. After it aired, my aunt received a lot of phone calls and emails from friends (presumably to be like "oh my God, you're on TV!" sort of thing). So yeah. In Japan for 6 weeks and I manage to get myself on the box within the first week. I could make some kind of joke about being big in Japan, but that'd just be a lie.
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On that note, I feel I should dispell a certain rumour about Japan. They're not all small people, in fact that's just a gross misinterpretation perpetrated by presumably tall people. I named this blog 'Big In Japan' as I made it before I went there, hoping to finally feel vaguely tall (I am a tad below average height in Britain land), but no! I was disappointed to discover that most Japanese dudes aren't smaller than me - I'm basically average height there. The only properly small people in Japan are the old ones with crooked backs, presumably caused by years of rice-farming labour, or so I was told. I've never seen anything like that before actually, a lot of senior Japanese citizens have bent backs - it must be quite the strain for them, poor people.

Uh... yeah. Curry put me on telly.

Gaijin Friendly

2008-06-26T07:09:00.000-07:00

Before arriving to Japan, a lot of people implied I'd be met with quiet hostility. Indeed, when I had just got there and joined forces with Alex, he was expecting the same, having just come from a stint of teaching in China, where he was met with a fair bit of negativity. Of course, I'd also heard that the Japanese are an incredibly friendly nation and I'm more inclined to agree with the latter. However, whilst Japan is 'gaijin friendly' (gaijin being the Japanese for foreigner), I was extremely aware of how un-Japanese I was most the time.

Alex and I probably stood out more than your average traveller in Japan (Alex especially). He being a 6 foot tall man with a shock of red hair, me with my long bushy black hair and both of us rocking the bearded hobo look. Japan completely lacks beards. The most you'll see is the very occasional samurai style goatee, never a full beard or stubble. Partially as a result of our lazy shaving patterns (I think I shaved once out there, came back with a fairly hideous beard which topically I got rid of today - having smooth skin doesn't look right, mind), the local Japanese were always surprised we were only 18. So, as we looked slightly more foreign than the other foreigners, we were met with a lot of stares. Literally everywhere, we were stared at. In Shimoniseki, a rather small seaside town, we decided to cross the road when the lights were red and were met with 'gaijin' laced comments and angry stares by an old Japanese woman. However, not all the stares were bitter. In Kyoto, a car stopped at the traffic lights as they had just turned red. The driver and his companion then noticed us, waiting to cross the road and proceeded to stare. We noticed and waved at them. Hilariously, they smiled and waved back. It was a cute moment.
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Couldn't be bothered to finish this blog the other day, and coming back to it now, I've slightly forgotten where I was going with it. The more hilarious occassions of "omg foreigners" occured with my friend Alex, a ridiculously tall man. We were in Nara, checking out the fantastic Todaji temple where a lot of kids were turning around and pointing at us, occassionally coming over to speak really basic English with us, as was normal really. We were following a small group of 2 or 3 children, when two of them spotted us to and pointed. Their friend turned around to find Alex, quite undeliberately, towering over him. He actually let out hilarious gasp before quickening his walking speed a bit. Okay, written, that doesn't sound at all funny, but when it happened, it was. School kids were generally quite amusing with regards to us.

One thing I became aware of being a foreigner in Japan though, is just how out of their way people will go to help you... presumably, because you're completely out of your element - or at least, I was. When trying to find the Shinjuku National Garden, I became very lost and was looking at one of the maps on the street. However, before I could actually start reading the map, a man next to me spoke in somewhat broken English and asked where I was heading. When he didn't know where it was, this very small middle aged Japanese woman came over and started speaking fluent English. Not only did she explain that I was technically at the wrong Shinjuku station (the one I wanted was one stop further on a different train line), she insisted on leading me to the right station, taking me inside and showing me the map and basically just making sure I got through the barriers to the platform in one piece. This was rather out of the blue, but it really did help to be shown the way in such detail - sure, I'dve been able to figure it out alone, but it probably would've taken a while longer. She didn't have to go as far to help me as she did, but she was more than happy to. In any other country, I'dve been more suspicious of her motives, but there, some people just seemed to be incredibly nice.

Noises

2008-06-23T08:14:00.000-07:00

First and foremost, I am now officially back from my month and a half trip. It was amazing, and arguably one of the best things I've ever had the chance to do in my life. So yeah, time, money and effort well spent. This also means that I may now have some time to write up about my experiences in a vaguely meandering fashion. And on that note...

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Something that annoyed me to no end in Japan is the constant noise. There's just so many random, superfluous and really just plain inexplicable noises in the country - it's enough to grate on anyone's nerves. To start off with, when the lights for road crossings turn to green, there's an annoying repeated bird chirping sound effect. And it varies from place to place. Hell, in Kyoto, they got rid of the bird noise and replaced it with an annoying jingle. I'm crossing the road, not waltzing in to a poor quality musical. This road crossing noise however is worsened in areas like Matsumoto, as the trees in the street have speakers pumping out "atmospheric" background music, adding to a really weird sense of confusion.
Further to this, vehicles talk.* Frequently, if you see a van or a truck, there'll be a megaphone on it with a Japanese lady presumably saying useless things like "I AM A TRUCK. I AM TURNING LEFT. BEWARE. THANK YOU VERY MUCH." (my limited knowledge of Japanese lets my imagination run wild, but I really wouldn't be surprised if this was the basic gist). It's the same voice that you hear in elevators, saying things such as "YOU ARE IN AN ELEVATOR. THANK YOU FOR USING THIS ELEVATOR. IT IS GOING UP." However, things get worse if you are in a big city. In Otsemando Hills of Tokyo, I witnessed and heard a new low of advertising, something I have dubbed the "Ad Truck". The Ad Truck is effectively a truck comprising of a big poster for whatever it's endorsing, in this case some kind of health spa. Now, I've seen similar in Britain, but Japan took it a step further. Like normal trucks and vans, it had a megaphone blaring out rubbish. Except this was all advertising rubbish. No pauses, it was a relentless stream of audial spa selling. Otsemondo Hills is a very crowded up-market area, so needless to say, there was a traffic jam and this Ad Truck was moving along very slowly. I think I took such a disliking to it because it seemed to be crawling at the exact same speed as me. I don't want to visit a Japanese health spa, leave me alone you four wheeled ear rapist.

*House hold appliances talk too. I was taken slightly back when staying at my aunt and uncle's in Tokyo and the microwave started saying things to me.

There are noises inside as well as outside! Japan is littered with convenience stores. They are literally everywhere - Family Mart, Seven Eleven and Lawson being the three main culprits. Whilst staying in Osaka, we frequented one Family Mart in particular that was a tad more aurally abusive than others. All Family Marts play a silly little jingle as you enter the shop, and of course once you are inside, there is random J-pop playing. Now in Japan, it's customary for the shop employees of nearly any store to greet you, even if you are not near them. This usually amounts to them vaguely saying what sounded like "sumimasen" (sic? and which also means 'excuse me', so it probably wasn't what they were actually saying, but for the purpose of this story, I'll just stick with that phrase) and continuing with whatever they were doing. But in this particular Family Mart, the employees made it their mission to out do each other when it came to customer greeting. There would be a canon of "SUMIMASEEEEN", the last syllable stretched out for ages in an attempt to best the previous employee to greet. By evening, this changed to "KONBANWAAAAAAAAAA". Now, this coupled with the other noises of Family Mart never failed to floor me. One person walks in to the store and it's a cacophony of greeting jingles and polite shouts. Of course, it wasn't anything terrible, it's just very different to what I'm used to here at home - you walk in to a store, you may get a slightly unsettling stare and an odd mutter of "Alright?". I don't know which I prefer.

However, Family Mart's got nothing when it comes to the noises of the station. The station platforms are the biggest assualt on the ears in all of Japan. In Tokyo, all the JR stations seem to have little jingles and inquisitive noises playing each time you get off a train. Then an announcement will overlap this, probably a staple announcement saying things like "You are on a platform. Please do not walk on to the tracks. You might die." in the typical female Japanese information voice. That announcement will, half way through, be joined by this horrible ringing noise that is supposed to signify that the train is about to arrive. Of course, these noises alone are not enough, so a male announcer soars above this mess to presumably say "THE TRAIN IS COMING, IN CASE YOU ARE NOT ALREADY AWARE". Seriously, I'm sure I'm not properly conveying just how dire the sound effects in stations across Japan get after a while. They are ridiculous. On the train itself, it's a tad better, although there is still a flurry of announcements, at least they're now one at a time. Equally pointless, mind. I had been told by local Japanese that the announcements on the train are so drawn out that they begin to say things such as "Please do not cross your legs, as it is considered rude". I... what. Please Japan, just tone down the ear assaults. I theorise however that the country probably wouldn't be able to function without this aural abuse - it's probably what spurs Japanese efficiency.

That`s onsen-se

2008-06-03T05:44:00.000-07:00

No, I know that title is terrible, I am completely ashamed of it.

So tonight was my first proper experience of the Japenese public paths known as onsen. Basically it amounts to a bunch of naked guys sitting in a warm bath tub, but that would be dumbing things down. Dotted throughout Japan are various hot springs, with naturally occuring sects of boiling water. Over the centuries, these spots of Japan have been frequented by the country`s population as a means to relax. Think of it as a big natural jacuzzi. Anyway, these spots crop up everywhere in Japan, be they naturally occuring or man made (more likely the former, I believe).

So to any Westerner, the idea of bathing with other people seems a bit... odd. As you become an adult, baths and showers become a more private thing - certainly not something you`d share with several people, at least. Being inherently Western, I was initially a tad apprehensive about checking out an onsen. I originally intended to do so in my stay in Beppu some point last week, but never got around to it, partially due to obscene partying down instead (another story, mind). So when I got in to Matsayama this afternoon, a city which contains one of the most renowned onsen, (The Dōgo Onsen of Matsuyama is apparently the oldest bath house in all of Japan, and has been used by the Japanese for around 1500 years) I decided I should check it out. The process is simple, you show up, fumble through not being very good at speaking Japanese, eventually get the right ticket, a towel and soap and then rock on down to the changing room. From there, you stuff your belongings and clothes in a locker and don your birthday suit (of course remember, everyone else does the same - I`m hoping to forget the site of various naked Japanese men as soon as possible). Then you enter the bath room itself. As is customary with traditional Japanese bathing, you can`t just splash on down in to the pool area itself straight away, you have to rinse yourself off and generally make it apparent that you`re not incredibly unclean. Then it`s finally bath time.

First off, these baths aren`t scalding hot. I`m the kind of man who digs his stupidly hot showers, so I was expecting it to be a little hotter on entry. But whilst it seems a nice temperate initially, when you submerge most your body in this never relenting temperature of water, it can get incredibly draining. I was sweating up a storm, I can`t deny. Of course, it was extremely relaxing and by this point, you really don`t care that everyone else is naked, and instead just enjoy the warm water. Now apparently, you{re only meant to stay in the bath for about 15 minutes, due to the heat, but I think I must`ve racked up about 20 in the end. I did have to get out at one point and rinse myself with cold water, but I wanted to get my yen`s worth. After you finish, you get out and effectively shower yourself off. The entire experience consists of using lots and lots of water. Whilst I was incredibly warm for a while after, I did enjoy my time in the onsen - it`s definitely a unique experience that any traveller in Japan should try out. The Dōgo Onsen, being such a historical site, also had a small exhibition room with some interesting artifacts to check out whilst you`re cooling down. I also grabbed some strawberry milk from the vending machine, because I felt I deserved it.

P.S. I realise I haven`t been updating often, that`s because I`ve been doing things. I`ve got several things I want to write about but it`s unlikely I will get them on here until I return to Tokyo after finishing my 3 and a bit weeks around Japan, so some time next week I think. Hopefully my tales of Japanese man bits and water will entertain you until then.

Where am I now?

2008-05-20T19:06:00.000-07:00

Just so this seems slightly more than a mess of poorly constructed anecdotes, I figured I`d make a post outlining what I`ve done so far.

May 10th
Arrival in Tokyo. I stayed in Tokyo until the 17th, checked out such things as the Meiji temple, Akihabara, Shibuya and Disneyland among others. I`ll be going back there on the 9th June I think, this time without Alex, so I`ll do some more exploring on my own then.

May 17th
Alex and I activated our 21 day rail passes and rolled out to Matusmoto for the night. We got there too late in the day to be granted access inside of the castle, but we checked it out from the outside and meandered around the town in the evening. Found a damn good used CD shop too. Really nice area in general, sort of like a small and cosy city.

May 18th
We checked out Matusmoto castle. It was incredible, the architecture alone was a bit mind blowing. But the history there is of course, also phenomenal. That afternoon we headed off to Nagoya. Nagoya didn`t gel too well with me. The part by the station was incredibly trendy, sort of like a Japanese Oxford Street, but everything else surrounding it was less impressive. Nothing wrong with the city perse, but it just seemed a bit more uninviting than what we had seen so far. Again, we were too late to get in to the castle, but we didn`t really mind this time.

May 19th
We went from Nagoya to Iseshi. Iseshi was cool, we had a look at the two large shinto shrines there (I can`t remember their names right now, I`m tired and lazy), both of which were rather spectacular. This was only a day trip, as for that evening, we headed to Nara. Nara was great. Whilst the first hostel we turned up at was closed, there was a handy map linking us to another one close by. We mainly chilled that evening, (I ate possibly some of the worst cup noodles ever, but then again I paid 50p for them) as it was too late to do our exploring.

May 20th
Leaving the hostel early, Alex and I went to look at Nara`s sights. A really nice city in general and it`s Todaji temple is possibly one of the most mind blowing structures I`ve ever seen. On the outside, it`s a ridiculously well crafted and beautiful structure, with a size that`s difficult to comprehend. Add to this the fact the entire area is surrounded by deer, you get quite a unique area indeed. Inside the temple is one of the largest Buddha sculptures, and you really have to see it to believe it. I still don`t understand how anyone can so masterfully sculpt something on such a large scale. We explored the shrine and temple grounds for quite a while, venturing in to the attached forests, before heading off to Osaka. Our evening in Osaka was spent in a capsule hotel。 We explored around town for a bit and in retrospect, I`m pretty sure our hotel (which in itself was a bit dodgy, but interesting none the less) was situated in Osaka`s red light district. Lovely.

So that takes us to today. We`re still in Osaka, but we`ve moved over to a Youth Hostel, mainly just to see what it`s like. This one so far seems much nicer than the other YHs we`ve experienced thus far, and there`s an acoustic guitar here so I may have to go rock out on that.

Japanese Efficiency

2008-05-20T18:54:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I`ve been in this country for around 11 days now and I`ve done a fair amount. One thing that seems to be common place in pretty much most of what I`ve visited thus far is the obscene efficiency with which things are done. Of course, I`ve told tales of Tokyo trains being on time (dear God!), but Japan Rail in general is pretty nuts, it seems. You have to be quick to get on a train, they literally stop for about one minute before darting off to the next destination. So far, this speedy destination-reaching efficiency hasn`t caused any issues, but I really won`t be surprised if I foolishly end up late by a few minutes and miss a train somewhere.

But it`s not just a trait of the trains. Restaurants are quite efficient too. All the fast food places I`ve been, like Beckers and the Japanese KFC, have given me my food in about 3 minutes max. Usually quicker. Unlike in Britain, where they dilly dally for ages, trying to cook you some chips that ultimately turn out badly. The Japanese equivalent to fast food is arguably more effecient. If you go to a ramen bar or what have you, you choose your meal from a vending machine and get a ticket. You give the ticket to the person who sits you down inside and then a few minutes later, you`re eating (or if you`re me, you`re struggling to eat with chopsticks or spilling miso soup all over yourself*). Of course this all applies to real restaurants as well (which are generally out of my budget, but I can dream). It`s weird, I worked as a waiter to fund this trip and whilst I felt I was good at my job, there`s no way I could have been as lightning fast as anyone in the Japanese service industry.

*In Tokyo, Alex and I went to Akihabara (sic? I can`t remember) to check out the wonders of the electronics area. After being blitzed by lights and a stupid amount of nerdy goods, we went to grab some food at the Beef Bowl. It started off all well, I was getting used to chopsticks and all that jazz. But then I knocked my bowl of miso soup, spilt it all down my trousers and on the table. But! How efficient the staff were about giving me a hand to clean things. They gave me napkins, a towel. The table was fine quite quickly, but I looked like I`d had wet myself quite badly for the best part of the next hour. Good times!

Tokyo and Trains

2008-05-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

Right. So. Blogs. Rather than make a day by day account of things, I`m just going to pick out bits and pieces. Right off the bat, being incredibly white, I immediately noticed how homogenous a society Japan is. I knew not to expect a multicultural environment, but fairly often in a crowded train station, me and Alex (my travelling comrade) are the only white people around. It`s strange.

On that note, trains in general are quite different in Tokyo than they are in say, London. One thing that confused me was that the trains were efficient and on time. I didn`t quite know what to and on time. I didn`t quite know what to make of that at first, but having been here for 5 days now, I`ve learnt to adapt to punctuality. It`s actually a brilliant transport system, it`s nice being able to know ｗｈｅｎ you`ll be departing and arriving at certain places. One thing I don`t understand about the trains however if the prohibition of mobile phone calls. You can talk loudly to the person next to you, you can get out your phone and play Pacman, but God-forbid you ring someone or answer your phone. I`d heard that this was frowned upon, and that talking on the phone on a train was seen as rude and generally frowned upon, but I did not expect to actually be posters on the trains notifying people to not use mobiles for their primary use. Japan seems to be a country entrenched in politeness, even to the point that politeness is enforced through the medium of unobtrusive posters. It`s odd, but in general, I do enjoy the polite attitude of the country so far - it makes the experience of being in an entirely foreign land less daunting. On top of this, Japanese trains appear clean. In fact, most of Tokyo seems clean.

I got to experience my first Tokyo rush hour this morning. I`d heard tale of the trains being so crammed that passengers were literally pushed and squeezed in to carriages (probably gently and with the utmost respect, no doubt) in busy areas like Shinjuku. Didn`t see any of that happening on my journey to Disneyland (hilarious experience), but the first few stops to Kamata were rather packed. Coming out of the train at Kamata was like getting caught in a river current , where the water was replaced with Japanese working men and school children. Still, it was all more orderly than a London rush hour - slightly less forceful movements from the other passengers. I`m sure had I been Shinjuku way, things would`ve been a lot more uncomfortable, however. On my second day in Tokyo, I got to use the monorail on the way to Odaiba. It didn`t occur to me that this in itself would be a great introduction to the city, as it cuts across the skies, allowing you to look over the city beneath. A great way of getting a fairly aerial view of Tokyo, definitely.

At　this point, I think I`ll wrap things up. I could say more about the trains, but I think I`m rambling. I wonder if I`ll be making another entry any time soon?