Day 28 in Japan - Voting, Osaka, Sannomiya, chaos.

Four weeks minus one day in Japan! And Australia decided to have an election without me already. How rude. Sam and I decided to go and vote in Osaka, partly because we felt all noble and civically minded, and partly beacsue it gave us an excuse to go to Osaka. We let ourselves have a bit of a sleep in, and then caught a local train to Akashi, then switched onto a Special Rapid train to Osaka. It took us about 30 minutes to get there, I guess? We had breakfast and then met two other Australian JETs at Umeda station to find our way to the Australian Consulate-General. The two other JETs are two really nice guys from Perth – Jodie and Andrew. They are both teachers, and were really great company to wander around Osaka with. Particularly Jodie – I love her! She is so much like me – we do all the same dumb things, except she is a lot sweeter and nicer than I am.

Andrew in red, Jodie in pink and Sam in green.

Voting. Hee hee, I took a photo.

We caught a train on the JR Osaka Loop Line to a station nearby the Consulate-General and wandered to have our first out-of-country voting experience. It was fairly informal and we all enjoyed the air con as much as the fulfilment of civic duties, I think. The area we were in was right near Osaka castle, so we spent a few hours trying to find it, wandering around it, and then trying to find our way out of it. We caught a subway to Shinsaibashi, which is a HUGE shopping area, with a big thoroughfare filled with a million people all shopping. We had coffee and cake at a café and then met Arjan to head back to Kobe for the (second) big welcoming party for the new ALTs.

Sam and I at Osaka Castle.

Shinsaibashi shopping - SO MANY PEOPLE!

This part was at Sannomiya – the part of Kobe with the bars and restaurants and public transport hub of Kobe. This was my first time in Kobe, and I enjoyed it immensely, although I didn’t exactly see much of the city. We were met in the station and got shuffled up to the Sogo Beer Garden. The party was a nomi- tabe- houdai, which means “all you can eat and drink”. YES. It was 3000 yen for girls and 3500 yen for boys for 2 hours of unlimited beer, chuhai (that flavoured shochu-based stuff), umeshi (plum wine) or whiskey. The food was fried chicken, hamburg steak, yakisoba, and other bits and pieces that really pale in comparison to unlimited beer for 2 hours. Particularly when you realise that the beers were poured by an automatic beer machine. I will write that again in capital letters. AN AUTOMATIC BEER MACHINE. Really, really fun times chatting to some fantastic people which ended too early. They kicked us out before we’d made any solid plans, and it ended up being a bit chaotic with everyone heading out with whoever they were in the elevator with. I thought Sam and some of the other Akashi guys were in the group I was travelling with, and it wasn’t until I got to the next bar (Hobgoblins, also in Sannomiya) that I realised I had lost them all.  The Hobgoblin was fantastic anyway – a British-style pub with not-cheap but good beer sold in pints. Eventually decided that I should probably get home at about 11:45, which was lucky because I ended up on the last train home.

WHO LOVES NOMIHOUDAI? (Obviously the guy on the right)
(photo actually taken by someone else, I stole it from Facebook)

Sam wasn’t so lucky, and ended up missing the last local to Okubo and getting stuck at Nishi-Akashi station, then next station along from us. Seeing as it was about 2 am, he decided to walk it, but had a miserable walk because he wasn’t sure where he was going. Ended up making it home and filling me in on the bits of his night that he remembered. 

KAMPAI! (photo actually taken by someone else, I stole it from Facebook)

Food Highlight of the Day: The concept of nomihoudai / tabehoudai is my highlight of the day. Genius idea.

Day 27 in Japan - Akashi feels like home!

Goodbye, Yashiro.

Last day in Yashiro, and the breakfast this morning was all the sweeter for knowing it was almost over. The last few seminars were pretty relaxed, and atmosphere was much more familiar. There was the usual last minute scramble to exchange contact details as soon as they let us out of the last session, and then Arjan and Rob and I half-ran for the bus to get us back to Akashi before 5 pm. We had about 5 mins to wait at the bus station, and I managed a really spectacular fall on the sidewalk trying to chase a car up the street to see what Mitsubishi Magnas are called in Japan. I know it must have looked pretty bad, because rather than copping shit off Arjan and Rob, I got sympathy. Magnas seem to be called Diamantis, by the way.

Current population tallies for Men, Women and all people in Akashi.

Got back to Akashi 1.5 hours later with plenty of time to spare to sign up for some language lessons at Akashi International Association. It’s a fantastic deal – only 250 yen for a two hour lesson with a native speaker! They volunteer their time, so it’ll depend on who’s available for the lessons, but I am really excited about getting to do some lessons. The three of us also headed to Akashi City Hall to pick up Arjun’s alien registration card and to let him get shut down by the hot office clerk. We got takoyaki (totally delicious - I’ll explain below) and then headed our separate ways.

I had every intention of grabbing Sam and then heading back into Kobe for a big Welcome Party for the new JETs tonight, but I got back home later than expected (6 pm, when the party started at 5 pm) and we decided to instead just go and get some dinner and have a night to recover and get ready for our Osaka trip tomorrow. We accidentally got Chinese food for dinner in Japan (Fletch: Excuse me, I would like some Chinese food), and then went to get ice cream at Baskin Robbins – I had praline cheesecake and coconut caramel flavoured ice cream and thought of Crosbi and how much she would have loved it. 

Baskin Robbins praline caramel cheesecake (bottom)
and coconut caramel cashew nut flavoured ice cream (top).

Food Highlight of the Day: takoyaki - fried dumplings with octopus inside - almost like an octopus donut - with demi-glace sauce and bonita skins on top. 

Day 26 in Japan - Jailhouse Rock

We were woken up by some very peaceful music played over the PA at about 7 am, followed by the less peaceful “I Like to Move It”. Very funny, but the humour was probably dulled a little by the hour. The bed and shower are actually a little better at Yashiro than mine are at home, so I had a decent sleep and wash.

There were lots more talks today, which were mostly more focussed on the teaching part of the job. I’m pretty nervous about that, so I was trying to pay attention and absorb as much as I could. Science conferences have been really good training for this – not quite enough sleep, slightly hung over and long sessions trying to stay awake and take in information which is a little dry and hard to understand.

The food at Yashiro has actually been pretty decent. Bacon and egg rolls for breakfast and Japanese-style lunch and dinner. After all the talks, we pretty much followed suit from yesterday – headed to the conbini for icecreams and beer, and then to dinner.

The only thing outside of the BoE headquarters in
Yashiro that I actually explored - the conbini.

Lots of nice people met, and I am happy to be in a group of mostly (almost all) fantastic people. Not at all what I thought others might be like after watching JET video. Good senses of humour on lots of people here, and obviously everyone is pretty educated and adventurous and nice.

Arjan and Andrew - my friendly neighbourhood Perth guys.

Rob, the fantastic Londoner.

Jodie, the new love of my life.

Not too much action for the rest of the day, other than drinking 1 L cans of Asahi (modelled in the photo below by Dan – although his giant man hands almost make the can look small) and talking a lot of crap. By the evening, it started to get a little bit Rage Against the Machine – a little bit “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me”, but we all mostly did what we were told and went to bed at the lights out time. A few of the girls went for sexy shower time – went to the shared bath to have a more traditional soak in Japanese-style Asahi baths, but I was too chicken. By the end of the year, I will do it, I promise, but public nudity is still a little too scary for me.

Dan and the can.

Food highlight of the day: 1 L cans of are pretty hard to top, but fries for breakfast still make me laugh, so they deserve an honourable mention as well. 

Day 25 in Japan - Welcome to Yashiro!

Today was the beginning of the Yashiro Prison experience – aka the Hyogo Prefectural JETs Orientation – and Daniel’s birthday. Happy birthday, DJ! Yashiro is a smallish town up in the middle of the Hyogo Prefecture, and it’s where the Board of Education (BOE) training centre for teachers is, which houses us Wednesday-Thursday this week. It’s also a bit of a pain in the arse to get to, so I had to get up super early this morning to get on a bus from Akashi to get to the prison BOE headquarters.  I was completely chuffed to find two people who are apparently my pretty close neighbours here around Akashi – Arjan and Rob – on the same bus. They are both really awesome guys, and can talk shit like champions, so the bus trip flew past and before we knew it we were there. We had a rather warm and sticky 25 minute walk to the headquarters, and got lots of other JETs waving at us out of taxis on their way up.

I had some pretty good roommates at Yashiro – Wendy from England, Cara from America and Christine from Canada. We dropped off our bags, made our beds, said our hellos and then went straight into the opening ceremony. It was a pretty formal affair – we had to each walk up on stage, get our names and period of employment read out, bow and receive our offical appointment documents. Which basically mean walking on stage, showing everyone else our butts, and then trying not to trip down the stairs. Just like graduation.

Christine getting her official appointment in the Opening Ceremony

Classes were mostly pretty dry, but I guess there really isn’t a way to make reading over the Terms and Conditions of Employment exciting. It was the usual thing that happens when a bunch of adults get sat down and made to do classes like kids – everyone regressed back into sullen teenagehood for a little while, and stared daggers at whoever asked questions while willing them to shut up so we could get out of there.

Break between sessions.

The last class of the day was quite good – a lady gave us a bit of a talk on the Hyogo Prefecture and various regional specialties for all of the 5 regions. I won a little phoenix doll thing, which is the mascot of the Hyogo Prefecture chosen after the great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake in 1995, which killed over 6000 people. I got it for guessing three questions right - finally, the PhD pays off!

To kill some time between the last seminar and dinner, a few of us walked to the conbini and got some drinks. I got a terrible grapefruit drink with shochu. Not making that mistake again – I just plain don’t like grapefruit, and I’m not sure what made me think that the addition of shochu would make it any better. Shochu-based flavoured drinks are called chuhai, byu the way, which is a portmanteau of shochu and highball – not really my thing, but I suspect that won’t stop me having a few large nights out involving chuhai.

This is the sign for the automatic toilet flush noise thing in the bathroom.
I was impressed by that spectacularly beefy arm. Which no Japanese women have.

After a pretty decent dinner, a lot of us sat around in the cafeteria drinking and chatting, and then we got invited into the kitchen to listen to a few of the cooks singing and playing guitar. They were pretty cool dudes, and unfortunately I didn’t take any photos. I’ve borrowed a photo off someone else who was there to show how cool these dudes were. We all sang the wrong words to lots of Beatles and 70’s music and had a great night. At 10:30 we were told to go to bed, and lights out was 11:00. There was a funny announcement to tell us that (I assume) in Japanese at 10:55. Thus ends the first night in prison…

Food Highlight of the Day: Fruit! We all took full advantage of the fact that they were giving us fruit, because the price of it is so high in the supermarkets, we were thrilled to be eating apples and grapes again. Sad but true. Even though the apples were soaked in salt water to prevent them browning, they were still delicious. 

Day 24 in Japan - BurgerburgerburgerburgerburgerburgerMUSHROOMMUSHROOM

Today I rode Sam’s bike to work at Akashikita. It was nice to have gears again, even though I can never remember if I should be shifting up or down for hills. Sorted that out after a few hundred metres and coasted upwards to school. His bike is a folding bike (which we don’t know how to fold), so the tyres are a bit smaller, so I was even wobblier than usual – it was almost Bri-runs-into-gutter day. But not yet. I will take photos when it happens, I promise.

I showed my first lesson plans to some of the first year teachers today, because a few of them are back from holidays. They were very happy with them, which helps to alleviate my nerves about 0.0001%. I won’t know what I’m in for until I start teaching, I think. But I have my first weeks lessons all done (self-introduction with lots of pictures of home and Australia), and my first week or two after that plotted as well. Now I just have to start the actual teaching to see if they are appropriate at all. I also learned about the fun of bureaucracy in another language – I am off to the Hyogo Board of Education Preferectural Orientation (better know as “prison”) tomorrow, and today I learned that I need to fill out forms whenever I have to leave the school. Oh boy, I thought pointless forms were fun when I could understand the information they wanted! I filled out the form about 10 times with a new mistake each time. They wanted all kinds of bits of info that I thought were totally pointless, but forms are forms and rules are rules and I was nicely informed that I just plain old had to do it. Again. Now stamp over where you crossed that out. No, write that in Kanji, please. No, you only circle that if you are going to come to school and then go on to… you get the idea. Needed a coffee trip to the vending machine mid-form.

Beauty, burgerified.

Look at the love in my eyes. And
mouth.

Note: Sam double fisting
 drinks after riding up hill.

After work, Sam and I headed on a very, very exciting trip – I found out today that there is a MOS Burger right near our house! MOS Burger is a Japanese burger chain, and I have heard a lot about how good the burgers are. Today I was putting together a worksheet on describing food, and after looking at my 50^th clip art picture of a cheeseburger, I developed quite a craving.  So we hopped on our bikes and slogged our way up hills for about 20 minutes to earn the burgers and fries. This was made slightly harder for me because I got my key chain caught against my tyre without realising it, and have horribly mutilated my poor Mario Propeller Mushroom. And they were so worth it! I’m not 100% sure if Sam agrees, but my Mos cheeseburger was fantastic! A deliciously different sauce with real meat and onion and the best chips I’ve had in Japan (including the breakfast chips we got at the Tokyo Orientation). Sam accidentally ordered a rice burger, which was a little smaller than he had hoped for, but turned out to be completely delicious. Will definitely be going back to MOS Burger next time we have a fast food craving.

Poor Propeller Mushroom.
He never had a chance to fly.

How much is that puppy in the
window?

Also checked out the shops in the vicinity, as it was the first time Sam had been up this far north (it’s where I went to the sushi train with Ito-sensei a week or so ago). Wandered through a big hyaku-en store where I happily found some new brake pads to fix my bike, a big electronics store,  and looked at the puppies in a big department store. That’s right a department store that sells puppies. They are a bit sad looking all cooped up alone in the little glass cages. Eventually we wandered into a Soft Bank (mobile phone company) store to get a quote on an iPhone 4. Met a totally lovely girl working there (Mai), who we ended up swapping email addresses with. Long story short: iPhone is a totally sweet deal, and I will not be able to resist it’s beautiful display. Will be a 3 week wait, and about $600, but I will happily pay that to know where I am! MAPS HERE I COME! In three weeks. Or four.

It was a beautiful sunset over the carpark.

Hyaku-en stores have the best (and most brutally
 honest) Engrish.

The trip home was interesting. Uphill all the way there means downhill all the way home. I would normally welcome gravity into my life under these circumstances, but remember how I said above that my brakes aren’t that great? I squealed my way down the hill for about 15 minutes. It was a horrible sound, and I attracted a lot of looks. It really sounded a little bit like a girl screaming for a while there. The worrying thing is that these are my back brakes, which I think are OK, and I don’t have any idea how to fix. If I never update again, the brakes failed on me at a bad time.

Food highlight of the day: MOS BURGER, BABY! Cheeseburger set FTW!

Day 23 in Japan – I think I have a routine now?

We didn’t recover quite as well as hoped from the sunburn. We are still both a bit red and hot, particularly on our backs. I got a few comments at work today, and felt uncomfortably warm most of the day. I got the school bent at Akashishimizu, which had a truly glorious item in it. A DOUBLE FRIED EGG. Cook and egg (fry it), then crumb it. Now deep fry it again. Now eat it. You just lost 5 years off your life, but boy was it worth it! The rest of the box was the usual bits of rice, pickles, some gyudon, salted plum and some vegetables.

Sam gives the Pocky his approval.

I went for my first walk around the school at Akashishimizu, just to have a bit of a look at what was there. I watched the baseball boys sweep the baseball pitch, and then use these big flat rakes to make perfect spirals al over the grounds. It was quite hypnotic. I found the pool, and watched the kids do some laps for a little while. And lastly, and most embarrassingly, I met a bunch of kids from the brass band. I could hear fragments of the Super Mario Bros theme while walking around the school, and wanted to try to find where it was coming from. So I eventually got to the 5^th floor and found some kids playing the music really well. I walked up with a big smile and completely lost the use of all words. Even English failed me. I just pointed at their instruments and said “Mario”. They said “Hai, sou desu” (Yes, it is). I said “Hello”. Then I said “Goodbye”. And walked all the way back down the hall while they giggled behind me.  I started laughing at myself as soon as I walked around the corner – I am a total fool. The teachers at Akashishimizu are mostly really lovely, and I had a pretty good day there today.

Our complicated garbage corner.

Today, I got a letter from my grandma (Lovey), started a new game on the DS (Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks) and cooked some Gyoza for dinner. I need to replace the brakes on my front tyre because the brake pads have worn down to the metal, but today is still kind of Obon, and the bike shop was shut. Oh, and I sorted the garbage. The picture here shows our major kinds of garbage - burnable, non-burnable, recycling (cans and bottles) and recycling (paper, cardboard and old clothes). They all go out on various days  a complicated calendar of first Mondays and third Saturdays and the like. 

Proof that I have been studying Japanese (with bonus huge
leg bruise from unfortunate bike pedal incident)

After dinner, I went for another jog. I looked up my route on Google maps and it was about 3.5 km, and it took me about 25 mins. It was a nice, flat route today and I didn’t need to stop the whole time! I am very proud of myself, but I was still very red and hot afterwards. But I had a rather odd revelation during the jog. I was running along next to the large Coca-Cola factory near here towards a big main road in the middle of suburbia, and I realised that I could smell livestock. I convinced myself I was crazy, then that the Coca Cola company must use animal products somewhere in their production, and then that I was crazy again. Then I saw the shed full of cows. It’s right off the big road between Himeji and Kobe (Route 2), next to the Coca Cocla factory. But the best part is… it’s also next to a Big Boy. Yes, that’s Big Boy the steak restaurant. HILARIOUS. A shed full of cows in the middle of the city next to a steak restaurant. Thank you, Japan.

Food highlight of the day: Blueberry Kit Kats – they look exactly like a normal Kit Kat, but they smell and taste like blueberries, or at least blueberry flavouring. Weirdly nice.

Day 22 in Japan – Fun fun fun in the sun sun sun

Today marks three weeks in Japan for me. I can’t believe it has been that long, and I can’t believe it has only been that long. I feel like I’ve barely started to scratch the surface of things to do just in my local suburb, or city, and I can’t think how I’m going to get enough done in a year to be satisfied that I got to see enough of Japan.

Sam and I went to the beach today. Cooked ourselves up some bacon and eggs for breakfast, then grabbed our bikes and pedalled in the general direction of the sea. Got there without too much stuffing about, and found that there was a bice bike path all the way along the beachside stretching to the east and to the west. We went for a quick swim, retrieved our bikes from on top of the cliff above the beach where we had left them, and headed east, towards Akashi city.

We cycled for about an hour and a half east all up, stopping at various points to take photos, go for another quick swim at a more populated beach, and for me to get my first declaration of love from a complete stranger. It was a bit creepy actually. I went up a little embankment to take a photo over the beach, and there was an old man with no teeth sitting in the shade listening to the radio and smoking. He wanted me to sit down, so I sat for a moment to say hello, and then he kept trying to ask me in broken English if I had a boyfriend and eventually telling me I was beautiful and that he loved me. Seriously, I was sunburned, salty-haired, wearing a crappy old half-damp t-shirt and a dirty skirt with wet bum marks on it. H wasn’t fooling anyone. He wanted to take photos with me, and kept grabbing my hand to shake it. I was trying to escape, but then Sam came up and wanted to take photos as well so I had to keep sitting for a little while. It was all OK, but I was glad to get out of that situation. I do have a photo with him, (I’m surprised I managed to smile even semi-convincingly for it! I had just managed to convince him to let go of my hand).

We turned around when we ran out of bike path. Obviously, beach barbequeing isn’t specific to Australia – there were hundreds of families out in force with their own grillers that they had lugged all the way to the beach. Where we stopped to turn around, there was lots of smoke in the air, and lots of delicious cooking smells, but itwas too hot for us to really crave hot food. Pedalled our way back west to where

we had gotten onto the beach, then pedalled a little more to try to find a different way to get off the bike track that may be a little closer to our house. Ended up finding a shrine instead, with a lovely tori gate standing up overlooking the ocean. Had a quiet sit for a little while to catch out breath, and started to realise how sunburnt we were! One last swim in a rocky bay, and then we headed back home for a cool shower and a lot of moisturising. I put on three layers of sunscreen, but still ended up with really burned arms and shoulders . Sam has a kick-ass sandal burn on his feet, and a nice burn up the back of his legs and on his back. But it was so worth it – it was a lovely day.

Went to Nakau for dinner (the donburi place), and had my gyudon again. It’s so delicious! And we hit up Max Value (our supermarket) on the way home for some puddings for dessert. Mycheesecake pudding was awesome, and Sam’s double pudding was… interesting. Tonight, we sat in the cool and rubbed lotion into ourselves while watching more Doctor Who in the hope of not being too red for work tomorrow.

Food highlight of the day: My cheesecake pudding was really excellent – will be difficult to resist that next time I am on the hunt for pudding.