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.
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| Andrew in red, Jodie in pink and Sam in green. |
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| 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.
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| Sam and I at Osaka Castle. |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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