Friday, September 29, 2006
Hey I'm alive
Nothing important to report. Apparently I overloaded everyone with the last post. I've got an hour before my architecture class and then I'm probably going to go out tonight with Kim and Maria. I have to get back early because I have to get up at the crack of dawn (like 6) to go on a fieldtrip with the architecture class to Nara. That should be awesome and I get to play with some super cute deer. :3
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
The Zoo and the Saga of the Butt Pillow
Now, that I have your attention, let me tell you about the Osaka Zoo. This was an adventure planned through Nadia for Sunday. My host family wanted to take me to Kyoto, but I'd already promised Nadia I'd go with them to the zoo, so I had to skip out on the fun with the host family (not a huge loss, I was quite relieved actually) . But in order to skip out I had to tell my host family EXACTLY when I was leaving, so I mailed Nadia via cellphone during dinner and got the reply, "around 10ish". So I got up and out of the house to meet them in Hirakata by 10 and instead got there around 9:45, making me early, which I know is stupid with a group of people that's always late. So I hung around, waited, got some breakfast, mailed Nadia and waited. Eventually I got a few replies just as I was about to give up and go to Osaka on my own and I finished up my breakfast while I coutinued to wait. Breakfast was actually kinda cool, I had a coffee from a can called, "Depresso" and some bread that was like cheese cake/pound cake that had a picture of Hokkaido (northern most island of Japan) on it. It was all quite yummy, so atleast I had that going for me. Eventually they showed up around 11. Yeah, I waited over an hour for these guys, but atleast they were super nice and apologetic. Another thing that threw me off that morning was the people that showed up where not the people I was expecting. Nadia and Drew were there, but everyone else were people I didn't really know. The total crew was: Nadia, Drew, Me, Charlene (girl from UF, but I dont know her that well), Craig (from photo shoot out), Lettica and Doug. Then there were three Japanese students: Sho (aka Nice Guy), Aki (guy) and a girl who's name I never heard and I felt bad I didn't really talk to her. There were 10 of us, so right off the bat we all got a number and would randomly count off in Japanese to make sure we were all together.
The Zoo was on the other side of Osaka so we had to take a train to Kyobashi and get off to take the JR line over to the zoo. Once we got off the train we bought tickets for the zoo, got maps and then had to walk a good half mile around this park that had huge glass walls around it. Prompting Craig to say, "If you look to your left you can see the Japanese in their natural habitat." which was funny to everyone including the Japanese folks. When we did get there we all went off to the left and spent a good four hours there looking at everything, posing and just having fun. I found out Drew LOVES zoos, just as much as she does Family Guy, The Pirates of Penzance and Rocky Horror, so aside from singing randoms songs and Family Guy quotes we had a great time looking at the animals. I tried to restrain myself on the picture front, so Flickr has most of the animal pictures I got, plus a few classics:
We wrapped up the zoo and everyone wanted to head home, but mid-way to the train station Nadia saw an arcade with a DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) machine and had to stop. We had a good time playing DDR, I challenged Lettica to some Taiko drummer, which was great, and we tried some UFO (Grabber) machines. They were still hanging out there when I realized that I'd said I'd be home in about an hour and I was still in Osaka so I split and headed home early.
Now for the Butt Pillow story. I have a bunch of posts I'm working on that just describe general life here and other random stuff that happens that doesn't fit into the category of "I did x, y and z this weekend". One of these things was going to be the bed situation, but since most of you guys have heard me complain at length about it, it's been mostly explained. You see, most of my friends I talked to that did homestay here have or had beds or cots that were bed-like objects, but apparently I'm special. My house only has one room with tatami mats, but everyone sleeps on the floor. So everynight I go over to the closet and take out 4 folded mats and blankets (along with Woofy) and lay them out and fuss with them until I can go to sleep. I recently bought a little puffy futon mat to stick inside one of the others to soften it up a bit and it helps. There's two mats that I'm supposed to sleep on with a big comforter to go over top, but since it's hotter than heck here and I don't like how hard it is I solved both issues by folding up the comforter and sleeping ontop of it and just using my blue blanket from home. When I first got here they gave me two pillows, one was like a normal cotton pillow and the other was like a beanbag from hell. Honestly, it didn't feel comfortable, it was smaller than the other one and I didn't know what to do with it, so I never used the thing.
It was last week sometime just before the Little Brother (host mom's little brother) showed up that it was getting late (11pm or so) and I'd been up in my room for a few hours either playing DS, doing homework, etc. Well, I wanted to go to sleep so I went over to my closet to get said items and pulled everything out, but I couldn't find a pillow. I couldn't find EITHER pillow. This left me sad and confused because a) everyone was asleep and b) who would take my pillow. Why would they take my pillow and leave me with nothing? That's a pretty outwardly dick thing to do. So after pondering this problem for a while and just when I was about to fold up Woofy and sleep on him I got the guts together and decided to go to my closest neighbor and buddy, Soji (host brother). I went to him because he is the closest to my room and I can always tell when he's awake (we share a balcony so I can see the light's on) and I can hear him watching TV most times too. I knocked and got a confused Soji, I tried to explain the situation and even after looking up the word for pillow, it still didn't make anysense to him either. His first response was to close the door and come back with a stuffed animal (??) of an apple, it wasn't a pillow and it's not an animal, but hopefully you get the picture. I tried to explain again and he followed me into my room and helped me sift through all the mats and blankets and we both came up empty. At this point we were both laughing at this situation, who takes a pillow? Who the heck do you ask? Well Soji had the answer to this, the only person doing cleaning around the house was Okaasan so he snuck downstairs and nudged her awake to ask about my pillow. I tried to stop him at this point because I didn't want to piss her off, but he said she wouldn't get mad. She said she'd cleaned it and forgot to put it back so we'd look for it tomorrow. In the meantime though, I could use one of the pillows from the dining/living room. Soji grabbed me one and handed it over still chuckling about the fact that Okaasan had "ninja-ed" my pillow. He went off to bed and I was left with this new pillow. Now, let me explain, this is NOT the same pillow you might have in your rocking chair, couch, sofa, loveseat, etc. This is a zuton, which is what you sit on when you're eatting or watching TV because you're sitting on the floor. I was left with what will forever be known as, "A Butt Pillow".
Not having much else to do, but use the pillow I decided atleast I could put a barrier between me and butt pillow, so I used my pink Myles Reis shirt Sean gave me as a pillow case. Sorry, Sean, this isn't a reflection on me feelings towards your present it's just that it's the biggest shirt I have and it does make a fetching pillow case. To explain to everyone who isn't in a homestay, this pillow is just fine and I still use it because Okaasan never did find me my old pillow, which is fine by me because I didn't like it that much anyway. The Butt Pillow is clean, comfy and doesn't smell bad (when I said this to Kim when I was explaining how it wasn't that bad, she said, "You SMELLED it?!", yes I sniffed it. I was going to put my face on it, I had to know if it was safe!) Still, my hostmom took my pillow and after working for a replacement I got a butt pillow. If there was one thing to start off my week wrong, I think that's it.
Now it's Wednesday and I think I'll get something to eat, I have class in an hour, and I've been avoiding snacking during the day because the scale at my host family hasn't been kind. Long story, but converting from kilograms is a pain. I've had a pretty good day today and lots of fun tests tomorrow!
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Today's okay
No post about the zoo yet, I have it half written and I'll post it when I bring in the laptop tomorrow. Right now I'm just hanging out in the computer lab with a printer they've loaded with paper that's printed on both sides, so my stuff comes out weird and now it won't let me print. I did email Josh about wifi and I realized I'll be fine either way. I might just beg Cavin to burn me DVDs and mail them or give them to Pat so he can bring them with him when he comes in a little more than two months.
What I did do was watch two episodes of Firefly and one of Venture Brothers. Apparently iTunes lets you get TV shows now and they have Venture Brothers for $1.99 an episode. Sorry Pat, I'll probably owe you like 10 bucks. I'll pay you 1,000 yen though!
That's another thing that has me peeved, there are no emails. There haven't BEEN emails in my inbox from some people since last week. So from here on out Patrick is now "My big cuddly sweet little ball of kitty fluff and rainbow kisses" until I start getting some emails. I know that takes forever to type, but it'll prove if he actually reads this thing and will ever email me. I'm not worried that he doesn't like me or any crap like that, but come on, I'm on the other side of the PLANET. Email me like, once a week. Bill Simmons updates twice a week for that matter. I apologize to Dad and Charlie who after reading about, "My big cuddly sweet little ball of kitty fluff and rainbow kisses", are probably cringing, but sometimes you have to go on the offensive. Feel my wrath.
Today's plan is simple, I went to my morning classes and I have my Law and Culture class at 2:30, so I'll probably read in the lounge until my friends find me and we get some food. Then afterwards I'll probably hang out with them or go home. Skippy!
What I did do was watch two episodes of Firefly and one of Venture Brothers. Apparently iTunes lets you get TV shows now and they have Venture Brothers for $1.99 an episode. Sorry Pat, I'll probably owe you like 10 bucks. I'll pay you 1,000 yen though!
That's another thing that has me peeved, there are no emails. There haven't BEEN emails in my inbox from some people since last week. So from here on out Patrick is now "My big cuddly sweet little ball of kitty fluff and rainbow kisses" until I start getting some emails. I know that takes forever to type, but it'll prove if he actually reads this thing and will ever email me. I'm not worried that he doesn't like me or any crap like that, but come on, I'm on the other side of the PLANET. Email me like, once a week. Bill Simmons updates twice a week for that matter. I apologize to Dad and Charlie who after reading about, "My big cuddly sweet little ball of kitty fluff and rainbow kisses", are probably cringing, but sometimes you have to go on the offensive. Feel my wrath.
Today's plan is simple, I went to my morning classes and I have my Law and Culture class at 2:30, so I'll probably read in the lounge until my friends find me and we get some food. Then afterwards I'll probably hang out with them or go home. Skippy!
Monday, September 25, 2006
Crummy Day
I was going to write a post about this weekend (we went to the Zoo), but at first I got to talk to James so I was too busy doing that to type it up. I was super happy after talking to him, but then he had to go to sleep and I tried to figure out a way to get my bittorrent to work. It worked just fine until a few days ago and now it won't work at all. I realized they blocked all the ports it and bitcomet use so I can't download anymore.
This has me super depressed. It's 1:30pm I've been here since 11am tinkering around and I just feel like nothing is working. All I want is more One Piece. I can't get it here because a) not subtitled and b) I don't have a Japanese DVD player so I couldn't watch them even if I bought them. I'll try and break the ice with Minami first to see if I can use her Limewire account (I know she has something like that she uses) to get some episodes. Or atleast try and get her or Okaasan to let me use bitcomet on their computer so I won't be on the computer, but my things will still be chugging along as they use it.
All I really want to do is snap at Okasan and demand internet in my own room. That was my top priority when I signed up for homestay and apparently Kansai doesn't give a rats you know what about this or a lot of things. I also really want to point out that internet is important enough that my own parents offered to help get it for me. I seriously doubt that I could navigate this conversation period with Okaasan, let alone get the point across without making her grumpy, which I can never tell or figure out how to fix anyway.
I guess it just boils down to me being tired, having a lot of work to do this week, not getting any email love, just wanting my stuff to work and being left out of the loop at home. I don't know how to fix most of that, but hey I'm going to go get something to eat and get my bike back from the park near the dorms. Then I'm going to ask the girls in the Seminar house if bittorrent works at their place. If it does, I'll just plug in my computer and leave it over there for a few days (if they don't mind). Also I'm going to get in touch with Josh and Barnes to see if I can get any good wifi spots.
This has me super depressed. It's 1:30pm I've been here since 11am tinkering around and I just feel like nothing is working. All I want is more One Piece. I can't get it here because a) not subtitled and b) I don't have a Japanese DVD player so I couldn't watch them even if I bought them. I'll try and break the ice with Minami first to see if I can use her Limewire account (I know she has something like that she uses) to get some episodes. Or atleast try and get her or Okaasan to let me use bitcomet on their computer so I won't be on the computer, but my things will still be chugging along as they use it.
All I really want to do is snap at Okasan and demand internet in my own room. That was my top priority when I signed up for homestay and apparently Kansai doesn't give a rats you know what about this or a lot of things. I also really want to point out that internet is important enough that my own parents offered to help get it for me. I seriously doubt that I could navigate this conversation period with Okaasan, let alone get the point across without making her grumpy, which I can never tell or figure out how to fix anyway.
I guess it just boils down to me being tired, having a lot of work to do this week, not getting any email love, just wanting my stuff to work and being left out of the loop at home. I don't know how to fix most of that, but hey I'm going to go get something to eat and get my bike back from the park near the dorms. Then I'm going to ask the girls in the Seminar house if bittorrent works at their place. If it does, I'll just plug in my computer and leave it over there for a few days (if they don't mind). Also I'm going to get in touch with Josh and Barnes to see if I can get any good wifi spots.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Taking about Sunday (Sept 17, 2006)
Sunday started later than Saturday, I had to meet the crew at Hirakata eki (train station) at 12ish and I got there a little early. The plan was to meet up with Erica and Kim's class that was going on a field trip to the ESA Festival because it apparently was held in the middle of no where. Since the Seminar House side of the crew isn't exactly known for their punctuality we missed meeting up with the class by about 10 or so minutes. The total crew was: Alba (Maria's friend from Spain here at Kansai), Maria, Erica, Drew, Me, Nadia, and Tracy (the British girl that was Erica and my roommate, but doesn't like to hang out with us, so big shocker there). So we shopped in Kiddieland for a little bit. Kiddieland is the CUTEST store I've seen, it has Hello Kitty and all of her friends, Carebears, Disney characters and all of those other San-X characters as pillows, notebooks, hell EVERYTHING. I think Pat would explode if he ever had to go in here. We love this place to no end :3 That aside we eventually got going and thankfully the professor foresaw that students would be late or get lost so Erica had a whole page she'd written out of directions, ticket costs, and everything else you'd need to know.
We took a train from Hirakata over to Kyobashi and then over to the JR line (another train line, we use Keihan mostly) and took that to Taisho and a bus from there to the park where this festival was being held. Now, they called it a "park" but it was... a large open space made of dirt. Little bit of a let down, but the festival was pretty neat. I don't know what ESA means, but it was an Okinawan festival showing off music (there was a HUGE stage), food (more on that later), clothes, and dancing. Since Okinawa is a little island very far away from the main Japanese islands normally people don't get to see this stuff so they have a huge festival. The main reason we were on this trek was that it was Maria's birthday, we wanted to do something special and so we fumbled around for a week not knowing what the hell we were going to do and somehow ended up at the festival. It was great because at 12:01am they had her open all her presents and the next day they pinned a "Birthday Princess" sash on her and didn't tell her a thing about where we were going until we got to the festival (hence why the whole dirt thing wasn't so spiffy) . We were a little bit of an attraction because Erica kept her hair up (in a mohawk) and there were A LOT of pictures, plus we were outside the city so there weren't that many gaijin (foreign) people around. We didn't get down to the shop area, but we hit the food tents right off the bat since it was past noon and no one had eatten. Here's what I ate:
The guy told me it was a "hot dog" and the other thing is an omlette with Okinawan sausage in it. When I bit into it I realized the "hot dog" was more of a "pork dumpling shaped like a hotdog", still very yummy. The food was a little expensive and it was hard to find a place to sit. Drew almost didn't get anything to eat because everything was $3 or so, but we tried to explain to her that it was like stadium food. Erica finally found something vegan (phew). Meanwhile Maria got those octopus balls that plague me and Nadia got some seaweed held together by some tempra (which is like dough and when it's fried it's tempura). I didn't have any, but Nadia said hers, "tasted like the ocean". That's a pretty good description of a lot of things. Where we sat was behind the tents with the food in these cement bleachers. The problem was that there were so many people we couldn't find the stairs to get up there, so being the graceful one I am I just hopped up, only to rip my shorts right open. Smooth. Everyone hopped up with no problem, but I was still left with this gaping hole. Thankfully Maria lent me a safety pin from her sash to fix my little problem and we all pretty much agreed everyone would be too busy looking at Erica's hair that my hole wasn't going to be an item of interest. Note: today I finally sewed them back together, it looks really spiffy so now I have shorts again!
We hung around the festival for a bit, watching the drummers, having peolple gawk at Erica, getting our picture taken by a million different people. One of which included a friend of the professor (who started this little trip, we saw him too) who was in her full kimono and loved us so she got a million pictures of us and us as a group. What was really cute was this little girl who asked Maria what her sash said and Maria (being level 4 Japanese) told her that it was her birthday. After she heard this the little girl ran off and came back a few minutes later with a can of green tea for Maria, telling her "happy birthday!". She followed us around the festival for a long time and she was the sweetest thing ever.
Maria and I were both taken with how many of the kids at the festival were just sitting there making sandcastles in the dirt. I was trying to get a picture of them when Maria remarked that she couldn't believe that years ago in Spain she did the same thing, just like I did back home in the States. It was cool to see that kids everywhere play in the dirt, I'm sure that's not life-altering for all of you, but it was cool.
Once it started to rain we realized there wasn't much else to see and Erica's hair would melt if we stayed out in the rain much longer, so we ran over to the 100 yen (dollar) store across the street and then headed out to catch the bus back to Osaka. We found our way to Namba and wandered around that mall I had fun going through the week before when I couldn't meet up with my friends at Yodabashi Station. We were doing okay until Drew had a panic attack due to the crowds and we had to leave the busy mall area. We were getting tired at this point (it was around 5pm or so) so we took Maria to the electronics store where she when inside with Nadia to get somethings while we sat on the steps outside (there was a huge over hang, so we weren't blocking the door. We were chatting about random things when, yep you probably didn't guess, adventure found us once again.
This time it appeared in the form of a middle aged (probably late 40's-50's) man who was walking over to us. This didn't seem weird at first, since a lot of Japanese people just walk up to us to practice English, say hi, etc. but this guy was walking and didn't respond to any of our reponses of, "How can we help you?" "Hello?" or "Konnichiwa? Shit is it Konbanwa yet?" Nothing. He just kept walking. Now what we thought would stop him was this little fence in front of us made out of those big orange cones and some plastic bars going between them. Yeah, it didn't. He walked through it and made a lunge for Tracy. Erica, who had been the one attacked early (there, I said it, you know who the friend was, gasp) she reacted immediately while the rest of us were just in plain shock. She grabed his wrist with her nails and shoved it away yelling, "DAME HENTAI" which should me don't you pervert, although I would've gone with Chikan and not Hentai, but I don't really know. Tracy was to my left and Erica to my right so I was just sitting there in total confusion until I realized Erica's very obvious attempt at getting him to go away didn't work. He climbed over the fence. At this point I jumped up and ran over to the door near the entrance to the store that had a security guard in it and just said, "Tasukete!" (help). He nodded and got on the phone, but at this point I whipped around to see what the hell was happening. I'd forgotten my bag, but thankfully Erica grabbed it and the shocked Tracy and had run over to the opening of the store. Now, this was a big over hang we were under with two HUGE pillars holding it up. I was behind one with the guard and they were behind another, nothing stopped this guy. He followed them around and around and around the pole. We were all yelling at him and he wasn't going too fast so we'd get faraway thinking he'd stop and then he'd see us and sluggishly stumble over. He didn't say a thing, he made some sort of grunting noise and dragged his feet as he walked. Erica even said she didn't think he opened his eyes the whole time. This is why the first time he went for Tracy all I could think of was Resident Evil (Zombie video game, for those who don't know) and my inner monolouge went a little something like, "Shit, do I have enough magnum bullets left? Wait, this is a standard zombie not a crimson head so I should go with pistol." then I hopped up and entered reality again. Erica had armed herself with an umbrella and as she was running with the others trying to get away she'd hit him everytime he got close. Nothing phased him, but eventually we got all of us together and when the guard FINALLY walked up to him he fell over and pretended he couldn't get up. We BOLTED for the door and stood shaking inside the electronics store waiting for Maria and Nadia.
What really pissed me off about this whole thing wasn't that this guy did this, he was either drunk or high of something, or just crazy, but was everyone elses reaction to it. There was a guard there, a group of people doing some sales outside the store and other passersby and NO ONE did a thing. One guy when over and said, you shouldn't do this, but nothing else. No one stopped him, yelled, raised an alarm or helped us. I know it was sudden and probably hysterical to watch the gaijin get chased by the drunken old man, but what the hell, you're a security guard, security has been breached, pepper spray the bastard! What that guard did do was call the police, who did show up rather quickly. When we left the store we saw they'd taken the guy and sat him down and were kind of laughing at him. They helped him up and took him away, but the general consenus was that no one took this seriously and they were just going to get him home and let him off. I don't know if this was the case, but it felt that way and we couldn't shake the crazy shock and frusterated feeling all day. Since her previous attack Erica carries a cute Japanese box cutter with her, she almost used it here, but we would've been in a world of more trouble for that. Her dad wants her to get a tazer and doesn't even know about this event because, well he'd flip out and get her one.
Japan is really very safe and it was scary for all of us to have this randomly happen. I mean it's hysterical on some levels and bothersome on others. We were in a big place with a lot of people and were safe. No worries. Though this did put a damper on the day as did the rain and the dirt pit, but Maria loved everything else about her big day. We got some food at a cafe and realized there wasn't much we could do that didn't involve big crowds, plus we were exhausted so we went back to the dorms. Marika arrived at the dorms with in a few minutes of us getting there and we gave Maria the rest of her presents and ate the cake Marika bought, which was quite yummy. Then I was kicked out at 9:59pm by Okaasan (their dorm mother) and got home at a normal hour.
That was Sunday. Now it's the following Saturday and I'm the only one on campus and should probably leave before they close the gates on me. ;)
We took a train from Hirakata over to Kyobashi and then over to the JR line (another train line, we use Keihan mostly) and took that to Taisho and a bus from there to the park where this festival was being held. Now, they called it a "park" but it was... a large open space made of dirt. Little bit of a let down, but the festival was pretty neat. I don't know what ESA means, but it was an Okinawan festival showing off music (there was a HUGE stage), food (more on that later), clothes, and dancing. Since Okinawa is a little island very far away from the main Japanese islands normally people don't get to see this stuff so they have a huge festival. The main reason we were on this trek was that it was Maria's birthday, we wanted to do something special and so we fumbled around for a week not knowing what the hell we were going to do and somehow ended up at the festival. It was great because at 12:01am they had her open all her presents and the next day they pinned a "Birthday Princess" sash on her and didn't tell her a thing about where we were going until we got to the festival (hence why the whole dirt thing wasn't so spiffy) . We were a little bit of an attraction because Erica kept her hair up (in a mohawk) and there were A LOT of pictures, plus we were outside the city so there weren't that many gaijin (foreign) people around. We didn't get down to the shop area, but we hit the food tents right off the bat since it was past noon and no one had eatten. Here's what I ate:
The guy told me it was a "hot dog" and the other thing is an omlette with Okinawan sausage in it. When I bit into it I realized the "hot dog" was more of a "pork dumpling shaped like a hotdog", still very yummy. The food was a little expensive and it was hard to find a place to sit. Drew almost didn't get anything to eat because everything was $3 or so, but we tried to explain to her that it was like stadium food. Erica finally found something vegan (phew). Meanwhile Maria got those octopus balls that plague me and Nadia got some seaweed held together by some tempra (which is like dough and when it's fried it's tempura). I didn't have any, but Nadia said hers, "tasted like the ocean". That's a pretty good description of a lot of things. Where we sat was behind the tents with the food in these cement bleachers. The problem was that there were so many people we couldn't find the stairs to get up there, so being the graceful one I am I just hopped up, only to rip my shorts right open. Smooth. Everyone hopped up with no problem, but I was still left with this gaping hole. Thankfully Maria lent me a safety pin from her sash to fix my little problem and we all pretty much agreed everyone would be too busy looking at Erica's hair that my hole wasn't going to be an item of interest. Note: today I finally sewed them back together, it looks really spiffy so now I have shorts again!
We hung around the festival for a bit, watching the drummers, having peolple gawk at Erica, getting our picture taken by a million different people. One of which included a friend of the professor (who started this little trip, we saw him too) who was in her full kimono and loved us so she got a million pictures of us and us as a group. What was really cute was this little girl who asked Maria what her sash said and Maria (being level 4 Japanese) told her that it was her birthday. After she heard this the little girl ran off and came back a few minutes later with a can of green tea for Maria, telling her "happy birthday!". She followed us around the festival for a long time and she was the sweetest thing ever.
Maria and I were both taken with how many of the kids at the festival were just sitting there making sandcastles in the dirt. I was trying to get a picture of them when Maria remarked that she couldn't believe that years ago in Spain she did the same thing, just like I did back home in the States. It was cool to see that kids everywhere play in the dirt, I'm sure that's not life-altering for all of you, but it was cool.
Once it started to rain we realized there wasn't much else to see and Erica's hair would melt if we stayed out in the rain much longer, so we ran over to the 100 yen (dollar) store across the street and then headed out to catch the bus back to Osaka. We found our way to Namba and wandered around that mall I had fun going through the week before when I couldn't meet up with my friends at Yodabashi Station. We were doing okay until Drew had a panic attack due to the crowds and we had to leave the busy mall area. We were getting tired at this point (it was around 5pm or so) so we took Maria to the electronics store where she when inside with Nadia to get somethings while we sat on the steps outside (there was a huge over hang, so we weren't blocking the door. We were chatting about random things when, yep you probably didn't guess, adventure found us once again.
This time it appeared in the form of a middle aged (probably late 40's-50's) man who was walking over to us. This didn't seem weird at first, since a lot of Japanese people just walk up to us to practice English, say hi, etc. but this guy was walking and didn't respond to any of our reponses of, "How can we help you?" "Hello?" or "Konnichiwa? Shit is it Konbanwa yet?" Nothing. He just kept walking. Now what we thought would stop him was this little fence in front of us made out of those big orange cones and some plastic bars going between them. Yeah, it didn't. He walked through it and made a lunge for Tracy. Erica, who had been the one attacked early (there, I said it, you know who the friend was, gasp) she reacted immediately while the rest of us were just in plain shock. She grabed his wrist with her nails and shoved it away yelling, "DAME HENTAI" which should me don't you pervert, although I would've gone with Chikan and not Hentai, but I don't really know. Tracy was to my left and Erica to my right so I was just sitting there in total confusion until I realized Erica's very obvious attempt at getting him to go away didn't work. He climbed over the fence. At this point I jumped up and ran over to the door near the entrance to the store that had a security guard in it and just said, "Tasukete!" (help). He nodded and got on the phone, but at this point I whipped around to see what the hell was happening. I'd forgotten my bag, but thankfully Erica grabbed it and the shocked Tracy and had run over to the opening of the store. Now, this was a big over hang we were under with two HUGE pillars holding it up. I was behind one with the guard and they were behind another, nothing stopped this guy. He followed them around and around and around the pole. We were all yelling at him and he wasn't going too fast so we'd get faraway thinking he'd stop and then he'd see us and sluggishly stumble over. He didn't say a thing, he made some sort of grunting noise and dragged his feet as he walked. Erica even said she didn't think he opened his eyes the whole time. This is why the first time he went for Tracy all I could think of was Resident Evil (Zombie video game, for those who don't know) and my inner monolouge went a little something like, "Shit, do I have enough magnum bullets left? Wait, this is a standard zombie not a crimson head so I should go with pistol." then I hopped up and entered reality again. Erica had armed herself with an umbrella and as she was running with the others trying to get away she'd hit him everytime he got close. Nothing phased him, but eventually we got all of us together and when the guard FINALLY walked up to him he fell over and pretended he couldn't get up. We BOLTED for the door and stood shaking inside the electronics store waiting for Maria and Nadia.
What really pissed me off about this whole thing wasn't that this guy did this, he was either drunk or high of something, or just crazy, but was everyone elses reaction to it. There was a guard there, a group of people doing some sales outside the store and other passersby and NO ONE did a thing. One guy when over and said, you shouldn't do this, but nothing else. No one stopped him, yelled, raised an alarm or helped us. I know it was sudden and probably hysterical to watch the gaijin get chased by the drunken old man, but what the hell, you're a security guard, security has been breached, pepper spray the bastard! What that guard did do was call the police, who did show up rather quickly. When we left the store we saw they'd taken the guy and sat him down and were kind of laughing at him. They helped him up and took him away, but the general consenus was that no one took this seriously and they were just going to get him home and let him off. I don't know if this was the case, but it felt that way and we couldn't shake the crazy shock and frusterated feeling all day. Since her previous attack Erica carries a cute Japanese box cutter with her, she almost used it here, but we would've been in a world of more trouble for that. Her dad wants her to get a tazer and doesn't even know about this event because, well he'd flip out and get her one.
Japan is really very safe and it was scary for all of us to have this randomly happen. I mean it's hysterical on some levels and bothersome on others. We were in a big place with a lot of people and were safe. No worries. Though this did put a damper on the day as did the rain and the dirt pit, but Maria loved everything else about her big day. We got some food at a cafe and realized there wasn't much we could do that didn't involve big crowds, plus we were exhausted so we went back to the dorms. Marika arrived at the dorms with in a few minutes of us getting there and we gave Maria the rest of her presents and ate the cake Marika bought, which was quite yummy. Then I was kicked out at 9:59pm by Okaasan (their dorm mother) and got home at a normal hour.
That was Sunday. Now it's the following Saturday and I'm the only one on campus and should probably leave before they close the gates on me. ;)
Friday, September 22, 2006
Ready for the weekend
It's Friday here in Japan, which means two things: 1) Weekend! 2) No school and no internet ;(
I'll see if I can get up REALLY early on Saturday and stay up tonight so I can post somethings tomorrow. Also a big thank you to my mom for reading my huge post yesterday and pointing out we're miss the first part of the Madonna story. I fixed it and here is the opening for your reading pleasure:
"As I was trying to figure out how to get to Yodabashi from Namba station when I got back to Osaka. I noticed another white guy standing next to me in a bright orange Texas longhorns t-shirt. I was about to ask him if he needed help, when he looked up from his map and ask, "Please tell me you speak English." I do, so I asked him what he need help with and apparently he was just trying to get to Umeda station, which is one past Yodabashi (the one I was going to to meet Erica and crew). So I helped him get his ticket, explained how the train worked and then offered to ride the train with him since we were both going on the same one anyway. We got to chatting and it turns out it was his first time in Japan and he was here working for the Madonna concert that was being held in Osaka that night and Sunday night. He was really nice and is originally from Texas (hence the shirt) and showed me pictures of some of the other shows they've done (in Denmark, etc.). He also threw in a picture of his dog, which was super cute. As we were talking he said he was very thankful that I stopped and gave him all this help and even went on the same train and he offered to walk me into the Madonna concert! I was totally excited and then he gave me his hotel he was staying at and the room number. Now this freaked me out. continued in the other post"
I also had another classic Manda moment in class today. We had to do "Karaoke" in class and sing a line to this, "Thank you" song that we made up thanking someone for something. I made up my line way in advance and prepared it as the other students were doing their lines, then it was my turn. The music played, I opened my mouth and said, "naoshi" followed by a blank stare and my mouth hanging open. I then put my head on my desk. What I'd wanted to say was "Jitensha o naoshite kure.." (Thank you for fixing my bike) but I started with the verb "to fix" and therefore couldn't go back in time fast enough to get to "bike" and I folded up like a cheap cardtable.
All I could do was have flashbacks to all of the plays I messed up solos in, it's like my really crappy superpower.
I'll see if I can get up REALLY early on Saturday and stay up tonight so I can post somethings tomorrow. Also a big thank you to my mom for reading my huge post yesterday and pointing out we're miss the first part of the Madonna story. I fixed it and here is the opening for your reading pleasure:
"As I was trying to figure out how to get to Yodabashi from Namba station when I got back to Osaka. I noticed another white guy standing next to me in a bright orange Texas longhorns t-shirt. I was about to ask him if he needed help, when he looked up from his map and ask, "Please tell me you speak English." I do, so I asked him what he need help with and apparently he was just trying to get to Umeda station, which is one past Yodabashi (the one I was going to to meet Erica and crew). So I helped him get his ticket, explained how the train worked and then offered to ride the train with him since we were both going on the same one anyway. We got to chatting and it turns out it was his first time in Japan and he was here working for the Madonna concert that was being held in Osaka that night and Sunday night. He was really nice and is originally from Texas (hence the shirt) and showed me pictures of some of the other shows they've done (in Denmark, etc.). He also threw in a picture of his dog, which was super cute. As we were talking he said he was very thankful that I stopped and gave him all this help and even went on the same train and he offered to walk me into the Madonna concert! I was totally excited and then he gave me his hotel he was staying at and the room number. Now this freaked me out. continued in the other post"
I also had another classic Manda moment in class today. We had to do "Karaoke" in class and sing a line to this, "Thank you" song that we made up thanking someone for something. I made up my line way in advance and prepared it as the other students were doing their lines, then it was my turn. The music played, I opened my mouth and said, "naoshi" followed by a blank stare and my mouth hanging open. I then put my head on my desk. What I'd wanted to say was "Jitensha o naoshite kure.." (Thank you for fixing my bike) but I started with the verb "to fix" and therefore couldn't go back in time fast enough to get to "bike" and I folded up like a cheap cardtable.
All I could do was have flashbacks to all of the plays I messed up solos in, it's like my really crappy superpower.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
My Saturday (talking about 9/16/2006)
Let me assure you I didn't pansy out in any respect on this Saturday. I was committed, I had drive and ambition and I got shit done. It was very very good. In order to be such a driven individual I decided I would have to start early. Real early, infact. I got up at the crack of 8:30AM. Yep, I know you're all gasping in horror at the audacity of it, but it's a Saturday, I'm in college in a foreign country. 8:30 is early on a Saturday. Please also factor in that I sleep on THE FLOOR, on mats I'm convinced are trying to make said floor harder than it actually is. More on that at a further date.
The best part of getting up early was the look on my Okaasan's face. She was still in her jammies drinking coffee when I was fully dressed and heading for the door. She knew where I was going, but I think she was impressed I got up and ready. I got up and out by 9AM to catch a train from Gotenyama(the station next to my house) to Osaka (Yodabashi Station), which is an hour or so away depending on which train you get. Then I had to take the subway from Yodabashi Station to Namba Station and find the Namba train station, not the subway, to get on another line that would let me off at Kishiwada. Kishiwada is a small town to the south of Osaka in the Kansai Region and what posessed me to go there on a specific day was the Danjuri Festival. It's a day when they parade huge unpainted wooden floats called Danjuri through the city to temples. It started over 300 years ago and it's in order to thank the harvest god named Inari. Inari is also the god that uses the foxes called Kitsune as messangers, there are little shrines all around Japan and I love taking pictures of the fox statues and bright red temples, so I know you've all seen that at least.
That was the textbook answer as to what, "Danjuri Festival" means, it's what brought me on this mission, but as always when you actually hit the ground things can be completely more crazy than you expected. Quite frankly that's what I was hoping for and Japan delivers. The whole "parading" the danjuri through the city is an understatement, they RACE them through the city streets, being pulled by kids, women, men, everybody. Also they aren't on wheels, they're on steamroller rollers, so it's like a HUGE verison of the Flinstone cars. And the huge part is really what makes this, they're gorgeous and beautifully decorated and they have local officials standing on the front and people who have to climb inside them playing insturments on the upper interior and on top they have one or two guys waving fans and doing stunts. What really got me was the atmosphere of the whole thing. Everyone had on these black pants and a black over kimono with a big symbol on the back referencing which team they cheered for or were working for. I tried to buy one while I was there, but everyone was sold out, which leads me to believe that most folks do this every year and have these things for years and years. I loved how it felt like a Nantucket holiday, honestly anyone from home will understand what I'm going to say, heck I'll illustrate it: It's like you took the daffodil parade, the mid 1990's stroll, and the fourth of July and had it on a single day. It was as if Jer souped up the beachcart so it was HUGE, we had three board members riding on the front, Jeff's kids playing instruments on the inside, Marshall around in a black kimono (I have pictures of dogs dressed up), and Olivia on top doing backflips. Oh, and we challenged the fire department with their HUGE hose-cart and the NHA with their whaleboat and we walked up Main Street only to get to Centre Street and take a sharp 90 turn and WE RAN with this thing down the street taking sharp turns on Quince, India, Fair, Gay Street, hell you name any TINY street until we got to one of the churches. Then there would be much cheering we'd stop to have tourist fawn over the cart only to start it up again 20 minutes later.
It felt wonderful to be there. Everyone was so nice, several Japanese people helped me out off and on all day. As soon as I got off the train I saw a danjuri go screaming by and I was afraid that I'd missed it. I had no clue they did it all day. Anyway I walked maybe 20 feet down the main road when an older guy sitting in a chair by a doorway stops me and asks me if I'm a foreigner and when I answer in the affirmative he insists that I go inside this building and get a map. I'm operating on a map I got out of a magazine, so I'm game. Only to find out that this is the tourist center and they couldn't be happier to see me. They have me sign this guest book and then take me over to this wall where they put on one of the black kimono, a red and white handband and give me a huge fan and take a few pictures. They took some with my camera too, so here I am in all my tourist glory:
They gave me the head band and the huge fan, I had them all day, although I took off the headband because I felt really silly. The maps were great and it was a wonderful start to this day. Now, another factor in this getting up "early" was that no one else wanted to join me in my little adventure. Later Nadia asked me who went with me and I explained why no one else wanted to go and she felt bad for me, which I guess was nice, but it was a great thing to do even on my own. I know the train system at this point and I could go and do what I wanted, it was an adventure and I'm glad I took this oppertunity to go out of Osaka and see something super cool. It just felt good to know I can do this sort of thing on my own and survive. This was a festival and that would make you think that you'd run across mostly foreign tourists taking in the sights, but aside from the tourist center I only saw a handful of other foreigners. This really seemed to be a holiday for the town and they seemed psyced to have us along. The first time I was able to see the floats go by I was standing next to a middle aged woman who asked me in English, "Is this your first time?" I told her it was and we had a little conversation, she kept smiling and offered to help me out if I need directions. I got a few things cleared up, but she was just very happy that I liked it so much. I owe a few people for just grabbing me or letting me squeeze myself in next to them to get out of the streets. These streets can be really narrow and these floats aren't on a set time so as I was trying to get back to one of the main streets I got cornered and had a float coming down the way, don't worry there's a huge string of people pulling and they check before they go really fast, but it made it so I had to stop and find a place to stand off to the side quick. I was looking around trying to find a doorway to hop into when a crowd of people gestured for me to stand by them. They pulled me in so I was safe and we all had a good time getting pictures of the floats and cheering for them. It was with these folks that one float actually crashed into an airconditioning unit across the street and they had to have some people from the parade stop and move it back. After that happened I noticed more and more the padding people put on their stores and balconies. There were a few other "crash sites" I noticed later on too. Also in this spot another float had their people pulling the float have to run to the side to help make the turn and ended up body checking a bunch of us. We were fine, it was just sudden and crazy to have happen, it made the event much more fun.
My path through the city is pretty easy to follow, I went down the street in front of the train station down to the mall area (most stores were closed or had tourist items in the regardless of the fact that the tour is normally a real estate office or men's clothing store), outside there I got to see some danjuri stopped and I got a bunch of pictures. I loved the people that had their little dogs dressed up in the little kimonos and all the guys who pull this thing just hanging out. One of the other highlights of the day were all the kids. They were climbing all over the danjuri and a few of them were playing the instruments inside. There was this one kid that was playing the Taiko drum (I have a video game version at home), his friends were in with something like a cowbell and another drum. They were just jamming and even though they were all of 7 or 8 years old they were GOOD. I got a bunch of pictures of them and they played for me to make a quick movie I have saved on my camera too.
From there I backtracked to see the danjuri I saw stopped in motion and I got some lunch, which was some onigiri (rice balls) that had pickled plum and some seaweed in them. They weren't that good, but a downed a green tea and got to see the parade. After that I went to the Kishiki Shrine and the Kishiwada castle. Sadly this isn't where the original castle was and the inside is a museum (it was gutted, like Osaka Castle), but it was beautiful to look at and gave you a sense of the layout of the town from the Heian Period (700 AD) until the 1800's. Most of the town was made up of gates and moats, which make walking through the streets way cooler. I'm a nerd and I was psyced I could read enough Japanese to make sense of this stuff. I realized a suit of Samurai armor was made for a 6 year old son of the local lord. I know it's little, but it's a trimph for me.
After the castle I went by this huge pond with beautiful lotus flowers and cute turtles. I ended up back at the parade and found my way to one of the other temple. This is the other example of Japanese kindness. I knew a cart was coming, but then they realized it was stopping at a building I was right next to, so they moved a bunch of people so they could turn. I had my camera out and was kind of near the back of the crowd when this guy waves at me and then helps me up onto this ledge where a bunch of other offical looking photographers are. He and his wife were just up there watching and decided to let me in on their spot. I got some great pictures and when they were finished I realized the man and woman were halfway across the street in the crowd I yelled, "Arigato" as loud as I could and the woman turned around and smiled. They were very nice to help me out like that and I'm so glad atleast she heard me. I said in that spot for alittle longer and got to pet this old man's dog who was also up there with me. He and his wife were also very nice and I had a little chat with them too.
The other HUGE section of this town was made up into little tents for food and kid's games. I have a bunch of pictures on flickr of octopus stands and kid's games for catching goldfish. I got some little cakes shaped like pikachu for later and played a game that got me a black and white pig folder. Awesome. I wanted to stay for the lantern lighting that started at 7pm, but I'd been in this town since 11AM and by 3 or so I'd seen and done everything, so I headed back for the train station. I got an email from Erica right after I started back and she told me they were on their way to Osaka, which is where I had to go anyway to get back. So to kill some time while they got to the city I stayed in Kishiwada caught another temple and got some ice with some melon and strawberry flavoring in it.
Now this is how dumb I am. I was eatting this sno-cone trying to do so my lips didn't up blue or green and I was walking down this street until I hear a loud CRACK of plastic and have a LARGE sharp pain in my forehead. I walked INTO the side mirror of a parked truck, only to have Japanese passers by ask in English, "Oh my God are you okay?!" I laughed it off and explained that I was fine, just dumb (baka, idiot) and they went on their way. It HURT though, I honestly felt it in my teeth and it was sore all day. I swear I get less and less graceful daily. >__<
My mom was right, part of this blog is missing. Crap I have to retype it
As I was trying to figure out how to get to Yodabashi from Namba station when I got back to Osaka. I noticed another white guy standing next to me in a bright orange Texas longhorns t-shirt. I was about to ask him if he needed help, when he looked up from his map and ask, "Please tell me you speak English." I do, so I asked him what he need help with and apparently he was just trying to get to Umeda station, which is one past Yodabashi (the one I was going to to meet Erica and crew). So I helped him get his ticket, explained how the train worked and then offered to ride the train with him since we were both going on the same one anyway. We got to chatting and it turns out it was his first time in Japan and he was here working for the Madonna concert that was being held in Osaka that night and Sunday night. He was really nice and is originally from Texas (hence the shirt) and showed me pictures of some of the other shows they've done (in Denmark, etc.). He also threw in a picture of his dog, which was super cute. As we were talking he said he was very thankful that I stopped and gave him all this help and even went on the same train and he offered to walk me into the Madonna concert! I was totally excited and then he gave me his hotel he was staying at and the room number. Now this freaked me out.
Also my stop came up so I thanked him and said I might and then hopped off the train only to promptly forget the room number and his name. >__< I told the girls (Erica, Nadia and Maria) when I met up with them and they were totally excited and I realized later the whole room number thing was to CALL him, since he's only in the country for a week. So we decided to try and catch up with him since I did remember where he was going (the Ritz Carlton to look at some cars, off Umeda station) so off we went. What frustrated me was that we made this decision to go and so I was all gung-ho about let's do this or not. They stopped a few times to do shopping and when we did get there he was gone and they were bored with the idea. I keep kicking myself for getting flustered and forgetting the room number, but hey it's still a cool story either way.
We met up with Marika (she's Japanese, but new at Kansai) in Namba and eventually found food we could all eat (reminder: Erica is vegan) at a Mexican Restaurant. :3 There we found out our waiter, who since Erica is vegan we had to ask a million questions about the food, was Mexican so Maria spoke Spanish to him, then we realized he spoke fluent English and pretty good Japanese. Nadia, I think in an attempt to impress him or atleast make things easier tried to order her food in Spanish and ended up saying Tacos de mexicanos. To which he replied, "Nope we don't have that." We looked confused, while Maria was laughing her ass off and he explained, "That means tacos made from Mexicans and since I'm the only Mexican here, you can't have a taco made out of me." Nadia will NEVER live this down. We constantly tease her about her horrible Spanish pick-up line of "yeah I'd like a taco, made out of YOU. *growl*" Seriously though, the food was great and he was so nice that place will probably become a regular stop when we're in Osaka.
I got home around 11:30 to find that no one except Soji was home. Everyone else went to the public bath (I thought he said "Public BUS" and so we looked confused at one another for a few minutes) and they got back. Apparently my curfew doesn't really affect them, so atleast I know they trust me and I'm not making them mad by coming home a little later than 7pm. All in all, Saturday was busy, but Sunday was going to be busier since it was Maria's Birthday. More on that later.
The best part of getting up early was the look on my Okaasan's face. She was still in her jammies drinking coffee when I was fully dressed and heading for the door. She knew where I was going, but I think she was impressed I got up and ready. I got up and out by 9AM to catch a train from Gotenyama(the station next to my house) to Osaka (Yodabashi Station), which is an hour or so away depending on which train you get. Then I had to take the subway from Yodabashi Station to Namba Station and find the Namba train station, not the subway, to get on another line that would let me off at Kishiwada. Kishiwada is a small town to the south of Osaka in the Kansai Region and what posessed me to go there on a specific day was the Danjuri Festival. It's a day when they parade huge unpainted wooden floats called Danjuri through the city to temples. It started over 300 years ago and it's in order to thank the harvest god named Inari. Inari is also the god that uses the foxes called Kitsune as messangers, there are little shrines all around Japan and I love taking pictures of the fox statues and bright red temples, so I know you've all seen that at least.
That was the textbook answer as to what, "Danjuri Festival" means, it's what brought me on this mission, but as always when you actually hit the ground things can be completely more crazy than you expected. Quite frankly that's what I was hoping for and Japan delivers. The whole "parading" the danjuri through the city is an understatement, they RACE them through the city streets, being pulled by kids, women, men, everybody. Also they aren't on wheels, they're on steamroller rollers, so it's like a HUGE verison of the Flinstone cars. And the huge part is really what makes this, they're gorgeous and beautifully decorated and they have local officials standing on the front and people who have to climb inside them playing insturments on the upper interior and on top they have one or two guys waving fans and doing stunts. What really got me was the atmosphere of the whole thing. Everyone had on these black pants and a black over kimono with a big symbol on the back referencing which team they cheered for or were working for. I tried to buy one while I was there, but everyone was sold out, which leads me to believe that most folks do this every year and have these things for years and years. I loved how it felt like a Nantucket holiday, honestly anyone from home will understand what I'm going to say, heck I'll illustrate it: It's like you took the daffodil parade, the mid 1990's stroll, and the fourth of July and had it on a single day. It was as if Jer souped up the beachcart so it was HUGE, we had three board members riding on the front, Jeff's kids playing instruments on the inside, Marshall around in a black kimono (I have pictures of dogs dressed up), and Olivia on top doing backflips. Oh, and we challenged the fire department with their HUGE hose-cart and the NHA with their whaleboat and we walked up Main Street only to get to Centre Street and take a sharp 90 turn and WE RAN with this thing down the street taking sharp turns on Quince, India, Fair, Gay Street, hell you name any TINY street until we got to one of the churches. Then there would be much cheering we'd stop to have tourist fawn over the cart only to start it up again 20 minutes later.
It felt wonderful to be there. Everyone was so nice, several Japanese people helped me out off and on all day. As soon as I got off the train I saw a danjuri go screaming by and I was afraid that I'd missed it. I had no clue they did it all day. Anyway I walked maybe 20 feet down the main road when an older guy sitting in a chair by a doorway stops me and asks me if I'm a foreigner and when I answer in the affirmative he insists that I go inside this building and get a map. I'm operating on a map I got out of a magazine, so I'm game. Only to find out that this is the tourist center and they couldn't be happier to see me. They have me sign this guest book and then take me over to this wall where they put on one of the black kimono, a red and white handband and give me a huge fan and take a few pictures. They took some with my camera too, so here I am in all my tourist glory:
They gave me the head band and the huge fan, I had them all day, although I took off the headband because I felt really silly. The maps were great and it was a wonderful start to this day. Now, another factor in this getting up "early" was that no one else wanted to join me in my little adventure. Later Nadia asked me who went with me and I explained why no one else wanted to go and she felt bad for me, which I guess was nice, but it was a great thing to do even on my own. I know the train system at this point and I could go and do what I wanted, it was an adventure and I'm glad I took this oppertunity to go out of Osaka and see something super cool. It just felt good to know I can do this sort of thing on my own and survive. This was a festival and that would make you think that you'd run across mostly foreign tourists taking in the sights, but aside from the tourist center I only saw a handful of other foreigners. This really seemed to be a holiday for the town and they seemed psyced to have us along. The first time I was able to see the floats go by I was standing next to a middle aged woman who asked me in English, "Is this your first time?" I told her it was and we had a little conversation, she kept smiling and offered to help me out if I need directions. I got a few things cleared up, but she was just very happy that I liked it so much. I owe a few people for just grabbing me or letting me squeeze myself in next to them to get out of the streets. These streets can be really narrow and these floats aren't on a set time so as I was trying to get back to one of the main streets I got cornered and had a float coming down the way, don't worry there's a huge string of people pulling and they check before they go really fast, but it made it so I had to stop and find a place to stand off to the side quick. I was looking around trying to find a doorway to hop into when a crowd of people gestured for me to stand by them. They pulled me in so I was safe and we all had a good time getting pictures of the floats and cheering for them. It was with these folks that one float actually crashed into an airconditioning unit across the street and they had to have some people from the parade stop and move it back. After that happened I noticed more and more the padding people put on their stores and balconies. There were a few other "crash sites" I noticed later on too. Also in this spot another float had their people pulling the float have to run to the side to help make the turn and ended up body checking a bunch of us. We were fine, it was just sudden and crazy to have happen, it made the event much more fun.
My path through the city is pretty easy to follow, I went down the street in front of the train station down to the mall area (most stores were closed or had tourist items in the regardless of the fact that the tour is normally a real estate office or men's clothing store), outside there I got to see some danjuri stopped and I got a bunch of pictures. I loved the people that had their little dogs dressed up in the little kimonos and all the guys who pull this thing just hanging out. One of the other highlights of the day were all the kids. They were climbing all over the danjuri and a few of them were playing the instruments inside. There was this one kid that was playing the Taiko drum (I have a video game version at home), his friends were in with something like a cowbell and another drum. They were just jamming and even though they were all of 7 or 8 years old they were GOOD. I got a bunch of pictures of them and they played for me to make a quick movie I have saved on my camera too.
From there I backtracked to see the danjuri I saw stopped in motion and I got some lunch, which was some onigiri (rice balls) that had pickled plum and some seaweed in them. They weren't that good, but a downed a green tea and got to see the parade. After that I went to the Kishiki Shrine and the Kishiwada castle. Sadly this isn't where the original castle was and the inside is a museum (it was gutted, like Osaka Castle), but it was beautiful to look at and gave you a sense of the layout of the town from the Heian Period (700 AD) until the 1800's. Most of the town was made up of gates and moats, which make walking through the streets way cooler. I'm a nerd and I was psyced I could read enough Japanese to make sense of this stuff. I realized a suit of Samurai armor was made for a 6 year old son of the local lord. I know it's little, but it's a trimph for me.
After the castle I went by this huge pond with beautiful lotus flowers and cute turtles. I ended up back at the parade and found my way to one of the other temple. This is the other example of Japanese kindness. I knew a cart was coming, but then they realized it was stopping at a building I was right next to, so they moved a bunch of people so they could turn. I had my camera out and was kind of near the back of the crowd when this guy waves at me and then helps me up onto this ledge where a bunch of other offical looking photographers are. He and his wife were just up there watching and decided to let me in on their spot. I got some great pictures and when they were finished I realized the man and woman were halfway across the street in the crowd I yelled, "Arigato" as loud as I could and the woman turned around and smiled. They were very nice to help me out like that and I'm so glad atleast she heard me. I said in that spot for alittle longer and got to pet this old man's dog who was also up there with me. He and his wife were also very nice and I had a little chat with them too.
The other HUGE section of this town was made up into little tents for food and kid's games. I have a bunch of pictures on flickr of octopus stands and kid's games for catching goldfish. I got some little cakes shaped like pikachu for later and played a game that got me a black and white pig folder. Awesome. I wanted to stay for the lantern lighting that started at 7pm, but I'd been in this town since 11AM and by 3 or so I'd seen and done everything, so I headed back for the train station. I got an email from Erica right after I started back and she told me they were on their way to Osaka, which is where I had to go anyway to get back. So to kill some time while they got to the city I stayed in Kishiwada caught another temple and got some ice with some melon and strawberry flavoring in it.
Now this is how dumb I am. I was eatting this sno-cone trying to do so my lips didn't up blue or green and I was walking down this street until I hear a loud CRACK of plastic and have a LARGE sharp pain in my forehead. I walked INTO the side mirror of a parked truck, only to have Japanese passers by ask in English, "Oh my God are you okay?!" I laughed it off and explained that I was fine, just dumb (baka, idiot) and they went on their way. It HURT though, I honestly felt it in my teeth and it was sore all day. I swear I get less and less graceful daily. >__<
My mom was right, part of this blog is missing. Crap I have to retype it
As I was trying to figure out how to get to Yodabashi from Namba station when I got back to Osaka. I noticed another white guy standing next to me in a bright orange Texas longhorns t-shirt. I was about to ask him if he needed help, when he looked up from his map and ask, "Please tell me you speak English." I do, so I asked him what he need help with and apparently he was just trying to get to Umeda station, which is one past Yodabashi (the one I was going to to meet Erica and crew). So I helped him get his ticket, explained how the train worked and then offered to ride the train with him since we were both going on the same one anyway. We got to chatting and it turns out it was his first time in Japan and he was here working for the Madonna concert that was being held in Osaka that night and Sunday night. He was really nice and is originally from Texas (hence the shirt) and showed me pictures of some of the other shows they've done (in Denmark, etc.). He also threw in a picture of his dog, which was super cute. As we were talking he said he was very thankful that I stopped and gave him all this help and even went on the same train and he offered to walk me into the Madonna concert! I was totally excited and then he gave me his hotel he was staying at and the room number. Now this freaked me out.
Also my stop came up so I thanked him and said I might and then hopped off the train only to promptly forget the room number and his name. >__< I told the girls (Erica, Nadia and Maria) when I met up with them and they were totally excited and I realized later the whole room number thing was to CALL him, since he's only in the country for a week. So we decided to try and catch up with him since I did remember where he was going (the Ritz Carlton to look at some cars, off Umeda station) so off we went. What frustrated me was that we made this decision to go and so I was all gung-ho about let's do this or not. They stopped a few times to do shopping and when we did get there he was gone and they were bored with the idea. I keep kicking myself for getting flustered and forgetting the room number, but hey it's still a cool story either way.
We met up with Marika (she's Japanese, but new at Kansai) in Namba and eventually found food we could all eat (reminder: Erica is vegan) at a Mexican Restaurant. :3 There we found out our waiter, who since Erica is vegan we had to ask a million questions about the food, was Mexican so Maria spoke Spanish to him, then we realized he spoke fluent English and pretty good Japanese. Nadia, I think in an attempt to impress him or atleast make things easier tried to order her food in Spanish and ended up saying Tacos de mexicanos. To which he replied, "Nope we don't have that." We looked confused, while Maria was laughing her ass off and he explained, "That means tacos made from Mexicans and since I'm the only Mexican here, you can't have a taco made out of me." Nadia will NEVER live this down. We constantly tease her about her horrible Spanish pick-up line of "yeah I'd like a taco, made out of YOU. *growl*" Seriously though, the food was great and he was so nice that place will probably become a regular stop when we're in Osaka.
I got home around 11:30 to find that no one except Soji was home. Everyone else went to the public bath (I thought he said "Public BUS" and so we looked confused at one another for a few minutes) and they got back. Apparently my curfew doesn't really affect them, so atleast I know they trust me and I'm not making them mad by coming home a little later than 7pm. All in all, Saturday was busy, but Sunday was going to be busier since it was Maria's Birthday. More on that later.
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