July 25th-Over
Given the significance of this moment, I decided to write a tiny bit now instead of saving it all for later tonight when I’m in my hotel in Osaka. What is the significance of this moment? That half an hour ago ANA flight 1788 took off from Miyazaki International Airport and I was on it. And now as I type I am on the airplane and we’re on our final approach for landing at Kansai International Airport. Well, I guess it was pretty much of a waste to get out the laptop on the plane so I could type something. By the time I got it out and got it going I had about 5 minutes to write before the flight attendant told me that we were about to land so I had to put it away. And now I’m sitting in the lobby of the Toyoko Inn Shinsaibashi Nishi in Osaka. It’s 2:40pm. The reason I’m here instead of in my room is because check-in time is 4pm and although I’ve already checked in, I can’t go upstairs until 4pm, so here I am. I don’t think it’s quite hit me yet that I’m not in Miyazaki anymore. I went out a little while ago to a convenience store so I could get some food (a bento and barley tea) and when I was walking around I was thinking, “Yep…I’m definitely in Osaka,” but the fact that I’m NOT in Miyazaki anymore hasn’t really gotten to me yet. But when it does get to me maybe I won’t even notice it. Maybe it will just be a smooth transition. I think what will take the longest time to grasp is that my exchange experience (of this year) is actually over….like….really over. I’m not sure how I feel about that exactly. As I’ve said before I had mixed feelings about leaving Miyazaki and about my exchange being over.
When I arrived at the airport this morning with Kouki and my host mother, Ippei and Satoshi were there waiting for me. I expected them to be there because when I went to give them the final farewell yesterday, they told me they would come to the airport to see me off. The person that I DIDN’T expect to be there was Chie (she brought a friend too)! I was particularly surprised because I had told her that she shouldn’t come to see me off because it would be easier that way. I think it was a good thing that Ippei and Satoshi were there because we were just joking around like nothing special was happening…like I wasn’t leaving in a matter of minutes, and if it had just been Chie and I, it could have gotten serious or depressing or mushy and that wouldn’t have been fun. On Tuesday I had said my final goodbyes to Chie and I was satisfied with that and hadn’t expected to see her again until I came back to Miyazaki or until she came to America (she still might come this winter). I was sad when I was waiting for her at the train station when we were to meet on Tuesday. I was thinking about how this was the last time we were going to meet in a long time and I was thinking about all the fun times and great things we’d done together. But I think I’m fine now. I’m just happy that I was able to meet her and become her friend like we are now. We’ve told each other that we want to be life friends and I believe that she’s sincere about that because Japanese people are big on the life friends thing. I want to stay friends with Ippei and Satoshi too because they are just way too funny and great guys to part with forever. Sometimes they make me laugh so hard that my face hurts from smiling. That’s good though hehehe. Yesterday I met them at Miyazaki station at 6:15 to say goodbye to them. After buying me some souvenir cookies (the money for it was a gift from the boat team) we went into KFC just to talk and eat fried chicken sticks. Of course both of them took out their cell phones to check mail, enter my home address, and take pictures of us all. Satoshi’s phone doesn’t have a camera (it’s old and beaten up). He held up the phone in front of me and made the sound of a clicking shutter with his mouth. Then he turned the phone around to show me the screen and there was a picture of Ayumi Hamasaki on the screen. He did this several times, sometimes telling me to hold my hand in a certain position or look a certain way and then when he showed me the picture my position matched that of some celebrity or sports player in the pictures that were already in his phone. I think the funniest one was of some shirtless ridiculously muscular animation character with the head of an insect and huge red eyes. It was quite hilarious and I can still laugh about it now. There’s no way I could possibly remember all their antics or ways in which they made fun of each other.
I was also glad that 4 people from Miyasho came to see me off because that excused me from just sitting there listening to my host mother tell me over and over about various times in my life when I will be reminded of Miyazaki, and living at her house. Well, she was nice and she did solve many many many problems and acted as a negotiated and mediator between Saeki and me, and my host father and me. My host father’s Japanese is so hard to understand sometimes. Why? Basically because he speaks very old Japanese spoken in only the rural areas of Miyazaki…how ‘bout that. I think I’ll take a moment to talk about the dialects in Japan. First of all, I really like how the Japanese changes (to varying degrees) depending on where you go. Yes, there is “standard” Japanese and everyone can understand it (except for the old fisherman in Okinawa and the people in ice huts in Hokkaido probably) but everywhere you go people speak differently. And it’s not like in the US where a Boston accent is different from a New York accent and some people say “pop” instead of “soda” or “sucker” instead of “lolly-pop”…the words and grammar are actually completely different. Let me give you an example. The other night I called Hiromi’s friend Sayoko in Osaka to ask her something about Hiromi. At one point I talked about something that Hiromi did that really wasn’t funny at all.
I said: 本当に面白くないだよ (honto ni
omoshirokunai da yo)
She said:ほんまに面白くないやで。(honma ni
omoshirokunai ya ne)
My host father would say: ヘとんしれん。(heton
shiren)
As you can see there clearly are differences between the three dialects
(mine being the most widely accepted and standard). I like Osaka dialect though; I think it sounds the coolest and I
want to learn as much of it as I can (even though it will never appear on any
test in college). Miyazaki dialect
sounds a little weird and can get annoying sometimes if you hear it all the
time. Another interesting thing is that
high school kids speak different Japanese from their parents. And it’s not like in America where high
school kids might say “Word!” or
“Phat!” or something like that and their parents probably wouldn’t say
those things. Again, in Japan it’s a
matter of words but also grammar.
Another thing that annoys me and is frustrating is the fact that
Japanese that you learn in a text book is preposterously different from that of
Japanese you actually hear spoken in regular speech. Now, this example is a little unfair because this is Miyazaki
Japanese (not Tokyo Japanese which is closer to textbook Japanese).
Both of these questions mean, “What are you doing?”
Textbook Japanese: Nani o shiteimasu ka? 何をしていますか？
Japanese I hear at my high school: Nan shichotto? 何しちょっと？
Now it’s a little hard for you to appreciate the difference here because
you probably don’t have the accept right when you read what I’ve written up
there, but if you ask me again when I get home I can demonstrate. Well, I guess it’s all about getting to
understand the culture here and realizing that the Japan (or any other country
for that matter) that you may learn about in school or from books is very
different from the Japan (or any other country for that matter) that you’ll
experience if you actually go. I like
trying to speak the local dialects though (not as bad as my host father, but
I’ll settle for the high school Japanese) and I need to get into Osaka dialect
mode now that I’m in Osaka. Speaking of
being in Osaka, I’m trying to decide whether or not I should go to the airport
to meet Hiromi. I want to go, but I’d
have to go alone. The biggest concern
of mine is that since she doesn’t expect me to be there, that I’ll miss her and
she’ll leave the airport without ever seeing me. The airport is about 5 times larger than I imagined it would be. If I did meet up with her it’d be nice and
I’ll bet she’d be pretty surprised hehehe.
I called Sayoko to see if she’d come with me to go get Hiromi but she
was at work and didn’t know what time she’d be finished. She said that if I meet up with Hiromi
though that we should give her a call so we could all go out to dinner or
something together. I don’t have
anything else to do tonight so I might as well go. Apparently there’s some big festival going on, but I’d rather go
have dinner with Hiromi and Sayoko (my two people from Osaka) than go to a
festival by myself (not too much fun).
I’d like to go up to my room so I can take a shower and change my
clothes and get ready to go (her flight is supposed to land at 6:52pm and it
will take a little less than an hour and a half to get to the airport from the
hotel here) because it’s already 3:45pm.
I’m going to see if they’ll let me go upstairs even though I’m supposed
to wait another 15 minutes.
Well, I did make it
upstairs, I took a much needed shower (after having traipsed around 1/3 of
Osaka looking for my hotel). It wasn’t
the location of the hotel from where I thought it would be that was the
problem. What the problem was was
finding a train station when I transferred.
Let me explain. I think it’s
worth taking the time to explain because it’s really quite remarkably stupid
(if you ask me). So once I got to Nanba
station (after getting the train from Kansai International Airport) I was
supposed to transfer to the Yotsubashi line and take it for one stop until I
got to Yotsubashi station and then walk a minute to my hotel. When I got to Nanba I followed the signs to
Yotsubashi station. I was led through
tunnels, long passageways, up stairs, down stairs, and eventually I found
myself going up…up…and up until I was standing outside on a street corner with
absolutely no sign of a train station.
I walked around for a little bit to see if I couldn’t find it in the
area, but there was nothing there. I’d
walked a couple of blocks when I found an entrance to a train station. I went down the stairs and after a few
moments I realized I was in the exact same place as where I had started
from! Instead of going through the maze
again, I went back up the stairs I’d just come down, retraced my steps above
ground and asked someone for directions.
I got them and after a few minutes I found the station and hopped the
next train out of Nanba. Once I’d taken
my shower I decided that it’d be nice if I went to meet Hiromi at the
airport. I didn’t have anything else to
do and I thought that she’d get a kick out of it—especially because I said that
I wouldn’t come meet her and she wasn’t expecting me.
I didn’t mind going back
to the airport either (my favorite airport in the world). As you all should know by now, landing at
Kansai International Airport（関西国際空港）was one of
my life dreams since I saw a TV program about it on the discovery channel
about…err…a while ago…not really sure when…4 or 5 years ago maybe. When I got there the first time I discovered
that it was about 5 times larger than I imagined it would be. I don’t know how they really could have made
it smaller though—it does accommodate 747 jumbo jets and the like so the
runways have to be long enough. They
have full-sized roads and train stations and the terminal is big too. They even have a shopping center and a big
hotel all on the man-made island (the airport is a man-made island). I wanted to take some pictures of the place
but there really weren’t any decent vantage points from which I could stand and
take a decent picture. So instead I
just took some video as I was approaching and leaving the island by train
(which goes over a bridge). When I got
there the second time I was about a half hour early so I sat around, used the
bathroom a few times, bought some ice cream with chunks of things and
strawberry mushy stuff in it, got some gum, and looks at the people. At one point, a plane from Hong Kong landed
and a whole mess of Chinese people came out and were standing in big groups
right outside the exit. A guy from the
group came up to me and asked me in Chinese (I can only assume him this is what
he asked because my answer satisfied him) “Where did you buy that ice cream?”
He pointed at what I was mixing around with my spoon and then pointed around in
random directions as if he didn’t know which way was the right now. So I pointed off in the direction of the
TCBY I had gotten it from and he walked off that way. Finally Hiromi’s plane landed (about 20 minutes ahead of
schedule) and 20 minutes later she came out of the exit with her suitcase and
her friend (the one she went to Australia with). She was surprised to see me there, but she wasn’t nearly as
excited and happy about it as I thought she would be. She was tired (understandably) and probably wasn’t feeling very
attractive in her airplane clothing, ignored hair, and no make-up. I have learned since that she had a really
good time in Australia and when she left, she didn’t want to come home. So when she got to the airport and I was
there, she was confused and still sad to have left Australia, so it was hard
for her to be really ecstatic about seeing me like I hoped she would be. After that her friend’s mom came to pick up
her friend, and Hiromi and I got on the train.
We talked a lot on the train about Australia, Miyazaki, and
whatnot. She said that my Japanese got
a lot better. When I asked her in what
way it did. She said that now when we
talk, my answers to what she says come much more quickly and naturally than
they did before. So I think that’s a
good thing. She’s been having me speak
English though because she says she wants me to speak to her in English. Of course she still speaks to me in Japanese
because speaking English takes too much effort and I understand her
Japanese. Well, anyway, even though she
wasn’t as excited to see me as I thought she would be, I think it was still
good that I came to meet her. She was
tired and I took her suitcase for her all the way until her train home. At that point I was pretty hungry so instead
of going back to Yotsubashi near my hotel (which is pretty quiet and doesn’t
have much at all in the way of food) I took the train to Shinsaibashi and
walked to the Dotombori Arcade. The
Dotombori Arcade and surrounding area is probably about 40 square dazzling
blocks of neon light packed with bars, restaurants, hostess bars, noodle
stands, karaoke boxes, and shops all kinds so close together that it’s often
hard to tell when one starts and the next begins. It was a Friday night so the streets were mobbed with people. What was more was the fact that a festival
was going on at the time! In the river
that runs along the arcade were several boats filled with a few dozen men in
festival garbs beating drums and pulling at the oars. It’s actually faster to walk through the area than take a car
because the streets are narrow and taxis often get stuck behind people walking
freely through the streets. Despite my
overwhelming number of options, it took me a while to make a suitable
choice. I ended up going into a pretty
ordinary restaurant and ordered a platter with a cheeseburger (no bun…this is
Japan) a couple croquettes, broccoli, carrots, white rice, potatoes, and a
coke. It ended up being too much and my
stomach hurt for a couple hours afterwards.
While I was chewing my cud, two young women (who both ended up being 26)
came in and were seated at the table next to mine. They had on yukata (obviously ready for the festival) and ordered
dessert. As I ate I was listening in on
their conversation. One of the women
used a lot of Osaka dialect. But to my
surprise, I heard a lot of Miyazaki dialect coming from the other young
woman! She kept ending sentences in
“…cha ga” and “…yajii” and used the verb “oru” instead of “iru.”
These were all things that I had been told were Miyazaki dialect. I couldn’t let her leave without seeing if
my theory was true or not. When their
was a break in their conversation, I excused myself and asked the one young
woman if she was from Miyazaki. She
promised she was from Osaka. When I
pointed out that I had been noticing her using a lot of words characteristic of
Miyazaki and probably southern Kyushu, she told me that although she’s from
Osaka, her mother is from Kumamoto. As
we all know, Kumamoto is a close neighbor of Miyazaki (a few hours by car). So I told her that I figured that she must
have learned that way of speaking from her mother. The two of them were very nice and we talked about a bunch of
different stuff for a while until they were finished eating and left. After I was done, I walked slowly (my
stomach hurt) along the crowded streets soaking in the atmosphere (and QUITE an
atmosphere it is). I wasn’t really
going anywhere in particular, just going for a walk. I lost my way and found it several times before I got tired and
decided to go home. I was going to get
on the train, but then I realized that I was within walking distance of my
hotel. After some wrong turns I found
my way back. When I got up to my room,
I watched some bad TV for a little while and went to sleep. Speaking of sleep, that’s probably an
activity that I would benefit from if I partook in it now. But first I have to talk a shower! So I think I’m going to go take care of all
of that before it gets later. I’m
supposed to meet Hiromi for lunch tomorrow before she goes to watch her older
sister at some musical recital. At
night I’m supposed to go have dinner with Sayoko and company so that should be
cool. I’m sure I’ll enjoy it as long as
they don’t forget about me and just engage in their own conversation without
trying to involve me. That tends to
happen a lot when I’m with a bunch of Japanese people. Well, I’d like to explain the dynamics of
conversation with people who you don’t share a common first language
with….but….I think I smell and the shower and this bed are calling, so I think
you’ll just have to wait until tomorrow for that scintillating
dissertation. Good night.
I think some dreams are
better when you realize them more than once!
That would be right now. I’m
riding on the Nozomi Shinkansen (fastest bullet train in Japan) out of Shin-Osaka
station headed for Tokyo. This is the
same route that I rode the Shinkansen on back in March when I took it from
Tokyo to Kyoto (we are just pulling into Kyoto station now). I also think that journal entries are more
fun when I write them while traveling at blinding speed. Maybe this is the fastest journal entry I’ve
ever written! Well, not because I wrote
it quickly and posted it diligently like a good boy, but because I wrote the
first bit on an airplane going who knows how many hundreds of miles an hour and
now I’m writing this part on a bullet train also going who knows how many
hundreds of miles an hour. Maybe that’s
one of the things that I like about this country—the speed. Everything is fast here from the phones to
the trains to the language. The only
thing not fast here is the food. At
Macdonald’s, even at a peak time, you could have to wait 10 minutes at your
table for your burger (unless it’s a standard boring one). But for the most part, this country always
keeps you on your toes—not because things are unexpected and spontaneous here,
but because if you’re not paying attention, you’re going to miss what’s
coming. I love the trains here. JR—Japan Railways is the largest rail
provider. It’s split up into three
divisions: Northern, Central, and
West. There are quite a few smaller
private lines, but JR is by far the most ubiquitous. By a JR train to can go almost anywhere in the entire country
from Shinjuku (in Tokyo…the business rail hub on the planet) to a tiny farming
community with a train station so small that it doesn’t even have a ticket
window without ever setting food outside the train or train station before you
get there. JR runs I don’t even know
how many trains a day throughout the country.
Combined I’m sure that their trains make thousands and thousands of
stops a day. And every single one of
those stops is absolutely perfectly timed.
You could literally set your watch by a JR train. On the big clock at the platform, as the
minute changes to the minute of the train’s arrival, the train is pulling into
the station. Next to the track are
small signs listing the car numbers so you can find your reserved seat. When the train pulls into the station and
stops, the door of the car matches up perfectly—not even inches away—from where
it’s indicated to be. All the
conductors and personnel are very professional, stunningly polite (like
everyone in this country), wear spotless pressed uniforms and white gloves. At any hour of the day as a big train leaves
a station (like a bullet train) the platform conductor looks up and down the
platform, waves a flag, and sharply points down the track in the direction the
train is going as if saluting it. When
the conductors come through the cars to check your ticket, they say, “Excuse
me, I’m going to be rude,” to every passenger as you give them your ticket, and
when they leave the car, they turn and bow to the passengers. Riding on a JR train is truly a pleasure and
this fast country would grind to a halt without their trains.
I guess it’s unfortunate that I haven’t
written a journal entry in a while because I have been doing things. Even though it may seem this way, I have
been up to things and trying to keep busy.
Let’s see…where did I leave off.
I should tell what happened on Saturday because that was the next
day. Well, Saturday was my first full
day in Osaka this time around. We had
arranged to meet at noon at the exit of the subway station right near my
hotel. I got there a little before
noon, walked across the street to by some juice at a convenience store, and
then sat and waited. I ended up waiting
about 40 minutes before I got impatient and annoyed enough to start making
phone calls. It’s not unlike Hiromi to
be 5 or 10 minutes late—that I don’t mind, but 40 is really really really
pushing it. I didn’t have Hiromi’s
phone number with me and I worried that if I went back to my hotel room to get
it, she might arrive and not know where I was.
So instead I called Sayoko (whose number I did have) from a payphone
across the street and asked her for Hiromi’s number, which I got. I called Hiromi and she said something that
I didn’t quite understand except that something didn’t feel good and she wanted
to meet me at 4 instead. At that point
I remembered back to about 9am when the phone rang in my room and the front
desk lady was yakking at me for about 2 minutes about I wasn’t quite sure
what. One part of the conversation was
about when I would like to have my room cleaned. I finally satisfied her by telling her that I really didn’t need
it to be cleaned and that it would be fine if she just had new towels hung on
the doorknob outside. The other part of
the conversation turned out to be the more important one. That was a message from Hiromi saying that
she would meet me at 4pm instead of at noon!
At any rate, after I got off the phone with Hiromi I realized I had 3
hours to kill. I looked down the street
and saw a very very odd and ugly building.
Wondering what it was, I walked down the street to check it out. I thought it might be the Osaka Dome. Not being familiar with Osaka too well (I
just follow Hiromi or whoever I’m with around without really bothering to
realize where I am) I didn’t know that the Osaka Dome is nowhere near where I
was. On the way I stopped into a place
advertising curry rice. Not feeling
that I had reached my quota for curry rice intake on this trip (I still
haven’t…I’ll see if I can arrange curry rice tonight…) I went in. The interior turned out to be a very
mom-and-pop type establishment. There
was a long wooden table and big wooden chairs.
There was even wallpaper and pictures on the walls. Along the middle of the table were flowers
and plants so you didn’t have to look directly at the person sitting across
from you. The only menus were those
hanging on the walls like posters. The
only waitress was an elderly woman with a checked apron on. There were about 8 or so other people in
there sitting around the table either eating, playing with their cell phones,
or reading comic books (quite a few of which were provided there for customer
use). I ordered pork cutlet curry. The portion was smaller than was I’m used to
getting and it was more expensive than a bowl of curry rice should be, but I
enjoyed the atmosphere as being different.
CoCo Ichiban Curry remains my all-time favorite restaurant chain on the
planet (Mos Burger comes in second or third with Outback Steakhouse around
there too). I’ll have to eat at CoCo
Ichiban in Shinjuku tonight.
When I got to the strange building, I could
see it was clearly too small to be the Osaka Dome. I guess I would describe it as being somewhere mushroom
shaped. It had flat angular sides and
the base was round (I guess about 100ft in diameter). The top, mushroom part, was probably 50 or 60 feet wider than the
base. I walked up the large sets of
stairs around the outside until I got as far up it as I could get. There was a set of doors at the top but a
big “closed” sign was hung on the door.
Not sure what else to do, I took a couple of pictures of the city as I
could see it from up there. After that
I walked around Amerika Mura (America Village) for a little while. All the America Village is a few blocks of
used and vintage clothing stores, little restaurants, and some punk
nightclubs. The most exciting part of
my time there was when I bought a choco-banana crepe—a crepe with banana
slices, some light chocolate sauce (or sprinkles in some cases) and whipped
cream in a soft, light crepe…it’s heaven.
After that I realized that I didn’t really have anywhere to go, so I
went back to my hotel and played on the Internet for a while before I went back
out to meet Hiromi. She was only 10
minutes late this time, but I had anticipated this in my timing so I didn’t have
to wait so long. After we met we got ride
back on the subway and headed to Osaka station. She explained that her body had hurt (and had hurt the previous
night too) so she thought it would be better to just rest some more before
going out. I guess she was just tired
from traveling and not getting enough rest, so it was ok. When we got to Osaka station we got on the
train headed to Kobe. We had been
planning for about a month to go to Kobe on the 26th to see the
fireworks. The train was pretty crowded
and with each stop on the 30-minute ride the train got a little bit more
crowded with people going to Kobe to see the fireworks. A lot of the young women had on yukata
(summer kimono) and carried fans. It’s
traditional in Japan to wear a yukata (and jinbei for the guys) in the summer
where one goes to see fireworks. I’m
not sure exactly why—that’s just the way it is. It looks nice, is colorful and makes the festival-like atmosphere
more enjoyable. Hiromi hadn’t worn hers
because she said it’s too hot, and I didn’t wear my jinbei because it’s in my
other suitcase that I’m having sent directly from Miyazaki to Narita
Airport. When we got off the train we
headed over to the Chinatown in Kobe.
There’s a Chinatown in Kobe and another one in Yokohama. There were a lot of people there on the streets
walking up and down the blocks that make up Kobe’s Chinatown. Many of the stores had taking their wares
outside and opened up stalls and stands right on the street. There were a lot of food stands too. There were even real Chinese people
there! Hiromi said that their Japanese
sounded strange though. One Chinese man
called out to me in English inviting me to eat whatever he was selling. At that point I told her that their English
sounds strange too. But I give them
credit because I don’t speak any Chinese!
Chinese is next or third on my list.
I figure if I could speak Japanese, Mandarin-Chinese, and Korean (as
well as English of course) that would be pretty good and would give me a lot of
options. I’ll see what I can do! Anyway, Hiromi suggested, given the variety
of cheap foods for sale on the street that we, “ピービーって食べよう！”which is
like eating this and that or here and there.
So that’s what we did. Hiromi
called her friend (the same friend who went to Australia with her) and about 20
minutes later her friend showed up and had brought her boyfriend (they’ve been
a couple for about 2 months). Hiromi’s
friend, whose name has escaped me yet again, is really nice and she had a
really good English accent (she’s been to Australia a lot and America as well
as had an American boyfriend who didn’t speak any Japanese). Hiromi’s English doesn’t improve by spending
time with me because she speaks almost entirely in Japanese to me. She prefers that I speak to her in English
though. It’s ok to do it that way
because we can both express what we’re thinking most clearly by using our
native language, but we understand enough of each other’s languages for
comprehension to not be an issue or problem.
I can easily understand far more complicated Japanese than I am able to
speak on my own or construct in original sentences. I’m not sure why this is, but it’s very true. Anyway, we arrived about 2 hours early at
the grounds right on the bay where the fireworks were to be done. So, after we found a spot on the grass
(there were massive amounts of people so finding a spot and holding it was a
necessity) we sat, talked, ate foods like sausages and flavored ice shavings,
and drank things like soda and cold green tea and juice. There was a really nice sunset and the sky
and clouds were really beautiful. On
the sound system throughout the park they even had my favorite Enya songs
playing, so that made it even more atmospheric. Finally around 8:15 they announced the start of the
fireworks. After the fireworks started
I realized why this event was called a 花火大会 (hanabi
taikai) [fireworks meet]. From what I
observed, it seemed that different groups or organizations had been hired to
arrange and set off fireworks displays.
Each display was about 10 minutes long and there was a 5-minute break or
so in between until the next one started.
The displays varied in style and how elaborate and flashy (no pun
intended) they were. After the fireworks
ended (after about an hour) we just sat on the grass field while the mobs of people
cleared off a bit. I believe it was in
Kobe that two years ago 13 or so people were killed inside an enclosed overpass
during a fireworks display. It could
have been after the fireworks ended when everyone was trying to leave that a
stampede or so started, some people tripped and were trampled. 11 of those who died were young
children. Anyway, nothing like that
happened this time. After we got back
to the station Hiromi’s friend and the boyfriend went home. Hiromi and I got a JR train back to Tennoji
where Hiromi got on another train back to her town and I got on the subway to
go back to Yotsubashi.
On Sunday I
met Hiromi at noon (she was on time this time) and we went to get lunch
together. She couldn’t spend all day
with me because at 3pm she had to get home so she could go watch her sister’s
recital. Her sister is 24 and got
married this last spring. Interestingly
enough, her sister married her high school PE teacher (he’s 29 now). I’m sure that doesn’t sound a bit sketchy
ONLY to me… I asked Hiromi if anything
funky was going on back then, and Hiromi assured me that there wasn’t anything
like that. They were together for 5
years and then got married, so I guess there’s nothing wrong with that. Anyway, her husband is still a PE teacher,
and Hiromi’s sister teaches piano/music classes at a junior high school three
days a week. The other days she plays
the piano is places like restaurants and bars.
Anyhoo, Hiromi and I went to the same place that I met her and Hisae on
the afternoon of March 31st (my first day in Osaka when I got to
Japan this year). The place is a café
right across the street from a small park.
The café, although inside (as in there are no tables on the street), is
completely open to the outside. What
the heck am I talking about, you ask?
Like…the walls on the two sides of the building that are on the street
sides (it’s on a corner) are not walls.
They are just open space. So,
you get a very outdoorsy feel. Since it
was a nice day this time and it was a nice day last time, it makes for a very
pleasant dining experience. Hiromi and
I usually eat very long meals and this one was no exception. I guess we just like relaxing, taking our
time to eat and talk, and just enjoy the atmosphere. That’s why all the places we eat at are very comfortable and
atmospheric so it’s not only about the food, but about just being there. I also have made it a rule to give as little
input as possible to Hiromi when we decide where to go to eat. Almost every time we have gone somewhere to
eat, she has found a really enjoyable place with good food and great
atmosphere, so I just leave it up to her judgement. I also figure that she’s the Osaka person (a native), she knows
MUCH more about where the good places are.
After eating for a while and talking for much longer, she had to get the
train home so she could leave with her family to go to the recital. After that I went back to my hotel and just
relaxed, changed my clothes, took a shower, and got ready to go out again. At 5:30 I left my hotel to go meet Sayoko
(Hiromi’s best friend who I haven’t seen since last August) in Umeda (northern
business section of Osaka) for dinner.
A very simple trip turned out to be quite an exhausting struggle. My first mistake was trying to take the
subway to another station to transfer to another line instead of simply walking
a long way to the desirable line. This
would have been ok had I not gotten on the train going the wrong direction and
going two stops before I realized something wasn’t right. So I got off the train and tried to go the
other way. I thought I could get
directly on the line I wanted in the first place so I walked around the station
for about 10 minutes before I found it.
At last after asking the guy in the ticket booth, I found the right
track. I couldn’t find the right track
because it it was another case of having signs directing you to something
that’s not really where the signs say it is, but in an entirely different place
all together. I finally got on the
right train. The entire time I wasn’t
even sure if I was making the effort to get to the right station. I couldn’t remember whether I was supposed
to meet Sayoko in Umeda or West Umeda.
I tried to call Sayoko to ask her but she didn’t answer her phone. I also tried to call Hiromi because Hiromi
had set this up with Sayoko but Hiromi didn’t answer her phone either. Once I got to the station, I was only 5
minutes late but Sayoko wasn’t there. I
went to call her from a payphone and 10 minutes she made it to where I was waiting
for her.
After all
those complications, the way the evening evolved and turned out was pretty
different from how I envisioned it.
First of all she brought a friend with her—a 28-year-old guy who was
nice, but very quiet and shy. They both
assured me that they weren’t a couple, but found out from Hiromi yesterday that
they used to be going out. Second, we
ended up going to a yakiniku place.
Now, I love yakiniku because it’s so wonderfully tasty and it’s fun
too. Yakiniku is Korean in origin I believe. On every table are little grills fueled by
gas under wooden coals. You order
plates of meat of varying varieties, vegetables, and rice and then grilled it
yourself on the table. The only thing
wrong with this is because I had imaged a quiet, relaxed meal in a quiet corner
of a nice restaurant with Sayoko.
Instead it was kind of noisy in there and there was raw meat bubbling in
between us with her friend sitting there quietly on the side sipping his beer
and depositing cooked slices of meat in my sauce dish while Sayoko and I
chatted it up. She was just as cool and
fun as I remembered her. Her hair was
longer and I think she might have gotten a little bit shorter, but other than
that she was the same. She said that
she thought I really grew up since last summer and that I got really handsome
and good-looking and my Japanese got better too. I think I look pretty much the same, but this time I was making
the effort to look snazzy for her. Ok,
I have more to say, but we’re going to be arriving in Tokyo station in about 10
minutes so I should get my stuff together.
I’ll be back later tonight hopefully to finish this journal entry up or
to do my best to make progress on it. I
hope the hotel lets me check in and go up to my room right away so I don’t have
to wait for hours in the lobby. We’ll
see. Talk to you later!
On Sunday
night I stayed up really late and ended up talking to my dorky sister for a
really long time. I wonder if my sister
has that much to say about everything.
If she does, we’re all in a lot of trouble. Why did I say up so late though?
Basically the reason was that I didn’t have to get up for any particular
reason. On Monday, Hiromi had to go to
work because she hadn’t been to work in three weeks since she was in Australia. It’s just a part time job and she says that
she essentially can work whenever she wants to, but I guess she felt she should
go to work since she hadn’t in such a long time. She said she could get to my hotel by 4:30pm, so I just ended up
sleeping until about 3pm. I thought
about the fact that maybe I should be doing something Japanese or something
like other than sleeping. But after I
thought about it, I realized there really wasn’t much that I was interested in
seeing. I’ve talked to Hiromi about it
and she said that we’ve pretty much seen all the interesting or cool places in
Osaka. I find this hard to
believe. It is a pretty big city and I’ve
only spent a total of about a week and a half here. But then again, the guidebook does say that there aren’t too many
touristy things here. There are a lot
of restaurants and entertainment venues, but other than that it’s not really
geared towards tourists. Then I thought
about the reason that I was in Osaka in the first place. And the reason I was there was to visit with
Hiromi. If I didn’t have people to see
and hang out with in these places, I probably wouldn’t have stayed so long or
perhaps wouldn’t have come at all. It’s
just not that much fun traveling around alone.
If I were with an American friend I probably would have made a greater
effort to find tourist things to do.
But then again, if I had a friend with me, the tourist things would be
much more fun. So, I just slept in and
waited for Hiromi to be done with work.
When she showed up at my hotel (on time), what did we do? We did something that’s very Hiromi-and-me:
we went to eat dessert! I hadn’t even
had any breakfast, but we went to get dessert at a little café on the same
block as my hotel is on. Naturally, she
knew the café and it was one of her favorites for dessert. I had some kind of chocolate cake and
pineapple juice and she had some kind of cheesecake and Perrier. Of course we sat in there for a while and
just talked and sipped our ice water.
When we were done with that we really weren’t sure what to do. We thought of going to see a movie, but the show
times were no good. I think the choice
was between “Charlie’s Angels 2” and some famous Japanese detective movie that
I would have gotten almost no benefit out of.
So, since there was nothing better to do and it was almost time for
dinner, we went to eat again! I stuck
with the little rule I made and I let Hiromi pick the restaurant. This time she pulled through again! Not only did she find a really nice place
with good food and good atmosphere, but she found it within a 10 minute walk of
where we were! What can I say? The girl’s good. The place we ate at was a Chinese restaurant. But it wasn’t the kind Chinese restaurant
that your imagining with photographs of the food above the cash register and
guys in the back sweating over flaming woks while yelling at each other in Mandarin. This place was quite modern and seemed kind
of trendy given the young clientele and well-dressed wait-staff. Instead of bothering to read through the
extensive menu, we ordered the Summer Course.
I pointed out that at one of the restaurants we ate at in April (a place
called Pan Am that we both agree has been our favorite) we had the Spring
Course and enjoyed it quite thoroughly.
So after deciding to order the Summer Course, we decided to eat a Fall
Course and Winter Course at some restaurants in New York. We ended up getting seven dishes and all of
them were quite good. A lot of them
were a little spicy, but they alternated the dishes with more mild ones to give
the palette a rest. We ended up eating
and sitting and talking for about 3 hours.
The atmosphere (as usual) was very pleasant. There was a candle on the table and we were seated in the outdoor
portion of the restaurant (the inside part is all reserved after 9pm). Outside it was like we were on a little deck
with about 10 or so other tables and a small bar. On one side of us was the river through Shinsaibashi with a
little band on the opposite bank, and the lights from the mushroom-shaped
building I had visited a couple of days before. All-in-all it was a very nice evening. When Hiromi and I parted, I pointed out to her that it would be
less time than I had spent in Miyazaki before it would be the next time that we
would see each other in New York (she’s got to be there by September 27th
I believe). The next morning I awakened
at 9:30am and rushed to prepare my bag and myself for the move to Tokyo: my
last stop before America.
As I write
this last bit I am in Tokyo. It’s early
morning on the 31st of July.
Technically, my last full day in Japan has already begun. Tomorrow I’m supposed to go to Roppongi (an
area of Tokyo I’ve never been to) with Kozue.
I want to go to a place called Roppongi Hills. It’s a huge shopping center and apartment complex in a really big
tower and supporting buildings that just opened this past May. I saw all kinds of hype about it on TV while
I was in Miyazaki and I’m interested in going at least to see what it’s
like. Kozue is convinced that it will
be boring (she just went a couple of days ago). So I told her that we can rethink the plan and decide something
else to do if it gets too boring. She didn’t
like my idea of going to Tokyo Disneyland because her friends work there and
she’s going there with her friends next week or something. So I guess you will just have to wait for
the final journal entry to find out what I did on my last day in Tokyo and,
well, what I did on my other days in Tokyo too. I certainly have things that I need to write about regarding the
day and a half that I’ve already spent in Tokyo. I think that will have to wait for my final journal entry though
when I put it together. I haven’t
posted a journal entry in a very long time and I still have to finish the one
that you read before this one before I can post it. Even though I will finish this one first, it seems very strange
to read journal entries out of order.
If you do that, it will take away some of your ability to understand the
successive entries if you don’t know what came before each one. Perhaps I can write my final entry as I wait
in the airport on Friday afternoon or on the plane and then post it when I get
home. But, for the time being I really
should sleep. Tomorrow night I will try
and finish the journal entry before this one and then I will take the two
entries and the 19 pictures I’ve got for you to the really nice Internet café I
went to tonight and post them. I can’t
get on the Internet from my hotel here so that makes things a little bit more
complicated I guess. Yeah, like I said,
I’m going to sleep. Good night. Look forward to the final journal entry and
perhaps a last set of pictures after this one.
-Maikeru