Nippon Onegaishimasu!

This weird world..

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:02:39 GMT

Rah, sorry, I havent been updating, Phils internet broke...well actualy he forgot to pay a bill or something.

Anyway, I've decided to be rubbish and not bother updating with all the tourist stuff just yet since there are pictures and I can tell you that stuff anytime.

Instead I am going to enlighten you a little on some of the stuff that makes this country entirely bizzare.

Actualy, I have no idea where to begin, there realy is quite a lot of bizzare stuff........

At the moment I am living in YuriHonjo, an area in Northern Japan that is somewhat...rural and therefore very Japan.
A typical journey to the shops here for me involves....

Removing house shoes and changing into going out shoes,
Navigating the bowing postman on the doorstep,
Falling over one of the granny bikes EVERYONE seems to ride, even the school kids. Even in Tokyo mountain bikes seemed to be unheard of. Apparently the boys make their bikes look 'cooler' by turning the handlebars upsidedown so the breakhandles are pointing up. I dunno, it doesnt look cooler. Its a granny bike.
So next I walk down the narrow streets past all the very Japanese Ryokan style houses. The Japanese dont go in for pavements and instead of underground drainage for rainwater they have these rectangular concrete ditches at the sides of the roads with shallow rivers running through them. All v tinkly and peacefull but also very easy to fall into, hence the term 'gaijin trap' that the local Jets have given them.
So next I try to avoid the appaling Japanese driving in the tiny white boxes they all buzz around in and make my way to the Convini.
This is after passing 3 million of the 6 trillion vending machines in Japan, they mostly vend hot and cold drinks, cigarettes and Alchoholl, none, as far as I've made out, Vend food, a trick the Japanese seemed to have missed out on.
Inside le supermarchet I am staired at, wide mouthed, by small children and, no less subtley, by old ladies. Being one of about 5 gaijins in Northern Japan means this happens lots.
Here I can buy pretty much anything other than Kitchen Roll and Skimmed Milk. Fruit and Veg cost a fortune. Its not uncommon to see old ladies with realy bad rickets and sometimes younger people too.
Now comes what i find is one of the most bizzare things about this country.  Casheer babbling. If I could understand what they were saying it woud go something like this.
''Good morning, ah here is your shopping, this is very nice and costs this much, this costs this much, this costs this much, this is a good choice and costs this much and this muchandthismuch, alltogether it costs this much, ah you have given me 5000 yen, however your shopping only costs onethousand, i am going to give you fourthousand change, here is the fourthousand, one, two, three, four!   fourthousand! Here it is! and heres your shopping, all one thousand yens of it, have a nice day and thank you very much, good bye!!!''
Followed by the obligatory bow.
This realy confused me the first time. I didnt know what to say! But you dont, you just politely ignore them and hope nothing ends in a 'des ca?'
Then I return back to the apartment to watch Naruto at least 2 hours before any other Narutards get to. This makes me feel smug for a bit, at least untill I can go to the Onsen and tower over everyone.

But more on that next time

xx

Tokyo 01

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 23:45:33 GMT

So we arive at Tokyo Eki at 6am after a night sitting with my eyes closed on a night bus. Tokyo is big. Both width, length and height, very big.  Even that early in the morning there were masked salarymen running around and school children grabbing leaflets from collage advertisers.

The station made no senes and most sign posts in Japan are incredibly missleading, this was my first Gaijin Trap experience. The way to counteract the Gaijin Trap is to Gaijin Smash, mostly, pretend you know very little English and ask for help or just keep walking round in circles untill you find the tiny hidden sign that tells you the Asakusa line is that way.

So we, locked up our bags, grabbed some juice and sandwiches from a convini and headed off for Asakusa shrine.

Asakausa Shrine was originally constructed around 1350, at the start of the Edo period. Hundreds of years of water and fire damage, however, left the building in shambles and it was reconstructed in 1649. It is one of the few Shrines to have survived the second world war and as a result, it has been designated an Important Cultural Property by the government of Japan.

Now I'm done copy/pasting Wiki, it was realy cool, and big, and red.

And they sold theeee most awesome Yakitori.

It was surrounded by small touristy shops full of what they probably consider tourist tat but I considered awesome, stuff like geta, ninja outfits, fans, yukatas, play samurai swords and so on and so on. It also had a very serene garden with little bridges, cherry blossoms and koi carp, along with other little shrines. next to this was tonnes and tonnes of festival food stalls, yakitori, dango, icecream, grilled eel and other stuff that is yum.

We then wandered around the side streets for a while taking in the Japanesey atmosphere before having a Starbucks. Authentic.

Next we headed for Odaiba Park to view the blossoms, but since I apparently wont have much to write about when I'm in Honjo, I'm saving that for my next blog ;)

If you absoulutely positively have to know before then, then I'm uploading the pictures to my facebook as we speak ^^

From the land of the Nipponese, Ohiyoh!

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 01:15:17 GMT

Well, plane journey was entirely uneventfull. I watched a film that made me cry considerably, fortunately it was night time and all the lights were off, so I sat there, in the dark, on my own, 20,000 feet up, miles from home, crying.

Fortunately this didnt set the tone for the entire Holiday.

I arrived in Akita in the worlds scaryest plane, it had propellers.   I then had to catch a train to Honjo which was fun. Fortunately my lame attempts at Japanese meant the conductor took pity on me and showed me the right train. Being Japanese however, he had actualy showed me the wrong train. I then asked some guy on the platform, who, being Japanese, looked at his phone for about 20 minutes and then asked some woman nearby.

I eventualy got the right train and even managed the right stop, despite it all being written in Kanji, where Phil met me and took me to buy Ramen. It was my first Japanese fast food experience, you go up to the vending machine just inside the door and choose what you want from an uninteligeable list (the ones in Tokyo have pictures), you pay beween 400 and 1000 yen and get a ticket that you then give to the chef, three or four mins later you are presented with Oishii food!   And yes it was Oishii.

We then went and packed for the week ahead before heading out to grab okonomiyaki before our big adventure started. Unfortunately it wasnt ready on time so we had to take it with us and there was just no time before the bus arrived, farewell okonomiyaki, I'm sure I will eat far too much of you when I am back in Honjo anyway.

I know I havent written too much about Japanese cultural stuff, that deserves a blog of its own, from toilets and escalators that talk to you, to obscure vending machines that sell obscure drinks and obscure products.

Next, very little sleep and Tokyo!

Where to start?

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 00:39:58 GMT

I literaly have no Idea where to start with this journal. I've done just so much in the last 3 days or so, its too much to condense!

Sooo, basicaly, I'm going to write out about 3 to 4 journals (with cuts so I dont rape your friends page) and see how that goes,

Expect much soon!

Jessie
xx

5 days to go!

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:09:27 GMT

Hullo all!

Am not going to start posting here properly until I am actualy sitting in some shinjuku internet cafe HOWEVER if you would like to post suggestions for places to visit and STUFF for me to bring back for you (be reasonable, I cant afford 50 silk kimonos) then feel free to post below ^^

Jessie
xx