Hirakata Station and Chicken Bones

Today wasn’t a bad day at all. I woke up refreshed and ready to explore. I woke up at around 6:00 and then promptly went back to sleep until 9:30. After waking up I played around with my paperwork to figure out what needed to be done soon and to figure out where to go to obtain items on my shopping list: the elusive towel, manly body-wash, and shampoo.

Hirakata Station in the heart of Hirakata City seemed like the best bet since it has a department store in it, so I decided I would figure out how to get there. I learned that yesterday when I turned back halfway on one road that it actually led to campus. What I didn’t know was how far it was to campus when I set out.

I decided to get something to eat first, so I went to the 100 yen store to scrounge. I bought noodles for later and two peaches. I dug into the peaches when I got back to the dorm and they were the best peaches I ever had. Twice as big as an American peach and very juicy. I was planning on saving one but they were so good that I ate both of them. Not bad for 498 yen (A little less than $5).

So I set out in the direction of where I thought campus was, having printed a map. It was quite a long walk, and I first came upon a grocery store, Top something-something. It was fairly large. Further along the way I found another popular gorcery store, Fresca I think, and a bicycle shop where I think I might rent a bike since this walk would take kind of ahwile for going to campus daily. The exercise might be good though, and I’ll end up living in the Seattle’s Best on campus if I can get Wi-Fi there anyways. There aren’t coffee shops that you can just sit and work in between the dorm and campus. The thought of joining other Japanese and their cars on a bike though worries me somewhat since you have to be able to weave effortlessly, inches away from pedestrians and cars coming towards you. In Gettysburg I had to make an effort to maintain a straight course... So maybe I should save money and call it exercise. And besides, the bus only costs 220 yen ($2).

I made it to campus after taking pictures of funny english-named stores, and told the guard at the gate that I was here for the Cultural Information Exchange or something along those lines (It’s abbreviated CIE and is important for us foreigners.) Actually the guard decided that’s where I must be going on a day when campus is closed for the most part. I tried to tell him I had no reason for being here but I could have done it in a better way.

At any rate campus is gorgeous, and I can imagine it just packed with people. I walked around a bit and then left. I hit up the Top to see what was in it (towels?!) and bought two tiny “body towels” and I may sew them together. I also bought a 900ml bottle of 北那湏のガンコじいさん which is might be “North-something-something’s stubborn old man” drink, which is a nice bottle of milk with a picture of a stubborn old man on it. There is some sort of story on it that I may try and read eventually. Milk is pretty expensive here; the bottle of milk was about $5 and is the amount I would drink with one meal, and meals can be cheaper than $5... So I may be switching to green tea since you can get a ton for about 138 yen or so. I’ll miss milk.

My feet were beat, so I went back to the dorm. I think it’s over a mile to campus from there... I decided to sign up for one of the tours and picked the Hirakata Station one so I could learn how to use the bus and maybe some cool places there (Okay I mostly wanted just the bus. I can barely handle them in English-speaking countries).

I met a few cool people in the tour, the guides were Kazu, a really nice senior, and Shiori, who I think may be a senior too... Their English was far better than any of our Japanese. I met a Vietnamese girl named Jan who spoke almost perfect English and an Australian named Adam. There was another guy who was there who had his “name in kanji” on the back of his shirt which really doesn’t quite work for English, so he may have amused quite a few Japanese.
Unfortunately we ran into some obnoxious Kansai students as well, who mostly were interested in buying beer. People like them go to Kanpai Gaidai, if you get the cheap pun. They thought it was funny to get really close to Japanese people and say “fuck” over and over because they can’t understand! It’s obviously immature if they can’t understand but a good deal probably know the word from western movies so not only they are they embarassing themselves put everyone associated with Kansai... We only met them in the grocery store at the city center and then they got left behind trying to find alcohol to buy.

Kazu helped me find body-wash and I made sure it was manly since it said “for a man” on it and was black and under a display area for products for men... The shampoo however has an ambiguous gender.

The tour was nice and all, but one thing that bothers me in Japan is traveling with a group of foreigners moving slowly. You get in the way and annoy everyone. Maybe that’s why I like to travel alone since you fit in better and at least seem more intelligent and considerate.

Dinner was had at a yaki-tori bar which means “grilled chicken” and they use just about every part of the chicken. Most of us just pointed to what looked good and it came with hilarious consequences. I am reminded of the girl I overheard at some point who wisely said “Ask what it is after you’ve eaten it all.” The way the place works, every item is 280 yen (alcoholic drinks 294). It’s mostly two skewered chicken items or some kind of bowl or side. I got two sticks of chicken skin and one of chicken meat even though the meat came after I ate half of someone elses chicken neck, since I thought I ordered neck too, so we all ate mostly the wrong things. Chicken neck is kind of stringy and chewy. There were chicken bones inside of fried dough which freaked out the guy next to me, but they tasted good. He just needs to brush more and drink more milk! This bothered him, and to our amusement he accidentally ordered just chicken bones on skewers which no one ate (I don’t know how you would; hard and chewy...) I also ordered a beer being 21 to see if a beer that wasn’t something cheep at say, Gettysburg, would be enjoyable. I nearly got some Kirin as the “average beer” to try, but the shandi-gaffu which I suppose means either “sandy gulf” or “sandy golf.” I’m going with the first one since it didn’t taste like the frustration of hitting a ball into the sand-trap. It was a beer with ginger-ale in it and I found it quite enjoyable.

We then went to the bus stop and promptly missed our bus, so we went to another one where we missed a different bus. We then played Japanese word games to pass the half hour wait, and it was fun and an awesome vocabulary builder, so I am going to try and get people to play it in Gettysburg. On the ride back I didn’t have change for the bus so I broke a 1,000 there, but apparently when you do that it gives you change back, then you put it in the fare receptical. I thought it just gave me change after deducting the fare and I nearly put in 780 yen too much into the pay tray and the driver stopped me and laughed...

I then returned to the dorm and had an amazing first shower in over two-approaching-three days. I felt bad for everyone I was near in that I must have stunk, but a guy I met at the airport was wearing his clothes from yesterday today and had the same problem as me (although I changed) so I guess I can’t feel too bad. The weather was so hot and muggy and waiting for the yaki-tori place to open was just miserable, I cant remember the last time my arms were even wet with sweat.

It’s about 11:00 now so I think I may just read or something and go to bed soon. Tomorrow I can register my laptop and buy a CAT5 and maybe a BIG TOWEL! Douglas Adams was oh so right about always bringing a towel... Tomorrow I also have Language Lab Orientation and I may go to the post office to get money to pay for security deposits. Or that might be after I call Gettysburg asking why they didn’t pay. Hopefully I’ll get to meet Yukina too, since I emailed her tonight.

More exciting days to come.