Namba and the 'Satsu

So yesterday I was riding my bike back from school, and the keisatsu, or 'satsu (police) were outside the Komatsu plant and one motioned for me to stop my bike, so I did and popped my headphones out.

"In Japanese... OK?"
"Oh, yeah, I can understand some."
"OK if I check your bike?"
"Oh, of course."
"Ah! Seminar House One! Do you like Japanese food?"
"Uh, yeah"
"..."
"Just about anything, honestly."
"Do you eat sushi?"
"Yeah!"
"How about [?]"
"Wha?"
"Do you like BBQ?!"
"Yeah!"
"Ok! Your Japanese is good."
"Haha, not really."
"Well, take care. See you later."
"...Bye!"

The police here are not threatening at all. The uniforms are friendlier, I think, and to most of us here the police don't have as strong of a negative image as they do in the States. Usually they try and pull over foreigners to practice their English, which I find kind of funny. Too bad I knew Japanese for that guy, haha.

Today I just had a test on the last two chapters of our speaking class. I did well on all but one of the listening questions, and I didn't too well on the transitive / intransitive verb section, mostly because I didn't bother to study them since the theme was cooking...

"Has it become seasoned yet?"
"No! Not yet! Let me season it!"

In Japanese those are two different verbs, and there is no set conjugation between intransitive and transitive (For example, open the door, VS someone/something opened the door.) So it's very frustrating. You have to memorize them... But the chapter theme was cooking. I don't care about being able to say "I will simmer it" and "It has been simmered / someone has simmered it!" I don't care. I just focus on the transitive ones, the ones that I will use, and then I'll make it sound funky and it'll probably be intransitive (you can kind of guess.) So that method works well enough. It's a good thing I care about learning instead of grades. And it's a good thing I'm in a position where I can afford to, I might add, to not seem aloof.

Today I went to Osaka to get my shinkansen (bullet train) ticket to Hiroshima... one to go on Saturday, and one to get back on Sunday. You'd think it would be two tickets but I got five. One reciept, two fare tickets, two... admission tickets? I don't even know. The student discount form I brought from the school didn't do much, or when I said "Please give me the cheapest seating available" he didn't... About 16,000 yen. Man. I wish I hadn't missed the group ticket meeting, I would have saved a good bit. The hostel I'm staying at is only 2,500 though, which is great; nice looking place too. But, Hiroshima is a very important place, and I want to see more other than just the museum. I'm looking forward to hearing a survivor speak to us (in English) about being in the blast and all of that. It's a very rare oppurtunity. But I plan on seeing a few other places of interest (I don't remember names right now,) but I'll plan that tomorrow. I'm just excited to ride the train too.

After getting the tickets, I had about 3 1/2 hours to do whatever until my class started at 4:00, so I took the subway to Namba to look around. It's a huge shopping / entertainment district in Osaka. And holy crap. So many places to eat at, entertainment centers (pachinko, gambling, video games, bowling, pool, swimming, manga, internet, dancing, clubs) If you can imagine it, it's probably there. Actually, I went between Namba and Nippombashi, so the pictures I have could be from either...

There were a lot of open streets like this lined with restaraunts and stores.

Big enough crosswalk? The entrance to another one of the entertainment "blocks"

The inside... Well, it's open air, with glass roofing for protection from rain.

Hey! The Statue of Liberty outside Kyobashi Station!

I went into a store that sold noren, which are curtains that are hung in doorways of shops and the like. I bought a large one for doorways for 3,000 yen, featuring The Great Wave off Kanagawa on it. Matt and I are going to hang it in our doorway, even though I was planning on having this in my apartment when I get back. I love it. I also wandered into the kitchenware area and wasted a lot of time gawking at the stylish, yet down-to-earth utensils and furnishings... I plan to come back to get a lot of bowls, cups, and that sort of thing here since they'll be so unique and I love the style. You can't get nice wooden cups like this in the States; the craftsmanship is superb and the style very unique.

I then went to Den-Den Town, the electronics / nerd district and went to a store that sold just figures and figurines. It was massive. Characters from anime, manga, and video games, along with a few other categories were lining the walls. I bought the vanguard monster from Dragon Quest, the blue slime to adorn my desk, and got something for a friend that should surprise him and make him quite happy, Hehe. I also spotted a huge manga store next to it, but I didn't have the time to check it out. I want to find the older, maybe not as popular manga that deal a bit more with history and Japanese culture that I can't find in most stores. Next time I'll look.

Speaking of manga, I started よつばと！, or in English, Yotsuba&!. It's a funny manga about a single Dad and his young daughter that move from I-don't-know-where, presumably not Japan yet they speak Japanese. I'm not sure. At any rate, little Yotsuba, the girl, knows nothing about anything. I can perfectly relate being a foreigner in Japan (albeit not as clueless as a lot of people here are). Oddly enough from reading the first two chapters of this book, I understood 80% without using my dictionary. Only a few words were new, but the grammar was way out of whack. Maybe I'll ask Yukina. But it was a great feeling. You get more into it when you're struggling to understand the meaning of what's going on, so you become more interested in the stories and they mean more to you, plus you pay more attention to detail in the words used, the art, and the emotion behind everything (there are emotional parts in Conan, in Yotsuba it's all comedy). I don't know what to think about becoming to like manga. Of course it isn't all the ridiculous things of giant robots piloted by genious teenages and weirder fantasy, but that's been the stigmata of it, at least in the West. I don't think I would waste my time taking a class on manga though. Go read some, then read a book about manga. Man. Same goes for you, anime!

At any rate, I need to do some studying then hit the hay.

Oh, one more thing:
Elections in Japan are noisy. You get people driving around in vans blaring campaign slogans, then, in busier public squares, politicians will give speeches from megaphones. I've seen one guy do this in the park in Hirakata, and then I ran into this guy on top of his own StraightTalkExpress(TM), so I thought I would take a picture. I didn't have a clue what he was saying, either, haha. Just feel lucky we don't have this in the US.

A Much Needed Update

Sorry for not writing anything for nine days.

My Father recently came to visit for a week... from the 5th to the 12th. I got to see him Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and then Saturday. Having classes that end at 5:30 made things a little difficult in visiting with him, though.

When going to see him at the airport, I accidentally went to the Osaka one instead of Kansai International. I think this is because I noticed that a monorail goes to Osaka, so I became all excited and focused only on how to use it, where to get on it... instead of where it went. It was fun seeing Osaka by monorail though! I ended up waiting around in the hotel for him studying kanji.

Tuesday we met in Hirakata Station and went to Kyoto. We got off at Sanjo, I think, and grabbed a bus to Kinkakuji. My Dad wanted to see the Osaka Peace museum, which was near Kinkankuji, so I got him to go see that as well, which was a good idea I think. I've been wanting to go see the Golden Pavilion Temple that Yoshimitsu built. It was gorgeous, with a picturesque pond in front of it. There were interesting mushroom and little bowls to throw money at along the path afterwards, but we unfortunately rushed through it to make it to the museum, so I can't really say what significance it had, nor can I about the little statue on an island in the middle of another pond.

The Osaka Peace Museum is great, if you happen to be Japanese or have near native reading-capacity. A few things were written in English, but only broad explainations of maybe 5% of what there was to see. Most of the museum focused on Japanese militarization and the horrors of the first half of last century, but had some newer conflicts and atrocities, including a bit on the Iraq war.

Thursday we just had a good chat over dinner and then went to a coffee shop. I haven't had coffee that good in months, I remember that much. Mostly talked about politics, the state of the world, job prospects for me...

Saturday we met again in Hirakata, and chatted some more in the Starbucks. I then showed my Dad around the department store for gifts and other interesting things. Japan really is a consumer paradise. So many wonderful, trendy, useful, useless, superfluous things. Following along this same route we took the train to Kuzuha for the mall and looked around there... My Dad was impressed with it and thought everyone at work would be too and took pictures. I suppose he was right - the brooding teens and "Joe six-packs" were abscent, it was clean, and classical music was playing instead of whatever crap MTV churns out. Everyone was well-dressed and there were no obese people. My Dad offered that perhaps since people don't have ridiculous car payments or because more people live in apartments, they have more exposeable income for fashion. That might be right, but apartments are probably more expensive here - that and there are probably other cost differences... But I like to think that the American way of spending money you don't have stays in America... Even though reflecting upon recent events, it affects the whole world eventually. Oh well.

We then went to the 100 yen store and bought a lot of stuff for gifts. I'm going to hit a bunch of these for dishware and the like for my apartment. I'll just box it up and mail it. Cheap and unique. We went to a good Chinese restaraunt (where they have chinese food suited for Japanese tastes - nothing you'd find in a chinese place in America if you're wondering,) and then parted ways. My Dad left his Japan travel / guidebook here, so I'll flip through it soon to find interesting places nearby.

Aside from his visit, I can't think of too much else that has happened. Last night I went on a good bike ride at night and found a good ramen shop across from the Fresco I shop at for groceries. I might go there more for dinner. I need to head back to Osake-dojo soon too, and try talking with the old guy there and maybe the customers if they seem willing. Old guys here are hard to understand, with that rough, guttural style of speech. It's awesome to chew someone out in, but scary if they're using it on you; thankfully I've only seen it on TV.

Anyway, I'm still loving the bike rides. I was thinking about maybe getting a good bike when I return to Gettysburg, but the cars would hate me, people would scream at me to get a job so I can buy a car, and people on the sidewalk would be baffled if I rode there (you should if you can here,) and for some reason it's illegal too I think. Who would have thought I'd be pro-bike after coming here? It's ridiculous to try it in America, but if the roads and transport system wasn't so car-focused... Why is the American train system so pathetic too? Two trains crashed due to a conductor texting. How the hell does that even happen? Set up a good system like in Japan, and the jobs it would make, and the cars it would take off the roads... It'll never happen.

But this weekend was mostly just relaxing in the dorm after rushing around and hurrying homework to spend time with my Dad. Working on new grammar and kanji (I need to do more, heh.) Today was a day off due to it being Health and Sports day. More relevant than "Columbus Day"... I studied in the Starbucks and got a lot done, then did some shopping where I got two more issues of Great Detective Conan and some food.

I want to find places other than Starbucks, but I've been reluctant to try them. I should fix this. One up the road from here, Petit Cafe seems to only be open at night. Coffee at that hour isn't a great idea, plus it might be sketchy... we'll see. On the way to Hirakata City there's a place called Mr. Pug Cafe with a pug's face on it for novelty. Today in the city I spotted one place that said it has "Bird Friendly Coffee." I really hope he just mixed up the noun and the adjective there, or maybe you're allowed to take your parakeet in for some espresso. From hearsay, Mr. Donuts has free coffee refills, but I don't want to study in a place where people scream "Irasshai!" (welcome!) constantly while little kids wail for their mothers to get enough donut points for a Pon deLion toy (I kind of want one too).

A funny thing comes to mind for some reason. This was outside the CIE student lounge one day:

The above is a bar-code message you scan with your cellphone. These are usually on ads or pamphlets or in stores or where-ever. Someone just hung it up, and I scanned it with my phone. The message (in Japanese) read: "Gaijin (foreigner) Aquarium: There aren't many, so please just pick one. Good luck!" Someone left a translated version beneath it. Then it was ripped down and only the barcode block was there. Then neither were there. A few other foreigners saw it and thought it was hilarious (I did too,) and I had my speaking partner Yukina scan it and she liked it too. I mentioned it to Lauren, a girl from my dorm and it made her angry. She said a foreigner did it too, which was unfortunate. The lounge has one wall made out of glass entirely, and foreigners hang out there, and Japanese come in a talk to them, or meet their speaking partners there. It basically is an aquarium. Funny stuff.

Those are all the fun stories I can think of.

Future plans include going to Hiroshima this weekend. I need to plan for that, but they are taking too damn long giving us information about it so I can get my shinkansen ticket. I may look for a hostel to stay in too, so I can see more down around there. It's definitely an important spot, plus our class will be getting to listen to a Japanese woman who was present at the Hiroshima bombing who will talk in English about it. We were told not to use flash when photographing her, due to the flash of the bomb being in her memory... I can see insensitive Americans doing bad things. It seems odd to photograph her too, in some respect.

After Hiroshima I'm going to eventually go to Nara and check out the deer park, the huge Bhudda, and take a bus to Horyuji, the oldest wooden temple in all of Japan, and I think the oldest wooden structure in the world.

Also I'm going to see when the cheap Kabuki and Bunraku (puppet theatre) are being performed, since I really want to see those badly. I'm avoiding Noh since I don't require an extravagant nap.

That's about it for now though as far as traveling goes.

I'm getting worried about job prospects for someone who knows Japanese in the USA. Over the weekend I spent several hours (2 1/2 tonight) being absorbed in reading my manga, Great Detective Conan. Figuring out what it says and understanding more and more is such a great feeling. Now I'm thinking about looking into translation jobs, so I'm researching that a bit. I am by far a manga / anime otaku (nerd, and bane of the Japanese Studies major, or at least should be,) so that might be a boon in the job interviews. When learning English as a kid, I read constantly, and devoured new vocabulary, and I loved to read and write. I still love reading if I can find the time, and I still love running into new words. Maybe I can try this with Japanese? And translating things other than manga, anime, and videogames. Novels and other books would be great; I'd love to get to read Japanese novels in Japanese at some point too, the covers of them just scream out at me in the bookstores. I don't know if I have a strong enough urge for this though. Searching for jobs online and finding nilch has me worried though. Living abroad isn't an option either... But I don't want to be working in some shitty retail position after school. I wouldn't last a week in something like that.

Well, I have a year and a half.

Studying and Laying Low

Nothing has really been going on lately, to be honest.

In Negotiation we had our Hospital vs Citizenry negotiation... Right from the start it was a disaster as the leader of the citizens was so hostile and unreasonable... But eventually things cooled down and the citizens got absolutely everything they wanted. This would not happen in real life, as in our mock negotiation neither side had real numbers to go by, such as budgets, income, population numbers, etc... So the hospital would naturally give in since they had no real reason not to. No money or other real worries to get in the way of the decision, unlike in the Commons exercise we are doing where grades are "on the line" (I think he's making it up to get us to care). Either way, it was interesting.

Also on Friday I got back and ran into Jesse and Joe, who were headed to Hirakata to see a travel agent about a Shinkansen (bullet train) to Tokyo for the Tokyo Video Game Show. I was originally going to do that but my Dad scheduled his trip here during it, and it would be rude to go to that. I tried to help them with the tickets at the agency but I was only half-listening... It seemed that they might have said that it was too close to the date to book the tickets, so they had no luck. Anyway, we also picked up James and Tiffany, two other people from our dorm who came here as a couple, apparently... Both studying Japanese at their home university. They're both really nice, but sometimes it's annoying to see people being lovey-dovey when your own other-half is on the other side of the world.

Anyway, after the agent's we went to look for a place to eat... We picked a small restaraunt and split into two groups, Jesse and I, and the Joe, Tiffany, and James... Joe decided to be the third wheel, heheh. The waitress used quite a bit of keigo, a more polite way of speaking Japanese that changes most of the verbs and has certain set phrases; I was a little confused at times. I tried to say that I only rememberd the bit of the name of the thing that looked tasty in the window, but that went nowhere quick. I just picked some udon (a thick noodle) set that came with a tonkatsu (pork cutlet) rice bowl, and a bottle of beer (for 500 yen... why?). This was the first time I had ordered real udon noodles, and they were delicious. So was the pork with egg ricebowl, and whatever the two smaller dishes of vegetables that I added to the udon. The beer was good as well and complemented the noodles very well, but the beer alone doubled the price of the meal.

Having eaten we went to Mr. Donuts (misutaa dou) and I helped Joe get a donut card so he can rack up points for various donut-related merchandise. I'm on the fence for this as it's about 120-130 yen per donut, but I do want a mug or a donut-animal (perhaps the donut-headed lion). We then went to the arcade, then the bookstore, where I bought another Detective Conan for 105 yen (manga is cheaper than toilet paper!). I was suddenly really tired, so I decided to head back since they were planning on karaoke or something else at some entertainment center. I think alcohol makes me sleepy; well, of course it's a depressant, but I just want a good nap after drinking a good bit of it. I slept wonderfully though.

And today I mostly just studied kanji. About 130 or so for Monday's test, then three or so grammar points. I have to review the grammar for speaking too, though. I never use it in what little Japanese conversation I have so I forget it or mix it up frequently.

Not having much Japanese conversation is troubling me, but Yukina and I are going to be meeting twice a week for an hour or so to help eachother in our languages, so that might help. I was thinking on joining a club before I got here, but it's hard to get into them as I've heard, plus your Japanese needs to be good unless it's the band or something... That and their meetings are sometimes during my later classes. Oh well. The only one I would have joined was the ballroom dancing one for swing dancing, but I'm really not that enthusiastic of a dancer anyway.

I don't really want to go to clubs (as in "clubbing") as I don't do that kind of thing anyway, plus it's too expensive. My roomie, Matt has been going to small music houses / cafes in Kyoto but the entrance fees and any kind of food or drink is pricey too... Too loud to talk anyway.

I can't really just grab a Japanese person on campus either to just talk too, haha. Ah well. Doing the INFES (whatever that stands for) culture expo would have been fun too, where each country has a booth and shares things about their culture... Only there are 250+ Americans here.

I realized early though that I shouldn't feel bad for not being able to connect with other Japanese in society here, since, well, it isn't easy for Japanese either. So many are lonely and don't even know who lives in the apartment down the hall. Social networking isn't as good as it was in the past either, and the local news emphasizes it with the recent arsons in a movie dive and a karaoke place. I've been thinking about looking for coffee shops, but the coffee is overpriced and people probably just go there to be left alone and read anyway... seating real-estate is valuable too. We'll judge it better after trying it anyway.

Anyway, I have to get back to my kanji. Tomorrow my Dad gets here and I have to get some work out of the way and really familiarize myself with the new grammar since I'll be trying to do things with him this week. Tuesday I have the whole day off after 10:00, so I plan on showing him around Kyoto, I think. I'm not sure what, yet though. Maybe Ginkakuji and Nazenji, and the Heian Jingu shrine that I somehow missed on both of my trips. Maybe Fushimi Inari too.