Day #04 - To lapse into tourism

Starting the Day
Day #04 started out like any other day, waking up at about the crack of dawn at about 6 AM. This isn't entirely my choice. Back in the states I would almost never wake up before 10 AM if I didn't have too. But here, everyone seems to come alive at this time or soon after, and when you live within reaching distance of the next house and your using paper doors and open windows for ventilation, you kinda hear everything. Doesn't create for the best sleeping environment past 6 AM if you know what I mean, and then you have to factor in the starting cars, barking dogs, and those annoying mo-ped scooter things that almost run me over every chance they get. Even if I somehow in all the ruckus not disturb me in my sleep, the election mobiles are a sure fire bet. These are trucks with loud speakers attached to them that drive up and down the street spamming the same 5 second "vote for me" message over and over again. Those people are lucky that the Japanese don't own guns, as in America, those guys would have probably been shot long ago for annoying the wrong person.

So I sit down for a full breakfast which usually includes a bigger variety of foods then I get for almost any meal in the states. I have to say, one of the hardest things, adaptation wise, for me to deal with is that these people eat so much. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are all a must and they are all super-hearty meals. I have gotten so used to eating only dinner or maybe a late lunch in my life, so that I can sleep in or save time, that eating 3 times a day is physically difficult. Granted I may be eating alot, and I'm eating the healthiest foods I've ever had in my life, but keeping up with their meals takes serious effort.

Breakfast is always diligently made by my friend's mom (Staying at my friends house till I move in with my host family in a week). Honestly, I feel bad for her. She makes me 3 meals a day and does my laundry and the only payment I've really been able to give is a thank you. I checked with my friend to see if paying for the food would be alright when I leave but, based on his reaction, that would seem a little offending. So here I am lost as how to really show my thanks beyond a few words, and wondering if maybe those words are enough here. "Thank you" doesn't seem to get you very far in the states anymore but I wonder if its different here, or if maybe she's cursing me behind my back for making so much work. I hope not at least.

After breakfast, the normal routine for leaving the house takes place. Brushing the teeth, getting dressed, and doing the gaijin dance at the doorway as I try to put my boots on in a lower section of the floor, while not trying to keep my socked foot on an upper level which is designated for bare feet and socks (anyone think I was stupid when I said to keep your socks clean?). If I get the chance to take my boots off or put them on when no one is near me though, I'll hastily cheat and stand fully in the lower entryway so that I don't fall on my ass.


Transportation Sucks
Out the door and to the bus. The wonders of public transportation await me. Its bad enough that I've never been one for public transportation in my life... I never even really used the school bus when I was little. But Japan is on a entirely new level. Unfortunately, it was also rush hour. My friend and I were some of the first ones on the bus so we got to camodere a seat in the back while others have to stand. Usually, at least with the few times that I've ridden public transportation in my life, I'de be willing to give up my spot for a woman. But this is another thing that doesn't seem to always fly in Japan. Why? I'm not sure to be honest, but I think the fact that we are usually packing into these vehicles like sardines enters into it, and that trying to have someone get up while maneuvering another person into the seat is likely to disturb at least a dozen other people. To top this off, I'm not entirely sure about how to offer a seat in Japanese.

Off the bus and to the train station. My pocket is already a few hundred yen lighter from the bus ride, and the trains are just as bad. Whenever I go anywhere, I'm bound to spend at least $10 worth of yen on transportation alone. That's just how life is in Japan. So we are standing waiting for the train and my friend gives me an option. He said that we can take the next train, or wait a minute for another train that will be ever more crowded and will be a good experience for me. I opt for the less crowded one. So the train comes up and people pour out and then new people take their place. I walk up to the door and see that the entire area packed with people shoulder to shoulder. I can still remember the look of distress on the peoples' faces as they look and see some huge gaijin getting ready to jump into the door, which already had a ton of people standing at it. Somehow, possibly out of mortal fear, they make room for me as the door barely squeezes shut behind me. I manage to ask my friend in the midst of the crowd why we took the crowded train after all. His response was that this wasn't the crowded train... if you can't feel the pain of being smothered by a huge crowd, then your not crowded at all. I feel sorry for these people sometimes.

The train ride takes about an hour or so I guess. Not sure as all I can remember is my feet hurting from standing unmoving for so long. That and the sweat pouring down by back. For some reason I sweat a ton on the trains even though they are like the only air conditioned spot in Japan I've been to so far. It's like a cruel act of god to make me start sweating endlessly as soon as I get almost intimently close with a few dozen strangers. Off that train and onto a JR line (a different line of trains), my yen going away with every stop so I can board a new train. I am somewhat comforted by the fact that I have a basic understanding of how the ticket system works in the stations now. You basically by a ticket for a distance, not a location. There's a map that tells you how far and the price of the locations your going to, so you then basically buy a ticket with a certain value on it. Lets say I was going to Umeda. I would buy a ticket worth 260 yen and then walk through the electronic gate. You enter your ticket (which is part magnetic) into the gate and the gate designates a starting point for the ticket. Then you can basically go up to 260 yen in distance from that point. When you get to your destination, you have to enter your ticket into another gate as it scans it to make sure you did not go further then you paid for.

Finally off the trains, we start walking through the streets to our destination. Here I was kinda confronted with one of the differences of Japan and America due to spacing. What I thought of as some back alley meant for pedestrians was actually a full blown road. Even more so, my friend had internet maps guiding us through them, showing even more the importance of these roads. But walking down them was one of the more pleasurable sights I've had the chance to see in Japan so far. These are the kinda things that I wanted to visit, not so much the huge tourist destinations.


Making fun of the Gaijin
After a few minutes of walking down streets like this we finally arrive at our first destination for the day; a tour of the largest business market in Japan. Here agricultural products are bought and sold and auctioned off throughout the day for all the local stores to stock up with. Our tour guide was a little Japanese lady that had some cross-eye problem going on for her. It was hard to communicate with her because I basically use alot of body language to know what's going on at this point of my Japanese language experience... and when I can never tell if she's looking at me, well that's all shot. She also continuously talked to me as if I was able to speak Japanese for life. I'm still not sure if she comprehended the fact that I really don't know how to speak it much.

Our guide first took us around the fish market real quick just to blow off some time because we where early and trying to waste time till our tour group caught up with us. We then headed over to the fruit depot where a live auction was behind held. Here my friend told me that he couldn't understand any of the Japanese these guys use, and I could only symphysize with him because its exactly the same with me and English auctioneers.





At this point we where met up with by some official in the fruit section of the market. He was kind of a weird man in many ways. He basically talked about how superior Japanese fruits are in the world and how the Americans only send the inferior product after consuming the good (honestly I don't see anything too wrong with this). I really didn't have the heart to attempt to argue with him that without those American fruits or whatnot, then Japan would probably have to do heavily without because it is so extremely low in agricultural production. This guy would also pat my stomach in efforts to demonstrate how the American diet is bad. Honestly I can't argue. He spoke a little English also, but only when he wanted to show people that he could speak English. The English he knew was minimal, but when he said something it did sound good. Still, it seemed a bit as if he was trying to show off as he would be talking about some orange or something then turn to me and in the same breath ask "How old are you?" He would then kind of stare at me when I answered 21 in English and didn't understand till I said it in Japanese.

We where soon joined by the tour group, and it was no different then most Japanese tour groups, almost nothing but staunchly bored housewives. This group was a little unique though as it was a PTA group, one of the most feared organizations around Japan from my experience, but I won't get into that now. I had a good chuckle when I noticed one of the ladies shirts was layered with English obscenities and the fact that she probably had no idea what it said. I wanted a picture of it, but ya gotta kinda be a little careful of when and how you take a picture of someone in Japan cause alot of people are paranoid about that, and the opportunity never arose. Along with the group, we then traveled back to the fish section of the market where we got live demonstrations of how to cut fish. This honestly was the biggest fish I've ever seen in my life, and they took knives that were as big as some swords to cut the thing open with.




After the display of fish gutting, everyone gathered around and started eating it, raw. There is just something a little disturbing about eating something that you saw whole a second ago. I seemed to become a crowd favorite as they kept offering me a piece of the freshest sushi in the world and I kept declining over and over. These antics persisted as we continued through the fish market area and every booth we came to people made sure to try to get me to eat something. At one point I had a handful of what I like to call fish flakes. As I went to eat it, alot of the Japanese people watched me for a reaction, and they weren't disappointed as my face contorted up. They all took much pleasure from my suffering and burst out laughing after all I could get out was an "o-i-shii" (Delicious) after nearly choking to death. This stuff was just plain bad. It was like...if you left a fish out to get a sun burn and its skin peeled off like a humans...and then you harvested those skin peels and put them in a bag for Japanese people to eat. This routine of feeding me bad stuff and watching my reaction persisted through the entire fish market.


The Scarey Foreigner and the Castle
After we had thoroughly investigated the market section of Osaka, we went out looking for more stuff to do as it was only about noon. We decided to play up as a tourist, because its required at least once when visiting another country, and visit Osaka-Jo. Osaka-Jo is a castle in Osaka city that has a huge public park running around it. Walking up to the castle is a bit of a hike as its pretty elevated in the middle of its moat. Once at the top of the hill and at the castle, we decided to crash on the park benches for a while. My friend didn't have much sleep the night before and wanted to close his eyes for a few. I occupied another bench next to a man with a trick parrot type bird. This bird would do bonzai cheers and swing from ropes for people and all that jazz. This bench was also where I snapped this shot.

My friend asleep a few benches down, I decided to sleep for a few myself. I pulled my hat down over my eyes, stuck my legs out and crossed them and slept hunched on the park bench. It was a pretty good sleep, only interrupted by that bird yelling "bonzai" occasionally. I was eventually woken up though by footsteps stopping in front of me and some Japanese guy saying "Kowai" (scary). Now, since the bird wasn't particularly disturbing in any way, I had to conclude he was talking about me, but as I started to get up the footsteps took off.

All was well though as my friend woke up too and we went off into the castle. The inside was typical museum fashion. Pictures with posters nearby giving commentary. The coolest part I thought was they had little holo-projectors. I don't mean just wall projectors where you put an image against a wall or something, but projectors that were creating an image in mid air. I have no clue how they did it, I didn't even know those things exist, but they were awesome. They were like those holo-games in Star Wars: A New Hope. Anyways, these little images acted out the life and events of Hideyoshi as he came to power and ruled over Japan. Pretty cool except I didn't know what they were saying the whole time.

Once at the very top of the castle, you get what is the best view of Japan I have yet seen. Industrial skyline backed with mountains stretches on all sides (no mountains on ocean side actually.)


Cowboy boots are casual wear in Asia...
The ferris wheel in that picture is, I believe, the destination of our next stop, Umeda. Umeda is, if I'm not mistake, one of the major youth areas for the area. We decided to hit up an arcade in one of the malls (which the ferris wheel was on top of I think, or near), but first had to pass through a mob of schoolgirls and boys all sitting on the hand rails leading into the place. Most of them where doing what Japanese kids do best and all the time... sending messages on a cell phone. Its an endless activity here, and I honestly feel less then human for not owning a cell phone yet.

Walking through the mall you pick up on some of the youthful fashions in the area. Alot of Japanese kids tend to like to dress as if they are setting the trends. Strangely enough, in alot of places they are setting the trends. But some of these things I just can not understand. I had to laugh when I saw a girl in a skirt with cowboy boots and socks up to her knees. It was horribly mismatched, but sadly one of the more normal looking outfits. I should have asked her though how she manages to put those on without falling over like I do with my (work) boots.

Japanese arcades are addicting, and a huge money sink. For that reason I won't be going to them much but they are fun when you do. They have some of the strangest games in the world, by far, and you can play them for only $2 a try usually. I played one game that was something I would have never imagined. It was a game where you used a keyboard, and basically you had to type the names of monsters attacking you really fast. Each letter of the name you got right was like a gun shot, and you had to shoot the monster dead before he got to you. Simply put, I ruled at this game. The only problem I had was the names were random Japanese words and stuff. So I was having to type out something like "Miyoumashitakunai" to kill a monster. It was interesting to say the least, the characters in the game ran around with keyboards hanging from their neck. Quite the experience. I played one other game where you had to ride a fake horse in a horse race. Basically you made the horse go pulling its head back and then pushing it down. On the last sprint of the race, you basically have to go crazy fast with bashing this horses head up and down, so anyone that walked in while I was playing would see some huge gaijin on top of a fake horse bashing its head back and forth as fast as I could. I pity them really.


BUBBLEMAN!
Back to the trains though to start our trip home I come across one of the billion vending machines Japan has. I decide to get something new, interesting, and showing the culture of Japan. What I decided on was Bubbleman.


Bubbleman is by far the best drink I've ever had in my life. A taste close to carbonated Diamontap, it leaves the drinker only wanting more. On the back of the can it shows Bubbleman's (the character, not the drink) inventory. The "bubbleflash" is the antenna like object that is coming out of his head. I do not know exactly what bubbleflash is, nor do I really want to know. As long as it keeps my drink good I'm happy. After that comes the "Bubble Met." Bubble Met can be one of two things. It is either a reference to his bubble-shaped helmet, or his head worn object is so pitiful that it doesn't qualify to be a full helmet and just earns the "met" name. The last object in Bubbleman's inventory is his "Bubble Suit." Bubble suit is obviously called so cause everything about his is round and bubble like, as if he was some Doraemon reject or something. If you don't know what Doraemon is, don't worry about it.


Chikan Chuui
So we begin our ride back home from Umeda. No matter how happy or perky you are, the minute you get on any form of public transportation in Japan and are surrounded by tired and depressed people coming out of their 8 to 6 jobs (with 3 hours commute), you will be affected by them and also instantly become tired and depressed. I made it off the trains and just barely made it to the bus. Here, I was instantly greeted with familiar faces of despair as they were packed to the door and saw a gaijin diving in. This bus was packed, big time, and at this time I just wanted to get off my feet and get a shower because once again the sweat associated with public transportation had started.

It was at this time that a little mishap occurred though totally not my fault. In Japan, random molestations in these close public transportation environments happen all the time. It happens so much they have street signs warning people to beware of perverts, and several trains have instated woman only train cars to prevent this. But here I am now, standing smashed against the bus door. I'm having to reach behind the person in to my side to get any kind of a hand rail to hang on as the bus swerves around the mountain switchback roads. Standing in these vehicles isn't the easiest of matters in the world, and standing in them without a proper grip on anything to hold you steady is even worse.

With all these bad circumstances adding up... bad grip, mountain road, extremely packed bus... bad luck struck. On one particular stop, I, and the rest of the people on the bus, swayed forward. The only problem I had with this was that I accidently bumped into the schoolgirl next to me in an unfortunate manner. She turned to look at me and at that minute could have made my life hell by screaming out that I was a pervert. If that had happened everyone on that bus probably would have lynched me and I would have found out what the inside of a Japanese jail looks like. Thankfully though, whether she took it as an accident too or didn't want to say anything to the gaijin, she didn't yell out. I spent most of my time after that trying to give her more space, which kinda meant I had to practically molest the guy on the other side of me... but I was a little less afraid of him yelling at me. She was obviously disturbed by the whole situation though as she then forced her way through the crowd, again... not an easy thing to do, to sit at the front of the bus as far away from me as she could get.

Its kind of a shame that something like that is typical in Japan. I explained what happened to my friend and only thing he would say is "it happens." People are paranoid, but I guess its at the cost of a highly developed infrastructure and the modernization of the world.


Beat that Rachael Ray
All in all though, the day was great, and only dropped about $35 dollars. That part made me happier as I'm forever worried about my money situations in Japan with these train and bus fees adding up everyday. But currently I have a free house to stay in with free meals so I guess I'm pretty lucky so far. As soon as I got back, it was a long shower then bed for me. Just another typical day so far.