Soba, Sushi, and Sightseeing

Sorry about the large-ish delay between posts. Hopefully the sheer density of images in this post will make up for it.

Three days ago, on Thursday, after classes the school had a soba making party. If you haven’t heard of it, soba is a type of Japanese noodle made from buckwheat (according to Wikipedia). Some people that I was assuming were from a local soba shop came and showed us the process. We got to try making it first-hand, which was pretty cool. I’ll entail the steps here for your reading enjoyment. First, you sift the flour into a bowl. Then, while slowly adding water, mix the flour vigorously with your hand until it starts clumping together. Once the clumps are big enough, you can mash the whole thing together into one big ball of dough. Then you sort of like…knead it, folding it over onto itself. We had to do it 30 times. After that, you do a whole lot of flattening with a rolling pin. Once you have a nice, big square of dough, you fold it over onto itself to make a smaller square 1/4 the size and chop it into noodles. I didn’t see what they did with it after that, since they took it elsewhere (probably to a sink near the bathroom; I think you just soak them or something). Then, we got to eat the noodles we made. It was pretty good, I suppose. Tasted like noodles. They had soy sauce to add some flavor.

Also of note that day was the game center I visited. It made me happy to see that arcades are still alive in Japan, at least. I’ve been to a few game centers so far and it seems like a common theme is to have a million crane games on the first floor. I knew Japan was crazy about them, but I don’t think I’ve seen so many in my life. Second floor is “medal games”, which as far as I can tell is just gambling-type games. Slot machines, simulated horse racing, and some sort of game involving balls and some intricate machine that I haven’t inspected enough to understand the gist of. In hindsight, I should’ve taken a picture. I saw a bunch of arcade games that aren’t in the US, though, which was pretty cool.

Every Friday our school has a party, and this week’s happened to be a sushi-making party. It was pretty fun, but mostly delicious. You took a sheet of seaweed, put whatever you wanted on it, rolled it up, and ate it. Possible ingredients included rice, eel, shrimp, beef, avocado, egg, and some sort of cheese. Japanese rice is really good, by the way. Not sure what’s different about it.

Saturday I decided to head to a big mall in Fukuoka named Canal City. Nothing terribly out of the ordinary. A lot, a lot, a lot of clothing stores. I’d wager that at least 90% of the stuff there was clothes, and this was an 8 or so story tall mall. It was kinda disappointing. From what I could tell on the map, there wasn’t a single game store there. In fact, the only thing of note I saw there was the Jump Store, which sold all sorts of Shonen Jump related merchandise (Shonen Jump is a comic magazine in Japan). I suppose something else to note is that it was right next to the Ultraman store, which I don’t know much about. Oh right. There was a Pokemon store, too. Afterwards, I walked around that part of town and visited a nearby temple. There was some sort of stone basin with running water and some sort of ladles for some sort of tradition that I’m not aware of in front of the main building, so I just let that be. I walked around the graveyard for a bit, which was pretty interesting. Kinda labyrinthine, though. For those interested, a sign entailing the history of the temple. Also, I noticed on my map that there was a high school relatively close to where I was (note: it was farther than I thought), so I decided to drop by there as well. Japanese high schools are pretty different from western ones as I’ve noticed from anime and such, so I had to see one for myself. It was pretty much everything I expected. The exterior was probably the only thing that defied expectations. The hallways, the classrooms, and stairs were all as expected. I was kinda surprised to see as many students hanging around in classrooms as I did, though, since it was Saturday and all. I think some Japanese high schools have a half-day on Saturdays, though.

Today I went back to that park that I mentioned in a previous post where I forgot my camera and couldn’t take pictures. The park is centered around a lake that has a bridge that spans the entire length and goes across some of the islands in the middle. Walking along the lakeside I saw koi, turtles, and some rare Japanese birds. There were also these short post-type things that had what I assume to be children’s games/rhymes on them. For you birdwatchers, I also saw some, uh, herons. Or egrets. Or something. There were rowboats and paddleboats that you can rent, and it seems they’re pretty popular as there were a reasonable number of them when I was there. Also, a pagoda. There was also this river-like thing going along part of the park, which was pretty cool.

And now, more random pictures:
The view from Susenji station
Train platform
This is what a Japanese keyboard looks like
Suburban streets don’t really have sidewalks
A typical address placard. The top line indicates that it’s in the first block of the Susenji neighborhood
On the way to the subway
Susenji Station, where I go pretty much every day
A sign on an overpass going over the train tracks telling kids not to play there
Bridge/river/skyline
Poster in the high school talking about how bullying is a crime
Speed limit sign. Interestingly enough, the sign doesn’t say anything about speed. The text just reads “from here on”.
Sign on the sidewalk telling people not to walk and smoke
Sign in the subway warning potential molesters that they’re unwanted
I thought this was kinda funny, but what’s shown in vending machines aren’t the actual products. They’re just fakes that look like the real thing. Not sure if you can tell that from this image.
I somehow missed this before, but this danger sign might be more interesting than the one I posted before with the kappa
Some sort of notice about birds or something at the park
Different dishes at a restaurant in the park
A pretty slick car I saw in the parking lot. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this make or model before, though.

Even in Japan:
7-11
Coca Cola
The Sports Authority

Only in Japan:
am pm, a chain of convenience stores. (I only assume that this is Japan-exclusive because I haven’t heard of it before. As a side-note, the signs below the name of the store advertise sake, beer, and cigarettes)
Kimonos at a clothing store

And now, time for some Engrish:
Mr. Good Smoking
I like woman
Yes! Bilding
Keep you best

Expedition to the Maid Cafe

As I wasn’t feeling up to describing yesterday’s events, well, yesterday, I’ll cover both yesterday and today in this post.

Yesterday…nothing out of the ordinary in class. Watched the first episode of the Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure in my Pop Culture class, which was pretty cool. Every so often our teacher would pause the episode and explain a certain word or phrase that someone said, which was helpful. During my lunch break, I found a manga/anime shop that I ended up being able to explore more in depth today. More on that later.

The most interesting part of the day was a sightseeing tour that the school offered. Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera with me that day, so I don’t have pictures. I’m planning on going back maybe on the weekend or something to take pictures, though. Anyway, we went to Ohori Kouen, which is a nearby park. The name means, roughly, Great Moat Park, as it was built over the ruins of an old castle. The moat still exists today, however. Every time I hear the name Ohori Kouen, though, I think of Otori Kyouya, the name of an anime character. Inside the park we visited a Japanese-style garden which was, in truth, beautiful. I’ll leave it up to your imagination until I go back to get pictures. Sorry.

Our tour guide was a Fukuoka resident named Takahiro Nagano. Though he said he was 30 years old when asked, he could’ve easily passed for being in his early 20s in my opinion. We talked for a quite a while, though a lot of it was me asking “what do you call this in Japanese?” to try and expand my vocabulary. After walking through the park, we headed to a nearby shrine. I unfortunately don’t recall the name, however. There was a lookout point that had a spectacular view of the city, but again, I didn’t have my camera with me.

Something interesting happened on the way to the shrine, though. We’re walking down the street and there’s a group of high school girls standing on the sidewalk by where we’re walking. That’s normal, I see them pretty often. As we approach, I hear one of them call out “Hora!” (which is more or less like “Hey!”) in a louder than normal voice. It wasn’t really my business and I didn’t want to gawk, so I was trying not to look at them. I noticed that a couple of them were looking at us, though. That’s not too out of the ordinary, though, since there really aren’t many foreigners here. I notice people glancing at me a lot. Anyway, after we’re a little ways away Takahiro turns to me and says “Those girls wanted to talk to you. They were just too shy to say anything.” I just kind of responded with some sort of “Oh, really” comment, but inside I was wondering what in the world they could have wanted to say to me. I couldn’t go back because at that point it would’ve been awkward to walk back there and ask if they wanted something. Even if he was right, I know it probably would’ve been something inconsequential, but it’s going to haunt me for the rest of my days. Fate might have been knocking at my door and I might have slammed the door in its face.

Alas.

———–

Today was pretty fun. Class was interesting and I learned a bunch of new words, notably stuff relating to the ocean and diving. We read some apparently true story about a mailbox on the sea floor in some prefecture near Osaka where you can scuba dive down and mail some sort of special waterproof postcard.

The highlight of the day, again, was my pop culture class: we visited the maid cafe Tenjin Style (Tenjin is the name of the downtown area of Fukuoka). A maid cafe is, as its name implies, a cafe where the waitresses are all dressed in French maid outfits. Unfortunately, the cafe didn’t allow photography. I dunno. In my opinion it wasn’t anything terribly special, but the maid costumes were kinda novel. The waitresses were indeed cute, though. I suppose the most entertaining part was how we had to talk to one of the waitresses as part of a “report” we had to do. We each had to ask at least one question (there were three other students). Maid cafes largely appeal largely to the otaku community (otaku: Japanese slang for geek/nerd/enthusiast), so the waitresses are all familiar with recent anime/manga/games. The cafe had little photo albums with profiles of the different waitresses with what sort of things they like and such. I was impressed by how knowledgable the waitress we talked to, whose name was Hinata, was about those sort of things. I asked her what she liked to do on her free time and she responded that she enjoyed watching videos on Nicovideo, which is the Japanese equivalent of Youtube. The rest of the discussion was stuff about the cafe and such. I believe she said that there were about 20 waitresses total, which was kinda surprising. Also, I somehow ended up getting a Tenjin Style points card. I can’t read enough of the Japanese on the back of the card to figure out what happens if I fill it up, though. It seems like I’d need to spend about $200 to fill it.

The other highlight of today was the aforementioned anime/manga store. It was really cool for me, but its contents are likely not your cup of tea. Regardless, here are some pictures of merchandise relevant to my interests:
Vending machines outside the store
Remixed video game music CDs
Novelization of a game series I enjoy
Anime theme song single
First volume of a book series whose anime adaptation I like a lot

Other random pictures:
Poster for Angels and Demons
Cool fountain clock
Local church
Mass schedule
Church exterior
A small bit of Engrish
Astro Boy statue at my school
Hiragana chart in my classrom
Aforementioned classroom
A sign to keep out of some sort of reservoir right next to my house.
Something interesting to note in that last picture is the creature that’s grabbing the child. Although it looks like a turtle, it’s actually a mythical Japanese creature known as a Kappa. In short, they’re river-dwelling creatures that enjoy cucumbers and sake.　The main text reads: “DANGER! Swimming or playing in this vicinity is forbidden.”

First day of class

I guess I missed a day of journaling, so I’ll have to catch up a bit. Yesterday was my first day of classes. Classes start at 9:30, so I have to leave the house at about 8:30 to make it there in time what with walking and the subway and all. It’s 10 stops from here to the stop closest to the school, so it takes a little while. Here’s a map of the Fukuoka subway if you’re interested (I get on at Susenji and off at Akasaka).

Consistent with Japanese culture, you have to take your shoes off as soon as you enter the building, put them on a rack, and put on a pair of slippers that they provide for you. The first thing I had to do after that was undergo a brief oral interview to determine my level of proficiency. It was basically just a bunch of simple questions like “Where are you from?” and “What are your hobbies?” Then, I underwent orientation. Nothing really of note there. After that, since the level check and orientation only took about an hour and my classes didn’t start until 12:30, I had a couple hours to kill. I wasn’t really hungry, so I just kinda wandered around the city until it was time to go back. I tried a Fanta Shaker, which was kinda interesting. I suppose the best way to describe it is carbonated jello in a can. Like the name implies, you have to shake it before you open it or, well, it’s just a big lump of jello that you’ll have a hell of a time trying to get out of that small a hole.

After that, classes started. It was sort of different from what I expected. A lot of…talking. It feels kind of slow to me, but I guess I’m used to the pace of a college education. For some reason, we were talking about different kinds of children’s games in Japan. The only two I had actually heard of were sugoroku, which is some kind of board game, and janken, which is better known to us as rock paper scissors. After class ended, I was starting to get hungry so I looked for somewhere to eat. Admittedly, I wasn’t feeling very adventurous and it’s still kind of hard for me to read menus, so I copped out and went to McDonald’s. I have to say, though, it’s set up pretty differently from the ones in the west. I wasn’t sure, but from what I could tell there wasn’t any menu for ordering things a la carte. There were just 4 or 5 different burgers with an individual or combo (they call them sets) price listed. Interestingly enough, none of the options had no cheese. I ended up going for a quarter-pounder combo. I didn’t realize it until someone pointed it out to me later, but it’s interesting that they still call it a quarter-pounder when the rest of the nation uses metric.

After returning home, I did the simple homework that was assigned that day (fill in the blanks with new vocabulary). Because I was tired, I ended up going to sleep around 8 PM. I’m equally tired right now, but I’ll elaborate on my exploits today in a different post because I don’t feel like writing any more right now.

Cyborgs and Customs

So, I’m finally in Japan. The trip here was more or less uneventful. Unfortunately, the flight to Tokyo was unbearably long as I got tired pretty early on but couldn’t get more than an hour or so of sleep. It’s hard to find stuff to do for 13 hours. Also, I had to fill out a form distributed by some Japanese health ministry describing whether I had a fever in the past few days or whether I’d come in contact with any feverish or coughing people. Predictably, there were quite a few people on the plane wearing masks.

As we were coming in to land, I tried to look out the window and find something that would identify that this is actually Japan. Pretty soon I noticed that I could see people driving on the left-hand side of the road. While not a strict identifier of Japan, I thought it was kinda cool. After we landed, a flight attendant made an announcement saying that some Japanese health officials would be coming on board to collect the forms and that they would have thermal sensors to check – my half-asleep mind totally thought she was going to say “if anyone on board is a cyborg” – if anyone has a fever. There were no incidents and I got off the plane fine.

Then came customs. Lemme tell you, there’s nothing more terrifying than a Japanese customs officer wearing a surgical mask. Some customs officers are intimidating enough as is, but the mask adds another degree of intimidation. It made me feel like I was walking into a yakuza base. I had a bit of trouble communicating to the guy why I was coming to Japan, but it worked out in the end. Let it also be known that all the random Japanese people that I’ve talked to so far have defaulted to speaking to me in English. Not very good English, necessarily, but English nonetheless.

The Tokyo airport wasn’t terribly interesting. Kinda smaller than I expected. I had to take a bus from the international terminal to the domestic terminal, which I would’ve never figured out had I not asked for help. I did learn the word for “domestic”, though. Also, I totally missed the stop on the bus due to misunderstanding what the “next stop” automated recording was saying and had to wait for the bus to go around again. Luckily, my holdover in Tokyo was 3 hours, so it didn’t really matter. I did manage to get a picture of some bamboo growing outside the airport, though. I guess it makes sense that the domestic terminal is so small, though (only two gates, A & B). Japan is notably smaller than the US.

There were a bunch of rowdy college guys or something waiting to get on the same plane as me, but they calmed down/fell asleep once we got on the plane, so that was cool. (Oh right. I didn’t mention this earlier, but the flight to Tokyo was on a 747. That plane is unimaginably huge. I couldn’t even see from one end to the other from inside.) I was unconscious for most of that flight, and was kinda disappointed since that plane had a really comfortable-looking recline feature, but I didn’t get to try it out because I fell asleep before we took off and when I woke up again, I wasn’t sure if we were still on the ground or not and it turned out we were landing.

After getting off the plane, I dragged my ass to the subway. The instructions for how to get to the house I’m staying at said to buy a 540 yen ticket, which was fine except that the ticket vendors only sold up to 340. Too tired to figure out what to do, I just got a 340 and decided to pay the difference once I got where I needed to go (Susenji station). It was a bit disconcerting when some locals tried to help me out, but hadn’t actually heard of the station I was heading too. It worked out fine, though, and I just payed the extra fare when the exit turnstile refused my ticket.

After that, I used a nearby pay phone and called my host to let her know I had arrived. A few minutes later, Ms. Hatsue Aoki drove up and took me to her home. I don’t have any pictures yet, but I’ll post them when I do. I was pretty tired last night, so all I got to do last night was just shower and go to sleep.

Well, that’s all for now. I’ll probably be making a post later on tonight (currently 9:18 AM).

First post!

‘Sup. In theory, I’ll be using this blog to document my experiences in Japan and all the wacky stuff that goes on in the land of the Rising Sun. Currently it is T -21 hours to my departure from the USA. I still can’t believe it, really. It doesn’t feel like in a day I’ll be on a plane flying over to Japan of all places. This truly is like a dream come true for me. I’ve been interested in Japanese culture ever since my friends in high school introduced me to the wonderful world of anime and manga (Japanese animated shows and graphic novels, respectively). I’m pretty nervous, just about things like forgetting to pack something and not knowing enough Japanese to get by. Though, yesterday I had to cancel a reservation I had made at a hotel, and I conducted the whole affair over the phone in Japanese. So, I suppose I’ll be fine. My biggest worry is probably that I won’t savor the experience enough, or that I’ll come back unsatisfied knowing that there was something I still wanted to do. Well, my next post here will be from Japan. As they say over there, ittekimasu*!

*This is a phrase you say in Japan when leaving the house. It literally means “I will go and come back”.