Walk, walk, walkin' to China town
So, I'm glad I didn't say anything yesterday about today's thing because it turned out to be pretty different from what I had thought it would be. The people at the center had said that it was an excursion by a group of university students (true enough) to check out parts of Yokohama while looking at photographs of what those bits used to look like in Olden Times (less true). I think they themselves weren't really sure what the point was.
The point was, as it turned out, pretty similar: to get a feeling for Yokohama's development since the Meiji restoration, but the class had already seen the pictures so those didn't make an appearance and instead we mostly walked around the port area (which mostly didn't exist before the 1900s), check out the maritime museum (yay jibs!) and then walking down to china town for lunch (the largest in Japan!), stopping to check out particularly old buildings along the way.
The teacher/chaperone was quite nice if prone to mumbling through his explanations thereby making it difficult to understand and the students were very nice too, taking our random appearance in stride, although they then decided they didn't want to be stuck with us for lunch ;_;
Four of the center's students signed up for the thingy, but only two of us showed up, which was mildly embarassing. MAN, Americans, amirite? We went and checked out the docks, followed by the maritime museum. It's a pretty neat museum, half of it is a tour of the Nippon Maru, a trading ship built in the early 20th century, later used in the war, and turned into an exhibition...at some point. Ok look, my eyes started glazing over after the third time I heard the word "belaying pin" and the history exhibit was towards the end of the tour, just be glad I remembered anything. The only actual thing I remember is that coconuts are apparently natural scrubbing brushes. The more you know!
The other half of the museum consists of a building housing very aesthetically pleasing dioramas of the history of the port that I was unable to photograph because it was against The Rules. The neatest thing there was learning that dontaku, which was a grocery store I frequented in anamizu, is apparently old-timey Yokohama port slang for saturday. The other neatest thing was an area where you could try your hand at docking a hugely unwieldy ship (is there any other kind?). Some of the students tried it, but sadly ran into another dock right next to the one they were supposed to be aiming for. The attendants said it was a good try though! Oh yeah! There were also several "artist's representations" of Commodore Perry, each one more comically large-eyed and big-nosed than the last. The other guy who showed up, who studies history, remarked upon how interesting it was that this American, who very few actual Americans who had gone through the normal school system would recognize, was such a huge part of not only Japanese history but also to a certain extent the Japanese psyche. Perhaps that last is a bit of a stretch, but it's still interesting. I wanted to buy a little model of the Nippon Maru because it has SAILS, but alas, there was no time. I will go another time and just make a beeline straight for the gift shop (the Japanese have apparently yet to realize that you are supposed to funnel people out of the museum THROUGH the gift shop. Honestly Japan, are you a materialistic society or aren't you?).
The old buildings were...well, not really that old. Most of the buildings in Yokohama had to be rebuilt after the Kanto Earthquake in 1930-mumble, so the vast majority of them were in fact, from the mid to late 1930s. There was one really neat one that had been preserved on the lower four floors while the upper floors consisted of your standard shiny-windowed office building basically just plopped on the roof of the original. We also saw a building where, if I understood correctly, which I probably didn't because there was a lot of mumbling going on, Beat Takeshi gives lectures, but only once a year.
We then walked 1.6 km to China town which, while not THAT huge a distance, to be sure, I would definitely have preferred not knowing about. Darn you helpful informative street signs! Don't you know that my feet will take longer to get tired if they don't know how far they've gone?
China Town is pretty rad. Also red. Which, I realize after writing could be taken as some sort of allusion to communism, but I really just mean that red is the dominant color of decoration. A bunch of restaurants (some of which were Greek for reasons that were never adequately explained), steamed bun vendors, other kinds of vendors, and large numbers of people trying to entice you to come into their store for the best thing the store sells evar. At this point the students had abandoned us, and I suppose to be fair making awkward stilted dialogue with random foreigners isn't everyone's idea of a good time. Certainly, there is only so long you can agree with each other that Japan's win against Denmark was pretty neat. So me and my historian compatriot were on our own. Hilariously, the students all ended up coming to the restaurant we chose anyway, but we sat at different tables so that's the IMPORTANT thing.
Lunch was tasty and left me QUITE full. Too full, sadly, to try either the ebi chili steam bun OR the hedgehog shaped steam bun that I saw on the way back to the designated meeting place. Clearly another visit is in order. After walking to a rather enthusiastically decorated shrine with what I thought was a giant octopus but later turned out to be a globe on top, we adjourned for the day, whereupon I went back to the 100en store to give them some more of my money.
I did take pictures which is really what a description of an outing of this sort requires, but sadly forgot to take my sd card reader with me to Japan. I am kind of loathe to buy one because that will mean I have THREE of the stupid things since this situation happened before (and I learned nothing from it, obviously).
And now, I must adjourn to do my homework. Specifically I am supposed to write my goals for the course. I find this somewhat daunting because I really only have one goal: stop sucking at spoken Japanese.
The point was, as it turned out, pretty similar: to get a feeling for Yokohama's development since the Meiji restoration, but the class had already seen the pictures so those didn't make an appearance and instead we mostly walked around the port area (which mostly didn't exist before the 1900s), check out the maritime museum (yay jibs!) and then walking down to china town for lunch (the largest in Japan!), stopping to check out particularly old buildings along the way.
The teacher/chaperone was quite nice if prone to mumbling through his explanations thereby making it difficult to understand and the students were very nice too, taking our random appearance in stride, although they then decided they didn't want to be stuck with us for lunch ;_;
Four of the center's students signed up for the thingy, but only two of us showed up, which was mildly embarassing. MAN, Americans, amirite? We went and checked out the docks, followed by the maritime museum. It's a pretty neat museum, half of it is a tour of the Nippon Maru, a trading ship built in the early 20th century, later used in the war, and turned into an exhibition...at some point. Ok look, my eyes started glazing over after the third time I heard the word "belaying pin" and the history exhibit was towards the end of the tour, just be glad I remembered anything. The only actual thing I remember is that coconuts are apparently natural scrubbing brushes. The more you know!
The other half of the museum consists of a building housing very aesthetically pleasing dioramas of the history of the port that I was unable to photograph because it was against The Rules. The neatest thing there was learning that dontaku, which was a grocery store I frequented in anamizu, is apparently old-timey Yokohama port slang for saturday. The other neatest thing was an area where you could try your hand at docking a hugely unwieldy ship (is there any other kind?). Some of the students tried it, but sadly ran into another dock right next to the one they were supposed to be aiming for. The attendants said it was a good try though! Oh yeah! There were also several "artist's representations" of Commodore Perry, each one more comically large-eyed and big-nosed than the last. The other guy who showed up, who studies history, remarked upon how interesting it was that this American, who very few actual Americans who had gone through the normal school system would recognize, was such a huge part of not only Japanese history but also to a certain extent the Japanese psyche. Perhaps that last is a bit of a stretch, but it's still interesting. I wanted to buy a little model of the Nippon Maru because it has SAILS, but alas, there was no time. I will go another time and just make a beeline straight for the gift shop (the Japanese have apparently yet to realize that you are supposed to funnel people out of the museum THROUGH the gift shop. Honestly Japan, are you a materialistic society or aren't you?).
The old buildings were...well, not really that old. Most of the buildings in Yokohama had to be rebuilt after the Kanto Earthquake in 1930-mumble, so the vast majority of them were in fact, from the mid to late 1930s. There was one really neat one that had been preserved on the lower four floors while the upper floors consisted of your standard shiny-windowed office building basically just plopped on the roof of the original. We also saw a building where, if I understood correctly, which I probably didn't because there was a lot of mumbling going on, Beat Takeshi gives lectures, but only once a year.
We then walked 1.6 km to China town which, while not THAT huge a distance, to be sure, I would definitely have preferred not knowing about. Darn you helpful informative street signs! Don't you know that my feet will take longer to get tired if they don't know how far they've gone?
China Town is pretty rad. Also red. Which, I realize after writing could be taken as some sort of allusion to communism, but I really just mean that red is the dominant color of decoration. A bunch of restaurants (some of which were Greek for reasons that were never adequately explained), steamed bun vendors, other kinds of vendors, and large numbers of people trying to entice you to come into their store for the best thing the store sells evar. At this point the students had abandoned us, and I suppose to be fair making awkward stilted dialogue with random foreigners isn't everyone's idea of a good time. Certainly, there is only so long you can agree with each other that Japan's win against Denmark was pretty neat. So me and my historian compatriot were on our own. Hilariously, the students all ended up coming to the restaurant we chose anyway, but we sat at different tables so that's the IMPORTANT thing.
Lunch was tasty and left me QUITE full. Too full, sadly, to try either the ebi chili steam bun OR the hedgehog shaped steam bun that I saw on the way back to the designated meeting place. Clearly another visit is in order. After walking to a rather enthusiastically decorated shrine with what I thought was a giant octopus but later turned out to be a globe on top, we adjourned for the day, whereupon I went back to the 100en store to give them some more of my money.
I did take pictures which is really what a description of an outing of this sort requires, but sadly forgot to take my sd card reader with me to Japan. I am kind of loathe to buy one because that will mean I have THREE of the stupid things since this situation happened before (and I learned nothing from it, obviously).
And now, I must adjourn to do my homework. Specifically I am supposed to write my goals for the course. I find this somewhat daunting because I really only have one goal: stop sucking at spoken Japanese.