Photos and stories and sighs, oh my!
It’s been a while and I have lots to tell because as always, it’s been a huge week.
But before I say anything, anything at all, I just about wet myself when I discovered this at the subway station. It’s an advertisement for a school, which makes the whole thing even funnier.
Last weekend I went back to Gion with Gen. We found a fantastic looking walk in Brigitte’s Lonely Planet guide and decided that we wanted to see what it was like. It was called “night walk through the Floating World”. It was so incredible, everything was lit up in an eerie kind of light and it all felt very surreal, I guess that’s why they call it the Floating World.
It started at a shrine at the end of Gion.
The pieces of paper here are bad fortunes that people have received and tying them to these poles at shrines is supposed to bring you better luck. Pardon the weird angle, I had to use an obliging fence post as a tripod.
It all felt very Spirited Away, though you’ll be glad to know that neither of us were turned into pigs during the course of the evening.
We then followed the map back out onto the main street, which was not at all traditional and looked a little like this, actually a lot like this:
This is Pontochoo, which is apparently quite famous. It’s pretty much just a huge street of restaurants, though how they fit them all in there is beyond me. And of course, by huge I mean long because it is obviously not wide. I got very close to a lot of random people that night.
And these are taken at the insane Okonomiyaki restaurant where the photo of the statue of the pantsless person was taken. It got no less weird inside.
Every table had a creepy mannequin sitting at it.
They only made one thing at this restaurant so you basically sat down and they brought you a this:
So, not for the first time, I ate without any idea of what the hell it was I was eating. I thought it very adventurous of me. Proof:
As we were eating, a group of tourists came in and sat at a table near us. After few short moments of eavesdropping, we realised they were Australian, so after (and only after) we had finished eating Gen asked the leader “would you mind telling us what we just ate?” I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to know. Turns out it was nothing bad, actually, it was all vegetarian except for the shrimp, which I picked out. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed that it wasn’t more interesting, seeing as I’d been brave enough to eat it.
Our minds at ease, we turned out attention to the interesting décor.
“Oh my!” was the initial reaction, followed, naturally, by immature giggling.
Then it was back to uni for a week. The only interesting part of my uni week was Thursday night. There was an organised dinner for exchange students, hosted by the chancellor and his wife. We were told by the students that arrived yesterday that this was a very formal affair while the chancellor was still there, but as soon as he left it turned into a bit of a partay, so we were all looking forward to it. For future reference, formal in Japan means black. What did I wear? My red dress. Hurrah for sticking out!
Before I go on, I should explain just how big a deal this evening was. Social hierarchy in Japan is very important. When you are in the presence of someone who is socially higher than you are, your whole behaviour changes. You use different language, you don’t do anything before they do, you stand whenever he enters or leaves the room, your head is almost constantly bowed and you are always on your VERY best behaviour. So it pretty much felt like we were going to be having dinner with the prime minister or something. It was a VERY big deal. We arrived an hour before he did so we’d be ready to start as soon as he was there. They spent fifteen minutes trying to decide in which way he should be taken to his seat.
I tell you all this because I want you to understand exactly how scared I was when I looked over to see who was sitting next to me at the table only to discover it was the chancellor of the university. We weren’t allowed to move, we were in designated seats. I freaked out. “OMG my honorifics aren’t good enough for this. What the hell am I going to say to him?? OMG I want to go home!!” It was horrible!
As it turns out, he was quite friendly, in an I-am-socially-superior-to-you kind of way. But as the night wore on and the alcohol flowed, things became ever so slightly more relaxed. The food thing was a bit of a fiasco. No one in Japan knows what vegetarian cooking is so once again, I found myself not knowing what I was eating. Only this time, it was harder to avoid the gross stuff without being rude. Bloody chancellor! I had some very innocent looking soup and had just finished the first mouthful when the chancellor lent over and said, “this is shark fin soup, very tasty!” I really could have done without knowing that, I almost spat it out in his face. So I have no idea what else I ate that night. In the end I was pretty much force fed strawberries by the chancellor. He kept sneaking them onto my plate when I wasn’t looking, no matter how many times I told him I’d had enough.
After the chancellor left there was an almost audible sigh of relief from everyone. The ever popular free booze was handed round and everyone got rather tanked. Well, not everyone, mainly the Asians. Hehehe.
I find it very amusing in Japan that whenever someone takes a photo they say “hai, chiizu!” I wonder if they failed to realise the true reason that people say “cheese” when there are photos being taken. They say cheese because saying ‘ee’ forces your face into a smile. But when you ad a ‘zu’ to it, you end up with this:
Hot, yes?
Gen has a fascination with getting people to make hideous photos at parties. During the course of the evening she had her photo taken with just about everyone while pulling a hideous face. This is one of my favourites:
It was taken as a demonstration for our supervisor. He couldn’t understand the concept of pulling an ugly face for a photo. His reaction was “OH MY GOD! Can I throw up now?”
However, it did the trick and he understood what we were after. So, may I introduce my supervisor here in Japan, the very serious (and in this case, very pissed) Tsuneda-san:
I doubt he remembers much of that night after the chancellor left.
And after a few sculling competitions and a million groups photos, (“wait, where’s Kim-san? Throwing up? EEEY!”) it was time to make our way home. This is one of the few times that you will see a carriage full of foreigners on a Japanese train.
I also had a very full weekend. Thankfully, it was a long weekend. Monday was 昭和の日(Showa day), a national holiday. Interestingly, I almost forgot about ANZAC day. I know it`s horrible but it`s very easy to forget when you`re not being reminded. But I did remember in the end and had my minute`s silence. This week in Japan is called `Golden Week` and is a string of national holidays. If the holidays fall on the right days you can end up with the whole week off, as it is, we had Monday off, today and tomorrow at uni and Thursday-Sunday off. So my brain is already in holiday mode and refusing to do any work, so you can imagine I worked wonders with my kanji test this morning!
On Saturday I went to Kawaramachi to meet some Japanese friends and two Dutch girls for an afternoon of karaoke. We were there for four hours.
Snortage:
On Sunday night I went to Kodaiji with Gen and Brigitte to see the lantern lit bamboo forest. It was incredible, the photos don`t even come close to doing it justice.
On the way back from the train station we walked, as always, past the Century 21 real estate agency. My initial reaction when I saw this place the first time was "what are you doing here? Go home!" Later on I noticed this cut-out out the front of the shop and it always makes me wonder why they chose this guy for the face of their capaign.
"THE POWER OF MY MULLET COMPELS YOU!"
What a spunk!
On Monday I went to Karasuma to see my Japanese literature teacher in a Noh performance. He`s on the right.
He had us practising with him for a couple of weeks beforehand and gave us the ultimatum of going to see him or writing a report. I`m pretty sure it was a joke though. He`s a funny man!
Afterwards Gen and I rode back towards Karasuma city to catch the train to Osaka. We took a detour though the imperial gardens and had a great time trying to stay on our bikes in the loose gravel. There was lots of suqealing, to the amusement of the Japanese we passed.
We left our bikes at Karasuma station (ilegally, I think) and caught the train to Osaka to meet Steph. Another afternoon of Karaoke ensued.
I believe this was taken during Mmmbop, which would explain Steph`s face.
When we got back to Karasuma, we were very relieved to find our bikes were still there and had a fun night ride back to Saiin.
Good times.
And now I`m back at uni, with a chance to finally update this thing. Tomorrow I think Gen and I are going to Nara and on Saturday we`re going to Totori (on the North coast) for an overnight trip with a group of other exchange students. So there will probably be many more photos to be had.
Oh, funny story. The German exchange student was telling us about his night out on the weekend. Apparently he rode into the city with a group of people to go out drinking. Come 5am they decide to call it a night. So they went to get their bikes and ride home. But his wasn`t there. They eventually found it in the river. Someone had thrown his bike off the bridge and into the river. So he had to wade in, probably still drunk, and then ride home all wet. Tee hee!
And that`ll be the end for now. I have more kanji to learn. *sigh* :D
But before I say anything, anything at all, I just about wet myself when I discovered this at the subway station. It’s an advertisement for a school, which makes the whole thing even funnier.
Last weekend I went back to Gion with Gen. We found a fantastic looking walk in Brigitte’s Lonely Planet guide and decided that we wanted to see what it was like. It was called “night walk through the Floating World”. It was so incredible, everything was lit up in an eerie kind of light and it all felt very surreal, I guess that’s why they call it the Floating World.
It started at a shrine at the end of Gion.
The pieces of paper here are bad fortunes that people have received and tying them to these poles at shrines is supposed to bring you better luck. Pardon the weird angle, I had to use an obliging fence post as a tripod.
It all felt very Spirited Away, though you’ll be glad to know that neither of us were turned into pigs during the course of the evening.
We then followed the map back out onto the main street, which was not at all traditional and looked a little like this, actually a lot like this:
This is Pontochoo, which is apparently quite famous. It’s pretty much just a huge street of restaurants, though how they fit them all in there is beyond me. And of course, by huge I mean long because it is obviously not wide. I got very close to a lot of random people that night.
And these are taken at the insane Okonomiyaki restaurant where the photo of the statue of the pantsless person was taken. It got no less weird inside.
Every table had a creepy mannequin sitting at it.
They only made one thing at this restaurant so you basically sat down and they brought you a this:
So, not for the first time, I ate without any idea of what the hell it was I was eating. I thought it very adventurous of me. Proof:
As we were eating, a group of tourists came in and sat at a table near us. After few short moments of eavesdropping, we realised they were Australian, so after (and only after) we had finished eating Gen asked the leader “would you mind telling us what we just ate?” I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to know. Turns out it was nothing bad, actually, it was all vegetarian except for the shrimp, which I picked out. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed that it wasn’t more interesting, seeing as I’d been brave enough to eat it.
Our minds at ease, we turned out attention to the interesting décor.
“Oh my!” was the initial reaction, followed, naturally, by immature giggling.
Then it was back to uni for a week. The only interesting part of my uni week was Thursday night. There was an organised dinner for exchange students, hosted by the chancellor and his wife. We were told by the students that arrived yesterday that this was a very formal affair while the chancellor was still there, but as soon as he left it turned into a bit of a partay, so we were all looking forward to it. For future reference, formal in Japan means black. What did I wear? My red dress. Hurrah for sticking out!
Before I go on, I should explain just how big a deal this evening was. Social hierarchy in Japan is very important. When you are in the presence of someone who is socially higher than you are, your whole behaviour changes. You use different language, you don’t do anything before they do, you stand whenever he enters or leaves the room, your head is almost constantly bowed and you are always on your VERY best behaviour. So it pretty much felt like we were going to be having dinner with the prime minister or something. It was a VERY big deal. We arrived an hour before he did so we’d be ready to start as soon as he was there. They spent fifteen minutes trying to decide in which way he should be taken to his seat.
I tell you all this because I want you to understand exactly how scared I was when I looked over to see who was sitting next to me at the table only to discover it was the chancellor of the university. We weren’t allowed to move, we were in designated seats. I freaked out. “OMG my honorifics aren’t good enough for this. What the hell am I going to say to him?? OMG I want to go home!!” It was horrible!
As it turns out, he was quite friendly, in an I-am-socially-superior-to-you kind of way. But as the night wore on and the alcohol flowed, things became ever so slightly more relaxed. The food thing was a bit of a fiasco. No one in Japan knows what vegetarian cooking is so once again, I found myself not knowing what I was eating. Only this time, it was harder to avoid the gross stuff without being rude. Bloody chancellor! I had some very innocent looking soup and had just finished the first mouthful when the chancellor lent over and said, “this is shark fin soup, very tasty!” I really could have done without knowing that, I almost spat it out in his face. So I have no idea what else I ate that night. In the end I was pretty much force fed strawberries by the chancellor. He kept sneaking them onto my plate when I wasn’t looking, no matter how many times I told him I’d had enough.
After the chancellor left there was an almost audible sigh of relief from everyone. The ever popular free booze was handed round and everyone got rather tanked. Well, not everyone, mainly the Asians. Hehehe.
I find it very amusing in Japan that whenever someone takes a photo they say “hai, chiizu!” I wonder if they failed to realise the true reason that people say “cheese” when there are photos being taken. They say cheese because saying ‘ee’ forces your face into a smile. But when you ad a ‘zu’ to it, you end up with this:
Hot, yes?
Gen has a fascination with getting people to make hideous photos at parties. During the course of the evening she had her photo taken with just about everyone while pulling a hideous face. This is one of my favourites:
It was taken as a demonstration for our supervisor. He couldn’t understand the concept of pulling an ugly face for a photo. His reaction was “OH MY GOD! Can I throw up now?”
However, it did the trick and he understood what we were after. So, may I introduce my supervisor here in Japan, the very serious (and in this case, very pissed) Tsuneda-san:
I doubt he remembers much of that night after the chancellor left.
And after a few sculling competitions and a million groups photos, (“wait, where’s Kim-san? Throwing up? EEEY!”) it was time to make our way home. This is one of the few times that you will see a carriage full of foreigners on a Japanese train.
I also had a very full weekend. Thankfully, it was a long weekend. Monday was 昭和の日(Showa day), a national holiday. Interestingly, I almost forgot about ANZAC day. I know it`s horrible but it`s very easy to forget when you`re not being reminded. But I did remember in the end and had my minute`s silence. This week in Japan is called `Golden Week` and is a string of national holidays. If the holidays fall on the right days you can end up with the whole week off, as it is, we had Monday off, today and tomorrow at uni and Thursday-Sunday off. So my brain is already in holiday mode and refusing to do any work, so you can imagine I worked wonders with my kanji test this morning!
On Saturday I went to Kawaramachi to meet some Japanese friends and two Dutch girls for an afternoon of karaoke. We were there for four hours.
Snortage:
On Sunday night I went to Kodaiji with Gen and Brigitte to see the lantern lit bamboo forest. It was incredible, the photos don`t even come close to doing it justice.
On the way back from the train station we walked, as always, past the Century 21 real estate agency. My initial reaction when I saw this place the first time was "what are you doing here? Go home!" Later on I noticed this cut-out out the front of the shop and it always makes me wonder why they chose this guy for the face of their capaign.
"THE POWER OF MY MULLET COMPELS YOU!"
What a spunk!
On Monday I went to Karasuma to see my Japanese literature teacher in a Noh performance. He`s on the right.
He had us practising with him for a couple of weeks beforehand and gave us the ultimatum of going to see him or writing a report. I`m pretty sure it was a joke though. He`s a funny man!
Afterwards Gen and I rode back towards Karasuma city to catch the train to Osaka. We took a detour though the imperial gardens and had a great time trying to stay on our bikes in the loose gravel. There was lots of suqealing, to the amusement of the Japanese we passed.
We left our bikes at Karasuma station (ilegally, I think) and caught the train to Osaka to meet Steph. Another afternoon of Karaoke ensued.
I believe this was taken during Mmmbop, which would explain Steph`s face.
When we got back to Karasuma, we were very relieved to find our bikes were still there and had a fun night ride back to Saiin.
Good times.
And now I`m back at uni, with a chance to finally update this thing. Tomorrow I think Gen and I are going to Nara and on Saturday we`re going to Totori (on the North coast) for an overnight trip with a group of other exchange students. So there will probably be many more photos to be had.
Oh, funny story. The German exchange student was telling us about his night out on the weekend. Apparently he rode into the city with a group of people to go out drinking. Come 5am they decide to call it a night. So they went to get their bikes and ride home. But his wasn`t there. They eventually found it in the river. Someone had thrown his bike off the bridge and into the river. So he had to wade in, probably still drunk, and then ride home all wet. Tee hee!
And that`ll be the end for now. I have more kanji to learn. *sigh* :D