Ok - bit of a backblog I know. I'm currently in Sydney and couchsurfing. I have many blogs brewing, but to satiate those who can't wait - I'll publish the last trickles of Japan in a rather unpolished form. Hopefully by the time I leave Auz, I'll be out of New Zealand - so to speak....
[Written 15th May 2009]
Well, I'm sat on a Quantas plane bound for Sydney, where I'm transferring to New Zealand.
As I'm sat here for 10 hours or so, I thought it would be a good time to write and reflect about my time in Japan while the taste of soy sauce and wasabi are fresh on my palate.
[The plane hasn't taken off yet but it is playing terrible covers of bad songs you'd hoped had rotted in the vaults - so it's hard to get a thought straight.] That's certainly one thing I won't miss about Japan - the terrible all-pervasive piped music. The more expensive the meal, the 'classier' the music gets. It starts with musac covers of 90s love songs and 'peaks' at saxophone interpretations of Classical music, complete with synthesized Casio keyboard beats circa 1983. Maybe I'm just more sensitive to it than some people - but it can literally put me off my food if there's bad music. That said, one of the cheapest Sushi chains I often ate at [where I routinely ordered by pointing at the posters on the wall - and once had to displace a business lunch of men in order to point at a poster of a plate of tuna like some caveman] played some of the best Japanese Jazz I'd heard - Japanese Jazz, like Japanese whiskey, is something they've imported from Europe and made very much their own. [I wonder if there is a Japanese person somewhere blogging about how impressed they are by the Pot Noodles and Ninja Turtles in a semi-patronising and paternalistic manor.]]
Don't worry dear, it's just "Paris syndrome"
So apart from the excruciating music - I'll miss Japan very much. Most of all I'll miss the endless courtesy and efficiency. Before I comment further about how utterly pleasurable travelling in Japan is - I'd like any reader who's been to Paris to think back to when they were last there, and in particular try and remember what kind of experience you might have had using the Paris Metro. Right. I shall return to this in a moment.
I was treated wonderfully in Japan as a tourist. People were patient and polite and even if I'd done something wrong, they were at pains to explain it was probably their fault. As a European, I can't but help feel guilty at how I, and many others under the EU [and possibly US] flag have treated Japanese tourists. It's a standard cultural cliche - the Japanese tour bus [most Japanese people travel around Japan in the same way!]. I've often giggled from a distance at the huge groups as they pour off buses, flashes of glasses and camera lenses in the sun all being led by flags or umbrellas through what appears to be a giant photo opportunity. This is not how I'd ever chose to travel. Although I like to think I'm not guilty of silting up historical sites in this way - there were moments while travelling in Japan where I did feel I needed someone explaining what on earth was going on. And when I've been in London, I have often given vague directions to lost Japanese people or pretended to ignore the lost and frightened expressions on their faces. This said I think London is quite tolerant of "the tourist" - most people in London speak English and most tourists speak some in return. Now, let's get back to talking about Paris.
Who's tried asking a question in French, in Paris, and been given a wry, patronising smile before being replied to in a smarmy tone in English? Me. Who's tried asking a question in English and been practically ignored until initiating the conversation in French, looping back to the first question - by which point your knuckles are turning white and begging to taste some fresh frog. Me me and me. Me is someone who speaks English and studied French for 5 years at school.
Now - imagine you're a Japanese tourist, you might have studied English for a couple of years and you find yourself lost on the Paris Metro. Step in "Paris Sydrome". A friend told me about Paris Sydrome and I didn't believe it until I looked it up. Wikipedia describes it as "manifesting from an individual's inability to reconcile a disparity between the Japanese popular image and the reality of Paris". The phrase "reality of Paris" here can be taken as a euphemism for "the cultural gutter of Europe, full of a proud, patriotic and francaphillic love of French, which fills its people with a linguistic fervor which renders them unable to communicate with any foreigners except by shrugging or pointing to a rusty radio mast, in the style of an oil rig, which serves as the focal point of the city". Japan is so efficient and polite and Paris so frustrating and Parisians almost innately unhelpful that Japanese visitors are often so overwhelmed that they are admitted to hospital and diagnosed with "Paris syndrome". This is all true.
The problem for me is, once I left Japan, everything seemed pretty, well, shit. So what is it when you leave Japan? "Rest of the world is pretty shitty syndrome"? Suggestions welcome. The first place I found myself was Sydney airport, then Auckland. To be fair, after Tokyo even London would seem a dull and confusing mass of disappointment - so how do you get exited about Auckland? You don't I'm afraid.
That said - thanks to Japan's hyperdrive culture I hit the ground running in Auckland and headed straight for the "tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere"....
Friday 26 June 2009
Tuesday 16 June 2009
A steep, ice covered learning curve
Well, I'm in Queenstown, New Zealand at the moment and it's snowing. Everyone here is here for the snow. "Are you here for the snow?" everyone kept asking and I had to keep saying no. Eventually I thought I might as well just say yes and see what happened.
I've always viewed people who went skiing and snowboarding with some suspicion. Who in their right minds looks at a mountain and thinks "Hey, yeah, I think I'll hurtle down that with some wood attached to my feet and just see what happens.." ? Well, the day before yesterday I went skiing for the first time in my life and I must admit, I really enjoyed it. Once you get over the fear of flying over the edge of a mountain and being eaten by a yeti, it's actually really fun. I'd had two 2 hour lessons and at the end felt quite confident - so I decided to leave the nursery slopes and head up on the ski lift to a 'proper slope'.
I'd chosen skiing on the advice that you can get quite good at skiing faster - less falling on your arse at the start, whereas snowboarding is two weeks of falling on your arse before you master it. Well, I was about to do plenty of falling on my arse.
I'd got talking to some girls who were quite experienced and asked if they mind just guiding me down the slope a little. So the lift gets to the top of the slope and I see the girls waiting. I hurtle off the lift and tried to turn and stop before I got going - I became a tangle of legs and skis. Once I'd managed to correct myself and plug back into my skis I saw how steep the slope was. I hadn't seen this bit from round the corner. Oh dear. I got quite nervous. The girls were still waiting and smiling sympathetically as i reset my skis and skidded on my arse over towards them. They were kindly and I was apologetic. We began to go down the slope. At this point I was very glad of the guidance - if it wasn't for them I'd have headed off down the middle of the piste in a straight direction. They quickly pointed out that you hair-pin down zig-zagging across it. So we set off round a bend which cornered a 40m high rocky cliff which was cordoned off by a flimsy wood and rope fence. I picked up speed at an alarming rate. I was heading for the fence. Oh dear - here comes that fear again. Something innate took over and I put my brain in my hips - so to speak - and started skiing. I swerved round the corner faster than I've ever gone without the aid of fossil fuels and cornered neatly into the down slope. "wow" one of the girls said "you just did parallel skiing". I didn't know what that meant, but felt pleased anyway. "what's parallel skiing" I asked, before falling on my arse. Apparently it's an advanced high-speed cornering method. So somewhere deep inside me it seems is an innate skier waiting to come out.
When I got to the bottom of the slope the lifts were closing and I was happy to leave my innate skier tucked up away where he was before. In my mind, I'd got away with it and I can tick "skiing and not breaking a leg" off my list.
If only I could tick off "getting out the computer chair without making old man noises".
I've always viewed people who went skiing and snowboarding with some suspicion. Who in their right minds looks at a mountain and thinks "Hey, yeah, I think I'll hurtle down that with some wood attached to my feet and just see what happens.." ? Well, the day before yesterday I went skiing for the first time in my life and I must admit, I really enjoyed it. Once you get over the fear of flying over the edge of a mountain and being eaten by a yeti, it's actually really fun. I'd had two 2 hour lessons and at the end felt quite confident - so I decided to leave the nursery slopes and head up on the ski lift to a 'proper slope'.
I'd chosen skiing on the advice that you can get quite good at skiing faster - less falling on your arse at the start, whereas snowboarding is two weeks of falling on your arse before you master it. Well, I was about to do plenty of falling on my arse.
I'd got talking to some girls who were quite experienced and asked if they mind just guiding me down the slope a little. So the lift gets to the top of the slope and I see the girls waiting. I hurtle off the lift and tried to turn and stop before I got going - I became a tangle of legs and skis. Once I'd managed to correct myself and plug back into my skis I saw how steep the slope was. I hadn't seen this bit from round the corner. Oh dear. I got quite nervous. The girls were still waiting and smiling sympathetically as i reset my skis and skidded on my arse over towards them. They were kindly and I was apologetic. We began to go down the slope. At this point I was very glad of the guidance - if it wasn't for them I'd have headed off down the middle of the piste in a straight direction. They quickly pointed out that you hair-pin down zig-zagging across it. So we set off round a bend which cornered a 40m high rocky cliff which was cordoned off by a flimsy wood and rope fence. I picked up speed at an alarming rate. I was heading for the fence. Oh dear - here comes that fear again. Something innate took over and I put my brain in my hips - so to speak - and started skiing. I swerved round the corner faster than I've ever gone without the aid of fossil fuels and cornered neatly into the down slope. "wow" one of the girls said "you just did parallel skiing". I didn't know what that meant, but felt pleased anyway. "what's parallel skiing" I asked, before falling on my arse. Apparently it's an advanced high-speed cornering method. So somewhere deep inside me it seems is an innate skier waiting to come out.
When I got to the bottom of the slope the lifts were closing and I was happy to leave my innate skier tucked up away where he was before. In my mind, I'd got away with it and I can tick "skiing and not breaking a leg" off my list.
If only I could tick off "getting out the computer chair without making old man noises".
Sunday 7 June 2009
A Long Day in Osaka
Written on 11th May 2009 - [estimated reading time 7 min]
I meant to get up early and leave Hiroshima by 10am, but the whole hostel went out drinking the night before in a traditional Japanese "pub" and I didn't want to miss out. So a little later than planned I got my stuff together and went to the Hiroshima station and the Shinkansen to Himeji to visit the famous castle there. It was really very impressive. You had to climb a hill, upon which an enormous stone pedestal had been built - and on this sat a 6 floor wooden castle. It was over 600 years old and the whole thing reminded me a bit of a giant old-fashioned windmill from the outside. Inside it was more like an oak battle ship - like HMS Victory or something similar. I climbed to the top in my socks - no shoes allowed. Once at the top there was a traditional Shinto shrine with a bottle of Sake and a gong - which most visitors delighted in ringing. It felt very old and traditional - then I noticed in the corner was a small but very obvious defibrillator. The Westerners had arrived.
A couple of girls [USA and Canadian] asked me to take their photo. We got talking and arranged to meet in Tokyo a few days later. They also invited me to "Disney Sea" the next day - "what is it?" I asked, "oh it's like a regular Disney land but with loads more little mermaid stuff and the over the top insane Japanese taste - it'll be like Disney land but whacked out on crack!". I declined, explaining that I didn't have plans, but intended to make some about 1000 times more tolerable than that sounded. When I did meet them again in Tokyo - they said "it was great - I totally like regressed to when I was 6". I told them it sounded like I missed a great day - and for the first time in my experience an American college girl detected irony in my voice.
Anyway, once we'd had our fill of Himeji castle that day we parted ways and I got a bullet train onto Osaka and proceeded to have a very strange evening...
***************
When I arrived in Osaka I had trouble finding my hostel. Osaka is a huge city. Unlike England where our second and third cities are really like giant sprawling towns - Kyoto and Osaka and other cities are massive - with complex transport systems to match. Historically, when Japanese Emperor died, the capitol would move to another city, usually Kyoto, Hiroshima, Osaka or Tokyo. For hundreds of years Japan had a "floating" capital city - the result being 4 or 5 cities of huge scale. After making phone calls and giving up on finding the hostel myself I asked for directions in a local restaurant. A small crowd of Japanese patrons gathered outside, helpfully arguing about where it was. After discovering no one knew except for one individual, the crowd dispersed leaving a man in his 30s.
Now - something that often happens in Japan is if you ask for directions - they won't tell you where it is. They'll walk there - either because their English isn't very good [or rather - because my Japanese isn't] or because they are just very polite. This is very common and it took some getting used to. I most certainly can't imagine walking with a lost Japanese tourist for 15 min in central London, simply because my Japanese isn't up to scratch.
Anyway, it's for this reason I often ask people who are working for directions as they're less likely to mind taking the time or will simply tell you rather than walking with you - which I can't say I really like. On a couple of occasions I was walked around until I realised that the person didn't know where it was we were going either - they were just pretending to know so as not to seem rude. Japan is strange like that.
So I found myself being walked to my hostel by "Ken". "My Japanese name is too hard" he said. I asked if I could hear it - he was right - so Ken it was. So Ken left his mother at the restaurant [which seemed fine by her] and he walked me to the hostel. On the way he explained that he had traveled lots - especially in England to see famous football grounds - and people had always been kind to him and he wanted to do the same now. We got to the hostel and I thanked him - expecting him to fade into the crowd. But he just stood there and didn't leave. I was unsure what to do. I spoke barely no Japanese and his English was scattered. " I wait" he said. I was confused.
I said I was going to check in and he looked very disappointed. "I wait" he said again. He'd had to ring the hostel and he wanted to come in and speak to the staff and thank them. He spoke Japanese with the woman and he said "we go for drink?". Now, anywhere else in the world - a strange 37 year old single man asking you to go for a drink after following you to your hostel would have caused alarm. And it did in Japan too. The Japanese hostel worker could clearly see my apprehension. She explained he had been treated kindly as a traveler and he wanted to pass it on. At this point I remembered something my friend Dave had told me about the Japanese and Japanese hospitality and how it was highly offensive to refuse - so I accepted and dropped my bag off before we headed out.
We went to his favourite bar - a European themed one - but thankfully without Irish music. It was however complete with the terrible sort of music which haunts all of Japan - wafting from each speaker like an aural disease. It's the kind of music you'd get if you were put on hold by Satan's insurance company - but it's everywhere in Japan and I have no idea why. It's truly horrific. Even signs for barber shops or boutiques play a kind of 1980s greeting's card melodies 24/7. And it seems the more expensive the place, the worse the music gets.
The bar was mostly empty, but the 4 or five staff seemed to know Ken and the atmosphere brightened upon our arrival. We drank beer, Japanese whiskey [which I must say is pretty good] then Sake and Shoju [both wheat and potato] and ordered some spaghetti carbonara - which I made a point of eating with chopsticks. We got talking as best as possible. Ken turned out to be a very nice and normal guy - he was a keen amateur sax player and recently divorced [I was never sure if these two facts were linked....] so he seemed normal in most ways - except it turned out that he worked 3 jobs - not normal. He'd started work at 9am today and worked until 6pm. It was now 8pm and he'd start a shift at the post office at 11:30pm until 8am. So he'd be awake for 25 hours - work 19 of them - spending his 5 hours off drinking with me. His third job he did mostly over the phone, which was always by him 24/7. The most amazing thing was that he was still smiling and looked pretty fresh. "I like working - I enjoy it - I like using my brain and meeting new people - it's exiting" he said. I frowned - "and the post office?" I asked, "it's fun" he beemed. Seeing I was not convinced he added he was not typical in Japan - "good!" I replied.
At about 10pm he said it was time to stop drinking. The total tab was over 6000 yen and he wouldn't let me pay a yenny - he worked 3 jobs to earn that money. Dave had warned me not to insist on paying as it causes great embarrassment - so I insisted on paying for a taxi. I thanked him and we swapped details and parted.
***************
I went up to my room in the hostel to make my bed. To my surprise there was an elderly man in the room. He turned out to be a 72 year old retired teacher from Belgium who was travelling the world - he'd been everywhere it seemed. "Better to be here and living rather than rotting in front of a TV" he laughed, Flemishly. I couldn't have agreed more and we chatted away. I left the room to let him get some sleep with the intention of going out and finding food. All that drinking had given me a violent udon craving.
I took two steps out of the hostel and two Japanese girls who were roughly my age said 'Hi' and giggled. I smiled politely and said 'Hi' back. By this point they were in stitches. This never happens in Japan - girls are so shy [or faux shy] that it's very rare for a couple to just say 'hi'. We all stopped walking and stood on the spot and we started talking [them in very broken English]. I asked if they'd been drinking and they thought I said did they want to go drinking. They said "yes - we go". More drinking was very much not at the top of my to do list after Ken had topped me up nicely. They started walking and indicated for me to follow - "why not?" I thought to myself - "this is travelling after all".
To my surprise I was led up to their flat. And it's not what you're thinking - they were refined Japanese young women and I'm a perfect gentleman. I was told to wait outside while they both frantically "tidied". I dread to think what it looked like before they'd tidied. When I stepped over the threshold it was a mess of fluffy pink, clothes, magazines - all wafted over with a sickly scent from a plastic battery operated oil burner to mask the smell of rancid pots and pans. This said, it was a lovely flat -underneath the girly sediment. We sat on the floor around a small table and diligently worked our way through a bottle of Shoju. We talked as best as possible with the help of a bi-lingual phrase book. Amongst the standard set of questions, I was asked my blood type. A deep fear of waking up in a bath of ice with a kidney missing might have flashed before me, had I not been forewarned. Some Japanese believe blood types indicate personality traits [and other things] and give hints at compatibility in relationships. I might not know it, but somewhere out there is an O type waiting to fall in love with me. I rather disappointed them when I said I didn't know. I suppose I should really but it's not the sort of thing you guess at when pushed in England. We were snapped out of our cosy evening by a series of loud sirens. I went to the balcony and observed that a building across the street was on fire. People were being evacuated from the roof - crowds gathered on the streets. We sat and watched the scene unfold- what else is there to do? "did I want a top up"...."ok"
Things settled down and they hit the hay at 3am and offered me a makeshift bed on the floor, which I accepted.
********
I woke up confused an early. I sat quietly until they awoke and said my goodbyes. We arranged to meet for a meal that night. I walked into the hostel - unmade my fresh bed and checked out after a shower. On my way out I met two Canadian guys - we compared plans for the day and decided to all visit Osaka castle. It was a recreation of one destroyed by fire - built in the 1920s complete with lifts inside to the top - a world away from Himeji. Himeji had a temple and defibrillator at the top, Osaka had a gift shop and icecream. The grounds and huge stone walls were impressive though - especially the humongous 130 ton Octopus stone which made up part of the wall. Truly humongous.
That evening I organised a meal with my new Japanese friends [not an easy thing to do]. I invited the two girls and Ken. I also invited the Canadian guys - after they let slip that they spoke Japanese. I intended to engineer an evening where we could all talk in English, assisted by Japanese. That evening Japanese was the tongue of choice. In Japanese I could count to ten and use 5 other scattered words [not bad for a week...]. I've never been so quiet at a meal.
It was a lovely evening though and we all parted ways swapping email addresses as we went.
So the evening was over and it was time to check into a capsule hotel for the first, and last time.
I meant to get up early and leave Hiroshima by 10am, but the whole hostel went out drinking the night before in a traditional Japanese "pub" and I didn't want to miss out. So a little later than planned I got my stuff together and went to the Hiroshima station and the Shinkansen to Himeji to visit the famous castle there. It was really very impressive. You had to climb a hill, upon which an enormous stone pedestal had been built - and on this sat a 6 floor wooden castle. It was over 600 years old and the whole thing reminded me a bit of a giant old-fashioned windmill from the outside. Inside it was more like an oak battle ship - like HMS Victory or something similar. I climbed to the top in my socks - no shoes allowed. Once at the top there was a traditional Shinto shrine with a bottle of Sake and a gong - which most visitors delighted in ringing. It felt very old and traditional - then I noticed in the corner was a small but very obvious defibrillator. The Westerners had arrived.
A couple of girls [USA and Canadian] asked me to take their photo. We got talking and arranged to meet in Tokyo a few days later. They also invited me to "Disney Sea" the next day - "what is it?" I asked, "oh it's like a regular Disney land but with loads more little mermaid stuff and the over the top insane Japanese taste - it'll be like Disney land but whacked out on crack!". I declined, explaining that I didn't have plans, but intended to make some about 1000 times more tolerable than that sounded. When I did meet them again in Tokyo - they said "it was great - I totally like regressed to when I was 6". I told them it sounded like I missed a great day - and for the first time in my experience an American college girl detected irony in my voice.
Anyway, once we'd had our fill of Himeji castle that day we parted ways and I got a bullet train onto Osaka and proceeded to have a very strange evening...
***************
When I arrived in Osaka I had trouble finding my hostel. Osaka is a huge city. Unlike England where our second and third cities are really like giant sprawling towns - Kyoto and Osaka and other cities are massive - with complex transport systems to match. Historically, when Japanese Emperor died, the capitol would move to another city, usually Kyoto, Hiroshima, Osaka or Tokyo. For hundreds of years Japan had a "floating" capital city - the result being 4 or 5 cities of huge scale. After making phone calls and giving up on finding the hostel myself I asked for directions in a local restaurant. A small crowd of Japanese patrons gathered outside, helpfully arguing about where it was. After discovering no one knew except for one individual, the crowd dispersed leaving a man in his 30s.
Now - something that often happens in Japan is if you ask for directions - they won't tell you where it is. They'll walk there - either because their English isn't very good [or rather - because my Japanese isn't] or because they are just very polite. This is very common and it took some getting used to. I most certainly can't imagine walking with a lost Japanese tourist for 15 min in central London, simply because my Japanese isn't up to scratch.
Anyway, it's for this reason I often ask people who are working for directions as they're less likely to mind taking the time or will simply tell you rather than walking with you - which I can't say I really like. On a couple of occasions I was walked around until I realised that the person didn't know where it was we were going either - they were just pretending to know so as not to seem rude. Japan is strange like that.
So I found myself being walked to my hostel by "Ken". "My Japanese name is too hard" he said. I asked if I could hear it - he was right - so Ken it was. So Ken left his mother at the restaurant [which seemed fine by her] and he walked me to the hostel. On the way he explained that he had traveled lots - especially in England to see famous football grounds - and people had always been kind to him and he wanted to do the same now. We got to the hostel and I thanked him - expecting him to fade into the crowd. But he just stood there and didn't leave. I was unsure what to do. I spoke barely no Japanese and his English was scattered. " I wait" he said. I was confused.
I said I was going to check in and he looked very disappointed. "I wait" he said again. He'd had to ring the hostel and he wanted to come in and speak to the staff and thank them. He spoke Japanese with the woman and he said "we go for drink?". Now, anywhere else in the world - a strange 37 year old single man asking you to go for a drink after following you to your hostel would have caused alarm. And it did in Japan too. The Japanese hostel worker could clearly see my apprehension. She explained he had been treated kindly as a traveler and he wanted to pass it on. At this point I remembered something my friend Dave had told me about the Japanese and Japanese hospitality and how it was highly offensive to refuse - so I accepted and dropped my bag off before we headed out.
We went to his favourite bar - a European themed one - but thankfully without Irish music. It was however complete with the terrible sort of music which haunts all of Japan - wafting from each speaker like an aural disease. It's the kind of music you'd get if you were put on hold by Satan's insurance company - but it's everywhere in Japan and I have no idea why. It's truly horrific. Even signs for barber shops or boutiques play a kind of 1980s greeting's card melodies 24/7. And it seems the more expensive the place, the worse the music gets.
The bar was mostly empty, but the 4 or five staff seemed to know Ken and the atmosphere brightened upon our arrival. We drank beer, Japanese whiskey [which I must say is pretty good] then Sake and Shoju [both wheat and potato] and ordered some spaghetti carbonara - which I made a point of eating with chopsticks. We got talking as best as possible. Ken turned out to be a very nice and normal guy - he was a keen amateur sax player and recently divorced [I was never sure if these two facts were linked....] so he seemed normal in most ways - except it turned out that he worked 3 jobs - not normal. He'd started work at 9am today and worked until 6pm. It was now 8pm and he'd start a shift at the post office at 11:30pm until 8am. So he'd be awake for 25 hours - work 19 of them - spending his 5 hours off drinking with me. His third job he did mostly over the phone, which was always by him 24/7. The most amazing thing was that he was still smiling and looked pretty fresh. "I like working - I enjoy it - I like using my brain and meeting new people - it's exiting" he said. I frowned - "and the post office?" I asked, "it's fun" he beemed. Seeing I was not convinced he added he was not typical in Japan - "good!" I replied.
At about 10pm he said it was time to stop drinking. The total tab was over 6000 yen and he wouldn't let me pay a yenny - he worked 3 jobs to earn that money. Dave had warned me not to insist on paying as it causes great embarrassment - so I insisted on paying for a taxi. I thanked him and we swapped details and parted.
***************
I went up to my room in the hostel to make my bed. To my surprise there was an elderly man in the room. He turned out to be a 72 year old retired teacher from Belgium who was travelling the world - he'd been everywhere it seemed. "Better to be here and living rather than rotting in front of a TV" he laughed, Flemishly. I couldn't have agreed more and we chatted away. I left the room to let him get some sleep with the intention of going out and finding food. All that drinking had given me a violent udon craving.
I took two steps out of the hostel and two Japanese girls who were roughly my age said 'Hi' and giggled. I smiled politely and said 'Hi' back. By this point they were in stitches. This never happens in Japan - girls are so shy [or faux shy] that it's very rare for a couple to just say 'hi'. We all stopped walking and stood on the spot and we started talking [them in very broken English]. I asked if they'd been drinking and they thought I said did they want to go drinking. They said "yes - we go". More drinking was very much not at the top of my to do list after Ken had topped me up nicely. They started walking and indicated for me to follow - "why not?" I thought to myself - "this is travelling after all".
To my surprise I was led up to their flat. And it's not what you're thinking - they were refined Japanese young women and I'm a perfect gentleman. I was told to wait outside while they both frantically "tidied". I dread to think what it looked like before they'd tidied. When I stepped over the threshold it was a mess of fluffy pink, clothes, magazines - all wafted over with a sickly scent from a plastic battery operated oil burner to mask the smell of rancid pots and pans. This said, it was a lovely flat -underneath the girly sediment. We sat on the floor around a small table and diligently worked our way through a bottle of Shoju. We talked as best as possible with the help of a bi-lingual phrase book. Amongst the standard set of questions, I was asked my blood type. A deep fear of waking up in a bath of ice with a kidney missing might have flashed before me, had I not been forewarned. Some Japanese believe blood types indicate personality traits [and other things] and give hints at compatibility in relationships. I might not know it, but somewhere out there is an O type waiting to fall in love with me. I rather disappointed them when I said I didn't know. I suppose I should really but it's not the sort of thing you guess at when pushed in England. We were snapped out of our cosy evening by a series of loud sirens. I went to the balcony and observed that a building across the street was on fire. People were being evacuated from the roof - crowds gathered on the streets. We sat and watched the scene unfold- what else is there to do? "did I want a top up"...."ok"
Things settled down and they hit the hay at 3am and offered me a makeshift bed on the floor, which I accepted.
********
I woke up confused an early. I sat quietly until they awoke and said my goodbyes. We arranged to meet for a meal that night. I walked into the hostel - unmade my fresh bed and checked out after a shower. On my way out I met two Canadian guys - we compared plans for the day and decided to all visit Osaka castle. It was a recreation of one destroyed by fire - built in the 1920s complete with lifts inside to the top - a world away from Himeji. Himeji had a temple and defibrillator at the top, Osaka had a gift shop and icecream. The grounds and huge stone walls were impressive though - especially the humongous 130 ton Octopus stone which made up part of the wall. Truly humongous.
That evening I organised a meal with my new Japanese friends [not an easy thing to do]. I invited the two girls and Ken. I also invited the Canadian guys - after they let slip that they spoke Japanese. I intended to engineer an evening where we could all talk in English, assisted by Japanese. That evening Japanese was the tongue of choice. In Japanese I could count to ten and use 5 other scattered words [not bad for a week...]. I've never been so quiet at a meal.
It was a lovely evening though and we all parted ways swapping email addresses as we went.
So the evening was over and it was time to check into a capsule hotel for the first, and last time.
Saturday 6 June 2009
A Night in a Capsule
[Written 13th May 2009]
I just spent my first night in a capsule hotel. I crawled out blinking at 9am with a dry throat from the recycled air and was confused after a night of heavy dreaming. I could have slept another few hours but after 10am the capsule hotel charges 500 yen an hour - I didn't want a lie-in that badly.
The night before I'd had a nice meal with some friends I'd made during my stay in Osaka [see blog entry " A Long Day in Osaka"] and it was a very late evening when we'd finished so I was forced to stay in a capsule - the hostel being shut up.
When I'd heard capsule hotels being described, I'd always imagined them to be quite futuristic - but my lofty dreams of an automated utopia were promptly grounded as soon as I walked into the building. From outside it did look quite modern, but inside - more like a greasy spoons in the style of Fawlty Towers with smoke yellowed walls. It was grotty, stank of stale cigarette smoke and was full of the kind of men you'd see in betting shops all hours of the day - smoking, unshaven and in their own small private worlds. The reception looked like it had been the same since early 1982, and that when it was built in 1982 it had been going for 'that 70s look'.
Everyone smokes everywhere in Japan, and though McDonald's will occasionally offer glass partitioned smoking rooms that's the exception to the rule. This hotel was a positive fug of cheap tobacco wafting through stale recycled air - each breath drained my energy. I checked in at 2am and was quite tired and just wanted to sleep. I was not prepared for the strange customs that you're expected to follow at a capsule hotel.
After filling in a form, totally illegibly, I was told what to do and given two keys. Neither of the keys was for a room in which to lock either yourself or your things. The first key was for a shoe locker - inside was a pair of well worn slippers with your 'capsule' number scribbled on them in black marker pen. You are to leave your shoes in this locker. Wearing my wonderful smelling slippers, I took the lift to the 4th floor to discover my second key was for a locker to lock my things in. I felt like I was about to go swimming, not to bed. The locker was no way big enough for a back-pack so I had no choice but to spoon my bag the entire night.
Once I'd rejected using a locker I went from the locker room into the capsule room. The capsule room itself was about 40ft long and 2 beds high on each side and resembled giant beehive honey cells. Half were empty - I could tell because the bamboo curtain was not drawn across the end. From other capsules came thin sodium light and others hearty drunken snores. I located my capsule and explored.
In a way it was futuristic - or at least it would have been if you were from 1973. I'm sure in the 1980s [when it seemed to have been built] a capsule with an all in one TV, FM radio and alarm clock control panel would have made the Space Shuttle program seem archaic. But now, the whole thing felt like a plastic coffin with an inch thick foam mattress. It was constructed from what was like two plastic baths facing each other to form a capsule in the middle. At the end there was no door - just a bamboo curtain which could be rolled down and hooked under a metal peg. This was not the ultra-modern Japanese capsule I had expected.
At any rate, I was somewhere warm where I could sleep - "Ok" I thought, "what's on TV?". Channel One: Sumo. Pretty cool...then it finished. Ok, "let's see what's on the next channel...". I stopped and starred in horrified silence for a good minute. It was, what I can only describe as 'Hard Core Kissing'. There were pornographic close ups of a woman sucking a man's tongue and plenty of chin-dribble licking. As if this wasn't enough, additional slurping noises had been dubbed over the top, supposedly to enhance the visual feast. It was so weird. I'm sure I'll never truly understand why anyone would watch that - or even guess why it would be broadcast. The people who made it were supposedly filling a niche in the market - but how or why anyone would find that an erotic site I hope I never know. I suppose I can forgive the people who made it - just making a living I guess. But I'd love to meet the person who's job it was to create and dub slurping sounds over the top, just to look them in the eye and slowly shake my head.
So I turned off the TV, set my alarm and stretched out [as best as I could with a back-pack at my feet] and spent my first, and hopefully my last night sleeping in a plastic tube in the company of drunken snoring Japanese men.
I just spent my first night in a capsule hotel. I crawled out blinking at 9am with a dry throat from the recycled air and was confused after a night of heavy dreaming. I could have slept another few hours but after 10am the capsule hotel charges 500 yen an hour - I didn't want a lie-in that badly.
The night before I'd had a nice meal with some friends I'd made during my stay in Osaka [see blog entry " A Long Day in Osaka"] and it was a very late evening when we'd finished so I was forced to stay in a capsule - the hostel being shut up.
When I'd heard capsule hotels being described, I'd always imagined them to be quite futuristic - but my lofty dreams of an automated utopia were promptly grounded as soon as I walked into the building. From outside it did look quite modern, but inside - more like a greasy spoons in the style of Fawlty Towers with smoke yellowed walls. It was grotty, stank of stale cigarette smoke and was full of the kind of men you'd see in betting shops all hours of the day - smoking, unshaven and in their own small private worlds. The reception looked like it had been the same since early 1982, and that when it was built in 1982 it had been going for 'that 70s look'.
Everyone smokes everywhere in Japan, and though McDonald's will occasionally offer glass partitioned smoking rooms that's the exception to the rule. This hotel was a positive fug of cheap tobacco wafting through stale recycled air - each breath drained my energy. I checked in at 2am and was quite tired and just wanted to sleep. I was not prepared for the strange customs that you're expected to follow at a capsule hotel.
After filling in a form, totally illegibly, I was told what to do and given two keys. Neither of the keys was for a room in which to lock either yourself or your things. The first key was for a shoe locker - inside was a pair of well worn slippers with your 'capsule' number scribbled on them in black marker pen. You are to leave your shoes in this locker. Wearing my wonderful smelling slippers, I took the lift to the 4th floor to discover my second key was for a locker to lock my things in. I felt like I was about to go swimming, not to bed. The locker was no way big enough for a back-pack so I had no choice but to spoon my bag the entire night.
Once I'd rejected using a locker I went from the locker room into the capsule room. The capsule room itself was about 40ft long and 2 beds high on each side and resembled giant beehive honey cells. Half were empty - I could tell because the bamboo curtain was not drawn across the end. From other capsules came thin sodium light and others hearty drunken snores. I located my capsule and explored.
In a way it was futuristic - or at least it would have been if you were from 1973. I'm sure in the 1980s [when it seemed to have been built] a capsule with an all in one TV, FM radio and alarm clock control panel would have made the Space Shuttle program seem archaic. But now, the whole thing felt like a plastic coffin with an inch thick foam mattress. It was constructed from what was like two plastic baths facing each other to form a capsule in the middle. At the end there was no door - just a bamboo curtain which could be rolled down and hooked under a metal peg. This was not the ultra-modern Japanese capsule I had expected.
At any rate, I was somewhere warm where I could sleep - "Ok" I thought, "what's on TV?". Channel One: Sumo. Pretty cool...then it finished. Ok, "let's see what's on the next channel...". I stopped and starred in horrified silence for a good minute. It was, what I can only describe as 'Hard Core Kissing'. There were pornographic close ups of a woman sucking a man's tongue and plenty of chin-dribble licking. As if this wasn't enough, additional slurping noises had been dubbed over the top, supposedly to enhance the visual feast. It was so weird. I'm sure I'll never truly understand why anyone would watch that - or even guess why it would be broadcast. The people who made it were supposedly filling a niche in the market - but how or why anyone would find that an erotic site I hope I never know. I suppose I can forgive the people who made it - just making a living I guess. But I'd love to meet the person who's job it was to create and dub slurping sounds over the top, just to look them in the eye and slowly shake my head.
So I turned off the TV, set my alarm and stretched out [as best as I could with a back-pack at my feet] and spent my first, and hopefully my last night sleeping in a plastic tube in the company of drunken snoring Japanese men.
Intermission: A Return to Civilisation
So apparently I'm in the capitol city of New Zealand.
I drove 5 hours on the 4th June and returned my camper van to the Wellington drop-off. I was met by my second-cousin Anthea, and we drove to her sister Nicole's house - where I'm staying for a few days with her, her husband Tim and their 15 month old daughter Chloe. It was nice to get back to civilisation and sleep in a building for the first time in over half a month and not wake up with frost in my beard. I had a shower, shaved and began to almost feel like a member of the human race again.
So here I am. I cooked everyone the trout I caught in Taupo the other night and it went down well. I'm resting here for a few days now and intend to catch up with all my blogs before heading off to the South Island or whatever it's called nowadays before I fly off to the next leg of my journey.
Apologies in advance for the blogbardment that will shortly follow. I've been writing in my diary as I've gone and am currently typing up a month's worth.
I've also uploaded new photos to the Picasa album - and Facebook friends should be able to see a few extra photos on my new New Zealand albums.
Thanks to everyone who's commented so far or got in touch with me about the blogs. I enjoy writing them and hopefully there should be more to follow!
I drove 5 hours on the 4th June and returned my camper van to the Wellington drop-off. I was met by my second-cousin Anthea, and we drove to her sister Nicole's house - where I'm staying for a few days with her, her husband Tim and their 15 month old daughter Chloe. It was nice to get back to civilisation and sleep in a building for the first time in over half a month and not wake up with frost in my beard. I had a shower, shaved and began to almost feel like a member of the human race again.
So here I am. I cooked everyone the trout I caught in Taupo the other night and it went down well. I'm resting here for a few days now and intend to catch up with all my blogs before heading off to the South Island or whatever it's called nowadays before I fly off to the next leg of my journey.
Apologies in advance for the blogbardment that will shortly follow. I've been writing in my diary as I've gone and am currently typing up a month's worth.
I've also uploaded new photos to the Picasa album - and Facebook friends should be able to see a few extra photos on my new New Zealand albums.
Thanks to everyone who's commented so far or got in touch with me about the blogs. I enjoy writing them and hopefully there should be more to follow!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
