Frank's first rollercoaster ride.

Needless to say, after Frank and I arrived in Osaka we were beyond exhausted. We slept until about 1:00 in the afternoon, woke up, and decided to go to Universal Studios Japan (or USJ as it is known in these parts). I hopped downstairs to take a shower, only to discover that our jobless friend with whom we were staying had not paid his gas bill. So no hot water. I pulled a Mexican shower with my Old Spice deodorant stick. Yup, the ladies would be hot after me on this day.

We made it to the park at 2:00, and after a few shenanigans we arrived at the ticket booth. The all day pass was 5500 yen, but a "twilight" after 3:00 pass was only 3000. So we bought the cheaper pass and used our savings to buy overpriced but delicious burgers from the Hard Rock Cafe near the park. Oh, I also took this touristy looking photo...



While eating lunch, Frank revealed that he had never been to an amusement park before. He was a little skeptical about how fun this was actually going to be. It did not help that the first ride we came to was E.T. (and the 30 minute wait was definitely NOT worth it). Frank was unenthused. This photo is evidence that sarcasm is apparently alive and well in Kenya...



Next we came to Spider Man, which rocked of course. Frank disavowed anything bad he had ever said about amusement parks. He thought that the automatic photo that they take at the end of the ride was the greatest thing ever, and purchased it immediately after the ride. He also bought the photo after the Jurassic park ride as well. That one was particularly awesome, hopefully I can get it scanned in soon. Until then, here are some of us that are slightly less awesome...but still good...




We ended up hitting every single ride at USJ (except for the big roller coaster which was broken...which was fine by me because I am a scared little girl when it comes to those super big drops, Jurassic Parks' blind 85 foot drop almost made me crap my pants). Not bad for 3000 yen. We would then head back into the city, to experience the craziest Christmas eve/Christmas morning that I have ever been a part of....

Josh and Frank get to Osaka for 390 yen

This entry will be written running diary style:

5:30am - Wake up. Drink orange juice. Decide that bringing a two liter bottle of Pocari Sweat(Japanese style Gatorade) will be too heavy. Walk to station.

5:55am - Arrive at station. Take goofy picture.



6:13am - Board nice warm bullet train. Embark on ridiculous 17 hour journey to Osaka.



6:55am - Arrive in Shin-Yatshushiro. Say goodbye to nice warm bullet train.

6:57am - Realize that there is nobody working the local train gate as it is a holiday. Go to platform for free. It is still to early to realize the significance of this, but we do find a stuffed bear.

6:58am - Look inside stuffed bear. Find a railpass. Frank is very excited. He wonders who would leave their bear on a bench. I wonder who would hide a railpass inside a stuffed bear.



7:05am - The 7:00 train is late. Trains in Japan are never late. Frank asks a group of three Jr. High schoolgirls why the train is late. We are informed that today is a holiday and there are special holiday times. There is no 7:00 train, we must wait until 7:20. We are not pleased.

7:10am - Frank tries to talk to the schoolgirls. They are very shy. He asks them if they lost a bear. They look at him like he is crazy. He then runs over and gets the bear. The girls giggle. He then shows them the railpass. One girl gets very excited, apparently she knows the owner of the railpass. They all agree that this must be the funniest thing that has ever happened in the history of the world. Frank and I are now their new best friends.

7:20am - Board the first of seven local trains.

8:23am - Arrive in Kumamoto. Change trains too quickly to be able to buy a drink. I wish I had packed my two-liter bottle of Pocari Sweat.

8:24am to 9:55pm - Change trains many more times. Play countless games of Kenyan Uno. Talk to some Jr. High boys, one of which tells us he has 5 girlfriends. He is my hero. Get stared at by every single person on every train. Try to get some sleep on these tiny chairs. Nobody checks our tickets.




9:57pm - Leave Himeji station. We are very excited that nobody has checked our tickets. This trip was supposed to cost 11,900 yen for the two of us (about $120), and we are dreaming of paying less than $5.

10:20pm - There are many people on this train. At least 15 people are standing. There are also two open seats next to Frank and I. Nobody is brave enough to sit next to us. We continue playing Kenyan Uno on the empty seats.

10:32pm - Two people finally build up the courage to sit next to us. It just so happens to be a lady and her very hot daughter. They speak good English. They are very interested in everything we have to say. The daughter tells us about college. Frank is in love.

10:58pm - We arrive in Osaka. Frank is trying to come up with a plan to get the daughter's phone number with her mother sitting next to him. Frank fails to think of such a plan. Frank is disappointed with himself.

11:01pm - We have come over 450 miles. This is like taking the AmTrack from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and then busing to Riverside. Thus far we have paid $0.00 for local trains. We need to switch lines to get to our friends house in Nara, which is just outside of Osaka. We buy tickets for the new line.

11:03pm - We must get past the gates with no exit ticket. We try to explain we came on the train from Himeji but have no ticket. The workers get tired of trying to talk to stupid foreigners. We are allowed through! Total cost of all local trains: 390 yen.

We are the masters of the universe.



11:55pm - Arrive in Nara. Get picked up by Hana, who is the boyfriend of one of our friends in Kagoshima. He drives fast. He does not wear a seat-belt.

11:58pm - Hana makes a U-Turn going 50 KPH, then veers onto a tiny side street which is bordered by a swampy rice field. He then points to the light up ahead and says "Light-o red-o" which I guess means he almost killed us to avoid a red light.

12:02am - We arrive at Hana's house. We are alive. It was a good day.

14 days on the road

In nine short hours I will begin a 14 day trip from Sendai to Osaka to Tokyo. My friend Frank and I will wake up at 6:00am and board the first of 8 different trains on an epic 17 hour journey to Osaka. My goal is to learn the entire Hirgana alphabet while on the train. As this is not likely to happen, I would be content with just learning half.

I plan on taking lots of pictures and videos to chronicle this journey so I dumped the contents of my memory card onto my laptop to free up space. I found a few hidden gems, such as some video that Rachel took of my band's last show before I left for Japan.

I hope to be posting next on Saturday when I arrive in Tokyo. Once there I will be staying with one of my friends from training and he might be kind enough to let me use his internet while he is at work. Apparently he is a big snorer so I brought earplugs. Gotta stay prepared. Until then, here is some Laden Swallow goodness...

Josh finds anti-sports people boring, untrustworthy.

Last weekend I went to Fukuoka (4 hours away, and about the size of Toronto...I think) for my work Christmas party. As I have never met most of these people, and the ones I do know I have only seen once or twice, the first part of the party was a generally awkward exchange of general information. However, I figured that as the night moved on people would open up more and the potential for an interesting conversation would greatly increase.

Or so I thought.

After going up for my third helping of the fried potatoes, I found myself sitting next to a hipster guy in a scarf who was inhaling from a slim cigarette. He looked like he was trying very hard to channel David Niven, albeit with varying degrees of success. As we had spoken before I knew where he was originally from, and I asked him a simple question about his city's NBA team. He took a drag from his slim stick of cancer, looked down his nose at me, and said something to the effect that he felt sports were beneath him. In fact, his expression also said that I must be the silliest person in the world to even ask him such a question.

It was then that I decided I did not like Mr. Hipster David Niven.

While the men at the party were altogether underwhelming in their sports knowledge, the women more than eager to discuss their favorite teams. I met a girl from New York, and as I always do when I meet a New Yorker, I asked her if she was for the Yankees or the Mets.

She said the Yankees.

This is generally not a good sign. I hate the Yankees with every fiber of my being. One more question would seal the deal.

"Who is your favorite player?" I ask. If she says Jeter there is no possible way we can be friends.

She excitedly answered, "Well I don't like Jeter," and then made a face to let me know that either she really didn't like Jeter or had swallowed some bad shellfish earlier in the night. Good sign. She continued, "And A-Rod sucks. He is soooo overated, he never comes through in the clutch. I like Robinson Cano."

Wow. Aside from being a Yankee fan this girl is perfect. She hates A-Rod and for some reason doesn't like Jeter. However, she is in fact a Yankee fan, so I try and avoid talking to her for the rest of the night.

Finally, I sat down opposite a girl and found out that she had graduated from Loyola Marymount. Immediately I was excited. Now granted, she was probably three years old when Hank Gathers became the second person ever to lead the nation is both scoring and rebounding, averaging 32.7 and 13.7 respectively. (OK, I looked that up. But I did know that he led the nation in both, so put that in your pipe and smoke it) I am sure everyone reading this blog already knows the story of Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble, because you are all both interesting and trustworthy. However, in case you forgot, I will refresh your memory. One game before the NCAA tournament, Hank Gathers died on the court because of a heart problem (actually immediately after throwing down a hard core ally-oop dunk. The guy was a stud) Best friend and teammate since high school, Bo Kimble would then lead the Cinderella squad all the way to the Elite Eight, where they would fall to the eventual champion UNLV. Kimble did this all while shooting his free throws left handed when he first got to the line. He was a notoriously bad free throw shooter, but he never missed a left handed free throw the entire tournament. Probably my favorite college sports moment ever.

Anyways, when I asked her about Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble, she got very excited and we had a very nice conversation on the topic. So I guess there are sports fans in Japan, you just have to look really hard. So I will continue to search on, and I am sure it will be worth it.

The Ohara Festival

So I don't really know much about why they have this festival, I think it has something to do with the harvest season. What I do know is that there are a ton of dancers and taiko drummers all over the place. I was with some people from the Ultimate frisbee group that I play with on Sunday afternoons. We consisted of 4 foreigners and one local, so whenever we didn't know something we just asked her. Actually, I take that back. Whenever we didn't know something we just made up the answer and then she would slap us for being stupid and tell us the real answer.

The night was marred by a steady drizzle, so all the drums are covered in plastic. Still these kids were awesome. I wish I could go back in time 15 years and become a pro-master skills tiako drummer.






The little kid in the front right is my hero. I bet he drives his parents crazy when he practices though.

The Rice Harvest

In America, most people buy their rice at the supermarket. Japanese on the other hand, LOVE their rice. They love it so much that they grow their own. If only they could grow bananas. But that is for a separate post.

My student Takayoshi invited me to a rice harvest that his family was going to. As I had never harvested rice before, I figured this it would be good for me to try. How hard could it be? When he told me that we would be leaving at 7:00 am, it should have been my first clue that it might not such an easy day.

Arriving at the fields:


The rice field. Part of it has already been harvested and the brown stalks were hung out to dry. I was told that this field was the longest in Japan, it looked to be almost 300 yards:





There was also a pond with grass in it cut to show Kanji and a fish. I don't know what it says. I am not a good student.




Cutting rice is not easy. You have to bend down and slice it with a sickle, and you have to slice 4 bunches before you can tie the stalks together. I turned out to be pretty quick at the cutting part, but I really sucked at tying the grass together. I finally just gave up on the tying and concentrated on just cutting down the rice. Another person took over the tying duties and I descended like a tornado upon the rice field. About halfway through the Mayor of the town came to help with the harvest. Apparently he comes every year. He was all decked out in coveralls and rubber boots. I guess he was kind of a big deal because everyone wanted to talk to him. He asked Takayoshi who I was and Takayoshi told him my name...with Japanese pronunciation, it is said "Jo-shu". Well, I guess that sounds almost exactly like the Japanese word for "servant or helper", so the Mayor thought I was some hired hand and that's why I was cutting down rice like a mad man. Once Takayoshi straightened him out and told him I was from California, The Mayor was very eager to talk to me. What can I say, I'm kind of a big deal.


Another view of the field:



After the harvest was over we went back to Sendai. My legs were beyond sore. It took about a week from my hamstrings to feel normal again. Harvesting rice was a very fun thing to do....once. I will now revert back to my American ways and continue buying my rice at the supermarket. I never cook anyways so it probably doesn't matter where I get my rice.

As I was working on about 3 hours of sleep and had just cut down a ton of rice, I was very tired. So when we got back to Sendai I took a nap on Takayoshi's floor. An hour later it was decided that we should go bowling. These are probably the greatest shoes I have ever seen. If they made them in regular shoes I would definitely buy them.

Banana's are missing, Josh investigates

I have not been able to buy a banana in about a month. Every time I go to the supermarket they are sold out. At first I figured there was some kind of shipping problem, but I have been three times now in the last month and the banana stand is always empty. Where are all the banana's? They are my most favorite fruit. I eat them with peanut butter as a sandwich, I eat them plain as a snack, I cut them up into little pieces and eat them with my cereal. I miss bananas.

So I did a little investigating. Apparently there is some kind of fad "Banana Diet" going around Japan where you just eat one single banana for breakfast. Then a normal lunch and dinner (before 8pm) and you are supposed to lose like 10 pounds a month. It all sounds pretty kooky to me.

One of my students proudly told me that she ordered 88 bananas from the Internet and packed them all in her freezer. Wow. A wise man once said "There is always money in the Banana Stand". I guess he was right.