Last Hurrah: Osaka Trip

On my last weekend in Japan (more on that later) I was invited to go on a trip to explore Osaka with my friends and their speaking partners. The trip was arranged by the two speaking partners, Kana and Ayumi, and as far as I knew just involved a visit to Osaka Castle, which I was pretty jazzed about after seeing it on some postcards.

Getting to the heart of Osaka involved the train and several subway rides. Once there we got to walk up to the castle through some beautiful park area. Just outside the subway station was a little plant market (see below) that my mom would have loved. If you didn't want to walk up to the castle you could catch a ride on the train--a shuttle designed to look like a train, very cute.


At the entrance to the castle grounds we had to purify ourselves just like we did at the temple in Kyoto. From there you paid your entrance fee, picked up an information pamphlet (available in English and in Japanese) if you wanted, and went on in. The exhibit was designed so that you went straight up the eight flights of stairs to the top first and then worked your way down. The view from the top of the castle was lovely.


The interior of the castle was completely remodeled into a history museum. Visitors walked counterclockwise around each floor looking at the exhibits. The exhibits detailed the history of the castle so far as the battles fought and the family lines involved. It had very little information about what the actual castle itself had been like, which was what I was most interested in. The first few floors were mostly video presentations but were only in Japanese, and they probably had the most pertinent information about what I was interested in. The other exhibits, such as letters, armor, and paintings had written descriptions both in Japanese and in English. Seeing the different armor was very cool.

After going through the whole museum we headed back for the subway and we realized that the castle was only the first stop of the day. Next we headed to the Osaka Bay area. There was a World Entertainment Festival going on with different performers stationed throughout the area, but we didn't stay to look. We went straight to our destination--the Santa Maria. Yes, a Spanish Ship. Complete with Japanese pirates and someone in a cartoon pirate outfit worthy of Disneyland. I was a little confused that we were there, but apparently the Santa Maria is a popular Osaka Bay attraction. We boarded the ship and it set sail. The ride was very nice in and of itself. A little while into the ride, Sarah and I noticed one of the pirate fellows stealing passengers away to another deck of the ship so we went to see what was going on. They were picking volunteers to participate in their little show--battling against the pirates and other little tasks. All over-dramatic and very cute. Following the pirate show was a magician! A Magician! On a boat! In Japan! I was so excited that my group humored me and we actually went down to the lower deck to watch up close. The magic was little league stuff of course, but I was happy nonetheless. His last trick was particularly impressive, but I won't bore you with the details.


After the Santa Maria, we went in search of food. This is the point where the trip got ridiculous. The food court at the Bay Area was very crowded so we decided to go elsewhere. We ended up in the major shopping district Shinsaibashi. Once there no one would make a decision about where to eat so we wandered around for a long time. We finally settled at an Udon shop. As you know, I'm not a big fan, but I was so tired of just walking around that I didn't put up a fight. I just got tempura and enjoyed myself anyway.

After lunch we were supposed to go to Osaka Tower, but Sarah and I were tired and I was worried about getting back to the dorm in time to finish packing, so she and I begged out and headed back. We were very proud of ourselves for being able to navigate the subway and train to get ourselves back to Hirakata. All in all, it was nice to spend the time with the group, especially my friend Sarah, I will miss her.


*photos courtesy of Dustin Heinrich

Sweets!

This is something I bought at the suupaa (supermarket) today without really knowing what it was. They are very sticky and gooey and don't have that much flavor, and even then not really enough to tell apart the different colors. I'm pretty sure it is called Dango and is a mochi (rice paste) sweet.



I think this is another type of Wagashi, but I haven't tried to eat any yet. I bought it cause it was pretty.



This Taiyaki which I bought at a little stand just down the street from campus. The fish is made of some sort of soft dough and you can get different fillings. I got banana chocolate which actually had a piece of a banana and chocolate sauce in it. Oishii (delicious)!

Church

Still unbelievably sore after Aikido yesterday, I trekked out to church this morning. It was a bit nerve-wracking as I took the bus and the train by myself to get there. But I made it!

The Agape International Christian Fellowship meets in a small room in the Kuzuha Station building. There were maybe 50 chairs set up in the room, and by the time service started I think 35 or so people were there. We started by reciting the Apostle's Creed, which was really tricky speaking the English along with the Japanese. I decided to use English there because I think they like that, kind of like how I enjoy hearing others sing in their language back home at NCBC. Then we had praise and worship. It was fairly contemporary praise music. The pastor played guitar and sang, and there was a woman playing the flute, another man singing, and a man playing percussion on what was essentially a box he was sitting on. I knew two of the songs, and the rest were easy to get the hang of. It was really neat to sing in English while the majority of the room sang in Japanese.

After the praise time, we had a prayer and took communion. Since there weren't many people in the congregation there wasn't much time for reflection, but otherwise the communion was just the same as back home. Then there was the offering and then the pastor gave his sermon. Every aspect of the service was done both in English and Japanese, prayer, communion, the sermon, everything. The pastor would say a sentence or a fragment of a sentence in English and then immediately say the same thing in Japanese. It took a little while to get used to how this affected the pace of the service. It was a little more difficult to stay focused during the message, but it was a good sermon. The pastor talked about how we shouldn't compare ourselves to others.

After the sermon we had another prayer, repeated one of the songs, and then were released and expected to fellowship with one another. Before we were let go, the pastor pointed out those of us that were new--we were fairly easy to spot in such a small congregation. I was one of two gaijin there--I was quite surprised to turn around and see that a boy from my dorm had come as well. All in all it was a very nice experience and I appreciated the chance to worship the Lord with fellow believers.

School and Aikido

Kansai Gaidai University is pretty much the same as any other University. The classrooms are normal classrooms--with the exception of the sumi-e studio. My teachers generally connect their computers to the projector and show us powerpoints or video clips or whatnot. Orientation week was full of silly powerpoints. It is comfortable to be on campus, because everything is so similar.

One other thing that is different about campus is the gym. We must take off our shoes as we go into the building, and either go barefoot or wear "inside shoes" which would be your tennis shoes that are strictly for indoor activities so they aren't dirty from walking around. The gym does have a weight room, but the majority of it is divided into large rooms for different classes, whereas my gym at UNCG is almost totally devoted to exercise equipment and only has one or two rooms for classes.

The reason I went to the gym today was for Aikido, which they offer as a "circle" here (like a club). I have never done Aikido, and honestly knew absolutely nothing about it, but I wanted to give it a try anyway. There were a number of us gaijin there for the first time so none of us had uniforms, but the nihonjin (Japanese people) were wearing their uniforms and everything. We were expected to just join in as best we could. One of the students lead us through warm-ups. I wasn't sure what they were supposed to be for really though. Then we had to split into partners. A nice girl came to be my partner, but I can't remember her name. We were going to do disarming drills where one partner has a mini bokken. Sensei would demonstrate a technique and then gave us time to practice. Without knowing what the Sensei or any one else was saying, I just tried to watch and copy as best I could.

My partner and I were both fairly timid and didn't do any of the rolling for the first five minutes. However, we were then joined by a much older man that I assume was either another teacher or a highly advanced student, and he would not let us get away with not rolling. He tried his best to teach us how to break roll, though it was difficult teaching me without being able to communicate verbally. One phrase I picked up was "Mou ikkai" which meant "One more time" because I heard that phrase a lot. Throughout the lesson I did much more attacking (and thus rolling) than I did defense. Maybe that is normal. Thankfully, the man was nice and patient. It was also nice that my partner was having just as much trouble as I was, so I didn't feel so bad about it, even when Sensei came by and laughed at us.

Ultimately it was cool to have basically a private lesson with the other man, but it was also much more intense. After an hour and a half, I was worn out and very sore. The friends I went with were not, however, because they didn't have to roll as much. One of my friends never rolled. They got to do more defending, which I think was the point of the lessons. So, I called it a day even though class was only half over. I had landed very poorly at one point and given myself a headache. Also, 4 hours is a long time. The class is scheduled to go from 1 to 5. I enjoyed it though, really, other than the pain.

At one point in life I had thought it would be cool to be a stunt double. Not anymore.

Japanese Hospital

The Japanese are very clean people. They take their shoes off when inside so as not to get anything dirty. The cafeteria has sinks just as you enter so that you can wash your hands. And when Japanese are sick, or might be sick, or have allergies that make them cough or sneeze they wear surgical masks in public. It is good manners to wear the mask so that you do not spread your germs and make other people sick. I will say, however, the masks are obnoxious. They are hard to breathe through and whenever I exhaled it fogged up my glasses. But I was courteous and kept it on.

Sunday night I felt byooki (sick), like I was coming down with something. I just took it easy and went to bed fairly early. I felt better as I pushed through the next day, but my roommate was very concerned and told our dorm mother and the RAs that I was sick. They were all worried that I had swine flu. Even though I seriously doubted it, I decided to go to the campus clinic the next morning for their sake (and for my mother's). I got to school about 8:30 to find out that the clinic doesn't open until 9:00. So I waited and tried not to fall asleep. The nurse showed up before nine and kindly saw to me. She asked what was wrong and I did my best to explain my symptoms, looking up words in my little dictionary. She took my temperature from under my arm and announced that I should go to the hospital. So, one of the staff members from the CIE walked me down the street to the byooin.

It was more of a small clinic than a hospital. We took our shoes off and put on the visitors slippers they provided at the front door. We were shown around the corner to wait and the CIE woman translated the paperwork for me. There weren't many people there and I was surprised we were seen so quickly, we only waited like 40 minutes, though it did feel much longer. The staff person interpreted between me and the doctor. She asked questions, looked at my throat, listened to my heart and thumped on my back. The worst part was she took a long thin stick and stuck it up my nose and twisted it around in order to test for influenza. That hurts. We waited ten minutes for the results, and as I thought, no influenza. She did prescribe me some medications though. The visit cost just over 6000 yen which is roughly 65 US dollars.

Next we trekked down the street to the pharmacy. It was like a small shop and we didn't have to remove our shoes. We filled out another form and then waited for a short while for the prescriptions to be filled. They gave me so many medications--thankfully they had labels with English on them so I can be sure of the instructions. They gave me a dark liquid which I must mix with water and gargle with 3 times a day--I haven't tried it yet, I'm a bit nervous. There is a set of pills that I take twice a day for the fever. Then there are four sets of pills which I take 3 times a day--one is an antibiotic, and the others treat various symptoms. The medicines altogether cost just over 3000 yen.

With all that settled I profusely thanked the staff woman from CIE, who told me to go back to the seminar house and "take a rest." So I made the long walk back to the seminar house and have been trying to relax here. It is difficult knowing I am missing classes, but a fever is an important reason to stay home I suppose.

The timing is also terrible. I am having a hard enough time managing, being forced to stay to myself and feeling ill is just like pouring salt on the wound. I want to go home.

Kyoto Trip

On Friday afternoon was a trip to Kyoto. Even though it was optional, it seemed nearly all the international students showed up to go. We split into groups and each group paired up with a group of Japanese students who would be our guides. My group consisted of me, my roommate, my two English friends, two other people from my Seminar House, and then the four Japanese students.

We walked from campus to the train station, which was a ways away. Getting a train ticket was fairly simple, but figuring out which trains you needed was considerably more difficult so it was good to have the Japanese students leading the way. I think we changed trains about four times. We took a restroom break in the last train station before heading out into Kyoto and oh my. The restroom was one of those where you squat over the toilet-thing in the floor. It was so awkward! And there was no soap. Hand sanitizer to the rescue!

It was a long walk uphill to our destination (Kiyomizu Temple), but all along the way were cute shops and restraunts. It was a very interesting mix of more traditional buildings and modern buildings. Just before we reached the temple we stopped into one of the shops and had a free cup of green tea. There were also samples of the Japanese sweet "yatsuhashi"--it was delicious (oishii)! I will definitely need to buy some at some point.

Kiyomizu Temple was absolutely amazing. It was so beautiful and even as I stood there and touched the wood I couldn't believe I was there. The temple is made up of many buildings and shrines and the area is really quite large. Before entering the main complex, visitors had to pour water over their hands to purify themselves. There were more fountains within the complex as well, though my group only used the first one.

The buildings varied in size and design and to take pictures of all the different ones would have used a lot of film! For the most part, each shrine had at least one statue of the god (one was of wealth) and a box you could put a donation in and then pray and the god would answer your prayer. Many of the shrines also had a bell above the statue of the god and you would swing the rope to ring the bell. I believe traditionally one is supposed to give the offering, clap twice, pray, then ring the bell, but the practice has become very much a tourist thing, even for the Japanese that were there. I did see a few people who seemed serious about it though.

There were a lot of other traditional activities to do too. There were places that sold fortunes and if you got a bad fortune you could tie it to a post or string and the fortune would stay there rather than following you. You could also buy a wooden tablet, write your wish on it and then leave it there and it was supposed to come true (see below). There were also many charms for sale for everything from happiness to traffic safety. At the love shrine were two love stones set about 20 meters apart. As tradition goes, a person can try to walk from one to the other with his/her eyes closed and if he/she successfully makes it to the other stone then they will find love. Two people from my group tried it and one of them made it without any help.

At Kiyomizu Temple is the Otowa waterfall which is three channels of water that fall into a pond below. Visitors may use a cup on a long pole to gather water from one of the channels and drink it. The water from each channel is supposed to bestow different fortune, intelligence, long life, and love, as I was told. It was hard to choose between the three!

After wandering about Kiyomizu Temple, the group headed back down the hill and got on a bus to go get dinner. The bus works like this. You get on near the back and pull a ticket. The ticket has a number on it--ours had a six. A screen at the front of the bus shows the amount of the fare for each number, and the fare goes up as you ride. We weren't on long so our fare stayed at 240 yen. As you exit at the front of the bus, you throw your yen and your ticket into the collection box. There is a money changer there at the front too in case you don't have the right change.

We went to a sushi restraunt for dinner, 100 yen per plate (a little over a dollar). It was one of those places where the sushi travels around on a conveyor belt and you just grab a plate of what you want as it goes by. You can also use a screen to order some thing particular and it will arrive at your table via a little tram. I had Unagi again and then just tried something random, which turned out to be a mistake. Thus I lost my appetite after the second plate. Some of my colleagues, however, had ten plates worth!

After dinner we went shopping at a local complex which was very high end. We then went back to Hirakata City by train (it only took one train this time, it was an express train) and got back to our dorm by taking the bus. We got back just after 10 o'clock after our 8 hour Kyoto adventure!

*pictures courtesy of Victoria O'Regan

The Banquet

Each day I've been here has felt like a week. I am continuously surprised when I realize how many days I've actually been here.

The only thing on the agenda on Day 3 was the Opening Ceremony from 3 to 6. The ceremony was nice, lots of nice speeches, lots of things I both needed to hear and hated to hear. I sat next to a girl from England who was really cool and my roommate who is really nice also sat with me. The speeches were all in English except for one made by the Japanese instructor. She spoke very clearly and even though I didn't know very much of what she was saying, I could pick out a few words.

Part of the ceremony was a banquet. There were many foods, including some international cuisine and I tried several different things. I had three pieces of sushi--the names of which I don't know except for the Unagi (eel) which I actually liked. I still had trouble with the seaweed wrapped one, but the others were more manageable. I also had yakitori, which was no doubt delicious as it is teriyaki chicken ('yaki' from teriyaki and 'tori' meaning 'bird', or in this case 'chicken'). I had some unknown food that I wish I could have found out what it was because it was quite good, and I had some tempura eggplant, asparagus, pumpkin, and lotus root. All very nice. For dessert I had green tea ice cream which was strange though not altogether unpleasant. All in all, the banquet was lovely and I enjoyed being able to try different foods in a low stress environment. I am considerably more nervous about trying foods my homestay mother prepares.

Anyhow, I have to get to a meeting here on Day 4. I have lots to write about so hopefully I will get to write more later.