Universal Studios

I went to universal studios today. Oh boy that was a mistake.

I have no interest in the whole holywood thing but my plan was to just go on lots of rides. Anyhow, this is how it went down.

1. Arrive, wait in line for 1 hour to buy ticket.
2. Get ticket, wait in line for 30 seconds to get into park.
3. Go to most awesome ride, wait in line for 1 hour and 10 minutes.
4. Ride the ride for 2 minutes.
5. Go find lunch place, wait in line for 10 minutes.
6. Order food, wait in line for 7 minutes to receive food.
7. Sit down and eat food.
8. Go to next ride I want to go on, the estimated wait time was helpfully provided as 2 hours and 20 minutes.
9. Go back to most awesome ride, wait time is 1 hour and 30 minutes.
10. As all decent rides have long waits I go home.

Yeargh. It is such a disappointment. While waiting in the line to buy a ticket the main roller coaster goes over where you wait. Everyone things, fuck yeah, but that joy is at the cost of around 1.5 hours boredom.

The way to avoid this is to buy express tickets, which is a special line for people who have paid extra cash. They go to the front and all other lines stop and wait until that line is exhausted. I assumed that they were the rich people, which is probably true enough, but it is about $30 or so for this service. It costs about $65 to get into the park.

The funny thing about all this is I much prefer a system like the royal melbourne show. I used to hate it how you pay to get in and then pay for every ride, but this avoids the massive queues and is probably about the same value anyway.

Man, I would hate to see it on a weekend or a public holiday. This was on a Monday on a business day. I think the way to do it is to come and line up early in the morning. You could get a lot of rides done as it takes a while for people to get into the park.

The benefits of going/living overseas

I have been changing somewhat. Mostly getting stronger it seems to deal with the difficulty of living in a foreign country. I have been thinking a bit about this.

Before I came to Japan there is a truth I hadn't fully grasped. It is not that complex and it is possible someone could have told me, but for it to fully dawn I think I needed to live in a different culture.

That truth being, the parameters of a culture are incidental. So for example, "cool" men in Australia are quite masculine. However in Japan, "cool" men are not very masculine. They have something of a half michael jackson half rock star feel. Or good teeth is a much less favoured attribute in Japan. They have celebrities that have brown or bad teeth.

This is obvious enough to a degree, but there is a freedom you get from really knowing it. I realise that anxieties I have had about myself, in areas that I don't conform to the norm is ok, as the norm is totally incidental anyway. I am not saying I am entirely free from all this, but I have been given a great perspective on it which has helped me.

I do think you have to be careful though, as there are things that are good and bad for humans irrespective of culture. So I don't think the lesson from this is to never change, but to not worry about cultural conformance.

This has made me want to live in other countries more as well. I want to experience many different cultures and keep learning more about humans. I think we are fascinating creatures.

It's been a little while...

I am having a lot of fun. I have made some Japanese friends and this has been really gratifying for me. Partly because they are awesome people and I am proud to be their friends and also because my Japanese is surviving in this Japanese only environment. This is my first prolonged experience talking to people in Japanese, where I don't have the option of switching to English.

The benefit from this is slightly lessoned by the fact that we are drinking quite a lot. I have been to this standing bar with them twice which is really friendly. You buy these big beer bottles and everyone has small glasses. We just keep topping up each others glasses and talking. Lots of fun.

It has been slightly alarming as well. We have these kind of pay battles. The first night out with them I didn't pay anything. I did have something of a pushing battle with this girl to get to the bar and pay.. but I could only go so far. This is all nice enough, but I know they don't have a heap of money and would like to pay my share. Hopefully they aren't so forward with this in the future.

I have been to a bunch of stuff in Osaka such as the imperial castle, which is amazing. The word impenetrable springs to mind. Check out the photos so see how wide the moat is.

A reoccurring thought I keep having is, why isn't all the cool shit in Japan in Australia?

Like phones for example. Why don't these companies selling super cheap awesome phones just send them to Australia and destroy the competition?

Even the hand driers in the bathrooms are totally awesome. There are ones where you insert our hands into a slot and really powerful wind is blown at them from many directions. Or the other variety is the fan is at the sink so you don't need to go anywhere to dry your hands. Both are superior to the box on the wall thing.

This kind of superiority is pretty much consistent across all technology that I have come across. I would think even if the Japanese companies weren't interested in bringing the stuff across, some entrepreneurial aussie would see the awesomeness of say the hand driers and create a similar design and sell it.

Yesterday i saw my friend. It was awesome. His name is Takao and he was one of the students I taught as part of my teaching course. He is extremely unpretentious, honest and intelligent.

I met him in Nara which is a very scenic and historical Japanese city. They have many parks and shrines and a buttload of "tame" deer. These deer are everywhere and largely just stand around or eat grass. Their horns have been cut off and every year they are cut back. I found it all quite sad. You see them try and fight by attempting to lock there horns together. They then try and raise there necks to subdue the other, but of course they have no horns to lock so they raise there heads look a bit weirded out and do nothing.

There are various vendors that sell food for the deer. I didn't feel like contributing to what I feel is a pretty wrong so I didn't buy any and feed them, but watched others do so. It is sort of funny in a family guy kind of way.. The deer tend to hang around these vendors and so as soon as someone buys a pack of feed they basically swamp them. I saw two girls buy a pack each and get swiftly cornered with lots of deer snapping at them. Some of them biting and pulling at there clothes.

We went to this shrine Toudai-ji which is the biggest wooden structure in the world. It is also 33% smaller than it was originally built but has been damaged/burnt down a few times. Inside there is a gigantic statue of budda. It's pretty cool.

We also saw many school kids which I found interesting. One thing is there clothes are really freakin cute. The kindergarten boys have um those bobbin hats. I can't remember what the girls had but yeah it was cute and exactingly styled.

We hung around there for a bit then went to Osaka. Osaka is pretty boring if you don't like shopping. You can walk in any direction and there just heaps and heaps of shops, at least from where I am staying. There are no parks or anywhere to sit, you get the feel the whole thing is designed to keep people moving, as you can't keep buying stuff from the one shop.

The number of people is pretty overwhelming, there is a central strip in shinsaibashi which is just a sea of people and goes on for farther than the eye can see. Anyway we had some food, sat in a coffee shop and saw ghost rider. It is so so.

Today I am getting my credit card so I can finally relax about the money I spend. I plan to buy a camera, phone and mp3 player. I have already had a look at the phones and they are ridiculously cheap. Their budget level phones look awesome and all have cameras. They cost about $60. Cameras are also cheap, I can get a 10 mega pixel one for $600. Haven't had a chance to look at Mp3 players yet.

Once I get my camera I'll see if I can hook you up with some photos.

I am spending the day in Kyoto. I am in a bad mood so this is somewhat strange.

I have been to a soaring and huge temple which frankly pissed me off. It is majestic and solemn, quite spectacular really. The annoying thing is it's story. It was built originally to house the painting of a dead monarch. I don't think this is such a bad thing in itself, but they lost many lives constructing it. They had to get the wood down the mountain which was very dangerous as there were avalanches and the temperature was at times freezing.

It just bugs me that they spent all these lives to make something totally awesome just so some dead guy can have a nice place for his painting.

Aaaanyway, kyoto is pretty cool. It is a large city ringed by mountains in this massive bowl. I went up to the top of an observation tower to check it out. They had really good zoom lenses on it, you can spy on people and see what they are doing and what kind of people they are.

I am now siting in a department store contemplating if there is anything cooler than free wireless internet. I'm leaning towards no.

My new plan is to go to a castle and check it out.

To be honest I just want to meet people. I find the people and the culture more interesting than the history. This is hard though and I understand more of the difficulty my Japanese friends experienced living in Australia. It is really hard to make friends given the language barrier. It is also really hard to find a bar or club that has like minded people.

I am staying in Osaka in a very young and uh cool area. This is nice enough, but it is all very showy and i'm not particularly looking to make friends with such people. Regardless, I plan to do some bar hopping tonight to see if I can't meet some cool people.

Bye bye

One of the first things I noticed about Japan was the escalators. They are so quite and smooth. In Australia you can almost imagine a bunch of burly gnomes underneath shovelling wood into a furnace to keep it clattering along. "Aye, fetch me a hogshead of pine lads".. In Japan the escalators are firstly beautiful. The uh middle part is glass with the rubber you would expect running around it. Just below wnere you hold, there is a pure white light that seems to serve no other purpose than being sexy. The rate is very consistent and slightly eerie. They hum a pitch which roughly translates to "all is well". There is no perceptible mechanics to them at all and they appear to run purely on the ideal of Japanese efficiency.

Anyway so, I stayed at the hotel, ruing the expense.

It was at this point I realised two things.

1. I had forgotten my laptop charger crucial for finishing my second job.
2. I had a lot of stuff in my bags and it wasn't feasible to carry it all around.

This was frustrating.. But I realised there was a way I might be able to solve both things. I called my teacher, Sachiko and she said I could drop the stuff at her house and my Mum could send the charger to that address.

I embarked on a journey to get to her house. I caught 3 trains to do this and I was amazed by the journey. For the entire trip, there was no break in houses. Everywhere I went through on my 3 hour journey was like the inner city in Melbourne. I am flying through these districts in a bullet train and they never end. Not only that but the concentration of people barely decreases, there are so many 5 story buildings, the flow of them never ends.

I took the train as a chance to talk to some of the people. I enjoyed this, especially fumbling through my Japanese to communicate. I met a man who works at Yakult, two girls who I don't know where they were going and old man and his daughter going to her first day of work.

On the trains there are conductors who walk up and down the train. I have never seen someone so engrossed in there job. They bow before the enter a carriage and bow to the carriage again before they leave. When they speak to you there is not the slightest glimmer of personality nor in anything they do. It is like a deep commitment to their jobs drives them and nothing else disturbs the surface of their conscience.

I find this curious. Would the passengers be insulted should a conductor not bow to them before they leave? How about if one cracked a joke or teased someone in a good natured way? Is this job focused mode the result of those in power forcing their old fashioned beliefs on those below them or simply Japanese culture?

This is very interesting to me. In this example and in others I have rarely seen any personality shown to customers by shop keepers or those that serve them.

So I arrived at the station and was picked up by Sachiko, my former Japanese teacher and soon to be employer. She is such a warm and lovely person, I just love being around her. Some people are so good natured that I show no hesitation in trusting them completely. Sachiko is such a person.

I drove to her house and we sat in there lounge room. Man they have a cool invention. Instead of couches they have a table.. which is sunk into the ground and the room below maintained.. hmm not sure if that makes sense. So you slip your legs under the table and into the room below.. which is heated.. and a doona is around the table to trap all the heat in. Awesome. There is something more communal about being this low to the ground.

I soon met her family.

All in the one house they have:

Sachiko
Her brother
Her brother's wife
Her mother
Her grandmother (84 years old)
Her brother's younger son
Her brother's elder son

Such a setup would never happen in Australia. 4 generations under the one roof. I think it is better though. This way the children are able to understand there grandparents and great-granparents in a way that going to there houses twice a year and eating cake and feeling uncomfortable doesn't allow.

I enjoyed trying to speak Japanese to them and more or less communicated what I wanted to say. The kids were more difficult as they use such casual Japanese that I don't understand a lot of it. The grandmother was especially difficult as my Japanese pronunciation is far from perfect and I think due to bad hearing she couldn't distinguish what I was saying.

The kids are pretty awesome if rambunctious and naughty. One of them told Sachiko that they want me to live with them which is touching. The hospitality was profuse and humbling. I was even given someone's room to sleep in and they slept with someone else. I would have protested if I knew but it was too late by then.

The next day I left minus all my teaching stuff and some stuff for Sachiko. I went to the apple store in Osaka and bought my power adaptor. This was a big relief. I then found the capsule hotel that I was looking for. Man this place is awesome value.

For 3000 yen ($33) you get a capsule, free internet access, dinner, access to laundry facilities, which you do have to pay for but still, access to a bath. This is crazy good value. I also found a really good ramen shop which for 500 yen ($5.50) you can get a big meal. I can live for $39 a day which in the second biggest city in Japan is pretty damn sweet.

I have been largely living it up expect for one big problem. Money.. I can't get it! I managed to leave my credit card at home which is being sent by my mum, and my debit card expired in February.

This has meant that I haven't been able to go around or do much except study Japanese. I have been hungering to hit the bars and talk to some people but haven't been able to afford it. I also want to go to umeda and do some shopping.

I have also been meaning to buy a camera to show you some of this cool stuff but no can do.

It has been an interesting experience for me. I have never before in my life been majorly strapped for cash. I have had wealthy parents and since school pretty much always had a job. Now I can only afford 2 meals a day and must choose the best value place.

Anyways I have just borrowed money from Sachiko and my credit card should get here on Friday. Crisis averted. I feel quite stupid. Sachiko's friend in Osaka met me to give me the money. She was clearly quite sick and shouldn't have been outside. I feel guilty about this, but I didn't really have a choice but to accept this help. I bought this women a present to try and repay her humbling kindness to a stranger in need.

So now I am right for money and I am going to try and live it up a bit more.

Hello :)

So Japan..

Here are some thoughts:

I brilliantly failed to get ready in time for my plane. I ended up packing all night and basically just made it, leaving my room quite messy and my mum the task of cleaning it in the next few days. Oh well, I would like to plead that my stupid second job running 3 months late (stupid client) was in part the cause.

Anyway so I limped in and ended up making the flight fairly comfortably thanks to my mum. I flew to Sydney and from there had to wait about 4 hours for my flight to Osaka. This experience was interesting to me. At the time of arrival I had been awake for 26 hours, all of which was spent doing some form of preparation or another. Suffice to say I was pooped.

I find airports interesting, no one really wants to be there and they mope around irritably as if looking for some hidden jewel that will take all their boredom away. Ok well maybe this is just me. I did find a half pack of cheezels, but this only worked for a brief amount of time.

At around 29 hours awake I started watching Dr Phil. During this time I discovered an interesting phenomenon… I was watching it and as you might expect regulating my breathing to avoid throwing up (American family values excreted by a dogmatic bald man is not exactly my thing). However all of a sudden a wave of tiredness hit me and my brain kicked down a notch. Suddenly I was engrossed, each word he spoke thundered through me and I shuddered with revelation. I couldn’t pull myself away and I silently absorbed his wisdom, ready to riot should the flow be interrupted.

Luckily my plane arrive and through an act of sheer will power I averted my eyes, punched myself in the face and managed to crawl away, dragging my bags with me. Be warned people. I suspect that if I had stayed any longer I would have died of starvation in state of ecstasy. Or should the program end I would go insane or become the prophet of Dr Phil or something.

On the plane I had my first experience of Japan. Although I have Japanese friends my experiences with them are somewhat unauthentic for 2 reasons (forgive me while a generalise).

1. People who travel tend to be cooler/more interesting than people that don’t.
2. They are on holiday, so they aren't working and are generally relaxed.
   

On the plane there were about 10 stewardesses all female. What I found intriguing is that they assume the role of their jobs to a much greater degree than Australians do. Almost all interaction with passengers is prefaced and er sufaced with polite but inane expressions. There true personalities and feelings and buried deep behind a mask as they interface with us, like robots following a flow chart. Above all they are accommodating and meek.

I was able to get some responses outside this chart on occasion, but they would only do this when it was inadequate for the situation.

Looking through the flight magazines provided gave me more insight into this. There were many airline ads and all of them have the stewardesses smiling, flawless and inviting faces included. It is hard to not feel their jobs are a bit demeaning

I arrived at 8:30 Japan time and hobbled to the airport hotel. This was a bit of a mistake. I asked for their cheapest room and it cost 17,500 yen or about $200 AU, eesh. I started considering sleeping in the airport but by this stage it was a bit late and I needed a good sleep really badly. So I slept, stay tuned for more. I have had more exciting times, but I think this is long enough for one post!