If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I`ve really got back into the swing of learning Hiragana, the first of the three character sets used by the Japanese for Japanese words. It`s quite addictive as you can see the progress you are making and seeing the numerous occurences of these characters in shops, menus and on the television gradually morph from obscure signs into characters with meaning and personality is really enjoyable.

I like looking at train station`s signs which are in both Japanese and English. I use them to help assimilate them into my head. For example I remember the character ME by knowng it is the middle character in Umeda which is a central Osaka station. On the television they will often print the conversation in large cartoonish characters onto the screen as they are being spoken. This happens especially when they are saying something funny or important to the programme.

I got given a learn to write hiragana textbook intended for very young Japanese children but it doesn`t have the sound transcribed into English so it was a bit haphazard. I am now working my way down through the table as below. Today I did SA, SHI, SU, SE and SO. They`re bloody hard.

On Sunday we had a long bath in the morning in the onsen, ate some sashimi then went to the cinema to see the follow up to Spirited Away called Howl`s Moving Castle animated by Hayao Miyazaki. It`s about a large castle that moves and owned by a magician called Howl and a 19 year old girl in love with Howl who is cursed by an evil witch and becomes an old lady. It was all in Japanese although I understood the general plot I needed some of the extra bits explained to me but I can highly recommend it when it comes to your part of the world. The house reminds me of a Monty Python animation.

After that we went to a museum to see some excellent medieval Japanese paintings like this one below. See more at Kuboso Memorial Museum of Arts, Izumi. I also found that there were a couple of paintings by Renoir, Picasso and Monet which surprised me for a museum in a suburb of Osaka. We got there just twenty minutes before the place closed so there was only time to give the European paintings a quick glance before being practically pushed out of the museum.

In the evening we went to a sumo themed hot pot restaurant. In there you have a large pot with boiling water filled with tofu, bean sprouts, meat, fish and vegetables. I found out that sumo wrestlers eat only once a day and they eat massive portions of this to bulk up so it`s very healthy. Incidentally the recent tournament in Fukuoka has just finished with this hefty Monglian man winning it. He also thus attained the highest rank in sumo possible of yokozuna by winning 13 out of 15 bouts over the last two weeks. With the several afternoons and days off I have had over the last two weeks I have caught much of the action and really enjoyed it. There is an April tournament in Osaka and I really want to go and see it one day. One piece of advice though. Don`t make him angry.

Saturday was Reiko`s friends wedding in Kyoto. There was a wedding ceremony, a first party for close friends and relatives, a second party for everyone else and a third one for those who want to carry on partying. All at separate places. I wasn`t invited to the wedding or first party as I`d only met her friend once four months ago so I was left to wander around Kyoto for four hours.

It`s an interesting city with a network of long streets filled with small and large shops with thin pavements to walk on with interconnecting pedestrianised arcadewalks with cheaper (and generally more interesting) shops to browse. I tried in vain to find a large electronic shop to manhandle digital cameras I could never afford to while away the time but finding only a small one with a minimum of equipment to break, I browsed some bookstores and walked the long streets squinting and twisting my head like a tourist.

After a while I began to get incredibly hungry and not wanting to eat at KFC, Mcdonalds or Wendy`s, I searched the streets for hours for a place that was cheap and tasty and not western. I eventually found a cheap cafe that served me the meal below (comprising of large fish, blowl of rice, soba noodles, miso soup and extras for 700 yen or three quid.

After leaving the restaurant accompanied by small burps, (My favourite Bryson sentence), I walked around a bit more and then met up with Reiko and her friend for a quick bout of karaoke to pass the time before the second party. In my opinion, if you are forced to sing karaoke, sing an early Beatles song. Everyone knows them (even in Japan) and they are all less than three minutes so over quickly.

The two parties I went to were good but expensive although with unlimited alcohol. We won a hairdryer and an electric toothbrush in a game of human bingo. I won (as did many) when my own name was called out to complete a line. Simon-san. Yes. The party ended abruptly and unexpectedly and they stopped serving beer. We went to another place for the final party which was incredibly expensive although free alcohol again. We drank and the Japanese started to get highly drunk. The karaoke was wheeled out and strange Eastern songs were sang accompanied by awful dancing. I was forced to sing a song and sang Love me do (see above hint) to wild applause and beating a smug American marine based in Tokyo who followed with his wife in an awful rendition of a obscure 80`s love song. Of course although I can beat him at karaoke, he is far better than me at saving the world (or bombing and invading poor defenceless countries for oil). All in all a good time was had.

I went to an English pub last night called Hub and had a pint of the golden nectar known as Guinness for 800 yen. I polished off most of a fish and chips plate which they rather incorrectly asserted was enough for three people. (more like three three year old children) I gambled 1000 yen away on pinball Pachinko yet came so close to winning big yen and ate in a Yakitori a small, cheap and traditional Japanese restaurant which serves skewered chicken and pork (and last night free beer as well)

This morning hungover I took Reiko to the train station on my battery powered bicycle of doom as I had the day off. Today to make up for the awful haircut I received (read the blog entry Bathe in an onsen don`t get your haircut there I went to a salon and got it cut properly. This involved consultation, cut, shampoo, excellent neck and shoulder massage (?) and styling. My first time in a salon. Four times as expensive but a million times better than the prancing and hair-fondling I was subjected to in the onsen.

I was surprised about the massage but then when you go to a Japanese institution you get treated as a valued customer anywhere you go and I think they try and take that as far as they can. There is an article about this with golf.

Quoting from the linked article from Kansai Time Out.

The Japanese have taken golf to a different level and it should be experienced. When was the last time you didn’t pay until the round was over? When have you ever ridden an escalator on a golf course, or had a robot carry your clubs for 18 holes? There is usually a snack bar complete with hot towels around the seventh and sixteenth holes for your comfort. At most courses, they take safety seriously and offer protective devices and fences that make you wonder how you ever played golf without them. My favorite so far has been the drying locker for my rain clothes, and the shoe dryer in the locker room after a particularly wet round.

I am having a lot of problems with people ringing at the door or on the telephone whilst I am alone in the house due to my part time working hours. They all want to speak to senior members of the Shiraishi family or money for the television license or newspapers. This brings great furrowing of brows, confusion and laughs of derision when the stories are retold to the Shiraishi family.

Some of the people just want to sell me things (cold calling is prevalent here) so my incompetence is often of benefit.

“Is Shiraishi-san here?”
“No, Shiraishi-san has gone to Izumi fuchu/Namba”
“Shiraishi-san something something don`t they?”
“Yes maybe, but Shiraishi-san has gone to Izumi fuchu/Namba (you dumb @*+%)”

I wonder why they son`t just send me out every time some unwanted person rings at the door.

“Shiraishi san? Do I look like a Shiraishi san for Pete`s sake? I`m English. Go away before I call the police.” would be the easy way out every time.

Other times they have come and asked for large amounts of money for things like the newspapers. This was when I was poor before I had been paid “Come back at 8 when they are back” I tell them in Japanese so poor it brings to mind an unwanted illegal immigrant in a new country. They pause for a ponderous moment as if wondering whether to contact the police or border control and then begrudgingly grunt acknowledgement and speed off on their mopeds. Of course when 8 arrives, I have also sped off on a covert mission to pick Reiko up from the station on my battery powered bicycle of doom and therefore narrowly avoided their return.

This strategy worked so well on a number of occasions that they stopped sending the papers. This was my tactic at my last job. If they keep on hassling you, treat them so badly they will give up and go away. One more of life`s valuable lessons I thought I`d share. I`d make a great Dad.

Good article on foreigners Japanese ability to coincide with my (pitiful) renewed attempts at learning Japanese.

Today is Thanks for Working Day and a national holiday in Japan so I had a holiday again. We went to Diamond City (one kilometer up from Emerald City on the Yellow Brick Road) and I was reminded that we were going to a wedding on Saturday for one of Reiko`s friends in Kyoto. Apparently, if you are invited to a wedding you have to pay them 30,000 yen or 150 quid each. Luckily I am not invited to the wedding (story of my life) although Reiko naturally is but I`m going to the reception afterwards with her where you have to pay 8000 yen or 40 quid for the meal. Tight Japanese bastards.

I have a suit bought with the proceeds of Reiko`s mafia funded gambling addiction (Reiko I`m joking) which I haven`t worn yet but will wear to the party. Cue much buying of shirts, socks and ties for wedding and work needs. I am fearfulof two things about my presence at the wedding.

A: In fear, I will close my mouth be shunned by all her friends and be a weird young foreign boy and bring embarassment on Reiko.

B: In an attempt to avoid situation A, I will imbibe too much alcohol and be loud and drunk crazy young foreign boy and bring shame and embarassment on Reiko. (My money is on this one.)

Reiko also bought me a learn Japanese textbook so that I can put some of the large amount of free time to practical benefit. My last short-lasted surge broke down whilst trying to copy difficult hiragana characters. I know a lot of words and phrases now from the school children and also by being in the same situations over and over again (such as shops and restaurants) and hearing the same phrases ad nauseum.

It`s very hard to choose a textbook. There was a Japanese for busy people. Well you can cross me off that list for a start. I am a lazy bastard with too much free time. There were books written entirely in Japanese characters which if you can`t understand them yet defeats the purpose somewhat and others which were too easy or too difficult to plough through. We settled on one which seemed to cover grammar and verbs more instead of learning set phrases which in my opinion can only ever give you a superficial understanding of a language and can be useless if you don`t understand enough to comprehend the answer to the question. “Where can I find somewhere to get my hair permed?” being a particularly useless example I have seen.

But it`s even harder to buy a shirt in Japan or any clothes for that matter. The word Freak kept revolving around in my mind`s eyes. Shoes in Japan are measured in centimetres and most go up to 26 only. I am anywhere between 28 and 30. Buying a shirt has been an ongoing adventure which due to my abnormal arm length in Japan has lasted several months until today`s miraculous find. Buying jeans and trousers is also difficult as on the whole the Japs legs are inches shorter. I`m thinking of getting the kanji for Freak tatooed on my forehead. Backwards. Either that or becoming a fashion designer. Quaisi clothing. Now there`s a thought.

Here`s some pictures of Japan taken with my mobile to counter criticism that I haven`t given you enough visual insights to Japan

This is a massive new yet traditional styled house being built in Izumi City

View from an onsen hotel`s sculptured garden September

Rice fields in September

Shrine

Shrine guardian

Osaka City centre

lights in centre

sashimi (raw fish on ice)