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My parents are coming to visit me in April here in Japan. They can`t use chopsticks, don`t like slimy unusual food and refuse to go naked public bathing. Should be an interesting two weeks. We`re thinking of taking them to Kyoto and Nara which are near to Osaka for obvious temple and palace reasons, they want to visit the Expo 2005 go on a bullet train and watch the mighty Cerezo Osaka football team play. They don`t want to go to an onsen. Fools! Anything else anyone can recommend? I think we have three days worth of things left to fill.

This is Tsukemen dipping noodles. Like ramen noodles but the soup and the noodles are separated. You take the noodles and dip them in the other dish. There is also a side order of Chashuudon which is stir fried pork and vegetables in a dish on a bed of rice (get those carbohydrates in!) This is my joint-favourite ramen noodle restaurant.

Due to insinuations that I was stupid for taking so long to open a bank account and that it was my own fault I couldn`t work a bank machine in Japanese (though very interesting advice about “pulling an American”) I asked you if you knew what thing was needed to open a bank account in Japan. Voila it is the image below. This is an Inkan and I only wish that the one below was mine. I deeply want a Hanshin Tigers inkan now I have seen one.

An inkan is a personal stamp or seal used to underscore official documents and contracts. Wikipedia has a great entry about them including:

Traditionally, inkan are engraved on the end of a stick of hard wood, bone, or ivory, with a diameter between 25 and 75 mm. Carving them is a kind of calligraphic art.

and I found this page about them from the Nagano city council`s English page.

I had wanted to put a picture of mine on here but Reiko said I might as well have printed my credit card number and expiry date here as well whilst I was at it but here is an example of what a stamp can look like.

Mine is similar to this with Katakana characters instead of Kanji for my surname. It cost about 4000 yen or twenty quid or 40 dollars. It seems a bit funny to me as anyone could go into a shop and ask for a stamp and pretend to be somebody else and then with that stamp open a bank account in a false name. They didn`t ask me for any identification. It is fun using them although I`ve only used it properly when opening the account. It`s like I`m in the Middle Ages stamping my seal on a scroll. It`s definitely a novel experience.

Tiny beefburger and larger lamb (first time in Japan) meal with rice. Eaten in a steak (pronounced steakee) restaurant

I went to draw money out from my bank today for the first time on my own in Japan. This also coincided with the first time they didn`t have an option to have the instructions in English. This took me back a bit as they have an English option on everything for the hapless foreigner. When you buy train tickets there is an English button. When you go the fare adjusting machine there are English instructions. I had managed to withdraw money from the only bank in Japan that didn`t have advice for the unlucky gaijin.

I had been to this branch before with Reiko and there had been an English button in one of the four machines that we chose and it was easy. Today I queued for two minutes and went to the machine and was immediately startled to note the button had mysterioulsy vanished. I pressed buttons that were larger than the others and could mean “English” in Japanese which admittedly is a slightly pointless prospect yet with no luck. I pressed other buttons and was immediately guided to a page that could only be the “Please type your PIN page” yet in Japanese. After randomly trying a few other buttons that had either the same or similar results and not wanting to inadvertently send my savings to an account in India I decided to go to the back of the queue and wait again for another machine to become free which would have English instructions.

So I waited for about five minutes. I got to the front of the queue again and for a horrifying moment it looked like the woman on the machine I had just tried would finish first reducing this to a third attempt or failure but in the nick of time a new machine presented itself and I tried again.

Zanen! I had chosen the only other machine in Japan without English instructions. I tried some random buttons hoping to see some script I would recognise but in vain. I turned around for the bloke whose sole job seems to be saying “Irasshaimase” and “Arigatogozaimashita” (Welcome and thank you) when customers enter and leave

What did you do today dear?
I said Welcome and Thank you 874 times today.
Ooh that`s five short of the record.
Yes must try harder tomorrow.

but he had gone off to chat up one of the ageing female bank tellers and so I finally gave up and left without my money.

Bill Bryson in his excellent book Neither here nor there says that he likes foreign travel as:

I can`t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can`t read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can`t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.

Later on he is in a station in Belgrade in Yugoslavia wanting to leave but all the signs are in Cyrillic he says, “The idea of being innocent and free in a foreign land didn`t seem so appealing…. I was as helpless as an infant.” This is how I felt today. Without a native to help me with banking, finding a cheap and delicious restaurant or where to go to get the best deals on clothes, local sights etc. I am myself as helpless as an infant. A very frightening prospect.

Sushi. But more incredibly - cheap 88 yen (44 pence) sushi. When I eat sushi I only really eat four kinds. Salmon and tuna predominantly because they are the most delicious and then squid and octopus. Japanese think it`s funny I like salmon sushi the best as it sounds like Simon. That is until I hit them…

An interesting article on age in Japan from the Japan Times. Though more an excercise in vocabulary learning than truly informative. However:

In the past couple of years however, otona (adult) has become a sweeping marketing concept, especially among women. Otonappoi (adult-like), that once disdained phrase now heads the list of otokokara kikitai kotoba (words we want to hear from men) and the in-trend make-up technique has shifted from shojyogao (little girl face) to otonagao (adult face).

They have this feature every Thursday in a bilingual section at Japan Times if you`re interested in learning more obscure Japanese than konnichiwa and arigato.

I`m getting annoyed with people smoking next to me or when I am walking or sitting down somewhere. You can smoke pretty much anywhere in Japan and it`s getting on my nerves. I am an ex-smoker. I don`t mind the smell of cigarette smoke from afar. It recalls memories of good times I have had whilst smoking. When I am close to it such as whilst eating or losing at pachinko it is annoying. The worst is when someone is walking down the road in front of me and lights a cigarette exhaling the initial puff in one large cloud like a smart bomb into my face.

These things have annoyed me lately. The trouble is I can`t remember if they are unique to Japan or worldwide. I assume they are. Aren`t they?

Today I went to the mighty Hanshin Tigers baseball team shop to buy a mighty baseball cap.　Ｗｈｅｎ I was in there, three men, one with a camera, came up to me and asked if they could take some pictures of me for a regional magazine published in March so I may have fifteen minutes of fame even if it`s only “Look, even crazy Americans (I`m English by the way) like the Hanshin Tigers.”

Hanshin Tigers are by far the best baseball team to support in Japan. It`s unusal for me to live in a city where they have a talented sports team. My home county in England has the (not so) mighty football team Bournemouth, no cricket team nor a half decent rugby team scrapping the three most popular sports in England. I lived in Strasbourg in France whose football team swang between bottom of first division and second division and Essen in Germany who had an average lower league football team. This is one more reason why I am compelled to support the Hanshin Tigers. Look at the corporate logos and imagine a fight between the heavyweights of the Osakan Hanshin Tigers and their main rivals the “fluffy” Tokyo Giants.

VS

Of course the Tokyo “Giants” character would have its head ripped off in seconds stupid bunny rabbit that it is. It wouldn`t stand a chance against the tiger. They have attitude and an imposing aura which is great. Aha.

After that we did some more sightseeing and then we played pachinko again. I lost some money on my favourite slot pachinko Yohimune but then played Star Wars pinball pachinko and won 4000 yen or twenty quid or 40 dollars.

Here`s a picture of it. It`s vertical and the balls are released from the bottom left and naturally fall down due to gravity. You have to get the balls into the silver area in the bottom centre which starts the fruit machine-esque part of the experience. This is tricky. I managed to get three Darth Vaders (No. and then win lots of extra balls to exchange for cash. It was a lot of fun.

Today is Valentine`s Day in Japan. But it`s different as only the girls give the boys chocolate and if you are lucky your fellow female workers will give you giri chocolate which is a sign of appreciation without the romantic overtones. My chocolate is waiting in the shops according to Reiko. Ie. I haven`t got any. Zanen. Incidentally in a month it is the boy`s turn to give to the ladies. I know someone who won`t be getting anything either…

Sickly update: I got some chocolate cake which means she is safe after all.