Adventures in Osaka and Kobe

OK, OK… I know it’s been an incredibly long gap between now and my previous entry here in the blog, but there have been several reasons (excuses) for this. Primarily, I had no access to the internet on an English language computer. For some reason I was having problems logging in here, so I had to wait until I got the internet hooked up at home in order to be able to read the instructions on how to retrieve the proper login information. Also, it wasn’t until last week that I did actually get the internet installed here at my apartment. Now, I’m sure you’re saying to yourself. “Jacob, wouldn’t you want to get on top of your blog right away so that people know what’s going on with you?” And of course you would be right. I have wanted to post something here for a while, but have been daunted by the amount of information and details of my various adventures I need to catch you all up on. What you might be happy to hear is that I have been keeping notes, and I will go over everything. What you might not be happy to hear is that you aren’t going to get it all right now. If I was to write everything down all at once, I don’t think any of you would take the time to read it all at one sitting. There is quite a lot. So instead I’m going to give it to you in installments, readable size entries that will slowly fill you in until we are caught up with the present. (And actually it would still be the future for just about all of you, considering us over here in the land of the rising sun are roughly 8-11 hours ahead, depending on your location in North America.) This first one is going to take over right where I left off previously, a month and a half ago.

So I was sitting in Christian’s apartment after cruising around Himeji for the afternoon while he was at work. Mostly I was having my first experience with Japanese television. What can I tell you? Not much for me to understand. But since then I have been told by several people that it is a good tool for trying to learn the language. (I haven’t been a huge fan of television for some time now, and have only turned on the one in my apartment once since arriving here.) At the time, there wasn’t anything I could understand, so instead I amused myself with the laptop which had for some time been my baby, but was now changing hands, and staying in Himeji with it’s true owner, Christian, (the lucky jerk! JO-DAN, Kurisuchan.) He didn’t arrive home until mid-evening, so we didn’t leave his place until after ten o’clock. Basically, we caught the last train into Osaka. It was a local train, which meant a trip of over an hour for us. (I’ll explain the train system later.) By the time we did actually get to Osaka it was near midnight.

Upon leaving the station my first impression of Osaka was “nothing special.” It’s basically a huge metropolis, with plenty of concrete and lots of cars, rushing everywhere. I’m sure there are many amazing things about the place, but I didn’t get to spend enough time there to be a good judge. One neat thing that I did enjoy was the pedestrian overpasses running everywhere over the main streets. It is very common in Japan in the major cities for pedestrians to either have to climb an overpass, or descend into an underpass to cross the street at the busy corners.

Now, although it’s a little graphic, I do have to relate the next part of this little story to you. Christian were walking down the sidewalk on route to our destination, past a stand of trees on the left, next to the road, where there were a bunch of homeless people camped out. No sooner had we begun to pass this one old man then he pulled down his pants, and squatted to take a dump right there on the sidewalk! I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I’ve seen people, mostly drunks, peeing on the sidewalk late at night, but I have never seen someone do something like that.

It was roughly 12:30 a.m. by this time, and we were a mite hungry so we stopped in this little place, Coco Curry, which is a large chain in Japan of fast food curry that has become a favorite of mine. Now, by no means is it gourmet curry, but it does satisfy. After a quick bite we hopped around the corner to a rather famous club in Osaka called Sam & Dave’s. This was our aforementioned destination. And what a place. Wall to wall people crammed in a decent sized place, some playing pool, some mingling around the bar, but most off on the dance floor, moving to the music. By no means can I say that it is the best club I’ve ever been to, but it did have some things going for it. Primarily, I hadn’t been to a club in some time, so it was nice to be out among my peers, (even if they were mostly Japanese and younger than I.) The drinks weren’t ridiculously expensive, which was nice, and there were plenty of cute girls around and about. After pounding back a couple drinks Christian and I didn’t hesitate to hit the dance floor ourselves. The place was crammed. We circled the floor several times throughout the night, and not one of those was an easy trip. The first DJ was a very good looking girl who unfortunately didn’t have much skill, but luckily this didn’t seem to matter, as the crowd was obviously not there out of a sincere devotion to the music. All night it was top 40’s tunes, which was actually alright because it meant Christian and I heard songs that we knew. It’s funny… in Japan I guess the kids have taken some of the most popular songs and have turned them into anthems where they all chant at the same time during the chorus or some other appropriate place in the song. It was really very amusing for me, and I even caught myself getting into it further into the night.

We stayed at the club until about 5 a.m. By that time I was beat. We sat outside in the morning light, watching people come out of the club and try to adjust to the glare. If you’ve ever been to an all night club, or “rave” you know the looks on those faces. Most look happy but haggard. It’s not necessarily the nicest sight, but it is the sign of having had a great night. I’m sure we had these faces on, ourselves. So we tottered over to the station where we joined the masses waiting for the trains to work. Upon finally getting back to Christian’s apartment we passed out almost immediately. I’m sorry to say that he only had about 3 hours of sleep before he had to get up for his Japanese lessons while I remained on the air mattress to sleep for several more hours. By the time he got home, he was tired but very much hopped up on caffeine, so I packed up my stuff and we headed over to Kobe to visit with his friend Kelly, another fellow Peppy Kids Club employee.

Upon leaving the station in Kobe I can tell you we were greeted with a much nicer welcome than the public bathroom of Osaka. In the courtyard where we met Kelly and his girlfriend there were about three or four bands set up, playing music. Each one would take a turn playing a couple tunes, and then they would rotate around. This is another very common thing in Japan: there are street bands and musicians everywhere, and it is very rare for any of them to actually be looking for a hand out. There was a cool funk/rock band playing when we arrived, and one of the most hilarious things I have seen in a long time happened once we had met up with Kelly. There was this little old man totally going off dancing to this band. And it’s not as if he didn’t have some skills… this man was really cutting it up! I have a video of it that Christian took with his digital camera, oh how I wish you all could see it. I laugh out loud every time I watch it. Classic.

We dropped by a little café somewhere in downtown Kobe. The walk there was amazing. I have never been in a city where there are mountains right at the end of the street you are walking upon. I’m not talking about the road going up a hill at the end of the street. I’m talking about full on mountains, lush and green with foliage, coming right down to the end of the road. Absolutely incredible. I definitely want to go back to Kobe to visit, but even from that one time there I got the feeling it would be a wonderful place to live. So we went to this café because they had a free wireless internet hotspot. Christian and I had brought our laptops so we could check email and a few other things quickly before I left town to return to Nagoya. After leaving the café, we got a quick picture in front of a local city map of Kobe, (which you can see in my Himeji photobucket album,) before Christian walked me up to the Shinkansen station. We said our goodbyes, got a parting photo, (also in the photo album,) and I hopped on my train back to lovely, concrete Nagoya to actually begin my training.

I think I’m going to leave things there for now. That’s a good little bit for y’all to chew on. Imagine, throughout all that I’ve written so far, it only encompasses my first weekend in Japan! There is so much more that’s happened, and I’m sure you want to hear all about it, and you will. Trust me. All in good time. But hopefully not too much time. I’ll get on it, I promise. Please visit the online photo albums and check the new pics I have uploaded. Once I get a digital camera, there will be more all the time. The link is in the first post on this page, down at the bottom.

Much love to all of you. I hope you are well wherever and whenever you are.

Jacob