Welcome to Japan!

Yossha~ I am in Japan, and seeing as I have been here for almost 3 days now, I better get this blog started!

Just to catch up on the last couple days, before coming to Japan was an exercise in procrastination, culminating in packing so late I was left with just 3 hours of sleep before taking off to the Vancouver Airport, not to mention finally finding somewhere to stay after I arrived only the night before I left~

The flight here was amazingly short, you would be surprised how fast ten hours goes by when you are entertained by such gems as "The Terminator" and "XMEN WOLVERINES LEGACY" (or whatever it is called) in Japanese, along with watching the same episode of the same hilarious Japanese comedy show over and over :D . Thanks to all this wonderful entertainment, I managed to go almost the entire flight without sleeping、and after finally arriving I was ready to sleep! ... however, as I'm coming to realize, when one does not want to pay the exorbitant money for fancy hotels and instead resorts to hostels, getting from the airport/train station/bus terminal/whatever is never easy ;D.

This hostel in particular was a rather long trip, being located in deep in an old neighborhood of winding tight streets. The Peace House Showa, as it is called, is one of the many old houses here, and is a three story old style house with killer stairwells, two tiny tiny bathrooms, and a wonderful array of traditional tatami mat floored rooms~ This is a strange place, in a good way, because half of the people here are residents of Japan who live here full time, and all of them are ultra friendly and make this place really seem like staying at someones house, rather than being in any normal hostel. The host, Yumi-san, is particularly friendly, and you can really tell she is running this whole deal because she loves meeting new people~

However, the area around the hostel is rather, hmm, exemplary of why people call Oosaka Japan's "dirty city," "scary city," etc. Walking home today I spied a rat?weasel?ferret? running across the street, and I know which street to take home from the supermarket because it is the one with all the homeless people. In addition, things in Oosaka are dirty. Really all of Japan has this sort of dirt, which is different from dirty places in America. Dirt here looks like it has been building up for thousands of years, to the point where it seems like it belongs, almost like everything here has been purposefully grunged up for some kind of movie set. There are very few places here that don't have this "grunge." The other aspect of Oosaka (which again applies to many places in Japan) is the smell. Probably due to the heat and maybe because people just don't care as much, Oosaka is full of flavorful (I mean that in both the good way and the bad way) smells. However, I don't particularly have a problem with any of these. Pungent smells, while not particularly pleasant, certainly wake you up and make you feel alive, and the dirt and grime is just a part of Japan, as a photographer I actually appreciate that sort of worn and grungy aesthetic. The rising number of homeless in Japan is a wholly different issue though, and one that I want to look into more later.

Oosaka is a good place for exploring though. Today I visited the oldest shrine in Japan, Sumiyoshi taisha, and a huge temple near my hostel called Shitennoji. Between visiting those two peaceful beautiful places I visited one of the busiest downtown areas of Oosaka, Dotonbori, which was a real example of the different between tiny little Seattle with and Oosaka. Oosaka is a city of around 17 million people, which makes it the 2nd biggest city in Japan, and means it has more than 20 times as many people as Seattle. So, needless to say, I am a bit overwhelmed by the number of people here. I'm really looking forward to being in relatively tiny Kobe >.< . Oh and around Dotonbori, there is a street called Shinsaibashi, an outdoor shopping street/mall that is 4.6 kilometers long. I walked maybe half a kilometer before I couldn't handle the crush of people anymore! This is really showing me I can't handle this kind of city though, wow. !! But I will survive! Tomorrow I will go to Kyoto and meet all my friends from the volunteer camp I attended last summer in Gifu! And I finally found somewhere to stay tomorrow night, which has been an issue as it was looking like everything in all of the Kansai region was full (turns out this is a major vacation weekend in Japan), but the wonderful host of where I am staying now offered to let me stay tomorrow even though it’s going to be pretty darn full. So it looks like I will be staying here for another 3 days, and then I have a reservation at a hostel in Kyoto until the 28, and then I will go to Kobe 29th and 30th and look around before the big move in >W< lang="EN-US">

The 4.6 kilometers of shopping at Shinsaibashi~ You can't even see the end xD

Gate to a small shrine within Sumiyoshi Taisha, its really common in Japan for little items like these bags to be all over parts of shrines. Usually what you see are omekuji (fortunes) or pieces of wood with peoples wishes written on them, I've never seen these bags before~

Street to Shitennoji, lined on both sides by graveyards, yet strangely enough a bit further down the street one of the graveyards ends and there is instead a preschool and a highschool!

Trying my hand at street shooting? The symbol on the lanterns is actually called a manji and represents peace and happiness and all kinds of great stuff, its not a swastika!!!

The crowds of Dotonbori~ I was hoping to convey the huge rush of people here but it didn't work out~

Shitennoji temple, this is like the main several level tower~

One of the tiny cramped dirty streets on the way to Peace House Showa~ I love these streets! :D Notice the car coming down this ridiculously small road ;) Cars go almost anywhere here! I saw someone backing his car into a garage on this very street even~

On the way back from Tennoji Station to the Peace House Showa, the walk from the station to the hostel is a really busy place!