Week 1

Looks like the first week of Japan is almost over! I came here on the 17th and here its the night of the 23rd, time is flying (as expected). I've been taking things slow though, unlike my previous trip to Japan. Its a totally different feeling to be living here for a year versus being limited to only a month. Especially since everything that I'm visiting here will be only a 600 yen ticket and an hour train ride from Kobe. I'd rather take things slow anyway though, there is a lot to appreciate in Japan beyond just rushing around seeing all the sights.

I just came back from an amazing okonomiyaki restaurant near my hostel. Okonomiyaki is basically a pancake shaped jumble of yummy things, usually consisting of some flour and egg and whatnot like a pancake here, but then also filled with things like meat, cabbage, ginger, basically whatever the cook wants to put in. Some are plain, but you can order really crazy things, like the one I had today was completely packed with stuff, everything from bacon to scallops (I think, haha). And even better than this amazing food was that the old man next to me at the bar seating started talking to me and we had a good conversation, a lot of which I didn't quite understand, but talking to older Japanese people is always fun!

Been having a lot of good experiences by just taking things slow and doing "nothing." For example, hanging out at my hostel in Oosaka is not exactly the point of going to a big city like Oosaka, but getting to know the residents was really fun, and an especially cool point was that one of my roommates was a rakugo-ka. Rakugo is a traditional Japanese storytelling artform. Basically a rakugo-ka goes up on the stage, and all by his lonesome, with just a handkerchief and fan, enacts a complex story. Most of the story is dialogue, and while they are generally humorous, there is often some kind of lesson to be learned from each story. Of course, to be good at this, a rakugo-ka must also be good at communication in general, and Tendo-san (my roommate) definitely fit the bill.

But really everyone at my last hostel was amazing friendly and communicative like Tendo-san. As I said earlier there were a lot of long term residents at the Peace House Showa, and luckily I had a chance to get to know almost all of them a bit. On the last night especially we had a giant potluck party, so fun and I finally got to eat some home made food since I came here :D

Speaking of food, I've noticed a very strange thing about Japan. Unlike America, pretty much anywhere you eat here you are going to get good food for a good price. There are of course places like Dennys and whatnot that aren't very good, but they are ridiculously cheap (2-3 dollars for a meal) and if you can shell out 6-10 dollars for a meal, you are almost guarenteed something good. I find it especially weird that restaurants in department stores and train stations and those kind of places are actually GOOD. When you think of mall food in the US, good is not the word that comes to mind... but going to a mall or department store in Japan is one easy way to find good food.

Today I came to Kyoto from Oosaka and its simultaneously a good change of pace and kind of a letdown. The emptiness of Kyoto is incredibly refreshing, being able to look out the hostel window at a fairly busy street and see no-one at all is nice. But on the other hand, my hostel feels like it belongs in the more busy and crazy climate of Oosaka, while my homely Oosaka hostel feels like it belongs in this more peaceful setting!

Oosaka got especially busy the last few days, as there was a special holiday long weekend, called "silver week." Japanese holidays are weird... its nice that everyone gets time off (because most Japanese people don't really get any time off at all otherwise), but everyone has holidays at the same time like silver week, and that means that going anywhere for your holiday just becomes crowded and uncomfortable. I'm really wondering if Oosaka is actually more manageable and I just was there at the worst possible time? Yesterday I got to the point where the only place I could find to escape the crowds was an abandoned theme park called "Festival Gate." Strangely enough it was totally open and a couple people were using it as a thouroughfare, so I went in and finally found some solace!

In addition to solace, there were also a lot of gritty broken escalators, which I love taking pictures of :D

In my quest for solace I also saw this huge murder of crows perched on the Oosaka City Art Museum. Its hard to see, but in the lower right corner is an old Japanese guy who somehow by waving an umbrella was disturbing the crows enough to make them fly off in giant clouds, which he then proceeded to take pictures of~

My dad asked me about bikes in Japan the other day, and I don't feel like I gave a clear enough answer so I will talk about bikes a bit. Before I came back I kind of forgot how many damn bikes there are here. Its like there are just as many bikes as there are people. Every shopping center is flooded with bikes outside, and as you can see from the picture the bikes even make it inside, this one was sitting outside an awesome okonomiyaki restaurant I went to, "Okonomiyaki Dan" hahaha. Also, all bikes in Japan MUST have squeaky breaks and a little annoying bell. Its a requirement, I swear. Bikes ride all over the sidewalks everywhere, and I'm at that weird point where I recognize their sounds but am not quite used to them, so every time I hear a bike bell or squeak (basically every 30 seconds) I frantically check my surroundings, because bike riders here like to sneak up on you and then squeak their brakes at the last second and freak you out.

I feel like this shot was about 5 seconds off of perfection. My friends were walking ahead of me on the stairs and by the time I realized what an amazing shot was ahead of me they had already gotten in the frame, but also at that point the woman on the stairs was at the perfect point for the composition... sadly this stairwell is at a crazy far-off station that we only went to because my friend forgot her cellphone on the train and we had to go all the way to the end of the line to pick it up, otherwise I think I would go back here and try to get the perfect shot here :D

Oh and one more thing (this blog is getting really random, my apologies, but I have a lot to talk about over these last few days!), my birthday was absolutely wonderful. I was really worried about it actually because a bunch of my friends from my volunteer camp in Japan last year were all coming to Kyoto from far off places for my birthday, and I wasn't feeling that confident about my Japanese at the time, but when we all got together I finally felt a lot more comfortable speaking Japanese and got to have a full fun day of eating, karaoke-ing, bowling, and trying pachinko (for free even!) :D . And my wonderful nunim (Korean respectful term for older sister) even made me an amazing matcha green tea mousse cake! I felt really loved on my birthday :D .

Anyway, my brain is currently out of juice, and this post is getting more and more random, and its time to get to bed! Thanks for reading :D