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Josiah's Japan Travelogue
Part 5: December 2007
Part 4: November 2007
Sunday (2nd): Nikko Edo Mura
Nikko Edo Mura (also known as Nikko Edo Village and Edo Wonderland) is a theme park up in the mountains that's based off an Edo period village. Edo is the former name of Tokyo and it's also the name of a period in Japanese history. If I remember right, the Edo era ran from sometime in the 1600's till sometimes in the 1800's. Like the European Renaissance period (for example), it's a time that is often romanticized as a golden age of sorts for the country's people and culture. It's also a popular setting for a variety of Japanese anime, manga, novels, etc. Nikko Edo Mura offers a look back, albeit a rather glamorized one, at that time.
Getting there required a bit of work. Actually, it's not too hard to get there from Tokyo but even though Koga is a bit closer you have to take a less direct route because of the way the trains run. Despite the name, Nikko Edo Mura isn't actually in Nikko (although it's in the general area), it's closer to a place called Kinugawa so I ended up going to Nikko and then taking a couple different trains for there to get to Kinugawa. It wasn't quite the fastest route but it was much less complicated than some of the others (and quicker and cheaper than going all the way to Tokyo and getting a train from there). Anyway, Kinugawa is an onsen town (if you don't remember, an onsen is a hot springs) up in the mountains past Nikko. I didn't really get a chance to look around much but here's something you might find interesting. It's a foot onsen. You'll occasionally find these in onsen towns, they're a little public onsen pool for people to soak their feet in.
Despite its somewhat remote location, there's actually several attractions in the Kinugawa area. The two biggest ones (as far as I know) are Nikko Edo Mura and Tobu World Square. Tobu World Square, which is advertised rather extensively in Tokyo and the surrounding areas (like where I live) features scale miniature replicas of many of the world's most famous landmarks. I haven't been there myself but I've seen some pictures. Anyway, from Kinugawa you can get a bus that goes to Tobu World Square, Nikko Edo Mura, and a bunch of other places.
As previously mentioned, Nikko Edo Mura is designed like an Edo period village (but with a few things that you'd only have found in larger towns or cities and a few elements of pure fantasy). And, while it's a little far out, the mountains make for a great setting. After getting your ticket and passing through the entrance, you follow a wooded path to the village itself. The buildings house a mix of recreations of common buildings from that time period (like this water mill on the outskirts), shops, restaurants, and attractions. There are signs and plaques (most of which have an English translation) around telling you what things are and a bit about their role in the time period. Here's a look inside the armor repair shop and this is the main room in a small house, which are on the outskirts of the village, along with several other places like the shrine with this big golden statue. Oh, I should mention that, if you want to really get into the Edo mood (and have some extra cash), you could rent costumes and walk around the village dressed as a peasant, lord, samurai, ninja, geisha, etc like these people did.
A little past the outskirts you'll come to the main part of the village but before going in there I headed off to the side. Up on a hill above the village was what appeared to be the local lord's manor or castle (not entirely sure what defines a "castle" in Japan). They were obviously still working on that area (the interiors were all pretty bare and there wasn't any signs or attractions yet) but you could walk around the garden and the buildings.
Once I'd finished looking around, I went back down the hill to check out the local ninja compound. After all, what's an Edo style village without a ninja compound? Ok, so that part's not so historically accurate. While ninja (or shinobi as they were originally known) did exist during the Edo period, real ninja were a lot different than what you see in anime, games, and comics. But since ninjas are so popular they kind of ran with that theme and there were several "ninja" attractions. One of them was a museum that had some info about real ninja, tools and weapons they used, and the like. There was also a ninja trick house (like a carnival trick house but with a ninja theme), ninja haunted temple (not really sure what a haunted house, er, temple has to do with ninja but whatever), ninja maze (an outdoor maze), and ninja house of illusion. The house of illusion was interesting. It's mostly just a building built with a serious slant but that's a whole lot more disorienting than you'd think. After going through the entrance hall my initial thoughts were something like, "Ok, it's a slanted floor, no big deal. It's not any steeper than the hill I walked up a little while ago.", but about twenty seconds in I was feeling really disoriented. See, while your eyes and body are saying that's it's just a simple slanted floor, your brain is telling you that you're in a room on the floor and floors are flat, not slanted. The whole thing makes you feel a bit dizzy and turned around. Kinda neat actually.
My next stop was the ninja stage show (unfortunately, there was no flash photography and it was too dark for me to get any decent pictures of the action without my flash). It was a ninja style stunt show with a bit of comedy and a lot of neat sword fighting and acrobatics. Totally unrealistic but still cool, even though I couldn't understand everything that was being said. There was a different ninja stunt show later in the day at the village bell tower, which was also pretty cool, but despite it being outdoors in the sunlight I still didn't manage to get any good photos.
Anyway, after the shows I tried my hand at some ninja weapons including shuriken (throwing stars and knives), blow guns, pinwheel darts (long thin darts with pinwheels on the end that could be disguised as a woman's hair ornament), and archery (too bad I didn't have anyone to take a picture of me). While a little more expensive than most of the carnival type games in the US (500 yen each), you could win prizes if you did well enough and the operators were a lot more friendly than at similar US attractions (often giving people extra tries and the like). While I wasn't amazing, I did well enough not to embarrass myself. I managed to hit the target twice with my shuriken (one of which stuck) although the rest of my throws went a bit low. I also got two arrows out of five in the archery target and hit the balloon I was aiming for with my blowgun (although it didn't pop). With the pinwheel darts I was surprisingly good at throwing them so they'd stick into the wall and even managed to stick them all in more or less the same area, unfortunately said area was a couple inches to the right of the balloon I was trying to pop.
After finishing with all the ninja stuff, I went to check out the main street of the village where there were lots of shops, restaurants, and small museums about different things including the making of katana (Japanese swords). Speaking of which, the whole katana making process is pretty fascinating if you're ever in the mood to read up on it.
Sword making aside, I looked around for a while, watched the Oiran Dochu parade (an oiran is a high ranking geisha). And I thought girls back home wore shoes with really thick soles... Oh, if you're wondering, geisha were women most easily recognizable by their powdered white skin who were hired to entertain nobles, wealthy merchants, and the like. While they sometimes acted as prostitutes, they were really much more than that. Geisha were highly trained in traditional Japanese arts such as the tea ceremony, dance, music, and the like and were supposed to represent the height of Japanese beauty, refinement, and elegance.
While I was at the village center I also got some yakitori and udon for lunch. Once I had finished looking around there, I headed to the back of the village where they had an Edo style manor house (which served as a museum for various historical events (violent attacks and uprisings mainly)) and a Edo period prison. I learned that prisoners were often transported in one of these things. If you think this room doesn't look so bad for a prison...that's cause it's the guard house. The prison building itself wasn't nearly so nice. They also had some displays on old torture methods used during the time. While they certainly look painful, I gotta say that they didn't seem nearly as brutal as many of the ancient European and Mid-Eastern torture devices I've seen.
Finally, I had time to take in a couple more shows before the park closed (it only stays open till 4 or 5 PM, maybe cause electric street lamps would kinda spoil the whole Edo period look). (BTW: If you ever plan on going yourself, you might be interested to know that, according go the flyer, the performances are changed twice a year.)
First off was Japanese Culture Theater where they were doing a show about an Oiran and an Odaijin (note the honorific use of o that I mentioned in my RJC about tea). As I already mentioned, an Oiran was a high ranking geisha. An Odaijin was a rich merchant, samurai, or the like who would often hire geisha. The way the show worked was that the host would pick one person in the audience to be the Odaijin. Said person had a couple lines but basically just sat up front and played along while the Oiran did her thing (served the Odaijin, did a short Japanese dance, etc). Being the only gaijin (foreigner) in the audience, I kinda stuck out and got "recruited" to play the Odaijin. So I got a few quick instructions, got a little dressed up (a coat and a pretty bad looking wig), and was taken out on stage where I did my best to play along despite only understanding about a quarter of what was being said (fortunately I didn't have to do a lot of talking). Anyway, I think the audience got a few laughs out of that (which might have been one of the reasons I was chosen to begin with) but it was kinda fun. Got try sake too since one part of the show involved the Odaijin getting served sake. Didn't like it much, but then again I don't really like alcohol in general. Naturally, since I was up on stage I couldn't get any pictures but the host took a Polaroid of me with the Oiran and I in turn took a photo of that with my camera (since, as previously mentioned, I don't have a scanner here) so the quality could be a bit better (plus I was trying not to laugh at the time). But yeah, here's a photo of the photo of me as an Odaijin.
The other show I went to was a mizugei performance. Mizugei is traditional Japanese water magic (it involves a woman manipulating hidden water spigots in her fan and other items to make it look like she's magically controlling numerous water fountains, tossing the stream of water from object to object, etc. Cool to watch, even though I knew how it was being done. By the time that show was over the park was about to close so I made my way back to Nikko and got some supper before catching a train back home.

Monday (3rd): Nogi Matsuri
For those of you who don't know, a matsuri is a festival or holiday. It seems that nearly every city, town, etc in Japan has at least one unique local matsuri of its own. Koga, the town were my apartment is, had one on Saturday night but by the time I got back from Tokyo that day it was too late to bother going over there. Nogi, however, had a matsuri on Monday (which I unfortunately can't remember the name of). Even better, it took place at the shrine right next to the school where I work (which is only a few minutes away from my apartment). Actually, to my knowledge, quite a lot of local matsuri are centered around various shrines and temples.
Anyway, I'd heard about the matsuri from one of the teachers at my school and I certainly wasn't going to pass up seeing a traditional Japanese matsuri (many local matsuri date back hundreds of years and are still observed in much the same way as they were back then), especially since I didn't have anything in particular to do that night and it was right near my apartment and all.
The road leading to the shrine was lined and lit up with paper lanterns which made for a really nice effect (albeit one that was a little hard to photograph well with the camera I've got). Of course, hundreds of years ago said lanterns probably had candles inside instead of being electric but hey, less chance of a fire this way. A little further down, the road was lined with lots of little booths. There was some carnival type games and a few places selling random stuff but most were selling food of some sort. Some of the snacks for sale included various types of soba, taiyaki (a fish shaped bread stuffed with azuki paste), different kinds of soup, french fries (ok, those probably weren't around hundreds of years ago either), little candy on a stick things, and squid on a stick (seriously, a whole cooked squid on a stick). Naturally, I passed on the squid on a stick. Even if I could eat it, that's not the type of thing I find very appetizing... As you can see from the pic, quite a lot of people were there, including quite a lot of my students and coworkers, so I spent a while saying hi and trying to make some friendly conversation (kinda did that on and off all night as I ran into different people).
Past the booths I came to the first of the matsuri's main events. See all those polls with lanterns on top? Basically people would take polls and use them to whack other peoples' polls. Not entirely sure what the point was (possibly to either destroy the lantern or put out the light inside) or what it was supposed to represent but it was interesting to watch. That area was also lined with stalls, but of a different kind. You can't really see it in the picture but each of those little areas was kinda a mini-restaurant where people cooked large pots of soup over an open fire and then sold bowls of that soup (and often beer as well).
Moving on, I finally reached the area right around the shrine. While some people were praying at the shrine, (a process which typically involves tossing some coins into the bin, pulling a rope to ring a bell, and then clapping your hands together and spending a few moments with your hands together and eyes closed praying for whatever it is you want) most were off to the side watching the dancers. It started out with one guy in a fox mask (at least that's what it was when I got there) dancing to the music being played by some other people and a second dancer came out and joined him a bit later. Here's a movie. Aside from dancing they also tossed some stuff (not quite sure what) to the crowd and fished for money (they'd toss out a fishing line and someone in the audience would attach some yen to the end then engage in a little tug-of-war match before letting the dancer pull in the line and take the money.
The main event of the festival took place near the end, once the fox dancers had finished. It was also a dance but instead of more guys in masks, this one was preformed by some of my students. To be more specific, there were five girls (four third graders and one fourth grader) dressed as shrine maidens doing the dance. It was all very cute, although I kinda doubt that was the intent. It was a pretty long dance and I'm sure the girls spent a long time practicing to get all the movements right. Here's a movie clip.
That dance marked the end of the matsuri, although many of the booths stayed open for a little while afterwards so I was able to grab some taiyaki on my way out. Overall, it was a fun and interesting experience. Plus I happened to run into an ALT (assistant language teacher, that's what I am too) from Koga who'd come to check out the matsuri and we ended up talking for a while, which was interesting since I didn't even know Koga had ALTs (their ALTs are hired by a different company than Nogi's so we don't have any formal interaction).

Wednesday (5th): Preschool Show Rehearsal

Not sure if I mentioned it before but one of my primary goals at the preschool classes I teach on Wednesdays was to teach all the kids an English song they could do for their big presentation. Basically every so often (probably once a year) all 3, 4, and 5 year olds from the preschools I teach at get together and put on a big show for their families. The actual show is next week (I think) but this week was the rehearsal. I helped the kids practice their English song (Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes) on stage then sat back and watched them do all their other stuff. Not really a lot to talk about but I did take a bunch of pictures and movies. On the plus side, being a rehearsal, that meant I didn't have to try and shoot over a bunch of peoples' heads. On the downside, it meant that the kids' teachers were frequently running across the stage to correct and reposition the kids.
So, photo and movie time... Here's some of the three year olds on their way to the hall where the show is gonna be and here's some of them dancing to a Japanese song. Naturally, they needed the most teacher supervision while the four and five year olds often did surprisingly well on their own. Moving on, here's a nice group shot of the three year olds and here's a clip of them singing.
The four year olds came on a next and did a play (all in song) about some animals that got scared by a falling coconut. The five year olds also did a play. It was about mice pretending to be ghosts to scare other animals.
To finish things up, the four year olds came back and did a dance as did the five year olds.

Oh, and since I wrote this whole thing up in answer to a question on the forums anyway (and cause people keep asking me about it), here's a RJC.

Random Japan Comment: Japanese Holidays
First off, the only US holidays that are widely celebrated in Japan are Halloween, Christmas, and Valentine's, although they're observed a bit differently than in the US or Europe (more on that in a minute). Holidays like Thanksgiving and 4th of July naturally aren't celebrated in Japan because they're tied into US history so they don't really take place anywhere else. I'd assume Easter is observed by Japanese Christians but they're a minority so I'd be surprised if most Japanese people even know what Easter is.
New Years is a major holiday but it's observed differently in Japan than in the US and Europe plus New Years is kinda an international thing anyway.
Now, for a quick (well, kinda quick) list of major Japanese holidays (keep in mind that there are numerous small local holidays in various parts of Japan, this is just the main ones). National holidays are ones officially sanctioned by the government (and ones that many businesses close on). All holidays on this list, national or not, are still widely observed. Non-national holidays are identified as such. Also note that the dates of some of these holidays were changed fairly recently, mainly to give people more three day weekends.
New Years (late Dec - early Jan): Typically more of a focus on resting and family than partying. Many people dress in traditional clothes and visit shrines to pray and get their luck predicted for the new year. Traditional foods include special kinds of noodles and mochi. Quite a lot of businesses shut down for several days (sometimes starting as early as the 29th or 30th and going till anytime between the 2nd and 4th).
Coming of Age Day (2nd Monday of Jan): Celebrates people who recently turned 20. Typically involves lots of partying.
Setsuban (Feb 2): Celebrates the start of spring. Not a national holiday. Popular traditions include throwing and eating soy beans.
National Foundation Day (Feb 11): Celebrates the establishment of the nation.
Valentine's Day (Feb 14): Not a national holiday. In Japan, it's a day when women give chocolate to men they like and to male friends and coworkers. There are actually different names used for the chocolate depending on if it's being given in a friendly or romantic spirit.
Hinamatsuri (Mar 3): Girls' Day. Not a national holiday. Girls display a fancy set of dolls.
White Day (Mar 14): Not a national holiday. It's Valentine's Day all over again except this time it's the guys' turn to buy things for girls. The holiday was actually established by Japan's national association of candy makers. <_<
Vernal Equinox (sometime in Mar): A holiday for the equinox.
Hanamatsuri (Apr 8): The Flower Festival. Not a national holiday. Celebrates Buddha's birthday and flowers.
Golden Week (Apr 29 - May 5): A week long holiday period encompassing Showa Day (Apr 29) (celebrates the birthday of the Showa Emperor), Constitution Memorial Day (May 3) (which is to commemorate the Japanese constitution), Greenery Day (May 4) (to celebrate nature), and Children's Day (aka Boys' Day) (May 5) (which has its own set of dolls different from the Girls' Day ones and is marked by flying koi shaped streamers).
Tanabata (in Jul or Aug, date varies by location): The Star Festival, based on the ancient myth of the lovers Orihime and Hikoboshi (the stars Vega and Altair). Not a national holiday. People celebrate by having festivals, fireworks, and tieing cards with their wishes written on them to bamboo.
Marine Day (3rd Monday of Jul): A pretty new holiday. It celebrates the ocean.
Obon (Jul or Aug 13 - 15 depending on location, Aug is more common): Not a national holiday but many businesses still close. It's marked by people visiting their ancestral homes to visit their family's tomb and pray to the spirits of ancestors. Exact celebration details vary by location.
Respect for the Aged Day (3rd Mon of Sept): The name says it all.
Autumnal Equinox (sometime in Sept): A holiday for the other equinox.
Health & Sports Day (2nd Mon of Oct): Once again, the name kinda says it all.
Halloween (Oct 30 or 31, some people get the date mixed up): Not a national holiday. There's no trick or treating or any real celebration (aside from some costume parties) but a lot of people like the candy and decor so lots of stores and restaurants put up decorations and sell Halloween related stuff.
Culture Day (Nov 3): Celebrates the Japanese constitution and the Meiji Emperor's birthday.
Labor Thanksgiving Day (Nov 23): Kinda like US Labor Day but without any real celebrations or parties. No relation to US Thanksgiving Day.
The Emperor's Birthday (Dec 23): The birthday of Emperor Akihito (the current emperor).
Christmas (Dec 24 - 25): Not a national holiday. Santa, presents, carols, and lights are all popular (trees a bit less so cause of limited space both to grow and store them) but the Christian elements are often ignored because of the relatively small amount of Christians in Japan. Actually, Christmas Eve is often considered to be the holiday more so than Christmas Day. It's a popular time spend with your family or girlfriend/boyfriend.

Sunday (9th): Cell Phones

I went to Tokyo on Sunday but I didn't really do anything exciting enough to warrant a write up. I checked out Sony's showroom (neat cause you can see some stuff that isn't on the market yet) and the Square-Enix store (kinda disappointing, you can actually find a lot more SE stuff in Akihabara and the store is a pain to get to in the first place). After that I wondered around a bit in an area I hadn't been to before then hung out in Akihabara for a little while before heading back. So yeah, nothing too exciting. Plus I'm way behind on PV strips and have some other things that really need to be worked on as well so I'm just gonna do a quick Random Japan Comment and call it a day.

Random Japan Comment: Cell Phones
In Japan everyone has a cell phone, and I mean everyone. Although I haven't done any research on it myself, from what I've heard regular phone lines get billed a bit differently here than in the US so they actually end up costing about the same as cell phones. Cell phones are billed a bit differently too. You've still got service plans and all that but in general making calls on your cell phone is a lot more expensive than in the US. However, all incoming calls are free so that kinda balances it out.
Actually talking on the phone seems to be a secondary feature to a lot of people. The real killer cell phone app here is e-mail. You could also call it text messaging but while text messaging back in the US is usually limited to short highly abbreviated messages, in Japan people will actually type out lengthy e-mail messages. If you've ever thought that some people in the US can type fast on their phones, that's nothing compared to a Japanese teenager, especially when you take into account that the Japanese language has over 2000 symbols (when you add together hiragana, katakana, and kanji). Just about anywhere you go you'll see lots of people of all ages with their cell phones out, typing away. It's an especially popular pastime on trains and subways where it's considered bad manners to actually talk on your phone. People will also do it while driving and biking (and you thought talking while driving was bad).
Japanese cell phones also have much better internet access than most US phones and better cameras as well so you'll see quite a lot more people taking snapshots with their phone than you would in the US. In fact, in lots of places you'll see little barcode type things that are meant to be photographed with a cellphone which will then analyze the image and open a related web site.
Unlike in the US, where a lot of people buy phones strictly based on their looks, in Japan it's definitely function over form as the majority of phones (although certainly not all of them) have a similar and rather plain design. However, these phones more than make up for it with what they can do. Aside from the already mentioned improved texting, internet, and cameras (not to mention much better, but still seriously overpriced, ringtone stores), most Japanese phones can run a variety of other programs including all the normal stuff (address books, alarms, calendars, MP3s, etc) plus diaries, Japanese - English dictionaries, and games that are graphically as good as a lot of the stuff you see on the DS and PSP (both 2D and 3D) and sometimes nearly as deep and full featured as well, just to name a few. It follows that in Japan there's a lot more nifty cell phone apps and games available for purchase than in the US, where most of our phones just aren't powerful enough and don't have as solid a network to work with anyway.
However, before you start making plans to import a Japanese phone, you should know that Japan uses a different type of cell phone network than just about everywhere else in the world so your current phone won't work in Japan (no matter if you're from the US, Europe, or even somewhere else in Asia) and Japanese phones won't work outside of Japan. So don't bother bringing your phone with you on vacation and don't try to buy a Japanese phone to use back home either (unless you can track down a compatible dual-band model).

Wednesday (12th): Electricity
I will say that the electric rates here really suck, or are at least kinda fishy. As previously mentioned, the heater/air conditioner that came with my apartment is pretty useless when it comes to keeping the place even remotely warm. But after a couple days of freezing I got a little space heater which I run in the evenings and at night. It helps a lot, although to be honest the apartment is still freezing late at night (but it's ok as long as I stay in bed and/or near the heater). I've come to realize that this apartment can't retain heat in the least. If I ran a space heater for a few hours in a room in my house back home the place would be burning up. Here the heat is gone almost as soon as it comes. I'm betting that the walls aren't properly insulated since they're so thin. I get the feeling that I could knock a hole in one if I tripped and fell into it hard enough. And that's just the thicker ones....
So anyway, the insulation is horrible as is the built in heater, which is why I had to buy the space heater and keep it running all night (considering how cold it's been getting at night, I could probably go without my fridge if I didn't). Anyway, I was naturally expecting my electric bill to go up a little, I was not expecting it to triple. Now I really can't imagine one little space heater using twice as much electricity as my computers, fridge, TV, game systems, and everything else in my apartment combined. Not to mention that said electric bill is higher than any bill I got for my apartment in Arizona (even when my brother and I were sharing an apartment about 8 times bigger than this one with a heck of a lot more appliances and electronics and the air conditioning going full blast to fight off the 120 degree Phoenix summer heat). Now I'm used to cold weather (been living in Colorado since I was 7) but considering how cold this apartment gets (and how quickly it cools), I can't really turn the heat down much. I'd probably get a pretty nasty cold at the least. Not to mention that it'd be pretty miserable in here.
So anyway, combine the ridiculous electric bill with my low salary (I like my school a lot but the Nogi school district pays its ALTs significantly less than...well, everywhere else I've ever seen and heard of) and it sucks, a lot. Sigh... Well, I'll get it worked out. I'm hoping I can talk my company into giving me some extra yen to help with the bill (they give a lot of ALTs some money for commuting expenses, which I don't need, so I figure I might be able to get a similar amount for this if I'm lucky). If not, I've got plenty of money saved up back home but it'd really annoy me if I had to pull extra cash out of that just to pay my electric bills for the next few months.

Friday (14th): More About Food

Hard to believe it's already the middle of December. The days have kinda blurred a bit for me since my work days are so similar and all. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing but it'll definitely be nice to have a vacation. Only one more week, and then one day the following week, to go. My brother will be here during most of my winter break so we're gonna do a lot of touring. I'll be taking him to some of the places I've already been and we'll be going to a few new areas as well. Expect write ups, pictures, and the like. Plus, since there's gonna be two of us, I can actually get some pictures with me in them for a change. Now for some RJCs.

Random Japan Comment: Soft Food
Japanese people seem to dislike food that is really hard/crunchy/chewy/etc. At least that's the feeling I get when looking in grocery stores and restaurants. As previously mentioned, most of the ice cream you get at stands is soft serve (or as they call it, sofutokurimu (soft cream)). To give some more examples, pretzels are nearly nonexistent, bread is typically softer and moister than in the US and Europe (heck, half the loaves in my local grocery store are called soft bread), and peanut butter has been replaced with something called peanut soft (which is sweeter than normal peanut butter and has a similar consistency to honey). Not to mention cheese. About 80% or more of the cheese in your average grocery store is just different brands of cambert (a very soft cheese) and another 5-10% is soft mozzarella.
I suppose this might be because traditional Japanese food doesn't really have much in the way hard/crunchy/etc food. Or spicy for that matter (unless you count wasabi). Speaking of which, you don't see a ton of hot spicy foods either (jalapeno type stuff). Anyway, I just thought that was kind of strange.

Random Japan Comment: Bread
Being a big fan of Yakitate Japan! (an awesome anime/manga about making bread; I know it sounds lame but give it a try and you'll probably like it) I really had to do one of these on bread at some point. And yes, bread in Japan is different enough from the US and Europe to be worth discussing. At least I think so. Bread in Japan is called pan (based on a Spanish word, I believe) and the name of a given kind of bread is usually the type followed by pan (i.e. Francepan). Also, while reading, keep in mind that Japanese bread is usually a bit lighter, softer, and moister than a comparable bread from the US or Europe (something Yakitate Japan! fans should have learned from the Monaco Cup arc).
Before Japan started becoming more Westernized over the last 100 years or so, bread was practically nonexistent, at least as far as I know. Rice was far more common than any of your typical bread grains and was (and still is) the primary food in Japan (it's quite common for people to eat rice as part of every meal). Wheat, on the other hand, was used to make noodles (the main wheat based noodles being ramen and udon). Now bread is quite common in Japan although, like many foreign things, it's gotten kind of Japanized.
So, first off, where can you get bread? Grocery stores will usually have a bread section (albeit a pretty small one compared to what you'd see in the US). Said section will usually have a handful of types (white and maybe whole wheat and/or rye) of dinner bread and usually only several brands at most. Dinner bread is basically a plain ordinary loaf of bread (sandwich bread really), although it's typically more square or rectangular in shape than what you'd see in other countries. While you can buy whole loaves of it in bakeries, in grocery stores it typically comes presliced in bags containing 3-6 slices instead of a full loaf. Not sure why they don't sell whole loaves but it's consistent with Japanese groceries in general, which tend to come in smaller amounts than they do in the US (smaller bags of potato chips, small ice cream containers only, 10 eggs in a pack instead of 12, etc). Those grocery store sections will also contain a modest selection of bun type breads that are sold individually instead of in packs (but I'll talk about those in a minute). You can also get more or less the same bun type breads (but often not dinner bread or loaves of any kind) at convenience stores.
Your bigger Japanese grocery stores will often include a dedicated bakery and there are plenty of independent bakeries as well. Unlike the US and Europe, where bakeries will often have lots of different types of loaves for sale (French Bread, German Bread, Rye Bread, White Bread, Wheat Bread, Raisin Bread, etc, etc, etc), many of the Japanese bakeries I've been in only have your typical French Bread and one or two types of dinner bread. Most of your average Japanese bakery will be devoted to a collection of pastries and bun and roll type breads, many of which are unique to Japan, which are meant to be served as snacks or additions to certain types of meals. The actual selection will often vary considerably by bakery (even ones in grocery stores of the same chain) and be somewhat seasonal as well, with many bakeries having fairly unique breads or unique variations on popular bread types.
Chances are foreigners will recognize croissants, butter rolls, and handful of others but many breads will be unfamiliar (unless you've watched Yakitate Japan!). Some common Japanese bun/roll type breads include:
Melonpan: Named for the shape and crosshatch design carved into the top, it usually doesn't have any any melon in it. Melon bread is a bun of bread dough surrounded by a coating of cookie dough and then cooked. It's typically at least kind of sweet and comes in a huge amount of variations which may include things like nuts, maple syrup, chocolate, or even actual melon.
Anpan: Anpan is usually recognizable by the little black seeds (can't remember what kind they are) sprinkled on the top. It's stuffed with azuki (sweet red bean) paste and mildly sweet.
Creampan: A bun stuffed with sweet cream. Usually not as sweet as you'd think it would be.
Cheesepan: A bun stuffed with some kind of cheese. Not sweet at all.
Currypan: Surprise, surprise, it's stuffed with curry. The bread itself is usually coated with panko (a type of very flaky Japanese bread crumb) and fried. There are many variations depending on what kind of curry is used.
Like I already mentioned, the selection varies considerably by bakery so you can expect to find lots of variations on the breads I just listed plus plenty of different breads as well. Some of the most interesting ones I've come across include rice bread (really good), sweet potato bread, melon bread stuffed with melon paste, and ocha (Japanese green tea) bread.
All in all, Japanese bread is pretty unique and it can be fun to try lots of different kinds. Just be warned that, if you can't read at least some Japanese, there's so many strange and different breads that you never know what you might end up with.

Sunday (16th): The Japanese Train System

This Sunday I just took a break and hung out at my apartment. It gave me a chance to get some stuff done and relax a bit. Besides, I'll be running all over the place when my brother is here and I've got a few free days before then too, at least a couple of which I'll probably go someplace or other, so I might as well take at least some time to just relax. So, it's time for another Random Japan comment.

Random Japan Comment: Trains
Back in the US, trains are mostly used for hauling stuff cross country these days. While passenger trains still exist, flying and driving are by far the more popular ways to get to where ever you're going. In Japan, on the other hand, public transit such as trains, subways, and busses is the way to go. Subways and most busses however, only cover a fairly small area and while they're very useful for getting around the towns and cities that have them, if you want to go a significant distance you're going to need a train. While driving is also an option, cars are expensive to buy and own and, even though a lot of people do have cars, parking is very limited in many areas so taking a train lets you avoid the associated hassle and fees. And naturally, if all you've got is a bike, trains are often the only place to get anywhere more than a few miles or kilometers away.
Japan has an extensive train system which covers most of the country. Unless you're in a town that's very small and/or very hard to reach there's bound to be at least one train station and cities will often have at least several spread out over various sections. There are many different types of trains but they can be grouped into two categories. Local trains run just about everywhere, go at a modest speed, and are basically what people take the vast majority of the time. A regular local train will stop at every station along its line but some lines also have rapid or express local trains which only stop at the larger or more popular stations (which speeds things up a bit). While local trains are great for traveling to a lot of places, if you're going some place really far away you're going to want a real express train. These include things like limited express trains and Japan's famous shinkansen (bullet trains). They don't stop everywhere, so you'll often have to ride a local train or two as well, but they're a whole lot faster than the local trains. Combine that with the fewer stops, and you can travel a pretty significant distance in a relatively short period of time.
Naturally, you can't travel between any two points on only a single train. Often you'll have to switch trains mid trip, possibly several times. Fortunately, you don't need to buy separate tickets for every train. Most of Japan's trains are owned by the same company (Japan Rail, or the JR). Because of this, prices are based on the distance between your starting and ending point, not how many trains you need to take to get there. Trains stations typically have a bank of automated ticket machines (all except the oldest ones have a button to switch the interface to English) where you select how expensive a ticket you want and put in your money. Tickets are sold by price, not by location. To find out how expensive a ticket you need to reach your destination you can check the big board that every station has near the ticket machines (unfortunately, only the bigger stations have an English version) or look up the price and route ahead of time on the JR's English web site, which has a very useful route finder. One thing to note if you're going to be traveling a lot in Japan, is that the ticket machine won't always let you buy an expensive enough ticket. Why, I don't know, but that's the way it is. To remedy this, stations also have fair changing machines. So, if you get to your destination with the wrong ticket, you can stick the ticket in the machine and put in whatever amount of money it tells you to make up the difference in price. Said machines are also useful if you can't figure out how expensive of a ticket you need, just buy the cheapest one then stick it in the fair changer at your destination and put in the required fee. But keep in mind that, while the machines will let you add extra money to your ticket, they will not return any money if the ticket you bought was too expensive in the first place (which is why I said to get the cheapest one) cause the JR would rather profit from your mistake than return the amount you overpaid.
So anyway, you buy a ticket, stick in in a slot on the gate that leads deeper into the station, and grab your ticket when it comes out the other end. NEVER FORGET YOUR TICKET since you'll need to stick it in a another gate at your destination in order to leave the station (when leaving you don't get the ticket back). It's worth noting that really old stations might have an employee punching people's tickets instead of an automated gate. It's also worth noting that, since the ticket price is based solely on your destination, it doesn't matter what route you take to get there. Heck, you could even ride in the opposite direction for a while then turn around and go back to where you were originally heading without any extra charge. Although you couldn't leave the train stations along the way so I'm not sure why anyone would really want to do that.
So, what are the costs? Depends. If you're just going one or two stops and they're all close together you might get by with less than 200 yen, while traveling cross country could easily cost you 5000 yen or more (100 yen is around 80 cents or so). Then there's extra fees. For example, many trains have Green Cars. They're special cars with two floors and nicer seats, plus you're guaranteed a seat while in a regular car you might be stuck standing. Unsurprisingly, if you want to ride in a Green Car you need to buy an extra Green Car ticket (in addition to your regular ticket), which aren't exactly cheap. Also, if your trip plan involves riding on any limited express trains or shinkansen you'll need to purchase additional tickets for them along with your regular ticket. Shinkansen tickets especially tend to be pretty expensive. So a moderate length shinkansen ride might cost you 4000-5000 yen for your regular ticket plus an additional 3000-4000 for the shinkansen ticket, and that's just for a one way trip. If you're a foreign tourist, you can order a Japan Rail Pass from the JR before your trip that give unlimited use of the trains in a certain part of Japan for a certain period of time but you can't get those if you're living in Japan. To be honest, I think that a lot of the time the trains are probably more expensive than driving (assuming you already have a car and all that), although in many situations they're more convenient (and less so in others).
When riding a train, grab a seat if you can but be prepared to stand, especially if you're going along with rush hour traffic (mostly the flood of commuters to and from big cities on work days and the flood of shoppers to and from same cities on weekends). I've been on trains that were nearly empty and trains where people were literally jammed in like sardines (which is why you really don't want to travel during rush hour if you can avoid it). It's considered rude to talk on the phone while on a train and there are lots of signs reminding people to put their cellphones on vibrate (or 'manner mode' as its called in Japan). Eating on the train is also considered rude (unless you're on a really long distance one) but people occasionally do it anyway. In addition, most cars have several seats at the end that are set aside for people with injuries, pregnant women, people with babies, etc. However, if there aren't any people like that in the car (which there usually aren't) said seats are up for grabs and, like the rest of the non-reserved seating on a train (reserved seating being Green Cars on locals and reserved cars on shinkansen), it's an every man for himself first come first serve basis. If you can't get a seat, find a place to stand, hold onto a bar or one of the rings hanging from the ceiling so you don't fall over if the train jerks unexpectedly, and try to grab a seat when someone nearby gets off.
Classic train pastimes include sending e-mail on a cellphone, MP3 players, books and magazines, portable video game systems, and sleeping (I often wonder how many people accidently sleep through their stop) so if you're going to be riding the trains a lot get into a habit of bringing something to keep you occupied, especially if you're gonna be riding the same route repeatedly cause the scenery will get old sooner or later.
Oh, one last thing. While some trains announce upcoming stops in English and Japanese, many don't so pay close attention to announcements (listen for place names), the route map or electric display over many doors, and/or the place name signs outside outside the train at the stations (which always come in both English and Japanese versions) to figure out where you are.

Wednesday (19th): Some Random Photos

I've got a bit of writer's block at the moment and a bunch of things I need to get done so I'm just gonna put up a few photos I've taken over the past week or so and leave it at that for today.

Here's the kids at my school trying out an exercise to music type of thing. Here's me with my 1st Grade class, and here's me with the 4th Graders (as previously mentioned, in Japan it's quite common to do a v sign with your hands in photos). I'm hoping to get photos of the rest of the grades soon.
And, for something completely unrelated, here's a real potion! Well, sorta. In Japan, Square Enix occasionally sells a "Potion" soft drink for a limited time. I think this Final Fantasy VII 10th Anniversary Potion set is the third or fourth version. As far as soft drinks go it was rather so-so, a bit expensive, and I couldn't really tell if it restored my HP or not (although I'm not even sure what my HP is, it might have even been full at the time, so maybe it did work) but it did come with a really cool FFVII figurine (one of eight different ones). While I suppose it wouldn't hurt to carry a few potions around in case I get attacked by monsters or something like that, I think I'd rather just hit up Akihabara or Nakano and see if I can find a store selling the figurines separately. (For those of you who have never played a Final Fantasy game (which you really should go and do), a potion is an item that characters in the game can use to restore their HP (health or hit points) when they get hurt.)

Friday (21th): Language Stuff

I mentioned that I was going to try and get pics with the rest of my elementary school classes and here they are. I already posted pics of the 1st and 4th graders last time so here's 2nd grade, 3rd grade, 5th grade, and 6th grade. Speaking of pictures, I'll probably be trying for a haircut sometime over the coming week since I'll have a bunch of free days (I got Monday off cause of the emperor's birthday, have to work Tuesday, and then winter break starts). Would have done it sooner but, aside from limited time, I'm not particularly anxious to get a haircut from someone who doesn't speak the same language (even though my Japanese is improving). Actually, if I kept it about this length or so I could probably do Squall's hairstyle (from Final Fantasy VIII and Kingdom Hearts), which would be kinda cool. Main problem with that is I'd probably need to gel it and most hair stuff gives me a pretty serious headache.

Random Japan Comment: Japanese People and the English Language
I believe I've already mentioned this but despite going through at least several years of English classes in school, your average Japanese adult would be pretty hard pressed carry on even the simplest conversation in English. Although, if pressed, they could probably rattle off a list of nouns and maybe some verbs and adjectives too. And they could probably make it through one of the 'premade conversations' that they get repeatedly drilled on in school like, "Hello, how are you?" "I'm fine thank you, and you?" "I'm fine thank you." Unfortunately, rote repetition of phrases is sometimes all that's taught so if you deviate at all from that set conversation they'll often get completely lost because they learned the phrase, not the actual words that make it up. That said, some can speak a little English if they try and some are quite fluent, just don't count on being able to understand or be understood by most people if you're only speaking English. I should probably point out that most Japanese people (at least from my experience) do understand English numbers although many will try in Japanese first and hope you understand that. But Japanese numbers are pretty simple (at least as long as you're just sticking with straight numbers such as prices and not trying to actually count anything, which can be a nightmare if you want to do it correctly) so if you're going to Japan I'd recommend memorizing the number system along with a few basic phrases. Being able to read hiragana and katakana is a big help as well, although a lot more work.
Anyway, back to English. Despite the general lack of English knowledge, English is quite popular. There are lots of private English schools and it often seems like everyone has a little electronic Japanese-English dictionary (either a stand alone model or a simple one built into their cell phone). Aside from the tourist info type stuff, you'll see lots of English on clothes, products, ads, etc (albeit often with horrible grammar, occasionally questionable spelling, and sometimes words that obviously don't mean what whoever chose them thought they did). A lot of the English on that stuff is just plain bad although some is unintentionally amusing and has been dubbed Engrish back in the US. There are even entire websites devoted to photos of humorous Engrish.
Modern Japanese actually has quite a few English words in it. However, the Japanese language has a lot less sounds than the English language does plus the Japanese have a tendency to abbreviate words they consider too long so just because something has the same word in both Japanese and English that doesn't mean you'll be able to recognize said word when you hear it and vice-versa.
First off, pronunciation. A few basics...
1. Japanese doesn't have a L sound. However, their R is about halfway between an R and an L. Because of this, the letters R and L are often mixed up when Japanese people write in English (hence the term Engrish) which can lead to things like that Worlds Flogs' sign I posted a pic of a while back or how it sounds like many of the kids in my English classes are saying how much they like 'lice' (when we're talking about rice) or the color yerro (yellow).
2. There's also no x, no v, and no q. The x part usually isn't an issue. V usually ends up sounding like 'bwe' so you'll have words like bwideo and DbweD. Q usually isn't an issue in conversation but in spelling it's sometimes mistakenly used in place of the letter k for some reason. There's no th sound either because of reason that will be explained in a moment, so it's usually replaced with a Z sound.
3. Japanese letters represent syllables, not individual sounds like in English. For example, in English we have the letter A. A has a sound when it's by itself but we can also combine it with any other letter. All the other letters (except Q) can also stand alone or in nearly any combination. Japanese has five vowels: a (ah), i (ee), u (ew), e (eh), o (oh) and they can all stand alone as can the 'nn' sound. However, since the language is written in syllables, none of the other letters can stand alone, they're always with a vowel. For example, there's no B, instead there's ba, bi, bu, be, and bo.
Because of this, most Japanese people have significant trouble saying an English word without adding in some extra vowels since they're just not used to pronouncing consonants on their own. For example, ice cream becomes aisu kurimu, cheese is chiizu, etc. Fortunately, if you keep in mind what Japanese vowels sound like, that that there's gonna be more of them, you can still understand things a lot of the time. Other times, however, you'll have no clue that they're actually saying an English word cause the pronunciation gets so scrambled, like with zatsaru (that's all). Also, if you pronounce the word correctly it's quite possible that Japanese people won't understand because they're used to the incorrect pronunciation. It gets even more complicated if the original word has been abbreviated. For example, you'd probably never guess that a wappro was a word processor or that amerifuuto was American football, although you might be able to tell that a persocon was a personal computer, maybe.
So basically, just keep in mind that though Japan has a lot of English it's usually a bit off (and not always in any way useful). Also, it's much easier for an English speaker to learn correct Japanese pronunciation than for a Japanese speaker to learn correct English pronunciation. The reason being that English already includes nearly all the sounds used in Japanese while Japanese is missing quite a lot of common English sounds.

Monday (24th): Christmas & Movies
Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it. I don't, but I had to spend the last week teaching my various classes Christmas carols and telling them about what people in the US do on Christmas so that kinda got me in a little bit of a Christmas mood. Actually, I'd be liking Christmas a heck of a lot more if I actually got the day off work. I know it's not a national holiday in Japan but it's still pretty popular. Plus, I got today off because of the Emperor's birthday (which was Sunday) and winter break starts Wednesday, and it's really annoying to have to go in to work for one day IN THE MIDDLE of an otherwise free week.
So anyway, teaching about Christmas... That went pretty well, though the third grade teacher decided to do a question and answer period with the kids asking me questions, which all seemed to revolve around Santa (what ages of kids does he visit, what's he do if you don't have a chimney, etc, etc, etc). That was a little awkward. I mean, I'm surrounded by a bunch of nine year olds who obviously believe in Santa and take him very seriously and I'm trying to make up answers that sound good, will satisfy the kids, and that I can explain in Japanese... And, like I said, I don't even celebrate Christmas (my family used to a long time ago but even then my parents never got into the whole Santa thing so neither did I). Speaking of Santa Claus, no one seemed to know what elves were. Wonder where they say he gets the toys he gives away. Toys R' Us maybe (yes, there are some in Japan)? Also, it seems that in Japan people still do the whole cookies and milk for Santa thing only here it's often cookies and milk tea. One other odd thing, some of the third graders asked me a couple questions about "bad Santa" (not the movie). Didn't completely understand them but he seems to be a separate person than regular Santa (like the grinch perhaps?). Since I didn't totally understand those particular questions, and had never heard of "bad Santa", I just said he doesn't exist. I don't think any kids are gonna be traumatized by finding out that bad Santa isn't going to be paying them a visit. But yeah, that was about it. Oh, and I got to hear the 4th graders sing Jingle Bells in Japanese, that was kinda interesting (as was the fact that they had no idea that it wasn't a Japanese song to begin with).

I stayed home Sunday cause of the rain but I did go out on Monday.

Monday (24th): Trip to the Movies
Didn't want to do anything too fancy so I decided to go watch a movie. Unfortunately, if there's a movie theater in Koga I haven't found it yet so I knew I was gonna have to do some traveling. In the end, I decided to go to Ikspiari, it's a big mall at Tokyo Disney. I did know of some closer theaters but I'd kinda been wanting to look around Ikspiari anyway. Ikspiari itself is nice, but mainly a lot of clothing stores and stuff. Great if you like that kind of thing but I don't really. Oh, and it had Hotdog Fighter. Sounds like a cheesy old arcade game doesn't it ("Hotdog vs. Mustard! Ready...FIGHT!")? Well, I thought it was a funny name for a hotdog stand.
The theater itself (actually the pic is the area right outside the theater) was very nice. Big, stadium seats, surround sound, etc. Pretty much just like the nicer theaters back in the US. Not sure if all Japanese movie theaters are like that (first time I've been to a movie) but all the ones I've seen so far have looked pretty big and nice from the outside. About two thirds of the movies playing were American ones, some pretty new (National Treasure 2, I Am Legend, etc) some not so much, at least by US standards (like Meet the Robinsons). The rest were Japanese. One interesting thing is that a lot of English movies are available in both redubbed in Japanese and in English with Japanese subtitles. Kids' movies, however, are a bit harder to find in English since young kids and subtitles naturally don't mix too well.
I decided to watch National Treasure 2 in English. I considered watching something in Japanese but figured I can just turn on the TV at my apartment any time to do that and I'd rather not be stuck in the movie for two hours if I got completely lost. The most interesting thing about buying tickets was that, just like at a sports games, the theater had assigned seats. I got to choose where I wanted to sit and got a ticket with a row and seat number which was pretty close to my chosen spot. On the one hand, it's kinda nice to be guaranteed a seat in a certain spot. On the other hand, I suppose if you end up behind some really tall guy or next to a noisy person you're kinda stuck. I also learned that movies in Japan are expensive. Cost me 1800 yen (around $14) for a ticket. Didn't look like they have matinees although there were slightly cheaper tickets available if you went to a really late show.
Just like in the US, there was a good 20 minutes of ads and movie previews before the actual movie started. Even though the movie was playing in both Japanese and English, quite a lot of people opted for the English version (guess I'm not the only one who dislikes redubbing live action stuff). The only other thing of note came at the end of the movie. Now in the US, the moment the credits start rolling about 80% of the audience makes a run for the exit. Here it was completely the opposite. At least 70% of the people in the theater sat there and watched the credits all the way through before getting up (including me since I was kinda stuck in the middle of a row).
After the movie I did walk around a bit more and then went to Nakano to browse a bit before heading home but that's not really anything worth writing about.

Oh, did I mention the staff at my school had an end of year party? It was a lot like the last party we had. Everyone went to a fancy traditional Japanese restaurant (different one from last time but similar), talked, ate, drank, and played some sort of party game where we broke up into teams and had to guess a song from the first few seconds (acting like an idiot when your team was ready to make a guess was also an important part for some reason). After that some of us went on to the second party at a karaoke parlor, which was fun. Once again, nothing all that different from the last party but I enjoyed it.

Sunday (30th): Around Tokyo
My brother got in Friday evening. Saturday we just went to services, took a quick look around Akihabara, and got dinner so there's not much to talk about there.

I showed my brother around some parts of Tokyo. Actually, before talking about Sunday, here's a few photos from Saturday morning when we walked around outside the Imperial Palace. Here's my brother Noah, and here's me. Ok, back to Sunday.
I was hoping to take him to the big flea market I've talked about before but it wasn't being held this week so we started off walking towards Tokyo Tower. Along the way, we ran into Zojoji temple (which is kinda famous for its New Year's countdown). There was also a whole lot of little jinzo statues with pinwheels (never saw that before). Then we went up Tokyo tower and I got to see the view during the daytime.
After that I took him to Harajuku (the teen fashion area) and Ginza (the fancy expensive shopping district). He had fun looking at the clothing stores, I just kinda followed along and listened to stuff on my MP3 player since I never did care too much for fancy clothes (or clothes shopping in general). So, I suppose there really isn't much to talk about there.

Monday (31st): Kamakura
My plans on where to take my brother were limited by the fact that a heck of a lot of stuff closes on and around New Years. But, since visiting shrines is a New Years tradition in Japan, they're all open. So we headed for Kamakura. I gave it a pretty thorough write up the last time I was there and it's kinda late right now so I'm not going to go into detail about places like the Daibutsu, Hasedera (nothing special about that statue, by the way, it just happens to be at Hasedera), and Tsurugaokahachimangu. We did, however, go to a couple of shrines that I hadn't visited before. Engakuji was a very large shrine complex in a nice setting. Right nearby was Tokeiji, which has an interesting historical background as a place where mistreated women went to get a divorce from their husband back before it became legal for women request a divorce. It wasn't a decision to be taken lightly though, as the women had to live and work at the shrine for three full years before their divorce would be granted. The shrine itself wasn't all that big but it too had a very nice forest setting to it.
We had thought about hanging out in Tokyo till midnight to see the fireworks but, since the last train to Koga was at 11:30, we would have been stuck there all night and hotels on New Years Eve in Japan are typically booked solid way in advance so we didn't.

Part 4: November 2007




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