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Josiah's Japan Travelogue #2
Part 3: March 2011 |
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Tuesday (the 1st): Matsuyama | |||||||||
You know, I really thought I'd have time to get a PV strip or two made but these last couple of days have been busier than I thought. I haven't even been keeping up with my Japan blog or the King of the Forums contest as much as I should. But at least I'm keeping this travelogue up to date. Hopefully new PV strips will resume on Friday...assuming I have time and that my Friday night hotel has internet access... Oh, one last thing. I made a couple of small additions to Monday's travelogue entry that I forgot to talk about last time. Nothing major but, if you're curious, they're near the end. Tuesday (the 1st): Matsuyama |
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Wednesday (the 2nd): Ozu and Uchiko | |||||||||
Since I finished my list of Matsuyama sights yesterday (other than that one shrine I never found), today I headed off to check out some nearby towns. First stop, Ozu. It's a little town in the hills that doesn't make it into many tour books. The main attraction is Ozu Castle, but it's a bit of a walk from the station. On my way there, I was approached by an older Japanese woman. Turned out she's studying English conversation as a hobby and wanted to practice. Since we were both going the same direction, we chatted for awhile as we went (to be nice, I avoided Japanese and spoke to her in simple English), so that was kind of fun. The castle itself is a recent reconstruction of the main tower (most of the original castle burned down long ago). What makes it interesting is that instead of just building a modern building that looks like a castle from the outside (which is what most modern reconstructed castles are), they actually rebuilt it using authentic period materials, tools, and building techniques. Aside from a few modern updates (such as electric lights and fire extinquishers), it's pretty much an exact recreation of the original tower, which is pretty cool. When looking at a map of Ozu, I noticed an area marked as having a lot of old buildings so I decided to check it out next. While the street in question wasn't at all touristy, it did have quite a lot of old houses. And, while I was wondering around there, I stumbled across Ozu's other attraction, a very pretty old house and garden built by a wealthy merchant. It wasn't all that big but the whole place was extremely picturesque. That about wrapped it up for Ozu so I caught a train for my next destination, the town of Uchiko. It's a pretty little farming town surrounded by hills/mountains. In addition to produce, it's famous for its old buildings. Since it was around lunch time, I put the touring on hold for a bit and headed to the fresh foods market, sorta a permanent farmers' market. This isn't the best time of year for fresh produce (and I wasn't about to lug a bunch of stuff along on the rest of my trip) but the tour book said there was a really nice restaurant there which served food made from local ingredients. It was a little on the expensive side (though not horribly so) but I've been eating pretty cheaply on this trip and the food was great, featuring lots of little salads and vegetable dishes using local produce. I also stopped by a gelato stand nearby and got a mix of sakura, satsumaimo, and barley (which was surprisingly good). After lunch it was time to start touring. Uchiko has a long street lined with old buildings, some of which are museums and others are stores. Some sort of cherry drink is made there (not bad but rather sour) but there were a lot of other products for sale too. There not nearly as many souvenir shops are many of the similar areas I've visited, but it was a very nice area. As I walked, I stopped in a couple of small gardens and checked out the wax museum. No, not wax figures, just wax. Turns out that Uchiko was once famous for its wax, which was made from the berries from a certain tree. In the late 1800's and early 1900's, Uchiko wax was even in high demand in Europe and North America. The rise of paraffin wax, however, effectively killed the business and from what I heard there's only one person in the town who still makes wax the traditional way. At the end of the old buildings, I came to Koshoji Temple. It's a large old building and is famous for the number of monks who used to live there. But I was more impressed by the rather new looking Buddha statue they have nearby. I've seen plenty of sitting Buddhas and standing Buddha's but this was the first sleeping one and it's pretty big too. On the way back to the train station I stopped at two places I had passed earlier on my way to lunch. The first was a neat little museum in an old house that uses animatronic models and little sound bits (all in Japanese) to show what life was like in the area a couple hundred years ago. And the second was an old kabuki and bunraku theater. While it wasn't all that different from the kabuki theater I saw at Kotohira, they had a few items on display like these geta (Japanese wooden sandals) with extremely high platforms and a bunraku doll (note that it's around four feet tall). Finally I headed back to Matsuyama, got a quick supper at the shopping arcade, and took one last hot springs bath at my hotel. Tomorrow I'm off to yet another location, but in a rather different way... |
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Thursday (the 3rd): A Long Bike Ride | |||||||||
Since I stayed up rather late Wednesday night finishing my travelogue update, I ended up setting out a little later than I originally planned. At the station, I spotted this Anpan Man (a popular little kids anime) train. Basically, trains like this show up every now and then when one company buys out all the ad space and plasters it with stuff for a single show or item. On the train, I ended up sitting with a guy from Switzerland who is semi-retired and likes to backpack around different countries. Seems like I run into a lot more Europeans in Japan than I do Americans. I guess it is a shorter flight for them... Anyway, I haven't said where I was going. As you should know if you've been reading my travelogue entries this week, I've been spending some time on the island of Shikoku. Well, there's a few different ways to get between Shikoku and Honshu (Japan's main island). One of which is a road that crosses over six smaller islands in the Seto Inland Sea. There's a bus that crosses the entire thing and people can drive it if they have a car, but it's also a popular bike route. Basically you rent a bike at one end and return it at the other (or, if you don't want to go the whole way, at one of the other rental shops along the route). The entire thing is around 70 kilometers (about 43.5 miles). My tour book said it takes around 7 hours and I figured that, like the book's walking times, that estimate was a bit on the high side so I could probably finish in 5 or 6. Didn't quite work out that way but let's start at the beginning. I began in the town of Imabari, which had the smallest train station I've seen yet. From there it was a twenty minute walk (clearly marked, fortunately) to Sunrise Itoyama, the bike company. I rented a 21 speed bike, picked up a map, and headed off. As a note, I left the rental place at around 10 AM (I'd originally planned to get there closer to 8:30 but, as I mentioned, I really needed some sleep) and had until 6 PM to get the other end of the route before the rental agency there closed for the day (they have longer hours in the summer). I left Shikoku behind almost immediately and headed across a long bridge with some great views to Oshima Island. Oshima, like all the islands on the route, is fairly small and hilly with lots of trees and a small town. The bike route was pretty obvious for the most part (there's a lot of signs though there were a few confusing spots) and all the islands featured recommended, intermediate, and advanced routes (the intermediate and advanced routes are alternate routes or detours that are either longer or more strenuous than the recommended route). Oshima Island was one of the longer stretches of the trail and it had some ship yards and quarries. I also ran into a set of odd statues, especially considering that they were just sitting out in front of a couple of ordinary looking houses. Eventually I reached the next bridge and was off to Hakatajima Island, which looked a lot like Oshima. But I wasn't there for long before moving on to Omishima Island. At this point, I started to encounter a lot of citrus groves of various sorts. It didn't take me too long to reach the bridge to the next island, but I wasn't ready to leave just yet. I stopped for a quick lunch and then passed the bridge and followed the intermediate trail to Oyamazumi Shrine, which my tour book highly recommended. Only problem was that it added a good 12 kilometers (round trip) to my total and that was around when the last few days of near constant walking and stair climbing stated to catch up with me. While I was ok when going downhill and on flat areas, even fairly mild inclines would leave my legs burning and the fact that I was wearing a very heavy backpack certainly wasn't helping matters. The shrine itself wasn't all that amazing (though it did have some of Japan's oldest trees). The treasure museum, however, was worth the trip. Especially since it specialized mainly in old weapons and armor, which I always like to see. No pictures were allowed though. One of the most unusual pieces I saw was a set of samurai armor made for a woman. Despite all the female warriors you see in anime, as far as I know that was pretty rare in actual Japanese history. I'm not sure who the armor was made for, but they had a statue of her outside. Returning to the bridge, I crossed over to Ikuchijima Island, which was another of the longer stretches of the trail. Fortunately, it was a very pretty island with easy to follow paths, lots of mikan (a type of Japanese orange or tangerine) groves, and some nice views. It was also mostly flat, which was good since inclines were giving me quite a lot of trouble. Plus this was the first time I'd been on a bike in probably six months or more and it's easy to forget how much those seats can hurt... With two islands to go, I crossed to Innoshima Island. My tour book had mentioned that the part of the route nearer to Honshu wasn't as nice, and it was right. While all the previous islands had been very scenic and featured good bike paths, Innoshima was more industrial and the trail wasn't nearly as good or easy to follow. I was also really starting to worry about the time. That side trip to the shrine had taken awhile and I was having to get off and walk my bike up most hills, which was slowing me down. In my current condition, I didn't think I could make it all the way across by 6. Around 5:30, I reached one of the drop-off points and decided to just call it quits there (a good choice as it started to rain a moment later). In the end, I biked something like 72 kilometers (around 45 miles) and had only around 16 to go until the end. If I hadn't taken the detour to the shrine, or didn't have the backpack, or hadn't pushed my legs so hard during the last few days, or just had another hour, I would have been able to make it to the end no problem but the combination was just too much. Fortunately, a nice cab driver helped me catch a bus to Honshu. Unfortunately, Onomichi (where the route ends) isn't as close to Hiroshima as I'd been led to believe so I found myself with a nearly 90 minute train ride after an already long bus ride. In the end, I didn't reach my hotel until around 8:30 and I hadn't even eaten yet so there really wasn't time to catch up on things or look around the city. Still, it was a cool day and I'm glad did the bike route, despite the problems I ran into at the end. |
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Friday (the 4th): Miyajima | |||||||||
Miyajima is one of Japan's "three most scenic spots". While I never got the chance to go before, it's near Hiroshima so I was able to work it into this trip. Anyway, Miyajima is a fairly small island in the Seto Inland Sea. It's mostly covered with heavily forested mountains, except for a single small town on the side facing Honshu. Getting there from Hiroshima requires a half hour train ride followed by ten minutes on a ferry. During the ferry ride, I got my first look at Miyajima's most famous landmarks, the Otorii Gate and Itsukushima Shrine. And yes, they are sitting in the water. But more on that in a minute... One of the first things I noticed after disembarking is that, like Nara (see my April 11th entry), Miyajima has a lot of tame deer that like to wander around the town. Unlike Nara, however, there were signs around telling your not to feed or touch the deer (seems they wish the deer were a little less tame). Since the deer don't get fed by people as much, they weren't nearly as pushy as the Nara deer, but they would tend to follow anyone with food. They were also a little on the noisy side, for deer anyway, which means they were still pretty quiet. Have you ever heard a deer? They don't bray or moo or anything like that. They make this soft wheezing squeak, kind of like a quiet kitten or a broken squeaky toy. Anyway, a short walk along the coast gave me a closer look at the Otorii Gate and Itsukushima Shrine. Both are around 1200 years old (though the gate is rebuilt every 150 years or so, probably due to water damage since it's made entirely of wood). In fact, many of Miyajima's various shrines and temples were founded long before people started to live on the island and it wasn't until workers and priests started moving there to tend to them that the town was formed. I got lucky and arrived at Itsukushima Shrine right when the tide was at its highest, which is really the best time to see it as it almost seems to be floating on the water, as does the Otorii Gate, which you can see clearly from the shrine. Water aside, the shrine is still very picturesque with long walkways, hanging lanterns, a noh stage, and a nice orange and white color scheme. And, of course, it's the perfect spot from which to photograph the Otorii Gate, which is really "the" thing to do on Miyajima. But while Istukushima Shrine and its famous gate as the most popular things to see on Miyajima, they're hardly the only ones. As I left the shrine, I found myself right by Daiganji Temple (as a quick reminder, shrines are Shinto and temples are Buddhist). They had a rather large and impressive wooden statue of a guy with flames and a sword inside the building, but I wasn't allowed to photograph it. The nearby treasure museum didn't allow photographs either, but they had some really neat old scrolls and other items. Next, I headed to the nearby folkcraft museum, which is inside the former home of a wealthy merchant family. The museum featured a very diverse collection of old items relating to Miyajima's history and traditional crafts (from water buckets, to combs, to elaborately carved wooden plates and trays). There was also a set of model boats designed to look like the ones used in a big music festival that takes place on Miyajima every summer (and has for hundreds of years). Fortunately, a lot of the signs were in English so I was able to learn about another local summer festival which involves a bunch of young men racing to swim over and grab a ball hanging from the Otorii Gate. Supposedly, the ball grants a year of good luck to whoever manages to get it. There was also an interesting display about a major battle that took place long ago when a general lured the enemy forces to Miyajima and defeated them with far fewer troops in a very clever ambush. Oh, and I can't forget this guy. He's the priest who invented the rice scoop (I suppose Japan always had rice scoops of some kind but this guy created the design that is used all over Asia today (legend has it that a goddess showed him the design in a dream). Because of this, wooden rice scoops are a very popular local souvenir. Speaking of rice scoops, Senjokaku (a massive unfinished shrine nearby) has a little shrine inside it dedicated solely to them. Though it's more famous for its five story pagoda. This seemed like a good time to get lunch, so I headed back towards the main part of town. On the way, I noticed that the tide was going out, causing the water level around Itsukushima Shrine and the Otorii Gate to drop considerably. But I only took a quick look before coming across a very nice shopping arcade full of souvenir shops, restaurants, and snack stands. The world's largest rice scoop is there as well, just in case you have a really really really large bowl of rice. I started out looking for a restaurant but ended up running across one good looking snack after another so in the end I decided I didn't really need a full meal after all. When it comes to food, Miyajima has several specialties. There's grilled clams (or maybe oysters, I couldn't tell), long fried strips of various types of seafood and/or vegetables, and (the one that I was most interested in) manju. Manju are little buns or pastries stuffed with something (usually azuki bean paste). You can get them all over Japan but Miyajima's are unique in that they're shaped like maple leaves and they're supposedly the best ones in the country. It seemed like about every third store had manju. The most common flavors were azuki, cream, and chocolate but most stores had some special ones as well. I also saw lemon, green tea, apple, cheese, chestnut, satsumaimo (Japanese sweet potato), and even takesumi (well, the takesumi was in the bun, the filling was azuki). At only 80 or 90 Yen a piece, they made for a great snack but there were also gift boxes you could get to give to your family, friends, or co-workers (in Japan, it's polite to return from vacation bearing specialty snacks for all of the aforementioned people). I'm not sure if Miyajima's manju are the best in Japan or not but they were pretty good. Though, if plain manju aren't enough there are a few shops that, for 150 Yen, give you a cup of barley tea and a deep fried manju on stick. And yes, while it's not particularly healthy, they're even better that way. I didn't just eat manju though, there were some really good steamed beef buns and other things too. By the time I'd left the shopping arcade, I was finishing the last of my manju (while being trailed by a persistent deer) and had seen all the major attractions in the town. But that didn't mean I was finished on Miyajima. While a lot of visitors to the island don't do much other than visiting Itsukushima Shrine and the Otorii Gate and buying some manju, there's quite a lot to see on Miyajima's tallest mountain, Mt. Misen. I was originally planning to hike up but after yesterday's 45 mile bike ride (not to mention all the walking and climbing the days before), I decided to just do it the easy way and take the cable car. I did, however, hike to the cable car station (instead of taking the free bus) and only bought a one way ticket (figuring that I could easily handle a hike down the mountain). Actually, I'm kinda glad I took the cable car. First, I saw this shop on the way there where you can actually buy giant wooden statues of various Japanese mythological figures like you see in some of the shrines and temples. Not that I got one, of course, but it was still cool to see. Plus the views from the cable car were pretty spectacular and from the platform at the end of the ride I was able to get some great views of the Seto Inland Sea (and make good use of my camera's panorama mode). From there, it was still a one kilometer hike up to the top of the mountain. Towards the end of the trail I reached Mt. Misen's most famous temples, Misen Hondo and Reikado. The interesting thing about Reikado is that it contains the Eternal Fire, which is supposed to have been kept burning continuously since the temple's founding around 1200 years ago. Legend has it that water boiled over the fire can cure various illnesses and couples who stare at each other across the flames are destined to form an eternal bond. Continuing on, I passed a lot of big rocks (which reminded me a little of Colorado) before finally reaching the summit of Mt. Misen. There I found a viewing platform and a snack stand (with a couple of deer waiting hopefully outside). Since I didn't see any roads, I guess the lady running the place has to hike there from the cable car every day. That'd be some commute... I got some more nice pictures from the viewing platform. And, for the heck of it, I decided to try a 360 degree panorama. I wasn't expecting much but it came out a lot better than I thought it would. Just keep in mind that it's a 360 so it's meant to wrap around. As I was about to leave, a monk showed up and blew a strange looking horn (to mark the hour, I think). After listening to him, I started walking down the mountain, stopping at a few little shrines along the way. I saw some signs warning about wild monkey but, unfortunately, I didn't actually see any. By the time I got back down to the town, it was low tide. Itsukushima Shrine is a little less picturesque without all the water underneath it. However, people really seem to like walking out to the Otorii Gate. A lot of them were trying to stick coins in the barnacles on its base. For luck, I guess. There was also a group (locals, I assume) out a bit further gathering shells or shellfish or something like that. This seemed like a good time to check into my hotel so I retrieved my backup from the coin lockers at the ferry dock and made my way over there. It was a nice hotel, and I ended up with a twin room again, but I have to say that the hotels I walked past on the beach front looked really fancy (and really really expensive). In addition to checking me in, the guy at the desk gave me a map listing which restaurants were open late, which was nice since the majority of stuff on Miyajima seems to shut down at around 5 when most of the tourists start catching the ferries back to Honshu. I headed back out almost immediately to grab some manju (as a gift, not to eat) and get supper (nothing special, just a rice bowl) then hung out in my hotel room for a while sorting through all the pictures I'd taken. But the day wasn't over quite yet. I'd heard that they light up the Otorii Gate at night so I headed out at around 9:30 (high tide again) to get a look. Itsukushima Shrine was lit up as well, though not nearly as much so it wasn't very easy to get a good photograph. The gate, however, did look really nice in the dark. And that was it for my big trip. The next morning I took a ferry back to Honshu and then rode a shinkansen to Tokyo. Hard to say which was my favorite day (tough call between Miyajima and my first day in Takamatsu) but the whole trip was great and I'm really glad I went, despite the expense. I loved both Shikoku and Miyajima and hope to go back sometime. |
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Sunday (the 6th): Hanging Around Tokyo | |||||||||
Did I ever mention that Starbucks here in Japan has seasonal sakura (Japanese cherry blossom) drinks? I tried the frappuccino about a week back out of curiosity. It was pink and tasted a bit like flowers and something else...white chocolate maybe? But anyway, moving on... Having just gotten back from my trip, I didn't really want to do anything big today, especially since I still had some things to catch up on, but I didn't want to stay in my apartment all day either. In the end, I visited the Oikeibajou flea market (since I haven't been there for a couple months) and swung by Nakano for a bit after that. I enjoyed myself, but there wasn't anything too exciting to talk about. I did take one picture, but only one. This ice cream stand is in the basement of Nakano Broadway. There's actually a place on the third or fourth floor that has more flavors, but this one is notable for the sheer amount of ice cream you get for your money. If you look at the plastic cones you can see that there's several different sizes. At a regular ice cream place, 250 - 300 Yen will buy you the smallest one (or maybe something a little smaller). At this place, you can get the smalls and mediums for 200 - 300 but a mere 390 Yen will get that enormous eight flavor cone on the far right. If you're curious, it contains vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, coffee, grape, black sesame, green tea, and azuki (red bean) and is about as much ice cream as you'd get in 6 - 8 normal cones. From what I saw, it actually holds together fairly well (being soft serve, you can press it down a bit better than regular ice cream) and seemed to stay frozen long enough to eat. But that's a huge amount of ice cream for one person to eat in a single sitting so it's probably better to bring someone to split it with... |
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Wednesday (the 9th): Preparing to Move On | |||||||||
There's only a couple weeks to go for my current teaching position (my last day is the 24th). Time certainly has flown. Narashino #1 Junior High is a nice enough school and I like the kids and the staff members that I regularly interact with, but I won't be staying on. I got good recommendations from both Heart (the company that hired me) and the Narashino Board of Education but said BOE is rather on the cheap side and the contract they offered for the next school year isn't very good (if I was lucky and did little if any touring I'd probably manage to break even). Even my coordinator at Heart recommended that I turn them down (which is unusual since it's his job to make sure the position gets and stays filled). While losing a bit of money was ok my first time in Japan (when I was mainly after the experience) and for the past three months (as a fun and interesting way to pass the time until my book's release), I can't keep doing that indefinitely. Heart offered me a different position near Narita but it's a little further out than I'd like and the salary, while decent, isn't particular great either, so I probably won't accept. While I do enjoy English teaching, I don't particularly want to make a career out of it. At best, it would be a backup choice. If I'm offered a job with a really good salary I'll seriously consider it, since I think a couple more years here would improve my Japanese to the point where I'd be fairly fluent, but otherwise I really want to do game design and/or writing (regardless of where that job my be). Though, it could be fun to be a travel writer... Would anyone be interested in "An Otaku's Japan Travel Guide"? Or maybe an expanded non-fiction novel version of my travelogues? Just a couple ideas I've been kicking around for potential future projects... So what's next? Well, I'm currently looking for a new job (both in Japan and the US) though I've been too busy to apply to a large number of US companies yet. My parents are coming to Japan a little before the end of the month and I've moving out of my apartment in early April. We're going to do some touring and then, if I don't have another job in Japan lined up, I'm planning to return to the US in mid April and either start a job (if I find one before I return) or continue my job search (which'll be cheaper and easier to do from there). I'm not going to give up on Japan entirely (though I'm still not sure I'd want to live her permanently) as my visa is good through February next year and I can move back pretty easily if I find a good job, so I'll keep an eye out for new openings and we'll just see what happens... |
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Friday (the 11th): Earthquake! | |||||||||
Friday (the 11th) Earthquake! Random Japan Comment: Japanese Music So that's a quick overview of Japan's major music categories. And my own preferences? Well, here's a breakdown of my music collection (which almost fills my 30GB MP3 player). |
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Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (the 12th - 14th): After the Quake | |||||||||
It's been several days since the quake. Trains started running again on Saturday, albeit a bit inconsistently, so I was able to get to services. Sunday I mostly hung out, worked on stuff, and watched the news. Today (which I got off since school was canceled), I did some errands in Tokyo. So how are things here? Well, as I previously said, Tokyo wasn't hit bad. No major damage or anything. Walking around the city, you can't even tell that there was a quake. That said, things are certainly more subdued than normal. The trains still aren't running quite on schedule and a few lines aren't running at all, there's fewer people about, and a number of stores have been closed (not due to damage, just giving employees a chance to recover mentally from the looks of it). Some of the northern coastal towns and cities, however, are in really bad shape. The quake itself didn't do all that much damage but the resulting tsunami devastated some areas. If you'd like to donate to help the relief efforts, you can find a list of trustworthy places here. If you pay attention to the news, you may have also heard about the issues are some of Japan's nuclear power plants. Basically, while they properly shut down in response to the quake, the tsunami knocked out the backup cooling systems for some of them. At this point, the only real problem is with some reactors at the Fukushima plant. Despite the doom and gloom headlines (alarming news sells and the anti-nuclear crowd is really playing this up), things are ok for now. It could be days before they have the reactors entirely cooled down and there were some small hydrogen explosions there (which were expected and didn't damage the reactors) but for now it's looking like things will be ok. Even in a worst case scenario (which is looking less and less likely), it probably won't, affect a large area. But it's certainly keeping everyone on edge. So yeah, that's how things are. I'm going back to work tomorrow so we'll just see how things go. |
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Tuesday (the 15th): Graduation | |||||||||
Today was the graduation ceremony for the third year students at my school. This wasn't my first Japanese graduation ceremony (see my March 21st entry) and it was fairly similar to the previous one. Fortunately, despite some issues with the trains (the line I usually take to work wasn't running) I managed to make it to work on time (barely) and was dressed up and ready for the ceremony. Not that I had anything to do except sit there though. The ceremony was rather solemn (no parents cheering when their kids went up on stage to get their diplomas or anything like that). Aside from handing out the diplomas, there were speeches from the principle, various other staff members, and a couple of students. There was also several songs. A couple were done by only certain groups of students but most were done by the whole school. And wow, these kids can sing really well. I'd like to see someone try to get all the students in a US school to sing together like that... Other than the singing, the only other thing that really stuck out was the slow floaty walk the kids escorting the flag did. I'm not quite sure what was up with that... And that's all for now. If I do end up having to leave Tokyo in a hurry (either for the US or, if things look really bad and all the planes are booked, southern Japan) I might not have internet access for a little while. If there's no update Friday morning, check back later in the day or on Saturday. I'll update as soon as I can. Josiah |
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Wednesday (the 16th): Current Status | |||||||||
It's hard to believe how much has changed since Friday afternoon... Anyway, I'm still fine and Tokyo seems to be retuning to normal. At the moment all of the problematic nuclear reactors have safely brought under control...except the ones at Fukushima 1. While the headlines still make things sound a lot worse than they are, I can't say that I'm not worried. It seems like every time they just about have things under control there something else goes wrong. The latest problems are with fires near some pools where they store unused fuel rods. They're worried that the water in the pools may start to evaporate. Seems like that would be a fairly easy problem to deal with but apparently that area is currently difficult to access. The first fire also caused a brief (several hour) spike in ambient radiation readings in Tokyo and the surrounding areas. Fortunately, despite the high percentage increase, even in the worst area (which is much closer to the reactors than greater Tokyo), a year of exposure would still leave you within the range of radiation that the average person is exposed to in a year just through normal life. And, within several hours of the spike, levels were back down to near normal. Not that you could tell that by reading the headlines or half the news articles... Finding out the actual numbers was a relief, since the headlines freaked me out at first. I'm definitely a bit on edge and, at my father's prodding, I packed most of my stuff so I can be ready to head south or to the airport in very little time if necessary. Though I still don't think it'll come to that. The reactors are slowly cooling down and everyone except the big anti-nuclear groups agree that, even in an absolute worst case scenario, which would be nuclear rods melting entirely (which will hopefully be prevented) and then melting their way through their containment chamber (which wouldn't necessarily happen), the steam that would be released would be nothing like Chernobyle's radioactive ash. But, as I said, there is still danger and I am worried. It doesn't help that, as I was writing this, we had enough earthquake (it was only a 4, fortunately, so it didn't even knock anything over) and a rather sudden wind storm has sprung up. Neither is serious, but they certainly contribute to the "everything is falling apartment" mind-set... My parents' planned trip to Japan (which was already on somewhat shaky ground due to the rolling blackouts and train delays caused by the quake and tsunami) has been called off for now. They might try again later this year in summer or fall when things have calmed down if are was no serious radiation problems. My own plans have changed as well. Originally, if I didn't have another job lined up, I was going to return to the US in mid April with my parents to continue my job search. Since that's not going to happen, I was thinking of just keeping my current airline ticket, which is for the 30th. However, my parents (especially my dad) are really worried and want me to leave sooner so I changed it to the 25th (the day after I finish work). As I previously mentioned, I haven't ruled out leaving sooner if the situation escalates, though I have very mixed feelings about doing so (though I only have 5 work days left). My company and apartment place wouldn't be happy, of course, but the main thing is that I don't want to "desert" my students and friends here. Yeah I'm not exactly an indispensable member of the staff of anything but still... I was pretty nervous this morning but, when I was teaching a class and saw how much fun the kids were having and how glad they were that I was here, I calmed down a lot. Then again, unless thing start improving really soon my dad may have a nervous breakdown if I don't leave within the next day or two... Ugh, seems I'm constantly revising this post as I write it... There's some more worrying news that came through a moment ago. It's not confirmed yet but it's possible that the power company pulled out all its staff, including the emergency crew cooling the reactors. If they really did that... I just don't know anymore.... For a while it really seemed like everything would be fine but now it's looking iffy again... And another update. Things have calmed down for now and the crew is back on site though the whole situation still isn't looking good. My dad is really insistant that I head back to the US ASAP... My company said they, while they'd like me to stay, given the situation they're ok with me leaving early. In the end, I agreed to do if my dad could get me on an earlier flight and he did so it looks like I'll be leaving for the US tomorrow evening. I'm not at all happy about this. It's a really lousy ending to what has otherwise been a great stay in Japan, but this is hardly an ordinary situation. I have a lot more to say but my emotions are really scrambled right now and I have a lot to do to get ready so I'll wait until I'm back in the US. Hopefully everything will work out and I'll be able to return to Japan (at least for a vacation) in the not too distant future... |
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Thursday (the 17th): An Early Ending | |||||||||
In my previous post, you probably noticed that I was wavering back and forth a lot between whether it was better to stay in Japan or leave early. And you also know that I ended up leaving. While I was always fairly certain that the situation at the Fukushima nuclear plants would be resolved and that, even if something went wrong, Tokyo wouldn't be in any real danger, I couldn't say either of those things for sure and spending so much time following the news (which tended to make things sound a lot worse than they really were, especially in the headline), not to mention the occasional aftershocks from the earthquake, were really leaving me on edge. In the end, I had decided to stay in Japan at least until the end of my teaching contract but when the situation at Fukushima briefly escalated on Wednesday my dad was really freaking out and insisting that I return. In the end I prayed about it and said I'd go sooner if he could move my ticket up. Surprisingly, he actually got me a seat on a flight leaving the next day so that was that... I'm not particularly happy that I left when I did. It was rushed, I was supposed to teach for several more days yet, and I never got a chance to say a proper goodbye to my students or my friends in Tokyo, which I feel really bad about. Naturally, I'm disappointed as well. I had originally been planning to stay in Japan another month. Not only did I not get to do the big trip with my parents at the end, I had to skip the rest of my planned day trips and I never got to got to Odaiba, or do karaoke, or visit my favorite stores and restaurants one more time. But I really can't complain much seeing all the destruction the tsunami caused in some of those northeastern coastal villages. The death toll just keeps rising... Remember, if you'd like to donate some money to the relief efforts, you can find a list of trustworthy organizations here. But I might as well talk about my trip back. Wednesday evening and night was a frantic mix of packing, sending e-mails, and cleaning my apartment. I had been planning for my parents to bring me an extra suitcase but I managed to cram all my stuff into my two suitcases and my backpack plus a medium sized box I had on hand. Lugging everything to the train station Thursday morning wasn't easy and, since I was worried that one particular line might be shut down (turned out it wasn't) I ended up taking a slightly roundabout way to the airport but in the end I made it ok. My dad had heard on the news that the airport was a madhouse with everything trying to get out of the country but that was a pretty serious exaggeration. It was a bit crowded and there were a handful (but only a handful) of people camped out inside, but it wasn't any worse than what you'd see around holiday times here in the US. Actually, most of the lines were probably a decent bit shorter than what you'd see around holiday time. It didn't take me very long to check in (once United actually opened their counter anyway) and I only had to wait several minutes to get through security (had I known it wouldn't take long, I wouldn't have been in such a hurry to get through). Fortunately, only one of my suitcases was overweight. Unfortunately, while the fee for overweight suitcases used to just be $25 or $50 (that's what I paid last time when I returned from Japan), they've raised it a lot and that single suitcase cost me $200. Unfortunately, there wasn't much I could do except pay. After I was through security, I walked around a bit, looked in the stores, and get some soba for lunch (my options were limited since the majority of the restaurants in the airport are outside of the terminal). I also figured that I should get something to read since my PSP wouldn't last the whole way back. I ended up getting an English copy of Botchan, which you may remember me mentioning back when I visited Matsuyama (see my March 1st entry). I'm not entirely sure why the people of Matsuyama are so proud of the fact that Botchan is set there as, with the exception of Dogo Onsen Honten, both the city and the people living there are portrayed very negatively. It was a pretty good story though. My flight itself was packed, though not entirely full (further debunking the headlines claiming that everyone was fleeing Japan). It was surprisingly fast as well, taking only 8 hours to travel to Narita airport to San Francisco. After which it was a bit of waiting and a couple of shorter flights to get back home to Colorado. Fortunately, all my luggage made it without any delays or missing items and that was that. It felt strange to return so rapidly and there wasn't much in the way of reverse culture shock or anything (I was only over there for around two and a half months). I'm just sorry that it had to end this way. So what next? Well, although I was originally planning on staying in Japan for a while longer, now that I back in the US I might as well start looking for a new job. I'll primarily be focusing on game and writing related jobs in the US but there's a few Japan jobs I'm planning to apply to as well so we'll see what happens... Even if I don't end up working in Japan, I'd like to go back again soon for a vacation since I didn't really get a chance to wrap things up before leaving. My parents want to reschedule their canceled Japan trip once everything there has calmed down so we'll see what happens. |
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A Couple More Random Japan Comments | |||||||||
Well, my Japan travelogue is pretty much finished (for now) but there are a couple of Random Japan Comments I had planned that I never got the chance to do so here they are. Both are about a couple of more recent Japan related interests of mine which ended up being the focus on many of my shopping trips.
Random Japan Comment: Visual Novels 1. Fate/Stay Night: Shirou Emiya is a seemingly ordinary high school student who is secretly practicing magic in hopes of one day becoming a hero who can protect others like his adopted father. When the appearance of a mysterious female warrior draws him into the battle for the legendary Holy Grail, a magical relic said to be able to grant any wish, he rises to the challenge. Not to claim the grail, but to protect the unknowing townspeople from the other far more ruthless competitors. Random Japan Comment: Hatsune Miku |
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