Summer in Japan

Right now, it's summer with a vengeance. Oh, sweet mother of fuck, it is disgusting, sticky and hot. But, we have been getting stuck into it, nevertheless.

One thing we started to notice when the weather heated up was an explosion of people wearing yukata. Yukata are light-weight summer kimono. Women's yukata are usually brightly coloured, with bold patterns. They are fastened with a broad obi tied around the waist with a sizable bow at the back. Men's yukata are more muted, and the sash is narrower and tied around the hips. To deomstrate the difference, here's a couple of photos of me and my work buddy, Barrie, in our yukata. The school we were working at that day was having a yukata week, so most of the staff were wearing yukata, and the teachers were invited to as well.


(Yeah, yeah, not exactly tradtitional footwear. Mostly you see people wearing the old-skool wooden things, but you do see crocs and more modern sandals too. Even high heels.)


My bow is a bit wonky, but I tied it myself, you know. Not easy!

Of course, wearing yukata to work isn't all that common... I think the most common place to wear them is to festivals. There are festivals all over the place at the moment. Every weekend, there's something going on somewhere. Lots of little stalls set up, selling food like yakisoba, yakitori, okonomiyaki, takoyaki – pretty much all the 'yaki' you could hope for – plus fried chicken, toffee apples, and even iced cucumbers on sticks. Oh, and beer of course! Another really popular summer food is shaved ice with flavoured syrup – basically, sno cones.



Not all the stalls sell food – some sell masks, or have games to win prizes. The games usually revolve around getting something (eg. a goldfish, a bouncy ball) from a tub of water into a bowl using a net made of tissue paper.

Last weekend, we went to Himeji (so I could see the castle) and it happened to be the Himeji Castle Festival. Along with all the stalls, there was a big stage with dance performances. The costumes were colourful, and the dancers were highly energetic. It was great fun to watch.



Here are some of the off-duty dancers hanging out in their awesometastic costumes:





Another festival-y kind of activity is going to see fireworks. We went to see some last night, at a town called Otsu on the shore of Lake Biwa, Japan's largest lake. It was called Biwako Dai-Hanabi Taikai (basically 'Massive-arse Biwako Fireworks'), and I don't know how many people were there but it was expected that there would be about 350,000. It sure was jam packed. Holy moly. You could barely move. We turned up three hours early, and we got a pretty good spot, but all the really good ones had been long taken by then. And the place just kept filling up. It was phenomenal.



The fireworks were pretty and shiny, as fireworks are. There were some cat-shaped ones, and some fish-shaped ones, and some smiley-face-shaped ones. The booms and bangs echoed off the building across the street behind us, and you could feel every one in your spine. They went on for a good, solid hour. And when everyone thought we'd just seen the grand finale, they came out with some more bang. At one point, there was so much smoke from prior fireworks that it was actually obscuring the view of the next ones.

Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.... can give you Gatsby

We don't watch much Japanese TV these days on account of us not currently owning a TV. It wasn't until we chanced upon these three ads playing on loop in an aisle of the Don Quixote discount store in Shinsaibashi that we realised what we might be missing out on.

All you need to know is that Gatsby makes a variety of hair products, shaving products and deodorants for men. And this is a series of ads for their latest product; "Gatsby Body Paper".








As far as I can tell from these ads Gatsby Body Paper is a product that makes it socially acceptable for men to rub their bodies and dance in public. I wish Gatsby the best of luck in cornering what I assume will soon be a very lucrative market.

Is Can Be Kitteh Tiem Nao, Plz?

On Sunday we went to a place in Amerika Mura called Cafe With Many Cats. Yup, pretty much does what it says on the can. For 650 yen, you can sit and play with cats for an hour. The place is customised for feline comfort, with a variety of floor cushions, cat-sized shelves and climbing equipment, a cat-sized drinking fountain and capacious and private litter trays. It was all very clean, not smelly or hairy. There were a few other people in there when we went. It seems like a pretty popular place to go on a date.

The cats were pretty laid-back. Most of the time they just cat-nap, and are completely disinterested in you, whether you are patting them or not.

They were also pretty friendly to each other, which was a novelty to me. My experience of cats is that they will tolerate each other, at best. But in the cafe they would curl up with each other. Mecha kawaii ~~

There were one or two scraps while we were there, though - all involving this cat (who clearly thinks she's pretty good):

Her name appeared to be Connie. She was the alpha cat of the bunch - the most outgoing and friendly towards humans. Also, weirdly friendly towards the other cats, grooming them and such, until they got the shits with her, and it turned into a fight. I sort of imagine it like this:

Connie: Tut, tut. Look at you. You're so unprofessional. You need to take better care of yourself.
Other cat: Oh, fuck off, Connie. It's just a bloody cafe.

It doesn't sound all that exciting, and I suppose it wasn't really, but it was very relaxing. The atmosphere was very chilled out. And they have air con, so I'll probably go back again.


kthxbai

Interior Design: Buddhism vs. Us

OK, to start with here's some pics of the inside of Todaiji. Clinton was uncomfortable about taking pics in the temple, but not me! I have impinged on far too many European cathedrals to feel squeamish in a Buddhist temple. Anyway, I looked around first, and all the Japanese tourists were taking photos. So, when in Rome...

This is the Daibutsu ("Big Buddha") itself:


And here are a few of his mates... English explanation was sparse, so I have no idea who they are or what they signify. They were very big, though.






Now, from the world's largest wooden building to... Hmmm...
As previously mentioned, we moved at the start of the month. Yesterday the IKEA van came and we finally got the rest of the furniture we needed to fill all our extra space. Chairs! I tell ya, they're a luxury you start to miss after a while. Here's our interior now:

The bell hanging off the light pull is our souvenir from Todaiji.

The new flat is very nice, though it has a couple of iffy aspects. The traffic noise is pretty bad. You'd think on the sixth floor you wouldn't have a problem with traffic noise, but the freeway ringroad runs behind our building, at about sixth floor level, so it's like living on a busy street. Also, the building wobbles. Super reassuring! But on the bright side, we do have a proper balcony, with a proper view:


So, all in all it's an improvement.

I'd like to end this post with a thought from the building across the street:

Aww... Uplifting, eh?

(PS If you're wondering how hot it gets here in summer, while I've been sitting here quietly typing, sweat has been running down my shins.)

Nara, Temples and Deer

With Soph finally back in Japan and having finally moved into our new apartment (more on this later maybe?) we decided it was high time we got out there and did the tourist thing again. So when our friends in Nara invited us out for dinner at their place we decide to make a day of it and go see Todaiji Temple and Nara Park as well.

Nara is a lot greener than both the cities of Kyoto and Osaka, with a large open parkland connecting the various temples and museums its famous for. This leads many of my students, particulary the ones from Osaka, to declare Nara to be "the country". Which is a bit like calling your backyard "the country" because it has more trees than the car-park across the road.

Never the less Nara was really impressive. There were two big items on our sightseeing list. One was Todaiji Temple, a massive wooden temple that houses one of the largest bronze buddha statues in the world. At my guess I'd say it was about three or four stories tall with a huge gold-leaf covered background behind it (I always feel odd taking photos inside temples, even when its obvious you can, so I didn't take any of the massive buddha. But Soph did, so maybe she'll upload some photos later)


Todaiji Temple
The other thing Nara is famous for is its deer which roam freely throught Nara Park and can be found pretty much everywhere you go. Though they're most numerous wherever there are vendors selling shika-senbei (deer biscuits). As far as we could tell the way it works is you buy the deer biscuits, then stand there as the deer proceed to mob you until you have no more biscuits left at which point they lose interest and move onto their next victim. Not bad value for 150yen we thought.


Left: Sophie being mobbed by deer. Right: Clinton not being mobbed by deer.
We spent the rest of our time there wandering around the various other temples and parkland that connects them until we had to go. There was probably quite a bit we didn't get to see, so I'm looking forward to going back there again sometime.


This is us with a tile we donated to help with the restoration of the Todaiji Temple roof, they allow you to write your names and "a message for world peace" on them so it has our names written in Katakana down each side and the Kanji for harmony in the centre.

Rebooting

Well, I guess you can see who's the blogger around here...

So, I've been back in Osaka for a week and a half now. I'm gradually re-adjusting, rediscovering my cyclist-dodging reflexes and acclimatising to the early summer heat and humidity. Oh dear god, I am not looking forward to the next three months of weather...

Not much noteworthy has happened, except that we have got ourselves a new flat, which we will be moving into at the end of the month. The new flat is great because it has TWO ROOMS, a gas stove top with three burners and a proper balcony (not just a token effort for you to put your washing machine on). As a bonus, there are also no next-door neighbours, due to the building being uber-skinny. Oh and there's lots of natural light, hoorah! You can probably tell I'm a bit excited.

Unfortunately, due to new flat on top of other circumstances, I am dreadfully broke, so there will not be too many grand adventures until August, which will be when I get my first proper month's wage. Luckily, that's when the summer hols are too!

OK, so here's one random thing to show you... I'm trying to swear off capsule toys until the cashflow stabilises, but I couldn't resist this Hello Kitty x h.Naoto machine outside one of our favourite shops. Here's the result:

Kawaii, ne? The best thing is, on the back of her top it actually says 'FUCK'. Rock on /m/

Hiking in Kobe

This Wednesday I'll be heading off to Tokyo for five days, but I figure before I do that I should post about a little trip I had to Kobe a few weeks ago and maybe get this blog back into gear again.


It was a fantastic Spring day, so I took the opportunity to get a few snaps of the Cherry Blossom trees in bloom.

I'd been meaning to visit Kobe for ages but had never gotten around to it. So on what turned out to be an absolutely stunning weekend I headed out there to find out what Kobe has to offer. I arrived shortly after midday and immediately made in the direction of the Shin Kobe Cable Car that runs up the mountain behind the train station. My plan was to purchase a one way ticket up the mountain and then walk back down to the station. An easy thirty minute walk according to Lonely Planet. That was the plan anyway.


The view going up in the cable car was impressive if a bit smoggy at times, that didn't stop me taking a ridiculous amount of pictures though.


After arriving at the top I was faced with two choices. Pay 200 yen and walk down through the Nuno-biki Herb Garden or take the free hiking trail instead. Now I'd seen this herb garden from the cable car and it did look rather nice it was a bit tame. Paved walkways, manicured gardens, wheelchair access, souvenir shops, etc. It was a bit of a tourist trap.
"No" I thought. I am a man, a man of action a man of adventure and definitely not the sort of man who goes traipsing through herb gardens! Besides, knowing Japan "hiking trail" probably just means a slightly narrower paved path that gently winds down the mountain. Right?

Wrong. Hiking trails here are exactly the same as back home. Very narrow dirt tracks with bits of wodod stretched across them at odd intervals to give the impression of stairs or just to give you something to trip over. But I wasn't worried, I was walking down hill. The path, while steep, was easy to follow and I'd be back down at the station in no time.

Then I cam across the awesome bridge. I really wish I had bothered to take a photo of this bridge (I took soooo many others). It was the sort of bridge that makes you want to know whats on the other side. Crossing it would mean taking a detour from the trail back to the station, but I figured it could only be about 10 or 20 minutes extra so I dashed across it see where its path lead.

Shortly after crossing the bridge the path started winding back up mountain. No worries I thought, it's probably just leading to some awesome look out point just a bit further on. The path kept getting steeper and steeper and I kept heading further and further up the mountain. It was tough going. After a while I started passing small sign posts reminding me that in case of heart attack Japan's emergency number is 119. Despite feeling like I may have gotten in over my head I kept on going regardless, convinced there had to be something at the end of this trail.


A sign your casual stroll might not be so casual anymore...

Half an hour later I found out I was now following a different, not so well maintained and more difficult trail back to the station. One that connected up with some of the more serious hiking trails that covered the mountain. Well at least I'd get back to civilisation, it just wasn't going to be the cakewalk I'd expected.


It may have been tough going, but it was a great walk. There is something quite odd about wandering through moutain forest but still being able to see the outlines of 60 odd storey skyscrapers peaking out from behind the trees every so often.

I got back to civilisation sometime before 4pm. This adventure taking somewhat longer than I had originaly intended I had just enough time to grab a coffee and something to eat and then go for a quick wander through Kobe's "Foreign Town". Which isn't particularly interesting if you're foreigner (it's like a European version of Chinatown). Then it was back on the train and back to Osaka.