I know I have been out of touch with the posting here. I've mainly been updating facebook and my youtube channel, to which I am putting the link below:
Vash's Youtube Channel
It's been a very busy month or so. Way too much to summarize in any detail, but I'll grab some of my recent facebook updates/events and let them tell the story:
6/24/10: Fun! Fun! Fun! Erin's 2010 Birthday Bash!
6/26/10: Last Night at Fever, and that means Mucho Dancing. Pregame Nomihoudai Karaoke at Fushimi. Hooked up with Andrea and met Rina-chan. And yes, I was in a Red Bull Commercial. If there's anyone on this planet that doesn't need an infusion of Red Bull, it's me! (note: summary of events, not true facebook update)
6/27/10: Nagoya Adventure Evening -- Another fun filled night of Karaoke, dancing and all around good times!
7/1/10: Salsa Party at TIA in Toyota City Japan!
7/3/10: Perfect summer breakfast: cold miso topped with fresh cut peaches, apples, bananas, yogurt and bran flakes plus half bagel with creamcheese, tomato and avocado, side of chai. Also, today is not that hot! I actually just have my deck door open to let in outside air. No aircon!
7/4/10 - (afternoon) : Happy Fourth to all! It's odd celebrating this in a country where it really doesn't matter. But Erin and I had a rousing picnic and later we're going to set off fireworks. I downloaded 2CDs of "Songs of America" so we're gonna annoy the river with patriotic gusto. And YES WE CAN buy fireworks in Japan at the DOLLAR STORE!
7/4/10 - (late-night): So after buying fireworks and 24 patriotic songs for under $8, Erin and I opted not to blow up Toyota Staduim and instead just used hand sparklers while singing such hits as "Glory Glory Hallelujuah" and "Grand Old Flag" at the top of our ever loving lungs. Andrea also made a phone cameo for a "Born in the USA" reprise. All in all, great 4th here in Japan!
7/8/10: I'm going to be in Nagoya on Saturday if anyone wants to hang out or party! Message me if you want to get together!
7/14/10: Yesterday: roughest game of Fruits Baskets ever. Before we even got the kids in a circle, four were in tears. Today was much better. Managed to sing an entire song about Fruits without making anyone cry.
7/16/10: Ron's Going Away Party at Outback!
7/17/10: Mie and I got to see Miyazaki's newest movie 借りぐらしのアリエッティ("Arriety's Life of Borrowing/The Borrower Arriety") today on opening night! Brilliant film, in the running for my favorite Miyazaki film (which is saying something). It was beautiful, surprising and emotionally resonant. And I'm betting it's even better with subtitles! See this when it hits your country!
7/20/10: Summer Vacation!!!!!!
7/21/10: First earthquake today! Woke this morning to my futon shaking beneath me, climbed down off the loft, tried to stand in the doorway between my main room and hall, realized it was not a load bearing wall, tried to get out on the deck, turned around, ran out the front door and then stood like an idiot outside for five minutes while nothing happened. At that point, I doubted it had been an earthquake at all.
7/24/10: Ichinomiya Tanabata Festival!
7/25/10: Toyota's fireworks display tonight was two hours of awesome! Wow!
7/26/10: 明日東京へ！楽しみよ！
And today, I am finishing last minute packing and trying hard not to cough out a lung as I prepare for the next five days in Tokyo! I spent last night printing out maps and Wiki-travel information as well as packing (making sure I had decent toothpaste and the like). I'm soo excited to go to Tokyo! With Andrea and I kickin' it Philly style, as well as Izumi-chan (who I met in Ichinomiya) and hopefully the opportunity to hook up with Susannah (who arrived in the land of the Rising Sun yesterday, I think) we should be having nothing but the good times! I just wish I'd fully kicked this stupid cold...
There's a song by Ketsumeishi called "Tegami Mirai/手紙～未来" and for the longest time, I thought one part of the lyrics of the chorus were "Mirai no orera no tokyo ha!/未来の俺らの東京は"
I thought this meant "in the future we'll all be in Tokyo."
Not only was I dead wrong about what the lyrics actually were "Mirai no orera no joukyou wa!?/未来の俺らの状況は!?" ("What will our future be?" -- thank you Karaoke and the internet), but truthfully I don't think even if I was right the version I heard would mean what I thought it did (or anything coherent). But even knowing one is wrong, the feeling is there, and so I have the song on my playlist as I finish my last minute packing and breakfast and dishwashing. Accuracy is overrated, ne?
手紙～未来 Video Below:
What will the future bring? For the immediate future, we'll be chillin in Tokyo? After that, wakanai!
Jaa ne!
Showing posts with label nagyoa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nagyoa. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Futon Adventures, Nagoya-yuki, and Bar Crawling with my Kogame Izakaya Crew
Any one of the things that happened today would be enough to fill a full entry. It's been one heck of an amazing, crazy good day! I woke up around 7:20am and decided that since today was due to be sunny and about 70 degrees, it would be a good time to air out my futon. A futon needs to be aired out for at least a few hours every week, ie: let to soak under the sun, so as to keep mold and critters from taking up residence in it. This also keeps your futon smelling nice. So I put mine out over the railing, facing the sun. This was done with a bit of trepidation because I live on the first floor, and I'm still not sure that if I leave my futon alone (ie: with me not in the apartment), will it still be there when I return. Which is why it aired for only two hours and then went back into my apartment before I left to go to Nagoya.
In addition to nervousness about futon theft, my decision to air out my futon today also lead to a bit of research about futon care in general. I learned that my habit of leaving the futon laid out while I was gone (instead of folding it up), in combination with not putting a mat between it and the hardwood floor was definitely poor futon care, ie: an invitation to mold and bugs. So no more of that.
This morning, I also had some wonderful conversations with my best friend and Uncle Lenny, which was fun and helped ground my day. I also spent a fair amount of time on the phone with Samsung Customer Support: my netbook has an annoying manufacturer's defect that makes the screen go white at random if it is positioned weirdly. In order to get that fixed by Samsung, I'd have to ship it back to the States, then have it shipped back some 6-8 weeks later. I'm not planning on living that long without my netbook (though I do have a mac-book here, so it is feasible to do), so I'm instead looking for a place in Japan that might fix it. Or I'm just going to keep jiggling the screen until it acts right.
After my morning conversations and futon adventures, I set off for Nagoya. I had three stops planned, two of which I made. The first was to Immigration. That required me to take the Blue subway line from Toyota-shi to Nagoya Station, then transfer to the Aonami line to Nagoya Something Else. It was smooth sailing to Nagoya station, and a quick movement through the station to Aonami. At the Aonami ticket booth, something truly revolutionary happened to me: a man (clearly foreign) asked ME for directions and I was ABLE to help him! He was heading to Immigration like me, and he needed help with the ticket booth and which train to catch. He asked me in Japanese, and I answered in my usual crappy Japanese with my usual array of charades style gestures. As we were both taking the escalator up to the train, we got to play another game that has become quite popular for me in Japan: “You look foreign, I look foreign, do both of us speak English?
I asked where he was from, and he said Pakistan. I said America. Then he busted out in English: “How are you!”
Score!
I asked him how long he'd been in Japan. He said 13 years, but that he'd traveled on the Shinkansen from Shikuoka in order to go to Immigration, and hence wasn't familiar with the trains here. I said I'd been here for a week and a half, and that he'd made my day because I'd actually been able to help him with directions. He complimented me on my direction giving ability. And we chatted all the way to Immigration. Because we were there for different things, we ended up parting paths at Immigration, but we exchanged contact information so if we're ever in each other's neck of the woods we can hang out.
My next stop was to find the Altia Head Office so I could drop off my contract. I could easily (more easily) have mailed it, but I wanted to find the place in case I needed it in the future, and since I was in the city, it seemed like a good idea to try it then. By the time I got there (map was missing some key features) I was running short on time to get back to Toyota for my Izakaya party, so I talked for a short time, handed off the contract and hurried back to the train. Still it was a warm interchange and I am feeling excellent about my company.
Alas, I did not have enough time to buy a printer, but Friday, I'll find a place in Toyota. I still need to buy a bike too. There's never enough time.
On the train back to Toyota, I took out my knitting. Knitting is a good way to watch people and things without being too obvious about it, and also to keep the hands occupied while the mind wanders. My knitting was the perfect socializing choice too today as an old lady sat next to me and soon we were in a conversation about knitting. In the course of this conversation, she took over my knitting needles and showed me a new technique for how to do a more effective knit stitch. She had a lot of commentary on the process, little of which I understood, but after about three tries, I did get the physical method of her technique, and it does work better. She said something to the accord of “it will heal your stitches” just before she left the train, heading to parts unknown to me.
I made it back to Toyota in time to make my Izakaya party, and my gosh was it amazing. Huge amounts of food major good company, nomihoudai (all you can drink), etc. My eating habits started out truly appalling. I had no idea how to correctly cook my meat in the boiling water; I used the wrong side of my chopsticks to get food; I spilled beer on my neighbor and forgot to Kampai before taking my first sip of my drink. But all was corrected with smiles and laughter and after a little bit I was eating like a pro.
My 'welcome party' had been grafted onto an awards dinner for their golfing group, so awards were also being given out for everyone on the team: who had the best handicap, etc. At least half of them passed their gifts onto me, which left me with a huge stack of goods and a warm feeling in my heart. About an hour into the dinner, suddenly, everyone was putting on their coats and leaving. It seems this dinner was only scheduled for an hour, and when that hour was up, whether you were mid-bite or drink, that's it, you were done and we were out!
I figured at that point I'd just go home, but after I left the Izakaya, one of my other Jyouren waved me towards him. We were on our way to another club, where there would be drinking, women and Karaoke. This turned actually a hostess club: a club where young women are dressed to the nines and serve customers (almost 100% men) drinks with the intention of getting them to drink as much as possible. While there were many fun aspects (karaoke and camaraderie especially), it was also a really bizarre experience. Certain aspects of it definitely had my feminist hackles up, but when in Rome...
For example, one thing that it seems to be perfectly appropriate to say to women (at least in the Hostess club): your breasts are really big “oppai”. I also got questions about my cup size, and me and one of the other hostesses were compared to each other and agreed to be “oppai”. In the USA, I can't imagine a guy blatantly asking you about your cup size, but it was clear here that none of this was meant with ill intention. There was a distinct line that remained uncrossed, but the placement of it was a bit off from my cultural norms. It's also really weird to be considered large breasted. In the USA, I'm so not “oppai” which I did explain to the guys to their surprise.
The club time also lead to some really wonderful conversations. One of the hostesses “Ran-chan” explained to me that most girls worked at the club at night, and usually had an afternoon job as well. She was a nurse for the elderly. Her great grandmother had had Alzheimers, and that's what got her interested in nursing care. She also gave me information about where to find movie theaters, which was highly useful. Also, with another of the bar regulars (who I've been calling Yakuza-chan, long story), we got into a fairly involved conversation about people from the USA and how outgoing or not they are. Because there was dance music in the background of the hostess club and I had had a fair amount to drink, I was ready to start dancing. But that was definitely 'dame' as was explained to me. It would shock the natives.
We had a fair amount of conversation also about how while women were okay to come into these clubs, they rarely did. Which lead to a conversation about embarrassment, where I explained that I'm rarely embarrassed by anything, but that I was a bit rare for being quite so outgoing. Which was a surprise to him, because he felt that Americans didn't suffer from embarrassment (hazukashii) at all. I explained that it depended on the person. Of my friends, maybe 2 out of 10 are as hard to embarrass as me (or close), another 4 out of 10 can be easily lead to be lead to that if others are acting crazy, and the other 3-4 out of 10 are more reserved. This was very surprising to him, but interesting I think. Also, reading over this blog, it's kind of amazing to me how much communication in Japanese (and mostly Japanese) I've been able to manage over the course of a day. Practice definitely leads to improvement.
Again, after a predetermined period, our time was up and we were rushing to another bar. There we ran into the owner and employees of Kogami, my Izakaya, and had more food and drink. I also ran into two other Japanese men (a little younger than my regulars, but I think a friend of one of them), one of whom, Yamada-san, had spent a year and a half in Kentucky. Both spoke decent English, and we had a long conversation shifting between Japanese and English about life in Toyota, etc. I shared my finding my apartment story, which lead to much amusement. I also exchanged contact info with Yamada-san, so now I have another Japanese friend! (note: he just emailed me back and yes, we are now friends!)
Soon after, we were all leaving the bar and going out separate ways. It was goodbye until next time, waving and heading home slightly tipsy to completely drunk. Ito-san (who had been ridiculously helpful to me all night), walked me part of the way back to my apartment before heading back home himself. And so I continued home, with a bag full of (re)gifts and a light feeling in my heart. Another beautiful day in Toyota. Tomorrow I'm heading for Kyoto to see the Temples under Sakura in bloom. Every day here is another adventure. I go to bed tired but happy, and wake up ready for something new and exciting.
Tomorrow: Kyoto-yuki (yuki in general means snow, but at the end of a destination means bound for that place, as I learned today listening to the train. This helps me better understand the title of a song that I have on my iPod: Nagori-yuki, though I still need to look up Nagori)
In addition to nervousness about futon theft, my decision to air out my futon today also lead to a bit of research about futon care in general. I learned that my habit of leaving the futon laid out while I was gone (instead of folding it up), in combination with not putting a mat between it and the hardwood floor was definitely poor futon care, ie: an invitation to mold and bugs. So no more of that.
This morning, I also had some wonderful conversations with my best friend and Uncle Lenny, which was fun and helped ground my day. I also spent a fair amount of time on the phone with Samsung Customer Support: my netbook has an annoying manufacturer's defect that makes the screen go white at random if it is positioned weirdly. In order to get that fixed by Samsung, I'd have to ship it back to the States, then have it shipped back some 6-8 weeks later. I'm not planning on living that long without my netbook (though I do have a mac-book here, so it is feasible to do), so I'm instead looking for a place in Japan that might fix it. Or I'm just going to keep jiggling the screen until it acts right.
After my morning conversations and futon adventures, I set off for Nagoya. I had three stops planned, two of which I made. The first was to Immigration. That required me to take the Blue subway line from Toyota-shi to Nagoya Station, then transfer to the Aonami line to Nagoya Something Else. It was smooth sailing to Nagoya station, and a quick movement through the station to Aonami. At the Aonami ticket booth, something truly revolutionary happened to me: a man (clearly foreign) asked ME for directions and I was ABLE to help him! He was heading to Immigration like me, and he needed help with the ticket booth and which train to catch. He asked me in Japanese, and I answered in my usual crappy Japanese with my usual array of charades style gestures. As we were both taking the escalator up to the train, we got to play another game that has become quite popular for me in Japan: “You look foreign, I look foreign, do both of us speak English?
I asked where he was from, and he said Pakistan. I said America. Then he busted out in English: “How are you!”
Score!
I asked him how long he'd been in Japan. He said 13 years, but that he'd traveled on the Shinkansen from Shikuoka in order to go to Immigration, and hence wasn't familiar with the trains here. I said I'd been here for a week and a half, and that he'd made my day because I'd actually been able to help him with directions. He complimented me on my direction giving ability. And we chatted all the way to Immigration. Because we were there for different things, we ended up parting paths at Immigration, but we exchanged contact information so if we're ever in each other's neck of the woods we can hang out.
My next stop was to find the Altia Head Office so I could drop off my contract. I could easily (more easily) have mailed it, but I wanted to find the place in case I needed it in the future, and since I was in the city, it seemed like a good idea to try it then. By the time I got there (map was missing some key features) I was running short on time to get back to Toyota for my Izakaya party, so I talked for a short time, handed off the contract and hurried back to the train. Still it was a warm interchange and I am feeling excellent about my company.
Alas, I did not have enough time to buy a printer, but Friday, I'll find a place in Toyota. I still need to buy a bike too. There's never enough time.
On the train back to Toyota, I took out my knitting. Knitting is a good way to watch people and things without being too obvious about it, and also to keep the hands occupied while the mind wanders. My knitting was the perfect socializing choice too today as an old lady sat next to me and soon we were in a conversation about knitting. In the course of this conversation, she took over my knitting needles and showed me a new technique for how to do a more effective knit stitch. She had a lot of commentary on the process, little of which I understood, but after about three tries, I did get the physical method of her technique, and it does work better. She said something to the accord of “it will heal your stitches” just before she left the train, heading to parts unknown to me.
I made it back to Toyota in time to make my Izakaya party, and my gosh was it amazing. Huge amounts of food major good company, nomihoudai (all you can drink), etc. My eating habits started out truly appalling. I had no idea how to correctly cook my meat in the boiling water; I used the wrong side of my chopsticks to get food; I spilled beer on my neighbor and forgot to Kampai before taking my first sip of my drink. But all was corrected with smiles and laughter and after a little bit I was eating like a pro.
My 'welcome party' had been grafted onto an awards dinner for their golfing group, so awards were also being given out for everyone on the team: who had the best handicap, etc. At least half of them passed their gifts onto me, which left me with a huge stack of goods and a warm feeling in my heart. About an hour into the dinner, suddenly, everyone was putting on their coats and leaving. It seems this dinner was only scheduled for an hour, and when that hour was up, whether you were mid-bite or drink, that's it, you were done and we were out!
I figured at that point I'd just go home, but after I left the Izakaya, one of my other Jyouren waved me towards him. We were on our way to another club, where there would be drinking, women and Karaoke. This turned actually a hostess club: a club where young women are dressed to the nines and serve customers (almost 100% men) drinks with the intention of getting them to drink as much as possible. While there were many fun aspects (karaoke and camaraderie especially), it was also a really bizarre experience. Certain aspects of it definitely had my feminist hackles up, but when in Rome...
For example, one thing that it seems to be perfectly appropriate to say to women (at least in the Hostess club): your breasts are really big “oppai”. I also got questions about my cup size, and me and one of the other hostesses were compared to each other and agreed to be “oppai”. In the USA, I can't imagine a guy blatantly asking you about your cup size, but it was clear here that none of this was meant with ill intention. There was a distinct line that remained uncrossed, but the placement of it was a bit off from my cultural norms. It's also really weird to be considered large breasted. In the USA, I'm so not “oppai” which I did explain to the guys to their surprise.
The club time also lead to some really wonderful conversations. One of the hostesses “Ran-chan” explained to me that most girls worked at the club at night, and usually had an afternoon job as well. She was a nurse for the elderly. Her great grandmother had had Alzheimers, and that's what got her interested in nursing care. She also gave me information about where to find movie theaters, which was highly useful. Also, with another of the bar regulars (who I've been calling Yakuza-chan, long story), we got into a fairly involved conversation about people from the USA and how outgoing or not they are. Because there was dance music in the background of the hostess club and I had had a fair amount to drink, I was ready to start dancing. But that was definitely 'dame' as was explained to me. It would shock the natives.
We had a fair amount of conversation also about how while women were okay to come into these clubs, they rarely did. Which lead to a conversation about embarrassment, where I explained that I'm rarely embarrassed by anything, but that I was a bit rare for being quite so outgoing. Which was a surprise to him, because he felt that Americans didn't suffer from embarrassment (hazukashii) at all. I explained that it depended on the person. Of my friends, maybe 2 out of 10 are as hard to embarrass as me (or close), another 4 out of 10 can be easily lead to be lead to that if others are acting crazy, and the other 3-4 out of 10 are more reserved. This was very surprising to him, but interesting I think. Also, reading over this blog, it's kind of amazing to me how much communication in Japanese (and mostly Japanese) I've been able to manage over the course of a day. Practice definitely leads to improvement.
Again, after a predetermined period, our time was up and we were rushing to another bar. There we ran into the owner and employees of Kogami, my Izakaya, and had more food and drink. I also ran into two other Japanese men (a little younger than my regulars, but I think a friend of one of them), one of whom, Yamada-san, had spent a year and a half in Kentucky. Both spoke decent English, and we had a long conversation shifting between Japanese and English about life in Toyota, etc. I shared my finding my apartment story, which lead to much amusement. I also exchanged contact info with Yamada-san, so now I have another Japanese friend! (note: he just emailed me back and yes, we are now friends!)
Soon after, we were all leaving the bar and going out separate ways. It was goodbye until next time, waving and heading home slightly tipsy to completely drunk. Ito-san (who had been ridiculously helpful to me all night), walked me part of the way back to my apartment before heading back home himself. And so I continued home, with a bag full of (re)gifts and a light feeling in my heart. Another beautiful day in Toyota. Tomorrow I'm heading for Kyoto to see the Temples under Sakura in bloom. Every day here is another adventure. I go to bed tired but happy, and wake up ready for something new and exciting.
Tomorrow: Kyoto-yuki (yuki in general means snow, but at the end of a destination means bound for that place, as I learned today listening to the train. This helps me better understand the title of a song that I have on my iPod: Nagori-yuki, though I still need to look up Nagori)
Friday, March 26, 2010
From Plane to Futon: Day 0.5
I made it! So much happened since my last entry, I feel like that moment of my life was just a snapshot from a distant past. This is probably in part because of the endless day of travel between Philadelphia and Nagoya. I say endless because we literally chased the sun from where it rose over the Philadelphia International airport to as where I sat on the Meitetsu line traveling from the airport to Nagoya proper as it drifted below the horizon around 6:30pm (5:30am EST) Our plane traveled northwest from Chicago, over Anchorage and back down again, zipping past Siberia (though we didn't pass over it), Hokkaido, and to land at the Narita International Airport in Toyko.
As is usual with me, my Ready, Fire, Aim approach to life seriously had me skirting major lostness and frustration in my exhausted state after landing in Nagoya. But some Deity (or possibly my grandmother) was watching out for me because I had a series of incredibly good fortune coincidences that helped get me from the Nagoya airport to my hostel.
First, at Narita, Andrea, who ironically happens to live in Philadelphia, less than a mile from my house, came over and started talking with me. Turns out we had been on the same flight from Philly to Chicago and onwards to Tokyo. She's with a different company, Interac, and her and a small group of Americans and Canadians were meeting up with a guide in Nagoya to get to their training with Interac. Thankfully, they were heading for Kanayama, which is only one stop on the Meitetsu line before my stop in Nagoya central. I dramatically underestimated how difficult it would be to navigate a train system, exchange money, etc. in a totally different country, but the Interac guide let me tag along with them and even supplemented my upgrade to a first class car so I could ride with them in the same train. I am SO incredibly grateful. As tired and lost as I was after the flight, I think it would have taken me 2-3x as long to figure things out for myself, and I might have ended up going the wrong way anyway.
I am also incredibly grateful to Hatsue Ishikawa-san who I met on the plane from Tokyo to Nagoya. She and her daughter were visiting her husband in Chicago, and we spent the entire flight from Tokyo to Nagoya talking about our lives, sharing pictures etc. She also offered to get me on the proper train, but I had already agreed to follow the Interac people and didn't want to hold her up as I had needed to stop and exchange money. Ishikawa-san volunteers at a Juuku (cram school, may have the spelling romanized wrong) where she helps teach the children English. I may be volunteering there sometimes as well if that works out, which would be awesome because it would give me a chance to meet more Japanese people and get another window into Japanese culture (as well as make the learning fun, as these poor kids are so stressed).
When I got off of the train at Kanayama, I was alone again, struggling with my two suitcases--SO glad I minimized my luggage; I barely made it with the two suitcases I had. I can't imagine how I would have managed more or heavier bags. I needed to get to the taxi station, which turned out to be up a flight of stairs (no elevator or escalator). I was definitely in panic/stress mode there. There was another escalator, which led in a totally different direction, and my spacial relations were shot at that point (as were many of my higher functions due to exhaustion). I was standing with my suitcases, totally at a loss when a nice woman who looked a bit younger than me came up to me and asked in Japanese if I was okay. I said I was fine, and she asked me what was going on, and I tried to ask about another escalator but eventually gave up. Turns out she spoke English (Thank God!) and she even helped me take my carryon up the stairs so I could lug the big suitcase. She pointed me to the taxi station. I wish I had gotten her name or a photo, but I'll never forget her. She totally saved me!
The taxis here are like luxury automobiles in the US. They have white paper on the seats, are immaculate, and the cabbie wears a suit. I almost didn't get into the cab because I assumed it couldn't be a cab, but the sign said taxi (in English) so I went for it. For only 7500 yen (about $8) I got from the taxi station to the Ryokan. That was a bit of an adventure too because the cabbie didn't speak any English, I barely speak Japanese, and my address was in English. I had been given some landmarks from the website for the Ryokan/Hostel, but either I screwed them up or they weren't very helpful because both me and the cabbie were totally confused. But eventually (because google maps gives the address and phone number of your destination), he was able to locate it on his GPS and while we were driving, I had my first real conversation that was only in Japanese. And we made it to the Kyoya Ryokan.
The Ryokan is amazing! I'll let the pictures tell the story because I feel like I've been typing forever. So in quick summary, my hostel roommate Fanny (a mathematician from France who speaks English very well though she doesn't thinks she does) and I went out for Ramen at a real corner Ramen dive. (a dive in Japan is like a small, cozy, immaculate restaurant in Philly). She was also very helpful and I am very glad we got to room together since she's been here for about a month and thus knows the lay of the land. Then I took a second shower and soaked in the public bath, which was like a hot tub. Perfect end to a very looooong day.
As is usual with me, my Ready, Fire, Aim approach to life seriously had me skirting major lostness and frustration in my exhausted state after landing in Nagoya. But some Deity (or possibly my grandmother) was watching out for me because I had a series of incredibly good fortune coincidences that helped get me from the Nagoya airport to my hostel.
First, at Narita, Andrea, who ironically happens to live in Philadelphia, less than a mile from my house, came over and started talking with me. Turns out we had been on the same flight from Philly to Chicago and onwards to Tokyo. She's with a different company, Interac, and her and a small group of Americans and Canadians were meeting up with a guide in Nagoya to get to their training with Interac. Thankfully, they were heading for Kanayama, which is only one stop on the Meitetsu line before my stop in Nagoya central. I dramatically underestimated how difficult it would be to navigate a train system, exchange money, etc. in a totally different country, but the Interac guide let me tag along with them and even supplemented my upgrade to a first class car so I could ride with them in the same train. I am SO incredibly grateful. As tired and lost as I was after the flight, I think it would have taken me 2-3x as long to figure things out for myself, and I might have ended up going the wrong way anyway.
I am also incredibly grateful to Hatsue Ishikawa-san who I met on the plane from Tokyo to Nagoya. She and her daughter were visiting her husband in Chicago, and we spent the entire flight from Tokyo to Nagoya talking about our lives, sharing pictures etc. She also offered to get me on the proper train, but I had already agreed to follow the Interac people and didn't want to hold her up as I had needed to stop and exchange money. Ishikawa-san volunteers at a Juuku (cram school, may have the spelling romanized wrong) where she helps teach the children English. I may be volunteering there sometimes as well if that works out, which would be awesome because it would give me a chance to meet more Japanese people and get another window into Japanese culture (as well as make the learning fun, as these poor kids are so stressed).
When I got off of the train at Kanayama, I was alone again, struggling with my two suitcases--SO glad I minimized my luggage; I barely made it with the two suitcases I had. I can't imagine how I would have managed more or heavier bags. I needed to get to the taxi station, which turned out to be up a flight of stairs (no elevator or escalator). I was definitely in panic/stress mode there. There was another escalator, which led in a totally different direction, and my spacial relations were shot at that point (as were many of my higher functions due to exhaustion). I was standing with my suitcases, totally at a loss when a nice woman who looked a bit younger than me came up to me and asked in Japanese if I was okay. I said I was fine, and she asked me what was going on, and I tried to ask about another escalator but eventually gave up. Turns out she spoke English (Thank God!) and she even helped me take my carryon up the stairs so I could lug the big suitcase. She pointed me to the taxi station. I wish I had gotten her name or a photo, but I'll never forget her. She totally saved me!
The taxis here are like luxury automobiles in the US. They have white paper on the seats, are immaculate, and the cabbie wears a suit. I almost didn't get into the cab because I assumed it couldn't be a cab, but the sign said taxi (in English) so I went for it. For only 7500 yen (about $8) I got from the taxi station to the Ryokan. That was a bit of an adventure too because the cabbie didn't speak any English, I barely speak Japanese, and my address was in English. I had been given some landmarks from the website for the Ryokan/Hostel, but either I screwed them up or they weren't very helpful because both me and the cabbie were totally confused. But eventually (because google maps gives the address and phone number of your destination), he was able to locate it on his GPS and while we were driving, I had my first real conversation that was only in Japanese. And we made it to the Kyoya Ryokan.
The Ryokan is amazing! I'll let the pictures tell the story because I feel like I've been typing forever. So in quick summary, my hostel roommate Fanny (a mathematician from France who speaks English very well though she doesn't thinks she does) and I went out for Ramen at a real corner Ramen dive. (a dive in Japan is like a small, cozy, immaculate restaurant in Philly). She was also very helpful and I am very glad we got to room together since she's been here for about a month and thus knows the lay of the land. Then I took a second shower and soaked in the public bath, which was like a hot tub. Perfect end to a very looooong day.
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