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Published: October 28th 2007
Japanese Castle 1
Me completely blocking the first Japanese castle. I need to work on my photo taking ability. PS I'm getting tired of just smiling so I've decided to strike other poses. As I'm sure that you have all looked at the pictures before reading my ever so delightful blog posting, you may have guessed that I've had an eventful little stint. I have been driving for about a week now, although only 3 times and I must say, I'm pretty much amazing. Aside from the fact that whenever I put on my right hand signal my windshield wipers go on (Windshield wipers are on the left hand side of the wheel) I'm doing great. Which means that soon I'll get so comfortable with driving this way, that I'll get in a tight situation and just switch back into Canadian driving. sooo... hopefully I don't get in an accident anytime soon.
I have a slight confession to make one of the reasons I have been so poor at responding to emails and facebook is that I am... addicted to a hockey pool. I check it before I do anything else in the morning and check it numerous times while games are going on to see if my players have scored and check it numerous times after to add up my points and the points of my competition. Its quite bad. Anyways I
will try to be better at posting and responding.
I had been told that there is a castle in the city that I live but that it was quite small. If you have watched the videos you will know the stress that it caused me. Not only was I given wrong directions but misleading information for this small castle was actually quite big. Anyways theres some wicked photos and it was pretty cool. Either way I think I'll probably just go back there to enjoy the amazing Japanese ambiance.
As I left the castle I set out on a hike to find a shrine that I had seen while I was on the train to work. The great thing about the shrine was that it had a tower that stuck up above all the houses, so it should have been easy to find. Anyways, I had to wonder through suburbs of the city to find this and I was on some small pathways through/next to houses that usually only locals would use. Anyways, there was this lady that I think followed me for a while because this big white guy just looking at houses and what not, I'm
Japanese Castle 1
The exit of the castle, which pretty much looks the same as the entrance... or maybe this is the entrance and the other one was the exit... who knows. sure she thought I was scoping out houses, ahaha, or maybe she just hadn't seen a white guy in a long time, one of the other. Needless to say with my great sense of direction I ended up finding some hiking paths that were in the totally wrong direction but they had a map to some shrines in the hills and other stuff, so i'll check that out later. I also have to keep in mind that I'm taller than everyone else so all those spiders that build their webs just above normal height have created their webs just in my eye range. I also most ran into this one web with this huge black spider with yellow bands on the legs, anyways, I posted a picture of it that I found on the internet, I was reading and apparently it was good luck to see one in the daytime but if seen at night, they're bad luck. On top of that apparently its partially poisonous (as in you may get poisened you may not.. i"m not sure what that means, I guess just stay away) and because its a rather large spider it has it has large fangs therefore
Stairway at the real castle
some sweet stairs and a doorway, how exciting. the bit hurts. Maybe I won't go hiking.
Anyways after that I found my way to the shrine or temple I'm not sure what it was, but either way, there was no one there and there was this eerie sense that I may not have been welcomed there. The thought also crossed my mind suggesting that this may have been someones rather large old Japanese style mansion. Needless to say I trekked on. The first thing I saw was this large gong that I posted a picture of. Then I ventured off to the left and saw some shrines and what not. Then I ventured into a graveyard and was taking some pictures. It wasn't until I took a small path to the back of the graveyard (at this point I have still not seen anyone, which is kind of weird and creepy) and was posing in front of a gravesite when I realized that, I'm taking my picture in front of a grave site. I am going straight to Buddhist hell. I have posted the pictures and said RIP in hopes that I will not burn longer for posting them on the internet, however that is a risk
A statue and what not.
this is really self explanatory, I mean you guys pretty much speak as much Japanese as I do. soo... I am willing to take. As I was leaving the cemetery I thought about what my reaction would be if I saw a group of or actually a single Japanese tourist taking pictures of himself in a Canadian graveyard, what would I think. And well I could only leave being disgusted with myself, but not quite disgusted enough to delete the pictures or not write about it on my blog. As I walked across the grounds to now explore the right side of the shrine, the eerie feelings of not belonging/trespassing returning compounded with the thoughts of spirits haunting me for the rest of my life, I walked past the entrance to the temple only to notice a dog standing at the entrance of the temple. Double take. that... dog... is ... real... wait a sec... that dog isn't chained in.... that dog is staring right at me and standing on all fours. The only thing going through my mind right then was.. why did you take those pictures in the graveyard? WHY DIDNT YOU DELETE THEM? Walk away slowly. don't let the dog see the fear in your eyes. STOP SHAKING. HE KNOWS. RUN GOD DAMMIT. As you can
Statue
Me inside the castle... its really more of a park than an inside of a castle, but this super nice old lady came up to me and wanted to take my picture with my camera... it was weird, but cool.. we had a moment... i mean no... imagine, I exited the premises immediately. As I came into a distance that I felt comfortable, all I could think about was how cool it would have been if I'd wiped out my camera and taken a video of the whole thing. GOD damn. I need to be on the ball. Maybe another day. Maybe another day. ( I would like you to know that just reliving this experience in writing has caused me to break out into a sweat)
The Japanese lessons are going well. We're moving crazy fast and my head hurts every time I think about Japanese but I am making progress. I can say hello, how much is it and thank you very much. I cannot ask a Japanese person how they are doing or respond to that if I knew that a Japanese person was asking me that. However I could tell that same person that there is a chair on the table or a pen in front of them. I sometimes question the progress that I'm making in these classes, but then I remember that they haven't taught me how to ask those sort of questions in Japanese and conveniently they don't speak
View from the top of the castle
You can see mount. Fuji in the background. The mountains are way more amazing in real life than in this picture. much English. Luckily for me my Japanese teacher is cute and single, but she won't tell me her age. Apparently its rude to ask girls their age in Japan. Pish posh. Whatever happened to equality. One of the few delights of going to class, is however that when I answer a question right, instead of the dull mundane correct or very good we would get at home. Pin-pon in a ever so cheery and up beat voice is given as a reward to let us know we got the correct answer. This may seem stupid but it puts a smile on my face just thinking of a grown women saying something as ridiculous as pin-pon to say that something is correct. Sometimes I feel that people just treat me like a child just as a joke to see if I'll accept it as their culture. I did... and I will continue to do so until someone lets me in on this joke.
Lastly, although Japanese is very phonetic and at first seemed easy to use, I have discovered a few road bumps: they do not have spaces in between their words. In an effort to be efficient they decided
Top of the castle
This is inside the top of the castle. Again being tired of just smiling it would be easy and less confusing to just take out spaces between words. you just have to guess and see what makes sense. Who does that? The newest road bump is that in Japanese writing they use Kanji, which I knew about in the first place, but as I ask more questions about where to use it and why they use it. I begin to realize that it has no point. It says exactly the same thing, but requires more interact symbols and each symbol has four or five sounds and meanings depending on which other symbols that it is attached to. Not to mention that there are not spaces so you just have to start guessing at what symbols may be part of the same word. I believe the integration of Kanji into the Japanese language was merely to make a fairly easy language harder, more fancy looking and a means for one Japanese man to flaunt his fancy kanji symbols to say that he is better than the rest of us. However immature you may think this is, I have decided that no Japanese man will flaunt anything at me therefore I must learn Kanji.
I
Top of the castle
This was another monument at the top of the castle. I'm pretending to be a tiger have also picked up some rather useful information about the Japanese culture that is pertinent to anyone thinking of visiting me here. Maybe means no always here. They are too polite to say no and will always say maybe. Which is nice if you're looking for comfortable shutdowns but horrible if you're trying to get people to go out to the bar for a drink. Some of my more "rough" coworkers (I work with nine other foreign English Teachers) have informed me that a good place to pick up Japanese girls is just after they get off the train. Needless to say I was told a story of this same guy loitering around the train station at 5 in the morning. hmmmm... note to self, pick up girls at the train station and don't accept maybe as an answer. I'm pretty sure that any adventure that starts in this way always ends bad. ALWAYS
Brandon (another English teacher, one of the few normal English Teachers), Takami (a Japanese branch manager for one of the English schools I work at) and Hiyori (Another Japanese Branch manager for a branch that I don't work at) went out for raw meng noodles,
Again inside the castle.
Its crazy what they put in a castle. but now that I think about it. This is my first castle ever. A Japanese castle...hmm maybe all castle are like this.. I don't know. which apparently is the thing to do in Japan, although these noodles are Chinese. All the Japanese Branch Managers speak English. I had to hassle Takami from a maybe to a yes to coming after she told me it used to be a regular things to do until they were strongly advised that English teachers and Japanese teacher were not supposed to socialize together. Some people feared the fact that the cliques were beginning to form and rumors were starting to spread. With the help of my superior nagging tactics I managed to convince her to come out and drive to a raw meng place. The noodles were amazing. A lot like the Ichiban noodles that we have at home but made by a fancy chef, in a fancy restaurant surrounded by fancy Japanese writing and accompanied by fancy garnish. They made me try bamboo root (the fancy garnish) which really didn't taste like anything and was a little chewy. Later we retired to a Japanese family restaurant called Jonathon's. I questioned the fact that Jonathon's was an authentic Japanese family restaurant but neither Takami or Hiyori seemed to understand that maybe Jonathon's wasn't. As the conversation about japan and
Japanese Shrine
Some sort of Giant Gong at a shrine I went to what there was to do in Kofu dwindled, the topic seemed to roll onto work. Needless to say, 2 hours later I had a lot less respect for some people I work with. Hence the story I mentioned above. Either it was a blast.
I've rambled on enough already and I hope you enjoy my blog posting. They seem to progressively get longer and longer so I'll try and make them more frequent and less long. let me know what you and the best way to show your appreciation is money.
Cheers
Geoff
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caleb
non-member comment
never take pictures of spiders again otherwise i will never talk to you.