Stuff we don't have...

---

Woo! Yesterday, I spent most of the day working out plans and such to meet friends, and have actually managed to book myself close to solid for the next week, with some peppered bookings in the following 2 weeks. I'm starting to feel more Japanese now hehe. I'm confident that everybody I know in Japan is aware that I'm here now, and my schedulings with them are starting to roll in. Not to mention that Toshi is also helping me out, and constantly emailing me various things for gaijins to do in Japan.. club meetings, etc.. One such email he sent me, I'm bringing some of my friends to on our first meeting-- we'll be celebrating ohanami (Cherry Blossom viewing) with a buncha gaijin and probably some other Japanese as well! For the uninitiated, ohanami is traditionally celebrated by essentially having a picnic and watching the pretty cherry blossoms fall off the trees. And drinking yourself stupid.

Today, I went out to meet Kyonkyon, a friend of mine I've been talking to on the net for almost a year. Going into it, I already knew she wasn't physically my type or anything, but she's my friend, so I definately wanted to meet her! As it turns out, I'll be meeting her again on Friday, with her best friend Mari. (Mari is actually the one I met first, and she introduced me to Kyonkyon. It just turned out that Kyonkyon had some free time first). After Kyonkyon and I met, we went out for some food. She took me to this cool little restaurant-- I've heard of this style before, but never been to one. It's got a conveyor belt that goes around the chefs in the middle. They prepare sushi, and put them on different colored plates, then put the plates on the conveyor belt. You just take off whatever looks good as it passes by you. When you're done, your bill is calculated by how many of each color'd plate you have in front of you. For example, red ones are 350 yen, and white ones are 100 yen. Some purple plate with checkers on it was 600 yen (like $6 for 2 pieces of sushi! It better come with a greasy handjob!) After sushi, we went out to watch a movie. After all these years of watching Japanese movies with English subtitles, you have no idea how weird it is to watch an English movie with Japanese subtitles @_@ We watched DeJa Vu. Pretty neat- I'd recommend it, I guess.

So after the movie, I was running a touch late (I was hoping to get to my next destination by 6pm, but when the movie lets out at 6:20 or so, that makes it a touch difficult). To get my bearings, I had to make my way back to the Yokohama station (a whole 5 minute walk), and from there, to the English cafe I was at on Saturday. I was hoping to meet the whole group of 3 people I was talking to on Saturday (especially the cute one!), but as it turned out, hiroshi (the guy who spoke english very well) couldn't make it, and I guess mayu showed up briefly earlier, but on this particular day, the activities were too high of a level for her, so she left.. Which left me alone with Mayumi. The cute one. Damn, some diety's on my side. So we stuck around chatting in English, and comparing Japanese with English (I started her off easy- I introduced her, and everybody else in the shop, to pneumoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokonosis and antidisestablishmentarianism... oddly enough, the latter was in her electronic dictionary *impressed*) When we finished up there, she sorta invited me out for dinner, so we went looking for some good restaurants. We looked at a couple and decided on one, but they were closing 1/2hr later, so we decided we wanted more time than that, and went to the only other restaurant we could find that would be open as late as we wanted: TGIFridays. I have a feeling I'm going to be seeing a lot of that place, hehe. Since it's technically a bilingual restaurant, I used this opportunity to give Mayuki some more practice with English. So not only did we mostly only speak in english, but I got her to order the food in english as well^^ So we got a 3 chili calamari (I -highly- recommend that if you can handle a small/moderate amount of spice!) to share, a chicken quesadilla to share, and a warm apple crisp to share. It was a really fun ... date, I guess ... to end the night on just the right note.

Something interesting to note: Everybody talks about how asian girls always look younger than they really are, and up until this point, I figured I had the asian age-ranges pretty much pinned. I was pretty good at it. But this Mayumi girl.. When I first saw her (from behind), I thought 19. Then she turned around, and I thought 25 TOPS. NO WAY she's older than that. I found out during dinner that she's 32 or 33 (there was some confusion with translation, but it doesn't matter). HOLY CRAP. She looks fscking AMAZING for her age! I'm definately gonna take a picture of her, and you'll see what I'm talking about. -wow-

This whole train thing here in Japan is really outta hand. They have thought WAY too much about this. Going into the station, you have to pass thru a ticket gate- you feed the gate your entry information (either a ticket or a Passmo card, explained later), and, if you gave it your ticket, the gate spits your ticket out the other side for you to pick up when you walk thru it. If your ticket isn't correct, etc, the gate doors close and you can't walk thru. Nothing horrible here, it doesn't cut off any limbs or anything, just some little plastic door things at about knee height. All you have to do, is walk over to the fade adjustment machine, and feed it some more money, and it spits out the appropriate ticket for you to get thru the gates. The basic idea of using the trains here is this: You walk into the station, and you have 2 choices for how you will pay for your trip. Before, and after. The after version is MUCH easier, and thankfully, Toshi set me up with it less than 1/2 an hour after meeting him. He called it his gift to me. It's a system that JUST started in Japan, literally about 3 days before I got here. It's called Passmo. It's essentially like a debit card specifically for the trains. I think they eventually want to extend it out to be a debit card for everything else, but the Japanese people are so attached to the idea of using cash for virtually everything that I seriously doubt that idea will fly. Anyways, you can go to any regular ticket machine, and put your Passmo card in, and credit it with however much you want, just feed the money into the machine. Then it's really simple to use: when you walk thru the ticket gates, just touch your passmo card to the "IC card" surface, it beeps a few times, and lets you thru. When leaving, you do the same on the exit gates, and they deduct an amount of money from your passmo equivalent to the cost of the distance you travelled. VERY easy, and my preferred method of payment. I'd -highly- recommend using these if you ever come here. Another nice thing too, is that the ticket machines that you either buy tickets from, or put money onto your passmo from, can be set to "english mode" at the touch of a button on screen. The "before" method has kinda been explained now-- it's buying a ticket at the machine, having decided how far you're going, or how much money you're spending (you have a choice), it spits out a ticket you use at the gate to allow you entry, and then you feed the same ticket into the exit gate when you leave- if your ticket was insufficient, you have to go adjust the fare, if your ticket was enough (or more than enough), it lets you thru, and eats your ticket for lunch.

So, once you're thru the gates and inside the platform selection area (typically underground), there's often maps of the particular line the current station is part of, and you can select which platform you need to ascend the stair to, to get you going in the right direction. But some stations only have the maps up ON the platforms, which sucks if you don't know for sure which way you're going. This can easily occur, because the platforms are labelled based on the -FINAL- destination of the train, not the next, or next major destination or anything. For example, if you're at a station on a line that extends from "yar" station, thru "har" station, into "me" station, and ending in "maties" station, and the particular station you're at is "har", and you're going to "me", you need to go onto the "maties" bound platform. But if you don't know that "maties" is beyond "me", you have to look at a map and find out whether you want the "yar" bound or "maties" bound platform. I think that part can use a touch of improvement, but it's still acceptable once you're sorta used to it. So, you select your platform, and wait for a train. There's 3 types (technically 4, but the bullet train is special) of trains on most lines. A local train stops at ALL stations on it's journey. Needless to say, it takes FOREVER to go a long distance. A limited express train stops at typically every... 4? or so stations. Pretty much the major-ish ones. And the last is some other form of express (don't remember the name right now), that typically stops at other major stations. Occassionally there's a REALLY major station that both express train types will stop at, but typically they stop at different stations. This makes it kinda fun and an adventure, to be figuring out which trains to be taking where, and when, to get to a particular destination. For example, If I want to go from this house to Yokohama... the train station close to this house is called "Kenritsudaigaku" (this won't be on the test ;p). It's not a major station, so only the local trains stop there. Meaning when I leave the house, guaranteed the train I get on at the station will be a local train. 1 stop away (in the direction of tokyo) is the "yokosuka-chuo" station, which is a major station for limited express trains. So, instead of continuing on the local train all the way to Yokohama (probably would take like an hour...), I get off the train at yokosuka-chuo, and wait for a limited express train to show up, and get on it. Looking at the map tells me that the limited express stops at Yokohama, which is my destination, so I can ride this one all the way there. The total trip is probably close to 25 minutes, and the limited express stops only 3 or 4 times on the way, even tho there's something like 12 or 15 stations (maybe?) on the way. The local train would've stopped at ALL of them (read: eww!)

At the stations is a plethora of information on the station, and where it stands in the grand scheme of things, at least as compared to the entirety of the current line. Every station will, somewhere, have a map showing (in big bold red lettering) the current station on the line, and all the other stations in both directions. Looking at this map, you can see the names of the places on either end of the line, and thus know which platform to walk up to. Additionally, the map shows, via simple little dots, which stations each of the train types stop at. How nice ^-^ A white (or sometimes black) dot shows that only local trains stop there, a green dot means limited express trains stop there, and a red dot means the other express type stops there. And there's something (I currently don't know what) that specifies if both the green and red apply to the same station. And obviously, the local trains still stop at all the green and red dots. Other information provided is many sync'd clocks to tell you the exact time, as far as the train station is concerned, because these trains are precise almost to the second. Right next to the clocks, typically, is a display of the next 3 trains that will arrive at the particular platform you are standing on. It shows you how far they're going (later at night this matters when some trains won't go all the way to the end...), what type of train they are, and at exactly what time the train will arrive. If I recall correctly there's another piece of information too, but I can't remember what it is right now. Additionally, if you're still unsure about which platform to be on, there's multiple signs on each platform showing the name of the current station, as well as arrows in either direction, and labels for the next stations in both directions. You can compare that to the map to know exactly which way you should be going, then just look at which way the trains are arriving on your current platform. Really, there's a couple different ways to get the info you need, so whatever works best for you ne? ON TOP OF ALL THAT, something that Toshi pointed out that probably most Japanese don't know/pay attention to, is that Trains heading roughly in the direction of tokyo ("up" trains, from before) are announced by a female voice, and trains headed in the other direction are announced by a male voice.

Speaking of voices, EVERYTHING talks to you here! I feel like I'm in the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, where the door would thank you for walking thru it! The creepiest thing tho was when I went and used a citibank ATM, all normal-like, beeps and boops as I press buttons.. finish off, turn around and am about to open the door to leave, and the machine says "arigatou gozaimashita!" (thank you very much!) Creepy, but she had a pretty voice... Machines where you pay for your parking talk to you- give you instructions, and thank you afterwards- machines where you pull up and take a ticket for parking talk to you, as mentioned before, the ATMs do as well, and the trains, when you're inside, tell you which station you're pulling up to, which is next, etc (you know, in case you can't read the japanese _OR_ the english that's displayed in most of them digitally)...it's just kinda .. weird. Heh. But at least now I know which machines are male and which are female. Many will be happy to note that a staggering majority of them are female. *nodnod*

More about roads: Since many of the roads are super narrow and twisty-turny, it's INCREDIBLY difficult to see if anybody's coming sometimes, so it's actually standard practice to, at intersections and whatnot in residential areas (and others, sometimes) have giant mirrors on sticks conveniently positioned so you can see around the corner if other cars are oncoming. They look exactly like those big round curved mirrors we used to see in stores all the time (with cameras behind them). They also have noise reduction walls on some of the highways, but they're a touch different than ours in that they're built in such a way that up at the top they curve up over top of the cars a bit, I'd assume to prevent the sound waves from bending overtop of the walls (I know, wrong verb, but it's like 3am, gimme a break). Something else I noticed is that all the signal lights (that I've looked at, anyways...) have not only the lights facing in the direction that the traffic is coming from, but lights facing the opposite direction as well. I'm pretty confident it's not for the sake of the drunks and gaijin who are driving on the wrong side of the road, but rather as EXTRA lights just in case you miss the ones on YOUR SIDE OF THE ROAD.

Toshi told me a little bit about the cost of land here in Japan. One of the biggest deciding factors about the cost of land is how close it is to a station, and how accessible it is by car. The house I'm currently staying in is not very accessible at all by car, and is up on a hill, and in Yokosuka, a long way from central Tokyo or central Yokohama (the 2 biggest cities in Japan), but only a 5 minute walk to a non-major station. That put it in a relative cheap price bracket. His main house in Yokohama is 3 minutes, if that, from a relative decent subway (not train) station, and is freakin' HUGE!. He says that the station was built after they had the house, but the station being built there immediately SKYROCKETED the price of the land for the house. After some quick calculations, we figured the land (and house?) is worth about $1,000,000 CDN. For those who are not aware: THAT IS A LOT OF MONEY. And _THIS_ would be why a regular salaryman cannot afford to buy his own house in central Tokyo/Yokohama (this house is in roughly central Yokohama).

Before I mentioned Andre, the guy who hooked me up with this host family. Well, in an effort to better help me keep busy, he introduced me to his ex-girlfriend (kinky?), Yuka, for language exchange purposes. Apparently she was interested, so he gave me her contact info. Well, today was the day her and I planned to get together- so we did so. We stopped for dinner and chatted for like 3 hours in the restaurant, then just walked around randomly while chatting some more. MOSTLY in english, as I wanted this meeting to be mostly to her benefit. We agreed that the next one would be more heavily japanese infused. We went to HMV (yay! They have those here!) and I picked up a couple of CDs... They're really expensive here! I bought 3 the other day for $93 @_@ I've decided that next time I wanna buy CDs, despite the cost, I'm flying out to Japan for it. They have english bands ON THE SHELF here that I can't find even in the back alley indie CD stores back in Canada. Stuff that I never listen to, but I know is really hard to find, such as the Flaming Lips, and 65 days of static (yes Grant, they have it, and I bought it! On that note, they played here LIVE 3 days ago, but I didn't know about it until today, FSCK!). They had like a dozen flaming lips CDs on the shelf at HMV. Among MANY others. Something I noticed is that all the english CDs are on the shelves just like we do in Canada, with the covers facing out for us to see, but all the CDs in the Japanese section are stacked like books on a bookshelf, so you can only read the names on the bindings. I wonder why?

After Toshi finished work, he came to meet me at Yokohama station, so once he phoned when he arrived there, Yuka-san left to her own endeavors- thanks for staying around to keep me company, Yuka-san! Her and I have also got tentative plans to meet again, for more japanese language exchange, and we will go together to Akihabara, the electronics center of Tokyo. This place, as I understand it, will be FILLED TO THE BRIM with "otaku" (typically anime/electronics geeks), but both her and I have never been there and want to go at least once, so we're going together. I never expected that of a girl. Cool! On top of that, she also wants to go to a "Maid Cafe", something else neither of us have been to before. They're cafes where all the girls are dressed up as (typically) french maids and such. Eye-candy, here we come! Interesting that a girl is interested in going there too. Either that, or she's just looking for an excuse to spend time with me- both of which I'm cool with. So I met up with Toshi, and we went out for REAL ramen at a REAL ramen house! It is apparently the best Ramen chain in Yokohama- it's kinda interesting. You walk in and go to a vending machine-esque deal where you buy a ticket for whichever ramen you want, then hand the ticket to a guy who works there and they bring out your ramen when it's ready. Neat- they don't even have to touch your money. There's that automation for you again ;p The ramen was AMAZING, at least in my opinion. I don't think I'll be able to go back to Canadian ramen again.. it's just so.... not amazing. haha. So after that, we went back to his parents' place to pick up his car, and get some of my stuff that I had left in it before-- and for once, one of his parents was home! So I finally got to meet my "host mom"-- she was SOOO incredibly nice and sweet. I love talking to her^^ She's a judge for international skating tournaments, and I guess she was off judging something in Tokyo for the past almost a week, which is why I never saw her. His dad runs his own school (3 locations) to teach old folks about computers. A good endeavor, in my opinion- many old folks have a bit of a computer phobia. He uses linux and such, which makes him cool in my books^^ I also found out that his sister is a doctor, and lives on her own to be closer to the hospital in the case of an emergency. I found out more detail about his job- he works in international advertising for a travel agency. So they all have pretty cool jobs, I think^^

Big companies in Japan don't only make one type of thing, like we know them in Canada. We all know Hitachi as making consumer electronics, but do we know them as making garage doors? And how about Sanyo making automated pedways? Or Sony life insurance? Damn right, they dip into everything here!

Most public washrooms don't provide a means to dry your hands after washing. After watching some people, I've come to the conclusion that the majority of people carry around their own personal cloth for drying their hands/wiping the sweat off their brows/etc... OR they just shake the excess water off their hands and make do. The latter of which, I've obviously been having to do until I go buy myself a cloth, or am lucky and happen to be in a washroom that provides papertowel or hand dryers.

---

Photos

My neighborhood.. for now
This is the view of the neighborhood I live in (in Yokosuka) from my balcony. As you can see up on the hill, it looks very chaotic, but that's only because it is. You'd be hard-pressed to find a STRAIGHT residential road here!

CD Stuffs!
I went shopping for some CDs on a couple of occassions, and this is my loot so far. Total cost of these is like ... $160 or so. CDs are expensive here! And -yes- the big red one in the back IS a CD. Yes, just 1.

Coffee in a can!
What a cool place. You can buy coffee in a can from the vending machines. AND it comes out hot! At first I thought I was gonna burn my hand, cause I was expecting a cold drink!
You can also get milk in a can^^

BIG CD case
That huge CD in my other photo? Well, here's the contents: As you can see, in the back is the actual case, with a small pocket for the CD in the center of the right half. The left half has a sleeve in it for the booklet, the blue part. And in the booklet was a folded up poster. In the poster was some little paper thing advertising his official fansite or something.. I think.

Interesting new products
I saw a new type of Pepsi I haven't seen before in Canada. Not that I really pay much attention to it there. Pepsi NEX: It comes with a sticker that holds a serial code you put in on their website to register your points (this one was worth 1 point) so you can eventually trade them in for merchandise. And who can go wrong with crunchy chocolate bars called "Crunky"!

Me and Toshi
Finally, a picture of Toshi where you can see his face! We were at his parents' place, and we decided to get his mom to take our picture. Additionally, we decided to be silly, and do the stereotypical "peace sign" that Japanese always do in pictures. Actually, I think it's technically supposed to be a V for Victory.

Comments

[Tereasa]

very cool
Hey, keep writing this stuff cause it is good to hear you're having such a blast, and it brings back lots of memories for me of Japan...enjoy the cherry blossoms