The Conversational Equivalent of an Out of Body Experience

I think I felt an earthquake yesterday! I was on a pedestrian overpass, next to a train station, listening to a rock band perform, with people jumping up and down… hmm, maybe it wasn’t an earthquake o.O.

But anyway, that’s later on, I prefer to write my adventures in semi-chronological order so as not to confuse anyone (including myself).

First, I should mention work this past week… but not too in depth, I don’t want to violate the confidentiality agreement in my contract (or bore you all, this blog will be loooong)… I have 4 themes I’ll be working with during my 10 months here, and the first is improving upon a video memory circuit board. Only I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing. My first assignment is to check over the board, the circuitry, the signal, the VHDL code… only it’s not a very big job for the time I’m given to work on it. So maybe I’m doing something wrong? Or maybe I’m just prostar? I’ll let you all decide! I’m also helping a co-worker on one of his assignments, which involves me analyzing a nasty circuit diagram and figuring out what’s goin on.

Had another Monday meeting today, which means sitting for two hours, listening to things I can’t understand, and mostly trying not to sleep. Also, I’m supposed to describe what I did the past week (in Japanese).

Work’s not bad, it seems very independent, so I’m never sure if I’m going about it the right way. Anyway, not much happens after work during the week, I get home between 5:30 and 6. They tell me to leave if I’m not gone by then, not like poor Anton, who works till 9 every night. I have decided to devote 1-2 hours every night to learning Japanese… and I try to learn a bit at work too online.

Now to the good part of my blog… Osaka Adventure Vol. 1!

On Saturday Anton and I, armed with everything but my camera and a plan (both would have been good to have), went to Osaka for the day! First off, I would like to give a big thanks to Mr. Anton for letting me steal his pictures for my own use! So anyone reading the planetcjp blog gets to see the amazing pictures twice, lucky you!

We decided to meet in Nara instead of Osaka, seeing as how neither of us know Osaka at all, and didn’t want to get separated before we even met. So I went down to Yamato-sadaiji station and then we both headed towards Osaka.

We had our first… umm… experience?… within a few minutes of leaving; an older man (probably 50ish) started talking to us on the train, practicing his English. He asked where we were from, where we worked, our hobbies, all good. He said he had been to Canada (Banff of course). Eventually the topic turned to Onsen (for those who don’t know, Onsen are hot springs that you basically go in to bathe… naked… with other people. They’re supposed to be really good, and I’ll have to try one sometime.) . The older guy told us he likes to visit the Onsen once a week, and that since Anton lives close, he should come with him sometime! Perhaps on Sunday? He even offered to pick Anton up! Now coming from North America, this seems rather disturbing, but maybe it’s normal in Japan to be asked by strangers to go to Onsen? Thinking of how weird this was kept us laughing all day.

*Note: Asking the people at my dorm, and Anton asking at his work, this is considered weird even for Japan. Just so you know…

Next we went to Nipponbashi, Osaka’s electronics district. Interesting place, saw a store that sold miso paste, another that sold old photographs. We passed by a bookstore, Anton decided to go in. "Seems like most of the books in this store are about travelling" he says… look up, I says. The shelf above is loaded with a lot of porn books. Porn is rather, umm, accessible here. People had stands set up on the street with porn videos. Normal video stores had large cardboard cutouts of the very famous Razor Ramon Hard Gay. And yet, all their porn is censored apparently. Very odd…

We wandered around there in circles for a few hours. Anton needed some camera supplies (lens case and mem card), and he needed to change some dollars to Yen. Not sure where the bank was, he asked a lady at the department store, who was nice enough to take us halfway across the mall to the foreign exchange bank! That’d never happen in Canada. We also found Kitchen Alley (least that’s my name for it)… a long back street with every store selling miscellaneous cooking and kitchen supplies. Anton suggested that if I ever get fired from work (say from breaking the confidentiality clause), I should open up a sausage stand in Kyoto! It’s a great idea of course, Anton even found a good apron for me to wear! He suggested the blue, but I think the orange one woulda been better.


Eventually we decided to head more downtown, to Osaka Station.

This was an excellent idea! Just outside the station, on a large pedestrian overpass, were a couple Japanese rock bands giving a free live show! We stayed to watch for well over an hour (there were 2 bands, not playing at the same time, unlike some places in Japan. Speaking of which, anyone know where the park where all the bands play in is? I love live music (except Country).). Anton took way too many pictures, but got some good shots (below) and I bought the one band’s (Kaede) CD, and even got my picture taken with them! Very cool…


































Kaede is having another live show next Saturday in Osaka, me and Anton are thinking of going, if anyone in the Osaka area wants to join…

Next we went for lunch… Anton tried to force me to finish, but as all who know me know, I have a small stomach, /sigh. Was good, I got katsudon, but raw egg tastes a bit weird. Oh yeah, you order by vending machine, then take your ticket to the counter, I thought this was quite cool. Then we went to the Osaka Science Museum, which was a bit lame… not very unique, and we couldn’t read anything anyway. And having taken three years of electrical engineering, I didn’t learn anything. But we got some good pictures (of me sticking my head in a magnetic field).















Near the museum we saw some semi-engrish, the following street sign:














Now at first glance you may think this sign means "Ok, if you’re with children, hold their hand"… but then you notice, hmm, it looks like the girl is either struggling to get away, or perhaps dancing? Her dress is also quite short. Then you notice the weirdest bit; the man has tentacle arms! And they’re unequal length! And what the heck’s he wearing?! No, something’s not right here! Not right at all!!!
Anton says "Some signs are better left uninterpreted." But what’s the fun in that?


Anton wanted to stop at an internet café to check his email, hoping Tongxin (from the Co-op Japan program) emailed him. Tongxin works at Sanyo in Osaka, and she was supposed to have arrived a few days before. We were kinda hoping to meet here in Osaka…
But first, we saw this fancy pants bit of Engrish outside the Metro Media Café:




By the way, the only Special Memories Anton got was getting ripped off…390 yen just to check his email.



Still completely without a (logical/workable/sane) plan, and without an email from Tongxin, we did what any normal person would do… we went to her neighbourhood and try to find her randomly! What? You say that’s not what a normal person would do? You’re right, sue us.
So yeah, after asking around where Sanyo was located, we headed to where we thought Tongxin may be. Got near to the Sanyo building and actually passed by the dormitory… so we went floor by floor seeing if Tongxin’s name was on any of the doors. I told Anton he gets 50 million bonus points if his super Random Meeting Gaijin Powers led us to Tongxin.

No luck at the dorm, but Anton won 30 million a few minutes later: A few doors down was a man outside a restaurant, Anton asked if there were any other Sanyo dorm buildings around. He explained our situation, and it turned out that Tongxin may have been there the previous night! The man knew someone who worked at Sanyo. He called the person, and let Anton talk to her; turns out she knew Tongxin! Wow, the likelyhood of this is… wait! Was there an Infinite Improbability Drive nearby? Was that creepy street sign warning us of Zaphod Beeblebrox? Am I going off on some tangent here?

Anyways, the lady (Tomoe-san) actually came down to the restaurant (she lived close) to talk to us in person. Unfortunately, she couldn’t contact Tongxin and wasn’t able to tell us where she lived (for obvious reasons), but we gave her a note to give to Tongxin. We invited us to have dinner with us, she declined dinner but stayed and talked with us while we ate. She spent nearly 3 hours talking to us, teaching us some Japanese while we helped her practice English. It was very cool.

The restaurant was also quite good, very small, 3 tables and a bar, but extremely nice inside. It’s actually owned by Tomoe-san’s mother in law… even more coincidences! Dinner was the specialty, basically fried, squid filled doughballs. Not really something I’m used to but managed to eat it all, it was pretty good.


















By this time it was well after 9, and a long trip back home. I didn’t have much chance meeting curfew even, so I stayed at Anton’s for the night.

Two weeks down, 40 more to go… aaaah, time’s going so fast! So much to do!

Oh, side note, Music in Japan!!!
Music in Japan is quite unique… some of it (J-pop or J-rock) is quite good, but there’s a lot of music borrowed from the US… let me recap the most interesting musical selections.
The Electronics Store Theme Song – Written by the devil maybe? Pure torture!
Auld Lang Syne – Yes the New Year’s Song, I heard it in Joshin (similar to Future Shop in Canada).
Ice Candy! – We saw this ad in a store, it had very annoying music plus one of the weirdest videos ever… and it looped every 10 seconds o.O
My Grandfather’s Clock – In Japanese, playing in my dorm lobby at lunchtime…
And the most important… my office has music playing in the background. A lot of it is American music, minus the actual lyrics (just the music). I’ve heard (at least once):
Culture Club (Karma Chameleon and Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?), Queen, Disney (Whole New World, Under the Sea), Uptown Girls, and the Macarena!
Also, Friday afternoon had me listening to 3 hours of accordion music… /cry.

Second side note, cause Anton forgot... we saw our first really big person on the train in Osaka. He was big enough to be a sumo wrestler... and he had a very funny haircut too! But he was too far away to take a picture...

Third side note, which involves me making a bad joke… but since Anton has already posted it… In Japan, certain train cars are designated as ladies-only during rush hour. As many of you know, there has been a problem with ladies being groped on the train when it’s super busy, so these trains were set up to reduce the problem. This sign is on the platform so people know where the train cars are.



I suggested that that would make a good welcome mat for Anton’s apartment ><.

It’s now Monday night, and the World Cup game is on, Japan vs Australia. Sounds exciting, think I’ll go watch for a bit. Next blog probably next Sunday, after Osaka Adventure Vol 2.