Luck Can't Last a Lifetime Unless You Die Young

Well, it's now Sunday night, and it's been a rather eventful weekend! Let me now recap some of the highlights... Ok, Friday night Ly and David took me for Yakiniku. David even paid for me as a happy b-day/welcome to Japan dinner! Which was very nice of him. Went back to the dorm and spent a few hours playing Battletoads for the NES!!! For those of you less enlightened, here's a screenie:



On Saturday I met with Anton and Clement (from the Co-op Japan Program) and we toured Nara. We went to Kofukuji and Todaiji temples. Todaiji was amazing, we thought the gates (below) were impressive, then we get into the temple grounds and actually see the temple (also below). We don't have stuff like that in Calgary. Inside the temple is home to the second biggest Buddha statue, as well as some smaller statues, like the menacing figure also also below.































Hmm, two interesting things... there is a rather large deer park inside Nara. Clement and Anton both thought this was very cool, as the deer were extremely domesticated, you could pet and feed them, they'd walk along the sidewalk basically begging for food. Coming from Calgary and living 5 minutes from a provincial park, I thought this was a little... odd. As I expressed to my friends... "They're Deer!!!"

Also interesting was the first realization of my "Gaijin Power"... a group of 7-8 junior high girls started waving and saying hi to us, and even wanted a picture with us! It was hilarious! No picture for you guys though, we were holding up traffic on the walking path and decided we should get going.

Wandered around Nara for a bit, and then went to play Pachinko! Pachinko is a lot like slots, only weirder, and money goes very fast. Basically you turn a knob and try to get balls into this little hole, and when you do, slots start playing in the window above, and if you win you get more balls. Ly won 200 bucks (20k yen) the first time he played, lucky bum, and Clement won 50 bucks... I lost 10 :(. Don't think I'll be playing again, I used up all my non-existent beginner's luck.
On a side note, gambling is actually illegal in Japan, but that doesn't really stop anyone. See, in pachinko, you don't win money, you win little cards and a cookie (mmm cookie)... and when you're done playing, you go around to the back where there's a guy who (shockingly!) buys cards for money!!! Well, not a guy exactly, but you stick your cards in the slot, and a minute or two later, when you open the slot, there's money inside! It's like magic!!
On a second side note, I would have trouble working at a certain electronics store in Japan... Japanese stores seem to have theme songs, which is ok, unless the song is soooo bad that within 5.8 seconds you'll want to run out the door screaming in agony. I never actually did that, but I wanted to. But I will never go back to that store again, so I don't think it's a good way to bring up the company's reputation. But what do I know?

Oh yes, Clement feels the need to take a picture of every different kind of bottle he drinks in Japan... Even if it means laying down in a train station to do it. Crazy foreigner... here Anton feels the need to kick him in the behind:



















I also got the famous picture of the melon soda bottle from Clement:
























Moving on... went back to Anton's place for a bit. The lucky bum has 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, and his own bathroom and laundry facilities. But he has to take a train and bus to work, so I guess I'm not so bad off. I headed home around 10 (I have a curfew) so I missed what sounded like an interesting party, held by Clarissa (Co-op Japan Alumni), who lives near Anton.

This morning Anton was feeling a bit ill (sore throat), so me and Clement went exploring Kyoto. First we went to Fushimi-inari, which is a temple up in the mountains in eastern Kyoto. This temple was absolutely amazing. There's a path that winds its way to the top of the mountain and back down, and along the way most of the path is lined with literally thousands of Torii gates! It was amazing how many there were! Very pretty...



















Then we went to eat lunch in downtown Kyoto, but didn't explore downtown much... we took a scenic (ie long) detour through Gion and area to get to Kiyomizu Temple. This temple, far up the mountains of Kyoto too, had some very nice buildings and quite the view of Kyoto.






















Went to the imperial palace, but unfortunately it was closed :(. Here's the gates.



















Hmm, better finish writing, the ones who are still reading this are probably getting bored too. We tried to go to Nijo Castle, but got there exactly as it was closing. So we returned to Kyoto station, Clement went on the Shinkansen back to Tokyo, and I went back to my dorm... So that ends my exciting journey for the weekend...

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So, today marks my one week of being in Japan! I've written about what I did, but haven't written about my initial impressions yet, so here goes...

There are some difficulties for me living in Japan. There's a lot to get used to. Food is a big thing, there's so many things that are different from Canada. I've made an effort to try everything so far, including squid and cow's tongue (two things i've never had before). I've made an effort to eat more too... if it wasn't for the miles and miles of walking every day I'd probably gain weight. The bathrooms are hard to adjust to too, ie the squatting toilets and communal showers.

Some things are also quite difficult due to the language barrier. Shopping is hard; I can't read what anything is, I have to guess... and ordering food in a restaurant is a challenge; not only do I not know what it is, but I also can't pronounce it half the time.

I also feel like I stand out everywhere I go... because I do stand out. It's kind of a double edged sword. In Canada I always did my best to blend in. Half the time my friends didn't even know I was there. But it's neat to get the attention some times, just because I a foreigner.

There's some other things that are really neat too. I get to see and do and eat things that don't exist in Canada. The train system is amazing; not only are the trains on time, but there's different speeds of trains that stop at different stations, but there's 8-9 different train lines to switch between. And it all runs perfectly. Also I'm average height!!! There's so many people everywhere (and I'm just in Kyoto). You see tons of school kids all in uniform, which is weird to see. There's temples and shrines and neat things to see everywhere. I'm learning a lot (about Japan, but also about myself) and I'm really excited about the next 10 months here.

I have some fears and doubts too. I'm concerned that I won't be able to do the work presented to me at my company. I'm worried that I won't be able to learn the language at all and I will have to spend the next 10 months struggling like I did this week. I know that I shouldn't worry, that I'll be fine, but it's a bit hard to see at the moment. I'll just have to try hard and hope for the best.

Here starts my second exciting week in Japan. I'll continue my blog after my next exciting adventure, hopefully it won't be as long and rambly as this one... So, until then!

Oh yeah, I love to hear your comments, feel free to leave one if you like/dislike my writing, have suggestions, or just want to say hi.