Ame-Mura and Den-Den-Town

Hello all!


I have a fairly homework free night, so I suppose it's time to update!  Today's post is about 2 of Osaka's districts: Ame-Mura and Den-Den-Town.  Ame-Mura is kind of a Crazy Town.  It's where lots of people go and dress up in a very Visual Kei style:

And Den-Den-Town is Electonics City.  If you want any sort of gadget that's electronic, you go there.  It's also full of Maid Cafes (more on that later), porn, anime, and lots of Otaku (hardcore anime and manga fans):

So I started my Saturday off with 2 of my friends, Calvin, Robert and Tom, and we're meeting another friend, Jacqui, at Yodoyabashi station.  It was our first time taking the train without help from a Japanese friend, so I was a little bit nervous.  The system is pretty easy though: you see where you want to go and what the price is (320 yen in our case), buy it, and wait for the train at the appropriate platform.  We screwed up on that last part though, we were waiting for the red train on platform 5, and Robert casually noticed that nobody else was standing on our platform.  Then we see the red train with "Destinatin: Yodoyabashi" written on it arrive at platform 3, on the other side of the tracks.  We tried to race and catch it but we were too slow. It was all right though, another one came in 6 minutes.  We met Jacqui and the mother and 2 daughters of her host family at Yodoyabashi, and her host mother helped us get on the subway and get off at the right stop, Shinsaibashi.  

When we came out of the subway, we were surrounded by ritzy stores like Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Dior, etc., and I thought we were in the wrong place.  But after a little wandering and asking the locals for directions, we made it to Ame-Mura.  I apologize, I don't have many pictures of the place, because I was just standing there gawking at most things.  A lot of guys were dressed like the picture I posted earlier:

And there were lots of stores supplying this style for them.  All of the stores for girls were full of the typical floral and lacy clothes that most Japanese girls seem to wear.  Calvin, Robert and Tom left to find our friend Luke at the subway, so Jacqui and I wandered around.  She was trying to find this store that she had researched that sold boxed hair dye, and it was very difficult to find somebody who knew about it; turns out it was in a completely different part of town (not part of the Ame-Mura district).  Before we went to the store, we discovered a pet store (with the cutest papillon puppy! <3) some tattoo shops, and a very classy club, where some Japanese boys on the top balcony waved at me and tried to get me to join.  Sorry boys, I'm on a budget!  Then we met up with the boys and began our trek to the hair dye store, but just before we left Ame-Mura district, we ran into some Yakuza.

Now for those of you who don't know what that is, Yakuza are super-badass Japanese mafia, a traditional Japanese crime syndicate.  They're always dressed up in very well-tailored suits, have LOTS of tattoos, and are occasionally missing fingers (if a >_<).  

Ouch.

Now, this whole... ordeal lasted less than 3 seconds, but it still feels so fresh in my mind.  The only reason I noticed them was because they were dressed in suits, and not in the crazy Visual Kei that everybody else was wearing.  I caught them out of the corner of my eye and turned to look at them over my right shoulder.  There was three of them, two in black suits and one in a grey suit.  And out of their collars and the ends of their sleeves, you could see the tattoos just crawling out of them across their skin.  I wish I had had time to see if they had all their fingers.  The one in the grey suit noticed me looking and he gave me a very genuine smile, but the other two shot me the dirtiest looks I've ever recieved, so I decided avoiding them was the best course of action.  IT WAS A TOTALLY BAD ASS MOMENT!

After my heart stopped racing, I found that we had made our way to the hair dye store, Loft, which was really just an everything store.  They had lots of zippo lighters, stickers, expensive watches and sunglasses, hair dye, make up, hair accessories, hair tools, foot massagers, shampoo and soap and loads of other things.  That was only 2 floors too, I'm pretty sure there was five altogether.  Jacqui found her dye, the boys bought some zippos, and we made our way to a Chinese restaurant to eat.  It was pretty good, but not like American-Chinese food, I think this stuff was more legit.  

You be the judge

So we met up with another friend, Sebastien, and the boys decided they wanted to go to Den-Den-Town to see a Maid Cafe.  Now a Maid Cafe is, usually, a cafe where all the waitresses are dressed as maids (to go with the whole Otaku thing).  But sometimes, there are some sexually explicit ones.  Here is a typical Maid Cafe:

So Jacqui and I reluctantly agree to join them in Den-Den-Town.  We hopped back on the subway and went to the Nipponbashi stop.  There we got out and saw our first love hotels.  Love hotels are places people can go to have sex.  They get charged by the hour.  The reason is that, Japanese houses are so close together and  its very easy to hear thins between houses, so couples can't be intimate within their houses.  As a result, they go to these love hotels.  Here's a nice Christmas themed love hotel we found:

Sexy Santa!

We made our way through a market, and found ourselves in Den-Den-Town.  Everything was lit up in neon signs and the streets were full of nerds er, I mean Otaku.  Totally different from the Japanese rocker style of Ame-Mura.  So of course, our first stop was a 6 story Japanese porn shop.  It was pretty fun.  Each floor got progressively worse and weirder than the last.  And it was very funny to come around a corner and see some guys who were actually going to buy something be super surprised to see girls in the store. There was porn for weird fetishes too (bondage, pooping and peeing on each other, old people...). But once you've seen a million boobies, you've seen them all.  So we left, don't worry though, I'll be back to get my Halloween costume (Just kidding mom and dad!).

And then we went into a 5 story arcade.  It was really cool.  There were floors with typical arcade games, and then there were online games where you battled other people there.  There was a Gundam gaming pod (Gundam is a manga and anime series where people fight in these giant robot suits).  Here is the pod:

And people are inside of it controlling a robot, as the characters would in the Gundam series.  There were probably 14 pods there and it was split up into a red team and a blue team.  People not in the pods could watch how the battle was going on a television screen.  Luke tried his hand at it, but he got his ass handed to him by the Japanese gamers.


Now it was time to find a Maid Cafe.  There were maids standing on all the corners, trying to get customers to come to their cafe (actually describing it like that made me think of another profession...?).  So we went up to a maid dressed in pink with devils horns and a devils tail (foreshadowing!)  and asked her where her cafe was.  She showed us the way, and there was herself and a few others standing outside.  We were looking for a cheap one (apparently they're pretty pricey), so we asked to see their menu.  They didn't really understand, so they told us there was a 500 yen cover charge and a beer cost another 500 yen.  So we asked them for their menu again, and they pointed to a sign at the front of their building that showed what they offered.  It was offering lots of massages.  We knew then it was time to leave.  We said our thanks to the devil and left.  The boys stopped to eat and then we all decided to return home, although me and Jacqui were pretty ticked since the reason we came was for a Maid Cafe and the boys gave up pretty easily.


The rest of the week was fairly uneventful.  I joined the Kansai Gaidai Running Club, and Monday and today (Tuesday), I successfully ran 1.6 km (a mile) each day.  I can usually only do this on a treadmill, so being able to do this outside is very good for me.  I'm quite impressed with myself.  Way to go body!


Today I was meeting a Japanese friend, Naomi, for lunch, and while I was waiting for her, two Japanese girls came up to me and said "Do you have time?" So I gave them the time, and they asked again "Do you have time?" and it took me a bit but I realized they were asking if I had time to hang out.  So Rina and Azu, the two girls, joined Naomi and me.  They were very nice girls, and we're planning to have lunch again next week (or maybe this Friday? I'm not sure, I'll have to figure it out).  I also went to pick up some milk and bread after my run tonight, and while I was waiting at the stop light (on Destiny, my Bike Conquistador), two Japanese boys drove by on a moped and said "So Pretty!"  It made my night.  Thank you boys! I accept compliments at all hours of the day! Anytime, anywhere!


Anyways I'm off to bed now,  I'm supposed to be going to a Danjiri festival with my friend Hi-chan this weekend, so hopefully I will be able to tell you about that!


Peace and love!

Drunk Karaoke and Kyuudo

Oh homework Sundays. They are a huge Debbie Downer, but that's why I'm on here blogging instead of doing my homework (sorry Mom and Dad!)




So this past Thursday I learned how to make udon noodles and how to cook things with tempura batter.  One of my roommates, Fran, and a Japanese student who was teaching us, Asami, were in a group to make these things.  It was a very messy and somewhat dangerous experience.  The udon was pretty much just flour and water, kneaded into a dough, and then foot stomped, so pretty much the Japanese equivalent of  stomping on grapes to make wine. Once our dough looked right (and it didn't for a very long time), we had to let it sit for an hour.  Then we got to make TEMPURA!!




For anyone who doesn't know what it is, tempura is a Japanese batter that you deep fry almost anything in.  And it is very oishii (yummy!)!! So we were putting shrimp, fish, some kind of glorp, a kind of sweet potato and eggplant in the tempura batter.  Once its fully covered in the batter, we placed it in a frying pan that had about an inch of oil in it.  It's fairly simple and quick.  You just watch the food, flip it, and eat it!  But the oil is constantly fizzling at you, so I have some grease war scars on my legs from where it hit me :(




After we finished cooking the tempura we had to finish our udon.  We took out the dough, flattened it so it was super thin, folded it twice, and then cut it into very thin slices.  Afterwards we unfolded the cut pieces and boiled them in water until they were thoroughly cooked.  For being only flour and water, they were very delicious! The three of us got to sit down afterwards and eat all the food that we made.  Here's a picture of me, Fran and Asami with all of our tempura food:

I'm definitely going to be signing up for more Japanese cooking classes.  It's going to make life a lot easier because they really don't have a lot of North American food in the grocery stores, or if they do, I haven't figured out how to read it on the packaging!




On Friday night, me and some friends hopped on our bikes to go out for my first night of Karaoke jams in downtown Hirakata.  For about $15 bucks we got to stay for 3 hours and have free drinks (non alcoholic).  But it was totally okay to just step outside to the convenience store and grab some beer, coolers or some mickeys of hard liquor to bring back in.  Not that the alcohol was totally necessary, but it does get everybody a lot more into the singing.  I tried my hand a couple of times at some Japanese songs, but I had no clue what the rhythm was and reading a foreign alphabet is pretty hard.  But I did choose some pretty goods songs that got everybody into it: a couple of Queen songs, Rollin' by Limp Bizkit, Shania Twain, All The Small Things by Blink 182, and Pretty Fly for a White Guy by The Offspring.  Limp Bizkit was a lot of fun, probably because of all the swearing, and I really took it away with the rapping parts.  It felt like I OWNED that song!!!




You weren't subject to stay to your own room either.  We had some friends in other Karaoke rooms that we could freely move too and join them for a bit.  I'm super excited and ready to go out and do some more Karaoke!  This is our Karaoke room:

So we had the room until 1 o'clock in the morning, and then we decided that we weren't ready to go home yet.  So we found a 24 hour MacDonald's for a MacAttack.  I'm still so flabbergasted at how much bigger the burgers are here than at home.  We were trying to find a place to continue drinking, but Hirakata is a city that goes to bed early.  There isn't much in the way of clubs or bars there.  I'm pretty sure the group that I was with was the only thing out and making noise.  So at 2:30 we got some ice cream and water from a convenience store and decided to start making our way home.




We had parked out bikes illegally, so I was really worried we would have tickets or  have them towed (seriously, Japan will tow your bikes and have them impounded).  But luckily there were still there, ticketless. Probably because nobody wants to mess with our bad ass biker gang.   But there was a group of guys that kept driving by us on their mopeds.  They were probably looking for a race, but I wasn't going to humiliate them buy making them eat my dust, so we just passed that up.




There is this HUGE hill to go up when coming back from downtown Hirakata to rez.  But I biked up it.  Drunk.  I was super proud.  But I thought there were cops on the hill and that they were going to charge me with a DUI (I wasn't steering very straight), but they were just construction workers directing traffic.  Whew! I made it home by 3:15 and went straight to bed.




The next day, my friend Robert and I were going to try out Kyuudo: Japanese archery.  One of the girls who helped with tempura, Maiyu, has been practicing Kyuudo for awhile, so she said she would take us for a lesson.  I've been doing archery since I was 3 years old, and this is totally different from any archery that I've done.  First of all, the bow is about 3 times the size of my bow at home, and weighed about as much as a pencil:

And there are very specific ways of holding and drawing back the bow.  You don't draw back by pulling with your arms, you pull with your shoulders and chest.  You hold the bow in your left hand, and the string in your right hand, at about 45 degrees above your head.  You then pull the bow part with your left shoulder, and then pull the string part with your other shoulder.  Your anchor part on a regular bow is near the corner of your mouth, but on a Japanese bow (yumi), it's about 3 inches behind your head! It's very difficult to get used to, here's the supposedly correct position, after Maiyu's sensei rearranged my body to the correct position:

And that's my friend Robert with the bow.  He's a 6'5" Dutch boy, and that bow still towers over him.  Oh, and we weren't allowed to shoot arrows yet, because we were new and were still trying to draw the bow properly.  So that's why it looks like we're shooting a a wall.




There's a lot of ritual, zen and spiritualism to Kyoudo.  Everything is done a specific way and your posture and breathing must all be in sync.  The targest don't even seem to be important.  Except for the very experienced archers, everybody wasn't trying to hit the target (or at least, it didn't seem so), the release of the arrow was some sort of spiritual release.  They were also all dressed up in Hakama (the traditional black pants, or skirt for the girls) and a white Gi (the white top they wear).  I have a video of Maiyu-sempai shooting her yumi, but for some reason it won't upload on here.  And since I'm pretty sure all of my followers are also friends on facebook, I will just post it there.  Sempai is someone who has more experience than you in a class or something.  So even though Maiyu is a year younger than me, she can be referred to as sempai because she has more experience in Kyuudo than me.  She was also teaching me, so she could have also been Maiyu-sensei.  Anyways, here's photo of her at full draw in full garb.  Oh yeah, girls have to wear breast plates too.

Maiyu was a wonderful teacher! Robert and I had a blast learning Kyuudo, and hopefully we'll be able to go back and learn some more.  Also, a big thank you to the Kyuudo club for letting us come and use their facilities for the day! Doumo Arigatou!

And here's how Robert and I finished off our big day of learning a new sport:

Oishii double cheeseburger!

Now I best be getting back to my homework.


Until next time!


xox

JITENSHA *BIKE*

Hello Again!


So yesterday I decided to invest in a bike.  I was holding back just because of waiting for the bank account to open and yadda yadda but it was time.  It was a half hour walk to school, and carrying groceries around, so it was time.  So my friend from Canada and I made a trek to a far away bike shop to buy a bike with our limited knowledge of Japanese.


Upon entering the shop, the lovely owner welcomed us in and asked what we wanted.  So we said "chuko no jitensha" and she knew what we wanted.  A used bike.  She brought us outside to 3 used bikes.  A bright shiny red one, a silver one, and a lovely cream coloured one.  I was hoping for a yellow bike, a Flying Banana, but I wasn't about to pay $150 for one of those.


So I tried out the red one, and the front was so heavy I couldn't control it.  I hopped on the silver one which was much better, and then I tried the cream bike and it was as smooth and dreamy as a Fudgeeo (FYI, those aren't in Japan).  I was sold.


A shop worker brought out another used red bike for us to test out, and while my friend tested it out, I tried to make small talk with the shop owner, when all of a sudden she turned around and grabbed me around the waist and said "Very nice body." And then she lightly took a lock of my hair in her hand and said "Very beautiful."  That was the only English she spoke.  So I bowed, fairly deeply, and said thank you very much.


We paid for our bikes and filled out the paper work for it.  She laughed at my writing because it's so heinous to look at (In English and Japanese, it's horrid).  All in all my bike cost 6500 yen (approx $80).


This bike is amazing.  I was looking for a bike exactly like it back in Canada but it was nowhere to be found.  It came with a large basket on the front, a place to put another basket on the back if I choose to buy one, a light for travelling at night, a bell to warn others, an intense kickstand and a way intense bike lock.  And it's cream coloured, so I'm still waiting to name her but any suggestions would be appreciated! I'm thinking maybe the Flying Banana Cream Pie.


It has no gears, and only one speed: Mach 3.


This bike was the greatest investment.  If I could afford to send it home to Canada in 9 months I would.  It's so great.  I can fit so many groceries in it, and I can get to anywhere important in under 10 minutes.  It's my first epic win in Japan.


And to report on today, I found my first Japanese crush.  He doesn't know my name, and I don't know his.  But he's a baseball player, and I have a thing for uniforms.  I was riding on my bike to school, so I was looking pretty fly, and him and some other baseball players were doing a warm up in the opposite direction as me.  And he was the tallest (and hottest) one of the group and I couldn't stop staring and he was staring at me so I smiled and he smiled and waved.


DESTINY!!!


I just have to see him again and figure out his name, and when he has spare time.  It will be an epic moment.  I may have to be a creeper for a while.


I've been checking out the rugby practice too because those guys are actually muscular.  But they got in trouble for waving and blowing kisses at me so I stopped creeping on that. :(


Ending thoughts for today:


1. Grocery shop after 8:00 pm, they make lots of fresh things cheaper.


2.  If you're living in Japan, GET A BIKE! It's the only way to live.


3.  I'm curious if blonde guys are having this much fun in Japan as I am.  My ego is going to burst through the roof.  Well I really hope it's not getting to me, but I'm digging the attention.  That doesn't happen in Canada.


4.  Don't forget! Give me suggestions to name my new bike!


That's all for now! Jaa Matta! *See you later!*

Making it to Japan

Hello Everybody!


This post is a little late coming, but I finally have a little spare time for it! I've been in Japan for 2 weeks, and so this post will be a little bit messed up, with no specific timeline, but me just recollecting on some things that have happened to me.  I hope you enjoy it!


I've never flew internationally alone before, so the scariest part of the whole trip was the flight.  The adventure started in Toronto, where I had to say goodbye to my parents.  It was 4 in the morning so even if we were going to cry, we were too tired. I then had I think a 6 hour flight to San Fransisco!!  I then hung out there for 2 hours, before my final flight to Osaka, Japan.  It was a long flight, I think 11 and a half hours, I spent most of it sleeping and watching movies.  But finally, after so much preparation and time put into this, I was in Japan!


The first thing I noticed was the heat.  It hit me like a concrete wall! With my comfy clothes and carry-on luggage, I thought I was going to die instantaneously after arriving.  Somehow, I survived the... check-in? procedure ( I don't know anything about airports), but it was very easy, there were people everywhere ready to point you in the right direction, but it was super easy figuring out where to go.


Two of my Japanese friends I had met at Carleton last year were there to pick me up.  And I am super thankful they did! They tested me a little bit on Japanese, and helped me find the washroom.


THE WASHROOM is so weird!  I couldn't find the flush, but there were lots of buttons that I was pressing that made different noises (i.e. waterfall noises) to help women hide their noises I guess.  I eventually found it though!


My two friends didn't know how to get to the seminar house, but luckily we found a Kansai Gaidai bus that was driving students to the seminar houses.  So we hopped on one of those and drove an hour and a half to my seminar house!  I was so excited to finally be in my new home (for the next 9 months!)!


My apartment/suite is set up like this: 1 giant kitchen with 2 sinks, 2 stoves, 2 fridges, a thousand cupboards; 1 washroom with 3 showers, 2 toilets, and 4 sinks; 1 large living with a giant double-corner couch and a tv, and 4 bedrooms.  Each bedroom houses 2 students.  But for the first week, it housed 3 students (the kids doing homestay had to wait a week to move in with their families, so they bunked with us).  My Japanese roommate hadn't shown up yet, but my homestay roommate was from America.  She was awesome, and I miss having her around all the time.  But next semester we're planning on living together again in Seminar House 3!


My other permanent roommates consist of 3 Americans, 1 Canadian, 1 Chilean, and 1 Norwegian.  It's great! Having a motley of people coming together.  It's especially good for cooking, finding out different recipes and food that they love from around the world.  I'm only useful for cooking eggs, so I have to figure out something to cook for them that is Truly Canadian.  We also have a vegan living with us, teaching us different ways we can cook without meat as a protein.  This is awesome because it's hard to find a good meal on meat/find meat that doesn't still have a head on it.


We also don't walk around with shoes on in the seminar house.  It makes things very clean, but difficult when trying to plan an outfit.


The first week here was mostly just about finding out how to live.  And it is expensive! Food costs a lot more than it does back in Canada.  Sometimes it may be the same price, but the quantity you get is a lot less.  Fruit and veggies are super expensive, and I'm worried I might die of scurvy here lest I invest in some multivitamins.


The weather is also still crazy hot! It goes to over 40 degrees Celsius with humidity.  It kind of makes going outside a dreadful experience.  You need to go out and accomplish things during the day, but you don't want to sweat your balls off doing it.


We also found out that it's rude to eat and drink in public.  Not just alcohol, I mean drinking juices, waters, anything.  Nobody does it, for some reason, I don't know when they find time to drink, it's so hot you have to stay hydrated all the time.  I'm not paying attention to this rule.  I need to chug water all day just to survive, and since I can't hide my massive water bottle in class, I should might as well drink it when I can (when I'm walking).


HURRAH! I got a Japanese cell phone! It's got a wicked camera on it, and a bunch of tools for converting things and translating, but it's super hard to text on.  I'm used to a Blackberry keyboard, and this is a regular phone keypad, but nobody can find out how to switch it's settings to T9 (or Dictionary, as some people call it).  So, it's been very frustrating texting people.  Oh yeah! And it's not actually texting, you get a phone e-mail and you're actually e-mailing people when you're "texting" them.  But if you say I'll send you a text, the Japanese are like O_o?


Yes so, the first week went by fairly quickly.  There was no school, just lots of orientations about life in Japan and a Japanese placement test (I placed in level 2).  We also had an 11 o'clock curfew for the first week so we couldn't really go out late at night.


Our beds are all on the floor.  Like traditional Japanese futons.  That might sound very uncomfortable, but it's the best bed I've ever slept on.  I sleep throughout the whole night, and I wake up very restful with no stiffness at all.  I hope I can take the futon home with me when I leave!


I have a speaking partner, and she's taken me out for dinner twice: once just me and her, and the second time with a few other friends.  She helps me practice speaking and learning how to read certain Kanji.  She's a very sweet girl and we've already made plans to go bowling next time!


I also have a home-visit family.  This program is where you get signed up with a family to go visit them every so often and just learn what the Japanese family is like.  I met the daughter of the family, and she told me that her father and grandfather like to go fishing, so I hope that when I visit them they will take me to the river by their house to fish! A funny thing happened when I met the home-visit daughter.  In Canada, if you want someone to come closer you hold your hand out, palm facing up, and crook your fingers.  In Japan this is considered rude because it looks like a different kind of motion (I'll let you guys figure that out on you're own), so they crook their fingers with their palm facing downwards, which looks like somebody shooing you away.  So my home-visit girl did this to me, and I started backing up, with this horrified look on my face thinking I had offended her.  She thought it was very funny, but she had to come take me by the arm to get me to go where she wanted. Oh me!


Being blonde in Japan is definitely different.  I knew it would be, but I didn't know how different.  Little kids stop and stare.  High school boys try to flirt and they say "beautiful" a lot.  And the girls my age are always coming up to me and just touching my hair, saying how different and golden it looks. I knew there would be more attention put on me, but it's very much so like standing a lone in the spotlight.  Sometimes it feels good (like when the boys say it's beautifiul (^\/^) ), but when the little kids just stop and stare at you, it's a little disconcerting :S.


I started class this past week.  I can already tell that the English classes won't be so tough, but the Japanese classes, they will need a lot more work and effort put into them.  Textbooks are also dirt-cheap here.  Back at home it would cost about $150, but here, 2 textbooks are $45 max.  It feels very good on my wallet.


Another thing about life in Japan is that they're very strict about rules.  They're there for a reason, and they WILL be inforced.  Bicycles have to be registered, and if you don't have proper ID on you when a policeman asks for it, you can get fined and I think 3 months in jail.  You can also get charged with a DUI on a bike too. There are lots of other little nitpicky rules but at the moment of typing this I can't seem to recall them.


Yesterday we had the Friends Festival.  Everybody was split up into teams, mixed of both international and Japanese students, and then we competed all day, playing Japanese versions of Flag Football, What Time is it Mr. Wolf, and obstacle course, and a quiz game.  My team was the Green Team, and we got second place 8D.  And I did meet lots of friends at the festival, and we all went out for Chinese food after.  We practiced some Japanese, we exchanged lots of phone numbers and I taught some girls how to pound it lol.


The gyms here are kind of ancient.  The ones in my area anyways.  I've checked out 2, and the cardio machines have a switch to turn them on and no places to put your water.  Not to mention all the settings are in Japanese.  The weights are in kg, and I'm used to pounds so you kind of have to practice you're math at the gym.  Also, a lot of their machines are not in weight, but in pneumatic pressure, without actually saying what the pressure is in weight.  They're not very good.  They only go up to a level 6 and it's not very high at all.  So I'll be learning lots about free-weights this year.


Here are some tips and advice I've sort of picked up in the first 2 weeks:


1.  Japanese goodbyes are really awkward.  They don't want to offend you by leaving, or saying they have to leave, so you kind of have to initiate it.  But that makes you feel awkward because now you feel like you're being rude.  I still have yet to find a way to get around this.


2. If your in Japan, or if you can find these kinds of places elsewhere, try Yakuniku, Okonomiyaki, and Kappazushi.  The first 2 are where you grill your own food on your table, and the second is a conveyor belt that goes around carrying plates of sushi that you take off and eat.  Very cheap.  Very delicious!


3.  McDonald's burgers are  bigger here than in Canada.  Not a lot bigger, but enough to see a difference.


4.  Get lost.  It's amazing the things you'll see and the places and shops you'll find.


5.  Japan is an expensive city, but it doesn't take much searching to find some super cheap things.


6.  Get used to bowing.  A lot.  Also, you can't 'outpolite' the Japanese.  They will beat you every time.


That's all for my first post.  I'm sorry it was somewhat of a jumbled mess, but hopefully the next one will have more rhyme or reason to it!  Now I'm off to study for another Japanese placement test.