Nagasaki Day 1, Kyushu Day 4

Once again apologies for the lack of updates. I have had the busiest two weeks of my entire stay in Japan so far at work and they have just ended. Also this post was a little bit of a mini-epic as you can see. I hope you all enjoy it anyway.

Nagasaki Day 1

The first part of our wonderful stay in Nagasaki involved getting there. Sadly Kyushu is not mainland Japan. There are no lovely super rapids that bisect the island and let you cross from one side to the other in a hour. Instead your options are ride all the way around the edge of the island or take a bus through the middle.

Being both cheaper and quicker bus it was. And it was a really, really nice bus too. Big comfortable seats and a TV screen at the front. Of course the telly was in Japanese but it was playing the weirdly fascinating “20th Century Boys” which one of these days I’m going to have to read/watch.



A slightly odd start to the trip though was this statue of some kind of zombie nurse that I snapped just as we passed by it. Apparently it was advertising some kind of bandage/trauma clinic thing. There is no way in hell you’d be able to get away with displaying that on the street in England; and with good reason. I was freaked out by it and I am hardly squeamish.

Just before lunchtime we pulled into Nagasaki and I got my first impression of the place.

It is hot and it is bloody hilly.

I mean that applies to everywhere in Japan but to Kyushu even moreso. The city seems to consist of a harbour, the area around the main station and then nothing but hills, hills and more hills. And steep ones at that.

Gamely trenching up the first of many hills we emerged, sweating, tired, hot and hungry at our hotel. A traditional Japanese ryokan run by a lovely and enthusiastic little man who spoke not one single word of English. Not even hello.

Divesting ourselves of bags we set off in search of food and stumbled upon this place.



Yes, that is a suit of armour and no; that isn’t even remotely the weirdest thing associated with this café. On the outside it was decorated with suits of armour, masks, fake fruit, statues and Buddhas. On the inside it was festooned with dozens of statues and antique plates, cups, pots and kettles. It was a real Aladdin’s cave, a mix of dozens of different things with no attempt whatsoever to match styles or features. It was in short awesome.



The people running it were even better. The main guy in charge was really friendly and talked to us about all the antiques he’d gathered. How he likes to go out to antique fairs to collect them, etc. He was showing off some bargains, some especially old things he’d grabbed and one or two particularly pricy pieces. A bit all over my head I’m afraid but it was nice to just listen to a man talk about something he was passionate about.

He was also passionate about tea! Something which will serve a man in good standing in my book. Most places here serve basic “kocha” but he had an honest to god tea menu, with different blends, leaves and countries represented. I just plumped for a standard British blend but it was really nice. Easily the best cup of tea I’ve had in Japan that I didn’t make myself.

The rest of his family were all in the café too. At the counter his son or possibly grandson was sat doing his school homework. His wife was doing the cooking and chatting occasionally and she was a marvellous cook (if a touch slow for the café crowd). I had a spicy pork and rice stir-fry that was basic but good. Chinese food is rightly famous in Nagasaki because it absolutely delicious. Not greasy, not slimy, not covered in MSG just tasty and wondrous.

All in all it was the perfect first impression of people in Nagasaki and it was yet another reminder that people in Kyushu are unbelievably friendly.

Full up of spicy ginger stir fry we made our way up the mountain to check out some of the many temples in Nagasaki.

First up was Kanzen-ji, which had a big tree.



Not to disparage the tree, which is pretty damn big, and right smack dab in an urban area to boot. But well, trees can only hold my interest for so long so off we toddled to Shofuku-ji.



Shofuku-ji was really quite lovely, although our enjoyment of it was hampered a bit by rain which suddenly sprang from nowhere and forced us to shelter under the arches of the temple.

Shofuku-ji, like many temples in Nagasaki, displays a mixture of Chinese and Japanese architectural styles. I’m no expert on architecture and I would be hard pressed to explain to you what this means in practise but I have seen enough temples on the main land to know that something about Shofuku-ji was very different to a regular temple. Small touches such as a geometric wooden pattern on the gates or a slightly different style of arched roof might not seem like much but they gave the temple a feeling of novelty that made going to look at temples interesting again.

Yes, after three years in Japan it is possible to become bored of looking at temples. Heck, it took my brother about two days when he visited.



It doesn’t hurt that Shofuku-ji is extremely handsome, with beautifully laid out gardens and wonderful views of the city below. It also had some beautifully detailed gargoyles, including a wall covered in nothing but ogre and gargoyle designs (the onigawara).



However my main memory of Shofuku-ji is of the very nice gentleman who decided to explain the history of the temple to us. I have mentioned in earlier posts that we visited Kyushu during Obon. Traditionally during this time Japanese families go and visit their parents and grandparents and then visit temples and shrines. Obviously this elderly gentleman was out visiting temples with his family. Equally obviously he was bored to tears with them because he decided to abandon them and instead talk to two foreigners. Whilst he explained in Japanese I had no hope at all of understanding about the history of the temple his family watched us suspiciously from some distance. At some point a small child was entrusted to come over and summon Grandad away to stop bothering the poor people. But he was having none of it and continued to regale us with stories and ask questions about England.



Eventually we convinced him to rejoin his family and with a somewhat sad expression he trundled off and we made our way elsewhere. People, especially old people, in Kyushu are awesome.



Next up on our tour was Fukusai-ji Kannon. A temple built, I kid you not, in the shape of a giant turtle with a Buddha standing on its back.



No, seriously, giant turtle. Here are some pictures.

I know I talk about Gamera a lot on this blog* but come on. That thing looks like its about to rear up and fight Godzilla. Maybe the next time America tries to bomb Nagasaki it will.

*Gamera is a giant turtle with tusks that can fly and breathe fire. He is also “a friend to children” which is perfectly logical.

Awesome turtle aside, we were a bit disappointed to find out that the temple was shut. We had a shufty around the outside of it all but we couldn’t find a door that wasn’t locked. Oh well we thought, at least we got to see the giant turtle.
Just as we were leaving, however, an incredibly old, but surprisingly spry woman started sprinting towards us. Turns out she was the caretaker and she was happy to show us around.



So we ended up with our own personal tour of the temple. Since we were the only people there we were treated to some extra special benefits, such as;



Getting to bang the drum used for services.



Posing with the big bell outside that is used to call in the faithful.

Whilst the turtle was fantastic the inside of the temple was full of some really cool touches as well. Our guide took us through many of them demonstrating such things as secret cabinets built into the walls and altars where Chinese residents used to hide things during the war.



Best of all was a massive Foucault’s pendulum underneath the temple. The string reaches right up into the Buddha’s head and is connected to a ball pendulum which measures the rate of rotation of the earth. It is one of the biggest such pendulums in the whole world, only beaten by three others. However I think it may need resetting a little bit as the intervals between the rods falling down were not regular.

Fukusai-ji was followed up by the Ouranda (Holland) Cathedral and the 26 Martyrs Memorial.



Nagasaki is a somewhat unique city in Japan due to the wide mix of different cultures that coexist here. Primarily it is the most Chinese influenced city in Japan but there is also a strong influence of Portuguese and Dutch culture. This is because for a long time Nagasaki was the only port in the country that was open for westerners, principally those from Portugal and the Netherlands, to trade in. The Dutch settled here on the “Dutch slopes” and in a small city within a city which initially represented the only place they were legally free to move around in. With their settlement they brought sunflowers and tulips, coffee, different kinds of cake, tobacco and a whole range of goods.

They also imported Christianity (although actually the first missionaries had arrived sometime earlier), and that’s where the problems began. Buddhism and particularly the Shinto variant practised in Japan places an emphasis on venerating authority figures and paying respect to them. Every man, woman and child in the land was legally obliged to attend Buddhist ceremonies. Through the temples and the shrines the Shogunate extended quite a lot of their power. Anything that was a threat to this order would have to be controlled and Christianity presented a definite threat.

So it was then that Christianity became illegal in Japan. This ban didn’t apply to the foreigners who lived and traded in Nagasaki but it did apply to the Japanese residents of the city. However due to their contact with the Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish many Japanese residents began to convert to Christianity.

So it was that on February 5th 1597 Toyotomi Hideoyshi executed 26 Christian priests, 2 of them children, 20 of them Japanese, 4 Spanish, 1 Mexican and 1 Indian by crucifixion.

The memorial that stands here commemorates the site at which they were crucified.

Whilst an interesting history lesson the whole area made me sick to my stomach with anger at what madness and barbarism man does to his fellow man all because of religion.

Ugh.



It was a nicely done memorial though. And the church with its crazy mosaics and abstract angels was a striking and impressive sight.



Our final tourist attraction that evening was Glover Garden. This is a garden (surprisingly) and a series of old houses in a western style dating back to the Victorian era/ Meiji-restoration. It’s situated up a hill (also surprisingly) overlooking the harbour below.



Being westerners and westerners that have seen plenty of Victorian architecture at that we weren’t too interested in visiting Glover Gardens. What attracted us there was an advertisement for a Beer Garden. Beer Gardens in Japan aren’t the back bit of a pub but rather a short lived attraction in the summer offering all you can drink booze and all you can eat buffet food in an open air environment. Stuffing ourselves in a Victorian garden with fantastic views of the harbour definitely appealed to Fran and I. Sadly the beer garden was cancelled for the day due to rain, although whilst we were there it was a balmy summer night and never rained once.



I am glad we went there though because the buildings served as an excellent and very informative museum about Glover Garden and the area around it. Basically this was the area where all the expats used to live back in the Meiji-era when expat meant Victorian industrialist. What I had no idea about was how influential and important these British industrialists were to the development of Japan. Thomas Glover, whom the area is named for brought the first steam locomotive to Japan and built the first steam ship. In fact the company he founded to manufacture steam ships eventually became the Mitsubishi Corporation. Even better then that Glover was the founder of the first ever brewery in Japan, a brewery that eventually underwent a name change and became Kirin Breweries; the makers of Kirin beer.



See the moustache on that horse, supposedly that is a little tribute to glover and his own quite iconic moustache.

Glover wasn’t alone in his endeavours either. The area around him was full of western style houses all the former abodes of industrialists that built ships, founded breweries, imported tea back to England (god bless those men, sniff, it makes me tear up a little) and worked tirelessly to bring Japanese culture to the west and vice versa.



The fact that they all clung together, had clubs together and built houses that tried to recapture home really spoke to me. These people had no internet, no television and no British radio. They were in a properly alien culture which they clearly loved but they missed home in ways I can only imagine. The strange compromise of half one lifestyle and half another will resonate with anyone who has ever been an expatriate. It was quite touching to realise that I had something in common with these people and quite fascinating to see what British comforts seemed to be important to them (fireplaces, beds and baths seemed to be the main ones and I can sympathise with all three).



Glover Garden also had some small curiosities such as this statue of Puccini and another statue of the famous heroine of his opera “Madam Butterfly”. Apparently the Soprano it was based on lived and worked in Nagasaki.



Oh yes and this brilliant monument marking the place where bowling was first introduced to Japan. I think that may be the best historical plaque I have yet seen. Particularly the stained glass bowling pins.



Finally one of the best things about going to Glover Garden was getting to meet these guys, Jan and Steven. Fran had spotted them talking at the entrance to the Garden in Dutch. Now Fran used to live in the Netherlands and speaks Dutch pretty much fluently. She thus likes to point out to me when she notices people speaking Dutch.

Can I just say that for a small nation, and a language that is only spoken in that one nation, Dutch speakers really get around. I have heard them (or rather had them pointed out to me) in Italy, nearly every major city in Japan and Newcastle. Dutch folks like to travel it seems.

Jan and Steven asked us a question about directions which we were happy to help them with, Fran pointed out the Dutch connection (the cheesier sequel…see what I did there) we got to chatting and we ended up hanging out for the rest of the evening.

Nice guys. They were in Japan with their company as part of a project. The project was over and they were headed on a whirlwind tour of Japanese destinations they had missed before they had to return home. It was fun introducing them to things they didn’t know and swapping ex-pat stories.



We wandered around the garden with them and then eventually into a small museum which contained replica boats. These are used in Nagasaki’s major festival. I particularly like the evil looking whale.



We also headed out to dinner with them. I had been itching to try out some Nagasaki Chinese food since it was supposed to be the best Chinese food in Japan. In particular I wanted to try some Champon, a kind of ramen made with a very salty soup and loaded up with literally every kind of topping imaginable. Fishcakes, carrots, cabbage, beansprouts, mushrooms, etc, etc.

At first we tried a Chinese restaurant that was recommended by our guidebook. No luck, it closed at 9 o’clock. So off we trudged to Chinatown.



Shut, shut, shut, shut. It seemed that every restaurant we tried was shut at 9 o’clock. What was that all about? Do people in Nagasaki not eat late? In most Japanese cities restaurants are full up until midnight with salaraymen leaving work and grabbing a quick bite. I personally have eaten at 4 in the morning in 2 major Japanese cities in quite nice cafes. Are there no salarymen in Nagasaki? What was going on?

Eventually we found a restaurant that was open and dug into 4 bowls of Champon and 3 massive beers.

The champon was good too. There were so many conflicting flavours that it was basically a flavour mess, although a predominantly salty flavour mess. But it was greasy, salty, loaded with MSG and went down nice and easy with a cold beer. Real comfort food and just what I needed.

Finally, bidding Jan and Steven “sayonara” and full up of Chinese we set off home. At which point the rain we had been promised started.



As you can see, it was quite a heavy rain.

Three things you must know about Kyushu. The old people are awesome. It is very hilly and hot. When it rains, you absolutely know that it has been raining.

Fear the RAGE of Mummyboon!

Gragh! Blogger isn't letting me upload pictures from my P.C. tonight (although the problem appears to be with my internet connection rather than blogger) and my promised massive post requires a vast amount of pictures. So, sorry guys it'll be delayed yet another week.

In place of that lets start a new feature.

Japan: The Good and the Bad (and the occasionally ugly)

The aim of this feature is for me to present two short essays, one bitching about some little irritating feature of life in Japan and the other offering ecstatic praise for something in Japan.

So lets see how this works.

The Bad Number 1: Oil Vans

Staying warm in Japan in winter can be a massive challenge. Homes in Japan have almost no insulation, there is no central heating at all and there are no carpets on the floors. This is not so bad in summer when all anyone wants to do is escape Japan's tongue-drying heat for just one second, please is that so much to ask!!

Sorry, got a bit carried away there.

But anyway it gets cold in Japan. Not hugely cold but the winter temperatures are certainly comparable to winter in Britain. The lowest extremes in Britain are much lower than in the part of Japan I live in but nonetheless it is cold. In fact it feels even colder because going indoors offers no relief from the cold.

So most people have some kind of free-standing radiator, such as a space heater or an arger. I myself use the heating function on my air conditioner and it is wonderful thank you. Many of these heaters use gas or oil and so of course they need to buy gas or oil.

Enter the oil van.

The oil van sells all kinds of fuel for heaters and drives around residential districts to sell fuel and collect empty canisters.

So far so enterprising and useful.

And of course in the fine tradition of all Japanese mobile businesses the driver sings.

Theoretically.

It is wonderful and charming to be walking down the street at night and hear a man cycling past pushing an oven full of hot potatoes and singing a song about how great his potatoes are. It is like being transported into a bygone age, and it makes you really want a potato.

Such a technique is sued by pretty much every Japanese businessman that has some kind of motorised stall, including the oil van.

But the oil van doesn't sing. Instead it has enormous speakers mounted on it which blare out the song at roughly the same volume as your average death metal concert. I swear I have been to gigs with quieter speakers than this sodding van. Big gigs too, not ones in pubs, full blown concerts that makes less noise.

I have to turn my television up to almost its full volume to drown out the noise.

It wouldn't be so bad if the van just used it to announce it's presence and then got on with it. No, instead the speakers blare every time the van moves so I can be expected to be treated to a cheerful blast at any point for 2 to 3 hours.

Do you know that there are no laws limiting noise pollution in Japan?

What is the oil van man accomplishing with this sonic terrorism? He certainly isn't attracting any new customers as I and everyone I know have sworn to boycott him. Maybe he is using the speakers in an attempt to oust all the rude gaijin that have moved into Gakuentoshi.

Regardless the oil van man is something BAD about living in Japan.

The Good Number 1: Safety and Honesty

Everyone knows that Japan is a very safe country. Violent crime levels are astonishingly low here. I know of people that have left the country for a holiday and left their front door open whilst they did so with no ill effect. Murder is very uncommon so that single murders still make the news in a way that they simply do not in America or Britain. Drug use is very low and so the associated dealing and gang culture is non-existent. Basically bar a few genuine nutters there just isn't much crime.

However more important and more surprising than that is the honesty of the Japanese people. British people, on the whole, are not lawbreakers. Very few of the people I know would give serious consideration to breaking and entering, ram raiding or a spot of mugging. Yet, under certain circumstances nearly everyone I know has committed theft. Few would steal a video, but what about download it? What about nicking a pint glass from a pub, trying to use an expired coupon or dodging the fare on a train for a short journey? We've all done some kind of small crime like this.

Japanese people don't though. It wouldn't occur to them to. Rules are sacrosanct here. In fact in many aspects of life the Japanese positively adore having some extra rules. The more rules there are the less decisions have to be made and the more likely everyone is to act the same and reach a consensus.

In western nations the highest ideal is individual freedom and expression. Rules impose a barrier on this, a restriction on freedom. It is in our nature to enjoy breaking rules. Some of our most revered artists are appreciated because they broke rules (think of any popular punk band for example) and we've all broken the rules once or twice and enjoyed it.

In Japan the ideal is harmony. Everyone getting along fine and the whole functioning well. This is why there are so many rules, both official and unofficial. Whilst we have punk Japan has art forms with thousands of rules (such as the tea ceremony) and the finest exponents of it are those which can adhere must strictly and perfectly to the idealised method (or way) laid down in the rules.

So there is very little violent crime, there is an appreciation of rules and restrictions and there is also a tremendous generous impulse towards others.

Take the example of a wallet left on a train. Lose your wallet on a train in Britain and you will likely never get it back. Many people wouldn't bother making the effort because they assume it to be futile. Either it has been nicked or nobody bothered to give it into lost property and it can now no longer be located.

But just last week a friend of mine lost his wallet and found it the same day. It had been turned in at a police box near the station he obviously dropped it in.

To give a quick comparison here are some things I have lost in Britain and never seen again.

A bag containing a collection of CDs I was using for DJ work.

A camera (pre-digital).

A model tank used for the wargame "warhammer" with a retail value of about £20.

In contrast stuff I have lost in Japan only to have it be returned to me the very same day.

A travellers backpack I was using to go on holiday containing probably about
£400 worth of stuff.

A replica air-soft assault rifle worth about £60.

I can say that living amongst such trusting and thoughtful people is definitely a GOOD thing.

6 Things That are Great About Japan

I'm feeling fairly positive today despite having a bloody terrible week. So let's examine some of the wonderful things about my country.

1. The Wildlife

This is one of those things I love about Japan that came as a complete surprise to me. You probably know that the southern coast of Japan is basically one huge metropolis. From Tokyo down to Hiroshima it’s all city, with no real gaps in between.

However while Japan is famous for it’s metropolises it’s easy to lose sight of why it is so densely urbanised. There is very little space where people can live and build and nearly all of it has already been re-claimed. This leaves an awful lot of space that is simply left over to nature. It’s easy to forget this when you’re surrounded on all sides by grey concrete stretching up to block the sun but it takes about an hour’s walk for me to get from my flat in a built up town and major transport link to a forest up a mountain.

Because of this there is a lot of large native wildlife in Japan. Far more than what I am used to in Britain. I have seen more large birds of prey in the year I have lived here than I have ever seen in my entire life before. I sit by a pond filled with turtles, everyday when I wait for the bus (which is also where I twice saw a snake), there are far more butterflies here than Britain, there are fearless little sparrows that bother you whenever you sit down and there are entrancing dragonflies and deeply irritating cicadas.

In fact let’s not get started on the bugs because if I do this quickly won’t be a “things I like about Japan” entry. Suffice it to say the butterflies and dragonflies are lovely and leave it there.



And these aren’t just limited to the forests but are a day to day part of life. However what does live in the forest are some truly amazing animals, wild boars, poisonous snakes, tanuki (sort of raccoon dogs) and bears. Bears! I never knew Japan had bears.



Mario here, dressed as a tanuki.

Living in Britain it is easy to forget about the natural world as bar trees and pigeons it hardly ever intrudes upon the everyday of life. British people may decry me for this because Britain ahs some of the greenest cities of any developed country. However the point is not so much the flowers and the grass but the animals. There aren’t really any animals jostling for space with people in Britain, bar birds, domesticated animals and bugs. Here exotic and interesting animals are something I see everyday and they're one of the things I will miss most when I leave Japan.

2. Unicycles



Yes, unicycles. Yes, the bikes with only one wheel.

For whatever reason (and frankly I couldn’t even begin to guess why) unicycles are massively more popular in Japan than they are in pretty much every other country in the world.

Primary school kids in Japan are taught how to ride unicycles. In fact I think some schools have unicycles that the students can practice on. I know that when I visited a primary school once to teach an English lesson I spotted a rack of about 40 identical unicycles in one of the halls. That’s more unicycles than I’ve ever seen in one place before. That is more unicycles than really should ever be in one place. It looks deeply, deeply wrong, like stepping into a parallel universe that never invented the bike.

And they actually ride them for transport too. We’ve all seen circus performers prat about on the really tall ones, leaning backwards and making the wheel slide forwards and then doing the opposite. Japanese kids don’t do that. Instead they zoom past me like a tiny cheetah on their way to the combini (convenience store). It’s a truly mystifying sight; scores of children zipping about like mosquitoes, eating ice cream with their free hands and suddenly at adult height, despite being 5.

And the main thought it prompts is, why? Why unicycles? They ride bikes too, bikes are sensible, they get you places faster and you don’t fall off. Is space at such a premium in Japan that they can’t store a second wheel?

3. Okonimyaki



I’ve mentioned my deep and abiding love for ramen a coupler of times on this site and I stand by my position. Ramen is some kind of magic food that, despite being nobody’s absolute favourite meal, everyone in the world could happily eat every single day. Anyone who claims otherwise is just being contrary for the sake of it. What I haven’t mentioned much is another Japanese concoction that gives me a deep and satisfying pleasure, okonomiyaki.

The name comes from “okonomi2 meaning “what you want” and “yaki” a ubiquitous Japanese word that is typically translated to mean fry.

It doesn’t really, it just means cooked. Take takoyaki for example, the name implies that you’d be eating some kind of fried octopus. what it actually is, is a dumpling with a piece of octopus inside.

Anyway, okonomiyaki means “what you like fried” and as the name implies it’s a sort of bring everything you have left over and cook it up kind of meal. It’s sort of like a cross between a pizza and an omelette. The chef prepares a sort of omelette batter with flour and shredded cabbage. He frys this and then adds whatever toppings you asked for, usually in my case cheese, bacon and mochi (rice cake) because I am trying to toughen up my arteries with endurance training.

There are a million ways to cook and serve it and many famous variations (such as Hiroshima-yaki which features thin soba noodles and is prepared in layers) but the way most common in Kansai, where I live, is for the chef to mix up and prepare the batter, cook it, add the toppings and then bring it out to a hot plate where you are seated. The okonimyaki continues to cook on the hotplate whilst you add okonomiyaki sauce, mayonnaise, seaweed, katsuobushi (tuna flakes), chilli powder and any other toppings that come to mind. Then you set about slicing it up, transfer a piece to a plate, eat it and then repeat.

As I understand it in most areas outside of Kansai you have to mix up and cook your own batter in the restaurant. Sod that, if I’m going to pay for the privilege of cooking my own dinner it better by all you can eat and it better be principally meat.

Okonomiyaki originates from the tail end of World War 2 (or the Pacific War as it is known here) when the rice harvest, already depleted because of all the young drafted men, was largely used for military purposes and much food was rationed. Deprived of their main staple food Japanese people in Osaka and the surrounding area started making pancakes with what they did have (eggs, cabbage and flour) and then covering it in anything that had a bit more flavour than cabbage and eggs. In fact enterprising women who had lost family in the war used to sell the basic pancake at the roadside cheap for labourers to buy for lunch.

The last time I went to eat okonomiyaki something rather odd happened to me. My girlfriend and I were enjoying a heart cloggingly thick and delicious okonomiyaki in our local restaurant. The only other people in there was a man in his 30’s or 40’s and this man’s daughter. They finished up their dinner and the daughter left and this man came up over and awkwardly tried to start a conversation with Fran and I. So far so normal, one of the negatives of being a foreigner in Japan is that occasionally very weird people will come up and try to talk to you. We politely answered his questions as to where we were from and then let the conversation drop so we could get back to our dinner.

When it came time to pay the waiter tried to charge us for the man and his daughter’s meal.

……

I was immediately very, very annoyed.

According to the waiter the man had said that we had agreed to pay for his dinner tonight since he didn’t have any cash on him. He would then come back and pay for the dinner the next day and then we could get our money back from the restaurant.

No, we said, we agreed to do no such thing.

Oh really, it’s just that Japanese people do this kind of thing all the time and we would eventually get our money back and…..

No.

Please.

If you carry on like this then we’re going to walk out of here without paying for either meal.

Eventually, after much cajoling from Fran and much angry glowering from me the waiter relented. I do feel kind of sorry for the waiter. He is obviously a really trusting and nice guy to believe the man and I do hope the man came back the next and paid for dinner. I highly doubt it though, and the waiter probably had the cost of two people’s dinner coming out of his paycheck. However sorry as I felt for him what an idiot. At the very least when he got this story from the man he could have asked us if that was okay. We’d have said no and then he’d have been able to get the money from the odd man.

4. Fruit



The fruit in Japan is incredible.

I don’t know how much the difference would apply to a South African, an American or an Aussie but in comparison with British fruit Japanese fruit is the nectar of the gods. It’s so much juicier, tastier, fresher and more refreshing.

I got my first taste of how bloody amazing Japanese fruit is on my first morning in Japan. The JET programme had arranged for new arrivals to stay in a very up market hotel in Tokyo. The breakfast the next morning was an entirely free buffet. I grabbed myself a cooked breakfast and, spying some pineapple, I added that to a plate as a dessert. Pineapple is my favourite fruit in the entire world. Much like ramen I am incapable of turning down the offer of pineapple. This also extends to pineapple flavoured things like sweets and drinks. I love it unconditionally* and so I was pleased to get some for free.

Words cannot describe the taste epiphany that occurred to me that day. It was a road to Damascus moment, well, road to Del Monte anyway, for I never realized fruit could taste so good.

For the next couple of days I gorged myself on the pineapple and melon marveling that I could live 21 years and never eat a melon this nice. However there was a melancholy edge to my gluttony, for I had sadly assumed that the fruit was this good because the hotel was very expensive and must order pineapple of a particularly high quality.

Happily I was wrong, fruit here is uniformly better than back home.



This is because, generally, it isn’t transported when it is waiting to ripen, and if it is it travels a much shorter distance than fruit to Britain. There are fruits here that are roughly the same or inferior to the equivalent in Britain, strawberries, oranges, lemons and limes; but they are completely unimportant to me compared to how good the melons, grapefruits and pineapples are.




*this is entirely untrue because there are two conditions of my love for pineapples. Firstly I have to be able to afford it and secondly I know that I can only eat a limited amount of it before my tongue becomes an agonising monstrosity for the rest of the day.

5. Arcades



I like computer games but I am not a computer/video games nerd/geek.

Allow me to clarify that.

I have zero issue with the label “geek” nor do I have any issues with using it as a term to describe myself. I’m just realistically stating a fact that compared to most of the people who have an interest in computer games I barely qualify as even a minor enthusiast. So when I say I like computer games I don’t really think I like then much more than your average British bloke of my age.

There is an exception to this rule though; I have a particular fondness for old games as most new computer games leave me completely flat. First person shooters do nothing for me, nor do modern adventure games (which feel more like poorly written stories than games), racing games are more simulations than games as is nearly every sports game ever produced and don’t get me started on the state of modern platformers. What I like are computer games that first and foremost are GAMES! That realise that setting out to simulate reality is a folly for an electronic medium and instead embrace their abstract nature and focus upon the experience they offer being first and foremost, fun.

It appears that the vast majority of console owners in Britain and America disagree with me. However in Japan the situation is very different. Here games are still principally about silly and abstract fun, normally with an Italian plumber in a land of mushrooms.

Moreover Japan has a similar love affair with “retro” gaming. There are shops in any of the major Japanese cities selling older consoles and vast collections of older games. It is the easiest country in the world to get a SNES and 10 or 20 games, probably for less than 20 pounds and happily entertain yourself for the next 4 or 5 years! If, like me, you are bloody terrible at computer games anyway.

And Japan never fell out of love with that most visible symbol of the older gaming culture, arcades. I can’t speak for America but I know that in Britain computer game arcades don’t really exist anymore. So called “Amusements” still proliferate at the sea side but these are mostly filled with shove ha’penny machines, slots, fruit machines and other cheap gambling diversions. Actual games, where the only goal is to have fun, are few and far between.

Not so in my adopted land. In Sannomiya alone I can think of about 10 gaming arcades most of which are quite close to each other. These still have a lot floor space given over to gambling machines (pachinko, horse racing, etc) and a vast swathe of space given over to crane machines but they make up for it by having a lot of actual honest to god games too.

Now you might be thinking to yourself, Adam, there’s a reason gaming arcades are a thing of that past. It’s because arcades were only popular because cabinets were vastly more powerful machines than home consoles so to play a good computer game you needed to go to an arcade. Nowadays consoles can equal and generally exceed the power of cabinets so why pay all that money for something you can get at home?

Well for several reasons my friends, several reasons.

Firstly, arcades just appeal to me. There is something about them that is relatively unique, the notion of a space given over to nothing more than having fun. They’re playgrounds for adults basically, a space where the only possible thing to do is enjoy yourself or leave. This is why I like the gambling style places much less. They have a sort of goal (make money) whereas arcades have no purpose other than to have fun.

Secondly, although arcade cabinets can’t compete with home consoles on a power basis anymore they can compete on the design of the cabinet and how you play the game. You can play racing games with actual steering wheels and chairs, music games with replica instruments (admittedly you can do this at home but it’ll cost you and how likely are you to buy a replica shamisen, taiko drum or drum kit?), surfing games on surfboards, rowing games on row boats, horse riding games on imitation horses! I don’t care how advanced consoles get you are never going to be pretending to ride a horse in the comfort of your home in any sort of console game.

Hell, there’s even one relatively popular game that simulates riding in the cockpit of a gundam.

Thirdly arcades are great for filling in a few minutes of time. Consoles are obviously the better place to play a long form story led RPG or to have some mates round and spend an entire evening trying to best each other at Mario kart. However arcades can fill in those 5 or 10 minutes when you’re waiting for a friend to meet you, or a film to start at the cinema, or for the beer garden to open. Just having them around makes getting through a normal course of evening’s events much more varied and interesting.

So now that I’ve rabbited on about how much I like them for long enough what are my favourite games to play?



Well I’ll start with my least favourite, the arcade version of Mario Kart. Despite Mario Kart being generally one of my favourite computer games ever (and Mario Kart Double Dash being basically how I spent University) I despise the Arcade version. This is partly because the game was farmed out to Namco from Nintendo and the level and weapon design is vastly inferior to what I’ve come to expect from this series but it is mostly because my girlfriend always beats me. Always! It is deeply annoying.


(I got this off the internet so i have no idea who this bloke is)

My favourite is easily the “taiko drumming game”. Taiko is a traditional form of Japanese drumming that I have mentioned on this sight before. Basically you have a single large drum placed on it’s side and 2 thick wooden sticks. Rythms are beat out on the drum itself and on the sides of the drum. In the game you beat out a rhythm to popular J–pop songs, anime theme tunes and computer game themes. There is little in this life more purely joyful than trying to play the theme to “Super Mario Bros” on a plastic replica of an ancient Japanese instrument.

6. Toilets



We all know about the Japanese technologically advanced toilets that clean your arse, play soothing music and even automatically lift the lid up if you’re approaching. These contraptions are ridiculous in every possible way and are rightly ridiculed. As well as being the ultimate symbol of the amount of conspicuous consumption in this country they are absolutely horrible for the environment.

There are however, three toilet innovations that I am prepared to give a pass to.

1. My own toilet, observe.



See that little sink there, when I flush the toilet the water from the pipe passes through the tap and into the sink before it drains into the bowl. This means that I use less water washing my hands because I don’t have to go to the sink to do so.

This would be a rare example of a Japanese toilet helping the environment. However it would be a very good example of the Japanese approach to design.

Design in this country is king. There is an insane amount of thought gone into how to improve every single aspect of every object you own and sue in daily life. Design is so worshipped here that people collect tiny replica miniatures of famous chair designs.

I’ll say that again. Entirely sane people collect tiny replicas of FAMOUS DESIGNER CHAIRS!

Yet, oddly, this makes not a lick of difference to the average person because Japanese people are so very keen on tradition. The cooking utensils, rooms, ways of cleaning and to a certain extent the clothes have not changed significantly in Japan for hundreds of years. Japanese people love a “right” way to do things and despite really liking good design they very rarely later anything traditionally Japanese. Case in point many places still use the squatting hole in the ground traditional Japanese toilet.

Yet, when you introduce something new to Japan, something we in the west have taken for granted for some time, they immediately take a good long hard look at it and re-design it so it is much more efficient and useful. My toilet is a good case in point. An incredibly simple innovation that saves the environment and which will never be adopted in Britain because we don’t care about good design.

2. The fluttering bird thing.

This gets a pass because it makes me giggle for a very specific reason.

It seems that Japanese women in public restrooms don’t like other people in the restroom to hear them, um, using it. Research discovered that a lot of women repeatedly flushed the toilet in order to hide the sound of them, um, yeah. This was obviously a very wasteful and inconvenient thing to do so some bright spark invented this.

It’s a little box that when an arm is waved in front of it makes a noise like bird song. Effectively hiding the sound of the, um.

The very specific reason that this makes me giggle is that I have a female friend (who shall remain nameless) who once explained to me that even in a cubicle she can’t pee if anyone else is in the toilet because she is so mortified that they might hear her. I found out about these boxes on Japan Probe and immediately cracked up thinking about what my friend’s reaction to these would be.

3. The toilet at my school.



It has a heated seat.

A heated seat.

For my arse, in winter, when it is cold. A heated seat.

I know this is terribly wasteful but it isn’t my toilet and it’s not like I’m going to convince Kocho sensei to install a new one. Besides do you have any idea how nice a heated toilet seat is? That my friends is true luxury.



BTW whilst I was looking for pictures of Pacman I found this.




How awesome is that?!

SPECIAL BONUS POST! Thinks I miss about Britain. No1 in a series.

1. Cheese – I can get it but I can only afford it if I start working for the
pineapples. Well I can buy horribly rubbery cheese. And sometimes the urge
to eat mouldy milk i so great that I will even eat his. But man I miss
cheese.

2. Sausages – they only have hot dogs here. Oh, and Homo Sausage.

3. British Telly – I have being saying for years that I don’t really watch
telly and much prefer the radio. This is true. But now I’m missing Dragon’s
Den and that’s a whole different situation.

4. Brown Sauce - my bacon sandwiches are sad without it.

5. Gravy – I cannot begin to describe how much I miss gravy. I did a drawing
but it was so beautiful it broke the scanner. It is a deep sadness that
transcends art.

6. Things you can dry your hands with in toilets – i.e. hand dryers, towels
or paper towels. Some Japanese toilets have them, most do not. So you have
to sort of shake your hands and then try and dry your hands on your
trousers. Or else use your face towel. But then you feel sort of dirty the
next time you use your face towel to dry your face. Its a real social
dilemnia, I tell you.

7. Squash – you have to buy it pre-mixed here and it tastes like the drinks you
used to buy at school discos. The sort of plastic cup ones with the lid/seal
you pierced with the straw. Anyone know what I mean? Actually they weren't
bad were they?

8. Lamb – apart from Hokkaido there aren’t any sheep in Japan. They have bears
though, and monkeys. Both of which are much more exciting but much less
delicious (I assume.) Although this isn’t a biggie because I missed that at
University too.

9. Bitter – Japanese beer is actually quite nice. It’s lager, but lager that
someone actually gave a flavour to. I’d still murder someone for a Black
Sheep though.

10. My girlfriend and my family - well obviously. Less than cheese though.