The Circle Of Life

Once again, I’ve found myself back in Japan – I just can’t seem to stay away! A couple of months ago, I managed to find cheap tickets on Jetstar – only $300 for the Cairns to Tokyo flight. But… wait for it… this was for business class. Done! Flight was booked, I just had to survive exams and find a return flight! Exams were survived, finding a rerun flight was not so easy -the limiting factor was that I had to return for the family Christmas, pushing flights up to over $1500 one way from Japan. And so a plan was born – Melbourne – Cairns – Tokyo – Fukuoka – Osaka – Taipei – Singapore (bus) KL – Melbourne!

The short amount of time that I spent at a Cairns hostel reminded me why I love backpacking in other countries, but not so much in Australia. It certainly was very bare bones, but couldn’t be bet for the location. I had a wonderful short stay in Cairns regardless, spending all my time on the reef – cruise out there, a play at scuba diving, snorkeling and then a helicopter flight back to Cairns. Highly recommended.

Over the years, I’ve been to Tokyo twice – the first time although I had a great night out on the town, I spent the rest of my time hung over, and the second time the airlines had lost my luggage and I was stuck in Tokyo with just the clothes on my back in the middle of a humid, hot summer. Not great memories.

This time, I had a trump card – The Lion King was playing, and I was going. I rocked up to my hostel late at night to find my pre-order SIM card had already arrived. After a few teething issues, I managed to get it going, and the next morning I borrowed a bike and set out for theatre. And went completely the wrong way, ending up near the Emporers Palace and in amongst the embassy’s. What should have taken 1 hour managed to take me closer to 4 hours!  And having not ridden a bike for over 3 years, I’m really feeling it now!  The Lion King was just as good as it was in Melbourne – truly amazing.  The costumes, the set, the singing, all of it was すばらしい.  I managed to sit next to a small girl, who was quite impressed with (or at least not upset by) my humming and the small amount of Japanese songs I was able to partially sing!

Over 10 years ago, Asako came to Australia as an exchange student and stayed with us for some time.  One of my aims on this visit to Japan was to catch up with her – not only has she gotten married, she’s also had a baby!  So we planned to do a day of sightseeing around Tokyo with her husband Hirosuke and baby Seigo.  First stop was the newly restored Tokyo Station.  I arrived before Asako, and was suprised by the amount of Japanese people milling around taking photos of the admittedly beautiful station.  It wasn’t until Asako & Hirosuke arrived and explained that it had only recently been completed that it made sense!

After Tokyo station we headed to Asakusa Sensouji (Asakusa Temple – often referred to as “jinja”, but this isn’t right!).  Hirosuke explained to me that even amongst Japanese people, it can be difficult to differentiate between shrine (Shinto – Jinja) and temple (Buddhist – Otera).  One way of telling is the presence of a smoking barrel (temple) or purifying water (shrine).  He also explained thati red “tori” (gates) are found at shrines, but pagodas are found at temples.  And at shrines you often clap before praying, whilst prayers are silent in temples.  All so confusing!  Basically, when in Japan (or any other country!) I look to see what the locals are doing, and follow their lead!

The road to the temple is lined with lots of little shops selling a wide range of souvineers.  We stopped for some fresh zaiten manju – red been paste inside a small cake, yum!  Seigo is still not sure of me!

After our temple visit, it was time to take a glance at the skyline.  Here is Asako, Hirosuke and Seigo in front of the Asahi beer buildings.  Notice the golden coloured building in the background, with the grey “frothy head” on top?  We so need one of the buildings in Melbourne!  Also pictured is the Asahi flame, said to represent the “burning heart of Asahi beer”, but colloquially referred to as “the golden turd” by many locals.  Hmmm.

Lunch was the famous Asakusa tendons for us, and udon noodles for Seigo – who really got into it!

As it started raining, we jumped in a taxi and headed to the Tokyo Edo Museum.  Perfect for a rainy day (or even for a super hot day I would imagine), the museum is well laid out and quiet.  Plenty to see and learn – so much information about the history of the people and samurai of Japan.  Here are Hirosuke and Seigo doing their best to carry me in the traditional viewing box.

Next stop was a Tokyo cruise, on the Himiko ship.  Designed by Leiji Matsumoto, one of the best renowned Japanese cartoonists (think anime), it’s futuristic and a bit out of this world.  From here we were able to see much of Tokyo from the waterways, including the Tsukiji Fish markets and Rainbow Bridge.  We also saw the theatre that I rode my bike to the day before.  I  also managed to wear Seigo down, and get a bit of a cuddle!

After getting off the boat, we ended up at a shopping centre created mainly for “yummy mummies” and young people.  This is the front of ANA’s “kidzania” – a kids play centre (think Crocs or Lollypops).  It’s a little different however, kids that enter this world will be enrolled into “careers” – they will become firefighters, nurses, shop keepers and more.  It’s basically role play for kids, where kids will even earn a salary that can in turn be used to buy small presents for mum.  Can’t wait till Seigo is old enough to go here and I can tag along!

And finally it was time for yakiniku (Japanese style Korean barbeque) for dinner.  We had a wide range of meats and vegetables, all grilled on the table in front of us.  Poor Asako didn’t get much at all – she was too busy keeping Seigo fed.

After saying goodbye to Asako, Hirosuke and Seigo, I realised that I was only a few stops from “Gyoza World” – a mysterious and magical place said to contain thousands of styles of gyoza (dumplings).  So even though I was absolutely full from our delicious yakiniku dinner, I stopped by to see what it was about.  And I wasn’t disappointed – dumpling shop upon dumpling shop for as far as you can see.  I managed to nibble on some cheese dumplings (yum!) – next time I need to head back with a few people and an empty stomach!!

And that’s the end of my time in Tokyo.  I’m currently sitting in the airport, awaiting my flight to Fukuoka, to visit with my host families from when I was a high school exchange student (12 years ago!!)

Settling down

Asia ~ Japan ~ Fukuoka & Kurume

… and so it is that I am now renting my very first apartment, all by myself. Well, kinda.

Matt and I arrived in Fukuoka with our first two nights of accommodation booked, with the intention of finding an apartment straight away, or at the very least a cheaper hotel (Osaka was full of them, couldn’t be that hard, right?). Wrong! Fukuoka does not have cheap business hotels, the hotel we had found was the cheapest there was (and it was still a fair bit more than the hotels in Osaka). We spent our fist couple of days wandering around, determined to stumble upon a cheap hotel. In reality all we achieved was an amazing number of blisters and a thorough understanding of the backstreets of Fukuoka city. We quickly realised we needed to book a few more nights at our current hotel, but were only able to book 1 more night – the next night was the beginning of Obon. “Ahh, it’s ok, we’ll just have to pay a bit more at another hotel”, we thought. Wrong! The whole town was booked out.

Fukuoka's manmade beach

Fukuoka's manmade beach

Ikeda’s to the rescue! Luckily for us, my host family from Kurume was more than willing to put us up, and so we headed out to Kurume. Whilst in Kurume, we were fed the most delicious foods by my host mum and my host sister Sawako helped us in our search for an apartment. She took us back into the city, to a company that rents furnished apartments by the month (not a common practice here), and helped us sort out an apartment. Our apartment finder was Chinese, so between the limited English, Chinese and Japanese, we all communicated, and we now have a place to live.

Octopus for sale at the supermarket

Octopus for sale at the supermarket

After the apartment searching was done, we have a few days to lap it up at the Ikeda’s before venturing out on our own. As it is so incredibly hot over here (not so much hot, but humid), we haven’t really been stirring before dark. But after dark I took Matt out for bike rides around town, showing him all the places I used to hang out as an innocent 15 year old exchange student. A lot of the places are still there, but the town itself has changed considerably – the biggest change would have been “Ichi-Ban-Gai”, the main shopping strip – a new super mall has opened up on the outskirts of town, and as a result Ichi-Ban-Gai is all but dead, empty shops and not too many people about. Wednesday came about, bringing with it the opportunity to join Naoko’s calligraphy class with some of the ALT’s (foreign Assistant Language Teachers) from Kurume. As usual I started out with good intentions of what to write, by the end both Matt and I were drawing pretty little pictures with our calligraphy brushes.

Having dinner with Chris, an ALT from my time

Having dinner with Chris, an ALT from my time

On Thursday we headed to Kitakyushu to where Sawako is living, to see the fireworks festival. The festival has been going for quite a few years, and involves fireworks going off from either side of the bay. The fireworks themselves were deemed “short” by my host dad – they only went for 1.5 hours! After the fireworks, we headed back to an izakaya – a small hole in the wall bar – to chat to the bar tender about potential jobs in the area. Not many available it would appear…

Little girl watching the hanabi in her yukata

Little girl watching the hanabi in her yukata

Sawako helped us move into our new apartments on Sunday. As the girl, I got the “safer” upstairs apartment – I’m not sure I got the better deal, the stairs are a killer, really. Must not drink and then attempt those stairs, could be disastrous. The apartment itself is great – small but contains everything I need. I even have a loft! Comes complete with free internet and cable TV – problem is you can’t use both at the same time – I’m working hard on that one.

The main room in my apartment

The main room in my apartment

Since moving in, we have been exploring the area. We both have bikes (I inherited mine from an ALT who recently left Kurume, Matt has rehomed an abandoned bike from a previous tenant of our apartments) and have been using them non-stop. We are only about a 10min ride to Hakata, the main station in Fukuoka, and about a 15min to Tenjin, the other main station in Fukuoka. Great fun, but must be done after dark (due to the extremely strong sun and my lack of sunscreen). 100 yen shops are featuring alot in our travels (have basically furnished the apartment entirely from the high quality $2 shops). Next step – JOBS!

Take care all. I’m now here till at least Christmas – feel like visiting?

Bitten by a block of chocolate

Asia ~ Japan ~ Fukuoka ~ Kurume, Saga, Yame & Yufuin

Well, life back in Kurume is both fun and natsukashii – reminiscent of the past. I’ve spent the past 1 and a half weeks living with my first Japanese host family, and it’s been great, meeting friends from the past and catching up with everyone. Arrival in Kurume was great – I caught the train down to Kurume, and a taxi to Naoko’s house. In the taxi, I was actually able to communicate with the driver and give him directions – something I’m not yet able to do in China – a very satisfying experience. First night at Naoko’s was spent at the local Chinese restaurant, catching up with everyone and having a delicious dinner of Japanese Chinese food (much better than Australian Chinese food!).

Since then, I’ve been taken around to see the many sights of the area by a good many friends. We went to Yanagawa to do a boat cruise on the canals and had an amazing 60 year old man as our navigator/driver/entertainer. He sung songs (often with my name in them) and continually made jokes, of which I understood about half (his accent/use of slang was extremely strong). He even had me up on deck steering the boat… The boat itself was unique – it was steered and propelled by the driver at the back with a long stick (no motor here) and had a table in the middle which we sat around. The table had a blanket over the top, under which we stuck our legs. Under the table were big pots of hot coals, which kept the boat (and our legs) nice and warm. After our cruise we sat down for a lunch of eel and rice – yum! I also went to Saga with the Yoshida’s, to go to the local onsen – Japanese hot spring bath – a fantastic treat on a cold winters day.

Directing the boat where to go...

Directing the boat where to go...

Exploring Kurume has been fun and kind of sad – everything is changing dramatically. All the shops around where I used to hang out every day after school are closed – they have moved to the new shopping center that is out of town… Back at my old high school was interesting – I met up with my old homeroom teacher and English teacher, and met the two current ALTs (American English teachers). My old homeroom teacher had me go to his class and introduce myself in English (they are 3rd year students – grade 12 – studying English)… I gave a quick introduction – my name, age, what I’m studying etc and asked if they had any questions. Only one, from a loud boy in the front – ‘are you married?!’ (in Japanese). To which I replied, also in Japanese, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand Japanese, if you ask in English I might be able to answer’… No response!

My old highschool, Kurume Koutou Gakkou

My old highschool, Kurume Koutou Gakkou

I visited with the Hashizume family and went up to Kiyomizu to see the temple (imagine all the steps you’ve ever seen in your life, then double it)… and afterwards we went to a sushi ‘train’ restaurant to grab lunch – YUM. Dinner was again raw fish – this time at a favourite restaurant of Naoko & Hirosuke, with friends of theirs. The difference being that the raw fish I tried that night was fugu – the deadly pufferfish. And it was delicious (we also had it served as fried fish). Yesterday and this morning was spent at the Onsen resort in Yufuin – a fantastic place that we had all to ourselves – my belief is because it was so damn cold. But the hot baths were fantastic, and the dinner incredible. After dinner Naoko and I relaxed in my room and polished off a bottle of Australian chardonnay, a perfect end to my Japanese part of the trip.

Well, now I’m getting ready to head back to China – tomorrow I’ll be on a ferry to Qingdao – from there I’ll head up to Beijing to spend a bit of time shopping (and freezing my butt off!).

Naoko, Hirosuke & I, standing by Yufu Mountain in Yufuin

Naoko, Hirosuke & I, standing by Yufu Mountain in Yufuin

Take care all

xo bobbi

p.s. watch out for the deadly swiss chocolate – it nearly snapped my finger in half when i tried to break a piece off – now i have an awesome bruise under my nail – why does this type of thing only happen to me?!

Kimonos and fast trains

Asia ~ Japan ~ Kobe, & Kyoto

Brrr, since when is January cold?! Ok, I’m too used to the Australian seasons, so sue me! When I last wrote, I was suffering from a ‘hangover’ brought on not by too much alcohol, but rather the lack of sleep and the thought that I had to deal with a cross-water trip…

I got myself to the ferry terminal with minimal trouble – why is it that the only dodgy taxi taxi I take in China is the one when I have all my baggage and I need to be somewhere by a certain time?! But I sorted him out – he didn’t realise I could read road signs… hehe. The boat trip was amazing – I caught the Shanghai-Kobe ferry across to Japan and had a great time doing it – certainly beats flying. The trip took a little over 44 hours, and the boat was basically a luxury cruise ship. We had beds – 8 to a cabin (only 6 people in mine) – complete with dooners, pillows and a curtain to close out the outside world. The ship also had 2 bars, a karaoke room, a mahjong room, washing machines (tough that all my stinky clothing was in my checked luggage!), a variety of vending machines (beer, softdrink, sake, noodles) and even a duty free shop. Best of all was the fact that all of the staff (and a fair majority of the passengers) spoke both Japanese and Chinese, so even I in my confused state (swapping between the town languages is hard, I keep using Japanese grammar and Chinese words, or vice versa, or worse still I use a mix of the two) could understand me. The journey itself was uneventful – made friends with an old Japanese guy touring the world after retirement and a number of younger Japanese returning from a tour of China.

Weather was fine, except on one of the nights, where the boat was a bit rocky – but I didn’t get seasick, must be more like dad than I thought. *edit: turns out it was rougher than i realised – the rough weather was from a series of seismic activity – earthquakes or something* My room had 2 younger boys in it – one who was about 15 and wasn’t a trouble. The other one was about 10, and spent most of the first evening running around and shouting. Try to sleep, I finally had enough, opened the curtain and told him ‘shizuka!’ (quiet!). That was enough – he didn’t quite know what to make of a blonde foreigner telling him to shut up in Japanese and was quiet for the rest of the trip. In fact, word must of got around, because when the kids ran up the corridor screaming, they would always stop shouting two doors down and wouldn’t start screaming until three doors past us… hehe … check my ABC’s of backpacing for more information on the Shanghai – Kobe Ferry.

View of the pearl tower from the ferry

View of the pearl tower from the ferry

Arrival in Japan was, once again, a great feeling. I wowed the dudes at immigration with my (dodgy) Japanese, but the Italian guy next to me had more than a little trouble, turned out he had just down a visa run to Shanghai, and the Japanese officials told him ‘last time you come to Japan!’ . Glad I didn’t go through immigration with him! Asako’s mum and dad picked me up from the dock and so began my Japanese adventure…

I arrived on the best day – ‘Adults Day’ – a bit like horses birthday for Japanese – all people who turned 20 in the past year celebrate their birthday on the 8th of January, all the girls are dressed up in beautiful kimonos, wandering the streets, fantastic sight to see. After coming from China, everything seems so civilised – the cars stop for you at the crossings and no-one hawks after you in the shops, they merely say ‘welcome’! I went and exchanged money the other day, and what an experience! I walked in, and the guard politely asked me for my address. Whilst I was writing it down, he asked if he could ‘please have your passport’, after which he bowed and photo-copied it. He then passed my information to a bowing lady, who changed the money, then returned it, complete with sweets, a pack of tissues, an envelope for the money and a bow. ‘Sorry for wasting your time’ they said as we left the bank… What a country!

I’ve spent my time in Kobe visiting once again with Asako and her family. We’ve been shopping most days, today we spent the day being truly Japanese. On the boat trip over, I spent the majority of my time reading ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ and today I spent the day in Kyoto. Incredible, after reading the books, then strolling the incredibly old streets and watching the girls dressed in kimono at the temple gazing off into the distance. I even got my fortune – although I can’t read the paper (I’m still busy translating it), I’m told it’s pretty good. This evening we went to the onsen (hot springs) which was lovely, as it’s been so incredibly cold. There were outside onsens, so we sat in really hot water (about 40 degrees), whilst the air outside was incredibly cold (probably about 4 or 5 degrees). The best part of being here is just interacting with Asako’s family and friends – everyone is so kind, and willing to explain everything slowly and carefully to me. Her Uncle and cousin were even chatting to me in Chinese the other day! Tomorrow I’m off to Fukuoka on the shinkansen, serious speeds here I come!

Asako & I in Kyoto

Asako & I in Kyoto

xoxo bobs

Eating gyoza in Japan

Asia ~ Japan ~ Tokyo, Kobe & Kurume

Well, it’s official, my most favourite-ist place outside of my home country is Japan. I don’t know why I haven’t been back here since I first came in 2000, I’ll definetly be visiting more in the future. My Japanese is pretty rusty, I haven’t really practiced or studied it for about a year, but it’s coming back to me in droves. The customs guy at the airport pulled me up, saying ‘Hello, could you please open your bag’, to which I replied ‘Konnichi wa’. We then chatted in Japanese about the weather, where I learnt Japanese and where he thought I should go in Tokyo. He then let me pass, bag unchecked!

Tokyo was my first stop, as I had never been there. I stayed in a fantastic little hostel right in the heart of Tokyo. They say Tokyo is the most expensive city in the world, but I don’t agree (Dublin wins the award for that, in my opinion). The hostel I stayed at cost just 2000 yen per night – about half what I was paying in London. I also spent one night in a capsule hotel – something I just had to experience. Because trains finish up early, many Japanese business men (and women) miss that last train, rather than catch a taxi home (can be extremely expensive, particularily in Tokyo), they created the capsule hotel. In the room where I was, there was a long wall full of ‘capsules’ – tiny rooms, about 1 meter high and a bit over 2 meters long. In each capsule, there was a bed, tv, radio, light and tiny holes in the wall for a book and so forth. On another level, there was a [women only] traditional Japanese bath room. It really was suited to a person who misses the last train – they give you a towel, facewasher and pajamas. In the bath there was shampoo, conditioner, toothbrushes, everything for free. Lots of fun, very Japanese.

Tokyo Capsule hotel

Tokyo Capsule hotel

I met up with one of my host sisters, Sawako, whilst in Tokyo, which was great. Sawako is on her last year of studying acupuncture, and she showed me around the city, helping me with the subway (a big blessing – the Tokyo subway consists of a heap of different lines, the map looks like a ‘messy plate of colourful spagetti’). We visited Asakusa Jinja – a huge shrine around the corner from where I’m staying and watched all the school kids running about. October is the official month when school trips take place and so everywhere we went in Tokyo had middle school kids racing about, taking photos. The next day I visited Akiharaba – electrical town. I had so much fun that I spent 3 hours in a single store. Just playing and looking and playing. Electronic dictionaries, digital cameras, mp3 players, rice cookers, even eletronic toilets! During my time in Tokyo, I also visited Ueno Park (and spent a couple of hours playing with a kitten and her ‘mum’ – a 3 year old Japanese kid), Ginza (very happening, busy area, full of ‘modern’ tokyoites – and the occasional kimono clad woman) and Harajuku (home of the Japanese ‘alterative’ lifestyle)

Next stop was Kobe, where I visited another of my host sisters. Asako came out to Australia in 2001 and spent 6 months living with us. It was great to see Asako and meet her family. Asako took me to see Kobe, where we spent most of our time wandering around, shopping and seeing the sights. The highlight of the visit was definetly the time spent around the dinner table – listening and talking with her family, watching her grandfather do magic tricks and listening to the concert they put on for me (Asako’s sister played the keyboard, Aunt played the piano, Cousin played the flute and Asako worked wonders with the xylophone). It was hard leaving, but I’ll be back!

Eating Okonomiyaki with Asako's family

Eating Okonomiyaki with Asako's family

The final stop on my trip around the world – Fukuoka – was fantastic. Kurume, a small-ish (about the population of Melbourne) city on Kyushu is where I lived when I was an exchange student, way back in 2000. Seeing all my host families again was fantastic, as was visiting all the places where I used to hang out. My host families took me all over the place, it really was weird seeing all the places from 5 years ago. So much has changed, but so much is the same. Also went to my old high school and saw my old home room teacher, as well as a few others. Managed to find my way to town and ride around where I used to, all on my own, which I thought was a pretty decent effort. Visiting my host families and catching up with them has been great, I wonder if Japan is where I should be, after all? Only the future will tell…

Me with 3 host families, at the local Chinese Family Restaurant

Me with 3 host families, at the local Chinese Family Restaurant

Of course, I’ve been enjoying the Japanese food too. Gyoza – Japanised Chinese dumplings – is probably my favourite, but sushi, gyuudon, yaskisoba and takoyaki are up there too. The food is reasonably cheap too, about $5 or $6 for a sit down meal, as long as you know where to go. I love being able to order food and know exactly what it is you’re eating. That said, it doesn’t always work out that way – the other day I wandered into a resturant, looked over the menu and realised I only understood one thing – yakisoba. That was fine, I thought, I love yakisoba. But when I ordered it, I was told it wasn’t available. Glancing over the menu again, I decided not to risk it and point, but rather to ask the waiter for his suggestion. He raced away and came back with a delicious dish, but I’m still not sure what I ate!

Well kiddies, I’m now ready to go back to Tokyo for a few more days, then I head for home. What a fantastic year, I’ll miss the traveling, but am quite looking forward to having my own bedroom, a bathroom where I can leave my shampoo and a kitchen where I can store stuff… And of course my family, friends and pets!

xoxo Bobbi!!!