I know I promised to make a really great post, but you'll just have to wait. I find that I've been especially busy with classes and such that I've had no time. But don't worry! It'll come. Perhaps on Monday. But tomorrow will be exciting, because Sam, Haley and I are going to Kobe! Haley's planned out the entire trip and it should be great. I'll do a full report on it, probably Saturday night or so. Until then!
Yesterday, both Haley and I were free in the afternoon. So, since Haley wanted to get a cellphone and I wanted to go to the bank, we went to Hirakata Station (basically, the center of Hirakata city). From Kansai Gaidai, to take the bus to Hirakata is only like, 10 minutes. We got off in Hirakata, and headed towards Sumitomo Bank. I then had somehow to communicate that i wanted to deposit some Traveler's checks, without knowing any banking terms whatsoever in Japanese. Fortunately on the second floor there was a "Foreign Exchange" desk which I had to take a number for and wait. The lady barely spoke any English, but it wasn't that hard - I give her the traveler's checks, and she went back somewhere and turned it into cash. I had to fill out a couple of forms too, and write my name all in caps, exactly as it appears on my Alien Registration card. It's a funny thing - I don't know if I explained it before, but since the bankers can't read English, when you write your name it has to be exactly as it appears on previous documentation in order for them to verify it. My name must just look like a series of weird pictograms to them, and if I wrote it any differently (like using lowercase letters) then they might think it was someone else's name. In any case, it all went smoothly and she gave me the cash, which I then deposited using the ATM. ATMs are crazy, maybe I'll do an expose on them later. But at least the money got in there. Yay.
Then Haley and I went to the cell phone store (keitai denwa). They have special plans for foreign students that aren't so bad. Free phone, $17 a month, and $25 cancellation fee for when I return. For the three months I would use it, that'd be a total of $76. That's not bad, considering the benefits of being able to instantly communicate with my friends. So I think I'm going to get one. Haley also was going to get one, but they wouldn't let her because she doesn't have her registration card yet. I think that it's strange that I'm the only one who has one - everyone else's city hall must be slow. I could have got a cell phone right then and there, but I decided to wait so Haley and I can go back together and get them. Then I'll be like a real Japanese person! I'll talk more about cell phones when I get one..
After that, we wandered around Hirakatashi for a while. There was an open raised walkway that went all the way around the plaza in front of the station, so we walked on that. We decided to go in some random department store (Kintetsu) and looked at all the expensive clothes in tiny sizes. Japanese stores may not be wide, but boy are they tall! This one store covered 7 floors - I couldn't believe it. However, the square footage of each level was relatively small. I'd have to say it was kinda like Filene's. There were some floors where everything was a "bargain" and we saw some shoes that Haley might want to consider getting because she needs sneakers. Then we went all the way down to the basement, and it was kinda like an underground mall.
The basement floor of this place was filled with gourmet food vendors, as is quite common here. One floor always seems to be filled with glass cases and women in maid outfits bowing at you for just glancing at their wares. I took a couple of pics:
Here's some stuff for the upcoming Hina Matsuri (Dolls Day)
Then we made our way to the surface, and figured out that we had crossed under the street by being in the underground mall place. After that, we went to Baskin and Robbins (they call them "31" here, because of the 31 flavors thing) and I had azuki flavored ice cream, or the traditional red bean. It was pretty good. Haley had chocolate (chicken!) Then we both went home.
For dinner, my okaasan made takoyaki! I had actually been wanting to try these for a while, but I didnt' think that it was possible to make them at home. I always thought you could only get them from street vendors...Let me explain what they are. Takoyaki (たこ焼き) means "baked octopus" and it is essentially that. But i think of them as "octopus balls" because they are balls with some octopus in them. I'll let these videos do the explaining for me.
Making of Takoyaki Part 1
Making of Takoyaki Part 2
Making of Takoyaki Part 3
I've wanted to eat takoyaki for a long time, since I've seen them in anime. And no, you can't really taste the octopus. It just adds texture.
Takoyaki in Anime:
And with that we had rice and miso soup and something green that was alot like spinach. Refer to wikipedia for some more info on takoyaki:
Nothing important happened today. But tomorrow I'll do a nice cultural update, like I did for Valentine's Day. Look forward to it! (Tanoshimi!)
Well I'm here to report on my weekend. Actually the only thing interesting to say is that I went out Friday night with Haley, my speaking partner Yasuyo, and her friend Haruka. We went to a restaurant and then karaoke. For the rest of the weekend, I didn't leave the house - busy studying for a test and writing a paper, which I turned in today. Pretty confident on both counts. But! I'm sure you want to hear more about the karaoke so...here goes!
We met up with Yasuyo-chan (靖代) and Haruka-chan (陽加) at Kansai Gaidai and then proceeded to Hirakata-eki (the area around the train station). Inside the station there was a restaurant that Yasuyo and Haruka really like - an omlette rice restaurant. I tried to explain that we don't really have omuraisu (what they call it) back in the States. Essentially what it is is a thin layer of egg wrapped around some rice. Don't ask me how they do it - i have no idea. Anyways, you put various sauces on the egg and the rice to change it up. When I tried it at the school cafeteria I didn't really like it, but here it was pretty good. Here's a pic:
Mine had a hamburger on top of it (yes I know) because I wanted to try what the Japanese thought was a hamburger. It was essentially just some ground beef, but it was fine. The name of this thing, however, was incredible - "hambaagaa suteeki hayashi saasu omuraisu" with "baata raisu" and I managed to say the whole thing only messing up once. For those of you who don't speak Engrish, that is "hamburger steak hayashi sauce omlette rice with butter rice (as opposed to 'ketchup rice')". So yeah. By the way, the restaurant was called "Pomme no ki" as in the French word for apple. However I don't know quite what they thought it meant because a large decorative sign was hung featuring the words "Pomme de Terre!" on it, which in English would be roughly equivalent to hanging a sign with the huge word "POTATO!" on it. It was kind of amusing, but Japanese people make such mistakes often enough with English, let alone French. We tried to explain it to Yasuyo and Haruka - it was a bit difficult. All of our conversations mostly centered around differences between America and Japan, and customs thereof. Try explaining using air quotes to a foreigner. I can't even quite explain that in English!
After we ate, we went to a nearby karaoke place on the fourth floor of some building (if they hadn't been guiding us, I would have never known it was there). This is the setup: there's a reception desk, everyone is dressed in office suits and the waiters are dressed in little tux-type things. For 600 yen per person you get an hour plus a soft drink of your choice. The lady hands you a slip with your room number on it, and like a motel you go and find the room. In the room there's couches lining the walls, a table in the middle, and a TV at the end. Our room for 4 people was kinda cramped, but at least it didn't smell of smoke like I feared it would. The waiter comes by in a few minutes to bring the drinks. The system for picking the songs is surprisingly advanced. Everything is wireless, except the mikes.(you'd think those'd be too) There is an approximately clipboard-sized box with a LCD screen on it that you can move around and use the stylus to select options. The menu is all in Japanese, of course, so they had to explain to us what stuff meant. You can search by artist or song title, and I think there were some more options too but I don't know what they did. You can input letters in English or Japanese using the stylus. The system can also give you scores at the end of a song, like a game.
So it was all great fun. I managed to find every song I wanted to find, which means that this system not only has popular songs, but also anime songs, which tend to be not as popular. It also has a good deal of English songs as well, but I didn't sing any English. If I do karaoke in Japan, you can bet that I'm going to be singing all Japanese songs, thank you very much. While you sing, the TV does a music video and lyrics for you (in Japanese, of course!). Thankfully I only sang songs I had already memorized. Next time I go, I'll find even more Japanese songs. Everyone had fun, including Haley. Here are some pics:
The one on the left is Yasuyo, the one on the right is Haruka.
Unfortunately the hour was up all to quickly and Haruka and Yasuyo left. Haley and I went to the Tsutaya (Books, movies and CDs) for a while....and I found my Newtype! Yay! so Exciting! I'll put pics of it later. Then we went home. Not too much of an adventure, but a little one.
Well that's all for now, folks. More updates as information warrants.
