January in Japan

We are quickly plummeting towards our last days in Japan - we are heading home mid March so the past month or so has been busy busy busy as we attempt to prepare ourselves for the trip home (including lots of extra sightseeing, eating out and shopping). How about an update? We've spent a lot of this New Year with our friends KJ and Rachel, who are currently living in the previous apartment of our friends Sam and Brent. When Sam and Brent moved out and back to the US, KJ and Rach moved out of the horror of 1E (our original apartment where the toilet had finally exploded) and into 3D, which is bigger, nicer and lets face it...has a cooler apartment number. They are good people and lots of fun - we play Nintendo Wii, eat out, go sightseeing (some more successful attempts than others) and generally enjoy each other's company. In January, we headed to: -Juso's local shrine for new year festivities and, as it turned out, free sewing demonstrations -Arima Onsen -Hankyu 31 Building for "high" tea -Kobe Port and Chinatown -Nagano for snowboarding (me, can you believe it???) -Universal Studios Japan -my old homestay family in Shukugawa to visit Yoshimi's newborn baby -the North of Osaka on an epic bike ride where we never reached our intended location -Umeda for lots of shopping, crowd watching and a double date -Mount Rokko for a less than wonderful ice sculpture festival (but a GREAT day out!) -to lots of random small country towns for ECC Jnr Interviews - well paid overtime stints! Let the update begin! On New Year's Day, Ross and I slept in but I had always had the intention of heading into Juso to the shrine near our local station, just to see the festivities that might be taking place. Juso is sometimes a hard place to imagine anyone other than foreigners living in, and is certainly not a place you would imagine anyone choosing to go to worship. It is a place that when mentioned to students at ECC, is met with a small but audible gasp and look of horror. Japanese people can't (or perhaps won't) see the joy that is Juso. When we first said we'd live here I was concerned as I'd only heard weird stories about the place on the internet and thought that perhaps it being the main red light district of Osaka would be problematic thing...but I soon realised that like most things here in Japan this district is labelled, grouped together and set to the side, not talked about but well known about. In reality, the area is quite fun with lots of bright colours, nothing offensive along the street, friendly storeholders and great restaurants...it is a very tame red light area indeed. And, our place is a good three blocks from there, in a very quiet street next to a high school and right near the river. It has been a wonderful place to live. I feel that this area has both the bad reputation and the great reality of areas like St Kilda back home. Anyway, St Kilda doesn't come to mind when i think of worship, and neither does Juso, but be that as it may people in Juso flock to the shrine to worship on New Years Day, and I am back on track with the blog! So, on New Years Day we got up late in the morning and rode our bikes to the shrine. It was buzzing with food stalls, lines of people waiting their turn to ring the bells, give an offering and pray, and people playing sideshow alley style games like lucky numbers or throwing rings or fishing for numbered fish. The prizes were exactly the sort you'd imagine you'd find at a sideshow game at a shrine on New Year's Day (?!): candy, drinks, stuffed toys, pornographic material..... :) I'm not kidding. It was strange, even for us and we've lived here a year! After the shrine we headed home to relax but I wanted a quick walk down the shotengai (shopping alley) nearby. It was hear that we were accosted by a sewing machine salesman eager to demonstrate the new embroidery machine he had in stock. It was clear that he was not going to sell this product to foreigners, but he was eager to practice his English and wanted to help us make our very own monogrammed facecloths. This is why I love this country. After getting home we called KJ and Rachel and told them to do as we had...right down to the facecloths, and they did!

Our Christmas New Year Vacation was about 12 days long and we spent it going sightseeing with KJ and Rachel, heading away to Takayama for snowy fun and doing bits and pieces near home. On the last day of our winter vacation we headed into Kobe. Its a beautiful port town that was really hard hit by the Kobe Earthquake of 1996. In the area is a restored port where ships come in to import and export but a feature of the port is the part that has been left 'as it was' after the Kobe earthquake. You can go and see the incredible damage that was done. I had been intending to see it for some time, especially as it wasn't possible the last time I cam to Japan. Ten years ago was just two years after the earthquake and as my host family that lived close by had actually been personally affected by it so greatly, sightseeing it wasn't really an option. But, Ross and i went along and checked it out - it was amazing to look at and read about - then headed to Chinatown in the centre of Kobe. Chinatown was really fun! Like Melbourne's chinatown, Kobe's is smallish and comprised of both restaurants and grocery stores and amazing decorated streets, but the main difference (something Ross is pushing for in Melbourne when we return!) is that Kobe's Chinatown features lots and lots of street stalls and hot food sold into your hand. It has an amazing, busy atmosphere - lots of noise and excitement and delicious food. Japanese students of mine have often told me how much they love Chinatown because you have to eat your food while you walk (something that is usually considered very rude and therefore avoided by most Japanese people). It was a really fun day out and made us once again wish we'd spent more time in Kobe.

Arima Onsen is a small natural hot spring village in the mountains just outside Kobe. We headed there one Friday afternoon to check out the area and take a bath. Since September when Justine and Liv arrived and we took an hilarious onsen together in Monoh, I have been trying out onsen bathing EVERYWHERE. I love it and it will be sorely missed when we go back to Melbourne. Ross loves it as much as me, especially the big oversized bath we have in our gym, where he bathes every day, and he has even been searching for a similar style bath in Melbourne. Japanese onsen bathing is tough to explain and it's even harder to make people understand that it's enjoyable! I might have to wiki......especially for a picture as taking photos isn't allowed (of course!).

An onsen (温泉) is a term for hot springs in the Japanese language, though the term is often used describe the bathing facilities and inns around the hot springs. A volcanically active country, Japan has thousands of onsen scattered along its length and breadth. Onsen were traditionally used as public bathing places and today play a central role in directing Japanese domestic tourism. Onsen come in many types and shapes, including outdoor (露天風呂 or 野天風呂, rotenburo or notenburo) and indoor baths. Baths may be either public run by a municipality or private (内湯, uchiyu) often run as part of a hotel, ryokan or Bed and Breakfast (民宿, minshuku). Onsen are a central feature of Japanese tourism often found out in the countryside. They are a major tourist attraction drawing Japanese couples, families or company groups who want to get away from the hectic life of the city to relax. Japanese often talk of the virtues of "naked communion" (裸の付き合い, hadaka no tsukiai)^[1] for breaking down barriers and getting to know people in the relaxed homey atmosphere of an onsen inn.

So, there you go. We headed out late to Arima, got lots climbing the mountains in the area, ate local food and toured the streets and as such had to go to the local public bathhouse instead of using one of private places. Most of the private places will let you use their baths between certain hours, I guess while their actual guests are out for the day or haven't checked in yet. The public bathhouse was all indoor, which was kind of disappointing since we love the outdoor baths, but is was amazing to experience the water in this bath. Arima has two main bathhouses for public use Kin-no-yu and Gin-no-y. We went in Gin-no-yu where the water is 'gold', its kind of dark and murky and brown from the sediment in the earth in than area. Really interesting.

One of the things I've been meaning to do since first coming to Japan is have a kind of Japanese coffee and cake or high tea. There are tons and tons of little cafes, often done up to look like a Victorian living room where they serve fabulous looking desserts and coffee or tea in dainty cups and saucers. The whole thing is very appealing to me! Mid January Ross and I went up the Hankyu 31 building, a really high (31 floors in fact) building in the centre of Umeda, where there are restaurants and cafes on three of the floors - all with great views. We ate amazing cake and drank tea from those aforementioned dainty cups, taking in the skyline as the sun went down. It was lovely...and we could see our apartment from way up there - isn't that always the main part of the fun of one of those killer views???!!! We actually repeated this experience one week later when my friend Nat asked us to go with her on a double date!

Our trip to Nagano took place over a long weekend just one week after our actual winter vacation. It had been organised by a friend of ours and included lots of strangers - Japanese and Western people, ECC teachers and friends of friends - mainly a whole group of strangers, at least for us! A couple of people we knew were there, but Ross had organised for us to attend this weekend away on a bit of a whim after talking with a guy at a party who needed numbers to make the trip. So, we said 'yes' and that's pretty much how I ended up on a snowboard. We left Osaka on a Saturday night bus at 9pm and rode to Nagano. The night bus was not bad - full and small but fairly comfortable with lots of stops at strange truck stops along the way (my favourite thing about buses in Japan) and we got plenty of sleep before arriving at abou 6am the next morning in freezing cold Nagano. I was thrilled to be in the snow again - I love that stuff - but was filled with the foreboding feeling that I would be attempting to ride down a mountain of the stuff later that day... The early hours of that morning were spent attempting to find our accomodation without a map whilst knee deep in snow, resting in a tiny tatami 'rest room'. rugging up then redressing in hired clothing then eating curry for dinner/breakfast/lunch - whatever the meal is when you take a night bus, are confused and tired and can't feel your toes in snow boots. We finally 'hit the slopes' (yes, i am totally 'gnarly' at snowboarding) mid morning where Alex volunteered to be my personal instructor. I had imagined being eased into it a bit. A small not so slopy slope where i would practice walking and crawling before slipping and sliding...this was not the case. I was shoved onto a chairlift, pushed back off it and onto the snowy ground, then lifted to my feet and pulled down the mountain, smashing and crashing as I went. I learnt to snowboard with my bottom facing the bottom first, this was very uncool but pretty much all I was confident with. At this point, the plan was 'snowboard long enough that everyone gets over you and your daggy falling over then go inside and eat more curry'. This was not to be. Ever supportive Ross ignored my yelling and screaming and bullying and picked me up time after time (literally) to get me going again. And eventually, i could snowboard to the bottom without falling over. Yes friends, I rode a board down a mountain. I felt confident and exhilirated (a feeling that betrayed me the following week at Universal Studios Japan) and actually, despite hurting all over, I spent the day on the runs and really enjoyed myself...but not as much as I enjoyed the onsen that night! Near our hotel was a really lovely hotel that our Japanese friend Asuka called 'the gorgeous hotel'. She organised it so that we could have tickets to use the onsen bathing facilities in the gorgeous hotel, and use them we did! It was stunning - especially the outside bath where we could sit, surrounded by snow in a boiling hot bath. Beautiful. We ate well at the hotel then headed to bed, me exhausted and dreading another day snowboarding, others probably eager to get more rest before that 'ripped it up' again the next day. We woke, ate breakfast then went back to sleep before going out mid morning again. i was surprised that I had healed enough to enjoy myself again and I tried out some turns but mostly just practiced going down and feeling confident. Ross had left me by now and I was so glad because it gave me a chance to see him be amazing! He really was a natural at snowboarding, and it's something he should definitely take up when we return to Oz. Mid afternoon Ross took me up the gondola to a higher point on the mountain where he would then eat a cheeseburger (yes, McDonalds is midway up the mountain) then snowboard down (he really is very good) and I would ride the gondola back down. I love gondolas, chairlifts, ropeways, railcars...anything that takes me into the air and lets me look at beautiful views...and thankfully there are plenty in Japan. I felt happy riding that gondola and really proud of myself - I had finally succeeded at getting off the chairlife without falling, and getting to the bottom of the mountain without falling - I was a snowboarding success and i had experience Japanese snow again - it is beautiful.

Charged up with pride and confidence from snowboarding, we decided to go to Universal Studios Japan a week later on our day off. It was an expensive day out and lots of fun, nd mainly something we wanted to do because it has been a dream for me since I was little to actually live close to a theme park and we live about ten mins away! We took the train and spent the day at USJ, where most of my students spend most of their weekends, using their yearly passes. The place was incredible and really exciting - I absolutely loved the feel of it. It was done up to look and seem like a movie set. It was so authentic and the attention to detail was awesome. In my memory of theme parks, they try but never fully succeed. Sovereign Hill (my favourite) comes to mind, where the entire place is done to look authetically like an old Australian mining town...but around one corner is a modern style cafeteria where you can buy all sorts of crappy modern foods. Universal Studios is 100% authentic, with street vendors selling churros and hot dogs and pretzels, fabulous looking 60s and 50s diners with real vintage cars and entire rides where everything seems incredibly real. Every side street is another photo opportunity. I loved it. I didn't however, love the rides. I really enjoyed JAWS and ET but the other rides really made me feel ill. This was definiely a day of confirmation for me - i am not a rides person. And I am defintely not a roller coaster person. I was deeply frightened. In my imagination,a roller coaster is like: 'Oh here we go, up up up up and whoo, down we go whoosh, wheeeeee!' when in reality, it's a bit more 'Ok here we........................................(plummeting forwards, around, upside down at ridiculously fast pace..............................................................................................ugh. Its over.' It really wasn't fun for me at all. The day was definitely not wasted though...I got to do my favourite things - eat and take photos - my favourites were the ones where we made the shape of 'ET' after being shocked by a man doing it to us. Difficult to explain but please ask me for a reenactment when i see you. Happy to comply.

In January, Yoshimi finally had her baby, Nodoka. This baby is BEAUTIFUL. Ross and I visited her at her family home where she'll be recovering for a couple of months. Kei, Yoshimi's husband has to work early mornings and late nights and Yoshimi had a caesarian so it's best for her to stay in her family home for a little while. One Sunday Ross and I spent the morning on a an epic bike ride, an attempt to check out a huge park near our house, but ended up very lost and exhausted. It was, as always, a good chance to see another part of the area we live in, as each area is very different, but we were very tired! That afternoon we headed to Shukugawa, in Nishinomiya about fifteen mins from our place to visit Yoshimi, her mother, her cousin and her beautiful baby girl. It was wonderful to spend that time with Yoshimi, who is such a 'zen' mother - so calm and peaceful and not at all fazed by the way we poked and prodded and tried to wake up her baby just so we could play. We spent the afternoon there and left in the early evening with, as expected, food under our arm. Mama had given us a bag of 'suigyoza' to make nabe with. This was the beginning of 'Ross and Allie's Nabe challenge 2009' where we made nabe (big soup with lots of vegies, meat, etc) every night for five nights. It only came to an end because Scott came to stay. But that friends...is February's update. :)

Our final weekend in February was hallmarked by a trip with KJ and Rachel to Mount Rokko. Rach had seen a Snow and Ice Festival advertised on posters at the station so we decided to go and check it out. I guess due to the unseasonably warm and rainy weather we've been having this winter (yesterday was 18 degrees all day!) it just wasn't cold or icy or snowy enough for an ice sculpture festival...but we didn't realize that until we got there! We took multiple forms of public transport including a railcar (yay!) to get up the mountain and when we got there...it was melting. It was actually hilarious - as we passed each exhibit we could ask the men to lift the blue plastic tarpaulins off so that we could marvel at the ice art underneath. There were also some sculptures under a tarpaulin roof that we could freely see...these were melting. We felt sorry for the stallholders (and they felt sorry for us; giving us free food) as we were almost the only souls up on that mountain, taking in the grey mist and the melting sculptures. We took a second wander through the sculptures right before we left and were not disappointed...one's head had melted and subsequently fallen off. Excellent.