Archive for category Return to Japan
Return to Japan 2013: July 12 – The Best Game You Can Name
Posted by Barniferous in Klaxman, Return to Japan, Shizuoka on July 19, 2013
My former roommate Klaxman was providing English lessons to a very friendly middle aged woman who I call Friendlyko. Friendlyko is also friends with The Wife and The Mother in Law. On July 12, Friendlyko was going to have some of her friends over at the house and we were invited. The catch is that everyone was expected to perform a song. I was specifically asked for a Canadian song.
Trying to think of a Canadian song is hard. There are so many famous singers and songwriters from Canada that picking just one is difficult. Plus, I wanted to think of something that would really capture Canada, instead of just being a good song written by a Canadian. After considering offerings from Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot, The Tragically Hip, Anne Murray, Paul Anka, Our Lady Peace, David Usher, The Arrogant Worms, The Guess Who, April Wine, Loverboy, Fucked Up, Grimes, The Besnard Lakes, Feist, and of course Nickleback (sarcasm on the last one) I ended up with only one logical choice – the most Canadian Man ever – Stompin’ Tom Connors. My song had to be The Hockey Song.
For those unfamiliar with Stompin’ Tom (aka everyone outside of Canada), he was a fiercely patriotic Canadian singer and songwriter who wrote songs about Canada and all things Canadian. He got his nickname from the habit of stomping his cowboy boot to keep time with his guitar playing. Many small towns and historical events in Canada have a Stompin’ Tom song written about them. The Hockey Song is easily Stompin’ Tom’s most recognizable song and is commonly played at hockey games at all levels throughout the country.
In the time leading up to my trip I didn’t have a lot of free time to prepare or practice. While in Japan, I downloaded the song from ITunes and got a free app that removes vocals from songs. I totally forgot to find the lyrics ahead of time. In the minutes leading up to my performance, I was searching for lyrics on Klaxman’s outdated cell phone.
I was up last after seeing other people play the shamisen, sing acapella, play traditional Japanese music on the ukelele, and demonstrate hula dancing. A crowd of about 12 Japanese ladies ranging in ages from mid 30s to early 90s stared at me expectantly. With the help of The Wife I was able to give a little intro on Stompin’ Tom Canada’s love of hockey. I also taught everyone a very basic translation of the chorus of the song and got them to practice so they could sing along. Then came the actual performance, which went fairly well and got a polite round of applause.
A lot of people come to Japan and have fantastic adventures. However, I doubt that many people can say that they got some 90 year old Japanese women to sing along with The Hockey Song. I will hold on to that accomplishment for the rest of my life.
Return to Japan 2013: July 8 – Driver license offices are slow everywhere
Posted by Barniferous in Return to Japan, Shizuoka on July 18, 2013
Aside from visiting family, one of the other reasons for our trip to Japan was so the Wife could renew her Japanese drivers license, which can only be done in person. Going to another country to see all of the tourist stuff is fun. But to really get a feel for the lifestyle you need to get out and do some regular, boring, day to day stuff as well. We loaded the family into the car and drove to the Numazu driver license centre.
The Wife had a 12:45pm appointment. We arrived at 12:00. All of the staff were on lunch break. As soon as they came back, all of the people sitting around suddenly rushed to form orderly lines in front of the various windows.
Bureaucracy is an art form in Japan. People are moved from the stacks of forms to the first window. Depending on what they are at the office for, they then proceed to windows 2, 3 and 4 or windows 3, 4 then 2 in that order. Showing up at the window with an incorrectly filled out form will have you sent back to the stacks of forms and then to the back of the line that you came from. Sitting and watching the dance of bureaucracy in action is actually pretty fun.
The Wife’s Japanese license had expired completely, so in addition to the forms and lines, she was required to watch a driving safety video. After the video she found that she had filled out one of the forms incorrectly and had to redo it.
While I was waiting I spent some time talking with The Mother in Law. Her mother passed away last year, so she has really been lonely with her daughter half way around the world. The Father in Law is great, but is completely incapable of small talk. At the end of our short conversation which was limited by my Japanese ability, I wanted to give her a big hug. Public hugging is not very common in Japan. I will give her a big hug later.
After talking with The Mother in Law, I spent the remainder of time watching the motorcycle license tests out the window. If you have a foreign issued motorcycle license, you need to pass a road test in Japan to get your Japanese license. Two Brazilian looking men were taking the test, navigating a series of narrow turns, slaloms and bumps. A female friend was inside recording the test with her IPhone.
Finally, three hours after we arrived at the license centre we were done. We rewarded ourselves with delicious cold ramen at Gomi Hatten. Although not the most interesting use of 3 hours, I did get a good insight into life and bureaucracy in Japan. Also, the driver license office was about as much fun and excitement that my jet lagged brain could handle.
Return to Japan 2013: July 11 – Shopping and “Shopping”
Posted by Barniferous in Return to Japan, Shizuoka on July 18, 2013
On July 11 The Family took me to Yamada Denki to buy a new home computer. The computer they bought about 5 years ago was taking about 5-10 minutes to start up. This is usually a sign that it needs a good defrag, virus check, spyware check and some house cleaning. I would normally offer to do this, but I am mostly useless with a Japanese OS. They also wanted to switch their desktop for a laptop, so off we went.
I wandered the store while The Family did their shopping. I got to see a display of the new 4K TV, which has twice the resolution of a 1080P HDTV. It looked fantastic, but I don’t expect that I will rush out and buy one when I return to Canada. I also looked at kitchen appliances and was amazed at row after row of rice cookers all with different features and functions. The rice cooker that The Wife and I use in Canada is a $60 Superstore special. It cooks rice, which is exactly what we need it to do. I guess that if I lived in a culture where rice was the staple food, I would appreciate some of the additional bells and whistles.
After about an hour of amazing myself with new technology we returned home with a new computer, a new internet plan, a new TV package and a new phone service provider. Up-selling is alive and well in Japanese consumer electronics.
Returning home we turned on the new computer and were amazed at how easy to use and fantastic Windows 8 was. It was an easy adjustment from all of the other Microsoft operating systems, and all of the new features are wonderful and are no doubt loved by all. Having to get a Microsoft account to use any software totally makes sense and should have been implemented long ago. Also, Windows 8 is simply a pleasure to use without a touch screen. The new start screen absolutely doesn’t look like it was designed by children. During the setup, nobody was cursing Bill Gates in either English or Japanese. We then won the lottery and celebrated by climbing aboard our majestic unicorn to fly to the moon for lunch.
Just in case you have trouble with sarcasm, everything in the last paragraph after “we turned on the new computer” is not true.
In the afternoon The Wife and I took our first trip out of the house without The In-Laws. The goal was to check out some used clothing stores near the station. We ended up getting distracted and spending our afternoon in more enjoyable ways. You may notice that there are no pictures attached to this particular blog entry. No, this isn’t that kind of blog.
Return to Japan 2013: July 10 – Cooking in Tokyo
Posted by Barniferous in Return to Japan, Tokyo on July 18, 2013
From one of the many models of a Tokyo street scene at the Edo Tokyo Museum
The plan for July 10 was a solo trip to Tokyo while the Wife spent time with her family. I have been to Tokyo many, many times before, so the goal was to find something new. After some time spent on Wikitravel, I ended up with a plan to go to the Edo Tokyo museum, the nearby Fukugawa Edo museum, and then shopping at Disk Union in Shinjuku.
From The In-Laws house I went to nearby Ooka station on Gotemba line. Ooka station is so small that they don’t have an automatic ticket gate. You have to show your ticket to the JR employee in the station window as you pass. When I arrived at the station I was wondering why everyone was sitting down in the station building and nobody was waiting on the platform. Then I realized that the platform was directly in the sun with no shade. Even at 9:00am it was crazy hot. Travel Protip: when all the locals are doing something, it’s probably for a good reason.
From Ooka station it was a short ride to Numazu station, where I changed to the Tokaido line bound for Mishima. At Mishima I upgraded my ticket to a Shinkansen ticket for Tokyo, which can be done on the machine easily in English. My train was not coming for some time, so I went into the nice, air conditioned waiting area hoping to find some Wi-Fi. Unfortunately there is not a lot of free Wi-Fi in Japan, and I didn’t have a subscription to any of the available paid options. This is exactly why you should always travel with a book.
On the platform at Tokyo station I got my first blast of the days weather. It was just before 11 but the temperature was already north of 30 degrees and the humidity had to be in the high 70% range. I quickly worked my way inside to the main station and followed the signs for the Sobu line. Tokyo station is quite simply well organized chaos. There are excellent signs directing you to the various train lines and exits, and a huge selection of restaurants, food stands and souvenir shops. Also about a zillion people walking around in every direction.
One final quick ride had me at Ryogoku station. Ryogoku is the home of sumo in Japan, with several stables in the area. On this particular day there was a tournament going on in Nagoya, so I didn’t see any wrestlers walking around on the streets. Ryogoku station to the museum is only a few minute walk, but in the heat it felt like half an hour. The museum itself looks like a giant AT AT walker from The Empire Strikes back. Unfortunately due to its massive size it is nearly impossible to photograph from ground level.
Edo Tokyo museum shows the history of, unsurprisingly, Edo, which is now known as Tokyo. The main attraction is the detailed scale models of street scenes from Tokyo’s history. Most of the scenes of the have hundreds of tiny people, all with different clothing and facial expressions. Binoculars are provided so you can get an up close view. You could literally spend hours looking at everything in the models. Other highlights include a recreation of a late 1700’s book store, Japan’s first phone booth, and full size recreations of houses that you can walk around in. The museum is one of the best in Japan, and an absolute bargain at 600 yen.
After the museum I walked back to the station. At this point the sidewalk was so hot that I could feel the heat through the soles of my shoes. I avoided the nearby McDonald’s and stopped to eat at Pepper Lunch, a hamburger steak chain. Hamburger steak is a ground beef patty usually served with some veggies. When I left the restaurant, I was so hot that I decided against the Fukugawa Edo museum due to the 10 minute walk from the station. I instead headed to Akihabara, the geek capital of Japan.
Knowing that I would be back in Akihabara about a week later, I confined myself to Yodobashi camera. If you like electronics, video games, models, etc, and only have time go to to one place, make sure you go to Yodobashi Camera. The Akihabara store is 6 floors of awesome. I bought a memory card reader, a Bluetooth audio transmitter and successfully avoided buying about 500 other things that I really really wanted to buy.
Escaping from Yodobashi, I returned to the station and took the Chuo line to Shinjuku. The Chuo line cuts right through the centre of Tokyo at a high rate of speed. It is very convenient, but it is also host to a lot of train suicides due to the high speed and number of trains. Fortunately I got through with no incidents.
At this point it is repetitive to say that any part of Tokyo is insanely busy, but Shinjuku station and surrounding area is the very definition of insanely busy. The station is used by over 3.5 million people per day. The key is to think of the crowd like an ocean current and just get into the flow that is going in the direction you want. Also, know which exit you need to use.
Disk Union has 5 different stores near Shinjuku station. Some of these have multiple floors and different genres of music on each one. The stores are very narrow and crowded, so I immediately regretted wearing my big traveling backpack. I ended up in 4 different Disk Union genre stores – classic rock, Japanese rock, punk and metal. The final tally was 8 used CDs and one brand spanking new copy of the 40th Anniversity Ziggy Stardust rerelease with Japanese writing on the package.
Since I was close to the entrance to Kabukicho I wandered over and started taking pictures of the famous entrances and tall buildings full of stores. I wad not feeling adventurous enough to wander through Kabukicho itself and take pics, and by this time I was started to really feel that I had been walking around in the heat all day. In fact, other than sitting to eat lunch I had been on my feet all day. It was well and truly time to call it a daay.
If going to Tokyo – wear comfortable shoes, check out the Edo Tokyo museum, and don’t go during the summer. Just don’t. It’s too f**king hot.
Return to Japan 2013: July 9 – Getting Naked with Strangers
Posted by Barniferous in Return to Japan, Shizuoka on July 12, 2013
My in laws like to make plans for us when we come back to visit. The plan for the day was to go to Numazu port to see the View-o tsunami gate, go to a historical agriculture museum, then go to a public bath and get naked with strangers.
Numazu is a port city with a large fishing industry. View-o is a gate built at the entrance to the Numazu port area. In the event of a tsunami, the gate will lower to protect the port area and its businesses. You can ride an elevator to the top and get some fantastic pictures of the port area, Izu and Mt. Fuji. Due to the incredible heat, everything was hazy and Fuji was not visible.
The port area has narrow streets full of fish shops and restaurants. Himono, sun dried fish, can be seen (and occasionally smelled) all around the area. We ate lunch in a small restaurant that we chose based on the lunch special. They offered a dish called “Numazu Don” which had 2 kinds of fish and tiny shrimp on top of rice. Numazu Don is served with miso soup. I ordered deep fried tiny shrimp with miso sauce over rice, served with miso soup and assorted Japanese pickles. We stuffed ourselves for about ¥1000 per person. For anyone who says eating in Japan is too expensive – you are eating in the wrong places.
We were all moving very slowly in the heat and after the massive lunch, so we skipped the museum and went directly to the public baths. At this point I started getting a bit nervous. I had been to a small public bath before at a Capsule Hotel in Tokyo, and an Onsen at a Ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) so I was familiar with the concept and the rules. However, I had never been to a big neighbourhood public bath before. In the time since living in Japan, my Japanese had gotten quite rusty. Also, The Wife, who is fluently bilingual, would be in the women’s section while I would be with my father in law who speaks no English and about 20 other naked Japanese guys.
When I am nervous or stressed out, my typical defense mechanism is to make jokes. When The Wife handed me the small privacy towel I told her in Japanese that she had made a mistake. She asked why, and I told her the towel was much too big.
I now present Barniferous’s 10 Easy Steps to being a Gaijin men using a public bath in Japan:
- Go into the locker area, find an empty locker and stash everything except your privacy towel. Yes, everything. You will end up with a small towel in front of your naughty bits and your pasty white butt will be fully exposed (substitute other butt colours as appropriate for you).
- Wish you had a beer or three first.
- Follow your naked 73 year old father in law into the washing area. Sit on the bucket and thoroughly wash yourself everywhere. You are about to sit in hot water with other naked dudes, so make sure you are clean and not soapy.
- Choose a nice indoor bath to start. Put your privacy towel on your head and slowly lower yourself into the 40 degree water. At this point you will realize how many nerve endings you have in your nether regions and how sensitive they are to heat. Understand how a boiled lobster feels.
- Don’t get confused – just because you are seeing a room full of Wangs does not mean you are suddenly in China.
- Move to the outdoor tub and then consider the wisdom of your decision to sit in very hot water while it is very hot outside. Awkwardly talk to your father in law until you run out of Japanese.
- When you start to feel faint, and you will, go to the cold water station and pour icy cold water on your feet. Resist the urge to scream like a girl.
- Sit in one more tub of incredibly hot water, because you didn’t travel half way around the world to only sit in two tubs of incredibly hot water. Try to ignore the fact that you are the only non-Japanese person in the place. Also try to ignore the many, many penises.
- After cooking yourself for a sufficient time, go to the washing area and wash yourself again.
- Return to the locker, get dressed, then go have a nice cold beer, you earned it. Nurse the beer because your wife and mother in law will be another hour.
Return to Japan 2013: July 7 – arrival
Posted by Barniferous in Return to Japan on July 12, 2013
Landing in Japan in always fun to watch out the window. The first sights are the fields of Chiba, followed by some industrial areas and increasing density. The approach also goes over several beautiful looking golf courses, which are no doubt incredibly expensive. At this point I usually notice that all the cars are driving on the left side of the road. When I first moved to Japan in 2003 this took quite a long time to get over. It’s not quite as confusing anymore.
Narita airport is huge. I mean massively monstrously huge. Seriously. From the plane it’s about a 5 minute walk to the immigration lines. At the immigration lines people are divided into Japanese passports and all other foreign passports. One of the big improvements in the past 10 years is the increased number of foreign passport lines. I only had two people ahead of me in line and was processed through in less than a minute.
From immigration the next step is the luggage pickup. These areas are the same in any airport. Still at this point nothing looks really Japanese. The customs check is next, another quick pass through with no bag checks. I guess I look fairly harmless. All in all, this was the fastest arrival to Japan that I had ever experienced.
After leaving the arrival area I logged into good free Internet (suck it Vancouver) and sent a message to my parents. Then a quick call to my wife’s parents. No matter how old you get or how many times you travel, always let your parents know you arrived safely.
In the basement level I got in very long line for Midori no Madoguchi, the train ticket window. An airport worker walked up to me and asked me, in very good English, if I was buying a ticket for the Narita express and paying cash. I said yes, so she took me directly to the ticket machine. She helped me buy a ticket for the Narita Express and the Shinkansen to Mishima. At some point I told her in Japanese that I had lived in the country before. She started talking to me in Japanese and was very surprised that I was an accountant. Some days I am surprised that I am an accountant too.
Due to lack of space in the city and capacity at centrally located Haneda airport, Narita airport is about 60km east of Tokyo. The Narita express is the fastest (and most expensive) train from the airport to Tokyo or Shinjuku. Occasionally the train will split up and go to other stations as well. Other than the Narita Express you can take the Keisei line to Ueno for about half the price. Keisei line works well when your destination is in Tokyo and you don’t have a giant suitcase with you.
I took the Narita express to Shinagawa instead of Tokyo at the recommendation of the friendly airport lady. This was a mistake. The Kodama and Hikari Shinkansens both have cars with unreserved seats. The Shinkansen always starts from Tokyo station and the unreserved seats fill up quickly. Shinagawa is the next stop on the Tokaido Shinkansen, and when I tried to get on with the a fore mentioned giant suitcase I found that most of the unreserved seats were full. I ended up finding space on the smoking car.
Winnipeg has a smoking ban in indoor public places (bars, restaurants, etc) so I had forgotten what it was like to sit in an enclosed space full of smokers. Despite it being Sunday, the smoking car was full of salarymen on the way home, chain smoking and chugging canned coffee. Yay stimulants!
I disembarked at Mishima and got my first full blast of Japanese summer. The temperature was in the 30s and the humidity was in the high 80% range. The effect was that of walking into a sauna fully clothed, which I don’t recommend.
My in-laws met me at the station and took me to Kappa Sushi, a very popular kaiten sushi chain. The tables are all laid out beside a conveyor belt which transports plates of sushi though the restaurant. Whenever anything good comes buy you simply grab it and start eating. You can also make special orders from the screen at your table. Special orders are sent to your table on a train track just above the main conveyor. If you don’t mind the wait to get in, Kappa Sushi is a great place to stuff yourself on sushi.
If you are expecting my day to end with some exciting stories of staying up all night, drinking beer and rocking out at karaoke then I am sorry to disappoint you. After dinner we returned home, I had a shower and went to bed at 8:30pm. And I am okay with that.
Return to Japan 2013: July 6 – departure
Posted by Barniferous in Movies, Return to Japan on July 12, 2013
When you stay up too late packing, 5am comes way too quickly. In a zombie like state I called for a taxi and took all of my stuff out to the curb to wait. Doing this I completely forgot to take out the garbage, which was one of the key thing to do before I left.
The taxi driver was a young Indian man who was very chatty. His father owns the cab and drives during the day. The son gets to drive at night which allows the taxi to make money all day. He had just finished a typical Friday night shift of picking up and dropping off drunk people. If you ever want to get an idea of what your city is really like at night, talk to a taxi driver.
At the airport a young man blatantly cut his way ahead in the security line. Nobody said anything, either due to extreme politeness or because it was 6:00am and everyone was too tired. I hope he got “randomly selected” for extra screening.
My first flight was Winnipeg to Vancouver. Unfortunately it was too cloudy to see the Rocky Mountains from the airplane. If you ever get a chance to fly over the Rockies make sure you have a window seat. It really gives you a good perspective on how massive (and pointy) the mountains are.
After landing in Vancouver, I had a 4 hour wait before my flight to Tokyo. It’s nice to have some time to relax in an airport, but 4 hours is a bit too long, especially with a shitty free wi-fi connection. There are only so many times you can look at duty free stores that sell the same products.
Finally the boarding started and I got to jam myself into a tiny window seat for the 10 hour flight to Tokyo. Shortly after takeoff we got our dinner. The choice was beef or chicken. I chose beef and got served the saddest looking gyudon that I had ever seen (as seen above). I have flown across the Pacific Ocean with Air Canada 8 times before so I didn’t have terribly high expectations, but this was the worst airplane food I can remember.
During my 10 hour flight I managed to get about 2 hours of sleep, ate two forgettable meals, and watched Argo (great), Quiz Show (good) and Identity Thief (okay). Other than the food and lack of sleep, the flight was good and landed about 20 minutes early. The adventure on the ground picks up in the next post.
Return to Japan 2013 – July 5 preparation
Posted by Barniferous in Return to Japan on July 10, 2013
Work has been incredibly busy lately. As my company approaches fiscal year end, the work has begun coming in faster than it is going out. Selling my boss on a 2 week vacation during a busy time would have been difficult if the trip was not family related.
My wife is Japanese, and an only child. She has been living in Canada for about 7 years now. As her parents get older, this is becoming a bit of a challenge. We try to go back to visit about every second year. Our original plan was to go right after Christmas in order to be in Japan for New Years, which is the big family holiday in Japan. This also works out better with the weather and my work schedule. However, this year The Mother in Law really needed some time with her daughter, so we decided to do our visit in the summer.
The Wife does not work on Fridays, so first thing in the morning I dropped her off at the airport, one day earlier than my departure. My plans for the day included working, dropping off keys with my sister, buying souvenirs for 2 people, buying new sandals, packing everything and taking out the garbage to avoid it marinating in the heat of an empty house for 2 weeks.
I work for the Canadian branch of a giant multinational company. Our office does not have an abundance of employees, so I do several different jobs and don’t have a specific person that covers my desk when I am away. Getting ready for a long vacation requires doing twice as much work before I can leave the office, and about twice as much on the week I return. For this reason I ended up working overtime.
After work I went home, with grand plans of a quick dinner and en immediately leaving to get my shopping done. Afterwards I would pack quickly and get to bed by 11.
Then the Internet happened.
It was one of those “let me just check one site” Internet experiences that turned into a level 5 procrastination session.
I pried myself away from the computer just before 9. First stop was the liquor mart to get some Fort Garry beer and Ice Wine as souvenirs. After that I stopped at Walmart for sandals and some Mrs Vickie’s chips, and ended up picking up a few more bottles of maple syrup. When traveling to Japan you can never bring enough maple syrup. No trip to Walmart can be done quickly, so I ended up back at home around 10:30 to start packing. I ended up getting to sleep around 12:30 with the alarm set for 5:00am.
Stupid entertaining Internet.
An interlude: Return to Japan 2013
Posted by Barniferous in Return to Japan on July 10, 2013
In the middle of preparing for the launch of my Japan: 10 years later blog, I find myself in Japan again to visit the inlaws. In the time leading up to my departure, I had the very best intentions to save about a years worth of 2003 blog posts and work on getting them updated and ready to go while on this vacation. However, in the rush to get ready for my trip, I totally forgot about the blog.
Since I am here and have free time, I thought I might as well blog about the trip I am currently on. I will be in Japan for 2 weeks, mainly to visit the in laws with my wife, but also to meet up with some old friends and do some sightseeing. Also, this provides a much needed break from the office.
So please enjoy the mundane tales of a 2 week visit with my Japanese family.
Drinking in Japan 
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