Night picnic

I had a lovely night picnic in the park. It was the second one this month.

There were tons of bats flying around. Well, maybe not tons, but at least two and they were constantly flying overhead. It was quite surreal and lovely.

I didn't get any pictures because it was too dark.

Graduation day!

So, today's the big day. Today's my graduation ceremony. As of tonight, I will officially become a college graduate. I honestly was dreading this day before I got my job, but now I'm quite excited. My whole family is here too, and that's pretty exciting in its own right.

So, of course this means after today, I will be done with Temple University Japan for good (probably) which is both exciting and sad. I had great times at TUJ, but all things must come to an end. Now I'm excited about my life at work.

BIG news!

Sorry for the lack of posts. I just can't seem to find the time anymore. Maybe I'll devise a better posting schedule.

But for now, I have BIG news...

As you may or may not know, I am technically done with school. All my classes are over and I graduate next week. The big questions is 'Are you going back to America now? and the answer is...


No.


I have recently found a really good job. I am doing video editing work at a language learning company. The company is Innovative Language, and if you are studying Japanese, you might have heard of some of their products.

I had been doing job hunting for the last semester, and I got a whole lot of 'no's and no responses. I was really pleased to finally get a yes. For the last two and a half weeks, I have been doing an 'internship' where essentially I was doing what will be my regular job, but for legal and other reasons, I wasn't actually an employee.

Now, as of yesterday, my internship is over and I have been formally offered a job. It starts June 15th, which is after graduation and after my family leaves. They offered VISA sponsorship, which is a big deal of course.

I was afraid that I would have to be an English teacher to stay. Not that there's anything about being an English teacher, but I have no passion for the English language and while I wouldn't mind teaching, I have little to no desire to teach English. My job now is actually what I studied in school and what I want to do, so I am quite pleased.

So, I shall remain here for some time, and as of now I have no intention of leaving the country.

Osaka

Osaka was a party. I have a deep affection for this town. This is partly because Kansai (Osaka, Kobe, and Kyoto) was the first place in Japan that I visited, partly because I've got a good friend there, and partly because Osaka exudes this charm that other places in Japan don't have.

The thing about Osaka is it has some really nice places and some REALLY bad places. I don't mean "bad for Japan", I mean "Bad in general" but I'll get to that later. Even the nice places of Osaka have a little grime on them, and it's not like "Eww, that's dirty! Stay away!" It's just part of life there. People accept it and move on.

And speaking of people, Kansai people are WAY more energetic, noisier, and livelier than Tokyo people. For such an exciting city, Tokyo people are a tad dull.

Anyways, back to Osaka. Our hotel was a mere 7 minutes walk to Dotonbori, probably the most famous place in the city. If not the most famous, one of the busiest and most exciting.

It doesn't look too exciting in the day, but at night, this place is crazy.

And what do we do in Osaka? Eat okonomyaki! I met up with a friend and she took us to her favorite place in town.

Normally okonomyaki is cooked on a hot iron skillet in front of you and most of the time, you do the cooking, but at this place, the staff took over. And this guy was PICKY! He made sure everything was just right and when to eat. I ordered the yakisoba and okonomyaki combo (with a 'lunch beer'. Osaka is great.) and when my cohorts were waiting for their food, my yakisoba was done. Being the polite guy, when he told me to eat, I wanted to wait for my friends. Two minutes later he came back and told me to eat again. I asked him which was better for the okonomyaki, the sweet (normal) sauce, or the unsweetened (Osaka style, I guess) sauce. I asked him what he recommended, he paused for a second, and said with confidence and a coky look in his eyes "unsweet". He wasn't wrong.

I'm not sure if it was the BEST okonomyaki I've had in my life, but it certainly ranks on my top 5, no question. I miss that unsweet sauce.

The place was right around Dotonbori, so we went there when we were done. Here's the picture that everyone knows.

And actually, a few blocks from there is a kabuki theater. I had no idea.

The thing about this part of Osaka is there is a REALLY long underground tunnel. It links (and this is a bit confusing) Namba station, JR Namba station, and Osaka Namba station. That's right, 3 stations called "Namba". And while they can be accessed by an underground tunnel, they are probably a good 10 minute walk apart. There's another odd thing, but I'll get to that later.

Inside the underground passage are a lot of shops. There was also some nice new year's decorations.

Another example of some of the fine people of Osaka. I should also mention at this point that the whole underground mall is playing nonstop Para Para music.

Just leanin' against a whale. Without a care in the world.

After enjoying some Namba time, we headed over to Umeda, specifically Umeda Sky Building. Last time I was in Osaka, I was out in front of there for new year's, but I never went to the top. This time I got the chance.

It was quite a view.




One thing I noticed about Osaka is that the whole town is rather brown.

Not everything is brown, but there is a LOT of brown in Osaka. Lots of wood, dry grass, rusted metal, dirt, and just brown buildings. I'm not sure if this is better or worse than the bland grey of Tokyo, but that's the way it is.




Umeda sky building has these really odd escalators that take you to the observation deck. They look strange, but they're a lot of fun to ride.

Here's an odd out of place building. Note the orange train, a lot like the old Chuo trains that I ride occasionally.

And here's a building that has a road through it. If you look in the center, you can see it there. I first heard about it here, but it was nice to see it in real life.


Inside the top of the Umeda Sky Building was this odd little 'game,' I guess, where you had these chairs with plastic bubbles and the more you jumped and the more bubbles you put your weight on, the more it reacts to your movement with different colors, shapes and sounds.

It sounds odd, but it was a lot of fun.

Anyways, it was time to leave and I took a shot of that odd escalator. Those were actually quite great. It would be nice to take an escalator like this every day instead of a boring one inside.

So, after the ultra modern city, we headed to Osaka Castle. Here's a shot from inside a train station.

Near the castle, we were greeted by a friendly cow.

And there's the castle!

Apparently, a lot of the stones for the walls and base were 'donated' by neighboring regions' leaders and a lot still have markings on them indicating where they came from. You can't really see them in these pictures, though.

Osaka Castle was pretty damned big.

The inside was kind of strange. It seemed like the whole castle had been gutted and replaced with a museum. Well, it's been a long time since someone has ruled from it, so I guess it's better than letting it go to waste.

Here are some shots from the top of the castle.







After we left, we were a little hungry, so this being Osaka, we went to a takoyaki stand. I couldn't help but notice this precocious feline.

We headed back to Umeda station and I couldn't help but notice the lights.

These odd neon chandeliers were both tacky and classy at the same time. Kind of like Osaka.

From Osaka Castle, we headed towards another famous landmark, Tsutenkaku.

This tower was originally built in 1912, then torn down due to the war. In 1956, it was re-built and it's still there today. This tower is also near a REALLY bad neighborhood. But first, how about some T&A?

Yum.

I saw this building in the distance. I wasn't quite sure what it was, so I asked my friend.

Most neon lights like this in Japan are either love hotels or pachinko places. This was actually a grocery store.

My friends told me that it was a chain of super super super cheap grocery stores, and most people know to stay away from their meat and non pre-packaged items. A friend even got some pudding there that was bad. Later we went in one and it was quite depressing. Really bright lights, tons of security cameras, and just an overall creepy feel. There was also a large selection of cheap alcohol. I feel bad for people in this neighborhood who don't have another alternative but to shop there.

Anyways, back to the tower. The neighborhood around the tower must have been awesome in the 50's, but it's not the 50's anymore. It wasn't bad, but a bit more run down than most. Even the sign for the main shopping street was a bit broken.

Despite the grime, this was actually a pretty fun place. I could see myself going back there to hang out if I lived in Osaka.


Here's a close up of the tower.

To the right is the kushiage restaurant we went to. Kushiage is essentially deep fried anything on a stick, and another Osaka specality. It was GREAT!

You can see the tower from where I was sitting. Man, that place was good. I want to go back.

After our bellies were full, we headed back to the station a different way.

This time we headed through spa land. It's a giant building filled with hot bath spas, apparentlly from around the world. They love spas in Japan, but honestly I've never been to one. The idea of getting naked with a bunch of strangers is one I'v never really warmed up to.

Here's the front (HDR image). Apparently, it's open 24/7.

On the way back, we saw this work wear shop. Just another indicatior of the class of the neighborhood. Their local clothing stores are open late at night and are aimed squarely at the market for construction workers.

All and all, it was an interesting experience. If I was to spend some real time in Osaka, I'd check out this neighborhood during the day.

We headed back to the hotel, which like I said was near Namba. Here was a peculiar sign for the JR-Namba station.

The reason it's odd, to me at least, is JR is the company (Japan Railways), and normally it's written just as "JR" in signs, even if everything else is in Japanese. Here it's written as じぇあーる which is "Jae Aru", which is the closest pronunciation in Japanese. The strange thing is, Japanese language has a set of charcters for foreign words (Katakana) and since "Railways" is an English word and even the word "Japan" didn't originate in Japan, one would guess that they would use the katakana, which would look like ジェアール, but they didn't. Why? It just seemed strange.

Another thing I liked was the artwork in the giant tunnel connecting JR Namba to Namba station. Apparently it was all reproductions of pieces from a museum in Chicago.

But seriously, why the chain? I guess to just remind people not to touch.

After we got out of the staion, I saw the new Hello! Project building, called "H!PS", or "HIPS". Not sure which. If you know what Hello! Project is, than I'm sorry. If you don't, then you're better off. Sadly, I was quite overly excited to see the "H!PS" building.

I kinda wanted to ride the mini roller coaster inside, but after a LONG day of walking, I just wanted to go to sleep. But not after some more pictures.

It sure did seem super exciting.


I kinda wanted to go back on Saturday just to see what would happen.

But, I never did. Here are some more pictures of Dotonburi at night. I know it's touristy, but hey, I was a tourist.

Osaka: one giant crab, a million bicycles.




So, that was Osaka. I miss it severely.

I can't quite describe it in picures or even words, but there's this sense of Osaka that people are truly ALIVE! The excitement in the air is very tangible and it can be felt everywhere. It's most ceartinly not the nicest city ever (but it has some really nice parts), but it just feels great. I hope I can go back, as it is one of my favorite places in the world. One day was not enough to spend there.

Moving.

As I posted earlier, I'm moving soon. That means currently a lot of my spare time is filled with packing and cleaning, and soon my spare time will be filled with unpacking. Because of that, be patient with me. I have a lot to say as always, I'm just too busy to say it.

If you have time, check out my documentary film making site here. It's school related, so it takes precedence over this.

Thanks for reading and thanks for being patient. I'll try to get something fun up soon.

The first day of my train trip in pictues (Mitaka to Osaka)

I wanted to show some more pictures of my trip.  This was the longest single day of train riding in my life, and you know what, I wasn't bored at all.  I had an amazing time, and would do it again if I got the chance.

I wrote a bit of a narrative with pictures here, so I won't tell the story again but I thought I'd show some pictures.

For starters, here's Mitaka.

That's the intersection I see daily with the train station in the background.  This was when I stepped away from the familiar into the unknown.

These pictures are between Shinagawa and Numazu

And here's my first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean on this trip.

 

 And there's the tip of Mt. Fuji on the right:

 

Here's a bit more from the front of the train:

Here's some more ocean.  You can see I'm not the only one taking pictures.

 

Here is lovely Numazu. 

Numazu was a pretty sleepy town, I guess.  I was only there for a little while to get a break from riding a train and to see my traveling companion's friend who gave us some delicious hand made pastries.

The bird poop covered stone dog seemed a bit odd.  If it was clean, was it supposed to be a bench? 

  

Next to that was a fountain proclaming that Numazu apparently had Japan's best water.

 

I can't tell you if that's true, because as my travel partner pointed out, it isn't working right now. 

Next to that fountain was a statue of naked people.  Japan has plenty of nude statues, I've noticed.

 

And next to that was a giant old train wheel and front.

 

It clearly came from an old steam train (more on that later).  I guess it's an homage to the trains that helped build Japan to the industrial giant it is today.

And here's the shiny new Numazu staion. 

Back on the rails for a bit:

And then we stopped at Shimizu.

 As I said before, Shimizu is the home of Chibi Maruko Chan in the comics and TV show.  It's also supposed to be famous for it's tea, which was quite delightful.

 We had a while to kill until the next train, so we got some tea and the lovely lady at the tea shop told us that there was a Chibi Maruko Chan museum and shop near by but we had to take a bus, which didn't come for a while, so we just walked around while we were waiting.  I didn't take a picture but there was a NOVA with a 'now hiring' sign.  For those who don't know, NOVA was the most popular English school in Japan and they went bankrupt last year.  Now another company bought them and opened a few schools and is running them under the old name, but they're kind of rare.  It's sort of like seeing a Sinclair station or Bob's Big Boy in America.

Also, NOVA was known for hiring any native English speaker that had a pulse, and while some good people got NOVA jobs, many people who shouldn't have ended up working for them too.

Enough about NOVA.  How about some coffee? 

While wandering, I noticed an outdoor rock climbing wall on the other side of the tracks.  It looked pretty fun.

We rode a fairly old and ghetto bus to this shopping center that had the Chibi Maruk Chan "museum".   It was the first, and I think last bus of the whole trip (minus the return ride, of course).

The 'museum' was just a place inside a shopping center.  There was a room you could pay to go in, but I couldn't imagine what could be inside to make it worth my money to see, so we didn't go in.  The shopping center and surrounding harbor was lovely, though.

My only regret is that I didn't eat any sushi.  Apparently, sushi in this town was incredible.  I just wasn't hungry.

Anyways, it was time to get back on a train. 

I have no idea what this was, but it looked lovely.  Maybe a test driving track?

Around sunset, we met these two people who were traveling from Tokyo to Osaka.  They were also using local trains only because it was cheaper, and as one of them said "It's slower, so more relaxing."  I agreed.  Fast is efficient, but sometimes it's good to take the long way.

 

Here's a picture from Ogaki station.

This town looked a lot like Tachikawa, Omiya, Machida, or many of the other towns that lie just outside Tokyo.  It was kind of a bit run down and odd, I felt.

 

 I liked the USA spaceship though.

I also thought it was funny that in Tokyo, there's a chain of department stores called "Marui" (written 0101), but out here there was a department store called "Maruei"

 My opinion drastically changed after dinner.  We were told that this town was famous for inari-zushi (rice in a sweet fried tofu pouch) so found this tiny shop.  Apparently we were told bad information, but we got inari-zushi anyways and it was the best I've ever had.  The shop had an old woman and an old man (husband and wife?) that I'm pretty sure live upstairs.  The woman was quite funny and enjoyable and the man hardly ever spoke and just made sushi.  They were incredibly friendly and it was one of the best sushi experiences of my life, and only for 700 yen! (less than $8)  I couldn't believe it! I was worried we were going to have to spend a lot of money, but it was SO cheap, and WONDERFUL!  If I ended up in that neighborhood, I'd LOVE to go back.

After dinner it was too dark to take any good pictures, but I noticed I had this picture that I didn't put up.  This was after leaving Ogaki

And after a LONG day of travel, I MADE IT!!!  OSAKA!!!

Osaka was a site for sore eyes and I was happy to be there.  I ate some okonomyaki from a street vendor coupled with a cheap beer.  The okonomyaki was the best my traveling partner ever had (and my second best).

But, there's just something about Osaka.  It's a really special place.

And more on that next time.

Whoops.

I went to go partition my hard drive on Friday and in the process, it messed up and nuked all my data. Well, the truth is, I probably could have recovered it, but I was thinking about reinstalling anyways, so I just went ahead and did that.

In the process I was dumb, and a combination of using the first version of Firefox 2 (I don't like Firefox 3), being lazy about installing an antivirus program, and installing a shady file that I shouldn't have, gave me a pretty nasty virus. I was stupid, but after not having a virus for years, I got cocky. I wasted way too much time trying to fix it yesterday and decided that I'm just going to re-reinstall.

On the plus side, before I partitioned I was smart and backed up everything except for a few processed pictures, which since I have the originals, it's not that big of a deal.

Anyways, my posts will be a bit slow as I need to reinstall a ton of programs to get back to normal. So, as always, thanks for reading and I hope you don't hate me for the delay.