Mr and Mrs Elkano Japanese essentials

We're by no means seasoned pros (jozu) but we've noticed a few things that may help anyone planning on coming here. If you’re seriously thinking of sliding into the Land of the Rising sun then check these out. 

Take my shoes off? What a croc!

Slip on shoes: Yeah a good pair of slip on shoes – or at least shoes with very few laces. Seriously don’t under estimate the need for these. Pretty much everywhere you go you need to take your shoes off before entering and you can save your self an accumulated 7 hours a day by wearing some good sturdy slip ons. Thigh high Doctor Martins are just not appropriate I’m afraid.

Decent slippers: This is an extension of the point above. Without shoes your feet can get cold – especially in winter on the wooden floors (not everywhere has the blessed luxury of heated floors!) But the Japanese are fussy about feet and footwear so make sure they are neatish. Also presentable and lightweight as you’ll need to carry them in your baggage.

Yes very helpful...

Maps: Especially for the first week or so whilst you’re getting used to communication and transpot etc. The last thing you need to do after a long flight is faff around for an hour figuring out where your hostel is. Before you leave your native country print out a map, check it out on google earth/maps.  In fact Google streetview is extremely helpful in this regard. And this is obviously a gift from google that should be utilised for travel anywhere - not just Japan. If you've have an iPhone with a map app then you're golden. I 've seen these used by a few Japanese folk and they're very helpful! But remember if you don't have a swanky phone a bit of paper will do just as well - in a nutshell clue yourself up to make life easier.

Personal items: They say you should stock up on stuff like sunscreen and personal products you may not get here. But I’m not so sure about that. You just end up lugging it around with you. I brought three bottles of my fav Rexona Sport roll-on only to find it here in abundance for roughly the same price. Simply trust the Japanese, they have shiz for everything – make an adventure of it and get some new brand loyalty. The prices here are comparable.

Medicine: Medicine is obviously a bit different. You should stock up on this. Regulations say that you’re not supposed to bring more than two months worth but Hannah did. Japanese Customs is similar to a day of domestic test cricket at the Basin Reserve – you just wander in – they don’t check anything. If you’re coming in the tail end of winter or the beginning of Spring bring Warm clothes. It’s pretty much spring now and it has snowed in Tokyo, Takayama and Osaka which in generally is warmer than both. It’s biting cold - one day it was about 25 degrees – the next – old man winter was fondling my briskets with icicles at a low low 4 degrees.

Language: Kanji – one thing we didn’t do so much was clue up on Kanji charters. They say there are about 2000 Kanji used everyday – that’s on top of the 70 odd hiragana and katakana characters. For the sake of your dining experience clue yourself up on a few kanji. For example this one here 肉 is Meat or niku (I think). Do some investigation and find the kanji for chicken/tori, beef/gyu, and pork/buta. It’ll help a bit. Whilst you’re over here try to read everything. I’ve been here two weeks and starting to be able to read hiragana and katakana characters fluently. It’s a great feeling to look at a sign and be able to pronounce it. But this isn't always a genuine advantage if you don’t know what the word means.

“Hannah! Hannah! That sign says ‘kusuri’ I can read it”

“What does it mean though Bren?”

“I dunno… – but I can read it!”

Katakana is great though as it is basically spelling out English words for you. E.g サウナ - SA - U - NA. Sauna. 

Oh really?           Yeah true ow!

Talk: Try talking to anyone. A lot of Japanese folk have learnt some English – enough for rudimentary conversation anyway. The problem is they’re shy of making an error. So often there is a mutual awkwardness. This is the exact mirror of the way we feel when we stumble through the Japanese language. The thing is everyone wants to talk. The Japanese are relieved if you try speak Japanese or if they try to speak English without you minding the errors. Just always try to melt that awkwardness barrier. Practice one bit of Japanese and nail it with them and that will make them feel at ease. Try something simple like. “Konnichiwa. Genki desu ka”. (Hello. How are you?- or more precisely – are you healthy?) After you drop that bomb you can humbly say: “watashi wa Nihon-go chotto – Nihon-go ga muzukashi” (note this is probably grammatically horrific) it means: My Japanese is little – Japanese is difficult for me. At that stage the other person may try to lock in some English and hey presto you’ve made a best mate for life. High-fives all round.

JR Rail pass: Even though our use of these was screwed up because of the incorrect visa these are still worth their weight in gold. We purchased them for about 150,000 yen. When we did the math it was going to give us the equivalent of over 240,000 yen worth of buses and trains over a 21 day period. Do the math to see the saving there. Don’t underestimate the cost of rail here. As amazing as it is, travel aint cheap – especially the shikansen (Bullet train). Also MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT VISA.

Chums: Before leaving – ask about and make some contacts with people in Japan. Try anything. If you can have someone in Japan especially someone born and raised (playground is where they spent most of their days) here. It will help you in your journey. They can show you the Nihon ropes, introduce you to

Nihon-Jin tomodachi

others and help out with accommodation, cellphones and other stuff. Seriously unless you speak Nihon-go getting a cellphone here is a bloody mission. On top of that if anything goes wrong they can help you sort it out. For example, our trip went balls up because our JR Rail passes were invalid. We would’ve been in the schtoop had we not had our friend Izumi to take us through two hours of reschedules and rejigging. So connect with old school buddies, random strangers, that friend of a friend of a friend - anyone. So many people in Japan are friendly and want to help. They are very hospitable. We had a two-day period where we paid for nothing but a couple of train fares. We were very blessed and thankful to our gracious hosts. 

Shogun by James Clavell: This is an amazing book of fiction. It gives genuine insight into a travelers exploits in the 1600s as he is engulfed by the Japanese culture. It will give you a small but worthy insight into the language and nature of Japanese communication. But more than this it gives you a really good view of Japanese cultural history. The samurai and the nature of social interactions. Even though Japan is a million miles away from the society outlined in the book – you can still see the roots and elements in today’s culture. The other day I was reading about the Captains entrance into Osaka Castle – coincidentally enough later that day I was standing in Osaka Castle. Do it – it’s a bloody good read – whether you’re in Japan or not.

So there you go a few pointers. Give us feedback if you think there is anything else that should be added.

Tokyo oh Tokyo - where for art thou Tokyo

Back to Tokyo: Against the loving requests of family, friends and governments we decided it’s time to go home – to TOKYO!

Japanese hospitality

A Tokyoite woman stopped us in the street when we first got back – “Are you allowed to be here?” She asked politely. “Oh yes” we said smiling. “No problems – Governments don’t know jack!”

It is good to be back though – Hannah and I feel good about it and felt bad that returning might worry our family and friends. But you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do I suppose.

It really isn’t as bad here as the media made out though. A slight shortage of food on shelves - but nothing major. I’d say the worry is more due to Tokyoites being so used to convenience in abundance. There are a few elevators, escalators turned off and some shops close early but other than that Tokyo seems very much the same. A BUZZING MASS OF PEOPLE! I also think that most of the people that left were foreigners. Dirty dirty foreigners.

But YES! We’re back. We are staying in Shibuya at a fellow New Zealanders apartment. It’s a nice place and cheaper than backpackers accommodation. Cozier too. Today we went around checking out apartments – but to be honest I think we’ll wait until we lock in jobs before signing contracts. We can only afford something tiny and petit at present and we’d need to lock it in for a year so it’s wiser to hold off for now.

Koyasan -4 degrees and beautiful

The Beeb: A lovely gent stopped us yesterday with his cameraman in toe. He was keen to hear our opinions on how Tokyo is post-quake and why we are here despite the supposed risk. It was good though – he talked to us on camera for quite a while and even got a few shots of us walking through the rain with our brolly. Who knows when it’ll be on – pretty soon I imagine – maybe even right now. Keep an eye out if you have the Beeb tuned in.

Apartments: They’re quite funny these little Japanese apartments. They really are tiny. They are very similar to the kind of rooms, bathrooms and features of say planes or boats. Little compartments where space is gold!

Desperate times call for... Starbucks

Rumble in the Concrete Jungle: Despite how excited we feel and the peace we have about returning here. We have noticed there are still loads of quakes happening – some of them fairly decent. In fact there have been about five in the last 24 hours. Here is the Hannah and Brendan procedure for dealing with an earthquake:

1.     Feel earthquake.

2.     Look at each other with wide-eyes and silently communicate and acknowledge that an earthquake is occurring

3.     Briefly think of where you would hide, lay, secret yourself should the quake escalate into devastation

4.     Continue eating udon and wait for quake to stop

There are two things that we miss over here. One is cheese. Two is bloody great coffee they have in Wellington. Desperate times call for desperate measure.

Oh it's raining again. Until tomorrow folks!

Osaka Skyline

Odds n sods - V2

Well well.

Hannah has um... put on a bit of weight.

It's  all go here: We're down in Osaka now but as you can imagine there is a lot of confusion about what we will do. Some folk might say "What is there to be confused about? Earthquakes, tsunami, radiation = Leave Japan guys!"

But it's really not that simple. We have half of our gear in Tokyo, accommodation sorted in Tokyo, job interviews coming up in Tokyo and we feel also our future is in Tokyo. Don't forget we have been planning this trip to Japan for quite some time and thus don't want to chuck in our plans at the merest obstacle that comes our way. One of the reasons we chose to come to Japan was for a new and thrilling challenge - now we weren't expecting a bloody earthquake but c'est la vie as they say in Invercargill. 

The confusion comes from reading so many different news sources and speaking with different people and obviously family and friends fears back home. We have also talked to friends in Tokyo the say it's not as bad there as the news media make it out to be. But still there lurks in the back of the mind a "shiz - what should we do" feeling.

But in summary we thank you for all your concerns - it's amazing to see how many people from all over our lives care for us. Poetically all continue in Osaka as normal.

We'll let you know what we do. Please all know that we are being careful.

P.s. Beyond the horror - we are having an amazing time - we love Japan so much.

Plum blossoms

Han and I with some chums

Spot the Buddhist photographer...

They even have cats here...

H and I at Osaka Jo (Castle)

Stop - Hammer time!

This is Bren and Hannah signing off...  xb xh

Friday, 11th of March

Warming up with ocha

Tectonic tiddly-winks: So yeah the big  news I guess. Earthquakes, devastation and BBC news. We've gone from impotently watching on in New Zealand to impotently watching on in Japan. We're pretty buzzed out guys. Thank you for your concern and prayers. We are safe and sound in Kyoto - but are still trying to fathom what this means to our journey. Horrific poetry - luckily we had looked to go up to the affected area but instead decided to travel down to Kyoto and Osaka. We also would have been in Beppu at this time had our Rail Passes not faffed us - from what I understand this area has had tsunami warnings - I'm not sure if there has been damage there yet. In summary however: Earthquakes - why don't you just piss off please. Praise God though we were not in Tokyo or the affected area. It is sad - very sad - to watch this death toll mount again so soon after watching it mount in Christchurch.

But hey let's move on to lighter notes. Namely, our experience and my inane ramblings.

Shouldn't he have a newspaper
with eye holes cut in it?

Tiny things: They say tiny things please tiny minds. Check out the crossing guys little hat - it's the little attentions to details that count no?

Jentensha-thon: The other day Hannah and I went missioning up to the north of Kyoto on some Jetensha (bicycles). "Ironically they don't have ten speeds" chortled Hannah. It was so much fun - the bicycle is a pretty standard form of transport through out Japan. Not the road bike or mountain bikes you see in NZ - but more of the big wheel single gear roller. It's thoroughly enjoyable though - people don't charge around the place - they gently and majestically roll through the streets. And the best thing: No helmet laws. It can be nerve racking though  and you really need to keep your nerve through out the rabbit warrenesque streets with their blind corners, trucks, mopeds, walkers, and other bikers

They see me rollin - They hatin

Mike Tyson finally gets the
recognition he deserves...

CTRL + S (face saving): It's an interesting society - there is this whole face saving thing. The general notion is that you shouldn't really show your emotions in public. Just the other day we watched on as a bloody great eagle swooped down on this man in a park and snatch this donut out of his hand. Hannah and I watched on in awe and shock - but he kept his head up and he didn't bat an eyelid. It really is quite interesting. The locals seem to have this unapproachableness about them - but should you engage them that veneer shatters into a warm smiling bow of the head, a "konnchiwa" and ensuing conversation.

Monkey heaven: We went to Kyoto Arashiyama monkey park yesterday. In fact we were here when the quake struck - on top of a hill in the middle of the island - which is about as safe as it gets. We didn't feel it at all - but can you be surprised when your surrounded by over one hundred screaming Macaques. We really enjoyed it. After a gentle 20 minute walk up the mountain side you're literally surrounded by these cute native monkeys. Fat ones, skinny ones, young ones, old ones, greedy ones, aggressive ones you name it - they had every macaque under the sun.  Unfortunately we didn't get to witness that ubiquitous shot of the monkey in the hot pool with snow on his head - but never mind. We caught them at feeding time which was cool - I was reminded somewhat of Courtenay Place on a Friday night actually. They were free to roam around and were uncaged which was nice. Although we felt safe you couldn't help but quitely envision one of these guys flipping out and savaging your face in a monkey rage...

Beautiful Hannah with a new buddy

Haiku: We popped up to university and met up with a few academics. One of them an expert in haiku. I've always enjoyed the dirty Haiku poem and remember learning of this poetical form and very young age at Paparangi School. I've written one or two and always enjoy the challenge. It was pretty interesting yarning with this guy (through broken English/Japanese). I was inspired after to write one. Check it out:

Love is not silent;

Its rhythm roars like the sun;

Silences the rain

We have nothing else to say - but a few pictures to sign off with.

Kyoto Manga Museum

"Do you want a knuckle sandwich?"

Kyoto Station - magnificent structure...

Odds n sods

Well the Nihon shock is waining but the vastness of Japan still amazes me.

it just has everything - an in abundance - except dairy. There dairy here is shocking. I'm sure as time goes by I will miss blue cheese.

But anyway - here are few tidbits from our travels thus far.

JCMC: We stopped and had a fare of the local delicacy in Takayama. A warm smiling chap welcomed us off the cool streets and warmed us up with some complimentary sake. It was delicious. We yarned away to him through the impediment our shattered Japanese and his broken English. He had no problem with Hannah’s name but he struggled with Brendan and thus started referring to me as Arnold Swarzzenneger… because that is much easier... I forgot his name and after asking him to tell me again he replied: John Cougar Melon Camp… Lovely fellow.

Screen shot form that scene where they create Robocop

Being a unit: As Hannah mentioned - yes Japan squeezes everything it can from its space and that mixed with the tradition of bowing upon entering rooms equals Brendan getting thwacked in the head by cross beams. Not only that - bathrooms are squeezed into tiny compartments that make it a smidge tricky for a unit like me. For those that have been asking - yes I have tried the flashy Japenese toilets with there bidet splashes etc and no i don't like it. It's tantamount to violation and only seems to make the whole tiny space ordeal that little bit more disastrous.

Eagles ahoy

W(tf)akarimasen: I'm in love with the bath houses here (Sento). At first I was confused and confounded but after carefully watching the naked men around me I got a hold of it (theres gotta be a better way to say that). It certainly is an experience. You basically wash yourself on a little stool and then get in a hot hot pool. There are many temperatures and often a sauna. The absolute bliss of rocking form the sauna or hottest pool into the cold pool is just phenomenal. They say Japan has an aging population - it's no bloody wonder these Sento public baths take years of your life. I'm suprised they haven't reverted to diapers. SO GOOD. I'd recommend you try it if you come here.

 Must cut this short as we're off to see some Macaques today. A good friend of mine once said - I didn't start to live until I saw monkies.

 

Konnichiwa Kyoto

Konichiwa - Hannah here.

Snow business

As my presence in written form has been absent for many days I am afraid I will not be able to live up to Brendan’s wit and charm! Haha! I will try my best. : )

We have experienced many things in the past few days, but to greet you, I will tell you how the Japanese do it!

In most places we have stayed so far there have been very low doorways forcing you to bow as you walk into the room. Brendan has bumped his head three for four times already! Of course when we look into things a little, there is always a reason. In this case it is a custom. It ensures you will always walk into a room bowing as a sign of respect. In Takayama, a beautiful mountain village, we saw this custom amalgamated into every part of life. The old man on the street nods his head in greeting; the tiny (comparatively)elderly lady at the public bath house (“sento”) who asked me to scrub her back nods her head in thanks; and many more bow/respectful head nod experiences!

We caught the express train yesterday from Takayama to Nagoya (2.5 hours), then bus from Nagoya to Kyoto (2.5 hours). A good friend Yuka who I knew from her 5 month stay in New Zealand, met us at the station in Kyoto. This station may I mention was huge, gargantuan and futuristic to our country bumpkin eyes! We were treated to more ramen (a delicious Japanese noodle drenched in soup and different flavours and meat) and then taken to her friends place in Kyoto suburbia to stay for a couple of days.

We were treated again to tea, snacks, and dinner not soon after. I wish I could remember the
Japanese word for ‘full stomach’ to add in here! Yuka’s friends are a family; Sinji-san, Sayaka-san, and their little son Ryoma-kun. Ryoma is a little ball of ginseng! He is energetic and we communicate in broken Japanese, ‘Obasan’, ‘Onesan’, ‘Sagoy’! General no-sensical conversation that makes complete sense when you’re in it! He is named after a famous Japanese revolutionary who helped open Japan up to the western world. There is a lot of expectation for him..haha!

Sayaka-san is a professional tour guide and showed us around Kyoto yesterday. Despite out rail pass incident, if you look for it there are always things to be thankful for. For us however this blessing was right in front of our face! Not only did Sayaka guide us round the old capital of Japan with all its temples, shrines, traditional geisha and tea ceremony, but also translated every conversation we had with other Japanese speakers and answered all our questions!

Today we were shown around Kyoto University, the second best university in Japan. In Japan
students work their fingers to the bone in order to get into the best universities, but once they are in it is apparently easy to graduate. A very different system to us! We were introduced to some students, including a student with expertise in Haiku poetry. We were also introduced to a Pastor here, Nobu-san who painted us an original calligraphy design. It is a beautiful design in orange and black Chinese characters (Kanji) that mean “Absolute” or “all knowing”, and “faith, and the responsibility that comes along with it”. Japan has only less than one 1% Christianity so much faith is required when you are a minority.

So, that’s all for now. Bren and I are hibernating in our hostel for a bit before hopefully checking out some karaoke later on. We have to see how it is done here in the Karaoke capital of the world!
 

Kombanwa.

Day Six: Mza's mix, Snow business

We're in Takayama! I was misinformed, our last post was wrong - the population of Takayama is 90,000 - not 7000... There's powder snow on the ground and it's a beautiful place.

Bideo: We'll keep this short and sweet and do our talking with a video. My good friend Mza made me a Sayonara triple CD mix set and this has been the sound track of the holiday for me so far (you should chuck it up on musichype dude). I knocked up this video to one of the songs from the aptly named "Epic" Cd whilst on the train today. The song: It's all too much by the Beatles. Cheers again Mza. It's a good six minutes but it captures some cool shiz from our trip. Watch and enjoy.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmS9zNUpqn8


BTW - We're staying in a Buddhist temple with paper walls and it's due to drop to 0 degrees tonight. Ole! and Sayonara!

I didn't know James Earl Jones was Japanese...

Day Five: Shi-BOOOYA!

Wowser: What a day. It all went pear shaped! The fun news or the bad news first? Let’s start with the fun new.

Banksy? Pffft - Give me Gingksy.

Mission accomplished: I’ve got a friend back in Welly that is well in to the stenciling game and I promised I would pop up one of his stencils – a slice of Welly-boh in Tokyo. 

Ben Wadsworth Worldwide; Mr Cobra there.

JR Rail Pass... FAIL!: Yes it all went a little pear shaped today. Paying $900 (each)  in NZD$ you can get a JR Rail pass that gives you 21 days worth unlimited rail travel. Unfortunately there was a break down in communication and planning between my self and our lovely again (sincerely she is lovely) and we were left today looking down the barrel of 21 days of traveling around Japan with no way to travel (without selling a kidney to fund it) as you can't use the ;assif you have a Working Holiday Visa. Thank you AGAIN to out friend Izumi for helping us sort out this with the travel agents here in Tokyo – it was Muzukashi (difficult to sort). The up shot? Well we have a hundred thousand yen worth of train travel that is absolutely useless to us and instead of traveling to:

Tokyo > Takayama > Kyoto > Beppu > Aso San > Nagasaki > Hiroshima > Matsue > Tottori > Osaka > Tokyo

We are now only traveling:

Tokyo > Takayama > Kyoto > Osaka > Tokyo

This is a big bummer but hey you live you learn. We had to pay a bit for those train tickets too. Oh and we had to cancel a lot of bookings too…

SHIBOOOYA!: In the evening after sorting a galaxy of tidbits and details about the trip Hannah and I decided to head out to famed Shibuya crossing. This place is on the Yamanote line of Tokyo (the main line). It was great to be a gawping tourist at this one. Thousands of people pour across the road every couple of minutes – bathed from above in the light of a million or so lights and advertisments. Impressive stuff. We slid into a tiny place call Boya and had a couple of beers and some prawns in a bucket. Taste bud assault. Use of Japanese: 5/10.

Gaijin in love

Welly-Jin’ers: It was awesome to meet up with fellow New Zealanders, Anna-Mariea Hammond and Jared French for some Raman and a bit of hang time. Nice to catch up, share stories and get some tips (jumbo sized you reckon Jared?) Jared’s Nihon-go is very good. Good luck you two.

We’re both really looking forward to Takayama tomorrow. We’re staying here. Nestled in the mountains it should be an amazing experience and a welcome juxtapostion to the infinity of people, food and lights of Tokyo. P.P.s Takayama has a population of 7000 so internet may be limited?

Thank you for reading our blog – arigato gozaimasu.

P.s. I have an interview at Berlitz on the 28^th of March. Booya.

Day Four: Smog Bogies Ahoy

Smog (not the musician): They say there’s a bit of smog around Tokyo. They say it’s real bad – people wear those doctors masks everywhere to avoid the fumes etc. You get the occasional whiff of cloudy fuminess, but I haven’t really noticed. I have however noted a smattering of smog bogies at the end of the day. Today I had got a grey goblin - “Gotta catch em all“

Oiishi: What do you think of this place to the right? Seriously they had everything. Ranch dressing, mayonnaise, tomato sauce, salt, hollandaise – every condiment under the sun… Just jokes. They sold rubber johnnies and loads of em. Wouldn't want to get my Mayo from there though…

Eigo arimasen: So our two good friends Nomo San and Izumi San graciously took us to get cell phones today. And thank goodness, as the 17,000 pages of documents and contracts they went through would’ve had Hannah and I in a spin. We ended up setting up with Willcom for our phone for about 16,000 yen and about 1000 yen a month. Which is pretty cheap – BUT - check this. We got a second phone and plan for free. Absolutely free. Scorcher. One tiiiiiiiny oversight. Once we cracked into them the lady we bought them off pointed out that there was no English mode. IIE MUZUKASHI!!! (See word of the day for translation). So we’ve got a bit of learning to do there. A big thank you to Izumi for putting the contract in her name whilst we set up Gaijin cards. Muzukashii is Hannah' favourite word at the moment.

Cute local Japanese woman in Shibuya

Amazing conversations: Man vs Woman– Nearly five days in…

Hannah: We should probably do a wash soon?

Brendan: Yeah I guess * potters around looking for stuff to wash *

Brendan: You know I don’t have anything that needs a wash eh. I can't 

find anything.

Hannah: What about your underpants? You wear underpants don’t you?

Brendan: Yeah but I’ve only worn most of them once – they haven’t 

earned a wash yet. See - smell this…

Nihon-go: Our Japanese is coming along slowly – we did another lesson today digging into adjectives. My good friend Nick Head pointed out that the best way to learn is to just get in there boots and all; to be shameless and not be afraid of mistakes. Shame? I’m from Newlands* man – I have none. It’s very true though. We’ve been a little shameless but I think we could be a lot more so.

Revelation of the day: “Oh my gosh Hannah I just realized – We’re little small town hicks!”

Word of the day:

Muzukashii – Adj: Difficult. Use: Nihon-go muzukashi desu ka ne – Japanese is difficult isn’t it.

P.s. I just heard there was another tremor in Welly. Oh my gosh. Hold tight Welly-Jin. You’re in our prayers. Also, it's nice to know that we're not alone in the pacific though eh. We saw this as we entered a Shinto Shrine in Harajuku.

 * Actually I'm from Paparangi. I'm not one of those Newlands riff raff.