Silver Week: Japanese Kansas is much more interesting, specially with Vulcanus! (Part 1)

Hello Ozzies!

Today's post is going to be the first of a series telling a bit about our trip around the Southern part of Honshu. Each post will talk about a day in this trip. The whole 5-day trip is a tour the main highlights of the area (even though we missed some others, but we didn't have time to cover it all).

Day 1: Departure from Tokyo Station in the Shinkansen, and arrival to Hiroshima. Let's begin!

Here's a picture of the ten of us, just before stepping into adventure!

When we bought our round trip tickets to Hiroshima, we were given the option of choosing reserved seats. A normal European would have thought that this meant that if you did not reserved, seats were for those who arrived the first, and that those who didn't get seats, could not enter the train. Am I right? Well, not in this country! Look what was waiting for us outside the Shinkansen:

And that was only half of the queue!

Non-reserved tickets here means "Wait in a queue for 45 minutes and fight to death with a thousand Japanese for a seat. But don't worry! If you don't get a seat, you can always get inside the train...and do the whole 4-hour trip in the corridor, standing up like an idiot and telling yourself how stupid you are for paying 200€ for something like this" And this is what happened...Some of us were lucky enough to find a seat, but some others...well, at least they got a picture! Smile guys!

We got to Hiroshima station at around midnight. And no trip can begin without a good walk around the bars of the area. With our limited notions of Japanese, we had a hard time finding a pub, but we finally made it! There is more than sake in this country (by the way, sake is also used to design alcohol in general, so nihonshu is a more suitable word to speak about Japanese sake). We tried a liquor called umeshu, which is made from plum. It was quite nice, frankly speaking. If you can order it back home, you won't be disappointed.

Hiroshima at night is quite nice. As you can see, it looks quite bright and shiny = very modern (please, no black humor after reading this!).

But there's also place for the omnipresent kimono women:

This photo was inside the bar where we took the umeshu. And yep, that is Davide (he's really gonna hate me after seeing these pics...).

Small Kit-Kat: this photo has nothing special, but I liked the scene, so I took a photo!

The rooms in this first hostel were tatami rooms. And believe me when I say that I have never seen cleaner rooms. Spotless clean. Amazing. Davide is not going to forgive for this picture, but he'll understand...lol

Here's a photo of the hostel (I'm not receiving any royalties for this, but I think I should)

With the rising sun, the tireless Vulcanus comitte went for their first rally. First stop: Hiroshima's castle, also known as the Carp Castle. As you may have guessed, this is only a reconstruction, so we didn't get inside. But we couldn't help taking a group picture in front of it.

Now, here's an interesting photo. You may ask why, and the reason is not obvious: after the bombing, pretty much everything was destroyed in an area of several kilometers. And that includes fauna and flora...except for this tree! Ok, there's also another one next to it, also alive. But you get the point. Everybody thought that the bombing had cursed the land, making impossible agriculture or anything that involved making plants grow. And all of a sudden, "plop!", this tree starts to grow leaves. I can't imagine how happy they were when they saw it.

Next to the castle there was a shrine, and Jorge asked for this picture, so...

Finally, the main "attraction" of this city. It is sad that a place becomes famous for disasters like these... This is the A dome. It was called like this after the bombing. One of the only buildings that "resisted" the impact of the nuclear bomb. The reason for this is that the bomb was detonated almost above the dome, so the structure was not hit horizontally, and most of it managed to stand still.

This is the exact place where the bomb was dropped. It was detonated some hundred meters above this spot. Right in the middle of the city. The Americans needed to test it in a city spared by the bombings, with a nice population on which they could measure the effects of the nukes. So nice...

After a short walk around the Peace memorial park, we headed for a building called Okonomi-mura, which hosts over 20 different restaurants of okonomiyaki.

I took this picture and this was the best I could get. We have to teach Paul how to open the eyes while saying "Cheese!".

Guess whose hands appear...

The Hiroshima version of this is called "Hiroshimayaki", which has more vegetables. You can see a picture below:

They were really delicious. And very, very cheap! The chef had some nice signs saying "Welcome to my house", in different languages:

He was so nice, we couldn't help taking out a picture with him and his attendants!

As this post has become rather long (and I havent' finished with Hiroshima yet!), I think I will do a second post telling what we did after lunch.

Heading to the Children's Memorial Museum, we encountered some children playing. I don't know what they were saying (and I find the game quite weird: do we have something like that in Europe?), but the contrast between this and the Museum made quite an impact on me. The Children's Peace Memorial was inspired on the story of Sadako Sasaki. She was a 10-year old girl with leukemia, who decided to fold 1000 paper cranes - a Japanese custom through which in theory one's dreams come true. She died before finishing, and so his friends folded the remaining paper cranes for her.

Will we ever learn the lesson? I hope I have...

Sleep tight, Ozzies!

Big breasts, big asses, long hair...and no, it's not this month's Playboy

Hello Ozzies!

Back in track, with a new episode of my personal wacky wheels adventure in Japan. As usual, late. But I'm not hunting Alice's white rabbit, so I'm afraid you'll have to read old crappy entries until I catch up. I hope you'll enjoy it, at least as much as I do!

Today I'm going to talk our lovely visit to Edo-Tokyo museum...but don't worry, pain will not last for long. Ok, let's get serious!

So back to last last Wednesday. Vulcanus organization had prepared for us a tight schedule: morning at the Edo-Tokyo Museum, then tasting the omnipresent diet of anyone who calls himself a real sumo. And last, but not least...rumble, rumble, rumble (this onomatopeyic words are supposed to represent the sound of a drum before the great the great revelation) ...WATCH A SUMO TOURNAMENT, ON LIVE! Really, really good stuff. As Auntie says, "kick them with your best shot, so hard they don't know where they are" (well, maybe that sounded more like a Rocky Balboa's sentence…).

But I'm getting myself lost again. The Tokyo-Edo museum tells the story of Tokyo (the former Edo) since it became the political capital of Japan during the Edo Period (the emperor moved relatively recently here, since originally its residence was set in Kyoto). Beautiful paintings, carvings, manuscripts and objects of that time, plus some amazing reconstructions of some buildings of the Edo period and the Meiji restoration. It is definitely a good spot to introduce oneself to the city of , since much of the original stuff was destroyed during the Allied bombings in WWII. Of course, going there is quite useless if you don't have a guide explaining the basic historic line of Tokyo. For those who don't, no worries! The museum also offers free tour guides (in English) with Japanese guides. I don't know if they have to be booked in advanced. The thing is, they were waiting for us when we arrived.

This is a photo of a reproduction of a Kabuki theater (a typical type of Japanese theater). And here's myself, trying to test a sedan chair (this is the Word Reference translation for palanquin!):

Somebody should put a sign saying "Mind the roof"...

Edo-Tokyo Museum was nice, but Ryogoku is best known for this...

...this...

... (of course, I'm not talking about the guy with the suit!) and this:

You guessed right: Sumo! Ryogaku is where the Sumo Arena of Tokyo is situated. There are 6 Sumo tournaments during the year, and 3 of them take place in here. Do you know how they manage to be sooooo fat? They eat twice a day a super proteinic, hyper caloric meal called Chanko nabe (nabe is a generic term used for all the dishes cooked in a special pot called nabe). They also sleep something like 12 hours a day, just to make sure that all those meals become fat. I cannot tell you how it tastes, but I can say that is really good. The normal Chanko nabe has meat, eggs, fish and vegetables, all in the same dish. Some Vulcanus are "semi vegetarians" (which means they don't eat meat), so our chanko nabe didn't have meat. But it was delicious, that's for sure! Here are some pics:

This is the entrance of the restaurant (don't tell me how to go here, I'm afraid I wasn't paying much attention when they guided us here).

When we arrived, the food was already awaiting for us. Ñami! All the hours of museum left us with a big empty in the stomach. Just take a look at Stefano and Davide (the two Italians who will be going with me to Schlumberger).

And the round dish is the chanko nabe! Here's another pic, with all the Vulcanus sitting in my table:

The Japanese lady is Sato-san: she's our "mother" here in Japan, and keeps an eye on all of us.


Now that our stomach is full, the show begins: Next stop, the Sumo Arena of Tokyo!

Before the fights begin, the flag of each sumo is hanged outside the arena. You can smell tradition from a hundred yards:

And here's me and Laura, with the tickets and the fan gently provided by the guys at the entrance:

The long sheet contains the order of the fights: we got inside just in time to see the two most important categories of sumos: the Oozekis (the 1st category) and the Sekiwakes (2nd best). These are the only two categories in which sumos get paid for fighting. There is another title above the Oozekis, reserved for the "living gods of Sumo". They are called the Yokozunas. Once a sumo has been awarded with this title, he owns it for life. Now there are only two and, you know what? none of them is Japanese! They are Hakuho and Asashoryu. And both were fighting this day! Lucky me!

Ok, this was a stupid picture, Pepe and I were kind of forced to do it...


Bong!


The battle begins!

The origins of sumo fight are very much related with shintoism, so there's a ritual which takes place avery time there's a fight. For example, they raise the hands in the air in order to show the opponent they are not carrying weapons. They also spread salt in the arena to attract good luck for them during the battle.

One by one, all the sumos climb to the arena, and make a tour around it. The exception are the Yokozunas, whose status of "sumo gods" means that they came one by one after, and they perform a ceremony. Here are some pics!

See you in the next post Ozzies!

Toto vs. Moby Dick's family

Hello Ozzies!

The Wizard of Oz is forcing me into some extra hours in order to keep the blog updated. And it's woking, since now I'm really getting near to today. There are so many things going on, that I should write at least 2 hours a day to keep a record of all the things going around.

Today I'll talk about last Tuesday's afternoon. What seemed like another normal day turned out to be a quite interesting journey into Tokyo's life.

It all started in after our weekly lecture. This one was about "Cross cultural difference"...Hmmm, I don't want to be rude, but to be honest, I have better things to do than listening to a woman wearing a kimono and saying superficial stuff about Japan. It felt like listening to a flamenco dancer trying to sell the uniqueness of Spain by telling some funny facts about its people and its history. No in-depth analysis, no serious description, nothing but some nice "bar anecdotes" if you get what I mean.

So after 2 hours of that, we decided to go for a walk to Omotesando. Is one of the posh streets in Tokyo, where all the haute couture from here and overseas have a nice shop. Very beautiful buildings, that I will surely come to visit again. Just to give you a small taste of the place here are some pics:

This one is the Tod's building...

...this one is Burberry's (how could I miss the best brand ever!)...

...and to finish, our international ambassador, Zara (here it is veeeeery expensive. When you see the prices, you understand why the come to Spain).

By the way, here a very funny job they have in here. Japanese version of "one person, one job" means two people with funny swords regulating traffic at the exit of a parking. It's not just here in Omotesando: they're everywhere. (Last-minute modification: Apparently I didn't film that, and the one I uploaded was not good...Sorry!)

Since Jorge had to verify his mobile contrat (after our million ¥ comrade, you never know!). We stopped at the Softbank of Omotesando, and then headed on to Yoyogi's Park (Yoyogi Koen). By the time we arrived, it was already dark, so we couldn't see much. We made a short tour, took some pictures and went to have some beers at Shibuya.

The four musqueteers: David, Jorge, Guillermo and Jose, just next to Meiji shrine!

David's back, inside the park...

Now, how do you make Guillermo stay until late, when he doesn't want to go out a Tuesday night? Easy: you take him to a whale restaurant! Ganso Kujiraya, in Shibuya, is the only restaurant in Tokyo which only serves whale. I'm not going to discuss about the ethics of eating whale, it would take hours. The only thing that I can say, is that the owner has been stocking for many years now all the whale meat he receives from the government after the "scientific researches" have been performed, and then puts it in a freezer.

Young waitress, caught by surprise while I was taking a picture of the restaurant!

I very much enjoy the experience, I have to say. Whale meat is really different from other kinds of meat: something like a horse, but with a sea scent that makes it very pleasant to the mouth. But eating whale wasn't enough. In order to bribe Guillermo, you have to set the stakes high up: we ordered whale meat, but also whale skin, whale's smoked bacon, and whale's tongue. The whale skin was quite tasteless, but the other two were really fine. Specially the whale's tongue. Eating that, you can really appreciate the sea taste of this animal. A bit greasy, but very good whatsoever. Here is a photo of the dish:

And two of myself: one before eating it...

...the other after having eaten it. The funny face was because I didn't expect the whale's tongue to have that flavour!

All in all, it wasn't very expensive. We didn't eat much, but we paid around 1400¥ and were quite satisfied by the results.

That was a video of a typical Tuesday night at Shibuya...Seems nobody wants to go to bed in this city!

And here, a pic of the Disney store at Shibuya:

Now, what's next? Beers! We have found a nice spot in Shibuya (I won't tell the name, even though every single tourist knows it, since it's packed up with Westeners), where beer is cheap, and the folks are nice (and also a bit weird, which makes it funnier). A Japanese friend of Juanma (one of the Spanish Vulcanus) showed it to us last Saturday. By the way, I should also do a post about last Saturday! Well, I think it will have to come later...

The thing is, every time we go into this bar, we meet funny people. Funny, meaning a bit weird. But nice people! This time, it was a Japanese guy in his 50s who spoke English, French and Spanish. And very well! The first Japanese who speaks so many languages. Really impressive. Here's a photo of the mate.

We also got the chance to meet one of the guys working at the bar. A Japanese philosophy student called Kyu Oh who is planning to go for two weeks to Spain in October. This is good, since I think it's going to become our favorite spot from now on...

The exotic touch was put by two guys from Peru, pretty much in the Dark-emo fashion, who were having a beer next to us. I have to ask Jorge for the picture, it would be nice to post them here in the blog. Also very nice people: they had been living in Tokyo for the last 15 years, and they recommended us some good clubs to go. Good, nice electro for my Tokyo nights...

Sleep tight Ozzies!

True Story!

Hello Ozzies!

Ok, this one is going to be a quick one. Have you ever heard this kind of stories about the friend of someone's friend, in which incredible things happened, and you end up thinking that someone pulled your friend's leg, because the thing is so unbelievably crazy that it can't be true?

Well, here's another one you can add to your list. The only difference is that this one is really true. It is happening now to one of the Vulcanus students. I won't say names because I don't think it is nice (and anyway you don't know these people, so there's no point in telling you).

We've all heard stories about the 80's in Japan, when you could spend like 10,000€ in two drinks in a bar, if you weren't careful enough to check the prices...Well, something similar just happened, but with mobile phones. A guy received a couple of days ago a call from the phone company, telling him that he owed Softbank....1.500.000¥!!!!! If we make the conversion, that is something around 10.750€. In only 36 hours! I wouldn't be able to spend so much money in so little time using my phone, even if I could. And this is true, I swear it! Shall Dorothy die instantly if I don't tell you the truth (she's not around for the moment, so there's no problem).

It happens that the guy didn't know that there's a special configuration for using Internet in Japan...He had an Internet plan, but not correctly configured. And since he was using a European phone with a Japanese SIM card, the configuration was not done by default...

We don't know what is going to happen next, but for the moment he owes quite a lot of money. Suggestions (and donations) are kindly appreciated! I think drug dealing or prostitution could sort him out, but hey!, maybe there's another, kindler solution...

So watch out for you mobile phones, and don't see too many Youtube videos on the phone!

Sleep tight Ozzies! I'm going to bed, but first I'm taking a quick look at my phone contract...

Doing a phone contract in Japan: Like stealing a candy from a kid

Hello Ozzies!

Well, well, well...Today's post is going to be about one of these things we occidental think as easy, but they Japanese think is something equivalent to jumping from a plane with no parachute. Yes ladies and gentlemen, trying to make a mobile phone contract here is like that.

My story begins at Omotesando, one week ago. I swear you I was only trying to gather information about the contract and the different plans. I am not joking, it took me more than 2 hours! The problem was not the contract (quite simple, since there is only one basic choice and some add-ons), but the telephone in itself. A huuuuuuuge mess, just to explain how the purchasing worked, how you were supposed to pay the phone, the cancellation fee, and so on...So complicated, I didn't understand a single word the guy was saying (and he was not Japanese, but American!). Plus, the shop assistant amused himself giving to each person a different version.

2 hours wasted...and counting! I finally decided to buy a second-hand phone, and buy only the SIM card, in order to spare myself from the cancellation fees. So I went with some people to Akihabara (where all technology is bought in Tokyo. That's a photo from there) in order to buy it. Mission acomplished: I bought the terminal, and went to the nearest Softbank shop (Softbank is my mobile operator...well, the mobile operator of all the Vulcanus!).

And this is when hell started...First of all, you should keep in mind that Japanese people don't speak English at all. Second Economic Power in the world, and the only thing they know in English is "wait a moment, please". Another difference with Europe: we don't use the same time references. If a Softbank shop assistant tells you "wait a moment, please", run from the place as if the devil was hunting you. 2 HOURS! AGAIN!!! Sometimes, this "harmony and peace and love" thing of the Japanese really gets on my nerves. I suppose it is the cultural shock (I really hope it is...). And the worse part of it was that I went out of the shop with no SIM card (again...)

The sequence of actions was like these:

- We enter at 7pm. In the counter, a young Japanese lady, alone, waiting for a client. So we go and tell her that we want to do a contract. She stares at us, moves her head slightly to the right, and blinks. Ok, we get it: you don't speak English...

- But hey! One of his colleagues in the shop does! Thank God, he's been to Ibiza! ("Did you enjoyed Ibiza? Yes, it was crazy! I was drunk 24h/7"). Ok, he speaks our language. We can move on.

- It's 7h30pm. We tell the guy what we want, and we ask him to translate it for us. So far, so good. The shop assistant starts typing in a lot of information in the computer. She asks for documents, and I fire her with all I have: Passport, Certificate of Residence, Mobile Phone, Bank account book. Everything is on the table, she can't say there's something missing. She starts typing...and types in, and types in, and types in... In between the typing sessions, she ask me to choose my phone number, and to sign the contract. Obviously, we don't understand each other, so the English-speaking guy has to do some trips. I'm crossing my fingers: we may get on time to go to out in Yokohama with some Vulcanus (Yokohama is like 20 mins from my house).

- 8h15: Some other Vulcanus guys arrive, also with their phones. What am I doing? Waiting, because our lovely girl is still typing God-knows-what on the computer. She has read at least 20 times all the documents, but she seems to have trouble, since she keeps on looking them. I start to get nervous: what on Earth is so complicate to understand? The Certificate of Residence is in Japanese, as well as the Bank account book. And the Passport contains the same information that the Certificate of Residence. They are not complicated at all: my name, my address, and all that silly stuff even a 3 year-old baby could understand. I mean, there's nothing to understand: only information that she should put on the phone contract.

- 8h30: Haha! the Vulcanus guys seem to have the same problems. Not a single person in the shop in able to decipher the documents (the English- speaking is long gone: the shop is closing and he has better things to do than wasting a Friday night with us). Apparently, their Certificate of Residence of the other Vulcanus students has a different format which confuses them even more. They tell them to come another day, with another format. Hahahaha...Losers!

- 9h00: I was too fast saying they're "losers". I mean, I've been here for an hour, and still don't have a phone! The Japanese start to get nervous, and the "silly questions" session begins: "Have you got a phone charger?" Can someone tell me why on Earth would that be relevant in order to create a phone contract? "Have you tried Japanese girls? You should..." Yes, of course I should...that is, if I am able to call them, which seems quite impossible in this country because having a mobile phone is like asking for the cure of cancer!

As they don't have any idea of English, they try to translate using the translator of the iPhone. Quite good, by the way. But nothing is solved: "Come again another day, there seems to be a problem with your registration" 2 Hours! And only because they are not able to understand my name! They could have said so a long time ago! This is not about cultural differences, this about being thick as a brick.

So bye bye Friday night: no Yokohama, no phone. We all go to eat gyozas (Japanese dumplings) and head for our homes...And this is what we find in the metroI wanted to post another video, but apparently it is too big (any ideas? maybe Youtube...). Remember what I said in the previous post about sleeping in the metro? This is a real master! At least, Zen super master, level 50! Look at the posture, he's even handing a phone! There was another guy, a typical example of what happens when you don't have a high alcohol tolerance. Quite funny, but at the moment it was very surprising, because all the train was silent...

Ah! Do you know how the story ended? Next day, we went to another Softbank store, with the same papers, and we had our mobile contract done in 1 hour. That girl was definetely veeeeeeery thick. I'm not trying that type of Japanese girls...

Sleep tight Ozzies!