Dust in the Wind, the Karaoke Story

Weather Crummy; Disappointed Females Trek to City

This weekend, due to crummy Tango weather and family duties, Natanya, Kate and I decided to take a literal rain check on our hike. Instead, Natanya and I drove down to Kameoka so we could head into Kyoto and play!

The morning started as crummy as the weather. I thought the elementary school next door told me that I could bring my recyclable cardboard (or cardboard boxes I've had since July 2007...) to the school between 7:30 and 10:30. So I showed up around 10 and one of the teachers/caretakers was there and he said, "Haha, they've gone home already." THANKS. So, stuck with cardboard, I said farewell to Kirby and drove South to Kaya. Natanya had plenty of cardboard waste too, so we placed it surreptitiously in the parking lot of a convenience store. Apologies to the 7-11 employees on Rt. 176.

Once in Kameoka, we snagged a free spot at the station and walked over to Laurel's apartment to meet her new friend, Kuma. I never knew rabbits had so much personality! This little boy or girl (we just don't know how to find out) thumped his feet when vexed, nibbled at our socks, and let us cuddle him as only a kind and thoughtful rabbit might. Meanwhile Margaret was wandering around muttering something about boys and dates... but... bunny... d'awwwwwwww.

Continuing on our day of planned fun-things, we took the train into Nijo to do some quickie purikura at the arcade and to see Star Trek with Greg, Ian, and Masahiro. Hooray for student prices and employees who believe that we are foreign exchange students! I don't think I'll be able to get away with that for too much longer... they might start to wonder once I'm 30.

Star Trek was vastly entertaining and the beers we all got helped our viewing pleasure go to where no man has gone before. Or something witty.

After that, people wanted food so we ate some kaiten sushi nearby, but this sadly cut the night short as people had last trains to worry about. So, all but me, Ian and Natanya went on in search of karaoke and more beer. We met up with Lauren, who changed her mind and went home.

Ian, Natanya and I ended up doing karaoke at two locations due to the waiting list at the first place. We are superstars, no lie. Natanya and Ian sang a 35 minute ballad by Bob Dylan while I weighed the options of eating my pastries now, or later. I chose later, and then tried to sing Kate Bush. Oof.

Somehow we ended up at Radio Clash around 2am and chatted, made paper cranes, and I texted everyone I knew that, simply, "I LOVE YOU." This was well received, and it's all true!

Around 3am, we poured ourselves into Ian's apartment and slept until the voices of children woke us up at 8am.

I have no explanation for this, other than it exists and I saw it.

So! Karaoke, sushi, movie, friends, and bunny all add up to one final note: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Driving home was relaxed this afternoon... Natanya and I listened to podcasts and sipped water and watched the scenery turn from sunny to cloudy to drizzly. We were home! When I got back to my apartment complex, I had to wait a bit longer to get inside because three monkeys were playing in front of my doorstep! Blagh! Deftly (and after 15 minutes) I trundled my car slowly up the path, chasing them back into the jungle. As I carried my groceries inside, they glared at me from trees. Eep.

Hokkaido Part Two: Snow festival, snow slide and beer hall.

Saturday, February 9th Part 2: Snow Festival, Snow Slide & Beer Hall

The youth hostel was so very warm. I slept in until about 9am, while poor Marina left around 7am to go skiing with KAJET (an association of JETs from our prefecture). I have no interest in falling off a mountain on wooden sticks and moreover, I didn’t want to wake up at 6am. So, I enjoyed my lie-in and eventually met Megan and her friend Kyle (female) in Susukino.

Susukino is in fact a red-light entertainment district. However, for the amounts of small children that pass through it during the snow festival, perhaps the prostitutes go on a skiing trip for that week. By which I mean, we did not see any ladies of the evening. We did, however, see a lot of ice sculptures! The ice sculptures ranged from cartoon characters to more elaborate designs with things inside of the ice. One such sculpture showcased crabs, fish and squid (dead, I think). Another had Bailey’s Irish cream bottles inside of the ice. If you went inside the little ice stand, you were allowed a cup of hot Bailey’s with coffee or cream. Not too shabby!

The three of us then went back over to Odori Park to see the snow festival sculptures once more. They were very different in the daytime, and the weather was absolutely perfect for it. There were a lot of families with small, adorable children wrapped up in snow suits and blankets. There were some game show type performances on stage (probably for television) and we even saw some jumping snowboarders on one of the stages! The snow sculptures included massive architectural feats (castles, bulidings etc), cartoon characters, and weird things such as the head of Al Gore. There is certainly something for everyone! After feet were partially frozen and bellies were hungry, we looked around a shopping mall for a famous ‘ramen village’, as ramen is very famous in Sapporo! However, everyone else’s thoughts had already found them at ramen village. So, we settled for Japanese style dim-sum with a nice view of the station. We sat for a long while and sipped tea before setting off again.

A huge ice sculpture including two MAMMOTHS! So cool!

In the evening, we hopped a bus to the Sapporo Beer Hall and Museum outside of the city area. The museum was all in Japanese, so I didn’t learn anything about beer… however, it was warm! We met Kyle’s friend Andrew (also from Shiga prefecture) and his friend Vanessa, who is a Hokkaido JET. The lot of us went to the beer hall for a lamb dinner! All you can eat lamb with veggies (you cook it yourself sukiyaki style) and all you can drink delicious dark beer. Marina joined us too, after her ill-fated ski trip. After much drinking, some falling out of chairs, and a brief interaction with a man dressed as a bear, we found an outdoor slide made of snow and made some use of it.

Drunk and covered in snow, we decided to head back to Susukino to look at the pretty lights and to find some karaoke. We did just that! Karaoke lasted at least 3 hours into the night (and we were joined by Desriae, a Kyoto JET). Drunk and all songed out, we stumbled home to our various hotels and hostels. However, when Marina and I got to our room, we found that some strange girl had taken Marina’s bed! So, Marina and I shared my roomy bunk and slept well into the morning.

Some information on The Snow Festival (taken from Wikipedia)

The Snow Festival began in 1950, when six local high school students built six snow statues in Odori Park. In 1955, the Japan Self-Defense Forces from the nearby Makomanai base joined in and built the first massive snow sculptures, for which the Snow Festival has now become famous.

- The snow festival is still fairly new! This year (2008) marked it's 58th anniversary. The year's theme seemed to be 'global awareness'.

Weekend of anti-anti-socialness

Weekend was more social than expected.

On Saturday I joined a few Tango people for dinner. Due to feelings that I might have to detach a lot of people from my life in order to be happy/make new friends/keep other friends, I had stopped hanging out with a few of them. However, after some self-evaluation, I decided I didn't like that about myself at all, and tried to reconnect with said people. Not be their best friends, not even be good friends, but be an acquaintance. Nobody's really that awful anyway.

That said, on Saturday I met Marina, Desirae, Andy, Eric, Yuumi, Jarrad and Scott at Mipple for dinner at the little restaurant we always go to on the fourth floor. We had lots of delicious food for not very much money and followed it up with ice cream next door at 'pier jolly', as I discovered it is called.

Afterwards, we drove to Nodagawa to get some karaoke time in. We sang for HOURS. I didn't realize how late it was until one person started throwing up from too much whiskey and my voice was about as useful as said puking person's coordination. Andy and I did a mean nirvana duet complete with headbanging/hoarse screaming! And Desirae and I rocked out to some Alanis Morisette as well, which was the end of my voice. Everyone was really drunk except for the drivers/devoted girlfriends of drunken louts. We played in the snow a little bit too

I drove Desi and Andy back to their home and decided to stay there for the night since the snow might make it problematic to get back to Ine (over an hour away) at 2 in the morning. So, the next morning I set off home to feed Kirby and change clothes and then set BACK off to Mineyama to meet Liz for lunch.

I hadn't seen Liz in ages, so it was nice catching up with her even though neither of us had too much to talk about! We ate a lot of sushi (as to say, I ate a lot of sushi) and then went for coffee at a cute little cafe called 'Honeycomb'. Liz got a very nice looking cake!

Together we set off for an IYP event (IYP stands for something official that I cannot remember). We made moss-balls! So, we took potted flowers and ivy/dragon's mustache (yay!) and shaped the soil into a ball, covered it with soft, damp moss and tied green string around it to make it stay. Voila! Moss and ball, together at last.

Granted, they were really pretty! Mine is set up by my kitchen window now, which gives my kitchen the effect of looking non-horrible! (This is always a plus).

That's the gist of the weekend, anyway. I'll put up some pictures as soon as I find my picture adapter thingie.

Rachel

Kyushyu Mini-Holiday Part 2 - "Disaster Strikes by bus, Kagoshima comes by ferry, Relief comes by Naan bread

I woke up at 0605, 10 minutes before my bus was meant to roll into Omura (where Zara lives). I scrambled my things together and prepared to get off the bus with the rest of the departing passengers. Only thing was, I was the only one getting off the bus. Everyone was stil stretched out, and my seat was in the way back, so there was no way for me to exit the bus without something standing. Nobody would! I had to scramble OVER someone finally because the bus driver wanted to leave! As I got off the bus, I realized my wallet must still be on the seat b/c it was no longer in my jacket pocket! So I turned around to let the bus driver know, but at that moment the bus sped off and wouldn't stop. I didn't panic. It's common for everyone to carry a lot of cash in their wallets because nobody uses credit cards in this country. I also knew that theft in Japan is very rare, and that my wallet was tucked away in the very back of the bus. So I let Zara know I had arrived, and that I had left my wallet on the bus. She came to pick me up and told me not to worry and that we could call the bus company when we got back to her house. She then told me more about the breakup with her boyfriend and that he had to take on a second job to support his car payments and never had time to see her, so he broke it off. She said she was in need of a fabulous vacation, and we prepared to leave!

After grabbing breakfast at a lovely bakery in her town, we received a phone call from the bus company saying that my wallet was not found. This is about the point where I died inside. No wallet? Granted, my important things were tucked away in my rucksack. But important things aside, I was now missing $900 and upwards. There was nothing I could do but pray that someone would somehow turn it in. This however, was not to be my luck.

The rest of that day is somewhat a blurred combination of sleep deprivation, massive cash loss, and a swirl of Zara talking about her exboyfriend and the injustice that was currently following both of us. I agreed, probably. We hopped a ferry to take the two of us and her car over to Kagoshima, the southern area in Kyushyu.

Aside from being mostly dead inside that day, the two of us arrived in Kagoshima city and put our things away in the business hotel Zara had made a reservation at. Lucky for me, they took credit cards! We then walked around the busy town to the aquarium, where we were lucky enough to see some of the biggest, most amazing fish I had ever seen! So big! We saw a whale shark, some huuuge guitar sharks, groupers, some weird Amazon fish I forgot the name of, and dolphins, otters, and weird sea snake things! It was a blast!

We then decided to walk around "Dolphin Pier" or whatever it was called, which looked like a typical Californian outdoor venue. Very nice, indeed! We purchased souvenirs for our coworkers back home.

We then found our way to a fantastic Indian restaurant (complete with actual Indian chef!) At the Indian place we dined next to three couples. All of them involved one caucasian male, and one or more giggling Japanese women. Oh lordy. Zara felt a might bitter, I expect, and I drowned my new financial despair in naan bread and spiniach potato curry. Mmmm.

Afterwards we wandered over to do some purikura (funfun Japanese picture stickers), followed by some beer and swift karaoke. We then retired to the business hotel to shower and sleep in an actual BED! It was then I realized the extent of my "falling down stairs" injuries. The bruise on my back was enormous and a beautiful gradient of blues, blacks, and purples. It was pretty fantastic.

I believe I slept really really really hard that night.

Osaka and the Bicycle of Hate

This past weekend was a three-day, and despite my efforts to be well traveled/worldly, etc., I hadn’t made a single plan.

So on Thursday, I decided this would be my weekend for visiting Osaka, where Danielle lives. Who is Danielle? She is a lovely lady I worked with in Seattle during those long, arduous iD tech Camp months (or just the two of them). We got along wonderfully and it was only by chance that we both ended up in the same country and quite close to each other (about… 4.5 hours away in total, I think). So we were definitely overdue for a weekend together!

I grabbed a train from Mineyama (where Desirae and Andy were kind and took Kirby in for the weekend) and hustled to Kyoto Station. Originally, the loose plan was to meet up at Kyoto Station for some walking around and then later hop the train back to Osaka for a Thanksgiving Dinner at Outback Steakhouse. This was a grand idea in theory. I arrived at Kyoto station after receiving a text that Danielle was meeting a potential private student and probably wouldn’t make it to Kyoto, which was fine. The train station was the most crowded I had ever seen it! It seemed that Tokyo had come over for a visit and brought the twins. That’s a terrible metaphor. Anyway there was like, a butt-load of people there for some reason. Oh the reason? Gee, maybe that every Kyoto festival ever was happening on this weekend (which is probably why we had the three day weekend to begin with). There were lots of people in kimono and I was seeing geisha and maiko left and right!!! I decided to get the hell out of Dodge.

I hopped a hopelessly crowded train to Osaka. The ride was fast, but it didn’t seem as such when I was half stooped, half leaned between a door, a vapid couple, and a baby carriage. Most of me was standing, some of me was scrunched against the wall, and all of me was trying its hardest not to fall on the baby. The infant lived to see another day, and I arrived at my destination.

Osaka station is big and confusing. It connects to probably a million subway stations, underground malls, and hotels. I wandered while waiting for Danielle to text me back and tell me where to go next. About 75 minutes later, I got a single text from her. ‘Go to umeda station and the outback is around there.’ I then realized that Danielle wasn’t getting any of my text messages, and it was only by luck that she had sent me this one. I found my way to the subway station she had mentioned, after awhile… I didn’t realize it was a subway station so I sort of wandered around the JR trains… like an idiot. However after my relative success at locating the station, I then realized that there were 10 exits to the streets above. Not knowing much about Osaka, I then wandered around for an even longer time trying to locate the Aussie-American steak place. After asking two security guards, I found my way to the restaurant. I looked inside but did not see Danielle, so I proceeded to wait for 40 minutes outside, watching all the gaijin pass by.

Osaka has a lot of gaijin. It was scary, and I felt out of place since I seemed to fit in so well. Osaka also has a lot of bicycles…

I went back inside after the 40 minutes to find Danielle and her friend Pete in a corner. I suppose I just hadn’t seen them earlier. Regardless, I had a delicious steak dinner and got drunk on red wine. Danielle then had a bad asthma attack and spent a bit of time in the bathroom trying not to pass out… in our drunken states, Pete and I probably weren’t a great help to her. Eventually, however, we got Danielle back on her feet and grabbed a cab back to her house in Momodani.

Her house is about three stories and WONDERFUL. She has a crazy kiwi roommate who laughs to herself while watching movies and likes to talk AT people. This explained the behavior she had towards Danielle when we stumbled in, pale and drunk, and she started talking about knitting patterns or something. Maybe all Kiwis are just like that. I have yet to meet a sane one (cough BRYN cough).

We slept.

The next day we got up around noon (well I did, but mostly because I thought Danielle was still sleeping!) We decided food needed to come next, and then got lost on the subways trying to find any. Danielle usually bikes everywhere, but as her bike was stolen a few weeks back, and her borrowed bike was still at the Outback Steakhouse, we had no other choice but to take the trains. We did a lot of walking. Osaka has bridges, buildings, and subways. Not much when it comes to cultural things, but it was actually nice to be in a city that resembled a city and not a cultural heritage site for a change. Not that I’m complaining (I’m complaining a little).
We eventually found ourselves in Namba, an area Danielle lived in while she was with NOVA (as to say before NOVA died a slow horrible death). She took me to an excellent okonomiyake place where we dined on fine cabbage pancakes and colas. After that it was Starbucks city, which delighted me in oh-so-many ways. Ways which I am not comfortable discussing… Also I bought yarn and stamps. Yarn and stamps also make me happy for inappropriate reasons.

It was nearly 5pm by this time, and we made our way back to Outback Steakhouse to retrieve Pete’s bike (the borrowed bike, that is to say). At about this time, I realized that Danielle planned on biking back to Momodani. But what about Rachel, I asked? She pointed to the back metal grill of her bicycle. I obliged.

Riding on the back of that bike was a thrilling experience. Whizzing past traffic, people, lights, stores, and other bikes… and not being able to see a thing in front of me except for Danielle. It was terrifying. And amazing. At one point we hit a big bump and my leg flailed, causing us to lose balance. But we recovered! We in fact managed to not die the entire way home. We then watched TV shows and grabbed some dinner nearby (again on the bike). This time I used a sweater to pad my behind, as it was quite sore from the previous half hour ride from Osaka Station. Anyway, I’m no daredevil, so this was exciting to me. I’m such a rebel.

We also got donuts and coffee, which was easily as rebellious as the rest of it. Mine had chocolate on it.

The next day Danielle and I went to Kyoto city. We grabbed some coffees and took pictures with some maiko that were in town. A maiko is an apprentice geisha. The maiko in Kyoto are well known for their colourful kimonos and fabulous hairdos. They were adorable to boot! Couldn’t have been over 18 years old and definitely not over five feet tall. Kawaii to the max.

We then met up with Megan B and her friend Zara and walked around a crowded flea market in the area of Kitanosomething… anyway we took a bus there and then cabbed it over to teramachi where we had sandwiches and lemonade. THEN we did purikura. Purikura being a weird Japanese thing where you take funny pictures and then decorate them with backgrounds, sparkles, funny stamps or writing tools… and you make them look… EVEN MORE JAPANESE. We came out with some pretty decent ones if I do say so myself. They are stickers too, did I mention?

After that Danielle decided to wander the streets of Kyoto armed only with her amazing 10 megapixel camera. The rest of us did some half-assed karaoke (well Zara was whole assed, but Megan and I were definitely half assed). Japanese songs are strange. Japan is strange.

I then left and met Scott, Simon and Leigh for a ride home to Tango. It was uneventful, and as Tango-ey as ever. Everyone quiet and tired, and there being unnecessary tension all the time forever. I LOVE WHERE I LIVE.

Then it was home at midnight, and sleep for not long enough (this is how my weekends seem to be ending this month).