Fish, Dust Mites and Johnny Depp

Caution: Beware the massive amount of photos.
The Friday night before my five day Silver Week break started, I could hardly sleep. I knew in just a few hours, I was going to head to the Osaka Aquarium, or Kaiyukan, which was eight floors and couldn’t be anything less than amazing. I heard they had TWO whale sharks, and although at the time I didn’t know what those were, they sounded huge and awesome.
We left on the train, arriving in the Tempozan area around 11:30 and decided we were starving. The McDonald’s across the street looked perfect. Most McDonald’s I’ve seen in Japan have been two stories, and I also found out that they are Nintendo DS network hotspots. Sometime I’ll have to take mine with me and try it out. We sat on the second floor along the bar, and not long after, some of the workers came up to eat too, but they didn’t want to sit next to us, so they got the guy a couple of seats down to move over. Hmm….

With full stomachs and a little less homesickness (McDonald’s makes us feel at home even though none of us ever eat there in America), we journeyed on to the aquarium. Before reaching the aquarium though, we came to the Tempozan marketplace, which boasts the world’s largest ferris wheel (112 meters!).

Next to the aquarium is the Suntory Museum. Suntory is a company that produces drinks, like the very popular and slightly scary Boss Coffee. We had heard the museum was running a Studio Ghibli exhibit for the next few days, so we decided to check that out first.


The exhibit was better than we expected. There were hundreds of original storyboard prints from every movie Ghibli has put out. Walking through the areas for Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle were especially touching – those are two of my most favorite movies. I couldn’t believe I was standing that close to their first form. They also had an adorable photo spot for their newest movie, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. I couldn’t resist, of course.

Unfortunately, we were a little rushed through the Ghibli exhibit because we also bought tickets to an IMAX show, so we wanted to arrive plenty ahead of time to get good seats. We were really excited about this show because not only was it an IMAX movie, but it was in 3-D. And, not only was it in 3-D, it was narrated by Johnny Depp. That’s right. A 3-D Under the Sea IMAX movie in Japan, narrated by Johnny Depp. In the same building as the original storyboard Studio Ghibli exhibit. I love Japan~

When we entered the theater, we drew tickets to see if we could win something. We weren’t sure what we were trying to win, but Cailyn won! We found out after the movie that she had won two free passes for the huge ferris wheel we walked by earlier.
Before that, we stopped back by the Ghibli exhibit entrance to add to the dust mite covered wall. They had little round stickers and black markers available to draw your own, or Doraemon, Godzilla, Pikachu or whatever else you fancied. I went with the dust mite because I thought they were adorable in Spirited Away.


To get to the ferris wheel, you have to walk through the Tempozan Marketplace, which is like a mall. We stopped in the food court for some Udon, and were pleasantly surprised that the food court was designed to imitate an Edo period village. There was even a little shrine-looking area in the back. Touristy, but cute.
The ferris wheel ride took about 20 minutes, giving us plenty of time to snap hundreds of pictures of the Osakan skyline and the pirate ship that left from the port next to the Kaiyukan. The cheerful announcer notified us that we were on security camera in the car and there was also a sign alerting us not to lean against the door. Because I was definitely going to try that.


After we got off the ferris wheel, it was a little after 5 p.m. Our feet were getting tired and we were about ready to go hom– Wait! We still hadn’t gone to the aquarium! We ended up doing what we had gone all the way there for very last. But that was OK – we got a 200 yen discount for going so late.
The Kaiyukan was simply huge. I saw so many fish and other animals that I hadn’t seen before. The walkway first opens into the “Japan Forest,” where a group of otters were curled up together sleeping on a log. Adorable!

After this, it changed into the normal aquarium scene of exhibits behind glass. My favorites were the creepy alligator, the penguins hanging out below the ice dispenser and some weird fish that I couldn’t identify.


Next was the multi-floor ocean tank, which just happens to be the world’s largest aquarium tank, complete with manta rays and the two whale sharks.


They also had several Mola mola, a kind of sunfish, which were one of the strangest fish I’d ever seen.


Looking at the tank completely full of a swirling school of Japanese sardines, Cailyn quickly decided that is what had been tempura –fried on top of her udon. Thanks to the flash from my camera, their eyes glow and make them look like some kind of aliens.

Speaking of aliens, check out these guys:


(By the way, I’m still pretty terrified of jellyfish.)

A Little Taste of Home (?)

The first week of school, I got my keitai (cell phone). It’s amazingly cool, and texting is only 300 yen per month for unlimited, or so I understood. And it has a million pictures to add to your messages, including your normal anime faces, all kinds of food, planes, cars, a ghost, a monkey, an octopus and a really cute little whale.

These last two came in handy when I was making plans to go to the Osaka Aquarium on my second weekend in town. Unfortunately, the friend I was meeting didn’t have a cell phone yet, and I missed her at the station by about 15 minutes. If only I had waited a little longer…

But I knew a couple of other friends were headed to a place called Amerika-mura, which I understood to be the “America-town” of Osaka, like Chinatown at home. I heard there was an enormous bookstore there, and I was planning on going at some point anyway. So I headed to campus to get on the computer for awhile and sent them a text to find out when they were going to meet up.

At the CIE, I walked into the door. Literally. These are automatic doors, but they move much slower than in America, and of course I wasn’t watching where I was going. Fortunately, there was a group of Japanese girls standing right inside to ask me if I was OK and probably to laugh at me when I walked away.

I met up with Cailyn and Kelly a little later and we took the trains to downtown Osaka. Kelly had been there with a friend before, and knew the area, if somewhat roughly. We got off the subway and headed the way the map appeared to point us. There were a bunch of designer stores, such as Louis Vuitton and Gucci along this road. We stayed clear of them…

Did I mention it was raining? Our shoes were soaked. We saw a sign for a pizza parlor in a covered arcade and decided it sounded excellent. Shakey’s Viking Pizza Buffet. Viking? Awesome. It was about $10 with a drink, but we were hungry enough to eat $10 of pizza. The little Japanese hostess ran back to the kitchen and let them know a bunch of Americans had just come in and they needed to put several pizzas on to keep the buffet stocked. Heh heh.

The pizza looked delicious. And it didn’t surprise me at all that there was a piece loaded with corn. Americans eat corn on everything, right? They had potatoes too, and ketchup to put on them. Like my usual suave self, I managed to domino the ketchup bottles and knock one all the way back in the kitchen where it probably splattered all over the floor. Yay. I ran back to the table to eat.

We walked for a little while through the covered arcade and found an awesome CD store, and an equally cool sock store. There they have all kinds of socks. It says so on the sign. You can also see the sign for Shakey’s in the background to the left.

After deciding we were pointed in the wrong direction, we sloshed back to the subway to look at the map again, and found our way to Amerika-mura, passing an almost eerily flashy pachinko parlor on the way. We probably passed several, because pachinko parlors are literally every several hundred feet.

Fashion is the main product in Amerika-mura. Even in the rain, we could see the outrageous outfits under the umbrellas of the other people walking around. Flashy, bright and hip clothes matched those in the hundreds of clothing stores along the stretch of road.

Up high on a building seen from the little blob of sidewalk called Triangle Park is a replica of the statue of liberty. This is just like America, right…? Amerika, that is.

We quickly found Mandarake, the bookstore I had heard about, which was four floors packed with Otaku (anime nerd) memorabilia. I felt completely at home here.

After basking in the shelves upon shelves of manga and picking up a few souvenirs for myself and others, we headed up to the fourth floor, where there was a cosplay café. The waitresses were dressed as characters we couldn’t quite remember, and even some of the fellow anime fans eating there were cosplaying. I felt a little out of place without a costume, although I could have bought one on the floor below if I really felt like it.

I got a little chocolate cake, which was delicious if a little overpriced. But in a place such as this, the atmosphere was worth the little higher price. It was definitely an experience I wouldn’t find back home.

I arrived back home in time that night to watch part of a samurai drama with Okaa-san. I’m not sure what exactly was going on, but it was pretty intense. Japanese TV is much more interesting than back home, especially without all the reality shows.

Next weekend we would get five days off. I was SO excited. First, we would try the aquarium again.

Lost in Translation

After a crazy Friday and Saturday, I was tired, but excited and very nervous to meet my host family. The past week had been great and I was surprised how quickly I grew accustomed to the dorm life, and now that it was time to give it up… I wasn’t sure I was ready to go.

People that were moving out on Sunday had to check out by 10 a.m., which was aggravating because my meeting wasn’t until 1 p.m. However, sitting in the lounge with Cailyn waiting for some time to pass, I found out that one of our other friends had to wait until 4. After that, I didn’t complain anymore. Watching everyone bring their luggage into the lobby and it collecting into a fortress around the checkout committee, I decided that I brought WAY too much with me. I hoped I wouldn’t have to drag it all on the bus to my new home.

We finally left for campus, all the way talking about how nervous we were and reassuring each other, even going over our host family’s details for the umpteenth time for the week. (Mine was a mother and her daughter, who was just a few years older than me, and a cat living outside.) I made sure to enjoy walking through the little residential area, passing the little shrine park with kids swinging and the puppy swine flu prevention poster, since I knew I probably wouldn’t be passing through again.



Time for the meeting rolled around. I went upstairs and was ushered into the large classroom, and there sitting at one of the tables was my new Okaa-san, Enoki Junko. I sat down with the helpers from the CIE (Center for International Education) office and we went over the homestay agreement/contract together. The contract itself was fine, nothing I hadn’t been expecting (another friend has to wear her hair up in a ponytail whenever she’s in the house…) but Okaa-san was speaking REALLY fast. Surely it was just because she was speaking with the Japanese CIE workers. One of them looked over me and smiled.
“You’re probably really nervous, right?”

I had been fairly calm until this point, but nervousness hit me like a wave. So far, I couldn’t understand a word of what my host mom had said. I would be living with her for the next three months, and if I couldn’t understand her, it would be impossible. I managed a nod and a soft “Daijoubu.” (I’m ok.) Okaa-san smiled and said in her rapid Japanese: Don’t worry, I’m your Okaa-san.

Shortly after, I found out we were taking a taxi from the campus to get my luggage and bring it home, and even better – the University was paying for it. I felt relieved.

The taxi ride was quiet. I think Okaa-san had figured out that I didn’t know quite as much Japanese as she thought I would. I was wondering if I’d be able to last a week… but I was determined to. Surely, I would come to understand more and more.
We pulled up to an apartment complex, and entered one on the first floor, Okaa-san dragging my larger bag behind her, much to my protest. She pulled open the first door to the right. It was my new room! It was a lot bigger than I had expected. And there was a bed! I actually really enjoyed the futon during Orientation week, so I was surprised to see a bed. It’s comfortable too, though.



I went out into the kitchen and, after having a glass of green tea, made a call to my parents to let them know I was ok. At this point, I was more than a little homesick. But I knew I’d be ok. I was determined.

School started that Tuesday, and time since has flown by. I have come to understand Okaa-san a little more, and I found out that she speaks Osaka-ben. In other words, she has a strong “Osakan” accent, which, unfortunately, seems to have blending words together as one of its traits. In Japan, accents aren’t like what we’d think in English. They actually use different words for things. For example, “arigatou” is thank you in Japanese, but in Osaka they usually say “Ooki-ni.”

Every morning I wake up and Okaa-san fixes me a large breakfast, usually a small salad, a fried egg and a piece of toast. Sliced bread is HUGE here. Cailyn told me she bought the thickest kind and cut it in half width-wise to make a sandwich. Then I leave for school, taking a bus to Hirakata City Station and catching another to school, then returning some time before dinner, which Okaa-san and I eat together and chat about our days, me stumbling, of course. Everything she makes is delicious! I always look forward to eating with her.

Sometimes I ask her questions about my homework, so she reads through the Japanese part of my textbook and always starts laughing at the awkward phrasing and telling me that even her daughter doesn’t write the kanji I’m learning. My host sister works at night and comes home about 6:30 a.m. and goes to bed, so I hardly ever see her. She tries to speak English with me when I do see her, which makes me happy.

Thankfully, I’ve gotten past my initial freaking-out stage of this homestay. I was extremely worried for the first few days, especially since most of my friends were speaking at least a little English in their homes. But I’ve decided this is for the best, and maybe my language skills will grow even stronger because of it. Sometimes I still get a bit frustrated at the gap between our communication skills, but we’ve had our bonding moments too, like watching Doraemon together on Friday nights and a few cooking shows, not to mention an almost three-hour excursion to the home center to get cat food and flowers. (We had bad timing with the buses that day.)

I’m really looking forward to these next couple of months with Okaa-san. She worries about me just about as much as my own mom, which is a reassuring thing when you’re halfway around the world from your family.

Gotta Catch ‘Em All!

It’s funny that for all the kanji, finance formulas, business terms and economic concepts I can’t remember for a test, I can still sing you every word of the Pokémon theme song from WB, although I probably won’t unless you’re singing it with me. Know why I can still remember it? Because it was an epic song, that’s why. It shaped the lives of every 6 to 10 year old tuning in every week day at 3 p.m. I was one of these 6 to 10 year olds. I still am.

As soon as I heard that this place actually existed in real life, I started planning my trip to the Pokémon Center. This was long before I even came to Japan, which is already Mecca for a nerdy-girl like me. I was hesitant in telling these plans to my friends, but they were almost just as excited to hear that there was such a place, and agreed to accompany me there on my second weekend in Japan. I’d never have guessed I could go there so soon.

We worked to map out our route, with some help from Asami, who knew the general area, and Mayu, who had been there a few weeks prior and sent some souvenirs home to me.

We set out Saturday after lunch to the station, then took the Keihan train to Kyobashi station, where we switched to the Osaka loop line. I was a little nervous about changing trains because we had to find the other station, but it was straight across from the first. We got on the loop line with no problems, and headed for Umeda.

What we didn’t do beforehand was figure out which exit we needed to leave from Umeda (Osaka) station. We knew we needed to walk by a giant mall with a ferris wheel on top, which we thought would be easy to find, so we weaved in and out through the exits until we came out with that building on our right. There was an underground tunnel that looked as if it headed to another station, so we avoided that and took a side street. (We should have taken the tunnel.)

Luckily, keeping the ferris wheel to our right, we happened upon the sign for the Umeda Sky Building, where the Pokémon Center was. The Sky Building lived up to its name – it was enormous. We found out later that we could have gone up in it and taken a glass escalator up the last few floors. We will be going back.

I ran down the stairs and in front of the entrance to the store, holding my arms wide to look like a complete and utter fool while Cailyn took my picture. I didn’t care that I looked silly – I was too excited. We crossed through the gateway into pure nerdy-goodness, reminding each other to breathe.

Through the sea of little children, we fought our way over to the plushies, action figures, folders, pens, pencils, glasses, lunchboxes, shirts, postcards, posters, toothbrushes, DS styluses, cookies, candy, cereal, games and DVDs. I reminded myself several times that I couldn’t spend my whole trip budget right here and that I wouldn’t be able to carry EVERYTHING in the store back to the dorm. I could sure try, but my arms would hurt the next day.

I’m kidding. I ended up buying a few things for myself, but mostly souvenirs for my fellow nerds back home. However, my bag was a lot bigger than Cailyn’s.

After the Pokémon Center, we went to the Hep5 mall, the one with the ferris wheel on top. There were so many people there. Everyone wants to go shopping on Saturday night. We ate at a Japanese Italian restaurant, which was playing techno music, MTV on the television and the waitresses were dressed in soccer jerseys. Hmm. What was awesome was the marble bar where we sat with all different colored marbles. I ordered a pizza which was a little sweeter than I was expecting. It was still good.

We then found our way to Sega Joypolis, which was just like Namco Wonderland except we had a little more time to wander around. Brittany and I played the Taiko Drum Master game (we even found a song we knew!!) and then the three of us used the Purikura machine again. And had more crepes.

After that, we headed home because it was already getting dark and we knew better than to wait too late to figure out the trains back home. We needed some sleep too, because tomorrow would be another big day – Brittany and I would meet our host families!

Orienting Myself

Everyone, make sure not to catch the swine flu while I’m gone. If you follow this puppy/bear cub’s advice, you’ll be safe! (These posters are everywhere.)
I’ve gotten so far behind my actual timeline on this blog that I’m going to try and condense Orientation week into one post. It might be long, so hang in there.
I was so happy that my roommate was from Japan and had gone to Kansai Gaidai before. She was even willing to walk us to campus the first morning of orientation and show us around, so we wouldn’t get lost. It takes about 20 minutes to walk to campus from the Seminar Houses, especially with a heavy backpack.

When we got to campus, I couldn’t believe how new and beautiful all the buildings were! Everything seemed shiny in the sun, the library was huge and even had a stained glass window and the fountain was shooting to the sky, decorating the quad area. I knew I was going to love it here.

Asami left us to go to our Orientation session, which we had several of over the next few days on various topics. The most notable was when I signed up for a bank account. I had expected it to be difficult, with how formal the Japanese are, but I didn’t expect to spend around an hour filling out a form the best I could, then finding out I had made a small error on all three forms and having to do them all over again. *sigh* Another thing about Japanese bank forms – Japanese people use a stamp with the kanji from their name called a “hanko” to “sign” all official documents. I, obviously, do not have one. Therefore, I’m required to sign my name exactly the same as my passport on all official documents. Have you tried to sign your name exactly the same twice? It’s not easy. Try it.
Orientation activities gave us plenty of time left over to explore the surrounding area. Leaving through the main gate of campus takes you to the main street that runs to Hirakata City station. Brittany needed to exchange some traveler’s checks, and we had heard the bank was toward the station, so we headed out. Thankfully, it wasn’t all the way there, because it’s a really long walk after lugging a computer bag to campus already.

On the way to the bank, I happened to look down at the sidewalk. It is the little things everyday that remind me that I’m even Japan, because, yes, even the sidewalks and sewer covers are cute. Only in Japan. The sidewalks had alternating pictures of cute animals and the sewer covers had intricate designs including a chrysanthemum, the symbol of the imperial family.

The next day, Asami took us to a nearby mall to go shopping. I had more takoyaki (yay!) and a crepe for dinner. Yum~~ We looked around in a lot of the clothing stores, which are all really expensive. The funniest store was for men’s clothes, but 75 percent of everything in there was either pink or purple. I imagined some of my friends at home wearing that clothing, and it was quite hilarious.
When we got back, my third roommate, Cailyn, had arrived. She looked really tired, so I tried to help her as best I could. I knew exactly how she felt, having been there just a couple of days ago. It was very cramped with all three beds in the room, but we pretended like it was one big bed and that made it a lot more fun. I really had a great time staying with those two.

Thursday night, we had an opening ceremony for exchange students, with a huge banquet afterward. I say huge because there are 442 exchange students from all over the world studying at the University this semester. We gaijin (foreigners) were excited to see what would be on the Japanese buffet. Sushi, vegetables, fruit, even some rolls and random chikin (this is how it was spelled) and beef taquitos were laid out on the long tables. They were also grilling out hot dogs and sticky chicken on a stick (This is the official name. hahaha) and had the ice cream machine going. Cailyn and I stood in line for 15 minutes for ice cream. Yes, we wanted it that badly and it tasted all the better for waiting. We left for the dorm very satisfied, especially since the weather had cooled off for the day.
Friday was the tour to Kyoto! We were so excited. They put us into a group of five and gave us four Japanese tour guides, who were all very nice. We rode the train to Kyoto and walked to Yasaka Shrine and from there through a park and a little village to Kyomizu Temple. (Shrines are from the Shinto religion and Temples are from the Buddhist religion).

At Yasaka-jinja, I rang the huge bell and made a wish, after throwing in my five yen coin. Our guides told us that five yen is especially good luck because they have a hole in the middle, so you can look through and see the future. From Kyomizu-dera, there was a beautiful view of downtown Kyoto. Cailyn even took my picture against the mountain scenery, next to a sign that says, in beautiful kanji… no smoking. It’s still a nice picture. Brittany drank the water from the Temple which brings intelligence, so we knew she would do well on our upcoming Japanese review tests. My feet were tired from all the walking, so I sat and watched.


After the Temple, we were starving so we walked toward downtown Kyoto to get some sushi. First, we stopped at a Japanese Starbucks, which has most of the same menu items at a similar outrageous price. Then, we found Namco Wonderland, where the Japanese girls quickly ushered us past the HUGE crane machines to the Purikura machines. These are similar to photobooth pictures, which you can draw and write on afterward. They are VERY popular with Japanese girls around my age. They also make your eyes really huge for some reason.

Finally, we got to Kappazushi! I had already eaten at the one in Hirakata City, and was excited. It is a rotating belt sushi restaurant where you pick off what you want as you see it, but you can also order something from the little screen menus and they will send it on a small tram after they make it. My favorite? The hamburger sushi, which takes remarkably like a Salisbury steak with a little squirt of butter on top. I ordered two sets.

When we got back to the dorm, we made our plans for the next day. Huge plans, exciting plans. That’s right – we were headed to the Pokémon Center.