There’s a first time for everything in Osaka

With all the girly hangouts in Sannomiya, enough was enough with Kobe. By January 7th, I was ready for some hardcore Osaka-ing. I told my friend Takashi to leave the whole day open, since I know he is also of the opinion that Osaka is rockin’. He’s actually studying abroad in America this year, but my plans to meet him in the states fell through and it ended up being easier to align my trip to Japan with his.

Of course, now that I had moved to the Uetani household, Osaka was a good two hours away. So we made plans to meet at noon, which meant I left the house at 10. Really only an hour and a half is really necessary, but it depends on how the trains line up etc. and since Takashi lost his cell phone, if he didn’t show I would have no way of contacting him. This meant that me being late would be kinda problematic.

I also wanted to arrive early because while in Japan, I reverted back to super-on-time-all-the-time Japan mode. Those of you who know me in America probably know I regularly show up minutes or hours late to things I intend on going to (meetings, classes, movies, parties, etc.) But here, being even two minutes late is still considered a HUGE DEAL and I’d actually rather just be early than deal with the two-minutes-late consequences. Heads roll.

So I stood there at our designated meeting spot in the train station, listening to This American Life for a while (I have had so much bonding time with Ira Glass on this trip) until Takashi showed up and we went and grabbed some Ramen at a nearby restaurant. Then we hopped on a train since I said I wanted to go shopping in Shinsaibashi (since I had been there once before and had great shopping success). I found a skirt. and some warm (and fuzzy) items at uni-qlo.

We walked aimlessly for a bit, and found Namba, where we consumed some delicious takoyaki and took a picture with that famous clown dude…

Then Takashi wanted to go to Nihon-bashi to look at cameras (Nihon-bashi is the Akihabara of Osaka) so we walked over.

I had forgotten how close everything is in Osaka.

Yes, iPhones really do cost 0 yen in Japan.

After camera inspection was done in Nihon-bashi, we were mid-conversation about maid cafes (which are rather plentiful in Nihon-bashi, as in Akiba). I said I’d never actually been inside one. Takashi was far too surprised at this fact (who the hell was I going to go with?? If I’d been to one before, he would have been there!!) So we toyed with the idea of going to one until I somewhat insisted that we did, and that I’d buy him his coffee or whatever (maid cafes are expensive).

With a random maid cafe worker

Maids & yellow submarine

We picked a maid cafe that was somewhat visible from the street, which may have been part of our problem — this maid cafe was NOT hardcore at all. Yeah, the waitresses were dressed up in maid outfits and there were little bells on the table and lace everywhere, but they didn’t do anything special (Takashi spoke of song & dance routines, and much more lavish vocabulary when the waitresses take your order in a Tokyo one he went to with his friends). In fact, most of the clientele were rather normal at all. The lonely おっさん (creepy old men) demographic was a little high I guess, but there were also high schoolers, and other relatively normal people. I was a bit underwhelmed.

I was surprised to see how clean the whole cafe was. Duh, maid cafes are totally clean, said Takashi.

He had cheesecake, I had ice coffee (at which point I surprised HIM by pointing out that we don’t really have iced coffee in America, which he had not noticed). We paid the ridiculous prices for our food, and then left.

This was the first of many adventures that day in Osaka that were firsts, despite the fact that a lot of time was spent in places where I have been one or more times before. I shall label them with 初, the Japanese word for “first.” And that was:

初 Maid Cafe!

At this point we realized that we hadn’t yet been to Ame-mura today! So we walked over there and first stopped by the Apple store at the corner leading into Ame-mura.

I’d never been in that Apple store, but as many Apple stores are, it was a happy magical wonderland. I found an iPod and cranked up the MGMT as I watched the slightly-hipster Japanese Apple dudes talk to customers. I had a long-ish conversation with one of the dudes at the genius bar (or whatever it’s called) about macbook airline chargers. I did not buy one, as it cost even more there than in America (jeez). On the one hand, I don’t think it’s really worth the $50 unless I make this America/Japan commute a regular thing, especially since I am not convinced charging is possible on enough different airlines. On the other hand, I spent more than that amount on socks alone on this trip to Japan. (But socks are important.)

After leaving the Apple store we finally arrived at the other, more magical playground: Ame-Mura. We shopped for some hip dude-clothing (which covers about 80% of stores in Ame-mura) and then Takashi insisted we stop for an ice hot dog. Three years ago, I was somewhat disgusted by this idea and stood there skeptically while he consumed this seemingly-bogus snack. This time though, I decided to give it a shot, and we entered the tiny, cramped shop that was roughly the size of a college apartment living room, and just as dirty. The walls were lined with hundreds of photos of celebrities who stopped here to eat ice-dogs — I guess this is the only place in Japan that does this, so it’s quite a delicacy when you’re in Osaka (???) Despite the grungy American-city-replica vibe of Ame-mura, our ice dogs were served on adorable little trays you would expect to receive green tea and some mochi-like snack on and a little toothpick/mini-knife which with to eat it.

But instead, it was my…

初 Ice Dog!

And it was AMAZING.

The ice cream is just your classic vanilla soft-serve. But the secret is the bun. It’s fluffy and extremely sweet, not too soft or chewy but not at all crunchy, and warm. The contrast with the cold/sweet ice cream is perfect and whoever thought this up is a GENIUS.

I wanted to go to a particular store I’d been to 3 years ago where I bought a ton of socks (and everything costs 300 yen or less). However, we went to the same spot and it appeared to be closing down, or a different store that was also closing down. All old crappy things, and no socks.

At this point we had to decide whether to stay in Osaka or to go to this awesome spot Takashi knew of that had good views, etc. of the Kansai area. However, that required a car, and to go drive and come back to Sannomiya before 10:30 when the last bus I could take home was. It was gonna be tight, so we just stayed in Umeda instead.

Let’s go to HEP! We said (although I’d been there just days before… HEP is still fun). We walked over to HEP. And we saw… it was CLOSED!!

初 HEP being closed!

How the hell can HEP be closed??? I guess since they had sales going on all through new years (the normal days off) that they were taking a day off now. But it was so sad.

Earlier we had passed by a pachinko place and it was revealed that I had never done pachinko. Again, like with maid cafes, Takashi was in shock and awe. Find then, let’s go.

初 Pachinko!

We found a pachinko place (really not a difficult task if you’re in…Japan). I spent 1000 yen to see little metal balls fall down and that’s about it. Wow, I really don’t get what the fun part of pachinko is. Plus, the whole incredibly noisy atmosphere of pachiko places makes it completely impossible to whine at my friend that I don’t get why this would be fun. Whatever, pachinko.

I was ready for something that I knew would be fun: purikura. Yes I had taken it like 6 other times so far on this trip, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need to do purikura. We wandered for a while, looking for a purikura place, but found none. NO PURIKURA!? Could this be possible?! Normally when hanging out with people you can’t AVOID the purikura places left and right. This was:

初 difficulty finding purikura!

It was incredibly disappointing. We went to Yodobashi camera so Takashi could look at yet more cameras. I whipped out my rental cell phone and did some internet research on purikura places in Umeda. I found a place that someone claimed to have taken purikura as recently as 12/19/09, so I figured this place still existed. Takashi knew vaguely where that would be, so we headed over and saw several arcades that had signs out saying specifically there WAS NO PURIKURA.

Could this be the END OF PURIKURA?!

Finally we found a place, but it barely had 3 machines, and no scissors. Ummm… fail? I’m not claiming to be an expert on purikura economics, but as far as I can tell the only cost involved would be the purchasing cost of the machine, and then power to leave the damn thing on, while you collect 400 yen a pop from groups of girls all day and all night long. What gives, Osaka?

With 2 hours or so to kill before I needed to go home, Takashi was yet again disappointed in my lack of experience in potential places-to-spend-money in Japan; not only had I never gone to Maid Cafes or Pachinko before today, but I’d never been to an izakaya (a Japanese bar). OH MY GOD!! This doesn’t seem that surprising… as I don’t think most nanjo girls were going bar-hopping in high school (since we weren’t even allowed to take purikura in our uniforms or go to KARAOKE, period). Actually, scratch that — I’m sure some girls were, but I was not friends with those kids. The orchestra kids are not really the rowdy type.

初 Izakaya!

The izakaya we stopped in was near the purikura place. We ordered a few random foods including the ever-chewy cheese-mochi, and some squid thing. The best thing about this place was the drink menu:

When I pointed this out, Takashi insisted that we needed to tell the izakaya that it’s wrong. In fact, that’s the usual response to Engrish, that *someone needs to tell them*. But I’m not sure it’s worth it even for them to change their menus, since I am really the only demographic who would notice. Takashi’s english is on the better end of people in Osaka, and I doubt the 4 other foreigners who may potentially ever visit that bar will care either.

Also, Engrish is funny.

Had my 初 yogurt-drink (which was quite good), then said goodbye to Takashi and headed west, where I bought my 初 coffee-pan (like an-pan but coffee-related sweet things are inside… delicious) and hopped on the fastest train back to Kobe I could find. Arrived home like 2 hours later.

Some final impressions on Osaka: it’s changing. The lack of purikura was kind of astounding, and even some of the shoutengai (shopping streets) were kinda lonely. On the other hand, there’s tons of construction going on around Umeda station, with several new (large) buildings and hotels. Osaka is just kinda different from how I remember in a way Kobe is not.

But at least the ice dog business seems to be relatively stable! It’s a snack I plan to count on for years to come.

Haircuts and Kakizome

With Seijinshiki (Coming of Age Festival) tomorrow and my trip home the following day, things are picking up speed. This morning was the only free time I had in the past week to go get a haircut from the same barber who did the honor of cutting my hair rather drastically in my Japanese-schoolgirl days three years ago.

This time I didn’t really know what I wanted, other than something different, and generally to have less hair. We found a few pictures in hair magazines that I liked, and I told him to leave enough hair to put up (like I will do tomorrow). For “before” pictures, see previous post. In the end I came out looking something like this:

Also got a shot with the barber and his wife, just like I did last time I got a haircut from them. Same people, same pose, same place, 3 years apart:

2007

2010

Later in the afternoon was kakizome, or the first brush-writing of the year, with Miyamoto-sensei. There were way more people this year than in 2007, and a wider variety of ages and genders. Basically the brush writing works like this:

1) Show up, decide what character you want to write.
2) Look your character(s) up in a series of brush-writing kind of encyclopedias, where different writing styles are all shown. Pick one you like.
3) Practice writing it on a small piece of paper with a brush-like pen.
4) Practice with a real brush but on a relatively small piece of paper (8.5″x11″ for example).
5) Move to the floor, bigger paper, and a much bigger brush. Be nervous. Write about 4 times, sometimes with different ink or brushes.
6) Sit back, reflect, and pick the one you like best to be mounted on some thicker paper or a scroll.

All the while, getting input from Miyamoto-sensei on how to improve your brush writing for the next attempt.

3 years ago, I wrote the word 「恐竜」(dinosaur), oblivious to the fact that the character you write is supposed to have some kind of relevance to the kind of year you have. So people write things that are more clear-cut like “love” or “new” or “effort” or something. However, Miyamoto-sensei told my host mom she was very excited about what I might possibly write this year. “We’ve all been waiting in suspense to find out what comes after ‘dinosaur’” I was told. PRESSURE IS ON.

So I waited for inspiration to strike. And it did. My word of the year, folks, is 「逆光」(gyakkou). It means “reverse lighting,” or when you’re taking a photo and the cameraman is facing the light, so all you get are silhouettes.

The main reason I chose this is because I learned it the other day (while someone was taking a picture) and it was one of those “I’ve never heard this word before but I immediately understand” moments. Additionally, I realized that there isn’t really a single word for 逆光 in English (unless I just don’t know what it is, which would be kinda embarrassing), and I found that difference interesting.

Also, I’ve always thought 「逆」is a cute kanji.

I wrote the word several times, and obaachan (host grandma) helped out a lot too, telling me how to write the characters better. In the end, I came up with something like this:

There was also a little boy there who was about 6, and incredibly adorable. He was completely entertained with brush writing for HOURS with his parents not around. He also apparently has an English class at school so all the women there were saying “Go say ‘hello’ to Mo!!” and he is like “okay!” and he walks up to me and says “bonjour!”

In general, Miyamoto-sensei et. al. weren’t as shocked by my presence as I expected (which is fine, being chill about me being here is an unexplored alternative to ‘OH MY GOD, YOU’RE BACK!!!’) At one point, Miyamoto-sensei was saying I looked more mature, and that she liked my haircut and that I’m overall cuter than before. At this point, obaachan interjected and says “yeah, of course she looks good — she went out and paid money today for people to make her look good!!” Oh obaachan…

Okaasan, Obaachan, Mo

Mo and Miyamoto-sensei

Adorable New Years decorations in the entryway

It seems that 「逆光」did in fact live up to everyone’s post-dinousar expectations. Phew.

Sannomiya Asobi

When hanging out with a bunch of girls in Kobe, Sannomiya is the place to be. It has all your shopping/karaoke/movie/shrine/purikura/train needs (with both Hankyu and JR, the two major lines, meeting at Sannomiya) and an ample supply of stylish Kobe girls (and the occasional boy) in just the right population density for the place to feel lively, exciting, and fun, but not overcrowded or claustrophobic.

Here’s the drill:

1) Get up in the morning, eat food, get dressed up real cute and do your hair and makeup.
2) Head to Sannomiya. Meet your friends at some designated place, especially in front of the nikuman (dumpling) stand inside the station.
3) Food, Karaoke, Shopping, Purikura, and optionally more food, in any order you please (but Purikura cannot be first)
4) Lather, rinse, and repeat with different friends all week!

Since I’m back in Kobe for just over 2 weeks, I was part of pretty much non-stop Sannomiya hangouts with girls from high school. Here’s a few pictures of the three non-spontaneous (aka planned) hangouts I arranged in Sannomiya:

12/30/09: Nanjo Karaoke

Yuka and I wanted to go karaoke-ing with someone, so we contacted Misaki, a friend from high school and a fellow Porno Graffiti fan who I went to Karaoke with at the very last weekend or so of my year abroad. She said she was already going karaoke-ing with Machiko (another close friend of mine) and that we could just join in. A number of other girls from our class at Nanjo but who I’d never really talked to before were also coming. Oh well, better late than never…goes for making new friends from high school?

Tera-chan, Yuki, Misaki

Mari, Machiko, Yoko

We met up, and proceeded to karaoke for 5 hours. FIVE HOURS. This was the third day I was in Japan, and probably the most fun AND soul-crushing event I have experienced so far on this trip. Fun because it’s karaoke, and karaoke is, well, fun… the soul-crushing part was when I realized that I don’t know a single Japanese song that came out after May 2007 well enough to sing it. I keep up with new Mr. Children albums, but I don’t listen to them fanatically enough to sing, and I am completely obvlivious to the mainstream Japanese music. When you live here, keeping up means simply watching tv sometimes, which happens completely naturally in every household I have lived in here. But to suddenly be thrown into a 5-hour karaoke session with a knowledge of pop music from 2007, it’s almost like knowing nothing all over again. I worked 10 months to absorb as much j-pop as I could, and all for nothing!?

Eventually I realized that I could still fall back on all the songs I used to know, even if they elicited a 「懐かしい」every time I sang them. Karaoke SUCCESS. Except for one thing: Yuka couldn’t come. She had an errand to run at the beginning, and apparently you can’t have people come in once you’ve started free-time karaoke (when you don’t decide on a length of time beforehand). So that was kind of :( because it meant I never got to karaoke with Yuka during this trip.

Machiko & Mo

Karaoke was followed by purikura (and running into Furo/Aika like I mentioned in a previous post):

Then we moved onto a restaurant called アジアジア (AsiAsia in English… I guess?) where we partook in tabe-nomi-houdai (all you can eat & drink) for a fixed price. Many delicious things were ordered, many conversations were had about several people’s non-boyfriend-but-person-with-whom-we-can’t-totally-say-nothing-is-going-on. The restaurant was loud and boisterous. I had a hard time following the quiet secretive conversations going on. I learned here that Japanese drinks are really small and taste sweet. But I had a good time and certainly more than replenished all the calories lost during marathon karaoke and induced karaoke stress. On the way home I talked to Mari and Machiko in a much more audible setting (inside the train) and had a fab time.

Waiting in a really narrow stairwell to get into the restaurant

1/04/10: Hatsumode

Martha, the exchange student that went to my former high school in America last year, saw via my facebook status that I was in Japan. Hmmm… wait a minute, SHE also lives here, I realized (once she commented on my status). Though she’s more friends with my little brother’s crowd, we’ve met a few times back home and she invited me on a little Sannomiya hangout of her own on the 4th. I was busy during the early afternoon moving from Yuka’s house to Noriko’s house, so I did that while she and her friends saw a movie, and afterwards I joined them for 2010 初詣 (hatsumode) at Ikuta Shrine, but not before running into my friend Ryo for the second time in Sannomiya this trip.

I instructed them to meet me by the butt statue (and just like all other Kobe natives, they seemed slightly unsure of what I was talking about here). Martha & friends were a bit late and so I stood and watched this kid play guitar for a few minutes. He was good! However, in the picture below, note the girl in the pink hat’s outfit. Almost everyone wears shorts, boots, and tights in winter here, or shorts, boots, and over-the-knee-socks. This girl’s socks aren’t even knee-high!

Off to Ikuta Shrine! Even though you’re supposed to go on New Years Day ideally, it was still this crowded on January 4th! Waited in line for about 15 minutes!

We also got our fortunes. Mine was pretty decent. It had little things about each part of our life — apparently I am going to lose all my money on a vacation… pretty much is coming true!

Martha and friends! We then proceeded to eat random festival-like things around the shrine (taiyaki included!), take purikura (which I do not have on my computer), and go eat monjya-yaki (sort of like a less awesome, more Tokyo-y version of Okonomiyaki).

Afterwards, I had to return home to the Uetani household, for the first time in 3 years. We briefly spoke about how I should take a bus back instead of a train. Martha’s friends said “we’ll walk you to your bus!” because they’re nice, but it was a little embarrassing because I had to be like “well I’m not sure where my bus is, but I vaguely feel like it’s in that direction” and as I approached it “no, this isn’t right, I think we have to go down that staircase” etc. etc. It was like trying to follow instructions you remember from a dream, where you’re continually comparing what you see in front of you to an image in your mind and trying to resolve the difference into some logical course of action. Anyway, I managed to find the right bus as I knew I would, but not without worrying my friends with my hazy memory of what I was doing. I made it home, fyi.

1/06/10: Sweets Paradise

Or, alternatively, the reunion of Knitting Club. Machiko and Mari from orchestra club are two of the friends I keep up with the most (letters & packages & emails & the occasional mixi message). The first week I was in Japan, Mari happened to be in San Francisco with her family. Machiko came to karaoke as mentioned above, but since the three of us spent endless hours knitting things in random fast food restaurants, classrooms, and shopping centers in high school, it seemed fitting for the three of us to meet up again. Mika, a girl from my art class the first quarter or so I was here, also joined us (which was good because otherwise I wouldn’t have had time to see her) and Mari arranged most of it. Originally I suggested we go to Sweets Harbor in Harborland, which I went to once long ago with my first sister. But apparently it’s closed for good now, and instead we went to Sweets Paradise, effectively a sweets buffet located in Sannomiya.

Mari and Mika

Mo and Machiko

However, with all-you-can-eat cake and pie and ice cream and more, there is significant danger that one might uhh… overeat. Indeed, after Sweets Paradise I was completely un-hungry for the next eight hours or so. Whoops.

Festive and delicious

After gorging ourselves on sugar and whipped cream, we proceeded onto the purikura. We managed to get them all sent to Machiko’s phone, and she sent them on to the rest of us. We shopped for a while and then Machiko had to go home. More shopping ensued until Mika had to go too. Mari though, is living by herself (rare for Japanese college students, who mostly live at home) and she had nothing else going on that day –> freedom! And by freedom, I of course mean KARAOKE! Time to break out the Mr. Children, Porno Graffitti, and random Johnny’s songs I can sing with gusto (a vast majority of which are Arashi songs), of course. There was some occasional Seishun Amigo and Sakuranbo going on as well.

Followed by more shopping. Did my homage to Toyku Hands (a store with a level of awesomeness second only to Loft), and to the bookstore where I spent a long time in the celebrity photo book section (there were a disproportionate amount of Mizushima Hiro books, fyi). Eventually we decided we could stand to eat again, and headed over to ポムの樹 (pomu no ki) the omu-rice chain that I fell in love with 3 years ago. Omu-rice was hence checked off the to-eat-in-Japan list. Mari and I had a good heart-to-heart and I took one of the last buses home around 10, when all the stores in Sannomiya are closing anyway.

All in all, a good day’s asobi, and the purikura to prove it:

Bargain Shopping and Fukubukuro 2010

In Japan, as soon as New Years Day is over, a wonderful thing begins: BARGAIN SHOPPING. I guess it’s sort of like black friday in America (though I don’t think I’ve ever like, left my house on Black Friday so I’m not sure) but almost everything is on sale, particularly on Jan. 2nd and 3rd, and since everyone is on holiday until the 4th, you damn well better go shopping.

The second awesome thing that happens during bargain season is 福袋 (fukubukuro) or a grab bag basically, where a bunch of unknown contents from a particular store are put into a bag, and sealed so you can’t see them or know what you’re buying, and then sold for a price that’s way lower than the total of the individual items. Of course, there may be stuff you don’t want, but hey that’s where the luck comes in (direct translation of fukubukuro = luck bag).

So this year, I decided to do my first bargain shopping in Osaka upon returning from Tokyo. Since January 1st and 2nd are holidays, the post offices are closed, and that’s the only place where I can withdraw cash, I made the wise decision to not really shop in Tokyo (also I didn’t really have a lot of time). Unfortunately at the end of my Tokyo trip I was left with 2000 yen (about $20), and was extremely concerned about my ability to shop in Umeda like I had planned with Yuka (I was also concerned about whether I had enough cash to get back to Yuka’s house). Luckily, at the last minute wandering around Tokyo station, I found a post office where just the ATM part was open. Woohoo!

The bullet train arrived in Shin-Osaka and I changed trains headed for Umeda, and arrived with about an hour to spare before I was supposed to meet Yuka. So I searched around a long time for a coin locker to throw all my stuff in from Tokyo. Then I ate takoyaki at this place by the station where you have to stand and eat, and OH MY GOD IT WAS DELICIOUS:

Then I walked around looking for HEP (a 7 or so story high mall, basically, filled with happiness and delight and WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE), which I actually failed to find for a while. I did find a good place to buy tights though, and did that. Then Yuka showed up, and we spent about 30 minutes trying to find each other inside the station. Tip for Umeda: find a good place to meet people!! This should have gone for Asakusa on January 1st as well — I spent half an hour trying to find Ben doing the whole “well now I’m near a building that looks like this… and uhh… yeah I’m gonna walk that direction now” thing. Not effective.

(I am also extremely nervous because tomorrow I’m meeting a friend in Umeda again. Except this friend does not have a cell phone. Praying to the 待ち合わせ gods now.)

I finally found Yuka and we began to scour every floor and every shop in all of HEP. I came back with a variety of good loot.

Most notably, I now have all the clothes necessary to complete the incredibly popular ensemble that looks totally normal here but would make me look like a freak back home: suspender shorts, black tights, and knee-high high-heeled boots. Hopefully I can incorporate all of these items into some outfits that are America-appropriate once I go home :/ suggestions welcome.

So after a long and fruitful day of shopping, Yuka and I went home for a delicious dinner of nabe and warm yumminess. Yuka’s cousin was also visiting that evening. It turns out that since Yuka’s mom heard that I like Japanese clothes (true story), she bought me a fukubukuro!! from this store in Sannomiya I’d been to a few days before with Yuka. Upon opening it up… the contents are revealed to be:

1) A bright purple shiny furry coat. WIN. (Just like the one purple jacket boy had)
2) A grey scarf. Also excellent.
3) A long-sleeved argyle grey shirt. The same color I would have picked out myself.
4) A brown knit dress. Already wore this, so another success.
5) Cargo pants. Way too small. FAIL. I do not plan on losing enough weight to wear them.

My fukubukuro:

Overall, there was quite a bit of luck in this luck bag. I love you, fukubukuro!

I also partook in an edible fukubukuro from Bagel & Bagel: a bunch of random bagel flavors in a bag. LUCKY for me, there was a matcha flavored one. WIN!!!

In conclusion, fukubukuros are awesome!

Japanese New Years 2010

It’s a little different than the American party-till-you-drop technique of welcoming the new year.

December 31: Yuka had stayed up until 6 am working on her nengajou (new years greeting cards). Her mom had woken up at 5 am to start making osechi ryouri (traditional new years food), and around 5:30 they crossed paths. I woke up around 10 and knew I had some time before Yuka would wake up, so I went into Kobe and did some shopping and internetting. I stopped by Ikuta Jinja, the temple in Sannomiya. They were in the middle of setting up all the booths for food, since all temples become a swarm of festivity on new years day as everyone files in to go do their 初詣 (hatsumode, first shrine visit of the new year). However, as it was December 31st, I went to the shrine, and did hatsumode for 2009, pretty much at the last possible minute. But since I haven’t been to Japan in 2.5 years and I’m pretty sure I didn’t go to any shinto shrines in America during 2009, I think it’s safe to say that this visit was successful hatsumode.

I haven’t done hatsumode for 2010 yet, but I have a little while before I leave this country. It will happen.

Anyway, I came home, hung out with Yuka, and then it was time to eat soba for dinner, as toshi-koshi-soba, in addition to being a really great word, is the traditional New Year’s Even dinner. Something about soba noodles being long and that bringing longevity and luck into the new year. Then we turned on the TV to watch some Kouhaku, the red-vs-white Japanese pop music showdown. The ratio of good wholesome j-pop to enka (think “Japanese old people music”) was rather low, so we ended up watching more Gaki no Tsukai than anything else. Whoops. I took a bath and came into the living room again about 15 minutes before midnight, just in time for the Johnny’s Countdown.

The Johnny’s Countdown is AMAZING.

Every boy band in Japan for the last 25 years or so is present, dolled up and ready to perform (and yes, even after decades, Japanese boy bands never die. They just get older and involved in more nudity scandals… yes SMAP, I mean you.) They each sing a song, but you don’t even have to sit through the whole song, just about 30 seconds to 1 minute of the chorus or well-known part of the song. This is likely because (1) there are a LOT of boy bands and fitting them all in the given half-hour timeslot is probably a bit of a crunch and (2) the whole point is to 盛り上がる (get you hyped up) for midnight… and since traditionally the chorus/famous bit of the song is the most exciting, seeing cute boys dancing and energizing you with j-pop goodness in rapid fire with the best parts of the songs (which also happen to be the parts you can certainly sing along to) makes you READY FOR THE NEW YEAR.

Some of these Johnny’s bands are significantly younger than me, some are just old enough to be my parents. But all are dressed in outfits that put most women to shame because I just don’t own anything that SPARKLY, or that PINK. The award for the gayest looking Johnny’s band during countdown-to-2010 goes to: V6, a surprising winner, with the bright pink suits and black sparkly vests. Ohhhh Japanese entertainment.

Also SMAP sucks SO MUCH at singing. Like, I think I’ve seen people sing SMAP songs at karaoke WAY BETTER than SMAP sing themselves.

The Johnny’s Countdown is already on Youtube…

As the clock strikes midnight, we all say yay, and suddenly no one can receive or send any email from their phones because EVERY SINGLE OTHER PERSON IN JAPAN IS DOING THE SAME THING. I knew this would happen, so I waited until after midnight to even start composing my “happy new year!” email. Around 12:30 the first email hits my phone inbox. Yay, I’m not completely unloved! I eventually manage to send out my email to the 10 friends or so who are in my phone. I gotta say, much easier than trying to time it with sending emails at 9 am on December 31st from the midwest (which I fucked up last year and felt really lame about). And yes, it is that important to send them exactly when it becomes the new year. This is Japan, people, you’d better damn well be ON TIME.

Yuka’s family decided that since I was there, they’d go for the Japanese tradition of watching the sunrise on New Years Day. We left the house around 6:45 to drive up this mountain in Rokko where you could see the entire Kobe area, and the ocean in the morning twilight. It was beautiful.

(pictures to come once Yuka sends me hers)

However, since it was 6 am, it was actually kinda cold. REALLY COLD for Japan. Which is somewhere around freezing. Nothing too difficult to handle. The high for that day was 9°C(50°F). The high back home was -9°C(16°F). Yup. So this was not really a problem for me and my gaijin ways, but all the Japanese people around (and there were a LOT of them who came out to see the sun rise) were jumping up and down shouting samui! the entire time. The horizon was kind of cloudy, so we had to wait much longer than we should have until the sun actually rose high enough to break through the clouds.

In the meantime, more people showed up, including two gaijin dudes who were around my age. They were in shorts and tshirts, and one of them had some underarmour and maybe a hat. They had clearly just been working out (probably running) and stopped by to see the sunrise on the way. There was a group of Japanese college students to the right of us, who kept having amusing conversations. At one point one of the girls looked over at the two gaijin dudes, and she blurted out,

「外人、平気過ぎ！！！」 (The gaijin are way too NOT COLD!! (why do they not appear to be suffering???))

And it was true, the two guys were way comfier in their shorts and tshirts than all the other bundled-up jumping-up-and-down locals.

Since the clouds were so strangely thick it was hard to know when the sun was going to peek out of them. It was getting brighter and brighter, and soon there was this oval-shaped orb of light between two sets of clouds – some kind of reflection going on. People started wondering whether maybe that was actually the sun and it was just being obstructed. College students next to us were like “I’m fucking cold, can we just count that as the sun and go home??” and “I guess the sun is oval-shaped today… that’s fine with me”

It was a little weird to be in a group of people were we all were not entirely sure whether or not that was THE SUN. Kinda basic stuff.

Finally, a giant shining beam of light that was unmistakably the ACTUAL sun came out from the clouds, like BAM!! Oh god, it’s SO BRIGHT. The hundred people around all kept being like “oh hey, this is it!! There it is!!” and whipping out their cell phones to take pictures. Wooo! After 45 minutes of waiting, SUCCESS. We left before we were all actually blinded by the light.

I packed my things for my two-day excursion to Tokyo that would commence around 10 am. Before that, we ate the osechi ryori that Yuka’s mom had prepared. I remember not being crazy about some of the new-years food last time I was here, but most of this was pretty good! I ate way too much, drank sake, and life was good. I then hopped on the bullet train headed for Tokyo, the land of way too many people, trains, and banana flavored snack items.