Japan: Culture Shocks

It’s only natural when you travel to compare things with how they are back home. As you might expect there are a fair few differences between Hull and Osaka and I could easily write a good thousand words on the subject after only a week, but I won’t. Instead, I’ll show you some of the things I managed to photograph that have struck me as a bit odd here.

There are zebra crossings everywhere and they’re all completely pointless. I learned pretty quickly not just to step out and expect the cars to stop – if you do that you’ll get mowed down sooner rather than later.

I see this sign with what appears to be an ill dog on it absolutely everywhere. I’ve also never seen a dog shaped like this - its body looks like a loaf of bread.

 

There’s very little grass and I don’t know why.

Thirsty? How about some lovely “Pocari Sweat”? I like to imagine that this is bottled at the source: the armpit of a sumo wrestler in a sauna.

50 lemons! Imagine eating 50 lemons! Surely that much vitamin C is a lethal dose.

Again, what’s with the citrus fruit obsession?

Fancy having some friends round for a few cheap beers? You should be so lucky. This is a 24 pack of the local beer in coca-cola sized cans and it costs just under £30.

I was still pretty jet-lagged when I took this video so I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating or there was actually an ancient Japanese guy rocking out in the park. Well worth a watch!

I also find it odd that I’m in some kind of time warp. I seem to have been taken back to 2007.

Japan: Kitanoda

During my first week here I’ve been living with my boss and his family in an area of Sakai City called Kitanoda. Because of the threat of earthquakes here people tend to knock down and rebuilt their houses quite frequently, and like a car in the UK, every house will begin to depreciate in value as time goes by. A lack of space means that houses are also quite small, so the suburban landscape is totally different to any I’ve ever seen.

I had a spare couple of hours the other day between lessons, so I went out for a walk and took some pictures. Here they are!

Garbo. I’m guessing it doesn’t sell cheap Estonian beer like the one in Hull.

The local bread shop - they don’t have Kingsmill, I asked.

A Kitanoda street. I have to violate the “never walk over three consecutive drains” rule quite frequently here.

I can see mountains from the road – quite a change from living in Hull.

These people obviously didn’t get the memo about rebuilding their house.

Kitanoda apartments.

If “Nishikawa” translates as “the nude” then I’ll be frequenting this alley very often.

Typical Japanese house with cherry blossom tree.

Choose your starter Jeff!

Local advertisement for the school.

The order of the day is lines, squiggles and dots apparently.

Nearby apartments and the main road.

I thought these were Hugo Boss vending machines at first, but apparently it’s coffee!

Cheap petrol - ¥149 is just under £1.

I’m hoping to get some proper exploring in the centre of Osaka done next week, and maybe a trip out of town, so watch this space!

Japan: Living Off the Grid

Hi, my name’s Sam and I am an addict.

Don’t worry Mum I’ve not suddenly taken up heroin or anything, but I have realised since coming here how much I depend on wifi and the mobile internet back home.

I was horrified to find out that wifi is very scarce here and most people still have wired internet in their homes (in this part of the city at least). A feeling of shock washed over me when I was told the bad news – how would I check my facebook and twitter every 5 minutes? What if I wanted to put something on Instagram? Would I have to go without Foursquare for 3 months?!

What followed can only be described as an addict’s response to being made to go cold turkey. I unconsciously checked my phone during the first couple of days hoping that some kind of magic would deliver those sweet, sweet nuggets of mostly useless information that I found myself craving. I frequently scanned for networks wherever I went; I thought I might get a connection in McDonalds, but I was wrong. I was out of the loop and I hated it.

 I even started bargaining with myself – if I turned on my roaming it would only cost £8 per megabyte I thought. If I’d carried on down that road I’d have already sold a couple of my less essential internal organs and I’d be trawling the Osaka red-light district in the giblet-hugging boxers I bought in China trying to sell myself to the more partially sighted and desperate perverts in order to fuel my data habit.

I’d tried to connect to a very weak wifi signal, which appeared to be from some form of hotel, out of sheer desperation over the weekend, but nothing came of it. That was until I woke up to a shed-load of messages on Tuesday morning. I think my phone picks it up in the early hours when it’s not being used because it’s useless by the time I wake up. In a way I’m glad though. I can still check everything on the computer at work - I get the exact same amount of mindless drivel, except I get it in one big chunk now instead of one little piece every few minutes. Without being constantly online you begin to realise that the sky is indeed blue and there are some interesting things to see in the world every day.

Who knows, I might learn to turn off my phone now and again when I’m back in the UK. But then again, I might not. A person needs to know what Zach Braff had for breakfast.

Japan: Chicken Knees and Raw Fish

My most frequently asked since my arrival on Thursday has undoubtedly been “what’s that?”

The food has all been pretty good. There’s some good stuff and some weird stuff, but nothing that has come as too much of a shock – as long as I’m not eating noodles, noodles and more noodles I’ll be reasonably happy.

I was told we were going to a chicken place on Saturday night. Surely you can’t do anything weird with just chicken, right? Wrong.

A fairly normal chicken skewer with cheese

Green pepper stuffed with ground chicken

Chicken and onion kebabs (lots of fat)

This is where it gets weird - these were "soft bone"

Chicken skin with rice

Sunday was sushi night. I’d never had it before but I figured that nothing there would be as bad as having to gulp down a deep-fried chicken’s knee so I went into it with an open mind. The layout is strange; you’re assigned a table next to the long conveyor belt from which you simply pick what you want. You can also order things directly from the kitchen using the interactive screen on the conveyor and they arrive via a chute.

 Tuna-mayo roll

 Raw salmon, onion and mayo on rice

 Grilled eel on rice

Cucumber roll (left) and raw tuna roll (right)

It’s 9pm on Sunday night as I write this (1pm UK time), so I know that my family will probably be sitting down for a nice roast dinner. It’s making me realise that there are some holes that sushi alone cannot fill.

Japan: Osaka Castle

Put “Osaka” into google images and you’ll be bombarded with pictures of the famous Osaka castle (Osaka-jo). It was originally built by Toyotomi in the 16^th century, and then ransacked by the Tokugawas in 1615. It’s been destroyed by lightning, burned to the ground and bombed by the Americans since then, but it’s always been rebuilt. The current structure is a post-war reconstruction, which is pretty impressive.

 The approach to the castle

 Osaka-jo

View from the front

Like any good tourist, I made sure I got to the top for a look around:

The area surrounding the castle was very busy. There were entertainers, food stands and even live bands:

 I have no explanation

Osaka-jo concert hall

The Jeff Hot Chili Peppers

The NKH building, which houses the Osaka History Museum, was also nearby, so I went for a wander around. Unfortunately they’d only managed to translate the title of each information board, meaning that I was left wondering what the hell I was looking at most of the time.

NKH building 

Some kind of wall

Oh, and I also saw one of those weird cafés where you go for a cup of tea and to stroke a dog that’s not yours. Apparently it’s relaxing!

Woof.

Japan: Sayonara

My feelings as I boarded my bargain £8 megabus to begin my journey last Tuesday were mixed to say the least. A fairly average 7 months in Hull was finally coming to an end and I was about to start what will hopefully be an exciting 3 months in Japan, on the other hand I was leaving a lot behind – not seeing any of your nearest and dearest for that length of time is a difficult prospect to face and as much as I hate to admit it, I will miss Hull. I instantly felt my decision was right when a chunky girl with bright red hair sat in front of me on the bus reminding me not to make the same mistakes as I did in China - I won’t come home no matter how much Dave Jones begs (not until July at least).

Leaving Hull

Two incredibly expensive pieces of card

I arrived at Kings Cross during rush hour where I battled through the crowds to find Alex and Anna who took me to sunny Watford for the night. We decided to get a curry - a decision which I instantly regretted the night before a long flight. After a £15 breakfast the next morning I boarded my first flight from Gatwick to Dubai. I was seated next to two very talkative Arabic men in those awkward emergency exit seats right at the front where you have to make awkward eye-contact with the stewardess during take-off and landing. What was meant to be a 7-hour flight turned into 8 when we had to circle the airport for an hour.

Dubai International was an experience. It was 33 degrees at midnight and the place is practically a city in its own right. Rather than sample the local grub I opted for a McDonalds. I have no idea how much I paid for it (I didn’t check the exchange rate), but it was a welcome break from airline food.

They wouldn't accept my instant win Bic Mac token...  

The Dubai to Osaka flight was a daunting 10 hours, but I lucked out and got a row of three seats all to myself. I was pretty knackered, so I managed to sleep for most of it (there was what can only be described as extremely violent turbulence as we flew over China which I was unfortunately awake for).

I passed through Japanese customs without a hitch and was relieved to see that my suitcase had made it the full journey (it wasn’t having a mini-break around Beijing airport like last-time). My first priority was obviously to try out the famous Japanese toilets which really are brilliant - they have heated seats and a warm water jet to get to places you wouldn’t want to put your fingers. I think the shock of a warm water enema clouded my judgement though, because I left my passport in the cubicle, thankfully a Japanese guy helped avert a crisis when he chased after me with it.

Kansai International

So I’m here safe, I haven’t been exploring yet, but who needs history and architecture to look at when you’ve got this cheeky chappy staring at you in the living room?