Darlo's World

There’ve been more than a few times where friends have asked me if I wanted to go to gigs and concerts and even though I’m in Japan and should be experiencing as much as possible, my answers have normally been the same:

“I don’t have the money“, “I don’t have the time” or “I really don’t fancy going that far“.

I then normally explain that I’d love to pop along to one of the plenty of groups who play in the streets of Osaka. Hmm … perhaps plenty’s a bit of an exaggeration, but get on down to Umeda on a Saturday and you’ll normally find a group. If not you could always just go to Yodobashi Camera and have your eardrums burst by the incredibly irritating American announcer as a continual loop of different language give you information on the store.

Now skip back a few months (feel free to look through the old journals in order to do that) to when I was gutted to find that DragonForce, a band worth paying £16 to go and see, were playing at Leeds University (aka my uni) but waited until after I’d left the piggin’ country.

Redemption came to me earlier today whilst working through Kanji in Context and faffing about on the internet as I discovered that once again Dragon Force we making a trip to my doorstep. On the 27th of March DragonForce will be coming down to Osaka and playing at the Zepp. I check the price … 7,000 yen! That’s … that’s … more expensive than a cheeseburger! Right now that’s about £54.50.

I think to myself about some of the conversations I’ve had with home, and how much they want me to enjoy myself and do at least one awesome thing, so I begin to seriously consider going. After all seeing a band I like is one thing, but seeing them in the city that I adore is something else.

I’ve shown many times here that things can and never will go as smoothly as I’d like, and this also comes into play right now. For you see, Konan University were kind enough to line up various trips for us while we are here to experience new things and see new places. This means that on Friday 27th of March at 7pm when DragonForce kicks off … I’ll be over in Hiroshima, 176 miles away on a trip I’ve already paid through the (fire and flames, lol) nose for.

Oh cruel irony, why dost thou mock me so.

Before I got to Japan I’d been told a thing or two about trains, as well as having my own expectations of differences based on train travel in the UK. For most the train is an invaluable asset for travel. Whether it’s for work, study, meeting friends and so on, people all over Japan use the train. Of course that isn’t to say everyone uses it everyday for any old reason. As I’ve shown in the past, walking can be just as … hmm … I was going to say fun, but I don’t know if the idea of a 7 hour stroll matches everyone’s idea of fun.

Trains themselves can get really busy, particularly during rush hour (which by the way are longer than an hour) periods. Unfortunately for me, my usual travel time for coming from and going to University falls in these slots, so not only does the chance of getting a seat rest somewhere between zero and a rock, but often it’s a bit of a tight squeeze, occaisionally requiring station staff to push people into the trains. The rule of thumb seems to be something along the lines of “if a fly can get in there, then there’s room for more”. The YouTube video below shows how bad it can be.

Now although trains in Japan, well the Hankyu line anyway, are regular and you don’t normally have to wait longer than fifteen minutes for another to come by, many people are always determined to run and catch the current train if possible, possibly because they’ll end up being late for something or other. I’d seen people run and just make it to the train literally as the doors were closing and dive in Indiana Jones style, making it by the skin of their teeth. Others, not so lucky arrive just to see the doors shutting. Though I’d never seen anyone get wedged between the closing doors … until tonight … no it wasn’t me.

After Uni I boarded my train at 岡本駅 (Okamoto station), taking a standing position opposite the door due to the lack of available seats. As the doors began to close I saw a high school student in the distance sprinting up the stairs like his life depended on it. I thought to myself how annoyed he must have felt, having run all that way to have missed the train by a hair (something that happens to me on a regular basis at 淡路駅 (Awaji station)). I then noticed his pace change. He didn’t get slower but instead ran even faster in the direction of the door. Taking a dive that would make a world-class goalie look like a little girl playing hopscotch, I could only watch as I expected his face to soon be decorating the train window.

Squeezing through the narrowest of gaps, his body somehow emerged inside the train and promptly hit the floor, his leg stuck in the door. After squeezing his leg on the train I helped him up where, clearly embarrased (and relieved) he slowly hobbled down the train moving onto a different train cart muttering “痛い、痛い (ouch, ouch)”. I have no idea why he was that desperate to get that train, rather than wait ten minutes for the next, perhaps he had an important date, or his mom had cooked curry rice for dinner.

Since arriving in Japan I’d noticed my head being significantly more itchy. I’d also been having a lot more dandruff than I’m used to tackling with Head and Shoulders (or the Asda equivalent thereof), and to be honest I’d just put it down to me having a strange head. When I had it cut, my head (and the short sharp bristles that could be considered hair) was again itchy, but that was nothing new to me. I good shower and a shampooing was all I usually needed, even though I’m literally just shampooing scalp. But no the itch continued, so me being me just thought “oh sod it” and got over it … as I began to brush the dandruff from my shoulder.

Fast forward to yesterday when I overhear a conversation happening right next to me. Some of the girls were discussing Japanese shampoo and American shampoo and it turns out that Japanese shampoo (and conditioner which I never use) makes your hair quite dry. Ureka! Problem diagnosed. Only problem now is that I don’t really want to import what I’d consider to be more a comfort product, so again I’m still sticking to my “sod it” plan. Ironically I remember hearing about a similar situation on 苺マーシマロ (Strawberry Marshmallow, go back a few posts for a video)
where one character had imported products because Japanese ones were too strong for her. I won’t post a clip of that scene, mainly because it takes place in a bath and I don’t want people to get in trouble for watching that kind of scene at work, school or whatever, but I’m sure you can find it on YouTube.

So what does shampoo have to do with the market? Well, not much really, well, for me anyway. I just wanted a way to link the two. Anyway, as I’ve mentioned over and over the pound is really taking a beating price wise and at five o’clock last night (according to one BBC chart) it was less than 120 to the pound.

What does this mean though? How can I spell it out in a simple understandable way? Ok …

• Imagine winning £1,000 on the lottery.
• Now, instead of that being a prize it’s just a loan, so you have to pay it back.
• However, instead of it being £1,000, it’s actually just £600
• Now to top it all off, when it comes to paying it back you still have to pay £1,000 (plus interest of course)

I found a chart that clearly shows the fall on the pound starting just before I arrived in September. For copyright reasons I won’t post it (don’t want to piss off the BBC), but you can see it by clicking here.

Waking up this morning and forgetting to read my note, I didn’t remember that I had agreed to only speak in Japanese. However this was joined by the fact that I didn’t really talk to anyone, bar the ありがと I gave at Matsuya and a small shop, until twenty to four this afternoon where I made a phone call yapping away in English.

This morning I decided that if I was to spend the day catching up on reading for one of my classes I may as well get out of my stale smelling room and head somewhere. I packed my stuff together and headed for the train station. My decision was to simply ride the trains and enjoy studying at an average speed of over 60 kilometers per hour. What helped this idea was the fact that the trains stations are a lot like the London Underground where you buy your ticket and go through a turnstile rather than have someone come by on the train to make sure you’ve bought a ticket and are on the right train.

This meant that I could ride the train as much as I like and presuming I didn’t want to leave any stations, I could get back without having to pay for traveling as I have a commuters pass. Whether or not this is actually allowed or not I have no idea, but it’s a practice I wanted to experiment.

Despite the fact that Hanshin and Hankyu railways are now the under the same company, due to Hankyu buying Hanshin back in 2006, their train lines are kept seperated, so I started out thinking I’d only ride on Hankyu. I was wrong. Shinkaiichi station in Kobe, the last station of the Hankyu Kobe line, also links to Hanshin trains. Seeing this I hopped onto a Limited Express train and eventually ended up at Sanyo Himeji. To put it another way, I spent my entire day sitting on trains travelling all around … reading a book.

Who says I don’t make the most out of my time in Japan. I did try stopping through various other stations to see if I could make links back onto Hankyu and make a loop back home, but unfortunately it wasn’t possible unless I wanted to leave a station. Below is a map showing where I went, but this is actually a driving map. I tried to get google to do one showing the train routes, but it got a bit of a tummy ache. In fact, google wasn’t happy with having so many entries in it’s map so I’ve had to omit a few of my change over stations.

Total distance travelled (if I was in a car … and cut out some parts): 337 km (209.5 miles)
Total money spent: 240 yen on two cans of warm drink, and 136 yen on a (bloody awesome) cake; 376 yen (£2.82).

Darlo's Looong Train Ride (18th January 2008)

Link to map

Today on the whole was a really nice experience and although I said naff all and didn’t really practice my spoken Japanese, it was nice to be able to see a range of people and cheekily listen in to a range of conversations. Also seeing different ways people acted around each other as well as myself. One man on one train was sleeping, and although sleeping on a train is completely common in Japan, I don’t think it’s as common to sprawl yourself across the seat like a full length bed.

Speaking of which it’s time for me to be signing off … well, revise some more kanji before bed anyway.

Last night during dinner I came up with a crazy idea to try to help me learn Japanese better, or if not learn it then at least remember grammar and vocab that I already (should) know. I’d decided that starting from today I wouldn’t say a word of English, limiting myself to just Japanese and the farty bit of French I can still remember (ironically I’ve been speaking a fair bit of French since getting here). I did agree with myself not to limit my writing, otherwise most people reading this wouldn’t have a clue what I’m on about, regardless of whether they understand England or Japanese.

Waking up this morning, I managed to last … hmm … about 2 minutes before muttering in my native tongue. Blast my crappy memory. I picked up again but continuously slipped back into English throughout the day, my longest stint being the 5 hour period that I was in my room and didn’t say a single word. I gave up this evening and agreed I’d start again tomorrow, writing a note for myself to read in the morning to remind me.

As far as listening practice goes last night a friend and I watched the remaining episodes of 苺マシマロ (Strawberry Marshmallow – see the YouTube clip at the end of the last post) and both agreed that not only was Miu one of the most interesting characters we’d seen, but our understanding of spoken Japanese had improved. I am also aware of the sadness in the fact that two men living in an awesome city stayed in on a Friday night watching a cute cartoon.

For one of my Japanese culture classes here I’ve been reading The Japanese Mind (edited by Roger J Davis & Osamu Ikeno), and as far as books you have to read for class go it’s not half bad. It looks daunting (by my reading standards ¬_¬) at 270 pages but it’s chapters break the book up well into managable page durations, and doesn’t seem to be filled with excess filler and boredom. Yes unlike most books, I’ve been able to read this without it putting me to sleep, congratulations that book.

Finally I want to give a plug to a webcomic I found because they advertised on here, guess it worked. Optipess by Kristian Nygård takes the kind of weird, subtle and at times slightly twisted humour and presents it in a short 4 panel style comic.