I guess it's been a while since my last update. If I'm going to keep doing this, staying consistent will be best, and so I'll do my best to get at least one post in per week. Had a stellar Monday this week. Really. This weekend was the Kishibe Festival held every year by the college I'm attending here, and all of the foreign students were invited to participate. And by invited, I mean forced to do it in a very passive aggressive, please do it if you want to (and you DO want to) Japanese way. So that took up pretty much all of Friday and Saturday, what with working on preparing food, selling food, set up, clean up, and general business. For whatever reason, the Japanese students got Monday off. Something about needing rest after a full weekend of hard work. Clearly, as foreign students, we did not require such a break, nor were we given one. The entire campus was dead on Monday, except for the foreign students, and the professors that teach us. Even the on campus food service was closed. Cool. We don't need to eat either. On top of all this, I spent all of Sunday feeling gradually becoming more and more sure that I was getting sick. Woke up Monday, and sure enough, definitely not feeling well. As luck would have it on this day-that-should-not-have-been, I had a presentation to give. So I went anyway. Felt mostly ok throughout the day, at various points wondering if I didn't have a mild fever.

Last class of the day, presentation time. Definitely not feeling superb. Fairly sure I have a decent fever going at this point, but I've been in class for six hours now. Why go home now? Got up, gave my presentation. Did not have a powerpoint presentation. Guess most people did. Didn't matter, because I rocked it anyway, with a high fever going, no powerpoint, and about ten minutes of prep time. Go me. Went home and was greeted by my concerned host mother who took my temperature and decided that I definitely had a fever, and dragged me off to the hospital(conveniently
literally next door. As in building next to this house.). Had a flu test done. I guess in Japan they do this by shoving a special (as in designed to be extra painful) cotton swab waaaaaay farther up your nose than anything but air is meant to go. After waiting a half hour, during which my name was called twice, I guess for no reason, I
was informed that I probably did not have the flu. I was shown a pregancy test looking plastic thing that basically showed one line for no flu or two lines for flu, and lucky me, one line. I feel like a teenager again. Went home and slept solidly for about 14 hours, woke up with no fever, and apart from a cough felt pretty much 100%.

And on top of this whole lovely adventure, I was waaaaaay too smart to dress warmly enough.

Kobe, and other things

Last weekend I took a day trip with two of my fellow OGU students to Kobe. When we got there, pretty much the first thing we found out was that the other train line is not only cheaper to get there, but is a straight shot from my stop. That's cool. I didn't need that money anyway. Not like I'm running out or anything (I am, but more on that later). The convenient thing about the way we got there is that it dumped us out right near the main attraction for Kobe. Harbor Town. Now fortunately, I remembered my camera this time, and I took a ton of pictures. Here's the harbor:

I love the view, despite one of my companions talking the whole time about how he doesn't like harbors because seeing buildings on the other side of the bay spoils pictures. I feel like it's a good view, but I guess he's right. Who wants to see scenery? I want to see a beach and then ocean out to the horizon. Water is much more interesting than buildings. Particularly this one:

and this one:

But I am clearly mistaken. Buildings are not interesting. Wandering around Harbor Town for a while, we eventually made it clear through and headed toward China Town. Toward, and past. I guess we decided to head the next street down, and cut over at the first alley. Which we did not do. We then proceeded to entirely skip China Town, for reasons that nobody could quite come up with afterward. After wandering around for a while, we figured we'd hop a train over to Shin-Nagata (still in Kobe) to see what we'd all mainly come to see. The new giant Tetsujin statue. Apparently the day we went was the day it was unveiled. On an unrelated note, I do not plan or research my day trips. One of my companions does, however. Just saying. Not related. What is related:

So yeah. He's big. There's a lamppost in there for scale. I did that on purpose for scale, not because I was too tired to notice a lamppost obscuring my shot. I promise. After that, we found a cheap lunch and wandered the streets of Shin-Nagata for a while. Which was awesome, because we found these guys:

I guess they're a group of guys who, every couple of weeks, all dress up in costumes like this and walk around Shin-Nagata in a parade. Because this is Japan, and everyone loves to play dress-up. Vending machines like to play dress-up too. Like this guy:

That is a Tetsujin vending machine. I'd love to tell you I bought a drink from Tetsujin, but his offerings were disappointing. For shame. After this, we went back to Sannomiya, which is the station we COULD have gone to in the first place if we were thinking convenience. Shopped around there for a while, and had Wendy's for dinner. Because one of my companions was Australian (he still is) and I guess they don't have Wendy's. At all.

After all that, I came back home and settled down for some good old internet time. I was then notified that the scholarship money that I was supposed to be getting this coming Saturday would be delayed indefinitely, because the Prime Minister changed office, and the budget was being reexamined. I guess in Japan, Prime Ministers change by surprise and the budget is almost never examined. That's the only explanation I can think of for us being told at the last minute. I mean if people knew about that stuff, surely they'd tell us with some advance notice, right? (We found out several days later that the money would not in fact, be delayed. Cool)

This whole trip was on 3000 yen, or around 30 dollars, which is all I have to last me until Friday. Want to know how to see Japan for cheap? You can't.

As a side note here, I'd like to comment on something I have observed over the last few weeks of hurrying around everywhere. Japanese people walk slowly. Normally, this is fine. I don't need to be in a hurry. But when I'm in a hurry to make my train, and I am trapped between a wall of slow moving Japanese people, moving slower than even my normal walking speed, I find myself... frustrated.

Me: Hey, uh... you're moving kind of slow...

Japanese person: Hmm, it must be kind of hard for you to get through, huh?

Me: Yeah, and I sort of need to get to my train. Won't you miss yours moving at that speed?

Japanese person: Heavens, no! I'll simply use my Nihonjin-teleport to get to my train before it leaves. Can't you... Gaijin-vanish or something?

Me: Uh... no... so if you could... maybe speed up a bit... or...

Japanese person: Zannen, ne... (continues walking at the same pace)

Tokyo Game Show

Tokyo Game Show was the weekend of September 24th through the 27th this year, and I got to go. I've always wanted the chance to go to a game conference or convention like E3 in the US, and if I hadn't gone to Japan this year, I might have tried to get into Penny Arcade Expo. Regardless, TGS is one of the biggest game conferences in the world, held each year in Chiba. Now, I live in Osaka, which is fairly far away from Tokyo. The fastest way to get there is the shinkansen, or bullet train. It takes about two and a half hours that way, and costs a lot of money. I, along with a fellow Minnesotan, went with a cheaper route. The night bus. Now, the night bus is super convenient, and fairly cheap. The problem, especially for someone like me, is that it is designed for the average Japanese person. This means that given my height, I had virtually no legroom. As in, less than flying coach. And since the average Japanese person is rather short, the seat back contours to fit them, and not me. This meant that while trying to sleep, my lower back hurt, or my neck hurt. There was no comfortable way to sleep, and for the most part, I didn't.

We took the bus, departing at 11:15 PM on Friday night. It's about 8 hours by car/bus (which gives you an idea of the speed of the shinkansen. It's faster than a plane trip from here to Tokyo), and the idea is that you sleep the whole way. Well, I managed to drift in and out and got maybe 3 or so hours total. We arrived at Tokyo Disney Land at about... 7:30 AM. We had to go there, because buses that stopped at Chiba were sold out for that day. Because the game show is BIGGER THAN DISNEY LAND. Had to take the train over, which was easy, and then got tickets and got in line. And what a line. Our original plan was to meet up with another friend from Minnesota based in Tokyo, get his ticket for him so he'd wait in line less, and get in together. But that proved to be impossible. I had not counted on a line 12 people wide wrapping around the entire convention center. Just finding him alone would have been impossible, not to mention him actually making it into the line without a ticket. So I ended up with an extra TGS ticket, which I still have. Souvenir? Regardless, we eventually got in, after what seemed like an eternity baking in line on a very hot day. The line we were in managed to move the entire way around the convention center, all the way back to where we got into the line, which was at the entrance, apparently. I took plenty of pictures at first, but the frenetic pace of the day, combined with my growing exhaustion, meant I abandoned that fairly quickly. I had a great time at what I later found out was the weakest TGS in recent memory. Plenty of major developers didn't even show up, and there were no new announcements made at all. Regardless, I got to play Left 4 Dead 2, which pretty much made the whole thing worthwhile.

By the time we got out of the show, it had reached 4 PM, and we headed to Tokyo station to get some dinner. Which was hard. Apparently, though it is a fairly huge hub for transportation, the area around Tokyo station is somewhat lame, and it took us a while to find a decent place for dinner. Bummed around the station for a few hours, and then headed back to Disney Land to find our bus. We figured we'd be tired enough to sleep the whole way back on the bus. We were half right. My companion, being shorter than me, had little trouble crashing and sleeping the whole way. Meanwhile, I found it still impossible to get to sleep for more than a half hour at a time, and wound up back in Kyoto exhausted. Somehow I managed to drag my tired ass back home, where I arrived at 7:00 AM or so, and promptly went to bed and slept the whole day. Woke up just in time to do some homework for the next day.

Final note: It was a great weekend, and I don't regret a single minute of it. Regardless, if you are tall in Japan, do not take the night bus if you value your comfort.