Take-over Wednesday: Of Fire & Ice & Wind & Rain

Adam here again, taking over Cheree's blog to tell you another story of my life over in Japan.

 

Sometimes living in a foreign country is like living on an alien planet. In your homeland you get used to things being a certain way, but as soon as you go elsewhere you’ll find that things are hardly ever simple. The weather is always going to be unpredictable, but at least at home it’s an unpredictable that you are familiar with.

I moved from a dry desert country in the southern hemisphere to a muggy wetland in the northern, so there’s a lot of getting used to. For starters the seasons are reversed. I’m used to September being my much beloved Spring, instead here it turns to Autumn, so what is for me usually a warm and lively season becomes a cold and bitter one instead.

Technically speaking, Japan has 24 seasons called 旬(Jun) which last around ten days a piece, all of which have unique and varied characteristics, but just like Australia (which technically has 5) and many other countries around the world, they make use of the standard four season naming practice for simplicity’s sake. Summer and Winter are the two high points of each year regardless of how you wish to call them.

Summers here can get a bit hot, but while everyone is busy exclaiming あついよ (Atsui yo “It’s hot!”), I’m chilling easy because hot here and hot in Australia are two different beasts. When I left Australia, we were in the midst of a record breaking heatwave of up to 50°c, which is hot enough to melt roads. So yeah, not really bothered by heat here. I actually enjoy the Summers here. One of the best days I’ve had was sitting in a McDonalds that had a broken air conditioner, it made me feel right at home, like I was back in Australia. The biggest problem with Summer here is that it is so humid. No matter where you go you wind up drenched in sweat before too long.

On the other hand, Winters here are ridiculously cold. I do not like snow. I once spent a hellish two weeks working at an Australian ski lodge (yes, they do exist) and, aside from wanting to murder several of the noisier people I had to bunk with, it left me with a deep passionate hatred of snow. It’s like sand, but cold. It gets everywhere and after the first fifteen seconds of ‘ooh, isn’t it pretty?’, it gets to be very annoying. In winter here, it snows A LOT. Either I have the worst luck on the planet or the weather here hates me, because I keep getting hit with record snow storms wherever I am. I am not kidding. A couple of years ago, Cheree and I were touring Japan and in that small window of time Tokyo was hit by a massive blizzard. We lucked out and were in Kyoto that day, but still slim odds that we were in the country when it happened.

Don’t believe that? Try this one, last year I was living in Yamanashi (near Mt. Fuji) and we got hit with a ridiculous amount of snow. It lasted for several weeks and everyone kept commenting on how they’d never seen so much snow before. One of the teachers even lost a car because their garage collapsed under it all. People here, having gone through a few major disasters already, are rather quick to panic at any sign of the abnormal. I’ve spoken before on the wonders of Conbini, but once panic shopping begins it doesn’t take long before the stores wind up as ghost towns. Making the mistake of living off Conbini meals and impulse snacks, I was dismayed to see the steadily dwindling supplies each time I entered. It started with the readymade food and bread, then all the ramen, then all the basic elements of food, then all the party snacks, then whatever wasn’t bolted down, then whatever was. It got so bad that there were rumours of rescue choppers preparing to make supply drops. At the time I had plenty of food in the house, unfortunately 90% of it required the basic element of electricity to prepare and with rolling blackouts it did get pretty dicey. I have since learnt my lesson, and have a cache of survival food ready in waiting. Just in case.

To compound matters, there is also an entirely unique Japanese season. 梅雨(Tsuyu) or Rainy Season.  As I said earlier, I come from a desert land so I’m not used to seeing so much rain at once. Just days and days of falling rain at the turn of the season. You get a lot of 台風(Taifuu) or Typhoons during the Rainy Season. Severe wind and rain ranging from seemingly endless rain to full-on hurricanes. As a matter of fact we’ve got a major one barreling down on us right now, registered as the most powerful storm on the planet all year. I’ve been lucky so far and all the typhoons have petered out before reaching my location but you can’t dodge every bullet.

That being said, it’s not all doom and gloom over here. I can happily confirm that Spring here is exactly like the Anime said it would be. When the Sakura trees are in bloom, you are treated to an awe-inspiring sight. Everywhere you go pretty pink petals are raining from the sky, and it is enough just to be able to watch it happen. I’ve spent ages just sitting around watching the surreal dance of falling petals and no matter how many times I see it, it is still a marvel to behold.

Take Over Wednesday - Changing it up

It's Wednesday once more and I know I usually let Adam take over the blog to speak about his interesting adventures of living in Japan, but I thought I'd be a nice sister and give him the week off. I think he deserves it since he's given me the final revisions for Shinigami Eyes and has been a pain-in-my-butt... I mean, very helpful and critical art director who's constantly on my back about how to fix the graphics that will accompany the story.

So, this week I've decided to share a few of my experiences in Japan. Yes, I have been to Japan twice. Both times in winter and going from the heatwaves of Australia to freezing temperatures in Tokyo really is a big adjustment.

Being in a foreign country really can be quite intimidating and anxious and exciting, all at the same time. Some times it didn't matter about language barriers, for instance all the trains in Tokyo read in Japanese and English, and most restaurants have food displays in their windows so if you don't know what to order you can easily point at it. Some times language barriers as a big issue, like trying to post a box of completely random trinkets (aka toys and hotel shampoos... yes, I stayed at the Disney hotel and had to collect the bottles :p) home to Australia. I was lucky I had a brother who was having a nice 30 minute conversation with the clerk.

It wasn't just Adam that helped over in Japan though, and I would recommend this to anyone who wants to visit a foreign country, I was able to find tour guides that were able to take us off the beaten track and show us things that we wouldn't have found out by ourselves. I owe some of my research to these tour guides as they took us karaoking and down back streets of Tokyo where I could see the houses and make notes.

I have tried to learn Japanese, but I don't have the time or patience to sit down and devote myself to another language with everything else going on in my life. One day I will learn it though - that's my promise - and the next time I visit Japan I would like to be able to pick up some words. I'm sure Adam would like that, then when we go to the theme parks or movies he won't have someone sitting beside him going "what just happened?" or "what did she say?"... Although he does the plot summary of movies quite well (I've seen 2 movies in Japanese theatres... that's without subs or dubs and he's kept me up-to-date with the action for most of the movie).

Freaky Friday: Hanako-san

When you think of ghost stories, do you instantly think of dark and stormy nights, deserted farm houses, old manors on the moor? What about in the toilets? Today, in the lead up to Shinigami's cover reveal on Monday (ooh, how exciting), and its release in just over a month, I am taking you back to Japan to tell you a very popular ghost story.

During my research into all the wonderfully creepy stories that fill Japanese urban legends I have noticed that it's not uncommon for a ghost to haunt the toilets. And let me tell you, unlike the lovely Moaning Myrtle from the Harry Potter series, these ghosts will usually end up finding the most bloody way possible to kill you. Yeah, what a way to die, on the toilet.

Hanako-san is even worse. She is said to haunt Elementary School toilets.

Hanako is the Elementary Schools version of Bloody Mary. Her origins vary from an abused girl whose abusive parent chased her down and killed her in the washroom to a young girl who committed suicide in the toilet, while there are stories that say she was a victim of a school that burnt down due to the air raids during the war. But she always said to haunt stall number 3 of the 3rd floor bathroom.

It is said that you can summon her by knocking on her stall three times and asking "Hanako-san are you there". If she is there, she will reply in a quiet girl's voice, "Yes I am" and the stall will open up a bit. When the student investigates they will find the ghost of little Hanako wearing a red skirt with her hair done up in an old style bun. She is said to grab the student and drag them down the toilet to hell.

Since Hanako-san is a widespread urban legend, there are variations to the ending depending on what region of Japan you are in. Some ending is that a giant hand will grab you and drag you to hell, another story is that you will find a three-headed lizard mimicking the girl and will eat you. Then there is the least cruel one where you won't find the ghost, you'll just find a bloody hand print on the stall's door.

Isn't that enough to make you never want to go to a public toilet again... oh, but wait, there are actually worse stories out there than Hanako. But I guess, that will have to wait for another time.

Do you know any ghost stories? Are you a believer or a skeptic when it comes to ghosts and the unexplained?

Take Over Wednesday: Strange food in a strange land

Hi, it's Adam here again. Cheree has let me once again take over her blog to share a bit about life in Japan.

Living in Japan you tend to run across some pretty weird stuff, especially when food is concerned. Being such a small country the local diet consists primarily of rice and fish. Meat is pretty hard to come by, so every month around payday folks here have 肉晩 (nikuban) which is a special night when they have a special meal of meat. Being from Australia, a country notorious for high prices and high meat consumption, I tend to buy meat whenever I feel like it. Telling them you come from a country that doesn't eat rice and has meat every night will guarantee you blow some minds.

If I have a choice I tend to avoid some of the more funky food stuffs, although I have eaten horse (when in Rome and whatnot), there are times when avoidance is not an option. One of those times is 給食 (kyuushoku), school lunches. I teach in elementary schools so it's a lottery what I'll get for lunch. Some days, it's tasty delicious curry, other days unidentifiable strips of what I'd assume is some kind of plant, strange but still edible. But then comes the days when you strike out.

Something that is infamous among foreigners is the dreaded natto. Officially called 'fermented soybeans', but personally I call them 'rotted soybeans'. With a smell and texture like dog vomit, you can't fault people for disliking the stuff. I can eat it if I have to, but once you get past the horrific smell and spiderweb like stickiness the flavour is kind of meh. Apparently, you can get used to it, but I don't see why you would.

And then you come to what I like to call the 'sadist specials', dishes that push me to the very limit, that given a choice I'd walk away and never look back. One such dish consisted of whole small fish deep fried and served up, heads and all. Out of politeness I pushed past my squeamishness and tried to eat what I was given, but after a few bites I made the mistake of looking at my food. Once I saw the eggs, I knew I was in for a big old plate of NOPE. I've only run across it once since (today, unfortunately) and this time they didn't even bother battering them. Yeah, not something I look forward to.

I'm not that big on eating food that I can still see the animal in. When I see whole tentacles thrown into the dish I tend to want out immediately. I guess I just have too active an imagination to deal with it. At one time I was invited to a 飲み会 (nomikai), a drinking party, with the teachers and the featured centre piece on the table was a whole gutted fish that was still twitching. The teachers all found it funny when I refused to look at it, commenting on how I'm such a gentle soul just because I didn't want a gasping fish staring me in the face while I was eating. They found it neat, I found it incredibly disturbing.

There are many foods here that you'd never think edible elsewhere, like drinkable yogurt, always next to the milk in the exact same packaging, how I hate it so, but then you have the food that is simply amazing. As I mentioned last time, Karaage-bou are simply awesome. You just need to take the good with the bad. Somethings you'd think you'd hate, like jellyfish, but in turn find you actually like. You just need to keep an open mind and try as much as you can.

Take-over Wednesday: Japanese Conbini

Once again it's Adam here. Cheree's been very gracious to let me take over her blog once more to pass on a little bit about my life in Japan.

One of the best things about life in Japan are the コンビニ (Conobini). Convenience stores are serious business here. Family Marts grow like weeds here. You can't walk a block without running into a fresh one. There's nothing quite like the feeling of exploring the strange and unique food from your local conbini.

Australia doesn't really have convenience stores. The closest we have to them are the petrol stations where you can buy quick munchies along with your fuel. Over here petrol stations only sell fuel. This is made up for by the omnipresent conbini selling everything from snacks to hot food to beer (yes, even alcohol can be purchased at the local store) to workshirts to stationary. Pretty much anything you could want under one roof. Most places even rent videos. One thing I have discovered is that each store has different stock, so you can go to the exact same store around the block from each other and find something new in each place.

Conbini are an excellent place to practice your speaking ability. I was in one so often that the staff knew me and my order on sight. I got to chat with them plenty of times. There's usually someone happy to practice their English. When I had to move one guy that I'd spent a lot of time chatting to actually gave me a touching goodbye. I was actually a bit sad to go.

If you ever visit Japan I recommend trying as many things from the hot box near the registers as possible. You'll always find a tasty treat that'll have you going back for more. My personal favourite is the karaage bou, salty chunks of chicken on a stick. I usually end up eating three in one go. They're just so good.

Freaky Friday: Kitsune

As many of you know my first YA horror gets released in a couple of months (getting excited), and people always ask me how I come up with my ideas... A simple answer, listening to stories. I absolutely love ghost and ghoul stories from all around the world (especially if they're supposed to be 'true'). So each Friday I've decided to share a different story, a different ghoul, a different legend that I've come across with you. Some of these will seem rather familiar, but I have found some really weird ones that you won't believe are actually legends.

The first one, in honour of Shinigami Eyes, I have chosen is a legend from Japan. The Kitsune!

The word kitsune actually means fox, and they're actually known as messengers as well as the deity of rice, which is why if you walk around the temples of Japan you'll often find statues of foxes guarding the doorways.

Several foxes are considered to have supernatural powers, but one kitsune in particular the Ninko (the demonic man-fox). This fox likes to take the figure of a beautiful woman to deceive its victims. It is said that these foxes are never at a loss for disguise as they can make their victims hear, see, or imagine whatever the fox wants them to.

Kitsune have been popular in TV shows, especially anime, with one of the most popular being the demon spirit within Naruto (the nine-tailed fox). Other manga that kitsune have appeared include Inuyasha and Digimon.

But Kitsune haven't just been popular with Japanese manga and anime. Several US TV shows have decided to use the kitsune (whether an accurate portrayal is still to be decided). Teen Wolf, deciding to move away from the western legends, ventured into the Japanese myth of kitsune when they introduced Kira in season 3. Supernatural is another show that tackled with the kitsune, even though this version of a kitsune just
had claws and fox eyes, nothing else changed to signify they were even related to a fox.

 The one thing I have learnt from looking into the kitsune legend is that you really don't want to piss off a kitsune. Moral to the story: Be kind to foxes because you never know what mystical powers they might hold.

Take-over Wednesday: Gaijin in Japan

Yesterday I promised a visitor would be stopping by my blog and I wasn't lying. My brother, and soon to be co-author with me, Adam Smith is stopping by to share some of his experiences and adventures of a Gaijin (foreigner) living in Japan.

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Hello, My name is Adam Smith and I'm currently living in Iwate, Japan where I teach English to elementary students.

 

Let me start at how I made it over here.

 

Five years ago I made a choice that changed my life. I wanted a challenge. I wanted to prove I could do something. Something difficult. So I chose to learn a language. Learning Japanese has been one of the most difficult, and rewarding, things I've ever done. It was a path that I have never regretted. A path that led inevitably to a life in the Land of the Rising Sun.

The first major hurdle I encountered was finding a suitable job. It was after many hopeful applications and scores of failed interviews before I found one that would have me. A job teaching English to Japanese school children. It wasn't easy. I'd never taught before and I didn't have a clue what to do, but it was my ticket in and I wasn't about to let anything stop me. So I packed my bags, hopped a plane, and set out for a new life in a distant land.

Right off the airplane I was hit by a critical difference. I'd left a land entering winter and emerged in a land at the height of spring. I was tired and boiling, and almost took a $200 cab ride from Narita to Tokyo because I wasn't able to process what the driver was telling me until the last second. This wasn't the first time my language skills failed me and it wouldn't be the last. I'd entered a land where I was an alien, a stranger, a Gaijin. Gaikokujin if you want to be polite.

I've had many adventures in my time here and my sister has asked me to share some of them here. So from time to time I will be sharing my experiences of a life lived in a land not my own, A life as a Gaijin in Japan.

 

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Thank you Adam for sharing your story. Now let me ask everyone out there a question, have you ever had a misunderstanding with someone where something went wrong or you got something you didn't ask for (whether it was a $200 taxi drive or just the wrong meal at a restaurant)?

Japan: A quick trip report continued (Days 3-5)

Continuing on with my trip report, we travelled via the Shinkansen to Universal Studios in Osaka and stayed at one of the hotels overlooking the park. The hotel had different themes, even a giant T-Rex hanging from the ceiling at one of their cafes.

Of course we had to go to Universal Studios. Okay, Australia doesn't have many theme parks, especially Universal Studios and Disney, so this is the only place we've been to this theme park and as I understand, it's the only one that you can still go on the Jaws park (my brother's favourite ride). Coming in 2014 a new ride will be opening up, and that's when I plan to come back here. Harry Potter is coming to Japan and all I saw were the cranes signifying they were in the middle of building. Since it was a cold day, we spent ages searching for the one curry shop in the whole of Universal Studios. It was called Happiness Cafe and here you had to order before entering, which was a very different experience. Something else that was different about here was we noticed people finding a table and then leaving all their bags and going to get their food. That is something that would definitely not happen in Australia for fear of people stealing something. So it can be said that Japan is a very safe country with little theft problems. Another place I had to find even though it was a tortured experience was the Hello Kitty Apple Fries (which had to be healthy didn't it, it's made of apples). This was a very pink place with very cheerful music playing in loops, enough to make one go mad. And the staff were chipper, and not the fake chipper either.

Okay, Universal Studios wasn't the only reason to go to Osaka. We also wanted to walk around and I wanted to get "food on sticks". Yeah, I had my mind set on eating things on sticks for dinner and wouldn't settle for anything else, which meant walking around until I found something, and then I found someone standing in a costume. Who doesn't love costumes? I just had to see what he was offering and who would have guessed it, he had exactly what I was looking for, food on sticks or the more technical term "kushiyaki".

So far Kushiyaki turned out to be one of my favourite foods, even though I had no idea what I was eating half of the time, on the trip, and we tried so many different foods.

Here's a question of the day, what's your favourite food?

Japan: A quick trip report (Day 1-2)

Wow, it's been nearly two months since I came back from Japan. I just can't believe it, time sure has flown by, and I thought it was about time I went through my pics (there's about 5k of them) and post a small trip report about what I did and my experiences while over there. Since we had a 2 week trip, I'll split the trip report into little posts so it's not too long (and I won't break blogger).

I had planned this trip to be part culture, part research part geek-dom (you'll see what I mean), and I definitely got what I planned for. After a nine hour late night flight, getting in at the ripe time of 6am, we nearly got lost in the airport as we tried to find both the phone rental counter (this really helped last time to have a phone on us with a plan for unlimited internet, just so that we could use the maps in case we ever got lost in Tokyo... which did happen on occasion), and then trying to find an international ATM (yeah, stupid me forgot to get some Yen out before leaving Australia... not a mistake we'll make again since this is mainly a cash-based society).

The first few days were spent jumping around, which I had planned because we had wanted to see so many places in such a rushed time. So, the first place we ended up on our journey was Odaiba. For those that do not know, Odaiba is a man-made island, and is becoming a very popular tourist site. For us, it also has a very interesting theme park called Sega Joypolis, which is an indoor aracde/theme park. This was also where we got our horror fix with three (yep three) haunted rides. One of them you just sit down with headphones on in a pitch black room and listen to a story (which I couldn't understand a word of), but that's the scariest thing I have ever heard. The other highlight was being chased through a haunted maze by Sadako (she is the horror villain of the Ring books/movies, the American movies translated her name to Samara). That was fun, I think the entire tour group were laughing the whole way through... I don't think that's the effect you want for a horror maze. Odaiba also has a statue that the American's would be very familiar with, sitting right in front of their bay. I later found out that they also had the flame sitting in the middle of the island, I took a picture, I just don't know where that picture ended up.

 The next day was an early start as we had to catch a bus to the foot of the Mt Fuji. Most people who go to Mt Fuji have the intent of climbing it, or going to the lakes that surrounds it, we had a different desire. Our desire was to go to the theme park that sat right at the base. Fuji-Q Highland is just a small theme park, but it has about six rollercoasters that have at one time appeared in the Guinness Book of World Records, they still hold one record for the steepest drop, and I love rollercoasters.

Another reason for this stop was that both my brother and I are big anime fans, and one of those animes are Evangeleon. The hotel beside the theme park had a particular room of interest, just have a look at the figurine that was in the corner of the room. There was even a challenge where we had black lights and had to find a secret message (luckily my brother can read Japanese) and we managed to get some badges for completing that challenge.

The things that I learned on this part of the trip:

1. Always have cash in the currency of the country when you arrive (duh *slaps forehead*)
2. Carrying big suitcases up and down the stairs (yep, Japan doesn't have that many elevators) can give the legs a workout, but also make them really, really sore
3. Just because something is in a capsule machine doesn't make it suitable for children. Stay away from machines that have smiling women on the side of them, you can find some things that you don't want to see (yeah, you can get anything from a capsule machine)

Stay tuned for my other posts on Kyoto & Osaka, Tokyo & you can't forget Disneyland, which I promise will be coming.