Week 2

At the close of my second week in Japan and my first week of classes, I thought it was time for a quick post before a bit of studying and then bed.

The first week of classes was not particularly difficult.  I think it will get harder as the homework starts to stack up, but the only class that has so far offered the same amount of work as a UBC class would is one of my various Japanese classes.  However, this work is doable, and much closer to my level than the UBC Japanese classes.  In other words, the class is not designed to be challenging to Korean speakers (who already speak a language with a grammar often analogous to Japanese) and Chinese speakers/readers (who, despite many differences in the languages, have a leg up when it comes to reading and writing.)

But enough about my frustrations with UBC Asian Studies.  This last Thursday was a holiday of some sort, so I took a day trip to Takarazuka, which is about 20 minutes to the north on the local Hankyu line. Takarazuka is known for the Takarazuka Revue, a musical featuring an all female cast which has five different rotating casts.  Apparently they are well known, and I believe I saw someone in a commercial for a food product of some sort who used to be in the production.

Takarazuka is also known for the Osamu Tezuka Manga Museum, devoted to the creations of the Osamu Tezuka.  You may not know the name, but you would probably recognize his character (in English) Astroboy, if you saw him:


He also created a variety of other characters, and the franchises he created are continuing to release successful films, including this one:

The character was created long before Disney's The Lion King, but a film based on the manga was released several years after the Disney film.  The adult lion is named Kimba, and the manga and Japanese film feature many characters and sequences that correlate to the Disney version.

On Saturday I wasn't feeling so great so I spent most of the day in the house.  I did venture out to finally buy the newest Kamelot album, Poetry for the Poisoned.


I was also informed via facebook that Jardar bought the CD and was listening to it as well.  We live in a strange globalized society where I in Japan and my second cousin in Norway buy the same CD by a (mostly) American band on the same day.  But enough about that...

Today I went to Kobe-Sannomiya with friends.  The day consisted of wandering through various stores, some more disturbing than others.  (Creepy, super expensive dolls with big eyes and clothing that costs more than mine is all I need to go into.)  It was a bit of a culture shock, to say the least.

Next was Kobe's Chinatown.  Kobe's Chinatown is essentially a tourist trap designed to trick you into buying somewhat Chinese (inspired) street food and various apparel featuring pandas.  Needless to say, Vancouver's Chinatown, or Richmond, or UBC club days, is a much more authentic Chinese experience.  Because of the proximity of the Autumnal equinox we were able to witness a bit of the Tai-Chi performance, in which my friend Jacky participated.  (Guess which one is a Canadian student) 

We then took a limited express bound for Umeda, detrained at Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi where I separated and walked home for a teppan dinner: Okonomiyaki and Yakisoba.

I also watched most of a program about a family in Okinawa which has something like 12 kids, which is pretty much unheard of in Japan for the last hundred years or so.  The father lives in Aichi prefecture (north of Nagoya and south of Tokyo) while the mother cares for most of the kids in a big, old style house on Okinawa in what appears to be poverty.  Kind of strange, especially for a country like Japan which generally doesn't mix home life and public life.  Needless to say, there was conflict which makes these sort of programs interesting.  

Lastly, my friend who is pictured above keeps a videoblog of his time in Japan.  I appear semi-frequently in the videos.  We have different focuses but if you are interested the link to his channel is here: Youtube Channel Jakumi