This weekend was awesome, and the title should tell you exactly why. I suppose you could add in "and Sake" as well, if you like.
On Friday, as soon as we finished class, I ran over to Futaba (the wagashi-ya) and picked up some of their famous mame-mochi (ggrks). I headed back to Imadegawa, and took the train to Shijo, where I transferred and continued on to Umeda (Osaka). I called Haruhi's mother from the station, and then took the train to Mukonoso. It really felt like coming home after living in Joyo, which is relatively Inaka (countryside). Haruhi and her mother met me at the station. It was...strange at first, to be honest. Despite chatting online, I hadn't seen Haruhi at all in three years. So it took a bit until that awkward feeling went away.
The three of us went to lunch at an Italian restaurant by the station. I put out my usual "I eat everything", not only because it's true, but because I hate reading menus here. It's all kanji, or weird katakana. But really, I do eat EVERYTHING. Mostly. Bitter things are a no-go, like the goya, a nasty looking cucumber. I digress. Lunch was great: pizza (and not the weird Japanese kinda!), pasta, bread, salad. Oh man, oh man, I ate everything. Haruhi's mother observed that I eat more now than I did two weeks ago - probably comes with getting used to the territory.
We returned home, having borrowed some umbrellas (it started to rain). The three of us talked for a few hours, and I broke out some omiyage - the goodies from Futaba, and the chocolates from Max Brenner's. They were both received really well; I really enjoying giving presents here in Japan. Shortly, however, Haruhi had to go to her part time job. It's tough being a college student, even in Japan. While she was away, I caught up with her mom- I swear, she's like a second mother to me. There are so many similarities between the Fujiwaras and the Allens. So very many. We ate some okonomiyaki and yakisoba, again, during which I ate far more than I did the first time I stayed over. She also helped me do my reading homework, which would have been impossible on my own: it featured a cultural reference that even a young Japanese student (like, college student) wouldn't be able to understand. Basically, she saved my butt this week.
The two of us went to the station to pick up Haruhi, during which her father arrived home. He called us, frantic: we left the fan on, but as he didn't know this, he believed that the gods had entered his home, and used his fan. That's a common thing in Japan; we in America would have said a ghost did it or something. Haruhi laughed at him when she heard about it. After arriving home, the four of us worked on my grammar homework. By which I mean, the three of us worked on making example sentences, and her father made stupid puns. I really enjoyed them though, and jotted them down on my homework. Example: use ～ものの (monono); もののけ姫 (Princess Mononoke) That's the sort of jokes he told, anyway.
Just as we finished up my homework, Hide returned home from Tokyo. The three of us stayed up for a while talking and cracking jokes. I explained to them the "art" of Facebook stalking (which is totally not sketch). We then proceeded to creep on all my friends, especially those studying in Japan. Hide called up a friend, and mentioned the "Gaijin named Sam" he was hanging out with. Nice. Apparently, my toothbrush is NOT Japan sized, because the called it gorilla-sized. And so I went from Gaijin to Gorilla in the course of an hour. We headed to bed at 2am, but as I was sharing a room with Hide, we naturally stayed up talking for a while longer. Just regular guy talk, and all that jazz. It turns out Hide really likes moroheya, if you know what that is.
The next day, I woke up significantly earlier than Haruhi and Hide. I chatted with their mom for a bit, and then we studied for a while. When Haruhi got up, I asked her and her mother to help me devise a strategy to explain my need for a bigger breakfast to my host parents. We worked up a script for what I should say: it pretty much took the angle of "more food for the purpose of cultural understanding of Japanese mealtime". When Hide got up, we left for our daily adventure...
Which took us to Den Den Town, the Osaka equivalent of Akihabara. Which means I had the odd position of knowing most of the stuff there, but being creeped out by the people there. I knew almost every song playing in the stores (to be fair, more than half was Vocaloid). We poked around some shops, and talked about perception of the "Otaku" - there's a significant gap between the Western and Japanese understanding of the word. When we got hungry, we took the subway to our second stop, Tsuruhashi...
AKA Koreatown. Think China Town in New York. Same idea, but Korea. As a side note, they had a lot of pig's feet. No thank you, I'm fine without. We found a neat little place and nommed on raymen (cold ramen), bibimbap, and some sort of Korean-Okonomiyaki. All spicy and good in the usual Korean fashion. It was GOOD. Really good. But most surprisingly, the three of us eating our fill of Korean food cost us less than $20. Let me see you do that in Boston.
Since we had a lot of time left before dinner, we hit up a karaoke place for a couple hours. It was the first time in three years I had gone to karaoke with Haruhi, and the first time I actually sang with her there. It was, as expected, a blast. I warmed up with some English classics (Piano Mans), and I heard one of AKB48's songs for the first time. That was...interesting? Japan is weird. Actually, more than the song, the music video was just very shocking. Also very fun to watch. It also became very clear that Haruhi and Hidehiro are siblings - they like about 90% the same music. Really, it was funny seeing Hide on backup vocals for Haruhi's songs.
With a few more hours to burn, we headed back to Umeda, and went to Namco Game Center. Hide and I played the shooting game again (I lost, though), and then Haruhi and I played air hockey (a neat variant with multiple small pucks and stuff) against Hide...and lost again. But probably the best part of the Game Center was Purikura (ggrks). We all picked out some funny things to wear (Hide and I went with afros, and Haruhi chose a takoyaki hat) and then made stupid poses for five minutes. Most of the pictures came out well (probably thanks to the magical Purikura machine making everything look better than it really is), and I'm really happy to have a copy. I'm probably going to hang it up somewhere.
We headed back to Mukonoso, and met up with Haruhi's parents for dinner at a chicken restaurant. I went in expecting the regular meat-on-skewers. I wasn't disappointed, but it wasn't exactly what I expected, either. Let me tell you, I ate things there I never thought I would eat in my lifetime. Things like...heart. Skin. Cartilage. And more... It was certainly an experience worth having once. Once. This was really a case where it was better not to ask what I was eating. In retrospect though, Haruhi's mother told me that it isn't common to eat this sort of meal - maybe one in a year. Side note: organ meats are called "Hormone" here, and they're popular in the winter to give you stamina. I think I can deal with the heat a while longer, thanks. Ah, and I had this weird beer called happoshu that has a lower alcohol content than regular beer. But I had a lot of it.
And so tipsy Sam and Haruhi went to the movie rental store. I was insistent on finding Firefly, but, as one should have expected, they don't have that in Japan. I enjoyed looking through their CD rental section too. My nerdy side really came out this weekend - it's nice every once and a while not to have to worry about being judged. Pretty much everyone in the Fujiwara family has told me: "Don't worry, I'm used to it by now". Yay, friends!
The next morning, again being the first one up, I studied for a while, and had a fantastic curry sandwich for breakfast. I don't know how she does it, but Okaasan's breakfasts are always amazing. I was tempted to switch host families for a bit there. Once the whole crew was up, we headed out for some shopping before the return to Kyoto. First stop was Book Off, where I was hoping to buy all of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Paradoxically, they were sold out of every volume of the series. I was very tempted to buy a trumpet for 10,000 yen ($100), but I stopped myself - no time to practice. Next was an 100 yen store, where I got some vital supplies (binder reinforcements and lint rollers). Finally we stopped for lunch at an Udon-ya. I was pretty hungry, and my Japanese gets kind of funky when I'm hungry. But they ordered for me, and so I wound up with a big bowl of udon, plus an Ume-flavored Inarizushi. I didn't like udon much before this. But now I've seen the light. Without a doubt, this was the best bowl of noodles I've had since getting to Japan. The flavor, small, texture, everything was just right. Also, ume-inarizushi is WAY better than it sounds - sweet and sour balanced nicely with rice. I drained my soup to the last drop, that's how good it was. I kind of want to go back...
And that was it for my Osaka adventure! Haruhi, who had a party that evening, went back to Kyoto with me. We talked for a bit, but she needed to nap (we stayed up REALLY late again, tends to happen when you see an old friend). Funny thing is, I fell asleep too. This has to be the first sign of the transformation into Nihonjin - I've begun to attain Skill #1. Oh, for those of you who are worrying, relax. This is Japan, it's perfectly safe to sleep on the trains here. Everyone does it. Nobody steals anyone's stuff or anything.
I parted ways with Haruhi at Kyoto Station, and found a cafe to study in for a while. I had a lot of time to kill before I met up with Okaasan for the Beer Garden Party. An hour later, I wandered over to Yodobashi Camera to do some light shopping. By which I mean, staring at things I want. As usual, I sat down an played piano in their instrument section. Nobody seems to care...which is cool with me! I also bummed around in the CD section, until I decided to take a rest on their rest floor. I found the gatchapon Nick had mentioned a week earlier. I had to debate whether or not to try my hand at the JoJo machine...and I decided yes. The force was with me, and all that: I wound up with Dio Brando, the most magnificent villain ever. Victory was mine.
And then beer.
No, just kidding. I found Okaasan at the hotel, where she was meeting with one of her students. Soon, the rest of the crew showed up (including Nick) and we headed upstairs. And then, beer. For real this time. All you can eat, all you can drink. Good times. Two hours of food and drink goodness. Details here are unneeded.
Suffice to say, two hours later, Sam was very happy. Well, Sam was intoxicated and hanging out with a friend, so Sam was very happy. And happy Sam is very susceptible to further fun, and so the younger members of our group (a housewife, two other students, me, and Nick) went off to karaoke. I got to hear both Chinese and Korean songs...and they were really good. The Chinese girl especially had a good voice. Funny side note: I scared a small boy when going to the bathroom. I guess I opened the door too quickly and he wasn't expecting to see a white dude on the other side. Sorry, little dude.
Somehow or other, I made it home fairly smoothly. And then slept like a log. The next morning, I rode the bus on over to the Kyudo dojo to watch a tournament. Sadly, I only got to see the last round. The archers were totally badass though. I want to compete too! Or at least shoot a real arrow.
Then came the awkward challenge of crossing Kyoto. I could have taken a taxi, but I don't really know taxi procedure in Japan. So instead, I walked, took a train, then a bus, then more walking. I wound up at this huge shrine. I have to say, I forgot how great it feels to cross the threshold into a Shinto shrine. The barrier between in/out is so strong that it's practically tangible. Inside is such a strong aura of peace.
Anyway, I found the rakugo group, and watched them perform. I...didn't understand much, sadly. Very fast Osaka-ben is not easy to follow. But the last guy who performed in English was really good! Afterwards, I kind of loitered around, waiting for the after party. My host mother kind of embaressed me the way my real mother does sometimes - she went right up to some Japanese students and told them I wanted to make friends. Real smooth, ma. But somehow it worked out. I exchange some friendly introductions, and wound up speaking with a bunch of Japanese students all night. By the end, they were all quite drunk, coming to me for high-fives and falling over, plus being shocked and awed before my mighty munage.
And that was the whole weekend. Sorry for the lack of detail in some places - it would take too long to explain everything. Suffice to say, it was a GOOD long weekend.
Osakaben
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